National Library of Scotland
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K NTYCLOPJEDIA BRITANNIC A.
EIGHTH EDITION.
«
THE
ENCYCLOPEDIA BRITANNICA,
DICTIONARY
ARTS, SCIENCES, AND GENERAL LITERATURE.
EIGHTH EDITION.
WITH EXTENSIVE IMPROVEMENTS AND ADDITIONS;
AND NUMEROUS ENGRAVINGS.
VOLUME VII.
ADAM AND CHARLES BLACK, EDINBURGH.
MDCCCLIV.
%ytr/r.
\The Proprietors of this Work give notice that they reserve the right of Translating it.]
NEILL AND COMPANY, PRINTERS, EDINBURGH.
ENCYCLOPEDIA BKITANNICA
CLIMAX (/<At/xa4 a ladder, gradation), a figure in rhe-
Clitheroe. t°ric> by which a sentence, or the several members of a dis-
- v j course, gradually rise in force, dignity, or importance, to the
close. It is opposed to anti-climax, in which the ideas sink
in succession ;—a principal cause of that vice in composition
called bathos.
CLINCH, in nautical language, that part of a cable
which is fastened about the ring of the anchor.
CLINCHER, or Clinker-build, in ship-building, that
construction in which the lower edge of each plank overlaps
the next below it, like the slates of a roof.
CLINCHING, the operation of securing a bolt or nail
by hammering the point on a ring or rove of iron so as to
make it spread. It also denotes a slight kind of caulking
used at sea.
CLINIAS, of Tarentum, a Pythagorean philosopher, a
contemporary and friend of Plato. It is said that he was
wont to assuage his anger by playing on the lyre. {JDiog.
Laert. rx.)
CLINICAL {kXlvt], a bed), pertaining to a bed. Hence
a clinical lecture is a discourse delivered at the bedside of
the sick, or from notes taken at the bedside.
CLINOMETER. See Klinometer.
CLIO, the first of the nine muses, presided over his¬
tory. She appears crowned with laurels, holding in one
hand a trumpet, and in the other a book. Sometimes she
holds a plectrum or quill with a lute. Her name is derived
from kXcos, gloria ; and it was her office to record the ac¬
tions of illustrious heroes. Clio bore a son, Hyacinthus, to
Pierus. See Muses.
CLITHEROE, a parliamentary and municipal borough
and market-town of England, county of Lancaster, and pa¬
rish ofWhalley. It standson the E. bank of the Ribble, at the
base of Pendle hill (which rises to 1800 feet above the level
of the sea), 21 miles S.E. of Lancaster, and 217 from London.
From the reign of Elizabeth to the passing of the Reform
act, it returned two members to parliament; but at the lat¬
ter period it was deprived of one of its members. The par¬
liamentary borough includes besides the municipal boroughs
the townships of Chatburn, Downham, Mearley, Twiston,
Whalley, Wiswell, Worston, Pendleton, and Little Mitton,
and in 1851 contained 11,480 inhabitants. Electors (1851-2),
448. The municipal borough is governed by a mayor, four
VOL. VII.
aldermen, and 12 councillors; and had (1851) 7244 inhabi- Clitoma-
tants. Clitheroe possesses two churches, three chapels, free chu9
grammar-school, mechanics’ institute, moot-hall, and jail; clJ|ug
and has extensive printworks, cotton manufactories, and lime v
kilns. Market-day Tuesday. v’^
CLITOMACHUS (b.c. 140), was a native of Carthage ;
whence he removed to Athens, where he became a distin¬
guished pupil of Carneades, and succeeded that philosopher
as head of the new academy. Of his writings a few titles
and quotations in Cicero are alone extant.
CLITUMNUS (the Clitunno), a small river of Umbria,
rising about half-way between Hispellum (Spello) and Spo-
letium (Spoleto). The spot at which it rises is called Le
Vene from the number of springs which issue from the rock,
and whose united waters speedily form a stream navigable
for small barges. After a course of about nine miles it as¬
sumed the name of Tinia, and kept this designation till it
fell into the Tiber a short distance below Vettona. The
Clitumnus was anciently famous for the clearness of its
waters, and for the beauty of the white cattle that grazed
on its banks. To these animals a peculiar sa'credness was at¬
tached, which made it unlawful for any one to put them in
the yoke. They were expressly reserved for the sacrifices
which followed the triumphal procession of a victorious ge¬
neral, or such other occasions of solemnity.
CLITOR, in Ancient Geography, a town of Arcadia, on
a hill, and near a river of the same name which falls into the
Aroanius. In the vicinity was a fountain, the waters of
which were said to deprive those who drank them of the
taste for wine. The ruins of Clitor (now called Paleopoli)
are still to be seen, about three miles from a village which
bears the name of the ancient town. A spring flowing
from the hill on which the ruins stand is supposed to be the
fountain above mentioned.
CLITUS, a Macedonian, the familiar friend of Alexander
the Great, was brother to Hellanice, the foster-mother of
that prince. He followed Alexander in his conquests, and
saved his life when he was about to be cut down by Spithri-
dates at the passage of the Granicus. He commanded the
right wing at Arbela, and was on the eve of departing to
Bactria as governor of the province, when Alexander in¬
vited him to a banquet. During the repast Clitus, heated
with wine, ventured to depreciate the exploits of that prince
A
1
2
C L I
Olive as compared with those of Philip ; on which Alexander, in a
II moment of exasperation, killed him with his own hand.
Watch (Plutarch’s Alexander?)
Work. CLIVE, Robert, Lord, the founder of the British em-
^ pire in India, was born September 29, 1725, at Styche, near
Market-Drayton, Shropshire, where his father was a lawyer
and small proprietor. In his youth his strong will and fiery
passions caused considerable uneasiness to his family, and
gave no small annoyance to the inhabitants of the neigh¬
bourhood, who were glad to purchase immunity from the
depredations of Clive and his companions by the payment
of a petty tribute. After having been sent from school to
school without making any progress in his education, his
parents gladly accepted the offer of a writership for him
in the service of the East India Company at Madras, where
he landed in 1744. In this new situation he had to sub¬
mit to the greatest privations, while his shy disposition kept
him aloof from society. His haughty spirit was always
breaking out in acts of insubordination, which frequently
hazarded his situation. For these he was compelled to
make a prompt apology ; but so keenly did he feel the
ignominy of submission that he twice attempted to destroy
himself, and was saved on both occasions by the pistol
which he snapped at his own head failing to go off. A
more congenial field was opened up for the display of his
abilities in the actions which followed the aggressions of
Dupleix on the Company’s station at Madras. (His exploits
from this period are amply detailed under Hindostan.) In
1767 he returned to England for the last time ; but on his
arrival he found himself assailed by a powerful party of those
whose rapacity he had checked by his reforms, and suspected
by those who were indignant at all Eastern abuses. He
boldly vindicated the latter part of his administration; but his
earlier diplomacy presented more vulnerable points of attack.
On these his adversary, Burgoyne, fastened ; and the com¬
mons were compelled to vote the illegality of his acquisi¬
tions, especially of the large sums which he had received
from Meer Jaffier. They indignantly refused, however, to
acknowledge that he had abused his powers; and, in recol¬
lection of his distinguished actions, unanimously passed a
C L 0
motion to the effect that he had rendered great and meri- Cloacae
torious services to his country. From this time forward [|
his health began to decline, and in inaction his constitu-
tional misery returned with tenfold violence. To obtain ease Work*
from physical suffering he had recourse to opium, and be- ^ t ,
came gradually enslaved to the use of that drug. His health
gradually sunk under a complication of maladies, and his
mental faculties became at last seriously impaired. He
perished by his own hand November 22, 1774.
CLOACA], the great sewers of ancient Rome, which are
justly reckoned among the grand works of that people. The
most remarkable of these was the Cloaca Maxima, said to
to have been constructed by Tarquinius Priscus, and which
still exists in its original state. It is built of enormous
blocks of stone joined together without cement, and con¬
sists of three arches overlying each other in close con¬
tact, the innermost of which is a vault of 18 Roman palms,
and about 14 feet in diameter. By means of this great
cloaca, the waters brought from the adjacent hills into the
Velabrum and the valley of the Forum were discharged
into the Tiber, opposite one end of the Insula Tiberina.
Pliny states that a wain loaded with hay could pass through
it with ease; which will not seem any exaggeration when
we consider the inferior size of the Roman vehicles as com¬
pared with those of modern times. Also, in speaking of the
numerous subterranean passages by which the foundations
of Rome were intersected, he calls it “ a city suspended in
air” {urbs pensilis). We are told by Dion Cassius (xlix.),
that when Agrippa undertook the cleansing of the cloacae
he passed through the Cloaca Maxima in a boat. This
stupendous structure, even after a lapse of more than 2000
years, still serves as the common sewer of the city.
Agrigentum was also celebrated for its works of this
kind.
CLOACINA or CLUACiNA,a surname of Venus at Rome,
said by Lactantius to be derived from the Cloaca Max¬
ima, in which an image of the goddess was found; but
Pliny is doubtless right in deriving it from the verb cloqre
or cluere, to wash or purify. {H. N. xv. 36.) Smith’s Diet,
of Greek and Homan Biog. and Mythol.
CLOCK AND WATCH WORK.
The origin of clock work is involved in great obscurity.
Notwithstanding the statements by many writers that clocks,
horologia, were in use so early as the ninth century, and
that they were then invented by an archdeacon of Verona,
named Pacificus, there appears to be no clear evidence that
they were machines at all resembling those which have been
in use for the last five or six centuries. But it is certain
that for that period at least clocks have been made depend¬
ing on the action of a weight on a train of wheels, as dis¬
tinguished from the water clocks, clepsydrce, which are well
known to have been used many centuries before. How¬
ever, we intend to confine this article as far as possible to
matters of practical interest, as we cannot afford the space
to enter into the history of horology; and we will, therefore,
at once refer the reader who is curious about it to the
articles on clocks, chronometers, &c., in Rees’s Cyclopaedia,
and the various works there cited. We will only add to the
information there given, that it appears from a communica¬
tion of Captain Smith to the Antiquarian Society in 1851,
that there is still a clock in existence at Dover Castle bear¬
ing the date 1348, earlier by 30 years than that of the clock
made by De Vick,for the palace of the Emperor Charles
V., which has generally been described as the earliest clock
of which the actual construction is known. Mr Denison
also, in his Rudimentary Treatise on Clocks (of which we
have largely availed ourselves throughout this article, and
also of various papers by him in the Cambridge Philosophical
Transactions, and the Journal of the Society of Arts), men¬
tions a clock in Peterborough cathedral, still in use as to the
striking part, of which the construction is more like that
of the Dover Castle clock than that of De Vick; and
Lord Chief Justice Coke tells us that a clock was set
up in Westminster Hall in the thirteenth century out of a
fine levied on one of his predecessors in that seat, from which
perhaps the appropriate inscription Discite justitiam moniti
was copied on to the sun-dial on a house now facing the hall.
De Vick’s clock having been frequently described before,
and the description being of no value except as a matter of
curiosity, we shall say no more of it than that it was a large
striking clock going one day, and with one hand (the hour
hand), and much the same, except in the escapement, as
many old church clocks still in existence. Pendulums were
not invented for three centuries after ; and strange as it may
seem, the escapement was much like that which is called
the “ vertical escapement” in a watch, only the time of vi¬
bration depended entirely on the moment of inertia of
the balance, and not on a spring, that also being of much
later invention. We shall, therefore, proceed at once to
describe the going part of an eight-day house clock, or of
an astronomical clock or “ regulator,” for in the general ar¬
rangement they are the same.
In figure 1, B is the barrel with the rope coiled round it
CLOCK AND
(lock and generally 16 times for the 8 days ; the barrel is fixed to its
Watch arbor K, which is prolonged into the winding square coming
Fig. i.
up to the face or dial of the clock ; the dial is here shown as
fixed either^by small screws x, or by a socket and pin z to
the prolonged pillars pp, which (4 or o in number) connect
the plates or frame of the clock together, though the dial is
commonly, but for no good reason, set on to the front plate
by another set of pillars of its own. The great wheel G
rides on the arbor, and is connected with the barrel by the
ratchet R, the action of which is shown more fully in fig.
12. The intermediate wheel r in this drawing is fora pur¬
pose which will be described hereafter, and for the present
it may be considered as omitted, and the click of the rat¬
chet R as fixed to the great wheel. The great wheel
drives the pinion c, which is called the centre pinion, on the
arbor of the centre wheel C, which goes through to the dial,
and carries the long or minute-hand; this wheel always turn¬
ing in an hour, and the great wheel generally in 12 hours,
by having 12 times as many teeth as the centre pinion. The
centre wheel drives the “ second wheel” D by its pinion d,
and that again drives the scape-wheel E by its pinion e. If
the pinions d and e have each 8 teeth or leaves (as the teeth
of pinions are usually called), c will have 64 teeth and D
60, in a clock of which the scape-wheel turns in a minute,
so that the seconds hand may be set on its arbor prolonged
to the dial. A represents the pallets of the escapement,
which will be described presently, and their arbor a goes
through a large hole in the back plate near F, and its back
pivot turns in a cock O F Q screwed on to the back plate.
From the pallet arbor at F descends the crutch F^ ending
in the/orA/^ which embraces the pendulum, so that as the
pendulum vibrates, the crutch and the pallets necessarily
vibrate with it. The pendulum is hung by a thin spring S
from the cock Q, so that the bending point of the
spring may be just opposite the end of the pallet arbor, and
WATCH WORK. 3
the edge of the spring as close to the end of that arbor as Clock and
possible—a point frequently neglected. Watch
We may now go to the front (or left hand) of the clock, Work‘
and describe the dial or “ motion work.” The minute hand
fits on to a squared end of a brass socket, which is fixed to
the wheel M, and fits close, but not tight, on the prolonged
arbor of the centre wheel. Behind this wheel is a bent
spring which is (or ought to be) set on the same arbor with
a square hole (not a round one as it sometimes is) in the
middle, so that it must turn with the arbor; the wheel is
pressed up against this spring, and kept there by a cap and
a small pin through the end of the arbor. The consequence
is, that there is friction enough between the spring and the
wheel to carry the hand round, but not enough to resist a
moderate push with the finger for the purpose of altering
the time indicated. This wheel M, which is sometimes
called the minute wheel, but is better called the hour-wheel
as it turns in an hour, drives another wheel N, of the same
number of teeth, and which has a pinion attached to it; and
that pinion drives the twelve-hour wheel H, which is also
attached to a larger socket or pipe carrying the hour hand
and riding on the former socket, or rather (in order to re¬
lieve the centre arbor of that extra weight) on an interme¬
diate socket fixed to the bridge L, which is screwed to the
front plate over the hour-wheel M. The weight W, w'hich
drives the train and gives the impulse to the pendulum
through the escapement, is generally hung by a catgut line
passing through a pulley attached to the weight, as shown in
fig. 14, the other end of the cord being tied to some convenient
place in the clock frame or seat-board to which it is fixed by
screws through the lower pillars. It has usually been the
practice to make the cases of house clocks and astronomical
clocks not less than 6 feet high ; but that is a very unne¬
cessary waste of space and materials; for by either dimin¬
ishing the size of the barrel, or the number of its turns, by
increasing the size of the great wheel by one-half, or hanging
the weights by a treble instead of a double line, a case just
long enough for the pendulum will also be long enough for
the fall of the weights in 7 or 8 days. Of course the weights
have to be increased in the same ratio, and indeed rather
more, to overcome the increased friction.
PENDULUM.
The claim to the invention of the pendulum, like the
claim to most inventions, is disputed; and wre have no in¬
tention of trying to settle it. It was, like many, perhaps
most, other discoveries and inventions, probably made by
various persons, independently, and almost simultaneously,
when the state of science had become ripe for it. That
peculiarly valuable property of the pendulum called iso-
chronism, or the disposition to vibrate different arcs in very
nearly the same time (provided the arcs are none of them
large), was known long before the time of the earliest clocks
we have described; for it is said that the ancient astrono¬
mers of the East employed pendulums in measuring the
times of their observations, counting their vibrations during
the phases of an eclipse or transit, and renewing them by
a push of the finger when they languished. This knowledge,
however, appears itself to have languished before the time
of Galileo, if credit is to be given to the well-known story
of his being struck with the apparent isochronism of a
chandelier hung by a long chain from the roof of the church
at Florence. And Galileo’s son appears as a rival of Avi¬
cenna, Huygens, Dr Hooke, and a London clockmaker
named Harris, for the honour of having first applied the
pendulum to regulate the motion of a clock train, all in the
early part of the seventeenth century. Be this as it may,
there seems little doubt that Huygens was the first who
mathematically investigated, and therefore really knew the
true nature of those properties of the pendulum, which may
now be found explained in any mathematical book on me-
CLOCK AND WATCH WORK.
Work.
Cycloidal
cheeks for
Clock and chanics. He discovered, that if a simple pendulum («'. e., a
Watch weight or bob consisting of a single point, and hung by a
rod or string of no weight) can be made to describe, not a
circle, but a cycloid of which the string would be the radius
of curvature at the lowest point, all its vibrations, however
large, will be performed in the same time. For a little dis¬
tance near the bottom, the circle very nearly coincides with
the cycloid; and hence it is, that for small arcs, a pendulum
vibrating as usual in a circle, is nearly enough isochronous
for the purposes of horology ; more especially when contri¬
vances are introduced either to compensate for the varia¬
tions of the arc, or, better still, to destroy them altogether,
by making the force on the pendulum so constant that its
arc may never sensibly vary. The difference between the
time of any small arc of the circle and any arc of the cy¬
cloid, or an infinitely small arc of the circle, varies nearly
as the square of the circular arc; and again, the difference
between the times of any two small and nearly equal circu¬
lar arcs of the same pendulum, varies nearly as the arc itself.
If a, the arc, is increased by a small amount da, the pendu¬
lum will lose 10800«g?« seconds a-day, which is rather
more than 1 second if a is 2° (from zero) and da is 10',
since the numerical value of 2° is -035. If the increase of arc
is considerable, it will not do to reckon thus by differen¬
tials, but we must take the difference of time for the day
as 5400 (a2 — a2), which will be just 8 seconds if a = 2°
and a = 36. For many years it was thought of great im¬
portance to obtain cycloidal vibrations of clock pendulums,
and it was done by making the suspension string or spring
pendulums, vibrate between cycloidal cheeks, as they were called. But
it was in time discovered that all this is a delusion. First,
because there is and can be no such thing in reality as a
simple pendulum, and cycloidal cheeks will only make a
simple pendulum vibrate isochronously; secondly, because
a very slight error in the form of the cheeks (as Huygens
himself discovered) would do more harm than the circular
error uncorrected at all, even for an arc of 10°, which is
much larger than the common pendulum arc; thirdly, be¬
cause there was always some friction or adhesion between
the cheeks and the string; and fourthly (a reason which
applies equally to all the isochronous contrivances since
invented), because a common clock escapement itself gene¬
rally tends to produce an error exactly opposite to the cir¬
cular error, or to make the pendulum vibrate quicker the
farther it swings; and therefore (as was shown by Mr Deni¬
son in the Cambridge Philosophical Transactions in 1848)
the circular error is actually useful for the purpose of help¬
ing to counteract the error due to the escapement, and the
clock goes better than it would with a simple pendulum, de¬
scribing the most perfect cycloid. At the same time, the
thin spring by which pendulums are always suspended, ex¬
cept in some French clocks where a silk string is used (a
very inferior plan), causes the pendulum to deviate a little
from circular and to approximate to cycloidal motion, be¬
cause the bend does not take place at one point, but is
spread over some length of the spring.
The accurate performance of a clock depends so essen¬
tially on the pendulum, that we shall go somewhat into de¬
tail respecting it. First, then, the time of vibration depends
entirely on the length of the pendulum, the effect of the
spring being too small for consideration until we come to
differences of a higher order. But the time does not vary
as the length, but only as the square root of the length;
i.e., a pendulum to vibrate two seconds must be four times
as long as a seconds pendulum. The relation between the
time and the length of a pendulum is expressed thus —
t = TrsJ where t is the time in seconds, tt the well-
known symbol for 3T4159, the ratio of the circumference of a
circle to its diameter, l the length of the pendulum, and g the
force of gravity at the latitude where it is intended to vi¬
brate ; this letter g, in the latitude of London, is the symbol Clock and
for 32‘2 feet, that being the velocity (or number of feet per Watch
second) at which a body is found by experiment to be mov- ^ Work. ^
ing at the end of the first second of its fall, being neces-
sarily equal to twice the actual number of feet it has fallen
in that second. Consequently, the length of a pendulum
to beat seconds in London is 39T4 inches. But the same
pendulum carried to the equator, where the force of gravity
is less, would lose 2^ minutes a day.
The seconds we are here speaking of are the seconds ofDifferent
a common clock indicating mean solar time. But as clockskinds
are also required for sidereal time, it may be as well to men-time‘
tion the proportions between a mean and a sidereal pendu¬
lum. A sidereal day is the interval between two successive
transits over the meridian of a place by that imaginary point
in the heavens called rp, the first point of Aries, at the in¬
tersection of the equator and the ecliptic; and there is one
more sidereal day than there are solar days in a year, since
the earth has to turn more than once round in space before
the sun can come a second time to the meridian, on account
of the earth’s own motion in its orbit during the day. A
sidereal day or hour is shorter than a mean solar one in the
ratio of ’99727, and consequently a sidereal pendulum must
be shorter than a mean-time pendulum in the square of that
ratio, or in the latitude of London the sidereal seconds pen¬
dulum is 38’87 inches. As we have mentioned what is 0
or 24 o’clock by sidereal time, we may as well add, that
the mean day is also reckoned in astronomy by 24 hours,
and not from midnight as in civil reckoning, but from the
following noon ; thus, what we call 11 a.m. May 1 in com¬
mon life, is 23 h. April 30 with astronomers.
It must be remembered that the pendulums whose
lengths we have been speaking of are simple pendulums;
and, as that is a thing which can only exist in theory, the
reader may ask how the length of a real pendulum to vi¬
brate in any required time is ascertained. In every pen¬
dulum, that is to say in every body hung so as to be ca¬
pable of vibrating freely, there is a certain point, always
somewhere below the centre of gravity, which possesses
these remarkable properties: that if the pendulum were
turned upside down, and set vibrating about this point, it
would vibrate in the same time as before; and, moreover,
the distance of this point from the point of suspension is ex¬
actly the length of that imaginary simple pendulum which
would vibrate in the same time. This point is therefore
called the centre of oscillation. The rules for finding it by
calculation are too complicated for ordinary use, except in
bodies of certain simple and regular forms; but they are
fortunately not requisite in practice, because in all clock
pendulums the centre of oscillation is only a short distance
below the centre of gravity of the whole pendulum, and
generally so near to the centre of gravity of the bob—in
fact a little above it—that there is no difficulty in making
a pendulum for any given time of vibration near enough to
the proper length at once, and then adjusting it by screw¬
ing the bob up or down until it is found to vibrate in the
proper time.
Thus far we have been speaking of vibrating pendulums ; Revolving
but the notice of pendulums would be incomplete withoutPenclulum'
some allusion to revolving or conical pendulums, as they
are called, because they describe a cone in revolving. Such
pendulums are used where a continuous instead of an inter¬
mittent motion of the clock train is required, as in the clocks
for keeping an equatorial telescope directed to a star, by
driving it the opposite way to the motion of the earth, to
whose axis the axis on which the telescope turns is made
parallel. Clocks with such pendulums might also be used
in bedrooms by persons who cannot bear the ticking of a
common clock. The pendulum, instead of being hung by
a flat spring, is hung by a thin piece of piano-forte wire;
and it should be understood that it has no tendency to twist
CLOCK AND WATCH WORK.
Clock and on its own axis, and so to twist off the wire, as may be ap-
Watch prehended: in fact it would require some extra force to
Work. niaj{e ij- twist, if it were wanted to do so. The time of re-
volution of a revolving pendulum may be easily ascertained
as follows:—Let l be the length of the pendulum, a
the angle which it makes with the vertical axis of the
cone which it describes; w the angular velocity; then the
centrifugal force = o>2 / sin a; and as this is the force
which keeps the pendulum away from the vertical, it must
balance the force which draws it to the vertical, which
is g tan a : and therefore
t-9 a - w, the angular velocity, or the angle described
in 1 second of time ; and the time of a complete revolution
through the angle 360°, or 2 tt, is — = 2 7r\/^-C0S a. That
«> 9
is to say, the time of revolution of a pendulum of any given
length is less than the time of a double oscillation of the same
pendulum, in the proportion of the cosine of the angle, which
it makes with the axis of revolution, to unity.
A rotary pendulum is kept in motion by the train of the
clock ending in a horizontal wheel with a vertical axis, from
which projects an arm pressing against a spike at the bot¬
tom of the pendulum ; and it has this disadvantage, that any
inequality in the force of the train, arising from variations
of friction or any other cause, is immediately transmitted
to the pendulum; whereas it will be seen that in several
kinds of escapement which can be applied to a vibrating
pendulum, the variations of force can be rendered nearly or
quite insensible. And it is a mistake to imagine that there
is any self-correcting power in a conical pendulum analogous
to that of the governor of a steam engine ; tor that apparatus,
though it is a couple of conical pendulums, has also a com¬
munication by a system of levers with the valve which sup¬
plies the steam. The governor apparatus has itself been
applied to telescope-driving clocks, with a lever ending in
a spring which acts by friction on some revolving plate in the
clock, increasing the friction, and so diminishing the force as
the balls of the governor fly out farther under any increase
in the force. And with the addition of some connection
with the hand of the observer, by which the action can be
farther moderated, the motion can be made sufficiently uni¬
form for that purpose ; though for a clock to be kept going
constantly and accurately without attendance, some further
provisions are necessary, as will be explained under the head
of train remontoires. It has indeed been proposed to ob¬
tain a uniform motion of the clock train from a vibrating
pendulum, by means of a crank attached to a wheel revolv¬
ing in two beats of the pendulum, and connected with it by
a rod so long that it may be considered always nearly ho¬
rizontal ; since it will be found on investigation that the ho¬
rizontal velocity of any point in a pendulum swinging freely
varies in the same ratio as that of the end of a crank re¬
volving uniformly. But this will not do in practice, because
any increase in the force of the train would immediately
make the pendulum desire to increase its arc and its velo¬
city, and the motion of the crank would be no longer uni¬
form, but be checked at the end of every vibration ; and if
the force were diminished the pendulum would not go far
enough to carry the crank past the dead points, and the
clock would stop,
PENDULUM SUSPENSION.
The suspension of the pendulum on what are called knife-
edges, like those of a scale-beam, has often been advocated.
But though it may do well enough for short experiments,
in which the effects of the elasticity of the spring are wanted
to be eliminated, it fails altogether in use, even if the knife-
edges and the plates which carry them are made of the
5
hardest stones. A suspension on friction wheels, or the Clock and
small portion of the entire wheel which is required, has also Watch
been used, but only in two instances, by the late Mr Vulliamy, ^ Work. ^
under an erroneous impression respecting the nature of the
compensation for temperature required, both for the spring
and the rod of a pendulum when of great size. This sus¬
pension may, no doubt, be made to answer; but as it involves
extreme delicacy of adjustment and great expense, and pos¬
sesses no corresponding advantage over the common method,
it will probably never be used again. The suspension which
is now used universally in all but some inferior foreign clocks,
which have strings instead, is a thin and short spring, with
one end let into the top of the pendulum, and the other
screwed between two chops of metal with a pin through
them, which rests firmly in a nick in the cock which carries
the pendulum; and the steadiness of this cock is essential
to the accurate performance of the clock. The thinner the
spring the better, provided, of course, it is strong enough to
carry the pendulum without being bent beyond its elasticity,
or bent short; not that there is much risk of that in prac¬
tice. Pendulum springs are much oftener too thick than
too thin ; and it is worth notice that, independently of their
greater effect on the natural time of vibration of the pendu¬
lum, thick and narrow springs are more liable to break than
thin and broad ones of the same strength. It is of great
importance that the spring should be of uniform thickness
throughout its breadth ; and the bottom of the chops which
carry it should be exactly horizontal; otherwise the pendu¬
lum will swing with a twist, as they may be often seen to
do in ill-made clocks.
The bob of the pendulum used, till lately, to be generally
made in the shape of a lens, with a view to its passing
through the air with the least resistance. But after the im¬
portance of making the bob heavy was discovered, it be¬
came almost necessary to adopt a form of more solid content
in proportion to its surface. A sphere has been occasionally
used, but it is not a good shape, because a slight error in
the place of the hole for the rod may make a serious dif¬
ference in the amount of weight on each side, and give the
pendulum a tendency to twist in motion. The mercurial
jar pendulum suggested the cylindrical form, which is now
generally adopted for astronomical clocks; and it has also
lately been used in the best turret clocks, with a round
top to prevent the effect of any bits of mortar or dirt falling
and resting upon it, which would alter the time; it has also
been thought to look better than a flat-topped cylinder.
There is no rule to be given for the weight of pendulums.
It will be shown hereafter, that whatever escapement may
be used, the errors due to any variation of force are ex¬
pressed in fractions which invariably have the weight and
the length of the pendulum in the denominator, though some
kinds of escapements require a heavy pendulum to correct
their errors much less than others. And as a heavy pen¬
dulum requires very little more force to keep it in motion
than a light one, being less affected by the resistance of the
air, we may almost say that the heavier and longer a pen¬
dulum can be made the better; at any rate, the only limit
is one of convenience; for instance, it would obviously be
inconvenient to put a large pendulum of 100 lb. weight in
the case of an astronomical or common house clock. It
may perhaps be laid down as a rule, that no astronomical
clock or regulator (as they are also called) will go as well as
is expected of such clocks with a pendulum of less , than 12
lb. weight, and no turret clock with less than 1 cwt. Long
pendulums are generally made with heavier bobs than short
ones; and such a clock as that for the houses of parliament,
with a two-seconds pendulum of 6 cwt., ought to go 44 times
as wTell as a small turret clock with a one-second pendulum
of 60 lb. Pendulums longer than 14 feet (2 seconds) are
inconvenient, liable to be disturbed by wind, and impossible,
or at least enormously expensive, to compensate, and they
6
CLOCK AND WATCH WORK.
Clock and are now quite disused. An old clock with a 56 feet pen-
Watch dulum (4 seconds) was lately removed from Halifax church
Work. £0 replaced by one with an 8 feet compensated pendu-
's—}um) an(j a ciock such as we shall have to describe when we
come to turret clocks.
PENDULUM REGULATION.
The regulation of pendulums, or their exact adjustment
to the proper length, is almost always effected by a nut on
the end of the rod, by which the bob can be screwed up or
down. In the best clocks the rim of this nut is divided,
with an index over it; so the exact quantity of rise or fall
may be known, or the exact acceleration or retardation, the
amount due to one turn of the nut being previously ascer¬
tained. By the calculation used below for compensation
of pendulums, it may be seen that if the length of the pern
dulum rod is /, and the breadth of one thread of the screw
is called dl, then one turn of the nut will alter the rate of
the clock by 43200 ~ seconds a-day; which would be just
30 seconds, if the pendulum rod is 45 inches long, and the
screw has 32 threads in the inch. To accelerate the clock
the nut has always to be turned to the right, as it is called,
and vice versa. But in astronomical and in large turret
clocks, it is desirable to avoid stopping, or in any way dis¬
turbing the pendulum; and for the finer adjustments, other
methods of regulation are adopted. The best is that of fixing
a collar, as shown in fig. 2, capable of having very small weights
laid upon it, half-way down the pendulum, this being the place
where the addition of any small weight produces the greatest
effect; and where, it may be added, any moving of that
weight up or down on the rod produces the least effect. An
addition there of a weight = ToWth of the weight of the
pendulum will accelerate it a little more than 1 second a
day, or 10 grains will do that on a pendulum of 15 lb. weight
(7000 gr. being = 1 lb.), or an ounce on a pendulum of 6
cwt.; and these small weights can be easily taken off and
put on without any risk of disturbing the pendulum. The
weights should be made in a series, and marked 1, 2,
according to the number of seconds a day by which they
will accelerate, and the pendulum adjusted at first to lose a
little, perhaps a second a day, when there are no weights
on the collar, so that it may always have some weight on,
which can be diminished or increased from time to time,
with certainty, as the rate may vary.
COMPENSATION OF PENDULUMS.
Soon after pendulums began to be generally used in
clocks, it was discovered that they contained within them¬
selves a source of error independent of the action of the
clock upon them, and that they lost time in hot weather
and gained in cold, in consequence of all the substances of
which they could be made expanding as the temperature
increases. If l is the length of a pendulum, and dl the
small increase of it from increased heat, t the time of the
pendulum /, and t + dt that of the pendulum l\dli then
t + dt V14- dd dl
VI
= 1 +
smce
(t)
glected as very small ; ox dt =
t dl
21
loss of the clock will be 43200
dl^
l
may be ne-
and the daily
seconds. The
following is a table of the values
ferent substances.
dl
for 10° of heat in dif-
White deal
Flint glass ,
Steel rod...
Iron rod...,
•000024
•000048
•000064
•000070
Brass        ’OOGIO
Lead        ‘OOGIS
Zinc       •00017
Mercury (in bulk, notin length)   ‘00100
Thus a common pendulum with an iron wire rod would
lose 43200 X '00007 = 3 seconds a-day for 10° of heat, and
if adjusted for winter temperature would lose about a minute
a-week in summer, unless something in the clock happened
to produce a counteracting effect, as we shall see may be
the case when we come to escapements. We want, there¬
fore, some contrivance which will always keep that point
of the pendulum on which its time depends, viz., the centre
of oscillation, at the same distance from the point of sus¬
pension. A vast number of such contrivances have been
made, but there are only three which can be said to be at
all in common use ; and the old gridiron pendulum, made
of 9 alternate bars of brass and steel is not one of them,
having been superseded by one of zinc and iron, exactly on
the same principle, but requiring much fewer bars on ac¬
count of the greater expansion of zinc than brass. Although Zinc C0Tn_
this is the most modern of the compensated pendulums, in pensation.
consequence of the working of zinc being a modern art, we
will describe it first. And as the centre of oscillation so
nearly coincides in all clock pendulums with the centre of
the bob, we may practically say that the object of compen¬
sation is to keep the bob always at the same height. Fig.
2 is a section of the great Westminster
clock pendulum above mentioned. The iron
rod which runs from top to bottom ends in
a screw with a nut N for adjusting the
length of the pendulum after it was made
by calculation as near the right length as
possible. On this nut rests a collar M,
which can slide up the rod a little way,
but is prevented from turning by a pin
through the rod. On a groove or annular
channel in the top of this collar stands a
zinc tube 10 feet 6 inches long, and nearly
half an inch thick, made of three tubes all
drawn together, so as to become like one ;
for it should be observed that cast zinc can¬
not be depended on ; it must be drawn. On
the top of this tube or hollow column fits
another collar with an annular groove much
like the bottom one M. The object of
these grooves is to keep the zinc column in
its place, not touching the rod within it, as
contact might produce friction, which
would interfere with their relative motion
under expansion and contraction. Round
the collar C is screwed a large iron tube,
also not touching the zinc, and its lower
end fits loosely on the collar M; and round
its outside it has another collar of its own,
D, fixed to it, on which the bob rests.
The iron tube has a number of large holes
in it down each side, to let the air get to
the zinc tube : before that was done it was
found that the compensation lagged a day
or two behind the changes of temperature,
in consequence of the iron rod and tube
being exposed while the zinc tube was in¬
closed without touching the iron. The bot¬
tom of the bob is 14feet 11 inchesfrom thetop of thespring A,
and the bob itself is 18 inches high, with a dome-shaped top
and 12 inches in diameter. As it is a 2-seconds pendulum, its
centre of oscillation is 13 feet from the top A, which is very
near the centre of gravity of the pendulum, and higher than
usual above the centre of gravity of the bob, on account of
the great weight of the compensation tubes. The whole
weighs 682 lb., which is half as large again as Mr Vul-
CLOCK AND WATCH WORK.
Clock and liamy
Watch heavii
Work. rmo
Lead com¬
pensation.
^ost-office clock pendulum, which was before the
probably in he work’ jut it is only a wooden
one. ihe same j , ortions, ot course, will hold for zinc
compen, arion penduiums of smaller size, the zinc tube
and the iron tube being always nearly two-thirds of the
length of the main rod. The compensating action is
evidently this: the iron rod and tube both let the bob
down as t sey expand, and the zinc column pushes it up;
and as the ratio of the expansion of iron to zinc is *41, it will
be found that by the above proportions the centre of oscil¬
lation will remain at the same height; and experience has
ratified the calculation, the npnriul nrv» K — — i 
(1854) going for two years!
The second kind of comn
more simple, but not so effei
that is merely a wooden rod
nut at the bottom. Accordh
pear that this bob ought to be
dulum ; but the expansion c
proportion is not found capa;
somewhat shorter bob is saic
point of compensation. And
have tried wood pendulums
conclusion as Mr Reid did
cious in their action, and coi
class of clocks.
Mercurial The best of all the com]
compensa- mercurial, which was invented
tl0n‘ clockmaker, above a centum
well-known dead escapemen
zontal or cylinder escapemei
hereafter explained. And tl
pendulum is that which was
Dent, in which the mercury
or cylinder, into the top of w
with its end plunged into the
means the mercury, the rod, a:
temperature at any change, me
the mercury is in a glass jar
called) at the bottom of the rq
lum is safe to carry about, an
fectly cylindrical by turning,
tect the mercury from oxydat
be heated in the jar so as to
any risk of breaking. The he
cast iron jar 2 inches in diam
must be remembered in ealeu
that the jar itself expands late
to be deducted from that of tl
There are several other kinej
be found described in Mr Deni
But as the mercurial is indis
pensive, and the zinc and iron
cheaper than any of those otheL, we s.iau not nil our pages
by describing them. We will only add this caution to per¬
sons who may be captivated with the apparent simplicity
of that class of compensations in which the pendulum spring
is drawn up through a slit, so as to shorten it as the length
of the pendulum increases, that that method in any of&its
forms is not to be relied on. All the compensations also on
the lever principle, invented by Mr Ellicott, many years
ago, are equally fallacious and uncertain; though this, as
well as the spring-shortening methods, do not seem to
have been yet abandoned by the French clockmakers—at
least they had not at the time of the Great Exhibition in 1851.
Me alluded a short time ago to the effect of the spriii”-
upon the time of vibration. However thin it may be, it
has some tendency to make the pendulum move more
quickly than if it were suspended on knife edges ; and as all
springs are stiffer the colder they are, the spring accelerates
the pendulum in cold weather a little more than in hot
Work.
though to a far less extent than the variation in the length Clock and
of the pendulum itself. It is impossible to give any rule Watch
for the extra compensation thus required, except such as
might be deduced from a large and careful series of experi¬
ments on pendulums and springs of various sizes. The late
Mr Dent stated in a paper read before the British Associa¬
tion in 1840, that he had found such a spring as is gene¬
rally used in astronomical clock pendulums to require about
■fth to be added to the ordinary compensation for the rod.
It should be remembered that this effect is much greater on
a short pendulum than a long one ; indeed, on a 2-seconds
j of considerable weight it seems not perceptible
3n the spring is of no more than the proper thick-
E6CAPEMENTS.
’apement is that part of the clock in which the
don of the wheels is converted into the vibratory
the balance or pendulum, which by some contriv-
her is made to let one tooth of the quickest wheel
n escape at each vibration ; and hence that wheel
'he “ scape wheel.”
ws the form of the
ck escapement, if it
deways, so that the
uch the two balls are
orate on a horizontal
that case the arms
.ts form a balance,
ther out the weights
slower would be the
If we now turn it as
re, and consider the
;ht left out, it be-
earliest form of the
'ock, with the crown-
^rtical escapement.
• are two flat pieces
?dpallets projecting
's about at right an¬
other, one of them
■.it of the wheel as it stands, and the other over the
tooth D is just escaping from the front pallet CA,
’.me time the tooth at the back of the wheel falls
pallet CB a little above its edge. But the pen-
•h is now moving to the right, does not stop
r, but swings a little further (otherwise the least
e force of the train would stop the clock, as the
d not take place), and in so doing it is evident
et B will drive the wheel back a little, and pro-
s called the recoil; which is visible enough in
clock with a seconds hand, either with this
or the one which will be next described.
It will be seen, on looking at the figure, that the pallet
B must turn through a considerable angle before the tooth
can escape; in other words, the crown wheel escapement
requires a long vibration of the pendulum. This is objec¬
tionable on several accounts; first, because it requires a
great force in the clock train, and a great pressure and
therefore friction, on the pallets; and besides that, any varia¬
tion in a large arc, as was explained before, produces a
much greater variation of time due to the circular error than
an equal variation of a small arc. The crown wheel escape¬
ment may indeed be made so as to allow a more moderate
arc of the pendulum, though not so small as the 2° usually
adopted now in the best clocks, by putting the pallet arbor
a good deal higher above the scape wheel, and giving a
small number of teeth to the wheel; and that also dimin¬
ishes the length of run of the teeth, and consequently the
friction, on the pallets, though it makes the recoil very
great and sudden ; but, oddly enough, it never appears to
6
CLOCK AND WATCH WORK.
Clock and are now quite disused. An old clock with a 56 feet pen-
Watch dulum (4 seconds) was lately removed from Halifax church
Work' to be replaced by one with an 8 feet compensated pendu-
lum, and a clock such as we shall have to describe when we
come to turret clocks.
PENDULUM REGULATION,
The regulation of pendulums, or their exact adjustment
to the proper length, is almost always effected by a nut on
the end of the rod, by which the bob can be screwed up or
down. In the best clocks the rim of this nut is divided,
with an index over it; so the exact quantity of rise or fall
may be known, or the exact acceleration or retardation, the
amount due to one turn ot the nut being pre
tained. By the calculation used below for
of pendulums, it may be seen that if the len[
dulum rod is l, and the breadth of one threat
is called dl, then one turn of the nut will ah
dl
the clock by 43200 j seconds a-day ; which
30 seconds, if the pendulum rod is 45 inche
screw has 32 threads in the inch. To acce
the nut has always to be turned to the righ.
and vice versa. But in astronomical and
clocks, it is desirable to avoid stopping, or
turbing the pendulum; and for the finer at
methods of regulation are adopted. The bes
a collar, as shown in fig. 2, capable of having v
laid upon it, half-way down the pendulum, th
where the addition of any small weight prod
effect; and where, it may be added, an
weight up or down on the rod produces th
addition there of a weight — xo oTfo^1
pendulum will accelerate it a little morr
day, or 10 grains will do that on a penduhr
(7000 gr. being = 1 lb.), or an ounce on
cwt.; and these small weights can be ea
put on without any risk of disturbing tht
weights should be made in a series, and
according to the number of seconds a
will accelerate, and the pendulum adjust
little, perhaps a second a day, when th>
on the collar, so that it may always ha
which can be diminished or increased
with certainty, as the rate may vary.
COMPENSATION OF PENDT
Soon after pendulums began to b
clocks, it was discovered that they co
selves a source of error independent
clock upon them, and that they lost
and gained in cold, in consequence c
which they could be made expandim
increases. If l is the length of a [
small increase of it from increased heat, t the tune o*
pendulum l, and that of the pendulum l-\-dl; then
14“ dt ^ 14~ dd dl
may be ne-
and the daily
dl
—j- seconds.
The
- t = = i + Y’s'"ce
glected as very small ; ox dt —
loss of the clock will be 43200
dl
following is a table of the values-y for 10° of heat in dif¬
ferent substances.
White deal    -000024
Flint glass  -000048
Steel rod -000064
Iron rod -000070
Brass.,            -00010
Lead       -00016
Zinc       "00017
Mercury (in bulk, notin length)   -00100
Thus a common pendulum with an iron wire rod would
lose 43200 X ‘00007 = 3 seconds a-day for 10° of heat, and
if adjusted for winter temperature would lose about a minute
a-week in summer, unless something in the clock happened
to produce a counteracting effect, as we shall see may be
the case when we come to escapements. We want, there¬
fore, some contrivance which will always keep that point
of the pendulum on which its time depends, viz., the centre
of oscillation, at the same distance from the point of sus¬
pension. A vast number of such contrivances have been
nnlv three which can be said to be at
e old gridiron pendulum, made
s and steel is not one of them,
one of zinc and iron, exactly on
quiring much fewer bars on ae¬
on of zinc than brass. Although Zinc C0Tn_
the compensated pendulums, in pensation.
ig of zinc being a modern art, we
Id as the centre of oscillation so
bek pendulums with the centre of
ly say that the object of compen-
always at the same height, Fig.
|-eat Westminster
itioned. The iron
to bottom ends in
' for adjusting the
| after it was made
le right length as
rests a collar M,
rod a little way,
turning by a pin
groove or annular
[this collar stands a
les long, and nearly
|e of three tubes all
become like one ;
Id that cast zinc can-
must be drawn. On
hollow column fits
/annular groove much
M. The object of
^ep the zinc column in
ig the rod within it, as
duce friction, which
i their relative motion
d contraction. Round
wed a large iron tube,
Jhe zinc, and its lower
he collar M; and round
jother collar of its own,
1 which the bob rests,
a number of large holes
in it down eacti side, to let the air get to
the zinc tube : before that was done it was
found that the compensation lagged a day
or two behind the changes of temperature,
in consequence of the iron rod and tube
being exposed while the zinc tube was in¬
closed without touching the iron. The bot¬
tom of the bob is 14 feet 11 inches from the top of the spring A,
and the bob itself is 18 inches high, with a dome-shaped top
and 12 inches in diameter. As it is a 2-seconds pendulum, its
centre of oscillation is 13 feet from the top A, which is very
near the centre of gravity of the pendulum, and higher than
usual above the centre of gravity of the bob, on account of
the great weight of the compensation tubes. The whole
weighs 682 lb., which is half as large again as Mr Vul-
Fig. 2.
Clock and liamy
Watch heavii
Work. /->
CLOCK AND WATCH WORK.
^ost-office clock pendulum, which wras before the
probably in he work’ jut it is only a wooden
Lead com¬
pensation.
Mercurial
t one* khe same j , ortions, ot course, will hold for zinc
compen. anon pendumms of smaller size, the zinc tube
and the iron tube being always nearly two-thirds of the
length of the main rod. The compensating action is
evidently this: the iron rod and tube both let the bob
down as t sey expand, and the zinc column pushes it up;
and as the ratio of the expansion of iron to zinc is’4], it will
be found that by the above proportions the centre of oscil¬
lation will remain at the same height; and experience has
ratified the calculation, the pendulum having been now
(1854) going for two years in Mr Dent’s factory.
J he second kind of compensation pendulum in use is still
more simple, but not so effective or certain in its action ; and
that is merely a wooden rod with a long lead bob resting on a
nut at the bottom. According to the above table, it would ap¬
pear that this bob ought to be 14 inches high in a 1 -second pen¬
dulum ; but the expansion of wood is so uncertain, that this
proportion is not found capable of being depended on, and a
somewhat shorter bob is said to be generally more correct in
point of compensation. And we believe that all persons who
have tried wood pendulums severely, have come to the same
conclusion as Mr Reid did long ago, that they are capri¬
cious in their action, and consequently unfit for the highest
class of clocks.
The best of all the compensations is undoubtedly the
compensa- mercurial, which was invented by George Graham, a London
clockmaker, above a century ago, who also invented the
well-known dead escapement for clocks, and also the hori¬
zontal or cylinder escapement for watches, which will be
hereafter explained. And the best form of the mercurial
pendulum is that which was introduced by the late Mr
Dent, in which the mercury is inclosed in a cast iron jar
or cylinder, into the top of which the steel rod is screwed,
with its end plunged into the mercury itself. For by this
means the mercury, the rod, and the jar, all acquire the new
temperature at any change, more nearly together, than when
the mercury is in a glass jar hung by a stirrup (as it is
called) at the bottom of the rod ; and moreover the pendu¬
lum is safe to carry about, and the jar can be made per¬
fectly cylindrical by turning, and also air tight, so as to pro¬
tect the mercury from oxydation ; and, if necessary, it can
be heated in the jar so as to drive off any moisture, without
any risk of breaking. The height of mercury required in a
cast iron jar 2 inches in diameter is about 6£ inches; for it
must be remembered in calculating the rise of the mercury,
that the jar itself expands laterally, and that expansion has
to be deducted from that of the mercury in bulk.
There are several other kinds of compensation which may
be found described in Mr Denison’s treatise, and other books.
But as the mercurial is indisputably the best, though ex¬
pensive, and the zinc and iron pendulum is both better and
cheaper than any of those others, we shall not fill our pages
by describing them. We will only add this caution to per¬
sons who may be captivated with the apparent simplicity
of that class of compensations in which the pendulum spring
is drawn up through a slit, so as to shorten it as the length
of the pendulum increases, that that method in any of&its
forms is not to be relied on. All the compensations also on
the lever principle, invented by Mr Ellicott, many years
ago, are equally fallacious and uncertain; though this, as
well as the spring-shortening methods, do not seem to
have been yet abandoned by the French clockmakers—at
least they had not at the time of the Great Exhibition in 1851.
Me alluded a short time ago to the effect of the spring
upon the time of vibration. However thin it may be, it
has some tendency to make the pendulum move more
quickly than if it were suspended on knife edges ; and as all
springs are stiffer the colder they are, the spring accelerates
the pendulum in cold weather a little more than in hot,
Work.
though to a far less extent than the variation in the length Clock and
of the pendulum itself. It is impossible to give any rule Watch
for the extra compensation thus required, except such as
might be deduced from a large and careful series of experi¬
ments on pendulums and springs of various sizes. The late
Mr Dent stated in a paper read before the British Associa¬
tion in 1840, that he had found such a spring as is gene¬
rally used in astronomical clock pendulums to require about
•fth to be added to the ordinary compensation for the rod.
It should be remembered that this effect is much greater on
a short pendulum than a long one ; indeed, on a 2-seconds
pendulum of considerable weight it seems not perceptible
at all when the spring is of no more than the proper thick¬
ness.
ESCAPEMENTS.
escapement or the one which will be next described.
It will be seen, on looking at the figure, that the pallet
B must turn through a considerable angle before the tooth
can escape; in other words, the crown wheel escapement
requires a long vibration of the pendulum. This is objec¬
tionable on several accounts; first, because it requires a
great force in the clock train, and a great pressure and
therefore friction, on the pallets; and besides that, any varia¬
tion in a large arc, as was explained before, produces a
much greater variation of time due to the circular error than
an equal validation of a small arc. The crown wheel escape¬
ment may indeed be made so as to allow a more moderate
arc of the pendulum, though not so small as the 2° usually
adopted now in the best clocks, by putting the pallet arbor
a good deal higher above the scape wheel, and giving a
small number of teeth to the wheel; and that also dimin¬
ishes the length of run of the teeth, and consequently the
friction, on the pallets, though it makes the recoil very
great and sudden ; but, oddly enough, it never appears to
8
CLOCK AND WATCH WORK.
Clock and have been resorted to until long after the escapement had
Watch become superseded by the “anchor” escapement, which
Work. we sha]j now describe, and which appears to have been in-
vented by the famous Dr Hooke as early as the year 1656,
very soon after the invention of pendulums.
Commonre- In fig- 4 a tooth of the scape wheel is just escaping
coil escape- from the left pallet, and another tooth at the same time
ment. falls upon the right
hand pallet at some
distance from its
point. As the pendu¬
lum moves on in the
same direction, the
tooth slides farther up
the pallet, thus pro¬
ducing a recoil, as in
the crown-wheel es¬
capement. The acting
faces of the pallets
should be convex, and
not flat, as they are
generally made, much
less concave, as they
have sometimes been
made, with the view
of checking the motion
of the pendulum, which
is more likely to injure the rate of the clock than to improve it.
But when they are flat, and of course still more wlfen they
are concave, the points of the teeth always wear a hole
in the pallets at the extremity of their usual swing, and
the motion is obviously easier, and therefore better, when
the pallets are made convex; in fact they then approach
more nearly to the “ dead” escapement, which will be de¬
scribed presently. We have already alluded to the effect
of some escapements in not only counteracting the circular
error, or the natural increase of the time of a pendulum as
the arc increases, but overbalancing it by an error of the
contrary kind. The recoil escapement does so; for it is
almost invariably found that whatever may be the shape of
the pallets, the clock loses as the arc of the pendulum falls
off, and vice versa. It is, however, unfortunately impossible
so to arrange the pallets that the circular error may be thus
exactly neutralized, because the escapement errors depend,
in a manner reducible to no law, upon variations in friction
of the pallets themselves, and of the clock train, which pro¬
duce different effects ; and the result is, that it has long
been recognised as impossible to obtain very accurate time¬
keeping from any clock of this construction.
But before we pass on to the dead escapement, it may
be proper to notice an escapement of the recoiling class,
which was invented for the purpose of doing without oil, by
the famous Harrison, who was at first a carpenter in Lin¬
colnshire, but afterwards obtained the first government re¬
ward for the improvement of chronometers. We shall not
however stop to describe it, since it never came into gene¬
ral use, and it is said that nobody but Harrison himself
could make it go at all. It was also objectionable on ac¬
count of its being directly affected by all variations in the
force of the clock. It had the peculiarity of being very
nearly silent, though the recoil was very great. Those who
are curious about such things will find it described in the
earlier editions of this Encyclopaedia, and in others. The
recorded performance of one of these clocks which is given
in some accounts of it, is evidently fabulous.
j)ead The escapement which has now for a century and a half
escapement been considered the best practical clock escapement (though
there have been constant attempts to invent one free f om
the defects which it must be admitted to possess), is the dead
escapement, or as the French call it with equal expressive¬
ness, Vechappement il repos ; because, instead of the recoil
of the tooth upon the pallet which took place in the previous Clock and
escapements, it falls dead upon the pallet and reposes there ^atch
until the pendulum returns and lets it off again. It is re- ''ork.
presented in fig 5. It
will be observed that the
teeth of the scape wheel
have their points set the
opposite way to those of
the recoil escapement in
fig. 4, the wheels them¬
selves both turning the
same way, or (as our en¬
graver has represented
it) vice versd. The tooth
B is here also represented
in the act of dropping on to
the right hand pallet as
the tooth A escapes from
the left pallet. But in¬
stead of the pallet having
a continuous face as in
the recoil escapement,
it is divided into two,
of which BE on the
right pallet and FA on the left are called the impulse
faces, and BD, FG the dead faces. The dead faces are por¬
tions of circles (generally of the same circle), having the
axis of the pallets C for their centre; and the consequence
evidently is, that as the pendulum goes on, carrying the pal¬
let still nearer to the wheel than the position in which a
tooth falls on to the corner A or B of the impulse and the
dead faces, the tooth rests on the other dead faces without
any recoil, until the pendulum returns and lets the tooth
slide down the impulse face, giving the impulse to the pen¬
dulum as it goes.
The great merit of this escapement is that a moderate
variation in the force of the clock train produces a very slight
effect in the time of the pendulum. This may be shown in
a general way, without resorting to mathematics, thus :—
Since the tooth B drops on to the corner of the pallet (or
ought to do so), immediately after the tooth A has escaped,
and since the impulse will begin at B when the pendulum
returns to the same point at which the impulse ceased on A,
it follows that the impulse received by the pendulum before
and after its vertical position is very nearly the same. Now
that part of the impulse which takes place before zero, or
while the pendulum is descending, tends to augment the
natural force of gravity on the pendulum, or to make it
move faster; but in the ascending arc the impulse on the
pallets acts against the gravity of the pendulum, and there¬
fore tends to make it go slower; and so the two parts of
the impulse tend to neutralize each other’s disturbing effects
on the time of the pendulum, though they both concur in
increasing the arc, or (what is the same thing) maintaining
it against the loss from friction and resistance of the air.
However, on the whole, the effect of the impulse is to re¬
tard the pendulum a little, because the tooth must fall not
exactly on the corner of the pallet, but (for safety) a little
above it; and the next impulse does not begin until that
same corner of the pallet has come as far as the point of the
tooth ; in other words the retarding part of the impulse, or
that which takes place after zero, acts rather longer than the
accelerating part before zero. Again, the friction on the
dead part of the pallets tends to produce the same effect
on the time ; the arc of course it tends to diminish. For
in the descent of the pendulum the friction acts against
gravity, but in the ascent with gravity, or accelerates the
pendulum ; and the action on the dead part of the pallets
is a little shortet in the ascent than the descent. For
these reasons the time of vibration of a pendulum driven
by a dead escapement is a little greater than of the same
Work.
nock and pendulum vibrating the same arc freely ; and when you
come to the next difference, the variation of time of the
^ same pendulum with the dead escapement under a mode-
late variation in the force is very small indeed; which is
not the case in the recoil escapement, for there the im¬
pulse begins at each end of the arc, and there is much more
of it during the descent of the pendulum than during the
ascent from zero to the arc at which the escape takes place,
and the recoil begins, on the opposite tooth; and then the
recoil itself is an action on the pendulum in its ascent in
the same direction as gravity, and therefore accelerative.
And hence it is that an increase of the arc of the pendu¬
lum with a recoil escapement is always accompanied with a
decrease of the time.
. something more than this general mode of reasoning
is requisite in order to compare the real value of the dead
escapement with others of equal or higher pretensions, or
of the several contrivances that have been suggested for
remedying its defects. In the year 1827, Mr Airy, the
present astronomer royal, wrote a paper in the Cambridge
Philosophical Transactions, vol. iii. p. 105, on the distur¬
bances of pendulums and the theory of escapements, which,
though erroneous in some of the practical conclusions, is
extremely valuable as the mathematical foundation for sub¬
sequent investigations; it is too long to insert here, and it
may be found in Pratt’s Mechanics. We shall therefore take
it up at the point which is convenient for making the proper
deductions from it. He proved, that if </> is the disturbing
foice on the pendulum of length / at the angle 9 from zero,
a the extreme arc, and g the accelerating force of gravity,
the increase of time of one vibration due to the disturbance
l r <\>9d9 , ,
— ~^a2 J ^/a2 g>: taken between the limits within which
the disturbing force acts. He also gives an expression
for the increase of the arc; but though of course mathe¬
matically correct, it is practically useless, because the in¬
crease of the arc for one vibration is no guide at all to what
it will reach before the influence of friction and the resis¬
tance of the air prevents any further increase.
Proceeding with Mr Airy’s formula for the variation of
the time, and adopting the farther results obtained by Mr
Denison in his paper of 1848, in the eighth volume of the
Cambridge Transactions, let us call the angle which the
impulse faces of the pallets make with the dead faces 8; then,
since the tooth, considered as a prolonged radius of the
wheel, ought to be a tangent to the dead face, S will also be
the inclination of the tooth to the impulse face at the be¬
ginning of the impulse, and it may be assumed to remain the
same throughout: though, in fact, it increases towards the
end of the impulse. Let p be the distance of each pallet
from their arbor, andH<y the moving force of the clock-weight
referred to the points of the scape-wheel, after deductino-
the force required to move the train, M the mass of the
pendulum (supposed to be a simple one) and l its length,
and 6 the angle which the pendulum makes with the ver¬
tical ; then the equation of motion of the pendulum is
d* 6 9 (n , Pp tan S\
t + —Mir)
g Pp tan 8
Mj
CLOCK AND WATCH WORK.
9
Pp tan 8
Clock and
Watch
Work.
dt1
and therefore </>, the disturbing
Ml
force, is
escape¬
ment.
and the increase of time for one vibration, which we may
call
Pp tan h r 9 dt
Ml ir Cj j ZTgi
If /? is the angle before zero at which the impulse begins,
and y the angle after zero at which it ends, and which is
necessarily rather larger than /3, then this integral has to be
taken between the limits 9 = - ft, and 9= y, and the re¬
sult is—
VOL. VII.
A Ml 7ra2 ^ ^ ~ P ~ V“2 - y2)
And as ft and y are always small compared with a, higher
powers than J may be neglected, and the equation may as-
sumethe simpler form A = J (y + ft) {y-ft)
Since in a well-made clock ft may be made very nearly
= y, i.e. the tooth may be made to drop almost exactly on
the corner of the dead face, Mr Airy concludes that “ this
escapement approaches nearly to absolute perfection.” Mr
Denison shows, however, that this conclusion is somewhat
too rapid; that the accuracy which really is found in the
going of a good clock of this kind is due to a cause not
apparent in this value of A ; that an escapement of another
kind, in which A is very much larger, admits of still greater
perfection, inasmuch as it is not the magnitude but the va¬
riation of A which measures the goodness of the clock.
And besides all this, the assumption that the friction of the
pallets does not affect the performance of a dead escape¬
ment clock is very far from correct: on the contrary, it
has generally more to do with the actual errors of time than
all the other causes. In order to arrive at the actual amount
of these errors we will proceed with the examination of
the quantity A.
Let h be the daily fall of the clock-weight Wig, T the
number of beats of the pendulum in the day ( = 86400 if
it is a seconds pendulum) ; the drop of the tooth at each
beat is a little less than the thickness of the pallets, which =
P (y +ft) tan 8; and therefore we may say (intending to
make some deduction afterwards from the actual amount of
W for the friction of the train and the loss of force at
each drop)—
at = (y ~ /^)
Ml 2 77-a3
in which you observe that y + ft has disappeared: y-ft
is seldom made less than 30'; and therefore we may put
L fnr IdA
720
, , Wh
pie form,
for r2 r an(lthat reduces the equation to the sim-
Now, though the clock weight and its daily fall are con¬
stant in any given clock, yet the quantity of this moving
force which arrives at the escapement is not constant, be¬
cause it is diminished by friction, which varies with the state
of the oil and other circumstances; and that produces the
same effect as if the clock-weight itself varied. Let us call
that variation of force on the escapement dW. The clock
is also subject to variations of a, the arc of the pendulum,
partly depending on these changes in the force of the clock
train, but still more upon the variations in the friction on
the pallets themselves, so that no definite relation can be
established between any increase of arc da, and the varia¬
tions of force or friction in the train. And in order to learn
what effect is produced upon the rate of the clock by any
given small changes in the arc or the force, we must
differentiate the above equation, and we shall have (treat¬
ing, as we shall throughout, the differences as finite)
.7 a rn _ Wh / d W 3 da\
T20Mla3 \ W ~ r)
And to this must be added a third term to express the
circular error due to the increase of the arc from a to a + da.
This, as stated before, is theoretically +10800 a da-, but
practically it is a great deal less, from the effect of the
pendulum spring, which has a tendency to isochronize the
pendulum, though all attempts to make it do so completely
have failed, and no other figures can be given for esti¬
mating the actual amount of the circular error. The
10
CLOCK AND WATCH WORK.
the dead
escape-
Clock and quantity we have called dAT is that which is technically
Watch called the daily rate, only with the sign reversed, as the rate
Work. jg a]wayS called + when the clock is gaining, and assuming
the pendulum to be properly adjusted so that the daily rate,
Theory of biit for the escapement errors, would be 0.
Now, as to the numerical value of this quantity in seconds,
or fractions of a second: in an ordinary astronomical clock,
after allowing for the friction of the train, Wk may be
taken as 2 lb. x 9 in.: / is 39 inches, and M about 15 lb.,
and a the angle 2° is ’035 in numerical value. Therefore
Wh
720 Ml a* = ^ secon(l very nearly. As to the other parts
of the expression for c?AT, it generally happens that the
clock gains if the arc falls off, which shows that the two +
terms, and the circular error term, then preponde¬
rate over the other, involving —. Sometimes, however, the
a
contrary is the case, as where the friction on the pallets alone
is altered by oiling them, or by the self-polishing which they
often perform for themselves in the course of a few months
after the clock is made, especially in turret clocks. Mr
Denison says in his Cambridge paper of 1853 (vol. ix.), that
from a number of experiments made for testing the value of
an invention in the Great Exhibition for rendering pendu¬
lums isochronous, as well as from observations made be¬
fore, it is clear that not only can no isochronizing of the pen¬
dulum for different arcs counteract the errors of the dead
escapement; but that when the variation of time is due to
the change of pallet friction, it would be still worse with an
isochronous pendulum, because the circular error (as the
above equation shows) tends to counteract the other error
which is due to the change of arc, da.
Mr Airy showed, in his before-mentioned paper, that the
friction on the dead faces of the pallets, if it acted through
exactly instead of nearly the same arc before and after zero,
would produce no direct effect upon the time. But it is
a great mistake to infer that this friction does not ma¬
terially affect the clock nevertheless. The fallacy of such
an inference is shown at once by the above expressions for
the escapement errors; for the effect of all the friction on
the pallets is to reduce the arc, or to require a larger force
to produce the same arc. And as the cube of the arc ap¬
pears in the denominator, and a large increase of force is re¬
quired to produce a small increase of arc, it is obvious that
the friction on the pallets indirectly and largely increases
all the errors of the escapement, although it may produce
very little direct effect upon the time, as compared with that
of a free pendulum vibrating the same arc. In order to di¬
minish the friction and the necessity for using oil as far as
possible, the best clocks are made with jewels (sapphires
are the best for the purpose) let into the pallets. Mr Dent
used them in the large clock at the Royal Exchange, pro¬
bably the first time they had ever been used in a turret
clock, though softer and cheaper stones had been occasion¬
ally used.
The pallets are generally made to embrace about one-
third of the circumference of the wheel, and it is not at all
desirable that they should embrace more; for the longer
they are, the longer is the run of the teeth upon them, and
the greater the friction. In the Great Exhibition Messrs
Wagner of Paris had an apparatus for practically illustrating
this, which however is obvious enough without any illus¬
tration. There is a good deal of difference in the practice
of clockmakers as to the length of the impulse, or the amount
of the angle y + fi- Sometimes you see clocks in which the
seconds hand moves very slowly and rests a very short time,
showing that y + /3 is large in proportion to 2a; and in
others the contrary. The transit clock at Greenwich was
altered by the late Mr Dent to a short impulse, the escape
taking place at only 30r after zero ; and he was decidedly of Clock and
opinion that a short impulse was the best, probably because
there is less of the force of the impulse wasted in friction v ' y
then. It is not to be forgotten, as Mr Bloxam remarks in
his paper on escapements in the I'raTisactioTis erf the Astro¬
nomical Society for 1853, that the scape-wheel tooth does
not overtake the face of the pallet immediately, on account
of the moment of inertia of the wheel. The wheels of as¬
tronomical clocks, indeed of all English house-clocks, aie
generally made too heavy, especially the scape-wheel, which
by increasing the moment of inertia, requires a larger force,
and consequently more friction. We shall show presently,
from another escapement, how much of the force is really
wasted in friction in the dead escapement.
But before proceeding to other escapements, it is proper pin.wheei
to notice a very useful form of the dead escapement, which escape-
is adopted in many of the best turret clocks, called the pin- ment.
wheel escapement, the invention of which is commonly as¬
cribed to Lepaute of Paris about the middleof the last century,
though it appears to have been used as early by Whitehurst
of Derby. Fig. 6 will
sufficiently explain its ac¬
tion and construction. Its
advantages are :— that it
does not require so much
accuracy as the other; if
a pin gets broken, it is
easily replaced, whereas
in the other the wheel is
ruined if the point of a
tooth is injured; a wheel
of given size will work
with many more pins than
teeth, and therefore a train
of less velocity will do,
and that in fact sometimes
amounts to a saving of
one wheel in the train,
and a good deal of fric¬
tion ; and the blow on both pallets being downwards, in¬
stead of one up and the other down, the action is more
steady; all of which things are of more consequence in the
heavy and rough work of a turret clock than in an astrono¬
mical one. The pins are generally semicylinders, as the
upper half of the cylinder would obviously be of no use, and
would waste nearly half the force in drop without action.
But when the wheel is small, and the pallets short, as they
ought to be for the reason before given, it is impossible to
get a short angle of escape with semicylindrical pins unless
they are very small, and therefore Mr Denison suggested
the form on the left side of fig. 6, which Mr Dent used in
his Great Exhibition clock, and subsequently in others. The
pins are bits of brass wire driven into the wheel, about ten
for every inch of diameter, and then the upper half, and
a small slice of the bottom, cut off in a cutting engine. The
distance of the lowest pallet from their axis should not be
more than the diameter of the wheel. The cross section of
pallets as now generally made is convex, and not flat, which
involves greater accuracy, and therefore greater risk of in¬
accuracy. It has also been found expedient to make the
dead faces not quite dead, but with a very slight recoil,
which rather tends to check the variations of the arc, and
also the general disposition to lose time if the arc is in¬
creased ; when so made, the escapement is generally called
“ half-dead.”
Passing by the various other modifications of the dead Single pin
escapement which have been suggested and tried with little escape-
or no success, we proceed to describe one of an entirely ment.
different form, which was patented in 1851 by Mr C. Mac-
dowall of Hyde Street, Bloomsbury, though it appeared
afterwards that one very similar to it had been tried before
Tig. 6.
Ft is
Work.
Q
Fig. 7.
Clock and but failed from the proportions being badly arranged.
Watch represented in fig. 7. The scape-wheel
is only a small disc with a single pin in it5
^ made of a ruby, parallel, and very near to
the arbor. The disc turns half round at
every beat of the pendulum, and the pin
gives the impulse on the vertical faces
of the pallets, and the dead friction takes
place on the horizontal faces. Its ad¬
vantages are, that the greatest part of the
impulse is given directly across the line
of centres, and consequently with very
little friction; and therefore, also, the
friction on the dead faces is less than
usual, and scarcely any oil is required; it
is also very easy to make. But there
must be two more wheels in the train,
consuming a good deal of the force of the
clock-weight by their friction, which
rather more than makes up for the friction
saved in the escapement. It has how¬
ever been applied successfully to watches,
and they appear to be affected by cold
less than the common lever watch with its
oblique impulse, exactly like that of the
common dead escapement. A prize
medal was awarded for it in the Exhibi¬
tion. Jn order to make the angle of escape not more
than 1°, the distance of the pin from the centre of the disc
must not be more than -g^j-th of the distance of centres of the
disc and pallets.
With the view of getting rid of one of these extra wheels
in the train, and that part of the impulse which is least
effective and most oblique, Mr Denison shortly afterwards
invented what he called the three-legged dead escapement;
which, though he afterwards superseded it by his three-
legged gravity escapement, is still worth notice on account
of the exceedingly small force which it requires, thereby
giving a practical proof of the large proportion of the
force which is wasted in friction in all the other impulse
escapements. v
In fig. 8, the three long teeth of the scape-wheel are
only used for locking on
the dead pallets DE, which
are set on the front of the
pallet plate ; AB are the
impulse pallets, being hard
bits of steel or jewels set in
the pallet plate, and they
are acted on by the three
sharp-edged pins which are
set in the scape-wheel
pointing backwards. As
soon as the pendulum moves
a little further to the left
than is here shown, the long
tooth will slip past the dead
pallet or stop D, and the
pin at B will run after and
CLOCK AND WATCH WORK.
11
Three-
legged
dead es¬
capement,
Fig. 8.
catch the corner of that impulse pallet, and drive it until the
wheel has turned through 60°, and then it will escape ; and
by that time the uppermost tooth will arrive at the stop E,
and will slide along it as in the common dead escapement, but
with a pressure as much less than that which gives the im¬
pulse as the points of the teeth are further from the centre
of the wheel than the impulse pins are. But the impulse
is here given with so little friction, that even where the
points of the teeth were made identical with the pins, the
clock-weight required to keep the same pendulum with the
same train (a common turret-clock movement), swinoing
the usual arc of 2°, was only one-fifth of what had been re¬
work.
q led with the common pin-wheel escapement. It appears Clock and
also that it would be possible so to adjust the recoil of the Watch
half-dead pallets that the time would not be affected by any
small variation of the force and the arc; since it was found
that, u hen a certain amount of recoil was given, the clock
gained instead of losing, under an increase of arc due to an
inciease of clock-weight. And if the force were kept con¬
stant by a train-remontoire, such as will be described here¬
after, there would in fact be nothing capable of altering the
arc or the time. But on account of the small depth of inter¬
section of the circles of the pins and the pallets, on which its
action depends, this escapement requires very careful adjust¬
ment of the pallets; and considering the superior qualities of
the corresponding gravity escapement, it is not likely to be
used, except perhaps in clocks required to go a long time, in
which economy of force is a matter of consequence. The
pallets should be connected with the pendulum by a spring
foi k (which indeed is advisable in the other dead escapements
with a heavy pendulum, especially the pin-wheel escape¬
ment), to prevent the risk of their driving backwards against
the scape-wheel when it is not in motion, as it will not
clear itself. 1 he distance of the centres should be not less
than 2o times the radius of the circle of the edges of the im¬
pulse pins.
REMONTOIRE, OR GRAVITY ESCAPEMENTS.
A remontoire escapement is one in which the pendulum
does not receive its impulse from the scape-wheel, but from
some small weight or spring which is lifted or wound up by
the scape-wheel at every beat, and the pendulum has no¬
thing to do with the scape-wheel except unlocking it.
When this impulse is received from a weight the escape¬
ment is also called a gravity escapement; and inasmuch as
all the remontoire clock escapements that are worth notice
have been gravity escapements, we may use that term for
them at once. The importance of getting the impulse
given to the pendulum in this way was recognised lontr be¬
fore all the properties of the dead escapement, as above in¬
vestigated, were known. For it was soon discovered that,
however superior to the old recoil escapement, it was for
fiom perfect, and that its success depended on reducing the
friction of the train and the pallets as for as possible, wfoich
involves the necessity of high-numbered pinions and wheels,
small pivots, jewelled pallets, and a generally expensive
style of workmanship. Accordingly the invention of an
escapement which will give a constant impulse to the pen¬
dulum, and nearly free from friction, has been for the last
century the great problem of clock-making. We can do no
more than shortly notice a very few of the attempts which
have been made to solve it. The most simple form of gravity
escapement, and the
one which will serve
the best for investigat¬
ing their mathemati¬
cal properties (though
it fails in some essential
mechanical conditions)
is that exhibited in
fig. 9. The tooth A
of the scape-wheel is
there resting against
the stop or detent a at
the end of the pallet
CA, from the axis or
arbor of which de¬
scends the half fork
CP to touch the pen¬
dulum. From the other
pallet CB descends
the other half fork CQ.
The two arbors are set
Fig. 9.
12
CLOCK AND WATCH WORK.
Clock and as near the point of suspension, or top of the pendulum
'VYatch spring, as possible. The pendulum, as here represented,
Work. jYjugt moving to the right and just leaving contact
with the left pallet and going to take up the right one ; as
Gravity es- soon as it has raised that pallet a little it will evidently un-
capements. iock the wheel and let it turn, and then the tooth B will
raise the left pallet until it is caught by the stop b on that
pallet, and then it will stay until the pendulum returns and
releases it by raising that pallet still higher. Each pallet
therefore descends with the pendulum to a lower point than
that where it is taken up, and the difference between them
is supplied by the lifting of each pallet by the clock, which
does not act on the pendulum at all; so that the pendulum
is independent of all variations of force and friction in the
train. . .
If the angle of the pendulum after zero, at which it takes
up the pallet is called y, and that at which it leaves the
other d= /?, according as the pendulum is then ascending
or descending, the impulse is received through y ±
And if one pallet is taken up just when the other is left,
the angle of impulse becomes 2 y, equally divided on
each side of zero. Let P be the mass, and therefore Pc/
the weight of each pallet, p the distance of its centie
of gravity from the axis C, and 8 the angle which a straight
line from C to that centre of gravity would make with
the pendulum when they are in contact; M the mass,
and l the length of the pendulum, as before ; then the equa¬
tion of motion of the pendulum (omitting the small mo¬
ment of inertia of the pallets as immaterial to this investi¬
gation) will be
<pe
dl?
= -f{
sin 0 +
in the density of the air or in the very small friction of the Clock and
pallets on their pivots or on the stops. We must therefore Wratch
differentiate AT with regard to a, and then we have—
Work.
ri'AT =
Wh
Ml 770
L-i
V|-.
da
Pp sin (8 + 6) ^
M j
This will expand into terms containing sin 6, for which
6 may be substituted because it is very small, and one in¬
volving cos 0, which for the same reason may be treated
as = 1 ; those containing 0 only produce a permanent altera¬
tion of the time, just as if l wns altered; the other is the
term to which the escapement errors are due. Mr Denison
shows, by following up Mr Airy’s calculations, that fiom
this equation may be deduced the result, that the daily in¬
crease of time over that of the same • pendulum swinging
freely, due to this cause, may be thus expressed:
AT - _ ^U^-Z+J"2-/32)
Ai “ Ml tv a2 (y + P)
Wh being the clock-weight X its daily fall, after deducting
for all the friction involved in moving the train and lifting
the pallets. If the descending pallet is left by the pen¬
dulum before zero, we must remember that y + /3 becomes
y - /3, and consequently AT much larger than where the
impulse is given through the middle of the arc. If one
pallet is taken up by the pendulum just when it leaves the
other (which is the best form of the escapement), then /3
= y, and the expression assumes the more simple form—
Am Wh /a1 7
AT = - -jrjj 2\/ -2- - L
Ml 77 a * y
The — sign indicates that the rate of a pendulum with
this escapement is faster than without it, and the difference
is a good deal more than the difference the other way in
the case of a dead escapement. Hence too it follows that
if you reduce the arc in a gravity escapement by lightening
the pallets, the clock will not gain, but lose, because light¬
ening the pallets is lowering the centre of gravity of the
compound pendulum, which is formed by the pendulum
and pallets together. But it does not follow that a gravity
escapement must therefore be inferior to a dead one; for
the going of the clock depends not on the magnitude, but
on the variation, of this quantity AT; and where a gravity
escapement is free from the usual mechanical defects, which
will be noticed presently, the variation of rate can only
arise from some slight change in the arc, owing to a change
And it is evident that if y is made = = 71a, this quan¬
tity vanishes altogether: that is to say, the variation of the
difference of time of a gravity escapement pendulum from a
free pendulum of the same length may be made nothing by
making the difference itself a maximum; for this happens
to be a maximum, and not a minimum, though the result
would of course be the same in that case, by virtue of the
well known property of maxima and minima. And it is not
necessary to adhere strictly to this proportion of a and y.
Mr Denison found that, after allowing for the friction of the
train, the quantity cannot be more than t£<j in the
great Westminster clock ; and Mr Bloxam found it rather
more in an astronomical clock pendulum, as it ought to
be, because a light pendulum loses more of its vibration by
the resistance of the air than a heavy one; but it will be
seen, by applying this value to the above expression for the
rate, that the variation will be quite inconsiderable for any
such change of arc as is likely to occur in a gravity escape¬
ment, even if y be made as small as g- •
In those escapements where the pendulum leaves one
pallet before it takes up the other, the expression for the
variation of rate is
Wh da ( a2 — 2y2 a2-2£2
(y + £) { n/ 77772 + V a2- yS2
tfAT =
Ml
remembering that if the descending pallet is left before
zero, y + becomes y — /3; from which it is evident that
that kind of escapement is very inferior to the other, al¬
though the pendulum being left free in the middle of its
swing has a tempting appearance. Indeed this result may
be easily arrived at without mathematics, because the angle
through which the impulse is given (the difference between
the drop and the lift of each pallet), is necessarily smaller
when one is dropped before zero ; and consequently any
given variation of the arc of vibration bears a larger propor¬
tion to the arc of impulse, and also to the whole arc through
which the pallets act on the pendulum at all. This expres¬
sion however may be reduced to 0 like the former one, by
making a, (3, and y satisfy a certain condition, viz.:—
A/a2 - y2 A/a2 - (32 = ^
Thus if y = 90' instead of 85', ± (3 should = 78', a be¬
ing taken at 2° as usual; but for the reason just now given,
any deviation from these proportions will produce much
larger errors where the descending pallet is left before zero
than where it is left just when the other is taken up. Mr
Bloxam notices the changes of the density of the air as
sensibly affecting the arc and the rate of a gravity escape¬
ment pendulum ; probably they affect a dead escapement
less, because there the friction on the pallets greatly pre¬
ponderates over every other cause of disturbance. He says
(p. 133, note), that though “ it has been repeatedly proved
in works on dynamics that the resistance of the air does not
alter the time of vibration, this is only true on the supposi¬
tion that the resistance is the same in the ascent and the
descentwhereas the current produced by the increasing
velocity in the descent prevents the ascent from being re¬
tarded as it would be if the air were at rest; and he has no
doubt that any increased density of the air makes the pen-
CLOCK AND WATCH WORK.
13
Clock and dulum go slower ; as indeed it must from this cause also,
Watch that it practically diminishes the specific gravity of the pen-
Wor^- dulum; and therefore a rise of the barometer tends to
make the clock gain, some persons have thought, as much
as ^ or £ of a second a-day for one inch. But there does,
not seem yet to exist any sufficient collection of experiments
to allow a definite conclusion to be arrived at as to the
magnitude of this disturbance. No doubt the resistance of
the air tends to diminish considerably the effect of the cir¬
cular error, which Mr Bloxam and others have found to be
always much less than its theoretical value, even judging
from the dead escapement with its large amount of friction.
Besides the above mathematical condition, there are seve¬
ral mechanical ones which are still more essential to the
success of a gravity escapement. The first is, that it must
be safe from what is called tripping. Referring again to
fig. 9, it will be seen at once that if the scape-wheel should
happen to move too fast when it is released, the left pallet
will not be raised gradually by the tooth B, but be thrown
up with a jerk, perhaps so high that the tooth slips past the
hook ; and then not only will that tooth slip, but several
more, and at last when the wheel is stopped it will be run¬
ning fast, and the points of some of the teeth will probably
be bent or broken by catching against the pallet. And even
if the pallet is not raised high enough for the tooth to get
past or completely trip, it may still be raised so high that
the point of the tooth does not rest on the hook exactly
where the slope of the pallet ends, but lower, and the fric¬
tion between them is quite enough to keep the pallet there ;
and consequently the pendulum does not begin to lift it at
the angle y, but at some larger angle; and as the pallet
always descends with the pendulum to the same point the
duration of the impulse is increased, and the pendulum
made to swing farther. Mr Denison calls this approximate
tripping, and though not so injurious to the clock as actual
tripping, it is obviously fatal to its accurate performance,
though it appears not to have been noticed before. Various
contrivances have been resorted to for the purpose of get¬
ting rid of the liability to trip. Gumming, the first inventor
of gravity escapements, used two pairs of pallets, one pair
being only for the locking, and not lifted at all by the scape-
wheel, but only by the pendulum ; and this was effectual;
but still the teeth suffered in time from the constant blows
on the pallets, and the friction at unlocking was consider¬
able. Hardy’s escapement was just the same in principle,
but worse, because he set the four pallets on springs instead
of pivots, which being stronger in cold weather, and acting
on the pendulum at the extremity of its arc, made the clock
gain in winter ; and accordingly his escapement was taken
out of the transit clock at Greenwich by Mr Dent, and re¬
placed by a dead escapement, with a short angle of escape, as
before mentioned. The late Captain Kater invented an
escapement in which he attempted to get rid of tripping by
making the impulse pallets drop on to an anchor, like that of
a dead escapement with the impulse faces cut off, and so
unlock the wheel by their own weight. Mr Gowland’s
escapement was on the same principle as regards the un¬
locking, but he provided against tripping by putting paddles
on to the pallets descending into a pot of oil. M. Gannery of
Paris had an escapement in the Great Exhibition also on
this principle as to the unlocking, but to prevent the trip
he gave the wheel only a few teeth and a long run, with a
very gradual rise of the pallets. Mr Bloxam had previously
done the same thing with a wheel also of nine teeth, and
with much less friction, as will be noticed presently. But
on account of the delicacy required in all of these escape¬
ments (which we select out of a multitude of others as the
best of their respective classes), and other objections, none
of them have ever come into use. In fact, none of the in¬
ventors of them seem to have felt sufficient confidence in
their success to venture upon a coarse and cheap train of
wheels ; whereas, if a gravity escapement is not so indepen- Clock and
dent of the force of the train that all variations in its friction Watch
may be disregarded, it fails in the most essential point, and Work,
descends to the condition of a common impulse escapement.
For this reason also it is necessary that it should be in- Gravity
dependent of oil, or, at any rate, that the friction which escaPe-
affects the pendulum in unlocking should be so small that ments-
no difference can be perceived in the arc whether oil is used
or not. The oil in the parts which do not affect the pen¬
dulum is of no consequence, for the same reason that the
friction of the train is of no consequence—if the escape¬
ment is what it professes to be. And lastly, it is essential
to the success of a gravity escapement that it should be
easy to make and tolerably cheap ; for, considering the ac¬
curacy of performance which can be attained by a highly
finished dead escapement clock, there is no chance of su¬
perseding it unless you can get at least as much accuracy
with less expense. The only one of the above-mentioned Bloxam’s.
escapements which approaches near enough to satisfying
all these conditions to be worth any further description is
Mr Bloxam’s; and we accordingly give a sketch of it in
fig. 10, which is copied (with a little alteration for distinct¬
ness) from his own description of it, communicated in
1853 to the Astronomical
Society, some years after he
had had it in action in a
clock of his own; it had
also been before described
in Mr Denison’s book. This
drawing will enable any one
conversant with these mat¬
ters to understand its action.
He made the pallet arbors
cranked, to embrace the
pendulum spring, so that
theircentresof motion might
coincide with that of the
pendulum as nearly as pos¬
sible ; perhaps an unneces¬
sary refinement; at least the
three-legged gravity escape¬
ment which we shall present¬
ly describe, answers very well
with the pallet arbors set on
each side of the top of the Fig. to.
spring. The size of the wheel determines the length of the
pallets, as they must be at such an angle to each other that
the radii of the wheel when in contact with each stop may be
at right angles to the pallet arm; and therefore, for awheel of
this size the depth of locking can only be very small. The
pinion in Mr Bloxam’s clock only raises the pallet through 40'
at each beat, i. e. the angle which we called y is only 20'; and
probably if it were increased to anything like
n/2
the escape¬
ment would trip immediately. The two broad pins marked
E, F, are the fork-pins. The clock which Mr Bloxam had,
went very well; but it had an extremely fine train with
pinions of 18; and we know that the late Mr Dent was
always afraid to adopt the escapement, on account of the
great delicacy involved in it; and though the consequent
expense would have been of little consequence in the great
Westminster clock, yet the risk of the teeth breaking if
the wheel got a run, from any accidental lifting of the pal¬
lets, and the apparent impossibility of making y even nearly
satisfy the proper mathematical condition without risk of
tripping, were considered by the Astronomer Royal and Mr
Denison sufficient reasons for not requiring it to be intro¬
duced. It should, however, be stated that Mr Bloxam is
ot opinion that a = 5 y is a better proportion than a = 3 y,
on account of the effects of variation of density of the air,
as before mentioned. It was not till nearly a year after
14
CLOCK AND WATCH WORK.
Work.
Denison’s
gravity
escape¬
ment.
Clock and that clock was begun, that Mr Denison converted his three-
Watch legged dead escapement into the gravity escapement, which
is used there, and which we shall now describe. It will be
observed that the three teeth or legs are no longer straight,
as in figure 8, but bent, so that the lifting pins and the
points of the teeth would lie alternately on the radii of a
hexagon. The pins too are no
longer sharp, but plain bits of
brass wire rivetted into the
scape-wheel, which is of steel,
in an astronomical clock about
■jJg-th inch thick, and £th in a
turret clock. The pins raise
the pallets by the projecting
faces A, B, and the long teeth
rest on the stops D, E, which
are bits of steel screwed on,
and hardened after they are
adjusted. The points of the
teeth are about six times as far
from the centre as the pins are,
and consequently their pressure
on the stops is not enough to
hold the pallets up if they do by
accident get thrown too high ;
and thus the affects of approxi¬
mate tripping are prevented ;
for the pallet immediately falls \
down again, and rests against
the pin which lifted it until the
pendulum returns and carries
it off: moreover the friction at
unlocking is thus rendered in¬
sensible. The beat is adjusted
by two thumb screws with c
broad and slightly convex steel
heads set in the pendulum rod,
which are embraced by brass
fork pins from the bottom of
the pallets. In turret clocks,
where there is plenty of room,
there are no beat screws, but
the fork pins are made eccentric
and so adjustable by the nuts
which fix them to the pallets.
In the finest clocks the lifting L^J
faces of the pallets are jew- Fig- n.
elled, so that no oil is required. In turret clocks, how¬
ever, there has been a striking proof that the escapement
is sufficiently independent of oil; for the first of these clocks
wras sent out to the cathedral at Fredericton (indeed Mr
Denison was led to invent it from being requested to see if
any clock could be made which would go tolerably well
through the cold of 40° below zero, which they have there
in winter), and the person who takes care of it reports that
he could observe no variation of the arc during the last
winter, even while the oil was frozen as hard as tallow.
But we have not yet noticed a very material feature in
this escapement, viz., the fly, which is set on the scape-wheel
arbor, with a friction spring, just like a common striking
fly. It is this which moderates the velocity and renders
it safe against tripping, and against any damage to the teeth
from an accidental run, the motion of 60° at each beat being
quite enough to render the fly effective. In turret clocks
the fly is made about 5 inches long in each vane, and 1^
broad; in regulators, or clocks of astronomical size, about l|
long and ^ broad. The stop E, which is struck upwards,
should be set a little higher than the scape-wheel centre;
for if not, the blow has a tendency to throw the pallet out
and make it trip, if the force is much increased; the other
stop D may be about on a level with the centre. The dis-
A
tance of the pins from the centre may be about g\th of the Clock and
distance of that centre from the pallet arbors; and the weight Watch
of the pallets should be such as to make the pendulum ^ Work, ^
swing not less than 2°, nor more than 2^° : this makes ^
a = 3y or thereabouts. In regulators, the distance of cen¬
tres has been generally made 6 inches (the scape-wheel
being put near the bottom instead of the top of the frame),
and in turret clocks 9 inches, except in the great West¬
minster clock, where it is 12 inches, on account of the great
size of the pendulum, which was made before this escape¬
ment was invented. For, besides the other advantages, it
supersedes the necessity for a long and heavy pendulum,
which is generally wanted to resist the variations of force in
the escapement; but here no such variations exist, at least
none that reach the pendulum. There seems, however,
one objection to it for observatory clocks, viz., that the beat
makes very little noise; perhaps it might be made loud
enough by increasing the weight of the scape-wheel, so as
to make the blow on the pallets heavier. Before it was
adopted for the Westminster clock, it was tried at the Royal
Observatory in a common regulator ; and Mr Airy, who was,
as we have seen, not likely to be prejudiced in favour of
gravity escapements, expressed his complete satisfaction with
its performance, after trying upon it what he described as
some “ malicious experiments.” Several clocks of this kind
have been since made by Mr Dent and a few other clock-
makers, the turret clocks with cast-iron wheels, and the re¬
gulators with pinions of only 8 and even 6 leaves ; and the
weight may be doubled without affecting the arc or the
rate. It only remains to be added, that it is very easy to
make, and requires less delicacy than the common dead
escapement; and as it is not patented, it may be made by
anybody. We may now proceed to matters involving merely
mechanical, and not mathematical considerations.
GOING BARRELS.
A clock which is capable of going accurately must have
some contrivance to keep it going while you are winding it
up. In the old-fashioned house-clocks which were wound
up by merely pulling one of the strings, and in which one
such winding served for both the going and striking parts,
this was done by what is called the endless chain of Huy¬
gens, which consists of a string or chain with the ends joined
together, and passing over two pulleys with deep grooves
and spikes in them, so that the chain cannot slip. In one
of the two loops or festoons which hang down from the
upper pulleys, is a loose pulley, without spikes, carrying the
clock weight, and in the other a small weight only heavy
enough to keep the chain close to the upper pulleys. Now,
suppose one of those pulleys to be on the arbor of the great
wheel of the striking part, with a ratchet and click, and
the other pulley fixed to the arbor of the great wheel of the
going part. Then (whenever the clock is not striking) you
may pull up the weight by pulling down that part of the
string which hangs down from the other side of the striking
part; and yet the weight will be acting on the going part
all the time. And it would be just the same if you wound
up the striking part and its pulley with a key, instead of
pulling the string; and also the same, if there were no striking
part at all, but the second pulley were put on a blank arbor,
except that in that case the weight would take twice as long
to run down, supposing that the striking part generally
requires the same weight x fall as the going part.
This kind of “ going barrel,” however, is evidently not
suited to the delicacy of an astronomical clock; and Harri¬
son’s going ratchet is now universally adopted in such clocks,
and also in chronometers and watches, for keeping the action
of the train on the escapement during the winding. This fig.
12 (in which the same letters are used as in the correspond¬
ing parts of fig. 1) shows its construction. The click of
the barrel ratchet R is set upon another larger ratchet-
CLOCK AND WATCH WORK.
Work.
Clock and wheel, with its teeth pointing the opposite way, and its
Watch click r T is set in the clock-frame. That ratchet is con-
' nected with the great wheel by a spring ^ s pressing against
the two pins s in the
ratchet, and s in the
wheel. When you
wind up the weight
(which is equivalent to
taking it off), the click
T r prevents that
ratchet from turning
back or to the right;
and as the springs,?' was
kept by the weight in
a state of tension equi¬
valent to the weight
itself, it will drive the
wheel to the left for
a short distance, when
its end s is held fast,
with the same force as
if that end was pulled
forward by the weight;
15
Fig. 12.
Bolt and
shutter.
and as the great wheel has to move very little during the
short time the clock is winding, the spring will keep the
clock going long enough.
In the commoner kind of turret clocks a more simple ap¬
paratus is used, which goes by the name of the bolt and
shutter, because it consists of a weighted lever with a broad
end, which shuts up the winding hole until you lift it, and
then a spring-bolt attached to tlie lever, or its arbor, runs
into the teeth of one of the wheels, and the weight of the
lever keeps the train going until the bolt has run itself out
of gear. This spring bolt is sometimes made—and by
manufacturers of turret clocks, who ought to know better—
in the form of a click, so contrived that in one position of
the wheel teeth it will not fall between them, but jams
against the top, and stops the clock at once. Moreover, in
the common construction of this apparatus there is nothing
to ensure its being raised high enough to keep in gear the
whole time of winding, if the man loiters over it, or, on the
other hand, to enable him to take it out of action when he
has done. For this purpose Mr Denison recommends the
arbor of the bolt and shutter to be made to pump in and out
of gear ; and, instead of the shutter covering the winding
hole, to let it end in a circular arc advanced just far enough
to prevent the key or winder from being put on, by obstruct¬
ing a ring set on the end of the winder. In order to get the
winder on, you must raise the lever high enough for the
arc to clear the ring. During the two or three minutes
which the clock may take to wind the arc will be descend
ing again behind the ring, so that now you cannot get the
winder off again without also pulling the maintaining power
out of gear; so that even if it is constructed to keep in ac¬
tion ten minutes, if required, still it will never remain in ac¬
tion longer than the actual time of winding.
In clocks with a train remontoire it is hardly safe to
rely on a spring going barrel ; and, accordingly, in the
Royal Exchange clock, Mr Dent adopted a self-acting
going barrel, invented by Mr Airy; but on account of the
great expense involved in it, it has never been used again ;
and where it is of consequence (which it seldom can be
in a large clock) to avoid the duplication of force for the
moment before the man begins winding, and after he has
done, it may be done by a self-acting apparatus of very
simple character which Mr Denison contrived for the great
M estminster clock, because such a large clock would require
an inconveniently heavy bolt and shutter work, if it was to
be done in that way. In that clock a bar hangs obliquely
from the arbor of the great wheel, behind it; and in the
lower end of this bar is the pivot of the arbor of the wind-
Work.
ing pinion, and it has a click which takes into a ratchet Clock and
cast on the back of the great wheel. When you begin to Watch
wind up, the bar is prevented from running upwards by the
click, and for the time it becomes the same as if the back
pivot of the winding arbor, or the fulcrum for turning the
winding pinion, was in the great wheel itself; and conse¬
quently the act of winding, or turning the barrel to the left
by means of the wheel on its end, close to the great wheel,
tends also to turn the great wheel itself to the right, which
is its proper direction. In fact, the force upon it is rather
greater in winding than when not winding, which is of no
consequence ; if it were, it might be compensated by weight¬
ing the lever to the amount of the difference. The winding
arbor is very long, the clock frame being no less than 4^
feet wide, and therefore its angular play in the front pivot-
hole during the time of winding is very little. It pumps out,
so as to pull the pinion out of gear with the winding wheel.
EQUATION CLOCKS.
It is hardly worth while to occupy any space in describing
a machine so nearly obsolete as what used to be called equa¬
tion [i. e. equation of time) clocks. Their object was to
show true solar, or sundial time, instead of mean solar time,
which, as we all know from the almanacs, is as much as 16
minutes behind the sun in November, and 14 minutes be¬
fore it in February, and they only agree four times in the
year. These clocks were never much used in England:
in Paris, even the public clocks, until the year 1826, were
furnished with equation work so as to show solar time. But
as the principle of this machinery is remarkable, and may
be useful for some other purposes, we will shortly indicate
the nature of it.
In fig. 13 let Aa be the hour-wheel of the common dial
work, with its arbor prolonged to
C, and turning the opposite way to
what the hands are intended to
turn. The minute-hand is set on
a pipe b of the wheel B6, which
rides on the arbor «C. Both of
these are bevelled wheels of the
same number of teeth, and they
are connected by an intermediate
bevelled wheel or pinion D, of any
number. This pinion rides on the
end of the bar ED, which itself
rides on the arbor «C, at right
angles to it. Now, so long as the
end D of the bar ED is held fast,
the wheel B, which carries the
hand, will turn in one hour exactly
as A does, only the opposite way.
But if while A is moving uniformly
with the clock train, we move ED
with its pinion, it will evidently
superadd another motion to B be¬
sides that which it receives from
A. If we move ED through a in the same direction as B
is naturally moving, it will give B an additional motion of
2a; and if we move the bar the other way it will diminish
B’s motion by the same angle 2a. If then the end of the
bar is made to travel on the edge of a plate of the shape
shown at Q<7, turning in a year on a centre O, the hand
wheel will be constantly accelerated or retarded from the
mean time of the other wheel, according as the point of the
plate in contact with D is at a longer or shorter distance
from its centre O than the average. The equation plate
of course is not really in the position drawn here in order
to exhibit its shape, but in a plane parallel to the wheels A
and B, and it is driven by a slow train of wheels or an end¬
less screw from the arbor a. Instead of bevelled wheels, it
will be the same thing if we put a common pinion between
Fig. 13.
CLOCK AND WATCH WORK.
16
Clock and a common spur-wheel on the arbor a, and an internal
Work1 w^ee^ (*• e- a wheel with teeth on the inside of its rim) in
v , the place of B ; only in that case the two wheels will move
"" with different velocities in proportion to the numbers of
their teeth. The pinion between them rides on a stud in
the side of the bar, which rides on the main arbor at one
end, and the other end rests on the equation plate, as be¬
fore. Or again, it may be done without either bevelled or
internal wheels, by an arrangement like that which we shall
have to describe (see fig. 16) under the head of train re-
montoires. Professor Willis, in his Principles of Mecha¬
nism, gives the name of encyclical trains to all these ar¬
rangements for adding a secondary motion to a wheel with¬
out interfering with the primary motion which it receives
from the principal train.
We cannot stop to describe the various contrivances for
making clocks show the days of the month, periods of the
moon, and other phenomena. The old day of the month
clocks required setting at the end of every month which
has not 31 days, and have long been obsolete. We have
lately seen some cheap clocks made at Wolverhampton (the
first attempt at rivalling the American clocks) with day
of the month work which does not require setting; but
it would take more space to describe than our limits allow,
and we must proceed to matters of more common use.
STRIKING CLOCKS.
There are two kinds of striking work used in clocks. The
older of them, which is still used in all the foreign clocks,
and in most turret clocks in England also, will not allow the
striking of any hour to be either omitted or repeated, without
making the next hour strike wrong; whereas, in that which
is used in all the English house clocks, the number of blows
to be struck depends merely on the position of a wheel at¬
tached to the going part; and therefore the striking of any
hour may be omitted or repeated without deranging the
Locking- following ones. In turret clocks there is no occasion for the
plate move- repeating movement; and for the purpose of describing the
meat. other which is called the locking-plate movement, we may
as well refer to fig. 18, which is the front view of a large
clock, striking both hours and quarters on this plan. In the
hour part (on the left), you observe a bent lever BAH,
called the “ lifting piece,” of which the end H has just been
let off by the snail on the hour wheel 40 of the going part;
and at the other end there are two stops (not shown in the
drawing as they were intended to be), one behind, and
rather below the other; and against the upper one the bent
end of a short lever 9 B, which is fixed to the arbor of the
fly, is now resting. We omit the description of the action
of the wheels, because it is evident enough. At D may be
seen a piece projecting from the lever AB, and dropping
into a notch in the wheel 78. That wheel is the locking
wheel or locking plate ; and it has in reality notches such as
D all round it, at distances 2, 3, up to 12, from any given
point in the circumference, which may be considered as
marked off into 78 spaces, that being the number of blows
struck in 12 hours. These notches are shown in the lock¬
ing plate of the quarter part in fig. 18, but not in the hour
part, for want of size to show them distinctly. Now, when
the arm AB of the lifting piece is raised by the snail a few
minutes before the hour, the fly-pin slips past the first of the
stops at B, but is stopped by the second and lower one, until
the lever is dropped again exactly at the hour. Thus the
pin can pass, and would turn once round freely, allowing
the train to go on a little; but before it has got once
round, the lifting piece has been lifted again high enough to
let both stops clear the fly-pin, by means of the cylinder,
with two slices taken off it, which is set on the arbor of the
wheel 90, and on which the end of the lifting piece rests by
means of a small roller (to diminish the friction). If the
clock has only to strike one, the lifting piece will then drop
again, and the fly-pin will be caught by the first stop, having clock and
made (according to the numbers of the teeth given in fig. Watch
18), 5 turns. But if it has to strike more, the locking Work,
wheel comes into action. That wheel turns with the train,
either by pinion 20 as shown here, or by a gathering pallet
on the arbor of the second wheel, and it will easily be seen
that when once the lifting piece is lifted out of a notch in
the locking plate, it cannot fall again until another notch has
come under the bit D ; and as the distance of the notches is
proportioned to the hours, the locking plate thus determines
the number of blows struck. It may occur to the reader,
that the cylinder and roller are not really wanted, and that
the locking plate would do as well without; and sometimes
clocks are so made, but it is not safe ; for the motion of the
locking plate is so slow, that unless everything is very care¬
fully adjusted and no shake left, the corner of the notch may
not have got fairly under the bit D before the fly has got
once round, and then the lifting piece will drop before the
clock can strike at all.
Fig. 14 shows the other kind of striking work, being the Repeating
front view of an English house clock when the dial is taken movement,
off. As in fig. 1, M is the hour-wheel, on the pipe of
which the minute hand is set; N the reversed hour-wheel,
and n its pinion, driving the 12-hour wheel H, on whose
socket is fixed what is called the snail Y, which belongs to
the striking work exclusively. The hammer is raised by
the 8 pins in the rim of the second wheel in the striking
train, in the manner which is obvious. The hammer does
not quite touch the bell, as it would jar in striking if it did,
and prevent the full sound; and if you observe the form of
the hammer-shank at the arbor where the spring S acts upon
it, you will see that the spring both drives the hammer against
the bell when the tail T is raised, and also checks it just
before it reaches the bell, and so the blow on the bell is
given by the hammer having acquired momentum enough
to go a little farther than its place of rest. Sometimes two
springs are used, one for impelling the hammer, and the
other for checking it. A piece of vulcanized India rubber
tied round the pillar just where the hammer-shank nearly
touches it, forms as good a check spring as anything. The
pinion of the striking wheel generally has 8 leaves, the same
number as the pins; and as a clock strikes 78 blows in 12
hours, the great wheel will turn in that time if it has 78
teeth, instead of 96 which the great wheel of the going part
has for a centre pinion of 8. The striking wheel drives the
wheel above it once round for each blow, and that wheel
drives a 4th (in which you observe a single pin P), 6, or
any other integral number of turns, for one turn of its own,
and that drives a fan-fly to moderate the velocity of the
train by the resistance of the air, an expedient at least as
old as De Vick’s clock in 1370. The wheel N is so ad¬
justed that within a few minutes of the hour the pin in it
raises the lifting piece LON so far, that that piece lifts the
click C out of the teeth of the rack BKRV, which imme¬
diately falls back (helped by a spring near the bottom) as
as far as its tail V can go by reason of the snail Y, against
which it falls; and it is so arranged that the number of
teeth which pass the click is proportionate to the depth of
the snail; and as there is one step in the snail for each
hour, and it goes round with the hour hand, the rack al¬
ways drops just as many teeth as the number of the hour to
be struck. This drop makes the noise of “ giving warn¬
ing.” But the clock is not yet ready to strike, till the lift¬
ing piece has fallen again ; for as soon as the rack was let
off, the tail of the thing called the gathering pallet G, on
the prolonged arbor of the 3d wheel, was enabled to pass
the pin K of the rack on which it was pressing before, and
the striking train began to move ; but before the 4th wheel
had got half round, its pin P was caught by the end of the
lifting piece, which is bent back and goes through a hole in
the plate, and when raised stands in the way of the pin P,
CLOCK AND WATCH WORK.
Work.
Quarters.
Clock and so that the train cannot go on until the lifting piece drops,
Watch which it does exactly at the hour, by the pin N then slipping
( past it. Then the train is free; the striking wheel begins
to lift the hammer, and the gathering pallet gathers up the
rack, a tooth for each blow, until it has returned to the
place a,t which the pallet is stopped by the pin K coming
under it. In this figure the lifting piece is prolonged to F
where there is a string hung to it, as this is the proper place
for such a string when it is wanted for the purpose of learn¬
ing the hour in the dark, and not (as it is generally put) on
the click C, for if it is put there, and you hold the string a
moment too long, the clock will strike too many; and if
the string accidentally sticks in the case, it will go on strik¬
ing till it is run down ; neither of which things can happen
when the string is put on the lifting piece.
The snail is sometimes set on a separate stud with the
apparatus called a star ivheel and jumper (see Denison’s
Rudimentary Treatise, p. 123); but, as this only increases
the cost without any advantage that we can see, we omit
any further reference to it. On the left side of the frame
we have placed a lever, x, with the letters st below it, and
si above. If it is pushed up to si the other end will come
against a pin in the rack, and prevent it from falling, and will
thus make the clock silent; and this is much more simple
than the common “ strike and silent” apparatus, which we
shall therefore not describe.
If the clock is required to strike quarters, a third part, or
train of wheels, is added on the right hand of the going
part; and its general construction is the same as the hour-
striking part; only there are two more bells, and two ham¬
mers so placed that one is raised a little after the other.
There is a method of making the same part do both the
quarter and hour striking; but it is very seldom used, and
would take too long to describe here. If there are more
quarter bells than two, the hammers are generally raised by
a chime barrel, which is merely a cylinder set on the arbor
of the striking wheel (in that case generally the third in the
train), with short pins stuck into it in the proper places to
raise the hammers in the order required for the tune of the
chimes. The quarters are generally made to let off the
hour, and this connection may be made in two ways. If
the chimes are different in tune for each quarter, and not
merely the same tune repeated two, three, or four times, the
repetition movement must not be used for them, as it would
throw the tunes into confusion—but the old locking-plate
movement, as in turret clocks ; and therefore, if we conceive
the hour lifting piece connected with the quarter locking
plate, as it is with the wheel N in fig. 14, it is evident that
the pin will discharge the hour-striking part as the fourth
quarter finishes.
But where the repetition movement is required for the
quarters the matter is not quite so simple j but the principle
of it may be shortly described thus the quarters them¬
selves have a rack and snail, &c«, just like the hours, except
that the snail is fixed on one of the hour-wheels M or N
instead of on the twelve-hour wheel, and has only four
steps in it. Now, suppose the quarter rack to be so placed
that when it falls for the fourth quarter (its greatest drop) it
falls against the hour lifting piece somewhere between O
and N, so as to raise it and the click C. Then the pin Q
will be caught by the click Q?, and so the lifting piece will
remain up until ail the teeth of the quarter rack are gathered
up; and as that is done it may be made to disengage the
click Qrh and so complete the letting off of the hour strik-
mg. (This click Q^, of course, has no existence except
where there are quarters.)
These quarter clocks are sometimes made so as only to
strike the quarters at the time when a string is pulled—as
by a person in bed, just like repeating watches, which are
rarely made now, on account of the difficulty of keeping in
order such a complicated machine in such a small space
VOL. VII.
17
In this case the act of pulling the string to make the clock Clock and
strike, winds up the quarter barrel, which is that of a spring- ^at«h
Fig. 14.
clock (not yet described, but well known to everybody), as
far as it is allowed to be wound up by the position of a snail
on the hour-wheel, against which a lever is pulled, just as
the tail of the common striking rack falls against the snail
on the 12-hour wheel; and it is easy to see that the num¬
ber of blows struck by the two quarter hammers may thus
be made to depend upon the extent to which the spring
that drives the train is wound up ; and it may even be made
to indicate half-quarters; for instance, if the snail has 8
steps in it, the 7th of them may be just deep enough to let
the two hammers strike twice, and the first of them once
more, which would indicate 7^ minutes to the hour. It is
generally so arranged that the hour is struck first, and the
quarters afterwards. But we cannot afford the space to
describe the details of these occasional contrivances.
ALARUMS.
In connexion with these bed-room clocks we ought to
mention alarums. Perhaps the best illustration of the mode
of striking an alarum is to refer to either of the recoil
escapements (figs. 3 and 4). If you suppose a short ham¬
mer instead of a long pendulum attached to the axis of the
pallets, and the wheel to be driven with sufficient force, it
will evidently swing the hammer rapidly backwards and for¬
wards ; and the position and length of the hammer head
may be so adjusted as to strike a bell internally, first on one
side and then on the other. Then as to the mode of letting
off the alarum at the time required; if it was always to be
let off at the same time, you would only have to set a pin
c
CLOCK AND WATCH WORK.
18
Clock and in the 12-hour wheel at the proper place, to raise the lift-
Worlj1 P'ece which lets off the alarum at that time. But as
v r ^ , you want it. to be capable of alteration, this discharging pin
* ™ must be set in another wheel (without teeth), which rides
with a friction spring on the socket of the 12-hour wheel,
with a small moveable dial attached to it, having figures so ar¬
ranged with reference to the pin, that whatever figure is made
to come to a small pointer set as a tail to the hour hand,
the alarum shall be let off at that hour. The letting off
does not require the same apparatus as a common striking
part, because an alarum is not to strike a definite number
of blows, but to go on till it is run down; and therefore the
lifting piece is nothing but a lever with a stop or hook upon
it, which, when it is dropped, takes hold of any one of the
alarum wheels, and lets them go while it is raised high
enough to disengage it. You must of course not wind up
an alarum till within 12 hours of the time upon it is wanted
to go off, unless the hour hand is one that turns in 24
hours, instead of 12.
Watch- The watchman’s or tell-tale clock the reader may have
man’s seen *n one t^ie lobbies of the House of Commons, and
clock. 1° prisons, and some other places, where they want to make
sure of a watchman being on the spot and awake all the
night; it is a clock with a set of spikes, generally 48 or 96,
sticking out all round the dial, and a handle somewhere in
the case, by pulling which you can press in that one of
the spikes which is opposite to it, or to some lever connected
with it, but no others; and it will be observed, that this
wheel of spikes is carried round with the hour hand, which in
these clocks is generally a 24-hour one.
It is evident that every spike which is seen still sticking
out in the morning indicates that at the particular time to
which that spike belongs the watchman was not there to
push it in—or at any rate, that he did not do it; and hence
its name. At some other part of their circuit, the inner ends
of the pins are carried over a roller or an inclined plane
which pushes them out again ready for business the next
night.
SPRING CLOCKS.
Hitherto we have supposed all clocks to be kept going by
a weight. But, as is well known, many of them are driven
by a spring coiled up in a barrel. In this respect they differ
nothing from watches, and therefore we shall defer all con¬
sideration of the construction of the parts belonging to the
spring till we treat of watches. It may, however, be men¬
tioned here, that the earliest form in which a spring seems
to have been used was not that of a spiral ribbon of steel
rolled up, but a straight stiff spring held fast to the clock frame
atone end, and a string from the other end going round the
barrel, which was wound up ; of course such a spring would
have a very small range. Spring clocks are generally resorted
to for the purpose of saving space, and as clocks are generally
made in England, it is impossible to make a weight-clock
capable of going a week, without either a case nearly 4 feet
high, or else the weights so heavy as to produce a great pres¬
sure and friction on the arbor of the great wheel. But this
arises from nothing but the heaviness of the wheels, and the
badness of the pinions used in the English clocks, as is sim¬
ply proved by the fact that the American clocks go a week
with both less weights and less fall for them than the English
ones, and this with no assistance from fine workmanship, for
the purpose of diminishing friction, as they are remarkable
for their want of what is called <c finish” in the machinery,
on which so much time and money is wasted in nearly all
English clock-work. Moreover, in the American clocks
the pinions are all of the kind called lantern 'pinions (see
fig. 34), which are pinions having their leaves made only
of bits of wire set round the axis in two collars ; and, oddly
enough, are the oldest form of pinion, as well as the best,
acting with the least friction, and requiring the least accu¬
racy in the wheels, but now universally disused in all Eng- Clock and
lish and French house clocks. The American clocks prove Watch
that they are not too expensive to be used with advantage Work,
when properly made, although so long as there are no
manufactories of clocks here as there are in America, it may
be cheaper to make pinions in the slovenly way of cutting
off all the ribs of a piece of pinion wire, so as to reduce it
to a pinion a quarter of an inch wide, and an arbor 2 or 3
inches long. The wheels of the American clocks are all
stamped, and the holes in the plates also ; in fact, there is
probably not two shillings worth of mere manual labour
in the whole of an American clock movement. There is
no doubt that in the making of machines by machinery the
Americans are far ahead of us ; witness also Colt’s revol¬
vers and Hobbs’s locks. On the whole, the common English
house clocks, so far from having improved with the general
progress of machinery, are worse than they were 50 years ago,
and at the same time are of such a price that they are being
fast driven out of the market by the American plain clocks,
and by the French ornamental ones ; for their movements
are also made by machinery at surprisingly low prices. In¬
deed, until very lately we were inferior to the French also
in a kind of clock in which above all others we ought to be
superior to the rest of the world, viz., in the largest kind of
clocks, to which we shall now devote a few pages.
TURRET CLOCKS.
Seeing that a clock—at least the going part of it—is a
machine in which the only work to be done is the over¬
coming of its own friction and the resistance of the air, it is
evident when the friction and resistance are very much in¬
creased, it may become necessary to resort to expedients
for neutralizing their effects which are not required with a
more moderate friction. In a turret clock the friction is
enormously increased by the great weight of all the
parts ; and the resistance of the wind, and sometimes snow,
to the motion of the hands, further aggravates the diffi¬
culty of maintaining a constant force on the pendulum ;
and besides that, there is the exposure of the clock to
the dirt and dust which are always found in towers, and
of the oil to a temperature which nearly freezes it all
through the usual cold of winter. This last circumstance
alone will generally make the arc of the pendulum at
least half a degree more in summer than in winter ; and
inasmuch as the time is materially affected by the force
which arrives at the pendulum, as well as the friction on the
pallets when it does arrive there, it is evidently impossible
for any turret clock of the ordinary construction, especially
with large dials, to keep any constant rate through the va¬
rious changes of temperature, weather, and dirt, to which it
is exposed. And yet it is remarkable that, with the two
exceptions we shall have to mention, the English clock-
makers have universally set their faces against the adoption
of any of the contrivances, whether of foreign or of Eng¬
lish invention, for the purpose of obtaining a constant
force on the pendulum, and have even presumed so far
on the ignorance of the public as to assert that the com¬
pensation of the pendulum is unnecessary, although turret
clocks are of course exposed to greater variations of tem¬
perature than any others. The only excuse for such an as¬
sertion—and indeed with regard to ordinary turret clocks it
is a sufficient one, is, that it is not worth while to provide
against the errors from change of temperature while the
clock is left exposed to errors quite as large from other
causes, against which the makers do not know how to pro¬
vide.
But in the year 1843 a series of improvements began,
which in the course of ten years have completely changed
the construction and the character of the best English tur¬
ret clocks, and they can now be made to go better than the
best astronomical clocks ; while at the same time the merely
CLOCK AND WATCH WORK.
Clock and superficial refinements which it had become the fashion to
atch introduce as a disguise for the absence of all scientific im-
v , provet^ent, have been dispensed with, and the price consi-
^ i * * * v ^ deiably reduced. In that year, it appears from the papers
which were afterwards published on the subject, the late Mr
Dent was engaged to make the large clock for the newly
built Royal Exchange, which was desired to be superior to
any public clock in England, and with that view was re¬
quired to satisfy certain conditions proposed for the first
time by the Astronomer Royal, and such as could not be sa¬
tisfied by any clock of the common construction. He had
then no factory of his owm for making large clocks, and re¬
lied on getting it made under his directions by some of the
few real manufacturers of such things. But although these
persons are generally willing enough to execute the orders
of other clockmakers, and even allow them to put their
own names on the clocks, Mr Dent found himself unable to
get this clock made for him at all, and it was expected as a
matter of course that he would be obliged to give up the
contract; but with the energy and genius by which that
remarkable man raised himself from a tallow-chandler’s ap¬
prentice to the position of the first horologist in the world,
he at once set up a factory for himself at a great expense,
and made the clock there ; and of this, the first turret clock
he had ever made, the Astronomer Royal certified in 1845,
that it not only satisfied his conditions, but that Mr Dent
had made some judicious improvements upon his suggestions,
and that he had no doubt it was the best public clock in the
world. The clock tower of the Exchange seems to have
been prolific of disputes, for the peal of bells on which the
clock was also to play chimes every three hours have had
to be recast twice since they were put up, once by the ori¬
ginal founders and once by another ; and it was not till af¬
ter the clock had been going eight or nine years that the
chimes were allowed to play regularly.
ifi P
1 he construction of the Exchange clock, however was
too expensive for general use; and accordingly Mr Dent’next
devoted himself to simplifying it. At first, he borrowed a
good deal from the clocks of Messrs Wagner, the eminent
makers of Paris ; but by degrees he introduced various mo¬
difications of their plans, chiefly from the suggestions of Mr
Denison; and before his death in 1853 the plans which we
shall now describe were adopted as the settled forms for
the different kinds of the best turret clocks. They have
since been followed by his successor, Mr Dent of the Strand
and the Royal Exchange, and also by Mr Joyce of Whit¬
church (Salop), who had before enjoyed the reputation of one
of the best provincial clockmakers ; but as far as we know,
by no other makers—certainly by no London ones, though
they are free from the incumbrance of patents.
The old, or, as the clockmakers would say, the “ long
established ” form of a turret clock is that of a large iron
cage, of which some of the vertical bars take off, and are
fitted with brass bushes for the arbors of the wheels to run
m ; and the wheels of each train,e. the striking train, the
going, and tne quarter train, stand over each other with their
pivots all in the vertical bar belonging to that part. Oc¬
casionally they have advanced so far as to make the bushes
moveable,«. e. fixed with screws instead of rivetted in, so that
one wheel may be taken out without the others; but very few
of the makers, except the late Mr Vulliamy, admitted even
this most obvious improvement. This cage generally stood up¬
on a wooden stool on the floor of the clock room. The French
clockmakers long ago saw the obfoctions to this kind of ar¬
rangement, and adopted the plan of a horizontal frame or
bed, cast all in one piece, and with such smaller frames or
cocks set upon it as might be required for such of the wheels
as could not be conveniently got on the same level. Mr
Dents Great Exhibition clock, for which he received the
council medal, now at the King’s Cross station in London,
19
Clock and
Watch
Work.
Turret
clocks.
i
was on this plan ; and the adjoining sketch (fig. 15) of the
clock at Meanwood church, near Leeds, will sufficiently
explain it. All the wheels of the going part, except the
great wheel, are set in a separate frame called the move¬
ment Tame, which is complete in itself and light enough to
take off and carry away entire, so that any cleaning or repairs
required in the most delicate part of the work can be done
in the clock factory, and the great wheel, barrel, and rope
need never be disturbed at all. Even this movement frame
is now dispensed with ; but we will reserve the description
of the still more simple kind of frame in which a// the
wheels he on, or under, the great horizontal bed, until we
have described that part of the clock which is referred to
by the words “ remontoire fly” in fig. 15.
train remontoires.
Under the head of escapements we mentioned the causes
of error in all the common escapements which derive the
impulse to the pendulum from the clock train, viz., the va¬
riation of friction arising from dirt, want of fresh oil, thick-
20
CLOCK AND WATCH WORK.
Clock and
Watch
Work.
Turret
clocks;
train re-
montoires.
/ A,/B ; and on the same arbor is set a fly with a ratchet, Clock and
like a common striking fly, and the numbers of the teeth Watch
are so arranged that the fly will turn in the same time as Work,
the scape-wheel. The ends of the remontoire arms /A,
Gravity
train re-
montoires.
ening of the oil in cold weather, and the action of the wind
on the hands. It was long ago perceived that all these
sources of error, except the friction of the pallets, might be
cut off’ (assuming the problem of a gravity escapement to
be as hopeless as it had come to be considered from the
numerous failures) by making the force of the scape-wheel
to depend on a small weight or spring wound up at short in¬
tervals by the great clock weight and the train of wheels.
This also has the advantage of giving a sudden and visible
motion to the minute hand at those intervals, say of half a
minute, when the remontoire work is let off, so that time
may be taken from the minute hand of a large public
clock as exactly as from the seconds hand of an astronomi¬
cal clock ; and besides that, greater accuracy may be ob¬
tained in the letting off of the striking part. However, the
attempt to secure the advantage of a more constant force
was made many years before the possibility of making tur¬
ret clocks go with anything like the accuracy of astronomi¬
cal clocks was contemplated; and we believe the first
maker of a large clock with a train remontoire, was the late
Mr Thomas Reid, clockmaker, of Edinburgh, who wrote the
article on clocks in the first edition of this work, afterwards
expanded into a well known book, in which this remontoire
is described. The scape-wheel was driven by a small
weight hung by a Huygens’s endless chain, of which one of
the pulleys was fixed to the arbor, and the other rode upon
the arbor with the pinion attached to it, and the pinion was
driven, and the weight wound up by the wheel below
(which we will call the 3d wheel), as follows:—Assuming
the scape-wheel to turn in a minute, its arbor has a notch
cut half through it on opposite sides in two places near to
each other. On the arbor of the third wheel, which turns
in 10 minutes, suppose there is another wheel with 20
spikes sticking out of its rim, but alternately in two different
planes, so that one set of spikes can pass through one of the
notches in the scape-wheel arbor and the other set through
the other. Whenever then the scape-wheel completes a
half turn, one spike is let go and the third wheel is able to
move, and with it the whole clock train and the hands, un¬
til the next spike of the other set is stopped by the scape-
wheel arbor; at the same time the pinion on that arbor is
turned half round, winding up the remontoire weight, but
without taking its pressure off' the scape-wheel. Reid says
that so long as this apparatus kept in good order, the clock
went better than it did after it had been removed in con¬
sequence of its getting out of order from the constant bang¬
ing of the spikes against the arbor.
The Exchange clock was made on the same principle,
except that instead of the endless chain an internal wheel
was used with the spikes set on it externally, which (as we
explained under equation work) is one of the modes by
which an occasional secondary motion may be given to a
wheel without disturbing its primary and regular motion.
A drawing of the Exchange clock remontoire, and also of
the bevelled-wheel plan (like the equation work at fig. 13),
which is generally used in the French remontoire clocks, is
given in Mr Denison’s Rudimentary Treatise ; and for the
reasons which will appear presently, it need not be repeated
here, especially as the following is a still more simple ar¬
rangement of a gravity train remontoire, also used by the
French. Let E in fig. 16 be the scape-wheel turning in a
minute, and e its pinion which is driven by the wheel D
having a pinion d driven by the second or centre wheel C,
wdiich we may suppose to turn in an hour. The arbors of
the scape-wheel and centre-wheel are of course distinct,
their pivots meeting in a bush fixed somewhere between
the wheels. The pivots of the wheel D are set in the frame
AP, which rides on the arbors of the centre-wheel and
scape-wheel, or on another short arbor between them. The
centre wheel also drives another wheel G, which again
drives the pinion /on the arbor which carries the two arms
Fig. 16.
/ B, are capable of alternately passing the notches cut half
through the arbor of the scape-wheel, as those notches suc¬
cessively come into the proper position at the end of every
half minute ; and as soon as that happens the centre wheel
raises the moveable wheel D and its frame through a small
angle; but, nevertheless, that wheel keeps pressing on the
scape-wheel as if it were not moving, the point of contact
of the wheel C and the pinion d being the fulcrum or cen¬
tre of motion of the lever A d P. It will be observed that
the remontoire arms/A,/B have springs set on them to
diminish the blow on the scape-wheel arbor, as it is desir¬
able not to have the fly so large as to make the motion of the
train, and consequently of the hands, too slow to be distinct.
In all the French remontoire clocks in the Great Exhibi¬
tion the motion was too slow, and consequently less easy to
observe accurately than in the Westminster clock, the Royal
Exchange, and King’s Cross Station clocks, in which the half¬
minute jump of the hands is very distinct. In the French
clocks also the fly is generally driven by an endless screw,
without the intermediate wheel G ; but there is an enor¬
mous loss of force by friction in an endless screw, when
driven, and consequently considerable risk of the clock stop¬
ping from either cold or wasting of the oil.
In all these gravity remontoires, however, it must have
been observed that we only get rid of the friction of the
heavy parts of the train and the dial work, and that the
scape-wheel is still subject to the friction of the remontoire
wheels, which, though much less than the other, is still
something considerable. And, accordingly, attempts have
frequently been made to drive the scape-wheel by a spiral
spring, like the mainspring of a watch. One of these was
described in the last edition of this work; and Mr Airy, a
few years ago, invented another on this principle, of which
two or three specimens were made by Mr Dent. But it
was found, and indeed it ought to have been foreseen, that
these contrivances were all defective in the mode of attach¬
ing the spring, and that they only increased the expense of
the clock without any corresponding advantage; and the
consequence has been, that spring remontoires, and remon¬
toires in general, had come to be regarded as a mere delu¬
sion. It has, however, now been fully proved, that they
are not so; for, by a very simple alteration of the previous
plans, a spiral spring remontoire may be made to act with
absolutely no friction, except that of the scape-wheel pivots,
and the letting-off springs A, B, in the last drawing. The
Mean wood clock (fig. 15) was the first of this kind; but it
will be necessary to give a separate view of the remontoire
work.
In this figure (17), E,e, D,/ A, and B,are the same things
as in fig. 16. But e, the scape-wheel pinion, is no longer
fixed to the arbor, nor does it ride on the arbor, as had been
CLOCK AND WATCH WORK.
21
Work.
Fig. 17.
Clock and the case in all the previous spring remontoires, thereby
Watch producing probably more friction than was saved in other
respects; but it rides on a stud k, which is set in the
clock-frame. On the
face of the pinion is
a plate, of which the
only use is to carry
a pin h (and conse¬
quently its shape is
immaterial), and in
front of the plate is
set a bush b, with a
hole through it, of
which half is occupied
by the end of the stud
k, to which the bush
is fixed by a small pin,
and the other half is
the pivot hole for the
scape - wheel arbor.
On the arbor is set
the remontoire spring
s (a moderate - sized
musical box spring is
generally used), of
which the outer end
is bent into a loop to
take hold of the pin
h. In fact, there are
two pins at h, one a little behind the other, to keep the
coils of the spring from touching each other. Now it is
evident, that the spring may be wound up half or a
quarter of a turn at the proper intervals, without taking
the force off the scape-wheel, and also without affecting it
by any friction whatever. When the scape-wheel turns in
a minute, the letting off would be done, as before described,
by a couple of notches in the scape-wheel arbor, through
which the spikes AB, in fig. 16, would pass alternately.
But in clocks with only three wheels in the train, it is best
to make the scape-wheel turn in two minutes, and conse¬
quently you would want four notches and four remontoire
arms, and the fly would only make a quarter of a turn. And
therefore Mr Denison, who invented this remontoire, made
the following provision for diminishing the friction of the
letting-off work. The fly pinion f has only half the num¬
ber of teeth of the scape-wheel pinion, being a lantern
pinion of 7 or 8, while the other is a leaved pinion of 14 or
16 (and therefore the same wheel D will properly drive both,
as will be seen hereafter). The scape-wheel arbor ends
in a cylinder about fth inch in diameter, with two notches
at right angles cut in its face, one of them narrow and deep,
and the other broad and shallow, so that a long and thin pin,
such as B, can pass only through one, and a broad and short
pin A through the other. Consequently, at each quarter of
a turn of the scape-wheel, the remontoire fly, on which the
pins AB are set on springs, as in fig. 16, can turn half
round. It is set on its arbor/by a square ratchet and click,
which enables you to adjust the spring to the requisite ten¬
sion to obtain the proper vibration of the pendulum. The
fly is not (except in very large clocks) separate from the let¬
ting-off arms, because there is found to be no occasion for
it; but the blow on the cylinder is diminished by the fly
having to pass over a friction spring (which cannot be dis¬
tinctly shown in this drawing) just before it reaches the
cylinder. It makes, indeed, a considerable noise at each
let off, but that is in a great measure from the recoil
against the top of this friction spring; and some of these
clocks have now been going since the year 1849, without
any inconvenience from that cause. And their perfor¬
mance is so much more satisfactory than that of the gravity
remontoires, that Mr Dent lately altered the gravity remon¬
toire of the Royal Exchange to a spring one, with the im- Clock and
mediate effect of reducing the clock-weight by one-third. Watch
It should be observed, however, that even a spring re- . Work'
montoire requires a larger weight than the same clock
without one; but as none of that additional force reaches
the pendulum, that is of no consequence. The variation
of force of the remontoire spring from temperature, as Denison’s
it only affects the pendulum through the medium of the spring
dead escapement, is far too small to produce any appreciable remon¬
effect ; and it is found that clocks of this kind, with a com- toire*
pensated pendulum 8 feet long, and of about 2 cwt., will not
vary above a second a month, if the pallets are kept clean
and well oiled. No turret clock without either a train re¬
montoire or a gravity escapement will approach that degree
of accuracy.
The introduction of this remontoire led to another very
important alteration in the construction of large clocks.
Hitherto it had always been considered necessary, with a
view to diminish the friction as far as possible, to make the
wheels of brass or gun-metal, with the teeth cut in an engine.
The French clockmakers had begun to use cast-iron strik¬
ing parts, and cast-iron wheels had been occasionally used
in the going part of inferior clocks for the sake of cheapness.
Mr Vulliamy, we know, proposed, if he did not use them
for cheap clocks some years ago ; but cast-iron wheels had Cast-iron
never been used in any clock making pretensions to accu- wkeels-
racy before Mr Dent’s clock in 1851, which is stated in the
jury report to have only varied 3 seconds in the last 10
weeks of the Exhibition. Since then all the large clocks
made at his factory, either with this remontoire or with the
three-legged gravity escapement before described, have been
made with cast-iron wheels ; and in 1852 it was determined
by the Astronomer Royal and Mr Denison, who were jointly
consulted by the Board of Works about the great Westmin¬
ster clock, to alter the original requisition for gun-metal
wheels there to cast-iron. Some persons have expressed
their apprehension of cast-iron wheels rusting; but nothing
can be more unfounded, for they are always painted, and
the acting surfaces may also be oiled. A remarkable proof
of the folly of the clockmakers’ denunciations of cast-iron
wheels has lately been afforded at the Royal Exchange.
In consequence of the bad ventilation of the clock-room,
together with the effects of the London atmosphere, some
thin parts of the brass-work had become so much corroded
that they had to be renewed, and some of it replaced with
iron ; and all the polished brass-work and iron-work had
become as rough as if it had never been polished at all; the
only parts of the clock which had not suffered from the
damp and the bad air were the painted iron-work. The room
has now been ventilated, with a draught through it, and all
the iron-work, except acting surfaces, is painted. But even
in the most favourable positions brass or gun-metal loses its
surface long before cast-iron wants repainting.
Fig. 18 is a front view of one of Mr Dent’s large quarter
clocks, with all the wheels on the great horizontal bed, a
gravity escapement, and a compensated pendulum. They
are made in two sizes, one with the great striking wheels
18 inches wide, and the other about 15. This pattern has
also been followed by Mr Joyce of Whitchurch ; the other
London makers, and most of the country ones, still adhere
to the old cage-pattern frame, and set their faces against
compensated pendulums, improved escapements, cast-iron
wheels, and wire ropes, and in fact all the improvements
which we are now going to notice. Here the striking
is done by cams cast on the great wheels, about 1^ inch
broad in the large-sized clocks, which are strong enough
for an hour bell of two tons weight and corresponding quar¬
ters. Wire ropes are used, not only because they last
longer if kept greased, but because a sufficient number of
coils will go on a barrel of less than half the length which
would be required for hemp ropes of the same strength with-
CLOCK AND WATCH WORK.
out overlapping, winch it is as well to avoid if possible, ones. By this means also the striking cams can always be Clock ond
though it is not so injurious to wire ropes as it is to hemp put on the great wheel instead of the second wheel, which Watch
Work.
saves more in friction than could be imagined by any one
who had not tried both. In the great Westminster clock
it was thought of so much consequence to get the striking
from the great wheel, both in the hours and in the quarter
chimes on four bells, that eight cam wheels are used for the
quarters, as some of the blows are repeated on the same
bell too closely to get sufficient drop for the hammer levers
without using two alternate hammers to each bell. If that
clock had been made on the plan proposed by Mr Vulliamy
(who was first consulted, on Sir C. Barry’s recommenda¬
tion), striking from the second wheel, and the friction aggra¬
vated by a number of pulleys and hemp ropes, which must
have been an inch and a half thick, as he intended, the strik¬
ing weights would probably have been nearly four tons each,
although they have the enormous fall of 170 feet; and the
clock would have taken a whole day to wind up. As it is,
they will be a ton and a half each, allowing a waste of about
a quarter of the force, in friction, and in the interval between
the fall of the hammer and its beginning to rise again, which
is found enough in clocks of the construction in fig. 18 ;
though in clocks of the common construction two-thirds of
the power is often wasted in friction and in the bad arrange¬
ment of the hammer work.
We have given the same number of cams to the quarter
as to the hour striking wheel, rather for the purpose of sug¬
gesting the expediency of omitting the 4th quarter, as has
been done in several clocks lately made from this design.
It is of no use to strike the quarters at the hour, and it
nearly doubles the work to be done, and if it is omitted it
allows the quarter bells to be larger, and therefore louder,
than they can be otherwise, because the first quarter bell
ought to be an octave above the hour bell; whereas, if they
are not heard together, the quarters might be the 4th and
7th of a peal of eight bells; and where cheapness has to be
considered, and there are no bells ready for the clock, there
need only be two bells, the larger of them being used for the
2d quarter bell, and also for the hours, with a rather heavier
hammer. This is the case with the clock by Mr Joyce at
the new savings-bank at Chester, made on the plan of
I®" Moreover, the omission of the 4th quarter enables
you to have the celebrated quarter chimes of St Mary’s^
Cambridge (with a slight variation only in one of them)’
with a peal of only eight bells, on the 2d, 3d, 4th, and 7th’
and at very little additional cost; whereas the full quar¬
ters, on four bells, require a considerable addition to the
clock, besides a peal of ten bells, as they must be struck on
the 1st, 2d, 3d, and 6th—the 10th being the hour bell. The Quarters,
following are the quarter chimes of the before-mentioned
clock of the cathedral at Fredericton, which are followed in
the clock for Scarborough church, and those of St Mary’s,
Cambridge, which are adopted also in the great Westmin¬
ster clock. The Exchange quarters are different, and very
inferior to these ; and quarters on the 1st, 2d, 3d, and 4th
bells of a peal are still worse, though more common.
Fredericton. Cambridge.
At Cambridge the chimes are set on a barrel which turns
twice in the hour, as this table indicates, and which is driven
by the great wheel with a great waste of power; the clock
is wound up every day; in an eight-day clock it w'ould re¬
quire a very large weight, and a very much greater strain
on the wheels. We have already stated what was done to
avoid this in the Westminster clock.
No particular number of cams is required in the striking
w'heel: any number about 20 will do ; but where four quar¬
ters on two bells are used, the quarter striking wheel should
have half as many cams again as the hour-wheel; for if not,
the rope will go a second time over half of the barrel, as there
are 120 quarter blows on each bell in the 12 hours, to 78
of the hours, while with the three quarters there are only 72.
If the two quarter levers (commonly called hammer-tails)
are on the same arbor, there must be two set of cams, one
on each side of the wheel; but one set will do if the ham¬
mer-tails are placed as in fig. 18. The hour striking lever,
it will be seen, is differently shaped, so as to diminish the
pressure on its arbor by making it only the difference in¬
stead of the sum of the pressures at the two points of ac¬
tion. This can be done with the two quarter levers, as
showm in Mr Denison’s book ; but the arrangement involves
a good deal of extra work, and as the quarter hammers are
always lighter than the hour, it is hardly worth while to re-
CLOCK AND WATCH WORK.
Work.
Clock and sort to it. The shape of the cams is a matter requiring
Watch some attention, but it will be more properly considered
when we come to the teeth of wheels.
Even in the small matter of the fly ratchets there was
room for improvement. They are almost always made with
sharp teeth like those of a winding ratchet, and the conse¬
quence is, that when made of cast-iron, as they sometimes
are, by clockmakers who will not use cast-iron wheels on
any account, the teeth get broken off by the click. This
may be avoided by making the teeth square, i.e. a number
of inverted V’s set round a circle, and the click only reach¬
ing «o far that the face of the tooth which it touches is at
right angles to the click. The spring need only be very
slight; in many clocks the object seems to have been to
make as much noise as possible with all the clicks, both of
the flies and barrels. In the Westminster clock, the annoy¬
ance of the clattering of the clicks during the several hours
it will take to wind is got rid of by stopping their drop on
to the teeth by check springs, for which there is plenty of
room.
The hammer of a large clock ought to be left “ on the
lift,” when the clock has done striking, especially if it is a
clock with a train remontoire, in which the first blow ought
to be struck at the moment the hand jumps from 59^ min.
to 60, as there are always a good many seconds lost in the
train getting into action and raising the hammer. Moreover,
when it stops on the lift, the pressure on the stops, and on all
the pinions above the great wheel, is only that due to the
excess of the power of the clock over the weight of the ham¬
mer, and not the full force of the weight, and it is therefore
easier for the going part to discharge, and less likely to break
the stops.
In fig. 18 the wheel marked 60 in each of the striking
parts is a winding wheel on the front end of the barrel, and
the winding pinion is numbered 10 ; a larger pinion will do
where the hammer does not exceed 40 lb., and in small
clocks no auxiliary winding wheel is needed. But in that
case the locking plate must be driven by a gathering pallet,
or pinion with two teeth, on the arbor of the second wheel,
with a spring click to keep it steady. In all cases the ham¬
mer shanks should be not less than two feet long if possible ;
for the shorter they are, the more is lost by the change of
inclination for any given rise from the bell. In some clocks
lately put up by Mr Dent with fixed, not swinging bells, the
hammer head is set on a double shank embracing the bell,
with the pivots, not above it in the French way which makes
the hammer strike at a wrong angle, but on each side of the
bell at about three-fourths of its height. On this plan less
of the rise is lost than in the common mode of fixing. The
Westminster clock hammer will be fixed in this way.
The first thing to remark in the going part in fig. 18 is,
that the hour-wheel which carries the snails for letting off the
quarters and striking, is not part of the train leading up to
the scape-wheel, but independent, so that the train from the
great wheel to the scape-wheel is one of three wheels only.
If it were a dead escapement instead of a gravity escapement
clock, the wheel numbered 96 would be the scape-wheel;
and as it turns in 90 seconds, it would require 36 teeth or
pins for a 1| sec. pendulum, such as these gravity escape¬
ment clocks have. The hour-wheel rides loose on its arbor,
or rather the arbor can turn within it, carrying the snails and'
the bevelled wheel which drives all the dials, and the regu¬
lating hand, and it is fixed to the hour-wheel by means of
clamping screws on the edge of a round plate on the arbor
just behind it, which turn by hand. The regulating hand, it
will be seen, turns the wrong way; because, where the dial
is opposite to the back of the clock, no bevelled wheels are
wanted, and the arbor leads straight off to the back of the
dial. It used to be the fashion to put clocks for 4 dials near
the middle of the room, so that the leading off rod might go
straight up to the horizontal bevelled wheel in the middle,
23
which drove all the others. The clock, however, can gene- Clock and
rally be set more firmly on corbels, or on cast-iron brackets Watch
built into the wall ; and it is not at all necessary for the Work,
leading off rod to be vertical; provided it is in a vertical
plane parallel to all the clock wheels (assuming the clock Turret
to stand square with the walls) the rod may stand asclocks*
obliquely as you please; and when it does, it ought on
no account to be made, as it generally is, with universal
joints, but the pivots should go into oblique pivot holes at the
top and bottom. The joints increase the friction consider¬
ably, and are of no use whatever, except where the rod is too
long to keep itself straight. Where the rod does happen
to be in the middle of the room, and there are three or four
dials, the two horizontal bevelled wheels at each end of it
must be a little larger than all the others, both the one in the
clock and those of the dial work ; for otherwise the three or
four wheels in the middle will meet each other and stick fast.
When the pendulum is very long and heavy, it should be
suspended from the wall, unless the clock-frame has some
strong support near the middle ; but a six-feet pendulum
(which is about the full length for 1^ sec.) of not more than
two cwt. may be suspended from the clock-frame, provided it
is as strong as it ought to be for the general construction of the
clock, and supported on corbels or Iron beams. It has gene¬
rally been the practice to hang the pendulum behind the
clock frame ; but inasmuch as the rope of the going part
may always be thinner than that of the striking part, and
that part requires less depth in other respects, a different
and more compact plan is adopted in the clocks we are de¬
scribing. The back pivots of the going wheels run in bushes
on an intermediate bar, three or four inches from the back
of the frame, joining the two cross bars, of which the ends
are dotted in the drawing. The pendulum cock is set on
the back frame, and the pendulum hangs within it. And
in the gravity escapement clocks there is yet another thin
bar about half way between the back frame and the bar on
which the bushes of the wheels are set, the only use of which
is to carry the bush of the three-legged scape-wheel; the
gravity arms and the fly go between these two intermediate
bars, the fork pins coming down below it, and so reaching
the pendulum. The pallets are set in a brass cock screwed
to the great pendulum cock. In turret clocks the adjust¬
ment for beat in the gravity escapement is not made by
screws as in fig. 11, but by eccentric fork pins with nuts;
of course the same might be done in small clocks, but from
the confined space, and the lightness of the gravity arms, it
is not so convenient as the beat screws in the pendulum.
The fork pins should be of brass wire, not steel, and no oil
put to them.
The same general arrangement will serve for a dead
escapement clock with or without a train remontoire, only
the pendulum will not stand so high, and the front end of
the pallet arbor must be set in acock like those of the strik¬
ing flies, on the front bar of the frame. And for a dead
escapement, especially if there is no remontoire, the pendu¬
lum should be longer and heavier than that which is quite
sufficient for a gravity escapement.
In connection with this subject, we have a word to say Concave
about dials. 1 he established form of dial for turret clocks dials,
is a sheet of copper made convex, to preserve its shape ; and
this is just the worst form which human ingenuity could
have contrived for it. For, in the first place, the minute
hand, being necessarily outside of the hour hand, is thrown
still farther off the minutes to which it has to point, by the
convexity of the dial; and consequently when it is in any
position except nearly vertical, it is impossible to see accu¬
rately where it is pointing ; and if it is bent enough to avoid
this effect of parallax, it looks very ill. Secondly, a convex
dial at a considerable height from the ground looks even
more convex than it really is, because the lines of sight
from the middle and the top of the dial make a smaller
24
CLOCK AND WATCH WORK.
Work.
Turret
clock
dials.
Clock and angle with the eye than the lines from the middle and the
Watch bottom, in proportion to the degree of convexity. Obvious
as is the remedy for these defects, by simply making the
dial concave instead of convex, it has, we believe, never
been adopted until Mr Dent introduced this improvement
also, at Mr Denison’s suggestion, in some clocks for the
Great Northern railway, at Doncaster, and on the platform
at the King’s Cross station. As convex dials look more
curved than they are, these look less curved than they are,
and in fact might easily be taken for flat ones, though the
curvature is exactly the same as usual. There is no reason
why the same form should be adopted in stone, cement,
slate, or cast-iron, in which materials dials are sometimes,
and properly enough, made with the middle part counter¬
sunk for the hour hand, so that the minute hand may go
close to the figures and avoid parallax. When dials are
large, as much as 7 or 8 feet, copper dials, or even cast-iron
or slate, are quite an useless expense if the stonework is
moderately smooth, as most kinds of stone take and retain
paint very well, and the gilding will stand upon it better
than it often does on copper or iron. The figures are ge¬
nerally made much too large. People have a pattern dial
painted, and if the figures are not as long as one-third of
the radius, and therefore occupying, with the minutes, about
two-thirds of the whole area of the dial, they fancy they
are not large enough to be read at a distance ; whereas the
fact is, the more of the dial is occupied by the figures the
less distinct they are, and the more difficult it is to distin¬
guish the position of the hands ; which is what people really
want to see, and not to read the figures, which might very
well be replaced by 12 large spots. The rule which has
been adopted, after various experiments, as the best for the
proportions of the dial is this: divide the radius into three,
and leave the inner two-thirds clear and fiat, and of some
colour forming a strong contrast to the colour of the hands,
black or dark blue if they are gilt, and white if they are
black. The figures should occupy the next two-thirds of
the remaining third, and the minutes be set in the remainder,
near the edge, and with every fifth minute more strongly
marked than the rest; and there should not be a rim round
the dial, as there generally is, of the same colour or gilding
as the figures. The worst kind of dial of all are the things
called skeleton dials, which either have no middle except
the stonework, forming no visible contrast to the hands (to
which staite the authorities of Trinity College, Cambridge,
have lately altered their well-known double striking clock,
put up by the famous Dr Bentley, striking, as it used to be
said, once for Trinity and once for his former college, St
John’s, which had no clock), or else taking special trouble
to perplex the spectator by filling up the middle with ra¬
diating bars. Where a dial cannot be put without interfer¬
ing with the architecture, it is much better to have none,
as is the case in many cathedrals and large churches, leav¬
ing the information to be given by the striking of the hours
and quarters. This also will save something, perhaps a
good deal, in the size and cost of the clock, and if it is one
without a train remontoire or gravity escapement, will enable
it to go better. The size of public dials is often very inade¬
quate to their height and the distance at which they are
intended to be seen. They ought to be at least 1 foot in
diameter for every 10 feet of height above the ground, and
in many cases more, whenever the dial will be seen far
off. A list of the sizes of various public dials, including
some specimens of too small ones, is given in Mr Denison’s
book: it is sufficient here to state the above rule as one
which ought to be enforced on architects, as they are often
not aware of it till too late.
The art of illuminating dials cannot be said to be in a
satisfactory state. Where there happens to be, as there sel¬
dom is, a projecting roof at some little distance below the
dial, it may be illuminated by reflexion, like that at the
Horse-guards—about the only merit which that supersti- Clock and
tiously venerated and worn out clock has ; and perhaps the Watch
same thing might be done by moveable lamp reflectors, like Work,
those put before shop windows at night, to be turned back
against the wall during the day ; but such an arrangement
would be expensive in working and attendance, even if it
could be conveniently arranged. It has also been proposed
to sink the dial within the wall and illuminate it by jets of
gas pointing inwards from a kind of projecting rim, like
what is called in church windows a “ hood-moulding,” car¬
ried all round. But it is a great objection to sunk dials,
even of less depth than would be required here, that they
do not receive light enough by day, and do not get their
faces washed with the rain. The common mode of illu¬
mination is by making the dials either entirely, or all ex¬
cept the figures and minutes and a ring to carry them, of
glass, either ground or lined in the inside with linen (paint
loses its colour from the gas). The gas is kept always alight,
but the clock is made to turn it nearly off or full on at the
proper times by a 24-hour wheel, with pins set in it by
hand as the length of the day varies, or sometimes perhaps
by an entirely self-acting apparatus, which however is some¬
what complicated, and an unnecessary expense. But these
dials always look very ill by day ; and as dials are wanted
much more by day than by night, we cannot say that in
the present state of the art illumination is to be recom¬
mended ; and it should not be forgotten that the annual
expense of lighting 3 or 4 dials far exceeds the interest
of the entire cost of any ordinary clock. Another objection
to illuminating large dials from the inside, is that it makes
it impossible to counterpoise the hands outside, unless per¬
haps the counterpoises could be made of glass. And if
they are only counterpoised inside, there is no counter¬
poise at all to the force of the wind, which is then con¬
stantly tending to loosen them on the arbor, and that ten¬
dency is aggravated by the hand itself pressing on the arbor
one way as it ascends, and the other as it descends ; and
if it once gets in the smallest degree loose, it becomes ra¬
pidly worse by the constant shaking. It is mentioned in
Reid’s book, that the minute-hand of St Paul’s cathedral,
which is above 8 feet long, used to fall over above a minute
as it passed from the left to the right side of XII, before it
was counterpoised outside. We observe that, in the con¬
ditions to be observed for the Westminster clock, it is
expressly required that “ the hands be counterpoised exter¬
nally, for wind as well as weight.” The long hand should
be straight and plain, to distinguish it as much as possible
from the hour-hand, which should end in a “ heart” or
swell: many clockmakers and architects, on the contrary,
seem to aim at making the hands as like each other as they
can ; and it is not uncommon to see even the counterpoises
gilt, probably with the same object of producing apparent
symmetry and real confusion.
Before leaving the subject of turret clocks, we will add Great
a few particulars of the great clock for the houses of parlia- Westmin-
ment, which, according to the contract (as appears by the ster
parliamentary papers) was to have been fixed by February
1854, but seems likely to have to wait some years longer
before the clock tower is ready for it. The clock itself has
been going in Mr Dent’s factory for some time. It has been
made throughout from Mr Denison’s designs, and under his
superintendence, that of the Astronomer Royal having been
merely nominal, and latterly abandoned altogether. The four
dials are to be 22 feet in diameter, the largest, we believe, in
the world with a minute-hand ; the larger dials on the Conti¬
nent have only an hour-hand. The minute-hand, on account
of its greater length, velocity, weight, friction, and the action
of the wind upon it, requires at least 20 times as much force
to drive it as the hour-hand. Moreover, this clock goes a
week instead of a day, and this again very considerably in¬
creases the weight and strength required, especially in the
Glock and striking parts. The effects of friction and wind with such hands
Work as these WOuld make i(: imP°*sible for the clock to go even
^ , as well as an ordinary church clock if there were no remon-
^ v ^ toire work; and yet there was a violent opposition made
by the other clockmakers to that construction being re¬
quired or adopted. It has, in fact, both the train remon-
toire of fig. 1 7 and the gravity escapement fig. 11; the
former for the purpose ot giving a visible motion of the
hands at every half minute, when the point of the minute
hand will move nearly 7 inches; and the latter because it
is the most independent of those causes of variation which
are likely to affect a turret clock in such a position.
The great wheel of the going part is 27 inches in dia¬
meter; the pendulum is 15 feet long and weighs 680 lb.,
and the scape-wheel, which is driven by the musical-box
spring on the third wheel, weighs about half an ounce. All
the wheels except the scape-wheel, are of cast iron, i. e.
with the teeth cast, not cut, and all have five spokes. The
barrel is 23 inches diameter but only 14 inches long, as this
part will not require a rope above | inch thick, and 55
turns, in the 8^ days for which that part is to be capable of
going, though the striking parts go only 7^ days, so that
in case of an accidental omission to wind it up on the pro¬
per day, the clock may not stop, but proclaim the neglect by
silence. The second wheel is 12 inches in diameter, with
a lantern pinion of 12, driven by 180 teeth on the great
wheel; it has 120 teeth, and drives the pinion of the spring
remontoire and the fly, as described in fig. 1 7. This part
has all the back pivots on the great clock-frame, and the
front ones on an intermediate bar laid upon two cross ones,
the width of the frame for the striking parts being very
nearly 5 feet, whereas only 2 feet is required for that of the
going part. The leading-off arbor, however, comes to the
front of the great frame, and there are the snails for dis¬
charging the striking parts, and also the first pair of bevelled
wheels, which are 16 inches in diameter. The winding ar¬
bor before described also comes through the front frame.
The size of the hour bell, which was originally given as
14 or 15 tons, and therefore above 9 feet in diameter and
nearly 8 feet high, fixes the size of the striking parts; for
that determines the weight of the hammer, which must not
be less than 4 cwt., according to the usual proportion,
with a lise of at least a foot; it will probably be cast from
the pattern of the pendulum bob ; and that, with the proper
allowance for loss by friction, &c., fixes the striking weight
at something more than a ton and a half; and that requires
a wire rope of a certain thickness (J inch); and that must
have a barrel of a certain length and diameter for such a
number of coils as will give the most convenient arrange¬
ment of the striking cams, which are 18 in number, cast on
a wheel of 37 inches in diameter ; and that size again was
necessary in order to keep all the wheels clear of the
barrel. The cams are 2£ inches thick, the same thickness
as the great wheels ; and the hammer lever is of corre¬
sponding size. The winding wheel on the end of the barrel,
both of the hour and quarters, is of the same size as the re¬
spective great wheels; and as a double multiplying power
is required for winding up, the second winding wheel and
its pinion are also the same as those of the train in each
case ; these winding wheels push out of gear with the great
winding wheels, but not with their own winding pinions,
which are made long for the purpose. There is to be a con¬
trivance for stopping the winding when the clock is going
to strike, as the winding of each of the striking parts will
probably take two hours. The second wheels are a little
more than 18 inches in diameter. The second train wheel
in each striking part drives a bevelled wheel which drives
the fly above the clock on a vertical arbor, as in the Ex¬
change clock, in order to keep it out of the way of people
winding or examining the clock. The great wheels all have
180 teeth ; the second wheel of the hour-striking part has
VOL VII.
CLOCK AND WATCH WORK.
25
I()5 and a pinion of 15, so that it turns two-thirds round at Clock and
each blow, and the lifting cylinder upon its arbor has 3 seg- Watch
ments cut out ofit, and two of them are passed at each blow— Work-
probably a novel arrangement, but the most convenient here
with reference to the numbers of the teeth. The size of the
hour-bell also determines that of the quarters; the largest
quarter-bell will be about the same size as the great bell of St
Paul’s, which weighs 5| tons. In the quarter part the ar¬
rangement is much the same as the hour. The eight cam
wheels, which in fact form a chime barrel for the eight ham¬
mers of the four bells, have been mentioned already. But
the levers are not of the kind shown in the quarters of fig.
18, for they are 19 inches long from the arbor to the end
which is pulled down by the cams, and the wire goes up
from near the end, the wheel turning the opposite way from
the quarter-wheel in fig. 18, so that the weight acts as di¬
rectly as possible on the levers, with nothing but differen¬
tial pressures either on their arbor or on that of the great
wheel. The great wheels in this part are 381 inches in
diameter, and the whole mass of the barrel, great wheels,
and cam wheels weighs no less than 17 cwt. In fact this
clock may be said to be at least eight times as large as a
full-sized cathedral clock such as that described in fig. 18
since the wheels of the Westminster clock are rather^more
than double the size of those in every dimension. The
whole of the wheels, except the fly wheels and winding
pinions, he on the top of the great frame, which is a trussed
girder frame 19 inches deep (like the girders of the Crystal
Palace), resting on two walls 11 feet apart which come
right up from the bottom of the tower. The frame will be
15£ feet long; the striking pulleys will be about 2^ feet in
diameter, and pivotted in, as clock pulleys always should be
I hey are generally made too small, and with the pulley run¬
ning on a thick bolt put through the block or frame, which
inci eases the friction considerably. We may add with re¬
ference to the question of the strength of cast-iron teeth
that a segment of one of these great wheels was tried up
to breaking point, and it bore a pressure of 6 tons, and
then only broke from the pinion not bearing quite flat upon
it: the heaviest weight which the teeth can have to bear in
action will be about half a ton.
ELECTRICAL CLOCKS, AND DIALS.
The application of electricity to clock-work has engaged
t le attention of scientific men and of a few clockmakers for
some years, and of late they have been brought to a state of
sufficient perfection to be used even for astronomical pur¬
poses. But it should be understood, that under the term
electrical clocks two very different things are comprehended;
one being mere dials, of which the hands are driven by elec¬
trical connexion with some standard clock, on the principles
of the electric telegraph, as was first done by Professor
Wheatstone about 15 years ago; and the other kind are
clocks kept going by electricity instead of gravity, which,
until the improvements made by Mr Shepherd of Leaden-
all Street, were a complete failure as regards accurate time¬
keeping, the previous makers having used electricity to im¬
pel the pendulum directly, and, of course, failing to get a
uniform impulse; whereas Mr Shepherd applied it to raise
a small weight, which gives the impulse to the pendulum
after the manner of a gravity escapement, but still not with¬
out some action on the pendulum, which it is better to avoid,
and which may be avoided, as will be explained presently.
YVithout meaning to engage in the unprofitable question of
priority of invention, it is proper to mention that there were
in the Exhibition of 185] several foreign electrical clocks
on the same principle as Mr Shepherd’s, and one of them
exactly the same in construction. His large dials erected
in the Exhibition certainly failed completely; and it does
not appear to us that the tremor of the building, to which
he attributed the failure, was sufficient to account for it.
D
CLOCK AND WATCH WORK.
26
Clock and But he has since made some further improvements in them,
Watch which we shall explain after we have described the con-
Work. struction of electrical dials.
If you take the weight off a common recoil escapement
Electrical dock, and work the pallets backwards and forwards by
hand, you will drive the hands round, only the wrong way :
consequently, if the escapement is reversed, and the pallets
are driven by magnets alternately made and unmade, by
the well known method of sending an electrical current
through a wire coiled round a bar of soft iron, the contact
being made at every beat of the pendulum of a standard
clock, the clock without the weight will evidently keep ex¬
act time with the standard clock; and the only question is
as to the best mode of making the contact, which is not so
easy a matter as it appears to be, on account of the short
time in which it has to be done. The first plan was to have
a wheel set on the scape-wheel arbor divided into 60 con¬
ducting, and 60 non-conducting spaces, with a contact
spring pressing upon it. But to this there are several ob¬
jections ; one is the friction, which seriously affects the
going, unless it is a large clock with a heavy pendulum ; and
a still more serious evil is, that the contact surfaces will not
keep clean enough to ensure the contact, wherever there is
rubbing between them, as it promotes oxidation. It seems,
that nothing except contact without friction between gold
or platinum surfaces will do permanently. The late Mr Dent
made an electrical dial, and kept it going in this way long
enough to ascertain that it would answer. Then there is
the plan (which Mr Shepherd adopts) of letting the pen¬
dulum itself make contact with two springs acting near the
top, at each vibration ; but che objection to this is, that any
variation in the force of the springs from temperature, act¬
ing at the extremity of the arc, affects the time of the pen¬
dulum, the reason why Hardy’s escapement failed, as before
stated. Still, by making the springs very weak and the
pendulum heavy, this method is probably sufficient for most
purposes. Another method which has been lately used at
the Royal Observatory, is to make a wheel on the scape-
wheel arbor with 60 teeth press a slight spring against a
contact plate or another spring at every second, the circuit
passing through the two springs. But if any change takes
place in the friction between the wheel and the spring, it
will affect the going of the clock. With the gravity escape¬
ment, indeed, the friction would not signify ; and if a lan¬
tern pinion of 6 is used for the three legged scape-wheel,
the minute-wheel will have 60 teeth, and will itself do for
making the contact.
There is also another method which may be used with the
gravity escapement; and that is, to let the pallets or gravity
arms fall against very weak springs which make the contact
with pins as in the last case, the current passing through the
spring attached to one wire of the battery, and the pin attached
to the other. We have seen it tried on the great Westmin¬
ster clock, with the contact made directly between the pallets
and the pins, without any springs, and the current passing to
the pallets from the clock-frame through the pivot holes.
This acted very well for a short time, but afterwards failed,
whether from a defect of the passage through the pivot
holes, or some other cause, was not discovered. The time
of contact can be increased, if requisite, by increasing the
depth of locking, since the falling pallet will remain in con¬
tact with the pin or spring until the unlocking of the other
pallet is completed, and the wheel begins to move.
But for electrical dials it is better, if possible, to make
the hands move only by half-minute jumps, so that the time
may be taken exactly as with a train remontoire; and in
that case nothing is required but the three dial wheels, and
some kind of scape-wheel or ratchet for driving them. If
they are driven by pallets, a scape-wheel of 60 teeth will
do ; if it is a ratchet-wheel with a driving click, it will want
120 teeth. But here comes in a difficulty of some weight,
at least in large dials, and especially in those exposed to ci0Ck and
wind. In that case it is found that pallets cannot be relied Watch
on to drive with certainty, and the ratchet and click must Work,
be resorted to. But if the wind happens to be pushing the
hand forward at the time of lifting the click, it may run on
3 or 4 teeth at once. To prevent this, two ratchets have
been used, set opposite ways, and the clicks so disposed that
the wheels can only move one tooth at a time, under the
proper action of the driving click; such at any rate is the in¬
tention of them ; but it does not seem to be always carried
into effect; and besides that, it requires great delicacy in
construction. Mr Denison has, therefore, lately contrived
the following apparatus for this purpose, which has been
made by Mr Dent, and, as far as can be yet seen, is success¬
ful ; at least it has been tried by pressing the wheel both
ways more strongly than the wind could, and it remains quite
steady. In fig. 19, H is the wheel on the arbor of the minute-
hand, with 120 square teeth in it. When the circuit is com-
Fig. 19.
plete, the magnet M raises the lever L into the position here
shown, and with it the driving click A. The pin B at the
same time lifts the forward click DG out of the teeth, and
the spring behind it at D sends it forward a little (there being
some play left in the pivot hole for the purpose), and makes
it trip on to the top of the tooth at G. The top of the lever
at F also then reaches the tail of the backward click CF;
so that while things are in this state, the wheel cannot go
forward without pulling the lever out of contact with the
magnet, which no wind would be strong enough to do while
it remains a magnet; and as soon as the circuit is broken,
the lever ought to go and will go, being pulled down by the
weight W, till it rests on the lower banking pin E; and in
so doing, the click A will drive the wheel forward one tooth,
and the click DG will drop into the space next after the
tooth G, and be pressed back against its spring till it is
lifted again by the lever. Another advantage of this plan
over those in which the magnet drives the wheel directly is,
that the weight is always ready to pull down the lever as
soon as the current ceases; so that if there should be any
momentary impediment from residual magnetism or other¬
wise, it will not signify; and, moreover, the wind can never
prevent the lever from being lifted; and if there should be
any resistance to the hands from wind at the moment when
the current ceases, the weight is sure to have the opportu¬
nity of overcoming it before the next 29 seconds are over;
so that a whole move of the hands can never be lost, which
has always been liable to happen under the other arrange¬
ment in large dials.
There is no such difficulty in making the half-minute con¬
tact as there is in seconds contact, because plenty of time
can always be taken for it; and it may be done by a slower
wheel in the train, and therefore not so liable to affect the
force on the pendulum. As the third wheel in the train
generally turns in 7^ minutes, there may be 15 pins in it
pressing a spring which makes contact, or raising a lever or
a spring which drops into a plate. Where the gravity
escapement is used, there may be a snail with two steps on
the arbor of the minute-wheel, which will drop the lever on to
the contact plate at every thirtieth second, and begin to lift
CLOCK AND WATCH WOKK.
Clock and it off again at the thirty-first, the snail being made square at
Watch the bottom in order to raise it immediately, and waste as
v VV ork' ; little electricity as possible. It was intended to drive the
numerous small clocks in and about the houses of parlia¬
ment by electrical connection with the great clock ; but as
they are finished, and the great clock is not likely to be put
up for some years, we suppose this plan will be abandoned,
unless the bad going of some of these small clocks, and the
cost of winding them, suggests the expediency of replacing
them by electrical dials. In that case there ought to be one
other strong gravity clock with which they might be con¬
nected in case of any accident at the great clock, which would
otherwise stop them all. There is apparently to be a small
turret clock at the corner facing the Abbey, which would
do very well for this purpose, if it is a good one.
Shepherd’s Of electrical clocks, i.e., clocks where pendulums are kept
electrical going by electricity, it is not worth while to notice any be¬
decks. fore Mr Shepherd’s, or the coeval invention of the same
kind on the Continent. The latest and best form of his
escapement is this: a single pallet like one of the pallets in
the pin-wheel escapement (fig. 6) is fixed to the pendulum,
and there is a small lever set in the frame, the end of which
is lifted on to this pallet at every swing of the pendulum in
one direction by the magnet; and as the pendulum draws
the pallet away from the lever end, it slides down the sloped
face and gives the impulse. This is a single-beat escape¬
ment, of which there are other forms without reference to
electricity. They have the advantage that the impulse may
be made to end exactly at the same arc of the pendulum
after zero as it begins before zero, or even less; but there
are countervailing disadvantages in the mode of unlocking
(not applying, however, to this electrical method, which has
no unlocking), and they have consequently never come into
use. Still this escapement is not without friction, and the
contact is made by the pendulum pressing against a spring
as it approaches the extremity of its swing in one direction,
which is objectionable for the reasons before mentioned.
So far as we have yet described it, we have got nothing but
a self-acting pendulum ; the connection with a clock train is
made in just the same way as if this w'ere an ordinary pen¬
dulum from which the pallets of an electrical dial are to be
driven by alternate contact springs on each side of the
pendulum.
Another peculiarity of Mr Shepherd’s clocks is, that the
pallets which drive the train are alternately attracted and
repelled, not simply attracted and let loose, and this is
stated to economise the force. In order to effect it, there
are two batteries which come into action alternately ; and
there are two permanent straight bar magnets set across the
pallet arbor, with their poles opposite ways, so that on one
side, say the left, the adjacent ends of the two bars would
be north and south, and on the right side south and north.
Consequently a temporary horse-shoe magnet, with its poles
standing south and north, will attract the left side of the pallet
magnets, and a similar magnet will repel the right side; and,
therefore, if the current is made to pass one way when the
pendulum makes the contact on the right side, and the other
way when it makes it on the left, the pallets will be driven
both ways by the combined force of the attraction and repul¬
sion of both magnets. For this purpose it is only necessary
that the right pendulum spring should be connected with
the + pole of one battery, and the left spring with the — pole
of the other, the other wires of each battery being soldered
together, and ultimately connected with the pendulum cock
after passing round both the soft-iron magnets.
Time-ball. If anything is to be let off by electricity at a given second
in every day, the requisite precision is obtained by Mr Shep¬
herd thus : there are pins for making contact with springs
in the minute-wheel, the hour-wheel,and the 12-hour wheel;
and it is only when the contact is made with all of them at
once that the circuit is complete. In this way the time-ball
at the Greenwich Observatory, and also the one in the Strand Clock and
in connection with it, are let off at one o’clock every day, Watch
by the clock pulling a trigger by a temporary magnet. Tbe Work,
balls are pulled up by hand a few minutes before one. The
Greenwich one is a large covered basket of wicker work,
and it descends with a piston plunging into a tube with a
bell-mouth to facilitate the entrance, and the piston com¬
pressing the air as it goes down, which acts as an elastic
cushion to the ball, makes it drop without concussion : there
is a small hole at the bottom through which the air after¬
wards gradually escapes. Mr Shepherd also describes in
his pamphlet some apparatus for striking by means of elec¬
tricity, without the aid of any striking weight. But we have
not heard of any such clocks being in use, and we think it
not very likely they should be, on account of the greater
force which is required for striking than for keeping a pen¬
dulum going.
Mr Dent has lately made a self-acting electrical clock on
quite a different plan from Mr Shepherd’s. It has the three-
legged gravity escapement and the usual train, except the
great wheel, but has a going ratchet on the centre wheel,
with 120 teeth. This is driven by a click on the end of a
lever, which is raised the height of one tooth by the magnet
at every half minute by any such half-minute contact as
we have before described. It requires, however, a strong
battery, as there must always be more force in the ratchet
spring than is actually required to drive the escapement.
1 here is no doubt yet room for considerable improvement
in all these various contrivances.
WATCHES AND CIIRONOMETEES.
We said that we should defer a description of spring-
clocks until we came to treat of watches, which, as we all
know, have a spiral spring instead of a weight for their
maintaining power. 1 hey seem to have been made as early
as the sixteenth century, though Huygens in the seventeenth
was the first discoverer of the important rule respecting
springs, which he enunciated in the well-known words, uf,
tensio sic vis, the force of a spring varies as the bending of
it; which, however, we shall find to be subject to one
somewhat inconvenient, and another very convenient ex¬
ception. I he most simple form of mainspring arrange¬
ment for a clock or watch is that where the spring has its
inner end attached to the arbor, which ends in the winding
square, having a ratchet set on it with the click in the
clock-frame. The other end of the spring is fixed to the
barrel containing it, and on the end of the barrel is the
great wheel of the clock or watch. And one advantage of
this is, that no going barrel apparatus is wanted, as there is
just the same pressure on the train when you are winding up
(in fact rather more) as at any other time. But then it will
occur to the reader, that by virtue of the rule ut tensio sic
vis, there must be a much greater force on the train when
the watch is wound up than when it is nearly run down.
And so there would be, but for that very convenient and
singular exception we just now alluded to. For it is found
that there is a position of every spring, in which its force does
not sensibly alter for four or five turns; and if the spring
is such, that this position occurs just at the right degree of
tension for using it in a watch barrel, it is evident that w'e
may use it for a mainspring without any further provision
for equalizing its force. We are not sure whether this is
the case yet with any of the English mainsprings, but it
certainly is with many of the foreign ones; and we can tes¬
tify to the fact of watches made with those mainsprings
going as w'ell as those which are made with English main¬
springs and a fusee ; and we believe that the late Mr Dent,
who had been trying some of these watches for several
years before his death, had come to the conclusion that with
a mainspring properly made and adjusted, the fusee, chain,
and going ratchet, are an unnecessary expense, except per
CLOCK AND WATCH WORK.
28
^ wk and ^arSe chronometers, where not only is a great force
Work^ reclu'11’e^j but a constant force throughout the day, which is
i ' j no^ the case in watches.
Fig. 20 shows the general arrangement of a watch or
chronometer (it is actually taken from a chronometer). The
barrel and fusee will be recognised at once. The fusee
is a sort of grooved cone with a concave section ; the more
rapid swell towards the thick end is required, because one
turn of the fusee when the chain is at that end takes much
more of it off the barrel than at the thin end ; and on the
assumption that the force of the spring varies as its tension
(except under the circumstances before mentioned), the
radius of the cone must increase more rapidly, in order to
make the increase of leverage keep pace with the decrease
in the force of the spring as it unwinds with an increasing
velocity off the thick end of the fusee. The fusee itself
is connected with the great wheel by a ratchet and click
and going ratchet (of which the spring and click are strongly
shown in the figure), just as we described in an astronomi¬
cal clock. Something is also required to prevent the watch
from being overwound, or the chain strained so as to break.
This is done by means of a hooked lever set on a hinge in
the upper frame-plate (which is taken off in this drawing);
and when the watch is nearly wound up, the chain moving
upwards reaches this lever, and moves it into such a position
that its hook catches hold of the long tooth projecting from
the thin end of the fusee ; and thus the winding is stopped
Avithout any strain on the chain by the sudden check. In
the Great Exhibition there were some watches by a Mr
Jackson, in which the winding was done by a solid key fit¬
ting into a square hole in the arbor of a pinion working
into a winding wheel on the fusee, just like the winding
pinion in turret clocks. The object was to reduce the size
of the fusee arbor, and to avoid the inconvenience of a very
short winding square when the watch is wanted to be thin.
\\ e doubt whether the advantage is worth the additional
cost. But we are surprised that a suggestion of the late
Mr Mudge’s for the reduction of the friction of the fusee
arbor has not been adopted, viz., to make the barrel turn
the opposite way to the fusee, so that the chain may act
between the arbor and the centre pinion, thereby making
the pressure on the fusee arbor only the difference, instead of
the sum, of the force of the spring and the pressure trans¬
mitted to the pinion. In watches without a fusee, the solid
key plan might be advantageously adopted, as it would not
require the addition of a winding pinion; because the wind¬
ing arbor is then the arbor of the barrel, which does not Clock and
turn round except in winding, when the friction from the Watch
increased size would not signify. Work.
In watches without a fusee the apparatus for preventing
them from being overwound is different; it goes by the Geneva
name of the Geneva stop, and the principle of it is simply stoP-
this: if two wheels work together, of which one has the
spaces between some two or more adjacent teeth filled up,
it is evident that that wheel cannot be turned quite round.
And it wall be the same thing if one of the wheels is only
a cylinder with a single tooth in it, and the other has a
certain number of notches, not going all round, through
which that tooth can pass. If, therefore, a one-toothed
wheel of this kind is fixed to the barrel arbor, which is
turned by the key, and works into a wheel with only 4 or
5 notches in it and a blank space through which the tooth
cannot pass, it will evidently allow the barrel to be wound
up the 4 or 5 turns and no more ; and as it unwinds it turns
the stopping wheel back again with it.
The other parts of a watch do not differ from those of a
clock, except in size, and the position in which they are ar¬
ranged, to bring them within the circle of the dial, until we
come to the escapement, and there a different
state of things arises, mainly from the fact that the
balance of a watch revolves through sometimes as
much as 270°, while a clock pendulum only vi¬
brates through 4° or 5°. The balance being com¬
mon to all the watch escapements, it will be proper
first to describe that, and the conditions to which
it is subject. The two equal arms, with equal
weights at each end, in fig. 3, are really a balance
just as much as the wheel which is commonly
used as the more convenient form. But in that
figure there is not to be seen that essential ele¬
ment of a modern balance—the thin spiral spring,
which you see opening and closing itself at every
vibration when you look into a watch. The outer
end of this spring is attached to the frame by
a cock R (fig. 21), and the inner to the balance
at S; and the time
of vibration is a
compound of the
strength of the
spring, and the
moment of inertia
of the balance; for
if the spring is
perfect, the extent of the
vibration does not signify,
by virtue of the before-
quoted maxim ut tensio sic
vis, and the further rule
(which is one of mathemati¬
cal certainty, and not empi¬
rical and approximate), that
wherever the force varies as the angle of vibration, the time of
the body vibrating is the same, whatever the space moved
over. And as the force of a spring varies (approximately) Regulation
inversely as its length, this suggests a ready method of regu- of watch,
lating the watch; for it is easy to make a pointer or index,
or “regulator” PT, turning on a ring fixed to the watch
plate, concentric with the balance, and having two pins
in it at P, called curb pins, just close enough together
to embrace the spring, so that, as the index is moved one
way or the other, the length of the spring which is free to
vibrate may become shorter or longer. When the regu¬
lator has been moved as far as it can go towards fast, sup¬
pose, and the watch still loses, the spring has to be short¬
ened at the cock R into which its outer end is pinned; and
in order that the balance may be capable of alteration, so as
still to stand square with the escapement when the spring is
Fig. 20.
CLOCK AND WATCH WORK.
Clock and in its neutral state, the other end is not actually pinned to
Watch the balance, but the cock S is on a small ring which is set
v Work' / on the axis or verge of the balance pretty tight by friction,
but capable of being turned by hand.
It has often been complained, and very justly, that it is
almost impossible to move the regulator little enough, and
with sufficient accuracy, for a very small variation of rate,
not merely because the point is often ill adjusted to the
scale, but because the divisions themselves are necessarily
very small. One way of obtaining greater accuracy, and
probably the best, is to make the regulator moveable by a
tangent screw acting on its end, and capable of being turned
by the watch key; and in an expensive watch, fitted with
all the other modern appliances for securing accuracy of per¬
formance, the additional expense of this would be well worth
incurring. We have seen several watches of this kind. Mr
Dent suggests that a cheaper way of doing it, and accurate
enough for most watches, would be to make the scale with
oblique divisions (as shown in fig. 21), after the fashion of
the old form of vernier, and the regulator itself with bevelled
edges: by this means a very small motion of the edge of the
regulator along the oblique divisions would be very distinctly
seen, and it cannot be doubted that this would be a great
improvement. In chronometers the adjustment for time is
no longer made by altering the effective length of the spring
after its length is once fixed, because of the other exception
to the rule about the force of a spring varying as its ten¬
sion, to which we alluded. For it has long been ascertained
that a spring has not this isochronous property at all lengths,
but only at certain intervals ; and therefore it is necessary
in an accurate time-keeper to use only one of those lengths
of the spring which are isochronous for different arcs of vi¬
bration ; and that being fixed, the timing of the balance
can only be done by altering its moment of inertia, and this
is done in chronometers by screws with heavy heads in the
rim of the balance, and set farther in or out as it is wanted
to go faster or slower. In marine chronometers, where there
is plenty of room for it, the balance spring is generally made
in a cylindrical form, with the coils all of the same diameter,
instead of the flat spiral used in watches ; though it does
not seem to be quite clear that the cylindrical form is ma¬
terially better than the other. It is evident, however, that
the goodness of this spring is a matter of primary importance;
and in this respect, as well as in mainsprings, there seems
some reason for apprehending that our makers are surpassed
by the foreign ones. The balance-springs made by M. Lutz
of Geneva (by a secret method), stood ‘the tests which the
horological jury at the Great Exhibition applied, of pulling out
nearly straight, and laying on a hot plate, without altering their
form ; while those to which special attention was invited by
Mr C. Frodsham, a chronometer-maker of reputation in
London, were very much distorted under the same opera¬
tions. The late Mr Dent happened to be present when
the springs of M. Lutz were tried, and he expressed great
admiration of them.
The timing of a watch for position, as it is called, is a
matter wdiich requires some attention. If the balance is
not exactly poised on its axis, it will have a tendency to
take one position when the watch is carried vertically, as it
always is in the pocket; and the time of vibration will be
affected by its disposition thus to act as a pendulum. The
watch ought therefore to be tried with XII, IX, VI, and
III, successively upwards, and if it does not keep the same
rate, the balance is not properly poised. Marine chrono-
nieters, indeed, being set in gimbals (a ring with the two
pivots into the box at right angles with the pivots which
carry the chronometer) will remain horizontal, though not
without some degree of motion under the motion of the
ship; and this gives the balance the further advantage of
having its weight resting only on the end of the axis or
verge, a position in wdiich there is much less friction than
29
that of a watch carried in the pocket: but there it is not of Clock and
so much consequence, because the balance is so much Watch
lighter than a chronometer balance. Work.
COMPENSATED BALANCES.
The compensation of a balance for temperature is even
of more importance than that of a pendulum, especially for
chronometers, which are not kept as watches are to a tole¬
rably equable temperature by being carried in the pocket.
A pendulum requires scarcely any compensation except for
its own elongation by heat; but a balance requires com¬
pensation not only for its own expansion, which increases
its moment of inertia just like the pendulum, but far more
on account of the decrease in the strength of the sprino-
under increased heat. The late Mr Dent, in a pamphlet
on Compensation Balances, gave the following results of some
experiments with a glass balance, which he used for the pur¬
pose on account of its less expansibility than a metal one :—
Temperature. Vibrations in an hour.
32° 3606
66° 3598*5
100° 3590
If therefore it had been adjusted to go right (or 3600
times in an hour) at 32°, it would have lost 7£ and
seconds an hour, or more than three minutes a-day, for
each successive increase of 34°, which is about 15 times as
much as a common wire pendulum would lose under the
same increase of heat, taking the decrease of elasticity of
the spring into account, as well as the elongation of the rod ;
and if a metal balance had been used instead of a glass one,
the difference would have been still greater.
The necessity for this large amount of compensation hav¬
ing arisen from the variation of the elasticity of the spring,
the fust attempts at correcting it were by acting on the
spring itself in the manner of a common regulator. Harri¬
son’s compensation consisted of a compound bar of brass and
steel soldered together, having one end fixed to the watch-
frame, and the other carrying two curb pins which embraced
the spring as we described at fig. 21. As the brass expands
more than the steel, any increase of heat made the bar bend;
and so, if it was set the right way, it carried the pins along
the spring, so as to shorten it. This contrivance is called a
compensation curb; and it has often been reinvented, or
applied in a modified form. But there are two objections
to it: first, that the motion of the curb pins does not cor¬
respond accurately enough to the variations in the force of
the spring; and, secondly, it disturbs the isochronism of the
spring for short and long arcs, because, as we stated a little
while ago, that isochronism only subsists at certain definite
lengths of the spring. And the compensation which was
next invented left the spring untouched, and provided for
the variations of temperature by the construction of the
balance itself. Fig. 22 shows
the plan of the ordinary com¬
pensation balance as it has
now been used for many
years. Each portion of the rim
of the balance is composed of
an inner bar of steel with an
outer one of brass soldered
upon it, and carrying the
weights, b, b, which are screw¬
ed to it. As the temperature
increases the brass expand¬
ing must bend the steel in¬
wards ; and so carries the weights farther in, and diminishes
the moment of inertia of the balance. The metals are
generally soldered together by pouring melted brass round
a solid steel disc, and the whole is afterwards turned and filed
away till it leaves only the cross-bar in the middle lying flat
and the two portions of the rim standing edgeways. The
30
CLOCK AND WATCH WORK.
Clock and
W atch
Work.
first person who practised this method of uniting them ap¬
pears to have been Thomas Earnshaw—the man who brought
the chronometer to the state in which it has remained for
the last eighty years, with scarcely any alteration ; although
(from a combination against him in his own time, and the
indifference of writers on these subjects since) he has not
obtained the reputation he deserves, and has been sometimes
dismissed in a single sentence, while pages have been be¬
stowed on the works of inferior artists, whose chronometers
were always beaten by his whenever they came into compe¬
tition, and who afterwards copied his inventions, and did
their best to prevent his being rewarded for them.
The adjustment of a balance for compensation can only be
done by trial, and requires a good deal of time. It must be
done independently of that for time ; the former by shifting
the weights, because the nearer they are to the cross-bar the
less distance they will move over as the rim bends with them.
The timing is done by screws with heavy heads (t, t, in fig.
22) just opposite to the ends of the cross-bar, and conse¬
quently not affected by the bending of the rim. The com¬
pensation may be done approximately by the known results
of previous experience with similar balances; and many
watches are sold with compensation balances which have
never been tried or adjusted—a matter which a purchaser
has no means of ascertaining except by trying the watch
himself in two sufficiently different temperatures.
THE CHRONOMETRICAL THERMOMETER.
If a watch or chronometer, going right at a given tempera¬
ture, is transferred to a higher temperature, it will, of course,
lose in proportion to the excess of the new temperature above
the old, and the time it is kept there ; and consequently, its
difference from the true time will show the quantity of ad¬
ditional heat it has received during that period ; and if its
time is observed and registered every day or every week, it
will show what has been the mean heat of that day or week.
And if, instead of being furnished with a plain balance, it
has one compensated the wrong way, as we may call it, its
indications will become still stronger. Such an instrument
is called a chronometrical thermometer, and is used where the
quantity of heat received or lost by some other instrument
or apparatus, during a given time, is wanted to be known,
without regard to the extremes which the temperature may
have reached, or its fluctuations.
SECONDARY COMPENSATION.
When chronometers had been brought to great perfec¬
tion by the improved workmanship of modern times, and
wrere subjected to more extreme temperatures in the an¬
nual trials at Greenwich, it was perceived that there was a
residuary error, which was due to changes of temperature,
but which no adjustment of the compensation could correct.
For if the compensation was adjusted for two extreme tem¬
peratures, such as 32° and 100°, then the chronometer
gained at mean temperatures; and if adjusted for any two
mean temperatures, it would lose for all beyond them. This
error was observed, and attempts were made to correct it
before anybody had pointed out how it arose : this appears
to have been first done in a paper in the Nautical Maga¬
zine by the late Mr Dent, in the year 1833 ; and he gave
the following illustration of it. The variation of the force
of the spring proceeds uniformly in proportion to the tem¬
perature, and therefore may be represented by a straight line
inclined at some angle to another straight line divided into
degrees of temperature. But the inertia of a balance of the
common construction cannot be made to vary uniformly ac¬
cording to the temperature, but more rapidly in cold than
heat; and consequently its rate of variation can only be re¬
presented by a curve, and the curve can only be made to
coincide with the straight line representing the rate of varia¬
tion of the spring, in two points, whether two extremes or two
means, or one extreme and one mean point. The same thing Clock and
may be shown mathematically, as follows: let r be the dis- Watch
tance of the compensation weights b, b, in fig. 22 (which we Work-
may assume for convenience to be the whole mass M of the
balance) from the centre at some mean temperature, and let
dr be their increase of distance due to a decrease of some
given number of degree of heat, under the action of the
compensation bars. Then the new moment of inertia will
be M (?’2+ 2r dr + dr2), and the ratio of the new to the old
will be 1 + — + ; and the term is now t0°
large to be disregarded, as it might be in pendulums, where,
as we saw, the compensation — is only required tobeabout
irffth of the — in a balance. It is found that an equal in¬
crease of temperature will produce an equal (or perhaps a
less) motion ( — d?') of the weights towards the centre, and
therefore the ratio of the decreased moment of inertia to the
Qdv ( civ \ ^
original one will be 1 - + ( ~ ) 5 so that the increase
and the decrease from the mean amount differ by twice
: in other words, the moment of inertia of the
balance varies less in passing from mean to hot tempera¬
tures than from mean to cold, and consequently if it is ad¬
justed for mean and cold, it will not have decreased enough
at an equal increase from mean to hot, or the chronometer
will lose; and if adjusted for the two extremes it will gain
at mean temperatures.
The correction of this error is called the secondary com¬
pensation ; and it has lately been the subject of a rather
warm controversy, carried on in memorials to the Admiralty,
published by parliament, and subsequently in the Journal
of the Society of Arts for the year 1853, arising from a re¬
peated claim by Mr Loseby, a chronometer-maker of great
reputation, to be rewarded by the government for an in¬
vention of this kind, which he asserted to be superior to the
many others for the same purpose, some earlier and some
later than his own. The Astronomer Royal has four times
reported against Mr Loseby’s claim, though admitting the
general excellence of his chronometers; and it appears, from
other examinations of the reports of the annual trials at
Greenwich, in the above papers and journal, that when
proper means are taken to distinguish the errors of compen¬
sation from the general errors which have nothing to do
with temperature, Mr Loseby’s apparent superiority vanishes
altogether. It is obvious that the mere fact of one chrono¬
meter going better than another for a certain time proves
nothing as to the value of any particular invention it con¬
tains, unless some means are taken to distinguish the effects
of the error which that invention is designed to correct. We
shall give a short description of the principal classes of in¬
ventions for this purpose, as several of them are exactly
the same in principle.
The first which was disclosed was Mr Eiffe’s, who com- Eiffe’s
municated several methods for effecting this object to the compensa-
Astronomer Royal in 1835. They were afterwards described tlon ba-
in a paper edited by Mr Airy for the Admiralty, and they, ance’
or some of them, w-ere sufficiently successful to obtain for
Mr Eiffe a reward of L.300 as being the first inventor, and
having disclosed his invention without a patent. In one
of them a compensation curb was used; and though for
the reasons we gave before this will not answer for the pri¬
mary compensation, it possibly may for the secondary, where
the motion required is very much smaller. In another the
primary compensation bar, or a screw in it, was made to
reach a spring set within it with a small weight attached, at
some mean temperature, and as it bent further in it carried
CLOCK AND WATCH WORK.
31
Dent’s
compensa¬
tion ba¬
lance.
Loseby’s
mercurial
balance.
this secondary compensation weight along with it. The
obvious objection to this is (as Mr Loseby remarks), that it
is discontinuous; but still the whole motion is so small,
not more than the thickness of a piece of paper, that this
and other compensations on the same principle appear to
have been on some occasions quite as successful as his own.
Mr Eiffe seems to have made some improvements since
that time, but the nature of them is not disclosed in any of
the papers we have referred to. Shortly after this Mr
Molyneux took a patent for a secondary compensation ex¬
actly the same as this of Mr Eifte’s, then before the Astro¬
nomer Royal.
Another large class of balances, all more or less alike,
may be represented by Mr Dent’s, which came the next in
order of time after the two we have mentioned. He also
described several forms of his invention in a pamphlet which
he published; and it should be observed, that the one
which he there specified as the best of them is not the one
which Mr Loseby afterwards selected and described as
“ Dent’s balance,” for the purposes of his memorial to the
Admiralty. The following is the proper description:—
In fig. 23, the flat cross-bar is itself a compensation bar
which bends upwards under increased heat; so that if the
weights were merely set upon upright stems rising from
the ends of the cross-bar, they would, of course, approach
the axis when that bar bends
upwards. But instead of the
stems rising from the cross-
bar, they rise from the two
secondary compensation
pieces s £ m in the form of
staples, which are set on the
cross-bar; and as these se¬
condary pieces themselves
also bend upwards, they
make the weights approach
the axis more rapidly as the
heat increases; and by a
proper adjustment of the
height of the weights on
the stems, the moment of Fig. 23.
inertia of the balance can be made to vary in the proper
ratio to the variation of the intensity of the spring. The
cylindrical spring stands above the cross-bar and between
the staples.
Fig. 24 represents Mr Loseby’s mercurial compensation
Fig. 24.
balance. Besides the weights D set near the end of the
primary compensation bars B, there are small bent tubes
EE with mercury in them, like a thermometer, the bulb
being at F. As the heat increases, not only do the primary
weights D and the bulbs F approach the centre of the bal- Clock and
ance, but some of the mercury is driven along the tube, thus Watch
carrying some more of the weight towards the centre, at a work.
ratio increasing more rapidly than the temperature. The
tubes are sealed at the thin end, with a little air included.
The action is here equally continuous with Mr Dent’s, and
the adjustments for primary and secondary compensation
are apparently more independent of each other; and this
modification of Le Roy’s use of mercury for compensated
balances (which does not appear to have answered), is cer¬
tainly very elegant and ingenious. Nevertheless, it is clear,
from the analysis of the Greenwich lists for the last 7 years
before referred to, that the advantages of this method over
the others is more theoretical than practical; for it appears,
that if the six months of trial are divided into three periods,
one containing all the coldest weeks, another the hottest,
and the third those of moderate temperature only, and
whether the division is arbitrarily made into equal periods
of eight weeks, or into periods of six weeks of the most
extreme temperatures and twelve of the mean, or is
made just where the printed register of the temperature
shows the greatest breaks to have occurred in each year,
still the result is the same, that Dent’s compensation has
been the most successful in three years out of the seven, and
Loseby’s in only one. We observe also, that Mr Loseby,
in his numerous letters and memorials to the Admiralty and
the Society of Arts, does not answer the objection to his
claim, that the high place which his chronometers have fre¬
quently obtained in the Greenwich lists, not being borne
out in that particular respect for which his invention is
designed, must be attributed to his personal care and skill
in getting up a chronometer for trial in each year; which,
however creditable to him, is evidently an argument against
the value of his invention rather than in favour of it;
and makes it probable that the same care and skill be¬
stowed upon some of the other inventions for secon¬
dary compensation would have rendered them still more
successful. It is remarkable also, that it has never been
adopted by any other chronometer-maker ; for although he
has recently included it in a patent, it was well known and
open to the adoption of everybody for several years before :
whereas the principles both of Mr Eiffe’s and Mr Dent’s me¬
thods have been adopted by several other makers.
Chronometers have been made with glass balance-springs,
and the published rate of one which was tried some years
ago at the Royal Observatory was very good. They have
the advantage of requiring very little primary and no
secondary compensation, on account of the very small varia¬
tion in their elasticity, compared with springs of steel or any
other metal. We cannot ascertain any good reason why
the use of them has not been extended, except that it is said
the workmen resisted their introduction, as they often do
resist any improvement involving a material departure from
the established modes of construction. It was also stated
on a late occasion at the Society of Arts, that glass springs
change their rate after a few months ; but so do steel springs:
it is expressly stated in Mr Eiffe’s pamphlet before referred
to, that chronometers always gain after a few months’ work¬
ing. But whatever is the cause, very few of these glass
spring chronometers appear to have been made even by Mr
Dent, who was the author of the one whose rate we have
mentioned.
But about a year before his death he invented a very differ- Dent’s
ent method of effecting the primary and secondary compen- prismatic
sation at once, and without any additional appendage to the balance‘
balance or addition to the cost. He called it the 'prismatic
balance, from the shape of the steel rim, of which the sec¬
tion is shown in fig. 25, BC being the brass, and the dark
triangle within it the section of the steel part of the rim.
A prism of cast-steel will bend more easily from the edge
than the other way, and consequently the motion is greater
32
CLOCK AND WATCH WORK.
Clock and when it is being curved by heat than when it is pulled
Watch straighter by cold ; which is exactly what is wanted. It is
Work. ^ *
Fig. 25.
true that the difference is not quite so great as it ought to
be for complete compensation for a very wide range of tem¬
perature (above 90°), such as the present Astronomer Royal
has for the last few years subjected all the chronometers
which are sent for public trial; a practice which seems not
unlikely to withdraw the attention of the makers from points
of greater practical importance, and confine it to this one
of secondary compensation for variations of temperature
which not one in a hundred of them will have to undergo
in real use. It is remarkable that when the chronometer
rates were sent to Greenwich after a late arctic expedition,
the Astronomer Royal had to report to the Admiralty that
the chronometers had all been kept so warm that they did
not afford the means of ai'riving at any conclusion as to the
relative merits of the different kinds of secondary compensa¬
tion ; in other words, that it had not come into action, even
in an arctic voyage, to any sensible extent. But, although
it would be of no use to send a chronometer of this kind to
be tried against others in artificial changes of temperature
from 21° to 115°, the present Mr Dent (of the Strand) says
he has found them quite near enough to the requisite com¬
pensation for all ordinary variations of temperature, and also
more than usually steady in their rate ; for even in the best
chronometers there appear every now and then quite caprici¬
ous variations, which show that there is yet ample room for
improvement in other things besides compensation for an
excessive range of temperature.
WATCH ESCAPEMENTS.
There is a greater variety of escapements in use in watches
than in clocks. In the Austrian department of the Great
Exhibition there was a large watch movement to which
thirteen different escapements could be fitted for the purpose
of illustration—not that anything like all this number can be
said to be in use. The only ones that can be so described
are (1.) the old vertical escapement, now almost disused;
(2.) the lever, very much the most common in English
watches; (3.) the horizontal or cylinder, which is equally
common in foreign watches, though of English invention ;
(4.) the duplex, which used to be more in fashion for first-
rate watches than it is now ; and (5.) the detached or chro¬
nometer escapement, so called because it is always used in
marine chronometers. Of course every watch is in one
sense a chronometer ; but the term is conventionally applied
only to marine chronometers, and to watches of the same
construction, which are thence called pocket chronometers.
Besides these five standard movements, we have already
mentioned that Macdowall’s single-pin escapement (fig. 7)
has lately been applied to watches, and that it is in some
respects superior to the lever; but it is more expensive on
account of the two additional wheels in the train ; and that,
like the virgule or comma escapement (which is described in
most of the French treatises on watches), can hardly be add¬
ed to the list of escape¬
ments in general use,
though it is entitled
to stand above many
others of the thirteen
before alluded to.
Vertical The vertical escape-
escape- ment is simply the ori-
ment. ginal clock escape¬
ment of fig. 3 adapted Fig. 26.
to the position of the wheels in a watch and
lance, in the manner here exhibited in fig. 26.
we saw before, a recoil escapement, and the only one of
those we have mentioned which is ; and besides that, it re¬
quires, considerable thickness in the watch to hold the wheel
which stands vertically when all the others are horizontal.
It is also inferior in going to all the others, and very little
cheaper than the lever escapement can now be made; and for
these reasons it is no wonder that it is almost disused.
The lever escapement, as it is now universally made, was
invented by Thomas Mudge, a London watchmaker, to
whom (or to his son for him), in 1793, a committee of the
House of Commons, in opposition to the opinion of the
Board of Longitude, and apparently not understanding the
evidence they took, gave a reward of L.3000 for inventing
a remontoire escapement for chronometers, not worth a
farthing, and indeed, as it turned out, worth a good deal
less than nothing to his son, who proceeded to make the
chronometers. However, if the reward is considered as
given for the invention of the lever escapement, which is
now used in all the best watches in the world (except chro¬
nometers), it may be said to have been well deserved. It
is strange that Graham, the inventor of the dead escape¬
ment in clocks, did not hit upon this application of it to
watches ; an application, too, which avoids the great defect
of that escapement in clocks, viz., the dead friction, or the
friction on the dead faces of the pallets beyond what is
the ba- Clock and
It is, as Watch
Work.
27 shows its action ; of Lever es¬
capement.
necessary for the • locking
course the position of the
lever with reference to the
pallets is immaterial in prin¬
ciple, and is only a question
of convenience in the ar¬
rangement ; but it is gene¬
rally such as we have given
it. If you turn back to fig.
5, the dead escapement in
clocks, you will see that this
is just the same as if the
pallets there vibrated no
farther with the pendulum
than just enough to let the
teeth escape, and left the
pendulum free during all
the rest of its swing or “ex- Fig. 27.
cursion” beyond the angle of escape. The reason why that
cannot be done with a pendulum is, that its arc of vibration
is so small that the requisite depth of intersection cannot be
got between the two circles described by the end S of the
lever and any pin in the pendulum which would work into
it; whereas in a watch the pin P, which is set in a cylinder
on the verge of the balance, does not generally slip out of
the nick in the end of the lever until the balance has got
15° past its middle position. The pallets are under-cut a
little, as it is called, i.e., the dead faces are so sloped as to
give a little recoil the wrong way, or slightly to resist the
unlocking ; because otherwise there would be a risk that a
shake of the watch would let a tooth escape while the pin
is disengaged from the lever. There is also a further pro¬
vision added for safety. In the cylinder, which carries the
impulse pin P, there is a notch just in front of P into which
the other pin S on the lever fits as they pass ; but when the
notch has got past the cylinder, it would prevent the lever
from returning, because the safety pin S cannot pass except
through the notch, which is only in the position for letting
it pass at the same time that the impulse pin is engaged in
the lever. The pallets in a lever escapement (except bad
and cheap ones) are always jewelled, and the scape-wheel
is of brass. The staff of the lever also has jewelled pivot
holes in expensive watches, and the scape-wheel has in all
good ones. The holes for the balance pivots are now always
CLOCK AND WATCH WOKK.
Clock and jewelled, if nothing else is. The scape-wheel in this and
Watch most of the watch escapements generally beats five times in
Work. a second ; in large chronometers four times ; and the wheel
next to the scape-wheel carries the seconds-hand. Mac-
dowall’s single-pin escapement is adapted to watches exactly
as the dead escapement of clocks is turned into the lever
escapement in watches.
Horizontal Fig. 28 is a plan of the horizontal or cylinder escapement,
escape- cutting through the cylinder which is on the verge of the
ment' balance at the level
of the tops of the
teeth of the scape-
wheel ; for the tri¬
angular pieces A B
are not flat projec¬
tions in the same
plane as the teeth,
but are raised on
short stems above
the plane of the
wheel ; and still
more of the cylin-
der than the portion shown at A CD is cut away where the
wheel itself has to pass. The author of this escapement was
Graham, and it resembles the dead escapement in clocks in
principle more than the lever escapement does, though much
less in appearance ; because in this escapement there is the
dead friction of the teeth against the cylinder, first on the out-?
side, as here represented, and then on the inside, as shown by
the dotted lines, during the whole vibration of the balance,
except that portion which belongs to the impulse, whereas
in the lever escapement there is not the dead friction, as
we explained just now. The impulse is given by the oblique
outside edges A«, B6, of the teeth against the edges AD
of the cylinder alternately. The portion of the cylinder
which is cut away at the point of action is about 30° less
than the semicircle. 1 he cylinder itself is made either of
steel or ruby, and from the small quantity of it which is left
at the level of the wheel, it is evidently a very delicate
affair; and probably this has been the main reason why,
although it is an English invention, it has been almost
entirely abandoned by the English watchmakers in favour
of the lever, which was originally a French invention, though
very much improved, as we have seen, by Mudge ; for be¬
fore his invention the lever had a rack or portion of a toothed
wheel on its end working into a pinion on the balance verge,
and consequently it was affected by the dead friction, and
that of this wheel and pinion besides. This used to be called
the rack lever, and Mudge’s the detached lever, but the
rack lever being now quite obsolete, the word “detached”
has become detached from the lever escapement and con¬
fined to the chronometer, to which it is more appropriate,
as will be seen presently. The Swiss watches have almost
universally the horizontal escapement. It is found that 
for some reason which is apparently unknown, as the rule
certainly does not hold in cases apparently analogous—a
steel scape-wheel acts better in this escapement than a brass
one, although in some other cases steel upon steel, or even
upon a ruby, very soon throws off a film of rust unless they
are kept well oiled, while brass and steel or stone will act
with scarcely any oil at all, and in some cases with none.
Duplex es- The duplex escapement (fig. 29) is probably so called
capement. because there is a double set of teeth in the scape-wheel—
the long ones (like those of the lever escapement in shape)
for locking only, and short ones (or rather upright pins on
the rim of the wheel) for giving the impulse to the pallet P
on the verge of the balance. The action of this escapement
is very peculiar, and requires some attention to understand
it. It is a single-beat escapement, i.e. the balance only re¬
ceives the impulse one way, or at every alternate beat,
as in the chronometer escapement, and in a few clock
VOL. VII.
escapements which we have not described, because they have
never come into use. When the balance is turning in the
direction marked by
the arrow, and ar¬
rives at the position
in which the dotted
tooth b has its point
against the triangular
notch V, the tooth
end slips into the
notch, and as the
verge turns farther
round, the tooth goes
on with it till at last
it escapes when the
tooth has got into
the position A ; and
by that time the long
tooth or pallet which
projects from the
verge has moved
from p to P, and Fig. 29.
Clock and
Watch
Work.
just come in front of the pin T, which stands on the rim of
the scape-wheel, and which now begins to push against P,and
so gives the impulse until it also escapes when it has arrived
at t\ and the wheel is then stopped by the next tooth B
having got into the position b, with its point resting against
the verge, and there is evidently what we have called dead
friction between them ; but as the verge is smaller than the
cylinder of the horizontal escapement, and is also made of
a jewel, the friction does not seriously affect the motion of
the balance. The impulse is also given very directly across
the line of centres, and therefore with very little friction, as
in the three-legged dead escapement for clocks before de¬
scribed, and in the chronometer escapement which will be
next described. A little impulse is also received from the
long teeth on the notch; but the greatest part of that mo¬
tion is wasted. As the balance turns back, the nick V goes
past the end of the tooth b, and, in consequence of its small¬
ness, it passes without visibly affecting the motion of the
scape-wheel, though of course it does produce a very slight
shake in passing. It is evident that if it did not pass, the
tooth could not get into the nick for the next escape. The
objection to this escapement is, that it requires very great
delicacy of adjustment, and the watch also requires to be
worn carefully; for if by accident the balance is once stopped
from swinging back far enough to carry the nick V past the
tooth end, it will stop altogether, as it will lose still more of
its vibration the next time from receiving no impulse. The
performance of this escapement, when well made, and its
independence of oil, are nearly equal to that of the detached
escapement, but not quite; and as lever watches are now
made sufficiently good for all but astronomical purposes, for
which chronometers are used, and they are cheaper both to
make and to mend than duplex ones, the manufacture of
duplex watches has decreased a good deal of late.
I he chronometer or detached escapement is shown at Detached,
fig. 30 in the form to which it was brought by Earnshaw or chrono-
nearly eighty years ago, and in which it has remainedmeter es'
ever since, with the very slight difference that the pallet C£Temen*-
P, on which the impulse is given (corresponding exactly to
the pallet P in the duplex escapement), is now generally
set in a radial direction from the verge, whereas Earnshaw
made it sloped backward or undercut, like the scape-wheel
teeth. The early history of escapements on this prin¬
ciple does not seem to be very clear. They appear to
have originated in France ; but there is no doubt that
they were considerably improved by the first Arnold,
who died in 1799; (the second, who died in 1842, owed
his reputation to his father in the first instance, and
afterwards to his partner, the late Mr Dent.) He re-
34
CLOCK AND WATCH WORK.
meters.
Clock and ceived several government rewards for improvements in
Watch chronometers, though it cannot be said that he deserved
^ Work. ^ them all; for the last and largest of them he got solely
- through the influence of his friend Sir Joseph Banks,
who, after failing to persuade the Board of Longitude
to disregard the certificates of the Astronomer Royal,
and the further evidence taken by themselves in conse¬
quence of Banks’s opposition to the grant to Earnshaw, at
last, by the help of the First Lord of the Admiralty, Lord
Melville, extorted from a majox-ity of the board a further
grant of L.1680 to Arnold, for no further invention what¬
ever, but simply to make him equal with Earnshaw, because
he had been voted L.3000 for the improvements which en¬
abled his ordinary and cheap chronometers to beat the
Earnshaw’sPicked ones of Arnold and the other makers. For among
chrono- the other proofs of Earnshaw’s genius it may be mentioned
that he boldly set at defiance the common and stupid pre¬
judice for what is called “ high finish,” i.e. the polishing up
of surfaces which have no action, and therefore no friction
on them. In this we are sorry to find that he has not been
followed, in chronometers at least, by any body; and Mr
Dent, who has adopted the same system in turret clockwork,
has on that account met with the same obloquy, on grounds
still more absurd; for nothing can be a more ridiculous
waste of money than polishing non-acting surfaces, which
are never seen after they leave the shop, and besides that,
necessarily lose their polish by dirt, oil, and sometimes
rust, in the course of a few months. But it is time we
should describe the detached escapement, as it has been
made ever since the time of Earnshaw, with the slight dif¬
ference in the shape of the pallet, before alluded to.
In fig. 30 the small tooth or cam V on the verge of the
balance is just on the point of unlocking the detent DT
from the tooth T of the
scape-wheel; and the tooth
A will immediately begin
to give the impulse on the
pallet P, which in good
chronometers is always a
jewel set in the cylinder ;
and the tooth V is also a
jewel. This part of the ac¬
tion is so evident as to re¬
quire no further notice.
When the balance returns,
the tooth V has to get past
the end of the detent, with¬
out disturbing it; for as
soon as it has been unlocked
it falls against the banking
pin E, and is ready to re¬
ceive the next tooth B, and must stay there until it is again
unlocked. It ends, or rather begins, in a stiffish spring
which is screwed to the block D on the watch frame, so
that it moves without any friction of pivots like a pendulum.
The passing is done by means of another spring T V, called
the passing spring, which can be pushed away from the
body of the detent towards the left, but cannot be pushed
the other way without carrying the detent with it. In the
back vibration therefore, as in the duplex escapement, the
balance receives no impulse, and it has to overcome the
slight resistance of the passing spring besides ; but it has no
other friction, and is entirely detached from the scape-wheel
the whole time, except when receiving the impulse. That
is also the case in the lever escapement; but the impulse in
that escapement is given obliquely, and consequently with a
good deal of friction; and besides, the scape-wheel only
acts on the balance through the intervention of the lever,
which has the friction of its own pivots and of the impulse
pin. The locking pallet T is under-cut a little for safety,
and is also a jewel in the best chronometers, and the passing
Tig. 30.
spring of gold, as steel will rust. In the duplex and the de- Clock and
tached escapements, the timing of the action of the differ¬
ent parts requires great care, i. e. the adjusting them so that
each may be ready to act exactly at the right time ; and it is
curious that the arrangement which would be geometrically
correct, or suitable for a very slow motion of the balance,
will not do for the real motion. If the pallet P were really
set so as just to point to the tooth A in both escapements at
the moment of unlocking (as we have drawn it, because
otherwise it would look as if it could not act at all), it would
run away some distance before the tooth could catch it; be¬
cause in the duplex escapement the scape-wheel is then
only moving slowly, and in the detached it is not moving at
all, and has to start from rest. The pallet P is therefore in
fact set a little further back, so that it may arrive at the
tooth A just at the time when A is ready for it, without
wasting time and force in running after it. The detached
escapement has also been made on the duplex plan, of
having long teeth for the locking, and short ones or pins
nearer the centre for the impulse; but the advantages do
not appear to be worth the additional trouble, and the force
required for unlocking is not sensibly diminished by the ar¬
rangement, as the spring D must in any case be pretty stiff,
to provide against the watch being held in the position in
which the weight of the detent helps to unlock it.
There have been several contrivances for remontoire es¬
capements, some of them certainly far better than Mudge’s
parliamentary reward escapement; but there are defects in
all of them, and there is, after all, not the same advantage
to be obtained by giving the impulse to a watch-balance by
means of some other spring instead of the mainspring, as
there is in turret-clocks, where the force of the train is
liable to very much greater variations than in chronometers
or small clocks. We are, however, far from pronouncing,
as some persons have done, on the very insufficient ground
of these inventions having failed hitherto, that no remontoire
escapement for watches can ever succeed. It was predicted
with equal confidence, that it could never succeed in turret-
clocks ; whereas we now see, that both a train remontoire
and a remontoire escapement have succeeded perfectly, and
make the clocks keep better time than had ever been known
before.
Among the pieces of watch-work which have gone very Repeaters,
much out of fashion may be mentioned repeating watches,
i. e. watches which strike the hours and quarters on pushing
in the handle. They are now scarcely ever made in Eng¬
land, and with very good reason ; for it is almost impossible
to crowd into the space of even a large-sized watch the quan¬
tity of wheels and other things required for the repeating
work, without unduly interfering with the going part; and
besides that, the striking work itself is very liable to get out
of order. We have therefore thought it better in this edi¬
tion to omit the descriptions of the various inventions of
this kind, and to devote the space to matters of more prac¬
tical importance.
The winding of watches without a key is an object for Keyless
which there have been several inventions, and it possesses a watches,
considerable advantage besides the mere convenience of
being independent of a key ; for as there is then no occa¬
sion to open it, the case may be made to fit more closely,
and the air is more completely excluded, and consequently
the watch will go longer without cleaning ; and it also saves
the thickness and the cost of a double back to the case.
The first plan of the kind was that of pulling out the knob
of the handle, which went into the watch, and had a gather¬
ing click attached to it which wmund up the fusee, or the
barrel, by means of a ratchet. But this was not found to
answer ; it was liable to get out of order, and moreover, at
every time of winding you pumped fresh air into the watch,
which soon produced injurious effects. A far better plan is
that which is noticed in the horological report of the Great
W atch
Work.
 / '
CLOCK AND WATCH WORK.
Work.
Clock and Exhibition as exhibited by Mr. Dent, as the proprietor,
Watch though not the author of the invention. It combines the
; two objects of winding and setting the hands by means of
the handle, in the manner we shall now describe. In fig.
31, cf is a wheel on the barrel with bevelled teeth, and there
is another small bevelled wheel on a spindle 6 w’hich ends
in a milled head a within the handle ovpendant; these two
wheels cannot conveniently be arranged so as to work into
each other without the intervention of a third between them,
which is marked e in the left hand of the three figures 31.
It is easy to see that turning the milled head will wind up
the barrel. The same arrangement might of course be ap¬
plied to the fusee, though it would increase the size ; but
in fact these watches are made without one, and we know
from those who have worn them for some years that the
absence of a fusee could certainly not be discovered from
any defect in their performance ; on this point we have ex¬
pressed our own opinion some pages back. The winding
wheel d is also made with the well-known contrivance of
Breguet, known here by the name of the “ tipsy key,” when
applied to a common winding key; which enables you to
turn the handle the wrong way without doing anything
except moving a ratchet-wheel over its click, and conse¬
quently without straining the watch in attempting to wind
it the wrong way. The same handle and wheels are also
Work.
Tig. 31.
made use of to set the hands thus : There is a small wheel
/ which turns on a stud at the end of the leverh, and as
the lever turns on a pivot at g, when its end h, which just
projects through the rim of the watch, is pushed on one side,
the wheel/will then be thrown into gear with the winding
wheel d and the hour pinion in the middle of the watch*;
and consequently if the handle is then turned it will alter
the hands, just as they are usually altered from the back by
a key in foreign watches, so that the face need never be
opened. Of course, while this is doing, you do at the same
time wind up the watch a little if the handle has to be turned
the way for winding; but that is of no consequence, except
that you cannot put the hands forward immediately after
you have completely wound up the watch. (The arrange¬
ment of the lever and the wheel / is not quite the same
in Mr Dent’s later watches as that given above, and taken
from one of his pamphlets; but the principle being the same
we have not thought it worth while to alter the drawing.) ?
The emperor Napoleon I. had a watch which wo*und
itself up by means of a weighted lever, which at every step
he took rose and fell, and, having a gathering click to it,
, wound up a ratchet attached to the barrel, if it was not then
edometer. fully wound up. The instrument called the pedometer is
on the same principle, though its object is different, being
merely to count the number of steps you take while the
instrument is in your pocket. It is capable of adjustment
35
according to the number of steps which the wearer usually Clock and
takes in a mile, which he must first count, and set the in- Watch
strument accordingly, and then it will indicate the distance
walked; but without such adjustment it affords no measure
of distance at all, and it is on the whole of very little use.
There is a very elegant invention of M. Redier of Paris
(to whom a prize medal was awarded in the Great Exhibi¬
tion), for enabling you to mark the exact time of any ob¬
servation, without immediately looking off the object, and
without the trouble of counting the beats by ear from the
watch. In fig. 32, DD is the dial of a large watch (not
intended for the pocket, though not so large as a box
chronometer). The seconds-hand arbor is in the middle,
so as to get the usual space of a minute for the seconds on
the dial, and the spaces may be still further divided if ne¬
cessary. The watch should not have a duplex or a detached
escapement, because in them the hand only moves at every
other beat, and the quicker the balance beats the more
accurate the observations may be. Very perfect going is
not necessary for it, any more than for what is called in
observatories & journeyman clock, i.e. a clock made for very
loud beats (which is not generally consistent with very good
going),^ and only set a-going from another clock a short time
before it is wanted. The seconds hand is double, the lower
one ending in a little cup at B with a small hole in the
Redier’s
dial-mark¬
ing watch.
bottom; and the Tipper one EAB is a spring fixed to the
other at E, and the end B a point just going through the
hole in the cup. A drop of thick ink is put in the cup, and
it is evident that when the upper hand is pulled down its
point will make a mark on the dial. The pulling down
is done thus:—At A there is a kind of link hung to the
marking hand, moving very freely on the arbor of the main
seconds hand, and ending in a ring C very near the end of
the spring S S, which is fixed to the watch case, and can be
pushed in by a knob K from the outside. It would be
difficult to exhibit in a drawing the precise form of the pin
P and the inclined plane which passes over it; but it is such
that as soon as the knob is pushed in far enough the in¬
clined plane drops over the end of P, and then the spring
strikes down the ring C, and so pulls down the marking
hand, and then the inclined plane is brought back sideways
past P, so as to be thrown out of the ring immediately, and
to leave only a momentary contact with the dial; it is in
fact so momentary that the ink spot is never run the least,
but is always a distinct and small speck, which gives the
time of pushing in the knob within the nearest beat of the
balance; and for the minute, the minute-hand M must be
looked at, either a little before or a little after the observation.
Watches have also been made with what are called split
seconds-hands ; the two hands being in their ordinary state
together and appearing as one; but when you push in a
knob, one of them is stopped, while the other goes on : the
time shown by the stopped one is of course the time of the
observation. Sometimes this is done by merely connecting
the hands by a very slight spiral spring, which will allow
itself to be untwisted one or two coils without stopping the
watch; and as it cannot be of much use to stop the seconds-
36
CLOCK AND WATCH WORK.
Clock and hand longer than a minute, this seems to be all that is
Wiitch wanted. There is however another plan, in which these
or ^ y two hands, or at least the socket of one and the arbor of
the other are connected by a pair of discs set obliquely on
the arbor and the socket respectively, so that whenever the
spring which keeps them together is allowed to act, it brings
the loose hand up to the hand fixed on the arbor; and it
does not signify how long it may be stopped by throwing
the discs out of contact.
fm TEETH OF WHEELS.
The important subject of the teeth of wheels is the only
one we have now room to notice; and though it belongs
to all machines involving wheels, there is none in which it
is of so much consequence as in clock-work, because there
is none in which friction forms so large an ingredient in all
calculations respecting its effects. At the same time we
are not going to write a treatise or even an article on all
the branches of that important subject, but assuming a
knowledge of the general principles of it, to apply them to
the points chiefly involved in clock-making. The most
comprehensive mathematical view of it is perhaps to be
found in a paper by the present Astronomer Royal in the
Cambridge Transactions many years ago, which is further
expanded in Professor Willis's Principles of Mechanism.
Respecting the latter book, however, we should advise the
, reader to be content with the mathematical rules there
given, which are very simple, without attending much to
those of the odontograph, which seem to us to give not
less but more trouble than the mathematical, and are only
approximate after all, and also do not explain themselves,
or convey any knowledge of the principle to those who
use them.
For all wheels that are to work together, the first thing
to do is to fix the geometrical, or primitive, or pitch circles
of the two wheels, i.e. the two circles which, if they rolled
perfectly together, would give the velocity-ratio you want.
Draw a straight line joining the two centres; then the ac¬
tion which takes place between any two teeth as they are
approaching that line is said to be before the line of cen¬
tres ; and the action while they are separating is said to be
after the line of centres. Now, with a view to reduce the
friction, it is essential to have as little action before the line
of centres as you can ; for if you make any rude sketch, on
a large scale, of a pair of wheels acting together, and serrate
the edges of the teeth (which is an exaggeration of the
roughness which produces friction), you will see that the
further the contact begins before the line of centres, the
more the serration will interfere with the motion, and that
at a certain distance no force whatever could drive the
wheels, but would only jam the teeth faster; and you will
see also that this cannot happen after the line of centres.
But with pinions of the numbers generally used in clocks,
you cannot always get rid of action before the line of cen¬
tres ; for it may be proved (but the proof is too long to give
here) that if a pinion has less than 11 leaves, no wheel of
rtny number of teeth can drive it without some action before
the line of centres. And generally (using the word in its
mathematical sense, of universally) it may be stated that the
greater the number of teeth the less friction there will be ;
as indeed is evident enough from considering that if the
teeth were infinite in number, and infinitesimal in size, there
would be no friction at all, but simple rolling of one pitch
circle on the other. And since in clock-work the wheels
always drive the pinions, except the hour pinion in the dial
work, and the winding pinions in large clocks, it has long
been recognised as important to have high numbered pin¬
ions, except where there is some remontoire escapement or
apparatus to obviate that necessity.
Lantern And with regard to this matter, the art of clock-making
pinions. has positively retrograded, and the pinions which are now
almost universally used in English and French clocks are
of a worse form than those of several centuries ago, to
which we have several times alluded under the name of
lantern pinions, so called from their resembling a lantern
with upright ribs. A sketch of one, with a cross section on
a large scale, is given at fig. 34 (post). Now, it is a property
of these pinions, that when they are driven, the action begins
just when the centre of the pin is on the line of centres,
however few the pins may be ; and thus the action of a lan¬
tern pinion of 6 is about equal to that of a leaved pinion of
10 ; and indeed, for some reason or other, it appears in prac¬
tice to be even better, possibly from the teeth of the wheel
not requiring to be cut so accurately, and from tbe pinion
never getting clogged with dirt. Certainly the running of
the American clocks, which all have these pinions, is re¬
markably smooth, and they require a much smaller going
weight than English clocks ; and it is evident that this can¬
not be due to any high finishing of the wheels and pinions,
for these clocks are remarkable for the absence of all such
finish; which the ignorance of most English mechanics
leads them to think the great merit of a piece of clock-work,
though requiring less mind than any other part of their
work. Mr Dent has for some years used these pinions in
the going part of his turret-clocks, and he has lately been
applying them to some smaller work for the Astronomer
Royal at Greenwich, and to regulators with Mr Denison’s
escapement. It should be understood, however, that as the
action upon these pinions is all after the line of centres when
they are driven, it will be all before the line of centres if
they drive, and therefore they are not suitable for that
purpose. In some of the French clocks in the Exhibition
they were wrongly used, not only for the train, but for wind¬
ing pinions; and some of tbem also bad the pins not fixed
in"the lantern, but rolling: a very useless refinement, and
considerably diminishing the strength of the pinion. For it
is one of the advantages of these pinions that they are very
strong, and there is no risk of their being broken in harden¬
ing, as there is with common pinions.
The fundamental rule for the tracing of teeth, though
one of great simplicity, is, we suspect, not so well known as
it ought to be, and therefore we will give it: premising that
so much of a tooth as lies within the pitch circle of the wheel
is called its root or flank ; and the part beyond the pitch
circle is called the point, or the curve, or the addendum ;
and moreover, that before the line ot centres the action is
always between the flanks of the driver and the points of
the driven wheel or runner (as it may be called, more appro¬
priately than the usual term follower) ; and after the line of
centres, the action is always between the points of the driver
and the flanks of the runner. Consequently, if there is no
action before the line of centres, no points are required for
the teeth of the runner.
In fig. 33, let AQX be the pitch circle of the runner,
and ARY that of the driver; and
let GAP be any curve whatever
of smaller curvature than AQX
(of course, a circle is always the
kind of curve used); and QP the
curve which is traced out by any
point P in the generating circle
GAP, as it rolls in the pitch circle
AQX: and again, let RP be the
curve traced by the point P, as the
generating circle GAP is rolled
on the pitch circle ARY: then
RP will be the form of the point
of a tooth on the driver ARY, which will drive with uni¬
form and proper motion the flank QP of the runner ; though
not without some friction, because that can only be done
with involute teeth, which are traced in a different way,
and are subject to other conditions, rendering them practi-
CLOCK AND WATCH WORK.
Clock and cally useless for machinery, as may be seen in Professor
Watch Willis’s book. If the motion is reversed, so that the runner
Work, becomes the driver, then the flank QP is of the proper form
to drive the point RP, if any action has to take place be¬
fore the line ot centres.
And again, any generating curve or circle, not even ne¬
cessarily the same as before, may be used to trace the flanks
of the driver ARY, by being rolled within that pitch circle,
and on the outside of the runner AQX.
Now then, to apply this rule to particular cases. Sup¬
pose the generating circle is the same as the pitch circle of
the driven pinion itself; it evidently cannot roll at all, and
the tooth of the pinion is represented by the mere point
P on the circumference of the pitch circle; and the tooth
to drive it will be simply an epicycloid traced by rolling the
pitch circle of the pinion on that of the wheel. And we
know that in that case there is no action before the line of
centres, and no necessity for any flanks on the teeth of the
driver. But inasmuch as the pins of a lantern pinion must
have some thickness, and cannot be mere lines, a further pro¬
cess is necessary to get the exact form of the teeth ; thus if
RP, fig. 34, is the tooth that would drive a pinion with
pins of no sensible thickness, the tooth to drive a pin of the
thickness 2 Pjo must have the width Yp or Rr gauged olf it
all round. This in
fact brings it very
nearly to a smaller
tooth traced with
the same generating
circle; and there¬
fore in practice this
mode of construc¬
tion is not much ad¬
hered to, and the
teeth are made of
the same shape, only
thinner, as if the
pins of the pinion
had no thickness.
Lantern Of course they
pinions. should be thin
enough to allow a
little shake, for free¬
dom of action in
case of any impedi¬
ment ; and in clock¬
work the backs of
the teeth never come in contact at all.
Next, suppose the generating circle to be half the size
of the pitch circle of the pinion. The curve, or hypocycloid,
traced by rolling this within the pinion, is no other than the
diameter of the pinion, and consequently the flanks of the
pinion teeth will be merely radii of it, and such teeth or
leaves are called radial teeth; and they are far the most com¬
mon ; indeed no others are ever made (except lanterns) for
clock-work. The corresponding epicycloidal points of the
teeth of the driver are
more curved, or a less
pointed arch, than
those required for a
lantern pinion of the
same size and number.
The teeth in fig. 35 are
made of a different form
on the opposite sides of
the line of centres CA
in order to show the
difference between
driving and driven or
running teeth, where the number of the pinion happens to
be as much as 12, so that no points are required to its teeth
37
when driven, since with that number all the action may be Clock and
after the line of centres. The great Westminster clock af- Watch
fords a very good illustration of this. In both the strik- Work"
ing parts the great wheel of the train and the great wind-
ing wheel on the other end of the barrel are the same, and
so are their pinions, except that in the train the wheel
drives and in winding the pinion drives; and the same is
again the case with the second wheel of the train and the
second winding wheel. And therefore in the train the
pinion teeth have their points cut off, and wheel teeth have
their points on, as on the right side of fig. 35 ; and in the
winding wheels the converse, as on the left side; and thus
in both cases the action is made to take place in the way
in which there is the least friction. Professor Willis gives
the following table, “ derived organically ” (z. e. by actual
trial with large models), of the least numbers which will
work together without any action before the line of centres,
provided there are no points to the teeth of the runner,
assuming them to be radial teeth as usual:—
Driver  54 30 24 20 17 15 14 13 12 11 10 9 8 7 6
Runner  11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 21 23 27 35 32 176
In practice it is hardly safe to leave the driven teeth
without points, unless the numbers slightly exceed these ;
because if there is any irregularity in them, the square
edges of those teeth would not work smoothly with the
teeth of the driver. Sometimes it happens that the same
wheel has to drive two pinions of different numbers. It is
evident that, if both are lanterns or both pinions with radial
teeth, they cannot properly be driven by the same wheel,
because they would require teeth of a different shape. It
is true that on account of the greater indifference of lan¬
tern pinions to the accuracy of the teeth which are to
drive them, the same wheel will drive two pinions of that
kind differing in the numbers in the ratio of even 2 to 1,
with hardly any sensible shake ; but that would not be so
with radial pinions, and of course it is not correct. Accord¬
ingly in clocks with Mr Denison’s spring remontoire, as in
fig. 17, where the scape-wheel or remontoire pinion is double
the size of the fly pinion, the larger one is made with radial
teeth and the smaller a lantern, which makes the same
wheel teeth exactly right for both. In clocks of the con¬
struction in fig. 18 there is a case of a different kind, which
cannot be so accommodated ; for there the great wheel has
to drive the second wheel’s pinion of 10 and the hour-wheel
of 40 ; the teeth of the great wheel are therefore made to
suit the lantern pinion of 10, and those of the hour-wheel
(i.e. their flanks) then depend on those of the great wheel,
and they are accordingly traced by rolling a generating
circle of the size of the lantern pinion on the inside of the
pitch circle of the hour-wheel; the result is a tooth thicker
at the bottom than usual. These are by no means unne¬
cessary refinements; for if the teeth of a set of wheels are
not properly shaped so as to work smoothly and regularly
into each other, it increases their tendency to wear out in
proportion to their inaccuracy, besides increasing the ine¬
qualities of force in the train. Sometimes turret clocks are
worn out in a few years from the defects in their teeth.
In describing the striking work of a turret clock, fig. 18, striking
we referred to this part of the article for the rule for con- cams,
structing the cams which raise the hammer. The condition
which it is most important for them to satisfy is that the ac¬
tion should begin at the greatest advantage and therefore
at the end of the lever; and that when it ceases the face of
the lever should be a tangent to the cam at both their points,
so that in no part of the motion should the end of the lever
scrape on the cam. In the common construction of clocks
the first condition is deviated from as far as possible, by the
striking pins (which are used by nearly all the clock-makers)
beginning to act some distance from the end of the lever; and
consequently at the time when the most force is required to
lift the hammer there is the least given, and a great deal is
38
Clodius
Fulcher
II
Clonmel.
Oil.
wasted afterwards,
structing the cams,
wheel, and L in
the same straight
line the centre of
the lever ; AB
the space of one
cam on the pitch
circle of the
cams; AP the
arc of the lever.
Draw a tangent
C L 0
The following is a simple rule for con-
In fig. 36 let CA be a radius of the
Fig. 36.
to the two circles at A, and a tangent to the cam circle at
B ; then T, their point of intersection, will be the centre of
the circle which is the face of the cam BP ; and TB also =
T A ; which is a convenient test of the tangents being rightly
drawn. The action begins at the point of the lever, and
advances a little way up it, but recedes again to the point,
and ends with the lever as a tangent to the cam at P. The
backs of the cams must be cut out rather deeper than the
circle AP, to allow enough for clearance and drop, in order
that the lever may not fall at once on to the next cam, but
against some fixed stop or banking on the clock frame.
I he point of the lever must not be left quite sharp, for, if it
is, it will in time cut off the points of the cast-iron cams.
We will add a few words on the subject of oil.
Olive-
Erratum : page 2, col. 1, line 5 from bottom, for Emperor read French king.
C L O
oil is most commonly used, sometimes purified in various
ways, and sometimes not purified at all. We believe, how¬
ever, that animal oil is better than any of the vegetable oils,
as some of them are too thin, while others soon get thick
and viscid. For turret clocks and common house clocks,
good sperm oil is fine enough, and is probably the best.
For finer work the oil requires some purification. Even
common neat’s foot oil may be made extremely fine and
clear by the following method:—mix it with about the same
quantity of water and shake it in a large bottle, not full, un¬
til it becomes like a white soup; then let it stand till fine
oil appears at the top which may be skimmed off: it will take
several months before it has all separated into water at the
bottom, dirt in the middle, and fine oil at the top. And it
should not be done in hot weather, because heat makes some
oil come out as fine, which in cold would remain among the
dirty oil in the middle, and in cold weather that fine oil of hot
weather will become muddy. There are various vegetable
oils sold at tool shops as oil for watches, including some for
which aprize medal was awarded in the Exhibition, but not by
any of the mechanical juries; we have no information as to
the test which was applied to it, and none but actual use for
a considerable time would be of much value. We have heard
of 5 per cent, in power being saved in a manufactory by the
use of sperm, instead of sweet oil, to small spindles requir¬
ing constant lubrication. See Dipleidoscope. (e.b.d.)
Close
II
Cloud.
CLODIUS FULCHER, Publius, the son of Appius
Claudius Fulcher, one of the most worthless Romans of the
latter days of the republic. After a life of almost uninter¬
rupted turbulence and crime he was slain in a scuffle by his
old rival Milo, who had exerted himself in behalf of his
friend Cicero when in exile. Milo was arraigned for mur¬
der, and though defended with all the brilliant eloquence of
Cicero, he found it necessary to retire from Rome for a time.
See Cicero, and Roman History.
CLOGHER, a decayed episcopal city, and formerly a
parliamentary borough of Ireland, county of Tyrone, 15
miles S.S.E. of Omagh, and 98 from Dublin. Besides its
cathedral, a plain cruciform building, it has an episcopal
palace, free school, bridewell, workhouse, and savings-bank.
Pop. (1851) 558, exclusive of 442 in workhouse.
CLOISTER, literally a place inclosed with walls ; com¬
monly applied to a monastery or nunnery. In a more limited
sense, cloister denotes the principal part of a regular monas¬
tery, consisting of a square inclosing a court, which is ordi¬
narily between the church, the chapter-house, and the refec¬
tory, and over which is the dormitory. The cloisters served
for several purposes in the ancient monasteries. The proper
use of the cloister is for the monks to meet in for conversa¬
tion at certain hours of the day. The form of the cloister is
square ; and received its Latin name claustrum from clausus,
the participle of claudo, to shut or close ; as being inclosed
on its four sides with buildings. Hence, in architecture, a
building is said to be in the form of a cloister when there
are buildings on each of the four sides of the court.
CLONMEL, a parliamentary and municipal borough of
Ii eland, partly in the south riding of Tipperary and partly
in Waterford county, 104 miles S.W. from Dublin. It is
built on both sides of the Suir, and on Moore and Long
Islands, which are connected with the mainland by 3 bridges.
.The principal buildings are, the parish church, 3 Roman
Catholic chapels, 2 convents, endowed school, model school
under the national board, mechanics’ institute, court-house
and prison, fever hospital and dispensary, lunatic asylum,
market-house, barracks, savings-bank, and workhouse. Till
the Union the woollen manufacture was extensively carried
on here. The town contains a brewery, distillery, flour¬
mills, a cotton factory, and has a considerable export trade
in grain, cattle, butter, and provisions. The river is navi¬
gable for barges of 50 tons to Waterford. Clonmel is a
station on the Waterford and Limerick railway, and the
centre of a system for the conveyance of travellers on light
cars, extending over a great part of Leinster, Munster, and
Connaught. It is governed by a corporation, consisting of
a mayor, free burgesses, and a commonalty, and returns
one member to parliament. Electors (1853) 328. Pop.
(1851) 15,203. Market-days, Tuesday and Saturday. Two
newspapers are published here, each twice a-week.
CL O SE, in Heraldry (opposed to volant or flying), is when
a bird is drawn with its wings closed, and in a standing posture.
CLOTH. See Woollen Manufacture.
CLOTHO, one of the three Parcse or Fates, daughters
of Jupiter and Themis, or of Erebus and Nox. Clotho held
the distaff, and spun the thread of life, whence her name
from kAoj6W, to spin. She was represented as wearing a
crown with seven stars, and a variegated robe. See Parole.
CLOUD, a collection of vapours suspended in the at¬
mosphere.
1 hat the clouds are formed from the aqueous vapours, Cause of
which before were so closely united with the atmosphere the forma-
as to be invisible, is universally allowed ; but it is no easytion of
matter to account for the long continuance of some very cloud.s un’
opaque clouds without dissolving, or to give a reason why certain-
the vapours, when they have once begun to condense, do
not continue to do so till they at last fall to the ground in
the form of rain, snow, &c. The general cause of the for¬
mation of clouds, it has been supposed, is a separation of
the latent heat from the water of which the vapour is com¬
posed. The consequence of this separation must be the
condensation of that vapour, in some degree at least. In
such case it will first appear as a smoke, mist, or fog, which,
if interposed between the sun and earth, will form a cloud ;
and the same causes continuing to act, the cloud will pro¬
duce rain or snow. But though the separation of this latent
heat in a certain degree is the immediate cause of the forma¬
tion of clouds, the remote cause, or the changes produced
in the atmosphere, by which such a separation may be in¬
duced, are much more difficult to be discovered. In com¬
mon observation, we see that vapour is most powerfully con¬
densed by cold substances, such as metals, water, and the
CLOUD.
Cloud, like. But cold alone cannot in all cases cause the conden-
sation of the atmospherical vapours, otherwise the nights
would be always foggy or cloudy, owing to the vapours
raised during the day by the heat of the sun being con¬
densed by the superior coldness of the night. Great rains
may happen in very warm weather, when the union of the
vapours with the atmosphere ought rather to be promoted
than dissolved, if cold were the only agent in their conden¬
sation. The serenity of the atmosphere, also, in the most
severe frosts, abundantly shows that some other cause be¬
sides mere heat or cold is concerned in the formation of
clouds and the condensation of the atmospherical vapours.
The electric fluid is now so generally admitted as an agent
in all the great operations of nature, that it is no wonder to
find the formation of clouds attributed to it. This has ac¬
cordingly been stated by Beccaria as the cause of the for¬
mation of all clouds whatsoever, whether of thunder, rain,
hail, or snow. The first, he thinks, are produced by a very
great power of electricity, and the others by one more mo¬
derate. But though it is certain that all clouds, or even
fogs and rain, are electrified in some degree, it still remains
a question whether the clouds are formed in consequence
of the vapour of which they are composed being first elec¬
trified, or whether they become electrified in consequence
of its being first separated from the atmosphere, and in some
measure condensed. This has not yet, as far as we know,
been ascertained by the experiments of Beccaria, or of any
other person; and indeed, notwithstanding the multitude of
electrical discoveries which have been made, there seems to
be little or no foundation for ascertaining it. Electricity is
known to be in many cases a promoter of evaporation; but no
experiments have as yet been brought to prove that electrified
air parts with its moisture more readily than air that is not
electrified: and hence, until the properties of electrified air
be further investigated, it is impossible to lay down any ra¬
tional theory of the formation of clouds upon this principle.
But whether the clouds are produced, or, in other words,
the invisible vapours floating in .the atmosphere condensed
so as to become visible, by means of electricity, or not, it is
certain that they do contain the electric fluid in very great
quantities, and that many terrible and destructive phe¬
nomena have been occasioned by clouds highly electrified.
Perhaps the most extraordinary instance of this kind on re¬
cord happened in the island of Java in August 1772. On
the 11th of that month, at midnight, a bright cloud was ob¬
served covering a mountain in the district called Cheribon,
and at the same time several reports like those of a gun were
heard. The people who dwelt upon the upper parts of the
mountain not being able to fly fast enough, a great part of
the cloud, almost three leagues in circumference, detached
itself under them, and was seen at a distance rising and fall¬
ing like the waves of the sea, and emitting globes of fire so
luminous that the night became as clear as day. The ef¬
fects of this phenomenon were astonishing. Every thing
was destroyed for seven leagues round; the houses were
demolished, plantations were buried in the earth, and 2140
people were killed, besides 1500 head of cattle, and a vast
number of horses, goats, and other animals.
Another instance of a very destructive cloud is related by
Brydone, in his Tour through Malta. It appeared on the
29th of October 1757. About three-quarters of an hour
after midnight, there was seen to the S.W. of the city
of Mehta, a great black cloud, which, as it approached,
changed its colour, till at last it became like a flame of fire
mixed with black smoke. On its approach a dreadful noise
was heard, which alarmed the whole city. It passed over
the port, and came first on an English ship, which in an in¬
stant was torn in pieces, and nothing left but the hulk: part
of the masts, sails, and cordage, were carried to a consider¬
able distance along with the cloud. The small boats and
feluccas that fell in its way were all shattered and sunk.
39
The noise increased and became more frightful. A sent!- Cloud.
nel, terrified at its approach, ran into his box, but it was i J
lifted up and carried into the sea, where he perished. It
then traversed a considerable part of the city, and laid in
ruins almost everything that, stood in its way. Several houses
were levelled; and it did not leave a steeple standing in its
passage. The bells of some of them, together with the spires,
were carried to a considerable distance; the roofs of the
churches were demolished or beat down. It went off at the
N.E. point of the city, and demolishing the lighthouse, is
said to have mounted up into the air with a frightful noise,
and passed over the sea to Sicily, where it tore up some
trees, and did other damage, but nothing considerable, as
its fury had been mostly spent at Malta. The number of
killed and wounded amounted to nearly two hundred; and
the loss of shipping, See., was very considerable.
The effects of thunder-storms, and the vast quantity of
electricity collected in the clouds which produce these
storms, are so well known that it is superfluous to mention
them. It appears, however, that even the clouds are not
so highly electrified as to produce fatal effects on those who
are immersed in them. It is only the discharge of part of
their electricity upon such bodies as are either not electri¬
fied at all, or not so highly electified as the cloud, that does
mischief. We have, however, only the following instance
on record, of a person immersed in the body of a thunder¬
cloud. Saussure and young M. Jalabert, when travelling
over one of the high Alps, were caught among clouds of this
kind ; and, to their astonishment, found their bodies so full
of electrical fire, that spontaneous flashes darted from their
fingers with a crackling noise, and the same kind of sensa¬
tion as when strongly electrified by art.
The height of clouds in general is not great; the sum- Height of
mits of very high mountains being commonly quite free from the clouds,
them, as Brydone experienced in his journey up Mount
.Etna. But those which are most highly electrified descend
lowest, their height being often not more than seven or
eight hundred yards above the ground; nay, sometimes
thunder-clouds appear actually to touch the ground with
one of their edges; yet the generality of clouds are sus¬
pended at the height of a mile, or little more, above the
earth. Some, however, have imagined that clouds rise to
a most incredible and extravagant height. Maginan of Tou¬
louse, in his Treatise of Perspective, gives an account of an
exceedingly bright little cloud that appeared at midnight,
in the month of August, and spread itself almost as high as
the zenith. He says that the same thing was also observed
at Rome ; and thence concludes that the cloud was a col¬
lection of vapours raised beyond the projection of the earth’s
shadow, and consequently illuminated by means of the sun.
This, however, can by no means be credited; and it is
much more probable that this cloud owed its splendour to
electricity, than to the reflection of the solar beams. Hum¬
boldt, however, when on Chimborazo, saw white cirrhi, or
detached hair-like small clouds, still far above him.
In the evenings after sunset, and the mornings before Their curi-
sunrise, we often observe the clouds tinged with beautiful ous colours,
colours. They are mostly red, sometimes orange, yellow,
or purple, more rarely bluish, and still more seldom green.
The reason of this variety of colours, according to Sir Isaac
Newton, is the different size of the globules into which the
vapours are condensed. But this is controverted by Mr
Melville, who thinks that the clouds reflect the sun’s light
precisely as it is transmitted to them through the atmo¬
sphere ; which reflects the most refrangible rays in the great¬
est quantity, and therefore ought to transmit the least re¬
frangible ones, red, orange, and yellow, to the clouds, which
accordingly appear most commonly of these colours. In
this opinion he was greatly confirmed by observing while
he was in Switzerland, that the snowy summits of the Alps
turned more and more roseate after sunset, in the same man-
Cloud.
Of the mo¬
tions of
clouds.
40 C L 0
ner as the clouds; and he imagines that the semi-trans¬
parency of the clouds, and the obliquity of their situation,
tend to make the colours in them much richer and more
copious than those on the tops of snowy mountains.
The motions of the clouds, though sometimes directed by
the wind, are not always so, especially when thunder is about
to ensue. In this case they seem to move very slowly, and
often to be absolutely stationary for some time. The rea¬
son of this most probably is, that they are impelled by two
opposite streams of air nearly of equal strength, by which
means their velocity is greatly retarded. In such cases both
the aerial currents seem to ascend to a very considerable
height; for Messrs Charles and Roberts, when endeavour¬
ing to avoid a thunder-cloud in one of their aerial voyages,
could find no alteration in the course of the current, al¬
though they ascended to the height of four thousand feet
above the surface of the earth. In some cases the motions
of the clouds evidently depend on their electricity, inde¬
pendently of any current of air whatever. Thus, in a calm
and warm day, we often see small clouds meeting each other
in opposite directions, and setting out from such short dis¬
tances that we cannot suppose any opposite winds to be the
cause of such motions. These clouds when they meet, in¬
stead of forming a larger one, become much less, and some¬
times vanish altogether ; a circumstance undoubtedly owing
to the discharge of opposite electricities into each other.
This serves also to throw some light on the true cause of the
formation of clouds; for if two clouds electrified, the one
positively and the other negatively, destroy each other in
contact, it follows, that any quantity of vapour suspended in
the atmosphere, while it retains its natural quantity of elec¬
tricity, remains invisible, but becomes a cloud when elec¬
trified either or minus. A difficulty, however, still occurs,
namely, in what manner a small quantity of vapour sur¬
rounded by an immense ocean of the same kind of matter
can acquire either more or less electricity than that which
surrounds it; and this indeed we seem as yet not to have
any data to solve in a satisfactory manner.
Their The shapes of the clouds are likewise undoubtedly owing
shapes. to their electricity; for in those seasons in which a great
commotion has been excited in the atmospherical electricity,
we shall perceive the clouds assuming strange and fantasti¬
cal shapes, which vary almost every moment. This, as well
as the meeting of small clouds in the air, and then vanish¬
ing upon contact, is an almost infallible sign of thunder.
Besides the phenomena of thunder and rain, the clouds
are intimately connected with those of wind, and always as¬
sume a particular shape when a strong continued wind is
about to ensue ; though it is remarkable, that in the strong¬
est wjnds we often observe them stationary. Sometimes also,
on the approach of a cloud, we find a sudden and violent
gust of wind arise ; while at others, the wind, though vio¬
lent before, ceases on the approach of a cloud, and recovers
its strength as soon as the cloud is past. This connection
of the clouds with wind is most remarkable in mountainous
countries, where the peaks are sufficiently high to have their
tops involved .in clouds. This is very remarkable on the
Table mountain at the Cape of Good Hope, from the clouded
top of which the winds sometimes issue forth of a sudden
and with great violence, as if they had been confined in a
bag; and something similar has been observed of mountains
in other parts of the world.
Their uses. The uses of the clouds are evident, as from them proceed
the rain and dewTs which refresh the earth, and without which,
according to the present system of nature, the whole sur¬
face of the earth must be a mere desert. They are like¬
wise of great use as a screen interposed between the earth
and the scorching rays of the sun, which are often so power¬
ful as to destroy the grass and other tender vegetables. In
the more secret operations of nature, also, where the elec¬
trical fluid is concerned, the clouds bear a principal share,
Connec¬
tion of the
clouds with
wind.
C L U
and serve especially as a medium for conveying that fluid Cloud
from the atmosphere into the earth, and from the earth into j]
the atmosphere; but in doing this, when electrified to a Clusium
great degree, they sometimes produce terrible effects. This
subject is further treated in the articles Meteokology and
Physical Geography.
Cloud, St, a town of France, department of Seine-
et-Oise, on the left bank of the Seine, and on the Paris and
Versailles railway, 5 miles W. of Paris. Pop. 3051. It is
celebrated for its park and palace, and is much resorted to
by visitors from Paris. The palace consists of a front and
two wings, inclosing three sides of a square, the fourth side
being formed by a terrace and balustrade, commanding a
magnificent view. The interior is handsomely furnished,
and contains marble statues, vases, and paintings. The finest
apartment is the Salon de Mars. The orangery is remarkable
as being the place where the Council of the Five Hundred
held their sittings when expelled by Napoleon and his armed
grenadiers in 1799. The park is of great extent, and beau¬
tifully adorned with cascades and waterworks, which play
on the first and third Sunday of every month. The Grand
Jet d'Eau ejects a column of water to the height of more
than 100 feet, and discharges 5000 gallons per minute. A
fair held here, beginning on the 7th September and lasting
for three weeks, is one of the most celebrated and frer
quented of all the fetes near Paris. St Cloud is a favourite
summer residence of the French court.
CLOUDBERRY, Rubus chamcemorus, a well known
alpine plant, found in boggy ground on our loftiest moun¬
tains. It is a low shrub with a yellowish berry resembling
a brambleberry.
CLOVER. See Agriculture, vol. ii. p. 322.
CLOVES. See Amboyna, vol. ii. p. 660 ; and Botany.
CLO VIO, Giorgio Giulio (1498-1578), a historical and
portrait painter, was born in Sclavonia. At the age of
eighteen he went to Rome, where he spent three years in
the study of drawing and miniature painting. His know¬
ledge of colouring was derived from the instructions of
Giulio Romano, and his taste in composition and design
was formed by a close study of the works of Michael Angelo
Buonarotti. With the assistance of these he attained such
excellence in portrait as well as in historical painting, that
he was accounted nearly equal to Titian in the former, and
in the latter only inferior to Buonarotti himself. His prin¬
cipal works are the Corpus Christi at Rome and the Der
scent from the Cross at Milan.
CLOVIS I. (467-511), the founder of the French mo¬
narchy. See France.
CLOYNE, a market-town, formerly an episcopal city of
Ireland, 15 miles E. by S. of Cork. A church was built
and a bishopric erected here by St Colman, who died in
604; and an abbey was founded in 707. In 1430 the
bishopric was united to that of Cork. In 1678 it was again
governed by its own prelates, one of whom* was the celebrated
Berkeley; but in 1835 the episcopate was again merged
in that of Cork. The cathedral is a large old cruciform
building, with some good monuments; and near it stands
an ancient round tower 92 feet in height. The old epis¬
copal palace is now a private residence. Pop. (1851) 17J3.
CLUNY, or Clugni, a town of France, department of
Seine-et-Loire, on the left bank of the Grone, here crossed
by a stone bridge, 12 miles N.W. of Macon. Pop.4000. Its
celebrated Benedictine abbey, of which the church was 656
feet long by 130 wide, was almost totally destroyed during
the revolution of 1789. Clunyhas manufactures of woollens,
linens, paper, earthenware, and gloves; and a trade in corn,
wine, timber, and cattle.
CLUPEA, the genus to which the herring belongs. See
Ichthyology,
CLUSIUM, now Chiusi, a city of Etruria, and one of
twelve that composed the Etruscan confederation. It was
C L U
Clusius situated on the slope of a hill on the right bank of the river
II. Clanis, and at a short distance from the Palus Clusina,
Clavier. a^out jqq mi]es from Rome, in a district still celebrated
for its fertility. It was regarded by the ancients themselves
as a place of great antiquity, and was by them believed to
have been built by the Umbrians. Its original name was
Camars or Gamers, which it exchanged for that of Clusium
when it fell into the hands of the Tuscans. In allusion to
its antiquity, Virgil mentions it among the cities which
sided with lEneas against Turnus. Clusium first appears in
history as a place of importance under the reign of its king
Porsena, whose abilities and magnanimity were acknow¬
ledged by the Romans themselves. The noble qualities of
this prince were the theme of many an ancient song and
legend ; and his expedition against Rome has furnished Mr
Macaulay with the subject of one of his most spirited Lays.
As Clusium rose under Porsena, so after his death it relapsed
into its original obscurity, and its name does not occur again
in history till the invasion of the Galli Senones, b.c. 391.
These barbarians, being foiled in their first attempts to take
the town, suddenly broke up their camp before the walls
and marched off to Rome, which they destroyed and burned
to the ground, except the capitol. In b.c. 295 they
once more suddenly crossed the Apennines, and, rush¬
ing down upon Clusium, cut to pieces the Roman legion
posted there. In what year Clusium acknowledged the
supremacy of Rome is unknown; but it is found in the
second Punic war taking part with the Romans against
Hannibal. In the wars of Marius and Sulla, the Clusians
espoused the cause of the former, and were twice defeated.
Under the empire, Clusium is found greatly fallen from its
high estate, and existing as a small municipal town. In
the numerous excavations that have been recently effected
in the neighbourhood of Chiusi, large numbers of Etruscan
vases, urns, &c. have been discovered. One of the most
interesting objects in the vicinity of the ancient Clusium was
the famous labyrinthine tomb of Porsena. It is supposed
by some authorities that the Poggio Cajella (2% miles from
Chiusi), which has been recently excavated and discovered
to have been an ancient cemetery, is no other than this re¬
nowned sepulchre of which so many traditions are still ex¬
tant. This subject will be found fully discussed in Dennis’s
Cities and Cemeteries of Etruria. The present population
of Chiusi is about 1700.
CLUSIUS, or ECLUSE, Charles d’, a celebrated
botanist, born at Arras, Feb. 18, 1526. He had been in¬
tended for the profession of the law, but disliking this study,
he went to Montpellier, where he became the pupil of the
naturalist Rondelet, and took the degree of M.D. From
France he travelled into different parts of Europe, and on
his return to Antwerp began to publish his botanical re¬
searches. The Emperor Maximilian II. appointed him to
the direction of the botanical garden at Vienna; and there
he remained until a court cabal drove him from his situa-
. tion in 1587, and obliged him to seek an obscure retreat at
Frankfort-on-the-Maine. Thence he was called in 1593 to
occupy the chair of botany at Leyden. The life of Clusius
was one of much bodily suffering. In a botanical excur¬
sion in early life he had the misfortune to dislocate his ankle
and hip joint, and to fracture his thigh, which rendered him
lame. In after years he became dropsical, and had vesical
disease, which occasioned him much bodily suffering; yet
his mental activity was undiminished, and he continued to
teach and write till within a short period of his death, which
took place at Leyden April 4, 1609. His botanical works
are remarkable for the time he flourished ; and he translated
several from the Latin into French and Spanish.
CLUVIER, Philip (1580-1623), a celebrated geo¬
grapher, was born at Dantzic, and was educated for the
bar. During a visit to Leyden he was induced by Joseph
Scaliger to devote himself to the study of geography; and
VOL. VH.
C N 0 41
for this purpose he visited the majority of the European Cluyd
states. He gained considerable reputation as a linguist, II
and taught at Leyden for several years with great applause! Cnossus-
He wrote, 1. De tribus Rheni alveis atque ostiis, et de
quinque populis quondam accolis, inserted in the Recueil
des Antiquites de la Germanic Inferieure, Leyden, 1611,
4to ; 2. Germania Antiquce. lihri tres, necnon Vindelicia et
Noricum, Leyden, 1616, 2 vols. fob; 3. Sicilia Antiqua
libri duo, Sardinia ac Corsica Antiqua, Leyden, 1619,
fol.; 4. Italia Antiqua, Leyden, 1624, two vols. in one,
fol.; 5. Introductionis in Universam Geographiam tarn
veterem quam novam, libri sex, Leyden, 1629,12mo. The
best edition of this last work is that of Amsterdam, 1729,
in quarto, with notes by Bunon, Hekel, and De la Martiniere.
CLUYD. See Denbighshire.
CLYDE, the most important river of Scotland, and the
third in point of magnitude, celebrated for the romantic
beauty of its scenery. It has its origin from numerous small
streams rising in the mountains which separate Lanarkshire
from the counties of Peebles and Dumfries, and flows first in
a northerly direction, with a slight inclination eastward as far
as Biggar. After its junction with the Douglas near Har-
perfield, it takes a N.W. course, passing Lanark, Hamilton,
and Glasgow, and falls into the Firth of Clyde below
Dumbarton. From its source to Dumbarton it is about 73
miles in length, but in a direct line only about 52. Its
principal tributaries are the Douglas, Nethan, Avon, Mouse,
Kelvin, Cart, and Leven. Of the celebrated falls of Clyde,
two are above and two below Lanark: the uppermost is Bon-
nington Linn, the height of which is about 30 feet; the se¬
cond is Corra Linn, where the water dashes over the rock
in three distinct leaps. Dundaff Fall is 10 feet high ; and
at Stonebyres there are three distinct falls, together measur¬
ing 76 feet in height. At high water the Clyde is navigable
for the largest class of merchant vessels. See Glasgow.
CLYTEMNESTRA. See Agamemnon.
CNIDUS, in Ancient Geography, a city of Caria, at the
extremity of a long peninsula forming the southern boun¬
dary of the Ceramicus Sinus. It was built partly on the
mainland and partly on an island about 7 stadia in circuit,
and connected with the mainland by a causeway forming
two harbours. It was celebrated for the worship of Venus.
A narrow sandy isthmus now unites the island to the main¬
land. The remains of two moles which inclosed the southern
or larger port are still visible. The ruins of this city are
still considerable, exhibiting specimens of different kinds of
Greek architecture, both Doric and Ionic. The city walls
are still very perfect, and there are remains of two theatres,
one of which had a diameter of 400 feet.
CNOSSUS or Gnossus, or (as the name was originally
written) Cnosus or Gnosus, the most important city of
Crete, on the left bank of the Cseratus, a small stream
which falls into the sea on the north side of the island.
The city was situated at a considerable distance from the
coast, and, according to the old traditions, was founded by
Minos, the mythical king of Crete. The locality was asso¬
ciated with a number of the most interesting legends of the
Grecian mythology, particularly those which" related to
Jupiter. It was in the vicinity of Cnossus that the most
powerful of the gods is said to have been born, to have been
married, and to have been buried. Cnossus is always as¬
signed as the locale of the fabled labyrinth in which the
Minotaur was confined. As it was originally peopled by
Dorians, the manners, customs, and political institutions
of its inhabitants were all Dorian in their caste. Along with
Gortyna and Cidonia, it held for many years the supremacy
over the whole of Crete, and always took a prominent part
in the civil wars which from time to time desolated the
island. When the Romans began to extend their arms
southwards, Cnossus fell under their domination, and be¬
came a Roman colony. /Enesidemus, the sceptic philo-
F
42
C 0 A
C 0 A
CoaVestis sopher, and Chersiphron, the architect of the temple of
II Diana at Ephesus, were natives of Cnossus.
Coach. COA VESTIS, in Antiquity, a fine transparent textile
fabric, probably of silk, for which the island of Cos was
rcelebrated. It appears to have been of a gorgeous de¬
scription, sometimes dyed purple, and enriched with golden
stripes.
COACH, a close vehicle for commodious travelling, borne
on four wheels, and supported by springs upon a framework
to which the wheels are attached.
The learned Beckmann, in his History of Inventions, has
given an interesting account of coaches from the earliest
times. The'Roman arcera, mentioned in the Twelve Tables,
was a covered carriage used by the sick and infirm, and is
supposed to have been so called from its resemblance to an
area or chest. This was succeeded by the carpentum, a
two-wheeled car with an arched covering. The carrucce
were of later invention, but their construction is a matter
of surmise, though it seems probable they had four wheels.
These vehicles were sometimes very splendidly ornamented
with gold and precious stones; and covered carriages seem
more and more to have become appendages of Roman pomp
and magnificence. On the introduction of the feudal sys¬
tem the use of carriages was for some time prohibited, as
tending to render the vassals less fit for military service.
Men of all grades and professions rode on horses or mules,
and sometimes the monks and women on she-asses. Horse¬
back was the general mode of travelling; and hence the
members of the council who at the diet, and on other oc¬
casions, were employed as ambassadors, were called ritt-
meister. In this manner also great lords made their public
entries into cities. When on state occasions the pope
mounted his horse or mule, emperors and kings, if present,
were obliged to hold his stirrup and to lead the horse.
Bishops made their public entrance on horses or asses
richly decorated.
Covered carriages were known in the beginning of the
sixteenth century, but their use was confined to ladies of
the first rank; and as it was accounted disgraceful for men
to ride in them, the electors and princes sometimes availed
themselves of this prejudice to excuse their non-attendance
at meetings of the state, by informing the emperor that
their health would not permit them to ride on horseback.
Covered carriages were for a long time forbidden even to
women; but about the end of the fifteenth century they
began to be employed by the emperor, kings, and princes,
in journeys, and afterwards on state occasions. In 1474 the
Emperor Frederic III. visited Francfort in a close carriage,
and again in the following year in a very magnificent covered
carriage. Shortly afterwards carriages began to be splen¬
didly decorated; as for instance that of the Electress of
Brandenburg at the tournament held at Ruppin in 1509,
which was gilded all over; and that of the Duchess of
Mecklenburg, which was hung with red satin. At the
marriage of the Emperor Frederic II. with a princess of
Bavaria, “the bride rode with her sisters in a splendid
carriage studded with gold, her maids of honour in carriages
hung with black satin, and the rest of the ladies in neat
leather carriages.” When Cardinal Dietrichstein made his
entrance into Vienna in 1611, forty carriages went to meet
him ; and in the same year the consort of the Emperor
Matthias made her public entrance on her marriage in a
carriage covered with perfumed leather. The wedding
carriage of the first wife of the Emperor Leopold, who was
a Spanish princess, cost, together with the harness, 38,000
florins. Those of the emperor are thus described:—“ In
the imperial coaches no great magnificence was to be seen;
they were covered over with red cloth and black nails.
The harness was black, and in the whole work there was
no gold. The pannels were of glass, and on this account
they were called the imperial glass coaches. On festivals
the harness was ornamented with red silk fringes. The
imperial coaches were distinguished only by their having
leather traces; but the ladies in the imperial suite were
obliged to be contented with carriages the traces of which
were made of ropes.” At the magnificent court of Duke
Ernest Augustus at Hanover, in 1681, there were fifty gilt
coaches with six horses each. The first time that ambas¬
sadors appeared in coaches on a public solemnity was at
the imperial commission held at Erfurth in 1613. Soon
after this time coaches became common all over Germany,
notwithstanding various orders and admonitions to deter
vassals from using them. These*vehicles appear to have
been of very rude construction. Beckmann mentions, that
when he visited Bremen in 1785, he saw on the wall of the
senate-house a view of the city painted in oil colours by
John Landwehr in 1661; and in it there was represented
a long quadrangular carriage, apparently not suspended by
straps, and covered with a canopy supported by four pillars,
but without curtains. In the side there was a small door,
and in front a low seat, or perhaps a box; the coachman
sat upon the horses; and the dress of the persons within
proved them to be burgomasters. At Paris in the four¬
teenth, fifteenth, and even sixteenth centuries, the French
monarchs rode commonly on horses, the servants of the
court on mules, and the princesses and principal ladies
sometimes on asses. Persons even of the highest rank
sometimes sat behind their equerry on the same horse.
Carriages, however, were used at a very early period in
France ; for there is still extant an ordinance of Philip the
Fair, issued in 1294, by which citizens’ wives are prohibited
from using them. It appears, however, that about 1550
there were only three carriages at Paris; one belonging to
the queen, another to Diana of Poictiers, and the third to
Rene de Laval, a very corpulent nobleman who was unable
to ride on horseback. The coaches used in the time of
Henri IV. were not suspended by straps (an improvement
referred to the time of Louis XIV.) though they were pro¬
vided with a canopy supported by four ornamental pillars,
and with curtains of stuff or leather. When Richard II. of
England, towards the end of the fourteenth century, was
obliged to fly before his rebellious subjects, he and all his
followers were on horseback, while his mother alone used a
carriage. The oldest carriages used by the ladies in Eng¬
land were called by the now forgotten name of xvhirlicotes;
but these became less fashionable when Ann the wife of
Richard II. showed the English- ladies how gracefully she
could ride on the side-saddle. Coaches, properly so called,
were first known in England about the year 1580, and were
introduced, according to Stow, from Germany, by the Earl
of Arundel. About 1605 they began to be in common
use. The celebrated Duke of Buckingham was the first
who rode in a coach with six horses; and to ridicule this
pomp the Duke of Northumberland used eight.
Hackney coaches were first introduced in France about
the year 1650, by one Nicolas Sauvage, who lived in a house
called the Hotel S. Fiacre; from which circumstance all
hired carriages came to be called fiacres; though eventually
the name was restricted to such as were stationed for hire
in the streets. It should be observed, however, that in
ancient Rome there were carriages let out for hire, which
Suetonius calls rheda meritoria, and meritoria vehicula
(i. 57; iv. 39).
The prototype of the modern omnibus was a carriage which
at stated hours carried passengers from one quarter of Paris
to another. Coaches to be let out for hire were first esta¬
blished at London in 1625. In 1637 there were in London
and Westminster no fewer than 50; in 1652 they had in¬
creased to 200; and two years later there were 300, em¬
ploying 600 horses. In 1694 the number of hackney
coaches was limited to 700 ; and in 1715 to 800.
Hackney coaches were first established at Edinburgh in
Coach.
C O A
Coach. ]673; but from 20, their original number, they had fallen
in 1752 to 14, and in 1778 to 9, while the number of sedans
increased.
At Amsterdam in 1663, coaches with wheels were pro¬
hibited, in order to save the pavement of the streets ; and
accordingly they were placed on sledges—a fashion that is
not yet extinct. (Beckmann’s Hist, of Inventions, vol. i.)
Duties on Carriages.—It is long since duties were im¬
posed on carriages, and these have varied considerably at
different periods.
The following table exhibits the rates of duty on carriages
as fixed by the 16th and 17th Viet., cap. 90 (1853):—
Carriages with four wheels, drawn by two or more
horses or mlues    Jj.3 jq 0
Do. drawn by one horse or mule  2 0 0
Carriages with four wheels, each of less diameter than 30
inches, and drawn by two or more ponies or mules, not
exceeding 13 hands in height  1 15 0
Do. drawn by one such pony or mule  1 0 0
Carriage with less than four wheels, drawn by two or
more horses or mules  2 0 0
Do. drawn by one horse or mule  0 15 0
Do. drawn by one pony or mule not exceeding 13 hands
in height  0 10 0
Carriages kept solely for being let for hire, one-half the
above duties respectively.
Carriage with four wheels, used by a common carrier,
chiefly for the carriage of goods  2 6 8
Do. with less than four wheels   1 Q g
Exemptions.— Licensed hackney and stage carriages. Carriages
kept for being let on hire with a horse or horses by a person li¬
censed to let horses for hire. Waggon, van, or cart used solely in
trade or husbandry, on which the name, surname, and place of abode
of the owner are legibly painted, and which on no occasion is used
for any purpose of pleasure, except for conveying the owner or his
family to or from church.
Hackney Coaches are coaches stationed in the streets
or other public places, and bound to carry those who re¬
quire them at certain fixed rates of hire, according to the
distance travelled. By act 16th and 17th Viet., cap. 127, the
former duties on hackney carriages in the metropolis were
abolished, and the following instituted instead :—For every
license to keep and let to hire a hackney carriage, 20s, For
every such carriage authorized to be used every day in the
week, the weekly sum of 7s.; but if for every day except
Sunday, the weekly sum of 6s.
Stage Coaches are defined as carriages or vehicles used,
employed, or let out for the purpose of carrying passengers
for hire, and travelling at the rate of three or more miles in
the hour, without regard to the number of wheels, horses,
or passengers, or whether the same be open or close, pro¬
vided each passenger be charged a separate and distinct
fare. Carriages used wholly on a railway or impelled by
steam are excepted from this definition. By act 16th and
17th Viet., cap. 88, the following are the license duties
imposed on postmasters:—■
For 1 horse or 1 carriage  £ 7 10
Not exceeding 2 horses or 2 carriages   12 10
4 ... or 3   20 0
8 ... or 6 ...   30 0
12 ... or 9   40 0
16 ... or 12   50 0
20 ... or 15 ...   60 0
Exceeding 15 carriages   70 0
Exceeding 20 horses—then for every additional
number of 10 horses, and for any additional
number less than 10 over and above 20, or any
other multiple of 10 horses, the further addi¬
tional duty of   '  io 0
The various regulations relating both to stage and hack¬
ney coaches may be found in M‘Culloch’s Commercial
Dictionary (1854), pp. 293—5, and 645—6. See Carrier.
Mail Coaches are stage coaches of a particular construc¬
tion, which, for a certain consideration, carry her Majesty’s
mails, are protected by a guard, and are subject to the re-
C O A 43;
gulations of the post-office. In most instances these have Coach-
been superseded by the railways. making
Coach-making is such a combination of crafts as rarely II
are united in one trade. The technical names of those Coahuila*
composing the different branches are, body-makers, carriage-
makers, wheelers, spring-makers, axle-makers, smiths, trim¬
mers, &c. Painting is an important part of the business t
and those professing it are divided into body, carriage, and
heraldry or ornamental painters. These classes of workmen
have each their own department in the construction of a
coach. Under the general head of coach-making a great
variety of different kinds of vehicles are produced, such
as close coaches, landaus, landaulets, chariots, phaetons,
britzskas, gigs, &c.; and of the three kinds last named
there are almost infinite varieties, both with regard to con¬
struction and the manner of finishing. The fashion with
respect to these is almost as fluctuating and mutable as that
of dress. The smaller the body of a carriage of course the
lighter, and consequently the easier drawn but it has been
proved that shortness in the carriage makes it not only less
easy, but also harder on the axles and springs,, thus ren¬
dering them more apt to break.
The principal part of the coach-making business depends
chiefly on the selection of materials. Ash is the kind of
wood commonly used in the framework both of body and
carriage ; and the quality best suited for body wood is that
of a mild and free nature, while for the carriage the wood
cannot be too strong or robust. Full-grown wood of course
is best suited for both purposes, and the planks must be
allowed to lie until they are properly seasoned.
After the framework is made, the lower part of the body
is pannelled up with the softest bay mahogany. The kinds of
wood generally applied to coach-wheel making are elm for
the naves, oak for the spokes, and ash for the felloes; but
beech felloes are often used; and it has been found by ex¬
perience, that beech, when cut into felloes from the log
shortly after it is felled, and kept until they become dry
before being put upon wheels, answers admirably for this
purpose. Indeed, nothing but properly-seasoned wood can
be applied to any purpose in the construction of a coach.
Formerly, in the making of coach-springs nothing was
used but German steel, which from its hardness was more
apt to snap than the English steel now employed for that
purpose. The latter, with superior elasticity, combines a
strength that enables the spring-maker to fabricate his
springs at least one-third lighter, while they stand equal
fatigue. The kinds of axles now chiefly used are the com¬
mon or plain axle, the mail-coach patent, and the Collinge
patent, which last, when properly executed, is found to be
the best for retaining the oil; as it is generally found to be
in good order in this respect after a journey of 500 or 600
miles. The iron mounting of coach-work requires the skill
of experienced smiths; for, besides solidity, some degree of
taste is requisite to form the shapes and sets of the different
parts. No branch of coach-making contributes more to
the elegance of the vehicle than that of the painter.
His colours must be of the best quality, in order to stand
exposure in all weathers. The varnish used is copal, of
which there are two kinds ; the finest for finishing the
body, and the second for finishing the carriage. Heraldry
painting requires some knowledge of heraldry, combined
with considerable practice. The business of the trimmer
is to make and put in the linings, mount the coachman’s
seat, steps, &c., and put on the leather work, beading, &c.
Coaches built in London are reputed the most perfect of
their kind ; and Edinburgh has latterly become noted for
the excellence of its carriages.
Coach, or Couch, is also an apartment in a large ship
of war near the stern, the floor of which is formed by the
aftmost part of the quarter-deck, and the roof by the poop.
COAHUILA, a state of Mexico. See Mexico.
44
Coak
II
Coal-Trade.
C 0 A
COAK, or Coke, charred pitcoal, prepared for the smelt¬
ing of iron ore by igniting the coals piled up in long ridges
in the open air, and closing in the cinders with earth, when
brought to a glowing red heat. For the use of the manu¬
facturers, the method hitherto most in practice has been to
burn the small or screened coal in conical ovens, built of
firestone or brick, the floor being generally about 6 feet
in diameter, and the oven 8 feet high, while an aperture of
18 inches diameter is left at top. The small coal is thrown
in to the depth of 15 inches or more, and then ignited.
The oven door is at first kept open, and the hole at the top
left uncovered till the mass is red hot. 1 he door is then
closed, and by degrees the hole at the top is covered over
by two large flat stones, gradually approaching each other,
when the whole is left to cool. When sufficiently cooled,
it is drawn out with long iron rakes, and the mass is found
to have assumed a rude columnar arrangement. The oven
is immediately charged again with small coal, which the
heat remaining in the floor is found sufficient to ignite, and
so the operation goes on. In both the above ways good
coaks are made, but the volatile products are lost. To
save these, Lord Dundonald proposed to burn the coals in
a close furnace, to which he adapted an apparatus for con¬
veying the coal-tar, with the ammoniacal products, into
proper recipients. About the same time, Baron Von Haak,
a German, constructed works in the neighbourhood of New¬
castle, for distilling the small coal in large cast-iron cylin¬
ders, upon the plan which has since been adopted in the
gas-works; except that the soot from the furnace fires is,
at Newcastle, during a certain period of the combustion,
before any gray ashes have begun to arise, conveyed into a
chamber contrived for the purpose, and collected for lamp¬
black. See Iron Making.
COAL. See Colliery.
COAL TRADE. It is estimated that not less than forty
million tons of coals are raised annually from the vari¬
ous mines in the United Kingdom. Of these the greater
part is either used in the immediate neighbourhood of the
mines, or sent by inland navigation or land carriage to
different parts of the kingdom. In 1852, 12,709,771 tons
of coals, cinders, and culm were shipped from ports in the
United Kingdom; of these, 9,069,577 tons were sent
coastwise to other ports of the kingdom, being, coals
8,805,934 tons, cinders 43,376 tons, culm 220,267 tons.
The quantities of coals, cinders, and culm shipped coast¬
wise from the different ports of the United Kingdom in
1851 and 1852, were—
1851. 1852.
England— Tons. Tons.
Portsmouth....  6,103 6,644
Bristol  1,562 1,085
Gloucester  85,963 88,801
Cardiff  501,002 462,243
Newport  451,491 451,770
Swansea..    352,247 375,182
Llanelly.,  219,460 214,735
Milford   49,573 50,102
Chester    101,044 85,772
Liverpool....    115,904 105,932
Preston 42,257 37,918
Fleetwood     9,898 9,349
Lancaster...     5,337 4,838
Whitehaven   226,266 222,208
Workington     95,703 85,014
Maryport      201,676 230,012
Carlisle     15,153 17,851
Newcastle   2,067,112 2,175,857
Shields   214,829 168,172
Sunderland   1,899,160 1,978,611
Stockton   388,646 336,821
Hartlepool 1,137,989 1,340,876
Gainsborough   9,577 7,605
Hull  12,735 10,113
Goole  104,336 96,083
Other ports  4,252 3,934
C O A
Scotland—
Leith 
Borrowstounness
Grangemouth....
Alloa 
Kirkcaldy 
Glasgow 
Irvine  
Ayr 
Other ports 
Ireland—
Boss 
Total...
9,091 8,358
36,359 34,550
6,521 2,943
23,015 18,266
37,035 29,504
86,893 81,966
224,193 250,847
72,569 77,888
430 2,091
476 179
8,816,538 9,069,577
Coal Trade.
In 1852 the exports from the United Kingdom to fo¬
reign countries including British settlements, were as fol¬
lows:—coals 3,479,282 tons, of the value of L.1,287,626 ;
cinders 159,040 tons, of the value of L.83,832 ; culm 1872
tons, of the value of L.656 ; total, 3,640,194 tons, of the de¬
clared value of L.l,372,114.
The principal foreign countries to which coals, cinders,
and culm were exported from the United Kingdom in
1851 and 1852, were the following—
„ . Quantities Exported.
Countries. 1851_ 1852.
Russia     Tons 215,221 188,041
Denmark 
Prussia   
Hanseatic towns  
Holland   
France 
Spain and Canaries....
Italy   
Turkey 
British East Indies.. .
British West Indies...
United States, N.A 
295,153 313,689
216,603 214,513
343,065 350,499
132,258 147,540
602,808 663,261
191,355 203,371
152,919 171,367
98,235 72,782
97,738 94,304
82,147 99,449
83,546 122,285
The quantities of coal brought coastwise and by inland
navigation into the port of London were—
1851... Tons 3,236,542 254,421 3,490,963
1852   „ 3,330,428 414,917 3,745,345
During the six months ending 30th June 1852, 179,386
tons of coal were imported into London by railway, and
19,637 tons by canal: for the corresponding period of 1853
the imports by railway were 296,361 tons, and by canal
10,322 ; showing a decrease by canal, but a very consider¬
able increase by railway.
The coal trade was long subjected to very heavy and
oppressive duties. A duty of 17s. per chaldron on large, and
4s. 6d. per chaldron on small coals, was levied on all coal
exported to foreign countries. In 1831 these duties were
considerably modified, and in 1835 they were repealed,
with the exception of an ad valorem duty of 10s. per cent,
on coal exported in British vessels, of in those of foreign
countries entitled to the privileges conferred by treaties of
reciprocity, while in other foreign vessels it was subject to a
duty of 4s. a ton. These duties were, in 1840, altered to 10s.
6d. per cent., and 4s. 25%d. per ton respectively. In 1842,
duties of 2s. per ton on large, and Is. per ton on small coal
and culm were imposed, and on all coal exported in foreign
vessels not entitled to the privileges conferred by treaties
of reciprocity a duty of 4s. per ton. The two former were
abolished on 12th March 1845, but the last continued in
force till 14th August 1850.
In the reign of William III., a duty of 5s. per chaldron was
laid upon coal carried coastwise from one part of the kingdom
to another. During the last war this was raised to 9s. 4d.,
but in 1824 it was reduced to 6s., and in 1831 was wholly
repealed. This tax pressed very unequally on different
parts of the empire, for while it amounted to 6s. a chaldron,
or 4s. a ton in the metropolis, and all the south of England,
it was only Is. 7|d. a ton on coal carried by sea to Ireland,
and Is. 8d. on that to Wales ; while Scotland was for many
years entirely exempted from this duty.
C 0 A
Coamings Though these duties are now abolished, the coal trade is
II _ still in some places burdened with heavy local duties. Thus a
CTradeS duty ls' f)er ton is chargeable upon all coal brought into
v ra ^ y the port of London. By act 1st and 2d William IV., cap. 76,
several oppressive acts were repealed, and the duties payable
to the corporation of the city of London were commuted for a
duty of Is. Id. per ton ; and by 8th and 9th Viet., cap. 101,
a like duty was imposed on coal brought into London by
railway, canal, or other inland carriage. Of this duty 8d.
per ton is carried to the London Bridge Approaches Fund,
for effecting street improvements in the metropolis ; 4d. per
ton is the property of the corporation of the city of London,
and after defraying certain charges is carried to the general
account of the corporation ; and Id. per ton is payable to her
Majesty’s commissioners of works, to be applied by them in
effecting public improvements in the metropolis, authorized
by several acts of parliament. The produce of these du¬
ties, with the drawbacks allowed upon coal exported, was
in 1852,
Gross Duty. Drawback. Nett Duty.
8d. per ton to 5th
January 1853   L.123,657 L.10,098 L.113,559
4d. per ton to 31st
Dec. 1852  62,640 5,049 57,591
Id. per ton to ditto 15,560 1,262 14,298
Total  L.201,857 L.l 6,409 L.185,448
In 1851 the gross amount of duty was, on sea-borne coal
L.l 75,840, on coal brought landwise L.12,151. The 4d.
per ton duty, in 1851, amounted to L.54,104, of which
L.215 were salaries in relation to collection; L.3009draw¬
back allowed upon coal exported; L.7607 retiring allow¬
ances paid to deputy sea-coal meters and others, upon the
abolition of their offices in consequence of Act 1st and 2d
Will. IV., cap. 76, and which had gradually decreased from
L.l6,820 in 1836; and L.20,000 an annual charge for
making a new street in the line of Canon Street, and other
improvements. The attention of government is at present
directed to these unjust local imposts, by which our home
trade is unnecessarily burdened, and the merchant and ship¬
owner made to pay for improvements which ought properly
to be charged against the landlords or inhabitants ; and it
is expected that they will speedily be abolished.
COAMINGS, in ship-building, the raised border round
the hatches, to prevent water from agoing down into the
hold.
COANZA, a river of Congo, West Africa, forming in the
lower part of its course the S. boundary of Angola, and
falling into the Atlantic in S. Lat. 9. 10., E. Long. 14. 22.
It is supposed to have a course of about 500 miles.
COAST CASTLE, Cape, or Cabo Corso, a town of
Africa, capital of the British settlements on the Gold Coast, in
N. Lat. 5.6., W. Long. 1. 12. It was first colonized in 1610
by the Portuguese, but they were dislodged a few years
afterwards by the Dutch, who were in their turn ejected by
the British in 1661. Since that date the colony has re¬
mained in the possession of the English. The castle is situ¬
ated upon a granite rock about 50 feet high, projecting into
the sea, and near it are the outposts of Fort William and Fort
Victoria. The town is dirty and irregularly built, but the
English residences are generally handsome. Population
about 10,000. The climate is moist and unhealthy. The ex-
, ports are palm oil, gold dust, ivory, maize, tortoise shell, &c.
COASTING Trade, trade or intercourse carried on by
• sea between ports or places of the same country. This is
regulated in different countries by particular laws; and it
has generally been the custom to exclude foreigners from
all participation in the coasting trade. This policy was
adopted in England in the reign of Elizabeth, or perhaps
earlier; was perfected by the navigation acts of 165] and
1660; and these again were succeeded by a vast number of
regulations at different times, which have all been much
COB 45
simplified by act 16th and 17th Viet., cap. 107. (See M‘Cul- Coat
loch’s Commercial Dictionary).
COAT, or Coat of Arms, in Heraldry, a habit worn by Cobbett.
the ancient knights over their arms, and still borne by her-
alds-at-arms. It was a kind of surcoat, reaching as low as
the navel, open at the sides, with short sleeves, upon which
were applied the armouries of the knights embroidered in
geld and silver, and enamelled with beaten tin, coloured
black, green, red, and blue. The coats of arms were fre¬
quently open, and diversified with bands and fillets of several
colours, placed alternately, and called devices, as being di¬
vided and composed of several pieces sewed together. The
representation of these is still called a coat of arms. See
Heraldry.
Coat of Mail, a kind of armour made in form of a shirt,
consisting of iron rings interwoven netwise; or of small
laminae or plates laid over each other like the scales of a fish,
and fastened to a strong linen or leathern jacket.
COBALT, a metal of a reddish-gray colour, rather brit¬
tle, and very infusible. It is never found in a pure state, but
occurs usually as an oxide, or in combination with arsenic
or its acid, with nickel, sulphur, iron, &c. The oxide yields
a rich blue colour, on which account it is extensively em¬
ployed in the arts. The impure oxide is called zaffre;
but by fusion with two or three parts of fine silicious sand
and an alkaline flux it is converted into a blue glass, which,
when reduced to powder, is called smalt. This is largely
employed to colour glass, porcelain, and stoneware, and also
to give a blue tint to writing-paper. The word cobalt is de¬
rived from kobold, a goblin—the name applied to it by the
German miners, who regarded its occurrence as unfavour¬
able to the presence of more valuable metals. See Che¬
mistry; Mineralogy; Smalt.
COBBETT, William, one of the most remarkable po¬
litical agitators of his time, was the son of a farmer at Farn-
ham in Surrey, where he was born in 1762. In a tract pub¬
lished by himself in 1796, under the title of the “ Life and
Adventures of Peter Porcupine,” he gives an account of his
self education, carried on with extraordinary ardour and per¬
severance, under circumstances of great difficulty and dis¬
couragement. His early years were spent in the labours of
the farm; but in the autumn of 1782, happening to visit
Portsmouth, the sight of the sea, the ships, and the sailors,
excited in his youthful mind aspirations after martial glory
and foreign adventures, and he offered to serve on board a
man of war, but was not accepted. Shortly afterwards he
went to London, where he was employed as a copying-clerk
by an attorney. Tiring of this employment, he next en¬
listed in a regiment of foot, which was stationed at Chatham
for nearly a year. During this time he applied himself
with amazing assiduity to study the English grammar,
writing the book over twice or thrice, committing it to
memory, and repeating it to himself while standing sentry.
The regiment was next ordered to Nova Scotia, where, by
his good conduct and diligent application to his duties, he
was advanced to the rank of sergeant-major. In 1791 he
returned to England, procured his discharge, and married
the daughter of a sergeant-major of artillery. One of his
first acts after his return was to bring charges of peculation
against four officers of his late regiment. A court-martial
was appointed to try them, but, on the day of trial, to the
astonishment of all, Cobbett was not to be found; he had
crossed over to France. From France he sailed for New
York, where he arrived in October 1792. There he pub¬
lished an abusive pamphlet against Priestley. This was
followed by a number of other anti-republican tracts of a
violent and reckless character, which involved him in several
prosecutions for libel, and ultimately induced him to remove
from America to England, On his arrival in London in
1800, he commenced a daily paper, entitled “ The Porcu¬
pine,” which however was soon discontinued, and followed
46
Cobija
II
Coblentz.
COB
C O C
by the “Weekly Register.” For the first two years he advo¬
cated Tory principles, and was a decided supporter of the
government; but about 1803 the “Register” completely
changed its politics. FYom that time it was violently de¬
mocratic and anti-ministerial; and as the work had a very
large circulation, and was written in a bold nervous style,
its influence was extensive. Cobbett was repeatedly tried
for libel, and subjected to heavy damages ; and, in 1810, for
a libel in his observations on a case of flogging in the army,
he was subjected to a fine of L.1000 and two years’ im¬
prisonment. In 1817 he again visited America; but in two
years he returned home, bringing with him the bones of
Thomas Paine. All this time the “ Register” continued to
be published, and he was twice again involved in actions for
libel, in one of which he was cast in damages of L.1000.
In 1832 he attained the great object of his ambition by
being elected member of parliament for Oldham; but he dis¬
appointed the expectations of his admirers. Parliament was
not his proper sphere; his unscrupulous charges and in¬
accurate assertions were too immediately detected and ex¬
posed. The late hours consequent upon his parliamentary
duties affected his health, and after a short illness he died,
June 18, 1835.
His writings are very voluminous. Amongst the best of
these are his English and French Grammars, Cottage Eco¬
nomy, and Advice to Young Men. He is a striking example
of the benefit of industry, perseverance, and an economical
improvement of time. He went to bed punctually at nine
o’clock, and rose at four, and was thus enabled to complete
the greater part of the writing which he apportioned to him¬
self before others had commenced their daily occupations.
Cobbett was a man of proud, overbearing temper ; but his
writings, though often coarse, dogmatical, and offensively
personal, bear the stamp of vigour, and, with occasional
slips, furnish a good example of the severe and simple
English style.
COBIJA, or Puerto La Mar, a seaport of Bolivia.
See Bolivia, vol. iv. p. 827, &c.
COBLE, a small kind of fishing boat.
COBLENTZ (German a strongly fortified city,
capital of the Prussian province of the Rhine, and of a go¬
vernment of its own name, is pleasantly situated on the
left bank of the Rhine, at its confluence with the Moselle.
From this circumstance it derived its ancient name of Con-
fluentes, of which Coblentz is a corruption. The fortifica¬
tions are very extensive, connecting the works on the left
bank of the Rhine with the very strong fortress of Ehren-
breitstein, standing on a high rock on the opposite bank;
and thus render Coblentz the bulwark of Prussia and Ger¬
many on the side of France. They form a fortified camp
capable of containing 100,000 men, and are constructed on
the combined systems of Carnot and Montalembert. Several
detached forts command the various approaches to the city.
The Rhine is here crossed by a bridge of boats 485 yards
long, and the Moselle by a Gothic freestone bridge of 14
arches, and 1100 feet in length, erected in the fourteenth
century. The streets of Coblentz are mostly regular, and
many of the public buildings are handsome. Among these
may be noticed the modern electoral palace, erected in 1778-
86, now used as a court-house; the old castle of the electors,
built in 1280, now converted into a factory of japan-ware ;
the church of St Castor, built in 836, and surmounted by
four towers, notable as the place where in 843 the grandsons
of Charlemagne met to apportion the empire. In front of the
church of St Castor is a fountain, erected by the French in
1812, with an inscription to commemorate their invasion of
Russia. To this St Priest, the Russian commandant of the
city in 1814, added “ vu et approuve.” It has also a gymna¬
sium, hospital, orphan asylum, theatre, public library, picture
gallery, musical institute, medical school, &c. The "manufac¬
tures consist chiefly of linens, cottons, japan-ware, and tobacco.
Coblentz is a free port, and carries on an active trade by means
of the Rhine, Moselle, and Lahn, in colonial produce, wines,
mineral waters, corn, iron, volcanic products, potter’s clay,
stoneware, bark, &c. Pop. (1849) 25,318, including 4652
military. Prince Metternich was born here in 1772.
The government of Coblentz has an area of 2320 square
miles, with 25 cities, 35 market towns, 1092 villages, and (in
1849) 502,984 inhabitants, of whom 334,548 were Catholics,
159,716 Protestants, and 8475 Jews.
COBURG. See Saxe-Coburg.
Coburg, the capital of the duchy or province of the
same name, forming part of the duchy of Saxe-Coburg-
Gotha, is pleasantly situated on the left bank of the Itz, an
affluent of the Regen, 40 miles S.S.E. of Gotha. The
ducal palace of Ehrenburg, a fine Gothic edifice erected in
1549, is a favourite summer-residence of the reigning duke,
and has several apartments very tastefully fitted up, a li¬
brary of 26,000 volumes, and a collection of specimens in
natural history, minerals, coins, and paintings. Coburg has
a theatre, arsenal, five churches, a gymnasium founded in
1604, a normal school, observatory, two public libraries, and
a cabinet of natural history. The ancient castle of the dukes
of Coburg is situated on a commanding eminence in the
vicinity. It was for some time the residence of Luther; and
the bedstead on which he slept, and the pulpit from which
he preached in the old chapel, are still shown. Coburg
has manufactures of linen, woollen, and cotton goods, gold
and silver articles, and dye-works; and carries on an active
trade. In the vicinity are the castles of Callenberg and
Lauterberg. Pop. (1846) 10,092.
COCA, a stimulant narcotic largely used as a masticatory
by the Peruvians, is the dried leaf of Erythroxylon coca, in
combination with a certain alkaline substance called llipta.
The habitual indulgence in this drug is attended with re¬
markable effects on the human system, which are said to be
not very dissimilar to those produced by the excessive use
of opium. See Bolivia, vol. iv. p. 824.
COCCEIUS, John, (1603-1699) an eminent Hebrew
scholar, was born at Bremen. He taught theology at Ley¬
den, and wrote commentaries on the Bible and other works.
From his peculiar views in regard to a visible reign of Christ
on earth, he gave rise to a sect who assumed the name of
Cocceians.
COCCOLITE. See Mineralogy.
COCCOLOBA, a genus of West Indian plants, the best
known of which is C. uvifera or sea-grape of Jamaica. Its
juice, which is very astringent, yields a sort of kino, and the
wood is used as a dye.
COCHABAMBA, a department of Bolivia, in South
America. The climate is mild and the soil productive.
Cochabamba is also the name of a province and town in this
department. The town is situated at an elevation of 8448
feet above the level of the sea, and is considered one of the
most healthy and agreeable places in Bolivia. Pop. of the
department, 488,947; of town, about 30,000. See Bolivia,
vol. iv. pp. 828, &c.
COCHIN, one of the native states of Hindustan, situate
on the coast of Malabar. Its boundaries are the British
district of Malabar on the N. and N.E., Travancore on the
S. and E., and the sea on the S.W. It lies between Lat.
9. 48. to 10. 50., Long. 76. 5. to 76. 58., and contains an
area of 1988 sq. miles. A portion of this territory extends
over the mountainous range termed the Western Ghauts,
and has an elevation of from 4000 to 5000 feet above the
sea. The remainder consists for the most part of low hills,
intersected by narrow fertile valleys, finely wooded and ex¬
tremely well watered by small perennial streams. Rice is
the chief cereal grown. The other vegetable productions
are pepper, cardamoms, ginger, betel-nut, and arrow-root.
The gardens and orchards produce in abundance the bread¬
fruit, jackfruit, mango, plantain, lime, pine-apple, guava,
Coburg
Cochin.
c o c
Cochin, tamarind, and other fruits. Groves of palms and other trees
skirt the bottom of the hills. Above these are woods of
forest trees which, though not equal in size to those in Chitta¬
gong, are very fine, and free from rattans and other climb¬
ers. Among the principal trees may be noticed the teak,
which is said to be inferior to that found in Malabar and
Travancore; the jackwood, much in demand for cabinet
work ; the peon, probably a sort of pine, which furnishes ex¬
cellent masts. There are also the angely, blackwood, and bas¬
tard cedar. Among the remarkable features of the country
are the Cochin backwaters or shallow lakes, occasioned by
the overflowing of the rivers during the S.W. monsoon, and
affording the means of inland navigation from stream to
stream and estuary to estuary, in a direction parallel to the
shore. Of these waters the most important is that of Chow-
gaut, 20 miles in length and 8 in breadth, studded with
numerous islands, and characterized by Dr Buchanan as
“ one of the finest inland navigations imaginable.” In this
province are many Nazarene or Christian villages, which,
for Indian towns, are well built and cleanly, and the inhabi¬
tants of which are a very orderly and industrious people, liv¬
ing chiefly by trade or agriculture. The Christians are of
two denominations—the Syrian or Jacobite Christians, who
refer their conversion and the foundation of their religious
1 establishment to St Thomas the Apostle, and acknowledge
as their spiritual head the Patriarch of Antioch; and the
disciples of the Church of Rome, being either descendants
of the Portuguese or their converts. Jews also are nume-
These consist of two separate classes ; the black Jews
c o c
47
from time immemorial settled in the country, and the white
Jews, affording evidence in their fairer complexions of the
recent emigration of their race from more temperate climes.
The Cochin rajah maintained his independence to a much
later period than most of the other Hindu chiefs. When
Hyder invaded his country in 1776, he quietly submitted
to pay tribute; which was continued to his son Tippoo, and
is now paid to the British government. The earliest political
relations of England with that government occurred in 1791,
when a treaty was concluded between the rajah and the East
India Company. This was followed by another in 1809,
by the conditions of which the friends and enemies of each
of the contracting parties were declared the friends and ene¬
mies of both. Cochin is under the protection of the British,
and pays an annual tribute of L.24,000. Under the in¬
fluence of the protecting powers many important benefits
have been conferred upon the country, which is represented
as steadily advancing in all the elements of prosperity. An
additional stimulus to the productive powers of the territorv
has been recently afforded by placing its trade as regards
the United Kingdom on the same footing, with certain spe¬
cified exceptions, as that of the British possessions in India.
Cochin, a seaport and towTn which, though giving name
to the above native state, belongs to the British govern¬
ment, and is included within the district of Malabar, under
the presidency of Madras. I he city is of a semicircular
form, and is about a mile and a half in circumference. It
has three gates; and the streets are wide and commodious.
A fort was built at this place by Albuquerque in 1503, and
was the first possessed by the Portuguese in India. Cochin
continued to increase and to flourish under their rule ; and,
besides other buildings, was adorned by a noble cathedral!
In 1663 the town was captured by the Dutch. During the
period of their rule it was a place of extensive commerce,
and was inhabited not only by all sects of Christians, but
by Hindus, Mohammedans, and Jews, who traded with
Arabia, Persia, and the whole coast of India. The trade
carried on with Surat, Bombay, the coasts of Malabar and
Canara, and also with Arabia and the islands in the Eastern
Seas, is still extensive. The imports consist chiefly of
British manufactures, cotton, wool, opium, and spices ; the
exports are pepper, cardamoms, teak-wood, and other timber,
cocoa nuts, coir, and cassia. The harbour is on the north
side of the town, which stands on an island at the mouth of
the Cali Caytang river. At this port also ship-building is
carried on to a considerable extent, and vessels are con¬
structed on the best European models. Cochin was taken
by the British in 1795, when war commenced with Holland.
Its fortifications were subsequently blown up with gun¬
powder ; and the town was finally ceded to the British by
the European treaty of 1814. Distant S.W. from Madras
350 miles. Eat. 76. 18., Long. 9. 57.
* COCHIN CHINA. This extensive kingdom is situ¬
ated in the southern extremity of Asia, and forms part of the
peninsula between China and Hindustan. It is not separated,
however, by any distinct boundary from the neighbouring
countries ; and its limits have been greatly extended by con¬
quest beyond those of Cochin China proper, which is merely
a strip of land between the China Sea and the mountains, and
is not above 60 or 70 miles broad. The empire of Cochin
China, which took its present form in the beginning of this
century, comprehends Cochin China proper, Tonquin, the
principal part of Cambodia, and the little state of Chiampa.
This state, as it has been aggrandized by conquest, extends
from the point of Cambodia, in about 8. 30. N. Eat., to the
northern confines of Tonquin, which reach within a very
few miles of the tropic of Cancer, and from the longitude
of 102. to about 109. E. It is bounded on the N. by the
Chinese Quangsi or Kiangsi and Yunan ; on the W. by the
kingdoms of Laos and Siam ; while the Gulfs of Siam, Ton¬
quin, and the China Sea bound it on the S.W., E., and N.E.
Its area is estimated at. about 98,000 square miles ; and its
population at from 12,000,000 to 16,000,000. This great
country is divided by long ranges of mountains, which run
nearly N. and S., and in almost parallel chains, forming it in¬
to separate provinces, di vided by physical boundaries, and in¬
habited by distinct tribes and nations, although subject to the
same sovereign. By these mountainous ridges Tonquin and
Cochin China proper are separated from Lactho, Laos, and
Cambodia. Another chain separates the three latter states
from Siam and China, and gradually diminishes in height as
it approaches the south, terminating at the southern extre¬
mity of Cambodia.
1. Tonquin is mountainous on the N., and of the same ge¬
neral character as the adjacent Chinese provinces. On the
W., the chain which separates Cochin China proper from the
interior of the peninsula constitutes the boundary towards
the Laos country. The E. is nearly level, terminating to¬
wards the sea in an alluvial plain. On the southern frontier,
towards Cochin China, a wall extends from the mountain to
the sea ; but the wall is now useless, as both countries are
under one sovereign. Next to Korea and Japan, Tonquin
has most completely maintained its exclusive system against
foreigners ; and after all that has been written on the coun¬
try, it is still almost unknown. Towards the N., as far as the
Song-ka, or Rankao river, Tonquin extends from 103.50. E.
Long, to about 109.48. E. Long.; but from this latter point
it is hemmed in by the great Yunan ridge, which runs parallel
with the sea ; 17. 36. is its southern limit, and the northern
is 22. 55. It is generally fertile, and contains a large indus¬
trious population. Most of the rivers flow in a south-easterly
direction. The largest is the great river Song-ka, formed by
the union of the Le-teen,a stream which constitutes the boun¬
dary between Chinaand the Laos country,and the Song-shai,
which rises in the latter country, and passes through a moun¬
tain defile not far from the principal city in Tuyen-kwang
district. The sand of these rivers contains many particles
of gold, and thousands of people are engaged in collecting it.
The river then runs S.E., having the capital of Tonquin
—Kecho or Hanoi—on its right bank ; it makes a sudden
bend at Heen, and then turning northward forms a delta, in
which Domea, the port for foreign shipping in former times,
is situated. It has three mouths, the northernmost of which
Cochin
China.
48
COCHIN CHINA.
Cochin
China.
lias the deepest water ; the southern is nearly inaccessible
to vessels drawing above 10 feet on account of the banks and
shallows. This river, by its periodical overflowing, fertilizes
the rice-fields. It is not much larger than the Oder ; but
it has numerous tributaries, and several hunches are joinet
together by canals, both for irrigation and commeice.
South-east of the mouth of the Song-ka there are seven
streams, all of which flow into the sea. The intervening
country consists of swamps and a few rice-fields, and JS fre¬
quently under water. It is the residence of numerous fish¬
ermen, who also hunt the alligator, which is used as food,
the flesh being sold in the shambles. The produce of these
fisheries is immense; it supplies the poorer classes in the
interior who seldom taste any meat, and still leaves a large
surplus for exportation to China. _ .. , . ,
2. Cochin China proper, a small strip of land, extends
from the southern frontiers of Tonqum to about 1— »•>
where it borders on Tsiampa. This country is bounded on
the west by naked mountains, which have only a scanty
vegetation; and for ten miles inland it is a complete desert.
The most important river is that on which the capital is
situated; but the Songve and Songdalang are larger. Hav-
ins; traversed the regions inhabited by the Annam race, the
traveller comes to lofty mountains, which present a di eary
waste. No European has yet visited them.
3. Chiampa, or Tsiampa, is a narrow strip of land extend¬
ing to about 11. 35. N. Lat. It is inhabited by a peculiar
race, more resembling the Malay than the Annam. It has
one great river, the Song-luong. Since the incorporation
of this country with Cochin China, the aborigines, at one time
bold navigators of the Indian archipelago, have retired to the
mountains, a forlorn and persecuted race, and a few thou¬
sand Cochin Chinese have taken possession of the coast.
4. The part of Cambodia which belongs to Cochin China
presents a continued flat; a rich alluvial soil, full of navi-
gable rivers, one of which the Mekom, or Cambodia, is
among the largest rivers in Southern Asia. This river,
which flows through a rich and varied valley, takes its rise
in Yun-nan, on the frontiers of Sefan, in 27. 20. N. Lat.,
where at first it has the name of Lan-tsan ; but towards the
south, and before it enters the Laos country, it is called Kew-
lung-keang, or Nine-dragon river. The volume of water
which it receives in its course from the stupendous moun¬
tains through which it makes its way, renders it a mighty
stream. In the Chinese territory it runs a considerable dis¬
tance through a magnificent valley. In 16. N. Lat. it bends
more to the E., and enters Cambodia, after having received
a large tributary: it then drains the whole length of that
country, and falls by three embouchures into the sea in
about 9. 34. N. Lat. In many places the river is very deep ;
in others there are rocks and cataracts, shifting banks and
shallows, all which impede the navigation. Like all great
rivers, it has some outlets which are only accessible at high
water. The river is navigable in Yun-nan, and there are
many flourishing cities upon it. In Laos many thriving
villages adorn the banks ; and in Cambodia the principal
population is near it. We may conceive what a mighty
stream that must be which traverses 18 degrees of latitude,
and forms at its mouth an alluvial deposit only second to
that of the Yang-tsze and Hwangho. North-east of Pe-
nompeng (Kalumpe), the present capital of Cambodia, is a
large lake, the Bienho, in Cochin Chinese—in Cambodian,
Tanle-sap (fresh-water lake); from which a broad stream
flows into the Mekom. The Saigun river, which all our
maps represent as only being 20 miles long, is neverthe¬
less a very deep river, easy of access for ships of the
greatest burthen, being six fathoms over the bar at the
principal entrance, and ten deep in mid-channel. It is
joined to the Mekom near its mouth by two channels ; and
probably it is really one of the outlets of that mighty stream.
Cambodia is a land of rivers* The natural fertility of the
soil is very great; but the inhabitants are still behind in
apriculture. Cambodia is nevertheless the granary of
Cochin China, and is rich in all kinds of productions.
The soil in Cochin China, especially in the low lands, is
fertile, and its products are very valuable. Of these rice, as
being the general food of the people, is the staple commodity;
and after supplying the wants of the people, about 100,000
peculs remain annually for exportation. The cultivation of
the sugar cane, as well as the preparation of sugar, has of
late years much increased ; and the annual exportation of
sugar is considered to be not less than 70,000 peculs. Cot¬
ton of the best quality is produced on the coast; and of this
probably about 60,000 peculs are exported. Though raw
silk is produced, it is principally for home consumption. Cin¬
namon ranks high among its productions, and has always
been celebrated in China. In the southern parts the cocoa-
nut grows very luxuriantly, and hence there is a large expor¬
tation of oil. Pepper of a good quality, but in small quan¬
tity and of a high price, is produced in the central provinces
of Cochin China ; but the quantity is inadequate to the de¬
mand which the Chinese trade creates for its exportation. It
grows among the central mountains of Cochin China, whence
it is exported to Cambodia and Tonquin, but principally to
China, where it is much more highly valued than any other
quality of this aromatic. Another exclusive product of the
central parts of the kingdom, which is extensively culti¬
vated and sent to the neighbouring provinces, is tea, which
is very coarse and only used by the poorer classes. T he
other productions of the country are gamboge, gum, cai da-
moms, eagle-wood, areca-palm, betel-nut, ivory, stick-lac ;
hides, consisting of deer-skins, buffalo, elephants, and ihino-
ceros’ hides; peltry, consisting of tiger, leopard, otter, and cat
skins; feathers, salt fish, horns and bones, dyewoods, and
woods for ship-building and for domestic purposes. Valuable
timber is only found in Cambodia, and a small quantity of
teak wood is found in the forests; also ebony cedars, mi¬
mosas, walnuts, iron-wood, and poon, and most of the other
trees found in the woods of India. 1 he wood used for
ship-building and for domestic purposes is strong and dura¬
ble, and is carried to the capital in large quantities. There
is a hard black wood extensively used in cabinet-work, and
of large dimensions, which takes a fine polish, and might foim
an article of exportation. Cambodia also produces the Poi-
tuguese rosewood, which the Chinese export as they do
from Siam; also sandal-wood and other scented woods.
Among the products of Tonquin is a species of vegetable
root, a cheap material, which forms the dead-weight of all
the Chinese cargoes exported from Tonquin, and is used ex¬
tensively both throughout Cochin China and the adjacent
countries, and also in China, as the material of a red dj-e.
Edible bird-nests, the sea-slug usually called biche-de-mer,
or Sipunculus edulis, and various marine productions of a
gelatinous quality, form standing articles of tiade with
China, and are always in demand.  
The geological formation of Cochin China is primitive;
the mountains are chiefly composed of granite and syenite.
Mica slate and primary limestone here and theie occui ;
while several hills consist of quartz rock. Among the moun¬
tains of Tonquin is the only portion of the Cochin Chinese
empire which produces iron, gold, and silver. The iron re¬
ceived from these mines, which is as cheap as that fiom Siam,
supplies the whole kingdom, with the exception of Saigun,
which is furnished from the latter country. Gold dust is
found in many of the rivers; and there are immense locks
of marble situated on the banks of the river Taifo, on a kind
of sandy plain, of which large quantities have been exported.
This remarkable range of limestone rocks rises almost pei-
pendicularly from the low sand hills, to a height of fiom 300
to 400 feet, without a hill or mountain near them.
The foreign trade of the Cochin Chinese is almost exclu¬
sively with China ; the trade carried on with Siam being in-
Cochin
China.
COCHIN
Cochin considerable, and that with European nations still smaller.
j But there is no indisposition to trade, though among the Eu-
ropean nations the notion has been propagated by travellers
that the resort of European traders is in a great measure
interdicted in this kingdom, on the same principle as in
Japan and China. In 1818, a new tariff was imposed on
foreign vessels, by which the high duties imposed on all fo¬
reign vessels prior to 1818 were repealed, and equal duties
substituted in their stead. By this regulation all vessels
pay a rated measurement duty, moderate in its amount;
and are exempted from all import duties payable previous
to 1818. Vessels that are driven into the ports of Cochin
China by stress of weather, or that visit them for the pur¬
pose of commercial inquiries, are free from all charges. Be¬
sides the exports above mentioned ax’e cardamoms, betel-nut,
eagle-wood, dye-woods, stick-lac, gamboge, ivory, elephants’
hides and bones, and rhinoceros’ bones. The imports are
silk goods of various kinds, the coarser kinds of teas, coarse
chinaware, paper, cotton and woollen stuffs, iron, opium,
cutlery,&c. Of the internal trade of the country, though con¬
siderable, little is known. The trade with China is chiefly
conducted with Cachao in Ton quin, Saigun in Cambodia,
and Faifo and Hue in Cochin China. There is also some
inconsiderable intercourse with other parts of the empire.
Cochin China, from its central situation, its navigable rivers,
and its many excellent harbours, possesses extraordinary ad¬
vantages for commerce. Few countries are so amply pro¬
vided with harbours, there being within the degrees of
latitude which intervene between Cape St James and the
Bay of Turon, no less than nine of the finest harbours in the
world, accessible in every wind, quite safe to approach, and
affording the most complete protection. The Bay of Turon,
situated in Lat. 16. 7. N., is equalled by few in the eastern
world, and surpassed by none for the security and conveni¬
ence which it affords.
The principal town is Hue, the capital, situated 70 or 80
miles N.W. of Turon, on a river navigable for vessels of
moderate burden. It is fortified; and in the arsenal every¬
thing is in a style of neatness, magnitude, and perfection,
which denotes a bold and warlike people. The other towns
are Cachao in Tonquin ; Saigun in Cambodia, a mercantile
town of considerable size, on a branch of the Saigun river ;
and Taifo or Faifo, situated about 15 miles from the en¬
trance of the river, and now in ruins ; Turon also, formerly
the chief mart of trade between China and Japan, now sur¬
rounded with marks of ruin.
Cochin China, until within a few centuries after the
Christian era, formed a part of the Chinese empire ; and in
the general features of the natives, many of their customs,
their written language, and their religious opinions and
ceremonies, it is easy to trace their Chinese origin. The
Cochin Chinese, for example, resemble, according to Bar-
row, their Chinese progenitors in the ceremonies and pro¬
cessions observed at marriages and funerals, in the greater
part of their religious superstitions, in the offerings presented
to idols, in the consultation of oracles, and in the universal
desire of inquiring into futurity by the casting of lots; in
charming away diseases, in their diet and cookery, in their
public entertainments, in their instruments of music, in
games of chance, in cock-fighting, quail-fighting, and ’the
devices of their fire-works. Their language, however,
though originally Chinese, has now deviated so much from
its standard as to be wholly unintelligible to a Chinese.
But the Cochin Chinese have effectually preserved the
written character of the Chinese language; and when the
country was visited by Barrow he found no difficulty in
communicating with them by means of the Chinese priests
who accompanied him.
Cambodia enjoys a delightful temperature, although the
weather throughout the rainy season (May to September) is
often very sultry: the drv monsoon during the remaining
VOL. VII. b
CHINA.
part of the year is clear and the heat very moderate, seldom
exceeding 90°, and ordinarily being only about 80°. Co¬
chin China presents the very reverse of the seasons to
Tonquin and Cambodia, on account of the ridge of moun¬
tains which breaks the clouds. From October up to Jan¬
uary the weather is very boisterous, and typhoons are by
no means uncommon—when in the former the wet seasons
reign, the latter is dry, and vice versa. The thermometer
never rises there above 103°, nor sinks below 53°, and the
climate throughout is healthy and agreeable. Tonquin in
this respect resembles Bengal, but participates likewise in
the oppressive heat and very disagreeable cold of China.
In external appearance the Cochin Chinese are the
most diminutive of the Mogul race. They are short and
squat. They want the broad face of the Malay, the cylin¬
drical cranium and expanded lower jaw remarked in the
Siamese, and the oblique eyes of the Chinese. Their heads
and countenances are round; and they possess, according
to MrFinlayson, an expression of sprightliness, intelligence,
and good humour, not to be found either in the Chinese or
Siamese. Morals in Cochin China, as in every part of
Asia, are at a very low ebb; and the women especially are
in a very degraded state, and are permitted to indulge in
every species of licentiousness. Neither parents nor hus¬
bands in any rank scruple for a moment to prostitute for
gain either their wives or daughters. The females in ge¬
neral have but slender pretensions to beauty ; yet this want
is compensated by a lively and cheerful temper, totally dif¬
ferent from the morose character of the Chinese. They
are doomed by the men to labour from morning to night in
the most toilsome occupations. All the labours and the
various employments connected with agriculture fall to
their share; and in some places they superintend all the
details of commerce. They even assist in constructing and
keeping in repair their mud-built cottages ; they manufac¬
ture coarse earthenware vessels ; navigate boats on rivers
and in harbours; bear articles to market; draw the cotton¬
wool from the pod, spin it and weave it into cloth, dye it,
and make it up into dresses for their families. By the sys¬
tem of the government, every male belongs to the king,
and must either enlist in the army or work one-third if not
one-halt of the year for the sovereign without pay ; by which
the people are taken away from agricultural and mechanical
pursuits, and initiated into idle and unprofitable habits.
When not so employed they engage occasionally in fishing,
in collecting swallows’ nests and sea-slug in the neighbour¬
ing islands, and in various other occupations. But they
have always leisure for their amusements ; while the women
are condemned to unremitting toil, being considered by the
lower classes much in the light of beasts of burden fitted for
use, and by the higher classes as the slaves of their plea¬
sures. These latter are arrogant in the extreme, and offen¬
sively coarse in their manners ; while their inferiors are
described as mild and inoffensive, lively and good humoured,
affable and polite to strangers, but, under this exterior, as
cunning, deceitful, impudent, conceited, and tyrannical,
where they can be so with impunity. These vices are traced
to the nature of the government, which is completely des¬
potic, the sovereign being the supreme disposer both of
the lives and properties of his subjects. “ The bamboo,”
says a traveller, “which is perpetually at work, is the uni¬
versal reformer of manners throughout Cochin China and
the moral character of the people corresponds entirely to
this illiberal and despotic system under which it has been
formed. It is owing to the same cause, namely the inse¬
curity of property, which prevails all over Asia, that the arts
and manufactures make no progressive improvement, and
that agriculture also is in such a backward state. The
country exhibits nowhere the marks of industrious cultiva¬
tion ; and the inhabitants are generally poor, and living in
miserable cottages, with little furniture. The only branch
G
49
Cochin
China.
50 C 0 C
Cochineal, of the arts in which they particularly excel is naval archi-
lecture ; for which, however, they are not a little indebted
to the size and quality of the timber employed for that
purpose. Their row-galleys for pleasure are remarkably
fine vessels, being from fifty to eighty feet in length, and
composed of fine single planks, each extending from one
extremity to the other. They employ various descrip¬
tions of vessels in the coasting trade, in fishing, and in
collecting the biche-de-mer or sea-slug, and the swallows’
nests among the cluster of islands called the Paracels.
Many of them are covered with sheds of matting, under
which a whole family constantly reside; and others re¬
semble the common prows of the Malays, both in their hulls
and rigging. Their foreign traders are built on the plan of
the Chinese junks.
The religion of the Cochin Chinese is a modification of
the widely extended system of Buddha, to whom they offer
the firstlings of their flocks and the first fruits of their
fields. They have temples filled with the idolatrous images
of this deity, and the natives are extremely superstitious.
Besides voluntary offerings, which are made by individuals,
a yearly contribution is levied by the government, in order
to support a certain number of monasteries, in which the
priests invoke the deity for the public welfare.
The ancient history of Cochin China, like that of most
of the other eastern countries, is very little known; and
it is only from the year 1774 that there are any authentic
accounts. The reigning family was at that time expelled
from Quinong, the capital, by three brothers, who divided
the country among them. At the time the revolt took place,
the young prince Caung Shung, v/ith the queen and his
family, escaped by the assistance of a French missionary
named Adran, into a forest; whence the king was compelled
to fly, first to Putowai, a desert island in the Gulf of Siam,
and afterwards to Siam, which he was obliged to quit. The
son was carried by Adran to France, where he endeavoured
to procure assistance ; but the revolution breaking out, all
these schemes were frustrated. Caung Shung, after re¬
maining in the woods, sustaining many hardships, landed in
his own country in 1790, and succeeded in expelling the
successors of the usurpers ; and in 1802 he effected the con¬
quest of Tonquin, and established an extensive empire on a
solid basis, which has flourished ever since that time. He
was greatly aided by the missionary Adran, who had ac¬
quired the most perfect mastery over the language, and
compiled a code of laws and a book of instructions for the
government of the country. The king, after his death,
evinced his gratitude for his services by erecting a monu¬
ment to his memory, with an inscription in gold characters—
an honour confined to the royal family.
Several attempts have been made to open an amicable
intercourse with the Cochin Chinese; one in 1778 by Mr
Hastings, and one in 1804 by an envoy from Canton ; but
both proved unsuccessful, through the intrigues of French¬
men, by whom the sovereign Caung Shung was completely
surrounded. In 1822 Mr Craufurd was sent by the East
India Company as an envoy to Siam and Cochin China.
Fie was not well received at the Cochin Chinese court, and
does not appear to have obtained any peculiar advantages
for commerce. It is to him that we are indebted for the
best description of the country.
COCHINEAL, Coccus cacti, an insect used as a dye, is
found on several species of cactus, but particularly on one,
which is thence called Cactus cochinellifer. This plant is
cultivated largely for the purpose in Mexico and in Hon¬
duras; and also on a small scale in Teneriffe, Java, &c. The
insects are scraped off the plants into bags ; and killed either
in hot air ovens or by immersion in boiling water; then dried
in the sun, and put up for exportation in serous (skin bags).
The cochineal yields a brilliant crimson dye, which is
highly esteemed and extensively used in this country. The
C 0 c
methods of preparing the different tints are described under Cochleary
Dyeing. The English market is almost entirely supplied II
from Honduras, Mexico, and Teneriffe. Honduras pro- Cock-Pit.
duces the best, Mexico that of least value. The insect, as
imported, resembles in bulk and shape a full-sized grain of
barley. There are two varieties, distinguished in commerce
as “ silvers” and “ blacks.” Of these, the black is the more
valuable—the finer kind usually exceeding the silver in
price by 1 s., and the inferior by a few pence per lb. respec¬
tively. The silver kind, said to be the female insect, con¬
stitutes fully two-thirds of the imports into Britain. Its
back presents a rugose or ribbed appearance, and is covered
over with a fine dust of a bright silvery lustre. The most
esteemed are large, plump, and dry. They are less prized
when dull or dark-coloured; and still less valuable when
they have the bad qualities of being small, of a pink tint,
clammy, or adulterated by the admixture of paste.
The black kind, said to be the male insect, is either dark
brown or gray, and about the same size as the silver. The
finest exhibit a shelly appearance, have a dark shining lustre,
and are large, but at the same time light.
On its arrival in this country, cochineal is usually taken
out of the serous and “ garbled” (sifted) in order to separate
the dust, &c. It is afterwards repacked in linen or cotton
bags, instead of in the serous.
Granilla, a very inferior kind of cochineal, consists of
small insects collected from wild uncultivated plants. Ac¬
cording to Humboldt (Essai Polit. on N. Spain), the plants
on which the two kinds of cochineal live are essentially dif¬
ferent, and the species of insect is probably also different.
About a century ago, cochineal and silver bullion were
often classed together as articles of equal value. Extended
cultivation, however, in Honduras and elsewhere, more es¬
pecially in Mexico, has wrought a wonderful change in the
value of cochineal. This once precious article of commerce
has of late years fluctuated in value between 3s. and 6s. per
lb., its average price being from about 4s. to 5s. In 1814
the price rose to 36s. and 39s.; but afterwards it gradually
declined, till in 1852, when the imports greatly exceeded the
average quantity (having amounted to no less than 22,042
cwts.), the price of silver cochineal fell below 3s. a lb. The
duty on cochineal was abolished in 1845.
COCHLEARY, Cochleous (Eat. cochlea, a screw, a
snail-shell), spiral, in the form of a screw. Cochlea is the
name formerly given to the screw, one of the mechanical
powers.
COCK, the English name for the male of gallinaceous
birds, but more especially used for the common domestic
cock. See Ornithology.
Cock-Pit, a name given to the theatre or area appropri¬
ated to the fighting of game-cocks armed with sharp-pointed
spurs of steel or silver. Cock-fighting was practised by the
ancient Greeks and Romans. The islanders of Delos were
especially addicted to this cruel sport; and Tanagra in Bce-
otia, the isle of Rhodes, Chalcis in Euboea, and the country
of Media, were famous for their high-bred chickens. There
was probably included in the last the kingdom of Persia,
whence this kind of poultry was first brought into Greece;
and if one may judge of the rest from the fowls of Rhodes
and Media, the excellence of the broods at that time con¬
sisted in their weight and largeness. The Greeks, more¬
over, had some method of preparing the birds for battle by
feeding, as may be gathered from Columella.
It seems that cock-fighting was at first partly a religious
and partly a political institution at Athens, and was con¬
tinued there for the purpose of improving the seeds of valour
in the minds of the youth ; but it was afterwards perverted
and debased both in Athens and in other parts of Greece
into a common pastime.
The Romans, ever prone to imitate the Greeks, followed
their example in this mode of diversion, and in the worst
51
C 0 C
Cock-Pit. way; since, when the Romans adopted it, the Greeks had
's***v^/ already perverted it to a low and unmeaning sport. It ap¬
pears that they did not adopt this practice very early ; and it
may be gathered from Columella that the Romans did not
use the sport in his time. This author styles cock-fighting
a Grecian diversion ; and speaks of it in terms of ignominy,
as an expensive amusement, and often attended with the
ruin of the parties that engaged in it. His words are—“ Nos
enim censemus instituere vectigal industrii patris familias,
non rixosarum avium lanistae, cujus plerumque totum patri-
monium pignus aleae, victor gallinaceus pyctes abstulitin
which passage he describes the manners, not of the Romans,
but of the Greeks, who in his time had converted the diver¬
sion of cock-fighting into a species of gaming, often to the
total ruin of their families. It was not till the decline of the
empire that the Romans gave in to the custom. The fixed
antipathy between the brothers Caracalla and Geta, sons of
the Emperor Septimius Severus, commenced, according to
Herodian, about the fighting of their cocks ; and if this was
the first instance of it, it is probable that these princes had
learned it in Greece, whither they had often accompanied
their father. Quails, however, were the birds chiefly em¬
ployed for this purpose by the Romans; though cock-fights
at a later period were also common.
Cocks and quails pitted for the purpose of engaging one
another d Voutrance, or to the last gasp, for diversion, are
frequently compared, and with much propriety, to gladia¬
tors. Hence Pliny’s expression, gallorum, eeu gladiato-
rum ; and that of Columella, rixosarum avium lanistce; la-
nista being the proper term for the master of the gladia¬
tors. It might naturally have been supposed, that when
the bloody scenes of the amphitheatre were discarded, as
happened soon after Christianity became the established
religion of the empire, the Spruyo/mavLa and the aXtKTpvo-
gavia would also have ceased. The fathers of the church
continually inveighed against the spectacles of the arena,
upbraiding their adversaries with these, which, indeed, were
more unnatural and shocking than a main of cocks ; but the
latter had a similar tendency towards infusing ferocity into
the dispositions of men. Ihis ungenerous diversion too,
has been in fact the bane and destruction of thousands in
more recent times, as well as of those lanistce avium, “ cock-
feeders,” mentioned by Columella, who thus dissipated their
patrimonial fortunes.
It is unknown when the practice of cock-fighting was in¬
troduced into England, but it was probably brought hither
by the Romans. This bird existed here before Caesar’s
arrival, but no notice of his fighting occurs earlier than the
time of ^William Fitz-Stephen, who wrote the life of Arch¬
bishop A Becket, in the reign of Henry II., and describes
cocking as a sport of school-boys on Shrove Tuesday. From
this time at least it was common. It was disapproved and
prohibited by the 39th Edward III.; also in the reign of
Henry VIII., though that prince erected the cock-pit in
Whitehall. It may here be noticed that the room in West¬
minster in which her Majesty’s privy-council hold their
sittings is called the cock-fit, from its being the site of
what was formerly the cock-pit belonging to the palace of
Whitehall. Cock-fighting was again prohibited under
Elizabeth, in 1569. It was a favourite amusement of
James I., in whose time there were cock-pits in St James’s
Park, in Drury Lane, in Tufton Street, in Shoe Lane, and
in Jewin Street. Cromwell issued an ordinance to suppress
the practice, which bears date March 31, 1654. What
were called the battle-royal and the Welsh-main were the
two favourite modes of cock-fighting usually exhibited. In
the first, an unlimited number of fowls were pitted, and the
single surviving bird was esteemed the victor, and carried
away the prize. The Welsh-main consisted, we shall sup¬
pose, of sixteen pairs of cocks ; of these, the sixteen con¬
querors were pitted a second time ; the eight conquerors of
C 0 c
these were pitted a third time; the four conquerors the fourth Cock-Pit
time ; and, lastly, the two conquerors of these were pitted ||
the fifth time; so that thirty-one cocks were slaughtered Cocker-
for the amusement of spectators. Cock-fighting is now for- mouth-
bidden and punishable by law.
For further information on this subject, the reader may
consult the very learned paper of Mr Pegge, in the Archceo-
logia, iii. 132 ; Beckmann’s Hist, of Inventions and Dis¬
coveries, vol. ii. Among ancient writers, Columella and
Varro have written about the breeding and education of
these birds.
Cock-Pit of a ship of war, the apartment of the surgeon
and his mates appropriated to the use of the wounded in
time of action. It is situated under the lower deck, below
the water-line.
COCKATRICE. See Basilisk.
COCKBURN, Henry Dundas, a lawyer, orator, and
author, was born in Edinburgh, October 26, 1779. His
father was Archibald Cockburn, a baron of the court of
exchequer in Scotland. His mother, a daughter of Captain
Rannie, was a sister of the wife of Henry Dundas, Lord
Melville. It was from this connection that he was christened
with the names Henry Dundas, and it was naturally ex¬
pected that he would devote his brilliant powers to that
triumphant party in which the statesman whose name he
bore was, according to the political notions of the day,
bound by the strongest obligations to advance him. Mak¬
ing his own selection, however, on his own principles, the
young lawyer, who entered the faculty of advocates in the
year 1800, attached himself to the Whig or Liberal party,
at a time when it held out few inducements to men ambi¬
tious of vulgar success in life; and he adhered to his poli¬
tical choice with a single-hearted steadiness of purpose
rivalled only by the constancy of his personal friendships.
He possessed many remarkable faculties, through which he
might have acquired distinction in several departments of
intellectual exertion. His forensic eloquence, peculiar for
its clearness, earnest pathos, and striking simplicity, was
the qualification which the world first perceived, and was
chiefly accustomed to associate with his name. His con¬
versational powers were unrivalled among his contempo¬
raries for fertility of fancy, corrected by soundness of taste.
I he extent of his literary ability became known after he
had passed his seventieth year, by his beautiful biography
of his beloved friend Jeffrey, published in 1852. It is un¬
derstood that he has left behind him manuscripts which,
when they are published, may have some chance of convey¬
ing to future generations a notion of the brilliant intellectual
resources by which he delighted the contemporary circle
privileged by the enjoyment of his familiar society. On
the accession of Earl Grey’s ministry in 1830, he became
solicitor-general for Scotland. In 1834 he was raised to the
bench, and (after the usual custom in Scotland) he took the
title of Lord Cockburn. He died on the 26th of April 1854,
in his mansion of Bonaly on the slope of the Pentland Hills’
where he had long derived the purest enjoyment from improve¬
ments calculated to aid the natural beauty of the scenery.
C O C K E R M O U T H, a parliamentary borough and
market-town of England, county of Cumberland, 25 miles
S.W. of Carlisle, at the confluence of the Derwent and
Cocker, each of which is here crossed by a bridge. The
borough had, in 1851, 7275 inhabitants, and 355 registered
electors, who return two members to parliament. The
town is irregularly built, but has recently been much im¬
proved. It has remains of an old castle built soon after
the Conquest, and razed by the parliamentary forces in
1648; also a town-hall, free grammar-school, savings-bank,
dispensary, house of correction ; with manufactures of cot¬
ton, linen, and woollen goods, hats, hosiery, paper, and
leather. In the neighbourhood are extensive coal mines
Wordsworth the poet was born here in 1770.
52
Cockle
Cocoa.
c o c
COCKLE, a genus of shells. See Mollusc a, genus
Cardium.
COCKNEY, a very ancient nickname for a citizen of
London. Ray interprets it to mean a young person coaxed
or cockered, made a wanton or nestle-cock, and delicately
bred and nurtured, so as when arrived at man’s estate to
be unable to bear the least hardship. According to another
writer, it signifies a person ignorant of country economy.
The origin of the term has been accounted for as follows:
A young citizen having called the neighing of a horse
laughing, was told that it was called neighing,—and next
morning on hearing a cock crow, being anxious to show that
he had benefited by instruction, he exclaimed, How that cock
neighs! from which circumstance the citizens of London
were thenceforward called cockneighs or cockneys. But
whatever may be the origin of the term, we leam fiom the
following verses, attributed to Hugh Bagot, earl of jN 01 folk,
that it was in use in the time of Henry II.
Was I in my castle at Bungay,
Fast by the river Wavenay,
I would ne care for the king of Cockeney.
The king of the cockney occurs among the regulations
for the sports and shows formerly held in the Middle Temple
on Childermas day, when he had his officers, a marshal,
constable, butler, and others. See Dugdale’s Origines
Juridicales, p. 247.
COCKROACH. See Entomology.
COCKSWAIN (pronounced coxen), an officer on board
of a man of war, who has the care of a boat or sloop, and
who must be always ready with his gang or crew. He
sits in the stern of the boat, which he steers, and has a
whistle to summon his men.
COCLES, Horatius, a famous Roman, who defended
the Sublician bridge against the army of Porsenna. See
Roman History.
COCOA or CACAO, the seed or kernel of the Theo-
broma Cacao, a tree extensively cultivated in the West
Indies, Brazil, and other districts of South America. These
are contained in pods shaped like a cucumber; each pod
producing from 10 to 30 nuts about the size of a large al¬
mond. The shell is dark-coloured, thin, and brittle ; and
the kernel throughout is of a brown colour. The nuts have
a light agreeable smell, and an unctuous, bitterish, but not
ungrateful taste. The principal use of the cocoa is to form
the beverage called chocolate. See Chocolate.
Cocoa has never been so extensively used in Great Britain
as on the Continent. Humboldt estimated the quantity con¬
sumed in Europe in 1806 at 23,000,000 lb. Until a le-
cent period, the consumption of cocoa in England had been
comparatively small, probably owing to the heavy duties
imposed on it; but since 1832, when the duty on cocoa
from British possessions was reduced from 6d. to 2d. per
lb., the consumption has greatly increased. The annual
average quantity consumed for the three years ending 1831
was only 440,578 lb.; while that for the three years ending
1842 was 2,072,332 lb.
In 1842, this duty was further reduced to l^ch per lb.;
but the duty on foreign cocoa continued at 6d. per lb. till
1846, when it was reduced to 2-^d. These duties were
equalized and fixed at Id. per lb. in 1853, when the duties
on husks and shells were also fixed at ^d. per lb., and on the
paste or chocolate at 2d. per lb.
Quantities imported for consumption in Great Britain in
1851-
Codeia.
Cocoa, from British Pos,,
„ foreign, -
M Husks and shells,
Chocolate & Cocoa Paste,
Rates of Duty.
l^d. per lb.
9 1
Of £ of Brit. Pos.
Foreign
14 134 I 2TV of Brit- Pos-
44,404 | 0f Foreign
Lb.
2,396,611
581,733
-640,303
Nett
Revenue.
; L.18,911.
C 0 c
The quantities of cocoa entered for home consumption dur- Cocoa Nuts
ing the 3 months ending 5th April in 1852, 1853, and 1854,
were respectively 978,327, 1,178,754, and 1,380,123 lb.
COCOA NUTS, the fruit of the Cocos nucifera of Lin- N"
nseus, a species of palm tree that is common within the
tropics. This tree grows from 50 to 100 feet in height, has
no branches, but produces at top a cluster of leaves from 12
to 14 feet in length. The cocoa nut is as large as a man’s
head, and a single tree generally yields about 100 of these,
which are disposed in clusters near its top. The exterior
rind is thin and tough ; and underneath it there is a quantity
of very tough fibrous matter of a brownish-red colour. Of
this, which in its manufactured state is called coir, ropes and
coarse sail-cloth are made. Beneath this fibrous material is
the shell of the nut, which is extremely hard, susceptible of
a high polish, and when sawed in two is employed as bowls
for domestic use. The kernel is white, and somewhat hard,
about half an inch in thickness, and filled with a milky fluid
of a very agreeable flavour. When the nut is green, this
cavity is quite filled with the milk. Besides the nut and its
milk, this tree (one of the most valuable, perhaps, in the
world), exudes, when the wood is bored, a mild beverage
called mirra, which when new drawn is without acidity or
powers of intoxication, but when kept above 24 hours be¬
comes vinegar. Oil is expressed from the kernel. Several
species of the palm produce the liquid called toddy, from
which arrack is distilled. A kind of sugar is produced from
the mirra. The leaves are used for thatching houses, and
the wood is employed for the purposes of house and ship
carpentry.
COCOON, the silky tissue or envelope which the larvae
of many insects spin as a protection for themselves while in
the chrysalis state. See Entomology, and Silkworm.
COCYTUS, a tributary of the Acheron, supposed like
that river to be connected with the lower world, and which
consequently came to be described as one of the rivers of
hell. It derived its name from kwkvzw, to ivail or lament.
Hence Milton—
Cocytus named, of lamentation loud
Heard on the rueful stream.
COD and Cod-Fishery. See Ichthyology, and Fish¬
eries.
CODE {codex), a collection of the laws and constitutions
of the Roman emperors, made by order of Justinian. The
word comes from the Latin codex, a book; so called a codi-
cibus vel caudicibus arborum, the trunks of trees ; the bark
of which, when stripped off, was used by the ancients as
material for writing upon.
The Code is accounted the second volume of the body of
civil law, and contains twelve books; the matter of which
is nearly the same with that of the Digest, especially the first
eight books ; but the style is neither so pure, nor the method
so accurate, as that of the Digest; and it determines matters
of daily use, whereas the Digest discusses the more abstruse
and subtle questions of the law, and gives at the same time
the opinions of the ancient jurisconsults. Although Justi¬
nian’s collection is distinguished by the appellation of Code,
by way of eminence, yet there were codes before his time: as,
first, the Gregorian code and Hermogenian code, a collec¬
tion of the Roman laws made by two famous lawyers, Gre¬
gorius and Hermogenes, and including the constitutions of
the emperors from Hadrian to Diocletian and Maximinian;
and, secondly, the Theodosian code, in sixteen books, formed
out of the constitutions of the emperors from Constantine
the Great to Theodosius the Younger, and observed almost
all over the West, till it was supersded by the Justinian code.
(See Civil Law.) There are several modern systematic
collections of laws called codes, the most celebrated of which
is the Code Napoleon. See France, and Napoleon.
CODEIA, or Codeine. See Chemistry.
COD
Codicil CODICIL, a supplement appended to a will, for the
II purpose of explaining, altering, adding to, or subtracting
Coenobite. from? testator’s former disposition.
CODLIN, a kind of baking apple. See Horticulture.
CODOGNO, the capital of a district of Lombardy, dele¬
gation of Lodi, and 15 miles S.E. of the town of that name.
It has a considerable trade, especially in Parmesan cheese,
besides some manufactures of silk stuffs. Pop. 9000.
CODON (kwSwv), in Antiquity, a little hemispherical
bell, frequently attached to the trappings of horses.
CODRINGTON, Christopher, a brave English offi¬
cer, was born at Barbadoes in 1668, and educated at Ox¬
ford, where he held a fellowship. Having entered the army,
he soon gained the favour of King William, and obtained a
captaincy in the first regiment of foot guards. He was at the
siege of Namur in 1695; and on the conclusion of the peace
of Ryswick, he was made captain-general and governor-
in-chief of the Leeward and Carribbee Islands. He died
at Barbadoes April 7, 1710; but his remains were in 1716
brought over to England and interred in the chapel of All-
Souls College, Oxford. He bequeathed his plantations in
Barbadoes, and part of the island of Barbuda, to the Society
for Propagating the Gospel in Foreign Parts; and left a
noble legacy to All-Souls College. He was the author of
some poems in the Musce Anglicance., London, 1741.
CODR US, the last king of Athens. See Attica, vol. iv.,
p. 193.
CO-EFFICIENT, in Algebra,^ number or known quan¬
tity put before letters or quantities, known or unknown, and
into which it is supposed to be multiplied. Thus, in 2>x, ax,
or bx, 3, a, and b are the co-efficients of x. See Algebra.
CCELESYRIA ij] kolKt] %vpta, the hollow Syria). This
name, which is Grecian, and originated in the times of the
Seleucidae, was first applied to the valley lying between the
mountain-ranges of Libanus and Anti-Libanus. It was also
used to denote the whole tract of country (w'ith the excep¬
tion of Judaea and Phoenicia) reaching from Seleucis to
Arabia and the confines of Egypt. In the time of David,
Ccelesyria was probably included in “ Syria of Damascus,”
which was conquered by that monarch, but recovered from
Solomon by Rezon the son of Eliadah. The possession of
it was an object of many struggles between the Seleucidae
and the kings of Egypt. Bochart supposes that Syrophce-
nicia is the same as Ccelesyria. Scythopolis and Gadara are
mentioned by Josephus as cities of Ccelesyria {Antiq. xiii.
13). The name frequently occurs in the Apocrypha. Under
the Emperor Diocletian, Phcenice and Coelesyriaformed one
province, called Phoenicia Libanica. Under the present
Turkish government the western part of Ccelesyria is in the
Pashalic of Saide, and the eastern in that of Damascus.
CCELUS (Heaven), called Uranus by the Greeks, was
the son of ^Ether and Dies, or Air and Day. According
to Hesiod, he married Terra or the Earth, by whom he be¬
came the father of the Mountains, the Ocean, Saturn, &c.
He imprisoned the Cyclops, who were likewise his children ;
and in consequence was dethroned and emasculated by
Saturn, with the assistance of Terra.
COEMPTIO, one of three forms of marriage among the
ancient Romans, in which the contracting parties delivered
to each other a small piece of money, and repeated at the
same time certain formulae. The man asked the woman
“ an sibi mater familiae esse vellet;” to which she replied,
“ se velle.” A similar question was put by the woman to the
man, and a similar answer received.
CHINA (supper), the principal meal of the ancient Ro¬
mans, usually taken at the ninth hour, i. e., three o’clock,
p.m., in summer, and at the tenth hour in winter.
CCENOBITE (from kolvo's common, and /3tos life), one of
a religious order who live in a convent, or in community;
in opposition to an anchoret or hermit, who lives in solitude.
Fleury refers the institution of coenobites to the times of
COP 53
the apostles, making it a sort of imitation of the ordinary Coffea.
lives of the faithful at Jerusalem. But St Pachomius is or- ^ t
dinarily acknowledged as the institutor of the coenobite life,
as being the first who gave a rule to any community.
COFFEA Arabic a, the Coffee-Tree, is a native of
Ethiopia and Abyssinia; but it was in Arabia that it first
became an object of interest and importance to the civil¬
ized world. The plant is an evergreen, and is accurately
described by La Roque as follows :—
“ The coffee-tree is from six to twelve feet high ; the
stem ten, twelve, and fifteen inches in circumference. When
it is full grown, it much resembles in figure our apple-trees
of eight or ten years’ standing. The lower branches ordi¬
narily bend when the tree begins to grow old, and extend
themselves into a round form, somewhat like an umbrella;
and the wood is so very limber and pliable, that the ends of
the longest branches may be bent down within two or three
feet of the earth. The bark is whitish, and somewhat
rough; its leaf is much like that of the citron- tree. It
continues green all the year, and the tree is never with¬
out leaves, which are ranged almost opposite on each side
of the bough, and at small distances from each other. No¬
thing is more singular in its kind than its productions; for
almost in all seasons of the year, blossoms, and green and
ripe fruit, may be seen on the same tree at the same time.
W hen the blossom falls off, there remains in its room, or
rather springs from each blossom a small fruit, green at first,
but which becomes red as it ripens, and is not unlike a large
cherry, and is very good to eat. Under the flesh of this
cherry, instead of the stone, is found the bean or berry we
call coffee, wrapped round in a fine thin skin. The berry
is then very soft, and of a disagreeable taste ; but as the
cherry ripens, the, berry in the inside grows harder, and
the dried up fruit being the flesh or pulp of it, which was
before eatable, becomes a shell or pod of a deep brown
colour. The berry is now solid, and of a clear transparent
green. Each shell contains one berry, which splits into two
equal parts. When the fruit is sufficiently ripe to be shaken
from the tree, the husks are separated from the berries,
and are used in Arabia by the natives ; while the berries
are exported for the European markets.”
From Arabia the plant was taken by the Dutch about the
year 1690 to Java, whence its culture spread slowly amongst
the islands of the Indian archipelago. In the early part of
the eighteenth century it found its way to the West India
islands. The plant is now common in every botanical
garden of Europe, and there are few private conservatories
without good specimens of the tree. When cultivated with a
view to trade, it is most productive on hills and mountains,
where its root is almost always dry, and its head frequently
watered with gentle showers. It prefers a westerly exposure
and a loose gravelly soil, but freed from weeds and grass.
The plants are inserted at distances of six or eight feet
asunder, and in holes from twelve to eighteen inches deep.
If left to themselves they would rise to the height of six¬
teen or eighteen feet; but in extensive plantations the
trees are topped and stunted to about five feet, for the con¬
venience of having the fruit within reach of the gatherer.
Thus dwarfed, they extend their branches until they cover
the whole spot round about them. They begin to yield
fruit the third year. By the fifth, sixth, or seventh year,
according to the nature of the soil, they are at full bearing,
and continue to bear for upwards of twenty years.
It has but recently come to the knowledge of Europeans
that the leaves of the coffee-plant contain the same essen¬
tial principle for which the berries are so much valued, and
that in the Dutch island of Sumatra in the Indian archipe¬
lago the natives scarcely use anything else, and greatly pre¬
fer a beverage made from the leaf to the berry itself. The
leaves undergo a process of curing similar to tea, and they
possess all the virtues of either tea or coffee. This may be
54
COFFEE.
Coffee, looked upon as the introduction of a new element amongst
the innocent and beneficial necessaries of life ; for whilst the
culture of the coffee plant for the sake of its fruit is limited
to particular soils and high temperatures, the tree produces
leaves in abundance anywhere wfithin the tropics where the
soil is sufficiently fertile. This extensive habitat, added to
its nutritive qualities and freedom from any deleterious
principle, points out the coffee plant as the best adapted
for general consumption of all the productions affording
caffeine.
The Coffee Berry (for which the plant has hitherto
been chiefly cultivated), when ripe, is cured in the West In¬
dies, in Java, Ceylon, the East Indies, and South America,
by a process called pulping and washing. In Arabia, Per¬
sia, &c., it is neither pulped nor washed, but cured in the
ancient fashion by the labour of the hands and the action
of the sun. The pulping process is performed by machin¬
ery, which greatly expedites the work; but practical ex¬
perienced West India planters admit, that this process
is in some important respects inferior to the oriental
mode. “ A manifest preference,” says one, “ is given in the
leading European markets to coffee which has gone through
the pulping and washing process; but, strange to say, the
consumers of this beverage are totally ignorant of the fact,
that the produce which is cured in the pulp furnishes a
stronger decoction than an equal quantity of the same cof¬
fee which has undergone the other process. The mucila¬
ginous substance which is washed off by the pulping pro¬
cess is absorbed by the bean when cured in the pulp. This
gives strength to the produce, and enhances its aromatic fla¬
vour.” Before the berry is available for use, it under¬
goes a process called roasting. The valuable properties
of coffee depend very much on the manner in which this
process is performed. For the most recent and intelli¬
gent dissertation on this point, consult Dr lire’s Diction¬
ary of Arts, Manufactures, and Mines, last edition, vol. i.,
p. 456.
Coffee also denotes the drink which is made from the
coffee berries. This beverage has been familiar in Europe
for the last two hundred years. The first human beings
who appear to have used the coffee berries were the half
savage tribes of the higher Ethiopia. According to Bruce,
the berries were first parched like any other grain, bruised
into powder, and mixed up with any sort of grease into paste
rolled into little balls. The same authority declares that two
or three of these balls were sufficient to support a man for
a whole day in a marauding excursion, or in active war
against some neighbouring tribe. They merely preferred
the coffee-berry to other grain, because it fed them as well,
and cheered them more.
From Ethiopia, both the coffee plant and the use of its
fruit were introduced into Persia and Arabia, and it is to the
Arabs that we are indebted both for the first written account
of it, and for the manner of using it in a liquid state. But
though we derive the only authentic account of coffee from
the Arabs, they admit that they were taught by the Per¬
sians ; and it was in the city of Aden in Arabia about the
middle of the fifteenth century, that the drinking of coffee
first became general. The mufti of that city introduced the
custom from Persia; his authority gave reputation to the
practice—lawyers began to drink it—those who loved read¬
ing followed their example—artisans who were obliged to
work in the night did the same thing, as well as travellers
who journeyed in the night to avoid the heat of the day.
In short, says M. Galland, “ the whole inhabitants of Aden
soon became drinkers of coffee, and not only at night to
keep them awake, but even in the daytime for its other vir¬
tues.”
From Aden, the taste for coffee found its way to Mecca,
from Mecca to Cairo, from Cairo to Damascus, from Da¬
mascus to Aleppo, and from Aleppo to Constantinople; but
it was not until 1615, that the use of coffee found its way Coffee-
from Constantinople to Venice. Trade.
In 1644 it was introduced to Marseilles, in 1652 to
London, and in 1669 to Paris.
The first English author who mentioned coffee was Bur¬
ton, in his Anatomy of Melancholy [yo\. i. p. 130), published
in 1621, thirty years before the introduction of the drink into
London. “ The Turks,” says he, “ have a drink called cof¬
fee (for they use no wine), so named of a berry as black as
soot and as bitter, which they sip up as warm as they can
suffer, because they find by experience that that kind of
drink so used helpeth digestion and procureth alacrity.”
It would be an error to infer that the mode of making \
coffee in Europe and Asia is the same. In Europe, an
infusion or a decoction of the roasted berry is all that is con¬
sumed ; but this is a refinement in cookery not appreci¬
ated in Asia; there the custom is now, and always has
been different.
A highly trustworthy traveller, Lamartine, in describing
the ordinary khan in Palestine and Syria, says, “ a charcoal
fire is constantly burning on the hearth, and one or two
copper coffee-pots are always full of thick farinaceous
coffee, the habitual refreshment and only want of the
Turks and Arabs.”—Travels in Syria and the Bast, vol. i.,
p. 292.
A cup of well made coffee exhilarates, arouses, and keeps
awake. It allays hunger to a certain extent, gives to the
weary increased strength and vigour, and imparts a feeling
of comfort and repose.
Its physiological effects upon the system, so far as they
have been scientifically investigated, appear to be, that
while it makes the brain more active, it soothes the body
generally, makes the change and waste of matter much
slower than usual, and the demand for food in consequence
proportionately less.
All these effects are produced by the conjoined action of
three ingredients, either identical with or similar to those
contained in tea. There is a volatile oil produced during
the roasting ; a variety of tannic acid, which is also altered
in some degree during the roasting; and the substance called
theine or caffeine, which is common to both tea and coffee,
and is found in the leaves of Guarana officinalis, and Ilex
paraguensis, both used by the aborigines of South America,
as tea is in the Old Continent, a remarkable result of chemi¬
cal investigation. The chemical constitution of caffeine is
c19h10n4 o4.
Coffee-Tkade, The extent to which the cultivation
of coffee has been carried in the British possessions, the
vast amount of capital embarked in plantations suited to its
growth, the multitude of hands engaged in its culture, and
the shipping necessarily employed in connection with that
trade, invests the article, in a commercial point of view,
with great importance ; while as a beverage, the tendency
of which is to wean the community from indulgence in in¬
toxicating liquors, renders it second to no commodity in the
British tariff.
The history of the coffee-trade prior to 1850 is only valu¬
able now as an example of a commodity for which there is
a universal craving amongst mankind, struggling success¬
fully, and at last triumphantly, over fiscal restrictions, high
duties, differential duties, and an endless mass of antiquated
obstructions. In common with other important necessaries
of life, it has now attained to the natural state of unrestricted
competition, though it still pays a customs duty of three¬
pence per pound.
The following is an estimate of the annual exports of
coffee from the principal places where it is produced, during
the last four years, and as nearly as can be ascertained of
its annual consumption for the same period in those coun¬
tries into which it is imported from abroad at the present
time, viz.:—
C 0 F
COG
55
Coffee. Estimated Supplies of Coffee for Europe and
s-mJ United States.
Brazil, shipment from
Java  
St Domingo 
Cuba 
Porto Rico 
La Guyra & Venezuela
Costa Rica 
British West India
Ditto East India and 1
Ceylon J
French colonies, East 1
and West Indies... J
Dutch—West Indies
Manilla 600, Arabia 1
1400  /
Deduct supplies di- "j
rected to and re- l
tained in U. States J
Supplies available for \
Europe   j
Estimated real con- )
sumption in Europe j
Surplus
Deficit .
1850.
Tons.
80,000
40,000
20,000
4,000
6,000
12,000
4,000
1,000
18,000
500
500
2,000
188,000
63,000
125,000
155,000
30,000
1851.
Tons.
142,000
60,000
18,000
5,000
5.500
10,500
3,000
1.500
16,000
500
500
2,000
264,500
94,000
170.500
176.500
6,000
1852. 1853.
Tons.
133,000
69,000
25,000
4,000
9.500
12,000
3,000
1.500
21,000
500
500
2,000
281,000
88,000
193,000
191,400
1,600
Tons.
126,000
62,000
20,000
5,000
9.500
12,000
3,000
1.500
16,000
500
500
2,000
258,000
85,000
172,000
193,000
21,000
Estimated Consumption of Coffee.
Great Britain (official)
France do.
Belgium do.
Holland, estimated...
Germany, Zollver- ^
ein, and the other
States, included in >
the now Customs
Union  J
Bohemia,Gallicia, and I
Hungary J
Austria 
Switzerland 
Italy, Greece, Levant, 1
and North Africa. J
Spain and Portugal.
Sweden, Norway, and 1
Denmark  j
Russia, Finland, and 1
Poland J
Estimated consump'
tion in Europe 
Estimated consump¬
tion in U. States
1850.
Tons.
14,000
15,300
16,500
12,000
1851.
Tons.
14.500
18.500
17.500
13.500
1852.
49,000 56,000
4.500
9,000
5,700
12,500
5,000
8,000
3.500
Total consumption
Estimated fresh sup- 1
plies in the year... J
Deficit..
Surplus
155,000
65,000
220,000 260,500
188,000
6,000
10,500
6.500
14,000
6,000
9,000
4.500
176,500
84,000
32,000
264,500
4,000
Tons.
15.700
21,500
20.700
15,000
58,000
6,000
11,000
7,000
15,000
6,000
10,000
5,500
1853.
Tons.
17.500
21.500
20,000
15,000
58,000
6,000
11,000
7,000
15,000
6,000
10,000
6,000
191,400
92,000
283,400
281,000
2,400
193,000
92,000
285,000
258,000
27,000
Quantity of Coffee imported into the United Kingdom
for the same period, viz. :
Tons.
1850  22,680
1851  20,870
1852  21,470
1853    21,400
The above quantities may be considered the nearest ap¬
proximation to the truth which the present state of com- Coffer
mercial statistics can supply; but any one familiar with the i!
writings of modern travellers in the south of Europe and in Cognomen-
Asia must be convinced that a very large quantity of coffee is
consumed in Turkey, Syria, Palestine, Persia, Egypt, Abys¬
sinia, &c., regarding which commerce takes no note, and of
which no statistics have ever yet been collected, (w. l.)
COFFER, in Architecture, a deep panel in a ceiling, or
in each interval between the modillions of the Corinthian
cornice, and ordinarily decorated with a pomegranate, a
rose, or other ornament.
Coffer, in Fortification, a hollow lodgement across a
dry moat, from 6 to 7 feet deep, and from 16 to 18 broad;
the upper part made of pieces of timber raised two feet
above the level of the moat. This little elevation is covered
over with hurdles laden with earth, and serves as a para¬
pet with embrasures.
Coffer-Dam, a water-tight inclosure formed in a river
or other water by rows of piles, with bricks or clay between
the rows, to prevent the entrance of water after it has been
pumped out. Coffer-dams are employed in laying the foun¬
dations of piers for bridges in the beds of rivers. See
Masonry.
COFFIN (Gk. KocfiLvos, a basket, French coffre, a chest) ;
the chest or box for the reception of a corpse. In the East,
the body of a deceased person is carried to the grave on a
simple bier—a custom preserved from ancient times, and
which obtains equally among the Jews, the Mohammedans,
and the Christians. In this manner the son of the widow
of Nain was carried forth to burial (Luke vii. 14). Neither
does it appear that the body of our Lord was placed in a
coffin ; nor that of Elisha, whose bones were touched by
the corpse that was afterwards let down into his sepulchre.
(2 Kings xiii. 21). Coffins were the invention of the Egyp¬
tians, who generally formed them of pasteboard glued to¬
gether and painted with hieroglyphics, sometimes of stone,
andmore rarely of sycamore wood—which last was reserved
for persons of exalted rank. The sacred historian expressly
observes of Joseph, that his body was embalmed and placed
in a coffin (Gen. 1. 26). There is good reason to believe
also that the kings and other persons of distinction in an¬
cient Palestine were buried in coffins of wood or stone, on
which were placed the insignia of their several dignities.
See Burial; Burying-Places ; Funeral Rites.
COGGLESHALL, Great, a market-town of England,
county of Essex, 44 miles from London, picturesquely si¬
tuated, partly at the base and partly on the acclivity of a
hill on the N. side of the Blackwater river, here crossed by
an ancient bridge of three arches. It was formerly cele¬
brated for the manufacture of a white baize, known as
“ Coggleshall whites.” The principal manufacture is now
that of silk. The parish church is a spacious building in
the perpendicular style, with a square tower. It has some
remains of a Cistercian abbey, founded in 1142 by king
Stephen. Pop. (1851) 3484.
COGNAC, a town of France, department of Charente,
capital of a cognominal arrondissement, stands on the left
bank of the Charente, 22 miles W. of Angouleme. It
carries on an extensive trade in the celebrated brandy to
which it gives name. The town is ill built, and has no re¬
markable buildings except an old castle, in the park of which
is a bronze statue of Francis L, marking the spot where
he was born in 1494. Pop. (1851) of town 5738 ; of arron¬
dissement 57,959.
COGNATE, in Scotch law, any male relation by the
mother’s side.
COGNATION, in the civil law, that line of consangui¬
nity which exists between males and females descended
from the same father. Agnation, again, is the relationship
between males only descended from the same stock.
COGNOMEN. See Agnomen.
56
COHESION.
Cohesion. The corpuscular forces, on which the mechanical pro-
perties of the aggregates of matter depend, have been in
some measure considered, as far as they relate to solids,
in the articles Bridge and Carpentry. There are how¬
ever other modifications of these forces, which are prin¬
cipally exemplified in the Cohesion of Fluids, and which
afford us a series of phenomena, highly interesting to the
mathematician, on account of the difficulty of investigat¬
ing their laws, and of considerable importance to the na¬
tural philosopher, from the variety of forms in which they
present themselves to his observation.
Sect. I.—Fundamental Properties of the Cohesion of a
Single Fluid.
The three states of elastic fluidity, liquidity, and soli¬
dity, in all of which the greater number of simple bodies
are capable of being exhibited at different temperatures,
are not uncommonly conceived to depend on the different
actions of heat only, giving a repulsive force to the par¬
ticles of gases, and simply detaching those of liquids from
that cohesion with the neighbouring particles which is
supposed to constitute solidity. But these ideas, however
universal, may be easily shown to be totally erroneous ;
and it will readily be found, that the immediate effect of
heat alone is by no means adequate to the explanation of
either of the changes of form in question.
There can never be rest without an equilibrium of force ;
and if two particles of matter attract each other, and yet
remain without motion, it must be because there exists
also a repulsive force, equal, at the given distance, to the
attractive force. If we imagined the atoms of matter to
be impenetrable spheres, only resisting when their surfaces
came into actual contact, it would follow, that the degree
of repulsive force exerted at the same distance must be
capable of infinite variation, so as to counterbalance every
possible modification of the attractive force that could
operate between the particles. In this there would be no
mathematical absurdity, and it may sometimes even be
convenient to admit the hypothesis as an approximation ;
but we know, from physical considerations, that the actual
fact is otherwise. The particles of matter are by no means
incompressible; the repulsion varies indeed very rapid¬
ly when they approach near to each other; but the dis¬
tance of the particles and the density of the substance
must inevitably vary, in some finite degree, from the ef¬
fect of every force that tends to produce either compres¬
sion or expansion.
In elastic fluids, the law of the repulsive force of the
particles is perfectly ascertained ; and it has been shown
to vary very accurately in the inverse ratio of their mutual
distances. It is natural to inquire whether this repulsive
force, continued according to the same law, would be cap¬
able of affording the resistance exhibited by the same
bodies in a liquid or solid form, and holding the cohesive
force in equilibrium ; but in order to answer this question,
it would be necessary to determine the law of the varia¬
tion of the cohesive force with the variation of the density.
Now if this force extended to all particles within a given
distance of each other, whatever the density might be, the
number of particles similarly situated within the sphere of
action being as the density, and each one of this number
being attracted by an equal number, the whole cohesion
urging any two particles to approach each other would ob¬
viously, as Laplace has observed, be as the square of the
density ; but since this cohesive force would increase with Cohesion,
the increase of density accompanying compression, more
rapidly than any repulsive force like that of elastic fluids,
there could never be an equilibrium between forces thus
constituted : for, as Newton has justly remarked, the force
of repulsion must be supposed to affect the particles im¬
mediately contiguous to each other only, their number
not increasing with the density. Nor is there any reason
to infer, from the phenomena of cohesion, that this force
extends to a given minute distance, rather than to a given
number of particles, as that of repulsion appears to do.
It would indeed be possible to assign a law for the varia¬
tion of cohesion, which would reduce the repulsion of li¬
quids and of elastic fluids to the action of the same force,
without any other modification than that which depends
on the mutual distance of the particles; but this law is in
itself so improbable that it cannot be considered as afford¬
ing an admissible explanation of the phenomena; for it
would be required that the force of cohesion should dimi¬
nish, instead of increasing, with every increase of density,
and with a rapidity nineteen times as great as the repul¬
sion increased. For the height of the modulus of elasti¬
city of all kinds of gaseous substances remaining unalter¬
ed by pressure, that of steam would still be only one twen¬
tieth as high as the modulus of elasticity of water, even
if the steam were compressed by 1200 atmospheres ; and
the resistance to any minute change of dimensions would
be twenty times as great in water as in steam of equal
density, and the variation of the repulsion would be in the
same proportion. It is therefore simplest to suppose the
repulsion itself to be also twenty times as great, and the
cohesion little or not at all altered by the effect of a slight
compression or extension ; and we shall have no difficulty
in imagining this abrupt change in the magnitude of the
repulsive force to depend on an increase of the number of
particles to which it extends ; supposing that when cohe¬
sion begins to affect them, this number becomes four or
five times as great as before, and that it is not further in¬
creased by a greater increase of density ; although, like the
distance to which the force of cohesion itself extends, it
may be liable to some modification from the effects of a
change of temperature. Thus it is probable that the num¬
ber of particles co-operating, both in repulsion and in co¬
hesion, is diminished by the effect of heat; for the dimi¬
nution of the elasticity of a spring is much more than pro¬
portional to the expansion of its substance, although the pri¬
mitive repulsive force of the single particles may very pos¬
sibly be as much augmented by an elevation of tempera¬
ture in this case as in that of an elastic fluid : the cohesive
powers of liquids are also diminished by heat, and indeed
in a considerably greater degree than the stiffness of springs,
although there can be no doubt that there is a considerable
analogy in these changes. However this may be, it appears
that the force of cohesion cannot be supposed to vary much
with the density, and it is therefore allowable to consider
it as constant, at all distances, as far as its action extends;
while that of repulsion, though it may operate in some de¬
gree at distances somewhat greater, may still be consider¬
ed, on account of its greater intensity at smaller distances,
as equivalent to a resistance terminating at a more minute
interval than that to which the action of cohesion extends.
The distance at which cohesion commences between
the particles of gaseous fluids appears to depend entirely
on the temperature, and for any one fluid it is generally
reduced to one half by an elevation of about 100° of Fah-
CORE
Cohesion, renheit. In whatever way the particles are caused to ap-
proach nearer than this distance to each other, they be¬
come subject to the action of this force, and rush toge¬
ther with violence, and with a great extrication of heat,
until the increased repulsion affords a sufficient resistance
to the cohesion, and the gas is converted into a liquid.
Superficial observers have sometimes imagined that liquids
possessed little or no cohesion; and it has generally been
supposed that their cohesive powers are far inferior to
those of solids. But that all liquids are more or less co¬
hesive, is sufficiently shown by their remaining attached,
in small portions, to every substance capable of coming
into intimate contact with them, in opposition to the effect
of gravitation, or of any other force ; and the cohesion of
mercury is still more fully exemplified by the well-known
experiment of a column, standing at a height much ex¬
ceeding that of the barometer, when it has been brought,
by strong agitation or otherwise, into perfect contact with
the summit of the tube, and is then raised into a vertical
position ; the summit of the tube supporting, or rather
suspending, the upper parts, and each stratum the stratum
immediately below it, with a force determined by the ex¬
cess of its height above that of the column equivalent to
the atmospherical pressure. The perfect equality of the
cohesion of a given substance in the states of solidity and
liquidity appears, however, only to have been asserted in
very modern times ; and the assertion has only been con¬
firmed by a single observation of the sound produced by
a piece of ice, compared with the elasticity exhibited in
Canton’s experiments on the compressibility of water; the
results demonstrating that the resistance is either accu¬
rately or very nearly equal in both cases.
The real criterion of solidity is the lateral adhesion,
which prevents that change of internal arrangement, by
which a fluid can alter its external dimensions without
any sensible difference in the mutual distances of its par¬
ticles taken collectively, and consequently without any
sensible resistance from the force of cohesion. It is pro¬
bable that this lateral adhesion depends upon some sym¬
metrical arrangement of the constituent parts of the sub¬
stance, while fluidity requires a total independence of these
particles, and an irregularity of situation, affording a faci¬
lity of sliding over each other with little or no friction.
The symmetry of arrangement, when continued uniformly
to a sensible extent, is readily discoverable by the appear¬
ance of crystallization; but there are several reasons for
supposing it to exist, though with perpetual interruptions,
in more uniform masses, or in amorphous solids. It is ob¬
vious that the lateral adhesion, confining the particles so
as to prevent their sliding away, performs an office like
that of the tube of a barometer to which the mercury ad¬
heres, or like that of the vessels employed by Canton and
Zimmerman for confining water which is compressed ; and
enables the cohesive and repulsive powers of the substan¬
ces to be exhibited in their full extent. Nor can we ob¬
tain any direct estimate of these powers, from the slight
cohesion exhibited, in some circumstances, by liquids in
contact with the surface of a solid which is gradually
raised, and carries with it a certain portion of the liquid;
an experiment which had been often made, with a view of
determining the mutual attractions of solids and fluids, but
which was first correctly explained, as Laplace observes,
by our countryman Dr Thomas Young, from its analogy
with the phenomena of capillary tubes.
There are, however, still some difficulties in deducing
these phenomena from the elementary actions of the for^
ces concerned, whatever suppositions we may make re¬
specting their primitive nature. The intermediate general
principle of a hydrostatic force or pressure, proportional
to the curvature of the surface, had been employed long
VOL. YU.
SION. 57
ago by Segner, and had been considered by him as the Cohesion,
result of corpuscular powers extending to an insensible
distance only. But Segner’s reasoning on this point is by
no means conclusive, and he has very unaccountably com¬
mitted a great error, in neglecting the consideration of
the effects of a double curvature. There is also an over¬
sight in some of the steps of the demonstration attempted
by Dr Young in his Lectures, which has been pointed out
by an anonymous writer in Nicholson’s JWrca/; and M.
Laplace’s final equation for determining the angle of con¬
tact of a solid and a liquid, which Dr Young had first
shown to be constant, has been considered as completely
inaccurate, and as involving an impossibility so manifest
as to destroy all confidence in the theory from which it
was deduced. A demonstration which appears to be less
exceptionable was lately published in the Philosophical
Magazine; and it may serve, with some further illustra¬
tions, for the present purpose.
It is only necessary to consider the actions of such of
the particles of the liquid as are situated at a distance from
the surface shorter than that to which the cohesive force
extends ; for all those which are more internal must be
urged equally in all directions by the actions of the sur¬
rounding particles. Now it will readily be perceived, that
the first or outermost stratum of particles will cohere very
weakly with the stratum below it, having only its own at¬
traction to bind it down ; that the second will be urged bv
a force nearly twice as great; and that the cohesion will
gradually augment by increments continually diminishing,
until we arrive at the depth of the whole interval to which
the force extends; and below this it will remain constant,
the number of particles'within the given distance not un¬
dergoing any further change. It has been observed by M.
Laplace, that this partial diminution of the density of the
surface is likely to be concerned in facilitating the process
of evaporation; and it has been cursorily suggested in
another quarter, that the polarisation of light by oblique
reflection may be in some measure influenced by this gra¬
dation of density. But its more immediate effect must be
to produce that uniform tension of the surface which con¬
stitutes so important a principle in the phenomena of ca¬
pillary action; for since the cohesion in the direction of
the surface is the undiminished result of the attractions of
the whole number of particles constituting the stratum,
acting as they would do in any other part of the substance,
it follows that a small cubical portion of the liquid, situ¬
ated in any part of the space which we are considering,
will be pressed laterally by the whole force of cohesion,
but above and below by that part only which is derived
from the action of the strata above it, so that this minute
portion must necessarily tend to extend itself upwards and
downwards, and to thicken the superficial film, and at the
same time to become thinner in the direction of the surface,
and to shorten it in all its dimensions, unless this altera¬
tion be prevented by some equivalent tension acting in
a contrary direction ; and this tension must be always the
same in the same liquid, whatever its form may be, the
thickness of the whole stratum being always extremely mi¬
nute in comparison with any sensible radius of curvature.
Upon these grounds we may proceed to determine the
actual magnitude of the contractile force derived from a
given cohesion extending to a given distance. Supposing
the corpuscular attraction equable throughout the whole
sphere of its action, the aggregate cohesion of the succes¬
sive parts of the stratum will be represented by the ordi¬
nates of a parabolic curve ; for at any distance x from the
surface, the whole interval being a, the fluxion of the force
will be as da? (a —a;), since a number of particles propor¬
tional to da? will be drawn downwards by a number propor¬
tional to a, and upwards by a number proportional to x, and
a
58 C O H E
Cohesion, the whole cohesion, at the given point, will be expressed by
ax — ±x2; and this at last becomes go?, which must be
equal to the undiminished cohesion in the direction of the
surface; consequently the difference of the forces acting
on the sides of the elementary cube will everywhere be as
— ax + i x?, and the fluxion of the whole contractile
force will be d* (-|a2 — ax -f- ^a2), the fluent of which,
when x — a, becomes j?a3, which is one third of a X
the whole undiminished cohesion of the stratum.
We may therefore conclude in general, that the contractile
force is one third of the whole cohesive force of a stratum ofpar¬
ticles, equal in thickness to the interval to which the primitive
equable cohesion extends ; and if the cohesive force be not
equable, we may take the interval which represents its mean
extent as affording a result almost equally accurate. In
the case of water, the tension of each inch of the surface
is somewhat less than three grains, consequently we may
consider the whole cohesive and repulsive force of the super¬
ficial stratum as equal to about nine grains. Now since there
is reason to suppose the corpuscular forces of a section of
a square inch of water to be equivalent to the weight of a
column about 750,000 feet high, at least if we allow the
cohesion to be independent of the density, their magni¬
tude will be expressed by 252,5 X 750,000 X 12 grains,
which is to 9 as 252-5 X 1,000,000 to 1; consequently
the extent of the cohesive force must be limited to about
the 250 millionth of an inch; nor is it very probable that
any error in the suppositions adopted can possibly have so
far invalidated this result as to have made it very many
times greater or less than the truth.
Within similar limits of uncertainty we may obtain
something like a conjectural estimate of the mutual dis¬
tance of the particles of vapours, and even of the actual
magnitude of the elementary atoms of liquids, as supposed
to be nearly in contact with each other; for if the distance
at which the force of cohesion begins is constant at the
same temperature, and if the particles of steam are con¬
densed when they approach within this distance, it follows
that at 60° of Fahrenheit the distance of the particles of
pure aqueous.vapour is about the 250 millionth of an
inch ; and since the density of this vapour is about one
sixty thousandth of that of water, the distance of the par¬
ticles must be about forty times as great; consequent¬
ly the mutual distance of the particles of water must be
about the ten thousand millionth of an inch. It is true
that the result of this calculation will differ considerably,
according to the temperature of the substances compared;
for the phenomena of capillary action, which depend on
the superficial tension, vary much less with the tempera¬
ture than the density of vapour at the point of precipita¬
tion : thus an elevation of temperature amounting to a de¬
gree of Fahrenheit lessens the force of elasticity about one
ten thousandth, the superficial tension about one thou¬
sandth, and the distance of the particles at the point of
deposition about a hundredth. This discordance does not,
however, wholly invalidate the general tenor of the con¬
clusion ; nor will the diversity resulting from it be greater
than that of the actual measurements of many minute ob¬
jects, as reported by different observers ; for example, those
of the red particles of blood, the diameter of which may
be considered as about two million times as great as that
of the elementary particles of water, so that each would
contain eight or ten trillions of particles of water at the
utmost. If we supposed the excess of the repulsive force
of liquids above that of elastic fluids to depend rather on
a variation of the law of the force than of the number of
particles co-operating with each other, the extent of the
force of cohesion would only be reduced to about two
thirds ; and, on the whole, it appears tolerably safe to con¬
clude, that whatever errors may have affected the deter-
SION.
mination, the diameter or distance of the particles of wa- Cohesion,
ter is between the two thousand and the ten thousand v'w
millionth of an inch.
Sect. Relations of Heterogeneous Substances.
We must now return from this conjectural digression to
the regions of strict mathematical argument, and inquire
into the effect of the contact of substances of different
kinds on the tension of their common sufaces, and on the
conditions required for their equilibrium. Whatever doubts
there may be respecting the variation of the number of
particles co-operating when the actual density of the sub¬
stance is changed, there can be none respecting the con¬
sequence of the contact of two similar substances of dif¬
ferent densities ; for the less dense must necessarily neu¬
tralise the effects of an equivalent portion of the particles
of the more dense, so as to prevent their being concerned
in producing any contractility in the common surface ; and
the remainder, acting at the same interval as when the
substance remained single, must obviously produce an ef¬
fect proportional to the square of the number of particles
concerned, that is, of the difference of the densities of the
substances. This effect may be experimentally illustrat¬
ed by introducing a minute quantity of oil on the surface
of the water contained in a capillary tube ; the joint ele¬
vation, instead of being increased, as it ought to be accord¬
ing to M. Laplace, is very conspicuously diminished; and
it is obvious, that since the capillary powers are represent¬
ed by the squares of the density of oil and of its difference
from that of water, their sum must be less than the capil¬
lary power of water, which is proportional to the square of
the sum of the separate quantities.
Upon these principles we may determine the conditions
of equilibrium of several different substances meeting in
the same point, neglecting for a moment the consideration
of solidity or fluidity, as well as that of gravitation, in es¬
timating the contractile pow-ers of the surfaces, and their
angular situations. We suppose then three liquids, of
which the densities are A, B, and C, to meet in a line si¬
tuated in the plane termination of the first; the contrac¬
tile forces of the surfaces will then be expressed by
(A—B)2, (A—C)2, and (B-r-C)2; and if these liquids be
so arranged as to hold each other in equilibrium, whether
with or without the assistance of any external force, the
equilibrium will not be destroyed by the congelation of
the first of the liquids, so that it may constitute a solid.
Now, unless the joint surface of the second and third coin¬
cides in direction with that of the first, it cannot be held
in equilibrium by the contractility of this surface alone;
but supposing these two forces to be so combined as to
produce a result perpendicular to the surface of the first
substance, this force may be resisted by its direct attrac¬
tion ; the forces which tend to cause the oblique surface
to move either way on it, balancing each other, and the
perpendicular attraction being counteracted by some ex¬
ternal force holding the solid in its situation. Consequent¬
ly the force expressed by (B—C)2, reduced in the propor¬
tion of the radius to the cosine of the angle, must become
equal to the difference of the forces (A—B)2 and (A—C)2;
and if the radius be called unity, this cosine must be
(A—C)2—(A—B)2 _2 AB—2 AC—(B2—C2)
(B—C)2 m (B—C)2
— -A which is the excess of twice the density
of the solid above the sum of the densities of the liquids,
divided by the difference of these densities; and when
there is only one liquid, and C = 0, this cosine becomes
COHESION.
Cohesion. 2 A
IT
59
1, vanishing when 2 A = B, and the density of the
solid is half of that of the liquid, the angle then becoming a
right one, as Clairaut long ago inferred from other consi¬
derations. Supposing the attractive density of the solid
to be very small, the cosine will approach to — 1, and the
angle of the liquid to two right angles; and on the other
hand, when A becomes equal to B, the cosine will be 1,
and the angle will be evanescent, the surface of the liquid
coinciding in direction with that of the solid. If the den¬
sity A be still further increased, the angle cannot undergo
any further alteration, and the excess of force will only
tend to spread the liquid more rapidly on the solid, so that
a thin film would always be found on its surface, unless it
were removed by evaporation, or unless its formation were
prevented by some unknown circumstance which seems to
lessen the intimate nature of the contact of liquids with
dry solids. For the case of glass and mercury we find
A
g- about and the cosine — which corresponds to an
angle of 139° ; and if we add a second liquid, the expres-
__ q Q
sion will become — —, which will always indicate an
angle less than 180°, as long as C remains less than 1, or
as long as the liquid added is less dense than glass. There
must, therefore, have been a slight inaccuracy in the ob¬
servation mentioned by M. Laplace, that the surface of
mercury contained in a glass tube becomes hemispherical
under water; and if we could obtain an exact measure¬
ment of the angle assumed by the mercury under these
circumstances, we should at once be able to infer from it
the comparative attractive density of water and glass,
which has not yet been ascertained, although it might be
deduced with equal ease from the comparative height of a
portion of mercury contained in two unequal branches of
the same tube, observed in the air and under water. The
cosine is more exactly — *735, in the case of the contact of
glass and mercury, and — *265, whence ^—,
B 13 7*55
which is a disproportion somewhat greater than that of the
specific gravities; but it must probably vary with the va¬
rious kinds of glass employed.
There is also another mode of determining the angle of
contact of a solid with a single liquid, which has been in¬
geniously suggested by M. Laplace: it is derived from
the principle of the invariability of the curvature of the
surface at a given elevation; and its results agree with
those which we have already obtained, except that it does
not appear to be applicable to the case of more than one
liquid in contact with the given solid. Supposing a capil¬
lary tube to be partially inserted into a liquid, if we ima¬
gine it to be continued into a similar tube of the liquid,
leaving a cylinder or column of indefinite length in the
common cavity, then the action of either tube upon the
liquid immediately within it will have no tendency either
to elevate or to depress the column ; but the attraction of
the portion of the tube above the column will tend to raise
it with a certain force, and the lower end of the tube will
exert an equal force upon the portion of the column im¬
mediately below it; and this double force will only be op¬
posed by the single attraction of the liquid continuation
of the tube drawing down the column above it, so that the
weight of the column suspended will be as the excess of
twice the attractive force of the solid above that of the li¬
quid. Now supposing two plates of the solid in question
to approach very near each other, so that the elevation
may be very great in comparison with the radius of cur¬
vature of the surface, which in this case may be consider¬
ed as uniform, the weight suspended will then be simply as Cohesion
the elevation, which will be the measure of the efficient
attractive force, and will vary with it, if we suppose the
nature of the solid to vary, the radius of curvature vary¬
ing in the inverse ratio of the elevation ; but the radius of
curvature is to half the distance of the plates, as unity to
the numerical sine of half the angular extent of the sur¬
face, or the cosine of the angle of the liquid, so that this
cosine will be inversely as the radius, or directly as the
elevation, that is, as the efficient attractive force, which
is expressed by 2 A — B becoming — — 1 when A va¬
nishes, and consequently being always equal to - A ,
B
as we have already found from other considerations. If
we wished to extend this mode of reasoning to the effect
of a repulsive force counteracting the cohesion, we should
only have to suppose the diameter of the tube diminished
on each side by the interval which is the limit of the re¬
pulsion, since beyond this the repulsion could not inter¬
fere with the truth of the conclusions, for want of any
particles situated in the given directions near enough to
each other to exhibit it; and within the stratum more
immediately in contact with the solid, the forces may be
supposed to balance each other by continuing their action
along its surface until they are opposed by similar forces
on the outside of the tube or elsewhere; and indeed such
a repulsive stratum seems in many cases to be required
for affording a support to the extended surface of the liquid
when the solid does not project beyond it. It may also
be shown, in a manner nearly similar, by supposing the
column to be divided into concentric cylinders, that the
superficial curvature of the liquid will not affect the truth
of the conclusion.
Sect. III.—Forms of Surfaces of Simple Curvature.
We may now proceed upon the principle admitted by
all parties, of a hydrostatic pressure proportional to the
curvature of the surface of the liquid, which is equivalent
to a uniform tension of that surface, and which either sup¬
ports the weight or pressure of the fluid within its conca¬
vity, or suspends an equal column from its convexity, whe¬
ther with the assistance of the pressure of the atmosphere,
or more simply by the immediate effect of the same cohe¬
sion that is capable of retaining the mercury of the baro¬
meter in contact with the summit of the tube; and on this
foundation we may investigate the properties of the forms
assumed by the surface, first considering the cases of
simple curvature which are analogous to some of the va¬
rieties of the elastic curve, and next those of the surfaces
having an axis of revolution, which will necessarily involve
us in still more complicated calculations.
A. Let the height of the curve at its origin he a, the hori¬
zontal absciss z, the vertical ordinate y, the sine of the angu¬
lar elevation of the surface s, the versed sine v, and the rect¬
angle contained by the ordinate and the radius of simple cur¬
vature r ; then the area of the curve will be rs, and y
(a2 -j- ^rv).
The fluxion of the curve z is jointly as the radius of cur-
T
vature -, and as the fluxion of the angle of elevation, which
T
we may call w, or dz = - Aw, and Ax ■=. ^/ (\ — s2) dz
T
= ^/(l — s2)- Aw } but (1 — 5s) Aw — ds, conse-
T
quently Ax — - ds, and yAx, the fluxion of the area, be¬
comes equal to rds, and the area itself to rs. In order to
60
COHESION.
Cohesion.
find y, we have dw — sda; = s - dw - dv ; whence y&y
y V
— r&v, and y1 zz 2rv + aa, y becoming equal to a when
v vanishes.
It may also be immediately inferred, that the area of
the curve must vary as the sine of the inclination of the
surface, from considering that, according to the princi¬
ples of the resolution of forces, the tension being uniform,
the weight which it supports must be proportional to that
sine.
Scholium. The value of r for water at common tem¬
peratures is about one hundredth of a square inch, accord¬
ing to the results of a variety of experiments compared
by Dr Young; or, more correctly, if we adopt the more
recent measurement of M. Gay Lussac, '0115 ; for alco¬
hol M. Gay Lussac’s experiments give r = *0047, and
for mercury r — ’OOSl. Dr Young had employed *005
for mercury, a number which appears to be so near the
truth that it may still be retained, for the greater conve¬
nience of calculation. Hence, in a very wide vessel, the
smallest ordinate a being supposed evanescent, and y
— *J(2rv) — T516 the height of the water rising
against the side of the vessel, when v — l,will be *1516 ;
and the utmost height at which the water will adhere to
a horizontal surface, raised above its general level, will be
2 y'/’ = •2145. For mercury, y becomes in these circum¬
stances y'(*0102v) = Y01 and if s = YSS, v — •322,
and the depression of the surface in contact with a verti¬
cal surface of glass becomes *0573 ; and again, when
v — 1*735, as in the case of a large portion of mercury
lying on a plate of glass, the height y is ‘133 ; and if the
glass had no attraction at all for mercury, v would be¬
come 2, and the height -1428. The actual tension of the
surface of mercury is to that of water as ’0051 X 13-6,
or -06936 to -OllS ; that is, a little more than six times as
great; while the angle of contact of mercury with glass,
which is more attractive than water, would have led us to
expect a disproportion somewhat greater. If we take a
mean of these results, and estimate it at seven times, the
value of yV will be reduced by immersing mercury stand-
, • • , • r 6 , 13'6 •
ing on glass into water in the ratio ot - x v since
the buoyant effect of the water increases the value of r,
so that <y/(2r) will be *09, and the angle approaching to
180°, the height will be about Y27.
B. When the curve is infinite, the absciss x becomes —
\ r HL -- -TT. 4- y(4r — y2), reckoning
2Vr + V^r—yy)
from the greatest ordinate y — 2 tfr ; and the excess of the
length of the curve above the absciss is 2 /fir — y'(4r —y1).
i\.oc 1 — v
In this case, a being zz Q, y2 ■= 2rv ; but ^ = —-—
2r — 2rv
2r — yy
find x zz •5328 ; and where the inclination amounts Cohesion,
to a second, x zz 11-28 »fr; for example, in the case of
water, >fir being Y072, the latter value of x will become
T21, and the former -056; so that the surface must be
considered as sensibly inclined to the horizon at the dis¬
tance of more than an inch from the vessel, but scarcely at
an inch and a half; and for mercury these distances will
be two thirds as great. This circumstance must not be
forgotten when mercury is employed for an artificial hori¬
zon, although, where the vessel is circular, the surface be¬
comes horizontal at its centre ; and in other parts the in¬
clination is materially affected by the double curvature.
Corollary 2. The form of the surface coincides in this
case with that of an elastic bar or a slender spring of in¬
finite length, supposed to be bent by a weight fixed to its
extremity; since the curvature of such a spring must al¬
ways be proportional to its distance from the vertical line
passing through the weight. We may therefore deduce
from this proposition the correction required for the length
of a pendulum like Mr Whitehurst’s, consisting of a heavy
ball suspended by a very fine wire. Now the radius of
curvature of the spring is (Art. Bridge, Prop. G) ;
the modulus of elasticity, of which M is the weight, being
for iron or steel about 10,000,000 feet in height: and since
eighty inches of the wire weighed three grains, the thick¬
ness a, supposing it to have been one third or two fifths of
the breadth, as is usual in wire flattened for hair springs,
must have been about of an inch ; the weight f was
12,251 grains ; and the weight of M of ten million feet must
3
have been — X 12 X 10000000 grains; consequently,
80
3 X 10000000
1000
^/(2v — vv) — 2rv)>fi(2rv) V (fir—yy)y
2r
and, by the common rules for finding fluents, x zz ^
HL q V//i~ ^+<\/(4r—yfi, which vanishes
2 y r-j-^y/(4r — yy) v v ^ 7
when y zz 2 y> ; and for the length of the curve, since
1 1 2/*
% = 7 = ,T, = 7(ir-yy)y' subtractinS th«
?/(!?/
former fluxional co-efficient from this, we have — c
y' (4r—yy)
for the fluxion of the difference ; and the fluent of this is
— V W — fi).
Corollary 1. Hence, where the curve is vertical, we
Ma«
12^ _ 80 X 12251 X 375 X 375y “ 12251 X 375y
1 r
zz ■which is analogous to - in these propositions ;
4594^ y
consequently /fir — ; and the whole value of \/(fir—yfi
from y zz 2 Afir to 3/ = 0, is of an inch. Now, sup¬
posing the spring to have been firmly fixed at the axis
of vibration, the excess of its length above the ordinate
will always be measured by 2 /fir — y(4r — y2) ; but
y(4r — y2) zz nffir— 2rv) zz *fir ^/(4 — 2i;), which is
the chord of the supplement of the arc of vibration in the
circle of which the radius is /fir zz ; and the ball will
be drawn above its path to a height equal to the distance
between this circle and another of twice the diameter,
touching it at its lowest point; but a perpendicular falling
from this point on the wire would always be found in a cir¬
cle twice as much curved as the first circle ; and if it were
made the centre of vibration, the ball would always be
raised twice as far above its original path as the distance
between the first circle and the second, which is the mea¬
sure of the effect of the curvature ; so that the pendulum
must be supposed to be shortened half as much as this;
that is, in the present instance, yg-g- of an inch. If, how¬
ever, the spring remained, in Mr Whitehurst’s experiments,
at liberty to turn within the clip, and was firmly fixed at
a considerable distance above, the variation of the length
must have been only that which belongs to half of the arc
of vibration ; that is, one fourth as great as in the former
case, since the versed sine is initially as the square of the
arc; but since it would affect the spring both above and
below the clip, it would be doubled from this cause, and
would amount to °f an inc^ ? 80 ^lat true correc¬
tion would be liable to vary from -00735 to -00367, accord¬
ing to the mode of fixing the wire. But since this error
must have affected both Mr Whitehurst’s pendulums in an
equal degree, and the result was deduced from the dif-
COHESION.
Cohesion, ference, and not the proportion of the lengths, it is free d# _ 2r -f- aa — yy /l t 1 a2 _ 3 a4 . \
from any inaccuracy on this account. The calculation, and dy ~ (cc yyj~ ’ Xy"^ 2' if ^^2 ’ "')
however, sufficiently proves the necessity of attending to r™ « ^ ^
the effect of different modes of fixing the spring, in order Then’ ™r the fluentS}
that no variation maybe made in the different experi- C ... — */("c2 w2) ; F ^ 
ments compared without a proper correction. The elas- J y/(cc—yy) K y 'Jy ^ (cc—yy)
ticity of such a wire as Mr Whitehurst employed, could c ^ fcc 
not have produced any sensible error, by co-operating with =: HL —t 777^ 777^ “ L ;
the force of gravitation, since it did not amount to one
61
Cohesion.
e- X
dy
two-millionth part of the weight of the ball.
C. The relation of the ordinate and absciss may be gene- J if \/(cc — yy)
rally expressed by means of an infinite series. p dy
When the curve is concave towards the absciss through- J T“y;
out its extent, the ordinate may be compared with the T V\
c + V (cc—yy)
V(CC—yy)
cc—yy)
dy
2c cyy
~ + s^y) + s? L 5
5 i) (c^ if)
2cc
L;
4c2?/4
1
6c2?/6 24c4^4 16c6?/5
lengths of hyperbolic and elliptic arcs, as Maclaurin has f' zE- — („
shown with respect to the elastic curve {Fluxions, § 928) : J y1 \/(cc—yy) ~~ \
but his solution fails in the more ordinary cases of the 5
problem ; and even where it is applicable, the calculation — L ; and by combining these fluents we obtain a
is very little facilitated by it, Segner has made use of 1 • ^
two different forms of infinite series, each having its pe- second series 40r x‘
culiar advantages with respect to convergence in parti- 3. These series may be employed with advantage where
cular cases; and other forms may be found, which will the initial ordinate is very small, the one being more con-
sometimes be more convenient than either of these. The venient for the upper, and the other for the lower part of
da, 1 v the curve ; but where the elevation a is more consider-
value of the cotangent-j- being in general able, the form of the curve will be more readily deter'
J V J mined by means of fluents derived from circular arcs.
  2r— 2rv   2r—yy + aa 1 1 ’ 1
y'(4r—2?-?;)^/(2?'?;)"-vy/(4r—yy + aa) \/{yy — aa)’ Beginning with the expressions  y and
we may retain either of these fractions, and expand the yt = „„ + 2 we may seek for fvalJ °{~ ^
other by means of the binomial theorem. J J hmms
1. In the first place, making 4?* a2 — c2, we have of v; and since tydy — 2rd?;, dy ^z—dv —
rdv
2 c3
4-2
+
. da?
•••} and “:— nz
dy
if 5 y6
if + MU’ld
and da? =
rdv
y V(aa -f- 2rvf
The binomial
 2r -f aa /l 1 ^2 3 ?/4 \
{yy—aa)\c ' 2 * c3 4*2 ' c5 /
1 /y2 \ if 3 yG \
\/{yy—aa) ’\c 2 ' c3 4t‘2 ’ c6 /
V{2v — vv) " V{aa -j- 2rv) "
 1.
{aa -|- 2rv) 2 may then be expanded into a series of
integral powers of v, and the fluents may be found by
means of the equations^,tf~ = w> ^le :
V {2v — vv
Now, in order to find the fluents of the separate terms, v ^ie versed sinewy" — = s~w;
we have first F- ^
arc
a/ (yy—aa.
and calling this logarithm L,
,2- 
2
'y3 3a2?/
=lvw-
f V(yy—aa )
/?/  =(£.
J \/(yy—aa) \ 4
- = IIL(y+ 7 [W_aa]); f-f-= 2)s +|- 4 w.f
= (T-fi'+ B' 8) ' 8“’; ™Af
f
V(yy—aa)
yG _ (t
V(yy—aa) \ 6
5a6
8
5 a2?/3
) VW-y?) + sf-e
~V 4 ~8li'
4??2
7-5 Q 7-5-3
•8?;—-,
S
??4d?7
s
7-5-3
¥2'
16?a.
24
+
5a4?/
~16~
+ ^L;and/J»  ,
‘16 J ^ \/{yy — aa)
_ (y1 7aV , 7‘5a4,?/i 7-5-3a6y \ 2
~ \S 8-6 ^ 8-6-4 8:e-4-2/V^“
•) V(y2—a2)
8-6-4 ' 8-6-4-2
4. Another series may be obtained by the expansion of
V{2v—vv) mt0 V(2v) (X +4 ?; + 8':21;2+16-2-3
yy — aa\ r__
r yy —
whence —
% V
2r
X
7*5,3a8
+ g g ^ L : whence by substitution we have
__ 2r aa T / 2?* -f aa 1 \
X ~ kr aa \2(4r -f. aa)3 4?- -j- aa /
•(f +^-l) +
1
2. If we reduce
(
the fluxions
2r ' 8‘2 V 2r
belonging to the series {if—a2) 2dy, (y2 — a2) ^dy,
5
(y2—a2)2 dy; and the fluents of these are
HL (y + 7[y* — a*]) = L ; _<,*) _|02L ;
v'(^ZrW) int° “ SerieS’We have (i-/(/-«2) + l«2)y^(/-a3)+,^L; whichaf-
aa\— J   1 _i_ J. ^1. A
yy) ~ + 2 y2 4)‘2‘if
8-2-3'y6
Tie +
ford a result somewhat resembling that which is deduced
from the first method.
62
COHESION.
Cohesion. 5. Wg may a]so express a? in a series of integral powers
W”V^/ of y only, if we suppose it to begin at some point in which
the curve is inclined to the horizon, where the height is
jo, calling it at other points jo y; and making ^ = r
= a + + cy2 + ... ; we have then x~ ay -{■ \br^
+ + ••• > and the area.J\p -}- y) da; — 7 + pay
+ \jpby1 + ••• + + 2^ ¥* + 3^ ^ + •••» which
&y
must be equal to rs (Prop. A.): but s —
V(da:2 -(- dy1)
■=■ 5 which may be developed by means of the
Taylorian theorem <p (A -f- H) = ^>A -|- - H
d2(pA) H2 | , .
H ^2^- • -g- + ... , taking A — a, and H = by
-f cy2+..., whence H2 — %24- 2bcyiJt-(2bd-\-c2)yi-\-...
H3 zz + Sb2cyi 4- ...; consequently^ — r<pa ...
■ + — ’ d. ,7-r^—- (by 4- a/ 4- di/
Vaa) da V( 14“ad)
+ ey*+ ...)
+ *• - 1
d2
•(
by)
Py3
2da2 V(\ \ aa)
4- SSci/3 (2bd 4- d)yA 4- ...)
r 1
-1 . d3 /
2*3da3 ^(1 4“ act) ^
+ SPcy* 4- ...)
= 7 + pay + (\pb 4. \ a)y2
+ Gpc + hV + •• .; and hence by comparing
the homologous terms, we find 7 zz ,    — . 4
y (1 + aa) da ‘
■/(TTao) 'b = Pa = ' b’ and 4
p
— —~ (1 + aa)|; and in a similar manner we may de¬
termine the subsequent co-efficients ; but the calculation
is somewhat laborious, and has no particular advantages.
6. We may still more readily obtain a similar series for
y in terms of the powers of x with constant co-efficients;
calling t, and making t = bx 4- -f- dx? + ... whence
y = a + ^bx2 + ±cx* + ±dx« + . . . , and the areafy&x
= a*+i W +i c^ +
3 ' 3'5 <« +
= rt
V-tC+ird 8-25
+ ‘SPcx? + . . . and & zz Pod 4-
equation
^ 4- J_ ^ 4. J_ ^ .
r ^ 2-3r ^ ^ 4*5r ^ + *
bx + cdd -f dx> + •
— ^ Pa? — 4. SPcx? — .
' + |- Px? 4“ •
V(1 4- tt)
. ). But i? ~ P x?
.: hence we have the
b   ^ q  
2'3r
+ \ P, and d =
consequently
1
4,5/’
c + f &2 c
— &P
8 u ‘
It is the less necessary to enter into any further detail
of these results, as we have a table calculated by Segner,
with his son’s assistance, which is sufficient to afford us a
general idea of the forms of the curve in different cir- Cohesion
cumstances. The unit of this table is the quantity ^/r,
which Segner calls the modulus of capillary attraction,
and which for water is -1072 inch. The table begins with
the extreme ordinate, where the curve is vertical: we
have then the least ordinate, a; the greatest ordinate,
where the curve again becomes horizontal; and the absciss
corresponding to the extreme ordinate and to the greatest
ordinate.
Extreme
Ordinate.
lOOyV
90
80
70
60
50
45
40
35
30
25
20
15
10
9
8
7
6
5
4
3
2
1-9
1-8
1-7
1-6
]-5
1-47
1*445
1*428
1*418
1*4142
1*4142
1*4142
1*4142
1*4142
Least
Ordinate.
Greatest
Ordinate.
99*99
89*99
79*99
69*99
59*99
49*98
44'98
39*97
34*97
29*96
24*96
19*95
14*93
9*90
8*89
7*87
6*85
5*83
4*79
3*74
2*64
1*41
1*27
1*11
•94
•75
*50
*40
•30
*20
*10
*01
*001
•0001
•00001
•000001
100*01
90*01
80*01
70*01
60*02
50*02
45*02
40*02
35*03
30*03
25*04
20*05
15*07
10*10
9*11
8*12
7-14
6*16
5*19
4*24
3*32
2*45
2*37
2*29
2*21
2-13
2*06
2*04
2*02
2*01
2*003
2*000
2-0000
2*0000
2*0000
2*0000
Greatest
Absciss.
•01
•01
•01
•01
•02
•02
•02
•02
•03
•03
•04
•05
•07
•10
•11
•13
•14
•17
•21
•26
•37
*65
•71
•79
•91
1*10
1*40
1*64
1*86
2*24
2*92
5*22
7*52
9*82
12-12
14*43
Terminal
Absciss.
•000001
•000002
•000003
•000004
•000007
•00001
•00002
•00003
•00004
•00006
•0001
•0002
•0004
•001
•002
•003
•004
•007
•01
•02
•06
•22
•27
•33
•47
•65
•96
1*18
1- 44
1*82
2- 49
4-80
7*09
9*39
11-70
14*00
It may be observed that the last six values of the least
ordinate are in geometrical progression, while the absciss
increases in arithmetical progression; the difference of
the abscisses 2, 3, being the hyperbolical logarithm of 10,
which is the common multiplier of the ordinates. Al¬
though the table appears to be generally accurate, yet we
cannot always depend on the last figures. Thus the ulti¬
mate difference of the two last columns is made *43, while
it ought to be *53 (Prop. B. Cor. 1). It is scarcely ne¬
cessary to remark, that if we look in the fourth column for
half the distance between two parallel planes of glass, in
a vertical position, the first and second columns will give
us the height to which water will rise between them,
where it touches the glass, and in the middle of the in¬
terval.
Sect. IV.—Surfaces of Double Curvature.
. ^ hen the liquid is contained in a tube, or when it forms
itself spontaneously into a drop having an axis of revolu¬
tion, it becomes necessary to consider the effect of the
COHESION.
Cohesion, tension in a direction transverse to that of the principal
'W'VS^/ section; since the curvature will cause it to exhibit an
equal pressure, whatever the direction of the section to
which it belongs may be; and the curvatures of the sec¬
tions perpendicular to each other will either co-operate
with or counteract each other, according as the con¬
vexities of both are on the same side, or on the opposite
sides, of the surface. But the simple consideration of
the tension supporting the weight of the parts below, or
the equivalent pressure in a contrary direction, will at
once afford us the equations necessary for the solution of
the problem, without any immediate reference to the cur¬
vature in question.
D. The form of a surface of revolution may he determin¬
ed hy means of an infinite series.
The fluxion of the weight or mass of the parts con¬
tained within the cylindrical surface, of which x is the ra¬
dius or absciss, and y the ordinate, being always propor¬
tional to?yxda:, and the fluent to fyxdx; and the extent
of the circumference supporting it varying also as x,
and the contractile force being diminished when reduced
to the direction of gravitation, in the ratio of the radius
unity to the sine of the elevation s, it will always be pro¬
portional to xs; so that we have the general equation
fyxdx = mxs. Now if we suppose y incomparably greater
than x, and the surface extremely minute, the variation
of y may be neglected, and we have in this case fyx&x
= ^yx2; and supposing also s = 1, and the curve vertical,
^yf? = mx, and ±yx — m,x becoming also equal to the
radius of curvature. But it is easy to perceive that the
height y must be twice as great, for any value of#, as in
the case of a simple curvature, since each portion of the
circumference has here only to support a wedge, which is
only half as heavy as a parallelopiped of the same height;
so that \yx will be equal to yx in Proposition A, and
m — r.
In order to obtain a series for finding y from the equa-
tion fyx&x = mxs, we may put the tangent t — bx
+ ex? + dx? + ..., whence y — a + \bx2 + \cxt + \dx*
+ ..., m&fyx&x = \ax? -f A#4 + ~ c#6 + ^ dx?
+
1260
2-4-6-8-10
qh1 +
1
2-42-62-82T0M0
, 59855
“T
(fh +
105
2-4-6-S
5197
l =L
k =
l =
2-4-6-8M02-12
._1732* ,9 +
2-4-6-8-10-12 ^ ^
1
2-4-62-82-10M2
70522*5
<7463
2*4*6‘8*102*10
945
qW
2*42‘62*
qr,b +
2-4-6-8-10
41800
122T4
1303034
2*4*6*82*102*122*14
1
2*4*62*82**122*14
q^V + ...
qW
2*42*62**142*16
1
2*42*62**162*18
1
cpb
q% +
339412 ,
2*4*62*82**142*16 ^ 6 + ”
2779888
cfb
2-4*62*82**162*18
22941328
qVP +
qW + .
2-42*62**182*20 2 “ 1 2*4*62*82 *182*20
We may here observe, that the numerical co-efficients
of the highest powers of b form the series
_3 ^5_ 3-5-7 6 S-5-7-9 8
2*4’ 2*4*6’ 2*4*6*8’ 6’ "2*4*6*8*10’ 65
the ratio of the successive terms of both continually ap¬
proaching to equality, and those of the next in order
,, . 3 2 3*5 4 3*5*7 , , ,
the senes —, -, —, g, ; but the laws of the
numerical co-efficients in general appear to be wholly in¬
capable of being reduced to any simple form. It will be
convenient for calculation to form tables of the logarith¬
mic values of these co-efficients, which may be continued
by means of successive differences, for as many terms as
are requisite for any practical purpose. The indices, with
lines drawn over them, are to be considered as negative
numbers.
Logarithmic Co-efficients of the Value of the Sine.
= (
+ ...; and the value of s =
being expanded
\/(l -V tt)
into a series, as in Proposition C, n 6, calling —, or a,
m r 1
we find s — ^fyxdx — bx cx? + e?#5 + ex’1 + ...
3Vd
*3 fe5
+ f i5 + |- * 5 54c #7 + ...
x -tM7*7-...
z=±qax + ~ qbx? + _ ^ + — qdx* + ... ;
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
_0. 0000000
T 0969100 qx?
3. 7166987 ?2#4
4^ 0354574 fx*
_6. 1323674 q^x?
0531861 ^#10
U. 8278768 56#12
13. 4776288 q>x^
1A. 0182362 (fx™
18. 4619336 ?9#18
6*8
consequently 5 = and a = ^ =: 2 and by
continuing the calculation, and reducing the values, we
find
C —
/=
1
2*42*62*8
1
# +
82
2-4*62*8
2*42*62*82*10
# +
<fl?+
652
105 . 15 ^
qV’ + 7r7-7r IP
2*4*62*82*10
2*4*6*8
yWH
2*4*6
2645
2*4*6*82*10
(flf‘
+ 21. 8184809 ^o#28
+ ._JL. ) bx
+ ^ 3187587 qx?
+ 3^ 6375174 q*x?
+ jk 6482413 y8#6
+ 5^ 4694937 g4#8
+ 6^ 1456895 fx™
+ ^ 7008651 (fx™
+ 1510234 q7xli
+ U. 5080209 ^#16
+ 13. 7811595
+ fa 9774 ... q^x20
+ 167 1026 ... q^x22
+ 18. 160 .... g'12#24
20. 16 q'-^x?*'
+ 22. 10 g-14#28
-t- 24. 0 q^°x?o
+ ...) b3x?
+ (X 8927900 gx?
+ 3^ 5337080 q2x*
+ 4. 8558231 q^x6
+ 9851885 g4#8
+ 9727959 q5x^°
+ 82 g^ia
+ _8. 57 q7xu
+ 27 qPx16
+ H. 97 g9#48
+ 12. 77 qwx?°
+ ... ) IPx?
+ (a 5917600 qx?
+ 3. 4368580 g2#4
+ 4. 9595058 g3#6
+ .. . b7X7
+ X 3576767 qx?
+ 3. 3498514 g2#4
+ ) bW
+ (3. 1657913 g#3
+ ... ) 611#4
64
COHESION.
Cohesion. Logarithmic Co-efficients of the Value of the Ordinate y.
Kf] + 0-6989700
+
+
+
+
2. 4948500 qofi
T 9385474 (fit
T. 1323674 fx6
Y. 1323674 fx8
+ 10. 9740048 fx10
+
+
+
+
+
12. 6817488 fx12
Ti. 2735087 fxu
17. 7629636 fx16
19. 1609036 g9x18
. . . ) hx2
(fxxx
+ (1. 0969100
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
JJ. 5406074 qx?
3. 6482413 qW
T 5486749 efx8
Y. 2918175 qW
Y. 9049851 (fx18
~8. 4062959 q6^2
TO. 8090509 q7xu
TT. 1235822 q8x16
13. 3576 ... q9x18
+ 2. 7958800
+ Y. 5337080 qz?
+ "3^ 9350043 q2x*
+ Y. 1313165 q3x6
+ Ik 1769159
+ Y. 08 fx1'
+ 7. 87 q6x"
+ Y 51 .
+ ~9. 35 q8x16
+ T5. 18 q9x18
+ ...)b5x8
+ Y. 5917600
+ Y. 6709412 qx?
-f 27 1056338 qW
+ ) Wx*
+ (2. 4368579
+ Y 4959794 qx?
+ 11. ) b9x™
+ (2. 3119193
+ ... ) bxxxx2
+ ...
•8
•6
•4
•2
•1
Hence if
b =
0-3073
•1147
•4160
1-503
5-776
14-004
15. 5176 ... ql0z?°
17. 607  q11^
19. 637  q12x?A . ... _
2l. 60 q13x2G
+ 23. 5 qux?8
+ ....)
E. The elevation or depression of a liquid contained in a
given tube may be found by reversing the series.
Having a given value of x, the semidiameter of the
tube, and also of s, the elevation or depression of the sur¬
face of the liquid at the point of contact with the solid,
we obtain an equation of the form s = Ab + B63 + Cb5
-j- . . .; and from this we may determine the central ele¬
vation or depression a = 2 rb by the well-known method
of the reversion of series, which give us the value b — -^s
B „ /C 3B2\ s /D sBC , 12B3\ 7
-a5^-(a.-av)^-(a»—A5-+A5irJs 
15-774
5-737
2-399
1-2717
1-0638
274
13-214
•8556
•06311
•01155
Cohesion.
200
1-625
•03693
•00486
•0311
•00278
•7248 +-0252
•7160 +-0254 +-0060+ ['0026]
•7211 + -0240 + -0041 + [-0010]
•7345 +-0122 +-0024 +-0007+ [-0003]
•7449 + -0040 + -0008 + *0002 + [-0001 ]
A8 A9
But it is more convenient to assume an approximate value
of b, a little less than and to find the corresponding
value of s; then, since ds = Ad b + B62d 5 + 5 C 54d 5 + .....,
if we make A5 + 3 B63 + 5C65 + ...z=2, we shall have
J «
—- — ; consequently the small increments of s and b will
db b
be to each other as 2 to b, and we obtain the correction
of b from the error of the calculated value of s ; and if
the calculation be repeated with the corrected value of b,
the second result will always be sufficiently near to the
truth.
In order to judge of the accuracy of this mode of calcu¬
lation, which M. Laplace appears to have thought liable
to some undefined objection, it will be necessary to enter
into the details of its different elements, which will suffi¬
ciently show the degree of convergence of the series, and
the greatest possible amount of error.
Values of the Co-efficients of s for Tubes of different Dia¬
meters, r being •005, and s — *75.
D=2x s—bxX + b3x? X + ZAc5 X + X
1*0 47-176 7190
It appears, upon inspection of this table, that the co-ef¬
ficients of bx alone always determine §§ of the value of
the quantity required, and these are easily calculated with
perfect accuracy, so that the error must always be far less
than 3^, and in fact the actual uncertainty never exceeds
__i__ of the whole, at least in the last four examples. The
differences of M. Laplace’s approximatory calculations
from these results are incomparably greater, so that we
cannot hesitate to consider these differences as errors.
Indeed, when we recollect that in the method employed
by M. Bouvard, under M. Laplace’s directions, the radius
of curvature of each of the small portions into which the
curve has been cut up, has been determined from the or¬
dinate at the beginning of the portion, it is obvious that
the curvature thus found must be less than the truth, and
that in order to obtain any required curvature of the
whole surface, the depression must be increased in the
same proportion ; and there is no ready way ol appreciat¬
ing the amount of this error. Dr Young had before at¬
tempted to avoid it, in making an estimate of the same
nature, by calculating for the middle of each portion ; but,
from some accident, the numbers of his table, published
in 1807, are generally a little too small, although the me¬
thod which he then employed is nearly the same as that
which M. Laplace afterwards adopted, except that for
the lowest portion of the curve M. Laplace had recourse
to an infinite series, applicable only to that part. The
elements deduced in Nicholson’s Journal for 1809, from
M. Gay Lussac’s experiments, which are r — -0051 and
s — *7353, agree better with the numbers found in M.
Laplace’s table, than those from which it was construct¬
ed, which were r — -005038 and s — *729 ; the depres¬
sions being always a little larger than the true results
from the elements assumed.
The value of the ordinate y depends also principally on
the first variable member of the series, although the sub¬
sequent co-efficients are not so inconsiderable as in the de¬
termination of the sine. Thus, taking x — -2, and b — L503,
we have w — « + -813 bx? + -99 IPx? + 2-97 ZAt6 + . . .
= -01503 + -0489 + -0054 + -0015 + [-0006] = -0714,
which is the marginal depression, leaving -0564 for the
height of the convex portion y — a. We may determine
the effect of any small variations in this height, in the
same manner as that of the sine of the inclination ; sup¬
posing them to depend on a change of the angle of con¬
tact only, the quantity r remaining unaltered, it is obvious
that q and x must retain their value, while y and b only
vary, and making Y = AZ» + 3 BZ»3 + . • • = Z» —\
we have Y : Z> = d (y — a) : dZ>. In the present instance,
we find Y ~ -0489 + 3 X *0054 + 5 X -0015 + ...
= -079; and supposing, as in the example suggested by
M. Laplace, the variation of the height y — a to be
•00394, which is g^th of Y, that of b will be ^th of Z>, or
*075, and the variation of the central depression a, -00075,
which is somewhat less than one fifth of the alteration in
C O H
Cohesion the height of the convex portion ; but in smaller tubes it
II is obvious that the variations of the depression a might
Cohorn, exceecl that of the height of the convex portion.
Nothing can be easier or more direct than this part of the
calculation ; and it is remarkable that M. Laplace should
have considered the awkward contrivance of building up
a curve, like the arch of a bridge, with fourteen blocks on
each side, as possessing any thing like an “ advantage”
over the series in the determination of this variation.
If we wish to find the effect of a small variation of the
diameter of a tube, from D to D ±t= D', on the depression
a of the mercury comained in it, we may use for the in-
o! cd'
terpolation the formula —• = 10 — 1, C being about
2-9 for tubes between 1 inch and -J-th of an inch in dia¬
meter, and being elsewhere easily deduced from the de¬
pressions already known. For variations of the cohesive
power, and of its measure r, we may suppose the whole
of the numbers of the table to be altered in the proportion
of the supposed alteration of ^/r, and the change pro-
C O H 65
duced by restoring the diameter to its former dimensions Cohesion
may then be calculated like any other interpolation. There II
is also a more comprehensive formula, which seems to ex- Cohort-
press the depression in tubes of all sizes w ith great accu-
■ . , . '015
racy; it is this, a —  v.,., + and it might
D + 48 D3 492 ~6 D
even be possible to shorten the original calculation by a
comparison of the series with the expansion of this empi¬
rical formula, if it were of any farther importance to faci¬
litate the mode of computation. But for all practical pur¬
poses, it will be sufficient to collect the results already
obtained into a comparative table, arranged in chronolo¬
gical order; and it is remarkable, that they are all com¬
prehended, without any material exception, between the
two values assigned to each as near the truth in Dr
Young’s first table, the mean of those values never differ¬
ing a thousandth of an inch from the result of the more
correct calculation; while the error of Lord Charles Ca¬
vendish’s experiments, notwithstanding their general accu¬
racy, sometimes amounts to nearly one hundredth, (t. y.)
Table of the Depression of Mercury in Glass Tubes.
Diame¬
ter
CENTRAL DEPRESSION.
Inches.
1-00
•90
*80
*70
•60
•50
•45
•40
•35
•30
•25
•20
•15
•10
•05
Observed
by Ld Ca¬
vendish.
•005
•007
•015
•025
•036
•050
•067
•092
•140
Dr Young, Phil. .Laplace,
Trans. 1805. 1806.
Diagr.
•005
•007
•012
•017
•027
•038
•056
•085
•140
•008
•017
•024
•033
•044
•064
•088
•140
0038
0136
DrYoung,
1807.
•0045
•0074
•0100
•0139
•0196
•0280
•0404
•0589
•0880
•1424
•2964
Nicholson’s Journal,
1809.
r = -005
s = -750
00031
■00060
00115
00220
00411
00799
■01100
■01516
02093
02902
04064
•05800
■08620
■14027
•29497
r— -0051
,v = -7353
•00032
•00062
•00118
•00224
•00416
•00805
•01106
•01522
•02098
•02906
•04067
•05802
•08621
•14027
•29497
Laplace,
1810.
00128
00244
00462
00868
01174
01591
02165
02965
04117
■05798
•08538
13940
Correct Calculation.
r= -095
s = -730
0003073
001147
004160
01503
05776
14004
r =-005038
o = *790
000307
■001144
■04128
■01486
■05696
13726
Empirical
Formula.
00031
00059
00112
00220
00421
00799
01099
01495
02082
02881
04025
05771
•08568
14002
29502
Marginal
Depression.
Nich. 18J9.
r = -005
« — -750
•0637
•0676
•0690
•0714
•0745
•0787
•0850
•0966
•1171
•1619
•3060
Differ¬
ence.
•0596
•0596
•0580
•0562
•0536
•0497
•0444
•0386
•0309
•0216
•0110
Diame¬
ter.
1-00
•90
•80
•70
•60
•50
•45
•40
•35
•30
•25
•20
•15
•10
•05
COHOB ATION, a term invented by Paracelsus to de¬
note the repeated distillation of the same liquor from the
same materials.
COHORN, Menno, Baron de (1641-1704), the rival
and contemporary of Vauban, was born at Leeuwarden, in
Friesland. He inherited a taste for military science from
his father; and having studied mathematics at Franeker,
under his uncle Fullenius, he entered the service as captain
when only sixteen. Having distinguished himself at the
siege of Maastricht, and afterwards at the battles of Senef,
Cassel, St Denis, and Fleurus, he was promoted to the rank
of colonel. In the campaign of 1675, he performed an im¬
portant service at the siege of Grave, by successfully em¬
ploying the means which he had invented for crossing the
fosses of fortified places, and thus carrying a bastion with¬
out a counterscarp, the access to which was defended only
by the river Meuse ; a service for which he received, on the
spot, the warmest commendations of Vauban. At a subse¬
quent period Cohorn applied his theory of fortification to
the fortress of Coverden ; and during the war between Hol¬
land and France distinguished himself by new exploits. At
the siege of Namur he defended Fort William against
Vauban in the most gallant and determined manner; but
was at last compelled to yield to superior force, and sur-
vol. vn.
render the work to his great rival. In 1595, however, he
recovered the fort, when defended by Boufffers. This al¬
ternate taking and retaking of Namur, under Vauban and
Cohorn, is considered as illustrative of their respective
systems; Vauban sparing his artillery and men, and trust¬
ing principally to the efficiency of his works ; whilst Cohorn,
sacrificing everything to the desire of abridging the siege,
by striking the besieged with surprise and terror, was equally
prodigal of means and of men. In 1702, Cohorn, now ap¬
pointed lieutenant-general, published his New Method of
Fortifying Places; and in the following year he applied
his system to the conduct of the siege of Bonn, which he
forced to capitulate in three days. He died, March 17,
1704, at the Hague, whither he had gone, at the invitation
of Marlborough, to concert measures for the ensuing cam¬
paign. Bergen-op-Zoom, which was fortified by Cohorn,
is generally considered his masterpiece. It was, however,
taken by the French under Loewendahl in 1747, after a
feeble defence; and in 1814 an attempt to carry it by a
coup-de-main, planned by Lord Lynedoch, miscarried only
by an extraordinary accumulation of adverse accidents.
See Fortification.
COHORT , in Roman Antiquity. See Army, vol. iii.,
p. 631.
i
66
C01
C 0 I
Coif COIF, the badge of a sergeant-at-law, who is called ser-
I! geant of the coif, from the caul or cap (a circular piece of
Coimba- bkdk silk edged with lawn), which he wears on his head
tore_j when he is called to the degree of sergeant.
The chief use of the coif was to cover the clerical tonsure.
COIMB AT ORE, a British province in the south of Hin¬
dustan, under the jurisdiction of the Presidency of Madras.
It is bounded on the N. and N.W. by Mysore ; on the
E. by the British districts of Trichinopoly and Salem ; on
the S.E. by that of Madura and the native state of I ravan-
core ; and on the W. by the territory of Malabar and the
native state of Cochin. It is situate between Lat. 10. 14. and
12. 19; Long. 76. 36. and 78. 16. ; and comprises an area
of 8280 square miles. The province may be generally de¬
scribed as a level country, rising gradually towards its
western frontier, where, at the deep gan of Palghatcheri
(which completely intersects the great range of the W estern
Ghauts from E. to W.), it attains an elevation of between
800 and 900 feet above the level of the sea. On its eastern
extremity the district opens upon the extensive plain of the
Carnatic. The slope of the province being from W. to E.,
the drainage is conveyed by several streams to the Cauvery,
and ultimately discharged by its channel into the Bay of
Bengal. The chief tributaries of the Cauvery during this
part of its course are the Bhovani, Ambrawulty, and Noyel.
The climate is stated to be superior in point of salubrity to
that of the maritime districts of the Carnatic. No con¬
siderable supply of rain is derived from the S. W. monsoon,
which, being intercepted by the Western Ghauts, is thereby
prevented from affecting the plains of Coimbatore ; but
during the prevalence of the N.E. monsoon, when the wind
blows from the Bay of Bengal, the temperature is moderate,
the Cauvery and its tributaries are replenished by the rains,
and the low grounds become deluged with water. In win¬
ter there are sometimes showers with heavy dews, a very
cold air, and south-easterly winds. The spring is generally
dry, with light breezes from the S., and moderate dews.
In April the weather becomes hot, and the thermometer
ranges from 76° to 93°, rising in the succeeding month as
high as 96° or 98° in the shade.
Among the vegetable productions is the Mauritius sugar¬
cane lately introduced, and the cultivation of which is offi¬
cially reported to be favourably progressing. Experiments
have been also made for the introduction of the American
species of cotton, the produce of which, in this district, is
stated to be well suited to the British market. Tobacco of
excellent quality is grown. Forests of teak and other valu¬
able timber, including the sandal tree, are scattered over
the frontier hills. Iron ore appears to be the only mineral
of importance.
Many sheep are bred in the country, of which there are
two kinds ; the one short-bodied, with a short small tail;
the other of a thinner make, with long ears and scanty wool.
Though small, they are of good quality, fattening readily,
and affording delicious meat. There is also a breed of goats,
which, however, are very inferior to those reared higher up
the Ghauts. The pasture, though it looks bare, seems to
be more nutritious than that on the banks of the Ganges.
The wild animals are nearly the same as in other parts of
India. Elephants abound in the secluded valleys towards
the Ghauts. There are also black bears, which are not
usually considered dangerous unless when they are mo¬
lested ; though they are very strong, and not afraid to en¬
counter the tiger.
In the Madras census of 1851, the population of the pro¬
vince is given at 1,153,862, consisting for the most part of
Hindus.
Coimbatore was first annexed to the kingdom of Mysore
about the year 1746, a short time before the usurpation of
the chief power by Hyder Ali. It was occupied by the
British in 1783, but restored to Tippoo Saib at the con¬
clusion of the first war with that prince. Upon the over-Coimbatore
throw of Tippoo in 1799, it formed part of the conquered P
territory allotted to the East India Company, and was forth- v 'oir1,
with annexed to the British dominions.
Coimbatore, a town of Hindustan, and capital of the
province of the same name, is situate on the left bank of the
river Noyel, a feeder of the Cauvery. The streets are wide,
airy, and neatly built. This city, as well as the whole pro¬
vince, suffered severely in the wars which took place between
the sovereigns of Mysore and the British. Since its per¬
manent occupation by the latter, the city has recovered con¬
siderably, and contains 2000 houses, which is about half
the number it possessed under Hyder’s government. It has
a mosque, built by Tippoo, who occasionally made Coimba¬
tore the place of his residence. The elevation of the town
above the sea is 1483 feet. Distance south from Seringa-
patam 100 miles. Lat. 11., Long. 77. 1.
COIMBRA, capital of the province of Beira, Portugal,
stands on the north bank of the Mondego, 115 miles N.N.E.
from Lisbon. The early history of Coimbra is involved in
much obscurity. It is not known if the foundations of the
city were laid by the Romans ; they cannot with certainty
be traced farther back than the time of the Goths. Pre¬
vious to the sixteenth century it was the capital of the king¬
dom, and strongly fortified ; but it is now surrounded only
by an old and ruinous wall, and the houses are falling into
decay. Its trade is purely local, as the Mondego is only na¬
vigable in flood, and its port, Figueira, is upwards of 20
miles distant. There are, however, considerable manufac¬
tures of earthen-ware, linen and woollen fabrics, combs, See.
The country to the south of the Mondego is the most fertile
and salubrious in Portugal, and, accordingly, the neighbour¬
hood of Coimbra is studded with villas. It derives its prin¬
cipal importance from being the seat of the only university
in the kingdom. Lisbon was the original seat of this uni¬
versity, which was transferred in 1306 to Coimbra. Some
time after it was restored to Lisbon, where it existed till
1527. In that year it was again transferred to Coimbra,
where it has ever since remained. It consists of 18 colleges,
and is attended by 1400 students. It is divided into 6 facul¬
ties—viz., theology, canon law, civil law, medicine, mathe¬
matics, and philosophy, and has a staff of 39 professors.
Its library, museums, and academical apparatus generally,
are on the same scale of magnificence. Coimbra is the see
of a bishop, who is suffragan to the Archbishop of Braga;
and besides the cathedral it has 8 parish churches, and
numerous conventual institutions. In the neighbourhood
is the splendid monastery of Santa Clara; and near it is the
celebrated Villa of Tears, where Inez de Castro is said to
have been murdered. Pop. 16,000.
COIN, a piece of metal converted into money by the
impression thereon of certain marks or figures. Coin dif¬
fers from Money as the species from the genus.
Ancient Coins are those chiefly which were current
among the Jews, Greeks, and Romans. Their values and
proportions are as follows-
JEWISH.
Gerah (Sept, obolus)
L. s. d.
0 0 1-36875
10 Bekah ...   0 1 1'6875
20
1000
60000
100
6000
Shekel  0 2
50
3000
Maneh 
Mina Hebraica
5 14
3-375
0-75
60 j Talent   342 3 9
Solidus aureus, or sextula, worth  0 12 0J
Siclus aureus, worth   1 ®
A talent of gold, worth 5475 0 0
In the preceding table silver is valued at 5s., and gold at
L.4 per ounce.
COIN,
Coin.
GRECIAN.
L. i. d. Qrs.
LePton     0 0 0 •116
14
28
56
112
168
224
336
672
1,344
33,600
2,016,000
Chalcus
COO
•8125
16
24
32
48
96
192
4,800
288,000
8
Dichalcum   0 0 0 1-625
Hemiobolium   0 0 0 3-25
Obolus    0 0 12-5
Diobolum        0 0 3 1
Triobolum ....           0 0 4 3-5
Tetrobolum     0 0 6 2
Drachma     0 0 9 3
Didrachmon   0 17 2
12
16
24
48
96
2,400
144,000
8
12
24
48
U
6
12
24
1,200
600
72,000 | 36,000
6
12
300
18,000
8
200
12,000
li
6
150
9,000
100
6,000
50
3,000
Tetradrachmon,
Mina ...
25
1,500
. 0 3 3 0
4 13 0
60 iTalentum 243 15 0 0
L. s. d.
Of these, the drachma, didrachmon, &c., were of silver ; five Attic drachms of silver, in our money  0 18 6
the rest for the most part of brass. The other parts, as According to our proportion of gold to silver  10 0
tridrachm, tribolus, &c., were sometimes coined. The There were likewise the stater Cyzicenus, ex¬
drachma is nearly equal to a French franc. changing for twenty-eight Attic drachms, or... 12 9
. . Stater Philippicus and stater Alexandrinus  13 6
1 he Grecian gold coin was the stater aureus, Stater Daricus, according to Josephus, worth fifty
weighing two Attic drachms, or half of the sta- Attic drachms, or   1 i iq
tei argen teus, and exchanging usually for twen ty- Stater Croesus, of the same value.
ROMAN COPPER.
(Before Augustus.)
12
24
48
96
Sextula...   
Quadrans ..
Triens.
16
32
64
12
24
48
Semissis.
As..
16
32
16
Dupondius 
Sestertius.
ROMAN SILVER.
(Before Augustus.)
L. s. d.
.0 0 0
Qrs.
•35416
\
Teruncius  0 0 0 -53125
 0 0 0 -7083
Sembella 0 0 0 1-0625
2 j Libella....^ ...0 0 0 212
  ! 0 0 1 -25
 i
8 4 Sestertius  0 0 2 -5
8 2 Quinarius  ..0 0 4 1
16 4 2 Denarius  0 0 8 2
16
32
64
16
32
ROMAN COINS.
(After Augustus.)
L. s. d.
Sextula  4 0 0 0
11; Quadrans   0
Triens  
12
24
16
48
96
U
12
32
64
24
48
16
32
16
•3125
■46875
625
9375
   0 0 1-875
Dupondius o 0 0 375
Sestertius   0 0 1 3-5
Quinarius or Victoriatus 0 0 3 3
2 | Denarius Q 0 7 2
0
0 0 0
Semissis   q q
As 
8
68
COINAGE.
Coinage. Of these, the denarius, victoriatus, sestertius, and some-
times the as, were of silver, and the rest of brass. See As,
&c. There were sometimes also coined of brass the triens,
sextans, uncia, sextula, and dupondius.
L. g. d. Qrs,
The Roman gold coin was the aureus, which
weighed generally double the denarius; the
value of which, according to the first pro¬
portion of coinage mentioned by Pliny, was 0 15 / 2
L. g. d.
According to the proportion that obtains now
amongst us, worth.   0 18 5
According to the proportion mentioned by
Tacitus, and which afterwards obtained,
whereby the aureus exchanged for twenty-
five denarii, its value was  0 15 7
Qrs. Coinage.
3-25
2
Modern Coins are treated of under Money. (l. s.)
COINAGE.
Money is a measure of value and medium of exchange :
coinage is the art of fabricating money.
So soon as nations emerge from a state of barbarism, when
simple barter no longer suffices to meet their wants, they will
invent some common or conventional measure of value by
which to exchange their products and carry on their com¬
merce. In the rude ages of society, cattle are said to have been
the common medium of commerce; and among the patriarchs
of old they were the measure of man’s wealth and great¬
ness. The armour of Diomede, says Homer, cost only nine
oxen ; but that of Glaucus cost a hundred oxen. In some
countries, in former times, salt was the measure of value and
instrument of exchange; and in others shells formed the cir¬
culating medium. But as the necessities of nations multi¬
ply, and their commercial transactions extend, they soon
discover the inadequacy of these means, and will search for
something of a more steady and durable character, which shall
serve both as a circulating medium, as well as a medium of
exchange with other countries trading with them. From a
very early period metals, as possessing that character in a
high degree, were chosen to perform these important func¬
tions. They are not only less perishable than other articles,
but they can, without loss, be divided into any number of
parts, and be united again by fusion : they can be hammered
or rolled into plates, and moulded into any shape: and oc¬
cupying less bulk than other articles, they are easily trans¬
ported from place to place.
“ Different metals,” says Adam Smith, “ have been made
use of by different nations for this purpose. Iron was the
common instrument of commerce among the ancient Spar¬
tans, copper among the ancient Romans, and gold and silver
among all rich and commercial nations. Those metals seem
originally to have been made use of for this purpose in rude
bars, without any stamp or coinage. Thus we are told by
Pliny, upon the authority of Timgeus, an ancient historian,
that, till the time of Servius Tullius, the Romans had no
coined money, but made use of unstamped bars of copper,
to purchase whatever they had occasion for. These rude
bars, therefore, performed at this time the function of
money.”
Before the invention of coined money, the precious metals
were exchanged by weight only; but as many obvious incon¬
veniences attended that custom, as an initiatory step pieces
of metal rudely shaped were stamped with their weight; and
then by degrees the art of coining money was introduced,
intended not only to indicate by the stamp of the sovereign
authority the weight, but also the fineness of the coin.
So long as copper and iron performed the functions of
money and measure of value, probably the weight only was
the test of value; but with regard to gold and silver, another
element enters into their appreciation of as much conse¬
quence as the weight itself. The quality or fineness of these
metals, by which the value is determined, can only be dis¬
covered by the laborious process of assay; and therefore (as
Adam Smith remarks), before the institution of coined money,
unless this tedious and difficult operation were undertaken,
people must always have been liable to the grossest frauds
and impositions; and instead of a pound weight of pure silver,
might receive, in exchange for their goods, an adulterated
composition of the coarsest and cheapest materials. To
guard the public against such frauds, to facilitate exchanges,
and thereby encourage industry and commerce, mints were
established, in which pieces of metal of determinate weight
and fineness were stamped by public authority, in order to
declare the quantity and uniform goodness of the money so
stamped, that it should pass from hand to hand without
doubt or suspicion.
In early times these coins, or pieces of metal, constituted
or denoted weights of different denominations; or, in other
words, they expressed the weight or quantity of metal con¬
tained in them, as in the Roman as or pondo, which, when
money was first coined at Rome, signified a pound weight
of good copper, consisting of twelve ounces, as in our troy
pound. So the English pound sterling originally expressed
not a coin exchangeable into 20 shillings, but simply a
pound weight of silver of sterling fineness. The French
livre likewise contained, in the reign of Charlemagne, a
pound weight of silver of a determinate quality. And on
the authority of Adam Smith, the Scots money-pound con¬
tained, from the time of Alexander I. to that of Robert
Bruce, a pound of silver of the same weight and fineness
with the English pound sterling. English, French, and
Scots pennies, too, contained all of them originally a real
pennyweight of silver, or -gTstli of a pound. The shilling
also seems originally to have been the denomination of a
weight, and not of a coin of conventional value.
As the transition from mere barter (by which one product
of labour is exchanged for another), to the use of metals as
instruments of commerce, indicates an advance in civiliza¬
tion ; so the transition from the latter to the fabrication of
coined money, however rude and inartificial at first, marks
another progressive step in culture and refinement; while
the various designs impressed on the coin, and the mode of
manufacture testify in nice degrees the slow advancement
of society in art, taste, and ingenuity.
An inquiry, therefore, into the coinage of a country like
Great Britain, from the earliest times, possesses an interest
apart from the subject itself as a mere antiquarian research,
because it throws an indirect ray of lighten the social con¬
dition of the people from age to age, and enables us to
note the progressive steps of their improvement in taste,
refinement, and mechanical invention, as well as to ascertain
their comparative wealth and social comfort, indicated by
the value of the necessary articles of life. The subject par¬
takes not, indeed, of the true dignity and importance of his¬
tory ; but, in a less ambitious channel of research, it is not
without utility and instruction.
In order to illustrate the necessary connection that exists
between the social and political condition of a nation and its
coinage, we need only to refer to the rude ill-fashioned coins
COINAGE.
69
of our semi-barbarous ancestors, and contrast them with the
elegant and highly-finished specimens of the present day.
The forge and hammer, and other manual appliances,are now
superseded by mechanical contrivances of the highest order,
which, with artistical design and beauty, co-operate to embel¬
lish and impart elegance to the coin of the realm. If this
description be true of the external features of our currency, it
is equally true with respect to the uniformity of its fineness;
of more importance than even taste and beauty. The some¬
what mysterious and alchemical ordeal of trying “ by fire,
by water, by touch, by weight, or by all or any of them,”
has found a less empirical and more certain substitute in the
scientific art of assaying the precious metals.
Another pre-eminent advantage we have acquired by
means of those mechanical contrivances referred to, is the
vast rapidity with which money can now be coined and is¬
sued to the public—an element in the comparison of ancient
and modern times of great significance to a commercial
country, like great Britain, in which the currency is liable
to be disturbed by external causes, and in which the pub¬
lic exigencies are as uncertain as they are urgent and
imperious.
It is not too much to assert, therefore, that in a view of
the coinage of Great Britain we possess within certain
limits a faithful record of the progress of its civilization. The
view is of necessity a contracted one, but not the less true
and authentic. Like the history of the customs, habits,
and modes of life of a nation, it fills but a subordinate part,
and aims no higher; nevertheless a knowledge of it is not
only useful but indispensable. The coinage of a country
speaks with unerring accuracy and truth; and so long as
coins are extant to bear witness to barbarity or refinement,
rudeness or taste, ugliness or beauty, clumsiness or ele¬
gance, we cannot, as in some other historical researches, be
perverted by prejudice or deceived by ignorance. It is
truthful, because it bears the impress of truth, and stands
as a kind of living memorial of past generations. A rude,
shapeless coin, with an effigy resembling the unformed
scrawl of a child, is as certain a proof of the low state of
civilization in art and mechanism as analogous imperfections
would be in painting or sculpture; while a beautiful and
elegant and well-finished coin speaks convincingly of cor¬
responding ideas and tastes in the nation. And when such
evidences of refinement prevail among the people, the state
and excellence of the coinage will always afford a subject of
pleasure and congratulation. In Great Britain our coins
have not certainly attained the highest degree of excellence,
though for some time they appeared gradually approach¬
ing it; and we would fain hope that in future the step
may be progressive rather than retrograde; though as a
commercial nation we are too apt to be indifferent to such
claims on our admiration as objects of taste call forth, how¬
ever jealous we may be of the fineness of the coinage. It
is indeed too frequently the tendency of modern ideas of
economy, applied to public works, to give little encourage¬
ment to whatever concerns art and enterprise.
Though we have in this cursory manner pointed out
some of the uses to which a history of the coinage may be
made subseryient, our design is to give only a brief outline
of the subject, accompanied by a detailed description of
the various operations and processes concerned in the fabri¬
cation of money, as well as some account of the recent
changes introduced into the constitution and management
of the Royal Mint.
On the first landing of Julius Caesar on the shores of
Britain, he describes the inhabitants as a race just emerg¬
ing from barbarism, and their money could not therefore
be of a high order. Their use of money was circumscribed
by their simple wants and limited commerce: and, accord¬
ing to him, it consisted of rude pieces of brass and iron
rings, regulated to a certain weight, which probably were
in use strung together, as the Chinese do at this day with Coinage,
their inferior money. He makes no allusion to coins or v"—
money of gold or silver, and it may be inferred none
existed; for although foreign coins at one period circulated
freely in Britain, it is improbable amongst such a people
as the ancient Britons that such should have been the case.
Both Strabo and Tacitus, indeed, speak of the gold and
silver of Britain, as if indigenous to the soil; but as gold
has not been discovered in any considerable quantity since
that period, and as silver is not found except in combina¬
tion with lead, we may conclude these writers received
their information from mere hearsay or tradition. It is
not probable that a people emerging from barbarism,
without art or science, should have imported gold for the
purpose of coinage; nor can we give them credit for that
degree of skill and ingenuity necessary to separate the sil¬
ver from the lead in their mines. So far from this being
probable, we are informed that even the brass of which their
chief money consisted was imported from abroad, though
the soil was rich in copper; and that of iron they pro¬
duced but a small quantity, being devoid of skill and
enterprise.
Tacitus says, “ Britain produces gold, silver, and other
metals to reward its conquerorsbut in refutation of this,
Dr Henry, as well as others, remark, that if the Britons
had any gold or silver amongst them, either coined or un¬
coined, when they were first invaded by the Romans, it
was certainly unknown to their invaders, which it is not
likely to have been if they came in quest of treasure, as
Suetonius avers, who says that not the gold but the pearls
of Britain, famous then, were the chief incitement to
Caesar’s invasion. Writers on such subjects often deal in
hyperbole, attributable to want of accurate information with
regard to the countries they described. Thus, according
to Diodorus Siculus, even Gaul was famous for the abun¬
dance of its gold, and the Gauls for their skill and dexterity
in discovering, refining, and working that metal. We cannot
believe the gold to have been the produce of their own mines,
though it may have been common among them. Their
coins are represented to be of pure gold, without any
alloy of baser metals ; and not only their coins, but
their rings, chains, and other trinkets, were made of gold
equally fine.
The first attempt of the ancient Britons to coin money,
though not accurately ascertained, may be referred to a
period subsequent to Caesar’s second invasion; and we may
suppose the appearance of Roman coins amongst them
prompted them to imitation, however rude and unlike.
As their coins consisted of gold and silver, as well as infe¬
rior metals, indicating, therefore, a rapid stride in refine¬
ment and civilization, some have, not without plausibility,
conjectured them to be of foreign origin, imported in the
way of commerce; because the initial letters stamped on
them appear to have some reference to the names of cer¬
tain Gaulish princes, mentioned by Caesar or Tacitus. Dr
Henry observes on this curious subject—“ It is not unrea¬
sonable to suppose that some of the Gauls, retiring from
their country to avoid the Roman yoke, and settling in
Britain, which was still free after the retreat of Caesar,
brought with them the art of coining money, in the same
taste in which it was practised in Gaul, immediately before
the conquest of that country by the Romans ; when a new
and more beautiful manner was introduced. This conjec¬
ture is confirmed by the remarkable resemblance of these
coins to those of the ancient Gauls.” But Ruding, who is
always a truthful and generally an accurate guide in such
curious researches, takes exception to this, and remarks,
that “ if we proceed to examine the coins themselves, they
furnish no proofs to justify their appropriation to any coun¬
try. The far greater part of them are without any legend ;
and on the rest are to be found only initial letters, or at
70 COINAGE.
Coinage, most single syllables, which, by the ingenuity of antiquarians,
have been compelled to express any meaning they have
thought fit to adopt.” It is singular, however, that a nation
without any known mines of gold or silver, and without any
commerce worthy of the name, whose inhabitants were
exceedingly poor, and with whom the value of money was
great, should have indulged in such a token of refinement
as a gold currency. Yet certain it is, that a considerable
number of the coins of Cunobeline have been preserved,
containing his name, sometimes in full, sometimes abbre¬
viated, with the name of the capital of his kingdom—-Ca-
malodunum (Colchester),—and so far we cannot question
their appropriation to an ancient British king. The domi¬
nions of this petty monarch extended from the coasts of
Norfolk, Suffolk, and Essex, westward across the island to
the banks of the Severn ; and he is supposed to have reigned
during the times of Augustus, Tiberius, and Caligula.
Possessing the wisdom to appreciate the refinement and
civility of the Romans, this monarch seems to have intro¬
duced considerable improvement into his coins, forming
them in a measure on the model of the Roman money.
“ On some of these coins,” says Ruding, “ the name of the
monarch is given with a Latin termination, and the devices
which are impressed upon others are evident imitations of
the coins of Augustus Caesar. All the letters are plainly
Roman. But it is in outward appearance alone that these
coins agree with the Roman money of that period in which
Cunobeline is generally supposed to have reigned, for in
weight they are widely different. The cause of this varia¬
tion from the prototype in so important a point cannot now
be ascertained; but it seems to justify a suspicion that the
weights were regulated in conformity with other British
money then current: and in confirmation of this suspicion,
it may be observed that some of the coins which bear Cuno¬
beline and Camalodunum resemble in type those which are
usually attributed to earlier British kings.”
But the improvements introduced by this monarch were
destined to be of short duration ; because a few years after
his death, Britain having again been subjected to the Ro¬
man dominion under Claudius, and by his severity reduced
to a mere province of the Roman empire, the native mints
ceased to coin British money ; and, agreeably to the Roman
policy, an edict was issued to the effect that all money cur¬
rent should bear the imperial stamp.
Though the Roman money, which must have been abun¬
dant, continued to circulate in Britain after the inroad of
the Saxons, about the middle of the fifth century, mints
were subsequently established in various places, regulated
by laws which the Saxon conquerors brought from the Con¬
tinent, and which differed in many particulars from those of
the Romans. Some have indeed doubted whether these
people, at their invasion of Britain, possessed any know¬
ledge of the art of coining money—supporting their opinions
on the authority of Tacitus; but the best authorities on the
history of our coinage controvert this hypothesis by the
better testimony of the coins themselves. “ Sceattae,” says
Ruding of the Saxon coins so called, “ are known of the
early kings of Kent, some of which must have been struck
within the sixth century; and there are others so similar
to them in type, as to justify their appropriation to the same
people, but which, from their symbols, were evidently coined
before their conversion to Christianity, and were, therefore,
probably brought with them from the Continent.” This
distinguishing mark the cross—is also wanting on the
sceattae of Ethelbert I., king of Kent, in whose reign the
conveision of the Saxons from paganism by the monk St
Augustin commenced.
Of the internal constitution of the heptarchic mints no
records remain ; but if we may judge by specimens of coins
extant, the taste and mechanical skill of the Saxons were
scarcely superior, if at all, to those of the ancient Britons.
Unlike these, they disdained to follow the Roman models Coinage,
(of which many beautiful specimens must have been pre-
served), but pursued a rude and barbarous method of their
own; and hence their coins are found to differ in form, type,
and weight, from those current amongst them at the same
time. 1 hey are of equal weight and fineness with the later
Anglo-Saxon pennies. The coiners, or moneyers, as they
are called, stamped their names upon the money; but the
custom of adding the place of mintage was of rare occur¬
rence, and almost solely confined to the ecclesiastical coins
of Canterbury.
When the heptarchy was dissolved, and its different petty
kingdoms united under one rule, the mints were regulated
by laws framed in the Wittenagemote, or great council of
the nation ; and besides the royal establishments, the mints
of York and Canterbury enjoyed the privilege of coining
money; but it is conjectured, with much probability, that
the dies were supplied by the crown, and that the sovereign
participated to a certain extent in the profit.
1 he most ancient coins known to have existed amongst
the Anglo-Saxons were the sceattae, supposed to be the
first coined by them in Britain. They are of very rude
and clumsy workmanship, while their weights vary from 7i
to 20 grains and upwards. By the laws of Athelstan
(924-940), the value of this coin is stated to be such, that
30,000 of them equal L.120, and it was therefore less valu¬
able than a penny by a 25th part. Besides these, there
appears to have been also another coin of inferior deno¬
mination, worth a quarter of a penny, but of what metal it
was composed we are ignorant.
The penny was the next coin made of which we have any
knowledge. The word appears, says Ruding, in the laws
of Ina, king of the West Saxons, about the year 688, and
is in a manner, therefore, consecrated by its antiquity. Its
probable origin is derived from pendo, to weigh; 'and if
that etymology be admitted, it will appear probable, ob¬
serves the same authority, that “ the penny was not known
to the Saxons before their arrival in Britain, but was adopted,
together with its name, at the same time that mynet, from
moneta, was introduced.” The penny may be considered,
therefore, the ancient unit of our currency.
Of that coin, 240 are supposed to have been fabricated
out of a pound weight of silver, giving thus 24 grains to
each, and making the pound consist of 5760 grains, as at
present. Hence the origin of our pennyweight, equal to
24 grains, and the 240th part of a pound. Twenty pennies to
the ounce seem to have been also the weight of the Norman
coins of that denomination. “ The legal weight of the
penny,” Clarke observes, “continued through the whole
period of the Saxon government. It was always the 240th
part of the pound. Their laws, from the first mention of
it to the last, give it this uniform valuation.” Nevertheless,
there is evidence to show that, at diffei’ent periods, if not
during the same period, there were two pound weights in
use, one as above, and another consisting of only 5400 grains
troy, called the Tower pound.
There was likewise a halfpenny coined in silver, and pro¬
bably a farthing, or quarterpenny of the same metal; which
will not appear surprising if we consider the great value of
money in those ages, and consequent low price of the ne¬
cessaries of life. Besides these subdivisions of the penny,
there seems to have been also another piece equivalent to
the third part of that coin, which continued in use as late as
the reign of Henry I. “ But,” says Ruding, “ even so small
a coin as one-fourth of a penny could not be sufficiently
minute to answer the common purposes of exchange, at a
time when most of the necessary articles of life were to be
purchased at prices so far beneath what is now considered
to be their value ; when, for instance, in the reign of Athel¬
stan, an ox was sold for 30 pennies, and a sheep for one
shilling.”
COINAGE.
71
Coinage. Accordingly, the Anglo-Saxons coined inferior money of
~v^—brass, called sti/cas, two of which were equal to one farthing.
They had also other monies, or denominations of money,
the exact nature of which cannot now be determined ; but
of the sceattse, the penny, the halfpenny, farthing, and styca
(all undoubted coins), specimens remain, except the farthing.
The mancus, the mark, the thrisma, the ora, and other de¬
nominations in Saxon, Danish, and Norman times, were
probably like talents and shekels, weights of current money,
and not coins. In truth, the origin of all coin denomina¬
tions in early times were weights ; for originally the precious
metals passed by weight in commerce; and when for con¬
venience pieces of metal came to be stamped, these pieces
were well known weights of the country where they were
coined. The smaller coins were regular subdivisions of
the greater, made into so many for each pound.
The Saxon shilling differed from the Norman shilling of
12 pence in value, six of them making only 30 Saxon
pennies, or a mancus.
r Was a denomination of money only, and not a coin,
< and signified as many coins as were made out of
(. a pound of metal ~ 5400 grains troy,
f The same; an Anglo-Danish denomination, fds of
( a pound ==: 8 oz. = 3600 grs.
{The same ; a weight equal to 30 pennies = 6 shil¬
lings.
f The same; Danish subdivision of the mark, ^th
} or one ounce = 450 grs.
Three Saxon pennies; not a coin.
Five pennies = 112J grs.; do.
The Sceattae, Penny, "i
Halfling, Feorthling, i Real coins.
Styca J
240 Pennies = 1 Pound 5 Pennies = 1 large Shilling
160 ... = 1 Mark 4 ... =1 lesser do.
30 ... ~ 1 Mancus 3 ... =1 Thrisma
20 ... =1 Ora 20 Sceattas ~ 1 Shilling = 5Jgrs. troy.
The Pound
The Mark
The Mancus
The Ora
The Thrisma
The Shilling
We can discover no satisfactory evidence of the Saxons
having coined money in gold; and if coins of that metal
circulated amongst them (as appears to have been the case),
the inference is, they came from abroad ; as, for example,
bezants, which sometimes occur in Anglo-Saxon transac¬
tions, deriving their appellation from Byzantium or Con¬
stantinople, and so of others. “ During the existence of
the Anglo-Saxon and Anglo-Dariish government,” says
Ruding, “ there is reason to believe no other metals
besides silver and brass were coined in their mints.” The
use of the latter metal seems to have been rejected by the
Anglo-Norman monarchs, and silver became the sole ma¬
terial of coinage for a long established period, until gold
was introduced by Henry III.
\ncient Our knowledge of the mode of coining money in early
node of times is extremely imperfect; but all agree that it was
omuig. rude and inartificial, and so appears to have continued for
many centuries. Neither the Anglo-Saxons nor Anglo-
Normans were famous for their skill or inventive powers.
To both we are beholden for many excellent laws, but not
for those mechanical arts and contrivances which so much
now contribute to the rvealth and glory of England. And,
therefore, it cannot but be esteemed a remarkable fact,
that a nation which, above all others on the face of the
earth, is distinguished for mechanical invention, and pre¬
eminent for those arts which elevate a kingdom in the scale
of civilization,—remarkable for its restless activity, enter¬
prise, and adaptation of natural laws to useful purposes in
almost every branch of science,—should, in its infancy and
even for ages after, have displayed none of these national
characteristics. On the contrary, it seems to have been
wholly indebted to the Continent for those advantages.
And when improved machines were introduced into England
for the coinage of money, the nation was slow in adopting
them. Like our hand-loom weavers, the people opposed
any invention that seemed to militate against the interests of
manual labour, while at the same time they had little aptitude Coinage,
to turn the inventions of others to their own advantage.
The metal brought to the mints for coinage was, after
being tried, reduced to sterling or standard by alloy when
too fine, and refined if too low in quality ; but by what
means the latter operation was performed we remain in
ignorance. The metal so melted was cast into small bars,
and these were flattened by a hammer; and out of these
fillets or plates, square pieces were cut of nearly equal weight,
and then rounded at the forge. These were stamped simply
by fixing a die in a block of wood, while another was used
as a punch, and repeatedly struck with a hammer till it re¬
ceived the required impression. Money fabricated in this
rude manner was necessarily imperfect, from the difficulty
of always placing the two dies exactly over each other
when the blank piece was between them, as well as from
the improbability of a man being able to strike a blow with
such force and precision as to make all parts of the impres¬
sion equally perfect.
Even in the reign of Edward I., it is recorded in the
Red Book of the Exchequer, that the new money then
coined wras made in the following manner : first, the metal
was cast from the melting-pot into long bars, which were
cut with shears into square pieces of as exact a weight as
possible, and these were with the tongs and hammer forged
into a round shape ; after which they were blanched, that is,
made white by annealing and boiling, and afterwards stamped
or impressed with a hammer to make them perfect money.
From this unskilful and imperfect process, scarcely any
improvement seems to have found its way into England
until the introduction of the machines called the mill and
screw, applied first to the coinage of France about the
middle of the sixteenth century. The coining press or mill
was of French origin, the invention of which is generally
ascribed to one Antoine Brucher, an engraver, who in
1553 first tried it in the palace of Henry II., for the stamp¬
ing of counters. It continued in use till 1585, when it was
laid aside on account of its being found more expensive
than the hammer coinage, and so remained until the year
1623, when Briot, a French artist, unable to persuade the
government to adopt it again, came over to England, where
it was immediately put in practice at the mint, under the
direction of Briot himself, who was appointed chief engraver.
It was, however, abandoned for the reason assigned, until
one Blondeau, forty years after, persuaded Charles II. to
introduce it again into the mint, with some other mechani¬
cal improvements of his own invention ; and eventually it
created a revolution both in the manner of coining and in
the appearance of the coins themselves. For the great
change which then took place in the form and impression of
the new money struck by this invention, gave it a de¬
cided superiority over the old coinage.
The mill and screw are generally conceived to be syno¬
nymous with the coining-press as one machine ; but it is
not improbable that two distinct machines were compre¬
hended in that expression ; the screw or mechanical power
employed in giving the impression to the coins, and the
mill or mechanism driven by horse-power, by which the metal
was rolled instead of being hammered into plates. The in¬
troduction of a mere coining machine would have been of
little use without a corresponding improvement in other
processes, and quite incompatible with the slow and clumsy
mode of forging the metal formerly in use. The inference
is in some degree corroborated by the reputed costliness of
using the machine ; for a coining-press will cost little more
than*the labour of working it. Before the introduction of
steam-power, human labour was employed in driving the coin-
ing-presses ; but probably animal labour was used in driving
the rolling-mill, and hence the expense must have been con¬
siderable, if not compensated by the extent of the coinage. Sterling,
In the fabrication of money from the precious metals, it &c.
72 COIN
Coinage, is a fundamental law that some particular standard should
be adopted as regards the composition of the metal: and
this was called by our Saxon ancestors sterling. The origin
of the word, which has remained so many ages in familiar
use, is involved in some obscurity ; but it is generally un¬
derstood to have expressed what we now call the standard
of our silver currency, for it was never applied to coins
made of the more precious metal, gold. While by custom
and habitude we speak of pounds sterling, our Saxon and
Norman ancestors signified by these words pounds in weight
of coin of sterling silver. On this curious subject, it is re¬
marked by Ruding, that in England, and all over the con¬
tinent of Europe, it designated the standard quality of our
silver money ; and it is a striking circumstance in the history
of our coinage, that the fineness of the silver coins, which
was expressed by that word, has preserved its integrity
unbroken from the reign of Henry II. (at the lowest cal¬
culation), down to the present time—a period of more than
600 years. This standard consists of 11 ounces 2 penny¬
weights of fine silver and 18 pennyweights alloy lo the
pound troy, or ^dwts. Dr Henry, in his History of
Great Britain, says that the standard of Anglo-Saxon
money consisted at one time of 9 parts of silver and 1 of
copper; but that must apply to a very early period, as there
can be no doubt of the great antiquity of the sterling. If,
to perfect the proposed decimal system of coinage, the
standard were altered or reduced to T9oths as respects
silver, the coincidence would be singular.
Sterling silver remained in high repute all over the Con¬
tinent, because it was superior to any other currency ; and
even in England the words conveyed for centuries the
ideas of goodness and purity. And we may remark here
that the gold coins of England, from the reign of Henry
III., when they were generally introduced, to the reign of
Henry VIIL, who debased their purity, were made of fine
gold. This is a remarkable circumstance, because as gold
in its native state is rarely discovered so pure, the existence
for a long period of a coinage fabricated of that metal in a
state of purity necessarily implies the knowledge of the
art of refining, which must have been practised at a very
early period. Pliny, indeed, says that in his time gold
was refined by mercury, which mingled with it, but re¬
jected all alloy, and the gold was freed from the mercury by
squeezing both in skins, in which operation the mercury
ran through and left the gold in a pure state. Some of
the Greek gold coins were also of great purity, as those of
Philip of Macedon, and his son Alexander the Great,
rivalled by those of the other princes and cities which im¬
mediately followed. Those of the successors of Alexander
in Egypt were 23 carats 3 grains fine, and 1 carat grain
alloy, which we give on the authority of Jacob in his book
on the “ Precious Metals.” Pinkerton, on the authority of
a French writer, informs us that the goldsmiths of Paris, in
assaying some gold coins of Vespasian, found in them no
more than a 788th part of alloy. But though the Greek and
Roman coins attained so high a standard, their silver coins
were not so pure. Those of the Greeks w ere inferior to ours;
and also the Roman of the earliest period, though slightly.
During the reign of Henry VIII., the currency of both
gold and silver was greatly debased and corrupted, as com¬
pared with that of former reigns. He fabricated coins of
what was called crown gold, 22 carats fine, which wras even¬
tually adopted as the standard of our gold currency. Some
of his silver money was so much depreciated as to contain
no more than a third part of fine silver. But notwithstand¬
ing this nefarious and dishonourable proceeding on the part
of the crown, the true, ancient, and venerable standard or
sterling was always regarded by the people with a degree
of affection and reverence somewhat similar to that w hich
on great occasions they expressed in favour of their ancient
laws and charters. So scon, therefore, as Queen Elizabeth
A G E.
was firmly fixed on her throne, she listened to the reasonable
demands and just representations ofthe country, and restored
the ancient standard of our silver coin, which happily has re¬
mained untouched to this day.
The following table will show the variations of the stand¬
ard from Edward I. to the reign of Elizabeth. From the
most authentic documents, it appears the standard remained
uniformly the same through the long extended period from
Edward I., and perhaps before, to the 34th year of Henry
VIII., when the proportion fell to 10 ounces of fine silver,
and 2 ounces of alloy to the pound weight troy.
Edward VI.
From Edward I. to'
Henry VIII 
34th year Henry VIII.
36th
37th
1st
3d
4th
6th
Mary, and Philip and j
Mary J
Elizabeth 
Victoria 
Fine Silver.
Oz. Dwts.
11
10
6
4
4
6
3
11
11
11
11
Alloy.
Oz. Dwts.
18
19
19
18
18
Fine Sil¬
ver p. lb.
222
200
120
80
80
120
60
221
221
222
222
Coinage.
In the earliest times, the silver coins were equal in weight
and in tale; that is, each penny was a pennyweight of sil¬
ver, or 24 grains. Such was, indeed, the theory; for the
coins in reality rarely reached to the counterpoise of a
pennyweight. The intention was frustrated either by the
great imperfection of manufacture, or, as Ruding main¬
tains, from design—as the irregularity was too nearly general
to be attributable to accident. But may this discrepancy not
in part be explained by supposing that at one period the
pound contained only 5400 grains, which would give only
22jf grains to the penny instead of 24 grains? No
doubt also the profit of the s/iere, or remedy on the coin
for errors of fabrication, sometimes offered too strong a
temptation to our monarchs who looked to the coinage of
money as a considerable' source of revenue; while, on
the other hand, the dishonest propensities of the money-
ers, and the evil habit of clipping the coin, increased
the evil. In consequence of the diminution of weight,
arising from one or all of these sources, any consider¬
able payment in coin required to be made by weight, and
the deficiency made good. Exchanges were also instituted
to change light money for that of full weight; and it was no
uncommon artifice of our kings of old to call in the coins, in
order that they might have the profit of the shere: and at
such times the coins were taken by weight and not by tale,
inflicting, therefore, great loss on the possessor.
It is observed by Ruding, that the professed standard
weight of 24 grains continued for more than 200 years from
the Norman conquest, that is, until the 28th year of Ed¬
ward I. From that time until the 43d of Elizabeth, a period
of full 300 years, the legal weight of the coins was progres¬
sively diminished ; and yet notwithstanding the variations
in the price of bullion which have taken place since the
conclusion of her reign, the weight continued stationary for
more than 200 years—that is, until the 55th year of the
reign of Geo. III.
We have already incidentally remarked, that anciently
what we now denominate a pound in currency was in reality
a pound weight of sterling silver; and if that assertion be
correct, then it follows that silver relatively to gold is three
times cheaper than it was in former times. A pound of
silver was worth then 240 pennies, or say 20 shillings: now
the market value is about 60 shillings, or 720 pence, and
the mint price 66 shillings. In researches of this nature it
COINAGE.
73
Coinage, is difficult, laborious, and often impossible to obtain full and
accurate information of such particulars from existing re¬
cords ; but evidence of the interesting fact may be deduced
from inferential or collateral testimony. For example, we
have on record, so late as the reign of Edward III., that the
pound of silver was coined at the rate of 25 shillings; and
a pound of gold at the rate of only L.15 ; whereas in the
reign of Charles II. silver was coined at 62 shillings, and
gold at L.44, 10s. If we assume the relative value of gold
and silver to be as 15 to 1 ; then in the reign of Henry Lit
was 9 to 1 only ; and therefore nine pounds of silver should
be esteemed the equivalent in exchange for one pound of
gold. But in the calculation allowance ought to be made for
the difference in the fineness of gold at the two periods.
Privilege The privilege of coining money has always been claimed
coining' as. a prerogative of the executive power, which was guarded
with extreme jealousy. “ The legitimation of money,” says
Sir Matthew Hale, “ and the giving it its denominated
value, is justly reckoned in jura majestatis, and in England
it is one special part of the king’s prerogative.” And Rud-
ing observes, “ As to the impression of the coins, the stamp¬
ing thereof is the unquestionable prerogative of the crown,
and it was in very few instances communicated to those per¬
sons on whom the privilege was conferred ; for, in general,
the dies were sent either from the Exchequer, or from the
master of the mint in the Lower.” The privilege implied
that the authority of the crown was necessary to give le^al
currency to the coin ; and although Blackstone thinks it did
not extend to the debasement of the coin to the injury of
the people, no one can doubt that the power was not always
legitimately exercised. In truth, it is only in the case of a
depreciated currency that the king’s proclamation is neces¬
sary to give legal circulation to the coin of the realm; and
as a protection to his subjects, the tender is limited within
narrow bounds.
In early Saxon and Norman times, royal establishments
existed in almost every town of any importance for the
coinage of the king’s money. During the reign of Ethelred,
who died in 1017, it is said that no less than 38 mints were in
various places employed for this purpose. The reason is not
difficult to perceive. The communication between different
parts of the country was extremely imperfect and hazard¬
ous, and it became necessary to institute mints and ex¬
changes in provincial towns for the purpose of supplying the
neighbouring districts with money to carry on their com¬
merce; but as communication was rendered easier, these
subordinate mints and exchanges by degrees fell into disuse,
till at length they all became concentrated in the metropolis5
where one establishment has been found adequate for the
supply of the whole kingdom.
After the Norman conquest, the number of mints was
greatly reduced, so that in the reign of Henry VI., who
died 1461, the only mints in England were at Bristol,’Can¬
terbury, Coventry, Durham, London, Norwich, Oxford, and
York; but in the reign of Henry VII., they were further
limited to Canterbury, Durham, York, and London. It is
supposed by some, that in the time of Elizabeth, when the
currency was purified and improved, all the coins of the
realm were struck in London only, as no traces of other
mints are to be found from that period ; but it remains on
record that in the reign of William III., when a great re¬
coinage of silver took place, several local mints were em¬
ployed along with the one in the metropolis in order speedily
to complete that vast undertaking.
Athelstan is said to have been the first monarch who
enacted any regulations for the government of the various
mints. In his laws, promulgated about the year 928, it is
provided that one sort of coin only should be current
throughout the kingdom ; and he granted to various towns
by name a number of coiners or moneyers proportionate to
their size and consequence, and to all boroughs of inferior
VOL. VII.
ranks one moneyer each. The provincial mints were under Coinage,
the control of that within the Tower of London, from which - m- ^ -7-
as paramount, the dies were issued, and for which the
moneyers paid a regular fee upon every alteration of the
coins. They seem also to have paid an annual rent (we pre¬
sume for the use of the premises,) which in the city of London
amountedtoL.75—a very considerable sum at that time. The
rents of the other mints, however, were much lower than this.
The chief use of the exchanges appointed in various
places was to increase the facility of distributing the coins
made at the mints, to change new money for old, to re¬
ceive the coins when called in by the monarch when light,
clipped, or defective, and for the purpose of purchasing bul¬
lion for the supply of the mints; for it appears our monarchs
claimed the exclusive right of purchasing bullion, and ap¬
pointed officers (to whom they delegated that branch of the
prerogative), called custodes cambii, and custodes monetce.
It was the duty of these functionaries not only to exchange
the current coins, but also to receive wrought plate and fo¬
reign coins according to their fineness ; and as the exporta¬
tion of the coins of the realm was prohibited, they furnished
persons going out of the kingdom with foreign money in
exchange for English, and also supplied merchants and
strangers coming into the kingdom with English coins in
exchange for foreign.
Lrom these sources, and from the coinage of money, the
crown derived a considerable revenue, which from time to
time it sought to augment by means not the most scrupu¬
lous or honourable.
I he constitution of the mints in the earliest times of a
British history, and the regulations applied to the coinage, constitu¬
te questions of antiquarian research, which will be deemed tion of the
more curious than profitable. The materials for such an mints,
inquiry are extremely meagre and incomplete; for, accord¬
ing to Ruding, both the Anglo-Saxon laws and Domesday-
Book are silent on the subject. They frequently mention
the moneyers, but make no allusion to any other officers of
the mint; though it is reasonable to suppose that the crown,
whose prerogative it was to coin money, must have had some
jurisdiction over those who were employed in the practical
operations. It may be inferred that each mint was super¬
vised by a head or mint-master, whether of the mint-proper
or the exchange, who, receiving a certain rate on the coin-
age, paid those under him; while the moneyers, on the
other hand, out of their allowance, paid the labourers under
them. This may not have been the case at the earliest pe¬
riod of our history, but the custom may certainly be traced
back to very remote times.
On the early Saxon coins are found, besides the names
of the monarchs, those of other persons who are with great
probability conjectured to be the moneyers, and not the
mint-masters; because, on the later Anglo-Saxon money the
names of those officers frequently occur, with the addition
of their title of office; and this fact, coupled with the silence
of ancient records, has led Ruding to conclude that they were
the only persons employed in the Anglo-Saxon and early
Anglo-Norman mints. He thinks, too, this opinion is cor¬
roborated by the circumstance, that in the reign of Henry I.,
when the money was so much corrupted as to call for a sen¬
tence of most exemplary severity on the offenders, the
punishment is said to have been inflicted upon moneyers
only, without the least mention of any other officer. This
was also the case on a similar occasion in the reign of Henry
II. But if it be true that the moneyers were required to
stamp their names on the coins as a token of their respon¬
sibility, and as an attestation of the integrity of the coin, the
punishment of any other persons might not have been ne¬
cessary. Ruding remarks on this subject, that “ It should
seem that the reeve had in the Anglo-Saxon times some
kind of connection with the mint or jurisdiction over it; for
in the laws of Cnut it is provided, that if any person ac-
K
r4 COIN
Coinage, cused of false coinage should plead that he did it by license
of the reeve, that officer should clear himself by the triple
ordeal. If he failed to do this, he was to suffer the same
punishment as the falsifier himself; which, in the same chap¬
ter of the law, is said to be the loss of that hand by which
the crime was committed—without any redemption either by
gold or silver. As it would scarcely be possible for the
reeve to prove the falsity of such an accusation, it seems
probable that his situation with respect to the mint was
such as to make it his duty to superintend the operations of
it, and to prevent all clandestine practices.” The same au¬
thority further observes, that after the Norman conquest
the officers of the mint appear to have been in some degiee
under the jurisdiction of the court of exchequer, as t ey
were admitted to their respective stations in that court, and
took before the barons the customary oath of office.
Mr Ruding is unable to determine the exact period when
it became necessary to place some superintending authority
in the mint to prevent the bad practices of the moneyers;
but adds, it is probable such an officer, if the gerefa or reeve
were not a presiding functionary, was appointed between the
twenty-sixth year of Henry II., when the moneyers alone
were punished for the adulteration of the money, and the third
year of Richard I., when Henry de Cornhill accounted for the
profits of the cambium of all England, except Winchester.
This, however, appears to be conjectural; for this the first
warden of the mint was most probably appointed to collect
the revenue arising from the seignorage charged upon the
coinage of bullion, although the duties might also extend
to the fabrication of the coins, with the view of preventing
the master or the moneyers from taking any undue ad¬
vantage of the crown or the public by the debasement of
the currency.
In the reign of Edward L, about 1279, it appears all the
mints in England became consolidated under one master,
Tournemire of Marseilles, who became personally responsible
for the entire coinage. Between him and the king an agree¬
ment, somewhat analogous to the future mint indentures,
was entered into, by which an allowance was secured to
him to cover all the charges of coinage. In this we have
the germ of that system of contracts or agreements by which
the mint was afterwards carried on.
But, according to Ruding and others, the mint did not
attain its full constitution of superior officers until the
eighteenth year of Edward II., i.e., at the beginning of the
fourteenth century; when an officer, under the title of comp¬
troller first appears, who delivered in his account distinct
from those of the warden and master, as theirs likewise were
from each other. “ Thus they operated as mutual checks,
and no fraud could be practised without the criminal con¬
currence of all those three persons.” One of the peculiar
duties required of the comptroller was, annually to make
out a roll, called usually the comptrolment-roll, containing
an account of all the gold and silver coined, and to deliver
it on oath before one of the barons of the exchequer. It
was always written on parchment, and formed a permanent
record of the coinages of the mint.
The office of king’s assayer constituted another check of
even greater importance; for to this officer was confided the
assaying of all the bullion, after it had been melted for
coinage, as well as the coin itself, and hence he became re¬
sponsible to the king for the purity of the whole coinage.
Persons exercising those functions are found on record in
the reign of Henry 111.; but it is probable some such officer
existed from the earliest period of the fabrication of money,
although we are unable to define the precise date of his
appointment. In after times the office, by degrees, ac¬
quired more consequence and authority, as no coin could be
issued to the public without the sanction of the king’s as¬
say-master ; and therefore, as Ruding remarks, he became
“ the sole guardian of the purity of many millions of money.”
AGE.
And it may be added that, in modern times at least, the re- Coinage,
sponsible duty has always been discharged with honour and
fidelity, and to the great advantage of the public.
This ancient and honourable office was swept away, with
the old constitution of the mint, in 1851.
Besides these, there was another officer of some impor¬
tance in ancient times, who bore the title of cuneator, or
keeper of the dies; and which still exists under the quaint
name of “ clerk of the irons.” This office is supposed to
have been hereditary; and the person executing its duties is
said to have appointed the engravers of the dies, who were
thus under his immediate cognizance and authority. He
took charge of the dies as they were struck, accounted for
them, and supplied the various local mints with dies. By
right of office he claimed the broken dies as his perquisite.
The moneyers were persons strictly employed in the Moneven.
fabrication of the coin; but in what manner they were paid,
and what degree of rank they anciently held, are subjects
open to dispute. It cannot be doubted, however, that as
regards the operative branches of the mints, they were per¬
sons of some importance, though not necessarily of high
rank. In times when mechanical knowledge was rare, and
skill in any art deemed a mystery, such endowments were
greatly valued, and gave importance to the possessor. After
a careful analysis, Ruding is disposed neither to place them
in the rank of superior officers nor of common workmen.
They were probably employed under a superintending head,
on the part of the crown ; enjoying, at the same time, pecu¬
liar rights and privileges of their own. Without being ex¬
actly a corporate body, that is, having a charter of incorpo¬
ration from the crown, as a company of mechanics they
may have possessed some of that exclusive spirit which
characterized the trades of London. Theirs was a craft
and mystery, which would naturally assume some of the con¬
sequence of other crafts. On various occasions they appear
to have acted as a recognized body, and their petitions and
remonstrances were listened to by the monarch as if they
had rank and power separate from the general officers of the
mint. This will appear quite natural and consistent to
those who are conversant with the customs and usages in
ancient times. Nothing can be more absurd than to mea¬
sure those simple and primitive ages by the standard of
modern society ; and to conclude that the moneyers were
only common workmen because they worked with their own
hands, subjecting themselves to servile duties unbecoming
officers of the mint, must only betray ignorance of history,
and of the mode of life in former ages.
We have already observed, that they stamped their names
on the coins as a mark of responsibility—a custom which
prevailed at a very early period in this island; for, accord¬
ing to Ruding, they are found upon the money of Egbert,
king of Kent, which is the second in point of antiquity in
the Anglo-Saxon series, and must be dated about the middle
of the seventh century. They were usually stamped on the
reverse of the coin, but in some few instances they are
found on the obverse, whilst the name of the monarch is
removed to the other side. They amounted sometimes to
300 or 400; and it appears seven or eight moneyers were
attached to each mint, employing labourers under them,
when the exigencies of the case required it. In ancient
times, it is said, they were compelled to march with the
Vicomes when he went with the army, and were severely
fined on refusal; and whenever the king came to a place
where a mint existed, they were obliged to coin as much
money as he pleased out of his silver. Hence they were
sometimes called king’s moneyers, and are so entitled in a
writ of Henry III. And when one of them died, the king
had a certain sum for a relief; and if he died intestate, his
property devolved to the king. They paid a certain annual
rent to the king, and also a kind of fine upon any renewal
of the money for the dies, which were sent from the mint
COIN
Coinage. in the Tower. In some cases they had houses allowed to
them rent free. And amongst their peculiar privileges, they
appear to have been exempt from local taxation ; for Henry
III., in the writ already alluded to, commands the mayor of
London not to disturb them by exacting tallages contrary
to their privileges. On the other hand, on pain of disfran¬
chisement and imprisonment, they were required not to dis¬
tribute any coin till delivered into the office of receipt and
assayed; they were enjoined to work whenever required;
they were punished for false coinage, &c. According to Sir
Matthew Hale, it was deemed treason if they made the
coins too light, or not of the legal fineness.
I he moneyers of modern times arrogated corporate rights
and privileges, and a vested right therefore in the coinage
of the country ; but Rudiivg justly remarks, that they never
were a corporate body exclusive of the other officers of the
mint; for it seems in the I'eign of Edward I. the privileges
which belonged to the moneyers alone extended to all the
officers of the mint; and after various confirmations of suc¬
ceeding monarchs they were afterwards granted and secured
to them as a corporate body in the first year of Queen Eliza¬
beth. Nevertheless they were a very ancient body, as we
have shown, and they enjoyed not corporate but prescrip¬
tive rights of a peculiar kind, which have now been abo¬
lished, along with other rights and privileges, by an act of
the legislature.
It has been contended that the names marked on the
coins were not those of the moneyers, so called, but of the
minter, monetarius, or mint-master, who with his journey¬
men under him conducted the whole operation ; but such a
conclusion is contrary to the truth, and directly opposed to
the evidence of history as well as the authority of the best
writers. The number of such names is sufficient of itself
to disprove the assumption.
'eignor- Connected with the subject of coinage is the seignorage,
Se- or profits of coinage, which appear at one time'to have
formed no inconsiderable part of the revenues of the crown ;
and which were often levied without regard to principles of
justice and equity, or the interests of the people. The seig¬
norage was not always a regular, much less a moderate rate,
but depended on the caprice, the avarice, or the necessities
of the sovereign. And accordingly, under one pretext or an¬
other, the coin was frequently called in and renewed, merely
to augment this pecuniary advantage. “ The profits of the
seignorage,” says Lord Liverpool, in his Letter to the
King, “ was so much considered by our monarchs as a cer¬
tain branch of their revenue, that they were occasionally
granted, whole or in part, either to corporate bodies for
their advantage, or for defraying certain charges expressed
in the grant itself. They were sometimes granted to indi¬
viduals by way of pension,” &c.
The seignorage was not properly a money charge for
coining, but arose from a certain deduction made from
the bullion coined, and comprehended—1st, the charge for
defraying the expenses of coinage (included in a rate allowed
to the mastei of the mint) ; and, 2dly, the sovereign’s pro¬
fit by virtue of his prerogative. Ruding supposes the former
of these to have been almost coeval with the invention of
coined money. But it is probable this deduction did not
long remain limited to that simple charge, as the monarch
by increasing it discovered a facile and profitable mode of
enhancing his revenue. In the earliest mint account that
is met with, says Ruding, namely one of the 6th year of
Henry III., the profit on the coinage is stated to have been
6d. in the pound. This appears from the entries under that
year of bullion coined in the mint at Canterbury, where the
profit upon L.3898 is stated to have been L.97, 9s. 2d.,
which is exactly sixpence in the pound. Of that sum
the king had L.60, 18s. 3|d., and the archbishop L.36,
10s. 10-£d.; and the whole sum of L.97, 9s. 2d. is stated
to be the amount of exitus lucri, that is, we presume, the
AGE. 7;
clear profit, after all the expenses were deducted. And Coinage,
this agrees with the seignorage taken in the 28th year of
Edward L, amounting to Is. 2£d. upon every pound, out of
which the master of the mint had o£d. for all expenses, and
there remained 9d. clear profit to the king. But as this lat¬
ter date is about 78 years subsequent to the former, it is
not improbable that the seignorage had been raised during
that time in the proportion of nine to six.
The profit of the shere, or the remedy as now it is called,
was also sometimes considerable. This was strictly an al¬
lowance made for unavoidable imperfections in the fabrica¬
tion of the coin, as regards weight only, which from time
to time was made instrumental to the illegal gain of the
king and wardens of the mint. But as there is the same
chance of an increase as of a decrease in the lawful weight,
it is manifest no considerable profit could be derived fromdiis
source unless by a uniform and systematic coinage of the
money under the weight, though perhaps within the remedy.
Some idea of the extent of such profits may be formed from
the confession of Sir William Sharington, who, in the reign
of Edward VI., was vice-treasurer of the mint at Bristol.
He says, “that in three years he profited by the shere
more than L.4000, answering to the king for the say and
sheare 12d., and taking the profit of the rest to himself.”
It is remarked, however, by Snelling in his Silver Coin-
etge, that “it does not appear that our princes made any
considerable advantage ot this, until Queen Elizabeth, in
her fourteenth year, allowed Lonison the master only eight-
pence, instead of fourteenpence farthing, in every pound, to
bear all expenses; which obliged him to avail himself of
the remedy, amounting to sixpence farthing in the pound,
as appeared by the report of the commissioners appointed to
examine into this affair; after which the queen empowered
him, by commission, dated Dec. 31st, in her twenty-first year
to coin silver at 11 oz. 1 dwt. in fineness, and 60s. 3d. in the
pound weight, which were delivered by tale, taking thus
half^the remedy, which amounted to about 6Jd. as be¬
fore.” It seems, however, that Lonison took a still further
advantage, and shered the silver at sixty shillings and five-
pence or sixpence, and the gold at L.36, 3s. and after at
L.36, 3s. 6d., while he paid to the queen’s subjects only 60s.,
or L.36 by tale, by which means the public paid eleven
shillings instead of four shillings for gold; and two shillings
and sixpence instead of one shilling and sixpence for silver.
Towards the latter end of her reign, and during the first
seventeen years of James L, the money was again paid out
by tale, and therefore the profit of the shere came to the
crown, which before belonged to the merchant. The latter
monarch by a proclamation made a reduction on the seig¬
norage levied on the coin.
At the great re-coinage of silver in the reign of William
III., the money is said to have been shorn at something
more than L.3, 2s. 3d. per lb., and made current at L.3, 2s.;
thus allowing 3d. per lb. weight for the profit of the shere,
or rather more than eight shillings in every hundred pounds
of money.
With respect to times and usages more modern, Rud¬
ing obseives, that in the present mode of conductin0-
die coinage, very nearly the whole advantage of the shere
is given to him who brings bullion to the mint; for the
coins ai e by the inci eased skill and attention of the money¬
ers found greatly within the remedies allowed. Thus it
will appear, from a reference to the account of a trial of the
pyx in 1 / 99, that when the remedy allowed has been 1 lb.
3 oz. 18 dwts., the actual deficiency has amounted to no
moie than 1 dwt. 15 grs. If the whole advantage of the
shere had been taken, it would have produced from the
coinage of, about five years, which was then tried, nearly
L.80,000. As silver is coined exclusively by the crown,
any profit of this kind goes to the benefit of the public; but
with regard to gold, the importer receives the advantage, if
COINAGE.
18th Char.
II., cap. 5.
1st James
II., cap. 7'
any. For it should be observed that the remark of llud-
ing, on the increased skill and attention of the moneyers,
is as applicable now as then to the coinage of the realm, while
at the same time the remedies have suffered considerable
diminution, so that the chances of gain and loss must be
esteemed nearly equal.
There is, however, another more certain source of profit
to the importer of gold into the mint for coinage, not al¬
luded to by writers on the subject, and that is the incre¬
ment on the assay, or on the fineness of the metal, which to
that extent augments the standard weight, and consequently
the value of his bullion. The assay report which accom¬
panies the gold, and by which its market value is computed,^
does not according to usage come closer than one-eighth of
a carat grain, or 7^ grains per lb. troy ; but when the im¬
porter carries his gold to be coined, another assay is made
at the mint, much finer and more delicate than the trade-
assay, in order to attain the exact standard, and he i e-
ceives any benefit arising from fractional parts ; in a woid,
he has delivered to him a greater weight of coined money
than his bullion represented by the assay on which he pur¬
chased it. On an average, this profit is supposed to be equi¬
valent to about one-sixteenth of a carat grain = 3f troy grs.
or nearly 8d. per lb. weight. By a return made by the Bank
of England this gain, or increase of bullion, is estimated to
have amounted to the large sum of L.59,262, 16s. 6d. on
L.48,659,648 coined between 1816 and 1837.
By an act of Charles II., the seignorage formerly levied
on the coin of the realm was entirely abolished ; and it was
ordained that whoever brought sterling silver, or crown or
standard gold to the mint should receive in exchange an
equal weight of the current coin. And for the encourage¬
ment of coinage the king undertook to bear all the expenses,
so that the importer received standard weight for standard,
and sterling for sterling in coin, “ without any defalcation,
diminution, or charge for the assaying, coinage, or waste in
coinageand to defray these charges the monarch was
authorized to raise certain duties upon wines, spirits, &c., as,
in the words of the act, “ it cannot be reasonably expected
that the expense, waste, and charge of assaying, melting down,
and coinage, be borne by your Majesty.”
This important act was revived and continued by James
II. as a great benefit to the country, lest “ this kingdom be
deprived for the future of so great a good as it hath there¬
by for these years last past enjoyed and also by William
III. , in whose reign several acts were passed to improve the
coinage, and punish those guilty of clipping the coin. In Coinage,
the reign of George III., at the instance of Lord Liverpool,
a seignorage was again put upon silver, and so much of the
act of Charles II. as related to coining silver brought to the
mint without charge was repealed, as well as a former act of
George III., which required sixty-two shillings to be coined 14th Geo.
out of every lb. troy of silver. HI., cap.
By the act 56th Geo. Ill, cap. 68, it was enacted that the 42*
pound of silver should be coined into 66 shillings, “ of
which 62 shillings per lb. shall be delivered to the importer,
and 4 shillings retained for assaying, loss, and coinage
and any surplus, after defraying these charges, was ordered
to be carried to the consolidated fund. It was further
enacted that old silver coin of the realm brought to the
mint may be exchanged for its full nominal value in new
silver coin ; but in effect this act destroyed all temptation
on the part of the public to coin silver, and consequently
that branch of the coinage now devolves on the crown.
At the same time that the silver currency was depre¬
ciated (though coined of the legal standard of fineness), the
legal tender was reduced from L.25 to 40 shillings, and so
remains to this day. Formerly, gold and silver respectively
were tenders to any amount; but, as the act declares, “great
inconvenience having arisen from both these precious me¬
tals being concurrently the standard measure of value, and
equivalent of property,” gold coin was declared to be here¬
after the only legal tender and measure of value.
The amount realized by the seignorage was formerly re¬
tained by the master of the mint to defray the expenses of
coinage, agreeably to the act, and the surplus paid to the
public account; but by a subsequent act of William IV., 7th Will,
to regulate the financial arrangement of the mint, the seig- IV., cap. 9
norage was required to be paid into the bank to the credit of (I^'^)1
the consolidated fund, and the charges of the mint to be
brought annually before parliament.
When the market price of silver is 5s. per ounce, the
seignorage is equivalent to precisely ten per cent, (the cost
of coinage being about 2 per cent.), and hence there is a
very large apparent profit to the crown ; but as the govern¬
ment is subject to the renewal of the silver currency, and to
the great loss accruing from the wear of the coin, and con¬
sequent diminution of the weight, the gain from this source
eventually cannot be considerable.
The following table will succinctly afford a view of the
seignorage on gold and silver from as early a period as can
be obtained:—
Table to show the Seignorage on the Coinage, from the reign of Edward III. to the reign of Victoria ; and
the variations in the value of Gold and Silver.
30th
34th
36th
37th
6th
19th
25th
27th
43d
10th
17th
1650
Edward III. ...
Henry VI 
Henry VIII. ...
Do 
Do 
Do  
Edward VI. ...
Do  
Elizabeth  
Do.   
Do  
Do  
James I 
Do 
Do  
Charles I 
Commonwealth
Charles II 
Geo. I.  
Victoria  
One lb. of
Gold
coined into
L. s. d.
15 0 0
22 10 0
22 10 0
28 16 0
30 0 0
30 0 0
34 0 0
36 0 0
36 0 0
36 0 0
33 0 0
33 10 0
40 10 0
44 10 0
41 10 0
41 0 0
41 0 0
44 10 0
46 14 6
46 14 6
Seignorage
of the
Crown.
L. s. d.
0 6 8
0 13 0
0 2 6
14 0
2 10 0
5 2 0
10 0
0 2 9
2 7 0
0 6 0
0 7 0
0 10 0
1 10 0
2 5 0
110
115
0 15 0
Nil.
Do.
Do.
Allowance
to Master of
Mint.
L. s. d.
0 12
0 2 6
0 1 10
0 3 4
0 1
0 4
0 5
0 5
0 6
0 6 0
0 6 0
0 6 5
0 2 5
0 2 5
One lb. of
Silver
coined into
L. s. d.
15 0
1 10 0
2 5 0
2 8 0
4 16 0
7 4 0
14 8 0
3 0 0
3 0 0
2 0
2 0
3 2 0
2 0
6 0
6 0
Seignorage
of the
Crown.
L. s. d.
0 0 9J
0 2 0
0 10
0 8 0
2 0 0
4 T 0
8 8 0
0 16
0 1 10
2 0
2 6
0 2 0
0 4 0
0 4 0
Allowance
to Master of
Mint.
L. s. d.
0 0 6*
0 0 7
0 0 10
0 2 4
COINAGE.
Supply of
bullion.
Coinage. As a collateral branch of the subject, it is of some inte¬
rest to inquire how bullion was supplied to the mint to be
coined into money.
As we have seen, Strabo and Tacitus speak confidently
of ancient Britain having produced abundantly gold, silver,
and other precious metals, the reputation of which af¬
forded an incitement to conquest; while Suetonius ascribes
to the pearls of Britain the temptation as well as reward to
Julius Caesar to visit the wild, barbarous, and inhospitable
regions of the north. Probably both assertions are equally
without foundation, originating in the fabulous character
given to distant and unknown countries.
So far from the Britons being skilful in mining (who could
not so much as clothe themselves with any art higher than
barbarians), it is said that the brass or copper out of which
their rude money was fabricated came from abroad, and
that of iron they produced an inconsiderable quantity, though
both iron and copper abound in England and Wales.
It appears that from an early period silver was found in
Britain, which probably was extracted from the lead mines ;
for it is asserted that the art or process of separating silver
from lead was discovered and practised in times very re¬
mote. But on this head our researches have not brought to
light accurate information, and perhaps the inquiry would
be deemed more curious than profitable.
In the reign of Edward I., silver was discovered in Devon¬
shire, probably combined with lead; and as there existed a
great scarcity of bullion, the laws enacted with regard to
mines were exceedingly strict in requiring the silver to be
brought to the mints for coinage; and of the produce of
the mines, the king claimed £d, while the other fds were
granted to the owner of the soil. At this period a consi¬
derable amount of foreign bullion appears to have been
purchased for the mint, according to the account of William
de Wymondham, warden of the mint. The scarcity of the
precious metals seems to have induced all manner of fraud
to be perpetrated by those who worked in metals ; and ac¬
cordingly an act of Edward I. commands that all vessels of
gold shall be assayed, touched, and marked, and that “ none
shall from henceforth make or cause to be made any man¬
ner of vessel, jewel, or any other thing of gold or silver,
except it be of good and true alloy, that is to say, gold
of a certain touch, and silver of the sterling alloy, and that
none work worse silver than money. And that no manner
of vessel of silver depart out of the hands of the workers
until it be assaied by the wardens of the craft; and further
that it be marked with the leopard’s head. And that they
work no worse gold than of the touch of Paris.” By the
laws of Edward III., goldsmiths are forbidden to melt ster¬
ling farthings or halfpennies to make into vessels ; none are
permitted without the king’s license to convey gold or sil¬
ver forth of the realm ; no false money or counterfeit ster¬
ling is allowed to be brought into the kingdom to defraud
the people ; and to encourage coinage, “ all people of what
realm or dominion they be, may safely bring to the ex¬
changes, and to no place else, bullion, silver in plate,
vessel of silver, and all manner of money of silver of what
value soever it be, and there receive good and convenient
exchange.” By another act it is rendered unlawful to ex¬
change money, or derive any profit therefrom, except the
king’s exchangers ; aud “ it is accorded, that the money of
gold and silver, which now runneth, shall not be impaired
in weight nor in alloy ; but as soon as a good way may be
found, the same be put in the ancient state as in the ster¬
ling.” And it is required, that the moneyers and other
wardens and ministers of the money shall receive plate of
gold and silver by the weight, and in the same manner shall
deliver the money when it shall be made.
In consequence of the great scarcity prevailing of half¬
pence and farthings of silver, it is enacted by a law of Henry
IV., that a third part of the silver “ brought to the bullion ”
77
be coined into these denominations, and goldsmiths and Coinage,
others are forbidden to melt them. And it is ordained by
the same monarch, “ that none from henceforth shall use to
multiply gold or silver, nor use the craft of multiplication;
and if any the same do, that he incur the pain of felony in
this case.”
A singular law of Henry V. ordains that every foreign
merchant buying wool in England to carry it abroad, shall
bring to the master of the mint for every sack one ounce
of bullion of gold, and for every three pieces of tin an ounce
of gold, or the value in bullion of silver, upon pain of forfeit¬
ure. And that no English gold shall be received in pay¬
ment but by the king’s weight; a great part of the gold
current being of light weight, and of inferior quality ; and
to remedy this great evil, the king offers pardon to all his
lieges who shall bring the same to the mint to be made into
new money.
In the reign of Henry VI. it is enacted to the intent
that more bullion be brought to the mint and coined, that
the master of the mint “ keep his alloy in the making of
white money according to the form of his indenture.” And
he is required to strike, from time to time, half nobles, far¬
things of gold, groats, half groats, pence, halfpence, and far¬
things, for the ease of the people, according to the tenure
of the indenture betwixt the king and him.”
These and other laws up to the time of Elizabeth were
passed with the view of encouraging coinage, intimidating
false coiners and clippers of coin, and securing bullion for
the mintbut their operation must, to a great extent, have
been ineffectual; for as respects coining, the inducement
was such that no merchant would have taken his bullion to
the mint except by compulsion, as he wras not only subjected
to all the charges of coinage, but likewise had to pay the
king’s seignorage—his gold or silver being returned to him
in coined money, less these onerous exactions. The profit
must, therefore, have been uncertain ; but, probably from
finding no ready market for his precious ware, and the laws
being stringent against exportation of coin and bullion, he
had no alternative but to take it to the mint. As the popu¬
lation and wealth of the country increased, there appears to
have been difficulty in supplying the country with money,
and hence the crown from time to time was induced to re¬
mit or diminish both the seignorage and the mint charge.
In the reign of James I., the lead mines of Wales were
discovered by Sir Hugh Middleton, and the silver from that
source was coined into money.
With regard to gold, of which probably very little existed
in England in former times, it is said that none was coined
until the reign of Edward III., when the first entry of its
being brought for coinage remains on record. But we may
more strictly date the coinage of that metal from the reign
of Henry III. As we previously observed, the gold of that
period was coined at 24 carats fine, or pure gold, and so
continued at that standard till the eighteenth year of Edward
III., when it fell to 23 carats grs., and carat grain of
alloy; caused, no doubt, by the extreme difficulty, if not
impossibility, of obtaining gold, by refining or otherwise,
of a quality so superior ; for it may be inferred that what-
evei may have been the process of refining pursued in those
times, by fire or by water, there existed some method of
purifying gold as well as Silver, though no authentic know¬
ledge of it has descended to us.
The high standard referred to, not exceeded by any other
coins known, continued to prevail till the reign of Henry
VIII., who, to augment his revenue, corrupted the whole
currency, and reduced some of his gold coin as low as 20
carats fine. He likewise coined crowns of gold of the stand¬
ard of 22 carats fine, which subsequently took the name
of crown gold, and which, in the reign of Charles II., was
made by law the sole standard of gold in England, and
so continues to this day. We find that money of both
78
COINAGE.
Coinage, qualities circulated in England till the reign of the latter
monarch.
The difficulty referred to in supplying the mint with bul¬
lion now no longer exists, while the various expedients
adopted to induce it to come to the mint are no longer
necessary. When silver coin is required by the public the
master of the mint orders a supply of bullion, in bars or
foreign coin, to be purchased in the market, which he pays
for by a draft on the Bank of England. When gold coin
is called for, the bank, on the contrary, sends bullion to the
mint for coinage, and supplies the public exigencies ; for it
may be remarked that since the merchant was enabled by
law to receive at the bank the fixed rate of L.3, 17s. 9d.
an ounce standard for his bullion, the temptation to employ
the mint ceased; because, as the mint price for gold is
L.3, 17s. lO^d. an ounce, the difference was found scarcely
sufficient to cover the loss of interest on capital.
In modern times the market value of gold and silver has
remained almost stationary for some years, and consequently
the relative proportion of one metal to the other has scarcely
varied. This fact proves that the supply and demand have
been uniform ; but now we have some evidence of disturb¬
ing causes, in the recent marvellous discoveries of gold in
California and Australia, which may eventually destroy the
equilibrium ; and as the discovery of America and its trea¬
sures of silver gradually altered the relative proportions of
the precious metals, so may recent discoveries in course of
time effect a similar change. Remarkable, indeed, would
it be, if the causes referred to were eventually to reduce
the proportion of 15 to 1, the average of modern times, to
9 to 1, the proportion calculated by good authorities to
have existed in the reign of Henry I. The following table
shows the approximate relative value from the reign of that
monarch to that of Victoria; and it may be deduced from
it, that the rise in the value of gold from the accession of
James I. to Charles II.was equal to 32 percent.; and from
Charles II. to George III.—a period of 135 years—no less
than 39-ff per cent.:—
Materials
of money.
Relative proportion of Silver to Gold, from the reign
Henry I. to the reign of Victoria.
REIGN",
Henry I 
Henry Ifl 
Edward III 
Henry VI 
Edward IV 
Henry VIII 
34th Do 
36th Do 
37th Do 
3d Edward VI......
4th Do.  
5th Do.  
6th Do.   
Elizabeth  
43d Do  
James I  
Charles II. 
William and Mary.
George I 
56th George III 
Victoria.. 
Proportion of
Silver to Gold.
9
10
12
10
11 sVo
lOylr
6t9t
5
5 Ar
to
2m
HHj
llftf
11
10
12
14331
15
15
15
Standard of
Gold.
24 carats.
23 3^
22
23
22
Among the Anglo-Saxons silver and brass formed the
material of money coined by them, though foreign gold cir¬
culated to a limited extent; but, says Ending, “ the use of
the latter appears to have been rejected by the AnHo-Nor-
man monarchs, and silver became the sole materiaf of coin¬
age for a long extended period, until the more precious
metal, gold, was introduced into the mint by Henry III.”
The penny was consequently the lowest coin until the reign Coinage,
of Edward I.; and afterwards farthings were coined in silver, -
and so continued as long as the increased value of silver
allowed, but at length their size of necessity so much di¬
minished, that the making of them ceased in the reign of
Edward VI, Gold and silver, therefore, formed the only
coins during several centuries, to the great inconvenience of
the people, who required for their ordinary purchases money
of a lower denomination ; and it has been conjectured that
some kind of metallic tokens circulated, as a substitute ; for
it is not possible a nation could carry on the daily transac¬
tions of life without some medium of exchange proportion¬
ate to the low value of all the necessaries of life.
We find that James I., to remedy this evil, caused
tokens of brass and copper to be struck as a substitute for
the farthing, but at a value so much inferior to the rate at
which they were issued, that they rapidly sunk into con¬
tempt.
Charles II., 1665—1672, amongst other great improve¬
ments, has the merit awarded to him of introducing a new
coinage of copper, which was issued under certain limita¬
tions. In the year 1684 it appears some coins were also
fabricated of tin ; and James II. coined others of gun-metal
and pewter.
After the changes effected in the mint in the reign of Recoinage
Charles II. by the adoption of improved mechanical con-of silver,
trivances,—which caused a revolution in the various processes
of coinage, and a change in the duties of the moneyers and
others engaged in the mint, as well as a great reduction in
the rate per pound paid to the master of the mint, and to
the moneyers, by reason of the rapidity and economy result¬
ing from the new machinery,—we have no great event to re¬
cord till the reign of William III., when a great recoinage
of silver took place, and when some important laws were
enacted for the improvement and regulation of the currency.
Notwithstanding the recoinage of the money of the Com¬
monwealth under Charles II., and the act for the encourage¬
ment of coinage, the silver money at that period appears to
have been greatly depreciated; partly by base money circu¬
lating with the silver, but chiefly by a great loss of weight
caused by the dishonest practice of clipping and defacing
the coin of the realm. The extent of the evil may be es¬
timated by the fact, that no less a sum than L.7,000,000
sterling was coined in silver, the expenses of which were
defrayed out of certain duties levied for that purpose. This
undertaking being beyond the capacity of the mint in Lon¬
don, other establishments were instituted or revived, so that
the coinage should keep pace with the money brought in to
be exchanged. “ The king,” says Hume, “ordered mints
to be erected in York, Bristol, Exeter, and Chester, for the
purpose of the recoinage, which was executed with unex¬
pected success; so that in less than a year, the currency of
England, which had been the worst, became the best coin
in Europe.”
The state of the coin had previously become a national
grievance, so intolerable, that it could not escape the atten¬
tion of parliament; and accordingly a committee of the com¬
mons’ house was appointed to deliberate on the state of the
nation with respect to the currency. A recoinage was stre¬
nuously recommended by Mr Montague, who acted on this
occasion by the advice of Sir Isaac Newton ; but vehement
opposition was made to that proposal by a large section of
the house and of the people. “ Another question arose,”
says Hume, “ whether the new coin in its different denomi¬
nations should retain the original weight and purity of the
old, or the established standard be raised in value. The
famous Locke engaged in this dispute, against Mr Lowndes,
who proposed that the standard should be raised. The argu¬
ments of Mr Locke were so convincing, that the committee
resolved the established standard should be preserved with
respect to weight and fineness. They likewise resolved,
COINAGE. 79
Coinage, that the loss accruing to the revenue from clipped money
should be borne by the public.” To meet this, a tax on
glass windows was subsequently raised to the amount of
L.1,200,000.
In order to facilitate and hasten the exchange of coin, a
reward of 5 per cent, was offered to all who should bring in
either milled or broad undipped money, to be applied in
exchange of the clipped money throughout the kingdom.
A reward of 3d an ounce was also offered to all persons
wrho should bring wrought plate to the mint to be coined.
A bill was likewise brought in for taking off the obliga¬
tion and encouragement for coining guineas for a certain
period. “ Upon which,” says Hume, “ the commons pro¬
ceeded to lower the value of this coin; a task in which
they met with great opposition from some members, who
alleged that it would foment the popular disturbances. At
length, however, the majority agreed that a guinea should
be lowered from 30s. to 28s., and afterwards to 26s. Eventu¬
ally a clause was inserted in the bill for encouraging people
to bring plate to the mint, settling the price of a guinea
at 22s.; and it naturally sunk to its original value of 20s.
6d.”
In the great controversy on the restoration of the currency
at that time, Mr Lowndes, who differed from Mr Locke,
wished to execute the coinage at a rate per ounce conform¬
able to the market price of silver, so that the new currency,
we apprehend, should form the standard of value; over¬
looking the fact, that the market price exceeding the mint
price arose from the deficiency in the weight of those coins
by which silver was bought and sold. “ Mr Locke,” says a
writer on the subject, “ with that acuteness for which he
was so justly esteemed, contended that if 5s. 2d. of the coin
weighed an ounce, that would necessarily be the market
price of silver; and that its high price arose from 6s. 4d. of
the then currency containing no more than an ounce of
standard silver. Consequently, if the coinage were executed
at a higher rate than the standard of the 46th of Elizabeth,
or 5s. 2d. an ounce, it would be done at the expense of that
justice and integrity between the government and the peo¬
ple which no government would sanction that regarded the
rights of personal property. Mr Locke’s arguments were
so decidedly just, and so convincing, that the government
carried the whole nation with them in the measure, though
it was heavily felt, owing to the exhausted state of the coun¬
try, after the long and expensive war it had been involved
in.”
Despite Locke’s arguments, and the policy founded upon
them, soon after the great coinage was completed the market
price exceeded the mint price of silver ; the consequence of
which was the rapid disappearance of the new coins, which
found their way to the melting-pot, and were sold in bars in
the market. Hence before the year 1717 the greater por¬
tion of the recoinage had disappeared from circulation, to the
detriment of the realm.
Sir Isaac Newton, in September 1717, delivered in his
report on the subject to the Lords of the Treasury, in which
he gives it as his opinion that gold was considerably over¬
rated in the mint with respect to silver; and in consequence
of this report, the guinea was by proclamation declared cur¬
rent at 21s. This reduction helped the relative proportion
of gold to silver to approximate nearer to those of the mar¬
ket prices ; and as the avowed intention of Newton’s report
was to give that rise in value to the silver coin which would
protect it from being melted down, it appears to have an¬
swered its purpose, but only in degree. For “ though the
recommendation in Sir Isaac Newton’s report,” says the
above authority, “ was carried into effect by making the
guinea current at 21s., yet it did not restore silver to its func¬
tion as the standard of our money, and this because the
current value was not made lower. Sir Isaac Newton
seemed aware of this himself, and recommended that lOd. or
12d. should be taken from the guinea, instead of6d. This, Coinage,
however, was not done ; and as the rate of 21 s. to the guinea,
the proportion of standard gold to silver at the mint, was as
15’07 to 1, the proportion of the market (as we find by the
prices of gold and silver) was about 14*50 to 1—which con¬
stitutes a difference of about 3 per cent., gold being still thus
much rated above its value to silver; and consequently not
only was no silver coined, but the good and heavy coins
were still melted for the higher price they brought in the
state of bullion.”
No other legislative measure having been taken than the
one referred to, and the market proportion of gold to silver
having seldom afforded any encouragement to the public to
coin silver, we can have no difficulty in assigning a satisfac¬
tory reason for the degraded state of our silver currency
during the last century, and up to 1815.
In the year 1774, and onwards, there was a general re-Recoinage
coinage of the gold currency, which forms another promi- of gold,
nent feature in the history of the mint. The professed ob- 1774.
ject of this undertaking was the reformation of the currency,
by withdrawing the light and defective coins then in circu¬
lation ; but the real motive was to prevent, if possible, the
new and heavy coins issued from the mint being melted
down and sold as bullion. For, by reference to the prices
paid by the Bank of England for gold, it appears that 80s.
an ounce was the market value, while, at the same time, L.4
of the gold coin then circulating would not weigh more than
one ounce. The holders of bank-notes demanded in pay¬
ment new and heavy coins, which were immediately turned
into bullion, and sold at the rate of 80s. an ounce ; and this
being done on an extensive scale, the bank was compelled to
have annually a large coinage of gold to meet the demand.
To remedy this inconvenience, the recoinage was under¬
taken and completed, and it had the effect anticipated ; for
the price of gold since that period has rarely ever exceeded,
but has generally been under the mint price. In truth, as
the price at which the bank purchases gold is fixed by act
of parliament, and as the bank is compelled to buy all gold
tendered to it at the price of 77s. 9d. an ounce standard,
some naturally enough question the fact that we have any
market price for gold bullion in England. There cannot
be a doubt, however, but for that law the price of gold would
have fluctuated as other things, according to the supply and
demand; and it cannot but be deemed a great benefit to
commercial interests to have, by means so simple, a ready
and constant market for their bullion, at a price regular and
certain.
Political economists disagree as to the cause of the high
price of gold previously to the recoinage referred to. That
eminent authority, Adam Smith, offers the following solu¬
tion :—“ By issuing too great a quantity of paper, of which
the excess was continually returning, in order to be ex¬
changed for gold and silver, the Bank of England was for
many years together obliged to coin gold to the extent of
between eight hundred thousand and a million a-year, or at.
an average about eight hundred and fifty thousand pounds.
For this great coinage, the bank, in consequence of the worn
and degraded state into which the gold coin had fallen a
few years ago, was obliged frequently to purchase bullion
at the high price of L.4 an ounce, which it soon after issued
in coin at L.3, 17s. 10gd. an ounce, losing in this manner
between 2^- and 3 per cent, upon the coinage of so very
large a sum. Though the bank, therefore, paid no seignor¬
age, though the government was properly at the expense
of the coinage, this liberality of government did not pre¬
vent altogether the expense of the bank.” Upon this pas¬
sage Ricardo justly remarks, “ On the principle above stated
it appears most clear, that by not re-issuing the paper thus
brought in, the value of the whole currency, of the de¬
graded as well as the new gold coin, would have been raised,
when all demands on the bank would have ceased,” or in
80
COINAGE.
Coinage, other words, the price of gold would have fallen to its mint
k'—price.
During the period of these important transactions the con¬
stitution of the mint remained unaltered. The various mints
throughout the country appear to have fallen into disuse in
the reign of Elizabeth, but some of them were revived and
reorganized by William III. in order speedily to accomplish
the great recoinage of silver during his reign. Subse¬
quently to that period the provincial mints were abolished
or consolidated with that in the Tower of London.
In the year 1670, the crown, while it continued his
salary to the master of the mint, restored to him further the
contract for melting. On the other hand, an agreement was
entered into between the master and company of money-
ers, according to ancient custom, by which a rate per pound,
graduated to each denomination of money coined, was al¬
lowed to the latter.
In 1702 the public appear to have assumed the expense
of melting the bullion into bars in order to bring the metal
to standard, provided it was near to the standard when im¬
ported into the mint; whereas previously, it is thought, this
preliminary expense was borne by the individual merchant
or importer.
In 1799 the government withdrew altogether from the
master of the mint the lucrative contract lor melting, and
wisely vested it in a subordinate and responsible officer, who,
assuming all risk and waste, on consideration of certain pro
rata allowances, relieved the crown, the master, and the
public, from all responsibility whatsoever ; an arrangement
obviously founded on the dictates of experience, as it is also
consonant with the principles of common sense.
In the course of this century, the master, who had pre¬
viously been a permanent officer supervising the coinage,
and possessing therefore a practical knowledge of the busi¬
ness, gradually became a ministerial officer, and quitted office
on any change of government. The duties of the office
were in this manner circumscribed, and more nominal than
real; the de facto government of the mint devolving on a
deputy whose office was permanent.
On the 7th February 1798, his majesty Geo. III., by
an order in council, appointed a committee of his privy-
council “to take into consideration the state of the coins
of this kingdom, and the present establishment and con¬
stitution of his Majesty’s mintand the result of their
inquiries and deliberation was to advise the erection of a
new mint, with improved machinery. This was carried into
effect in or about the year 1810.
The old mint, which had existed in the Tower for centu¬
ries, was removed to a more spacious building on Tower
Hill; and the celebrated engineers, Messrs Boulton and
Watt, of Soho, furnished it with engines and machinery of
a character superior to anything known at that time in con¬
nection with the fabrication of money. The steam-engine
was substituted for horse-power, and most of the operations
carried on slowly by manual labour were with greater speed
and perfection effected by the agency of those ingenious
contrivances, nice adaptations, and superior power, called
forth by mechanical skill and invention.
Almost simultaneous with the erection of a new and more
powerful mint, a new constitution and indenture were given
to it in 1815, founded on a report drawn up and presented
to the committee of the privy-council by Mr W. Wellesley
Pole (afterwards Lord Maryborough), who had been ap¬
pointed master of the mint in the preceding year. These
changes were rendered in some degree necessary by the cir¬
cumstances of the case: by the enlarged establishment; the
increased duties of the officers; and the necessity of a recoin¬
age of the silver currency, as well as the introduction of new
denominations of gold coin. The new organization of the
mint consisted principally of an adaptation and enlargement
of the old constitution, which, like that of the state, had
grown up by degrees, and expanded with the wants of the
public ; and like the constitution of the state, it exhibited,
on minute examination, some anomalies and contradictions
incidental to its origin. To the same cause may be attri¬
buted its apparent want of simplicity, and clear definition
of duties ; but as it was found by experience adequate to
encounter the greatest undertakings, and fully supply the
public demands—in times, too, of great difficulty and danger
—we may justly infer that if it were found wanting in latter
times, the fault should rather be attributed to the manage¬
ment than to the constitution.
During the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, we have
it on record that a mint-board was constituted with legisla¬
tive and executive functions, composed of the three heads
of offices, the warden, the master, and comptroller. This
governing body was enlarged by Lord Maryborough, and
consisted of the master ex officio, his deputy virtually the
president, the comptroller, the king’s assay-master, the su¬
perintendent of machinery and clerk of the irons, and, finally,
the king’s clerk and clerk of the papers, who acted as secre¬
tary to the board.
In the operative departments, new agreements or con¬
tracts were entered into between the master on the one
part, and the moneyers, and the melter and refiner, on the
other; the latter office being judiciously separated from that
of the deputy-master and his duties, w ith which it had been
previously conjoined. These agreements, besides specify¬
ing the performance of duties and other obligations, secured
certain fixed rates of payment to the moneyers and melter,
for each denomination of coin delivered into the office of
receipt, and in which rates were comprehended the repairs
of machinery, the supply of labour and materials, as well as
the waste or loss accruing in the various processes of coin¬
ing and melting. And for the safety of the crown and master
of the mint, large securities were required from the persons
holding those responsible offices.
The fundamental principles had in view by Lord Mary¬
borough, in thus remodelling the constitution and manage¬
ment of the mint in 1815, were a system of checks so
perfect and complete, as to render fraud impossible ; an
arrangement with the moneyers and melter, which fully
secured the public against all risk; responsibility in each
distinct office; and greater efficiency and despatch as regards
the coinage. These important changes having been satis¬
factorily accomplished, the great recoinage of silver com¬
menced in 1816. An act was passed to call in the debased
coin then in circulation; and it was enacted that the full
nominal value in new money should be exchanged for the old
silver brought to the mint, and the treasury was authorized to
appoint receivers at various places throughout the kingdom.
The act of Charles II. as to coining silver brought to the
mint without charge—the 7th and 8th of Will. III., re¬
lative to the weight and fineness of silver coin, under the
mint indenture—and so much of the 14th of Geo. III., cap.
42, as requires 62 shillings to be made out of the pound
troy of silver—were repealed; and it was enacted, that the
pound troy of standard silver should henceforth be coined
into 66 shillings, of which 62 shillings shall be delivered to
the importer, and 4 shillings retained for assaying, loss, and
charges of coinage; the surplus, if any, to be carried to the
consolidated fund. The act, making silver a tender to L.25,
and afterwards by weight, was also repealed, and the ten¬
der of this depreciated currency was limited to 40s.
The effect of these acts was, first, to withdraw any in¬
ducement to the public to coin silver; and secondly, to cir¬
cumscribe the circulation of the currency in silver to the
country, where it became a mere token exchangeable for a
limited amount of gold. Formerly, gold and silver respec¬
tively were legal tenders to any amount; but by the 56th
of Geo. III., cap. 68, gold coin is declared to be hereafter
the only legal tender; and so it continues.
Coinage.
COINAGE.
Coinage. jn the year 1817 the first sovereigns were struck at the
new mint, and in process of time entirely superseded the
old guinea coinage. The mint price of gold being L.3, 17s.
10£d. an ounce, sovereigns v/ere coined at the rate of L.46,
14s. 6d. to the pound troy.
Concurrently with the erection of the new mint, and the
powerful machinery which enabled the government to pro¬
secute with rapidity and success large coinages of both silver
and gold, a refinery was established, as a necessary appen¬
dage to supply the mint with both metals in a fine state, to
counterbalance the baseness of the gold and silver then
brought to the mint, so as to bring them up to standard
purity. This branch of business proved to be a great un¬
dertaking of itself, and for some years was extensively car¬
ried on at great cost to the public. Coarse silver was re¬
fined on the test by means of lead, and gold by the agency
of nitric acid. But circumstances of a peculiar character
were secretly operating to destroy the necessity for re¬
fining, for the special purpose referred to; because these
tended to diminish the amount of coarse metal in the mar¬
ket, or rather to supply steadily large amounts of fine gold
and silver.
In France a new and far cheaper process had been dis¬
covered and carried on clandestinely for many years, for
refining both gold and silver by means of sulphuric acid, in
large vessels of platinum ; and a lucrative return for capital
was found in simply extracting small portions of gold from
silver, and silver from gold, which would not have yielded
any profit under the old and expensive system. In conse¬
quence of this our sovereigns, alloyed partly with silver,
were conveyed to Paris and refined for the sake of the silver
they contained, while all silver supposed to hold gold in com¬
bination was bought up in the English market. To coun¬
teract in degree the exportation of gold coin, a refinery on
the French system was established in the royal mint in 1829,
as an experiment, in the first instance, at the sole expense
of Mr G. F. Mathison, then melter and refiner; but sub¬
sequently he was indemnified for his outlay* and the
refinery was adopted by the government under certain
conditions. Mr Mathison was induced to undertake this
meritorious work by the urgent persuasion of Mr Herries,
the then master of the mint, who properly conceived that
no public establishment in this country should, on mere
economical grounds, be so incomplete as to be unable to
meet all requirements of a public nature, or lag behind in
the general progress of science and art. By such under¬
takings, when liberally supported, enterprise is encouraged,
skill called forth, and science promoted. But the govern¬
ment, influenced by an injudicious economy, which tends
to destroy all public spirit, have judged differently; and the
refinery, along with the engraving department in the mint,
has been abolished as a public establishment.
In the year 1837, a committee of the House of Commons
was appointed, at the instance of Mr Joseph Hume, to in¬
quire into the management and expenses of the mint, with
the view of reforming the alleged abuses and corruption of
that establishment; but although very voluminous evidence
was taken, no report was presented, in consequence of the
abrupt termination of the session of parliament. The de¬
sire of reform was then most urgent; the abuses of the_
mint so great as to demand instant remedy; the .expenses
so extravagant as to require immediate attention;—yet so
fitful was this zeal for reform, that ten long years were al¬
lowed quietly to elapse before the inquiry was resumed.
.nTht2*5 1842 commenced a large recoinage of light gold coin,
'old^coin fully employed the machinery of the mint for a con¬
siderable period of time. This expensive undertaking was
forced upon the government in consequence of the com¬
plaints and representations of the public, a great part of the
gold currency having by wear fallen below its legal current
weight. As the standard of value, and medium of exchange,
VOL. VII.
the defective character of the gold coin influenced the Coinage,
foreign exchanges to the extent of its depreciation, and to -v—^
the prejudice, therefore, of the foreign merchant. More¬
over, the law making coin under the current weight no
longer a legal tender, the embarrassment of the public would
have been great if a speedy remedy had not been applied
to meet the evil. The law of the case, therefore, was pro¬
claimed and put in force; but the government on this oc¬
casion, instead of throwing the onus or loss on the individual
holders of the light and defective coin, undertook to receive
it from the Bank of England within a definite period, and
recoin it at the public expense, returning new sovereigns
weight for weight. The amount so withdrawn from circu¬
lation exceeded L. 11,000,000; and the treasury not only
bore the ordinary charges of coinage on this large amount,
but the loss of weight, the waste in melting, the deprecia¬
tion of standard, and the cost of assays. Notwithstanding
this extensive purification of the currency, the evil was
found to be only mitigated, not remedied ; and the bank w'as
authorized for the future to receive all light gold coin ten¬
dered at a fixed price per ounce (instead of sending it to
the mint), which being thus withdrawn from circulation, is
periodically melted down into bars, and treated simply as
bullion. This pi-ocess going on from time to time, if strictly
adhered to, must eventually purify the currency, maintain
the standard value of our coin, and therefore efface the re¬
proach affixed to it here and abroad. The renovation of
the silver currency is also proceeding, though by slow de¬
grees ; but, as its circulation is limited to the country, and
the tender fixed by law to 40s., the evil arising from its de¬
preciation is of secondary importance.
We have now arrived at a period in the history of the New con-
mint and of the coinage of considerable importance to the stitution of
country, which comprehends a fundamental change in thethe raint-
constitution of the mint, and a new organization of its ma¬
nagement. The thirst for change, which distinguishes this
era, and marks all public measures, is not appeased by a
simple reform ; a revolution, radical and complete, can alone
satisfy this restless, if not dangerous, desire. It is easy to
destroy what is ancient, reared by the wisdom and sagacity
of our forefathers; but it needs wise men to construct and
build up again. In the zeal for change, conformable to
what are called progressive ideas, and the haste and imper¬
fection incidental to modern legislation, we lose sight of
those precautions and prudential checks deemed by our an¬
cestors. necessary to such an establishment as a mint. What
fate was to the ancients, economy is to the moderns; it
overrules all by an iron despotism, and subjects every prin¬
ciple to its sway. Before it the appeal of reason is unheard,
the dictates of judgment disregarded, and the teaching, of
experience despised. But it is not a wise economy that is
aimed at, or sought for, that implies security, efficiency,
and just principles; but cheapness, which is so little con¬
sistent with true economy, that eventually it proves to be
its greatest enemy. The so-called principle of economy, now
predominant in public measures, before which everything
good, sound, and stable is made to yield, will sometimes
overreach itself; and experience may teach us that if a sav¬
ing be made in one direction, a loss tenfold greater will ac¬
crue in another. It may be predicted safely, that with re-
gard. to the new management of the mint, those principles
will hereafter be found peculiarly applicable.
On the 15th February 1848, a commission was appointed
by the Queen to inquire into the constitution and manage¬
ment of the mint; and, after collecting farther evidence of
an unimportant character, the royal commissioners pre¬
sented their report to parliament in the session of 1849.
Appended to the report, they published several papers
or disquisitions on mints and mint affairs of unequal merit:
an admirable analysis of the constitution of the mint, by Sir
Edward Pine Coffin ; a treatise by Colonel Forbes,, of the
L
82 COIN
Coinage. Calcutta mint, more commendable for its theory than its
'' practical utility; and a very long, elaborate, and antiqua¬
rian paper by the secretary, the principal object and pur¬
pose of which was to disprove the claim of the company of
moneyers to the title and distinction of a corporation. The
report itself, brief, clear, and explicit, proposes a thorough
reform of the mint in all its branches; recommends a revi¬
sion of the constitution of the mint and government, and
at the same time a termination to the system of contracts,
or more properly agreements, under which the operative
departments of coining and melting had been carried on
safely and efficiently for centuries. The only substantial
charge brought against these departments was the great
profits which had from time to time been derived from the
coinage ; but instead of diminishing the rates of charge, it
was deemed expedient to place these departments on an
entirely different footing.
The leading principles being laid down in the report of
the commissioners, it was left to the treasury to devise the
best means of giving them effect; and as a preliminary step
the deputy-master, Sir James Morrison, who had served the
public above half a century, was superseded by Captain
Harness, of the engineers, on whose opinions and recom¬
mendations it is supposed the reform of the mint was finally
accomplished. The responsibility, however, of the changes
devolved on Sir John Herschel, who was subsequently ap¬
pointed to fill the office of first permanent master of the
mint, on the retirement of Mr Shiel, president of the com¬
mission.
An order in council, dated the 7th March 1851, em¬
powered the master of the mint, subject to the approval of
the lords of the treasury, to alter the constitution and esta¬
blishment of the mint.
One of the first acts consequent on this was the dissolu¬
tion of the board, as constructed by Lord Maryborough
in 1815 ; which seems to have exercised its functions with¬
out much influence or authority, and in a manner neither
to inspire sentiments of dignity nor respect; and. to the
weakness and irresolution of its government may be attri¬
buted many of those abuses and anomalies which had by
degrees grown up in the establishment.
Under the above order in council, power was taken to
give legal notice, according to their agreements, for the
termination of the contracts of the company of moneyers
and the melter and refiner; and ultimately these officers
vacated their offices, having compensation granted to them
by the treasury for the loss of their privileges and emolu¬
ments ; but it appears to us not in a manner to meet the
justice of the case, as regards the company of moneyers,
who had claims superior to all others.
Their claim to be considered a body corporate, if illusory
or erroneous, did not necessarily invalidate the vested
right which they had in their offices from time immemorial;
and even assuming that an order in council had authority
to dissolve the company in the summary way in which it
was effected (which may be doubted), it appears somewhat
unreasonable to regulate the retiring allowances of such
functionaries by the law applicable to the superannuation of
government clerks, &c.
As we have said, the main charge made against the
moneyers and melter was the largeness of their emolu¬
ments ; but no attempt was made to reduce them, and the
fault therefore, if any, must rest with the government.
No man or body of men are expected voluntarily to pro¬
pose a reduction of emolument. And, moreover, as eco¬
nomy was supposed to be the ruling principle in the reform,
it is a grave question whether the public interests would
not have been better served by retaining the services of
these officers for life, who had the advantage of long-tried
experience, especially as by prematurely placing them on
the pension list to the annual amount of L.8000, they have
A G E.
involuntarily become, as all pensioners must be, burdens to Coinage,
their country. v'—
The office of the Queen’s assay master, one of the most
ancient and most important in the mint, was also abolished,
along with that of the master’s assay master. The Queen’s
clerk and clerk of the papers (formerly a board officer),
and the weigher and teller, were converted into senior
clerks.
Previously to Mr Shiel’s retirement from office he was
required by tbe treasury to report as to what measures he
would recommend to carry out the reform of the mint; and
in this document it appears he differed in opinion from the
rest of the commissioners with regard to the abolition of all
contracts in carrying on the practical operations of coining ;
and suggested that while the melter should be a salaried
officer, the coining department might advantageously be
farmed out, under certain conditions, to a respectable con¬
tractor, who would be required to give sureties to the
amount of L.30,000. One of those conditions was that the
government should supply the steam power, and the con¬
tractor labour, materials, &c., taking upon himself all risk
and responsibility, and paying over to the government the
waste of metal accruing in the various operations ; and as
an indemnity for this risk, loss and expenses of manufac¬
ture, it was stipulated that certain rates should be allowed on
each denomination of money coined.
It was likewise suggested in the report, that a contract
might advantageously be made with persons out of the mint
for the supply of standard silver bars fit for coinage; and
that the scissell, broken coin, and cuttings, arising from the
manufacture, should be sold or exchanged.
With regard to the assay department, which in every
other mint is deemed a necessary appendage, it is said, “ It
would be a better arrangement if several competent per¬
sons were appointed to act as assayers to tbe mint, on a
fixed scale of fees, the master of the mint being empowered
to call upon any of them to make, within separate labora¬
tories, such independent assays as he may require, and the
original reports of those assays being preserved as public
records.” These assayers, without any recognised official
connection with the mint otherwise than their employment
in that capacity, and, therefore, without any responsibility
whatever beyond their characters as chemists, are in this
manner intrusted with those important functions formerly
discharged by the Queen’s assay master ; and consequently
the standard of the coin of the realm is in a great measure,
if not altogether, made to depend on their fidelity.
The report referred to cannot but be deemed somewhat
visionary and inconsistent with all ideas of a well-managed
and efficient establishment; nevertheless it received the
acquiescence of Sir John Herschel, and the approval of the
lords of the treasury. Its principal feature is obviously one
antagonistic to the very idea of perfection, and the reverse
of the practice prevalent in other well-regulated mints,—
namely, the dependence of the mint on operations performed
external to it. Formerly, the principle advocated by Lord
Maryborough, and acted upon, was, that the mint should be
capable of carrying on all the functions necessary to it: now,
according to this report, it is made to rely on the skill and
ingenuity of persons employed elsewhere. Economy, or ra¬
ther saving of money, seems to have been the actuating mo¬
tive in these preliminary arrangements ; but time alone
can prove whether the results of such policy are consistent
with true economical principles, as well as with practical
efficiency.
The project of a conditional contract for the coinage, as
might have been anticipated, proved a failure ; not because
enterprising individuals were wanting to undertake such a
business, but because the rates were fixed at a price so in¬
adequate to the duties and responsibilities, that ruin to the
contractor was a contingency far from improbable. In the
COINAGE.
83
Coinage, report of Sir John Herschel, made to the treasury, it is said,
“ Before the contract with the moneyers had ceased, a sche¬
dule for a contract for three years for the execution of the
principal part of the work performed by them, was pre¬
pared, and advertisements issued to invite competition.”
But though offers were made by respectable firms, the rates
exceeded those fixed by the government, except in one in¬
stance ; and the tenders were consequently rejected, the
latter firm being unable to provide the necessary security.
The other proposed contract for the supply of silver bars
was abandoned, ab initio, probably because, on mature re¬
flection, it was found impracticable, if not extremely hazar¬
dous.
Viewing these measures in a practical light, we have no
doubt whatever that the operations of melting and coining
should be carried on by contract, as safer, more efficient, and
economical; and the arguments employed by Mr Shiel in
favour of such a system as regards the coining are equally
applicable to the operation of melting. The chief thing to
be guarded against in the working of a mint, is not so much
the general expenses, such as labour, materials, and salaries,
as the loss of the precious metals i for whatever saving be
made by cutting down salaries and wages, even to the point
of injustice, this will eventually be swallowed up by the
waste of gold and silver in the fabrication of the coin.
Salaried officers, unlike contractors, have no personal inte¬
rest in the conduct of the business, and when inadequately
remunerated at the same time, it would be folly and weak¬
ness to look for that vigilance and carefulness prompted by
the dictates of self-interest; and without such checks pa¬
tiently and constantly applied, we may reasonably infer that
the waste of the precious metals will increase from year to
year. If in such matters as coining and other collateral ope¬
rations, we act agreeably to common sense, we should apply
to them precisely the same principles as we apply to manu¬
factories. The sense of duty in public officers is no doubt
an element in the calculation ; as also a conscientious regard
for the public purse ; but as these are not wholly or im¬
plicitly relied on in private matters, neither should they be
in public. To the waste of gold and silver may also be
added the increase of all other expenses; for it is contrary to
all experience to suppose that government, by means of sub¬
ordinate agents, can carry on a business like that of coining
money with the economy of contractors, whose profits de¬
pend on studious attention to this principle.
These principles, however simple and obvious, have been
disregarded in the reform of the mint; and we have reason
to believe that already the consequences are apparent, how¬
ever disguised from public inspection.
The system of contract best adapted to a mint appears to
be that which combines the public officer and contractor,
and which therefore differs in some respects from the sys¬
tem pursued in the French and United States mints. In
the former, one man contracts for the whole coinage, at a
specified rate, and not only pays those under him, but sup¬
plies, out of his owm capital, bullion for coinage. In the
latter, the coiners and melters are remunerated by fixed
salaries, and allowances are made for the waste of the pre¬
cious metals, not exceeding a fixed rate.
As an improvement upon these plans, we propose that
officers engaged in the operative departments should be
paid moderate salaries ; that the government should supply
the steam-power, machinery, and everything in the nature
of plant, and keep the same in repair ; and that a rate should
be allowed, determined by experience and actual results, to
the head of each department, out of which he should defray
the cost of labour, materials, &c., and make good all waste
arising from manufacture and other sources. By this simple
process the crown, or master of the mint, would be relieved
from all risk and responsibility. Officers acting under au¬
thority, and guarded by proper checks in the performance
of their duties, are as likely to give general satisfaction, and
may be as much confided in, as those employed on fixed
salaries, while they would have every incitement to keep
the waste and expenses within the limit allowed by govern¬
ment.
This practical suggestion is founded on the impression
that waste of gold and silver is not only a very important
element in the expenses of a mint, but that it is.an indefi¬
nite expense, varying according to circumstances, yet com¬
ing on the average within certain limits. But the same
circumstances which make it vary so as to baffle nice cal¬
culations, and render control over it helpless, may, and do
actually, make it gradually increase ; such, for example, as
ignorance, carelessness, and want of vigilance. For the
question is not about large amounts, obvious and tangible,
arising from robbery and such like causes, which may be
traced—but to minute portions, which, however apparently
small and insignificant in ordinary manufacture, swell like
arithmetical progression to great value on extensive coin¬
ages. For example, a loss of only 2 grains troy per pound
of gold, or °f the whole weight, over and above what
is certified to be the usual wyaste, will,, on the value of a
million, amount to about L.400.
The constitution of the mint being abolished on the 26th
July 1851, orders were issued for the new constitution and
establishment; .amongst which it is said, “ The peculiar dis¬
tinction recognised by the indentures of the mint between
the check and executive branches of the mint is abolished.
All persons employed in the mint are equally the servants
of the sovereign, and all will perform their duties under the
immediate orders of the master of the mint.” And it is
further added, that every person so employed is to consider
himself available for all its duties; an order quite inconsis¬
tent with the regulations prevailing in other public offices.
The moneyers having vacated their lucrative offices, and
the tenders of independent contractors being rejected, mea¬
sures were immediately taken to carry on the public service
in the coining department by the appointment of officers on
fixed salaries. Ultimately the office of clerk of the irons
and superintendent of machinery wTas consolidated with that
of the chief coiner, who has under him several assistants and
clerks.
The melter and refiner having likewise retired on a pen¬
sion, the same provision was made for the service in the
melting department by the appointment of an officer called
“ senior clerk and melter,” with assistants.
The offices of Queen’s assay master, and master’s assay
master, having been abolished, a new’ office was created
called the “resident assayer’s office,” the principal duty of
which is the assay of the bullion imported for coinage. At
the same time other parties carrying on the art of assaying
out of the mint were appointed “ assayers to the mint,” paid
by a fee on each assay, whose employment it is, in connec¬
tion with the mint, to try the assays of the gold and silver
bars melted for coinage, of the presumed standard, as w’ell as
the coin itself when fabricated.
The die department is an exception to the rule, for it
remains unrefbrmed—the only change made in it being the
amalgamation of the head with the coining department, the
duties being supervised by a subordinate.
Circumstances of a peculiar kind for sometime retarded the
change contemplated in the engraving department; but the
death of the chief engraver, suddenly and unexpectedly, pre¬
cipitated the reform. Love of art and modern economical
principles being at variance, the office of chief engraver was
abolished, and a new one created, called the “ resident en¬
graver,” whose duty is of a very circumscribed character. At
the same time, the former assistant engraver and medalist,
being dismissed from their offices, were appointed “non¬
resident engravers to the mint,” with fixed salaries, and
payments conditional on actual work executed.
Coinage.
84 COIN
Coinage. We shall now proceed to give a practical outline of the
V^v—^ various ingenious processes comprehended in the term coin¬
age of money. For as it is said ten men are required to
make a pin, so as many different operations are concerned
in the manufacture of a single coin; such as, for exampie,
weighing, assaying, melting, rolling, annealing, drawing,
cutting-out, milling, blanching, and coining or stamping.
Although any person has by law the right or privilege to
coin gold at the mint, the Bank of England is now the only
importer of gold bullion ; for, as by a recent act the bank is
compelled to purchase all gold tendered to it at the fixed
price of L3, 17s. 9d. an ounce standard, the merchant or
dealer has ceased to obtain any profit or advantage by taking
his bullion to the mint. As before remarked, the difference
between the mint and market price of gold, and any contin¬
gent profit obtained by the advanced value given to the im-
porter’s bullion by the assay, are neutralized by the loss of
interest on his capital; while the bank, on the other hand,
lessens the temptation to coin by making an immediate ad¬
vance on the bullion tendered for sale. The bank may,
therefore, be said to have the entire monopoly of the gold
coinage of Great Britain; and, as coiners, they have vir-
tually3become the sole issuers of gold coin, being enabled
thereby (as is asserted) to control and regulate more effec¬
tually the whole currency.
England, with regard to its coinage, differs from other
countries in this,—that while they throw the burden of the
coinage on the public, and charge a rate to defray the ex¬
pense, she (by an act of Charles II., subsequently confirmed
by one of George III.) pays the whole expense of the gold
coinage out of the public treasury, charging nothing for the
cost of manufacture. Consequently, gold bullion is coined
by the mint at the rate of L.3, 17s. 10^d. an ounce, or
lid. an ounce above the bank price ; and the importer has
returned to him in coin the exact equivalent of his bullion,
standard weight for standard, having credit given to him,
at the same time, for the enhanced value of his bullion com¬
puted by the mint assay,—^arising from the difference paid
to the merchant and the increased fineness allowed by
the mint.
With regard to the silver and copper coinages, these are
undertaken by the crown as its peculiar prerogatives ; be¬
cause, as a considerable seignorage is charged on both, it is
manifest the public cannot be permitted to participate in this
profit or advantage. Silver is coined at the rate of 5s. 6d.
an ounce, or 66s. per pound troy, which would be a seignor¬
age of precisely 10 per cent, when the market price of bul¬
lion is 5s. an ounce. Copper is coined at the rate of L.224
a ton weight—more than 100 per cent, profit on the average
price of copper. These coins, therefore, must be esteemed
in the light of tokens rather than money ; and by reason of
their depreciation they are restricted in circulation neces¬
sarily to the country in which they are made, and are by
law a legal tender only to a limited amount.
As the crown, or the government as representative of the
crown, can alone coin silver and receive the seignorage, the
bullion from which it is coined is purchased in the ordinary
way in the market, and paid for out of the public treasury;
and the crown becomes liable for the expense of recoining
the silver currency when worn out by wear and tear. Hence,
when the bank “ garbles ” the silver coin, as it is technically
called, and sends it to the mint to be melted and recoined,
the bank receives the value by tale, that is piece for piece,
the cost of wear falling wholly on the public. Formerly the
seignorage on the coinage was retained by the master of the
mint to defray the expenses of the establishment; but by a
recent act it is required to be paid in full to the consolidated
fund, and the whole expenses of the mint are now voted an¬
nually by parliament.
Routine of When the Bank of England require a coinage of gold, due
business. notice is conveyed to the mint authorities, and the bullion
AGE.
is brought in by the bank in parcels of 100 ingots or bars, Coinage,
weighing about200 ounces each, or in all about L.70,000 ster-
ling. These deliveries of bullion are officially denominated
importations; and their frequency depends entirely on the
public exigencies. They ordinarily amount to four each
week 5 but in 1852-53, when the bank treasures were
drained by an unprecedented demand for gold coin conse¬
quent on the discovery of auriferous deposits in Australia,
the amount received by the mint each week for several con¬
secutive months was 900 ingots—-value about L.650,000;
and about the same amount was returned in coined sove¬
reigns. This was by far the largest coinage ever under¬
taken by the mint as respects gold, and exhibits in one re¬
markable instance the enormous resources and wealth of
Great Britain.
The bullion sent by the bank is weighed at the scale the
same day, in presence of the bank clerk ; and assay-pieces
being cut from each bar of gold, they are sent to be tried
by the mint assayer, along with the assay reports on which
the bank purchased the bullion ; and thus he is enabled to
verify the reports, or note any important errors or deviations.
In the meantime the bullion is taken charge of, and locked
up under the keys of the master, deputy-master, and one of
the senior clerks of the mint; the weight and number of
each bar being first recorded in the official books. So
soon as the assayer has completed the assays, he sends his
reports written on a sheet of paper, side by side with the
trade or bank reports, to the master of the mint, who, after
inspection, refers them to the comptroller; and upon these
the bullion is rated for coinage. It should, however, be
remarked that the mint assayer, with the view of reducing
the bullion to the standard of our currency—namely, 22
carats fine and 2 carats alloy—is required to report the
whole contents of fine gold, as far as so delicate an opera¬
tion will allow; while, on the other hand, the trade assay
takes no cognizance of fractional parts lower than one-eighth
of a carat grain = 7£ grains troy. Thus, for example, a bar
of gold reported by the trade assay B. T2^, will, by the
mint assayer, be called B. T2£ + 6 grs.; that is to say, he
finds six troy grains more per pound of fine gold than is in¬
dicated by the trade report; and it follows, if the bar were
so much worse than it is better than standard, or Wo. ]-2},
the 6 grains, if discovered, would diminish the worseness,
as it is called, to that extent.
Formerly, under the old system, these fractional differ¬
ences were treated in a somewhat different manner, though
the result was exactly the same. The master’s assay mas¬
ter, whose province it was to examine the bullion at this
stage, while he gave the benefit to the importer of the en¬
hanced value of his bullion, carried off these fractions, in
computing the standard, by combining the ingots or bars
together and ordering them so to be melted; for example,
two grains per pound plus would compensate for two grains
minus.
The reports having been properly recorded in the jour¬
nals against the number and weight of the ingots to which
they belong, the computation is made of what is technically
called the betterness or worseness of each ingot, as indi¬
cated by the assay ; the former being placed in a column on
the left," and the latter on the right of the journal, along
with the excess grains or fractions beyond the ordinary re¬
port. This arithmetical process is called rating, and is
more easily effected by constructing tables for the purpose,
out of which the parts are taken and added together. The
tables now in use are calculated decimally, though the com¬
plex notation of carats and carat grains is still retained in
making the assay reports. If the importation of 100 ingots
should consist of mixed gold, some of which are above,
some under the standard, the columns are added separately,
the excess grains added to the fineness, and then the worse¬
ness deducted from the betterness, or vice versa, and the
COINAGE.
85
Coinage, difference either added to or deducted from the gross
weight, which gives the standard weight, to be computed
at the mint price of L.3, 17s. lOJd. an ounce.
A copy of this being sent to the bank and signed (called
the mint-bill) shows the amount of standard bullion stand¬
ing to the debit of the bank in the mint books; and it will
appear that in the total sum the value of the bullion is in
excess of their own account by the surplus grains on each
pound, and by any increase of weight gained at the mint
scale.
These preliminary processes completed in the manner
described, the ingots are then classed in pots for melting,
in a book called the pot-book, which affords an authenti¬
cated record of future proceedings. The importation of
100 ingots is generally divided into 16 pots, containing six
or seven ingots each; and each pot is numbered accord¬
ingly. The pot-book, therefore, is an exact transcript of
the journal broken up into 16 parts or sections; and the Coinage,
total of the one should agree with that of the other. Each
pot shows the number and mark of the ingots, the gross
weight of each ; the betterness and worseness and excess
grains ; and the quantity of alloy authorized to be added to
bring the whole to standard.
The following table will suffice, as an example, to illus¬
trate the previous description of a pot, as well as convey
some idea of an importation (which consists generally of
100 ingots) showing the total gross weight, the rating, the
excess grains, and the standard weight.
In the first table, the numbers are of course continued to
the end in the journal, and the gross and standard weights
are those of the whole importation of 100 ingots.
In the second table, the middle column represents the
gross weight; the figures under, the alloy by computation ;
and the total, 1185-927, the standard weight.
Gold Importation—January 10, 1854.
From the Governor and Company of the Bank of England, 100 Gold Ingots, viz.:—•
Nos.
4- C. 101
102
103
104
123
124
Betterness.
Oz.
9
3
3
5
&c.
Parts.
•250
•989
•667
•893
Assay Report
B. l-0£
2f
3f
Wo. 0-1
0-04
Weight.
Oz.
197
112
112
133
127
127
&c.
Parts.
•35
•35
•25
•85
•15
•90
&c.
860-493
10-071
870-564
2-717
Add 867-847
Gross Weight,16781,75
Standard Wt. 17649'598
Excess
grains.
Per lb.
4
4
4
7
3
1
Total
grains.
788
448
448
938
381
128
Worseness.
•445
•272
Remarks.
For convenience, the excess grains
per lb. are first multiplied by the
ounces and then divided by 12, and
the residue is converted into deci¬
mals, one-eleventh being added to the
whole.
12 )53181
•717
11)4431
403
480)4834(10-071
>
Example of a Pot.
First Pot.
Nos.
Betterness.
Gross weight.
Excess grains.
Worseness.
LGK
61
62
63
D 362
363
364
25
26
1
Parts.
801
516
681
998
364
362
135
25 -227
Standard weight.
Oz.
199
199
199
187
187
185
1159
25
1184
Parts.
•85
•80
•75
•75
•35
•20
•70
•227
•927
Grains troy.
200
600
188
748
185
12)1921
160-083
14-553
480)174-636
■3635$ |j
Oz.
0
0
0
Parts.
•284
•284
•567
T35
The pot-book having been verified and signed by the
appointed officers, and the weight debited to the melting
department in the books of the mint office, the gold bullion
is then delivered over to the melter and arranged in trucks
or boxes with square partitions, so that each pot is kept
separate, and placed in order of its number—the marks and
number of the ingots at the same time being compared
with the pot-book.
The bullion thus consigned to the melting department,
if not melted the same day, is locked up under the keys of
the deputy-master or comptroller, the melter, and a junior
clerk or assistant.
Previously to the bullion being charged into the pots, G0id
the furnaces are lighted by the workmen at an early hour, melting,
and the pots gradually annealed, as they are liable to crack
by too sudden an application of heat. This is done in the
following manner:—black-lead pots calculated to contain
rather more than 100 lbs. weight of gold, are placed in a
series of furnaces 14 inches square, and 20 inches deep
from the grate. On the grate, formed of six moveable
86
COINAGE.
Coinage, iron bars, supported by cross bars let into the brick-work,
a stand is placed for the pot, usually cut from the bottom of
an old pot, and the concavity being upwards it is filled with
common coke dust, to prevent the adhesion of the pot to
the stand. To give depth to the pot in the furnace, and
allow of as much fuel as the furnace will hold, a muffle
formed of baked clay is placed on the pot in such a manner
that the rim of each will exactly fit, and the mouth of the
muffle is covered with a flat cover made generally of black-
lead. The object of this contrivance is to give an addi¬
tional depth of four inches of fuel above the pot, by which
' a more equal degree of heat is given to the melted gold (an
object of great importance), otherwise there might not be
a uniform mixture of the alloy and fine gold, which is easily
effected at a proper degree of temperature.
The pot being thus placed upright in the furnace, coke
to the depth of a few inches is sprinkled round the pot, and
a layer of ignited charcoal, previously prepared in another
furnace, is thrown upon the coke, and the furnace then filled
up with fuel. To prevent too rapid combustion the door
of the furnace is left open, and the damper communicating
with the flue is nearly shut; but when the pot is supposed to
be properly annealed the furnace door is then closed, and
the damper drawn out about half its length. When the pot
is heated to a bright red the gold may then be charged,
which is done simply by removing the cover from the top
of the muffle, and with a pair of tongs carefully placing the
ingots on the bottom of the pot. The gold being charged,
the copper alloy, weighed by the comptroller or his repre¬
sentative, and checked by the melter, is added to it before
being melted; some pulverized charcoal is thrown in to
neutralize oxidation ; and the furnace having more fuel
applied is then shut up, and the damper drawn out. When
the metal is thoroughly melted and the temperature deemed
adequate, it is well mixed or stirred with a rod of black
lead, fixed in tongs, heated to a bright red before putting
it into the metal. The pot is then withdrawn from the fur¬
nace by first drawing a bar from the grate on each side of
the pot, and forcing all the fuel into the ash-pit; a pair of
tongs is then made to encircle the pot, to which is attached
a lever, by which the pot is lifted upon the top of the fur¬
nace. By another pair of tongs, encircling the pot nearly
round the middle, it is carried by a man balancing the weight
in his hand, and the metal cast into four moulds—a sling from
the roof running over a pulley being attached to the side of
the tongs, so as to relieve the man who pours, and add a
greater degree of steadiness to the operation. The man
who holds the sling in one hand, with the other removes
the charcoal from the spout of the pot by means of a stick,
so as to give a clear stream to the metal. The pot, emptied
of its contents, is returned to the furnace, the bars that
were withdrawn replaced, and the ignited fuel taken from
the ash-pit, thrown into the furnace round the pot, which
is again charged with more gold. Such a pot, if carefully
treated, may be safely used eight or ten times in the course
of the day.
The weight of each pot of gold is from 90 lbs. to 105 lbs.
troy, and in this manner it is melted properly in one hour,
making four long bars of about 25 lbs. each, measuring 27
inches in length, inch in breadth, and nearly one inch in
thickness. Formerly four furnaces were found adequate to
supply a large coinage of gold, turning out 40 pots, or
4000 lbs. weight a-day, which was accomplished in 11 or
12 hours. More could have been done, by an addition of
furnaces and men, but the material could not be supplied
beyond the power of the assay office ; it being a rule that
all assays concerning the coinage should be made within
the mint, and on the sole responsibility of one officer. But,
under the new system, that restriction has been abolished,
in degree at least; and during the late great pressure for
coin, assays were sent to private parties out of the mint,
which enabled that establishment greatly to extend the Coinage,
gold coinage beyond what was ever experienced; and,
consequently, additional furnaces became necessary to keep
pace with it, which augmented the amount of gold melted
on each day to 5000 lbs., or nearly one-quarter of a million
sterling. During several months the amount of coined
money delivered to the bank was L.630,000, or 13,500 lbs.
weight; and assuming that the bars melted produced 50 per
cent, of coin, it would be necessary, to meet this extraor¬
dinary demand, to melt at least 27,000 lbs, a-week, or
4500 lbs. a-day; but we believe it exceeded this consider¬
ably, as a change in the remedy of the coin greatly increased
the number of spoiled pieces, while, on the other hand, the
questionable alteration of the assay department caused an
immense increase of damaged work in the melting depart¬
ment, from errors and irregularities in the assays.
From each gold pot melted in the way described, two
samples are cut for the assay, one from the first and another
from the fourth bar cast. These are taken in the presence
of an authorized officer, weighed carefully, and put up in
slips of paper marked with the number of the pot, and then
delivered to the master of the mint. The bars of gold
being trimmed and cleaned are marked with consecutive
numbers and a distinguishing letter, so that if any error
should appear the pot can be identified and its composition
traced. They are then weighed, two at a time, and the
weight is registered in the day-book ; and at the end of the
day the assays and clippings are added to the account,
so as to show the apparent waste that has taken place.
The bullion after this is locked up in the melting-house
stronghold, under three keys, and remains there till such
time as the assay trials have been made, and an order for
delivery transmitted by the master of the mint. This
being done, the bars are carried to the office of receipt,
and weighed in presence of an officer or clerk, who gives a
receipt to the melter on the part of the coining department.
On the other hand, when the melter receives what is com¬
monly called scissell, spoiled blanks, and other pieces of metal
which cannot be made into money, from the coining de¬
partment, he likewise gives in the same book a receipt for
the amount, distinguishing what is scissell, ends, blanks, and
brokages. This specification of these returns was at one
time a record of great importance, and constituted a check
on the proceedings of the moneyers, who were required by
the mint indenture to coin of good money seven-twelfths
out of the bars delivered to them, minus the ends cut off, and
hollow, brittle, or badly melted bars. Consequently the
amount of scissell returned to melt should not exceed five-
twelfths, and any amount beyond that was obviously to the
prejudice of the melter. But now that the contract system
no longer exists to cavil with carelessness and indifference,
and no one’s interest is affected by damaged work, the
amount of scissell, by scrupulous nicety in the uniformity
of the coin, has greatly increased, and consequently the
expense of coinage, which is now defrayed out of the pub¬
lic treasury.
When silver bullion is imported into the mint for coinage, Silver,
it passes through the same preliminary stages as gold; but
as the crown actually purchases the silver, it also claims the
right of the importer of bullion to any benefit derived from
the enhanced value given by the mint assay ; and this, along
with the seignorage, is carried to the public account. The
average weight of silver ingots is about 1000 oz. troy; and
they are marked, numbered, assayed, rated and potted for
melting, nearly in the same way as described of gold bullion.
The weight of a silver pot is as near 420 lbs. as can prac¬
tically be attained; and, generally, five such ingots consti¬
tute a pot, with the proper proportion of alloy. Silver in¬
gots are reported in ounces and pennyweights, with excess
grains over the half pennyweight, and the standard com¬
puted to that of 11 oz. 2 dwts. fine silver, and 18 dwts. al-
C 0 I N A G E.
87
Coinage. l0y. And, when it is found the silver ingots so imported
are mixed of fine and coarse, in whatever proportions, it is
the practice to combine some of each together in the same
pot, adding the necessary alloy, so as to facilitate the fusion
of the metal, and diffuse the alloy more uniformly.
The silver hitherto has been melted in cast-iron pots of a
strong fabric, weighing about 1^ cwt. each; but these have
recently been superseded by wrought-iron pots of about the
same shape and dimensions, which possess some advantages
over the others. The cast-iron pots referred to, and lift¬
ing and pouring machinery were introduced into the mint
in 1811, and were deemed a prodigious improvement on
the old, clumsy, and wasteful process of melting silver in
small pots, while at the same time they enabled the mint
with ease to cast 10,000 lbs. weight of silver daily into bars.
At the same time iron moulds were brought into use, in¬
stead of those formerly used, which were made of sand.
The cast-iron pots, for many years after they wrere adopted,
were found perfectly successful, and by means of them a
great amount of bullion was melted safely, expeditiously,
and economically, the waste of silver being much less than
the usual allowance for loss by melting; but afterwards
various circumstances, not originally foreseen, conspired to
detract from the merit if not the utility of this alteration.
In the first place, the quality of iron seems everywhere to
have deteriorated, consequent, as some would infer, on the
introduction of the hot-blast in reducing the ore; but
more probably from the haste and rapidity with which it
is manufactured. Whether from the original quality of
the iron, the ignorance or carelessness of the founder, or
both comoined, it is certain that in subsequent years the
cast-iron pots lost by degrees all the great advantages
ascribed to them. In the second place, concurrent with the
falling off in the castings themselves, the silver ingot, origin¬
ally of 60 lbs. weight, in process of time augmented to 80 lbs.
and above ; and this, coupled with an excess of fine silver in
the market, caused by a cheap process of refinage, rendered
the fusion far more difficult and hazardous in cast-iron pots,
because the degree of temperature necessary to melt fine
silver bars of 1000 ozs. each, is considerably higher than
can safely be used with such a material; and in such cases
the pot was found disabled before it had done a fourth part
of the work required of it. Moreover, the iron melting and
running from the bottom of the pot left large interior fis¬
sures partly filled with silver, difficult to extract, while,
at the same time, the porous character of the iron caused a
great absorption of the precious metal, which was recovered
only in a small degree. The great care and attention, too,
during the operation of melting under such circumstances,
caused an excessive consumption of fuel, and a great loss
of time.
In consequence of these defects and disadvantages, the
subject was taken into consideration by Sir John Herschel,
master of the mint; and ultimately forged iron pots (manu¬
factured by Messrs Horton of the works at Smithwick near
Birmingham) were tried first experimentally, and then
adopted, having, by the severest trial, proved eminently suc¬
cessful. The prime cost of such pots is of course four or
five times greater than those of cast iron ; but it is conceived
that is amply repaid in the end by a considerable saving of
fuel, by greater safety, by economy of time and labour, and
less waste of silver by accidents and absorption—to which
may be added the greater amount of work of which they are
capable. If we suppose the melting power of a cast-iron
pot to be 10 X 400 = 4000 lbs. weight, which on the average
is not much underrated; by actual experiment, it has been
found that the melting power of a forged or wrought iron
pot is, on a large average, 40x400= 16,000 lbs., or four
times as great, which if maintained with regularity, would
nearly compensate for the superior prime cost. It may,
therefore, be assumed, that the latter pots will eventually
supersede the former. The reason why they were not sooner Coinage,
introduced, or rather, why in former times they wore tried ^
and abandoned, is solely to be attributed to modern im¬
provements, to skill, and perhaps science, applied to the
manufacture of such articles.
We shall now proceed to a description of the machinery Silver
and furnaces of the silver melting department, together with melting,
the mode of conducting the process.
The upper part of Plate CLXXXIII. is a perspective view
of the machine for pouring the melted silver into the moulds
to form the bars for coinage.
Fig. 1. A A are the furnaces in which the metal is melted.
They are air-furnaces, built of fire-brick, in the usual man¬
ner of melting furnaces; but to render them more dur¬
able the brick-work is cased in cast-iron plates, which are
put together with screws. B B are the covers to the fur¬
naces, which are held down to the top plate of the furnaces
by a single screw-pin for each ; and on the opposite side of
the cover a handle a is fixed. By pushing this handle, the
cover is moved sidewise upon its centre pin, so as to remove
it from the furnace mouth. A roller is fitted to the cover,
to run upon the top plate, and render the motion easy.
The interior figure of each furnace is circular, 30 inches
deep and 21 inches in diameter: the bottom is a grate of
cast-iron bars, each bar being moveable to admit the air.
Upon the grate, in the middle, is placed a pedestal or stand,
also of cast-iron, of a concave shape, covered an inch thick
with coke or charcoal dust, and upon which the pot is
placed. The pedestal is nearly two inches thick, and is
made fully two inches broader in its diameter than the pot,
the object of which is to protect the hip of the pot from the
action of the air ascending through the grate when the fur¬
nace is at work. As a higher temperature and quicker
draught are used with the wrought-iron pots, than was for¬
merly the case, the pedestal is found to melt; and as a sub¬
stitute it is proposed to employ similar stands of baked fire¬
clay moulded to the shape. On the top or mouth of the
pot a muffle is fitted, consisting of a ring of iron, six inches
deep, the use of which is, as in the case of melting gold, to
allow of a greater depth of fuel in the furnace than the mere
length of the pot, and which also gives a greater degree of
perfection to the process. The top of the ring or muffle is
covered with a plate of cast-iron, to prevent the fuel from
falling into the pot, and secure the metal against the action
of the atmospheric air whilst in fusion. Each furnace has a
flue 9 inches wide and 6 inches deep. The flue is 4 inches
from the top of the furnace, and proceeding in a horizontal
direction, extends to the flue C, which is 9 inches square,
and is carried up in a sloping direction to the stack or chim¬
ney, 45 feet high from the grate of the furnace.
When the furnace doors BB are closed, the current of
air which enters at the grate ascends through the body of
the furnace, and causes the fuel, which is coke, to burn very
intensely. The degree of heat required may be nicely
regulated by a damper, fixed in the flue of each furnace,
by the opening or shutting of which the necessary de¬
gree of heat may readily be obtained. The damper is a
plate of wrought iron, fixed in a frame, and by it the space
in the flue is increased or diminished at will. It is fixed in
the brickwork of the sloping flue C, about 18 inches above
the top of the furnace. The furnace doors B are furnished
with small apertures to look into the furnace, which are
closed by stoppers or moveable plugs of cast iron.
When the furnace is put to work, it is lighted by some
ignited charcoal thrown into it, and around the pot, which
is always in its place before the fire is lighted; and upon
the charcoal coke is put so as nearly to fill up the furnace.
It is customary also to sprinkle some coke previously on the
bars of the grate to the depth of 2 or 3 inches, as the charcoal
so placed is acted upon too quickly by the air. This being
done, the door B may be shut, and the damper pulled out
88
COINAGE.
Coinagei about 2 inches ; but the same precautions required in the
case of cast-iron pots are unnecessary with regard to those of
wrought iron. In an hour or an hour and a half, the pot will
have gradually attained a red heat, and then it is ready to re¬
ceive the charge of silver. Soon after the silver is placed in
the pot, the alloy necessary by computation to bring the
whole mass to standard is added, and at the same time a quan¬
tity of coarsely pulverized charcoal is put in, sufficient to
cover the surface of the metal when in a state of fusion, so
that it should be protected from the action of the air, and
thereby obviate any unnecessary refinement by oxidation of
the alloy. When the silver is completely and properly
melted, it is thoroughly stirred with an iron stirrer, so that
the whole may be of a uniform mixture; and the degree
of casting heat is ascertained by the surface of the metal
being clear and bright; for, as the heat escapes rapidly
through the pot when taken from the furnace, and as some
time elapses before the whole contents can be poured off,
the metal would set in the pot, or be cast too cold, if the
required temperature were not previously attained. The
pot is then taken out of the furnace by the crane (the fuel
having been first forced into the ash-pit, by removing some
bars from either side of the grate), and conveyed to the
pouring machine, by which its contents are cast into the
moulds.
Fig. 3 is the crane, supported by a strong column of cast-
iron X., which is firmly fixed in masonry beneath the floor.
The gibbet of the crane, marked WY, is cast in one piece :
it has a collar at e, which fits upon a pivot formed at the
upper end of the column X. At the lower part of the gib
is a collar, which embraces the column near its base. On
these two supports the gib turns freely round, so that its
extremity W may be placed over either of the furnaces BB.
The wheel work of the crane is supported in two frames
z z, which are fixed to the gib by three bolts: it consists of
a cog-wheel c upon the end of the barrel on which the chain
winds, and a pinion b, which gives motion to the cog-wheel.
The axis of the pinion has a winch or handle a at each end,
to turn it round. The chain d from the barrel is carried
up over the pulley at c, which is fitted in a part of the gib
immediately over the pivot at the top of the column X.
The chain then passes over the pulley W at the end of the
gib, and has the tongs VT suspended to it. These are
adapted to take up the pot between the hooks or claws T
at the lower ends. The two limbs are united by a joint
(like shears), and the upper ends V are connected with the
great chain by a few links. The pot has a projecting rim
round the edge, and an ear on each side into which the
tongs fit, by which the pot is lifted out of the furnace. The
pot being wound up to the required height by turning the
handle a, the gib of the crane is swung round to bring the
pot over the pouring machine, and it is lowered down into
it for the convenience of swinging the crane round a
worm fixed upon the column X at O ; and a worm or
endless screw is mounted in the frame z to work in the
teeth of the wheel. When the screw is turned by a winch
on the end of the spindle, it will cause the gib to move round
on the column.
Fig. 2 represents that part of the pouring machine in
which the pot is placed. M is an axis which is mounted in
the frame of fig. 1, by the pivots at its ends. To this axis
is fixed a cradle which receives the pot. The cradle is
jointed together so as to open and shut, and the screw m
draws the parts together until they closely embrace the pot.
L is an arched rack, forming a continuation of the princi¬
pal bars of the cradle. When the cradle is in its place, as
in fig, 1, the rack L is engaged by a pinion K, and can there¬
fore be elevated, so as to pour out the metal at a lip or spout
which is made in the edge of the pot for that purpose. The
axis of the pinion K is turned by means of a winch D, with
a train of wheels DE, FG, and HI. The man who turns
this winch stands before the pot, so as to see what he is
doing. The frame of the pouring machine is sufficiently
evident from the figure. It is so made as to leave an open
space beneath for the carriage containing the moulds.
Fig. 4 is a separate view of a pair of ingot moulds. The
two parts R and S put together form a complete mould, as
shown in fig. 5. The upper edge or mouth is a little en¬
larged to facilitate the pouring of the metal. The part R
has the bottom and one side formed on it, and the other
half S has one side formed on it. The moulds are of cast
iron, nicely planed and fitted together.
Since these drawings were made at the instance of the
late Mr Robert Mushet, first clerk, melter, and refiner
to the mint, great changes and improvements have been
introduced with regard to the moulds for casting silver bars
for coinage. Originally one kind of bar.only was cast, as
represented by the mould fig. 4 ; and this, being rolled, was
subsequently cut into fillets by a circular pair of shears.
Bars are now cast for almost every denomination of coin of
about an inch in thickness, 22 inches long, and of width just
sufficient to allow of two pieces, after rolling, to be cut out
diagonally from the width. By this means a great saving
of metal is secured in the manufacture, and at the same
time there is less variation in the weight of the pieces cut
out, as there exists greater uniformity in the fillets or plates.
I hough the bars are required to be of dimensions exactly
proportionate to the coins to be made, it is not in all cases
necessary to have separate and distinct moulds for that
purpose ; because a mould of a larger size may be reduced
to a smaller by gauges inserted at the side of the moulds,
or, as is now more perfectly done, by notches on the moulds
themselves, equivalent to the diminution required, which
throw forward one part of the mould when it comes in con¬
tact with the side bars, running from one end of the car¬
riage to the other, as at p and q. In this manner a half-
crown mould may be converted into a shilling; and a six¬
penny mould into a fourpenny, &c.
Plate CLXXXIIL, fig. 1, exhibits the carriage into which
a row of these moulds is placed vertically, as shown at fig.
4; and after being arranged they are screwed closely together
by screws at the sides of the carriage. The carriage, or frame
itself, is supported on four wheels QQ, which run upon a rail¬
way. PP is a rack fixed on the carriage; in this rack a
cog-wheel N acts ; the cog-wheel is turned by a pinion,
which has a handle O fixed upon it. By turning this
handle the carriage is moved along the railway; and in this
manner any one of the moulds (4) can be brought under
the spout of the pot (2) ; then by turning the handle D the
pot can be raised up and inclined, so as to pour the metal
into the mould until it be full. Before the moulds are set
up in the carriages, they are previously heated simply by
sprinkling ignited charcoal over them; and before the
metal is poured in they are well oiled with a sponge of tow
fixed on an iron rod.
Coinage.
By the agency of this pouring machine, the whole con¬
tents of the pot, exceeding 400 lbs. of silver, can be poured
off in a few minutes ; and it is found by experience that the
bars cast by it are as smooth, regular, and compact, as if
they had been cast by the hand. But there is necessarily
more spillage, prevented now in a great degree by side
pinions fixed at. the bottom of the carriages, which enable
the moulds to be exactly adjusted to the varying curve of
the metal as it flows from the spout of the pot. There are
generally three or four carriages of moulds in daily use, so
as to carry off the contents of four pots= 1600 lbs.; and
when these are filled and the pots returned to their respec¬
tive furnaces, the carriages are unscrewed, the silver bars
taken out, quenched in water, and laid regularly upon a
bench, where they are marked and numbered in their
order: they are then trimmed, i.e. the rough edges cut
off, and from each pot of 25 to 30 bars three specimens are
COINAGE.
Coinage, cut, one from the beginning, the middle, and end of the
casting, which serve for assay trials, and which are put up
in slips of paper and delivered to the master of the mint.
The bars are then weighed in piles of about 100 lbs. each
and registered in a book ; and are locked up until an order
is received to deliver them to the coining department.
In the silver melting-house there are eight melting fur¬
naces, two cranes, and two pouring machines. Each crane
stands in the centre of four furnaces, freely commanding
the centre of each, and conveys the pots to the pouring
machine. The eight furnaces may be worked three or four
times daily, with an adequate supply of moulds and work¬
men ; but generally four are found ample to keep pace
with an ordinary coinage. If the eight furnaces were put
in work, and the pots charged only three times a-day, then
about 10,000 lbs. weight of silver could easily be melted in
eight or nine hours, and with greater economy of labour and
fuel, and far less waste of silver, than by any other process.
When the operation is performed skilfully, and the metal
not retained too long in the fire, it has been found that
the oxidation of the alloy is less than it would be if melted
in a black-lead pot, or in a larger pot of iron, and the silver
dipped out, as in the Paris mint, where copper is added
from time to time to the fused metal in such proportions as
shall compensate for the destruction of the alloy.
When the melting department was carried on under a
contract, with fixed rates of payment, the melter bore all
the waste arising from the various operations, and at the
end of each year made up his account with the master of
the mint, and made good all deficiency from that source.
His situation was, therefore, one of considerable risk and
responsibility; and as his profit or income depended on the
proceeds of liis office, deducting the various expenses, as well
as losses, it was obviously his interest to conduct the busi¬
ness in the most economical manner. But the contract
system having terminated, at the instance of modern ideas
of improvement, the whole charges and expenses of this
department are now borne by the government, and at the
end of each quarter the account is made up and the loss of
precious metal written off.
The assays of the gold and silver bars, referred to before,
upon which the standard coin is manufactured, were for¬
merly made or tried in the mint by the Queen’s assay-
master, who became responsible for the quality of the
whole coinage; but under the new system the assays are
sent by the master of the mint to persons out of the mint
for examination, who are nominally attached to the esta¬
blishment, but without any responsibility whatever. For
this work they are paid a fee of 2s. 6d. for each assay ; and
when the coinage is considerable, very large emoluments
are paid to these assayers, which has increased the expense
of this branch beyond what it formerly was.
The master of the mint, on receiving the reports of the
assays, orders the bullion which is represented by them to
be delivered over for coinage, condemning such pots or bars
as he finds may deviate from the standard beyond a certain
amount; and these are either remelted with some addition of
alloy or fine gold, or simply combined and mixed together,.
From some cause not ascertained, the amount of work so
condemned exceeds that under the old system, and thereby
enhances the cost of the coinage.
Operation The first process to which the bars of gold and silver are
of rolling, subjected is that of flatting, rolling, or laminating, in the
rolling-mill. Both descriptions are rolled cold ; but as the
operation hardens the metal, making it liable to crack at
the edges, at a certain stage the bars are cut into shorter
pieces, and are annealed in a reverberatory furnace, quenched
suddenly in water, and cleaned with dilute acid. They are
then passed repeatedly through the rollers, and gradually
reduced to the thickness of the coin required.
VOL. VII.
Fig. 6. is an elevation of one pair of rollers, and the Coinage,
wheel-work for giving motion to them. A is the upper, ^ ^ ■
and B the lower roller : CC are the standards of the cast-
iron frame which supports them. Each of these standards
has an opening in it to receive the bearing-brasses for the
pivots of the rollers. The upper roller is suspended in
brasses regulated by the large screws FF, which admit of
the rollers being placed at a greater or less distance asun¬
der. This is shown by the separate figure of one of the
screws; A A are the brasses, and A the hole to receive the
pivot of the roller. On the upper part of the screw a collar
/ is fitted; and from this two bolts g g descend, and are
fastened to the brasses A A with nuts beneath. By these
the roller is suspended; but by turning the screw round,
the brasses rise or fall. The brasses A A are fitted very
accurately into the grooves or openings in the standards CC.
For the convenience of turning both screws round to¬
gether, each has a cog-wheel F fixed on the upper end of
it. These are turned by two worms HH, fixed on a com¬
mon axis, having a handle G in front. See the plan, fig. 8.
By turning this handle the upper roller is either raised or
lowered as required, but will always remain parallel to the
lower one.. The two standards CC are firmly bolted down
to the ground-sills DD, which are of cast iron, and are
imbedded in the masonry EE. These standards are more¬
over united by bolts a. At the upper part S is a cross bar
fixed between the standards to support a small table or plat¬
form, on which the metal is placed when it is to be pre¬
sented to the rollers.
Fhe rollers are put in motion by a steam-engine. The
crank of the engine has a cog-wheel upon it, which turns a
pinion. Upon the axis of this is a very heavy fly-wheel,
which turns with great velocity. On the end of the same
axis there is a pinion which turns a large wheel M, and this
gives motion to a long shaft NN, which extends beneath
the rollers, and is continued a sufficient distance in the same
direction to turn other rollers which are omitted in the
drawing. At L a wheel is fixed on this shaft to turn the
upper roller A, by means of a wheel K, supported in the
standards A A, and its axis is connected with a short shaft
rlr, with the square or the end of the roller A : r r are the
sockets by which the shafts are joined, admitting of a little
yielding when the roller is raised. ,
The wheel O is fixed on the shaft N, to turn the lower rol¬
ler B, by means of the wheel P ; but the wheels P and O do
not touch, being of smaller diameters, and an intermediate
wheel is applied on one side, so that its teeth engage with
both the wheels O and P. In this manner the two rollers
A and B are made to turn round in opposite directions, and
then their adjacent surfaces will move together. The wheel
P is supported in standards p py and its axis R is connected
by a shaft Q with the lower roller B.
In the rolling-room there are two long shafts connected
with the fly-wheel of the steam engine, running parallel to
each other at a convenient distance, which drive various
smaller rollers, and shears to cut the bars.
Fig. 7 is a gauge to ascertain the thickness of the plates,
which are reduced by the operation of the rollers. It con¬
sists of two steel rulers fixed fast together at one end, and
at the other end a certain distance asunder, forming an open¬
ing between them which gradually diminishes to nothing.
The sides of the rulers are graduated; and in using this
gauge to ascertain the thickness of a piece of plate, the edge
of the plate is applied to the opening between the rulers,
and the divisions of the rulers show the distance it will go
into the mouth or opening before it fits tight, and the thick¬
ness is ascertained by the number of the divisions.
Plate CLXXXV., figs. 3 and 4, represent a machine, or
pair of circular shears used in cutting copper into plates or
slips of a convenient width ; formerly used in much the same
M
90 COIN
Coinage, manner to cut the plates of silver from the rolling mill; but
''■—vthis is now superseded by improvements introduced into
the mode of casting bars of various dimensions, as before
described.
LL is a strong iron frame screwed down to the ground¬
sills of the mill, so that the cog-wheel D will be imme¬
diately over the shaft which turns the rolling-mill, and can
be turned by a cog-wheel upon that shaft. The cog-wheel
D is fixed upon a horizontal axis BB, supported in the
frame LL. A A is a similar axis placed at the top of the
frame, and turned round by a cog-wheel C, which engages
with the wheel D. On the extreme end of each axis A
and B a wheel or circular cutter E and F is fixed. The
edges of these cutters lie in close contact laterally, and
overlap each other a little. Whilst they are turning round,
if the edge of a plate of metal is presented to them it will be
cut or divided just in the same manner as by a pair of shears.
H is a narrow shelf upon which the plate is supported when
pushed forwards to be cut, and G is a guide fixed upon the
shelf: the edge of the plate of metal is applied against this
guide when about to be cut. The guide is moveable, and
the distance at which it stands back from the cutting edges
or line of contact of the two cutters EF, determines the
breadth of the slip of metal to be cut off'.
Fig. 7, Plate CLXXXV., represents a pair of finishing
rollers, viewed at the end of the frame, in order to show the
manner of adjusting them; for it is only in those parts that
they differ from the great rollers. The letter a shows one
of the pivots or centres of one of the upper rollers, which is
accurately fitted in a collar of brasses ; which collar is held
down in a cell at the top of the standard by a cap d, with
two bolts and nuts. These are not intended for the ad¬
justment of the rollers, as in the former instance—the lower
roller being moved for this purpose. The pivot b of the
lower roller is received in a brass bearing, which is moveable
in the opening in the standard frame. The brass rests upon
a wedge e, fitted in a cross mortice through the standard.
By forcing the wedge farther in the brass of the lower roller,
it will be moved nearer to the upper roller. The standard
at the other end of the rollers is made in the same manner,
and the wedges of both must be moved at the same time.
To give them motion, a screw /is fitted into each wedge,
and upon these screws are worm-wheels g, which are both
moved by worms cut upon a horizontal axis that extends
across from one side of the frame to the other, having a
handle at the end by which to turn it round, and give mo¬
tion to the screws and wedges both in an equal degree : l
is the table on which the metal is laid to present it to the
rollers.
Plate CLXXXIV. contains drawings of an ingenious and
beautiful machine, invented by the late Sir John Barton,
comptroller of the mint,—the object and purpose of which
was to give a greater degree of accuracy to the thickness of
the plates of metal. It is a draw-bench for drawing the
slips of metal between dies, or steel cylinders, so as to de¬
stroy the inequalities of the plates after they have left the
rolling-room. The operation is similar to wire-drawing.
Figs. 1, 2, and 3 represent a small machine for thinning
the ends of the slips of metal, in order to enable them to
enter between the dies through which the whole plate is to
be drawn. It is a small pair of rollers, which are shown on
a large scale in fig. 1; A is the upper roller, and B the
lower, which has three flat sides as represented; C shows
the slip of metal put between the rollers; D is a stop
adjustable in the line of motion of the slip of metal C.
Fig. 2 is an end view, and fig. 3 a side view, of the frame
or machine in which the rollers are mounted. AB are the
rollers, which are made to turn round together by pinions
ab. F is a large cog-wheel, fixed on the end of the axis
of the lower roller. This cog-wheel is turned by a pinion
G, fixed on an axis extended across the machine, and hav-
A G E.
ing a fly-wheel fixed on one end, and at the other a drum H, Coinage,
to receive an endless strap, by which the machine is put in —y-"*-
motion: a crank is formed on the middle of this axis, and
a rod d is joined to the crank to connect it with the mov¬
ing blade K of a pair of shears, of which the other blade L
is fixed to the frame. The distance of the rollers is regu¬
lated by a screw cc at the top of each standard. These
screws have pinions at the top of them, and are turned round
by another pinion placed between them, and engaging the
teeth of both pinions, so as to give motion to the two screws
at the same time, when the middle wheel is turned round
by a cross handle fixed to the top of it. If the slips of metal
to be put into this machine are not exactly square at the
ends, they are cut off smooth and even by the shears, which
keep constantly moving; and at the same time slices of
metal are cut from each side diagonally, so as to narrow the
point of intrusion. The end of the slip is then presented
between the rollers, not on that side which would draw it
in between the rollers, as in common rolling, but on the
opposite side; and when one of the flat sides of the lower
roller comes opposite to the upper roller, then the piece of
metal can be pushed forward between the two until the end
stops against the stop D, as in fig. 1 ; and as both rollers
turn round, and the flat side of the lower one passes by, the
cylindrical parts of the roller will take the plate between,
and roll or press it thinner at that end which is between the
stops and the point of contact of the rollers.
Fig. 5 is a perspective view of the drawing machine at
work.
Figs. 7 and 8 represent a section, to show how the plate
of metal C is drawn between the dies by the tongs, fig. 7.
Fig. 4 is a section of the steel dies. They are two cy¬
linders AB of steel, very hard, and turned with extreme
smoothness and exactness. These are fitted into two
sliders DD, and are held fast by clamp-pieces EE screwed
against them. The cylinders are very accurately fitted into
their beds in the slides, so that the steel shall be firmly sup¬
ported, and prevented from bending or turning round, and
presenting but a small portion of their circumference against
the slip of metal. The sliders D are fitted into a box, figs.
8 and 9: they fit flat on the bottom of the box, and two
clamps FF are screwed against the sliders to confine them
to the box. The lower slider is supported by two screws
ff and the upper slider is forced down by a large screw G,
having a cog-wheel fixed on the top of it, with a pinion and
lever to turn the screws round very slowly, and regulate the
distance between the dies. H is a clamping nut, fitted upon
the screw, to avoid any tendency to shaking. The sliders
are also bound fast sidewise, by screws tapped through the
sides of the box, the points of which press upon steel plates
between them and the sliders. In order to render the con¬
tact between the points of the screws supporting the under
slider, and the point of the adjusting screw forcing the upper
slider, still more complete—two extending screws are intro¬
duced at the ends of the dies between the sliders, by which
a sufficient degree of contact to overcome the spring of
the materials may be secured before the dies come into
action on the slip of metal.
The box with the dies is fixed at one end of a long frame,
as shown in fig. 5. This frame supports two axes AA, one
at each end. Upon these axes wheels are fixed to receive
the endless chains BB, moving along a sort of trough or
railway formed on the top of the frame. The chains are
kept in motion by a cog-wheel C, fixed upon the axis most
remote from the box of dies. This cog-wheel is turned by
a pinion D, on the axis of which is a wheel E; and this
wheel is turned by a pinion F, on the axis of the drum G,
moved by an endless band proceeding from some of the
wheels in the mill, and which is thrown in and out of gear
at pleasure by the tightening roller. The plate of metal
is drawn through the dies by the chain, with a pair of tongs,
COINAGE.
Coinage, figs. 6 and 7; and ab are the two jaws of the tongs, united
to each other by the pin c. This has a small roller or wheel
fitted on each end to run upon the railway on the top of the
frame: dd are a similar pair of wheels, the axle of which
is connected with two links ee; this axle passes between
the tails of the tongs, but is not fixed to them. The ends
of the links have a double hook formed on them, as shown
at fig. 7. The tongs run upon their wheels immediately
over the endless chain, so that, when the end of the links
ee is pressed down, one of the hooks catches on a cross pin
of the chain, as in fig. 7. The axle of the wheels dd, act¬
ing between the inclined parts of the tails of the tongs,
tends to throw them asunder, and, at the same time, the
jaws of the tongs bite with very great force, while the links
ee draw the tongs along with the chain BI3. The links are
carried a long way beyond the axle of the wheels, and have
a sufficient weight h fastened to them, which will lift up the
hooked end f and disengage it from the chain, except when
there is a considerable strain on the tongs.
To use this machine, let us suppose a man to take hold
of the tongs by the handle r, when disengaged from the
chain, and push the tongs forward towards the box of dies.
The tongs run freely upon their wheels, and the jaws open
when moved in that direction, because two small pins ii are
fixed across between the links, and acting on the outside of
the tails of the tongs close them together, and thus open the
jaws at the same time. The tongs are pushed up close to
the box with the dies, and the jaws enter a recess N, fig. 8,
formed for that purpose. Then with the other hand a plate
or slip of metal is taken, previously made thin by the rol¬
lers, fig. 1, and introduced between the dies (on the oppo¬
site side), and also between the jaws of the tongs, which are
open. The man who holds the tongs now takes the handle
s, fixed on the back of them, and holds it fast, whilst with
the other hand he draws the handle r, at the end of the
links, away from the tongs. This has the effect of closing
the mouth of the tongs upon the slip of metal. At the
same time that he depresses the handle r, the hook at the end
of the links ee will be caught by the first cross pin of the
chain which comes beneath them. This puts the tongs in
motion; but the first action is to close the jaws and bite
the plate of metal with great force, in consequence of the
axle-tree of the wheels being placed between the inclined
planes of the tongs. When the tongs have thus closed on
the metal, they move along with the chain, and draw the
plate through the dies, which, operating upon the thicker
parts of the plate with greater effect than upon the thin, re¬
duce the whole to an equal thickness. When the whole
length is drawn through, the strain upon the tongs is in¬
stantly released, and the weight lifting up the hook at the
other end of the links, they are ready to be again advanced
to the dies to draw another plate. The frame, fig. 5, con¬
tains two pairs of dies, and the same wheel serves for both.
The plates so drawn are cut up into shorter lengths, and
out of each piece a blank is cut by a hand-cutter and weighed,
and if on this trial the plate is found accurate, it is sent to
the cutting-out machine; but if the blank indicates too
much weight, the slip of metal is passed through a pair oi
rollers to reduce it.
The slips of metal produced from this machine are con¬
siderably more uniform in thickness than when finished at
the adjusting rollers, consequently the individual pieces are
made more nearly to the standard weight, which was the
chief object contemplated by the inventor. There must be
also a great saving of damaged blanks, or spoiled pieces, ac¬
cruing from the use of this ingenious machine.
The plates of metal thus prepared by the draw-bench are
cut out into circular pieces nearly the size of the intended
coins; two pieces being cut out of the width of the plate,
diagonally. This is done by the cutting-out press, fig. 1,
Plate CLXXXV. CCCC is a cast-iron frame fitted on a
91
stone basement. E is the screw, fitted through the top of the Coinage,
frame, which moves the slider F. At the lower end of the v—^
slider a steel punch a is fixed, having a diameter exactly
equal to that of the pieces to be cut out. C is the steel die,
which has a hole in it of a proper size to fit the steel punch :
is a box with screws for adjusting the die, so that the hole
in it be exactly beneath the punch.
The slider F is fitted into a socket G, which so guides it
that it shall descend correctly into the hole in the die: b is
a piece of iron fixed at a small distance above the die c,
which has a hole through it to admit the punch. The use
of it is to hold down the piece of metal when the punch
rises, otherwise the piece would stick to the punch.
On the upper end of the screw a piece Q is fixed, and
an arm projects from it with a weight P at the end; and it
is this weight that gives the necessary momentum to punch
out the blank. D is a spindle fixed upon the piece Q in
the line of the screw, supported in a collar A at the upper
end, and above the collar a lever DGF is fixed ; at one
extremity of this lever there is a roller F acted upon by
projecting teeth, which are fixed in the rim of a large hori¬
zontal wheel turned round by a steam-engine. This action
is explained by fig. 2, which is a horizontal plan of the upper
part of the axis. SS is a part of the rim of the large wheel,
and T one of the projecting cogs, which, when the wheel
turns in the direction of the arrow, will take the roller F at
the end of the lever F D, and turn the lever round in that
direction, winding up the screw and elevating the punch at
the same time. This action also draws a rod H, connected
with the lever by a joint, while the other end of this rod is
connected with a bended lever, from the other arm of which
a rod descends having a piston fixed to it. This piston is
fitted into a close cylinder, and hence when it is elevated it
makes a vacuum in the cylinder, and the pressure of the
atmosphere on the piston causes a reaction. The instant
that the roller F escapes or slips off from the tooth I, the
reaction of the piston draws the joint H back, and makes the
screw turn round in that direction, causing the punch to
descend into the die; and in this manner it will pierce out
a blank from a plate of silver or gold, laid upon the die, ex¬
actly of the same size as the punch. When the machine
requires to be stopped, a catch K is allowed to rise up and
hook the lever G, so that it cannot return by the action of
the exhausted cylinder and pierce the plate. This catch is
shown in fig. 8. At K it is moveable on a joint l, and is
thrown upwards by a spring k. To this spring a cord O is
fastened, and the lower end of the cord has a treadle at¬
tached to it. The boy who applies the plates of metal to
the machine places his foot upon the treadle, and draws
down the spring and the catch K., and then the machine
will make a cut every time that a cog T of the great wheel
S passes by; but if he relieves the treadle, then the spring
k lifts up the catch K, as in fig. 8 ; and when the end of the
lever G comes over the catch, it will be caught by it and
held fast from returning by the action of the exhausted
cylinder. The joint / of the catch is made at the top of a
long lever l N, of which m is the centre pin, when the lever
G is detained by the catch K : if the end N of the lever is
drawn towards fig. 1, it draws the lever G still farther, so
that the roller F will be raised quite clear of the tooth T of
the great wheel ; and thus prevents any unnecessary wear
of the machinery when the process is stopped.
Twelve of the cutting-out presses, fig. 1, are arranged in
a circle round the great wheel SS, which is turned by a
steam-engine, and has a large fly-wheel fixed upon the same
axis, just above the wheel S, to regulate the motion. The
air-cylinders are concealed within hollow’ pilasters, which
ornament the walls of the room : the rod H is jointed to a
piece h, fitted to slide upon the lever FG, and moved by
the screw I, so as to allow' it to be fixed at any required dis¬
tance from the centre, and give a greater or less effect to
92 COINAGE.
Coinage, the reaction of the exhausted cylinder. R, fig. 1, is a strong
wooden spring, against which the balance-weight P strikes
to stop its motion, when it has made its required stroke to
pierce the plate of metal.
This machine was invented by Boulton of Soho, but in me¬
chanical contrivance it is esteemed to be far behind the age.
The blanks, after being cut out by this machine, are car¬
ried to what is technically called the sizing-room, where
each piece of gold is accurately weighed in a small pair of
scales, and rung on a sounding iron, while the silver blanks
are tested by taking the average weight of a certain number
of pieces. In this operation a remedy or allowance is taken
on each piece of gold, and if the blanks exceed that weight
or fall short of it, they are rejected for melting, no rasp or
file being, as formerly, allowed to adjust them to the standard
weight. This remedy having been recently reduced by one
half, the amount of spoiled pieces has greatly increased,
to the prejudice of the public expenses, and, as far as we
can see, without any countervailing advantage. Extrem
accuracy, like gold, may be purchased too dear.
Nothing could be more clumsy, inartificial, or unscientific,
than the mode pursued for so many years in sizing or weigh¬
ing the blank pieces; but now we have the satisfaction to
note, amongst other minor improvements in the mint (so
far behind the age in mechanical invention), the introduc¬
tion recently of a series of beautiful and highly-finished
weighing machines, which reject both heavy and light pieces
with great precision ; but as these do not properly come
under the subject of coinage, we shall refrain from weary¬
ing the reader with a minute description of them, or the
principles on which they are constructed.
Operation The next operation is that of milling or raising the edge
of milling, of the blanks after they have left the sizing-room, to prevent
the coins being clipped or filed—a fraud commonly prac¬
tised upon the ancient money made before the introduction
of milling and lettering round the edge. The construction
of the milling-machine will be easily understood upon the in¬
spection of figs. 5 and 6, Plate CLXXXV., the former being
an elevation, and the latter a plan of the same. The parts
which operate upon the blank-piece consist of two steel bars
or rulers, dd and ee, the adjacent edges of which are cut
or fluted. The bar ee is immoveable, being fastened down
by two clamps M to a cast-iron plate DD, forming the base
of the whole machine ; the other bar dd is prevented from
rising by the pieces gg, but has the liberty of moving back¬
wards and forwards in the direction of its length, and is
guided in such movement by laying half its thickness in a
groove formed in the plate DD. A rack CC is fixed to
the moving ruler which engages the teeth of the wheel B,
mounted on an axis lying across at right angles to the ruler,
and supported at its ends by two standards rising up from
the plate DD. On one end of this axis a handle is fixed
to give motion to the machine. The ruler ee can be made
to approach nearer to or recede farther from the ruler dd by
the two screws^, so as to be taken in different sized pieces
between them. The operation of the machine is very
simple. Two blanks being placed between the edges of
the rulers, the handle A is turned round half a turn, which
moves the ruler dd endwise sufficient to mark the blank all
round the edge. I he two milled pieces being then taken
Out, and two others inserted between the rulers, the handle
is turned round in an opposite direction, which carries
the ruler dd back again to the position in which it first
stood, and thus two more pieces are marked. This descrip¬
tion may suffice to illustrate the principle of the marking-
machine. But by gradual improvement several practical
alterations of great importance have been introduced ; and
the machines have been multiplied in number, and increased
in efficiency, to keep pace with the great coinages of modern
times. They are now worked by steam, and many pieces
are marked at the same time with great rapidity, while one
man suffices for attendance on each machine. By means of Coinage,
a hopper fixed above the machine the blanks are supplied,
and the machine feeds itself, the marked pieces falling into
a vessel placed beneath.
By the various operations described, the blanks are found Annealing,
to have acquired a great degree of hardness, overcome in
the following manner, so as to prepare them to receive the
impression of the die. The blanks are placed regularly in
rows in a case of iron which contains 2804 gold pieces, and
a wrought-iron cover is placed over them, and carefully
luted round the edges with soft clay, to exclude the action
of the outward air: the case is then hoisted by a pulley and
tongs and placed on a small carriage running in grooves,
which is consigned to a reverberatory furnace, where it is
allowed to remain till the blanks have attained a dull-red
heat. It is then taken out by the same apparatus, and the
contents are emptied into copper cullenders, which are placed
over a fire in a boiler containing a very weak solution of
sulphuric acid ; and the blanks are then well washed or
rinsed in cold water. On the action of the hot acid, the
pieces are not only relieved from all oil and stains on the
surface, but as regards gold, it assumes the bright colour of
fine gold, while it gives to silver a dull or frosted appearance,
supposed to add to the beauty of the coins when stamped.
In the process a minute portion of the alloy is dissolved from
the surface by the acid. As copper is more easily acted
upon by acids, the blanks of that metal are allowed to re¬
main for some time in a very weak mixture of cold acid and
water, which gradually removes the stains and restores the
colour. The blanks having been thoroughly dried, first by
riddling them in warm saw-dust, and then by turning them
over a slow fire, they are prepared for the next process,
which constitutes them coins of the realm.
Plate CLXXXVI . is a coining or stamping press, of which Operation
eight exist in the mint. Fig. 1 is an elevation of the press ; stamp-
CCB is a strong cast-iron frame, firmly screwed down upon inS‘
a stone basement by the screws cc; the upper part B is
perforated perpendicularly to receive the screw DD. One
of the steel dies which strike the coin is fixed to the lower
end of this screw by a box 4, and the other die is fixed in
a box 6, fastened down upon the base of the press. The
heavy balance-weights RR are fixed on the top of the screw,
which, being turned round, presses the upper die down upon
the blank piece of coin which is laid upon the lower die, and
gives the impression—a sufficient force being obtained from
the momentum of the loaded arms RR. The motion is
communicated to the screw by a piece A, which ascends to
the ceiling of the coining-room, and is worked by an engine,
with machinery placed in the apartment over the coining-
room. A steam-engine of 10-horse power exhausts a large
air-chamber, and forming a vacuum, gives motion to an air-
engine which works a series of air-pumps communicating
with the machinery of the stamping-presses ; and it is found
that the movement communicated in this manner is more
equable and regular than by a common condensing engine,
necessary in machinery where the different movements, as
in the stamping-presses, require to be extremely regular
and exact both in time and motion.
Eight presses, similar to fig. 1, are placed in a row upon
the stone basement, and strong oak pillars are erected at
intervals upon the basement which reach to and support the
ceiling. Each press is contained between four such pillars,
and iron braces are fixed horizontally from one pillar to
another on the opposite side. These braces support blocks
of wood, against which the ends RR strike, to stop them
from moving farther than necessary, as, without such pre¬
caution, the hard steel dies would sometimes come in con¬
tact and be broken. The piece of blank coin is contained
within a steel ring or collar whilst it is stamped, and this
preserves its circular figure. Being a little larger in dia¬
meter than the collar, it is by the blow forced into the col-
COINAGE.
Coinage, kr, and spreading, receives the impression on the edge from
the collar. The ring or collar is shown of a large size at
W in fig. 5. V is a three-pronged spring, which always
bears the ring upwards ; the opening through the ring W
is made to fit upon the neck of the lower die T, fig. 6.
When the ring is dropped upon the neck of the die, the
upper surface of the ring and of the die will be in one plane.
The ring admits of being raised up upon the neck, and will
then form a recess or cell just adapted to receive a piece of
money. The collar W is made to rise and fall upon the
neck of the die by means of the levers GG, fig. 5; these
are fitted upon centre pins or joints in a large ring gg placed
on the outside of the box, fig. 6, containing the lower die,
and is fixed fast upon it, as shown at 5 and 6, fig. 1, by
damping the screws gg. The levers GG are forked at the
outer ends to admit studs at the lower ends of iron rods
EE, which rise up through holes in the solid metal of the
press, and are united to a collar G fitted on the upper part
of the screw D. When the screw of the press is turned
back, and the upper die raised up, the rods elevate the out¬
side ends of the short levers G, while the inside ends depress
the ring. A blank piece of money being laid upon the die,
and the screw turned to bring the upper die upon it ready
to stamp the impression, the levers G are released, and the
triple spring V lifts the collar up, so that it surrounds the
blank, and in this state the blow is struck. Immediately
after, the press returns by its recoil, and then the levers G
force the collars down upon the neck of the die and leave
the piece free. The lower die is fixed in a box, fig. 6, by
force screws tt, which admit of adjusting it with precision
beneath the upper die. The box, fig. 6, is screwed down
upon the base of the press by four screws. The upper die
is shown at S, fig. 3, which explains how it is fastened to
the screw; vv are four screws by which the die is held in
the box, fig. 3. The box is fitted into a ring or collar, as
shown by the dotted lines F ; see also fig. 1. The arms of
the collar F are attached to the rods E E by two nuts at
each end, and this makes the collar F and the box 3 always
follow the screw, and keep a close contact with the end of
the screw which enters into a cell in the top of the box, fig.
3, but leaves the screw at liberty to turn round indepen¬
dently of the box.
Fig. 2 is a ring fastened by its screws ww, to the screws
of the press; a claw V descends from the ring and enters the
cavity o, in the edge of the box, fig. 3, which cavity is near
three times as wide as the claw V, and therefore allows the
screw to turn round for a certain distance without turning
the box, fig, 3; but beyond the limits of this motion the
screw and die will turn together. The intention of this is
to press the upper die down upon the coin with a twisting
or screwing motion; but if the die should rise up with a
similar motion, it would abrade and destroy the fine impres¬
sion ; for this reason the notch o is so wide as to allow the
screw to return and raise the die from immediate contact
with the coin before it begin to turn round with the same
motion as the screw.
Fig. 4 is a box screwed over the box for the upper die,
as shown in fig. 1, in order to keep the latter firm in its cell.
The great screw of the press is made cylindrical at the
upper and lower ends, as may be seen at DD, fig. 1, and
these ends are accurately fitted in collars, bound tight by
the screws a a. The real screw or worm part concealed
within the solid metal case B, has no other office than to
force the die down, the guidance laterally being effected by
the collars a a.
It now remains to show by what contrivance the press is
made to remove the pieces w'hen stamped, and to feed itself
with fresh blanks, so as to maintain the operation continuously.
Fig. 1, HIK, is a lever, of which I is the fulcrum, sup¬
ported on a bar Q, fixed vertically from the cheek of the
press, and kept steady by a brace h. The upper end of the
93
lever is actuated by a sector T (see fig. 7), fixed upon the Coinage,
screw D. When the screw turns round, the groove in the
sector, being of a spiral curve, will move the end H of the
lever to and from the screw; and the lower end K of the
lever being longer, it moves a considerable distance to and
from the centre of the press; 6 is a socket or groove in a
piece of metal fixed to the perpendicular bar Q, and the
upper end of the lever H is guided in this groove to pre¬
vent any lateral deviation.
The lever K gives motion to a slider L, fig. 8, supported
in a socket O, screwed against the inside cheek of the press,
and the slider 8 is directed exactly to the centre of the
press, and on the level of the upper surface of the die.
Figs. 8, 9, and 10, represent three views of the slider and
socket. NMO is a kind of trough in which the slider
runs. This slider is formed of two pieces hollowed out on
the sides, which are put together, and the two pieces are
held together by screws. O is the part by which the socket
is fastened to the press. The slider is a thin steel plate p
(see also fig. 10); it is made in two pieces, P and jo, united
by the joint q. The extreme end is formed with a circular
cavity; and when the two limbs shut together as represented,
they will grasp a piece of money between them, and hold
it by the edge; but if the limbs be separated, the piece will
drop out. The limb p of the slider is opened or shut by
the same movement which moves the slider endwise in its
socket. Thus a plate L is applied flat beneath the socket
MN, having an edge turning up, and applying to the up¬
right edge of the socket. A pin is fixed into this edge,
and is embraced by the fork at the lower end of the lever
K, fig. 1. By this means the sliding piece L is made to
move on the outside of the socket N; and is kept in its
place by a fillet h, fig. 9, screwed to the upright edge of L,
while the fillet enters a groove formed along the upper sur¬
face of the socket N.
The sliding piece L is made to move the steel slider
within the socket, by means of three studs which project
upwards from the bottom plate of L, fig. 10, at r r s, and
pass through grooves in the bottom plate of the slider, so as
to act upon the steel slider P, in the manner shown at fig.
10. The left-hand piece r is received into an opening in
the middle of the slider P, fig. 10. The other two studs
r and s include the shank of the limb p between them, and
these studs are cut inclined, so that when the piece L is
moved to the right, the studs r s will close the limb p until
they are shut, and then the studs will carry the slider for¬
ward; but if the sliding piece L is moved to the left, its
studs will first close the limbs, and then draw back the
slider. On the top of the socket N, a tube M is placed,
intended to contain the blanks to be coined. The tube is
open at the bottom of the slider, and the pieces rest upon
it. When the screw of the press is screwed down, the
slider P draws back to its farthest point, and the circle formed
at the end between its limbs comes exactly beneath the
tube M ; the limbs being open, a blank piece of coin drops
down into the circle of the slider, then the screw of the
press, in returning, moves the lever HIK and the piece L;
this again acts by its studs upon the moveable limb p, and
closes it upon the blank piece. The studs, having now found
a reaction, push the slider P forwards in its socket, and carry
the piece of coin forward upon the die, as shown in fig. 1,
while at the same time it will push off the piece that has
been struck. The screw having now arrived at its highest
position, begins to descend, and the slider L to return;
but the first action of the studs of the sliding piece L is to
open the limb p. and then the slider withdraws, leaving the
piece of money placed upon the die. As the screw of the
press descends, the ring W, fig. 5, rises up to inclose the
piece as before mentioned, whilst it receives the stroke, and
the slider P at the same time returns to take another piece
from the tube M in the same manner as before described.
94
COINAGE.
Coinage.
Disposal of
the coined
money.
Process of
pyxing.
By these ingenious and effective contrivances, each coin
is perfectly stamped with one blow of the press; and the
quickness and nice adjustment of the various movements are
such, that each press can coin or stamp between 60 and 70
pieces a minute.
Fig. 11 is a section to show the manner of mounting the
lower die for a coining press. V is a piece of metal or box
as it is placed upon the base of the press, held down by a
ring with screws t. which holds it fast, but admits of lateral
adjustment. In the top of the box is a hemispherical cavity
to receive the hemisphere W; the upper side of which is flat,
and the die T is placed upon it to hold the die down ; it has
a small projecting rim at the lower edge, and a rim X is
screwed upon the outer edge of the box V, which binds the
die down. The object of this plan is, that the die may
always bear fairly to the money which is to be struck.
Figs. 12 and 13 represent a divided collar for striking
money with letters round the edge. X is a very strong piece
of iron, having a circular opening through the centre. Into
this six segments w w are fitted, and a circular space or
opening W is left in the centre, the size of the piece of
money to be impressed. The inner edges of these segments
are engraved with the letters or device required to be im¬
pressed on the edge of the piece. The segments are fitted
in the piece X, by centre pins y, fig. 12, upon one of which
pins each segment can rise in the manner of a centre. The
intention of this is to have a piece of money placed on the
die within the space W ; and when the pressure is made
upon the piece, the die descends some space, and by this
motion the segments close together around the edge of the
coin, and leave the impression on it. When all the segments
come into one plane, the die becomes firmly seated, and the
metal receives the stroke which makes the impression on its
surfaces. The die is suspended in a sort of cup, which rises and
falls with the screw, nearly the same as the collar F in fig. 1.
During the process of coining, a man in attendance con¬
tinually inspects specimens of the coins as they issue from
the press, in order to detect any fault or blemish in the dies,
while another is engaged in examining the money collected
from the presses in wooden trays, who throws out for melt¬
ing any pieces imperfectly stamped, &c. The coin so exa¬
mined is weighed up in what are called journey-weights;
the gold in 15 lbs. and the silver in 60 lbs. troy; and before de¬
livery, the former are passed through the weighing machine
to detect finally any pieces deviating too much from the
standard weight.
On appointed days the coins, placed in bags of the weight
before mentioned, are then delivered over to the office of
receipt, in the mint office, where they again undergo in¬
spection by tbe proper officers, and are pyxed.
By the process of pyxing, as it is technically called, the
weight and fineness of the coined money is determined be¬
fore it is delivered to the importer or to the public. It con¬
sists in taking from every journey-weight of gold and silver
a pound in tale promiscuously, which is weighed in an ac¬
curate balance, the plus or minus over or under the standard
weight being declared by the weigher, and recorded by
the clerk. 1 his determines within certain limits whether
the money has been made within the remedy allowed by
law. From the same pound weight of silver or gold, two
pieces are taken, the one for the master of the mint, to be
assayed, in order to test the fineness of the whole coin ; the
other for subsequent examination at the general trial of the
pyx ; and the coins so taken, one from each journey or bag,
are sealed up in a packet, and put into a chest, called the
pyx-box, locked up under the separate keys of the master
and comptroller, there to remain until the general trial of
the pyx referred to. When the assay-trial of the piece has
been examined and proved to be of the legal standard,
which, in this case, is taken as the average of the whole
journey-weight, the master of the mint authorizes the money
to be delivered to the importers of the bullion, who give a Coinage,
proper receipt for the same. x—
The general trial of the pyx takes place at irregular pe¬
riods before a jury selected by the lord chancellor, and com¬
prehends an examination by weight and assay of all the
money coined during a given time; and the verdict de¬
livered by tbe foreman of the jury to the chancellor relieves
the master of the mint from further responsibility as regards
the past. While the company of moneyers were intrusted
with the coinage of the money, the trial of the pyx was uni¬
formly favourable to their skill and accuracy, as well as to
the skill and vigilance of that important and responsible
check officer, the Queen’s assay-master ; but as no trial has
yet (1854) taken place under the new system, we are unable
to draw any conclusion from it, either in point of skill or
accuracy.
The company of moneyers, like the melter, carried on
their business by a contract or agreement with the master
of the mint for the time being, by which they were bound
to make good all waste or loss accruing in their department,
as well as to supply labour and materials. Now salaried offi¬
cers conduct the various operations connected with coinage,
the government taking upon itself the general expenses, the
risk, and responsibility; and all waste in manufacture or loss
from other causes is borne by the public, and defrayed out
of the treasury. Formerly, the moneyers and melter gave
heavy bonds of security to the master of the mint, as a gua¬
rantee against loss. Now no security whatever is exacted
from any officer acting under the master, except from the
person employed in superintending the melting department.
Under these circumstances, it is a question which time
alone can solve, whether the government can manage an
establishment like a mint (which, after all, is only a manufac¬
tory), as safely and economically as if carried on by contracts
or agreements at moderate rates of payment.
It remains for us briefly to describe the method pursued Method of
in making the dies for coinage. making the
An original die is engraven upon a piece of soft cast steel dies-
of the size of the money to be coined. The device or de¬
sign is, of course, cut into the steel, and its depth is propor¬
tionate to the relief ultimately wanted upon the coin. When
the engraving is finished, the die, or matrix, as it is called,
is hardened; a process requiring considerable care and atten¬
tion. It frequently happens, that in this process, either
from the steel being faulty or heated to excess, the die flies
in pieces, and the whole labour of the artist is lost. When,
however, the matrix proves to be perfect, it is placed in the
multiplying die press, which works in every respect like a
coining press, but is moved by men. An impression is
taken from the matrix upon a blank die of cast steel, similar
to the mode of impressing the money. The blank die is
fixed as the lower die of the coining press, and by working
the screw of the press, which has very long and heavily
loaded arms, the matrix is made to strike the blank die with
great force, and bring its impression in relief upon the sur¬
face. The hardness, by compression of the steel, is so great,
that a perfect impression of the engraving cannot be ob¬
tained without annealing the die, perhaps twice or thrice in
an iron pot with animal charcoal, allowing it to cool gradu¬
ally. An impression taken in this way is called a puncheon
die. When the engraver has given all the delicate outlines
of the original to it, it is hardened in the same manner as
its original, and used to give the impression to blank dies by
a similar process; but in this case the impression is sunk,
instead of being in relief These are the dies employed to
stamp the money.
The puncheon by which the die is stamped is therefore
hard, and the blank die soft steel. The process of harden¬
ing is effected by immersing the puncheon in cold water
after being heated ; that of softening, by placing the dies in
a pot covered with animal charcoal in a furnace, and then
C O K
Coir allowing them to cool slowly and gradually in the pot. The
II blank dies are formed of cylindrical pieces of steel nicely
0 turned and polished, having one end square and the other
of a conical shape. By the first blow given by the press the
cone has disappeared, and the impression becomes visible on
the surface. Several blows of the press are required to per¬
fect a die ; and between each the die is softened in the man¬
ner before described. After the first blow, the die is taken
to a turning-lathe to shave off the rim of metal round the
impression, so as to allow the second blow to deepen the
impression without spreading the steel.
The amount of work done by the dies varies exceedingly;
depending, first, on the quality of the steel, and, secondly,
on the character of the metal to be stamped, which differs
in hardness or softness according to the nature of the alloy
contained in it.
C 0 K 95
By the officer presiding over the die department, an ac- Coke,
curate register is kept of all dies manufactured, and he ac- v—^
counts also to the master of the mint for all matrixes, pun¬
cheons, and dies destroyed, as well as made, in the mint; so
that none be surreptitiously used or carried away. A very
large collection of the various dies used in the coinage of
money, from an early period, is kept in the mint, affording
to the connoisseur an interesting record of the progress of
engraving in England.
As a record of the coinage of the mint we append the fol¬
lowing table, derived from authentic sources, which will be
found useful:—
By a return made by the company of moneyers to a com¬
mittee of the House of Commons in the year 1837, it ap¬
pears that the amount of gold coined from 1558 to 1830, was
L.154,762,335, Is. 10d., and of silver, L.39,139,581, Os. 8d.
An Account of all Gold and Silver coined at the Royal Mint from the \st of January 1816 to the
31^ December 1853.
Year.
1816
1817
1818
1819
1820
1821
1822
1823
1824
1825
1826
1827
1828
1829
1830
1831
1832
1833
1834
Gold Coinage.
L.
4,275,337
2,862,373
3,574
949,516
9,520,758
5,356,787
759,748
4,065,075
4,580,919
5,896,461
2,512,636
1,008,559
2,446,754
2,387,881
598,547
3,737,065
1,225,269
66,949
s. d.
io 0
10 0
9 3
0 10£
13 9f
12 6
10 0
0 0
0 0
7 6
10 0
13 6
12 5
Silver Coinage.
L.
1,805,251
2,436,297
576,279
1,267,272
847,717
433,686
31,430
285,271
282,070
417,535
608,605
33,019
16,288
108,259
151
33,696
145
145
432,775
s. d.
16 0
12 0
0 0
12 0
4 0
0 0
7 1
16 0
16 0
16 0
16 0
16 0
3 1
16 0
16 0
5 8
4 0
4 0
4 0
Year,
1835
1836
1837
1838
1839
1840
1841
1842
1843
1844
1845
1846
1847
1848
1849
1850
1851
1852
1853
Gold Coinage.
Total Coinage,
L. s. d.
1,109,718 8 10
1,787,782 5 5
1,253,088 8 2
2,855,364 15 0
504,310 14 3
378,472
5,977,051
6,607,849
3,563,949
4,244,608
4,334,911
5,148,440
2,451,999
2,177,955
1,491,836
4,400,411
8,742,270
11,952,391
10 0
18 2
10 0
7 6
10 6f
17 6
0 0
10 1
1 1
17 9
4 9
12 11
5 11
L.121,246,628 7 9
Silver Coinage.
L.
146,665
497,719
75,385
174,042
390,654
207,900
89,641
192,852
239,580
610,632
647,658
559,548
125,730
35,442
119,592
129,096
87,868
189,596
701,544
s. d.
4 0
4 0
4 0
0 0
0 0
0 0
4 0
0 0
0 0
0 0
0 0
0 0
0 0
0 0
0 0
0 0
6 0
L,14,837,046 12 8
R. M—T.
COIR, a kind of yarn manufactured from the fibrous
husk of cocoa-nuts, and formed into cordage, coarse sail¬
cloth, mats, See. It is chiefly made in India.
COKE, charred pit coal. See Coak.
Coke, Sir Edward, was born at Mileham, county of
Norfolk, February 1, 1551. His father w’as a bencher of
Lincolns Inn, and died in 1561. From the grammar-
school of Norwich Edward Coke removed to Trinity Col¬
lege, Cambridge, where he studied for three years. He
began his legal education at Clifford’s Inn, London, in 1572,
and was called to the bar in 1578. He had scarcely begun
to practise when he was appointed reader at Lyon’s Inn by
the society of the inner temple; and from the able manner
in which he argued the delicate cases of Lord Cromwell and
Edward Shelley, his reputation as a lawyer became so great
that there was scarcely a single case before the court of
king’s bench in which he was not concerned. In 1586 he
was chosen recorder of Norwich, and he afterwards held the
same office for the city of London during the year 1592.
When the plague broke out in the metropolis, he was solici¬
tor-general and reader of the Inner Temple ; and on retiring
from the city was accompanied as far as Romford by an es¬
cort of upwards of 50 members of the temple. In 1594 Coke
was preferred to the office of attorney-general, to the great
chagrin of the Earl of Essex, who had expected to secure
that appointment for his protege Lord Bacon. Coke’s suc¬
cess on this occasion drew down upon him the hatred and
ill-will of his illustrious rival, and was the beginning of a
feud which lasted with little intermission till the death of
Bacon. The published correspondence of that philosopher
is filled with reiterated expressions of discontent at his fail¬
ure, and allusions equally bitter and unjust to the new
attorney-general. In 1593 he was elected member of
parliament for the county of Norfolk, and was chosen
speaker to the House of Commons as soon as it convened.
He retained his office of attorney-general till 1606, and was
thus crown lawyer in the management of those important
trials for treason which were so frequent after the enforce¬
ment of the penal laws against Roman Catholics in the reign
of Queen Elizabeth. In the conduct of these, he has been
charged with unnecessary cruelty in the torture and gra¬
tuitous insolence in the examination of the accused, and
with conducting the prosecutions too much in a spirit of reli¬
gious zeal. His behaviour at the trial of Raleigh, above
all, has been singled out and branded as peculiarly outrage¬
ous. When the prisoner was defending himself with that
dignity and calmness which never forsook him in the most
pressing emergency, Coke, failing in his attempt to brow¬
beat the accused, lost his temper and his presence of mind,
and began to indulge in personal invective against him.
He then wound up a long sarcastic address with the long-
remembered phrase, “ Thou hast an English face, but a
Spanish heart.” His conduct, however, must be estimated
according to the fiery temper of the times in which he lived,
96 C 0 K
Coke, and not according to the temper of our own ; and while un-
doubtedly he is to be blamed for his overbearing demeanour
and asperity, it must be remembered that his zeal and severity
were never made subservient to the promotion of his own in¬
terests at court, and that no influence whatever could prompt
him to swerve from the line of duty. In 1606 he was named
chief-justice of the common pleas; and in 1613 he was
promoted to the chief-justiceship of the king’s bench. He
had not long held this office when new honours began to
pour in upon him. A few days after his elevation to the
chief-justiceship, he was by a special order from the king
advanced to the dignity of a privy-councillor. In the fol¬
lowing year the university of Cambridge evinced its sense
of the lustre conferred upon it by its old alumnus, and ap¬
pointed him high steward. The chief-justibeship Coke
owed to the influence of Bacon, who suggested the promotion
of his rival avowedly for the purpose of corrupting his
fidelity and rendering him subservient to the wishes of the
king. In this, however, he was disappointed, as Coke was
not long of giving notable proofs of his independence. The
king, as is well known, attached much importance to the
“divine” right. In 1615 a preacher was brought to trial
for treason, for having in his possession a manuscript sermon
in which it was alleged that the royal prerogative was de¬
nied. After a patient hearing Coke decided, much to the
king’s disgust, that the accused was guiltless. In that same
year the base murder of Sir Thomas Overbury was brought
to light, and Coke displayed so much zeal in the prosecu¬
tion of the noble murderers, that the king, whose hands
were not clean in the matter, was highly offended. Finally,
Coke’s independence in the case of Commendams (1616),
in which he refused to be guided by the views of the royal
prerogative as propounded by the king himself, compelled
his adversaries to seek occasion for his removal from office.
The immediate pretext for his dismissal was this:—A barris¬
ter, pleading in the court of common pleas, had let fall some
expressions which had been reported to the king as throwing
doubt upon the royal prerogative, which his majesty watched
over with such jealous care. The king immediately issued
orders that the case should be stopped and no farther proceed¬
ings instituted without his warrant. The judges immediately
met to consider the king’s message, and came to a resolution
that it was ultra vires on the part of the king to interfere
with them in the fulfilment of official duties. Enraged at
• this, James ordered them to appear before him at the coun¬
cil-table, and severely rebuked them for their refractory be¬
haviour. Eleven out of the twelve, overawed by the king’s
authority rather than convinced by his arguments, acknow¬
ledged themselves in the wrong, and implored pardon. The
twelfth, who was Sir Edward Coke, far from allowing him¬
self to be brow-beaten by the king, maintained the legality
of his procedure, and denounced the king’s conduct as an
interference with the administration of justice, and a viola¬
tion of the law of the land. In consequence of this bold
language, he was summoned before the council to give an
account of his administration, and in November following
was summarily dismissed from office. Attempts were made
to convict him of malversation of office as attorney-general;
but his defence was so masterly and complete that even his
enemies had to declare themselves satisfied, and the charges
against him were abandoned. Finding that his personal
integrity was unimpeachable, Coke’s enemies now did their
best to make out against him a case of official incompetence.
He was now summoned to answTer twenty-eight objections
to principles purporting to be contained in his “ Book of
Reports.’’ On these points he gave such complete satisfac¬
tion to his judges, that the prosecutors dropped the case.
It is a significant fact that Sir Henry Montague, who suc¬
ceeded Coke in office, was expressly warned by the lord
chancellor Egerton to avoid the faults of his predecessor,
who had been removed for his excessive popularity. The
COL
marriage of his daughter with Sir John Villiers, however, Colaba.
paved the way for his reconciliation with the king, and he v'—
was soon afterwards received into considerable favour at
court. Towards the close of the year 1617, he was rein¬
stated as a member of the privy-council and employed in
many important public services. In 1620 he w^as returned
as a member of parliament for the borough of Liskeard,
Cornwall; and probably to avenge the harassing attacks
that were constantly made on him by the court party,
he threw all his influence into the scale of the constitutional
opposition. At this the king was highly incensed; and pre¬
vious to the issue of the general pardon in 1621, he stipu¬
lated that Coke should be exempt from the benefits of the
act, and caused him to be committed to theTower. Coke was
released from confinement in August 1622, but at the same
time arbitrarily ordered to withdraw from court and live in
retirement at Stoke Pogeis during the pleasure of the king.
On the accession of Charles I. Coke was returned as a mem¬
ber of parliament; and though prevented from holding his
seat by an expedient of the king, who appointed him sheriff
of Buckinghamshire, the house refused to issue a new writ
to supply his place. In 1628 he was returned simultane¬
ously by the counties of Buckingham and Suffolk ; and tak¬
ing his seat for the former, he rendered valuable service
to his country by the vigour with which he defended
constitutional right, and the sagacity with which he di¬
rected the measures of the liberal party. Though now far
advanced in years, he exerted himself with all the energy
of youth in his various parliamentary duties. He made
himself particularly conspicuous in framing the celebrated
“ Bill of Rights,” which, chiefly by his indefatigable zeal and
perseverance, was got safely through the House of Lords.
The last act of his public life was to denounce the Duke
of Buckingham, whose policy he exposed as the cause of
much present and prospective misery to the country. At
the close of the session he retired from public life, and spent
the most of his time in revising and maturing those works
which have perpetuated his fame as the great oracle of
English law. He died September 3, 1633, repeating
with his last breath the words, “ Thy kingdom come, thy
will be done ;” and was buried in the church of Titeshall,
Norfolk.
In 1582 Coke married the daughter of John Paston, Esq.,
by whom he received a handsome fortune ; and in 1598 he
was again married to the widow of Sir William Hutton,
daughter of Thomas Lord Burleigh. It was on this latter
occasion that having been arraigned before the archbishop’s
court for irregularity in solemnizing his marriage without
license or proclamation of banns, he escaped by pleading
ignorance of the law. Of Sir Edward Coke’s “ learned and
laborious works on the laws,” it has been observed that they
“will be admired by judicious posterity, while Fame has a
trumpet left her, or a breath to blow therein.” These are,
1. his Reports, in 13 parts, 1600, folio ; 2. a Speech and
Charge at the Norwich Assizes ; 3. his Institutes, of which
the best editions are the thirteenth, fourteenth, and fifteenth,
by Hargrave and Butler, 1788, 1789, and 1794 ; 4. a Trea¬
tise of Bail and Mainprize, 1637, 4to ; 5. Reading on the
State of Fines, 27 Edw. L, 1662, 4to ; 6. Complete Copy-
holder, 1640, 4to. See Legislation.
COLABA, in Hindustan, the name applied to the
southern portion of Lighthouse Island, the northern divi¬
sion of which called Old Woman’s Island is joined to the
Island of Bombay by a causeway overflowed at high water.
The lighthouse is situate at the southern extremity of the
island: its lantern is 150 feet above the level of the sea.
Colaba is the seat of an observatory, established for the pur¬
pose of taking magnetic and meteorological observations.
It also contains a church. This building is of recent erec¬
tion, and the circumstances connected with its origin are at
once extraordinary, and honourable to the motives of its
Colapoor.
COL
Colaba founders. The want of provision for religious worship was
one which had long been felt, and the desire of keeping in
remembrance the services and sufferings of their brave coun-
trymen during the late war in Scinde and Afghanistan,
was a feeling deeply seated in the hearts of the British
residents. After much consideration it was resolved to
gratify it, not by a monument simply commemorative of
the dead, but by a building which, while it effected the ob¬
ject just named, should supply to the living the means of ap¬
proaching Him in whose hands are the issues of battles.
Such is the brief and interesting history of the church
of Colaba.
Colaba (Angria’s territory). See Kolaba.
COLAIR Lake, a lake of Hindustan, to the S. ofEllore,
in the Northern Circars, which is formed by the overflowings
of the Krishna and Godavery, and extends 47miles in length
from W. to E., and 14 in breadth from N. to S. During
the rainy season the whole of this space is overspread with
water, excepting 60 or 70 islets, in which the inhabitants
remain ; but during the remainder of the year the whole is
dry, and in many places well cultivated. The waters of this
lake are distributed in many channels over the adjacent
country. A project for the drainage of this lake is in con¬
templation ; the effect of which when carried out will be to
render the entire bed available for tillage, and capable of
affording support to a population of 7000. The centre of
the lake is in Lat. 16. 40., Long. 81. 20.
COLAPOOR, a small Mahratta state on the western
coast of India, situate between the 16th and 18th degrees of
N. Lat. It is bounded on the S. by the Bombay collec-
torate of Belgaum ; on the E. and N. by Sattara; and on
the W. by Sawunt Warree and the British collectorate of
Rutnagherry. The country is well watered by many rivers,
and is favourable to the production of rice, of which great
quantities are cultivated. About the year 1670, this coun¬
try was overrun by the celebrated Sevajee ; and in 1684 by
the armies of Aurungzebe, who ravaged the country and
burned the town of Vingorla. In 1804 the maritime trade of
India was greatly annoyed by pirates, who issued from the
ports of the rajah ; and they were in consequence blockaded
by the East India Company’s cruisers, and payment was
demanded for all the damage which had been occasioned
by their piracies. At the same time two of the most dar¬
ing depredators took refuge with the rajah, after their pre¬
datory bands had been dispersed by General Wellesley.
He was in consequence informed that he would be held re¬
sponsible for the good behaviour of those persons to whom
he had granted an asylum, and that unless he restrained
their depredations his own territory would be invaded.
This intimation had little effect, and the system of piracy
was not effectually suppressed until 1812, when the fort
and harbour of Malwan with the remaining maritime pos¬
sessions of Colapoor were ceded to the British. In 1822
Abba Singh the rajah of Colapoor was murdered, and a
long course of misgovernment followed, attended by aggres¬
sions on the neighbouring chieftains who had been taken
under British protection. Recourse to military operations
was thus rendered indispensable ; and though hostile pro¬
ceedings were subsequently arrested by the submission of
the rajah, the renewed oppression of the protected chief¬
tains ultimately compelled the British to take military occu¬
pation of the country. In 1829, a new treaty was con¬
cluded with the rajah, and the British troops were with¬
drawn. From 1839 to 1842 the state of Colapoor was dis¬
tracted by intestine feuds, which in 1844 broke out into
open rebellion. This being put down by force of arms,
the entire management of the state was assumed and thence¬
forward exercised by the British government in the name
of the rajah, whose authority still continues in abeyance.
Lhe town of Colapoor, distant S.E. from Bombay 185 miles,
is in Lat. 16. 42., Long. 74. 18.
VOL. VII.
COL
97
COLAR, a town of Hindustan, in the native state of Colar
Mysore. The place is defended by a strong mud fort and ||
deep ditch, and contains about 700 houses, many of which Colbert,
are inhabited by weavers. It was the birthplace of Hyder 'r—-
Ali. A handsome mausoleum was erected to his memory
by his son; and near it a mosque and a college of Mussulman
priests. Lat. 13. 8., Long. 78. 10.
COLARBASUS, a Gnostic of the second century, who
carried out the doctrine of his master, Valentinus, in regard
to the gradation of aeons. He based his system on the
letters of the Greek alphabet, in which he regarded Christ
as the alpha and omega. His followers were called Colar-
basians. See Gnostics.
COLBERG, a fortified seaport-town of Prussian Pome¬
rania, government and 25 miles W. of Coslin, on the right
bank of the Persante, which falls into the Baltic about a
mile below the town. The principal buildings are the cathe¬
dral, town-house, citadel, and aqueduct by which the town
is supplied with water. Besides several churches and hos¬
pitals, Colberg contains a gymnasium, workhouse, house
of correction, exchange, and orphan asylum. The chief
manufactures are woollen cloth, salt, and spirits. Besides
valuable salmon and lamprey fisheries, the town possesses
a considerable trade. Pop. (1849) including military, 9480.
COLBERT, Jean Baptiste, Marquis of Segnelay, one
of the greatest statesmen that France has produced, was
born at Paris in 1619. He was descended from a respect¬
able family of Scottish extraction who resided at Rheims
in Champagne. His grandfather is said to have been a
wine-merchant, and his father at first followed the same
occupation, but afterwards became clerk to a notary. In
1648, his relation Jean Baptiste Colbert, lord of St Pouange,
preferred him to the service of his brother-in-law Le Tellier,
secretary of state; and here he soon became distinguished
by his diligence and exactness in the execution of the com¬
missions intrusted to his care. One day his master sent
him to Cardinal Mazarin, who was then at Sedan, with a
letter written by the queen mother, and ordered him to
bring it back after that minister had seen it. Colbert
carried the letter, and refused to return without it, though
the cardinal treated him roughly, used various arts to de¬
ceive him, and obliged him to wait several days for the
document. Some time afterwards, when the cardinal re- '
turned to court, and found himself in want of a secretary
or amanuensis, he desired Le Tellier to furnish him with
a fit person for that employment; and Colbert having been
presented to him, the cardinal, who had some remembrance
of the young man, desired to know where he had seen him.
Colbert was afraid of putting his eminence in mind of Sedan,
lest the recollection of his importunity in demanding the
queen’s letter should renew the cardinal’s anger; but the
cardinal, whose insight into character was very great, was
so far from disliking him for his fidelity to his former master,
that he received him on condition that lie should serve him
with equal zeal.
Colbert applied himself wholly to the advancement of
his master’s interests, and gave so many marks of his dili¬
gence and skill that the cardinal afterwards made him his
steward. He accommodated himself so dexterously to
the inclinations of the minister, by retrenching his super¬
fluous expenses and otherwise, that he was intrusted with
the management of the lucrative trade of selling benefices and
governments. It was by Colbert’s counsel that the car¬
dinal obliged the governors of frontier places to maintain
their garrisons out of the contributions they had exacted ;
a suggestion with which Mazarin was extremely pleased.
He was sent to Rome to negotiate the reconciliation of Car¬
dinal de Retz, for which the pope had showed some con¬
cern ; and to persuade his holiness to consent to the disin-
cameration of Casto, according to the treaty concluded with
his predecessor Urban VIII. Mazarin had so high an
N
98 COL
Colchester, opinion of Colbert’s abilities, and was so strongly impressed
with a sense of his faithful services, that at his death in
1661 he earnestly recommended his protege to Louis XI V.
as the most proper person to regulate the finances, which
at that time stood in great need of reformation. Louis ac¬
cordingly made Colbert intendant of the finances. The
latter applied himself to their regulation, and succeeded in
his object, although it procured him many enemies. France
is also indebted to this minister for establishing her trade with
the East and West Indies.
In 1664 Colbert became superintendent of buildings, and
from that time applied himself to enlarging and adorning
the royal edifices, such as the palace of the luilleries, the
Louvre, St Germain, Fontainebleau, and Ghamboid.. In
the same year he founded the Academy of Inscriptions,
and in 1666 the still more celebrated Academy of Sciences.
France also owes to Colbert all the advantages she has de¬
rived from the canals which connect the IVIediteiianean
with the Atlantic ; a work begun in 1666, and finished in
1680.
In 1669 Colbert was made secretary of state, and intrusted
with the management of naval affairs; and his services in
this department were commensurate with the confidence re¬
posed in him. He suppressed several useless offices; and
perceiving the king’s zeal for the extirpation of heresy, he
shut up the chamber instituted by the edicts of Paris and
Rouen. He proposed several new regulations concern¬
ing criminal courts, and was extremely severe to the par¬
liament of Toulouse for obstructing the measures he took
to carry these improvements into execution. His main
design in reforming the tedious methods of proceeding at
law, was to give the people more leisure to apply them¬
selves to trade; for the advancement of which he procured
an edict, erecting a general insurance office at Paris for
merchants and others. In 1672 he was appointed minister
of state ; but in the midst of public business he was careful
never to omit any opportunity of promoting the interest and
aggrandizement of himself and family. He had six sons and
three daughters, all of whom he married to persons of rank ;
thus wisely securing his fortune by powerful alliances. See
France.
This great minister died of the stone Sept. 6,1683, in his
64th year. In his last moments he was attended by Bourda-
loue ; and when his wife attempted to talk to him of public
affairs, he repulsed her, saying, “ Vous neme laisserez done
pas meme le temps de mourir.” He was of middle stature, his
mien low and dejected, his air gloomy, and his aspect stern.
He slept little, and lived temperately. He was of slow con¬
ception, but spoke judiciously of everything after he had
once comprehended it. He filled the most important
offices with high reputation and credit; and his influence
diffused itself throughout every department of the govern¬
ment. Colbert proved himself a wise, active, public-spirited
minister, attentive to the interests of his master, the happi¬
ness of the people, the progress of arts and manufactures,
and, in short, to everything that could advance the credit
and interest of his country. Though an enlightened patron
of science and literature, Colbert was not himself an author.
The work entitled Le Testament Politique de Colbert, pub¬
lished in 1694, is a compilation by another hand, in imita¬
tion of the Testament Politique du Cardinal de Richelieu.
COLCHESTER, a municipal and parliamentary borough
and market-town of England, county of Essex, on the Colne,
here crossed by three bridges. It stands on the Eastern
Counties railway, 51 miles N.E. of London. The borough
is governed by a mayor, 6 aldermen, and 18 councillors, and
returns two members to parliament. Registered electors
(1851-2) 1258. Pop. (1851) 19,443. It is supposed to be
the Camalodunum of the Romans ; and there are few places
in the kingdom where more Roman antiquities have been
discovered. It was taken from the Danes in 921 by Edward
Colchis.
COL
the Elder, who founded the castle; and in the reign of Colchicum
Edward III. it sent five ships to the blockade of Calais. It Autumnale
was ravaged by the plague in 1348, in 1360, and again in
1665. In 1648 it was taken by Lord Goring for Charles I.;
but was retaken by Fairfax after a siege of 11 weeks, when
Sir C. Lucas and Sir C. Lisle were put to death, and the
castle itself dismantled. The walls which surrounded the
town, forming an oblong of about 108 acres, with 4 gates
and 3 posterns, and about 7 feet thick, still exist in part.
Remains of the castle, built of flint and Roman brick, are
still to be found; and among them are parts of the tower,
Norman gateway, sally-port, and chapel. The remains of
the church of St Botolph’s priory, founded in the early part
of the twelfth century, present fine specimens of Norman
architecture. Several of the churches and chapels are
elegant buildings. It has also a free grammar-school with
a scholarship at St John’s College, Cambridge, town-hall
with jail underneath, corn exchange, house of correction,
theatre, library, botanic garden, savings-bank, gas and water
works, sevei'al hospitals and alms houses, bank, a large dis¬
tillery, and literary, medical, and other societies. Baize
was formerly made in the town to a considerable extent,
but this branch of industry has been superseded by the
manufacture of silk. The oyster fishery is extensively car¬
ried on. Vessels of 150 tons come up the river to Hythe, a
suburb, and the port of Colchester. In 1852, 683 vessels
of 52,329 tons (of which 657 vessels of 50,281 tons were
in the coasting trade) entered; and 336 vessels of 16,174
tons (of which 305 vessels of 13,866 tons were in the
coasting trade) cleared at the port. On 31st December
1852, 187 sailing vessels, under 50 tons = 3950 tons, 65
sailing vessels above 50 tons = 7156 tons, and 1 steam vessel
of 23 tons, were registered as belonging to the port.
COLCHICUM AUTUMNALE, meadow saffron, or
autumn crocus, a plant of the natural order Melanthaceae,
is largely collected for medicinal use in this country. (See
Botany, vol. v., p. 213.) Its infusion is well known as a
powerful remedy for gout, and has long been celebrated in
France under the name of Pau Medicinale. The cormus or
bulb, and also the seeds, are used in medicine, and have a
strong, persistent, bitter taste. Its medicinal virtues appear
to be derived from a peculiar alkaloid, which has been termed
colchicia. The best preparation is the wine of colchicum,
prepared by digesting eight ounces of the seeds in forty
ounces of sherry for about a week, shaking the vessel daily,
and pressing out the liquor. The usual dose is from 10 to
50 drops taken in water. It possesses intense activity as a
poison. The plant derives its name from Colchis in Armenia,
where it is said to have abounded. See Christison “ 0?i
Poisons” and Pharmacopoeia Edin.
COLCHIS, in Ancient Geography, a nearly triangular
district of Asia Minor, at the eastern extremity of the Black
Sea, was bounded N. by the Caucasus, which separated it from
Asiatic Sarmatia, E. by Iberia and the Moschici Montes,
S. by Armenia and part of Pontus, and W. by the Euxine.
The ancient district is represented by the modern province
of Mingrelia, and part of Abasia.
The name of Colchis is first found applied to this country
by the Greek poets TEschylus and Pindar. Its original
name was TEa, and it is first mentioned in connection
with iEetes its mythical king, father of the sorceress Medea.
Colchis was celebrated in Greek mythology as the destination
of the Argonauts, and the residence of Medea. Its early
history is involved in the greatest obscurity. At a re¬
mote period it seems to have been incorporated with the
Persian empire, though the inhabitants ultimately erected
their territory into an independent state; and in this condi¬
tion it was found by Alexander the Great, when he invaded
Persia. From this time till the era of the Mithridatic war
nothing is known of the history of Colchis. At the time of
the Roman invasion it seems to have paid a nominal hom-
99
COL COL
Colchis age to Mithridates, and to have been ruled over by Machares
[I the second son of that monarch. On the defeat of Mithridates
Cold. by Pompey, Colchis became a Roman province, of which
Aristarchus was appointed governor. After the death of
Pompey, when Caesar was pursuing his Egyptian and Spanish
conquests, Pharnaces the son of Mithridates rose in rebel¬
lion against the Roman yoke, subdued Colchis and Ar¬
menia, and made head, though but for a short time, against
the Roman arms. After this, Colchis was incorporated with
Pontus. Ihe Colchians are not again alluded to in ancient
history till along with the Abasci they joined Chosroes I.
king of Pei'sia, in his war with Marcian.
Colchis was inhabited by a number of tribes whose set¬
tlements lay chiefly along the shore of the Black Sea. The
chief of these were the Lazi, Moschi, Apsilse, Abasci,
Sagada?, Suani, and Coraxi. These tribes differed so com¬
pletely in language and appearance from the surrounding Colcothar
nations, that the ancients themselves originated various
theories to account for this phenomenon. Herodotus, Cold-
for example, believed them to have sprung from the relics
of the army of Sesostris, and thus identified them with
the Egyptians. Though this theory was not generally
adopted by the ancients, it has been defended, but not
with complete success, by some modern writers. From
the first named of these tribes, the Lazi, the country took its
name of Terra Lazica, under which designation it was lat¬
terly known.
COLCOTHAR, the brownish-red oxide of iron which
remains after the distillation of the acid from the sulphate
of iron. It is used for polishing glass and other substances,
and is known by artists under the denomination of crocus,
or crocus Martis.
C O L D.
It is often disputed whether cold has any actual exist¬
ence, or should be considered as merely the privation of
heat. Nor is that question of a modern date. Plutarch
attempted to discuss it, in his tract De primo frigido ; and
the reasonings which he there employs, though abun¬
dantly vague, are yet curious. Cold, he says, affects the
senses as well as heat; and it is not less active, since it
condenses and consolidates bodies. He therefore inclines
to the opinion, that cold is a distinct and independent
power in nature. With the Stoic philosophers, he regards
air as by its constitution cold and dark ; and hence water
drawn from a well freezes on being exposed to the atmo¬
sphere, while rivers overshadowed by high banks seldom
freeze, and even where their surface congeals, the heat is
not exhaled, but only driven down nearer the bottom.
The dimi- It is contrary to sound physics to admit more principles
nation of than are indispensably required, and this argument alone
heat- may ke suf{icient for the rejection of cold as a distinct
power in nature. What we term cold, in reference to our
feelings, is merely the diminution of heat; but the exist¬
ence and materiality of heat rest on a vei’y different foun¬
dation. The introduction of heat into a body is accom¬
panied by the infusibn of a certain extrinsic repulsive
force, and its passage through the mass is connected with
a series of depending internal motions, which imply the
regular expenditure of time and velocity. The contrac¬
tion which follows on the diminution of heat is due to the
mutual attractive powers of the particles of the substra¬
tum, now exerted with less opposition. That expansion,
again, which some fluids manifest in the act of congela¬
tion, proceeds from the operation of the principle of crys¬
tallization, with the recondite nature of which we are still
unacquainted.
The notion that cold has a separate and independent Concentra-
existence, appears, however, to receive some countenance tion of cold
from the elegant experiment of collecting and concentrat-hy reflec-
ing the frigorific impressions in the focus of a metallic re-tlon‘
fleeter. This curious fact, which is one of the oldest in physi¬
cal science, has lately been revived, and combined with cir¬
cumstances of peculiar interest. The experiment was first
mentioned about the year 1590, by Baptista Porta, in the
enlarged edition of his Magia Naturalis, when the four
books of which it originally consisted were augmented to
twenty, at the very time that his ingenious countryman
Sanctorio had invented and applied to medical purposes
the air thermometer. Porta relates, that if a shut eye
be held in the focus of a speculum, before which is placed
a ball of snow, intense cold will be felt on the eye-lid.1
Cavalieri, the celebrated discoverer of infinitesimals, in
his work on the conic sections, printed in 1632, and en¬
titled Lo Specchio Ustorio, extended the experiment to
all impressions which he conceived to be propagated in
straight lines, not only to those of heat and cold, but to
those of sound, and even smell.2 It was afterwards fre¬
quently repeated at Florence, by the Academy del Ci-
mento, with the important addition of the thermometer,
which that learned body had the merit of introducing into
practice. Similar experiments were next performed by
Mariotte in France.
Specula and burning glasses appear in tbe sequel tojjjjg^;^
     ——   factory
results.
1 Si quis candelam in loco, ubi spectabilis res locari debet, apposuerit, accedet candela per aerem usque ad oculos, ut illos calore, et
lumine offendet; hoc auteni mirabilius erit, ut calor, ita frigus reflectitur, si eo loco nix objiciatur, si oculum retigerit, quia sensibilis,
etiam frigus percipiet.
2 Cavalieri mentions that, with a spherical speculum made of lead, and indifferently polished, he was able to inflame dry substances
by the reflexion of a charcoal fire; and that, with a deep truncated parabolic speculum, badly polished, he produced the same effect in
the open focus, from a small fire of wood at the distance of five feet. Esperienza di questo hb fatto io, che con vno Specchio sferico
di piobo ancor mal polito, hb acceso il fuoco nella materia arida al fuoco di carboni; e di piix 1’hb fatto con la superficie parabolica,
cioe con vn canone parabolico, che hauea il suo foco vicino alia cima, essendo esso specchio parabolico trbeato pur nella cima, qua!’
era di stagno, e mal polito, tal che opponendolo al fuoco, b alia fiamma di ben poca legna, nella distanza di tre braccia, ponendo
la mano fi, dou’era la parte trocato, et il foco della parabola, non vi si potea sostenere, anzi vi s’accese fuoco; la qual cosa potria
alcuno applicare al riscaldamelo delle stanze, b alle distillationi. Pp. 85, 86—In general, says this ingenious mathematician
and philosopher, the same form of speculum which concentrates light and heat must likewise collect cold, which spreads from its
source, from a mass of snow for instance, in straight lines. The hyperbola is, therefore, the figure which he thinks the best adapted
for the purpose; and he proposes this for condensing the smells radiated from an odoriferous substance. Hora dunque bastera quello,
che si e detto di sopra intorno al lume, e calore, potendo noi nell'istcsso tempo intendere le medesime cose anco per ilfreddo, che dilatddosi dal
corpo freddo ad ognii positione per lineu retta, e percib nclV infinite linee, che si partono dal corpo fired do, come dalla nene, essendoui dentro le
parallele, che sono vnite dallo specchio parabolico, e le diuergenti, che sono vnite dall’ elittico, e le conuergenti vnite dall’ iperbolico,
con opporre alcun di questi specchi ad vna massa di neue, b di ghiacco, sentiremo nel loro foco essere il freddo fatto molto gagliardo,
ma per questo effetto sark piii atto 1’iperbolico di tutti, come quello, che raccogliera maggior quantita di linee fredde; e questo basti
ancora circa il freddo, potendosi forsi in vn certo modo creder, che talle effetto accadesse anco intorno d gli odori, prouando noi di/atarsi pur
quelli dalli corpi odorifieri verso ogni banda. Id. p. 128.
>
100 c o
Cold, have been allowed to fall into great neglect. We find
l_ir_scarcely any mention of their application to physical re¬
searches, till, after the lapse of more than half a century,
Kraft repeated, at St Petersburg, during the severe win¬
ter of 1740, the frigorific experiment of the Italian philo¬
sophers, with a reflector belonging to the cabinet of the
Imperial Academy. Ambitious to operate on a grand
scale, he selected three huge blocks of clear ice, nearly of
a cubical form, each side being two, four, and five feet;
but, to save the trouble of transporting them, he carried
the speculum out of doors. No sensible effect, however,
was then perceived by him, though he used the air ther¬
mometer on account of its extreme delicacy. In 1744,
this academician again resumed the observation, and with
scarcely better success, having obtained only a doubtful
cold of three degrees. The cause of the failure was evi¬
dently his performing the experiment out of doors, and
not in a warm room. The blocks of ice had, by long
standing, acquired almost the same temperature as their
ambient medium. Had the air happened to become sud¬
denly colder, they might, from their relative condition,
have excited impressions even of heat, and thus have per¬
plexed philosophy for many years afterwards.
Such unsatisfactory results, from the action of a mass
of ice of above a ton weight, seem for a long time to have
shaken the belief in former experiments ; and the subject
Resumed was almost forgotten, when Pictet of Geneva, in 1781,
by Pictet, repeated the original observation, on a small scale, indeed,
but with entire success. Since that time a pair of brass
reflectors, with a wire case for holding charcoal or snow,
has been deemed an essential apparatus in every physical
cabinet. The concentration of cold in the focus of a spe¬
culum always excites surprise; and the experiment is of¬
ten exhibited with a sort of mysterious air, as if it esta¬
blished, or at least rendered probable, the distinct and
material existence of cold; but, in fact, it is not more dif¬
ficult to conceive the impressions of cold to be collected
than those of heat. Both those impressions are only rela¬
tive to the temperature of the atmosphere, which serves
as the medium of their transmission. The one process
terminates with the deposition of a portion of heat, the
other with its abstraction.
Sources of The diminution of heat, or the increase of cold, is pro¬
cold. duced in nature under four different circumstances: 1.
By the obliquity or absence of the sun; 2. by the tenuity
of the higher atmosphere; 3. by the evaporation which
takes place in dry air; and, 4. by the chilling impression
shot downwards from a clear and serene sky.
Obliquity 1. In our temperate climates the thermometer in win-
or the sun, tgr very seldom descends fifteen degrees on Fahrenheit’s
scale, below the point of congelation; but in the higher
latitudes the intensity of the cold is often far greater. In
the northern parts of Sweden and Russia, the rivers and
ordinary lakes are frozen to the depth of several feet;
wine, and even ardent spirits, become converted into a
spongy mass of ice, and, as the cold still augments, it pe¬
netrates the living forests, and congeals the very sap of
the trees, which occasionally burst from this internal ex¬
pansion with tremendous noise. The Baltic Sea has been
repeatedly covered with a solid floor of ice, capable of
transporting whole armies, with all their stores and en¬
gines of war. Those waters, indeed, are only brackish ;
but the more northern ocean itself has often been frozen
to a very considerable thickness. In Siberia and Hud¬
son’s Bay, and even in the northern provinces of Sweden,
mercury has been at some times observed contracted by
exposure into a solid semi-metal; and, consequently, the
cold which then prevailed must have exceeded seventy-
one degrees, or thirty-nine below the commencement of
Fahrenheit’s scale.
L D.
2. In elevated tracts the increase of cold is very strik- Cold,
ing. Even at an altitude of three miles and a half, the
air is generally sixty-eight degrees colder than at the level Elevation
of the sea. On the summit of the Andes, therefore, a°jtbe
thermometer would often sink perhaps under the begin-^ace*
ning of Fahrenheit’s scale; and it seems probable that
mercury would naturally freeze in winter on the top of
Mont Blanc. Mountains are hence regarded as the grand
stores or depositaries of cold in the milder climates. In
every country, therefore, the air of subterraneous caves,
and the water of deep springs or wells, are during the
summer months comparatively cold. Hence the obvious
advantage of cellars, in addition to their preserving an
uniform temperature, which is so favourable to the ripen-
ing of the liquors deposited in them. But the air at the
bottom of an open and very deep pit must be colder than
the mean state of the ground ; for in all the changes which
take place at the surface, the cold air will descend, and
the warm air still float over the mouth of the pit. The
wealthier classes of antiquity were accustomed, accord¬
ingly, to cool the wine for their tables by suspending it
for some time in a bucket let down near the surface of
profound wells.
3. Evaporation is a natural process, by which heat is Evapora-
powerfully abstracted by the exhaling moisture, while thistion.
assumes a gaseous constitution in the act of combining
with dry air. The fact seems to have been known in the
warm regions of the East#t a very early period of society,
suggested probably by the familiar use of a rude unglazed
pottery for all culinary purposes. The Egyptians, and
other inhabitants of the sultry shores of the Levant, have,
from the remotest ages, cooled the water for drinking in
their porous jars. Athenaeus reports, from a history of
Protagorides, that King Antiochus had always a provision
for his table prepared in that way. The water having been
carefully decanted from its sediment into earthen pitchers
(vdoucug Kigaliicug), these were transported to the highest
part of his palace, and exposed to the clear and keen
atmosphere (i^aifyiagouw), two boys being appointed to
watch them the whole night, and kept constantly wetting
their sides. This labour of sprinkling the surface of the
jars seems to have been afterwards spared, in consequence
probably of the adoption of a more porous kind of earthen¬
ware. Galen, in his Commentary on Hippocrates, relates,
that he witnessed the mode of cooling water, which was
practised in his time, not only at Alexandria, but over all
Egypt. The water having been previously boiled, was
poured at sunset into shallow pans (ayyoig otfrgcouvoif), which
were then carried to the house-tops, and there exposed
during the whole night to the wind; and, to preserve the
cold thus acquired, the pans were removed at day-break,
and placed on the shaded ground, surrounded by leaves
of trees, prunings of vines, lettpce, nr other slow-conduct¬
ing substances.
The bottles or bags made of goat-skins, in which the
wandering Arabs-are wont to carry their scanty provision
of water, allowing a small portion of the liquid to transude
and exhale, render it by consequence comparatively cool,
and better fitted to mitigate or allay the intolerable thirst
created in traversing their sandy deserts. In Guinea, it
is customary to fill gourds or calabashes with water, and
suspend them all night from the outer branches of trees.
The Moors introduced into Spain a sort of unglazed Cooling
earthen jugs, named bucaros or alcarrazas, which, being vessels’
filled with water, present to the atmosphere a surface called
constantly humid, and furnish by evaporation, during thecarrazcu'
dry and hot weather, a refreshing beverage. The same
practice has been adopted by degrees in various parts of
the south of Europe. In India, during certain months,
the apartments are kept comparatively cool, by dashing
COLD.
101
Cold.
Indian
mode of
collecting
Impres¬
sions
showered
from a
clear sky.
Their in-
ensitv in
he finer
dimates.
water against the matting of reeds or bamboos which line
the doors and outside of the walls. Even the more luxu¬
rious mariners, in their voyages between the tropics, are
accustomed to cool their wines by lapping the bottle with
wet flannel, and suspending it from the yard or under the
cabin windows. In all such cases the effect is accelerated,
though not augmented, by the swiftness of the current
of air. What have been called Egyptian coolers, and
lately produced by our potters, are less perfect in their
operation. Being very thick, they require only to be
soaked in water, and the evaporation from their surface
cools the adjacent air. On the inside, however, where the
bottle is placed, the action, in consequence of the confined
humidity, must be enfeebled. In damp weather, these
vessels, it is evident, are entirely useless.
The natives of India likewise are enabled, by directing
a skilful process of evaporation, to procure for themselves
a supply of ice during their short winter. In the upper
country, not far however from Calcutta, a large open plain
being selected, three or four excavations are made in it,
about thirty feet square and two feet deep, and the bot¬
tom covered to the thickness of nearly a foot with sugar
canes or dried stalks of Indian corn. On this bed are
placed rows of small unglazed earthen pans, about an inch
and quarter deep, and extremely porous. In the dusk of
the evening, during the months of December, January,
and February, these are filled with soft water previously
boiled and suffered to cool; when the weather is very fine
and clear a great part of the water becomes frozen during
the night. The pans are regularly visited at sunrise, and
their contents thrown into baskets which retain the ice.
These are now carried to a conservatory, made by sinking
a pit fourteen or fifteen feet deep, lined with straw under
a layer of coarse blanketing. The small sheets of ice are
thrown down into the cavity, and rammed into a solid
mass. The mouth of the pit is then closed up with straw
and blankets, and sheltered by a thatched roof.
4. It was stated in the article Climate, that impres¬
sions of cold are constantly showered down from a clear
and azure sky. These effects are no doubt more conspi¬
cuous in the finer regions of the globe. Accordingly, they
did not escape the observation of the ancients, but gave
rise to opinions which were embodied in the language of
poetry. The term a»j£ was applied only to the grosser
part of the atmosphere, while the highest portion of it,
free from clouds and vapour, and bordering on the pure
fields of aether, received the kindred appellation of aidpa.
But this word and its derivatives have always been asso¬
ciated with ideas of cold. We have seen that the verb «£a/-
is used by Athenaeus to signify the cooling of a
body by exposure under a serene sky. Homer uses the
term ai^og, in speaking of the reception of his hero, when
overcome with cold and toil.1 The same poet of nature
applies the epithet adpriywrig or ai^rjysvBrrig, or frigorific,
to Boreas, the north wind.2 The chorus in the Antigone
of Sophocles deprecates the pelting storm, and likewise
the cold (ui&pa) of inhospitable frozen tracts.3 The word
cudpog is employed by Herodotus to signify a chill as well
as a dry atmosphere.4 Of the same import is the expres¬
sion in Horace, sub Jove frigido.
In the finer climates, especially, a transpiercing cold is,
therefore, felt at night under the clear and sparkling canopy
of heaven. The natives carefully avoid exposing them¬
selves to this supposed celestial influence; yet a thin shed
Cold.
of palm leaves may be sufficient at once to screen them
from the scorching rays of the sun, and to shelter them
against the chilling impressions rained from the higher at¬
mosphere. The captains of the French gallies in the Me¬
diterranean used formerly to cool their wines in summer
by hanging the flasks all night from the masts. At day¬
break they were taken down and lapped in several folds
of flannel, to preserve them in the same state. The fri¬
gorific impression of a serene and azure sky must un¬
doubtedly have concurred with the power of evaporation
in augmenting the energy of the process of nocturnal cool¬
ing practised anciently in Egypt, and now systematically
pursued in the higher grounds of India. As the chilness
accumulated in the ground is greatest in clear nights,
when the moon shines brightest, it seemed very natural
to impute this effect partly to some influence emanating
from that feeble luminary. It was long imagined that the
lunar beams are essentially cold ; and some philosophers,
at no remote period, have attempted even to prove the
fact by experiment. Mr Boyle, though he rejected judi¬
cial astrology, was yet disposed to admit the notion of
stellar influences.
The obvious mode of cooling water, or other liquids, by Cooling
the infusion of ice or snow, was practised in the warmer with snow,
countries from the earliest ages. It is even mentioned in
the Proverbs of Solomon, “ As the cold of snow in the time
of harvest, so is a faithful messenger to them that send
him.” Aristotle, presuming that the finer parts of water
are dissipated by congelation, maintained that it is perni¬
cious to drink melted snow. This speculative opinion seems
not, however, to have been regarded by the ancients.
Theocritus calls snow-water an ambrosial drink, rrorog
apfigoffiog. Xenophon mentions the practice of cooling
wine by the addition of snow. It is related by the histo¬
rians of Alexander the Great, that in his Indian expedi¬
tion, when he laid siege to the city of Petra, he command¬
ed thirty pits to be dug and filled with snow, which was
covered over with oak branches. The luxurious Romans
had excavations regularly formed for keeping snow the
whole year, chaff and other light substances being employ¬
ed to preclude from it the access of heat. But as the snow
preserved in this way could not escape being soiled, in¬
stead of mixing it directly in the drinking cup, a more re¬
fined practice was introduced of surrounding the silver gob¬
let which contained the liquor with a mass of the melting
snow. This improvement was ascribed to the profligate
emperor Nero. Similar modes of storing up snow have
been adopted in all the warm countries. The caves on
the sides of Mount iEtna are considered as natural maga¬
zines for supplying a material which is not only carried
down to Palermo and Messina, but even shipped to the
island of Malta. The Italians formerly cooled their wine
by setting the large glass flasks containing it in wide ves¬
sels of wood or cork, the intervening space being filled
with snow on which water was poured.
Saltpetre or nitre being almost a natural production ofcoolW
the East, its property of rendering water cold by solution with nitre,
was probably known from a very remote period to the
oriental nations. This process of cooling is described in
the Institutes of Akbar as the discovery of that enlighten¬
ed prince, who governed India with parental mildness
from the year 1560 to 1605. One part of nitre is direct¬
ed to be thrown into a vessel containing two parts of wa¬
ter ; and a gugglet of pewter or silver filled with pure wa-
KiBfiu Ktu xap.a.'riu wyev oixov. Odyss. lib. xiv. 318.
'Us <)’ an rueQutzt vityadi; ixironovra.!,
'i'u%pai vtxi piTr,s cufynyivios Beoicao. Iliad, lib. xix. 357—8.
K«< ouS^nyDiir’/is, yaya. xvfxa xuXivSav. Odyss. lib. V. 296.
'bvcrauXuv araywv aidgia.
xai dutrau/ioa. pivyuv gsAjj. Antigone, 357-
Qi^ptan^ai yag it; urr/ ro viag rtts ts aiS^ia; *»/ mi ipoasv.
Euterpe.
102
COLD.
Cold.
Introdu¬
ced into
Italy.
Cooling
by saline
powders.
Principle
of evapo¬
ration.
ter, and having its mouth close stopped, is then stirred
quickly in the mixture for the space of a quarter of an
hour.
The frigorific property of nitre was probably first com¬
municated from India or Persia to Europe, and seems to
have become known to the Italians about the middle of
the sixteenth century. As early as the year 1550, all the
rich families in Rome cooled the liquors for their tables
by dissolving that salt in water. Into a vessel of cold wa¬
ter the nitre was gradually added in the proportion of a
fourth or fifth part, while a globular bottle with a long
neck, containing the wine or water to be cooled, was
whirled rapidly round its axis. The salt, being afterwards
recovered by crystallization, would always serve the same
purpose again with undiminished effect. In India every
family of distinction keeps a domestic, whose sole employ¬
ment is to cool liquors by this process; but nitre being
cheap in that country, it is used in larger proportions, and
the water charged with it is allowed to become a perqui¬
site of the operator.
The application of salts to produce cold was extended
by Boyle, and afterwards more successfully by Fahren¬
heit. About the commencement of this century, Mr Walker
of Oxford, and Professor Lowitz of St Petersburg re¬
sumed the subject, and produced compound saline powders
possessed of intense frigorific power. The solution of salts
in water expanding that liquid, augments its capacity for
heat, and consequently depresses its temperature. This
effect is likewise the greater in proportion to the quantity
of saline matter which can be dissolved. But after water
is saturated with one species of salt, it can still absorb
some portion of another. Hence the frigorific effects of
solution are always increased by employing a compound
dry powder. Nitre and sal-ammoniac, or the nitrate of
potash and the muriate of soda, in equal parts, added in
the form of a dry powder to three parts by weight of wa¬
ter, will sink Fahrenheit’s thermometer forty degrees. But
equal parts of the muriate of ammonia and of the nitrate
of potash, with one part and a half of the sulphate of soda
or common Glauber’s salt, will cool down three parts of
water forty-six degrees. A still greater effect, amounting
to fifty-seven degrees, is produced by dissolving equal
parts of the nitrate of ammonia and of the carbonate of
soda in one part of water. The frigorific action is in
general augmented by throwing the desiccated powder
into dilute acid instead of water. Thus three parts of the
phosphate of soda, and two parts of the nitrate of ammonia,
joined to rather more than one part of weak nitric acid,
will sink the thermometer seventy-one degrees.
These changes induced on the temperature of the li¬
quid menstruum are no doubt considerable, yet they are
still only transient, and the process requires some address
and manipulation, not always readily attained. But the
principle of evaporation, when rightly understood, leads to
a far easier mode of cooling liquids, which maybe prolong¬
ed at pleasure. A close investigation of that principle, at
the very commencement of his philosophical labours, has
conducted Professor Leslie through the whole train of his
discoveries on the subject of refrigeration. The process
of evaporation had not then been examined with attention.
The depression of temperature which always accompanies
it was hastily supposed to be proportional to the rate with
which the moisture is dissipated, and to be therefore aug¬
mented by every circumstance that can accelerate this ef¬
fect. If water, contained in a porous vessel, expose on all
sides its surface to a current of air, it will cool down to a
certain point, and there its temperature will remain sta¬
tionary. The rapidity of the current must no doubt has¬
ten the period of equilibrium, but the degree of cold thus
induced will be still the same. A little reflection may dis- Cold,
cover how this happens. Though the humid surface has
ceased to grow colder, the dispersion of invisible vapour,
and tbe corresponding abstraction of heat, still continues
without intermission. The same medium, therefore, which
transports the vapour, must also furnish the portion of heat
required for its incessant formation. In fact, after the wa¬
ter has been once cooled down, each portion of the ambient
air which comes to touch the evaporating surface must,
from its contact with a substance so greatly denser than
itself, be likewise cooled to the same standard, and must
hence communicate to the liquid its surplus share of heat,
or the difference between the prior and the subsequent
state of the solvent, which is proportional to the diminu¬
tion of temperature it has suffered. Every shell of air
which encircles in succession the humid mass, while it ab¬
sorbs, along with the moisture which it dissolves, the mea¬
sure of heat necessary to convert this into steam, does at
the same instant thus deposit an equal measure of its own
heat on the chill exhaling surface. The abstraction of heat
by vaporization on the one hand, and, on the other, its de¬
position at the surface of contact, are therefore opposite
contemporaneous acts, which soon produce a mutual ba¬
lance, and thereafter the temperature induced continues
without the smallest alteration. A rapid circulation of the
evaporating medium may quicken the operation of those
causes; but so long as it possesses the same drying quali¬
ty, it cannot in any degree derange the resulting tempe¬
rature. The heat deposited by the air on the humid sur¬
face becomes thus an accurate measure of the heat spent
in vaporizing the portion of moisture required for the satu¬
ration of that solvent at its lowered temperature. The dry¬
ness of the air is therefore, under all circumstances, pre¬
cisely indicated by the depression of temperature produ¬
ced on a humid surface w hich has been exposed freely to
its action.
Guided by these views, Mr Leslie was enabled to con- Hygro-
struct a correct hygrometer, that should indicate the dry- meter.
ness of the air, from the diminution of temperature which
a small body of water, exposed on all sides, suffers by eva¬
poration. His efforts again to improve this instrument led
him next to the invention of the differential thermometer,
which was converted into an hygrometer by having one of
its balls covered with cambric, lint, or tissue paper, capa¬
ble of being easily wetted. Reduced to such a delicate
and commodious form, it detected with the utmost preci¬
sion, and under all circumstances, the relative condition of
the air in regard to dryness.
It appears that absorbent substances, exposing a broad Cooling
surface, are capable of assimilating to tbeir previous state£fleeted br
the air confined over them. Flannel, for instance, whichthe Pre:
has been intensely dried, will support a remarkable degree
of dryness in a close receiver. The trap-rock and com-ents>
pound clays, brayed into a coarse powder, and desiccated
before a strong fire, wall exert a more powerful and ex¬
tended action. But dried oat-meal will act with equal
energy, and for a longer time. Of the saline substances,
the muriate of lime absorbs moisture with the greatest and
most protracted force. After it has become drenched with
humidity, it may likewise be recovered again, though the
process of restoring it unaltered is rather troublesome.
But the best and most powerful absorbent is the concen¬
trated sulphuric acid, or the oil of vitriol of commerce,
which continues for a long time to attract moisture with
almost undiminished force, and possesses besides the valua¬
ble property, after it has become charged with humidity,
of being easily restored again by the application of heat to
its original strength.
To cool water in any climate or state of the atmosphere, Mode of
we have only therefore to put it into a small porous vessel, proceed-
'ing.
COLD.
Cold, presenting on all sides a humid surface, and to suspend
>—this within a close wide cistern, of which the bottom is
covered with a layer of sulphuric acid. The broad sur¬
face of the acid absorbing the moisture as fast as it diffu¬
ses itself through the confined air, keeps that medium con¬
stantly at a point of extreme dryness, and thus enables it
to support, with undiminished vigour, the process of eva¬
poration.
In practice, the cistern or refrigeratory, having a broad
cylindrical form, from twelve to sixteen inches in diameter,
and composed of dense well-glazed earthenware (see Plate
CLXXXVII. fig. 7), is placed in a cellar or other cool place,
and charged with sulphuric acid to the height of about
half an inch from the bottom. One of the porous earthen
pots, being filled up to the lip with water fresh drawn from
the well, is set upon a low porcelain stand in the middle
of the cistern, to which the lid or cover is then carefully
adapted. In the space of from three to perhaps five
hours, the cooling is nearly completed, and the pot
should now be removed; for though the water will be
kept at the same degree of coldness as long as it remains
shut up within the refrigeratory, the acid would be un¬
necessarily weakened by the incessant absorption of mois¬
ture.
Extent of The production of cold is greater when the cistern is
this power, large, or when a small pot is used, insomuch that the ef¬
fect will be diminished one half if the humid surface
should equal that of the acid, the opposite actions of such
surfaces inducing an exactly intermediate state with re¬
spect to dryness and moisture in the condition of the aerial
medium. The power of evaporation is also diminished in
the low temperatures. Thus, if the atmosphere were at
95° by Fahrenheit, the water within the refrigeratory
might be cooled down 36°, or brought to 59°; but if the
thermometer be at 50°, the water can be cooled only 18°,
which brings it to the freezing point. This seems to be a
very convenient property, since the power of the refrige¬
ratory is always the greatest at the season when its appli¬
cation is most wanted.
It is easy, therefore, by such means to cool water in our
climate at all times to near the freezing point, and, even
under the torrid zone, to reduce it to the temperature of
60°, which in those regions « sufficient perhaps for essen¬
tial comfort.
By supplying a succession of porous earthen pots, the
acid will continue to act with scarcely diminished force,
till it has absorbed half its weight of moisture; during
which time it will have assisted in cooling about fifty times
that quantity of the water exposed to evaporation. At
this stage the dilute acid should be drawn off, and a charge
of concentrated acid again introduced into the refrigera¬
tory.
Its use for This method of procuring cold, it will readily be per-
lomestic ceived, could be employed with advantage for various do-
jurposes. mestic purposes. For instance, butter may in summer be
kept cool for the table, by putting it, after being washed
with water, into a wet porous pot, and shutting this up for
a couple of hours in the refrigeratory. To cool wine suf¬
ficiently, one bottle only is used at a time in the smallest
refrigeratory. A sheath of stocking or flannel, previously
soaked in water, being drawn over the body of the bottle,
it is laid in a reclined position on one of the porcelain
sliders, near the surface of the acid, and allowed to re¬
main shut up during the space of three or four hours.
The refrigerating combination here employed produces
its effect, by a sort of invisible distillation carried on by
the play and circulation of the included air. The minute
portions of moisture which successively combine with the
contiguous medium, must abstract from the mass of water
as much heat as would support them in the state of va-
103
pour, or would in ordinary cases convert them into steam. Cold.
This vapour again being conveyed through the air, is at-
tracted by the sulphuric acid, and, recovering its liquid
constitution, deposits the heat which it had borne away.
The acid is therefore warmed at the expense of the water
subjected to evaporation, and the whole performance of
the apparatus consists in a mere transfer and interchange
of condition.
CONGELATION
Is the passage of any substance from the liquid to the so- Congela-
lid form, in consequence of the abstraction of heat. The tion.
conversion of water into ice could not fail to draw the no¬
tice of men in all ages. The minute and divided fragments
of the same production, which descend from the clouds in
the shape of snow or hail, displayed the various powers of
nature. The ancients imagined that water which has lain
for ages in a frozen state acquires at last a permanent con¬
solidation. They extended accordingly the name of ice
(xgugruXXoi or crystal) to the pure and pellucid kind of
quartz which often occurs on the sides of lofty moun¬
tains, near the boundary of perpetual congelation.
It was early remarked that melted ice has the lightness \yater
and quality of boiled water. In fact, the portion of air loses its air
combined with ordinary water is discharged in the act ofin the act
freezing, as well as in that of boiling. Water thus deprived?^ freez-
of its air is therefore prepared for a readier congelation.
l he ancients accordingly, we have seen, always boiled the
water which they designed afterwards to cool. Aristotle
relates, in his Meteorology, that the fishermen who cast
their nets in the waters of Pontus, used to carryin close ves¬
sels boiled water, for the purpose of sprinkling the reeds,
that these might quickly freeze together, and cease to dis¬
turb the fish by their rustling noise. The expulsion of
air from water during the progress of congelation, was
afterwards fully proved by Mariotte, one of the earliest
members of the French Academy of Sciences. If two
wine glasses, filled, the one with water from the well, and
the other with water recently boiled, be exposed to the
frost, the ice of the latter will seem almost uniformly pel¬
lucid, while the ice of the former will appear charged with
small air-bubbles crowding towards the centre of the
mass, to which they are driven by the advance of the con¬
gelation.
That congelation shoots at angles of 120 degrees, was
first observed in the beginning of the seventeenth cen-
tury by the great Kepler; and this ardent and inventive
genius, in an elaborate dissertation, which he printed as a
new year’s present, investigated the various forms and
modifications of the icy crystals. The subject was next
discussed by Des Cartes and Bartholinus, and about a
century afterwards resumed by Mairan, and may be con¬
sidered as a step towards the general theory of crystallo¬
graphy, which has been since reared by the patience and
ingenuity of Plaiiy.
Other liquids, such as vinegar, dilute mineral acids, imperfect
weak spirits, and saline solutions, are likewise capable ofcongela-
being frozen; but they yield an ice distinctly different tion.
from that of pure water, resembling an aggregation rather
than an uniform solid, and wanting consistency, strength,
and clearness. The frost appears to seize on the water
only, and to fill the compound liquid with close spicular
shoots, entangling the stronger acid or brine in their in¬
terstices. It was a mistake, therefore, to assert that the
ice of sea-water is really fresh. In the process of melt¬
ing, some portion of the brine may probably flow off, but
the residue still is always brackish. This fact is even po¬
sitively stated by the missionary Crantz, in his accurate
account of Greenland. The very intelligent and enter¬
prising navigator Mr Scoresby reckons the specific gra-
104
COLD.
Cold.
Artificial
congela¬
tion disco¬
vered in
Italy;
and gradu¬
ally com¬
municated
to the rest
of Europe.
Rendered
more in¬
tense.
vity of the spongy salt-water ice to be *873, while that of
fresh-water ice amounted to *937.
The ancients were altogether unacquainted with artifi¬
cial congelation, and with any cold, indeed, below that of
freezing. The application of nitre to the cooling of water
seems, before the close of the sixteenth century, to have
suggested to the Italians the experiment of mixing it with
snow. A very intense degree of cold was thus generated,
capable of converting speedily into solid ice a body of wa¬
ter contained in a smaller vessel immersed in the dissolv¬
ing mixture. Sanctorio, who may be regarded as the
father of modern physics, mentions, in his Commentary
on Avicenna, that he produced the same effect by em¬
ploying common salt instead of nitre, in the proportion of
the third part of the snow, and had repeatedly performed
the experiment in the presence of a numerous auditory.
From Italy this discovery was gradually communicated
over the rest of Europe. In the course of the seven¬
teenth century iced creams, fruits, and various confitures,
were first produced on the tables of the luxurious. The
famous coffeehouse, Procope, was founded at Paris in
1660, by a Florentine of that name, a vender of lemonade,
who was very successful in the art of preparing rich ices.
Thirty years afterwards the use of such artificial delicacies
in that city had become quite common.
The cold resulting from the addition of saline powders
to snow or pounded ice, depends on the powerful attrac¬
tion of those salts, which restores the frozen mass to its
liquid form, and therefore augments its capacity for heat.
Fahrenheit fixed the commencement of his thermometri-
cal scale at the temperature of the compound of salt and
snow, conceiving it to be the lowest possible; but much
lower degrees of cold are now produced. One part of the
muriate of soda, or purified common salt, being added to
two parts of dry snow or pounded ice, will sink the ther¬
mometer five degrees below zero. One part of sal-ammo¬
niac, and two of common salt, joined to five parts of snow,
will bring it seven degrees lower; but equal parts of the
nitrate of ammonia and common salt, joined to two parts
and a half of snow, will depress the thermometer twenty-
five degrees below the freezing point.
Still more intense cold might be produced, if the ingre¬
dients were, before their mixture, cooled down to conge¬
lation. Thus five parts of the muriate of lime, added to
four parts of snow, will sink the thermometer to forty
degrees below the beginning of the scale, or the limit of
freezing mercury; and if the muriate of lime were crys¬
tallized, the effect would be ten degrees more. The same
extreme energy is exerted on adding four parts of dry
caustic potash to three parts of snow.
The mineral acids likewise, in a diluted state, produce
similar effects. Two parts of weak sulphuric acid, joined
to three of snow, will sink the thermometer to twenty-
three degrees below zero. The muriatic and nitric acids,
in nearly the same proportions, will depress it from four
to seven degrees more. By repeating the applications,
therefore, a most intense cold may be created; yet, to
succeed completely, a skilful manipulation is required.
The saline matters should be reduced to a fine powder,
and the freezing mixtures should be made in very thin
vessels, not larger than will barely hold them. In this
way, by successive stages of cooling, Mr Walker once ob¬
tained the enormous cold of ninety-one degrees below the
commencement of Fahrenheit’s scale.
The mere evaporation of some very volatile liquids is
sufficient to produce excessive cold. Thus, if a thermo¬
meter, having its bulb covered with lint, be dipped in the
common or sulphuric ether, it will, on exposure to the
air, sink perhaps thirty or forty degrees. This effect is
augmented under the receiver of an air-pump. If a nar¬
row thin tube of glass, filled with water, and cased on the Cold,
outside with lint soaked in ether, be suspended above the
pump, and the exhaustion quickly made, a cylinder of ice
will be formed.
The same property is manifested in a higher degree
by a singular liquid, discovered by Lampadius in 1796,
by distilling a mixture of pyrites and charcoal. It was
called at first the alcohol of sulphur, but now more appro¬
priately the sulphuret of carbon. According to Dr Mar-
cet, who has completed the investigation of its properties,
a thermometer having its bulb covered with lint wetted
by this liquid, and held in the open air, will sink not fewer
than sixty degrees ; but if the same experiment be per¬
formed within the exhausted receiver of an air-pump, the
alcohol of the barometer will even descend to eighty-
two degrees below zero. It must be observed, however,
that these effects produced by the evaporation of ether,
and of the sulphuret of carbon, are quite evanescent, and
that the receiver becomes soon charged with their fumes,
which then prevent any farther action. Those fumes
likewise corrode the valves of the pump, and soon render
it quite useless. Neither ether, therefore, nor the sul¬
phuret of carbon, could be applied in practice with any
sort of advantage to the production of ice, even on the
smallest scale.
We have now to relate a discovery which will enable New mode
human skill to command the refrigerating powers of na-of artificial
ture, and, by the help of an adequate machinery, to create congela-
cold and produce ice, on a large scale, at all seasons, andtlon'
in the hottest climates of the globe; but to explain this
interesting subject with greater clearness and accuracy,
it is requisite to trace the successive advances which con¬
ducted to the result. Where a conclusion appears simple,
the careless observer is apt to suppose it easily attained;
yet, though sound philosophy tends always to simplifica¬
tion, the rare quality of simplicity is scarcely ever the
flash of intuition, but the slow fruit of close and patient
investigation. In pursuing the researches with his hy¬
grometer, Professor Leslie was early induced to inquire
into the condition of the higher atmosphere, and its rela¬
tions to humidity. He thus detected a fact of great im¬
portance in meteorology, and pointing at various ulterior
views.
As rarefaction enlarges the capacity of air for heat, so investiga-
it likewise augments the disposition to hold moisture; at tion of its
the same time that the removal of the ordinary pressure Principles‘
facilitates the expansion of the liquid matter, and its con¬
version into a gaseous form. Accordingly, if the hygro¬
meter be suspended within a large receiver, from which
a certain portion of air is quickly abstracted, it will sink
with rapidity. In summer, the additional dryness thus
produced amounts to about fifty hygrometric degrees each
time the air has its rarefaction doubled; so that, suppos¬
ing the operation of exhausting to be performed with ex¬
pedition, and the residuum reduced to a sixty-fourth part,
the hygrometer would mark a descent of 300°. But this
effect is only momentary, for the thin air very soon be¬
comes charged with moisture, and, consequently, ceases
to act on the wet ball of the hygrometer. The cold, how¬
ever, excited on the surface of that ball, by such intense
evaporation, will have previously frozen the coating.
The increased power of aqueous solution which air ac¬
quires as it grows thinner, being ascertained and carefully
investigated, the object was to combine the action of ab¬
sorbent with the transient dryness produced within a re¬
ceiver by rarefaction. The sentient ball of the hygrome¬
ter being covered with dry salt of tartar, the instrument
first indicated increasing dryness, and afterwards, as the
rarefaction proceeded, it changed its course, and marked
humidity. The same variation of effect nearly was ob-
COLD.
Cold
First ap¬
plied.
Efficient
power near¬
ly the same
it all tem¬
peratures.
Mode of
Droceeding.
served when the hygrometer had been wetted as usual
^ witli pure water, and a broad saucer containing the mild
vegetable alkali was placed on the plate of the air-pump.
It was thus proved that the action of this imperfect absor¬
bent is soon overpowered by the tendency to vaporization
in attenuated air, and that, beyond a certain limit, it sur¬
renders its latent moisture.
Mr Leslie resolved, therefore, to try the effect of sul¬
phuric acid, whose peculiar energy as an absorbent he
had, under other circumstances, already ascertained; but
various incidents prevented him, for a considerable time,
from resuming his philosophical inquiries. At last he
began those projected experiments, and was almost imme¬
diately rewarded by the disclosure of a property, the ap¬
plication of which blazed on his fancy. In the month of
•June IblO, haying introduced a surface of sulphuric acid
under the receiver of an air-pump, he perceived with plea¬
sure that^ this substance only superadded its peculiar at-
ti action for moisture to the ordinary effects resulting from
the progress of exhaustion ; and, what was still more im¬
portant, that, it continued to support with undiminished
energy the dryness thus created. The attenuated air was
not suffered as before to grow charged with humidity ;
but each portion of that medium, as fast as it became
saturated by touching the wet ball of the hygrometer,
transported its vapour to the acid, and was thence sent
back denuded of the load, and fitted again to renew its
attack with fresh vigour. By this perpetual circulation,
therefore, between the exhaling and the absorbing sur¬
face, the diffuse residuum of air is maintained constantly
at the same state of dryness. The sentient ball of the
hygrometer, which had been covered with several folds
of wetted tissue paper, was observed, at an early stage of
the operation, suddenly to lose its blue tint and assume a
dull white, while the coloured liquor sprung upwards in
the stem, where it continued for the space of a minute
stationary, and again slowly subsided. The act of conge¬
lation had therefore at this moment taken place, and the
paper remained frozen several minutes, till its congealed
moisture was entirely dispersed. Pursuing this decisive
intimation, the hygrometer was removed, and a watch-
glass filled with water substituted in its place. By a few
strokes of the pump the whole was converted into a solid
cake of ice, which being left in the rare medium, continu¬
ed to evaporate, and, after the interval of perhaps an hour,
totally disappeared. A small cup for holding the water
was next adopted, and the whole apparatus gradually en¬
larged. J
The powers both of vaporization and of absorption be¬
ing greatly augmented in the higher temperatures, the
same limit of cold nearly is in all cases attained by a cer¬
tain measure of exhaustion. When the air has been rare¬
fied 250 times, the utmost that, under such circumstances,
can perhaps be effected, the surface of evaporation is cool¬
ed down 120 degrees of Fahrenheit in winter, and would
probably sink near 200 in summer. Nay, a far less tenui¬
ty of the medium, when combined with the action of sul¬
phuric acid, is capable of producing and supporting a very
intense cold. If the air be rarefied only 50 times, a de¬
pression of temperature will be produced, amounting to
80 or even 100 degrees of Fahrenheit’s scale.
We are thus enabled, in the hottest weather, to freeze
a mass of water, and to keep it frozen, till it gradually
wastes away, by a continued but invisible process of eva¬
poration. The only thing required is, that the surface of
the acid should approach tolerably near to that of the
water, and should have a greater extent; for otherwise
the moisture would exhale more copiously than it could
be transferred and absorbed ; and, consequently, the dry¬
ness of the rarefied medium would become reduced, and
105
Y'OL. VII.
its evaporating energy essentially impaired. The acid Cold,
should be pouied to the depth perhaps of half an inch, in 1 ■ , _‘
a broad flat dish, which is covered by a receiver of a form
nearly hemispherical; the water exposed to congelation
may be contained in a shallow cup, about half the width
of the dish, and having its rim supported by a narrow por¬
celain ring, upheld above the surface of the acid by three
slender feet. (See fig. 1 and 2, Plate CLXXXVIJ.) It is
of consequence that the water should be insulated as much
as possible, or should present only a humid surface to the
contact of the surrounding medium; for the dry sides of
the cup might receive, from communication with the ex¬
ternal air, such accessions of heat as greatly to diminish,
if not to counteract, the refrigerating effects of evaporation.
I his inconvenience, however, is in a great measure ob¬
viated, by investing the cup with an outer case at the in¬
terval of about half an inch. If both the cup and its case
consist of glass, the process of congelation is viewed most
completely; yet when they are formed of a bright metal,
the effect appears on the whole more striking. But the
preferable mode, and that which prevents any waste of
the powers of refrigeration, is to expose the water in a
pan of porous earthenware. If common water be used, it
will evolve, air bubbles very copiously as the exhaustion
proceeds; in a few minutes, and long before the limit of
rarefaction has been attained, the icy spiculce will shoot
beautifully through the liquid mass, and entwine it with
a i eticulated contexture. As the process of congelation
goes forward, a new discharge of air from the substance
of the water takes place, and marks the regular advances
of consolidation ; but after the water has all become solid
ice, which, unless it exceed the depth of an inch, may ge¬
nerally be effected in less than half an hour, the circle of
evaporation and subsequent absorption is still maintained.
A minute film of ice, abstracting from the internal mass
a redoubled share of heat, passes, by invisible transitions,
successively into the state of water'and of steam, which,
dissolving in the thin ambient air, is conveyed to the acid,
where it agairt assumes the liquid form, and, in the act of
combination, likewise surrenders its heat.
In performing this experiment, the object is generally VT i
to seek at first to push the rarefaction as far as the cir- rarefSon
cumstances will admit. But the disposition of the water sufficient
to fill the receiver with vapour being only in part subdued to niain-
by the action of the sulphuric acid, a limit is soon opposed fain tlie
to the progress of exhaustion ; and the included air canlce‘
seldom be rarefied above a hundred times, or till its elas¬
ticity can support no more than a column of mercury about
three tenths of an inch in height. A smaller rarefaction,
perhaps from ten times to twenty times, will be found suf¬
ficient to support congelation after it has once taken place.
The ice then becomes rounded by degrees at the edges,
and wastes away insensibly, its surface being incessantly
corroded by the play of the ambient air, and the minute
exhalations conveyed by an invisible process to the sul¬
phuric acid, which, from its absorbing the vapour, is all
the time maintained above the temperature of the apart¬
ment. Ihe ice, kept in this way, suffers a very slow con¬
sumption ; for a lump of it, about a pound in weight and
two inches thick, is sometimes not entirely gone^ in the
space of eight or ten days. Luring the whole progress of
its wasting, the ice still commonly retains an uniform
transparent consistence; but, in a more advanced stage,
it occasionally betrays a sort of boneycombed appearance,
owing to the minute cavities formed by globules of air,
set loose in the act of freezing, yet entangled in the mass,
and which are afterwards enlarged by the erosion of the
solvent medium.
But. almost every practical object is attained through
far inferior powers of refrigeration. Water is the most
o
COL
Elegant
mode of
freezing.
Progress
of conge¬
lation.
easily frozen, by leaving it, perhaps for the space of an
hour, to the slow action of air that has been rarefied only
in a very moderate degree. This process meets with less
impediment; and the ice formed by it appears Imewise
more compact, when the water has been aheady pu,Ke
of the greater part of its combined air, either by distilla¬
tion or by long-continued boiling. The water which has
undergone such operation should be introduced as quic v
ly as possible into a decanter, and filled up close to the
stopper, else it will attract air most greedily, and return
nearly to its former state in the course of a few hours.
The most elegant and instructive mode of effecting
artificial congelation, is to perform the process under the
transferrer of an air-pump. A thick but clear glass cup
being selected, of about two or three inches in diameter,
has its lips ground flat, and covered occasionally, though
not absolutely shut, with a broad circular lid of plate glass,
which is suspended horizontally from a rod passing through
a collar of leather (see fig. 6, Plate CLXXXVII.) I his
cup is nearly filled with fresh distilled water, and supported
by a slender metallic ring, with glass feet, about an inch
above the surface of a body of sulphuric acid, perhaps
three quarters of an inch in thickness, and occupying the
bottom of a deep glass basin that has a diametei of neat¬
ly seven inches. In this state the receiver being adapted,
and the lid pressed down to cover the mouth of the cup,
the transferrer is screwed to the air-pump, and the rare¬
faction, under those circumstances, pushed so fin* as to
leave only about the hundred and fiftieth part of a resi¬
duum ; and the cock being turned to secure that exhaus¬
tion, the compound apparatus is then detached from the
pump, and removed to some convenient apartment. As
long as the cup is covered, the water will remain quite
unaltered; but on drawing up the rod half an inch or
more, to admit the play of the rare medium, a bundle of
spicular ice will, after the lapse perhaps of five minutes,
dart suddenly through the whole of the liquid mass; and
the consolidation will afterwards descend regularly, thick¬
ening the horizontal stratum by insensible gradations,
and forming in its progress a beautiful transparent cake.
On letting down the cover again, the process of evapora¬
tion being now checked or almost entirely stopped, the
ice returns slowly into its former liquid condition. In
this way the same portion of water may, even at distant
intervals of time, be repeatedly congealed and thawed
successively twenty or thirty times. During the first
operations of freezing, some air is liberated; but this ex¬
trication diminishes at each subsequent act; and the ice,
free from the smallest specks, resembles a piece of the
purest crystal.
This artificial freezing of water in a cup of glass or me¬
tal affords the best opportunity of examining the progress
of crystallization. The appearance presented, however, is
extremely various. When the frigorific action is most in¬
tense, the congelation sweeps at once over the whole sur¬
face of the water, obscuring it like a cloud: but, in ge¬
neral, the process advances more slowly; bundles of spi-
culee, from different points, sometimes from the centre,
though commonly from the sides of the cup, stretching
out and spreading by degrees with a sort of feathered tex¬
ture (see fig. 4). By this combined operation, the sur¬
face of the water soon becomes an uniform sheet of ice.
Yet the effect is at times singularly varied; the spicular
shoots, advancing in different directions, come to inclose,
near the middle of the cup, a rectilineal space, which, by
unequal though continued encroachment, is reduced to a
triangle ; and the mass below, being partly frozen, and
therefore expanded, the water is gradually squeezed up
through the orifice, and forms by congelation a regular
pyramid, rising by successive steps; or, if the projecting
force be greater, and the bole more contracted, it will dart Cold,
off like a pillar. The radiating or feathered lines which
at first mark the frozen surface are only the edges of very
thin plates of ice, implanted at determinate angles, but
each parcel composed of parallel planes. This internal
formation appears very conspicuous in the congealed mass
which has been removed from a metallic cup, before it is
entirely consolidated. Sea-water will freeze with almost
equal ease, but it forms an incompact ice, like congealed
syrup, or what is commonly called water-ice.
When cups of glass or metal are used, the cold excited
at the open surface of the liquid extends its influence gra¬
dually downwards. But if the water be exposed in a po¬
rous vessel, the process of evaporation, then taking effect
on all sides, proceeds with a nearly regular consolidation
towards the centre of the mass, tliickening rather faster
at the bottom, from its proximity to the action of the ab¬
sorbent, and leaving sometimes a reticulated space near
the middle of the upper surface, through which the air,
disengaged by the progress of congelation, makes its escape.
When very feeble powers of refrigeration are employed, Singular
a most singular and beautiful appearance is, in course ofmodifica-
time, slowly produced. If a pan of porous earthenware,11011 of the
from four to six inches wide, be filled to the utmost withProcess”
common water till it rise above the lips, and planted above
a dish of ten or twelve inches diameter, containing a body
of sulphuric acid, and then a broad round receiver placed
over it; on reducing the included air to some limit between
the twentieth and the fifth part of its usual density, ac¬
cording to the coldness of the apartment, the liquid mass
will, in the space of an hour or two, become entwined with
icy shoots, which gradually enlarge and acquire more so¬
lidity, but always leave the fabric loose and unfrozen be¬
low. The icy crust which covers the lim, now receiving
continual accessions from beneath, rises perpendicularly
by insensible degrees. From each point on the rough sur¬
face of the vessel, filaments of ice, like bundles of spun
glass, are protruded, fed by the humidity conveyed through
its substance, and forming in their aggregation a fine silvery
surface, analogous to that of fibrous gypsum or satin-spar.
At the same time, another similar growth, though of less
extent, takes place on the under side of the pan, so that
continuous icy threads might appear vertically to trans¬
pierce the w’are. The whole of the bottom becomes like¬
wise covered over with elegant icy foliations (see fig. 5).
Twenty or thirty hours may be required to produce those
singular effects ; but the upper body of ice continues to
rise for the space of several days, till it forms a circular
wall of near three inches in height, leaving an interior
grotto lined with fantastic groups of icicles. In the mean¬
while, the exfoliations have disappeared from the under
side, and the outer incrustation is reduced, by the absorb¬
ing process, to a narrow ring. The icy wall now suffers
a regular waste from external erosion, and its fibrous struc¬
ture becomes rounded and less apparent. Of its altitude,
however, it loses but little for some time; and even a de¬
position of congealed films along its coping or upper edge
seems to take place at a certain stage of the process.
This curious effect is owing to a circumstance w’hicb, as
it serves to explain some of the grand productions of na¬
ture, particularly the icebergs of the arctic circle, merits
particular attention. The circular margin ol the ice, be¬
ing nearer the action of the sulphuric acid than its inner
cavity, must suffer, by direct evaporation, a greater loss
of heat; and, consequently, each portion of thin air that
rises from the low cavity, being chilled in passing oyer
the colder ledge, must deposit a minute corresponding
share of its moisture, which instantly attaches itself and
incrusts the ring. Whatever inequalities existed at fiist
in the surface of the ice, will hence continually increase.
COLD.
107
Cold. Artificial congelation is always most commodiously pei’-
formed on a large scale. Since the extreme of rarefaction
Artificial js not wanted, the air-pump employed in the process ad-
timf best ni'ts be*ng considerably simplified, and rendered vastly
performed more expeditious in its operation. Two or three minutes
on a large at most will be sufficient for procuring the degree of ex¬
scale. haustion required, and the combined powers of evapora¬
tion and absorption will afterwards gradually produce their
capital effect. In general, plates of about a foot in dia¬
meter should be preferred, which can be connected at
pleasure with the main body of the pump. The dish hold¬
ing the sulphuric acid is nearly as wide as the flat receiver ;
and a set of evaporating pans belongs to it, of different
sizes, from seven to three inches in diameter, which are
severally to be used according to circumstances. The
largest pan is employed in the cold season, and the smaller
ones may be successively taken as the season becomes
sultry. On the whole, it is better not to overstrain the
operation, and rather to divide the water under different
receivers, if unusual powers of refrigeration should be re¬
quired. As soon as the air is partly extracted from one
receiver, the communication is immediately stopped with
the barrel of the pump, and the process of exhaustion is
repeated on another. In this way, any number of receivers,
it is evident, may be connected with the same machine.
If we suppose but six ofthese tobe used, the labourof aquar-
ter of an hour will set as many evaporating pans in full ac¬
tion, and may, therefore, in less than an hour afterwards,
produce nearly six pounds of solid ice. The waste which
the water sustains during this conversion is extremely
small, seldom indeed amounting to the fiftieth part of the
whole. Nor, till after multiplied repetitions, is the action
of the sulphuric acid considerably enfeebled by its aque¬
ous absorption. At first that diminution is hardly percep¬
tible, not being the hundredth part when the acid has ac¬
quired as much as the tenth of its weight of water. But
such influence gains rapidly, and rises with accelerated
progression. When the quantity of moisture absorbed
amounts to the fourth part by weight of the acid, the
power of supporting cold is diminished by a twentieth ;
and, after the weights of both these come to be equal, the
refrigerating energy is reduced to less than the half. Sul¬
phuric acid is hence capable of effecting the congelation
of more than twenty times its weight of water, before it
has imbibed near an equal bulk of the liquid, or has lost
about the eighth part of its refrigerating power. The acid
should then be removed, and concentrated anew by slow
distillation.
Congela- When the exhaling and absorbing surfaces are rightly
tion might disposed and apportioned, the moderate rarefaction, from
‘^nnect. twenty to forty times, which is adequate to the freezing
tho'steam- of water’ ma.y readily procured by the condensation of
engine. " steam- I” manufactures where the steam-engine is em¬
ployed, ice may, therefore, at all times be formed in any
quantity, and with very little additional expense. It is
only required to bring a narrow pipe from the condensing
vessel, and to direct it along a range of receivers, under
each of which the water and the acid are severally placed.
These receivers, with which the pipe communicates by
distinct apertures, may, for the sake of economy, be con¬
structed of cast iron, and adapted with hinges to the rim
of a broad shallow dish of the same metal, but lined with
lead to hold the acid.
Congcla- The combined powers of rarefaction and absorption are
lion of capable of generating much greater effects than the mere
mercury, freezing of water. Such frigorific energy, however, is at
all times sufficient for effecting the congelation of mercury.
Accordingly, if mercury, contained in a hollow pear-
shaped piece of ice, be suspended by cross threads near a
broad surface of sulphuric acid under a receiver ; on urg-
Cold.
ing the rarefaction, it will become frozen, and may remain
in that solid state for the space of several hours. But this
very striking experiment is easily performed without any
foreign aid. Having introduced mercury into the large
bulb of a thermometer, and attached the tube to the rod
of a transferrer, let this be placed over the wide dish con¬
taining sulphuric acid, in the midst of which is planted a
very small tumbler nearly filled with water. After the
included air has been rarefied about fifty times, let the
bulb be dipped repeatedly into the very cold but unfrozen
water, and again drawn up about an inch ; in this way it
will become incrusted with successive coats of ice, to the
thickness perhaps of the twentieth part of an inch. The
water being now removed, the pendant icicle cut away
from the bulb, and its surface smoothed by the touch of a
warm finger, the transferrer is again replaced, the bulb
let down within half an inch of the acid, and the exhaus¬
tion pushed to the utmost. When the syphon-gage has
come to stand under the tenth of an inch, the icy crust
starts into divided fissures, and the mercury, having gra¬
dually descended in the tube till it reach its point of con¬
gelation, or 39 degrees below zero, sinks by a sudden con¬
traction almost into the cavity of the bulb ; and the appa¬
ratus being then removed and the ball broken, the metal
appears a solid shining mass, that will bear the stroke of
a hammer.
But a still greater degree of cold may be created, by Still great-
applying the same process likewise to cool the atmo-er cold cre-
sphere which encircles the apparatus itself. A glass ma-a^e(l*
trass was blown nearly of a hemispherical shape, its bot¬
tom quite flat, and about three inches in diameter, and its
neck about half an inch wide and cut square over. The
whole was covered with a coat of patent lint, which takes
up water very copiously. A portion of sulphuric acid was
next introduced, forming a layer of perhaps a quarter of
an inch thick; and a spirit of wine thermometer, having
its bulb also cased with wetted lint, was then inserted
within the matrass, a brass ring attached to the tube se¬
curing it in the right position. Things being thus arran¬
ged, the matrass or flat bottle, with its thermometer, was
placed on a slender stool with glass feet, about an inch
above the sulphuric acid in the broad basin, and the large
receiver luted over it. The air was then partly extracted,
till the gage came below one inch. In a few minutes the
lint was frozen entirely, and looked white. After an in¬
terval of a quarter of an hour, to allow time for the eva¬
poration of that icy coat to cool down the interior appa¬
ratus, the pump was again urged, and the exhaustion
pushed to about three tenths of an inch. In a short while
the inclosed thermometer sunk not fewer than 180 de¬
grees, and remained stationary till the ice had wasted
away.
It is obvious, therefore, that the refrigerating powers
could be pushed still further by a judicious combination
of the apparatus. An idea of the mode of proceeding may
be formed from the inspection of figure 8. It would be
easy to show that the maximum effect is obtained, when
the dimensions of the successive cases rise in a geometri¬
cal progression. The action, however, is not doubled for
each additional case, but increased rather more than one
half.
These plans are difficult in the execution, and, though simpler
they enlarge our conceptions of the extent of the descend-mode of
ing scale of heat, yet they furnish merely speculative re-congela-
sults. A very important practical improvement has been^on>
lately made in the process of artificial congelation. Sul¬
phuric acid is certainly a cheap and most powerful agent
of absorption ; but the danger in using such a corrosive
liquid, especially by unskilful persons, formed always a
serious obstacle to its general adoption. Mr Leslie had
108 COL
Cold early noticed the remarkable absorbent quality of our
II mouldering whinstone or porphyritic trap ; and in April
C<haimS* he substituted that material, grossly pounded and
v la’“' dried before a kitchen fire, instead of sulphuric acid, and
actually froze a body of water with great facility. This
bounded earth will attract the fiftieth part of its weight of moisture
whinstone before its absorbent power is reduced to the one-half, and
is hence capable of freezing the sixth part of its weight of
water. It may be repeatedly dried, and will, after each
operation, act with the same energy as at first,
or parched But an absorbent still more convenient and powerful
oatmeal, afterwards occurred to Mr Leslie ; namely, parched oat¬
meal With a body of oatmeal of a foot in diameter, and
rather more than an inch deep, he froze a pound and a
COL
quarter of water, contained in a hemispherical porous cup. Cold
The meal is easily dried and restored again to its actl011-Colebrooke.
In a hot climate the exposure to the sun alone might prove , ^ ^
sufficient. By the help of this simple material, therefore,
ice may easily and safely be produced in any climate, and
even at sea.
Other substances could no doubt be employed as ab¬
sorbents. But, except the muriate of lime, or what is
called the oil of salt desiccated, none hold out any pro¬
spect of success. Dried common salt will barely effect
congelation ; and stucco, or the sulphate of lime, depriv¬
ed of its water of crystallization, which might seem to
promise a powerful absorption, has scarcely any efficacy
whatever.
EXPLANATION OF PLATE CLXXXVII.
Fig. 1 represents a large air-pump intended for the pur¬
pose of freezing water, consisting of six receivers, each of
them having a broad glass saucer for holding sulphuric acid,
and a small porous earthen cup containing the water.
Fig. 2, a section of the above, showing the communica¬
tion between the receivers and the body of the pump.
Fig. 3, the lever key for opening and shutting the cocks.
Fig. 4, the more ordinary appearance of the surface of
the water in the porous cup, at the moment when the act of
congelation begins.
Fig. 5, the very singular kind of ice, striated, columnar,
and cavernous, which, under a slight rarefaction, but in
cold weather, rises slowly and changes its form by degrees,
while part of the remaining water is drawn through the
substance of the cup, and covers the outside with a thick
icy collar above those irregular foliations.
Fig. 6 represents an elegant mode of almost instantane¬
ously freezing within a transferer. Above the saucer of the
sulphuric acid is placed a glass cup holding w'ater ; and the
air having been previously exhausted, and the instrument
detached from the pump, on pulling up the rod, the water,
now left exposed to the most powerful evaporation, quickly
runs into spicular ice, which gradually increases and conso¬
lidates into a pure transparent mass. The lid being let
down again upon the glass cup, the action ceases, and the
ice returns slowly to the state of water.
Fig. 7, a refrigeratory for cooling water at all times to a
moderate degree, without the operation of an air-pump;
a body of sulphuric acid lying at the bottom of the pan,
while a porous vessel containing water is set in the centre
of the refrigeratory, and the air is confined about it by re¬
placing the lid.
Fig. 8 exhibits a system of vessels for producing spon¬
taneously great cold. It consists of a series of leaden or
pewter vessels, placed one within the other, and whose
surfaces form a descending geometrical progression, being
covered externally with soft wet lint, and holding each of
them a portion of sulphuric acid. The powerful evapora¬
tion maintained by this arrangement causes the interior ves¬
sels to become successively colder, and thus augments by
a repeated multiplication the final effect. Placed under
the receiver of the air-pump, this system of evaporating
vessels, with no very high degree of exhaustion, and at
all seasons, excites ultimately the most intense cold yet pro¬
duced, far exceeding what is required for the congelation of
mercury. (J* L0
GOLDEN, Cadwallader, born in 1688, was the son
of the parochial clergyman of Dunse, in Berwickshire.
He studied medicine at Edinburgh; and in 1708 emigrated
to Pennsylvania, where he practised as a physician. His
“ Remarks on Animal Secretions” were published on his re¬
turn to Britain, and gained him some reputation. In 1718
he settled at New York, and became lieutenant-governor of
that state. He published a good History of the Five In¬
dian Nations, and an essay On the Yelloio Fever so
fatal at Neiv York in 1743. But his favourite study was
botany; and in the Acta Upsalensia for 1743-4 there ap¬
peared his Plantee Novcehoracensis, containing descriptions
of numerous American species of which more than 200
were then new. He died at Long Island in 1776.
COLDINGPIAM, supposed to be the Colonia of Pto¬
lemy, and called by Bede the city Coldana and of Colud
(Coliulum), is situated on the borders of Scotland, about two
miles from Eyemouth, and once was famous for its convent.
This was the oldest nunnery in Scotland, for here the
virgin-wife Etheldreda took the veil in 670; but, from the
ancient name Coludum, it should seem that it had pre¬
viously been inhabited by the religious order called Culdees.
In 870 it was destroyed by the Danes; but its name is
rendered memorable by the heroism of its nuns, who, to pre¬
serve themselves inviolate from those invaders, cut off their
lips and noses ; and having thus rendered themselves objects
of horror, were, with their abbess Ebba, burnt in the monas¬
tery by the disappointed savages. In 1098 King Edgar
founded on its site a priory of Benedictines in honour of St
Cuthbert, and bestowed it on the monks of Durham.
COLDSTREAM, a border town of Scotland, in Ber¬
wickshire, 15 miles W. of Berwick, on the north bank of
the Tweed, here crossed by a bridge of five arches. It. is
irregularly built, but being situatedon the principal thorough¬
fare between England and Scotland, it has a considerable
trade. Near the town is the ford of the Tweed, by which
the Scotch and English armies crossed in former times.
The “ Coldstream Guards” are so named from having been
raised here by General Monk in 1659-60. Coldstream,
like Gretna Green, is celebrated for its irregular marriages.
In the vicinity is Lennel House, a seat of the Earl of Had¬
dington. Pop. (1851) 2238.
COLE, William, an eminent botanist, was born at Ad-
derbury, Oxfordshire, about a.i>. 1626, and studied at Mer¬
ton College, Oxford. He afterwards removed to Putney,
and published The Art of SimpHny,—and Adam in Eden,ox
Nature’s Paradise. Upon the restoration of Charles II. he
became secretary to Dr Duppa, bishop of Winchester; but
died two years after, at. the age of 37.
COLEBROOKE Henry Thomas, an eminent orien¬
tal scholar, the third son of Sir George, the second baronet
of that name, was born in 1765. He was educated at
home; and when only fif teen he had made considerable attain¬
ments in classical and mathematical studies. 1’ rom the age
COL
Coleraine of twelve to sixteen be resided in France; and in 1782 was
II appointed to a writersbip in India. About a year after bis
v 0 011 ge' arrival there he was placed in the Board of Accounts in
' ' Calcutta; and three years later he was removed to a situa¬
tion in the revenue department at Tirhoot, vvhere he pur¬
sued his studies in Eastern science and literature. In 1789
he was removed to Purneah, where he investigated the
resources of that part of the country, and published his
“Remarks on the Husbandry and Commerce of Bengal”
in which he advocated a free trade between Great Britain
and India. After eleven years’ residence in India, Cole-
brooke began the study of Sanscrit; and to him was con¬
fided the translation of the great digest of Hindu law, which
had been left unfinished by Sir William Jones. After
filling a number of important offices, and publishing some
works on oriental literature, including a Sanscrit grammar
and dictionary, he returned to London, where he died,
March 18, 1837. He was a director of the Asiatic Society,
and many of the most valuable papers in their Transactions
were communicated by him.
COLERAINE, a municipal and parliamentary borough
and market-town of Ireland, county of Londonderry, on the
Bann, 4 miles from its mouth, and 145 miles N. of Dublin.
The town stands upon both sides of the river, which is here
crossed by a very handsome slone bridge of three arches
288 feet in length by 32 in breadth. The principal part
stands on the east bank, and consists ofa central square called
the “ Diamond,” and several diverging streets; the portion
on the west side is called the Waterside or Killowen. It has
two parish churches, two Roman Catholic chapels, town-
hall, market-house, endowed school, national model school,
savings-bank, gas-works, and work-house.
The linen trade has been long extensively carried on
here, particularly a fine description known as “ Coleraines.”
Soap, candles, and leather are also manufactured ; and the
salmon and eel fisheries are actively prosecuted. It returns
one member to parliament. Constituency (1853) 246.
Population (1851) 5920. The mouth of the river, which
was obstructed by a bar, has of late years been so much
improved that vessels of 200 tons can now discharge at the
quay of Coleraine. A government survey has just been
completed (1854), with a view of still farther improving
tne navigation of the river. The principal trade is carried
on through Port Rush, at the mouth of the Bann, where
the harbour is formed by two moles, with an entrance of
200 feet wide, an area of 8 acres, and a depth of from 15
to 20 feet at the wharfs. In 1852, 551 vessels of 114,156
tons entered the port. Gross custom duties collected,
L.6080.
COLERIDGE, Sa muel Taylor, “the most imagi¬
native of modern poets,” was born in the year 1772, at
Ottery St Mary, Devonshire. He was the son of the Rev.
John Coleridge, vicar of Ottery. His father was a man of
learning, and of singularly amiable qualities, but tinctured
with some of that eccentricity of habit and manner which
characterised his youngest son. Coleridge wore in child¬
hood many of those features of mind, which, in his after
life, ripened into good or evil. He was dreamy, solitary,
and disinclined to the usual amusements of children. Losing
his father in very early life, he obtained, by the kindness of
a friend, a presentation to Christ Church Hospital. He
made extraordinary advances in scholarship ; and amassed
a vast variety of miscellaneous knowledge, but in the ran¬
dom desultory manner which displayed already the insta¬
bility of purpose, that caused the future failure of his
genius in the accomplishment of the great objects which its
capacities fitted it for achieving. During this period,
imprudent bathing, an exercise of which he was immode¬
rately fond, sowed the seeds of those bodily maladies
which not only impaired the efficiency of his genius, but
COL 109
which unconsciously allured him into the unhappy and insi- Coleridge,
dious habit that completed the destruction of his constitu- J
tion, and unhinged the structure of his mind. One
conspicuous feature of his intellect at Christ Church was
its strong tendency to metaphysical speculation. The youno-
enthusiast feared not to gauge the profoundest questions,
till his school-boy pride rejoiced in the dignity of infidelity.
These notions were most judiciously, as he himself con¬
fesses, whipped out of him by his able but stern instructor,
the Rev. James Bowyer, a gentleman, for whose services in
his intellectual education Coleridge frequently records his
affectionate gratitude. His reputation at Christ Church
promised a brilliant career at Cambridge. This university
he entered in 1790, in his nineteenth year. But the same
desultory, unordered habit of mind he had displayed in early
life, followed him to Jesus College. His incapability of
economy involved him in debt; the immaturity of his spe¬
culations urged him into Unitarian opinions in religion. In
the midst of his university career, afflicted with that bias
towards melancholy, with which the poetical temperament,
especially when coupled with an irritable bodily habit, is
so often cursed, and dejected with the spectacle of unre¬
alised hopes of college honours, he suddenly left Cam¬
bridge. After wandering for a day or two in London,
having bestowed his last pence on a beggar, he recklessly
enlisted, under an assumed name, in a regiment of horse.
Discovered at length, and rescued from this degradation by
his friends, he resumed his position at College. In 1794
he became acquainted at Oxford with his future relative
Southey, and a warm friendship soon ripened between the
young poets. Their position was in one respect similar,
as Southey was forfeiting the honours of Oxford from his
adoption, like Coleridge, of a Unitarian creed. Both had
embraced, with enthusiasm, during the preceding two or three
years, the ideas of “ liberty” promulgated by the French re¬
volution ; and at Bristol, where Coleridge had joined Southey,
they formed the resolution, along with a third poet, Lovel,
of founding what they termed a Pantisocracy, or Republic of
pure freedom, on the banks of the Susquehanna. The three
poets married in 1795 three sisters, the Misses Fricker
of Bristol; but the marriages upset the pantisocratic scheme,
for which they had been intended as part preparation.
The good sense of Southey, not to mention want of funds,
exploded the idea; and Coleridge, who had settled at
Clevedon, near Bristol, was thrown on his literary resources.
After some attempts at publication, and the projection of
extensive plans of occupation and industry, tired of his vil¬
lage retirement, he removed to Bristol, and appeared as the
editor, or rather writer, of the “ Watchman,” a weekly poli¬
tical journal; but his indolent irregularity caused the ex¬
tinction of his work at the tenth number. Failing in expec¬
tation of employment in the London press, he retired in the
latter months of 1796, to a cottage at Nether Stowey, in
Somerset, at the foot of Quantock Hills, on the grounds of
Mr Poole, a gentleman whose friendship he has affectionately
commemorated. Through this friend’s means he became
acquainted with Wordsworth and the two Wedgewoods.
His name was soon associated with that of Wordsworth in
the publication of the “ Lyrical Ballads ;” and a mutual reso¬
lution of the poets to write a play produced Coleridge’s
tragedy “ Remorse.” Phis was the most happy period of
his life. His poetical faculty, which had budded in his six¬
teenth year, was ripened under the genial impulses of nature,
friendship, and domestic affection. The first part of Chris-
tabel belongs to this year. He pursued his favourite meta¬
physical studies, oscillating between system and system, and
his speculations were soon to receive new and important
impressions from travel in Germany with Mr Wordsworth.
Coleridge had accepted in 1798 the office of Unitarian
110 COLERIDGE.
Coleridge, preacher to a congregation in Shrewsbury, and had actually
''——v-*-''' preached his first sermon—of which Hazlitt has recorded a
glowing account—when the “generous and munificent”
offer of a life annuity from the two Wedgewoods extricated
him from his Unitarian engagements, and enabled him to set
out withWordsworth for Germany. He was industrious in the
study of the literature and philosophy of that country, and
may be regarded as the introducer of German philosophy to
the notice of British scholars. Shortly af ter his return, Cole¬
ridge and his family settled for some years with Southey, at
Keswick, in the neighbourhood of Wordsworth. Meantime
his opium-eating habit, into which he had been originally
seduced from its apparent medicinal effects, had undermined
his health, and in search of convalescence he went to Malta
in 1804. He was appointed temporary secretary to Sir
Alexander Ball, governor of that island. He returned by
Italy to England in 1806. From this period till nearly 1816
he lived a wandering life—now with his family, now with one
friend, again with another; sometimes lecturing, occasionally
publishing. Letters and anecdotes injudiciously, if not cruelly,
in reference to the poet’s surviving relations, exposed to the
world in Cottle’s “ Reminiscences,” give a melancholy insight
into Coleridge’s condition during these years from the tyranny
of opium. The capital defect in his character was want of
will: the habit, which he could see, as it were a visible enemy,
destroying his own happiness and that of those dearest to
him, entangling him in meanness, deceit, and dishonesty,
he could not summon resolution to resist. His letters and
memoranda exhibit his sense of his slavery in words that
might draw tears. In 1816, he placed himself under the
care of Mr Gilman, surgeon, Highgate. With tins generous
family the poet resided till his death in 1834. He was
cherished with affectionate solicitude, surrounded by friends
who hung with rapture on his miraculous conversation. It
is deeplv to be regretted that his noble genius was to a
great extent frittered in conversation, which he could pour
forth unpremeditatedlyfor hours in unintermitted streams of
vivid, dazzling, original thinking. “ Did you ever hear me
preach?” said Coleridge to Lamb. “I never heard you do
anything else,” was his friend’s reply. Certainly through
this medium he watered with his instruction a large circle
of discipleship; but what treasures of thought has the
world lost by Coleridge’s unwillingness to make his pen
the mouth-piece of his mind ! Some of his most important
prose works, however, appeared during this period. Be¬
fore his death, Gilman relates, he had succeeded in eman¬
cipating himself from his opium chain (see his “ Prayer,”
Cottle, p. 483); but 1816 closes the portion of Coleridge’s
biography which is the property of the public; neither
Gilman nor Cottle pass this boundary.
Coleridge’s prose works embrace many of the subjects most
interesting to mankind—theology, history, politics, the prin¬
ciples of society; another sphere of his labours, partly oral and
partly written, was literature and its criticism: a third com¬
prehended logic and the transcendental metaphysics. These
subjects occur in singular juxtaposition in more than one of
his books. Independently of his Lectures and his contri¬
butions to periodicals, Coleridge’s opinions were conveyed
chiefly in “ The Friend,” his “ Lay Sermons,” his “ Biogra-
phia Literaria,” “ Aids to Reflection,” “ Constitution of the
Church and State,” See. Most of these works are fragmen¬
tary, or, at least collectively, they exhibit only part of his
system of opinions, for Coleridge lived upon the future.
His poetical works, consisting of “Juvenile Poems,” “ Sy¬
billine Leaves,” Odes, Ballads, Dramas, Translations, Sec.,
exhibit the same feature of splendid incompleteness. Alter
his death, collections were made of his “ Table-talk,” and
other “ Literary Remains,” that rescued from oblivion much
of his mind that is valuable.
The intellect of Coleridge is to be estimated rather by Coleridge,
that of which it was capable, which it contemplated, and
which it suggested, than by that which it achieved. Thrown
upon life, peer and unsupported except by the benevolence
of private friends, the inspired “ charity boy,” in his mission
as the Apostle of Ideas, had a severe contest to fight. The
friend of no party, he was obnoxious to all. Coleridge’s
bark sailed between the Scylla and Charybdis of the Edin¬
burgh and Quarterly Reviews. It is to his credit, and to
that of Southey and Wordsworth, that, in the face of a hos¬
tile age, they vindicated the freedom of poetical, political,
and philosophical conscience; that, like the Scottish baron
of old, they did “ bide their time ;” for all of them have left
on the age that is succeeding an impress that will not soon
be effaced. The literary fortitude of Coleridge under the
continually-expressed conviction of the unpopularity of his
writings is admirable. What would he not have achieved
if this impassible fortitude had been animated by the
aggressive vigour of industry and action so necessary in all
who promulgate systems ! The whole labours of Coleridge
present the appearance of an unfinished city: the outline of
the streets exhibits only how splendid they might have
been ; the basement of a pillar shows how gorgeous might
have been its capital. A small, compact, complete beauty
of poesy or of thought, pains us with the reflection that it
stands surrounded by mere fragments of a similar promise.
His works resemble a Californian valley, out of which may
be dug in hundreds solid lumps of priceless gold from among
materials useless or inappreciable. Besides the absence of
a resolute will, another defect in the structure of Coleridge’s
mind was want of exactness. He had no capacity, he con¬
fesses himself, in the retention of facts: his mind was at
home in the outline of generic ideas. Hence, while it could
frequently chalk that outline with astonishing sagacity and
philosophical accuracy, when it descended into the natural
history of fact it frequently is found in “ wandering mazes
lost.” This feature of the poet’s intellect, in relation to
theology, is illustrated with great dearness by the Rev. N.
Porter in the American “ Bibliotheca Sacra” (Vol. iv. No.
13). At an early period of his university career he lamented
his distaste for the study of mathematics. Demonstrative
and exact science lay beyond the dominion of his will; his
was the logic of passion and imagination, as well as of the
schools. His discussions often indicate this complexion of
his reason. His own statement of his feelings in groping
for religious truth through thorny regions of thought is, that
“ his head was with Spinosa anil Leibnitz, while his heart
was with Paul and John.” The transcendental philosophy
of Germany, acting on a mind of this semi-romantic tem¬
perament in inquiry, produced results resembling those of,
as it were, metaphysical opium-eating. His metaphysical
writings, encumbered with terminology, and algebraic sym¬
bols, stretching out into vast impalpable shadows, are fre¬
quently ungraspable as Ixion’s cloud. And the haughty
or embarrassed1 pretence (at the conclusion ot vol. i. Biog.
Lit., edit. 1817) that the age was unripe for the apprecia¬
tion of his philosophical teachings, and his proud “ Intelli-
gibilia non intellectual adfero,” are unworthy of a literary
patriot, who should, for the objects of his mission, “ make
himself all things unto all men,” and whose bread, if he
had it to give, “ cast upon the waters, would be found after
many days.” The bread he lias left has been found, and to
good purpose. His reputation has risen throughout Great
Britain ; and America, which is the empiric of all principles
evolved by European physics or philosophy, has had her
poetry, her philosophy, and even her theology, deeply tinc¬
tured by Coleridge.
With his ardent benevolence and desire for the moral
and intellectual elevation of humanity, was mingled much
1 See Blackwood’s Magazine, April 1840.
c
OLERIDGE.
Coleridge, of a species of academic contempt for the myriads of God’s
immortal and intelligent creatures, commonly characterized
as “ the masses.” With the fear of the French revolution
before him, he seems to have viewed them as “dogs of
war,” with innate tendencies to turn upon and rend society,
especially when society deigned to cast before them her
pearls of instruction and philosophy. He seems to have
deemed that they should be nourished with food convenient
not so much for themselves as for the peace and prosperity
of the “ clerisy” and “ special state” whom he appoints their
overseers ; that an episcopal crook and an act of Parliament
are the keys to the whole duty of man as a unit in the
“masses;” that scholarship and philosophy walk in silver
slippers in a higher sphere, and that learning is degraded
when it is popularized. “From a philosophical populace,
good Lord deliver us,” is, if we remember rightly, one of
his expressions of this contempt. If he wrote only for phi¬
losophers, who can wonder that lie should complain of a
somewhat unappreciating audience?
1 he increasing celebrity of Coleridge caused the agitation
of a somewhat painful question—his alleged literary pla¬
giarism. 1 his was first hinted by Mr De Quincey in Tail’s
Magazine, September 1834.
1 he accusation was corroborated and extended by Pro¬
fessor Ferrier in Blackwood, April 1840; and it is still far¬
ther confirmed and extended by Sir W. Hamilton (in his
notes to the Works of Dr Reid, p. 890), whose indignation
is great against the “ literary reaver of the ‘ Hercynian
brakes,’” and who mercilessly convicts Coleridge of ruthless
and universal plagiarism, except where his ignorance pre¬
vented him from entering, and of blundering on subjects
with which the poet professed to be most familiar. The
defence by his friends is timid, and scarcely enters within
the sphere of legal evidence, while even his accusers absolve
him in general from deliberate and premeditated dishonesty;
yet, withal, with the air of mere tribute to his known talents
and celebrity. The specific accusations are the following:
that literal or ornamental translations from German poets,
and these too in celebrated passages of Coleridge, are found
unacknowledged for years alter they were published among
his poetical works; that whole pages of literal or interpo¬
lated translation occur, chiefly in "the “ Biographia Litera-
ria,” from the works of his German contemporary Schelling;
that besides this he assumes as his own the theories of that
philosopher and of others, and that Coleridge left a branch
of his work unfinished exactly at the point where Schelling
leaves him unaided ; nay, it is hinted, in the face of his own
loud reclamation, that his principles of the criticism of Shak-
speare are possibly to be put to the credit of Schlegel. His
friends (especially his nephew and son-in-law, the late Rev.
Henry Nelson Coleridge, in a prefatory discourse to the
recent edition of the “ Biog. Lit.”) extricate him from a
moral delinquency, by urging the known carelessness of his
habits, the extent of his studies, and the defect of order in
their arrangement; his custom of note-taking, which threw
among his papers the thoughts of others, which his negli¬
gence or his recollection afterwards failed to recognise as
not his own ; again, there is urged the folly of which he
would be convicted in wilfully concealing his obligations
to writers the knowledge of whom he was pressing on the
attention of his countrymen.
Coleridge more than once disclaims the imputation of
vanity, but he also hints the idea that he has cause to be
vain. If vanity is to be reckoned among the features of
his mind, and much of his writing indicates this, while it is
not inconsistent with the child-like simplicity ascribed to
him, he may have been tempted, on the one hand, to the
over-statement of his claims to certain thought-property
belonging to others; and, on the other, to the under-state¬
ment of his actual verbal obligations to them. That Cole¬
ridge expected accusations of plagiarism is evident from
his earnest reclamations against the suspicion of that crime.
The vast extent of his line of thinking, often imperfectly
defined as it was, would frequently come in contact with
parallel lines of thought which he met with in his studies,
matured and stereotyped by publication. He would feel
impatient at seeing complete what had dawned as an outline
in his own mind : he would entertain something like the
feeling of having been defrauded of his property, and the
present vivid impression, derived from his author, would be
stamped on his own imperfect outline as the result of
realized thought. In short, a process would take place in
his intellect resembling that of Byron’s baron in Mazeppa,
who had pondered over the glories of his ancestors,
“ Until, by some confusion led,
lie thought their merits were his own.”
The miscalculation of vanity, excusable, except in respect
to the manner in which he has talked (see Hamilton’s Reid,
p. 890), and is alleged to have talked of others (for his for¬
mer best friends accuse him of traduction ; see Southey’s
letter in Cottle’s Reminiscences, p. 407), and carelessness,
superinduced by his acknowledged habits of mind, seem to
constitute the amount of Coleridge’s plagiaristic guilt. He
was at least generous of his own stores ; his nephew, indeed,
inserts this circumstance as part of his apology ; if he took
from others, he was lavish to others far beyond the mark of
his own appropriations ; if he was “ appetens alieni,” he was
also “ profusus sui.” This, though no more abstractly jus¬
tifiable in Coleridge than in Catiline, is so far blameless in
the case of the former, that his “ appetentia ” was undeli¬
berate and unintentional.
Coleridge’s whole mind was imbued with the love of
truth and of beauty ; for truth he wandered through the
mazes of all philosophy, and wherever he found her, he
grappled her to his soul with hooks of steel. When an ex¬
tended horizon of Christianity enabled him to see the real
position of his Socinian opinions, he embraced unchano-eably
with his whole heart “ the truth as it is in Jesus.”° The
very obscurities of Coleridge are “ dark with excessive
bright;” from his intense feeling of the beautiful, they are
“ golden mists” that rise from the morning of a pure heart;
or they are lucid seas whose very depth prevents the eye
from penetrating its extent. His prose style is disfigured
by turgidity, and the affected use of words. His written
humour is ponderous and unwieldy.
He was capable of immense services to poetry; but in
this, as in other spheres of labour, he lived on the future ;
and Coleridge’s future was a bad bank on which to draw;
its bills were perpetually dishonoured. The conspicuous
features of his poetry are its exquisite and original melody
of versification, whose very sound chains the ear and soul;
the harmonious grouping and skilful colouring of his pic¬
tures ; statuesqueness and purity of taste in his living
figures, and truth, in luxuriance or in simplicity, in majesty
or in smallness, in his descriptions of nature. In senti¬
ment, he opens with charming artlessness his own bosom
in sorrow and in joy ; this, it may be remarked, is a feature
characteristic of the poetry of our own age above all that
have preceded. There exists in general a decided contrast
between the simplicity and lucidness of Coleridge’s poetical
style of expression, and the involved cloud-like fashion of
his prose. Apart from his German translations and his
dramas, there are few compositions of any extent complete
in the works of Coleridge. “ Christabel ’’ is a fragment—a
beauteous strain creeping in the ear, mysterious yet enrap¬
turing as a celestial melody ; but the import of whose lan¬
guage we scarcely comprehend, while we feel its sweetness.
Capriciously it ceases in a moment, and leaves us in the
position of Ariel’s admirers in the tune played by the pic¬
ture of nobody. The “ Ancient Mariner ” is, apart from
certain defects in machinery, a composition the stature of
w hose idea “ reaches the sky,” and stretches its arms into
112 COL
Coleroon other worlds ; but it vanishes from the reader’s grasp in a
liiver huddled conclusion—a moral utterly partial, like that of
| “ Christabel,” when viewed in reference to the piece as a
^ i.° e |‘ t whole. “ Cain,” the promise of a Titanic birth, and “ Ku-
bla Khan,” a literal dream of oriental glory, withered in the
blight of an unexecuting will. But how exquisite in their
completeness are the “ Hymn to Mont Blanc ” (though,
by the bye, this is one of the accused pieces), “ Love,” the
“ Odes,” and many lesser jewels ! He often expends his
genius on trifles ; and, even in his greater efforts, it is to be
regretted that his idealism has placed much of his poetry
beyond popular relish or sympathy. His dramatic pieces,
like most modern efforts of this class, exhibit rather scenery,
poetry, and sentiment, than character; but the surviving
fragments of this dramatic criticism show that they need
only completeness to be sufficient alone for his immortality.
The best tribute to Coleridge’s genius consists in its admi¬
ration—nay, imitation—by the highest minds among his
contemporaries, Byron and Scott, while all must perceive
that his melody and his phraseology still murmur in the
finest strains that emanate from the present age.
COLEROON Rivkk, the northern branch of the Ca-
very, from which it diverges below the island of Seringham,
near Trichinopoli, in Southern India, and falls into the
sea at Devicotta, in Lat. 11. 22., Long. 79.52., after a
course of about 92 miles. The entrance of the river is dif¬
ficult and dangerous of access from a bank called Coleroon
Shoal, which stretches 4 or 5 miles to the S.E. An exten¬
sive system of canal irrigation, in connection with the waters
of this river, has been established by the local government.
COLES HILL, a market-town in Warwickshire, Smiles
E. of Birmingham. It stands on a hill washed by the Cole,
which is here crossed by a bridge. It is well built; and the
parish church is a handsome Gothic edifice, with a lofty spire,
a Norman font, and several monuments. Pop. (1851) 1980.
COLET, John, dean of St Paul’s, the son of Sir Henry
Colet, knight, was born at London in 1466. His education
commenced in St Anthony’s school in that city; whence, in
1483, he was sent to Magdalene College, Oxford. After
seven years’ study of logic and philosophy, he took his de¬
gree in arts. About the year 1493 Colet went to Paris,
and thence to Italy, in order to improve himself in the
Greek and Latin languages, which at that time were imper¬
fectly taught in our universities. On his return to England
in 1497, he took orders, and settled at Oxford, where he
read lectures gratis on the Epistles of St Paul. At this
period he held the rectory of St Bennington in Suffolk,
to which he had been instituted at the early age of nine¬
teen ; and he was also prebendary of York, and canon of St
Martin’s le Grand, London. In 1502 he became prebendary
of Sarum; in 1505 prebendary of St Paul's; and imme¬
diately afterwards dean of that cathedral, having pre¬
viously taken the degree of doctor of divinity. He was no
sooner raised to this dignity than he introduced the
practice of preaching and expounding the Scriptures; and
soon afterwards established a perpetual divinity lecture, on
three days in each week, in St Paul’s Church,—an institution
which paved the way for the Reformation. About the year
1508, Dean Colet formed his plan for the foundation of St
Paul’s school, which he completed in 1512, and endowed
with estates to the amount of L.122 and upwards. The
celebrated grammarian William Lyle was the first master,
and the company of mercers were appointed trustees. The
dean’s religious opinions were so much more liberal than
those of the contemporary clergy, that they deemed him
little better than a heretic; and on this account he was so
frequently molested, that he at last determined to spend the
rest of his days in peaceful retirement. To carry this reso¬
lution into effect, he built a house near the palace of Rich¬
mond ; but being seized wfith the sweating sickness, he
died in 1519, in the fifty-third year of his age. He was
COL
buried on the south side of the choir of St Paul’s, where a Colgong
stone was laid over his grave, with no other inscription than jj
his name. Besides the preferments above mentioned, he Collar,
was rector of the guild of Jesus at St Paul’s, and chaplain '-■■“v-*"'
to Henry VIII. Dean Colet, though in communion with
the Church of Rome, was an enemy to its superstitions.
He disapproved of auricular confession, of the celibacy of
priests, and other tenets and ceremonies which have since
been rejected by all Protestants. He wrote—Absolutissimus
de octo Or adonis pardum construcdone Libellus, Antwerp,
1530, 8vo; Rudimenta Grammadc.es, London, 1539, 8vo;
Daily Devodons ; Monidon to a Godly Lije; Epistoke ad
Erasmum; and Commentaries on different parts of the
sacred books; together with a number of smaller theological
works.
COLGONG, a town of Hindustan, province of Bahar,
and district of Bhagulpore, delightfully situated on the
S.E. bank of the Ganges. The surrounding country is
well stocked with game of all sorts, from the rhinoceros and
tiger to the quail and ortolan. It is 102 miles N.W. from
Moorshedabad. N. Lat. 25. 14., E. Long. 87. 17.
COLIBERTS (Co/ibertP), in Law, were tenants in soc-
cage, and particularly such villeins as were made freemen,
but yet had superior lords to whom they paid certain duties,
and in that respect they might be called servants, though of
a middle condition between freemen and servants.
COLIGNI, Gaspard de, admiral of France, was born
at Chatillon-sur-Loin in 1517. He signalized himself in
his youth, during the reigns of Francis I. and Henri II.,
and was made colonel of infantry and admiral of France in
1552. He was employed by Henri II. in the most impor¬
tant affairs ; but after the death of that prince he embraced
the reformed religion, and became the chief of the Hugue¬
not Protestant party. He strongly opposed the house of
Guise, and rendered this opposition so formidable, that it
was thought he would have overturned the French govern¬
ment. On the peace concluded after the battles of Jarnac
and Moncontour, Charles IX. deluded Coligni into security
by his deceitful favours ; and though he recovered from one
attempt on his life, when he attended the nuptials of the
prince of Navarre, yet he fell in the massacre on St Bar¬
tholomew’s day, 24th August 1572, and his body was treated
with wanton brutality by a fanatical and excited populace.
Flis head was cut off and sent to Catharine de Medici; but
his cousin Montmorenci secretly buried the body in the
vaults of the chateau of Chantilly. In 1786 his remains
were removed by Montesquieu to Maupertuis, where a monu¬
ment was erected to his memory. History has preserved
the name of the wretch who assassinated the admiral. He
was a Bohemian or Gipsy, called Beme, whom Guise held
employed for the purpose, and who, even on that day of
blood, especially distinguished himself by his wanton bar¬
barities. See France.
COLISEUM, or Colosseum. See Amphitheatre,
vol. ii., p. 730; Architecture, vol. iii., p. 469; Rome ; and
London.
COLL, one of the western islands of Scotland, lying off
the W. coast of Mull. It is 14 miles in length, with an aver¬
age breadth of two miles. About one-third is cultivated
or in pasture; the rest rocky and barren. Pop. (1851)
1109.
COLLAR (Lat. colllre; from collum, the neck). Among
the ancients, this was sometimes worn as a badge of servitude.
The knights of several orders wear a chain of gold, ena¬
melled, and frequently set with ciphers or other devices,
with the badge of the order appended to it. Thus, the col¬
lar of the order of the garter consists of S.S., with roses
enamelled red, within a garter enamelled blue, to which is
appended the figure of St George.
Knights of the Collar, a military order in the republic
of Venice, called also the order of St Mark, or the Medal.
COL
Collate The knights wore no particular habit, and were distinguished
II only by the collar, which the doge put around their neck,
College. wjt]1 a medal, on which was represented the winged lion
of the republic.
COLLATE, to lay together and compare, in order to
ascertain the points on which two or more things of a similar
kind agree or disagree. It is particularly applied to books
and manuscripts.
COLLATERAL, in genealogy, descending from the
same stock, but not in the direct line. Thus, uncles, aunts,
nephews, nieces, and cousins, are collaterals, or in the same
collateral line.
COLLATION, a term in the canon law, signifying a con¬
ferring, has been applied in various countries to the ecclesias¬
tical sanction by which a clergyman is admitted to a benefice,
whether the act consists in the conferring of the benefice by
the ecclesiastical superior, or is merely an admission of the
spiritual qualifications of a person otherwise presented. By
the practice of England it is limited to the giving or bestowing
of a benefice on a clergyman by a bishop, who has it in his
own gift or patronage. It hence differs from institution in
this, that institution is performed by the bishop upon the
presentation of another, and collation is his own gift or pre¬
sentation ; and it differs from a common presentation, as it
is the giving of the church to the person, whereas presenta¬
tion is the giving or offering of the person to the church.
But collation supplies the place of presentation and institu¬
tion, and amounts to the same as institution, where the
bishop is both patron and ordinary. Anciently the right
of presentation to all churches was vested in the bishop;
and now, if the patron neglect to present to a church, this
right returns to the bishop by collation. But if the bishop
neglects to collate within six months after the elapse of the
patron, then the archbishop has a right to do it; and if the
archbishop neglects, then it devolves to the king; the one
as superior, to supply the defects of bishops, the other as
supreme, to supply all defects of government.
Collation, in common law, the comparison or presenta¬
tion of a copy to its original, to see whether or not it be con¬
formable ; or the report or act of the officer who made the
comparison. A collated act is equivalent to its original, pro¬
vided all the parties concerned were present at the collation.
Collation, in the law of Scotland, the right which an
heir has of throwing the whole heritable and moveable es¬
tates of the deceased into one mass, and sharing it equally
with the others in the same degree of kindred, when he
thinks such share will be more than the value of the heri¬
tage to which he has an exclusive title.
COLLE, Raffaellino da, so called from the place of
his birth, is by Lanzi mentioned as the probable assistant
of Raffaelle in the Vatican and Farnesina; certainly as
that of Giulio Romano at Rome, and seemingly also at
Mantua. From his remaining works at Urbino, San Sepol-
cro, Pesaro, Perugia, &c., in several altar pieces, Lanzi con¬
siders Da Colie as one of the best masters of the Roman
school of Raffaelle. Neither the date of his birth nor of
his death are precisely ascertained.
COLLECT, a short comprehensive prayer, adapted to
a particular day or occasion. The popes Gelasius and
Gregory are said to have been the first who established
Collects. Despence, a doctor of the faculty of Paris, has
written a treatise on Collects.
COLLEGE (Lat. collegium, from collega,a person chosen
along with others to a certain office), an association or body
of men invested with certain powers or rights, performing
certain duties, or engaged in some common employment or
pursuit.
Collegium, among the Romans, was applied indifferently
to such bodies, whether employed in the offices of religion,
government, the liberal, or even the mechanical arts and
trades; so that the word signified what is now called a corpora-
VOL. VII.
COL 113
tion. Both before and under the empire the colleges were College,
numerous; as the college of augurs, the college of capitolini, or v-»^/
of those who had the superintendence of the capitoline games;
colleges of artificers, carpenters, potters, founders, locksmiths,
engineers of the army, butchers, makers of military cassocks,
bakers, musicians, &c. &c. The term was likewise applied
to various magistrates ; thus the tribunes of the plebs were
called collegium tribunorum, and so forth. Plutarch ob¬
serves, that it was Numa who first divided the people into
colleges, in order that each consulting the interests of his
college, and occupying himself therewith, might thus be
prevented from entering into any general conspiracy against
the public peace. Each of these colleges had distinct
meeting-places or halls, and also a treasury and common
chest, a register, a person to represent them upon public
occasions, and acts of government. They had the privi¬
lege of manumitting slaves, of being legates, and of making
bye-laws for their own body, provided these did not clash
with those of the government.
There are various colleges among the moderns, founded
on the model of those of the ancients. Such are the three
colleges of the empire, viz.—
College of Electors, or their Deputies, which formerly
assembled in the diet of Ratisbon.
College of Princes, or the body of princes, or their de¬
puties at the diet of Ratisbon.
College of Cities is, in like manner, the body of depu¬
ties which the imperial cities send to the diet.
College of Cardinals, or the Sacred College, a body
composed of the three orders of cardinals. See Cardinal.
College is also used for a public place endowed with
certain revenues, where the several branches of learning are
taught. The establishment of colleges or universities is a
remarkable period in literary history. The schools in ca¬
thedrals and monasteries confined themselves chiefly to the
teaching of grammar, and there were only one or two mas¬
ters employed in that office. But in colleges, professors
were appointed to teach the different parts of science. The
first obscure mention of academical degrees in the univer¬
sity of Paris, from which the other universities in Europe
have borrowed most of their customs and institutions, occurs
a.d. 1215. See Universities.
College of Civilians, commonly called Doctors’ Commons,
a college near St Paul’s Churchyard in London, founded
by Dr Harvey, dean of the arches, for the professors of the
civil law. Here also usually reside the judge of the arches
court of Canterbury, the judge of the admiralty, of the pre¬
rogative court, &c., with other civilians, who live in a col¬
legiate manner, commoning together ; whence the appella¬
tion of Doctors’ Commons. Their house being consumed
in the great fire, they all resided at Exeter House in the
Strand till 1672, when their house was rebuilt in a very
splendid manner at the charge of the profession. To this
college belong thirty-four proctors, who make themselves
parties for their clients, manage their causes, &c. In the
common hall the high court of admiralty and the princi¬
pal spiritual courts are held.
London College of Physicians, a corporation of physi¬
cians, who, by several charters and acts of parliament of
Henry VIII. and his successors, have certain privileges, in
virtue of which no man, though a graduate in physic of any
university, may, without license, under the said college-
seal, practise physic in or within seven miles of London.
I hey have also power to administer oaths, fine and imprison
offenders in that and several other particulars, to search the
apothecaries’ shops, &c., in and about London, to see if their
drugs, &c., be wholesome, and their compositions according
to the form prescribed by the college in their dispensatory.
By the said charter they are also freed from all troublesome
offices, such as serving on juries, being constables, keeping
watch, providing arms, &c.
p
114 COLLEGE.
College. Of this college there are a president, four censors, eight
electors, a registrar, and a treasurer chosen annually in Oc¬
tober. The censors have, by charter, power to survey, go¬
vern, and arrest, all physicians, or others practising physic,
in or within seven miles of London, and to fine, amerce,
and imprison them at discretion. The number of fel¬
lows was anciently thirty, till Charles II. increased their
number to forty; and James II., giving them a new char¬
ter, allowed the number of fellows to be enlarged so as
not to exceed fourscore; reserving to himself and suc¬
cessors the power of placing and displacing any of them for
the future.
Edinburgh College of Physicians was erected on the
26th November 1681. The design of this institution was
to prevent the abuses daily committed by foreign and illite¬
rate impostors, quacks, &c. For this reason, his Majesty, at
the time mentioned, granted letters patent to erect into a
body corporate and politic certain physicians in Edinburgh,
and their successors, by the title of the President and Royal
College of Physicians at Edinburgh, with power to choose
annually a council of seven, one of whom to be president:
and these are to elect a treasurer, clerk, and other officers:
to have a common seal; to sue and be sued ; to make laws
for promoting the art of physic, and regulating the practice
thereof, within the city of Edinburgh, town of Leith, and
districts of the Canongate, West Port, Pleasance, and Pot-
terrow, through all which the jurisdiction of the college ex¬
tends. Throughout this jurisdiction no person is allowed to
practise physic without a warrant from the college, under
the penalty of L.5 sterling the first month, to be doubled
monthly afterwards while the offence is continued ; one half
the money arising from such fines to go to the poor, the
other to the use of the college. They are also empowered
to punish all licentiates in physic within the above-men¬
tioned bounds for faults committed against the institutions
cf the college ; and to fine them of sums not exceeding 40s.
On such occasions, however, they must have one of the
bailies of the city to sit in judgment along with them, other¬
wise their sentence will not be valid. They are also em¬
powered to search and inspect all medicines within their
jurisdiction, and throw out into the street all such as are
bad or unwholesome ; and that they may the better attend
their patients, they are exempted from watching, warding,
and serving on juries. They are, however, restrained from
erecting schools for teaching the art of physic, or conferring
degrees on any person qualified for the office of a physi¬
cian ; but are obliged to license all such as have taken their
degrees in any university, and to admit as honorary mem¬
bers all the professors of physic in the universities of Scot¬
land. These privileges and immunities are not, however,
to interfere with the rights and privileges of the apothecary
surgeons, in the practice of curing wounds, contusions, frac¬
tures, and other external operations.
London College of Surgeons was established by ancient
charters, one of which dates as far back as 1 st Edw. IV. Its
members are empowered to practise freely and without re¬
straint the art and science of surgery throughout all his
Majesty’s dominions, and are exempt from serving as con¬
stables, jurymen, &c.
In the year 1843 this college petitioned the Crown for a
new charter to alter the constitution of the college as esta¬
blished by the charters of 1800 and 1823 ; and a new char¬
ter was granted to the college, dated the 14th of September
1843, whereby the number of members of the council was
increased from 21 to 24, and a new class of members, called
fellows, was created, with extended rights and privileges;
the fellows to elect the members of the council from amongst
themselves, instead of vacancies in the council being filled
up by the council itself; future members of the council no
longer to hold office for life, but three of them to go out of
office annually. The examiners may now be elected from
the fellows; and the future examiners to hold office during College,
the pleasure of the council, and not for life.
The two principal sergeant-surgeons to the Crown, and
the surgeon-general to the forces no longer entitled to be¬
come members of the court of examiners upon the first
vacancy after their appointment, in preference to other
members of the college.
Under the provisions of the new charter, above 500 of the
existing members have been created fellows; and by bye¬
laws and ordinances passed in pursuance of such charter, all
members of the college (present as well as future) are en¬
titled to be admitted to examination for the fellowship after
a certain number of years’ practice ; that is to say, any per¬
son who shall have been a member on the 14th day of
September 1844, is entitled to be admitted to the examina¬
tion upon production of a certificate, signed by three fellows,
that he has been eight years in practice, and is a fit and pro¬
per person to be admitted a fellow; and any person who
shall have become a member of the college after the said
14th day of September 1844, is entitled to be admitted to
such examination for the fellowship on production of a cer¬
tificate, that he has a competent knowledge of Greek, Latin,
and French, and of the elements of mathematics, and a cer¬
tificate, signed by three fellows, that he has been 12 years
in practice, and is a fit and proper person to be admitted a
fellow. All members of the college, future as well as pre¬
sent (as well as other persons), are also entitled to be ad¬
mitted to examination for the fellowship at any time, upon
complying with the bye-laws and ordinances required to
be observed by candidates for the fellowship : several mem¬
bers of the college, who were so qualified, have passed the
examination, and become fellows of the college accor¬
dingly.
Persons not being members of the college, by obtaining
the fellowship thereby, become members of the college, and
acquire all the rights and privileges of other members.
Edinburgh College of Surgeons. This is an institution
by which the surgeons of Edinburgh are incorporated into
a royal college. They have the privilege of examining and
licensing, if found qualified, all practitioners in surgery within
certain bounds.
The examinations conducted by the Board of Examina-
tors of this College may be classed under three heads :—
I.—The Examination for the Diploma of a Licentiate.
The persons holding this diploma are entitled to practise the arts
of anatomy, surgery, and pharmacy, within the counties of Edin¬
burgh, Linlithgow, Haddington, Fife, Peebles, Selkirk, Roxburgh,
and Berwick. The diploma of licentiate of this College is also ad¬
mitted by the Army and Navy Medical Boards, and by the East India
Company, as a qualification for becoming a medical officer of their
several establishments.
The holders of this diploma, though possessing no ulterior statu¬
tory privilege, have been by the custom of the country received as
practitioners of these arts in every part of Scotland, and, till the
passing of the Apothecaries’ act of 1815, in every part of England,
except London.
II. —The Examination for the Diploma of Fellow of the Royal
College.
The candidates for this grade must have previouslypassed through
the examination for the grade of licentiate. The holders of the
fellowship are, therefore, entitled to all the privileges of licentiates,
and they hold besides an exclusive right of practice within the
city and liberties of Edinburgh. All licentiates may become can¬
didates for the fellowship, and are entitled to become fellows on
passing the prescribed examination.
No prosecution has been raised for a very long period of time to
enforce the rights of the college against any persons for their not
possessing either of the above qualifications.
III. —By the regulations of the Medical Board of the Royal Navy,
medical officers, before promotion to the rank of full surgeon, are
required to pass a second examination before a competent board;
and the examinators of this college have been in the habit for many
years of conducting such second examinations under the sanction of
the navy medical board.
College of Justice, the supreme civil court of Scotland;
COL
College otherwise called Court of Session, or of Council and Session.
I! See Scotland.
Collier. Sion College, or the college of the London clergy, has
time out of mind been a religious house, sometimes under
the denomination of a priory, sometimes under that of a
spital or hospital. At its dissolution under 31st Henry VIII.
it was called Elson’s Spital, from the name of its founder,
a mercer, who organized it in 1329. At present it is a com¬
position of both ; namely, a college for the clergy within the
city of London, who were incorporated in 1631 (in pursu¬
ance of the will of the Rev. Thomas White) under the name
of the President and Fellows of Sion College, and an hospi¬
tal for ten poor men and as many women. The officers of the
corporation are the president, two deans, and four assistants,
who are annually chosen from among the rectors and vicars
of London, and are subject to the visitation of the bishop.
College of Heralds, commonly called the Herald’s Office,
a corporation founded by charter of Richard III., who granted
them several privileges, such as freedom from subsidies, tolls,
offices, &c. They had a second charter from Henry VI.;
and a house built near Doctors’ Commons by the Earl of
Derby in the reign of Henry VII. was given them by the
Duke of Norfolk in the reign of Mary. This house has
now been rebuilt.
This college is subordinate to the earl marshal of Eng¬
land, and the members are assistants to him in his court of
chivalry, usually held in the common hall of the college.
College of Heralds in Scotland, consists of the lyon
king at arms, six heralds, and six pursuivants, with a num¬
ber of messengers.
COLLEGIANTS, a religious sect formed among the
Arminians and Anabaptists in Holland, in 1619. They
held sacred conventions twice a-year at Rheinsberg, near
Leyden. Their leaders were three brothers of the name
of Koddeus or Kodde, obscure men in rural life, but pious
and well acquainted with their Bibles. Their followers ac¬
quired the name collegiants, because they called their assem¬
blies “ colleges.” The brethren were once very numerous in
Holland, Friesland, and West Friesland. They assemble
twice a-week ; and any one, females excepted, is permitted
to expound the Scriptures and to offer up prayer. They bap¬
tize by immersing the whole body in w'ater ; and admit every
one who presents himself, without regard to his sect or
opinion, provided he profess his faith in the divinity of the
Scriptures, and his resolution to live suitably to their pre¬
cepts and doctrines.
COLLEGIATE, or Collegial, church, is one which
has no bishop’s see, yet has the ancient retinue of a bishop,
canons, and prebends. Such are Westminster, Rippon,
Windsor, &c., governed by deans and chapters. Collegiate
churches, in Scotland, are those where two ministers serve
the cure as colleagues ; dividing the duty between them in
such proportions as may be arranged, and generally preach¬
ing alternately.
COLLET (from Lat. collum the neck), that part of
a ring which encircles the stone. Also the small collar or
band worn by the inferior Romish clergy.
COLLIER, Jeremy, a learned English nonjuring divine,
born at Stow Qui, Cambridgeshire, in 1650, and educated
at Caius College, Cambridge. His first appointment was to
the small rectory of Ampton, near St Edmund’s Bury, Suf¬
folk, which, after six years, he resigned in order to proceed
to London, where in 1685 he was made lecturer of Gray’s
Inn. But the change of government at the revolution soon
rendered the public exercise of his function impracticable.
He was committed to Newgate for writing in favour of the
dethroned monarch ; and again on a charge of carrying on
a treasonable correspondence with the enemies of the move¬
ment ; but he was released on both occasions without trial,
by the intervention of his friends. So far did he carry his
scruples at this period, that he submitted to confinement
COL 115
rather than make a tacit acknowledgment of the jurisdiction Collier,
of the court by accepting his liberty upon bail. In the two ‘v—'
following years he continued to harass the government by
his publications ; but for his boldness in granting absolution
to Sir John Friend and Sir William Perkins at their execu¬
tion, he was obliged to flee, and for the rest of his life con¬
tinued under sentence of outlawry. From that time forward
he employed his leisure in literary works, which were less po¬
litical in their tone. In 1698 he published a short treatise in
the style of Prynne’s famous Histrio-mastix, entitled a Short
view of the Immorality and Profaneness of the English Stage,
which engaged him in a lengthened controversy with Con¬
greve, Vanbrugh, and the other wits of the day. The book
abounds in hypercriticism and in useless display of learning,
neither intrinsically valuable nor conducive to the argu¬
ment. Yet, in the words of Mr Macaulay, “ when all de¬
ductions have been made, great merit must be allowed to
the work. There is hardly any book of that time from
which it would be possible to select specimens of writing
so excellent and so various. To compare Collier with Pas¬
cal would, indeed, be absurd; yet we hardly know where,
except in the Provincial Letters, we can find mirth so be¬
comingly and harmoniously blended with solemnity as in
the Short View. In truth, all the modes of ridicule, from
broad fun to polished and antithetical sarcasm, were at
Collier’s command. On the other hand, he was complete
master of the rhetoric of honest indignation. We scarcely
know any volume which contains so many bursts of that
peculiar eloquence which comes from the heart and goes to
the heart. Indeed, the spirit of the book is truly heroic.
In order fairly to appreciate it, we must remember the situa¬
tion in which the writer stood. He was under the frown
of power. His name was already a mark for the invectives
of one-half of the writers of the age, when, in the cause of
good sense, good taste, and good morals, he gave battle to
the other half. Strong as his political prejudices were, he
seems on this occasion to have laid them entirely aside.
He has forgotten that he is a Jacobite, and remembers only
that he is a citizen and a Christian. Some of his sharpest
censures are directed against poetry which had been hailed
with delight by the Tory party, and had inflicted a deep
wound on the Whigs. It is inspiriting to see how gallantly
the solitary outlaw advances to attack enemies formidable
separately, and, it might have been thought, irresistible when
combined; distributes his swashing blows right and left
among Wycherley, Congreve, and Vanbrugh ; treads the
wretched Tom D’Urfey down in the dirt beneath his feet,
and strikes with all his strength full at the towering crest
of Dryden. The effect produced by the Short View was
immense. The nation was on the side of Collier. The
general belief was, that Dryden would take the field against
him; and all the wits anticipated a sharp contest between
two well-paired combatants. But Dryden’s conscience
smote him ; he stood abashed, like the fallen archangel at
the rebuke of Zephon. At a later period he mentioned
the Short Vieiv in the preface to his Fables. He com¬
plained with some asperity of the harshness with which he
had been treated, and urged some matters in mitigation ;
but, on the whole, he frankly acknowledged that he had
been justly reproved.”
Collier afterwards executed a translation of Moreri’s His¬
torical and Geographical Dictionary, which appeared in
4 vols. fob, 1701, 1705, 1721. After this he published
An Ecclesiastical History of Great Britain, chiefly of Eng¬
land, in 2 vols. fob, 1708 and 1714. His Essays upon
several Moral Subjects, in 3 vols. 8vo, published between
1697 and 1709, display considerable learning, ability,
and taste. In 1701 he published a translation of Anto¬
ninus’s Meditations. His last work was a volume of Prac¬
tical Discourses, published in 1725. Collier died of the
stone, April 26, 1726.
116
Colliery.
Distribu¬
tion.
Geological
position.
COLLIERY.
A Colliery is a place where coal is found in strati¬
fied masses, and excavated by manual labour, and com¬
monly brought to the surface by mechanical power.
The exact date when coal began to be used as a fuel is
very uncertain ; tbe appearance, if not the use of the mine¬
ral, must have been known for a long time in districts where
the deposit was naturally exposed ; and, according to some
authorities, it is mentioned as having been used in England
in the ninth century, 852. In 12o9 King Henry HI.
granted the privilege of digging coals to certain parties in
Newcastle. Seven years afterwards coal had become an
article of export, and was termed sea-coal; and in 1306,
so extensive was the use of coals in London, that parliament
complained to the king of the noxious vapours therefrom
polluting the atmosphere. In consequence of which pro¬
clamation was made against their further use, lest the health
of the knights of the shire should suffer during their resi¬
dence in the metropolis.
Blythe, writing in 1649, states, “It was not many years
since the famous city of London petitioned the parliament
of England against two nuisances or offensive commodi¬
ties, which were likely to come into great use and esteem ;
and that was, Newcastle coals, in regard of their stench,
&c.; and hops, in regard they would spoyle the taste of
drinck, and endanger the people.”
In Belgium the earliest reference to coal was in 1198 or
1200 in the country of Liege, where, according to tradi¬
tion, a blacksmith was the first to use it as fuel.
In France the precise period of its adoption as a substi¬
tute for wood is not ascertained. The commencement of
its use in Paris was in 1520, the coal being drawn, not from
the mines of France, but from the collieries of Newcastle.
In Scotland coal was known and used probably at a very
early date. We are informed by Chalmers, the antiquarian,
that coal was worked at Bo’ness by William de Verepont
before the end of the twelfth century, and that a tenth of
the coals was paid to the monks of Holyrood House.
It is more curious, however, than important here, to trace
the date when mineral coal was first used as a fuel. The
earliest employment of it in England in the manufacture of
iron was in 1713 at Colebrookdale, in Scotland about the
commencement of the eighteenth century, and in France
in 1782.
On examining a geological map of the world, it is inte¬
resting to compare the known mineral resources, and their
distribution throughout the different countries, in strata of
every variety of depth and area ; and how remarkable that
these productions (though extensively distributed) should be
principally confined to those countries where the inhabi¬
tants, possessing the advantages of civilization, are enabled
to make them contribute to the comfort of the great human
family. See page 127.
The stratified matter which composes part of the crust of
the earth is deposited in beds or layers. Geologists have
very satisfactorily shown the order in which the various
layers have been deposited. “ Had these lain in regular
undisturbed succession, man would have made but little
progress in deciphering their history, as the greatest per¬
pendicular descent man has yet made into the crust of the
earth does not extend to half a mile. But as these rocks
are thrown up into slanting and irregular positions, so that
the lowest are brought to the surface equally with the most
recently formed, geologists have been able to collect a regu¬
lar series of stratified rocks from those disposed as it were but
yesterday, to the unstratified granite which forms their basis.”
The following figure (No. 1) will give an idea of the Colliery,
stratified rocks as they occur in Britain ~
Superficial Accumulations.
Tertiary.
Secondary
Formation.
Sandstone, Marls, and
Plastic Clay.
Transition.
Primary.
Granite.
Chalk and Lias
formation.
New Red Sandstone
And Magnesian Lime,
Coal measures.
Mountain Limestone,
Old Red Sandstone,
Silurian Limestones, and
Sandy Slates.
Clay Slates,
Mica and Talc Schists,
Gneiss rocks.
Fig. 1.
Coal is found in those strata designated the secondary for*
motion, or coal measures, and in seams varying from an
inch to forty feet; and though great sameness is observable
in the continuous thickness and quality of each seam, still
irregularities are of frequent occurrence, and of sufficient
extent to baffle the profitable working of many well laid
out collieries.
The irregularities common to all coal-fields are as follows Irregulari-
—nips or wants, shaken coal, saddle-backs, baidks, pot- ties.
bottoms, gaws, hitches, and dykes.
Nips or wants. The coal is said to be “ nipped ’’out when Nips,
the roof and pavement approach each other, thereby reducing
the thickness of the seam. It generally happens that this
irregularity is more fully developed where the roof is hard—
for example, where a considerable thickness of sandstone is
in near or immediate contact with the coal. The general
appearance of a seam of coal thus troubled is represented
by figure 2.
Fig. 2.
Referring to it, A is the roof; B the pavement; and CC
the average thickness of the seam. Practical men are of
opinion that this description of irregularity does not lessen
the seam of coal; that is, when the thick and the thin parts
are added together, they will nearly form an equivalent to
the known average of the seam ; and when this is not the
case, the coal is found in a more compact state.
COLLIERY.
Colliery.
Shaken
Coal.
Shaken coal is frequently found in the neighbourhood
of “ wants,” in a regular and seemingly untroubled state ; the
seam is seldom changed in thickness, but the coal is no bet¬
ter than a heap of dross or small coal 5 and may be shovelled
from the seam as off a coal-hill. The pavement is gene¬
rally wet and soft. There is considerable diversity of opi¬
nion regarding the cause likely to have produced this change;
and it is not unlikely to suppose that a stratum of mud or
gravel may be in immediate connection, and not far distant
from the pavement, which, when acted upon by pressure,
would crush an inelastic substance like coal, and thus ac¬
count for the change.
Saddle-backs, pot-bottoms or baulks, and gaws, are
backs, pot- local terms given to irregularities in the roof or pave-
bottoms, ment of coal; when they occur on the pavement, it may be
ascribed to the inequality of the surface on which the ori¬
ginal deposition of vegetable matter (from which coal has
been transmuted) was laid; but when found on the roof,
may be supposed to have been occasioned by interruptions
to these deposits or uneven pressure. The following is an
illustration of these irregularities as they are met with in
mining, figure 3 :—
Saddle-
&c.
Hitches.
When the strata are upheaved or elevated, the angle of
the fissure is in the direction of AC ; when depressed or
thrown down, it lies in the direction of BD.
It has often been matter of surprise to those engaged in
mining that so little is visible on the surface to indicate the
place of these dislocations. It might have been expected
that the displaced strata would have been found in the po¬
sition of the dotted lines eee in a protuberance at the sur¬
face ; but such is not the case ; and in inquiring by what
agency this elevated mass has been denuded and the pre- ..
sent level produced, we are forced to take into account the
slow operation of natural causes, extending over such a
lengthened period of time, that we have no data by which to
estimate it 5 and yet the time required for the abrasion of
these elevations sinks into insignificance, when compared
with that required for the degradation of previously indu¬
rated matter, of which the stratified rocks (upwards of eight
miles in thickness) are composed.
Dykes form interruptions in the strata, but seldom Dykes
cause any alteration of level or inclination. When com¬
posed of trap, they can generally be traced through a con¬
siderable extent of country. Their volcanic origin is un¬
doubted, and the remains leave unmistakable proof of their
ancient connection. Section fig. 5 will give a general idea
of the manner in which coal-beds are sometimes deranged
by this description of trouble.
Fig. 3.
A, a saddle-back; B, a baulk or pot-bottom ; C, a gaw;
and DD the seam of coal. Gaws are most frequent,
and generally lie in a level-course direction; they are the
reverse of saddle-backs, and as distinguished here they both
represent changes of level in the pavement of the seam.
Hitches are dislocations, and show that the seams of
coal and accompanying strata, though continuous at a for¬
mer period, have been torn asunder by violent action, and
their continuous regularity of level and inclination changed,
the strata on the one side of the fracture being depressed,
or on the other elevated. These subsidences or upheavals
occur in almost every direction, from an inch to 1800 feet
(as has been proved to the south of Glasgow) ; they follow
one general law-—that is, the fissure is always at a certain
angle to or from the point of contact with the section of the
strata, and rarely perpendicular. The accompanying sec¬
tion, fig. 4, represents a seam of coal k, being worked to-
BB, the dyke; aaaa, branches, or beds injected into the
surrounding strata, irregular, but sometimes parallel with
the stratification for a considerable distance : and when one
of these follows the course of a seam of coal, it (the coal)
is either displaced or reduced to cinder.
Clay dykes are frequently encountered from ten to thirty
fathoms from the surface. They form a complete barrier like
dykes of trap, but do not alter the quality of the coal; and
though not traceable for a great distance, they often extend
to many yards in thickness,
Inclination scarcely comes under the head of irregu- Inclina-
larities; and though some seams are unworkable to profit on tion•
account of their rapid inclination, all coal-seams lie more or
less at an angle to the horizon, and are never found truly
level. Taylor, in his statistics of coal, when referring to the
irregularity of inclination and out-crop, explains,—“ During
our investigations, we have remarked that the true positions
of those veins which had their bassets on the slopes of the
mountains were in most cases rendered obscure by the cur¬
vature of the crops almost at right angles to the true in¬
clination of the veins. We ascribe this to the atmospheric
agency operating to a given depth below the surface, and to
the mechanical influence ofsurface waters, decomposition, the
sliding down of the higher masses, &c. In every instance
which has come under our observation, in relation to the out¬
cropping of coal seams on these slopes, we have perceived the
manifestation of the like influences which have deflected the
4 wash,’ or decomposed materials of the coal veins from their
true courses, and thrown them over among the alluvial detri¬
tus, generally in a curve, as shown by the next figure, No. 6,
which is merely the representative of numerous correspond¬
ing cases,”
Though it is universally admitted that all coal-seams are the Varieties
result principally of accumulations of vegetable matter un- of coal,
der different circumstances or degrees of pressure, it is evi¬
dent that local or other causes have tended materially to
118
COLLIERY.
Colliery.
change their quality. If we take the seams known to exist in
one of our great coal-fields, and compare them, we find a
marked difference in the quality of each ; and the quality is
not only different, but the structure, analysis, general appear¬
ance, and also the uses to which they are applied.
Cubical
coal.
Fat bitu¬
minous
coal.
Anthracite
coal.
use throughout Great Britain, are cubical coal, fat bitu¬
minous coal, anthracite, steam-coal, and cannel coal.
Cubical or dry coal is dark and shining ; when worked,
it admits of being put out in large masses ; it has general
properties in common with all seams of coal, viz., it is es¬
sentially composed of carbon, oxygen, hydrogen, and nitro¬
gen. The quality of coal depends upon the relative pro¬
portion of these ingredients.
The term dry coal has sometimes also been applied to
coal of this description in contradistinction to those which
cake or cement. It burns freely, with much flame and
heat. The “ splint coal” of Scotland, famous for smelting
ores in the blast-furnace, is of this class; and though other
coals have become greater favourites in the parlour, none have
yet been found equal to it for use in the blast-furnace ; and it
is a gratifying reflection for those engaged in the iron trade
in Scotland, that vast fields of it still remain to be worked.
Fat bituminous or caking coals differ little in appear¬
ance from the open burning cubical dry coal; when exposed
to a high temperature they swell considerably, and during
combustion have a direct tendency to cake or cement, but
though well adapted for household use, their cementing
property has hitherto proved objectionable to their being
used in the blast-furnace in a raw state.
Anthracite coal is black, brittle, and highly lustrous.
When subjected to a high temperature it ignites, burns
with considerable heat, produces no smoke, and leaves a
small percentage of ash. It is extensively diffused through¬
out Wales ; vast tracts of it exist in America. It also
abounds in Ireland, known by the name of Kilkenny coal,
and in Scotland as blind coal, where it is much prized by
maltsters, brewers, and millers, on account of its being free
of smoke during combustion, and possessed of strong heat¬
ing powers. Of late years anthracite has been introduced
successfully in the blast-furnace, partly in England, but ex¬
tensively in America. The following table exhibits the
amount of carbon contained in samples of this mineral from
all the principal known deposits :
S. Wales. France. Saxony. Pennsylvania. Russia.
Carbon, 88 to 95 p. cent. 80 to 83 81 85 to 92 94
Steam-coal. Steam-coal is a species of the above-described, and
sometimes termed “ smithy coal.” It is neither bituminous
nor anthracite; it possesses more hydrogen than the latter,
and more carbon than the former. It has generally a clear
glancing appearance, is somewhat tender, ignites easily,
gives off comparatively little smoke during the process of
combustion, and is now generally known as steam-coal, for
which purpose it is highly prized.
At one time it was considered that coal of this descrip¬
tion had been deprived of its volatile property, from con- Colliery,
tact with particular strata. It is now clearly established
(particularly in Scotland), that wherever coal of this quality
is found, it is close to, or in the immediate neighbourhood of
trap (whin) ; and since the increased demand for steamboat
coal, coal-fields have been taken for this description of coal,
with no other direct knowledge of its existence, than that
the trap lay at a given distance from the position of the
coal-seams. It is proper to remark, that when freestone
intervenes between the trap and the coal, it approaches
nearer to the anthracite than when separated by fire-clay
or shale. In some districts the coal is found excellent iu
quality from 15 to 30 fathoms beneath the trap. It is un¬
necessary here to remark, that where the trap does not exist,
the coal is of the common open burning bituminous nature,
and when in close contact it is either anthracite or cinder coal.
Cannel or gas coal is of a grayish-black, or dark brown Cannel or
colour, and may be termed non-lustrous. It is variable in gas coal,
quality, but uniform in stratification, and may be seen in a
short distance blending into a great variety of shades; and
not unfrequently its character is changed into blackband
ironstone, or bituminous coal. It is extensively worked in
the Lancashire coal-field, near Wigan; and there are various
seams of it in the upper and lower series of the Scottish
coal-field, the Torbanehill being the most valuable in the
former, and the Lesmahagow in the latter. Cannel is of less
specific gravity than common “cubical coal;” it is very com¬
pact, ignites with great facility, and burns with a brilliant
flame. It has long been customary throughout Scotland for
farmers to lay in a stock of it for the winter, on account of
its light as a substitute for candles, hence the name cannel
coal. It first received its name in Lancashire, where the word
candle is commonly pronounced cannel by the peasantry.
It is now mostly used in producing gas, for which pur¬
pose it is admirably adapted.
Before proceeding to describe the searching for and work- Mode of
ing of coal-fields, it may be proper to advert shortly to the letting
general mode of letting them. The arrangements are va- coal-fields,
rious in detail; the adventurer or tenant agrees to pay a
certain value or royalty for the coal he proposes to work—•
in general, at either so much per ton or acre, or percentage
upon the sales at the pit mouth. Coupled with the royalty
there is a sum fixed as rent, which makes it imperative on
the part of the tenant either to work the coal to a given
extent, or pay for the occupation of the ground. The sum
fixed is generally sufficient to induce the tenant to work the
field, or otherwise show cause for abandoning it.
Prior to the introduction of the science of geology, the Searching
definite character and extent of the strata which contain the for coal,
coal measures seem to have been imperfectly understood.
But it is to that science we are indebted for our information
regarding those deposits, the importance of which is ad¬
mitted, when it is considered that this formation is upwards
of one and a half mile in thickness, composed of hundreds
of layers, and often difficult to distinguish from the masses
of stratified matter in immediate connection.
The geological arrangement marks with precision the
upper and the lower link of connection, the new red sand¬
stone on the one side, and the mountain limestone on the
other. Without a knowledge of this general arrangement,
it is obvious that the exploring miner in past times (how¬
ever intelligent otherwise) must have frequently felt per¬
plexed ; and the course then pursued yet finds an occasional
advocate, viz., that coal is to be got anywhere by only sink¬
ing deep enough. But we now know the limit of the coal
measures and their general construction ; and it is not as¬
sumption to say, that a successful search for coal is not al¬
together a matter of chance ; and though we find sometimes
in our researches that certain divisions of strata are absent,
their stratigraphical order is never subverted, that is, the
new red sandstone may repose upon the mountain lime, or
COLL
Colliery, old red sandstone, but never upon the chalk and lias for-
y—«-> mation.
It may not be out of place to advert to the variableness
of the vegetable deposits throughout mining districts, and
the advantage of being well informed regarding the leading
features that serve to distinguish all coal-fields. The most
marked and continuous of these are, seams of limestone,
mussel-bands, and thick deposits of sandstone ; seams of coal
and ironstone vary much, and often cannot be recognised
at another point of the same field; therefore as individual
seams they are not to be trusted as guides, unless in close
connection with those known groups to which they belong.
The search so long as it is confined to the coal measures,
is comparatively easy ; but in exploring fields that are dis¬
tant from mining operations, and where no trace of the coal
measures are found from the intervention of superior strata,
it is then necessary to act with caution. Not that geologists
have misnamed or misplaced the chalk or lias formation,
nor that they do not exist often many hundred fathoms
above the coal measures, but that frequently they are found
overlying the outcrop of older formations (unconformably),
and comparatively thin, as shown by figure 7.
When this irregularity of deposit comes to be generally un¬
derstood, the explorations of the miner will take a wider
range than they have hitherto done, and in some unpromis¬
ing situations important discoveries may yet be made.
In searching for minerals, it seldom occurs that enough
of the strata is exposed to warrant a shaft being put down;
and it generally happens that the preliminary expedient of
boring is had recourse to, as being the most expeditious
and least expensive mode of ascertaining the character and
contents of any mineral field.
The process of boring is well known, and has already been
described under the head Blasting. When the term is used
in connection with mining, it is understood that a hole is to
be drilled or bored into the earth. This is done by a chisel
of an indefinite length, sometimes 20 feet and sometimes
1200 (according to the depth of the bore), the continuous
length of which is formed by pieces of iron 9 feet long (or
any other convenient length), with a screw on each end
termed male and female.
The chisel at first, and for a number of fathoms, is lifted
by the hands until the weight becomes inconvenient to lift
directly, when a lever of the first power is introduced : the
chisel or rod is suspended from the end of it, and the work¬
men exert their power at the other, while the person in
charge turns the chisel by a cross piece of wood termed the
brace head, attached to it. The process of cutting is thus
performed by raising the chisel, turning it, and allowing it
to fall by its own gravity; and the strata cut is procured by
introducing for the lowest division of the chisel, a hollow
tube with a valve in the bottom—when it is forced down
into the bore the valve opens and receives the detritus pro¬
duced by the action of the chisel, which, when brought to
the surface is washed and preserved in samples, and de¬
livered by the borer to his employer, in proof of the iournal
he renders.
To perform this description of work well, great care and
attention is required; and though there are frequent failures,
it may be remarked that a skilful workman renders a very
correct description of the strata he bores through; and, ge¬
nerally, from a few well-selected bores, a good general idea,
can be formed of a field, and what it contains.
Plate CLXXV. fig. 3, will illustrate the principle of prov-
I E II Y. 119
ing a mineial field by boring. Referring to it, the figure Colliery,
represents a line direct from the dip to the rise of the field,
and the inclination of the strata is one in eight. No. 1 bore
is commenced at the dip, and reaches a seam of coal A, at
40 fathoms ; at this depth it is considered proper to remove
farther to the outcrop, so that inferior strata may be bored
into at a less depth, and a second bore is commenced. To
find the position of No. 2, so as to form a continuous sec¬
tion, it is necessary to reckon the inclination of the strata,
which is 1 in 8; and as bore No. 1 was 40 fathoms in depth,
we multiply the depth by the rate of inclination, 40 x 8 =
320 fathoms, which gives the point at which the coal seam
A should reach the surface. But there is generally a cer¬
tain depth of alluvial cover which requires to be deducted,
and which we call 3 fathoms, then 40-3 = 37x 8 = 296
fathoms; or say 286 fathoms is the distance that the second
bore should be placed to the rise of the first, so as to have
for certain the seam of coal A in clear connection with the
seam of coal B. In boring, sometimes the miner gets be¬
wildered ; as will appear if we trace the course of bore No. 3,
where the seam B, according to the same system of arrange¬
ment should have been found at or near the surface; in¬
stead of which another seam C is proved at a considerable
depth, differing in character and thickness from either of
the preceding. This derangement being carefully noted,
another bore to the outcrop on the same principle is put
down for the purpose of proving the seam C ; the nature of
the strata at first is found to agree with the latter part of
that boied through in No. 3, but immediately on crossing
the dislocation at A it is changed, and deeper the seam U
is found.
A skilful borer in such a situation would be aware, that
in both of these cases (3 and 4) there must be some mate¬
rial derangement; and by changing his position to the dip
or outcrop, would rarely fail in proving to a certain extent
the derangement and the cause, thus forming one of the most
important operations connected with economical mining.
Having proved a field by boring, the next important step yyinninz
is to fix on an eligible situation for a “ winning.”
A coal-field is said to be “win” when access is made to the
seams of coal. This may be done either by a vertical shaft
or a crosscut mine. The accompanying figure, No. 8, will
illustrate both ; A B being a crosscut mine, by which the
seams of coal 1 and 2 are win, and C D a vertical shaft by
which the seams 1, 2, and 3 are win. When the field is
Fig. 8.
win by the former method, the coal is said to be level-free ;
if by the latter, not level-free. All coal situated above the
level of the sea may be said to lie level-free, that is, if a
level mine were continued from the surface of the sea
throughout a district of country, all above the point of in¬
tersection would necessarily be drained. Sometimes from
the contour of a country, rivers or valleys form natural mines,
into which the drainage of coal seams may be economically
taken. Ancient miners, for want of sufficient power to un¬
water their operations, were necessarily limited as to depth;
to them a seam of coal level-free was of the utmost import¬
ance ; to this their search was chiefly directed ; and thus we
find the sites selected for their operations were, generally
speaking, level-free, or otherwise easy of access. Now that
we have an unlimited power in the steam engine, seams of
120
COLLIERY.
Colliery, coal are got by shafts varying from 10 to 300 fathoms in
V—' depth; and though the latter is, perhaps, the greatest verti¬
cal depth to which the miner has yet pushed his operations
in Great Britain, it by no means follows that that is the
limit; for at no distant period future generations must, in
some situations, draw their mineral supplies from shafts
compared with which the latter will appear of insignificant
depth. , .
Among the various forms of shafts, there are oval, cir¬
cular, square, and oblong. The most common of these is the
circular or oblong. When the surface is compact, the cir¬
cular or oblong form may be adopted at pleasure; whcre
the surface is deep and composed of mud, or sand charged
with water, the circular form is generally adopted, as being
the most nearly perfect form for resisting a uniform pres¬
sure. It is also the most suitable form for admitting of tub¬
bing, a process of stopping back water much in use at deep
collieries, and nowhere carried to such perfection as m the
north of England. When first introduced it was effected by
wood; at a later period iron cylinders were employed, cast
in segments, made to rest upon each other; the joints, both
upright and horizontal, being made tight with a layer of thin
wood. A wedging crib was fixed at the bottom, and the
segments were built up regularly to the height requited.
Where the layers in a shaft are so situated as to form a con¬
tinuous drainage from rivers, or other regular sources, such a
precaution for damming back water is of incalculable benefit,
and should be taken advantage of at almost any cost. Tub¬
bing, however, can only be effectively carried out under
certain circumstances, and where the system of working
does not interfere with the stability of the overlying strata.
To enter into the subject of sinking in detail, or to ex¬
plain with any degree of minuteness the usual and necessary
preparations and appliances, would swell this article far be¬
yond the allotted space.
In general when a field has been proved to be free of in¬
surmountable troubles or dislocations, and the whole of it
can be drained by a dip-shaft, the most eligible situation
for it is at the extreme dip of the field ; by that arrange¬
ment any shafts sunk to the rise are dry: working upon the
reverse system, that is, beginning with the first shaft near
the outcrop, and in succession going to the dip, would lay
the adventurer under the necessity of making erections for
drawing water at the whole of them. However, there are
many fields so situated by known dislocations, that to go to
the dip of the field with the first shaft would be of very
little advantage to after sinkings.
Sinking in many situations is difficult, and the laying out
of a new colliery is a serious undertaking. The depth and
nature of the alluvial cover to the rock strata, the weight
of water to contend with, engine power, arrangements for
future ventilation, besides many local difficulties for which
no rule can be applied, are all points requiring the greatest
deliberation and forethought. And when we consider that
the deepest shaft in Great Britain was sunk and fitted up
with engine power, &c., at an outlay of L.100,000, extend¬
ing over a period of ten years, we will then be able to form
an idea of the cost and time generally required for such
operations, however simple.
Having fixed upon the form of shaft, and the sinking
through the surface having been secured either by timber,
masonry, or tubbing, the operation of sinking by blasting
is commenced. This work is performed by a class of men
called sinkers, who are rather better paid than miners. The
work, though disagreeable and dangerous, is generally pre¬
ferred to mining. The tools used are similar to those in use
at quarries. Latterly the galvanic battery has been intro¬
duced in the process of blasting; and thus a number of
charges can be fired at the same instant, and to better pur¬
pose than by the common method. See Blasting.
In sinking where the alluvial cover is soft, temporary
erections for lifting or pumping water are made until the rock Colliery,
strata be reached, and the shaft carefully secured. When
the surface is of the usual compact nature, fittings may be
put up at once.
For want of sufficient data, there is often considerable purapg.
difficulty in deciding upon the amount of engine power re¬
quired to drain a new field; some approximate idea may be
formed from bores, but even under the most favourable
circumstances there is uncertainty.
Plate CLXXYI. shows two illustrations of pumping ma¬
chinery, generally in use throughout the mining districts.
Fig. 1 is the Cornish method of pumping by force pumps,
direct from the main beam of the engine; and fig. 2, the
common lifting pump with bell cranks connected by gear¬
ing to the engine shaft.
The Cornish system is common where heavy permanent
fittings are made, and is then supposed to possess advantages
over all others. The rods are constructed so as slightly to
exceed the weight of the water, the power of the engine
being applied to lift the rods, which, in descending by their
own gravity, cause the ascent of the water. This method
admits of the steam being used expansively.
The advantages claimed for the lifting pumps with bell-
cranks are, their simplicity, and the reduced speed which
can be obtained by means of gearing ; for while the engine
may be driven 300 feet a minute, the bell-cranks may travel
at one-third of that rate.
When force pumps are introduced, it is generally after
the pit is sunk, the lifting ones being better adapted for
sinking with. When a shaft exceeds 45 fathoms in depth,
there is generally more than one lift of pumps, and it is al¬
ways considered sound economy not to exceed 35 fathoms
with each lift. When they exceed this depth the tear and
wear of the machinery is greater; besides, there is often
water in the strata, which can be arrested at the lodgments
connected with these lifts.
Referring to the plan of forcing pumps, fig. 1, « is the
main beam; b the main rod reaching to the lowest plunger
c; d the working barrel fitted with stuffing box e;//clack
and door pieces; 5suction; p pipes; l landing box by which
the water is discharged into the lodgment m; n a. dam formed
of two divisions of plank let into the wall on each side, the
space between the planking being filled with clay; s1 the
suction of the top set; <P the working barrel; e2 the plunger
glanded on the main rod b at r ; h h clack and door pieces;
p2 pipes; P the landing box which delivers the water at the
surface.
In the plan of lifting pumps, fig. 2, a a the bell-cranks,
b b the rods, c c the working barrels,// clack pieces and
doors, h h bucket doors, k k the suctions, m m the pipes,
n n the landing boxes delivering the water at the surface,
p p p rackings for keeping the pipes in a stationary position,
and r the rod that connects the bell-cranks and engine.
During sinking a partial ventilation is required in the
shaft, to carry off the gases and products ot combustion.
This is generally accomplished by temporary brattice or mid¬
wall. When the sinking has reached from 30 to 40 fathoms
from the surface, the pumps, which hitherto may have been
lowered as the sinking progressed, are fixed, and a lodgment
is driven into the side of the shaft, for the purpose of col¬
lecting the water above it, and also to hold the discharge of
the second lift of pipes which is now put on to follow the
sinking of the shaft.
At a similar distance (should the sinking not have been
completed) a second lift is fixed in the same manner, and a
third column follows the sinkers, and so on.
It often happens that thin seams of coal are found con¬
veniently situated in which these lodgments can be econo¬
mically made.
The difficulties attending a dry sinking are few- compared
with one where there is much water to contend with ; and in
COLLIERY.
Colliery, such cases, unless the engine power, pumping materials,
crabs, cranes, and other tackling, are all kept in good repair
the work will not go on ; but with all these precautions diffi¬
culties occur where least expected, often causing extra ex¬
pense and loss of time.
Prepara- When the shaft is sunk and fitted up with guides for the
tory opera- cageS) midwalls secured, and pumping operations complete,
tions to the next work is to lay out the pit-bottom arrangements,
wor mg. generaUy embraces driving lodgment levels, erecting
ventilating furnaces, and forming proper supports for the
shaft.
Lodgment. The term lodgment is applied to the openings to the dip
of the dip-head levels. These are formed to contain the
water anticipated from the drainage of the mine in a given
time : they require to be frequently attended to, otherwise
the advantages to be derived from them will be very much
nullified by the sedimentary deposit constantly accumulat¬
ing in such a situation.
Levels. The term dip-head (sometimes pit-bottom) levels, means
openings driven from the bottom of the shaft in a true level-
course direction. Owing to the irregularity of the pave¬
ment, these openings seldom run in a straight line; their
course is wholly guided by a flow of water to a given depth
along the dip-side. It is of much importance to have them
truly level: they form passages for the drainage to the lodg¬
ment, but when injudiciously made, curtail the limit of what
would otherwise have been level-free coal.
Pit-bottom Pit-bottom stoops are extensive pillars of coal designed
stoops. |.0 secure the shaft and machinery. To proportion these
(correctly, the depth and quality of the overlying strata re¬
quire to be carefully considered; but as this coal may be
worked out at any subsequent period, the propriety of mak¬
ing ample provision for the security of the shaft at the out¬
set will be apparent.
.Vorking When the preliminary operations are completed, one or
he coal, other of the numerous modes of working is adopted. At
this stage of progress real skill and experience is invaluable,
as frequently an injudicious arrangement of working has
thwarted the success of an enterprise that otherwise might
have been a profitable one.
It will appear obvious that, but for the inequality of cost
in production, the best method of working a seam of coal is
the one by which the greatest quantity of the mineral can
be taken from a given area; but the difference of expendi¬
ture is frequently considerable, and hence a reason for varied
modes of working. Still those different systems, however
unlike they may at first appear, may very easily be shown
to be represented by two distinct methods only, viz., those
of pillar working and longwall.
To illustrate these varieties, see plan of the latter, and
plans shewing modifications of the former,
jongwall Plate CLXXV., fig. 1, shows the longwall method of
nethod. working coal. In well regulated collieries where this system
is practised, there are three winning-out walls, viz., the dip-
head levels AA, and headway B. When these are kept
going in a proper manner (a little in advance), the interven¬
ing workings may be compared to the excavation of a large
intersected block of coal; the arrangement precludes the
necessity of vertical cuttings (“ shearing”), consequently
saves labour, and produces a large proportion of round coal.
The simplicity of this method, when compared with u pillar
working" under any form, is very apparent. Colliers trained
to it do their work with comparative ease; they arrange
their operations so as to undermine or “hole” the coal (as
at C, fig. 2) along their wall on the after part of the day,
leaving it to be acted upon during the night by the over-
lying strata, which being only partially supported by the
buildings, forces away the undermined portion of the coal
before the workmen return. In the event of this failing, the
coal is taken down with very little trouble by wedges,
broken up, and sent away as sketched in fig. 2. Where
VOL. VII.
121
the work is kept advancing regularly, the roof does not Colliery,
break readily along the face of the coal. The same figure
(No. 2) shows the order of the subsidence of the roof along
the drawing roads.
When the “waste” is “stowed” in an average manner,
the roof subsides from a half to two-thirds of the thickness
of the seam; and the subsidence is generally complete (the
roof at rest) at from 30 to 50 yards back from the face of
the coal. When a “falling" intervenes between the coal
and the roof, as shown at fig. 2, the colliers support it with
wood for their own safety; another class of workmen (termed
“ brushers”) take it down at night, and as much more of the
roof as may be required for height of roadway; and with this
they form the roadways, or make other requisite buildings
along the wall-faces.
Plate CLXXVII., fig. 1, represents one of the most an- Stoop and
cient methods of coal-working, known in Scotland as “ stoop room, &c.
and room.” By this system all the coal is taken away, ex¬
cept what is left for the support of the roof, which in general
ranges from a fourth to a fifth of the whole. Fig. 2 illus¬
trates a. system of working, combining pillar and long-
tvall, differing from the latter in the manner in which the
roads are arranged and maintained, and from the former in
the peculiar way in which the coal is extracted, and the
roof supported. It is practised in the Yorkshire coal-field,
and sometimes in Scotland.
Plate CLXXVIII. shows the mode of working coal by Newcastle
hord and pillar, or what is more generally understood method;
by the Newcastle method. It was formerly the practice, hord and
under this system, to remove the pillars subsequently to the ,Pillar-
excavations in the solid. An improved method is now in¬
troduced, and, instead of going to the limit of the field, or
other temporary barrier, the pillars are taken out as the
workings in the solid progress, keeping a range of two or
three pillars between, as may be found necessary. The
principal advantages derived from this change are, the coal
is worked out more expeditiously, the openings are reduced,
and the exposure of the broken coal is of shorter continu¬
ance.
Fig. 9 shows the Lancashire method of coal working; Lancashire
and, to convey a general idea of the practical arrangements, method,
the progress of the excavations are shown at different
periods. (See sketch.} The width of the openings (or drifts)
formed in the solid vary according to the nature of the roof,
&c.; where favourably situated, they range from five to six
yards in width. By this method the whole of the coal is in¬
tended to be worked away •>, and the order in which the pil¬
lars are taken out is shown.
Several attempts have been made to introduce self-acting Machinefor
machines to assist the miner in extracting the coal from its cutting and
native bed. Hitherto these have failed, or from other causes excavating
fallen into disuse. The late extraordinary demand for work- coa^
men, particularly in Lancashire, has induced the very in¬
telligent engineer for the Earl of Balcarres, Mr William
Peace, to invent a machine for performing the laborious
operation of “ holing” or undermining the coal. It is pe¬
culiarly adapted for longwall working, or any method by
which tho coal is worked in extensive ranges. The hol¬
ing or undermining averages from four to six inches deep,
and extends upwards of a yard under. This operation may
be performed in the pavement, or parting, as freely as in
the coal; and by this change it is not too much to anticipate
from eight to nine-tenths of the coal in a round or market¬
able state.
Plate CLXXXL, figs. 1, 2, and 3, will illustrate the ma¬
chine, and convey an idea of the manner in which it works.
Referring to it, AAA the frame, upon which is fixed one
or more cylinders BB, arranged so as to turn a crank shaft
CC, fixed to the frame, as is also another shaft DD. This
latter is capable of being turned by the former by means of
metre or bevel wheels EEE j upon the lower end of the
Q
122
COLLIERY.
Colliery.^ .a.ter shaft (DD) is placed a whee.ter^he driving
projectionlfo® ZkinV into ^propelling a chain or band, structed to carry a wheel called the terminal wheel, marked
Scale 150 yards = an inch.
Rig. 9.
HH; a chain or band is made to pass round the driving
and terminal wheels, and by means of the driving wheel
(FF) it is made to revolve. Into the chain are fixed cut¬
ters of different forms (see the parts marked 4, 5, 6, and
7), which, when the machine is in action, revolve with it,
and upon being pressed or drawrn against the coal, erode
and excavate the same. The distance of the excavation
from the face of the coal is governed by the dimensions of
the machine, and by the length of the lever, and the dis¬
tance between the driving and terminal wheels. The ar¬
rangements of the lever allow it to revolve, and to excavate
any given range; see dotted lines fig. 1.
If found necessary, two or even three levers may be in
operation at the same time, and arranged to cut in any di¬
rection. Other parts of the machine not particularly de¬
scribed are capable of elevating and depressing the front
part of the machine, marked V, T, U, W; and those marked
X, Y, Z, and K are capable of propelling the machine whilst
at work, by acting against the prop.
The power employed to drive the machine (in the opinion
of the inventor) may be steam, water, gas, or atmospheric
air under pressure; and, in the latter case, the air may be
used after having wrorked the machine for ventilating, or
improving the ventilation of the mines.
The success of this invention is of considerable impor¬
tance to the mining interest, and may ultimately prove a
source of profit, as well as a convenience, to many extensive
mining concerns.
The colliery tenant in carrying on his mining operations
under the pillar system, has frequently to contend with diffi- Accidents
culties arising from the peculiar nature of the roof or pave- t0 Tvhich,
ment of the coal. The most formidable of these are?oa"wo„r
.... . . r , mgs are
creeps and sits. A coal seam with a soft pavement and liable,
a hard roof is the most subject to a creep. The first Creep,
indication is a dull hollow sound when treading on the pave¬
ment or floor, probably occasioned by some of the indivi¬
dual layers parting from each other as shown at a, fig. 10 ;
Fig. 10.
the succeeding stages of creep are shown at 6, c, d,f, and
<7, in the same figure ; the latter being the final stage, when
the coal begins to sustain the pressure from the overlying
strata, in common with the hoved pavement.
Sits are the reverse of creeps; in the one case the Sits,
pavement is forced up, and in the other the roof is forced or
falls down, for want of proper support or tenacity in itself.
This accident generally arises from an improper size of
pillars : some roof’s, however, are so difficult to support that
sits take place where the half of the coal is left in pillars.
COLLIERY.
123
Colliery.
Fig. 11 will convey a general idea of the appearance of sits,
k, m, n, showing different stages.
Ventila¬
tion.
Fig. 11.
It is proper to remark that these obstacles are easily over¬
come under the longwall method of coal-working.
Ventilation forms an indispensable prerequisite to min¬
ing. Its importance is becoming more generally understood,
and of late years it has been the subject of much ingenious
discussion ; and when we consider that the efforts of the
scientific and inventive have until lately been baffled in car¬
rying out a salubrious ventilation by artificial means in the
houses of parliament, the uninitiated in coal mining w'ill
readily conceive the greater difficulties the miner has to
contend with in maintaining a healthy atmosphere, some¬
times 1800 feet below the surface of the earth ; where, im¬
mured in gloom, and surrounded by noxious gases, he has
to lead in various forms, and subject to many interrup¬
tions, streams of air through the devious courses and wind¬
ings of the mine, and often extending over many hundred
acres. These gases (above alluded to), carbonic acid and
carburetted hydrogen, may be termed the natural products
of the mine; to expel them is impossible, to control their
destructive effects is all that the most sanguine can anti¬
cipate ; and the remedial means hitherto used has been
forcing ample currents of atmospheric air through the
farthest recesses of the mine. In principle, this does not
admit of much variety ; two separate communications with
the surface being required, the one to act as an inlet to
the mines, and the other as an outlet from them, in mining
termed downcast and upcast shafts.
If the shafts A B, fig
12, were of equal depth
from the horizontal
plane, and connected
by the mine C, the air
would fill the openings
and remain quiescent.
If the one were to the
dip of the other, but
communicating with the
surface at a higher level, ^
as by fig. 13, it would sometimes happen in summer, that
D would be the downcast, and E the upcast; and in winter
E the downcast, and D the upcast. These conditions are
induced by the temperature of the earth at a certain
Fig. 12.
Fig. 13.
depth being nearly constant, while the atmosphere is change¬
able ; the column of air in D c? being at a lower tempe¬
rature in summer than the column of air E e, and the re¬
verse in winter.
To overcome these natural difficulties, and produce a
continuous movement or current, artificial means are re- Colliery,
sorted to, and the air in the upcast is dilated, by being v—-'
passed over or brought in close contact with a fire or fur^
nace ; see Plate CLXXIX., fig. 3, where the air passes over
the furnace B into the upcast shaft A. This method of
producing artificial ventilation seems to have been de¬
scribed by Rodolphus Agricola in the sixteenth century.
In his book De re Metallica he speaks of the method of
drawing the foul air out of a mine by suspending a large
fire in the middle of the shaft—a method which has been
practised in mines ever since his time.
There have been various schemes for inducing a current
of air belowground. Our space here will not allow us to enter
into a description of them ; but generally speaking, they
have all given place to the furnace, which for simplicity and
economy stands unrivalled. The only feasible objection
yet offered against its universal use, is the probability that
the return air in fiery collieries, after having traversed ex¬
tensive wastes, might produce explosion when brought in
contact with the flame of the furnace. In colleries so situa¬
ted, a proper precaution is adopted for preventing explo¬
sions, and the return air is led into the upcast shaft by
what is termed a dumb drift, as at C, Plate CLXXIX.,
fig. 3. Sometimes a chimney is situated near to the up-
qast shaft (on the surface), into which the return air can be
taken, and when of sufficient capacity, it materially assists in
ventilation. Plate CLXXIX., fig. 4, is an illustration of it,
D the furnace, E the shaft, and S the chimney.
1 he size of the furnace is proportioned to the require¬
ments of the mine, and its power is the increase of tempe¬
rature it imparts to the column of air in the shaft in w'hich
it is situated.
“ It is a law of expansion for atmospheric air and all gases,
that they dilate almost equally and very nearly in propor¬
tion to the increase of temperature. According to Magnus
and Regnault, 1000 cubic inches of air at the freezing tem¬
perature increase in bulk to 13,665 cubic inches at the
temperature of boiling water, or 212°. This law of expan¬
sion applies equally to air in a state of motion as to air in
a state of rest; and if we wish to know the force of the
draught occasioned by an increase of temperature, accord¬
ing to Montgolfier, ascertain the difference in height be¬
tween two equal columns of air, when one is heated to a
certain temperature, the other being the temperature of the
external air, and the force of the draught, or the rate of
efflux is equal to the velocity that a heavy body would ac¬
quire by falling freely through this difference of height.
“ Now the space through which a heavy body falls in
perpendicular height in one second is rather more than six¬
teen feet; but by the law of accelerating forces, the velocity
of a falling body at the end of any given time is such as
would carry it in an equal time through twice the space
through which it has fallen in that time; or the velocity in
feet per second is equal to eight times the square root of the
number of feet in the fall.
“ When the force of the draught of a chimney is the dif¬
ference in weight between two columns of air caused by the
expansion of one of these columns by heat, the decimal
•002036, which represents the expansion of air by 1° of
Fahrenheit, must be multiplied by the number of degrees
the temperature is raised, and this product again by the
height of the heated column. Thus, if the height of the
column is 50 feet, and the increase of temperature 20°, we
have 20 x 002036 x 50 = 2’036 feet; 52*036 feet of hot air
will balance 50 feet of the cold air; and the velocity of
efflux of the heated column when pressed by the greater
weight of the colder column, will be equal to 8^/2*036 =
11‘36 feet per second.
“ By the same means, the efflux of air under any given
pressure can also be calculated. The pressure being known,
we calculate the height of a column cf air equal in weight
to this pressure. Thus if the pressure be equal to one inch
of mercury, water is 827 times the weight of air, and mer¬
cury 13*5 times the weight of water; therefore 827 x 13'5
= 11,164 inches or 9304 feet, and according to the rule
8^/930*4 = 244 feet per second for the velocity of efflux
under the pressure of one inch of mercury.
“ Allowance must be made for loss by friction, which will
vary according to the nature and size of the opening, and
also according to the velocity of the air.
“ The retardation of the air by friction in passing through
straight tubes (or air courses) will be directly as the length
of the tube, and the square of the velocity, and inversely as
the diameter.”1
If the courses are of equal length but of different aiea,
the quantities of air passed along them will not be in pro¬
portion to the area, but as the square root of the diameter
of the opening multiplied by the sectional area or nearly.
When the courses (for air in a mine) vary in length, the
supply is governed by regulators, so that the short courses
(which under similar circumstances with the long ones would
pass greater quantities of air) have their areas contracted,
consequently the velocity of the air increased ; and as the
resistance of air is as the length of the course and the
square of the velocity, a uniform resistance is thus produced,
and a proper distribution of air throughout the various open¬
ings maintained.
A current of air being induced, it is then taken in the
most direct manner (avoiding a tortuous course) to the
working parts, by what are termed air-courses or air-ways.
These when formed require to be made substantial, ade¬
quate to any future emergency, and proportioned to the
currents desirable in the different courses and openings of
the mine. The air in the working parts of a mine can¬
not be properly conducted with due attention to the com¬
fort of the workmen at a higher velocity than 3 or 3J feet
per second. In the main intake courses it may be increased
to 4 or 5 feet per second ; but as a high rate of velocity en¬
tails a considerable loss by friction, the air, instead of being
taken in one undivided column, is led off (‘^ split”) near to the
downcast by branches into the working parts, and from that
into the main return, where the velocity may range from
8 to 20 feet per second.
The most intelligent and best informed in such matters
aim at large air-courses, and a low rate of velocity in the
interior of the mine, compared with that in the upcast; and
though it was until lately advocated in theory, that the up¬
cast should be of greater dimensions than the downcast, viz.,
equal to the expansion of the air, practical men had gen¬
erally acted contrarily, on the well authenticated fact, in
practice, that an upcast of less dimensions than the down¬
cast was the more certain and constant in its action. The
advantage gained by a comparative small upcast, is the high
rate of velocity the air requires to travel in it, and which
completely baffles the effects of surface currents so often
detrimental to ventilation by large upcasts, and where coun¬
ter-currents are frequently produced. Though there is no
practical limit to splitting or dividing air, it is evident that
it can only be profitably carried out when in certain propor¬
tion to the outlet, or upcast; and though the proportion
has not been satisfactorily defined by experience, it has been
acted upon in the following ratio: that when the sectional
area of the air-courses is as three or four to one (the upcast),
the effect will be a superior ventilation, other conditions
being properly arranged.
It has also been laid down as a practical rule for regulating
the ventilation of collieries, that under ordinary circumstances
a certain amount of air should be provided for each work¬
man ; say from 100 to 200 cubic feet per minute; and in fiery
collieries, from 400 to 600 cubic feet per minute; but no
general rule can be perfectly applicable to the ever chang- Colliery,
ing conditions of a colliery, and where “ wastes” of dissimi-
lar extent, and systems of working entirely opposite exist.
Under the system of working coal by longwall, Plate
CLXXV., fig. 1, where the openings never exceed a seventh
of the excavations (sometimes not a fourteenth), the venti¬
lation is simple and effective :—the air is divided at the bot¬
tom of the downcast, circulates in the direction of the arrows
along the dip-head levels A A, round the faces into the mine
leading to the ventilating furnace ; over it, and into the up¬
cast shaft, assuming nearly a direct course, and sweeping in
its progress the gases liberated spontaneously and by com¬
bustion, and other noxious vapours of the mine.
The system of ventilation by pillar working is more intri¬
cate. There are various obstacles to contend with : the most
insuperable of these are, the discharge of carburetted hy¬
drogen gas, induced by the great section of coal exposed;
the amount of openings requiring ventilation ; the immense
friction caused by the tortuous course of the air; and the
defectiveness of stoppings, particularly in cases of explosion.
Plate CLXXVIII. shows the most modern arrangements
for carrying out a safe and wholesome ventilation by this
mode of working. Referring to it, the air is “ split” near the
bottom of the downcast shaft, from which its onward
course is indicated by the arrows into the various districts,
and returned over the ventilating furnaces into the upcast
shaft. The course for the air current is, in general, guided
by doors and stoppings ; which also act as regulators for the
proper distribution of the air into the various working parts
of the mine. Stoppings are sometimes composed of brick
and lime, sometimes of wood, and not unfrequently of loose
stones taken from the mine. Trap doors are moveable
stoppings made of wood placed in roadways, along which
the products of the mine require to be taken.
Sir Humphry Davy’s invention (viz. the safety lamp), in
connection with the ventilation of mines, is too well known
to require description. For the principle upon which it is
constructed, see the articles Davy and Safety Lamp.
When first introduced, it was used to test the state of
the mines previous to the workmen going to their work;
and this seems to have been the original intention of the
inventor. However, its use in certain mining districts
has been considerably extended, and some of the most
extensive collieries in the world are now lighted wholly
by it. Regarding the propriety of this, practical men are
not agreed. Certainly, to those unaccustomed to the daily
use of the safety lamp, it seems rather a fragile article, upon
which hundreds of lives should be constantly dependent.
Under the most rigorous management, and improved sys¬
tem of ventilation, partial explosions from various causes
frequently happen. These are seldom heard of beyond the
innnediate districts in which they occur; it is only when
some dreadful havock has been made, by a sweeping explo¬
sion, that the public hear of those appalling scenes of death
and misery which result therefrom.
A very correct description of such is to be found in
Ure’s Dictionary, at p. 990, from which the following is ex¬
tracted :—
“ The catastrophe of an explosion in an extensive coal¬
mine is horrible in the extreme. Let us imagine a mine
upwards of 100 fathoms deep, with the workings extended
to a great distance under the surrounding country, with ma¬
chinery complete in all its parts, the mining operations un¬
der regular discipline, and railways conducted through all
its ramifications, the stoppings, passing doors, brattices, and
the entire economy of the mine, so arranged, that every
thing moves like a well regulated machine.
“ A mine of this magnitude at full work is a scene of
cheering animation and happy industry ; the sound of the
Warming and Ventilation, by C. Tomlinson.
COLLIERY.
Colliery, hammer resounds in every quarter, and the numerous car-
riages, loaded or empty, passing swiftly to and fro from the
wall-faces to the pit-bottom, enliven the gloomiest recesses.
At each door a little boy, called a trapper, is stationed, to
open and shut it. Every person is at his post, displaying an
alacrity and happiness pleasingly contrasted with the sur¬
rounding gloom. While things are in this merry train, it
has but too frequently happened, that from some unforeseen
cause, the ventilation has partially stagnated, allowing a
quantity of the fire-damp to accumulate in one space to the
explosive pitch ; or a blower has suddenly sprung forth, and
the unsuspecting miner entering this fatal region with his
candle, sets the whole in a blaze of burning air, which im¬
mediately suffocates and scorches to death every living crea¬
ture within its sphere ; while multitudes beyond the reach of
the flame are dashed to pieces by the force of the explosion
rolling like thunder along the winding galleries.
“ Sometimes the explosive flame seems to linger in one
district for a few moments, then, gathering strength for a
giant effort, it rushes forth from its cell with the violence
of a hurricane, and the speed of lightning, destroying every
obstacle in its way to the upcast shaft. Its power seems
to be irresistible. The stoppings are burst through, the
doors are shivered into a thousand pieces ; while the un¬
fortunate miners, men and boys, are swept along with an
inconceivable velocity in one body, with the horses, car¬
riages, corves, and coals. Should a massive pillar obstruct
the direct course of the aerial torrent, all these objects are
dashed against it, and there prostrated, or heaped up in a
mass of common ruin, mutilation, and death. Others are
carried directly to the shaft, and are either buried there
amid the wreck, or are blown up and ejected from the pit-
mouth. Even at this distance from the explosive den, the
blast is often so powerful that it frequently tears the brattice
walls of the shaft to pieces, and blows the corves suspended
in the shaft as high up into the open air as the ropes will
permit. Not unfrequently, indeed, the ponderous pulley-
wheels are blown from the pithead-frame, and carried to a
considerable distance in the bosom of a thick cloud of coals
and coal-dust brought up from the mine by the fire-damp,
whose explosion shakes absolutely the superincumbent solid
earth itself with a mimic earthquake. The dust of the
ruins is sometimes thrown to such a height above the pit as
to obscure the light of the sun. The silence which suc¬
ceeds to this awful turmoil is no less formidable; for the
atmospheric back-draught rushing down the shaft denotes
the consumption of vital air in the mine, and the production
of the deleterious choke-damp and azote.
“ Though many of the miners may have escaped by their
distance in the workings from the destructive blast and the
fire, yet their fate may be more deplorable. They hear
the explosion, and are well aware of its certain conse¬
quences. Every one anxious to secure his personal safety
strains every faculty to reach the pit-bottom. As the lights
are usually extinguished by the explosion, they have to
grope their way in utter darkness. Some have made most
miraculous escapes, after clambering over the rubbish of
fallen roofs, under which their companions are entombed;
but others wandering into uncertain alleys, tremble lest they
should encounter the pestilential airs ; at last they feel their
power, and aware that their fate is sealed, they cease to
struggle with their inevitable doom, they deliberately assume
the posture of repose, and fall asleep in death.”
Hitherto no human foresight has been able to prevent
the recurrence of these dreadful calamities. Much has been
done to prevent them, and much remains still to do. But
though the prevention of explosions goes to the root of the
evil, the far more fertile source of death is from the effects
of the after-damp. It is, therefore, of sufficient importance
for those interested in mining to devise means for the miti¬
gation of the evil, or contrive that an arrangement of work-
125
ing be carried out, so that when explosions do happen, the Colliery,
effects of the after-damp (by which 75 per cent, are killed)
may be rendered less fatal.
The writer of this has long felt the hopelessness of the
miner’s case in the event of an extensive explosion, where¬
by tbe arrangements for ventilation are entirely subverted
(even though they escape the fire and the blast) ; and he
submits a plan showing an arrangement of working and ven¬
tilation, by which he feels assured, that in case of an explo¬
sion,/^, if any, will lose their lives from the effects of the
after-damp. He does so with deference to that intelligent
body whom it concerns as proprietors and managers of
mines, and with a wish that it may prove beneficial to the
miners, a most useful and hardy class of men, fearless from
being all their lifetime inured to dangers; but from their
habits, generally they and their families are ill-prepared to
encounter those adversities of life, resulting from the acci¬
dents to which their employment constantly exposes them,
Plate CLXXX„fig. ],will illustrate this arrangement of
working and ventilation. Referring to it, the coal is worked
on the longwall system, and divided into suitable districts,
1, 2, 3, 4. The ventilation is maintained by two pits, up¬
cast and downcast.
The course of the air is indicated by the arrows ; it is
split at the bottom of the downcast, and taken into the seve¬
ral districts as may be required.
The advantages anticipated from this arrangement of
working, in the event of an explosion, are—the air courses
will be preserved ; the districts will remain perfectly iso¬
lated ; and from the peculiar situation of the upcast, the
ventilating currents must of necessity make the circuit of
the mine before they can get into it.
When workings are made a dipping of the pit-bottom, Dip work-
engines are often used underground for drawing the coalsing,
and water to the dip-head level. This is an irregular and
objectionable mode of working, and where sinkings are
readily made from the surface, it is generally found more
economical to do so.
However, there are situations where limited portions lie
to the dip of going works, which could not be taken out to
advantage by any other arrangement.
It frequently happens that colliery operations are inter¬
rupted by dislocations, but seldom to such an extent as to
cause new winnings to be made from the surface. The
general mode of overcoming such difficulties, and continu¬
ing the workings of the colliery, is to form connections by
stone drifts, or mines; and where practicable these are found
the most convenient. Blind pits are sometimes used for Blind pit.
the same purpose; and in deep pits, where two or more
seams lie within a short distance of each other, they are
frequently connected in this way, and the whole of the coals
lowered to the lowest seam by a drop. The term blind
pit is used in contradistinction to one sunk from the surface.
Referring to Plate CLXXIX., fig. / where a drop is shown,
k is the blind pit, made of such dimensions as to allow the
cages //to ascend and descend ; c a wheel, the diameter of
which is exactly the distance between the centres of the
two cages less the thickness of the rope,—it is placed at the
top of the pit, high enough to allow the bottom of the cage
to rest level with the seam of coal a a; a flat rope g, attached
to the cages, works on the wheel; a break m is applied to
the underside of it, clear of the rope, and connected with
the levers n n, which regulates the descent. The friction
or grip of the rope on the wheel is sufficient to prevent its
slipping wTen a full hutch is on the cage. In order to pre¬
serve the equilibrium, a rope is attached to the bottom of
each cage /, and passes round the pulley e2, placed below
the bottom of the seam b b.
After the coal is taken down, it is put into boxes, baskets, Drawing or
or hutches, fitted with wheels for running upon rails, and hauling,
is thus conveyed by manual labour or otherwise to the pit-
%
126
COLLIERY.
Colliery.
Pit-bottom
arrange¬
ments.
Above¬
ground
arrange¬
ments.
bottom. When the seams lie steep, slope roads and self¬
acting inclines are made to lessen the labour of drawing; and
where the roads are long, horses are used for the same pur¬
pose with advantage.
Having brought the coals to the bottom of the shaft, and
placed them upon the cage, it is necessary to signal to the en-
gineman at the surface to wind them up; which is performed
by means of a wire led down the shaft attached to a hammer
at the surface. The order in which the signals are given vary
in detail at different collieries, according to the nature of the
under-ground arrangements ; in general, however, when the
hammer gives one stroke, the engineman knows that coals
are to be drawn up; when three, that men are to be drawn
up, and so on.
The improvements in winding machinery, and general
arrangements above ground, have advanced considerably
within the last twenty years. The present system of wind¬
ing with cages, guided in the shaft by wooden conductors, is
almost universally adopted throughout the leading mining
districts of the kingdom.
The conductors (commonly made of wood 3^ inches
square) reach from the pit-bottom to the pit-head pulley, and
are stayed at proper intervals. Cages are simply platforms
attached to the ropes for carrying the loaded hutches, and
are furnished with guides for the conductors to work in;
which renders the ascent safe and steady. The form of
cages vary; sometimes they are made to hold one hutch
and sometimes two, either alongside or one above the other;
but when windings are deep, and a large output required,
three or four hutches are taken up at once. The arrange¬
ment of conductors and cages has led to the introduction of
safety apparatuses for disengaging the cage in case of over¬
winding or stopping its descent, in the event of the rope
breaking. The following figures (14, 15, 16) show a very
ingenious and effective apparatus
of this description, invented and
patented by Messrs White and
Grant, engineers, Glasgow.
On referring to the figures 14,
15, and 16, the mode of action
will be readily understood; fig. 15
shows the manner in which the
pinions operate upon the conduc¬
tors when the rope breaks, or when
disengaged by the catch h; aa
the wooden conductors; BB ec¬
centric toothed pinions, connected
with spiral springs dd; C the slide
bar from which the cage is sus¬
pended, and to which are attached
the springs ff; and h the catch,
which disengages the rope in case
of overwinding, or when it is
brought in contact with the pit-
head frame k. The use of the
springs ff is to ensure the action
of the pinions B B: they also pre¬
vent a sudden strain being put
upon the rope when the load is
lifted—an important precaution
when wire-ropes are used.
In glancing at the history and
improvements in mining machi¬
nery, the genius and far-sighted¬
ness of the late Mr John Curr stands out prominently. He
was the inventor of cast-iron hutch-rails; and his designs,
upwards of half a century ago, have not, up to this time,
been improved upon. In 1798, he patented a system of
winding with guides and conductors, differing very little
in principle from that in use at present; by his design the
hutch was suspended from a cross bar, guided by con¬
ductors ; and at the present day it might be a question Colliery,
worth the consideration of owners of deep collieries, where
heavy cages are in use, whether
Curr’s plan, or a modification of it,
would not economize the present
system of winding machinery. He
also invented the flat hemp rope,
which is unrivalled for the purpose to
which it is applied. Thus, the truly
inventive genius of Curr may be
recognised in the improvements of
the present day, as in all probability White and Grant’s ap¬
paratus would never have existed had not the previous
design of Curr (viz., the conductors) laid the ground-work
of it.
Plate CLXXXII. shows the general arrangements for
winding, screening, and carrying away. Referring to it—a a
the drums on which the ropes wind, b the pit-head pulleys—
it will be observed the drums are on different shafts, the
advantage of which is that the ropes bend always one way.
Practice has proved that when both drums are on the same
shaft, the one that overwinds lasts longest; and it is now
considered economical, and in many cases convenient to use
two shafts instead of one : c the engine-house, &c., d d the
boilers, e e the engine and pit-head framing, k the cage, n n
conductors, 11 folding boards, placed so that the cage opens
them in being brought up the pit, when they again shut for
it to rest upon; this enables the banksman to draw the
loaded hutch from the cage on to the platform f and replace
it by an empty one ; they are again opened to allow the cage
to pass through (by the engineman) by means of the rods
mm; t the tumbler for emptying the hutches into the screen
g, so constructed, that when the loaded hutch is run into it,
the extra weight past the point of suspension produces the
position of the hutch shown by dotted lines. A break or
friction wheel controls this movement; and when the hutch
is emptied, and the friction removed, the machine falls
back into its first position ; when the empty hutch is drawn
out to make way for the next full one, to be disposed
of in a similar way, and so on ; h i, the waggons into
which the coals and dross fall; h the dross, and i the coal
waggon.
To exhibit clearly the relative annual production and
value of the coal, anthracite and lignite or brown coal, in
the six great coal-producing countries in our globe in the
year 1845, the following illustrative statement has been
prepared. It is hardly necessary to observe that, in the two
preceding years a regular increase has been simultaneously
going on in all the countries enumerated, and apparently
about a corresponding ratio. The official estimated value
of the coal at the places of production is given in the sub¬
joined table:—
Great Britain...
Belgium 
United States..
Prance 
Prussian States.
Austrian States
L.9,450,000
1,660,000
1,373,963
1,603,106
856,370
165,290
The subjoined diagrams represent the relative amounts
COLL
Colliery
Colling-
wood.
of production of mineral combustibles in these states, like¬
wise in the year 1845 :—
Great Britain.
31,500,600 tons.
Belgium.
4,960,077 tons.
United States of
America.
4,400,000 tons.
France.
4,141,617 tons.
Prussia.
3,500,000 tons.
Austria.
700,000 tons.
Fig. 17.
From this diagram we find, that Great Britain (although con¬
siderably underrated) produces seven times more than the
United States of America, from six to seven times more
than Belgium ; from seven to eight times more than France,
and nine times more than Prussia.
According to recent estimates, the annual produce of
coal in Great Britain considerably exceeds 40,000,000 tons.
At the present rate of consumption, the coal deposits of
Great Britain will still last more than 1500 years ; and by
an improved method of working, viz., “longwall,” this
time might be extended at least 400 years. It may require
some time to introduce this mode of working for economiz¬
ing coal-fields; but it is nevertheless a point deserving of
careful consideration (seeing that our most valuable and
easily obtained seams are at present being rapidly ex¬
hausted), and sufficiently important to enlist the interest of
a great manufacturing country, whose commercial success
is in a great measure dependent upon her collieries or coal
mines.
Coal is plentifully distributed throughout that division
I E E Y.
of the earth’s crust termed by geologists the coal measures.
It is readily recognised from the strata in which it is found.
It has a blackish appearance, is of less specific gravity (than
the other strata), and is very inflammable when brought in
contact with heat and flame.
If we omit the earthy impurities, which, when burnt, are
known as ashes, and which vary from 0'2 to upwards of 40
per cent. “ coal is essentially composed of carbon, oxy¬
gen, hydrogen, and nitrogen ; and the quality of the coal
depends upon the relative proportion of these ingre¬
dients.”1
This important mineral is extensively used in navigation ;
it is the indispensable aliment of industry ; and in cold or
temperate climates is essential to the health and comfort of
the inhabitants.
The following diagrams will convey an approximate idea
of the respective areas of coal formation in the principal
coal-producing countries of Europe and America. (See
Taylor’s Statistics of Coal.)
United States of America.
Bituminous Coal.
133,132 square miles.
Anthracite of Pennsylvania.
437 sq. miles.
□
127
Colliery
Great Britain and Ireland. Great Britain.
3720 sq. miles. Bituminous Coal.
Anthracite and Culm. 8139 sq. miles.
□
France.
1719 sq. miles.
□
Belgium.
518 sq. miles.
□
Fig. 18.
British America.
Bituminous Coal.
18,000 sq. miles.
Spain.
3408 sq. miles.
□
(W. A.)
COLLIMATION, Line of, the line of sight in astrono¬
mical and geodetical instruments, as mural circles, transit
instruments, sextants, quadrants, theodolites, &c. Thus, in a
telescope, the line of collimation is the straight line passing
through the centre of the object-glass, at the point where
the fine wires or spider-webs intersect each other in its
focus. The term is derived from the Latin collimo, to
aim at.
Collimation, Error of, the deviation of the actual line
of sight, in a telescope, from the centre of the object glass,
where it ought to be perpendicular to the horizontal axis.
The amount of this deviation must be precisely ascertained
and corrected, or allowed for, in order to insure accuracy
in the result of the observations.
Among other contrivances for this purpose, the collima¬
tor of Captain Kater is used for determining the error of
colliraation in any principal instrument, by which the ne¬
cessity of the reversal of the instrument itself is obviated.
COLLINGWOOD, Cuthbert, first Lord Collingwood,
a celebrated naval commander, was born at Newcastle-upon-
Tyne, on the 26th of September 1750. He was early sent
to school; and when only eleven years of age he was put on
board the Shannon, then under the command of Captain
(afterwards Admiral) Brathwaite, a relation of his own, to
whose care and attention he was in a great measure in¬
debted for that nautical knowledge which shone forth so
conspicuously in his subsequent career. After serving un¬
der Captain Brathwaite for some years, and also under Ad¬
miral Roddam, he went in 1774 to Boston with Admiral
Graves, who in the year following presented him with a
lieutenancy. After occupying the same rank in two other
vessels, he was in 1779 made commander of the Badger;
and shortly afterwards, post-captain of the Hinchinbroke, a
small frigate. In the spring of 1780 that vessel, under the
command of Nelson, was employed upon an expedition to
the Spanish Main, where it was proposed to pass into the
Pacific by a navigation of boats along the river San Juan
and the lakes Nicaragua and Leon. The attempt failed,
and most of those engaged in it became victims to the
deadly influence of the climate. Nelson was promoted to
a larger vessel, and Collingwood succeeded him in the com¬
mand. It is a fact worthy of record, that the circumstance
1 Government Report by Sir H. de la Beche, and Dr Lyon Playfair, in 1846.
COLLINGWOOD.
128
Colling- of the latter succeeding the former should so very frequently
wood, have occurred from the time when they first became ac-
quainted, until the fatal day when the star of Nelson
“ dropp’d from its zenith,” and set at Trafalgar—giving
place to that of Collingwood, less brilliant certainly, but not
less steady in its lustre.
After commanding in another small frigate, Collingwood
was promoted to the Sampson, of sixty-four guns; and in
] 783 he was appointed to the Mediator, destined for the
West Indies, where with Nelson, who had a command^ on
that station, he remained until the latter end of 1786.
With Nelson he warmly co-operated in carrying into exe¬
cution the provisions of the navigation law's, which had
been infringed by the United States, whose ships, notwith¬
standing the separation of the countries, continued to tiade
to the West Indies, although that privilege,was by law ex¬
clusively confined to British vessels. In 1786 Collingwood
returned to England, where, with the exception of a voyage
to the West Indies, he remained until 1793, in which year
he w'as appointed captain of the Prince, the flag-ship of
Rear-admiral Bowyer. About two years previous to this
event he had entered into the matrimonial state. This
alliance was a fortunate one, and continued to be a solace
to him amidst all those privations to which the life of a sea¬
man must ever be subject.
As captain of the Barfleur, Collingwood was present at
the celebrated naval engagement which was fought on the
1st of June 1794; and on that occasion he displayed equal
judgment and courage. On board the Excellent he shared
in the victory of the 14th of February 1797, when Sir John
Jarvis humbled the Spanish fleet off Cape St Vincent. His
conduct in this engagement wras the theme of universal
admiration throughout the fleet, and greatly advanced his
fame as a naval officer. After blockading Cadiz for some
time, he returned for a few weeks to Portsmouth to repair.
In the beginning of 1799 Collingwood was raised to the rank
of vice-admiral, and hoisting his flag in the Triumph, he
joined the Channel fleet, with which he proceeded to the
Mediterranean, where the principal naval forces of France
and Spain were assembled. Collingwood continued actively
employed in watching the enemy, until the peace of Amiens
restored him once more to the bosom of his family.
The domestic repose, however, which he so highly re¬
lished, was cut short by the recommencement of hostilities
with France ; and in the spring of 1803 he quitted the
home to which he was never again to return. The duty
upon which he was employed was that of watching the French
fleet off Brest; and in the discharge of it he displayed the
most unwearied vigilance. Nearly two years were spent
in this employment: but Napoleon having at length ma¬
tured his plans and equipped his armament, service of a
more active description was immediately to be expected.
The grand struggle, which the nations looked forward to
with breathless suspense, and which was to decide the fate
of Europe and the dominion of the sea, was close at hand.
The enemy’s fleet having sailed from Toulon, Admiral
Collingwood was appointed to the command of a squadron,
with orders to pursue the enemy. The combined fleets
of France and Spain, after spreading terror throughout the
West Indies, returned to Cadiz. On their way thither they
bore down upon Admiral Collingwood, who had only three
vessels with him: but he succeeded in eluding the pur¬
suit, although chased by sixteen ships of the line. Ere one
half of the enemy had entered the harbour he drew up be¬
fore it and resumed the blockade, at the same time employ¬
ing an ingenious artifice to conceal the inferiority of his
force. But the combined fleet was at last compelled to
quit Cadiz; and the battle of Trafalgar immediately followed.
The brilliant conduct of Admiral Collingwood upon this
occasion has been much and justly applauded. It is unne¬
cessary here to enter into a full detail of the battle (for an ac¬
count of which see the article Britain) ; but a short out- c0ujng.
line is necessary, in order to show that no small portion of wood,
the glory of that day belongs to Collingwood. The French
admiral drew up his fleet in the form of a crescent, and in
a double line, every alternate ship being about a cable’s
length to windward of her second, both ahead and astern.
The British fleet bore down upon this formidable and skil¬
fully arranged armament in two separate lines, the one led
by Nelson in the Victory, and the other by Collingwood in
the Royal Sovereign. The latter vessel was the swiftest
sailer, and having shot considerably ahead of the rest of the
fleet, was the first engaged. “ See,” said Nelson, pointing
to the Royal Sovereign, as she penetrated the centre of
the enemy’s line, “ see how that noble fellow Collingwood
carries his ship into action !” Probably it was at the same
instant that Collingwood, his mind kindled up with the
same generous and ennobling sentiments, and as if in re¬
sponse to the observation of his great commander, re¬
marked to his captain, “ What would Nelson give to be
here!” The consummate valour and skill evinced by Col¬
lingwood had a powerful moral influence upon both fleets.
It inspired with unbounded confidence in their commanders
those who scarcely needed any incentive to do their duty in
the bravest manner: and, on the other hand, the French
admiral, struck with the noble daring displayed, was seized
with a dark presentiment of the fate which a few short
hours too fatally realized. It was with the Spanish admi¬
ral’s ship that the Royal Sovereign closed; and with such
rapidity and precision did she pour in her broadsides upon
the Santa Anna, that the latter was on the eve of striking
in the midst of thirty-three sail of the line, and almost be¬
fore another British ship had fired a gun. Several other
vessels, however, seeing the imminent peril of the Spanish
flag-ship, came to her assistance, and hemmed in the Royal
Sovereign on all sides; but the latter, after suffering se¬
verely, was relieved by the arrival of the rest of the British
squadron ; and not long afterwards the Santa Anna struck
her colours. The result of the battle of Trafalgar, and the
expense at which it was purchased, are well known. On
the death of Nelson, Collingwood assumed the supreme
command; and by his skill and judgment greatly contri¬
buted to the preservation of the British ships, as well as
of those which were captured from the enemy. He was
raised to the peerage, and received the thanks of both
houses of parliament, with the grant of a pension of L.2000
per annum.
From this period until the death of Lord Collingwood no
great naval action was fought; but he was much occupied
in important political transactions, in which he displayed
uncommon tact and judgment. Being appointed to the
command of the Mediterranean fleet, he continued to cruise
about, keeping a watchful eye upon the movements of the
enemy. But his health, which had begun to decline pre¬
viously to the action of Trafalgar in 1805, seemed entirely
to give way ; and he repeatedly requested government to
be relieved of his command, that he might return home ;
but he was urgently requested to remain, on the ground
that his country could not dispense with his services. This
conduct has been regarded as harsh, and certainly it does
not appear very amiable when we consider the age of Lord
Collingwood, his long and active services, and the arduous
nature of the enterprise in which he had embarked. But
it cannot be denied that the remarkable good sense and
political sagacity which he displayed in the various trans¬
actions with which he was connected at that critical and
eventful period, in some measure affords a palliation of the
conduct of the government which decreed that he should
perish at his post. And it puts the estimation in which he
was held in a very conspicuous point of view, that amongst
the many able admirals, equal in rank and duration of ser¬
vice, none stood so prominently forward as to command the
COL
COL
Collins
confidence of ministers and of the country to the same ex-
~ tent as he did. After many fruitless attempts to induce
the enemy to put to sea, as well as to fall in with them
when they had done so (which circumstance materially con¬
tributed to hasten his dissolution), he expired on the 7th of
March 1810.
Lord Collingwood s merits as a naval officer were in every
respect of the first order. In original genius and romantic
daring he was inferior to Nelson, who indeed had no equal
in an age fertile in great commanders. In seamanship, in
general talent, and in reasoning upon the probability of
events from a number of conflicting and ambiguous state¬
ments, Collingwood was equal to the hero of the Nile j indeed
many who were familiar with both give him the palm of
superiority. His political penetration was remarkable ; and
so high was the opinion generally entertained of his judg¬
ment, that he was consulted in all quarters, and on all occa¬
sions, upon questions of general policy, of regulation, and
even of trade. In his moral character he was distinguished
for benevolence and generosity. His acts of charity were
frequent and bountiful, and the petition of real distress was
never rejected by him. He was an enemy to impressment
and to flogging; and so kind was he to his crew, that he
obtained amongst them the honourable name of father. Be¬
tween Nelson and Collingwood a close intimacy subsisted,
from their first acquaintance in early life till the fall of the
former at Trafalgar. In their lives they did not so much
differ as in the manner of their deaths. The one expired
in the arms of victory, while the other died piecemeal with
harassing fatigue and care in the pursuit of an enemy whom
he had sought with unexampled perseverance to encounter,
but in vain. In death they are not divided ; they lie side by
side in the cathedral of St Paul’s. The selections from
the public and private correspondence of Lord Colling¬
wood, published in 2 vols. 8vo in 1828, contain some of
the best specimens of letter-writing that our language af-
fords. (j s j
COLLINS, Anthony (1676-1729), a famous sceptical
writer, was born of a wealthy family at Heston, near Houn¬
slow, Middlesex. He received his preliminary education
at Eton, and afterwards went to King’s College, Cambridge,
where his tutor was Francis Hare, subsequently Bishop of
Chichester. On leaving college he became a student of
the Temple, but devoted himself principally to literary pur¬
suits. He carried on an intimate correspondence with Locke,
who seems to have regarded him with peculiar affection, and
at his death bequeathed to him a considerable sum of money.
In 1707 Collins wrote his Essay concerning the Use of Rea¬
son in Propositions, the Evidence whereof depends on Human
Testimony, and engaged in controversy with Clarke in sup¬
port of Dodwell’s book against the immortality of the soul.
Two years later he began the controversy in regard to the
20th article of the Church of England, which led him after¬
wards to publish his Historical and Critical Essay on the
Thirty-nine Articles. His Vindication of the Divine Attri¬
butes was written in reply to the Archbishop of Dublin, and
advocated the necessitarian scheme which was more fully
developed in his Philosophical Inquiry concerning Liberty
and Necessity. In 1/11 Collins went to Holland, where
he matured his Discourse on Free-thinking, which was
published on his return to England. In 1718 he was made
treasurer of the county of Essex ; and in the same year wrote
his Grounds and Reasons of the Christian Religion, which
called forth numerous replies, and was afterwards defended
by the author in his Scheme of Literal Prophecy. His last
work was written in 1727, and consisted of an answer to
Dr Rogers’ eight sermons on the necessity of revelation and
truth of Christianity. His health began to decline some
time before his death, which was caused by a violent attack
of the stone. He was buried in Oxford Chapel, where a
monument was erected to his memory. (For an account
VOL. vn.
129
of his philosophical opinions, see the First Preliminary Collins.
Dissertation of this work.) x.
Collins, William, a celebrated English poet, was the son
of a hatter at Chichester, and there he was born, December
25,1720. He received his classical education at Winchester;
after which he studied at New College, Oxford, was ad¬
mitted a commoner of King’s College in the same univer¬
sity, and at length elected a demy of Magdalene College.
Whilst at Oxford he applied himself to the study of poetry,
and published his Oriental Eclogues. He thence proceeded
to London. He was naturally possessed of an ear for all
the varieties of harmony and modulation ; his heart was
susceptible of the finest feelings of tenderness and humanity,
and was particularly carried away by that high enthusiasm
which gives to imagination its strongest colouring ; and he
was at once capable of soothing the ear with the melody of
his numbers, of influencing the passions by the force of pathos,
and of gratifying the fancy by the luxury of description.
With these powers he attempted lyric poetry, and in 1746
published his Odes Descriptive and Allegorical; but the sale
of this work being not at all commensurate with its merits,
he, from a feeling of indignation, burnt the remaining copies.
Being a man of a liberal spirit, and small fortune, his pecu¬
niary resources were unhappily soon exhausted; and his
life became a miserable example of necessity, indolence, and
dissipation. He projected books which he was well able to
execute, and became in idea an historian, a critic, and a
dramatic poet; but he wanted the means and encourage¬
ment to carry these ideas into execution. Day succeeded
day for the support of which he had made no provision;
and he was obliged to subsist either by the repeated contri¬
butions of friends or the generosity of casual acquaintances.
His spirits became oppressed, and he sunk into a sullen de¬
spondency. Whilst in this gloomy state of mind, his uncle
Colonel Martin died, and left him a considerable fortune.
But this came too late for enjoyment; for he had so long
been harassed by anxiety and distress, that he fell into a ner¬
vous disorder, which at length reduced the finest understand¬
ing to the most deplorable imbecility. In the first stages of
this disorder he endeavoured to find relief in travel, and
passed into France; but his growing malady obliged him
to return ; and having, with short intervals, continued in
this pitiable state till the year 1756* he died at a lunatic
asylum in the arms of his sister.
The following character of the poetry of Collins is drawn
by Mrs Barbauld, and is extracted from an essay prefixed
to an edition of his works published in 1797:—“ He will be
acknowledged to possess imagination, sweetness, bold and
figurative language. His numbers dwell on the ear, and
easily fix themselves in the memory. His vein of sentiment
is by turns tender and lofty, always tinged with a degree
of melancholy, but not possessing any claim to originality.
His originality consists in his manner, in the highly figura¬
tive garb in which he clothes abstract ideas, in the felicity
of his expressions, and his skill in embodying ideal creations.
He had much of the mysticism of poetry, and sometimes
became obscure, by aiming at impressions'stronger than he
had clear and well-defined ideas to support. Had his life
been prolonged, and had he with life enjoyed that ease which
is necessary for the undisturbed exercise of the faculties, he
would probably have risen far above most of his contem¬
poraries.” See Poetry.
Collins, William (1788-1847), an English landscape
painter, born in London. Like most artists who have risen
to eminence, his taste manifested itself in early boyhood. In
1807 he was admitted as a student of the Royal Academy ;
and two years after obtained the silver medal for a drawing
from life. In 1813 he was elected an associate, and in
1820 a Royal Academician. At the persuasion of Wilkie,
he visited Italy in 1830. During his tour he prosecuted
his studies with the same assiduous perseverance as at
130 COL
Collinson home. It is not believed that he increased his reputation
jl much by the Italian figure-pieces which he now produced;
Collision. j;)ut ]earne(j from his sojourn in Italy a truer conception
of nature and a higher idea of art. His health began to
fail during the tour, and soon after his return to England
he died of disease of the heart. Collins is principally known
as a painter of coast and cottage scenes. His biography
appeared in 1848, in 2 vols.
COLLINSON, Peter (1693-1768), an eminent natu¬
ralist and antiquary, descended of an ancient family, was
born at Hugal Hall near Windermere, Westmoreland. In
his youth he showed an ardent attachment to natural history,
and began early to form a botanical collection. He soon
made himself acquainted with the most eminent naturalists
of his time ; and Drs Derham, Woodward, Hale, Lloyd, and
Sloane, were among his intimate friends. Through the
friendship of Sir Hans Sloane, especially, he became familiar
with that superb collection which is now in the British Mu¬
seum. In the department of horticulture we are indebted
to Collinson for the great variety of seeds and shrubs which
are now the principal ornaments of every garden. His
scientific correspondence embraced every nation in Europe,
and extended in Asia as far as Pekin. To him Dr Franklin
communicated his first essays on electricity ; and Linnaeus,
who had become acquainted with him during his resi¬
dence in England, continued to correspond with him till
his death.
Besides his knowledge of natural history, Collinson was
familiar with the antiquities of our own country, and read
many interesting papers to the Society of Antiquaries, of
which he had been elected a member. He left behind him
valuable materials for the advancement of his favourite study;
and from him a genus of labiate plants has been named
Collinsonia.
COLLIQUAMENTUM, the transparent fluid in an
egg, containing the first rudiments of the chick. It is in¬
cluded in one of its own proper membranes, distinct from
the albumen. Harvey calls it the oculus.
COLLISION (Lat. collisio), in a general sense, is the
act of any two or more bodies coming forcibly together.
(See Mechanics.)
Collision (Fr. abordage), in Commercial Navigation,
signifies the shock of two ships coming into sudden and
violent contact at sea, by which one or both may be more
or less injured.
From the great increase of navigation, the risk of acci¬
dents by collision at sea has been proportionally augmented ;
and it is therefore of importance to be able satisfactorily
to determine by whom the loss should, in such cases, be
borne. This, however, is by no means an easy matter;
and the laws of different countries, and the opinions of the
ablest jurists, differ widely with respect to it.
Masters of ships are placed in a situation of great trust
and responsibility; and they are bound to do everything
in their power to insure the safety of the ships, crews, and
passengers under their command. “ If any injury or loss
happen to the ship or cargo by reason of the negligence or
misconduct of the master, he is personally responsible for
it; and although the merchant may elect to sue the owners,
they will have a remedy against him to make good the
damages which they may be compelled to pay”—(Abbott—
Lord Tenterden—on The Law of Shipping, cap. 4, § l,Shee’s
ed.) As a branch of this general duty, masters are bound to
keep a proper watch at sea, especially in channels much fre¬
quented by shipping, that they may avoid coming into col¬
lision with other vessels.
The obligation to provide against the risk of collision has
not, however, been left to depend on general principles, but
has been made in most maritime states the subject of regu-
C 0 L
lation. In 1840 the Trinity-house issued a rule of naviga- Collision,
tion for the guidance and government of masters and others
inchargeof sailing and steam vessels passing each other on op¬
posite courses—(see MacCulloch’s Commercial Diet. Supp.,
art. Collision) ; and though not itself a law, masters not
complying with the regulations therein laid down have been
held to be guilty of unseamanlike conduct, and their owners
or themselves have been made responsible for the conse¬
quences. But it is at the same time to be borne in mind,
that no rule of this sort is to be regarded as inflexible ; and
that no master will be warranted in abiding by it when by
doing so he must plainly incur danger. A may be in his
proper course ; but if by pursuing it he will run a great risk
of coming into collision with B, who is upon a wrong course,
he is bound to alter his course so as to avoid the collision.
The fact of one master being ignorant, careless, or in fault,
is no reason why another should not use every means in
his power to provide for the safety of his ship, and conse¬
quently of the lives and property entrusted to his care.
The act 14th and 15th Viet. cap. 79, regulating the navi¬
gation of steam-vessels, &c., has the following clauses in re¬
gard to the avoidance of collisions :—
Rules to be observed by vessels passing each other.—
<£ Whenever any vessel proceeding in one direction meets
a vessel proceeding in another direction, and the master or
other person having charge of either such vessel perceives
that if both vessels continue their respective courses they
will pass so near as to involve any risk of a collision, he
shall put the helm of his vessel to port, so as to pass on
the port side of the other vessel, due regard being had to
the tide, and to the position of each vessel, with respect to
the dangers of the channel, and, as regards sailing vessels,
to the keeping each vessel under command; and the
master of any steam-vessel navigating any river or narrow
channel shall keep as far as is practicable to that side of
the fairway or mid-channel thereof which lies on the star¬
board side of such vessel; and if the master or other per¬
son having charge of any steam-vessel neglect to observe
these regulations, or either of them, he shall, for every such
offence, be liable to a penalty not exceeding L.50.”—§ 27.
Owners not entitled to Compensation in certain cases of
Collision, but Master to be liable to Penalty.—“ If in any
case of a collision between two or more vessels, it appear that
such collision was occasioned by the non-observance either
of the foregoing rules with respect to the passing of steamers
or of the rules to be made by the lord high admiral,1 or the
commissioners for executing the office of lord high admiral,
with respect to the exhibition of lights ; the owner of the
vessel by which any such rule has been infringed shall not
be entitled to recover any recompense whatsoever for any
damage sustained by such vessel in such collision, unless it
appears to the court before which the case is tried, that the
circumstances of the case were such as to justify a departure
from the rule ; and in case any damage to person or pro¬
perty be sustained in consequence of the non-observance of
any of the said rules, the same shall in all courts of justice be
deemed, in the absence of proof to the contrary, to have been
occasioned by the wilful default of the master or other person
having the charge of such vessel; and such master or other
person shall, unless it appears to the court before which the
case is tried, that the circumstances of the case were such
as to justify a departure from the rule, be subject in all pro¬
ceedings, whether civil or criminal, to the legal consequences
of such default.”—§ 28.
The conditions under which cases of collision take place
may differ extremely. Thus, 1st, it may be merely acci¬
dental, or be occasioned by circumstances beyond the power
of control, as by the violence of the wind or waves dashing
or impelling the ships together, without blame being im-
1 These Rules were issued on the 1st of May 1852. See Com. Dictionary.
COLLISION.
Collision.
putable to either party; or, 2d, it may be owing to the cul¬
pable negligence or misconduct of one party ; or, 3d, both
parties may be to blame. In adjudicating upon losses grow¬
ing out of collisions that have taken place under such dif¬
ferent circumstances, the conclusions must also be very dif¬
ferent.
With respect to the first class of cases, there is little ap¬
parent difficulty : wherever a loss Is occasioned by a storm,
a fog, or other accidental circumstance, without any blame
being ascribable to either party, it would appear to be equit¬
able that it should be borne by the sufferer. And this
principle having been embodied in the Roman law, was
subsequently ingrafted into that of England. (Marshall on
Insurance, cap. 12, § 2.) But other authorities, to whom
the greatest deference is due, contend that the loss arising
from accidental collisions, however it may affect the parties,
should be equally divided between them ; and this, in fact,
is the rule followed in most maritime states.
Thus it is laid down in the famous French ordonnance
of 1681 (lib. iii., tit. xii., art. 10), that “En cas d’abordage
de vaisseaux, le dommage sera paye egalement par les
navires qui I’auront fait et souffert, soit en route, en rade, ou
au port.” This also is the rule sanctioned by the law of
England in cases of collision where both parties are to
blame, but where the blame cannot be discriminated. Those
cases in which the blame is clearly ascribable to either party
present no difficulty.
The leading doctrines of the law of England with regard
to collisions have been clearly and succinctly stated by Lord
Stowell. “ In the first place,” says his lordship, “ a col¬
lision may happen without blame being imputable to either
party, as when the loss is occasioned by a storm or any other
vis major. In that case the misfortune must be borne by
the party on whom it happens to light; the other not being
responsible to him in any degree. Secondly, a misfortune
of this kind may arise where both parties are to blame,
where there has been a want of due diligence or of skill on
both sides ; in such a case the rule of law is, that the loss
must be apportioned between them, as having been occa¬
sioned by the fault of both of them. Thirdly, it may hap¬
pen by the misconduct of the suffering party only; and
then the rule is, that the sufferer must bear his own bur¬
den. Lastly, it may have been the fault of the ship which
ran the other down, and in this case the innocent party
would be entitled to an entire compensation from the other.”
—(2 Dodson’s Admiralty Reports, 83.)
We may add, that the rule of the equal division of the
damage where both vessels are to blame has been since
Lord Stowell’s time fully recognised, and finally established
by a decision of the House of Lords on an appeal from
Scotland.1
Various authorities have spoken disparagingly of the rule
now referred to, and have called it a judicium rusticorum.
And it would no doubt be very desirable in cases of collision
where both parties are to blame, that the neglect or culpa¬
bility of each should be accurately determined, and the
damages assessed accordingly. But from the obscurity in
which such cases are usually involved, and the conflicting tes¬
timony brought forward by the different parties, the difficul¬
ties in the way of this being done are usually quite insuper¬
able. And it is better to adopt a rule which, though less
equitable perhaps in principle, is fairer in its application
than any other that could be adopted. It is followed, as the
Dutch jurists say, propter bonum publicum et culpce pro-
bandce dijjicultatem. Of its expediency, indeed, there can
be no reasonable doubt. The observations of Valin in this
respect are quite conclusive—“ C’etoit,” says this great au¬
thority, “ le moyen le plus propre a rendre les capitaines ou
maitres des navires extremement attentifs a eviter tout
131
abordage, surtout ceux des batimens foibles et plus suscep- Collision,
tibles d’etre incommodes par le moindre choc en leur ren-
dant toujours present la crainte de supporter la moitie du
dommage qu’ils en pourroient recevoir. Et si 1’on dit qu’il
auroit ete plus simple et plus court de laisser pour le compte
particulier d’un chacun le dommage qu’il auroit re^u, comme
provenant d’un cas fortuit; la reponse est qu’alors les capi¬
taines de gros navires n’auroient plus craint de heurter les
batimens d’une beaucoup moindre force que les leurs ; rien
done de plus juste que la contribution par moitie.”—(Com-
mentaire sur VOrdonnance de 1681, ii. 179. ed. 1776.)
In apportioning the damage in cases where both parties
have been in fault, the question occurs, whether the damage
done to the cargo shall be taken into account or left out in
the estimate on which the apportionment is to be made.
This knotty point has been differently decided in different
countries. But the stat. 53 Geo. III., cap. 159, which limits
the liability of owners to the value of the ship and freight,
applies to cases of damage by collision. (For further ob¬
servations on this curious and important subject in addition
to Valin and the other authorities already referred to, the
reader may consult the chapter on Collision in Maude and
Pollock’s 1 realise on the Law of Merchant Shipping.)
Number of Collisions at Sea.—A statement has been
prepared by Mr John A. Rucker, underwriter, giving a
classification of the number of collisions at sea reported in
Lloyd’s lists during the five years from 1845 to 1849 in¬
clusive. It thence appears that the annual numbers were
603, 564, 699, 633, and 565 ; so that there has been a de¬
crease in 1849, notwithstanding the increased traffic of
that year. I he total collisions of the five years amount to
3064. Of these 279 were cases in which a vessel was sunk,
run down, or abandoned; 189 were cases in which there
was serious damage ; 686 in which the damage, although
less, was still considerable ; and 1910 in which it was only
slight. The average of steamers in contact with steamers
during each year is about 11 ; of steamers in contact with
sailing vessels about 37; of sailing vessels in contact with
steamers 36 ; and of sailing vessels in contact with sailing
vessels 533.
In 1852, 33 ships were totally lost by collisions, and 24
were so much injured as to be obliged to discharge their
cargoes.
Liability of Insurers in cases of Collision.—Where the
collision is purely fortuitous, without blame being ascribable
to either party, it is obviously a loss by the perils of the sea,
and must, as such, be made good by the underwriters.
The underwriters are also liable when the loss has been
entirely occasioned by the misconduct of the master and
crew of the defendant’s ship; but when the damage has
been occasioned by the misconduct or negligence of the
master and crew of the pursuer’s ship, such misconduct would
perhaps be held to amount to barratry, and the loss would be
recoverable under that head. There has, however, been no
direct decision in our courts on this curious point. But if
the misconduct or negligence in question were not held
barratrous, it would be of so gross a character as to exempt
the underwriters from their liability.
In cases where the damage is equally apportioned between
the colliding ships, authorities differ as to whether the loss
should be regarded as resulting from a peril of the sea. In
this country the negative doctrine has been held, and, as we
think, on entirely satisfactory grounds. The misconduct or
incapacity of masters and crews can with no propriety be
called a peril of the sea. It may occur on the sea, but is
certainly not occasioned by it. (See for further details on
this point, Arnould’s learned Treatise on Marine Insurance,
ii. 804, and the authorities there referred to.) (j. R. M.)
COLLODION. See Chemistry.
Hay v. Le Neve,—(2 Shaw’s Scotch Appeal Cases, p. 395).
132
COL
COL
Collump- COLLUMPTON, or Cullompton, a market-town,
tion county of Devon, hundred of Hayridge, on the right
„ " bank of the Culm, a tributary of the Exe, 12 miles from
° Exeter, and 160 from London. Pop. (1851) 2765. The
church, originally collegiate, is a handsome edifice of the
fourteenth century. Attached to it is a chapel, built in 1528
by a clothier named Lane, and highly ornamented exter-
nally. The principal manufacture is that of woollens, par¬
ticularly serges.
COLLUTHUS, a presbyter of Alexandria, who was in¬
dignant at the favour shown to Arius, and withdrew from the
communion of the patriarch about the commencement of the
fourth century. He afterwards promulgated heretical opi¬
nions, teaching that God did not create the wicked nor any¬
thing that is evil. He was condemned by a council held at
Alexandria, a.d. 330. His followers were called Colluthians.
COLLYRIDIANS, a name given by Epiphanius to a
sect of Arab women in the fourth century, who, at the instiga¬
tion of Thracian immigrants, instituted an annual festival, at
which they offered cakes (xoAXuptSe?) to the Virgin Mary.
COLLYRIUM (Latin and Greek), eye-salve; any
wash for the eyes.
COLMAN, George, the elder, a dramatic and miscel¬
laneous writer, was born at Florence about 1733. He
was the son of Mr Colman the British resident at the court
of Tuscany, and of a sister of the Countess of Bath. He
received the early part of his education at Westminster
School, where Lloyd, Churchill, and some others who after¬
wards attained distinction in literature, were among his
intimate companions. While at school he appeared in the
character of a poet, and addressed to his cousin, Lord
Pulteney, a copy of verses which were afterwards published
in the magazine of St James. At Christ Church College,
Oxford, he gave many proofs of his lively genius, uniting
with Thornton in producing a weekly periodical paper
entitled the Connoisseur, which was continued from Jan.
1754 to Sept. 1756, and afterwards published in 4 vols. 12mo.
Although this work did not enjoy a reputation equal to that
of the World, the Adventurer, and the Rambler, which made
their appearance about the same time, yet it may with jus¬
tice be affirmed that, for a ludicrous delineation of the man¬
ners of the day, some papers in it are at least equal to any
which these performances contain. Having taken the degree
of A. M., he left college and went to London; entered at Lin¬
coln’s Inn ; and was admitted to the bar. But literary pur¬
suits were more consonant to the bent of his genius. He
published in 1760 a dramatic piece entitled Polly Honey¬
comb, which was successfully acted at Drury Lane : and in
the following year appeared his comedy of the Jealous Wife.
By the demise of Lord Bath he came into the possession of
a handsome fortune, which was further augmented by the
death of General Pulteney in 1767. He still continued to
write for the stage, and produced, along with Garrick, the
Clandestine Marriage. He also translated the comedies
of Terence into English.
Soon afterwards he purchased from Mr Samuel Foote the
Haymarket theatre, which he supplied with pieces either
original or translations, and engaged the ablest actors. He
executed a translation of Horace’s Art of Poetry; to which
he prefixed an ingenious account of the author’s intention,
and added many critical notes. Besides The Genius and
The Gentleman, he produced a great many short humorous
pieces of considerable merit. His mind was much impaired
by a stroke of the palsy in 1789 ; and in consequence, his
son was intrusted with the management of the theatre.
Colman died in the 62d year of his age, August 1794.
Colman, George, the younger, son of the preceding,
was born Oct. 21, 1762. He began his education at a pri¬
vate academy in Marylebone, from whence he was removed
to Westminster ; and afterwards entered at Christ Church,
Oxford. From Oxford he went to King’s College, Aber¬
deen ; and there he wrote some dramatical pieces, which Colmar
were brought out in London at the Haymarket theatre, and ||
immediately condemned. On his return to London he at Colocyiith.
first applied himself to law; but the bent of his genius and ex-
ample of his father led him to devote his attention to liter¬
ary pursuits. In 1785, during the illness of his father, he took
the entire management ofthe Haymarket theatre, and became
involved in a Chancery suit which ultimately reduced him to
poverty. Having surrendered the management of the thea¬
tre, he was appointed licenser and examiner of plays, and re¬
ceived marks of distinguished favour from George IV. Of
his dramatic works, the most popular are John Bull, Inkle
and Yarico, The Poor Gentleman, The Heir-at-Law, The
Iron Chest, &c. He WTOte also the well-known comic tales
Broad Grins, Poetical Vagaries, &c. In his Random Re¬
cords he has given memoirs of his early life up to the time
of his entering on the management of the Haymarket. Col¬
man died Oct. 26, 1836. From the time that his earlier
plays were condemned he invariably subscribed himself the
Younger, lest his father’s reputation should suffer from his
ill success. Byron entertained a very high opinion of Col-
man’s wit and conversational powers. “ If I had,” he said,
“ to choose, and could not get both at a time, I should say,
‘ Let me begin the evening with Sheridan, and finish it
with Colman;’—Sheridan for dinner, and Colman for supper;
Sheridan for claret and port, but Colman for everything.
Sheridan was a grenadier company of life-guards, but Col¬
man a whole regiment—of light infantry to be sure—but
still a regiment.”
COLMAR, a city of France, capital of the department
of Haut Rhin, and of a cognominal arrondissement; and
the seat of a royal court for the departments of Haut and
Bas Rhin, with tribunals of primary instance and commerce.
It is for the most part well built, and is pleasantly situated on
the Lauch and Fecht, tributaries of the 111, 40 miles S.S.W.
of Strasbourg, with which it is connected by railway. The
most remarkable edifice is the cathedral, a Gothic structure,
built in 1363. Among the other public buildings are the
palace of justice, hotel-de-ville, college (with a public library
of 36,000 volumes), deaf-mute institution, civil and military
hospitals, theatre, museum, and the churches of the Domi¬
nicans and the Trinity. It has extensive manufactures of
cottons, hosiery, ribands, paper, and leather. In the thir¬
teenth century Colmar was made a free imperial city ; and
was united to France in 1697 by the treaty of Ryswick.
Pop. (1851) of city, 19,153 ; of arrondissement, 221,682.
COLNE, a market-town, county of Lancaster, 26 miles
north of Manchester, on a small affluent ofthe Calder, near
the Liverpool and Leeds canal. It is a place of great anti¬
quity, and supposed by some to be the Colunio of the Ro¬
mans. Many Roman coins have been found here. As early
as the fourteenth century Colne was the seat of a woollen
manufacture, but its principal manufactures now are printed
calicoes and mousselines-de-laine. In the neighbourhood
are several limestone and slate quarries. Market-day Wed¬
nesday. Pop. (1851) 6644.
COLOCYNTH (the bitter gourd), is the fruit of a cu-
curbitaceous plant, the Cucumis Colocynthis. The plant is
extremely common in Palestine, Asia, Africa, &c., and its
trailing stems often cover the desert spots for miles. The
fruit is about the size and shape of a large orange; with a
thin, leathery, yellowish rind; and a dry, cellular interior,
containing many seeds, from which a coarse oil is expressed.
The dry pith is the part used in medicine: it is intensely
bitter, and is one of the most powerful purgatives we possess.
This fruit, however, is chiefly interesting to the general
reader, as being supposed to be \he pakyoth or wild gourds
mentioned in the Second Book of Kings, which the prophet’s
servant shred into the pot of pottage, mistaking them for
one of the eatable gourds or cucumbers. The original word
is used to denote an oval fruit; and hence it is not quite
COL
COL
133
Cologna certain whether the wild gourds were the fruit of the colo¬
ll cynth or of the squirting cucumber (Momordica Elaterium),
Cologne. jjQth 0f which are equally bitter and poisonous. The colo-
cynth could only be shred in its young state, when it is oval
in form and full of juice. Under these circumstances,
both the colocynth and the fruit of the squirting cucumber
might easily be mistaken for young gherkins. See Botany,
vol. v., p. 192.
COLOGNA,a town ofVenetian Lombardy,delegation of
Verona, and 20 miles from that city. It is a place of some
trade, and has considerable manufactures of silk. Pop. 6000.
COLOGNE (German, Coin), a fortified city of Rhenish
Prussia, capital of a cognominal government, on the left
bank of the Rhine, 45 miles N.N.W. of Coblenz. N.
Lat. 50. 56. 29., E. Long. 6. 57. 52. A bridge of boats,
nearly 1400 feet long, connects it with the town of Deutz
on the opposite side of the Rhine. Cologne occupies the
site of the Oppidum or Civitas Ubiorum, the chief town of
the Ubii, who were settled here by the Romans about 37
B.c. In a.d. 51a Roman colony was planted in the town
by the Emperor Claudius, at the instigation of his wife
Agrippina, who was born there. From her it took the name
of Colonia Agrippina or Agrippinensis. It soon became
a large and flourishing city, and was the capital of Lower
Germany. In the middle ages it was much more populous
and wealthy than at present, and was long one of the most
important cities of the Hanseatic League. The intolerance
of its magistrates in expelling the Jews, Protestants, and
others, at different times—and the closing of the Rhine for
navigation by the Dutch in the sixteenth century—contri¬
buted to its decline. This last restriction was removed in
1837, and since that time the trade of Cologne has much
improved. It has a considerable trade in corn and Rhenish
wine with Holland, Belgium, and other countries. This
proverbially ill-built and filthy town has lately been much
improved; many of the old streets have been w idened and
improved, new streets have been laid out, and the general
appearance of the town considerably ameliorated, although
much still remains to be done. Among the numerous ob¬
jects of interest in Cologne is the cathedral, begun in 1248
by Archbishop Conrad of Hochsteden, but still unfinished.
It is considered one of the finest and purest Gothic monu¬
ments in Europe. According to the original designs, the
two principal towers were to have been 500 feet in height,
but the most complete is not more than one-third of that
elevation. By the munificence of the Prussian government,
and by private subscriptions, the works have been prose¬
cuted with vigour, particularly since 1842. The entire
length of the body of the church will be 511 feet, and the
breadth 231 feet. The choir is 161 feet high; and inter¬
nally, from the disposition of its pillars, arches, chapels, and
beautifully-coloured windows, it resembles a splendid vision.
Under a slab in the pavement the heart of Mary de Medici
is buried; and in the adjoining side chapels are monuments
of the founder and other archbishops of Cologne ; and the
shrine of the three kings, which is richly adorned with gold
and precious stones. Several of the other churches are also
interesting, as those of St Ursula, St Mary, St Gereon, and
St Peter. This latter chruch contains the famous altar-
piece by Rubens, representing the crucifixion of St Peter.
The other public buildings are the town-hall, court-house,
exchange, theatre, museum, &c. Cologne is the seat of an
archbishopric founded in the eighth century, of the provincial
authorities, and of the courts of appeal for the province. The
university, founded in 1388, was suppressed during the occu¬
pation of the country by the French. There are two gym¬
nasia—one for Catholics, to which is attached a very valuable
library, and one for Protestants ; an archiepiscopal seminary,
for the education of clergymen; normal and commercial
schools with public libraries; and numerous literary and
scientific institutions. The principal manufactures are cotton
yarn andstuffs, hosiery, woollens, silks, velvets, tobacco, soap, Colombia.
&c. Of the well-known Eau-de-Cologne, upwards of a mil- i r
lion bottles are annually exported. The walls which sur¬
round the town are about seven miles in circuit. The Roman
walls may still be traced in parts of the city, and numerous
statues, sarcophagi, and other ancient remains, have been
found. Pop. (1849) 94,789; of whom 49,457 were males,
and45,332 females; 81,706 Roman Catholics, 11,788Protes¬
tants, and 1286 Jews. The government, of the same name,
contains 13 cities, 13 market-towns, and 674 villages; and
has an area of 1533 square miles. Pop. (1849) 497,330.
COLOMBIA. The republic of Colombia, so named in
honour of Columbus, comprised the ancient vice-royalty of
New Granada and Quito, and the capitania general of Ve¬
nezuela. It was bounded E. by the Atlantic Ocean, and
extended from Cape Nassau at the mouth of the Essequibo
(N. Lat. 7. 39., W. Long. 53. 47.) to Cape Gracias-a-Dios,
in the province of Honduras (N. Lat. 15. L, W. Long.
82. 46.), including the islands of Margarita, St Andrews,
and others. On the Pacific, the western boundary com¬
menced at Golfo Dulce (N. Lat. 8. 20., W. Long. 83.), and
extended along the Pacific, comprehending the adjacent
islands, as far as the river Tumbes (S. Lat. 3. 34., W. Long.
86. 30.) On the south it was separated by the Tumbes and
a lofty mountain ridge from Peru, Brazil, and the British
possessions on the Essequibo. The boundary line between
Colombia and Guatemala on the north, although highly im¬
portant to both countries on account of the proposed water
communication between the Atlantic and the Pacific at
lake Nicaragua, was not accurately defined. The extent of
territory comprised within these limits has been estimated at
92,000 square leagues, of which 58,000 belonged to New
Granada and Quito, and 33,700 to Venezuela. Colombia
is traversed from north to south by the Cordillera of the
Andes, which, at an average distance of about 150 miles,
runs parallel with the coast of the Pacific, and contains,
besides other lofty mountains, Chimborazo, the height of
which is estimated at 21,424 feet. In the centre of New
Granada, the Andes separate into three parallel ridges
which extend from 3. 30., to 5. 15. of N. Lat., and
again unite to form one chain in the rugged province of
Pasto. To the south they are divided into two parallel
ranges, which cross the equator, and are reunited at Asuay.
A lateral range proceeding eastward from the Andes gives
origin to the Guaviare and the Meta, forms the watershed
between the Orinoco and the Maranon, and, before its ter¬
mination, separates Colombia from the British possessions
of Essequibo, Berbice, and Demerara. At the lofty paramo
of Almorsadero, the Cordillera divides into two branches,
the eastern proceeding along the maritime provinces of
Merida, Coro, Caraccas, and Cumana, reaching in some parts
the limits of perpetual snow, and comprehending the Ne¬
vada of Merida, 15,000 feet in height. The western branch
proceeds northward by Ocana, to form the Sierra Peripa,
west of the lake of Maracaybo, and terminates near Santa
Martha in the Sierra Nevada.
The llanos of Colombia are extensive plains, about
200or 300 feet above the level of the sea; which are watered
by the Caqueta, Meta, Guaviare, Casanare, Apure, and other
tributaries of the Orinoco. Their area is estimated at
17,000 square leagues; and their climate is hotter and less
healthy than that of the mountains. Towards the south they
are covered with immense forests ; their vegetation through¬
out is extremely luxuriant; and they teem with an endless
variety of animals, birds, reptiles, and insects. The river
Meta, in connection with the Orinoco, affords water com¬
munication from the Atlantic to within a few leagues of
Bogota, a distance of 1500 miles. By means of the Cas-
siquiari, a branch of the Orinoco, this river is connected
with the Rio Negro, a tributary of the Maranon, and thus
a water communication is established between two of the
134 COL
Colombo largest rivers of the world. In addition to these, the Mag-
II dalena which is navigable to within a short distance of Bo-
v 0 ony- ^ gota; the Guayaquil, important as furnishing an outlet to
the commerce of Quito ; and the extensive lake of Mara-
caybo with its large tributaries, afford great facilities for in¬
ternal communication.
Colombia, embracing in climate all the gradations of tem¬
perature from extreme heat to extreme cold, would long
before this have become one of the most prosperous coun¬
tries of the world, had not its political condition under Spa¬
nish rule greatly retarded the development of its natural re¬
sources. The cultivation of the vine and olive, the breed¬
ing of the silkworm, and the working of the iron mines
were prohibited by the Spaniards in South America under
severe penalties, lest they should interfere with the industry
of Spain. Foreign commerce also was fettered by mono¬
poly, and all commercial intercourse with the neighbouring
countries subject to numerous restrictions. The natural
productions of Colombia are cacao, coffee, cotton, sugar, to¬
bacco, rice, maize, wheat, barley, dyewoods, cinchona bark,
gums, balsams, timber adapted for ship-building, and a va¬
riety of medicinal and other useful substances. Cattle exist
in great numbers on the extensive plains of Venezuela and
Casanare, and horses and mules are also abundant. The
riches of the mountainous districts consist principally of the
valuable mines and washings of gold, silver, platina, and
other metals. The population of the country, which consists
of whites, free coloured persons, and negro slaves, was cal¬
culated to exceed three millions in 1834: the uncivilized
indigenous Indian population was estimated at 200,000. As
Colombia, however, has now for a considerable period been
divided into the three distinct and independent states of New
Granada, Venezuela, and Ecuador, reference must be made
to these heads for particular information relative to the
population, laws, constitution, religion, education, and com¬
merce of these countries. For the History of Colombia,
see article Bolivar.
COLOMBO, the capital and principal seaport town of
Ceylon, is situated on the W. coast of the island, in Lat. 6.
56. N., Long. 79. 49. E. The fortified part of the town is
about a mile and a half in circuit, standing on a rocky pro¬
montory, and surrounded on three sides by the sea. On
the land side it is protected by a lake, moat, and draw-bridges.
Colombo contains the government offices and courts, and
is the residence of the civil and military authorities, and the
majority of the European inhabitants. The principal build¬
ings are the government house, court house, hospital, ma¬
sonic hall, barracks, lighthouse, and several churches and
COL
chapels. Besides these, Colombo has a college, govern- Colon
ment academy, several schools, museums, libraries, and ||
various religious and benevolent institutions. Pop. about Colony.
40,000. See Ceylon.
COLON. See Anatomy, vol. iii. p. 61.
Colon, in Grammar. See Punctuation.
COLONEL (pronounced curnet), the chief commander
of a regiment, whether of infantry or of cavalry. Skinner
derives the word from colony, on the ground that the chiefs
of colonies, called coloniales, might give name to leaders or
commanders of forces. See Commission.
Colonel-Lieutenant, the commander of a regiment of
guards, of which the king, prince, or other person of emi¬
nence, is colonel. Colonel-lieutenants have always a colo¬
nel’s commission, and are usually general officers.
Lieutenant-Colonel, the second officer in a regiment,
who commands in the absence of the colonel.
COLONNA, the name of one of the noblest families of
modern Italy, which has produced princes, popes, cardinals,
warriors, and authors, who have figured in the history of
their country. One of the most eminent of these was,
VITTORIA Colonna, daughter of the high constable of
Naples, and wife of the celebrated warrior Davalos Marquese
de Pescara, the faithful general of the Emperor Charles V.
Her talents, her beauty, and her virtues, have been extolled
by Michel Angelo, Ariosto, and other celebrated poets.
When Pescara died in 1548, his accomplished widow re¬
tired to a convent, and there indulged her melancholy and
her religious sentiments in beautiful poetic effusions to the
memory of her husband, and on spiritual subjects. These
appeared at Venice in 1548, under the title of Rime Spiri-
tuali di Victoria Colonna. She was born in 1490, and died
at Rome in 1549. Tiraboschi remarks, that she was called
“ a model for Italian matrons.”
Colonna, Giovanni Paolo, chapel-master of St Pe-
tronio at Bologna, and president of the Philharmonic Aca¬
demy there, was born at Brescia about the middle of the
seventeenth century. The music-school which he estab¬
lished at Bologna produced many good musicians; among
them Clari. Most of Colonna’s works are for the church,
and are among the most remarkable compositions of the
seventeenth century. Doctor Boyce considered Colonna as
Handel’s model for choruses accompanied with many in¬
strumental parts different from the vocal. (g. f. g.)
Colonna, Cape. See Attica.
COLONNADE, in Architecture, a series or range of
columns placed at certain intervals from each other; vary¬
ing according to the rules of art, and the order employed.
COLONY.
It will scarcely be necessary to inform the reader that the following paper is from the pen of the late James Mill. It has obtained
indeed a wide celebrity in connection with his name. The readers of the Encyclopedia would not readily have pardoned the sup¬
pression or material alteration of an essay forming an important chapter in the literature of political economy, and therefore it
remains unchanged in its broad reasonings on colonial systems ; that portion only which professed to give, in an abbreviated and
almost tabular shape, the colonial statistics of the day, being removed to make way for more recent information. There is a
peculiar appropriateness in preserving, in this instance, an essay which does not precisely represent the policy still pursued, as it
is believed to have exercised a great influence in producing the changes made in our colonial system subsequent to the publication
of the preceding edition of the Encyclopaedia. To afford the immediate means of estimating the influence of Mr Mill’s views, and
to bring down the whole matter to the state of existing knowledge, a short supplemental view has been given of the late changes
in our colonial policy.
The term “ colony” has not been used with much pre¬
cision. Dr Johnson defines it “ a body of people drawn
from the mother country to inhabit some distant place
and it would not be easy to find a short expression better
calculated to embrace all the particulars to which the name
is ever applied. Yet this will be found to include some very
heterogeneous objects ; nay, more, to embrace particulars to
which the term “ colony” really does not extend. When the
French Protestants, for example, settled in great numbers in
England, and in the United Provinces, they were “ a body of
people drawn from the mother country to inhabit a distant
placebut did not for that reason become a colony of France.
Let the first part of the definition be supposed to be correct,
and that a colony must of necessity be “ a body of people
drawn from the mother countrysomething more is necessary
to complete the definition than the idea of inhabiting a distant
place; for not every sort of inhabiting constitutes them a
colony. It seems necessary that, inhabiting a distant place,
they should not come under the authority of any foreign go¬
vernment, but either remain under the government of the
COLONY.
O')
Colony, mother country, or exist under a government of their own.
Of colonies remaining under the government of the mo¬
ther country, the West India islands of the different Euro¬
pean states afford an example. Of those existing under a
government of their own, the most celebrated example is
found in the colonies of the ancient states of Greece. The
United States of America, as they constituted an example
of colonies of the first sort before the revolution which dis¬
joined them from the mother country, so they may be re¬
garded as constituting an example of colonies of theGrecian
sort, now that they exist under a government of their own.
Our resentment at their preferring to live under a govern¬
ment of their own has indeed often prevented us from
regarding them in the endearing light of a colony or daugh¬
ter country. It has made us much rather apply to them
the name of enemies, and in our feelings towards them
has mixed up a greater proportion of the hostile than the
friendly ingredients.
' Again, the term “ colony” is sometimes employed in a
sense in which the idea of a body of people drawn from
the mother country hardly seems to be included. Thus
we talk of the British colonies in the East, meaning, by
that mode of expression, the East Indies. Yet it can
hardly be said that any body of people is drawn from the
mother country to inhabit the East Indies. There is no¬
body drawn to inhabit, in the proper sense of the word.
A small number of persons, such as are sent to hold pos¬
session of a conquered country, go; and in this sense all
the conquered provinces of the ancient Roman empire
might be called what they never have been called, colo¬
nies of Rome.
In the meaning of the term “ colony,” the predominant
idea among the ancient Greeks and Romans appears to
have been that of the people, the egress of a body of peo¬
ple to a new and permanent abode. Among the moderns,
the predominant idea appears to be that of the territory,
the possession of an outlying territory ; and, in a loose way
of speaking, almost any outlying possession, if the idea of
permanency is united, would receive the name of a “ co¬
lony.” Yf we use the term with so much latitude as to
embrace the predominating idea, both of ancients and mo¬
derns, we shall say that a colony means an outlying part
of the population of the mother country, or an outlying
territory belonging to it, either both in conjunction, or any
one of the two by itself.
i
Sect. I.—Of that Class of Colonies in the Conception of
which the Idea of the People is the predominating Idea.
Of this sort were the Roman and the Grecian colonies,
and of this sort are some of the British colonies.
1. The Roman colonies arose out of a peculiarity in the
situation of the Roman people. In Rome, as in other
countries, the lands were originally regarded as belonging
to the state, and as belonging to the people when the
people took the powers of government to themselves. A
sense of convenience there, as everywhere else, rendered
the land private property by degrees ; and, under a form
of government so very defective as the Roman, the in¬
fluence of the leading men enabled them in a short time
to engross it. The people, when reduced to misery, did
not altogether forget that the land had once been regard¬
ed as theirs, and every now and then asserted their claims
in so formidable a manner that, when aided by circum¬
stances, they compelled the ruling few to make something
of a sacrifice. They did not indeed compel them to give
up the lands which they had appropriated; but it always
happened that, in the countries conquered by the Romans,
a portion of the lands was public property, and continued
to be cultivated for the benefit of the Roman state. When
the importunity of the people for a division of lands began Colony,
to be troublesome or formidable, a portion of these lands
was generally resorted to, enough to take off the most fiery
of the spirits, and, contenting the leaders, to quiet the po¬
pulace for a time. The portion of land set apart for the
purpose was divided at the rate of so much for every man ;
and a sufficient number of persons to occupy it, and to
form a community, were sent out, more or less provided
with the various supplies which were necessary for com¬
mencing the settlement.
In the nature of an establishment of this description
there is no mystery, and hardly any thing which requires
explanation. The colonists lived in a Roman province,
under Roman laws, and differed not materially from the
people of any other local jurisdiction. Being once got rid
of, no further advantage was expected from them than from
the other inhabitants of the country, in paying taxes, for
example, and furnishing men for the army. In a few
instances, in the planting of colonies, some benefit was
looked to in the way of defence, when they were esta¬
blished in newly-conquered countries, the people of which
were not yet patient under the yoke, or when they were
placed in the way of invading enemies. But not muc-h
advantage of this sort can be derived from a colony which
in general has more need to receive than ability to yield
protection.
These colonies were planted wholly for the benefit of
the Roman aristocracy. They were expedients for pre¬
serving to them the extraordinary advantages and powers
they had been enabled to assume, by allaying that impa¬
tience of the people, under which the retention of their
usurpations became difficult and doubtful. The wander
is that the people were so easily contented, and that,
having the means of intimidating the aristocracy to so
great a degree, they did not insist upon greater advan¬
tages: And the pity is that they understood so little
what was for their advantage. If, instead of demanding
a portion of land, the benefit of which, at best, was only
temporary, they had demanded good laws, and had ob¬
tained efficient securities for good government, securities
against that prevalence of the interests of the few over
the interests of the many, which existed to so great an
extent in the Roman government, as it has existed, and
still does exist, in almost all other governments; they
would have rendered to themselves, and would have ren¬
dered to the human race, the greatest of all possible ser¬
vices. But the human mind had not then made sufficient
progress to see distinctly what was the real object of good
government, or what the means which would be effectual
in attaining it.
2. We next come to the class of colonies which are
exemplified in the case of those sent out by the Greeks;
and we take them in order subsequently to the Roman,
because there is something in them for which rather more
of explanation is required. Of those early migrations
which carried a Greek population into Asia Minor, and at
a later period into Italy and Sicily, we have not a suffi¬
cient number of historical facts to know very accurately
the cause. It may be, that internal commotions, and as
frequently a superabounding population, were the source
from which they were derived. When, of two contend-
ing parties, one acquired the ascendency, they frequently
made the situation of their opponents so painful to them,
and sometimes also the shame of defeat was so great, that
the vanquished party chose rather to live anywhere than
be subject to the power and contempt of those over whom
they had hoped to domineer. The leaders proposed emi¬
gration ; and a great part of those who contended under
their banners, were ready to depart along with them. In
this way they might remove in large bodies, and, carrying
136 COLON Y.
Colony, with them all their moveable effects, would be in circum-
stances, when, they established themselves on a fertile soil,
to attain, in a little time, a great degree of prosperity. All
this seems necessary to account for the flourishing state
of the Greeks in Asia Minor, among whom arts and sci¬
ences flourished sooner, and civilization made still more
rapid strides, till checked by Persian domination, than in
the mother country itself, where a more dense population
and a less fertile soil opposed obstructions to the happiness
of the people and the progress of the human mind.
There is nothing in modern times which so much re¬
sembles the colonization of Asia Minor by the Greeks, as
the colonization of North America by the English. Of the
first English planters of North America, a large propor¬
tion went out to escape the oppression of a predominat¬
ing religion, as the Greeks did to escape the oppiession
of a predominating political party. One difference there
was—that the English did not go off at once in any con¬
siderable bodies, under distinguished leaders, or with any
great accompaniment of capital, the means of future pro¬
sperity. Accordingly, the prosperity of the British colo¬
nies in North America was much less rapid and much less
brilliant than that of the Grecian colonies in Asia Minor.
Another great difference there was, in that the English
colonies, though they made a sort of subordinate govern¬
ment for themselves, were still held to be subject to the
government of the mother country. The Grecian colonies
became states, in all respects independent, owning no go¬
vernment but that which they established for themselves ;
though they still looked to the mother country for protec¬
tion and assistance, and held themselves under a very
strong obligation to befriend and assist her in all her dif¬
ficulties.
In regard to those detachments of the population of the
Grecian states, which resulted either from political dis¬
gust or political oppression, there is nothing which stands
in need of explanation. The motive which gave rise to
them is familiar and obvious; and the sort of relation in
which they and the mother country stood to one another,
importing mutual benevolence, but no right in the one to
command, or obligation on the other to obey, every body
can immediately understand.
There were other occasions, however, on which the
Greeks sent out colonies ; and these are the colonies which
are commonly meant, when the Grecian principle of colo¬
nization is spoken of by way of distinction. These were
resorted to when the population of the mother country
became superabundant, and relief was demanded by a di¬
minution of numbers. This is a ground of colonization,
which, since the principle of population has been shown to
exert so great an influence upon the condition of human
beings, deserves profound regard. We shall not, there¬
fore, pass it by without a few observations.
A population is said to be redundant: when is it so?
Not when it is numerically either great or small, but sole¬
ly and exclusively when it is too great for the quantity
of food. Any one country produces or procures a certain
quantity of food in the year. If it has a population greater
than such a quantity of food is sufficient to maintain, all
that number which is over and above what it is capable of
maintaining, is a redundancy of population.
A curious phenomenon here presents itself. A redun¬
dancy of population in the states of ancient Greece made
itself visible even to vulgar eyes. A redundancy of popu¬
lation in modern Europe never makes itself visible to any
but the most enlightened eyes. Ask an ordinary man,
ask almost any man, if the population of his country is
too great; if the population of any country in Europe is,
or ever was, too great. So far, he will tell you, is it from
being too great, that good policy would consist in making
it, if possible, still greater; and he might quote, in his Colony,
own support, the authority of almost all governments,
which are commonly at pains to prevent the emigration of
their people, and to give encouragement to marriage.
The explanation of the phenomena is easy; but it is
also of the highest importance. When the supply of food
is too small for the population, the deficiency operates, in
modern Europe, in a manner different from that in which
it operated in ancient Greece. In modern Europe the
greatest portion of the food is bought by the great body
of the people. WTiat the great body of the people have to
give for it, is nothing but labour. When the quantity of
food is not sufficient for all, and when some are in danger
of not getting any, each man is induced, in order to secure
a portion to himself, to give better terms for it than any
other men, that is, more labour. In other words, that
part of the population who have nothing to give for food
but labour, take less wages. This is the primary effect,
clear, immediate, certain. It is only requisite farther to
trace the secondary or derivative effects.
When we say, that in the case in which the supply of
food has become too small for the population, the great
body of the people take less wages, that is, less food, for
their labour, we mean that they take less than is neces¬
sary for comfortable subsistence ; because they would
only have what is necessary for comfortable subsistence
in the case in which the supply of food is not too small for
the whole.
The effect, then, of a disproportion between the food
and the population, is not to feed to the full measure that
portion of the population which it is sufficient to feed, and
to leave the redundant portion destitute; is to take, ac¬
cording to a certain rate, a portion of his due quantity
from each individual of that great class who have nothing
to give for it but ordinary labour.
What this state of things imports is most easily seen.
The great class who have nothing to give for food but or¬
dinary labour, are the great body of the people. When
every individual in the great body of the people has less
than the due quantity of food, less than would fall to his
share if the quantity of food were not too small for the
population, the state of the great body of the people is the
state of sordid, painful, and degrading poverty. They are
wretchedly fed, wretchedly clothed, have wretched houses,
and neither time nor means to keep either their houses or
their persons free from disgusting impurity. Those of
them who, either from bodily infirmities, have less than
the ordinary quantity of labour to bestow, or, from the
state of their families, need a greater than the ordinary
quantity of food, are condemned to starve ; either wholly,
if they have not enough to keep them alive, or partially,
if they have enough to yield them a lingering, diseased,
and, after all, a shortened existence.
What the ignorant and vulgar spectator sees in all this
is not a redundant population, it is only a poor population.
He sees nobody without food who has enough to give for
it. To his eye, therefore, it is not food which is wanting,
but that which is to be given for it. When events suc¬
ceed in this train, and are viewed with these eyes, there
never can appear to be a redundancy of population.
Events succeeded in a different train in the states of
ancient Greece, and rendered a redundancy of population
somewhat more visible, even to vulgar and ignorant eyes.
In ancient Greece, the greatest portion of the food was
not bought by the great body of the people ; the state of
whom, wretched or comfortable, legislation has never yet
been wise enough much to regard. All manual labour,
or, at least, the far greatest portion of it, was performed,
not by free labourers serving for wages, but by slaves,
who were the property of the great men. The deficiency
COLONY.
137
Colony, of food, therefore, was not distributed in the shape of ge-
neral poverty and wretchedness over the great body of
the population, by reduction of wages ; a case which af¬
fects, with very slight sensations, those who regard them¬
selves as in no degree liable to fall into that miserable si¬
tuation. It was felt, first of all, by the great men, in the
greater cost of maintaining their slaves. And what is felt
as disagreeable by the great men, is sure never to continue
long without an effort, either wise or foolish, for the re¬
moval of it. This law of human nature was not less faith¬
fully observed in the states of ancient Greece, for their
being called republics. Called republics, they in reality
were aristocracies ; and aristocracies of a very bad descrip¬
tion. They were aristocracies in which the people were
cheated with an idea of power, merely because they were
able, at certain distant intervals, when violently excited,
to overpower the aristocracy in some one particular point;
but they were aristocracies in which there was not one
efficient security to prevent the interests of the many from
being sacrificed to the interests of the few; they were aris¬
tocracies, accordingly, in which the interests of the many
were habitually sacrificed to the interests of the few;
meaning by the many, not the slaves merely, but the great
body of the free citizens. This was the case in all the states
of Greece, and not least in Athens. This is not seen in
reading the French and English histories of Greece. It is
not seen in reading Mitford, who has written a History of
Greece for no other purpose but that of showing that the
interests of the many always ought to be sacrificed to the
interests of the few ; and of abusing the people of Greece,
because every now and then the many in those coun¬
tries showed that they were by no means patient under
the habitual sacrifice of their interests to those of the
few. But it is very distinctly seen, among other occa¬
sions, in reading the Greek orators, in reading Demos¬
thenes for example, in reading the oration against Midias,
the oration on Leptines, and others, in which the license
of the rich and powerful, and their means of oppressing
the body of the people, are shown to have been excessive,
and to have been exercised with a shameless atrocity,
which the gentleness and modesty of the manners of mo¬
dern Europe, even in the most aristocratically despotic
countries, wholly preclude.
In Greece, then, any thing which so intimately affect¬
ed the great men, as the growing cost of maintaining their
slaves, would not long remain without serious attempts
to find a remedy.
It was not, however, in this way alone that a redundant
population showed itself in Greece. As not many of the
free citizens maintained themselves by manual labour,
they had but two resources more, the land, and profits of
stock. Those who lived on profits of stock, did so com¬
monly by employing slaves in some of the known arts and
manufactures, and of course were affected by the growing
cost of maintaining their slaves. Those who lived on the
produce of a certain portion of the land, could not but
exhibit very distinctly the redundancy of their numbers,
when, by the multiplication of families, portions came to
be so far subdivided, that what belonged to each indivi¬
dual was insufficient for his maintenance.
In this manner, then, it is very distinctly seen, why, to
vulgar eyes, there never appears, in modern Europe, to
be any redundancy of population, any demand for reliev¬
ing the country by carrying away a portion of the people;
and why, in ancient Greece, that redundancy made itself
be very sensibly perceived ; and created, at various times,
a perfectly efficient demand for removing to distant places
a considerable portion of the people.
But what if that redundancy of population which shows
itself in modern Europe, in the effects of reduced wages,
VOL. VII.
and a poor and starving people, should suggest to rulers Colony,
the policy of ancient Greece, and some time or other re-
commend colonization ? A few reflections may be well be¬
stowed upon a supposition of this kind.
In the first place, it should be very distinctly understood
what it is we mean when we say, in regard to such a coun¬
try as Great Britain, for example, that the supply of food
is too small for the population ; because it may be said im¬
mediately, that the quantity of food may be increased in
Great Britain, a proposition which no man will think of
denying.
Let us suppose that, in an}*- given year, this year for ex¬
ample, the food in Great Britain is too small for the peo¬
ple, by 10,000 individuals. It is no doubt true, that addi¬
tional food sufficient to supply 10,000 individuals might be
raised next year; but where would be the amelioration, if
10,000 individuals were at the same time added to the
numbers to be fed ? Now, the tendency of population is
such as to make, in almost all cases, the real state of the
facts correspond with this supposition. Population not
only rises to the level of the present supply of food; but,
if you go on every year increasing the quantity of food,
population goes on increasing at the same time, and so
fast, that the food is commonly still too small for the peo¬
ple. This is the grand proposition of Mr Malthus’s book;
it is not only quite original, but it is that point of the sub¬
ject from which all the more important consequences flow;
consequences which, till that point was made known, could
not be understood.
When we say that the quantity of food in any country
is too small for the quantity of the people, and that, though
we may increase the quantity of food, the population will
at the same time increase so fast that the food will still
be too small for the people ; we may be encountered with
another proposition. It may be said, that we may increase
food still faster than it is possible to increase population.
And there are situations in which we must allow that the
proposition is true.
In countries newly inhabited, or in which there is a
small number of people, there is commonly a quantity of
land, yielding a large produce for a given portion of la¬
bour. So long as the land continues to yield in this liberal
manner, how fast soever population increases, food may in¬
crease with equal rapidity, and plenty remain. When po¬
pulation, however, has^ increased to a certain extent, all
the best land is occupied; if it increases any farther, land
of a worse quality must be taken in hand; when land of
the next best quality is all exhausted, land of a still in¬
ferior quality must be employed, till at last you come to
that which is exceedingly barren. In this progress it is
very evident that it is always gradually becoming more
and more difficult to make food increase with any given
degree of rapidity, and that you must come at last to a
point where it is altogether impossible.
It may, however, be said, and has been said in substance,
though not very clearly, by some of Mr Malthus’s oppo¬
nents, that it is improper to speak of food as too small for
the population, so long as food can be made to increase at
an equal rate with population ; and though it is no doubt
true that, in the states of modern Europe, food does not
actually increase so fast as the population, and hence the
poverty and wretchedness of the people; yet it would be
very possible to make food increase as fast as population,
and hence to make the people happy without diminishing
their numbers by colonization ; and it is owing to unfavour¬
able, or to ill-contrived institutions, that such is not the
effect universally experienced.
As this observation has in it a remarkable combination
of truth and error, it is worthy of a little pains to make the
separation.
s
138
COLONY.
Colony. There can be no doubt that, by employing next year a
greater proportion of the people upon the land than this
year, we should raise a greater quantity of food; by em¬
ploying a still greater proportion the year following, we
should produce a still greater quantity of food; and, in
this way, it would be possible to go on for some time, in¬
creasing food as fast as it would be possible for the popu¬
lation to increase. But observe at what cost this effect
would be attained. As the land yields gradually less and
less to every new portion of labour, it would be necessary
to employ, gradually, not only a greater and greater num¬
ber, but a greater and greater proportion of the people in
raising food. But the greater the proportion of the people
which is employed in raising food, the smaller is the pro¬
portion which can be employed in producing any thing
else. You can only, therefore, increase the quantity of
food, to meet the demand of an increasing population, by
diminishing the supply of those other things which mini¬
ster to human desires.
There can be no doubt that, by increasing every year
the proportion of the population which you employ in
raising food, and diminishing every year the proportion
employed in every thing else, you may go on increasing
food as fast as population increases, till the labour of a
man upon the land is just sufficient to add as much to the
produce as will maintain himself and raise a family. Sup¬
pose, where the principle of population is free from all re¬
striction, the average number of children reared in a fa¬
mily is five; in that case, so long as the man’s labour,
added to the labour already employed upon the land, can
produce food sufficient for himself and the rearing of five
children, food may be made to keep pace with population.
But if things were made to go on in such an order till
they arrived at that pass, men would have food, but they
would have nothing else. They would have neither clothes,
nor houses, nor furniture. There would be nothing for
elegance, nothing for ease, nothing for pleasure. There
would be no class exempt from the necessity of perpetual
labour, by whom knowledge might be cultivated, and dis¬
coveries useful to mankind might be made. There would
be no physicians, no legislators. The human race would
become a mere multitude of animals, of a very low de¬
scription, having just two functions, that of raising food,
and that of consuming it.
To shorten this analysis, let us then assume what will
hardly be disputed, that it is by no means desirable for
human nature to be brought into a situation in which it
would be necessary for every human being to be employ¬
ed, and fully employed, in the raising of food; that it
never can be desirable that more than a certain proportion
should be employed in the raising of food ; that it must
for ever be desirable that a certain proportion should be
employed in producing other things which minister to hu¬
man desires; and that there should be a class possessed
of leisure, among whom the desire of knowledge may be
fostered, and those individuals reared who are qualified to
advance the boundaries of knowledge, and add to the
powers and enjoyments of man.
It is useless, then, to tell us that we have the physical
power of increasing food as fast as population. As soon as
we have arrived at that point at which the due distribu¬
tion of the population is made between those who raise
food and those who are in other ways employed in con¬
tributing to the well-being of the members of the commu-
nity, any increase of the food faster than is consistent
with that distribution can only be made at the expense
of those other things, by the enjoyment of which the life
of man is preferable to that of the brutes. At this point
the progress of population ought undoubtedly to be re¬
strained. Population may still increase, because the quan¬
tity of food may still be capable of being increased, though
not beyond a certain slowness of rate, without requiring to v
the production of it a greater than the due proportion of
the population.
Suppose, then, when the due proportion of the popula¬
tion is allotted to the raising of food, and the due propor¬
tion to other desirable occupations, that the institutions
of society were such as to prevent a greater proportion
from being withdrawn from those occupations to the rais¬
ing of food. It would, surely, be very desirable that the
institutions of society should secure this important object.
If population, in that case, should go on at its full rate of
increase, or, in other words, faster than with such a distri¬
bution of the population it would be possible for food to
be increased, what would be the consequences ? The an¬
swer is abundantly plain. All those effects would take
place which have already been described as following upon
the existence of a redundant population in modern Eu¬
rope, and in all countries in which the great body of those
who have nothing to give for food but labour, are free
labourers. Wages would fall; poverty would overspread
the population; and all those horrid phenomena would
exhibit themselves which are the never-failing attendants
on a poor population.
It is of no great importance though the institutions of
society may be such as to make the proportion of the po¬
pulation kept back from the providing of food rather
greater than it might be. All that happens is, that the
redundancy of population begins a little earlier. The un¬
restrained progress of population would soon have added
the deficient number to the proportion employed in the
raising of food; and, at whatever point the redundancy
begins, the effects are always the same.
What are the best means of checking the progress of
population, when it cannot go on unrestrained, without
producing one or other of two most undesirable effects,
either drawing an undue proportion of the population to
the mere raising of food, or producing poverty and wretch¬
edness, it is not now the time to inquire. It is, indeed,
the most important practical problem to which the wis¬
dom of the politician and moralist can be applied. It has,
till this time, been miserably evaded by all those who
have meddled with the subject, as well as by all those
who were called upon by their situation to find a remedy
for the evils to which it relates. And yet, if the super¬
stitions of the nursery were discarded, and the principle
of utility kept steadily in view, a solution might not be
very difficult to be found; and the means of drying up
one of the most copious sources of human evil, a source
which, if all other sources of evil were taken away, would
alone suffice to retain the great mass of human beings in
misery, might be seen to be neither doubtful nor difficult
to be applied.
The only question to which we are here required to find
an answer, is that of colonization. When the population
of a country is full, and its increase cannot go on at its
most rapid pace, without producing one of the two evils of
redundancy, a portion of the people, sent off to another
country, may create a void; and till this is filled up, popu¬
lation may advance as rapidly as before, and so on for any
number of times.
In certain circumstances, this is a better resource than
any scheme for diminishing the rate of population. So
long as the earth is not peopled to that state of fulness
which is most conducive to human happiness, it contri¬
butes to that important effect. It is highly desirable, on
many accounts, that every portion of the earth, the phy¬
sical circumstances of which are not inconsistent with hu¬
man well-being, should be inhabited, as fully as the con¬
ditions of human happiness admit. It is only in certain
Colony.
COLONY.
Colony, circumstances, however, that a body of people can be ad- What is chiefly desirable is, that the individual who is
vantageously removed from one country for the purpose proved to be a delinquent, should be so dealt with, that the
of colonizing another. In the first place, it is necessary mode of dealing with him may be as effectual as possible
that the land which they are about to occupy should be in deterring others from the commission of similar offences.
V capable of yielding a greater return to their labour than In pursuit of the first object, securing society from the*
the land which they leave; otherwise, though relief is crimes of the convicted individual, there is a good mode
given to the population they leave behind, their own cir- and a bad mode. The best of all modes, unquestionably
cumstances are not better than they would have been had is the reformation of the offender. Wherever this can be
they remained. accomplished, every other mode, it is evident, is a bad
Another condition is, that the expense of removal from one. Now, in regard to the reformation of the offender,
the mother country to the colonized country should not there is but one testimony, that New South Wales, of all
be too great; and that expense is usually created by dis- places on the face of the earth, except, perhaps, a British
. . . prison, is the place where there is the least chance for the
. the expense is too great, the population which re- reformation of an offender, the greatest chance of his being
mams behind in the mother country may suffer more by improved and perfected in every species of wickedness,
the loss of capital than it gains by the diminution of num- If it be said, that taking a man to New South Wales at
e^s’ u r i i any rate affords to the British community security against
it has been often enough, and clearly enough, explained, the crimes of that man, we may answer, that putting him
that it is only capital which gives employment to labour; to death would do so. And we further pronounce, that
we may, therefore, take it as a postulate. A certain quan- saving a man from death, with the mind of a delinquent,
tity of capital, then, is necessary to give employment to and sending him to New South Wales, to all the effects
t ie population which any removal for the sake of colo- of his vicious propensities, is seldom doing even him any
nization may leave behind. But if, to afford the expense good.
of that removal, so much is taken from the capital of the It is, however, not true that sending a delinquent to
country that the remainder is not sufficient for the em- New South Wales secures the British community from
ployment of the remaining population, there is, in that his future offences. A very great proportion of those who
case, a redundancy of population, and all the evils which are sent to New South Wales find the means of returning-
it brings. For the well-being of the remaining population, and those who do so are in general, and may always be
a certain quantity of food is required, and a certain quan- expected to be, the very worst. J J
tity of all those other things which minister to human hap- We have a high authority for this affirmation. The
piness. But to raise this quantity of food, and this quantity committee of the House of Commons, who were appointed
^ ...i , in the session of 1812 “ to inquire into the manner in
which sentences of transportation are executed, and the
effects which have been produced by that mode of punish¬
ment,” stated solemnly in their report, that “ no difficul¬
ty appears to exist among the major part of the men who
do not wish to remain in the colony, of finding means to
return to this country. All but the aged and infirm easi¬
ly find employment on board the ships visiting New South
Wales, and are allowed to work their passage home. But
such facility is not afforded to the women. They have no
possible method of leaving the colony, but by prostituting
themselves on board the ships whose masters may choose
to receive them. They who are sent to New South Wales,
that their former habits may be relinquished, cannot ob¬
tain a return to this country, but by relapsing into that
mode of life which, with many, has been the cause of all
their crimes and misfortunes. To those who shrink from
these means, or are unable, even thus, to obtain a passage
for themselves, transportation for seven years is converted
into a banishment for life ; and the just and humane pro¬
visions of the law, by which different periods of transpor¬
tation are apportioned to different degrees of crime, are
rendered entirely null.”
So much, then, with regard to the reformation of the
individual, and security from his crimes, neither of which
is attained. But, even on the supposition that both were
ever so completely attained, there would still be a ques¬
tion of great importance, namely, whether the same effects
could not be attained at a smaller expense ? It never
ought to be forgotten that society is injured by every
particle of unnecessary expense ; that one of the most re¬
markable of all the points of bad government is that of
rendering the services of government at a greater than
the smallest possible expense ; and that one of the most
remarkable of all the points of good government is that of
rendering every service which it is called upon to render,
at the smallest possible expense.
In this respect, also, the policy of the New South Wales
establishment is faulty beyond all endurance. The cost
ux uniei Luujus, a ueiuuii qixaiiuiy ox capital is indispensa¬
bly necessary. If that quantity of capital is not supplied,
the food and other things cannot be obtained.
On the subject of that class of colonies, in the concep¬
tion of which the idea of the people is the predominating
idea, we have nowr explained the principle which is exem¬
plified in the Roman, and that which is exemplified in the
Grecian cases; belonging to the same class there are Bri¬
tish colonies, in which another and a very remarkable
principle is exemplified. The Greeks planted colonies for
the sake of getting rid of a redundant population ; the
British, for the sake of getting rid of a delinquent popula¬
tion.
3. The Brilliant idea of a colony for the sake of getting
rid of a delinquent population, if not peculiar to English
policy, is, at any rate, a much more remarkable part of the
policy of England than of that of any other country. We
have not time here to trace the history of this singular
portion of English policy; nor is it of much importance.
Every body knows, that this mode of disposing of delin¬
quents was carried to a considerable height before this
country lost her dominion over the North American colo¬
nies, to which she annually transported a considerable
number of convicts. It will suffice, for the present occa¬
sion, to offer a few observations on the nature of such an
establishment as that of New South Wales.
Considered in the light of its utility as a territory, the co¬
lony of New South Wales will be included in the investi¬
gation of that class of colonies, in the conception of which
the idea of territory is the predominating idea. At present
it is to be considered in its capacity of a place for re¬
ceiving the delinquent part of the British population.
In dealing with a delinquent population, the end to be
aimed at, the security of the non-delinquent, embraces
two particulars; security from the crimes of this or that
individual delinquent himself, and security from those of
other men who may be tempted to follow his example.
The first object is comparatively easy. It is not diffi¬
cult to prevent an individual from doing any mischief.
140
COLONY.
Colon v.
of disposing in this way of a delinquent population is pro¬
digious. We have no room for details, and there is no
occasion for proof; the fact is notorious ; whereas, on the
contrary, it is now well known that, in houses of industry
and reformation upon the best possible plan, that, for ex¬
ample of Mr Bentham's Panopticon, which has no parallel,
there is little or no expense, there is perfect security
against the future crimes of the delinquent, and that to a
great degree, by the best of all possible modes, his refor¬
mation.
If the mode of dealing with a delinquent according to
such an institution as that of New South Wales is thus
wretched, as far as regards the securing of the communi¬
ty from the future crimes of the convicted delinquent, it
is not less so in what regards the deterring of all other
men from following similar courses to those of the delin¬
quent.
It is very evident that this last is by far the most im¬
portant of the two objects. It is now agreed that this is
the end, the only good end, of all punishment properly so
called; for mere safe custody and satisfaction to the in¬
jured party are not, in the proper sense of the word, pu¬
nishments ; they are for other ends than punishment, in
any point of view in which it is ever contemplated.
The great importance of this above the previous case
consists in this, that when you take security against the
crimes of the convicted delinquent, you take security
against the crimes of only one man, and that a man in
your hands, with whom you can deal as you please. When,
by means of the mode of dealing with him, you deter all
other men from following similar courses, you provide se¬
curity, not against one man alone, but many men, any
number of men, of men undetected, and not in your
power, each of whom may be guilty of many crimes be¬
fore he can be stopped.
On this point it is only necessary, for form’s sake, to
write down what is the fact; for every human being of
common reflection must anticipate the observation before
it is made. If an assembly of ingenious men, in the cha¬
racter of legislators, had taken pains to devise a method of
dealing with delinquents, which, while it had some appear¬
ance of securing society from the crimes of the detected
individual, should be, to the greatest possible degree, de¬
void both of the reality and even the appearance of any
efficacy of deterring other men from the pursuit of similar
courses, they could not have devised any thing better cal¬
culated for that preposterous end than the colony of New
South Wales. Nothing can operate where it is not. The
men to be operated upon are in England; the example
which should operate is in New South Wales. Much
more might be said, but it is unnecessary. In the great
majority of cases a voyage to New South Wales has not
even the appearance of a punishment. Men of that de¬
scription have neither friends nor affections. They leave
behind nobody whom they like, and nobody who likes
them. What is it to such men that they are for a while
or for ever taken away from England, along very fre¬
quently with the only sort of persons with whom they
have any connection, the companions of their debauche¬
ries and of their crimes?
Sect. II.—Of Colonies, in the conception of which the idea
of Territory is the predominating idea.
Of this sort are most of the colonies of the states of
modern Europe; the British possessions, for example, in
the East and West Indies.
The question is, in what way or ways, abstracting from
the questions of population, an outlying territory, consi¬
dered merely as territory, is calculated to become advanta¬
geous; or, in other words, what reasons can any country
have for desiring to possess the government of such ter¬
ritories ?
There are two ways which will easily present them¬
selves to every mind, as ways in which advantage may
accrue to the governing country. First, these outlying
dominions may yield a tribute to the mother country;
secondly, they may yield an advantageous trade.
Colony.
1. Where Tribute to the Mother Country is the benefit she
proposes.
This will not require many words, as few persons are
much in error on the subject. In regard to the W’est
Indies, no such idea as that of a tribute has ever been
entertained. Even in regard to those taxes which a vain
and unprofitable attempt was made to impose upon the
formerly existing colonies in North America, they were
never dreamt of as a tribute, and never spoken of but in
a sense contrary to the very idea of a tribute, that of re¬
imbursing to the mother country a part, and no more than
a part, of that which they cost her in governing and de¬
fending them.
With regard to the East Indies, we believe, there exists
more or less of prejudice. Under the ignorance in which
Englishmen have remained of East India affairs, it floats
in the minds of a great many persons, that, somehow or
other, a tribute, or what is equivalent to a tribute, does
come from the East Indies. Never did an opinion exist
more completely without evidence, contrary to evidence,
evidence notorious, and well known to the persons them¬
selves by whom the belief is entertained. India, instead
of yielding a tribute to England, has never yielded enough
for the expense of its own government. What is the proof?
That its government has always been in debt, and has been
under the necessity of continually augmenting its debt,
till it has arrived at a magnitude which it has often itself
described as alarming.
So far is India from yielding a tribute to Great Britain,
that, in loans and aids, and the expense of fleets and ar¬
mies, it has cost this country enormous sums. It is no
doubt true, that some acts of parliament have assumed
the existence of a tribute from India, or what has been
called a surplus revenue, for the use of the nation. But
parliament, we have pretty good experience, cannot make
things by affirming them. Things are a little more stub¬
born than the credulity of Englishmen. That, in general,
is obedient enough to the affirmations of those who lead
the parliament, and who have sometimes an interest in
leading it wrong. Facts take their own course, without
regard to the affirmations of parliament, or the plastic
faith of those who follow them.
A general proposition on this subject may be safely ad¬
vanced. We may affirm it, as a deduction from the ex¬
perienced laws of human society, that there is, if not an
absolute, at least a moral impossibility, that a colony
should ever benefit the mother country by yielding it a
permanent tribute.
Let any body but consider what is included in the wrord
government; and when he has done that, let him then tell
himself that the colonies must be governed. If he has
the sufficient degree of knowledge and reflection, no fur¬
ther proof will be necessary.
No proposition in regard to government is more uni¬
versal, more free from all exception, than this, that a go¬
vernment always spends as much as it finds it possible or
safe to extract from the people. It would not suit the li¬
mits of the present design, to run over the different go¬
vernments of the world for the experimental proof of this
proposition. We must invite every reader to do it for
himself. Of one thing we are perfectly sure, that the
COLONY.
141
Colony, more profoundly he is read in history, the more thorough- received. It is evident that this sort of bargain may sub-
ly wiH he be convinced of the universality of the fact. sist between any two states whose circumstances it may
Now, then, consider whether this universal fact be not suit, and is not confined to a mother and daughter coun-
inconsistent with the idea of a tribute from a colony, try. It is, therefore, no part of the question relating to
The government of the mother country itself cannot keep colonies,
its expenses within bounds. It takes from the people all
it can possibly take, and is still going beyond its resources. W^ere Profits of Trade are the advantage sought by the
But if such is the course of government at home, things Mother Country.
must be worse in the colonies. Ihe farther servants are We have now investigated the first of the modes in
removed from the eye of the master, the worse, generally which a colony, considered as territory merely, may be
speaking, their conduct will be. The government of the expected to benefit the mother country; and we have
colonies, managed by delegates from home, is sure to be seen the chances of good which it affords. The second
worse, in all respects, than the government at home ; and, of these modes, namely, the trade, by means of which it is
as expense is one of the shapes in which the badness of supposed that colonies may benefit the mother country, is
government is most prone to manifest itself, it is sure, a topic of some importance; for it is on account of the
above all things, to be in proportion to its resources more trade that colonies have remained an object of affection
expensive. Whatever springs operate at home to restrain to Englishmen. It is on account of trade solely that the
the badness of government, cannot fail to operate with di- colonies in the West Indies are valued; and though an
minished force at the distance of a colony. The conclu- idea of something like a tribute from the East Indies has
sion is irresistible. If the government of the mother till this time maintained a place in the minds of the un¬
country is sure to spend up to the resources of the coun- thinking part of the community, still it is the trade which
try, and if a still stronger necessity operates upon the has been supposed to be the principal source of the ad-
government of the colony to produce this effect, how can vantage which has been ascribed to what we call “ the
it possibly afford any tribute ? British empire in the East.”
If it be objected to this conclusion, that this propensity In the idea of deriving a peculiar advantage from the
of governments to spend may be corrected, we answer, trade of the colonies, is necessarily included the idea of
that this is not the present question. Take governments monopoly. If the trade of the colony were free, other na-
as, with hardly any exception, they have always been tions would derive as much advantage from it as the mo-
Cthis is a pretty wide experience]], and the effect is cer- ther country; and the mother country would derive as
tain. There is one way, to be sure, of pieventing the much advantage from it if the colony were not a colony
great evil, and preventing it thoroughly; but there is only Dr Smith affirms that this monopoly can never be of
one. In the constitution of the government, make the in- any advantage—must always, on the contrary, be a source
terest of the many to have the ascendency over the inte- of great disadvantage to the mother country,
rest of the few, and the expense of government will not If the trade of the colony is left open to all the mer-
be large. The services expected from government may, chants of the mother country, it will no doubt happen
generally speaking, be all rendered in the best possible that the competition of these merchants, one with ano-
manner, at very little expense. Whenever the interests ther, will make them sell as cheap in the colony as they
of the many are made, in the framing of governments, to can afford to sell, that is, buy as dear as they can afford
have the ascendency over the interests of the few, the to buy. The produce of the colony will, in that case, go
- services of government will always be rendered at the as cheap to the foreign as to the home consumer.
smallest possible expense. So long as the interests of the There is another case, namely, that in which the trade
few are made to have the ascendency over the interests of the colony is placed in the hands of an exclusive com-
of the many, the services of government are all sure to pany. In that case it is true that the mother country
be rendered at the greatest possible expense. In almost may obtain a great quantity of the goods of the colony-
all governments that have ever yet existed, the interest for a less quantity of her own than otherwise she would
of the few has had an ascendency over the interests of do. The goods of the mother country are in that case
the many. In all, the expense of government has, ac- placed, with regard to the goods of the colony, in the si-
cordingly, been always as great as, in existing circum- tuation in which those commodities which can only be
stances, the people could be made, or could be made with produced in a limited quantity, particular wines, for ex¬
safety, to give the means of making it. ample, which can only be produced on one particular spot,
One other supposition may be urged in favour of the are placed with regard to all the rest of the goods in the
tribute. The expense, it may be said, of governing the world. It is evident that any quantity of the rest of the
colony by a deputation from the mother country may be goods in the world may be given for those wines, if people
escaped by allowing the colony to govern itself. In that are sufficiently desirous to possess them; that there is no
case the colony will not choose to pay a tribute. If the limit, in short, to that quantity, but the unwillino-ness of
tribute rests upon the ground of friendship, it will not be people to part with more of the things which they pos-
lasting. If the mother country extorts it by force, the sess, to obtain the commodities which are thus in request
colony is, in fact, governed by the mother country; and The same would be the case with a coloriy, the trade of
all the expense of that mode of government is insured, which was entirely in the hands of an exclusive company
If it be urged that the colony may continue to pay a tri- The exclusive company, by limiting the quantity of the
bute to the mother country, and that voluntarily, because goods of the mother country which they chose to send to
the mother country may be of use to it; that, we may an- the colony, might compel the colonists to give for that
swer, is a bargain, not a tribute. The mother country, limited quantity any quantity of the produce of their own
for example, may yield a certain portion of defence. But land and labour which their desire to obtain the ffoods
the colony is saved from the expense of providing for it- of the mother country would admit. If the goods of the
self that defence which it receives from the mother coun- mother country were goods which excited a very strong
try, and makes a good bargain if it gets it from the mo- desire, if they were goods of the first necessity the ne¬
ther country cheaper than it could be provided by itself, cessary materials of food or the instruments of their in-
In this case, too, the expense incurred by the mother dustry, there would be no limit but one to the greatness
country is apt to be a very full equivalent for the tribute of the quantity of their own produce, which they might
Colony.
142 COLONY.
Colony, be compelled to pay for a given quantity of the produce
of the mother country. When nothing was left to the
colony of the whole produce of its labour, but just enough
to keep the labourers alive, it could not go any farther.
Up to that point, if dependent for articles of the first ne¬
cessity, it might, by an exclusive company, undoubtedly
be stript.
Even where the monopoly is not confined to an exclu¬
sive company, but extended to all the merchants of the
mother country, she might still, in one supposable case,
draw an ordinary advantage from the trade of the colony.
The facts wrould be these. Whatever foreign goods the
colony bought, she would still be obliged to purchase from
the mother country. No doubt, the competition of the
merchants of the mother country would, in this case, com¬
pel them to sell as cheap to the colony as to any other
country. Wherein, then, would consist the advantage ?
In this, that England might thus sell in the colony, with
the usual profits of stock, certain kinds of goods, which
not being able to manufacture so cheaply as some other
countries, she would cease to manufacture, except for the
monopoly. But still a very natural question arises : What
advantage does she derive from forcing this manufacture,
since she makes by it no more than the ordinary profits of
stock, and might make the ordinary profits of stock by the
same capital in some other employment ? The answer is,
that she might, by this means, obtain a greater quantity of
the goods of the colony by a given quantity of the pro¬
duce of her own labour, or, what comes to the same thing,
an equal quantity of the goods of the colony by a less
quantity of the produce of her own labour, than she could
in a case of freedom.
It may be seen to be so in this manner. England de¬
sires to purchase, say 10,000 hogsheads of sugar. This is
her consumption. For this she will give, of the produce
of her own labour, whatever quantity it is necessary to
give. She wishes, however, to give as little as possible;
and the question is, in what way she may give the least.
The sugar is worth, say L.500,000. England sends goods to
the colony which sell for L.500,000. Now, apply the sup¬
position introduced above. Suppose that, if trade were
free, these goods from England, which the manufacturers
and merchants of England cannot afford to sell for less
than L.500,000, could be had for L.400,000 from some
other country. In that case it is evident, that the same
quantity of these same goods with which England, under
the monopoly, purchased 10,000 hogsheads of sugar, would
now purchase only 8000; for that is the ratio of the
, L.400,000 to the L.500,000. What then would happen,
supposing England still to resolve upon having 10,000
hogsheads of sugar ? One of two things must of necessity
happen. Either she will purchase the sugar with the
same goods, or she will not. If she purchase it with the
same goods, it is evident that she must give a greater
quantity of goods; she must give one fifth more of the
produce of her labour ; one fifth more of her industrious
people must be withdrawn from administering to other
productions, and employed in enabling her to obtain the
same quantity of sugar. This quantity of produce, in
that case, the mother country saves by means of the mo¬
nopolized trade of the colony ; this quantity she loses by
losing such a colony. But undoubtedly the mother coun¬
try would, in such a case, endeavour to purchase the sugar,
not with such goods as she purchased it with before,
but with other goods. She would endeavour to purchase
it with goods which she could manufacture as cheaply as
any other country; but supposing the colony had no de¬
mand for any goods which the mother country could af¬
ford as cheap as any other country, even in that case the
mother country would still have a resource. If there was
any country in which she could sell such goods for money, Colony,
she could purchase the same quantity of sugar for the same
quantity of the produce of her own labour as before.
It is not then true, according to Dr Smith, that in no
case can the mother country derive any peculiar advan¬
tage in the way of trade, from the possession of colonies.
We see that there are two cases in which she may derive
an advantage in that way. It remains to inquire what
that advantage is ultimately worth ; not only what it is in
itself independently, but what it is, after compensation is
made for all the disadvantages with which the attainment
of it is naturally attended.
We are first to inquire what is the value of that advan¬
tage, all deductions made, which the mother country may
derive, through an exclusive company, from the trade of
a colony ?
It is very evident, in the first place, that whatever the mo¬
ther country gains the colony loses. Now, if the colony
were part of the dominions of a foreign state, there is a cer¬
tain way of viewing such questions, in which that result
would appear to be perfectly desirable ; but, suppose that
the colony, which is the fact, is not part of the dominions of
a foreign state, but of the same state; that it is, in truth,
not part of a different country, but of the same country;
its subjects not part of a different community, but of the
same community; its poverty or riches not the poverty
or riches of another country, but of the same country.
How is the result to be viewed in that case ? Is it not
exactly the same sort of policy as if Yorkshire were to be
drained and oppressed for the benefit of Middlesex ?
What difference does it make, that one of the portions of
the same empire is somewhat farther off than another ?
Would it, for that reason, be more rational to pillage Caith¬
ness than to pillage Yorkshire for the sake of Middlesex ?
Does the wealth of a state consist in the wealth of one
part, effected by the misery of another ? What opinion
must we form of such a rule for guiding the policy of
state ? Assuredly this would be a contrivance not for in¬
creasing her wealth and happiness upon the whole: it
would be a contrivance for diminishing it. In the first
place, when, from one or two parties, equally provided
with the means of enjoyment, you take a portion to give
it to the other, the fact is,—a fact too well established,
and too consonant with the experience of every man, to
need illustration here,—that you do not add to the hap¬
piness of the one so much as you take from the happiness
of the other, and that you diminish the sum of the happi¬
ness of the two taken together. This in truth is the foun¬
dation upon which the laws for the protection of property
rest. As the happiness of one man is, or ought to be, of
no more value to the state than the happiness of another
man, if the man who takes from another man a part of his
property, added to his own happiness as much as he took
from the happiness of the other, there would be no loss of
happiness upon the whole, and the state would have no
ground in utility on which to interfere.
But this is not all. Not only is the quantity of hap¬
piness diminished upon the whole, but by that opera¬
tion which gives the mother country an advantage by
the trade of the colony, the quantity of produce of the
community is diminished upon the whole. The subjects
of the state, taken as a whole, not only enjoy less than
they would otherwise enjoy, but they produce less than
they would otherwise produce. The state is not a richer
state; it is, on the contrary, a poorer state, by means of
such a colonial policy.
By means of such a policy, a portion of the capital of
the state is employed in a channel in which it is less pro¬
ductive than it would have been in the channel into which
it would have gone of its own accord. It is a point esta-
COLONY.
Colony, blished in the science of political economy, that it is not
good policy to confine consumption to any sort of home
manufacture, when it can be purchased more cheaply
abroad. It is upon this ground that we have laughed at
the late and present outcries of the Germans, because
the English sell their goods cheaper than they can make
them. The reason is, because when a country continues
to consume an article made at home, which it could get
cheaper from another country, it does neither more nor
less than insist that it shall employ a certain number of
men s labour in providing it with that article, more than
it would be necessary to employ if it imported the article ;
and, of course, it loses completely the benefit of these men’s
laboui, who would otherwise be employed in producing
for it something else. The country is, therefore, the poorer
by the whole value of these men’s labour. The case is
exactly the same where the colonies are confined to the
manufactures of the mother country. When the colony
is obliged to employ, for the purpose of obtaining a cer¬
tain quantity of goods from the mother country, the labour
of a greater number of men than she would be obliged to
employ to get the same quantity of goods from another
country, she loses the labour of all that additional num¬
ber of men. At the same time the mother country does
not gain it; for if the mother country did not manufac¬
ture for the colony, her capital would be liberated to
another employment, and would yield the same profits in
that as it did in the former employment.
We have still, however, to examine that extraordinary
case which we before supposed, in which the mother
country cannot produce any sort of commodity whatso¬
ever as cheap as other countries, and, if trade were free,
of course would sell nothing in a foreign market. The
case here is somewhat altered. In liberating the colony
from the monopoly of the mother country, there would be
no change of capital from a less to a more productive em¬
ployment ; because, by the supposition, the mother coun¬
try has not a more productive employment to which her
liberated capital can be sent. Events would succeed in
the following order: The colony would obtain the goods
which it demanded, with a smaller portion of its own la¬
bour, and would hence be more amply supplied with goods.
But it is not supposed that this event would give to its
industry a more beneficial direction. In the case of a su¬
gar colony, at any rate, its industry would remain in the
same channels as before. Such would be the effects in
regard to the colony. What would they be in regard to the
mother country ? If her capital is no longer employed in
manufacturing for the colony, she can always, indeed,
employ it with the same profit as before. But she still
desires the same quantity of sugar, and her goods will not
go so far as before in the purchase of it. Whatever fall
would be necessary in the price of her goods to bring
them upon a level with the goods of other countries, is
equivalent, as far as she is concerned, to a rise of the same
amount in the price of sugar. In this case the mother
country would lose exactly as much as the colony would
gain. The community, taken as a whole, would be nei¬
ther the richer nor the poorer for driving the things out
of the free into the compulsory channel. The people of
the mother country would be so much the richer, the
people of the colony would be so much the poorer.
This, however, still remains to be said. There is only
one case in which this sort of monopoly would not dimi¬
nish the produce of the community, and render it positive¬
ly poorer upon the whole. There is only that one case,
supposed above, in which the mother country has not one
commodity which she can sell as cheap as other countries.
Now this may fairly be regarded as a case, if not altogether,
at any rate very nearly, impossible. It is not easy to con¬
ceive a country so situated, as not to have advantages in
regard to the production of some sorts of commodities,
which set her on a level with other countries. As long as
this is the case, she can obtain money on as good terms
as any other country ; and if she can obtain money on as
good terms, she can obtain sugar, and every thing else.
The question, then, as to the benefit capable of being
derived from a colony through the medium of an exclu¬
sive trade, is now brought to a short issue. There is no
benefit except through the medium of a monopoly. There
is only one case in which the monopoly does not make the
whole community poorer than it would otherwise be. In
that case, it does not make the community richer than it
would otherwise be ; and that case is one which can either
never be realized, or so rarely, as to be one of the rarest
of all exceptions to one of the most constant of all gene¬
ral rules. The policy of holding a colony for the benefit
of its trade, is, therefore, a bad policy.
To these conclusions one or two of the doctrines of Dr
Smith will be seen to be opposed, and, therefore, require
a few words of elucidation.
If an advantage, in the two cases just explained, would
arise from colonies, it would be counterbalanced, he says,
by the disadvantage attending the rise in the profits of
stock.
Both parts of this doctrine may be disputed. In the
first place, it may be disputed whether the monopoly of
the colony trade has any tendency to raise the profits of
stock in the mother country. In the next place, it may
be disputed whether a high rate of profits in any country
has any tendency to lay it under any disadvantage in its
traffic with other nations.
First, it may be disputed whether the monopoly of the
colony trade would increase the profits. The expulsion
of foreign capital would create a vacuum, whence, accord¬
ing to Smith, a rise of profit, and an absorption of capital
from the mother country. The question is, whether capi¬
tal would not flow into the colonies from the mother coun¬
try, till it reduced the profits in the colony to the level
of the profits in the mother country, instead of raising
those in the mother country in any degree toward a level
with those of the colony. That it would do so, appears
to be capable of demonstration. Mr Ricardo’s argument
would be very short. Nothing, he would say, can raise
the profits of stock, but that which lowers the wages of
labour. Nothing can lower the wages of labour, but that
which lowers the necessaries of the labourer. But nobody
will pretend to say that there is any thing in the mono¬
poly of the colony trade which has any tendency to lower
the price of the necessaries of the labourer. It is, there¬
fore, impossible that the monopoly of the colony trade can
raise the profits of stock. By those who are acquainted
with the profound reasonings of Mr Ricardo, in proof of
the two premises, this argument will be seen to be com¬
plete. There is not a demonstration in Euclid, in which
the links are more indissoluble. To those who are not
acquainted with those reasonings, we are aware that the
propositions will appear mysterious; and yet we are afraid
that, in the few words to which we are confined, it will
not be possible to give them much satisfaction.
With regard to the last of the two propositions, that no¬
thing can lower the wages of labour but that which lowers
the necessaries of the labourer, we may confine ourselves
to that combination of circumstances which marks the ha¬
bitual state, without adverting to the modifications exem¬
plified in those states of circumstances which are to be re¬
garded as exceptions. The habitual state of population is
such, that wages are at the lowest terms ; and cannot be
reduced lower without checking population, that is, redu¬
cing the number of labourers. In this case, it is self-evi-
143
Colony.
144 COL
Colony, dent that nothing can lower the wages of labour but
lowering the necessaries of the labourer. In all, then,
except the extraordinary cases, which it would require
too many words here to explain, in which a country is but
partially peopled, and in which part of the best land is
still unemployed, the proposition of Mr Ricardo is indis¬
putable, that nothing can lower the wages of labour ex¬
cept a fall in the necessaries of the labourer.
Let us next consider the proposition, that nothing can
raise the profits of stock but that which lowers the wages
of labour.
One thing is perfectly clear, that if the whole of what
is produced by the joint operations of capital and labour
were, whatever it is, divided, without deduction, between
the owner of the stock and the labourers whom it employs,
in that case, whatever raised the wages of labour would
lower profits of stock, and profits of stock could never rise,
except in proportion as wages of labour fell. The whole
being divided between the two parties, in whatever pro¬
portion the one received more, it is certain that the other
would receive less.
But what is here put in the way of supposition, namely,
that the whole of what is produced by the joint operations
of capital and labour, is divided between the capitalists and
the labourers, is literally and rigidly the fact. It is, then,
undeniable, that nothing can raise the profits of stock but
that which lowers the wages of labour.
The whole produce, without any exception, of every
country, is divided into three portions, rent, wages, and
profits. If there were no rent, and the whole were divid¬
ed into profits and wages, the case would be clear; be¬
cause nothing could be added to the one without being
detracted from the other.
Rent, however, does, in reality, make no difference.
Rent is no part of the joint produce of labour and capital.
It is the produce, exclusively, of a particular degree of
fertility in particular lands ; and is yielded over and above
a return to the whole of the labour and capital employed
upon that land, over and above a return equal to the joint
produce of an equal portion of labour and capital in any
other employment.
So much, then, for Dr Smith’s opinion, that the mono¬
poly of the colonial trade raises the profits of stock. Let
us next inquire if it be true, that a rise in the profits of
stock, if it were produced by the monopoly, would occa¬
sion, as he supposes, any discouragement to the foreign
trade of the mother country.
It would occasion this discouragement, he says, by rais¬
ing prices. If, then, it can be shown that it would cer¬
tainly not raise prices, every reason for supposing that it
would afford any discouragement to foreign trade is taken
away. But that a high rate of profits does not and cannot
raise prices, is evident from what has been deduced above.
The whole produce of the joint operations of labour and
capital being divided between profits and wages, in what¬
ever degree profits rise, wages fall; the cost of production
remains the same as before.
Not only does a variation in the state of wages and pro¬
fits give no obstruction to foreign trade,—a variation even
in the cost of production gives no obstruction. A nation ex¬
ports to another country, not because it can make cheaper
than another country; for it may continue to export, though
it can make nothing cheaper. It exports, because it can, by
that means, get something cheaper from another country
than it can make it at home. But how can it, in that case,
get it cheaper than it can make it at home ? By exchanging
i for it something which costs it less labour than making it
at home would cost it. No matter how much of that com¬
modity it is necessary to give in exchange. So long as
what it does give is produced by less labour than the
O N Y.
commodity which it gets for it could be produced by at Colony
home, it is the interest of the country to export. Suppose
that the same quantity of corn which is produced in Eng¬
land by the labour of one hundred men, England can pur¬
chase in Poland with a quantity of cotton goods which
she has produced with the labour of ninety men; it is
evident that England is benefited by importing the corn
and exporting the cotton goods, whatever may be the
price of the cotton goods in Poland, or the cost of produ¬
cing them. Suppose that the cotton goods could be pro¬
duced in Poland with the labour of eighty-five men, that
is, less than they are supposed to be produced with in
England. Even that would not hinder the trade between
them. Suppose that the same quantity of corn which is
raised in England with the labour of one hundred men, is
raised in Poland with the labour of eighty; in that case,
it is plain that Poland can get with eighty men’s labour,
through the medium of her corn, the same quantity of
cotton goods, which would cost her the labour of eighty-
five men, if she was to make them at home. Both nations,
therefore, profit by this transaction,—England to the ex¬
tent of ten men’s labour, Poland to the extent of five men’s
labour; and the transaction, in a state of freedom, will be
sure to take place between them, though England is less
favourably situated than Poland with regard to both arti¬
cles of production.
In what manner this class of transactions is affected by
the intervention of the precious metals—in what manner
the precious metals distribute themselves, so as to leave
the motives to this barter exactly the same as they would
be if no precious metal intervened—it would require too
many words here to explain. The reader who recurs for
that explanation to Mr Ricardo, the first author of it, will
not lose his time or his pains.
One other disadvantage of the colony trade is adduced
by Dr Smith. It turns the capital of the country out of
a more into a less profitable employment, by turning it
from the home to a foreign trade; from a foreign of quick
to a foreign of slow returns; and from a foreign to a car¬
rying trade. This doctrine, too, requires some explana¬
tion ; and more, to be sufficiently clear, than can here be
bestowed upon it. The home trade is not necessarily
more advantageous than the foreign; nor the foreign of
quick, than the foreign of slow returns; nor any of them
all, than the carrying trade. These trades, it may be al¬
lowed, increase the gross produce of a country, in the or¬
der in which Dr Smith has arranged them. But a coun¬
try is happy and powerful, not in proportion to its gross,
but in proportion to its net revenue; not in proportion to
what it consumes for the sake of production, but to what
it has over and above the cost of production. This is an
important fact, which, in almost all his reasonings, Dr
Smith has overlooked. It will hardly, however, be denied,
that in various circumstances, any one of these trades, the
carrying trade itself, may be more conducive to a net re¬
venue than any of the rest, and in a state of freedom
will be sure to be so, as often as the interest of individuals
draws into that channel any portion of the national stock.
We have now, therefore, considered all those cases
which, in the study of colonial policy, can be regarded in
the light of species or classes. There are one or two sin¬
gular cases, which are of sufficient importance to require
a separate mention.
3. Where Maritime Strength is the object sought by the Mo¬
ther Country.
That English law which established the monopoly of
the colonies, at least of the transatlantic ones, professes to
have in view, not trade so much as defence. The reason
of that round-about policy is in this manner deduced. The
COLONY.
Colony, defence of England stands very much upon her navy; her
navy depends altogether upon her sailors; the colony
trade and its monopoly breed sailors ; therefore colonies
ought to be cultivated, and their trade monopolized.
Upon the strength of this reasoning, in which, for a
long time, it would have appeared to be little less than
impiety to have discovered a flaw, the navigation laws, as
they are called, were embraced with a passionate fond¬
ness by Englishmen.
Nothing is worthy of more attention, in tracing the
causes of political evil, than the facility with which man¬
kind are governed by their fears, and the degree of con¬
stancy with which, under the influence of that passion,
they are governed wrong. The fear of Englishmen to see
an enemy in their country has made them do an infinite
number of things which had much greater tendency to
bring enemies into their country than to keep them away.
In nothing, perhaps, have the fears of communities done
them iso much mischief, as in the taking of securities against
enemies. When sufficiently frightened, bad governments
found little difficulty in persuading them, that they never
could have securities enough. Hence come large stand¬
ing armies, enormous military establishments, and all the
evils which follow in their train. Such are the effects of
taking too much security against enemies.
A small share of reflection might teach mankind, that
in nothing is the rigid exercise of a sound temperance
more indispensable to the well-being of the community
than in this. It is clear to reason, were reason allowed
to be the guide in these matters, that the provision for
defence should always be kept down to the lowest pos¬
sible, rather than always raised to the highest possible
terms. At the highest possible terms, the provision for de¬
fence really does all the mischief to a community which
a foreign enemy could do; often does a great deal more
than he would. A moderate provision against evils of
frequent and sudden occurrence, a provision strictly pro¬
portioned to the occasion, and not allowed to go beyond
it, will save more evil than it produces. All beyond this
infallibly produces more evil than it prevents. It enfeebles
by impoverishing the nation, and by degrading with po¬
verty and slavery the minds of those from whom its de¬
fence must ultimately proceed. It makes the country, in
this manner, a much easier prey to a powerful enemy than
if it had been allowed to gather strength by the accumu¬
lation of its wealth, and by that energy in the defence of
their country which the people of a well-governed coun¬
try alone can evince.
A navy is useful for the defence of Great Britain. But
a navy of what extent? One would not, for example,
wish the whole people of Great Britain engaged in the
navy. The reason, we suppose, would be, because this
would not contribute to strength, but weakness. This
is an important admission. There is, then, a line to be
drawn; a line between that extent of navy which contri¬
butes to strength, and that extent which, instead of con¬
tributing to strength, produces weakness. Surely it is a
matter of first-rate importance to draw that line correctly.
What attempt has ever been made to draw that line cor¬
rectly ? What attempt has ever been made to draw it at
all ? Can any body point out any land-marks which have
been set up by the proper authority? Or, has the matter
been always managed without measure or rule ? And has
it not thus always been an easy task to keep the navy in a
state of excess always beyond the line which separates the
degree that would contribute to strength from the degree
that infallibly contributes to weakness ?
As the passion of England has always been to have too
great a navy—a navy which, by its undue expense, con¬
tributes to weakness; so it has been its passion to have
VOL. vn.
too many sailors for the supply of that navy. The sailors
of a navy are drawn from the sailors of the maritime trade.
But a navy of a certain extent requires for its supply a
maritime trade of only a certain extent. If it goes beyond
that extent, all the excess is useless with regard to the
supply of the navy. Now, what reason has ever been as¬
signed to prove that the maritime traffic of Great Britain
would not, without the monopoly of the colonies, afford a
sufficient supply of sailors to a sufficient navy? None
whatsoever; none that will bear to be looked at. But till
a reason of that sort, and a reason of indubitable strength,
is adduced, the policy of the navigation laws remains to¬
tally without a foundation. In that case it deserves no¬
thing but rejection, as all the world must allow. It is a
violent interference with the free and natural course of
things, the course into which the interests of the com¬
munity would otherwise lead them, without any case be¬
ing made to appear which requires that violent disturb¬
ance.
The discussion of this supposed benefit of colonies we
shall not pursue any farther ; for it is a signal proof of the
diffusion of liberal ideas, that the policy of the navigation
laws has become an object of ridicule in the British par¬
liament, and finds even there but a small number of de¬
fenders.
145
Colony.
4. Where Profit from Mines of the Precious Metals is the
object of the Mother Country.
There is another singular case, created by mines of the
precious metals. A colony may be formed and retained
for the sake of the gold and silver it may produce. Of
this species of colony we have something of a specimen
in the Spanish colonies of Mexico and Peru. The ques¬
tion is, whether any advantage can ever be derived from
a colony of this description ? The answer to this question
is not doubtful; but it is not very easy, within the limits
to which we are confined, to make the evidence of it per¬
fectly clear to every body. In one case, and in one case
alone, an advantage may be derived. That is the case in
which the colony contains the richest mines in the world.
The richest mines in the world always, in the case of the
precious metals, supply the whole world; because from
those mines the metals can be afforded cheaper than the
expense of working will allow them to be afforded from
any other mines; and the principle of competition soon
excludes the produce of all other mines from the market.
Now, the country which contains the richest mines may
so order matters as to gain from foreign countries, on all
the precious metals which she sells to them, nearly the
whole of that difference which exists between what the
metal in working costs to her, and what in working it costs
at the mines, which, next to hers, are the most fertile in
the world.
She must always sell the metal so cheap as to exclude
the metal of those other mines from the market; that is,
a trifle cheaper than they can afford to sell it. But if her
mines are sufficiently fertile, the metal may cost her much
less in working than the price at which she may thus dis¬
pose of it. All the difference she may put in her exche¬
quer. In three ways this might be done. The govern¬
ment might work the mines wholly itself; it might let them
to an exclusive company ; it might impose a tax upon the
produce of the mine. In any one of these ways it might
derive a sort of tribute from the rest of the world, on ac¬
count of the gold and silver with which it supplied them.
This could not be done if the mines, without being taxed,
were allowed to be worked by the people at large ; because,
in that case, the competition of the different adventurers
would make them undersell one another, till they reduced
the price as low as the cost of working would allow.
T
146 COLONY.
Colony. Could the tax at the mine be duly regulated, that would
be the most profitable mode ; because the private adven¬
turers would work the mines far more economically than
either the government or an exclusive company.
It is evident that this is a mode of deriving advantage
from the possession of the richest mines of the precious
metals, very different from that which was pursued by the
Spanish government, and which has been so beautifully
exposed by Dr Smith. That government endeavoured
to derive advantage from its mines by preventing other
countries from getting any part of their produce, and by
accumulating the whole at home. By accumulating at
home the whole of the produce of its mines, it believed
(such was the state of its mind) that Spain would become
exceedingly rich. By preventing other countiies from re¬
ceiving any part of that produce, it believed that it would
compel them to continue poor ; and if all countries con¬
tinued poor, and Spain became exceedingly rich, Spain
would be the master of all countries.
In this specimen of political logic, which it would not
be difficult to match nearer home, there are two assump¬
tions, and both of them false. In the first place, that a
country can accumulate, to any considerable extent, the
precious metals; that is, in any other way than by lock¬
ing them up, and guarding them in strongholds. In the
next place, that, if it could accumulate them, it would be
richer by that means.
The first of these assumptions, that a country can keep
in circulation a greater proportion than other countries of
the precious metals, “ by hedging in the cuckoo,” as it is
humorously described by Dr Smith, has been finely ex¬
posed by that illustrious philosopher, and requires no ex¬
planation here.
On the second assumption, that a country, if it could
hedge in the precious metals, would become richer by
that process, a few reflections appear to be required.
It is now sufficiently understood, that money, in any
country, supposing other things to remain the same, is
valuable just in proportion to its quantity. Take Mr
Hume’s supposition, that England were walled round by
a wall of brass, and that the quantity of her money were
in one night, by a miracle, either raised to double or re¬
duced to one half. In the first case, every piece would be
reduced to one half of its former value; in the second case,
it would be raised to double its former value, and the value
of the whole would remain exactly the same. The coun¬
try would, therefore, be neither the richer nor the poorer ;
she would neither produce more nor enjoy more on that
account.
It is never, then, by keeping the precious metals, that
a country can derive any advantage from them; it is by
the very opposite, by parting with them. If it has been
foolish enough to hoard up a quantity of the produce of
its capital and labour in the shape of gold and silver, it
may, when it pleases, make a better use of it. It may ex¬
change it with other countries for something that is use¬
ful. Gold and silver, so long as they are hoarded up, are
of no use whatsoever. They contribute neither to enjoy¬
ment nor production. You may, however, purchase with
them something that is useful. You may exchange them
either for some article of luxury, and then they contribute
to enjoyment; or you may exchange them for the mate¬
rials of some manufacture, or the necessaries of the la¬
bourer, and then they contribute to production ; then the
effect of them is to augment the riches, augment the ac¬
tive capital, augment the annual produce of the country.
So long as any country hoards up gold and silver, so long
as it abstains from parting with them to other countries
for other things, so long it deprives itself of a great ad¬
vantage.
Conclusion.— Tendency of Colonial Possessions to produce Colony.
or prolong bad Government.
If colonies are so little calculated to yield any advan¬
tage to the countries that hold them, a very important
question suggests itself. What is the reason that nations,
the nations of modern Europe at least, discover so great
an affection for them ? Is this affection to be wholly
ascribed to mistaken views of their utility, or partly to
other causes ?
It never ought to be forgotten that, in every country,
there is “ a few,” and there is “ a manythat in all
countries in which the government is not very good, the
interest of “ the few” prevails over the interest of “ the
many,” and is promoted at their expense. “ The few”
is the part that governs, “ the many” the part that is go¬
verned. It is according to the interest of “ the few” that
colonies should be cultivated. This, if it is true, accounts
for the attachment to colonies, which most of the coun¬
tries, that is, of the governments of modern Europe, have
displayed. In what way it is true a short explanation will
sufficiently disclose.
Sancho Panza had a scheme for deriving advantage from
the government of an island. He would sell the people for
slaves, and put the money in his pocket. “ The few,” in
some countries, find in colonies a thing which is very dear'
to them: they find, the one part of them, the precious
matter with which to influence—the other, the precious
matter with which to be influenced; the one, the precious
matter with which to make political dependents—the other,
the precious matter with which they are made political
dependents; the one, the precious matter by which they
augment their power—the other, the precious matter by
which they augment their riches. Both portions of the
“ ruling few,” therefore, find their account in the posses¬
sion of colonies. There is not one of the colonies that does
not augment the number of places. There are governor¬
ships and judgeships, and a long train of et ceteras; and
above all, there is not one of them but what requires an
additional number of troops, and an additional portion of
navy. In every additional portion of army and navy, be¬
side the glory of the thing, there are generalships, and
colonelships, and captainships, and lieutenantships; and
in the equipping and supplying of additional portions of
army and navy there are always gains which may be
thrown in the way of a friend. All this is enough to ac¬
count for a very considerable quantity of affection main¬
tained towards colonies.
But beside all this, there is another thing of still greater
importance; a thing, indeed, to which, in whatever point
of view we regard it, hardly any thing else can be esteem¬
ed of equal importance. The colonies are a grand source
of wars. Now wars, even in countries completely arbitrary
and despotical, have so many things agreeable to the ru¬
ling few, that the ruling few hardly ever seem to be hap¬
py except when engaged in them. There is nothing to
which history bears so invariable a testimony as this. No¬
thing is more remarkable than the frivolous causes which
almost always suffice for going to war, even when there is
little or no prospect of gaining, often when there is the
greatest prospect of losing by it, and that, even in their
own sense of losing. But if the motives for being as much
as possible in war are so very strong, even to governments
which are already perfectly despotic, they are much
stronger in the case of governments which are not yet
perfectly despotic, of governments of which the power is
still, in any considerable degree, limited and restrained.
There is nothing in the world, where a government is
in any degree limited and restrained, so useful for getting
rid of all limit and restraint as wars. The power of almost
COLONY.
Colony, all governments is greater during war than during peace.
—But in the case of limited governments, it is so in a very
remarkable degree.
In the first place, there is the physical force of the
army, and the terror and awe w'hich it impresses upon the
minds of men. In the next place, there is the splendour
and parade, which captivate and subdue the imagination,
and make men contented, one would almost say happy, to
be slaves. All this surely is not of small importance. Then
there is an additional power with which the government
is intrusted during war. And, far above all, when the go¬
vernment is limited by the will of only a certain portion
of the people, as it is under the British government by
the will of those who supply with members the two houses
of parliament, war affords the greatest portion of the pre¬
cious matter with which that will may be guided and se¬
cured. Nothing augments so much the quantity of that
portion of the national wealth which is placed at the com¬
mand of the government as war. Of course, nothing puts
it in the power of government to create so great a num¬
ber of dependents, so great a number of persons bound
by their hopes and fears to do and say whatever it wishes
them to do and say.
Of the proposition, that colonies are a grand source of
wars, and of additional expense in wars, that expense by
which the ruling few always profit at the cost of the sub¬
ject many, it is not probable that much of proof will be
required.
With regard to additional expense, it can hardly appear
to be less than self-evident. Whenever a war breaks out,
additional troops, and an additional portion of navy, are
always required for the protection of the colonies. Even
during peace, the colonies afford the pretext for a large
portion of the peace establishment, as it is called ; that is,
a mass of warlike apparatus and expense, which would be
burdensome even in a season of war. How much the cost
amounts to, of a small additional portion, not to speak of
a large additional portion of army and navy, Englishmen
have had experience to instruct them ; and how great the
mischief which is done by every particle of unnecessary
expense, they are daily becoming more and more capable
of seeing and understanding.
That the colonies multiply exceedingly the causes and
pretexts of war, is matter of history, and might have been
foreseen before reaping the fruits of a bitter experience.
Whatever brings you in contact with a greater number of
states, increases, in the same proportion, those clashings
of interest and pride, out of which the pretexts for war are
frequently created. It would exhibit a result which pro¬
bably would surprise a good many readers, if any body
would examine all the wars which have afflicted this coun¬
try, from the time when she first began to have colonies,
and would show how very great a proportion of them have
grown out of colony disputes.
Sect. III.—Sketch of Existing Colonies.
The history and theory of colonial policy having been
pretty fully surveyed, little remains to complete the design
of this article. A statistical view of the present state of colo¬
nial possession will suffice, because the several colonies are
described in detail under their respective heads.
1. British Colonies.
North America.—1. Canada; 2. Nova Scotia and Cape
Breton; 3. New Brunswick ; 4. Prince Edward Island;
5. Vancouver; 6. Newfoundland. Aggregate population
2,503,666 ; area 455,493 square miles.
West Indies 1. Jamaica; 2. Windward Islands, in¬
cluding Barbados, St Vincent, Grenada, Tobago, St Lucia,
and Trinidad; 3. Leeward Islands, including Antigua, St
147
Kitt’s, Anguilla, Montserrat, Nevis, Dominica, and Virgin Colony.
Islands; 4. Bahamas; 5. Bermudas; 6. British Guiana;
7. Honduras; 8. Falkland Islands. Aggregate pop. 980,535;
Area, 167,384 square miles.
Asia.—1. Ceylon; 2. Hong Kong ; 3. Labuan. Aggre¬
gate pop. 1,454,614. Area 24,727 square miles.
Africa.— 1. Cape of Good Hope ; 2. Mauritius ; 3.
Sierra Leone ; 4. Gambia; 5. Gold Coast; 6. St Helena.
Aggregate pop. 920,960. Area 127,330 square miles.
Australasia.—1. New South Wales; 2. Western Aus¬
tralia ; 3. South Australia; 4. Van Diemen’s Land; 5.
Victoria ; 6. New Zealand. Aggregate pop. 676,952. Area
649,000 square miles.
Europe.—1. Gibraltar; 2. Malta and Gozo ; 3. Heligo¬
land. Aggregate pop. 150,409. Area 145 square miles. To
these may be added the Ionian Islands. Pop. 226,698.
Area 1041 square miles.
Total population of the above colonies, 6,687,136. Total
area, 1,424,079 square miles.
Recent parliamentary documents acquaint us with the
heavy expense to which the British government is still
exposed for the care and control of the colonies. In the
year 1843 this expenditure had risen to L.540,842 for
civil government, L.74,005 for naval expenditure, and
L.2,556,919 for military expenditure, making a total of
L.3,171,646.
In 1847 this expenditure had increased to L.3,804,038,
but had declined to L.2,914,354 in 1850—51.
In 1851-52 the net military expenditure again rose to
L.3,003,282, the net civil expenditure to L.499,350, and
the naval expenditure to L.55,717, making a total of
L.3,558,350, or, with certain deductions arising from the
excess of post-office revenue over expenditure, L.3,555,573.
The prominent item of expenditure in 1843 was the
military government of Gibraltar. This amounted to very
nearly a quarter of a million sterling. The military ex¬
penditure for Canada was considerably above half a million
sterling, and for the North-Eastern Provinces L.173,030.
Of the British colonies eleven, including Gibraltar, Cape of
Good Hope, Hong Kong, &c., are military and maritime
stations, maintained to facilitate commerce, or for the general
strength and security of the British empire.
It will be observed, that from the above enumeration is
excluded all that part of the foreign dominions of the Bri¬
tish state which is under the management of the East India
Company; a part which, in point of importance, exceeds all
the rest, and of which the circumstances are peculiar and
anomalous.
In this dominion, the whole continent of India, from the
frontier of the Burman empire to the Suliman mountains,
may be said to be included, since the military power of the
whole is exclusively in our hands ; and those parts of which
the civil government remains with the native princes are
under our absolute control.
The outlying territories under the government of the
Company are Prince of Wales Island and the island of Sin¬
gapore in the straits of Malacca, with some parts on the coast
of the adjoining continent, of comparatively small impor¬
tance ; and the island of St Helena, which alone has now a
separate government, by a governor, and orders from the
court of directors.
The whole of India is under the governor-general in
council, with whom rests the sole power of legislation ; that
authority also exercising a general control over the subor¬
dinate governments, to whom the local administration is
committed. These latter include the governor in council
of Madras, the governor in council of Bombay, the lieu-
tenant-governor of the North-West Provinces, and the lieu¬
tenant-governor of Bengal. The affairs of the Punjaub (a
more recent acquisition) are administered by an officer called
a chief commissioner, acting under the immediate superin-
148 COL
Colony, tendence of the governor-general in council. All the local
authorities, the chief as well as the subordinate, are account¬
able to the Court of Directors of the East India Company,
whose lawful orders and instructions they are bound to
obey.
Of the territories in India of which the military power is
in our hands, but the civil government still confided to the
native princes, the principal are, the territory of the king
of Oude, Rajpootana, the territories of a few Mahratta
princes, those of the Nizam, those of Travancore, and those
bestowed by the British upon the Rajah of Mysore and the
Rajah of Sattarah.
According to the best computation, the population in
India subject to the government, both military and civil, of
the East India Company, amounts to 107,172,433, spread
over a territory of 695,905 square miles.
The extent,' by computation, of the country still in part
administered by its native chiefs, under the names of allied
or protected princes, is 691,474 square miles, supporting a
population of 52,414,576, making the whole population in
India dependent upon the British government, and substan¬
tially its subjects, about 159,587,009.
This represents India as a colony of a very peculiar de¬
scription ; and perhaps the name of colony would not with
propriety be given to it, if we had any other general title
under which we could arrange it. When the foreign ter¬
ritory which a state conquers contains a large population of
its own, and so much of the population of the conquering
state as is necessary to its government, or at least so much,
and but little more, is sent to it, or goes there, such terri¬
tory is commonly retained, for the sake of a tribute de¬
manded from it, and is denominated a tributary country.
But that is not the case with India, from which no tribute
has ever been obtained ; nor has tribute been ever looked
to as the object of our policy in retaining it. Our object in
originally forming our connection with it was commerce ;
and our first territorial acquisitions were made for the sake
of commerce, for the protection of commerce, or for extend¬
ing the sphere of its operations. Afterwards other acquisi¬
tions were made for the sake of the first, which could not,
it seemed, be held in security without addition to the last;
and there has been a progress in this way, from one acqui¬
sition to another, the sum total of which is the enormous
territory now placed under British rule.
If it be asked, for what advantage is all this territory go¬
verned by Great Britain, it is much more easy to answer the
question on the side of India than on that of England. It
is of immense importance for a people so greatly behind Eu¬
ropeans in all the advantages of civilized life, and whose in¬
stitutions and habits had acquired a fixity which seemed to
preclude improvement among themselves, to be relieved
from the paralyzing operation of their own rude govern¬
ment, and placed under the rule of a more enlightened and
active people, provided that rule be not carried to the ex¬
treme of oppression. And no one can reasonably doubt,
that the prospects opened to the vast population of India,
by the continuance of the British rule, as it is, and as it will
be under successive improvements, are of the most gratify¬
ing kind. The Indian people will be gradually elevated to
the level of European intelligence, all the blessings of which
will then flow in upon them.
With regard to the people of Great Britain, it cannot
easily be disputed that their great advantage from this do¬
minion consists in the consciousness of being the instru¬
ments in so good a work; and that is a distinction of which
undoubtedly they may be proud. There is no other in¬
stance in the history of mankind of a foreign territory held
by another state for the good of the people of that terri¬
tory : there is no other instance of one people held in sub¬
jection by another, and the power exercised not only with so
much real advantage to the subject people, but with such
0 N Y.
a constant, and vigilant, and minute care of their in- Colony,
terests.
In other respects, our gains may be easily computed. We
have the advantage, it may be said, of the commerce with
India. There is an inveterate habit in England of estimating,
not commerce in general, but commerce with this or that
country, in addition to others, far beyond its value. They
who are under the dominion of this blind persuader do not
reflect that commerce is exchange, and that England, or any
other country, can exchange only to the extent of what she
has got to exchange. But can anybody doubt that Eng¬
land could exchange all that she has got to exchange, which
is but a limited amount, if India “ were in the deep sea
sunk ?” To make out their argument, then, they must say,
that we exchange on better terms with India than we could
with any other country ; but if they do say so, it will puzzle
them to make good their position.
There is one other source of advantage to Great Britain,
which, though it may easily be overrated, and probably is by
most people, is worth something ; and that is, the outlet
which India furnishes to the sons of a number of families in
the higher grades of the middle rank in England, who are
sent to administer the government as civil and military offi¬
cers. In an over-peopled country, this, to its extent, is a
relief. It has a tendency to keep at rather a higher level
than it would otherwise fall to, the reward of the labour of
educated men. And the fortunes which Indian gentlemen
bring home, if greater than the fortunes they would have
made at home, are an addition to the capital of the country.
Such fortunes, however, are much smaller than in former
times, and would have been regarded as contemptible by
Anglo-Indians of the days of Clive.
It is often said that we limit our advantages by our own
senseless policy, by restraining the most of Englishmen to
India. This is another case in which men dream of riches,
and believe their dreams when awake. There are two ways
in which Englishmen may go out to India with honest
views, as labourers or as capitalists. If we ask in which of
these ways it is supposed they will go out, we may be told,
in both. Let us see.
In respect to labourers, India is an overstocked country,
and wages are so low that Englishmen would not live upon
them. Out of doors work, moreover, which is nearly all the
work of the country, cannot be performed by Englishmen
under such a climate. And another obstruction is, that
English labourers cannot pay the expense of the voyage.
In fact, it is not alleged by persons who have every know¬
ledge of the circumstances, that English labourers, to any
amount worth regarding, can ever find their way to India.
Then comes the question of capitalists. To what extent
is it reasonable to suppose that they, under a system of free
admission, would establish themselves in India? Employment
of European capital would be either on the land or in manu¬
factures ; for, as to the mere commercial part, buying, selling,
and carrying, it is both a minor part, and is actually supplied.
When people look at a large object, not with the eyes
of the understanding, but those of the imagination, glaring
through the medium of all the avaricious passions, they easily
give to it gigantic dimensions, and cherish a delusion.
First, as to the land; nobody imagines that the ordinary
products of the land, the food of the people, can be raised
by Englishmen more cheaply than by the natives ; or that
Englishmen will find a motive to establish themselves as
farmers and agriculturists in India. The case is different
in regard to products intended for the European market.
English capital is employed in the growth of the indigo
plant; and some other articles may be looked to, of which
sugar and cotton are the chief. But altogether, these pro¬
ducts imply a very limited demand for capital. Indigo has
already been supplied in excess; and knowing how cheaply
sugar and cotton can be furnished from the other side of
COL
Colony, the Atlantic, we must regard a successful competition from
—^ India as hopeless.
Then, what are the manufactures in which there is to be
a demand for capital ? None can be named but cotton and
silk. Of raw silk, there is some probability that after a time
a considerable supply may be drawn from India. The cot¬
ton manufacture we are now supplanting by actual impor¬
tations from this country.
The truth then appears to be, that for the employment
of labour and capital, by Europeans, there is little scope in
India. If Englishmen were allowed to go for the purpose
of seizing lands, and collecting plunder from the natives,
there would be a harvest, doubtless, of a few years, and no
more. But this, we may hope, will not be granted. If so,
and if permission to them extends only to the honest em¬
ployment of their labour and capital, it will not, how free
soever, carry many of them to India, or much increase the
advantages we derive from it.
I he revenue of the British government in India, and the
value of the exports and imports, are given under India.
2. Foreign Colonies.
Spanish Colonies.—Cuba, Puerto Rico, and some smaller
islands in America ; the Philippine and Marrianne islands
in the Pacific, the Canary islands in the Atlantic, Fernando
Po and the island of Annabon in the Gulf of Guinea, and
Ceuta, Gomera, and Melilla in Barbary.
Dutch Colonies.—Java, Sumatra, Borneo, Celebes, Mo¬
luccas, Amboyna, and other islands ; Surinam, Curasao and
dependencies, and Guinea coast.
French Colonies.—The islands Martinique, Guadaloupe,
Marie-Galante, Desirade, Saintes, and part of St Martin;
French Guiana and Cayenne, St Pierre and Miquelon; Al¬
geria, Senegal, and Goree; the islands Bourbon and St
Marie, part of Madagascar, Mayotta and Mossi-Be; Pondi¬
cherry, Karakal, Mahe, Yanaon, and Chandernagore; the
Marquesas and Tahiti islands.
Danish Colonies.—In the West Indies, the islands of St
Croix, St Thomas, and St John.
Swedish Colonies.—The Swedes have only the small
island of St Bartholomew in the West Indies.
Portuguese Colonies.—Goa, Damaun, and Macao, in
Asia; besides small possessions in the islands Solor, Timor,
and Midoro; Angola, Congo, Mozambique, and part of
Senegambia; the islands Madeira, Cape Verd, Princes
Island, and St Thomas. (j. M—L.)
In applying the views promulgated in the preceding
pages to our present colonial policy, it will be observed that
the system of differential duties, the great practical tes¬
timony to the economic fallacies of the colonial system, has
been nearly obliterated by the late free-trade measures, and
any remnant of them now existing represents, not a linger¬
ing belief in their value, but the incidental impediments
which have resisted their entire abolition. The belief that
it is a sound policy in a nation to pay for the support of co¬
lonies, and afford them exclusive privileges, for the sake of
the advantage of trading with them, has now disappeared.
At the same time our colonies not only remain on as great
a scale as when Mr Mill’s paper was written, but they have
materially enlarged both in extent and vitality. The rea¬
sons of this deserve attention, and are intimately connected
with the views which he has set forth. In fact the increase
of our colonial system has proceeded on new, and, it is be¬
lieved, sound views, developed by that principle of free trade
which is the key-note of the preceding remarks. Accord¬
ing to the undoubted laws of political economy, so long as
we have a free trade at home, no other nation can produce
and trade without our reaping the advantage of it. No na¬
tion that trades refuses to sell to another, though it may refuse
to buy from that other. The selling, however, is just the
O N Y. 149
same as buying to the same amount. If Britain obtains goods Colony,
from Lombardy, though Lombardy should prohibit the im-
portation of British goods, yet Britain must export an equi¬
valent into some circle of trade by which the value will come
to Lombardy, otherwise Lombardy will not be paid. Hence,
wherever a nation produces and sells, Britain, as a free-trade
country, profits.
But suppose a great tract of rich country inhabited by a
scattered population who neither produce nor sell. In this
case it is the interest of Britain that the country should be
inhabited, if it honestly can be so, by a people industrious
and enterprising. To understand the importance of this,
let us suppose the territory of the United States, where
people purchase from us sixteen millions worth of goods, in¬
habited by the original Indian tribes, who probably would
not have purchased L.100,000 worth from us, or from any
other country.
This illustration points at once to the conclusion, that it
is of no consequence whether the trading nation is depen¬
dent on us—nay, it is of secondary consequence whether
it directly trades with us, provided it trade at all. But
there is no doubt that increasing and multiplying the Bri¬
tish stock increases the producing and trading populations
over the earth. Hence, if we can conveniently spare a
portion of our people to inhabit distant regions, it may be
politic to aid them by a government staff and other provi¬
sions in making a settlement. It happens that in general
this country has not only been able to spare a portion of
her citizens, but has found a relief in seeing them depart
from her shores. To those indeed who have fallen into an
unproductive and unhappy position in the mother country,
the fresh emigration field has had the same effect as a supply
of capital; for the occupation and use of a piece of productive
land which has not previously been productively applied is
to those who take it equivalent to the obtaining of so much
capital. It is for the purpose of protecting if not creating
emigration fields, that our colonial system has thus extended
itself, and hence the more important considerations con¬
nected with it came under the head of Emigration. Where-
ever we can plant a numerous and prosperous body of the
British people, we create a trading population which will
increase our own commerce; and if it be said that they
take capital out of the country to employ it elsewhere, after
the secondary answer that colonists do not generally remove
much capital, the main answer is, that for a nation like the
British, in the full enjoyment of free trade, the best part of
the world for their capital to be placed in, is that where it
is most productive. Hence, the removal of a portion of our
people, and with them of a portion of our capital, may tend
to increase the trade and wealth of Britain. This pheno¬
menon is at present very distinctly exemplified in our Aus¬
tralian colonies, and it is the principle on which, along
with those of New Zealand and the additions to the North
African colonies, they have been created and supported.
It is needless to say that a body of men settling in a dis¬
tant desert require the protection of the mother country.
They not only require it against foreign enemies, but against
internal injustice and oppression. When in its earlier stages
there comes from a colony a strong outcry against the
domination and interference of the mother country, it gene-
rally proceeds from some body of men who, having acquired
a preponderance of local power, desire to oppress their
weaker fellow colonists. The tendency of the strong to
exact services from the weak, to establish slavery or some¬
thing as closely resembling it as may be, is a leading co¬
lonial vice. 1 he disgust always felt by the Dutch colonists
of the Cape towards Britain has proceeded from the aboli¬
tion of slavery there. Even in our Australian colonies the
great squatting aristocracy have shown this propensity. They
desired the continuance of transportation, which supplied
them with convict bondsmen, and wished to have the class
150 COL
Colony, of assisted emigrants prohibited from leaving the district to^
which they were assisted ; complaining, when defeated, of
arbitrary interference with their own management of their
own affairs. The appropriation of land is another source of
local injustice and oppression, and the ravenous class, who
sometimes purchased provinces for a musket or a red hand¬
kerchief, have bitterly complained of that rule which vests
the newly acquired territory of every colony in the British
crown, for the purpose of justly regulating its appropriation.
The grand scheme formed by some able and adventurous
young men for the colonization of New Zealand subjected
the colonial peculiarities to much impassioned discussion.
Their leader had formed a theory of colonization so very
plausible, that it was unfortunately in some measure adopted
by the legislature. It was said that society should be tians-
planted to the new territory with all its social elements
complete, so that each person—the lawyer, the physician,
the clergyman, the merchant, and the mechanic should
find himself in his right place. As a means of accomplish-
in«- this, a high price was set on land; in order, as it was
said, that capital might be compelled to emigrate in a due
proportion to labour. This was the part of the scheme which
was adopted by the government, and it proved a pernicious
interference in the places where it was applied.
The New Zealand projectors, however, proposed to con¬
duct their scheme in their own way as an independent pro¬
ject. They, in fact, conceived the ambitious design of
founding an independent empire in those noble islands,
which they saw in the distant future arising up in rivalry
with Britain. And when their vast transactions with the
native chiefs were superseded, and the crown stepped in to
arrange the rights and liabilities of parties, they loudly com¬
plained that the British government would not itself occupy
the islands, yet immediately interfered when others proposed
to do so. It is clear, however, that if the adventurers were
to receive the protection accorded to British subjects, they
could not exempt themselves from liability to the national
policy. The young colony could not have protected itself
from appropriation by some other power ; and it has always
been part of the policy of the British empire never to allow
its lieges to incur, by want of protection, the risk of being
subject to another state. This principle was, perhaps, less
reasonably acted on towards the Dutch colonists of the
Cape. In their hatred of British domination, a large body
of them emigrated to a distant territory acquired by treaty
from the king of the Zoolus. In the year 1843 this district
was declared to be a British possession, and a dependence of
the Cape. It was the cause of continual contention for ten
years; and at last the step, previously unexampled, was taken
of contracting the boundary of the British territory there.
It deserves to be incidentally mentioned that the founders
of the New Zealand Company, before abandoning their pro¬
jects for transplanting society, in full growth and proportion,
endeavoured to employ the zeal of religious parties in their
cause, and to form ecclesiastical settlements. They found
two bodies ready to respond to the invitation. The English
high-churchmen founded the colony of Canterbury, while
the members of the Free Church of Scotland created that
of Otago. These were attempts to plant religious intoler¬
ance ; but as the emigrants of the present day are not gene¬
rally of the class who will sacrifice material interests to carry
out ecclesiastical schemes, they have failed at least in accom¬
plishing to any extent their distinctive features. They did
not, it is true, entirely exclude nonconformists ; but by ap¬
plying a portion of the heavy purchase money exacted to the
peculiar ecclesiastical purposes of the colony, all who would
not contribute to such an object w^ere virtually excluded.
With these explanations it may be generally stated that
our revised colonial system mainly exists for the provision of
emigration fields. It is true that we still preserve the other
0 N Y.
colonies, such as those of the West Indies, which were sup- Colony,
ported by the force of trading privileges and inequalities.
It is a hard trial of national pride to abandon that which
rival nations are anxious to possess, however reasonable the
abandonment may be shown to be. There is scarcely a
European tongue not spoken among the inhabitants of the
colonies belonging to Britain ; there is no instance where
any other nation possesses, as a token of successful war, a
colony where the people speak English. But as our old
colonies become less valuable to their inhabitants, they will
become less an object of desire to our rivals, and will perhaps
be permitted to drop, by mutual consent, out of existence.
The hardest battle for colonial monopoly was fought on
the staple produce of the West Indies—sugar. The na¬
tional horror of slavery was appealed to, and it was main¬
tained that Britain should give a premium to the free-labour
produce of her own colonies. But her own hands being
clean, it did not appear that she could effectually distribute
pecuniary rewards and punishments over the globe; and it
was successfully maintained, that her duty in matters of
trade was to put all the world on a par;—she might then
pursue the extinction of slavery as a separate object in her
own way. The differential duties on sugar were gradually
reduced, and came to a termination on the 5th of July 1854.
The duties on spirits are still in some measure differential,
the general duty on foreign produce being 15s. per gallon,
while that on colonial produce has been reduced, but is dif¬
ferent in amount according as the importation is to England,
Scotland, or Ireland, and varies in the three kingdoms on an
adjustment to the scale of inland spirit duties in the three
kingdoms. This peculiarity arose with the scarcity of the
year 1847, from a reduction of the duties on imported spirits,
avowedly for the purpose of bringing them into competition
with home produce, and reducing the distillation from grain ;
but it is believed that the change has had very little effect
in substituting colonial for British spirits.
The differential wine duty still continues, but it operates
almost entirely as a tax on the foreign produce, not as an
exemption or privilege to the colonial, since it has been in¬
capable of overcoming the substantial objections to the
Cape and other colonial wines. On the other band, though
there is still a differential duty on timber, both classes have
been materially reduced with the view of rendering even
the higher duty light. Thus while, by a gradual reduction,
7s. 6d. per ton on squared wood was in 1851 substituted for
the old duty of 55s., there is a mere nominal tax of Is. (with
5 per cent.) on the colonial produce. The North American
colonies, in whose favour the differential duties existed,
have been placed, in legislative and executive matters, in a
position which they feel to be peculiarly satisfactory. The
existence in the principal colony of two rival races makes
the supremacy of Britain important as a counteracting power
to the ascendency of either ; and the colonies are much in
the position of constitutional monarchies, whose monarch is
at a distance.
The applicability of existing conditions to a portion of
Mr Mill’s article may be better reserved for the head of
Transportation. In the meantime, it may be mentioned
that, in the later administration under the act of 1824, esta¬
blishing the hulks and penitentiary system, other methods
of punishment have been gradually substituted for transpor¬
tation. Finally, by an act of 1853 (16th and 17th Viet.,
cap. 99), the practice has been very nearly abolished. For
crimes which would have been punished with transportation
for a less period than four years, penal servitude—generally
for a period rather more than half the transportation period
—is substituted; and where the punishment was by the old
law transportation for fourteen years or upwards, it may
now be transportation or penal servitude at the discretion
of the court. (J-H* B0
COL
Colophon COLOPHON, an Ionian city of Asia Minor, on the
small river Hales or Halesus, about 8 miles from Ephesus,
^olossians. an(j a s]-,ort; distance from the sea-coast. It is said to have
been founded by the mythical Andraemon at the same time
with Notium, which became its harbour. The first event
of importance in the history of Colophon was the seizure
by some of its inhabitants of the city of Smyrna, which
they were allowed to retain unopposed. Colophon was in
its turn taken by Gyges, king of Lydia; and at the open¬
ing of the Peloponnesian war by the Persians, for whom
the factions of the townsmen prepared an easy victory. The
Persians themselves were at length driven out by the Colo¬
phonians with the aid of the Athenians, who exerted them¬
selves to restore and repeople the city. After the death of
Alexander, Colophon with some neighbouring cities was
destroyed, and its inhabitants led away to settle in Ephesus.
Notium appears to have escaped this calamity, for we find
that in B.c. 190 Antiochus of Syria was compelled to retire
from before its walls after an unsuccessful siege. To these
representatives of the old Colophonians the Romans after¬
wards granted immunity, as a reward for their fidelity.
Colophon was the third of the seven cities which claimed
the honour of having given birth to Homer. Mimnermus, the
famous elegiac poet, was a native of Colophon ; as were also
the poets Antimachus, Hermesianax, Phoenix, and Nicander,
the musician Polymnestus, and the satirist Xenophanes.
Colophon, in Bibliography, the concluding lines of early
printed works, which, previous to the introduction of title-
pages, usually contained the title, the date, the name of the
author and of the printer, &c. The term is said to be de¬
rived from the Greek proverb rov KoAo^uiva eTrldrjKev (q. (L,
he gave the finishing stroke), alluding to the Colophonian
cavalry, which was so excellent, according to Strabo, that
victory was assured to that side on which it fought.
COLOPHONITE, in Mineralogy, a variety of garnet
generally possessing a dark colour, and a vitreous, half fused-
like appearance. It occurs massive, or in large granular
concretions, and has a specific gravity of TO. It is found
chiefly in the beds of magnetic iron at Arendal in Norway,
and also in Piedmont and in Ceylon.
COLOPHONY, the dark-coloured resin which remains
after the distillation of oil of turpentine. It is so called from
Colophon in Ionia, which was noted in antiquity for the ex¬
cellence and abundance of its resin. (See Plin. xiv. 20.)
COLORADO, a river of Mexico. See Mexico.
COLORATURA, in Music, a general term for embel¬
lishments, such as trills, diminutions, &c. &c.
COLOSSiE, a once large and important city of Phrygia
Major, on the Lycus, a branch of the Maeander. The no¬
tices of Colossae in ancient history are few and brief.
Xerxes passed through it on his way to Greece b.c. 481;
and at the close of that same century it was visited by Cyrus
the younger. It is described by Xenophon in the “Anabasis”
as being at this period a large and flourishing city. Like
Laodicea, and many other cities in that part of Phrygia, Co-
lossee carried on a large trade in wool, and derived a large
revenue from the skill of its inhabitants in dyeing that article.
After the time of Cyrus, the city seems to have gradually
decayed, till in the middle ages it disappeared altogether.
Near its ruins there sprang up another town called Chonae,
the site of which is still visible under the name of Khonos.
Excavations, which have been recently made in the neigh¬
bourhood of this place, have brought to light the ruins of a
large city, which is believed, with good reason, to be Colossae.
One of the epistles of the apostle Paul is addressed to
the inhabitants of this city, in which one of the earliest of
the Christian churches in Asia was planted.
COLOSSIANS, Epistle to the, a canonical epistle of
the New Testament, addressed by St Paul to the Christians
of Colossae, a city of Phrygia. Its authenticity is supported
by a body of evidence so ancient, uninterrupted, and uni-
COL 151
versal, that few even of the extreme rationalists of the pre- Colossus,
sent century have ventured to deny it. The date of its Vs—
composition, which is synchronous with that of the epistle to
the Ephesians, has been variously assigned by critics to the
captivity of Paul at Caesarea or at Rome. Tradition is har¬
monious in favour of the latter, while the internal evidence
brought forward on either side can hardly be regarded as
decisive. The same doubt exists in regard to the question,
whether or not Paul had visited Colossae previously to the
date of this epistle ; but though no incidental statement in
this or any other epistle can be brought forward to strike
the balance between the plausibilities of either hypothesis,
still, though [possible, it is far from probable that the familiar
acquaintance which the apostle betrays in regard to the
Christians and the Christianity of Colossae could have been
derived from any other source than a personal visit to the
city. The aim of the apostle in writing this letter is mani¬
festly to counteract the teaching of certain Jewish Chris¬
tians, who coloured over the grosser features of Judaism—
circumcision and observance of the Mosaic ritual—with theo-
sophic speculation concerning the higher world of spirits
and the corruption of matter, and as corollaries from these
addicted themselves to the observance of angel-worship, and
enjoined a refined system of bodily austerities. Their errors
cannot be formally identified with the tenets of any hea¬
then or any Christian school of philosophy ; and the Essene
teachers, whom they most closely approximate, were at
that time to be found only in Syria and Palestine. The
note given by St Paul descriptive of their tenets enables us
to realize that embryonic Gnosticism which proved the fruit¬
ful germ of almost innumerable sects; and so strikingly ap¬
plicable is his language to these as they arose, that some
on that ground alone have regarded the epistle as a grand
anachronism.
COLOSSUS, a word of uncertain origin, used by the
Greeks and Romans to signify a statue of a gigantic size.
The most celebrated work of this kind was the Colossus of
Rhodes, a statue of Apollo or the sun, so high that ships in
full sail, according to the common account, could pass be¬
tween its legs. There is, however, no authority for the
statement that its legs were extended across the harbour.
This colossus, which was regarded as one of the seven won¬
ders of the world, was the work of Chares, who spent twelve
years in making it. (See Chares.) It was upwards of 105
feet in height; and there were few, says Pliny, that could
embrace its thumb. It cost 300 talents. A spiral stair¬
case led to its summit, whence might be descried Syria, and
the ships proceeding to Egypt, in a great mirror suspended to
the neck of the statue. This famous statue was overthrown
and shattered by an earthquake about 56 years after its erec¬
tion, b.c. 224. The fragments had lain on the ground for
923 years, when they were sold by the Saracens to a Jew
of Emesa, who loaded 900 camels with the brass, a.d. 672.
According to Pliny, Rhodes was adorned by no fewer
than 100 colossal statues of the sun ; but all greatly inferior
in size to the one here described.
Of the various colossi at Rome, the most famous were
the following:—1. That of Jupiter, in bronze, upon the
capitol; 2. a bronze statue of Apollo at the Palatine library ;
3. a bronze statue of Augustus in the Forum Augusti; 4.
a marble statue of Nero, said by Suetonius to have been
120 feet in height, and which originally was placed in the
vestibule of the “golden house;” but, after the conflagration
of that edifice, supplied with a new head by Vespasian, and
converted into a statue of the radiated Apollo ; 5. a gilded
bronze equestrian statue of Domitian, in the forum. Frequent
mention too is made in Herodotus of the colossi of Egypt.
Probably the largest modern work of this kind is the
bronze colossal statue of Carlo Borromeo, the good arch¬
bishop of Milan, 66 feet in height. See Arona, and Bor¬
romeo.
152 COL
Colostrum COLOSTRUM (Lat.), the first milk of any animal
II after bringing forth its young. (See Beestings.) A mix-
v ° our- j ture 0f turpentine with the yolk of an egg is also sometimes
“~ called by this name.
COLOUR (Lat. color), a property inherent in light, by
which, according to its various proportions or quantities, or
from some other cause, it excites different vibrations in the
optic nerve, which, propagated to the sensorium, affect the
mind with different sensations. See Chromatics, and
Optics.
Colour, in Heraldry. The colours generally used in
heraldry are red, blue, black, green, and purple ; technically
called gules, azure, sable, vert or sinople, and purpure.
Tenne or tawny, and sanguine, are less common. Yellow
and white again, called or and argent, are metals, not colours.
The metals and colours are sometimes expressed in blazonry
by the names of precious stones, or by those of planets or
stars. See Heraldry.
Colour, in the Human Species, difference of. See
Complexion ; America, vol. ii., p. 677; Man.
Colour, in Painting, is applied both to the drugs and
to the tints produced by those drugs, variously mixed and
applied. The principal colours used by painters are red
and white lead, yellow and red ochres, several kinds of earth,
umber, orpiment, lamp black, ivory black, black lead, ver¬
milion, gamboge, lacca or lake, blue and green ashes, verdi¬
gris, bistre, raw and burnt siena, bice, smalt, carmine, ultra-
marine. For much interesting information regarding the
pigments employed by the Greeks and Romans, the reader
may consult Vitruvius, vii.; Pliny, xxxiii., xxxiv., xxxv.;
Dioscorides, v.; and Theophrastus, De Lapidibus. See also
Philosoph. Trans, of Royal Soc., 1815, for the experiments
and observations of Sir Humphry Davy on some ancient
colours and paintings in the baths of Titus and of Livia, &c.
Colour, in Plants, is an attribute found to be very va¬
riable. Different colours are observed, not only in differ¬
ent individuals of the same species, but likewise in different
parts of the same individual. Thus, marvel of Peru and
sweet-william have frequently petals of different colours on
the same plant. Three or four different colours are fre¬
quently found upon the same leaf or flower, as on the leaves
of the amaranthus tricolor, and the flowers of the tulip,
auricula, three-coloured violet, and others. To produce the
most beautiful and striking variety of colours in such flowers,
is the principal delight and business of the florist.
The vegetable colours, and their intermediate shades or
gradations enumerated by botanists, are as follow :—
Water-colour, hyalinus.
White, albus.
Lead-colour, cinereus.
Black, niger.
Wxownffuscus.
Pitch-black, ater.
Yellow, luteus.
Straw-colour,
Flame-colour, fulcus.
Iron-colour, gilvus.
Red.
Flesh-colour, incarnatus.
Scarlet, coccineus.
Purple.
Violet-colour, ccendeo-purpureus.
Blue, cceruleus.
Green, viridis.
These colours seem to be appropriated to particular parts
of the plant. Thus, white is most common in roots, berries,
and the petals of spring flowers ; black in the roots and
seeds, but rarely in the seed vessel, and scarcely ever in
the petals. Yellow is frequent in the antherae, or tops of
the stamina; as likewise in the petals of autumnal flowers,
and the compound ligulated flowers of Linnaeus. Red is
COL
common in the petals of summer flowers, and in the acid Colour,
fruits; blue and violet-colour in the petals; and green in
the leaves and calyx, but rarely in the petals, In the inter¬
changing of colours, which in plants is found to depend upon
differences in heat, climate, soil, and culture, a sort of elec¬
tive attraction is observed to take place. Thus, red is more
easily changed into white and blue, blue into white and
yellow, yellow into white, and white into purple. A red
colour is often changed into a white, in the flowers of heath,
mother of thyme, betony, pink, viscous campion, cucubalus,
trefoil, orchis, fox-glove, thistle, cudweed, saw-wort, rose,
poppy, fumitory, and geranium. Red passes into blue in
pimpernel. Blue is changed into white in bell-flower,
Greek-valerian, bind-weed, columbine, violet vetch, milk¬
wort, goat’s rue, viper’s bugloss, comfrey, borrage, hyssop,
dragon’s head, scabious, blue-bottle, and succory; but it is
changed into yellow in crocus. Yellow passes easily into
white in melilot, agrimony, mullein, tulip, blattaria or moth-
mullein, and corn marigold. White is changed into purple
in wood-sorrel, thorn-apple, peas, and daisy.
Although plants are sometimes observed to change their
colour upon being moistened with coloured juices, yet that
quality in vegetables seems not so much owing to the na¬
ture of their nourishment as to the action of the internal
and external air, heat, light, and the primitive organization
of the parts. In support of this opinion it may be observed
that there is far less variety in the colours of roots than of
the other parts of the plants ; the pulp within the skin be¬
ing usually white, sometimes yellow, rarely red. That this
effect is produced by their small intercourse with the ex¬
ternal air, appears from the circumstance, that the upper
parts of roots, when they happen to stand naked above the
ground, are often dyed with several colours. Thus the tops
of sorrel roots turn red; those of turnips, mullein, and
radishes, become purple; and many others are converted
into green, whilst those parts of the same roots which lie
more under ground are commonly white. The green
colour is so proper to leaves, that many, as those of sage,
the young sprouts of St John’s wort, and others which are
reddish when in the bud, acquire a perfect green upon be¬
ing fully expanded. In like manner, the leaves of the sea¬
side grape {polygonum), which when young are entirely
red, become, as they advance in growth, perfectly green;
except the middle and transverse ribs, which retain their
former colour.
As flowers gradually open and are exposed to the air, they
throw off their old colour and acquire a new one ; in fact,
no flower has its proper colour until it is fully expanded.
Thus the purple stock-julyflowers are white or pale in the
bud; and in like manner bachelor’s buttons, blue-bottle,
poppy, red daisies, and many other flowers, though of divers
colours when blown, are all white in the bud. Nay, many
flowers change their colour thrice successively. Thus, the
very young buds of lady’s looking-glass, bugloss, and the
like, are all white ; the larger buds purple or murrey; and
the open flowers blue.
With respect to the colours of the juices of plants it may
be observed, that most resinous gums are tinctured ; some,
however, are limpid; and that which drops from the do¬
mestic pine is clear as rock-water. The milk of some plants
is pale, as in burdock; of others white, as in dandelion, eu-
phorbium, and scorzonera; and of others yellow, as in lo-
vage, and greater celandine. Most mucilages have little
colour, taste, or smell. Of all the colours above enume •
rated, green is the most common to plants, and black the
most rare.
Colour, being a quality in plants so apt to change, ought
never to be employed in distinguishing their species. These
ought to be characterized from circumstances not liable to
alteration by culture or other accidents. The same incon¬
stancy of colour observed in the flowers, is likewise to be
COLOUR.
Colour, found in the other parts of plants. Berries frequently
change from green to red, and from red to white. Even in
ripe fruits, the colour, whether white, red, or blue, is apt to
vary; particularly in apple, pear, plum, and cherry trees.
Seeds are more constant in point of colour than the ves¬
sel which contains them. In the seeds, however, of the
poppy, oats, pea, bean, and kidney-bean, variations are fre¬
quently observed. The root, too, although not remarkably
subject to change, is found to vary in some species of car¬
rot and radish. Leaves frequently become spotted, as in a
species of orchis, hawk-weed, ranunculus, knot-grass, and
lettuce, but seldom relinquish their green colour altogether.
Those of some species of amaranthus, or flower-gentle, are
beautifully coloured. The spots which appear on the sur¬
face of the leaves are of different colours, liable to vary, and
not unfrequently disappear altogether. The leaves of offi¬
cinal lung-wort, and some species of sow-bread, sorrel, tre¬
foil, and ranunculus, are covered with white spots ; those of
dog s-tooth violet, with purple and white; those of several
species of ranunculus and orchis, with black and purple;
those of amaranthus tricolor, with green, red, and yellow;
those of ranunculus acris, and a species of bog bean, with
red or purple. The under surface of the leaves of some
species of pimpernel and the sea-plantain is marked with a
number of dots or points; a white line runs through the
leaves of Indian reed, black-berried heath, and a species of
Canary grass: and the margin or brim of the leaf, in some
species of box, honeysuckle, ground ivy, and the evergreen
oak, is of a silver-white colour. The whole plant is often
found to assume a colour that is unnatural or foreign to it.
The varieties in some species of eryngo, mug-wort, orrach,
amaranthus, purslane, and lettuce, furnish examples of this.
Such being the inconstancy of colours in all the parts of
the plant, specific names derived from that quality are very
properly deemed erroneous by Linnaeus ; whether they re¬
spect the colour of the flower, fruit, seeds, roots, leaves, or
express in general the beauty or deformity of the entire
plant, with a particular view to that circumstance. But of
this impropriety, committed by former botanists, Linnaeus
himself is not always guiltless. Thus the two species of
sarracena, or the side-saddle flower, are distinguished by
the colour of their petals into the yellow and purple sar¬
racena ; although the shapes and figure of the leaves afford
much more constant as well as striking characters. The
same may be said of his Lupinus albus and luteus ; Reseda
alba, glauca, and lutea; Angelica atropurpurea ; Dictam-
nus albus ; Lamium album ; Selago coccinea ; Sida alba ;
Passijlora rubra, lutea, incarnata, and ccerulea; and of
many others, in which the specific name is derived from a
character or quality that is so liable to vary in the same
species. ' *
In conclusion, of all sensible qualities, colour is the least
useful in indicating the virtues and powers of vegetables.
The following general positions on this subject are laid
down by Linnaeus, and seem sufficiently confirmed by ex¬
periment:—A yellow colour generally indicates a bitter
taste; as in gentian, aloe, celandine, turmeric, and other
yellow flowers. Red indicates an acid or sour taste ; as in
cranberries, barberries, currants, raspberries, mulberries, cher¬
ries, the fruit of the rose, sea-buckthorn, and service-tree.
Herbs which turn red towards autumn have likewise a sour
taste ; as sorrel, wood-sorrel, and bloody-dock. Green in¬
dicates a crude alkaline taste, as in leaves and unripe fruits.
A pale colour denotes an insipid taste ; as in endive, aspara¬
gus, and lettuce. White promises a sweet luscious taste ;
as in white currants and plums, sweet apples, &c. Lastly,
black indicates a harsh, nauseous-, disagreeable taste; as in
the berries of deadly night-shade, myrtle-leaved sumach,
herb-Christopher, and others—many of which are not only
unpleasant to the taste, but pernicious and deadly in their
effects.
153
VOL. VII.
Colours, Incapacity of distinguishing. This peculiarity of Colour,
vision was till lately supposed to be a very rare phenomenon. ^
It appears first to have attracted attention in England, and
some imperfectly described cases were recorded in the Phil.
Trans, in the latter half of the preceding century. These
examples were supposed to be unique, till the great chemist
John Dalton announced himself in 1794 as exhibiting the
peculiarity under notice, and described the cases of more
than twenty persons similarly circumstanced. Later re¬
searches in England, France, Switzerland, Germany, Bel¬
gium, and America, have shown that this condition of vision
is far from uncommon. Various names have been proposed
for it, such as Daltonism from Dalton (an objectionable ap¬
pellation which English writers all decline to use), achroma-
topsij, dyschromatopsy, chromatopseudopsy, &c. The most
convenient English name is that of colour-blindness, sug¬
gested by Sir David Brewster, which, though not strictly
accurate, is sufficiently distinctive to warrant its use even as
a scientific term.
Colour-blindness is of two kinds. The one which is ex¬
ceedingly rare is characterized by an inability to perceive any
colour properly so called, the eye being only conscious of
black and white, or rather of a very dark, and a very light
giay. Living examples of this extreme colour-blindness
^een recently described by English and foreign writers.
The other kind of colour-blindness, which is very com¬
mon, shows itself in an inability to distinguish certain
colours from each other, and to distinguish the very light
tints of all colours from white, and the very dark shades
from black. Those who err thus generally see in the rain¬
bow only two colours, blue and yellow, but in the prismatic
solar spectrum, looked at from a short distance, several ad¬
ditional coloured bands are distinguished.
The colours most liable to be confounded with each
other are, 1. Red full and bright, including crimson, scarlet
and the redder shades of orange, with full and bright green.
2. Brown, including dull red, with dark or dull green. 3.
Purple, including pink, crimson, lilac, lavender, and other
mixtures of red and blue throughout nearly all their shades,
with blue. 4. Green wfith blue, even by daylight—the most
common probably of all the forms of colour-blindness. 5.
Red (including crimson and scarlet), with black. 6. Light
tints of all colours, such as straw colour, and the equally
pale shades of pink, blue, green, &c., with white. 7. Dark
shades of all colours, such as claret, purple, olive-blue, with
black. Popular interest has been chiefly excited by the
mistakes of colour-blind persons between red and green ;
but in a scientific point of view the most singular mistake
is that of full red for black, inasmuch as it implies that the
eye thus deceived not only does not see red as red, but
does not see it as any colour, or as in any way visible at all.
Red light is thus equivalent to no light, and does not make
even a luminous impression on the retina. The colour
best distinguished by the colour-blind is yellow, and other
colours are rarely mistaken for it. Blue, when pure and
bright, is also perfectly distinguished, but purples and greens
are often mistaken for blue.
Colour-blindness is greatly more common among males
than females, but the relative proportion of cases in the two
sexes has not been ascertained. Among males there is
reason to believe that 1 in 20 is colour-blind in some de¬
gree ; and that 1 in 50 is colour-blind to the extent of mis¬
taking for each other the colours in the preceding list.
Colour-blindness, when marked, generally shows itself in
more than one member of the same family, and has been
traced from parent to child, through as many as five genera¬
tions. It seldom, however, includes all the members of a
family, and the whole of the females of a generation often
escape. The eyes of the colour-blind present in general
no peculiarity in appearance or internal structure, and the
power of vision in reference to everything but colour is per-
154
Colt
II
Columba.
COL
fectly normal, and often appears even superior to that of
those who do not mistake colours.
The cause of colour-blindness is not known, but the
great majority of authors on the subject are agreed in re¬
ferring it to some peculiarity of structure in the retina or
brain. It appears to be quite incurable, but some assist¬
ance in distinguishing colours is derived from the substitu¬
tion of artificial light for daylight; and yellow spectacles
have proved of some service by day.
The subject is of practical importance from the great ex¬
tent to which coloured signals are employed on railways and
at sea; but especially on the former, where the colours
preferred, viz., red and green, are among the greatest stum¬
bling blocks of the colour-blind.
The fullest account of this peculiarity of vision will be
found in the papers of Professor E. Wartmann of Geneva,
the first of which was published in trench in 1840, and
translated into English in 1846, in Taylor s Scientific Me'
moirs for that year; the second entitled Deuxieme Me¬
moir e sur le Daltonisme, &c., is published in the Memoires
lus a la Societe de Physique de Geneve, 1849. Some ac¬
count of it is given in Mr W. Cooper’s article Vision in the
Cyclopaedia of Anatomy. The latest English researches
on the subject are contained in a series ot papers by Dr
George Wilson in the Edinburgh Monthly Journal of
Medical Science for 1853-54.
COLT, the young male of the horse kind. See Horse.
COLUBER. See index to Serpents.
COLUMB-KILL. See Iona.
COLUMBA, the Pigeon, a genus of birds. See index
to Ornithology.
COLUMBA, St, a native of Ireland, in allusion to whose
name one of the Hebrides received the appellation of Icolm-
kill, and also that of Iona—from a Hebrew word signifying
a dove. In the year 565, this holy man left his native
country, with the pious design of preaching the gospel to
the Piets. It appears that he left Ireland with warm resent¬
ment, vowing never to settle within sight of his native land.
He went first to Oronsay; but finding that place too near
to Ireland, he removed to Hy, which was the name of Iona
at that period.
Columba was soon distinguished for the sanctity of his
manners; and a miracle which he wrought impressed so
strongly the Pictish king Bradeus, that the latter immediately
made a present of the little island to the saint. It seems that
at first this prince had not only refused Columba an audience,
but had even proceeded so far as to order the palace-gates to
be shut against him. The saint, however, was not to be
excluded in this way, and by the power of his word instantly
caused the gates to fly open. As soon as he was in posses¬
sion of Iona, Columba founded a cell of monks, borrowing
his institutions from a certain oriental monastic order. It is
said that the first religious persons in Iona were canons re¬
gular, of whom the founder was the first abbot; and that the
monks, till the year 716, differed from those of the Church
of Rome, both in the observance of Easter and in the cle¬
rical tonsure. In his insular retreat Columba led an ex¬
emplary life, and was highly respected for the sanctity of his
manners. He is the first on record who pretended to the
faculty of second sight; for he is said to have told the vic¬
tory of Aidan over the Piets and Saxons at the very instant
it happened. He had the honour of burying in his island
Convallius and Kinnatil, two kings of Scotland, and of crown¬
ing a third. At length the saint, worn out with age, died
in Iona in the arms of his disciples, and was interred there ;
but, as the Irish pretend, his corpse was in after times trans¬
lated to Down, where, according to the epitaph, his remains
were deposited beside those of St Bridget and St Patrick.
The ancient lives of Columba are full of legendary stories
about his miracles and prophecies, and quite worthless in a his¬
torical point of view. See Pinkerton’s Lives of the Saints,
COL
art. Columba; Johnson’s Tour to the Hebrides ; Campbell’s Columba-
Life of St Columba. _ ^
COLUMBANUS, an Irish monk, who was educated in
the monastery of Bangor, and is said to have translated the v ff
Psalms. He left the monastery a.d. 590 along with 12
youths whom he was training as ecclesiastics, and repairing
to France, established himself in a wilderness in the Vos¬
ges, where the ruins of an ancient castle (Anagrates) af¬
forded shelter to the band. Here they were exposed to the
greatest privations; but their superior learning and piety
soon attracted crowds of admirers, for whose accommoda¬
tion convents sprung up at Luxeuil and Fontenay. The
enemies of Columbanus, however, taking advantage of some
peculiar usages which he had brought from Ireland, accused
him to the pope, and ultimately carried their suit before a
Frankish synod in 602. A more powerful conspiracy was
at the same time organized against him at the court, by
Brunehault, the mother of Thierry II. king of Burgundy,
who was indignant at the rebukes administered by the fear¬
less missionary to her profligate son. She w as joined in her
scheme by a large party of Burgundian nobles and prelates,
who were offended by the rigorous austerity of the monk,
and at last procured an order commanding his return to Ire¬
land. With a few chosen followers Columbanus retired to
Nantes, and thence withdrew into Switzerland, where he
preached to the Suevi and Allemanni. He afterwards went
to Italy and founded the monastery of Bobbin, in which he
remained till his death. The order of the Columbans was
merged in that of the Benedictines in the beginning of the
eighth century. (Neander’s Memorials of Christian Lifei)
COLUMBARIUM, in Homan Antiquity, the receptacle
for funeral urns ; so called from the resemblance of its small
niches to a pigeon-house.
COLUMBIA, U.S. The district of Columbia was ori¬
ginally a tract of land of 100 square miles, ceded in 1790 by
the States of Virginia and Maryland to the republic for the
seat of the congress. It was situated on both sides of the
Potomac river, about 120 miles from its mouth, and included
the cities of Washington, Alexandria, and Georgetown. In
1846, however, the portion on the south side of the river
was ceded back to Virginia. The present territory has an
area of 60 square miles. The government of the district is
vested solely in congress. The only laws, beyond the con¬
stitution of the United States, to which Columbia is subject,
are those which were in force in Maryland at the period of
its separation. The present district of Columbia contains
only one county, that of Washington ; and in this are com¬
prised the cities of Washington and Georgetown. Ac¬
cording to the census of 1850, the population amounted to
51,687, of whom 38,027 were whites, 9973 free coloured,
and 3687 slaves. The employments of the district embrace
almost every branch of national industry. Its manufactures
and commerce are extensive, and its agriculture, though
confined chiefly to the rearing of vegetables for the city-
markets, is in a highly flourishing condition. 1 he foreign
commerce of the district is limited, and is carried on prin¬
cipally through the port of Alexandria, on account of the
facility of transit afforded by the Chesapeake and Ohio
canal.
Columbia, the capital of the State of South Carolina,
North America, stands on the east side of the Congaree
river, immediately below the confluence of its main streams,
the Broad and Saluda Rivers. The city is built upon an
elevated plain 3 or 4 miles in extent, and gradually sloping
in all directions. Its high situation contributes greatly to
the health of the inhabitants, and affords an extensive view
of the highly cultivated corn fields and cotton plantations of
the surrounding district. It was founded in 1787, and is
laid out on a rectangular plan, with streets 100 feet in width.
The principal buildings are the state-house, 170 feet long
by 60 feet wide, the county buildings, market-house, bank-
COL
Columbia ing-houses, academies, and churches. The college, founded
|| in 1804, had in 1850 eight professors, 195 students, a
Columbus, library of 17,000 volumes, and a fine observatory. There
are also two theological institutions in the town. The
city possesses considerable manufactures, which have sprung
up for the most part within the past decade; and its‘trade
and commercial importance has greatly advanced since
the completion of the lines of railway which diverge from
it in all directions; and when the system proposed for
South Carolina shall have formed junctions with the lines
of the sunounding states, the commercial prosperity of
this city will be indefinitely enhanced. The dwelling-
houses are chiefly of wood, but many of them are of brick.
Vessels of light draught can come up to the town, which
is also the converging point of several railways. Pop.
(1850) 6060. J l
Columbia, a town of Lancaster county, Pennsylvania,
on the east bank of the Susquehanna river, over which there
is a bridge, 5960 feet long, resting on stone piers. It is
connected with Havre de Grace by the Tide Water canal,
and is a station on the Philadelphia and Columbia railway.
It contains a town-hall, jail, 13 churches, and a number of
other public buildings, and carries on a considerable trade
with Baltimore and Philadelphia. Pop. 4340.
There are numerous, other places of this name in the
United States.
Columbia River. See Oregon Territory.
COLUMBIUM, a metal discovered by Hatchett in 1801,
in an American mineral. Several years afterwards it was
rediscovered in a Swedish mineral, to which Eckeberg gave
the name of Tantalite. Wollaston, however, showed that
Eckeberg’s new metal Tantalum was the same as Hat¬
chett’s Columbium. See Chemistry.
COLUMBRETES, a cluster of islands belonging to
Spain, off the coast of Valencia, about 70 miles from the
shore in a north-easterly direction. They are of volcanic
origin, and remarkably picturesque in appearance. The
largest of the group is Colibri, supposed to be the ancient
Ophiusa, so called from the Greek word for a snake, in
which reptiles the island was believed at one time to abound.
The ancient Ophiusa formed one of the cluster Pityusse,
the largest of which, Ebusus, was subsequently included
among the Balearic Isles. The Columbretes were notorious
in the middle ages, and even later, as affording a secure re¬
treat to the corsairs and pirates of the Barbary States, who
swarmed at that time in these seas.
COLUMBUS, Christopher, the celebrated navigator
and discoverer of the western world, was born in the city of
Genoa, about the year 1446. Although several illustrious
families have contended for his alliance to them, his father
Domenico, and his ancestors, appear to have followed the
trade of woolcombers or carders, and were of humble though
reputable origin. Columbus received his education at the
university of Padua, and, having evinced an early passion
for the sea, entered into nautical life at the age of fourteen.
The first voyage in which we have any authentic accounts
of" his being engaged, was a warlike expedition fitted out at
Genoa in 1459, when, associated with hardy and daring
adventurers, he acquired so much distinction as to be in¬
trusted with a separate command. After this, it is sup¬
posed, he was employed in various commercial, pious, and
predatory expeditions against the Mohammedans and Ve¬
netians, in company with a famous corsair of his own name
and family, and acquired reputation and experience in his
profession. His son Fernando relates, that in an engage¬
ment off the coast of Portugal with four Venetian galleys,
returning richly laden from Flanders, the vessel on board
which he served, and one of the Venetian ships to which
it was grappled, took fire. Columbus threw himself into
col 155
the sea, seized an oar which was floating near him, and by Columbus,
this means, and his dexterity in swimming, reached the -a,7
shore, although two leagues distinct. Proceeding thereafter
to Lisbon, he was induced to take up his residence in that
capital.
Columbus became acquainted in Lisbon with the most
eminent men in science and maritime art, whom the en¬
couragement of Prince Henry of Portugal had attracted
around him. At this period (anno 1470) he was in the
vigour of manhood, of an engaging appearance, grave, cour¬
teous, and affable in his deportment, moderate and simple
in his diet and apparel, eloquent in discourse, possessing
high magnanimity, and a temper which, though irritable,
was under the control of a gentle and enthusiastic piety.
Here he married Dona Felipa, daughter of Bartolomeo
Monis de Palestrello, an Italian cavalier lately deceased,
and a distinguished navigator, who had discovered and co¬
lonized the island of Porto Santo. Having obtained posses¬
sion of the journals and charts of this sea captain, and also
hearing accounts of his voyages from his widow, Columbus
was seized with an irresistible desire of visiting unknown
regions. In order to indulge it, he made a voyage to Ma¬
deira, and continued during several years to trade with that
island, the Canaries, Azores, the settlements in Guinea, and
the other places which the Portuguese had discovered on
the continent of Africa. By the experience acquired in such
a number of voyages, Columbus became one of the most
skilful navigators in Europe.
At the commencement of the fifteenth century, the in¬
telligence of Europe, and particularly of Portugal, was di¬
rected in seeking everywhere for the “scattered lights
of geographical knowledge.” The lofty and enterprising
mind of Prince Henry, matured by diligent researches and
laborious investigation, conceived the idea of the circum¬
navigation of Africa; and under his auspices the Cape of
Good Hope was doubled, and the commerce of the East
thrown open to maritime adventure. At this period,
whilst invention and skill were well nigh exhausted in the
projection and accomplishment of this eventful discovery,
the existence of the western world was never dreamt of;
the Atlantic Ocean was regarded with awe and wonder,
“ seeming,” says Washington Irving, “ to bound the world
as with a chaos, into w'hich conjecture could not pene¬
trate, and enterprise feared to adventure.” The danger
and tediousness of the voyage by Africa first set Columbus
to ruminate whether a shorter and more direct passage to
the East Indies could not be found out; and after long
consideration, he became thoroughly convinced that, by
sailing across the Atlantic in a westwmrdly direction, new
countries, probably forming a part of the vast continent
of India, would infallibly be discovered. He was led to
this conviction by the theories of the ancients and the
discoveries of the moderns, aided by his own experience
and the advancement of science. Adopting as a funda¬
mental principle, that the earth was a terraqueous globe,
ti ayersable round from east to west, he acquired a notion
of its true figure. His eminent biographer, Washington
Ii ving, relates, that “ he divided the circumference from
east to west at the equator, according to Ptolemy, into
twenty-four hours, of fifteen degrees each, making three
bundled and sixty degrees. Of these he imagined, com¬
paring the globe of Ptolemy with the earlier map of Ma-
rinus of Pyre, that fifteen hours had been known to the
ancients, extending from the Canary or Fortunate Islands,
to the city of Phinge, in Asia, the western and eastern
extremities ot the known world. The Portuguese had
advanced the western frontier one hour more by the dis¬
covery of the Azores and Cape de Verde Islands ; still
COLUMBUS.
156
Columbu*. about eight hours, or one third of the circumference of
the earth, remained to be explored. This space he ima¬
gined to be occupied in a great measure by the eastern
regions of Asia, which might extend so far as to approach
the western shores of Europe and Africa. A navigator,
therefore, by pursuing a direct course from east to west,
must arrive at the extremity of Asia, or discover any in¬
tervening land. The great obstacle to be apprehended was
from the tract of ocean that might intervene; but this
could not be very wide, if the opinion of Alfraganus the
Arabian were admitted, who, by diminishing the size of
the degrees, gave to the earth a smaller circumference
than was assigned to it by other cosmographers ; a theory
to which Columbus seems generally to have given much
faith. He was fortified also by the opinion of Aristotle,
Seneca, Pliny, and Strabo, who considered the ocean as
but of moderate breadth, so that one might pass from Ca¬
diz westward to the Indies in a few days..
Columbus received a decided confirmation of his theory
in 1474, not only from Paolo Toscanelli, one of the ablest
cosmographers of the day, and from the narrative of Mar¬
co Polo, a Venetian traveller, whose map proved of great
assistance to our navigator in his first voyage of discovery;
but also from the observations of several more modern na¬
vigators. Martin Vicenti, a Portuguese pilot, proceeding
farther westward than usual, found a piece of artificially
carved timber floating on the sea, and, as it was wafted by
a westerly wind, conjectured that it might have come from
some unknown land in that direction. Pedro Correo, the
brother-in-law of Columbus, found a similar piece of wood
on Porto Santo ; and had also seen canes of an enormous
size floating upon the waves, which resembled those de¬
scribed by Ptolemy as growing in India. After a course
of westwardly winds, trees torn up by the roots were often
driven upon the coast of the Azores; and at one time the
dead bodies of two men, with singular features, different
from those of any known race of people, were cast upon
the island of Flores.
On these grounds Columbus formed the vast and daring
enterprise which was destined to hand down his name to
posterity with unfading honour; and, firmly established in
a belief of the successful result of his projects, “ he never,”
says Irving, “ spoke in doubt or hesitation ; but with as
much certainty as if his eyes had beheld the promised
land. A deep religious sentiment also mingled with his
thoughts, and gave them at times a tinge of superstition,
but of a sublime and lofty kind. He looked upon himself
as standing in the hand of heaven, chosen from among
men for the accomplishment of its high purpose ; he read,
as he supposed, his contemplated discovery foretold in
holy writ, and shadowed forth darkly in the prophecies.
The ends of the earth were to be brought together, and
all nations, and tongues, and languages, united under the
banners of the Redeemer.”
The disturbed state of Portugal under Alphonso retard¬
ed the progress of discovery. The compass, though in gene¬
ral use, had not gained that reliance which induced mariners
fearlessly to brave the dangers of the deep; and the pro¬
ject of a voyage through boundless wastes appeared extra¬
vagant and impracticable. Nothing daunted, however, by
these disheartening symptoms, Columbus pursued his fa¬
vourite schemes with ardour, and longed to put them into
execution. So perilous an adventure was not, however,
to be attempted without the patronage of some sovereign
power ; and John II. of Portugal having at this juncture
ascended the throne, and being favourably inclined to the
cause of discovery, Columbus made his proposals, which
were graciously received by the monarch, and referred
to a learned junto, consisting of Roderigo and Joseph, two
physicians, and Diego Ortiz, bishop of Ceuta, all men of
learning and science. Unfortunately, however, these were Columbus,
the persons who had been the chief directors of the Portu-
guese navigations, and had advised to search for a pas¬
sage to India by an opposite course to that which Colum¬
bus recommended as shorter and more certain. They
could not therefore approve-of his proposal without sub¬
mitting to the double mortification of condemning their
own theory and of acknowledging his superiority. The
result of their conferences therefore was, that they recom¬
mended the king to fit out a caravel privately, and attempt
the proposed discovery by the designated route, which they
ascertained from charts and details craftily obtained from
Columbus. John, in an evil hour, had the weakness to
adopt this perfidious counsel. The caravel departed, but
the pilots had neither the genius nor fortitude of Colum¬
bus ; their courage failed, and putting back to the Cape
de Verde Islands, they returned from thence to Lisbon,
execrating the project as extravagant and irrational.
This ungenerous and unworthy attempt roused the in¬
dignation of Columbus, who immediately quitted Portugal,
taking with him his infant son Diego, and made applica¬
tion to the government of Genoa; but this republic, wea¬
kened by the reverses of war, rejected a proposal that
would have restored their ancient splendour, and might
for a long period have “ perpetuated the golden wand of
commerce in the failing grasp of Italy.” Columbus next
carried his proposition to Venice, where he was equally
unsuccessful. He also sent his brother Bartholomew to
lay his plans before Henry VII. of England, having in
the mean time sailed himself for Spain, where he arrived
after having exhausted all his means.
Columbus, in this state of abject poverty, met with great
hospitality from Friar Juan Perez de Marchena; and, en¬
couraged by this worthy ecclesiastic and his friends, and
assisted by the generosity of Martin Alonzo Pinzon, he
set out for the Castilian court at Cordova in the spring of
1486. The moment was unpropitious for such a proposi¬
tion, the Spanish sovereign being at the time engaged in
military preparations against the Moorish kings. At length,
through the intercession of Cardinal Gonzalez, he obtain¬
ed an interview, and submitted his project to Ferdinand.
True science had as yet made so little progress in Spain,
that most of those to whom the consideration of his plan
was referred were utterly ignorant of the first principles
on which our adventurer founded his hopes. Some, from
mistaken notions concerning the dimensions of the globe,
contended that the voyage could not be performed in less
than three years : others concluded that Columbus would
find the ocean of infinite extent, according to the opinion
of some ancient philosophers; or that if he should steer
beyond a certain point, the convex figure of the globe
would present a kind of mountain, up which the vessel
could never sail with the most favourable wind. Even
without entering into particular discussion, some rejected
the scheme in general, making use of that maxim of the
ignorant, “ that it is presumptuous in any person to sup¬
pose that he alone possesses knowledge superior to all the
rest of mankind united." Worn out with a series of disap¬
pointments and delays, and supporting himself by making
maps and charts, Columbus, despairing of the Spanish pa¬
tronage, began to look to other courts, in hopes of meet¬
ing more encouragement. He had already made prepara¬
tions for this purpose, and taken measures for the disposal
of his children during his absence, when Juan Perez solicit¬
ed him to defer his journey, making application at the same
time to Isabella, the result of which was a gracious invita¬
tion of Columbus back to court, accompanied with the pre¬
sent of a small sum to equip him for the journey. The mo-
narchs were now pledged to attend to his proposals, and
negotiations were set on foot to carry them into execu-
COLUMBUS.
Columbus, tion. Columbus appeared before the persons appointed
to confer with him, with the same confident hopes of suc¬
cess as formerly, and insisted on the same high recom¬
pense. He proposed that a small fleet should be fitted
out under his command to attempt the discovery, and sti¬
pulating that he should be invested with the titles and
privileges of admiral and viceroy of all the seas and lands
he should discover, with one tenth of all gains, either by
trade or commerce. He further offered to furnish an
eighth of the cost, on condition of enjoying an eighth of
the profits. His terms were, however, deemed inadmis¬
sible ; the negotiation broke off, and Columbus, in indig¬
nation, mounting his mule, was already on the road to
Cordova, with the intention of immediately proceeding to
Fiance, when he was overtaken by a messenger from the
queen, who had been prevailed upon by the arguments
of Quintanilla and St Angel, two of Columbus’ patrons,
again to favour his undertakings. The negotiations were
now completed, and the capitulations were signed by
Ferdinand and Isabella at Santa Fe on the 17th of April
14<92. dhe articles of agreement were to the following
effect:—That Columbus should be constituted high ad¬
miral in all the seas, islands, and continents he should
discover, with similar honours and prerogatives to those
enjoyed by the high admiral of Castile in his district.
He was also nominated viceroy and governor-general over
all the said lands and continents; and a tenth of all free
profits arising from the merchandise and productions of
the countries within his admiralty was granted to him for
ever. Columbus, or his lieutenant, was to be sole judge
of all causes and disputes arising out of traffic between
those countries and Spain. He was further permitted to
contribute an eighth part of the expense of expeditions
to the countries he expected to discover, and was en¬
titled in return to an eighth part of the profits. A prin¬
cipal object of Columbus in this undertaking was the pro¬
pagation of the Christian faith, to which he was a zealous
devotee. Expecting to arrive at the extremity of Asia,
he hoped to spread the light of the gospel among the
barbarian nations of the East; and so confident were his
anticipations, that letters were actually given him by the
sovereigns for the Grand Khan of Tartary. Although
the royal documents were signed both by Ferdinand and
Isabella, her separate crown of Castile defrayed all the
expense; and the queen in consequence reserved for her
subjects of that kingdom an exclusive right to all the bene¬
fits which might accrue from the success of the expedition.
The arrangement being finally completed, Columbus set
sad on the 3d of August 1492, in three small vessels,
only one of which (commanded by himself) was com¬
pletely decked. The two others were commanded by
Martin Alonzo Pinzon and Vicente Yanez Pinzon. The
expedition had sailed nearly 200 leagues to the westward,
when Columbus perceived that the needle of the compass,
when night set in, had varied ; a circumstance which filled
the pilots with consternation. For this phenomenon he
was obliged to invent a reason, which, though it did not
satisfy himself, yet served to dispel their fears. As the
squadron advanced, various indications of land, such as birds
flying from the west, the water becoming less salt, and occa¬
sionally covered with weeds, animated and supported the
courage of the crew ; but at length murmurs and fears be¬
gan to prevail amongst them. They had sailed for eleven
days, wafted by a most propitious breeze, over a tranquil
sea, without lowering or shifting a sail. The rude seamen
began to be alarmed that no other winds blew but easter¬
ly, and that it would therefore be impossible for them ever
to return home. A few light breezes from the west allay¬
ed for a time their apprehensions, and several small sing¬
ing birds came in the morning and flew away at night.
157
But the sailors lost all patience, and became so mutinous Columbus,
and refractory tiiat it required the utmost address of Colum- '
bus to maintain his authority. The appearances of land,
though frequent, were in many instances deceiving ; and at
last the seamen broke forth into loud clamours, and insisted
upon abandoning the voyage. Fortunately, however, on
the following day, the manifestations of (and were such
as no longer to admit of doubt. In the evening Colum¬
bus perceived a light glimmering at a distance, and the
next morning land was clearly seen about two leagues
distant. The sailors now burst forth into the most extra¬
vagant transports. They threw themselves at the feet of
Columbus, implored his pardon, and pronounced him to be
a person inspired by heaven with more than human sagaci¬
ty and fortitude, to accomplish a design so far beyond the
ideas and conceptions of all former ages. At daybreak,
says his biographer Spotorno, on the 12th of October, the
hero landed, “ e di grand'orma il nuovo mondo imprima”
(and with his great footstep impressed the new world).
Columbus and his followers threw themselves on their
knees; and rising, the admiral drew his sword, planted the
cross, hoisted the royal standard, and in the presence of
the astonished natives, who imagined that the Spaniards
had dropped from heaven, took possession of these new
countries in the names ot the Castilian sovereigns, giving
the island the name of San Salvador. Having visited
several of the West India islands, and settled a colony in
Hispaniola, he again set sail for Spain. On the voyage
he fell in with the Pinta, which had separated from him
for a long time through the wickedness of the captain,
who had gone in search of gold. After encountering
several violent tempests, Columbus arrived in the Tagus,
near Lisbon, on the 4th of March 1493. He was treated
with the most honourable attentions by the court of Por¬
tugal, and finally reached the port of Palos on the 15th
of March.
The triumphant return of Columbus excited the most
unbounded transport. Wherever he went the air rang
wdth acclamations, and he received such honours as are
paid to sovereigns. The court was then at Barcelona,
and Columbus took care immediately to acquaint the king
and queen of his arrival. They were no Jess delighted
than astonished with this unexpected event. The admi¬
ral was conducted into the city with all imaginable pomp.
The sovereigns received him seated in state under a rich
canopy ot brocade of gold, surrounded by their principal
nobility. When he approached they stood up, and, rais¬
ing him as he kneeled to kiss their hands, ordered him to
be seated in their presence, and give a circumstantial ac¬
count ot his voyage. When he had finished his oration,
which he delivered with much modesty and simplicity, the
king and queen, kneeling down, offered up solemn thanks
to God for the discovery. Every possible mark of honour
that could be suggested by gratitude or admiration was
conferred on Columbus; the former capitulation was con¬
firmed, his family was ennobled, and a fleet ordered to be
equipped, to enable the navigator to go in quest of those
more opulent countries which he still confidently expect¬
ed to find. r
The successful attainment of the splendid discovery of
Columbus, great and manifold as were its advantages to
mankind, was the prelude to the dark and troubled epoch
of his life. By his second voyage to the western world
he no doubt in part realized his expectations, extended
his discoveries, and came back to Spain with substantial
pi oofs of success ; but the ostensible purpose of his return
was to obtain reparation of injurious imputations which
had been heaped upon him, and generally to have his privi¬
leges confirmed and enlarged so as to enable him to exer¬
cise his authority over the colonists, who had become re-
158 COLUMBUS.
Columbus, fractory and unmanageable. But his third voyage only
V**''Y'W accelerated his disastrous fate. The newly discovered
possessions were distracted with the horrors of rebel¬
lion. The verdant and blooming isles, the expected abodes
of peace and happiness, were converted into theatres of
sanguinary conflicts and misery ; and Columbus found him¬
self an object of fear and execration. It was during this
voyage that he landed on the coast of Paria, in South
America. Meanwhile, his enemies in the old world were
not idle. An investigation into his conduct was instituted
under the control of Francisco Bovadilla, who was em¬
powered, should he find the charge of mal-administration
proved, to supersede Columbus, and assume the govern¬
ment of Hispaniola. The result was, that he and his bro¬
thers Diego and Bartolomeo, after having been treated
with the greatest indignities, were sent to Spain in chains.
From these disgraceful bonds he was immediately on his
arrival released by the Spanish monarchs; but his com¬
plaints were tardily acknowdedged ; he again sunk into ob¬
scurity, and was reduced to such straitened circumstances
that, according to his own account, “ he had no place to
repair to except an inn, and very frequently had not
wherewithal to pay his reckoning.”
At length he was again employed in a fourth voyage,
with restricted powers. But the result was unpropitious ;
and he returned to Spain, dejected in mind and worn
out with bodily infirmities. Death at last relieved him
from his earthly afflictions. He expired on the 20th of
May 1506, commending, with his latest breath, his spirit
to God. A marble tomb was reared over his dust, bearing
the inscription,
A Castilla y a Leon,
Nuevo mondo dio Colon.1
Columbus was a man of great and original genius, ener¬
getic in his conduct, and possessed of lofty, daring, but
noble ambition. “ The magnanimity of his nature,” says
Irving, “ shone forth through all the troubles of his stor¬
my career. Though continually outraged in his dignity,
braved in his authority, foiled in his plans, and endanger¬
ed in his person, by the seditions of turbulent and worth¬
less men, and that, too, at times when suffering under
anguish of body and anxiety of mind, enough to exaspe¬
rate the most patient, yet he restrained his valiant and
indignant spirit, and brought himself to forbear, and rea¬
son, and even to supplicate.” His piety, though tinctured
with superstition, was genuine and fervent. If on certain
occasions his religion displayed itself in harshness and se¬
verity, the spirit of the age he lived in must be adverted
to in palliation of his conduct. His temperament was
deeply imbued with poetic enthusiasm. “It spread,” re¬
marks Irving, “ a golden and glorious world around him,
and tinged every thing with its own gorgeous colours. It
betrayed him into visionary speculations, which subjected
him to the sneers and cavils of men of cooler and safer
but more grovelling minds. It filled his mind with solemn
and visionary meditations on mystic passages of the Scrip¬
tures, and on the shadowy portents of the prophecies.”
“ His soul,” observes a Spanish writer, “ was superior to
the age in which he lived. For him was reserved the
great enterprise of traversing a sea which had given rise
to so many fables, and of deciphering the mystery of his
age.” “ With all the visionary fervour of his imagination,”
adds Washington Irving, “ its fondest dreams fell short of
the reality. He died in ignorance of the real grandeur of
his discovery. Until his last breath he entertained the idea
that he had merely opened a new way to the old resorts
of opulent commerce, and had discovered some of the
wild regions of the East. He supposed Hispaniola to be Columbus,
the ancient Ophir which had been visited by the ships of
king Solomon, and that Cuba and Terra Firma were but
remote parts ot Asia. What visions of glory would have
broken upon his mind could he have known that he had in¬
deed discovered a new continent, equal to the old world in
magnitude, and separated by two vast oceans from all the
earth hitherto known by civilized man ! and how would his
magnanimous spirit have been consoled, amidst the afflic¬
tions of age and the cares of penury, the neglect of a fickle
public and the injustice of an ungrateful king, could lie have
anticipated the splendid empires which would arise in the
beautiful world he had discovered, and the nations, and
tongues, and languages which were to fill its lands with
his renown, and to revere and bless his name to the latest
posterity I” It will be remarked that Mr Irving, in ac¬
cordance with the generally entertained belief of all his
biographers, alludes to Columbus as being the first dis¬
coverer of the American continent. It is, however, certain
that it was visited by the Icelanders in the end of the tenth
and beginning of the eleventh centuries; and Sebastian
Cabot discovered Newfoundland and Labrador in June
1497, nearly a year previous to the visit of Columbus on
the coast of Paria. It also seems more than probable that
Columbus was aware of Cabot’s discovery. See Cabot.
Few subjects have afforded more abundant matter for
learned discussion than the records that from time to time
have appeared relating to Columbus. His birth-place
alone has given rise to much ingenious and unprofitable
speculation. That point, as well as the dates of his birth,
and several voyages, are now pretty correctly ascertained.
The curious in such investigations are referred to the Spa¬
nish and Italian authors, particularly to Dissertazione del¬
la Patria di Christophero Colombo, Firenze ; the Lives of
Columbus, by Boss! and Spotorno; and the lielatiovs des
Quatre Voyages enterpris par Christopher Colomb, par M.
F. de Navarette, ouvrage traduit de 1’Espagnol, Paris,
1828. See also Memorials of Columbus, by Spotorno; and
Histoire de 1’Amiral Colomb, par Fernando Colomb.
In addition to these points of minor and less general in¬
terest, several controversies have arisen bearing upon the
claims of Columbus to the discovery of the western world ;
but such disputes, at least in so far as they affect the dis¬
covery of the Columbian archipelago, are proved to be idle
and futile ; as no doubt now remains of Columbus having
been the first navigator of the old world who reached the
island of San Salvador, and the first who visited the shores
of the South American continent. One of the most cur¬
rent slanders on our navigator’s lair fame, as related by Inca
Garcilaso, was, that Alonzo Sanchez, sailing to the Ca¬
naries in 1484, reached the island of St Domingo, and
communicated his voyage and route to Columbus. Some
other Spanish writers notice the event without giving the
name of the author of the discovery. Oviedo considers
these relations as mere vulgar fables. We are, however,
told by Columbus himself that he took advantage of such
accounts as were transmitted to him by Spanish and Por¬
tuguese mariners, some of whom had sailed westward so
far as to perceive what they considered to be indications
of land. Gallo and Giustiniani, authors contemporaneous
with Columbus, assert that Bartholomew Columbus first
conceived the idea of western discovery, and communi¬
cated it to his brother; but Columbus has been triumph¬
antly vindicated from these ungenerous aspersions by the
unanimous testimony of the Spanish writers, among whom
Las Casas, who knew both brothers, and preserved many
papers belonging to Columbus, merits especial credence.
1 To Castile and to Leon, a new world gave Colon.
COL
Columbus But if any doubts remained, they are completely removed
|| by the written declaration of Ferdinand and Isabella, who,
Column. ;n a communication dated the 4th of August 1494, write
thus to the admiral: “ One of the principal reasons for
which your discovery (the first) has caused so much joy to
us is, that it is to be ascribed to your genius (por ser in-
ventada), and that it has been commenced and terminated
by your own individual endeavours, by your courage, your
perseverance, and industry.”
Columbus, the capital of the state of Ohio, North Ame¬
rica, stands on the E. side of the Scioto, immediately below
the influx of the Whetstone, 110 miles N.E. of Cincinnati.
The town is well laid out, the streets crossing each other at
right angles; the private dwellings are generally neat and
substantial, and many of them elegant. The old state-house
was destroyed by fire in 1852, and a great number of his¬
torical documents of the state were irretrievably lost. The
new state-house is a magnificent building, 304 feet long and
184 feet wide, covering an area of 55,936 square feet. The
first floor contains 28 fire-proof rooms for the public offices,
and the second floor contains the hall of representatives, 84
feet long and 72|- feet wide ; the senate chamber, 72£ by
56 feet, the library, court-room, and 26 committee-rooms.
The state penitentiary is an elegant edifice of hewn lime¬
stone, the centre being 56 feet long and four stories high,
and the two wings each 200 feet long and three stories high.
There are also asylums for the insane, the deaf and dumb,
and the blind ; several colleges, and numerous schools and
churches. Columbus is the seat of numerous and exten¬
sive manufactures, and a place of considerable trade. Its
population had risen from 6048 in 1840 to 17,883 in 1850.
Columbus, the capital of Muscogee county, state of
Georgia, North America, stands on the E. side of the Chat¬
tahoochee, immediately below the falls of that river. It has
several large cotton and woollen factories and flour mills,
and is one of the great commercial centres of Georgia, and
a depot of a large extent of rich cotton countrv. Pop.
(1850) 5942.
COLUMELLA, Lucius Junius Moderatus, the most
voluminous and important Roman writer on rural affairs,
wras a native of Gades (Cadiz), and flourished about a.d. 42.
He was contemporary with Seneca, and resided chiefly at
Rome. His works consist of a treatise entitled De Re Rus-
tica, and another De Arboribus. The treatise De Re Rus-
tica is divided into 12 books, of which the tenth is in verse.
The treatise De Arboribus was incorporated in early edi¬
tions with the other, thus making one work in 13 books. The
editio princeps was printed by Jenson at Venice 1472, folio
(very rare), in a collection of Rei Rusticce Scriptores varii.
The Liber De Arboribus was first separated from the other
work in an edition published by Aldus, Venice, 1514, 4to.
An excellent edition of Columella’s works is contained in
the Rei Rusticce Scriptores veteres Latini, edited by Ges-
ner, Lips. 1735, 2 vols. 4to, and reprinted there in 1773 ;
but the most complete is that contained in the Scriptores
Rei Rusticce of Schneider, 4 vols. 8vo, Lips. 1794. Colu¬
mella may be ranked among the best w’riters of the silver
age. His works have been translated into English, French,
Italian, and German.
COLUMN (Lat. columnd), in Architecture, a pillar made
to support and adorn a building, and composed of a base, a
shaft, and a capital. See Architecture.
Columns, denominated from, their use:—
Astronomical Column is a kind of observatory, in the
form of a lofty hollow tower with a spiral staircase.
Chronological Column, that which bears some historical
inscription digested according to the order of time ; as by
lustres, olympiads, fasti, epochas, annals, and the like. At
Athens there were columns of this kind, on which was in¬
scribed the whole history of Greece, digested into olym¬
piads.
COL 159
Funeral Column, that which bears an urn in which the Column,
ashes of one deceased are supposed to be inclosed.
Gnomonic Column, a cylinder on which the hour of the
day is represented by the shadow of a style.
Historical Column, one whose shaft is adorned with a
basso-relievo running in a spiral line its whole length, and
containing the history of some great personage. Such are
the Trajan and Antonine columns at Rome.
Indicative Column, one that serves to show the tides,
&c. Of this kind there is one of marble at Grand Cairo,
on which the overflowings of the Nile are expressed, and
by which the Egyptians are used to form a judgment of the
succeeding seasons. Thus, when the water ascends to 23
feet, it is a prognostic of great fertility in Egypt.
Instructive Column, that raised, according to Josephus
(lib. i. cap. 3), by the sons of Adam, on which were engraven
the principles of arts and sciences. Baudelot remarks that
the son of Peisistratus raised another of this kind, of stone,
containing the rules and precepts of agriculture.
Itinerary Column, with several faces, placed at cross-
ways in great roads, with inscriptions to show the different
routes.
Lactary Column, at Rome, according to Festus, a co¬
lumn in the herb market, with a cavity in its pedestal, in
which young children abandoned by their parents were ex¬
posed, to be brought up at the public expense.
Legal Columns, among the Lacedaemonians, were co¬
lumns raised in public places, on which were engraven the
fundamental laws of the state.
Limitrophous or Boundary Column, that which shows
the limits of a kingdom or country conquered. Such was
that which, Pliny says, Alexander the Great erected at the
extremity of the Indies.
Manubiary Column (from manubice, spoil), a column
adorned with trophies taken from an enemy.
Memorial Column, one raised in memory of any remark¬
able event. Such is the Monument of London, built to per¬
petuate the memory of the burning of that city in 1666.
Menian Column, any column which supports a balcony
or meniana. The origin of this kind of column Suetonius
and Ascanius refer to one Menius, who sold his house to be
converted into a public edifice, and reserved to himself the
right of raising a column on the outside to bear a balcony,
whence he might see the public spectacles. This term was
also applied to a pillory in the forum.
Military Column, among the Romans, a column on which
was engraven a list of the forces in the Roman army, ranged
by legions in their proper order. They had another kind
of military column called columna bellica, standing before
the temple of Janus, at the foot of which the consul
declared war by throwing a javelin towards the enemy’s
country.
Milliary Column, a column of marble raised by order of
Augustus in the middle of the Roman forum, from which,
as a centre, the distances of the several cities and stations
of the empire were reckoned by other milliary columns dis¬
posed at equal distances on all the great roads. This co¬
lumn was of white marble, the same with that which is now
seen on the balustrade of an edifice in the capitol at Rome.
Its proportion is massive, being a short cylinder, the sym¬
bol of the globe of the earth. It was called milliarium au-
reum, as having been gilt, at least the ball, by order of Au¬
gustus. It was restored by the Emperors Vespasian and
Hadrian, as appears by the inscriptions.
Sepulchral Column was anciently a column erected on a
tomb or sepulchre, with an inscription on its base. Those
over the tombs of persons of distinction were very large;
those for the common people small. The latter were called
stelee and cippi.
Triumphal Column, a column erected among the an¬
cients in honour of a hero, and decorated with various
160 COM
Columna- kinds of crowns, corresponding to the number of his achieve-
rium ments in battle. Each crown had its particular name, as
Comana va^ar^ which was fitted with spikes, in memory of his hav-
.  'j ing forced a palisade ; muralis, adorned with little turrets,
or battlements, for having mounted an assault; navahs, of
prows and beaks of vessels, for having vanquished at sea:
obsidionalis, or graminalis, of grass, for having raised a
siege; ovans, of myrtle, which expressed an ovation, or
minor triumph ; and triumphalis, of laurel, for a grand
triumph.
COLUMNARIUM, in Homan Antiquity, a tax on the
pillars of houses, first imposed by Julius Caesar, in order to
check the extravagant expenditure on palaces which then
prevailed at Rome. The ostiarium, or tax on doors, was
probably imposed at the same time.
COLURES (Lat. coluri), in Astronomy and Geography,
two circles, one of which passes through the equinoctial
points, and is denominated the equinoctial colure ; the other
intersects the equator at the distance of 90° from the for¬
mer, and is called the solstitial colure. The term is chiefly
employed in the older treatises on astronomy.
« The space of seven continued nights he rode
With darkness, thrice the equinoctial line
He circled, four times cross’d the carr of Night
From pole to pole, traversing each colure.”—Paradise Lost, B. ix.
COLYBA, or Colybus, a term in the Greek liturgy,
signifying an offering of corn and boiled pulse, in honour of
the saints, and for the faithful deceased. Balsamon, Goar,
Leo Allatius, and others, have written on the subject of
eolybce.
COLYTON, a small market-town of England, county
of Devon, on the Coly, near its junction with the Axe, 22
miles east of Exeter and 151 from London. The houses
are mostly built of flint. It has a church with a fine
screen and several interesting monuments, and an endowed
school. Pop. of parish (1851) 2504.
COMA (Kwga a swoon) a preternatural propensity to
sleep ; a kind of stupor induced by disease. Hence also
the term comatose.
Coma Berenices, Berenice’s hair, in Astronomy, a con¬
stellation of the northern hemisphere, composed of in¬
distinct stars between the Lion’s tail and Bootes. See
Berenice.
COMACCHIO, a strongly fortified town of Italy, States
of the Church, legation of Ferrara, and 27 miles S.E. of that
city. The town is unhealthy, being surrounded by salt
marshes termed Valli-di-Comacchio. Pop. 5500, princi¬
pally engaged in the eel fisheries and salt works. By the
treaty of Vienna, this town is garrisoned by the Austrians.
COMANA (called also Chryse or Aurea, i.e. the golden,
to distinguish it from Comana in Pontus), a city of Cappa¬
docia, in a deep valley of the Anti-Taurus range, through
which the river Sarus (Sihun) flows. This city was pecu¬
liarly celebrated in ancient times as the place where the
rites of the goddess Artemis Tauropolos were celebrated
with much solemnity. The worship of that deity is said to
have been introduced by Orestes while on his way back
from Tauric Scythia with the image of Minerva that had
fallen from heaven. The service was carried on in a sump¬
tuous temple and with great extravagance. To defray ex¬
penses, large estates had been set apart which yielded a more
than royal revenue. The city of Comana, which was a mere
appanage of the temple, was governed immediately by the
chief priest, who was always a member of the reigning
family, and took rank next to the king. The number of
persons engaged in the service of the temple, even in
Strabo’s time, was upwards of 6000. Under Caracalla
Comana became a Roman colony. Its site is now occu¬
pied by A1 Bostan, a thriving town of about 10,000 in¬
habitants.
Comana was also the name of a city in Pontus, which
C O M
was said to have been colonized from the Cappadocian Co- Comayagua
mana. It stood on the river Iris (the Tocat-su), not very
far from its source, and from its central situation was a fa- Oombina-
vourite emporium of the Armenian merchants. Minerva v tl0n'
was worshipped here with a pomp and ceremony in all re-
spects analogous to those employed in the other city of this
name. Under the Romans the town received the name of
Hiero-Caesarea, indicative of its sacred character. Some
remains of Comana have been lately discovered at a
place called Gumenek on the Tocat-su, a few miles from
Tocat.
COMAYAGUA, formerly Valladolid la Nueya, a
city of Central America, capital of the state of Honduras,
and of a department of its own name. It is the seat of a
bishop, and has a cathedral, college, ecclesiastical seminary,
and about 20,000 inhabitants.
COMB, a well-known instrument for arranging the hair.
Combs were formerly made by saws that cut out the in¬
terstices of the teeth ; but they are now made by a sort of
chisel with several edges that cut two combs at once out of
the same piece of horn, tortoiseshell, or ivory,—the teeth of
one coming out of the portion interposed between the teeth
of the other. This process is called the parting of combs,
and is exceedingly ingenious. See Trans. Soc. Arts;
Engineer s and Mechanics' Encyclop.
Comb, or Coomb, an old corn measure, equal to four Win¬
chester bushels.
COMBACONUM, a town of Southern India, in the
province of Tanjore. This was the ancient capital of the
Chola race, one of the oldest Hindu dynasties of which any
traces remain, and from whom the whole coast of Coro¬
mandel, properly Cholamundel, derives its name. The
present town has several wide and airy streets, and extends
about two miles in length and one in breadth. The popu¬
lation in 1837 amounted to 30,000. The public bazaar
forms a long and wide street, and is well stocked with pro¬
visions of all kinds. Distant from the sea-coast 30 miles.
Lat. 10. 58., Long. 79. 26.
COMBAT. See Battle, and Champion.
COMBE or Comb (Saxon), in the names of places,
signifies a valley between hills ; as Branscomb, Salcombe.
COMBER or Cumber, a small market-town of Ireland,
county of Down, at the N.W. extremity of Lough Strang-
ford, 8 miles E.N.E. of Belfast. The town is tolerably well
built, and in 1851 had 1790 inhabitants, chiefly employed
in the linen manufacture.
COMBINATION, among individuals, may be defined
to be a concert or agreement to bring about a certain re¬
sult or object. In political economy the term is employed
to designate an agreement or union among work-people to
effect an increase of wages, or some modification of the
terms or conditions under which they are engaged; and
as this is a subject of much practical importance, we shall
examine it a little in detail.
It was the practice of the legislature, subsequently to the
reign of Edward I., to interfere respecting the stipulations
in the contracts between masters and servants. And its
deliberations being in most cases guided by the advice
of the masters, it was natural that it should interfere
rather to promote their particular interests, than that it
might treat both parties with the same even-handed and
impartial justice. But the gradual though slow disse¬
mination of more enlarged principles of public economy
having impressed all classes with a conviction of the
general impolicy of such interference, it has latterly been
rarely practised. The experience of nearly 500 years has
shown that, while every attempt to set a maximum on the
price of labour is oppressive and injurious to the workmen,
it is of no real advantage to their employers ; for it has
been found that workmen have invariably become more per¬
severing, sober, and industrious, according as their freedom
COMBINATION. m
^ombina- has been extended, and as they have been relieved from
tion. the vexatious restraints to which they were formerly sub-
jected.
But though the legislature has long ceased to dictate the
terms on which masters should buy and workmen sell
their labour, a set of laws were of late much extended,
and were very frequently acted upon, by which workmen
were severely punished for combining together to raise their
wages, or to oppose their reduction. These laws had their
origin in a dark and barbarous period. The dreadful plague
that desolated England, in common with most other coun¬
tries of Europe, in 1348 and 1349, having destroyed great
numbers of the labouring poor, a greater competition took
place for the services of those who survived, who, in conse¬
quence, obtained much higher wages. Parliament, how¬
ever, instead of leaving this temporary rise of wages to
which the poor had an unquestionable right, to be modified
by the increase of population it would have occasioned,
passed in 1350, the famous act (25th Edward III., cap. 1) for
regulating wages. This statute directed that labourers
should serve for such wages as were common in the districts
in which they resided previously to the pestilence. But,
as this gave rise to a great deal of cavilling, a statute was
passed two years after, fixing the specific amount of the
wages to be given to reapers, mowers, haymakers, thrashers,
&c., and to the more common and important classes of ar¬
tificers.1 A variety of subsequent acts were passed, to en¬
force compliance with the regulations in the statute of
wages, of the spirit of which some idea may be formed
from the fact of its having been made felony, by a sta¬
tute passed in 1425 (3d Henry VI., cap. 1), for masons
to confederate or combine together to raise their wages
above the statutory rate. And though this barbarous law
has long ceased to be acted upon, it was not effaced from
the statute-book till 1824, and may be considered as the
parent stock from which the statute against combinations
was derived.
This statute (39th and 40th Geo. III., cap. 105), after
declaring all combinations to obtain an advance of wages
to be unlawful, went on to enact, that workmen who should
enter into a combination, either verbal or in writing, to
obtain an advance of wages, to lessen the hours or time of
working, to decrease the quantity of work, to persuade, in¬
timidate, or, by money or otherwise, endeavour to prevail
on other workmen not to accept employment; or who
should, for the purpose of obtaining an advance of wages,
endeavour to intimidate or prevail on any person to leave
his employment, or to prevent any person employing him ;
or who, being hired, should, without any just or reasonable
cause, refuse to work with other workmen, such work¬
men should, on the oath or oaths of one or more credible
witnesses, before any two justices of the peace, within
three calendar months after the offence had been com¬
mitted, be committed to and confined in the common jail
within their jurisdiction, for any time not exceeding three
calendar months ; or, at the discretion of such justices,
should be committed to some house of correction with¬
in the same jurisdiction, there to remain, and be kept at
hard labour, for any time not exceeding two calendar
months.
The extreme severity of this enactment must strike every
one. Justices of the peace belong to the order of masters;
and, however respectable individually, they generally possess
a full share of the peculiar feelings and prejudices of their
class. To invest two of them with the power of imprisoning
workmen for three months without the intervention of a jury,
was certainly intrusting them with an authority very liable
to be abused, and which, if it were to be exercised at all,
should have been placed in hands less likely to act under a
bias. The workmen could, it is true, appeal to the quarter Combina-
sessions: but as this was only an appeal from one set of tion.
justices to another, it was of little importance. There were v—
a variety of other clauses, discharging all workmen from at¬
tending any meeting for the purpose of combining, from
contributing to defray the expenses incurred by persons act¬
ing contrary to this act, and compelling offenders to give
evidence, &c. &c., under the above-mentioned penalties.
Combinations were, also, punishable at common law as a mis¬
demeanour.
Such being the law, it may be supposed, perhaps, that no
combination would be able to exist or be thought of. But,
in point of fact, the law had quite another effect. It pre¬
vented open and avowed combinations ; but it could not,
and did not, prevent those of a secret, and, consequently,
dangerous character. And though numberless attempts
were made to enforce the law, and workmen were very
often imprisoned for combining to raise wages, the prac¬
tice of combination became all but universal, and fre¬
quently led to acts of an atrocious description. In conse¬
quence a very strong feeling began to grow up, which was
not confined to the work-people, but extended to a
large number of the masters, that the combination laws
did more harm than good. In unison with this feeling a
committee of the House of Commons was appointed in
1824 to inquire into the operation of the laws for prevent¬
ing combinations among workmen, and for preventing their
emigration, and the exportation of machinery. This com¬
mittee collected a great deal of evidence on these subjects.
And the impression made by it, and by the growing convic¬
tion of the impolicy of the combination laws, was such that a
bill for their repeal, introduced by Mr Hume, the chairman
of the committee, was soon afterwards carried through both
houses, and passed into a statute.
But this statute having been found to be defective, another
was passed in the course of the following year, the 6th Geo.
IV., cap. 129, now the regulating statute on the subject.
It legitimates meetings and agreements, whether verbal or
written, for regulating the rate of wages and the hours of
working. But, at the same time, it very properly imposes
a penalty of three months’ imprisonment on all attempts,
whether by threats or violence, to hinder work-people not
belonging to the combination from working on such terms
as they may think proper, or to induce them to join the
combination, or any club or association for dictating to their
masters. A subsequent statute, 9th Geo. IV., cap. 31, makes
assaults arising out of a combination to raise wages punish¬
able by hard labour as well as imprisonment.
At present, therefore, combinations to raise wages or
limit the hours of labour are perfectly legal, if they be un¬
accompanied by threats or violence. These measures have
not, however, had all the effect which many of their sup¬
porters anticipated. And it must be admitted that the
workmen have in many instances discovered a refractory
and turbulent disposition, and that there is hardly a branch
of industry in which they have not resorted to strikes, and
entered into combinations to raise wages, and to dictate
to their masters the mode in which they should be em¬
ployed. But though much to be regretted, this, after all,
is only what might have been fairly expected. Great
stress had long been laid, in the public estimation, on the
efficacy of the combination laws. The workmen had been
punished for entering into combinations, because it was sup¬
posed that they might thereby force up wages to an undue
elevation; and when such notions, though false and un¬
founded, were embodied in the statute book and pro¬
claimed from the bench, it need not excite surprise that
they were credited by the work-people. Nothing, indeed,
could be more natural than that the latter, when they were
VOL. VII.
1 See the Rates in Sir F. M. Eden’s State of the Poor, vol. i., p. 33.
X
162
COMBINATION.
Combina- emancipated from the restraints of the law, should endea-
vour to avail themselves of what was supposed to be the
powerful resource of combination. It should also be borne
in mind that a large number of individuals began imme¬
diately to perceive that, whatever might be their influence
in other respects, combinations might be turned to good ac¬
count by those by whom they were organized and managed.
But apart from the peculiar interests of such parties, it was
but reasonable to suppose that for a while at least combi¬
nations would be in high favour with the working-classes;
and that nothing but experience would suffice to convince
them of their generally ruinous tendency.
Although, however, we regret and condemn many of the
proceedings of the workmen, we are very far from thinking
that they form any valid reason either for the revival of the
Combination Act, or for the enactment of any similar statute.
Nothing can apparently be more reasonable than that
workmen should be allowed freely to combine or associate
together, for the purpose of adjusting the terms on which
they will sell their labour. Wages, like every thing else,
should always be left to be regulated by the fair and free
competition of the parties in the market, without being in¬
terfered with by the legislature. “ The property,” says
Adam Smith, “ which every man has in his own labour, as
it is the original foundation of all other property, so it is
the most sacred and inviolable. The patrimony of a poor
man lies in the strength and dexterity of his hands ; and to
hinder him from employing this strength and dexterity in
what manner he thinks proper, without injury to his neigh¬
bours, is a plain violation of the most sacred property.”
But workmen are not allowed freely to dispose of their la¬
bour, if they be prevented from concerting with each other
the terms on which they will sell it. Capacity to labour is
to the poor what stock is to the capitalists. Now a hundred
or a thousand capitalists may form themselves into a com¬
pany, or combination, take all their measures in common,
and dispose of their property as they may, in their collective
capacity, judge most advantageous for their interests:—And
why should not a hundred or a thousand labourers be al¬
lowed to do the same by their stock ? Of all the varieties of
property which a man can possess, the faculties of his mind
and the powers of his body are most particularly his own.
And to fetter him in the mode in which he is to exercise
or dispose of these faculties and powers, is a manifest en¬
croachment on the most inviolable of all rights, and can be
justified only by an overwhelming necessity.
It is easy, however, to show that, in point of fact, no such
necessity ever did or can exist. The wages of any set of
workmen who enter into a combination for the purpose of
raising them must be either—1^, below the natural and
proper rate of wages in the branch of industry to which
they belong; or, 2c?, they must be coincident with that
rate, or above it. Now, it is clear that, in the first case,
or when wages are depressed below their natural level, the
claim of the workmen for an advance is fair and reason¬
able : and it would obviously be unjust and oppressive to
prevent them from adopting any measure, not injurious to
the rights of others, which they may think best fitted to
render their claim effectual. But a voluntary combination
among workmen is certainly in no respect injurious to any
right of their masters. It is a contradiction to pretend that
masters have any right or title to the services of free work¬
men in the event of the latter not choosing to accept the
price offered them for their labour. And as the exist¬
ence of a combination to procure a rise of wages shows that
they have not so chosen, and is a proof of the want of all
concord and agreement between the parties, so it is also
a proof that the workmen are fairly entitled to enter into
it; and that, however injurious their proceedings may be
to themselves, they do not encroach on the privileges or
rights of others. Not only, therefore, is a voluntary com¬
bination, unaccompanied by violence, a fair exercise of the Combina-
right of judging for themselves on the part of workmen, tion.
but when it is entered into for the purpose of raising wages
that are unduly depressed, its object is proper and desir¬
able. Few masters willingly consent to raise wages; and
the claim of one or a few individuals for an advance of
wages is likely to be disregarded so long as their fellows
continue to work at the old rates. It is only when the
whole or the greater part of the workmen belonging to a
particular master or department of industry combine to¬
gether, or when they act in that simultaneous manner which
is equivalent to a combination, and refuse to continue to
work without receiving an increase of wages, that it becomes
the immediate interest of the masters to comply with their
demand. And hence it is obvious, that without the exist¬
ence either of an open and avowed, or of a tacit and real
combination, workmen would not be able to obtain a rise
of wages by their own exertions, but would be left to de¬
pend on the competition of their masters.
It is, however, abundantly certain that this competition
will always raise wages that have been unduly depressed.
And it was from not adverting to this fact, that the influence
of the combination laws in depressing wages was so very
greatly exaggerated. If the wages paid to the labour¬
ers in a particular employment be improperly reduced, the
capitalists who carry it on obviously gain the whole amount
of this reduction over and above the common and ordinary
rate of profit obtained by the capitalists who carry on other
employments. But a discrepancy of this kind cannot be
of long continuance. Additional capital immediately be¬
gins to be attracted to the department where wages are
low and profits high; and its owners are obliged, in order
to obtain labourers, to offer them higher wages. It is
clear, therefore, that if wages be unduly reduced in any
branch of industry, they will be raised to their proper level,
without any effort on the part of the workmen, by the com¬
petition of the capitalists. And looking generally at the
various employments carried on in the country, we do
not believe that the combination laws had any sensible in¬
fluence over the average and usual rate of wages. That
they occasionally kept them at a lower rate in some very
confined businesses than they would otherwise have sunk
to, may be true; though for that very reason they must
have equally elevated them in others. This, however, is
no good reason why the workmen engaged in employments
in which wages happen from any cause to be unduly de¬
pressed, should be prohibited from adopting the only means
in their power of doing themselves justice. When they are
allowed freely to combine, their combination may occasion
an immediate rise of wages; but when their combination is
prevented, more or less time must always elapse before the
high profits caused by the undue reduction of wages be¬
come generally known, and consequently before capital can
be attracted from other businesses. And hence it is clear,
that every attempt to prevent combination in such cases as
this, is neither more nor less than an attempt to hinder
workmen from making use of the only means by which their
wages can be speedily and effectually raised to their just
level. It is committing injustice in behalf of the strong, at
the expense of the weaker party.
We admit that the object of the second class of voluntary
combinations, or of those which take place when the wages
of the combining workmen are already equal to or above
their natural and proper rate, is improper and unreasonable.
Still, however, it is easy to see that there is no more cause
for the interference of the legislature in this case than in
the former. There is no good reason why workmen should
not, like the possessors of every other valuable and desirable
article, be allowed to set whatever price they please upon
their labour. If they combine to raise wages beyond their
natural limits, or to enforce vexatious or improper condi-
COMBINATION. 163
•onibina- tions in regard to their employment, it is all but certain
tion. that their combination will be unsuccessful. It may be
—' taken for granted, that the masters will resist any really
improper demand; and the slightest glance at the rela¬
tive condition of the parties must satisfy every one that,
supposing them to be in earnest in their opposition, they
can hardly fail to succeed in defeating it. The workmen
always suffer more from a strike than the masters. It is
indeed true, as Adam Smith has observed, that in the long
run they are as necessary to their masters as their masters
are to them. But this necessity is far from being so imme¬
diate. The stock and credit of the master are in almost
every instance much greater than the stock and credit of
his labourers ; and he is, therefore, able to maintain himself
for a much longer time without their labour, than they can
maintain themselves without his wages. In old-settled and
fully-peopled countries, wages are seldom so high as to en¬
able labourers to accumulate any considerable stock; and
though the scanty funds of those engaged in strikes are fre¬
quently eked out by contributions from the work-people in
other businesses, and in other parts of the kingdom, the
combination never fails, provided the masters do not give
way, to break to pieces.
It is also evident, that when workmen enter into a com¬
bination to enforce an unreasonable demand, or to raise
wages that are already up to the common level, they can
gain nothing, but must lose by entering into other employ¬
ments to which they have not been bred; while it is equally
evident that a small extra sum will be sufficient to entice
other labourers to the business they have left. All the great
departments of industry have so many closely allied branches,
that a workman who is instructed in any of them can, with¬
out much training or difficulty, apply himself to some of
the others. And thus the workmen who enter into the
combination will not only fail of their object, and be ob¬
liged to return to their work, but, owing to the influx of
other labourers into their business during the strike, they
will probably be compelled to accept of a lower rate of
wages than they previously enjoyed.
Many extensive combinations have been broken up by
the masters acting on this principle, or by their bringing
work-people from other districts, or other businesses, to
supply the place of those in the combination. At first,
these work-people may not be so skilful or expert as those
who have seceded; but these deficiencies soon become in¬
sensible, and are more than compensated by the greater
command the masters have over the new hands, who, it is
commonly stipulated, shall not enter into any union or as¬
sociation with other workmen for the purpose of raising
wages, regulating the hours of work, &c.
The combination of the coal miners of the north in 1844,
when about 40,000 hands struck for a modification of the
conditions under which they had previously been employed
and an advance of wages, though one of the most formid¬
able that has hitherto existed, was defeated in the way now
mentioned. It was carefully organized, and had, when it
began operations, a reserve fund of about L.24,000, besides
receiving subscriptions from trades’-unions in most parts of
the country. But the coal-owners determined not to give
way, and made every exertion to bring miners and other
labourers from Scotland, Wales, and Ireland, to supply the
place of those who had seceded. The result justified the
wisdom of their determination; for the turn-outs, after an
obstinate strike of from four to five months’ duration, in
which they exhausted every resource, and suffered the
greatest privations, were compelled to abandon every one
of their pretensions, and to beg to be allowed to resume
their employment, under the same regulations as formerly,
at their old, and in some cases even at lower wages. And
this, with but few exceptions, is the ordinary result of the
best organized combinations.
The substitution of machinery for manual labour has Combina-
done more perhaps than anything else to put down com- tion.
binations in manufacturing employments. And though
injurious to the work-people, combinations for an improper
purpose are sometimes advantageous, by the stimulus
they give to the improvement of machinery. In corro¬
boration of this statement, it is only necessary to refer
to the machines for wool-combing, mule-spinning, and
others of the same kind, which were invented and intro¬
duced to emancipate the masters from the dictation of
unions, and the unreasonable demands and proceedings of
the wool-combers, cotton-spinners, &c. They have been
completely successful; and have, in truth, not only ren¬
dered these employments comparatively independent of
combinations, but have materially improved and cheapened
the products of the manufactures into which they have been
introduced.
Even in the rare cases in which workmen from some
peculiar circumstances, such as their employers having en¬
tered into extensive contracts to be completed within spe¬
cified periods, have succeeded in obtaining an improper
advance of wages, it has uniformly in the end been in¬
jurious to them. This result is brought about in various
ways—by the high wages attracting too many labourers
to the business, by the various expenses attendant on a
combination, which make a heavy deduction from the wages
of those engaged in it, by the demand for the articles being
checked or lessened by the greater cost of their pro¬
duction, and so forth. Nothing, indeed, but the merest
ignorance could make it be supposed that wages could be
really increased by such proceedings. They depend on a
principle which they cannot affect, that is, on the proportion
between capital and population; and cannot be increased ex¬
cept by the increase of the former as compared with the latter.
For these reasons, we think it is impossible that any one,
who will calmly consider the subject, should resist coming
to the conclusion, that a combination for an improper object,
or to raise wages above their proper level, must cure itself,
or that it must necessarily bring its own chastisement along
with it. In some instances, strikes have been entered into
from hostile feelings against obnoxious masters; and not
unfrequently the workmen are seduced into them by the
artful representations of agitators in whom they place un¬
deserved confidence, and who make them the means of
advancing their own selfish ends, without caring for the
misery they may entail on their dupes. But, in the majo¬
rity of cases, a strike can hardly fail, under ordinary circum¬
stances, to be a subject of the most serious concern to
workmen who have either forethought or experience. And
the privations to which it unavoidably exposes them form a
strong presumption that they are honestly impressed with a
conviction that the advance of wages which they claim is
fair and reasonable, and that the strike has been forced upon
them by the improper resistance of the masters. Even in
those cases in which wages are notoriously depressed below
their proper level, workmen will, if they consult their own
interests, be shy about striking, and will resort to it only as
a last resource. Such a proceeding instantly deprives them,
and those that are dependent on their exertions, of their
accustomed means of subsistence. In the event of their
masters delaying, for any considerable period, to come to an
accommodation, they are obliged, from inability to support
themselves, to depend for a while on the grudging and
stinted contributions of others; and when this humiliating
resource is exhausted, they must return to the business they
have left, or else engage in employments to which they
have not been bred, and which are not congenial to their
habits. It is not, therefore, easy to suppose that workmen,
when they become acquainted with the real effects of com¬
binations, will rashly enter into them, and proceed to a strike
for the purpose of obtaining unreasonable or exorbitant
COMBINATION.
164
Combina- wages. But if they should be at any time foolish enough
. to do so, their efforts will, no doubt, be ineffectual; and be-
" sides exposing themselves to great temporary hardship and
distress, they will in the end have to accept the terms dic¬
tated by their masters.
But notwithstanding the dear-bought experience of their
generally injurious influence, strikes and combinations to
raise wages have seldom been so prevalent as in the past
year, 1853. They seem to have originated in a variety of
circumstances ; partly and principally, perhaps, in the dimi¬
nution of the supply of labour, occasioned by the extraordi¬
nary emigration to Australia and the United States, and
partly in the increase of the exports, and the exaggerated
statements put forth in relation to the profits of the manu¬
facturers. There can, indeed, be no doubt that these cir¬
cumstances warranted an increase of wages; and they have,
in truth, been materially increased during the last three or
four years. But we need not be surprised that this increase
has not satisfied the excited expectations of the work-people,
and that they have entered, in various places, into strikes
and combinations to force up wages to a still higher eleva¬
tion. The probability, however, seems to be that they will
be unsuccessful.1 But however the struggle may terminate,
it is doubtful, despite the heavy losses and privations the
workmen have entailed upon themselves, whether their pro¬
ceedings will be generally injurious to the masters. Con¬
sentaneously with the Preston strike, which involved the
cessation from work of several thousand hands, a stag¬
nation began to take place in several departments of the
cotton trade; and the manufacturers, supposing the strike
had not occurred, would have been obliged to diminish the
rate of production, either by working at short hours, or by
shutting up some of their works. And hence the strike,
though injurious to the particular masters whose workmen
entirely withdrew from their employment, was in the mean
time advantageous to the others. It removed some of
their competitors from the field; and effected that reduc¬
tion in the supply of goods which, otherwise, could only
have been brought about by a general agreement among
the manufacturers.
When, therefore, the work-people employed in the cotton,
woollen, or other departments of industry, in any particular
town or district, combine to force up wages or to reduce the
hours of work, they should recollect that they are not the
only persons engaged in the employment. It is most likely
carried on in many other places. And it is plain that no¬
thing could be more advantageous to the employers in Man¬
chester, than that their competitors in Preston, Oldham, See.,
should be crippled, or that they should have the whole mar¬
ket to themselves. And thus it is that the folly and obsti¬
nacy of the work-people in one part of the country, though
injurious to their employers, and ruinous, perhaps, to them¬
selves, may, notwithstanding, redound to the advantage of
the employers in other quarters.
But suppose that a combination is not confined to a single
district, that it is general, that it embraces all, or nearly all,
the work-people employed in one or other of the great depart¬
ments of industry. This is the most favourable position in
which the work-people can be placed for carrying their point;
and yet, if the advance of wages which they claim be one
to which they are not fairly entitled, the extension of the
combination will make it only the more disastrous to them¬
selves. In cases of this sort, instead of the works in a par¬
ticular district being shut, they are closed over the whole
kingdom ; so that our foreign competitors on the Continent
and America have the entire market to themselves, and are
enriched, and their business extended, by the depression
and infatuation of their rivals. This is a very serious con- Combina.
sideration ; and one which the work-people should never tion.
lose sight of. v'—yW
The latter should also bear in mind, whetti they engage
in strikes and combinations to force up wages, that capital
is not bound to any peculiar locality. Manufactures have
been driven, in more than one instance, from one part of
this country to another, through the disorderly and turbulent
conduct of the work-people.
The silk trade of Paisley, Macclesfield, and Manchester,
owes its rise to the proceedings of the unionists of Spittal-
fields. A similar cause forced a part of the carpet trade of
Kidderminster to Kilmarnock, annihilated the blanket
trade of Kilkenny, and the ship-building trade of Dublin ;
and has most seriously injured the last-mentioned branch of
industry in Liverpool. Several villages in the vicinity of
Leeds are indebted for their manufacturing importance to
the outrageous proceedings of the work-people in that town.
But the mischief may go farther than this. Strikes and
combinations, on a great scale, like those at present (March
1854) existing, though they may not drive capital from the
north to the south, or vice versa, may force it to another
country. No doubt there is generally a considerable disin¬
clination to employ capital abroad. But that disinclination
has its limits, and may be overcome either by the tempta¬
tion of greater profits, or by the desire to emancipate one’s
self from the dictation of work-people, or rather of the agi¬
tators by whom their proceedings are usually directed. The
extent to which English capital is vested in the stocks, and
in the railways, and other public works, of the United States,
France, and other foreign countries, shows that it is by no
means so difficult as is often supposed to overcome the re¬
luctance to employ capital in foreign investments. And the
more intimate the intercourse becomes among different na¬
tions, the more will this reluctance be diminished. These
circumstances should not be forgotten by those who are
contemplating strikes and combinations. It must not be
imagined that this is the only country in which manufactur¬
ing industry may be successfully prosecuted. Many parts
of Prussia, Saxony, Switzerland, and France, have extensive
and flourishing manufactures. And we do not know any¬
thing half so likely to stimulate their industry, and to make
their competition still more dangerous than at present, as the
strikes and combinations so frequent in England. They not
only paralyze the proceedings of our manufacturers, but they
tempt them to become partners in foreign houses, to con¬
struct mills on the Rhine or the Seine, rather than on the
Irwell or the Clyde, and to carry abroad their machinery and
their best workmen. And we are sorry to have to say that
these are not speculative or eventual circumstances. They
are being realized at this very moment (1853-54). Whoever
may be the really blameable parties, the felo de se proceed¬
ings at present carried on threaten to inflict the same sort of
injury on the trade and manufactures of the United Kingdom
that the bigotry of Louis XIV. inflicted on those of France.
It appears from the authentic statements published by
Messrs Du Fay and Co. of Manchester,2 than whom there
are no higher authorities on such subjects, that the demand
for raw cotton in 1853 increased 74 per cent, in Germany,
Russia, and Holland, while it fell oft' 1-|- per cent, in Great
Britain. This startling fact is accounted for as follows, by
the gentlemen referred to :—
“ The decreased consumption of cotton in this country
has been caused by strikes for higher wages, at a time when
the general state of trade and other circumstances did not
warrant the advance. But whilst the consumption of cotton
has decreased here, it has increased in America and other
1 This anticipation has been fully realized. The Preston and other strikes have terminated, after much loss and the endurance of
great hardships by the workmen, by their agreeing to accept the terms offered at the outset by the masters.
2 Circular, 1st February 1854.
COMBINATION. 165
]ombina- countries, and will, we can assure our friends, still further
tion. increase, if the turn-outs do not speedily cease. It has,
perhaps, never been sufficiently considered by the industri¬
ous classes of this and neighbouring districts, that they are
raising a competition to the masters and to themselves else¬
where, by persisting in the dangerous course which they now
pursue. The capacity for production in different parts of
the world, at competing prices, is very nicely balanced; and
this country possesses now very few advantages over rival
manufacturing countries. If an article is for any length of
time neglected here, or not produced in sufficient quantities,
it will be manufactured in other countries ; and a trade once
transferred is not easily recovered. This view of the disad¬
vantages of the present strikes and labour question has not,
as far as we are aware, been brought home to those most in¬
terested in it; we should, indeed, be glad to have it in our
power to convince both masters and men of the importance
of considering the subject in this light, in order to bring their
disputes to a speedy end, and thus to prevent serious injuries
to the entire trade of this country.”
This is the worst view that can be taken of the influence
of strikes and combinations ; and the desire to obviate it
would, if anything could, warrant the interference of govern¬
ment for their suppression. But the grand principle of the
freedom of industry must not be infringed upon. We must
take it with its disadvantages as well as its advantages; and
trust, as we may safely do, to experience, and the good
sense and better training of the masters and work-people, to
lessen the former and to increase the latter. Even if it were
conceded that it might be expedient for government to in¬
terfere to put down combinations to raise wages above their
proper level, or to frame improper regulations in regard to
the employment of work-people, the concession would be of
no real value to the apologists of combination laws ; for the
result of the combination is, in fact, the only certain test by
which we can pronounce whether the advance of wages
claimed by the workmen and the regulations proposed by
them were fair and reasonable or the reverse. If govern¬
ment were to refer to the masters for information on the sub¬
ject, they would, most likely, be told that the best founded
claim for a rise of wages was unjust and ill-founded; and
if, on the other hand, they were to refer to the workmen,
who have as good a right to be consulted as the others, the
most exorbitant and unreasonable demand would be said to
be moderate and proper, and such as could not be equitably
refused. It is only by the fair and free competition of the
parties in the market, that we discover which of these op¬
posite and contradictory assertions is most consistent with
truth. There neither are, nor is it in the nature of things
that there can be, any other means of coming to a correct
conclusion on the subject. If the workmen be in the right,
they will, as they ought, succeed in their object: if they be
wrong, they will be defeated, and the injury they will do to
themselves will render them more cautious about again em¬
barking in a similar struggle. Enlighten all parties as much
as you possibly can with regard to the circumstances which
determine the rate of wages and the condition of the labour¬
ing classes, and with regard also to the state of industry here
and elsewhere. But when this has been done you had better
stop. The interference of government in the decision of
questions between masters and their work-people can be
productive only of evil. Having no means of informing
themselves of the real merits of the case, its agents must,
if they act at all, necessarily act blindly and capriciously.
And even if they had such information, it would be unad-
visable for them to interfere, it being abundantly certain
that every combination for an improper object will be more
easily and effectually put down without their assistance than
with it.
The great evil of the combination laws consisted, as al¬
ready observed, in the mistaken notions respecting their in¬
fluence which they generated in the minds both of workmen Combina-
and masters. They taught them to believe that there was tion-
one measure of justice for the rich, and another for the poor,
They consequently set the interests and the feelings of these
great classes in direct opposition to each other, and did
more to engender hatred between the different orders
of society—to render the masters despotic and capri¬
cious, and the workmen idle, turbulent, and depraved—than
can easily be imagined by those not pretty intimately ac¬
quainted with the former state of society in the manufactur¬
ing districts. Instead of putting down combinations, they
rendered them universal, and gave them a dangerous cha¬
racter. For the fair and open, though frequently foolish
and extravagant, proceedings of men endeavouring to ad¬
vance themselves in society, and to sell their labour at the
highest price, the combination laws gave us nocturnal meet¬
ings, private cabals, and oaths of secresy. There was not
a workman to be found who did not consider it a bounden
duty to embrace every opportunity of acting in the teeth of
their most positive enactments. And all the means which
the intelligence, the cunning, and the privations of workmen
could suggest, for defeating and thwarting their operation,
were resorted to from a conviction of their partiality and
unfairness.
At the period now referred to, instances of violence, some¬
times ending in assassination, were anything but uncommon.
In 1812, for example, Mr Horsfall, an eminent manufac¬
turer, was waylaid and shot by a band of assassins congre¬
gated for the purpose, and several mills were at the same
time attacked and destroyed. In the end the combination
was suppressed, but not till seventeen of the combined
workmen had been executed at York. How much soever
we may regret several of the late strikes, they have happily
few features in common with those under the old combi¬
nation laws. No man’s life or property has been imperilled,
and the proceedings of the work-people have been charac¬
terized by a decorum and abstinence from threats and
violence that reflect on them the highest credit. The ad¬
vance they have already made would seem to warrant the
conclusion that they must, at no very distant period, dis¬
cover that no combination, whether with or without violence
can raise wages above the impassable level to which the
competition of the masters is sure to elevate them.
It appears, therefore, on every ground both of justice and
expediency, that the repeal of the combination laws was a
wise and salutary measure. Until that event, the terms of
the contract between masters and workmen could not be said
to be adjusted, as it always ought to be, on the principle of
free and unrestrained competition. We readily allow that
combinations of workmen and of masters may be, and, in¬
deed, frequently are, formed for the accomplishment of im¬
proper objects. But it is quite clear that these combinations
will, when let alone, inevitably cure themselves; and that the
efforts of government to suppress them, besides being un¬
called for and unnecessary, would be oppressive and unjust.
Every individual who is not a slave is entitled to demand
any price for his labour that he thinks proper. And if one
individual may do this, may not fifty, or five thousand, de¬
mand the same price? A criminal act cannot be generated
by the mere multiplication of acts that are perfectly inno¬
cent. We are not to confound the power and the right to
set a price on labour with the reasonableness of that price.
It is the business of those who buy labour, and not of go¬
vernment, to decide whether the price set on it is reason¬
able or not. If they think it is unreasonable they may, and
they certainly will, refuse to buy it, or to hire the workmen;
and as the latter cannot long subsist without employment,
necessity will oblige them to moderate their demands.
It will be observed, that the observations we have now
made apply exclusively to the justice and policy of attempt¬
ing to prevent voluntary combinations among workmen; and
166 COM
Oombina- we trust they will not be understood as being intended to
ti(j,n countenance in the slightest degree the attempts that are
Comb us- sometimes made by combined workmen forcibly to prevent
tion. others from working except on the conditions they have
fixed for the guidance of their own conduct. Every such at¬
tempt is an obvious breach of the peace; and if not re¬
pressed by prompt and suitable punishment, would be sub¬
versive not only of the freedom of industry, but of the
national welfare. The reason that combinations among
numerous bodies are rarely injurious is, that the motives
which individuals have to break off from the combination are
so numerous and powerful, that it can seldom be maintained
for any considerable period. But if those who adhere to
combinations were to be allowed to maltreat and obstruct
those who secede from them, this principle would be sub¬
verted, and combinations might become so very injurious as
to require the interference of the legislature for their suppres¬
sion. This, therefore, does not really seem to be a case in
which there is much room for doubt or difference of opinion.
It is plain, that we must either reduce the workmen to a ser¬
vile condition, or authorize them to refuse to work, or to sell
their labour, except under such conditions as they may choose
to specify. But when they are allowed this much, they are
allowed all they are entitled to; and if they go one step
further—if they attempt to carry their point by violence,
either towards their masters or their fellow-workmen—they
are guilty of an offence that strikes at the foundations of
the manufacturing and commercial prosperity of the country,
and which no government can or ought to tolerate. It is
indispensable that that system of intimidation which the
workmen in some places have endeavoured to organize
should, at all hazards, be effectually put down. And to secure
this object, every practicable means should be adopted for faci¬
litating the prosecution, speedy conviction, and punishmentof
those who are guilty of obstructing and intimidating others.
These remarks proceed from no unfriendly feeling towards
the workmen, but from a desire to do them service. It is
the extreme of folly to suppose that any combination can
maintain wages at an artificial elevation. It is not on the
dangerous and generally ruinous resource of combination,
but on the forethought, industry, and frugality of work¬
people, that their wages, and their condition as individuals,
must always depend. If they attempt, by adding violence
to combinations, to force wages up to an artificial level, one
of two things will follow; they will either draw down on
themselves the vengeance of the law, or they will bring about
their permanent degradation by forcing the transfer of that
capital, from which alone they derive their subsistence, to
other businesses, or to countries where it will be better
protected. (See Treatise on the Circumstances which de¬
termine the Rate of Wages, and the Condition of the La¬
bouring Classes, by the author of this article.) (j. R. M.)
Combination, in Mathematics, the union of numbers or
of quantities in every possible way; or the variation or alter¬
ation of any number of quantities or other things in all the
different manners possible. See Mathematics, and Pro¬
bability.
COMBUST (Lat. combustus), in Astronomy. When a
planet is in conjunction with the sun, or within the distance
of half the sun’s disk, it is said to be combust, or in com¬
bustion. According to some writers a planet is combust
when its distance from the sun does not exceed eight de¬
grees and a half.
COMBUSTION. See Chemistry.
COMBUSTION, Spontaneous Human. Notwith¬
standing the difficulty with which the animal body is con¬
sumed by fire in its ordinary state, in certain circumstances
it has been observed to become so inflammable as to un¬
dergo a kind of spontaneous combustion. The following
cases of this strange but fortunately rare occurrence may be
quoted to show the nature of the phenomena.
COM
A woman about 60 years of age, in the county of Down, Comedy
Ireland, retired to bed one evening with her daughter, both ||
in a state of intoxication, as was their constant habit. A Comer-
little before day-break some members of the family were colly-
awakened by an extremely offensive smell that pervaded the
house, and which was observed to proceed from the apart¬
ment in which the old woman and her daughter lay. The
smoke was found to proceed from the body of the old woman,
which appeared to be burning with internal fire. The body
was as black as coal, and the smoke appeared to proceed
from every part of it. The combustion wTas arrested with
difficulty, though there was no flame. Her daughter, who
slept in the same bed, sustained no injury; nor did the
combustion extend to the bed or bed-clothes, which were
quite uninjured, though stained with the smoke. This case
is also related by Dr Apjohn.
From the various cases which have been recorded, both
by British and foreign writers, it appears that the victims of
this strange affection were mostly females advanced in life,
and addicted to indulgence in spirituous liquors ; that the
combustion spread with extreme rapidity; the flame, when
present, was of a lambent and flickering nature, very diffi¬
cult to extinguish by water, and not readily communicable
to inflammable bodies placed near it; that a strong empy-
reumatic odour was exhaled, and a fetid moist sooty deposit
generally remained on the furniture of the apartment; and
lastly, that the trunk alone was usually consumed, while por¬
tions of the head and limbs were commonly left uninjured.
Several theories have been suggested to explain this curi¬
ous phenomenon. By some it has been attributed to the
alcoholic impregnation of the body by the continued indul¬
gence in spirituous liquors; it being a known fact that the
bodies of drunkards yield on distillation a considerable
quantity of alcohol; and that it has even been discovered
in the substance of the brain. This impregnation, however,
would not of itself account for the fact, inasmuch as animal
matter steeped in alcohol will not become reduced to ashes
even though set fire to, without the aid of combustibles.
M. Marc, a French physician, supposes the phenomena to
be caused by the generation of inflammable gaseous products
within the tissues of the body: and provided one of these
gaseous products were oxygen, it is quite conceivable that
such might lead to the combustion of the body. As phos¬
phorus occurs as a large constituent of some of the tissues,
if we suppose that phosphuretted hydrogen (a gas which
takes fire whenever it comes in contact with the oxygen of
the air), is the inflammable gas generated, and that it fills
the bowels and pervades the tissues, it would both account
for the rapidity and spontaneity of the combustion. It
must, however, be confessed that as yet the cause of this
strange occurrence has not been satisfactorily ascertained.
COMEDY, that branch of dramatic composition which
represents common and private life, and of which the object
is professedly to correct the vices and follies of mankind by
means of ridicule, and to recommend virtue; though in
reality the ultimate end is amusement. The word in Latin
is comcedia, and in Greek KwywSta, either from kw/xos a merry¬
making and d)§?7 a song, or, according to Bentley, from koj/xv?,
the village song. An account of the ancient comedy is given
under Drama.
Comedy is distinguished from farce—the former repre¬
senting nature as she is, while the latter distorts and over¬
charges her. They both paint from the life, but with differ¬
ent views; the one to make nature known, the other to
make her ridiculous.
COMERCOLLY, a town of Bengal, district of Pubna,
on the bank of the Goraee. This stream, according to
Bishop Heber, has here the width of the Thames at Vaux-
hall; and being navigable at all seasons of the year, the town
has become a great emporium of commerce. Long. 89.11.
E., Lat. 23. 52. N.
167
COMET.
Comet. In the article Astronomy we have given a general tie-
scription of the orbits and physical appearances of comets.
In the present article it is our purpose to give a solution
of the problem of determining the approximate elements
of a comet’s orbit from three geocentric observations,—
a problem of very great importance in astronomy, since it
is only from the circumstance of moving in the same or¬
bit, that the identity of a comet, in its successive revolu¬
tions, can be inferred with certainty.
The astronomy of comets may be said to have origi¬
nated with Tycho Brahe, who showed that, by reason of
the smallness of their parallaxes, their distances from the
earth must be greater than that of the moon. Before this
era they had been generally regarded as meteors casually
engendered in the atmosphere, and having no permanent
duration or connection with the solar system. The con¬
clusions of the Danish astronomer were confirmed by the
observations of Galileo, Snell, and Kepler, on the comet
which appeared in the beginning of the seventeenth cen¬
tury ; and as it was now certain that the comets do not
belong to the earth, but move in the region of the planets,
the determination of their orbits, and their relations to
the other known bodies of the universe, became a problem
of the highest interest. Kepler attempted to represent
their apparent paths by supposing them to move in straight
lines, with a variable velocity; and on this hypothesis the
orbits of several comets were computed by Dominic Cas¬
sini, with a degree of success that might appear remark¬
able, were it not known that the apparent path of a comet
differs little from a straight line during a considerable
portion of the time that it is visible from the earth. But
it could not fail soon to be perceived that the hypothesis
of rectilinear motion is not only improbable in itself, but
inconsistent with accurate observation. Hevelius demon¬
strated, in his Cometographia, published in 1668, that the
path of the comet of 1665 was curvilinear, and concave
towards the sun ; and he even supposed the orbit might be
a parabola, without hinting, however, that the sun is placed
in the focus. But the individual who, before the grand
discoveries of Newton, approximated most nearly to a cor¬
rect knowledge of the true nature of the cometary orbits,
was Ddrfel, protestant minister of Wieda, a village near
Plauen, in Upper Saxony. Ddrfel observed the comet of
1680-1, from the 22d of December till the end of the fol¬
lowing January, and recognised its identity on its emerg¬
ing from the sun’s rays, after passing through the perihe¬
lion of its orbit; and he proved the orbit to be a parabola,
having the sun in the focus. The observations of Ddrfel
were published in 1681, consequently before the appear¬
ance of the Principia, in a small work, which has become
so extremely rare, that neither Montucla nor Delambre
had been able to procure a copy of it. To Ddrfel, there¬
fore, belongs the honour of having been the first to point
out the true orbit of a comet, though his merit has passed
almost unnoticed in consequence of the more important
discoveries which followed so soon after. It is not known
whether Newton was aware of the observations of Ddrfel;
but it is certain that the latter had no idea of the great
principle of attraction, in virtue of which the comets as
well as the planets perform stated revolutions about the
sun. In his hands the parabolic orbit was simply an astro¬
nomical hypothesis, connected with no system, and framed
only to satisfy a few observations. Newton, on the other
hand, demonstrated that the comets form a part of the so¬
lar system, that they describe orbits about the sun in vir¬
tue of his attractive force, obeying the same laws of mo- Comet,
tion as the planets; and he showed, moreover, in what vs»- —
manner the elements of their orbits may be computed, on
the parabolic hypothesis, from three geocentric observa¬
tions of their longitudes and latitudes.
Newton has given, in the Principia, two different solu¬
tions of the problem of determining a parabolic orbit from
three observations. In the first he supposes that a small
portion of the trajectory may be regarded as a straight
line, described with a uniform motion, so that its seg¬
ments, intercepted by straight lines drawn from the earth
to the comet, at the times of the respective observations,
are proportional to the intervals of time between the ob¬
servations. According to this supposition, the ratio of
these segments is known. It follows, also, since the por¬
tion of the trajectory included between the extreme ob¬
servations is a straight line, that its projection on the
plane of the ecliptic is also a straight line, and divided si¬
milarly to the trajectory itself, by the projections of the
straight lines joining the places of the earth and the co¬
met. In order, therefore, to determine the projected or¬
bit, it might seem to be only necessary to draw a straight
line in such a manner that its segments, intercepted by
straight lines whose positions are given (being determined
by the observed longitudes), shall have to each other given
ratios. But this problem, in the case in which there are
only three observations, or three given straight lines, is
altogether indeterminate; for having assumed any point
whatever in one of the three given straight lines, it is al¬
ways possible to draw through that point a straight line,
which shall be divided into segments having a given ratio,
by the other two given straight lines. But it is obvious
that the position of the transversal line will be different
for every different position of the assumed point; conse¬
quently the number of solutions is infinite. When the
number of observations is four, the problem is to draw a
straight line, so that it may be divided into parts having
given ratios to one another, by four straight lines given in
position. In this state of the data, it becomes, generally
speaking, determinate, and admits of only a single solu¬
tion. This problem had been already resolved by Dr
Wallis and Sir Christopher Wren, and to their solutions
Newton added two others of his own. There is still a
case, however, in which, even when four straight lines
are given, the problem is indeterminate; and it happens,
by a remarkable coincidence, that it is this case precisely
which occurs in the application to the cometary motions.
If the position of the four given lines is such that two
transversal lines can be drawn so that the segments of
both of them are respectively proportional to given lines,
then innumerable other straight lines may be drawn which
shall be all cut in the same ratio. Now this is the case
with regard to the four straight lines which join the places
of the earth and comet at the instants of the respective
observations. During the short interval that elapses be¬
tween the extreme observations, the earth, as well as the
comet, may be regarded as moving in a straight line with
a uniform velocity, so that the orbit of the earth, and the
trajectory of the comet, are both divided into segments
proportional to the intervals between the observations, and
consequently proportional to each other. This circum¬
stance, which was first pointed out by Boscovich, renders
the problem inapplicable to astronomy; for although the
earth’s motion should not be regarded as entirely rectili¬
near and uniform, yet the data necessarily approach so
168
Cornel.
COMET.
near to the indeterminate case, that no satisfactory con¬
clusion can be deduced from them. Hence all attempts
to compute the orbit of a comet in this manner have
failed. (See Playfair’s Memoir on the Origin and Inves¬
tigation of Porisms, in vol. iii. of the Edinburgh Transac¬
tions, or in the third volume of his Works.)
The second method proposed by Newton forms Propo¬
sition 41 of the third book of the Principia. Though un¬
exceptionable in theory, it leads, when actually applied
to the determination of an orbit, to computations exces¬
sively complicated and laborious, and is consequent y
entirely disused. It is probable that it was this method
which was followed by Dr Halley, who computed the or¬
bits of a great number of comets, though he has nowhere
explained the process of computation he adopted, it is
illustrated by Dr David Gregory in his Astronomia Phy-
sica, and by Lemonnier in his Theone des Cometes.
The problem of the comets remained for many years in
the state in which it was left by Newton, and astronomers
were still in want of a practical method by which a para¬
bolic orbit could be determined with tolerable ease and
accuracy. In the absence of a direct solution, it was
usual to have recourse to the methods of trial and error,
and to approximate, by successive suppositions, to an or¬
bit that would nearly represent the observations. This
method was practised by Bradley, and by Lemonnier in
his Institutions Astronomiques. Lacaille also published a
method of the same kind in 1746, which was long follow¬
ed by the continental astronomers, and is recommended
by Delambre as possessing some advantages over those
which are now generally preferred. In fact, all the me¬
thods which have yet been devised involve more or less
of hypothesis, and require to be corrected by successive
trials. Various other solutions of the problem were pub¬
lished about the same time, among which, those of Sejour,
Hennert, Templehoff, and Bouguer, may be mentioned,
though they are now entirely abandoned. The celebrated
Boscovich, also, in the third volume of his Opera Perti-
nentia ad Opticam et Astronomiam, undertook to consider
this subject; and the solution which he gave is remarka¬
ble, as being the first in which the velocity of the comet
in its orbit was taken into account as one of the essential
conditions of the problem. It is, however, excessively com¬
plicated, and contains a mixture of algebraic formulae and
graphical operations susceptible of very little accuracy.
Delambre, in speaking of this method, doubts if it was
ever employed in the actual computation of an orbit by
any astronomer, excepting the author himself, or perhaps
some of his friends, though it is destitute neither of sci¬
ence nor address. (Astr. du XVIII™ Siecle, p. 653.)
But the most important work which appeared on the sub¬
ject of the cometary motions, previous to the investigations
of Lagrange and Laplace, was that of Lambert, entitled
Insigniores Orbitce Conietarum Proprietates. Among the
formulas which it contains relative to the motion of a body
in a parabolic orbit, there is one, extremely remarkable on
account of its elegance, which gives the time of describ¬
ing an arc in terms of its chord, and the two radii vec-
tores drawn through its extremities. 4 his formula, which
retains the name of Lambert!s Theorem, though Gauss has
shown that it really belongs to Euler, is of great use in
the cometary theory, as it affords a very easy means of
correcting the hypothetical values which it is necessary to
substitute in the equations of the problem. Lambert also
pointed out rules for determining, without solving the
equations, whether the distance of the comet from the
sun is greater or less than the distance of the sun from the
earth; a knowledge of which circumstance affords con¬
siderable aid in forming a first hypothesis, and serves to
abridge the preliminary computations.
Notwithstanding the repeated attempts of so many ce¬
lebrated astronomers and mathematicians, the problem of v
determining a cometary orbit had not received a direct or
satisfactory solution, when it was taken up by Lagrange in
the Berlin Memoirs for 1778. After examining and point¬
ing out the defects of the different methods then known,
Lagrange gave a new method, which has formed the basis
of the greater part of the analytical solutions which have
been proposed since. The principle of his analysis is at
once simple and direct. It will be recollected that the
data of the problem are three observed positions of the
comet, or three geocentric longitudes and latitudes. La¬
grange first gives formulae to express the co-ordinates of
the comet at the epochs of the first and third observations,
in terms of its co-ordinates at the second observation; he
then proceeds to substitute these values in the differential
equations of motion ; and in this manner, without making
any hypothesis respecting the nature of the orbit, he ob¬
tains the necessary number of independent equations for
eliminating the three co-ordinates, together with their
differential co-efficients, leaving three final equations, in
which the unknown quantities are the three distances of
the comet from the earth at the epoch of the respective
observations. On eliminating two of these distances, the
resulting equation is found to rise to the eighth degree.
It is easily reducible to the seventh; but unfortunately
there are no other means of determining its roots than by
repeated trials according to the methods of false position.
Assuming, however, that a sufficiently approximate value
of the comet’s distances from the earth has been found in
this way, it is thence easy to deduce its corresponding
radii vectores, or distances from the sun, together with the
angles they include, from which data all the elements of
the orbit can be determined without difficulty.
Theoretically considered, the solution of Lagrange may
be considered as perfect; but when it comes to be actual¬
ly applied in the computation of an orbit, difficulties arise
which can only be overcome, or eluded, by certain modi¬
fications of the general method, which the illustrious au¬
thor has not explained. He did not himself attempt the
applications, or he could not have failed to perceive, and
would doubtless have provided for, the circumstances
which, in following his method, occasion so much embar¬
rassment to the computer. Lagrange made some import¬
ant additions to his original analysis in the Berlin Me¬
moirs for 1783, and it is also explained in the second vo¬
lume of the Mecanique Analytiquc.
Another method of obtaining a solution of the problem,
entirely different from the above, was proposed by Laplace
in the Memoirs of the Academy of Sciences of Paris for
1780, and is developed with all the necessary details, in
the second book of the Mecanique Celeste. The peculiari¬
ty of Laplace’s method consists in its being supposed that
a small portion of the orbit is accurately known from ob¬
servation ; that is to say, it is assumed that the longitude
and latitude of the comet at a given epoch, together with
the first and second differentials of those quantities, have
been precisely determined. From these data the elements
of the orbit can be deduced more simply than by any other
method yet proposed ; but it is found in practice that the
determination of the first and second differentials of the
comet’s longitude and latitude is generally a matter of dif¬
ficulty or uncertainty, and in some cases altogether im¬
practicable. Laplace had at first imagined, that when a
considerable number of observations have been obtained,
as is most frequently the case, the differential values of
the longitude and latitude would be found with greater
accuracy by combining the whole of the observations ; but
it was subsequently shown by Legendre, that when more
than a few observations are employed, the errors unavoid-
Comet.
COMET.
Comet, ably introduced in the arithmetical operations necessary
for interpolating the observed places of the comet, are
such as to increase, instead of diminishing, the errors of
observation. It is therefore advantageous to confine our¬
selves to the number of observations strictly necessary,
namely three ; and to employ the remaining observations
in correcting the elements deduced from these three.
With three observations only, it cannot be expected that
the results will have a high degree of accuracy ; but when
approximate values of the elements of an orbit have been
found, it is in general easy to introduce such corrections
as will give an orbit representing the observations within
the limits of unavoidable errors. Laplace’s method alfords
the simplest means of obtaining such approximations of
any hitherto proposed, and is applicable perhaps in as great
a number of cases as any other; it is consequently very
frequently adopted by computers. Cases indeed occur in
which it fails altogether, as happened in regard to the
comet of 1814; but the same thing takes place with every
other method that has yet been devised ; nor is it always
possible to discover, till actual trial has been made, the
particular circumstances connected with the position or
motion of the comet, which render one method more ap¬
plicable than another.
Of the numerous methods of determining the approxi¬
mate elements of an orbit from three observations, that of
Olbers is one of the simplest and most direct, though the
approximations which it gives are not very exact. Olbers
supposes the orbit to be a parabola; a supposition which
gives one equation more than the number of unknown
quantities. He supposes, moreover, that the chord of the
arc which joins the places of the comet at the epoch of
the first and third observations, is divided, by the radius
vector corresponding to the middle observation, into seg¬
ments proportional to the intervals of time between the ob¬
servations. The last supposition can only be admitted
when the intervals between the observations are nearly
equal; if a considerable inequality exists in the intervals,
and more especially, if, at the same time, the radius vec¬
tor of the comet is less than that of the earth, it leads to
very inaccurate results. The author, indeed, shows how
the errors of the hypothesis may be in some degree cor¬
rected ; but, after all, his approximation includes only
quantities of the second order in respect of the time.
This may be sufficient in some cases ; but in general it will
be necessary to include quantities of the third order. The
method of Olbers is explained at considerable length in
the third volume of Delambre’s Astronomic.
In 1806 Legendre published his Nouvelles Methodespour
la determination des Orbites des Cometes; a work very re¬
markable, not only by reason of the important light it
threw on the question under consideration, but also on ac¬
count of its containing the first exposition of the method
of combining the results of a great number of observations,
known by the name of the method of least squares, and
which is so extensively useful in many questions of natu¬
ral philosophy and astronomy. The method of determining
an orbit given in this memoir is in some respects the same
as that of Lagrange ; but the equations of the problem are
put under a form which admits of an easier application, and
gives surer results; and the circumstances are fully deve¬
loped and explained, which had so frequently caused La¬
grange’s method to fail in actual trial. Legendre also adopt¬
ed a different method of treating the fundamental equations
of the problem. Instead of deducing the elements of the
orbit from two radii vectores and the contained angle, he
eliminates those radii, and deduces expressions for the
three rectangular co-ordinates of the comet at the epoch
of the mean observation, and their three differential co¬
efficients regarded as functions of the time. When the co-
VOL. YU.
169
ordinates and their differential co-efficients have been de- Comet,
termined, the elements of the orbit can be easily deduced
from them by known methods applicable to orbits of all
descriptions. In the case in which the intervals between
the observations are equal (and this condition can in gene¬
ral be satisfied by interpolating the observed places of the
comet), the equations take a remarkably simple form, and
the analytical solution is obtained with great facility. In
the general case, that is to say, when the intervals between
the observations are unequal, the equations are somewhat
more complicated ; but they have still an analogous form,
and the additional labour required for their computation
is perhaps compensated by the absence of preliminary in¬
terpolation, and by the greater certainty that arises from
employing directly the data furnished by observation.
This method of determining an orbit is exhibited in a
very clear and elegant manner by Pontecoulant in his
Theorie Analytique du Systeme du Monde, tome ii.
In the Transactions of the Royal Society for 1814, Mr
Ivory has given a method of obtaining a first approxima¬
tion to the orbit of a comet, explained with all the perspi¬
cuity and analytical elegance which so peculiarly characte¬
rize the writings of this eminent and justly celebrated ma¬
thematician. Mr Ivory’s solution is founded on the same
principles as that of Olbers, but it gives a nearer approxi¬
mation, and is also adapted to a case in which the ordi¬
nary methods fail, namely, when the comet and the earth
are nearly at the same distance from the sun. Like Olbers,
and indeed Newton, Mr Ivory supposes the chord of the
parabolic arc, described in the interval between the ex¬
treme observations, to be divided by the radius vector
corresponding to the middle observation in the ratio of
the times between the observations; a supposition which,
as we have already remarked, though it simplifies the ana¬
lysis and computations, cannot always be admitted, and
which, in fact, leads, in some cases, to very sensible errors.
It has been objected to this solution, that it is needlessly
encumbered with auxiliary formulae.
The facility with which an orbit can be computed ac¬
cording to this method, induced Legendre to resume the
investigation of the subject, in order to obtain, if possible,
from the same method, more approximate elements. In
1820 a second supplement was published to the Nouvelles
Methodes, containing a solution grounded on the same prin¬
ciples as those of Olbers and Ivory. Instead of assuming,
however, like those two mathematicians, the chord of the
parabolic arc to be divided by the radius vector of the
middle observation in the ratio of the elapsed times, Le¬
gendre finds an expression for the value of each of its seg¬
ments in terms of the time; and the degree of approxi¬
mation ultimately obtained depends on the number of
terms of the series expressing those values that are in¬
cluded in the computation. This method possesses seve¬
ral advantages. In the first place, it requires no prelimi¬
nary interpolations ; in the second place, it is simple, and
can be understood without a very high degree of algebraic
skill; and lastly, which is of most importance, it will be
found to give, we believe, in a great majority of cases,
especially when the intervals between the observations
are considerably unequal, a nearer approximation than any
of the other methods, with the same degree of labour. For
these reasons we have adopted it in the present article.
In particular cases other methods may be found more appli¬
cable ; but the same objection may be made to those of La¬
place, Olbers, and indeed every other which has been pro¬
posed. No method will answer equally well in every case.
The last work on this subject to which we shall refer is
a paper by Mr Lubbock, in the Memoirs of the Royal As¬
tronomical Society, vol. iv. part i., 1830. We have already
remarked, that the final equation which gives the radius
Y
170
COMET.
Comet
vector of the comet, or its distance from the earth, rises
to the seventh degree, and that consequently the solution
of the problem can only be obtained by th» method of
trial and error. Mr Lubbock proposes the following me¬
thod of finding a value of the radius vector by means of a
quadratic equation. The accelerating forces acting on the
comet, in the direction of the three rectangular co-ordi¬
nates of its orbit, the sun’s mass being unit, are,
(Px . x__„ cPy \ V_ _ri
d& ' r* °’ dt2 + ,-3 “ ’
<Pz
dP
from the integration of which the following equation is
obtained, which gives the square of the velocity, namely,
dx1 -|- dy2 -f- dz-  2 ^ L = 0 H)
dt2 r ' a  v 7
But since r2 = rr2 + / + z2, we have also, in conse¬
quence of the above three equations,
(P.r2 _ dx1 -f- dy1 + dz2 1 <
2rfZ2 — dP r ’
of the orbit. With these data we are enabled to compute Comet,
the other elements by the methods employed for deter-
mining the elliptic orbits of the planets.
The problem of determining a cometary orbit resolves
itself into two parts. In the first it is required to assign
an orbit which will represent all the observations made
during a single appearance of the comet; and in the se¬
cond, to compute the effects of the disturbing forces of
the planets, so as to predict the changes which will take
place in the form and position of the orbit during an inde¬
finite number of revolutions. The perturbations, however,
which are computed in the same manner whether the dis¬
turbed body be a comet or a planet, form a problem of
Physical Astronomy by far too important to be under¬
taken in this place. We will therefore confine ourselves
to the approximate determination of a parabolic orbit from
three observations. The method which we have follow¬
ed, as we have already intimated, is that which was pro¬
posed by Legendre in the second Supplement to his Nou-
velles Methodes.
therefore,
d^i2 _ 2   1   1 cP.r2 _ 1 1
2dt2 ~ r a r' 0X 2dP r ^ a~
Assuming the intervals between the observations to be
equal, and rejecting powers of the time above the square, the
author first expresses the differential co-efficients in equa¬
tions (1) and (2) in terms of finite differences. He next
substitutes for the variables their values in terms of g, the
comet’s distance from the earth at the second observation ;
then, making a infinite, and neglecting quantities divided
by r3, he eliminates -, and obtains a quadratic equation
which gives an approximate value of g. By this means,
the necessity of having recourse to repeated trials is ob¬
viated ; but the accuracy of the equations is impaired by
the approximate values introduced, and as the intervals are
supposed equal, the method is not always applicable.
The reduction of the problem to the solution of a qua¬
dratic equation is not new; it was already accomplished
by Sejour, and also by Olbers. (See Delambre, Astr. du
X VIIIme Siecle, p. 733.)
In all the methods which we have here alluded to, it is
assumed that the comet moves in a parabolic orbit, and their
success is owing entirely to this assumption. But it is cer¬
tain that the true orbit of some comets, and most probably
of all comets, is an ellipse, and not a parabola. The ques¬
tion will therefore naturally suggest itself, whether it
would not be better to investigate an ellipse at once, than
to concern ourselves about a parabolic orbit, which, with
whatever care it may be computed, can never be perfect¬
ly exact, nor even be expected to satisfy observations
made at considerably distant intervals. To this it may
be replied, that on the first appearance of a comet it can
seldom be of any use to seek an ellipse, the computation
of which is greatly more tedious. For every practical
purpose it is sufficient to have a parabola which represents
the observations within a few seconds; first, because in
the case of a comet the observations are scarcely ever
more accurate than the computations founded on this as¬
sumption ; and, secondly, because the approximation ob¬
tained by supposing the orbit to be a parabola, will enable
us to determine the position of the node, the inclination
of the orbit, and the perihelion distance, more exactly than
we can expect to find them on the return of the comet,
the perturbations of the planets giving rise to variations
in the elements of the orbit probably exceeding the errors
of the first computation. It is enough that we are able
to recognise its identity. When this has been done we
have the periodic time, and consequently the greater axis
1. Let C°, C, C'be the places of the comet at the instants
of the first, second, and third observations respectively.
Let the interval between the first and second observations
be denoted by 6, and that between the second and third by
ff; then, if the epoch, or instant from which the time is
reckoned, be made to fall on the second observation, and
be denoted by t, the epochs of the first and third obser¬
vations will be respectively t— d, and t + &. Next, let
x,y, z, be the rectangular co-ordinates of C referred to the
plane of the ecliptic and a straight line drawn through S,
the centre of the sun, to the first point of Aries, the ori¬
gin of the co-ordinates being at S. Similarly, let x°, y°, z°,
be the co-ordinates of Cp, and xt, y\ zf, those of C'. The
first step of the process is to find expressions for x°, y°, z°,
and of, y, zr, in terms of x, y, z, the latter being regarded
as functions of the time t.
By Taylor’s theorem we have
0 dx 6 . d2x (P d3x (P ,
x =*--ST++'&c-
. , dx P , d2x , dsx ff3 , B
* = * + rfTT + ^ 1^3+>&c-
in which series the intervals 6 and (/ may be regarded as
so small, that the values of x° and xf will be determined
with sufficient exactness when the terms affected with the
fifth, and all the higher powers of d and O', are omitted.
Let r°, r, r’, be the three radii vectores of the comet
corresponding to the three observations, or the distances
SC°, SC, SC'. The accelerating forces acting on the co¬
met at C in the directions of the co-ordinates are express¬
ed by the equations
cPx  x cPy   y d?z  z
dt2 r3 ’ dP r3’ dP r3’
the mass of the sun being assumed to be unit, and the
mass of the comet being neglected in comparison of that
of the sun.
COMET.
Comet. By differentiating the first of the above equations, we
m
(Px _ dx .
dtz •Pdt
. vdv
or, by making
SxPdr _ Sxrdr dx
r&dt
r’dt Pdt'
dt
cPx
~dP
  3A   1 dx
^ 'x r3' dt'
Differentiating again, and making the necessary reductions,
we obtain
<Px_ _ / J.. ^ _ 3‘5^2 , 1 \ , 2-3-A dx
dt^ \ r5 dt r? r6 y * + r* 'di'
If we now substitute these values of and —
dt2 dP dP
in the foregoing series for x° and a/, we shall have, on re¬
jecting the superfluous terms,
x°=x(l-±-
\ 7^ ' 1*2 r5 ■ 1-2-3)
dx/ I P 2'3k P \
^ dt\ ^ 73' 1-2-3 ^ ^ ' 1-2-3-4)
. /.Iff2. 3k P \
*-x{1—pT2+p'HF3)
, dx/, 1 P 2-3k p \
^ dty P 1-2-3 ^ 7^ TM-iJ*
For the sake of abridging, let us assume
= 1 — ^
V ~ 2P~ 2^
U 
d ~ I — ——
2P
and we shall have
kP_
+ 21P ’
P
" = *’-675 +
kP
47^’
o i dx
X° = VX
x' = v'x 4- V,'
^ dt
It is evident that y° y* and z° z' may be expressed ex¬
actly in the same manner; hence the co-ordinates of the
comet at the first and third observations are given in terms
of its co-ordinates at the middle observation and their
differential co-efficients, by the following system of equa¬
tions, due to Lagrange :
x° = vx -{■ u^- xt — vfx 4- u -j—
dt ^ dt
y° =vy + u^- y> = v’y +
z° = vz + u~ z' = v’z + u’ ~
flt ^ dt
\ (0
If from these equations we eliminate , we shall
dt dt dt
find, on making w ~ vv! — v’u,
u'x° — ux' = wx, v!y0 — uy’ — wy, u'z°~uz' = wz; (2)
bat fiom the values of 7?, w, d, given above, we have
evidently
W = (f+t)- + ~i(7 + f)3 (f-t);
therefore, by eliminating v, u, and w, from equations (2),
there results v '
x(jj°z'—y'za) + y (VV— z<x°) + z(xy~dy°) = 0,
an equation to a plane, which denotes that the three points
C°, C, C', are situated in the same plane with S, the origin
of the co-ordinates.
2. Let the chord of the arc C0C' intersect the radius
SC in D, and let the ratio of C°D to C'D be that of X to Comet.
X'. Make A -j- X' := 1, and the chord C°C' = c ; we have
then C°D =■ Xe and C'D = X'c. Farther, let DC = er,
so that SD = r(I — e),e being an infinitely small quanti¬
ty of the second order in respect of 0 and 6', which are sup¬
posed infinitesimals of the first order.
In order to find the ratio of X to X', suppose the three
points C°, D, C', to be projected on the plane of the eclip¬
tic ; then the projections of the lines C°D and C'D will
necessarily be to one another in the same ratio as these lines
themselves, that is, as X to X'. But the co-ordinates of the
projections of C°, D, and C', in the direction of the axis
of x, are respectively x°, (1 — e) x, and x1; therefore also
(1 — e)x — V : V — (1 — e) a;:: A: A',
whence
x{V — (1 — e) x] =X'{(1 — e) x — #0};
and, since A A' = 1,
Aa/ + AV3 = (1 — e) x.
Substituting in this last equation the values of a/ and x°
given by equations (1), we get
(At/ + dv) x + (Aw' + Ku)~ = (\—e)x;
and by proceeding in the same manner, we shall find rela¬
tively to y and z,
O' + **)y + O + *“)§ = (i-O;
dr
(At/ + dv) z + O' + Xu) ^ — (I —e) z.
In these last equations the quantities a; ^2,^— —, are
ut dt dt
independent of any particular values of v u d u!; they
cannot therefore hold trq.e, unless we have also the two
equations of condition At/ + A't; = 1 — e, and Am' -f A?*
= 0. Joining to these the equation A -f A' = 1, we shall
have, in order to determine A, A', and e, the following sys¬
tem of equations:
At/ + dv = 1 — e, Am' -f du = 0, A + A' = 1. (3)
From the second and third of these we get A = - U
v! — u
d —
v!
A =
and consequently from the first, 1 — e
u'v — ud
w
w — u
Hence
w—u
d =
w
w—u
\ — e =
w—■ u
(4)
The accuracy of the values now found of A, A', and e,
will depend on the number of terms of the series repre¬
sented by u, tt, and w, that are taken into account.
We shall distinguish three different degrees of approxi¬
mation.
L Retaining only the first terms of the series, or those
which depend on the simple powers of 6 and d’, we have
u -- — u' — w =. 6, and v! — u ~ d' d,
whence
A =
6' + 6'
d =
e — 0 ;
(5)
consequently —, — ^ that is to say, the chord which joins
the places of the comet at the extreme observations is di¬
vided, by the radius vector belonging to the middle obser¬
vation, into segments proportional to the intervals between
the observations. This is the approximation of Newton
172
Comet, and Olbers. In the method we are about to follow, the
v'-,"V~w' results thus obtained serve only to direct the subsequent
calculations.
COMET.
v! — u — & Q —
consequently,
{
6(r/)*
II. By including a second term of the series represent¬
ed by u, u', and w, we have
, 6 , - ' P
— u — & — —, u —
X —
{
6(r°r)2 j
P
6(r°rY
\
Comet
Gr3’
Gr3’
V + 9 —
w
whence
X = ~
g ^ ’ whence by division,
_
p
Gr3
X — * +
6'+ 9 (ff + 9)2
ff3 + P
6(r/)2 6(r0r')2
9'2
}
°r)2 )
& + 9-
93p 9'+9 9'2 — 9'9 + P find
6(rr')2 6(r°r)‘-
By proceeding in a similar manner with respect to X', we
Gr3
Gr3
and therefore by division
X' =
9>
9'+9 (9’-i-9)2
L G(rr')2
J!_l
6(ro/)l J '
X =
+
9f-j-9 ‘ 9'+9 Gr3
In like manner, from the equation X' =
(f
To find e, we have in this case
find
1 —e = -
But 1 — e =
X' = ——. —
(f-\- 9
9T + 9-
9' + 9-
9’-^- 9 Gr3
(tr + iy
= 1
<P +J3
+ 4J.5
Gr3
P)
Gr3
4 + 9-
9'3 + P
Gr3
39'9
Gr3
^+«> {^
hence, on dividing and neglecting the terms which involve
Whence we have in this case the following values of the fourth and higher powers of ^ and d',
X, X', and e, namely, ^ ^'9 (9' — 9)
1~e~1-2?+ '
-j- ^ \ Gr3 / J k9 k9
But r° = r , r' = r 4. —, therefore r°7T' = r3 k
(6) ^ r’
k29'9
— 9) r —. The last term of this expression is a
j ^ c j -ni re ■ . quantity of the order of those that may be neglected; there-
The values of X, X', and e, thus found, will be sufficient- ^ore j '
]y exact in ordinary cases; but it will sometimes be ne- ^ ^ ^ ^ ^^
cessary to carry the approximation farther, and to include     — —   —_—L,
the third terms of the series represented by u, u', and w. r°rr' r3 + ^ ^ ^
Substituting this in the above expression for 1 — e, it be¬
lli. In order to obtain convenient expressions when comes
a third term of the series is taken into account, it will be
necessary to introduce the extreme radii vectores r° and
r'. For this purpose we may suppose r° = r — dr, and r'
rdr
— r + dr; but we have already assumed A =
therefore dr — —^ — —. Hence
r r
M
r° — r , r°r — r2 — k9,
r
, 5
whence (r°r)2 — r3 — \t1i9, and consequently
1 1 _ JL + ^
Gr3—*4rk9 Gr3 4r5
1 —e = 1
:, whence e-
2r°rrf 7 2/’0rr'
It follows, therefore, that this third degree of approxi¬
mation gives
02
\ =
X' =
0'4- 9
9r
+
r 9” _ 9* -I
l GCrdY* G(r°ry )
}
(0'+0)2 16(rr')2
9'9 c r
V+ 9 (0'4 0)2 l G(rr') 6(r°r)2
2r°7T/
(7)
6(r°r)2
In the same manner we find
I 1
JL_
Gr3
4r5
3. We now proceed to apply the above results to the so¬
lution of the problem.
Let a0, a, a', be the three geocentric longitudes of the co¬
met at the instants of the first, second, and third observa¬
tions respectively; b°, b, b’, its three geocentric latitudes;
g° £, g', the three curtate distances, that is to say, the three
distances of the comet from the earth projected on the
6(rr')2 Gr3 4- 9r^0'
Substituting these expressions in the series denoted by u p]ane 0f tile ecliptic; A°, A, A7, the three corresponding
and v!, we get heliocentric longitudes of the earth; and R°, R, R7, the
r 02 r 0’2 "i three radii vectores of the earth. Finally, let X0Y°,
u — 9 ) 1 ■ j l, m7 = 0' J 1 h , XY, X'Y', be the co-ordinates of the earth, referred to the
l 6(>0r)2 J l Gfrr7)2) centre of the sun, so that
COMET.
COS.
sin.
A'
A'
(9)
Comet. X° = R° cos. A°, X rr R cos. A, X' = R
Y° = R° sin. A0, Y =r R sin. A, Y' — R'
For the sake of abridging, let us assume
m° = cos. a° n° = sin. a° p° =z tan. b° )
m = cos. a n — sin. a p — tan. b >
m! — cos. a! n’ = sin. a’ p’ = tan. b’ )
then, on transferring the origin of the co-ordinates from
the centre of the sun to the earth, we shall have relative¬
ly to the points C°, C, C',
x0=m°f + X0 x = mg + X — + XA
?/0=w0f + Yo — y’=n’<J 4- Y'V (10)
z0=p°f z=PS z’ = p'z’ \
It has already been shown (2) that
\ od X' a;0 = (1 — e) x,
and it is obvious that the same condition must be fulfilled
in regard to y and z, or the projection of the chord C° C'
on the other two co-ordinate planes. Hence we have the
following system of equations :—
X a/ + X' a:0 — (1 _ e) * = 0)
Xy + X'3/°—(1—e)y = 0f
X 2' + X' z° — (1 — e) z = 0)
Substituting in these last equations (11) the values of x y z,
x° y° z°, x' y' z', given in equations (10), and making at the
same time
M = XX' + X'X° — (1 _e)Xl
N = XY' + X'Y° — (1—e)YJ
we obtain
0 = \ m’ g -if. X' m° g° — (1 — e) to g -j- Ml
0=:X f' + Td n° f — (1 — e) n % -j- N [-
0 = x y |' + X>° f — (1 —e)p£ )
on which equations the solution of the problem essential¬
ly depends. Before we proceed to their discussion, how¬
ever, it will be necessary to find more convenient expres¬
sions for M and N.
4. In order to express X° Y°, X' Y', the co-ordinates of
the earth, which belong to the extreme observations, in a
function of the time, and of the co-ordinates X Y relative
to the time 0 — 0, let us assume, as in § 1,
} /o\ 6’3+^ , /K0'0. k(r~+o*)\ _
}() 6 r3 ^"(2R5+ 4 r5 )
(11)
(12)
(13)
V = 1 _
V' = 1
_ EfL
2R3 2R5’
J* KP
2R3 + 2R5’
and we shall have
dX
dt
U =
- U' =: 0'-
+
03
6R3
P __
6R3 + 4R5’
K04
4RS’
K0’4
X° = YX + U
X' = V'X + U'4-;
dt
the symbols V, U, R, K, having now the same significa¬
tion relatively to the orbit of the earth which v, u, r, k,
had before relatively to tbe orbit of the comet.
In consequence of these last equations, and of the equa¬
tions (4), we have
x X' — — U^' X— ^ ^
u'—u v!—u dt
X'X° =
u’X
ti — u
7-X +
uV
u'—u
dX
dt
(1—e)X =~'X)
w—u
and substituting these values, in the first of equations
(12)>
u'V—uX'—w v ( u'U — iiU' dX
— x+ —— .
M =
Substituting now for u', u, V, V', their values in terms of
0 and we obtain u’X — uX' =. & + b — -i ^ ^
2R3
but
P 4- P k
‘y + 6--£r- + £s(t'i--n
therefore, by dividing, and retaining only the terms which
do not exceed the third order in respect of 07 and 0,
u'V — wV'
= 1 — ^ 27i?
whence
u'V — uV — w 6'6 K0'0
+ 6),
u — u
In like manner we have
2R3 + 2R5 ^
therefore, by division,
w'U — mU
t<U' __ 0^0 (0' — 0) / 1 1\
u 6 [p R3/’
The value of M therefore becomes
M
= {c-5IP + S-'m}x
0'0 (0' — 0) / 1 1 \ rfX
+ 6 R3J dt'
0'0 K0'0
It will be remarked that the quantity (0'—0)
is exactly analogous to that which has already been de¬
noted by e. Let us therefore suppose it to be represented
by E, and the last equation will become
M
F>Y , ^-<0/1 i\dx
-(e-E)X +  — (pr-ipj sf.
but on rejecting quantities involving higher powers than
the third of 0 and 0’, we have obviously
0' —
T
therefore ultimately
M = (e — E) | X +
dX (
' dt J *
Since the epoch or instant from which the time is reck¬
oned is supposed to fall on the second observation, it is
y  0
evident that —^— is the instant corresponding to the
mean time of the three observations. Let the value of
X at this instant be denoted by Xlf and the corresponding
values of R and A by R, and A,, then
M = (e — E)Xj.
By proceeding exactly in the same manner with regard
to N, we shall find
N = (e — E)Y1 ;
therefore, on substituting for X and Y their values in
terms of R and A, we have at the mean time of the three
observations
M = (e — E) Rj cos. A1)
N = (e — E) Rj sin. Ax J
(14)
5. We now resume the equations (13). The unknown
quantities which they contain are the three curtate distan-
ces £° | g', together with r, the radius vector of the comet,
which is involved in the values of X, X', and e. They may be
combined in various ways, and the different combinations
will afford so many different expressions for g°, £, and g',
which will be more or less easily computed according to
the circumstances of the case. The most obvious solu-
173
Comet.
Comet.
174
COMET.
Comet, tion will be obtained by eliminating g°, g, and g'. For this
—purpose the third of equations (13) gives
n _ (1 —e)pz — ~Kp’g
S Up0 ’
and on substituting this value of g° in the first and second
of these equations, they become respectively
0 — — m°p') Xg' -j- (m°p — mp° ) (1 — e) g + />°M
0 = (ri'p° — n°p'') Xg’ -j- («°p — np°) (1 — e) g /)°N.
On eliminating X g' from the two equations now found,
we get
p° (n'p° — n°pl) M — (m'p0 — m°pf) N 
^ — \^e (m'p°—m°pr)(nop—np0)—(m°}j—mp°)(n'p0—n0pr)
an equation which becomes by reduction
1 (m°N — n°M)p' — (w'N — n'M) p°
% ~ 1—e \m'n°—m°n')p + (mn’—in'n)p° -f (ni°n — mn0)p' ’
and on restoring the values of M, N, m, n,p, &c. given by
equations (14) and (9), and recollecting that sin. (x — y)
— sin. x cos. y — cos. x sin. y, we get
B E
£= q—-• Ri X
5 1 —e
sin. (A, —a0) tan. £>'—sin^Aj—a') tan. 6°
sin (aQ—a')t&n.b -j- sin.(a'—a)tan.6° sin.(a—a°)tan.l/' ^
Let us assume
P^sin^Aj—a°)tan.i'—sin.(Aj—ar)tan.b0
Q=sin.(a°—a')tan.& -(- sin.(a'—a)tan.6° -f- sin.(a—a0)tan.&';
this assumption gives
__P e-E
f - Q ‘ 1 __ e ' 1 ’
but on carrying the approximation only to quantities of the
. . e — E ffd f 1 1\
third order in respect ot the time,  — = — (— -jp 1 ;
MPR
therefore if we make — = h, the last equation will
become
(16)
6. The equation which has now been obtained contains
two unknown quantities g and r ; but another equation be¬
tween the same variables may be readily found from the
equations (10). These give, on restoring the values of m,
n, p, X, and Yj
x — g cos. a + R cos. A,
y = g sin. « 4- R sin. A,
z = £ tan. b,
whence, by squaring and adding
a? y2 z* = g2(l -j- tan.26) -f- 2gRcos.(A —a) -f- R2 ;
but x? y- z2 — i2 • and 1 -f- tan. 2b =■ kt ;
1 1 cos.26
therefore
r2 R2 SgRcos. (A — a) 4- —— (I?)
cos.
We have now arrived at two equations between r and g,
by means of which the values of those quantities become
known. In order to eliminate r, let equation (1G) be put
under the form
i3 (h R3g) = /<R3,
the square of which is
r6 (Ji + R3g)2 - 7/2 R6.
then, by substituting in this the value of r6 given by equa¬
tion (17) raised to the cube, there results
R2 -{- 2g R cos. (A — a) -| -
an equation of the eighth degree in respect of the un¬
known quantity g. It is evident, how'ever, that on be¬
ing developed, h2 R6 will disappear from both sides of it,
after which the whole will be divisible by g; it belongs,
therefore, in fact, only to the seventh degree. On being
resolved by approximation it will give a value of g, but in
practice it is more commodious to determine r and g simul¬
taneously from the equations (16) and (17), by the or¬
dinary methods of false position.
7. Although the equations (16) and (17) thus appear
to lead to a complete solution of the problem, it seldom
happens in practice that an orbit can be determined in
this manner. The reason of this is, that the quantity
which we have represented by Q is always very small (it
is not difficult to prove that it is of the third order in re¬
spect of 6), and liable to be greatly affected by the errors
of observation. If Q =z 0, we have the equation
sin.(a°—:a')tan.7>-f- sin.(a'—a)tan.7»° -f sin.(a—a°)tan.7>'=:0,
which denotes that the three apparent places of the comet
are situated in the same great circle of the sphere. The
value of Q therefore depends solely on the deviation of the
comet’s apparent path from a great circle of the heavens,
during the short interval between the extreme observa¬
tions ; and this deviation is in general so small, that a
slight error of observation, which it is impossible to guard
against, may cause it to become evanescent, or even to
change its sign. On this account the equation (16), which
is called by Legendre the doubtful equation, can only be
employed in very favourable circumstances; and it be¬
comes necessary, in the greater number of cases, to have
recourse to other methods of solution. Some conclusions
may, however, be deduced from it, which will materially
assist in guiding the subsequent calculations.
In the first place, as the curtate distance g is necessari¬
ly a finite quantity, if the denominator of the fraction ex¬
pressed by h vanishes, that is, if Q = 0, the numerator
must vanish at the same time. Now this can happen only
in two ways: either by supposing P = 0, or -i- —
If we suppose P = 0, we have the equation
sin. (Aj — a°) tan. V — sin. (Aj — a') tan. b° — 0,
which indicates that the place of the sun at the instant
. (h -f- R3g)2 = A2R8,
corresponding to the mean time of the three obser¬
vations, is situated in the same great circle of the sphere
with the three apparent places of the comet. Now it is easy
to see, that although the sun may not be exactly in the same
great circle with the three apparent places of the comet,
yet if it is near one of the intersections of that circle with
the ecliptic, the quantity P will be very small, and the
equation (16) in consequence will not lead to any satisfac¬
tory result.
In the second place, if Q vanishes while the value of P
continues so great that its sign would not be changed by
supposing its component parts to vary to the extent of the
errors of observation, we must then have or r =
r1 It'1
R ; that is to say, the comet and the earth are at the same
distance from the sun. This circumstance, therefore, also
renders equation (16) indeterminate. It may be remarked,
however, that in this case we obtain an easy approxima¬
tion to the value of g from equation (17), which, when r
is equal to R, becomes
g = 2 R cos.2 b cos. (180 -f A — a),
COMET.
Comet, where 180 + A is the longitude of the sun at the instant
of the middle observation.
In the third place, when the quantities P and Q are
both so great that their signs can be determined without
ambiguity, equation (16) will show whether the distance
of the comet from the sun is greater or less than the ra¬
dius vector of the earth. For since g is necessarily posi-
p
tive, the sign of — must be the same as that of e — E or
11 , , . P
•^3 — jjg; consequently, the sign of — being known, we
also know whether r is greater or less than R.
8. Since the state of the observations will seldom per¬
mit equation (16) to be employed with advantage, it be¬
comes necessary to attempt some other combination of the
three fundamental equations (13). Instead of eliminating
the three curtate distances g, g°, g' from these equations,
we may determine two of them, for example g° and g', in
terms of the third, g; by which means we shall obtain at
least the ratios of these distances to one another. This
may be effected in various ways ; but we shall confine our¬
selves to the two following combinations, the one or other
of which will be applicable in every case.
Let the first of the equations (13) be multiplied by N,
and the second by M; the difference of the products is
Xg'(NW—Mra') -j-A'g0(N/ft°—Mw°)—(1—e)g(Nm—M«)=0.
Combining this with the third equation, so as to elimi¬
nate first g' and then g°, we get
0_ (1 —e)g (Nm — Mn) p — (Not' — Mn') p
^ X' (Not° — Mn°)p' — (Not' — Mn')
(1 — e)g (Not° — Mn°) p — (Not — Mn) p°
A ' (Not0 — Mn°) p — (Not' — Mn^jF;
and, on substituting the values of M, N, m, &c. before
found,
sin^Aj—a'pan.b
0_ (1—e)g sin.(Aj—a)tan.&'
A' " sin.^Aj—a°)tanA'—sin.(A1—a')tanA
p _ 0 e)g sin.(A1-
^ X sin^Aj-
■a'J)tax\.b—sin^A,—a) tan A
a°)tan.6'—sin^Aj—a') tanA°.
k18)
These two equations will give the ratios in all
S S
cases when the common denominator (the quantity we
have already denoted by P) is not so small as to render
the expressions indeterminate. In general they will be
most applicable when the motion of the comet in latitude
is greater than its motion in longitude.
The other combination to which we have alluded, is
formed by employing only the two first of the equations
(13). Let the first be multiplied by n', and the second
by ot'; the difference of the products gives
o _ (1 — e) g (mri' — m'n) -f Not' — Mn'
^ X' (jn°n' — m'n0)
In like manner, if we multiply the first by n°, and the se¬
cond by ot°, in order to eliminate g°, we find
, _ (1 — e) g (m°n — mn°) — Not° -f Mn°
^ X (m°n' — in!n°)
On substituting the values of M, N, ot, n, &c. in these
last equations, they become
o _ (1—e)g • sin.(q'—a) -[_ (<?—E)R, sin.( A1 —a')
X'sin. (a'—a°) i
(1—e)g. sin.(a—a°)—(e—E)R1sin.(xl1—a°) r
X sin. (a' — a°)
the motion of the comet in longitude is greater than its
motion in latitude.
It may be proper to remark, that on employing the
equations (18) or (19) to determine the ratio of the cur¬
tate distances, we may suppose in the first trials e = 0,
E 0, A =
-, X' =
On this supposition the
(20)
c2 — P2 -j-
r°2.
■ 2r'r° cos. <p,
£' =
The equations now found will be most applicable wdien
which is given by the triangle C0SC', we have F — Pr0
F
cos. ip, or cos. © — ——, <p being the angle included between
the two radii vectores P and r°.
12. We now proceed with the demonstration of Lam¬
bert’s theorem.
According to the doctrine of central forces, when a
0' + f " 6' +
equations (19) become simply
0 _ 0'+ 0 gsin. (a' — a)
^ ()' sin. (a' — a°)
, _*)' + $ gsin.(a—a°)
^ 6 ’ sin. (a' — a°)
11. From what has now been shown it may be inferred
that the equations (13) can in general be used only in de¬
termining the ratios of g° and g' to g; on account of the
smallness and consequent uncertainty of the denominator
Q, they leave the absolute value of g indeterminate. It is
therefore necessary to seek some other equation among
the variables employed, before we can obtain a complete
solution of the problem. For this purpose we must have
recourse to some of the properties connected with the co¬
met s motion in its orbit. No hypothesis has as yet been
made respecting the nature of the orbit. If w'e suppose
it to be a parabola, the laws of parabolic motion will give
a new equation, without introducing any other variable
than those which have already been employed, wdiich may
either be combined with equation (16), for the purpose of
determining r and g directly, or which may be employed
to correct the results obtained by assigning a hypothetical
value to g in the equations (18) or (19). There are va¬
rious methods of introducing the condition derived from
the nature of the parabolic motion; but, in the method of
solution which we here follow, it is most convenient to
employ the theorem of Lambert, which gives the time of
describing a parabolic arc in terms of its chord, and the two
radii vectores drawn to its extremities. Before demon¬
strating this theorem, however, it will be proper to show
how the chord may be computed.
Let c be the chord which joins C°C'. The co-ordinates
of its extremities being x'pz', x°i/°z0, we have
c2 = (x'—x°)2 + (p—y°)2 + (z'—z°)2
= af2 + J/'2 + z'2 + x°2 + p°2 + z°2
— 2x'x° — 2y^° — 2z'z° ;
that is,
c2 — r/2 _j_ ro2 — 2 (x'x° + py° + z'z°).
But by reason of the equations (8) and (10),
x'x° = g'g°OT'OT0 + OT0g°R' cos. A' + OT'g'R0 COS. A° 4-
R'R° cos. A' cos. A°, py° = gfn'710 + w0g°R' sin. A' +
«'g'R° sin. A° + R'R° sin. A' sin. A°, and z'z° = gfpp0,
therefore, by adding and substituting for ot, «, p, &c. their
values given in equations (9)
xfx° + py° + =g'g° cos. (a'—a0) + g°R'cos. (A'—a°)
+ g'R° cos.( A°— a!)
+ g'p tan. 1/ tan. b° +R'R°cos.(A'—A°)
hence, denoting the right hand side of this equation
by F,
— rr2 p ro2 — 2F. (21)
Comparing this last equation with
COMET.
body describes an orbit in virtue of a force varying in¬
versely as the square of the distance, the square of the
velocity at the distance r is given by the equation
1 1 _ dx1 , eft/8
r a dt2 dt2’
in which a is the major axis of the orbit, and the sum of
the masses is supposed equal to unit. In the case of the
parabola, the major axis is infinite, and the equation be¬
comes simply
1  da? , dy2,
r dt2 dt2’
Let D be the perihelion distance SP, and the true ano¬
maly, or the angle PSC. We have then x=^r cos. ^
da? . dy2 dr2 -f- r2cLj/2 ,
whence -7^ + ^   ^2 ’ and con'
Again, the triangle C0SC7 gives the equation
c2 — ^2 _j_ ^02 — 2r/r° cos.
but tan. \<p — v; therefore, from the trigonometrical for-
} —v2
mulae, cos. <p — whence, substituting and reducing,
(/ + r°y (? = Y+l?’
For the sake of abridging, we shall put
•d r° c — 2s, d r° — c = 2d,
whence d -{• r° — s d, c — s — d, and (d + r°)2 —c2
=z ksd. Comparing these with the above equation, we
have
dr°
1 + v5
— sd, whence v
y — r sin.
sequently
dt2 ' dt2
2 _ dr2 + r^d-^?
r dt2
(dr0 — sd) -
(sd)2
Now the polar equation to the parabola gives
’ =D (1 + ««), / = D (I + ^) = D. (1 +
But from the property of the parabola r — 2D — r cos. ;
whence r (1 + cos. -vj/) = 2D, or r cos.2 ^ = D, there¬
fore
r = T) (1 + tan.2 i-vp).
Let tan. JUL = 7«: then dr = 2Dudu: and du=. --
2 cos.2 ^
Substitut-
thereforeso? =
/r° -D2(1 + m°2)
T+^ “ D (i~~u°v)^and consequently»
1 + tt°2 _ (sdy
1 — u°v D
From the same values of r° and d we get
= \d-\t (1 + tan.2 ■|4/), whence d^
2du
1 + m2
r/ + r° = D (1 + ?i02) |
_ 2D (1 + ii0<2)
1 +
(1
1 + t;2 ^
— m0t;)2 J
+
. 2 dd2 + r2d-\? .
ing these expressions in the equation - = — , it
becomes d? — 2D3 (1 + x?)2 du2, whence dt — V2D3
(1 + v?) du ; which, on being integrated, becomes
t = V,2D3 (u + ^m3).
Di;2 (1 + m°2)2
(1 — u0v)2 ’
but d r° = s d, and j Un ~ wc—, therefore
1 — u°v D
— i?sd s — ^d
s d — 2Vsd ~i—==r—, whence v — VD . •
U \/sd
1 -h
times
t + V = VZD* (ur + ±u'3)
t—6= V2D3 (u° + -2-u03),
and, by subtracting,
ff + 6 = V2D3 {m' —m° + i(7i'8_M°3)l-
In order to transform this expression into another con¬
taining only r°d and c, let -F0 be the anomaly correspond- or
ing to C°, -F' that corresponding to C', <p — ^ =
angle C°SC', and tan. ip = v. We have then "vj/'=:-F° + p, - . - ^
and consequently tan. i -F' tan. i (4/° + p) =r and, finally, on restoring the values of s and d,
tion for the time, it becomes
0 + 6’ = ^2V7d(^s — ^d) | 1 +
that is
. /9 _ _
Vd) (s + Vsd + d),
+ ff = ^(A/s-
3
1 V2 3
+ 0 = -=-(*?■
■ dv);
tan. i'F0 + tanj | p
, that is, u’ =
u° + v
\
Now, if we
Comet.
Let u', u° be the values of u in this equation at the Substituting these values of v and -—in the equa-
imes t + ff, t — 0 respectively; we have then I
1 — tan. i-vj/3 tan. tp
put
7i = u’ — u° + ^ (u’3 — u°3),
we shall have evidently
Z = (u’ — u°) {l + 3 (w'2 + u'u0 + w02)}
= (u'— u°) {I + ^ \_(u'— u°)2 + }j
^
therefore, substituting j   for u',
y _v (\+ u°2) ( uo2 + u°v j a2 (1 + uo2)2\
1 — u°v \ 1 — u°v 3 (1 — u°v)2 J ’
that is,
0 + 0' = ± (d + r° + c)i — i(P + r° — c)2. (24)
This is the very elegant theorem found by Euler, but
commonly attributed to Lambert, by means of which we
are enabled to correct the hypothetical values successively
given to e, till a value of that quantity is found which will
satisfy all the equations as nearly as the observations will
admit.
13. We shall now collect into one view the different
processes indicated in the preceding investigations; and
in order to throw every necessary light on the subject, we
shall give at the same time an example of the actual com¬
putation of an orbit from Legendre. The comet is that
of 1805, and the data from which the computation is made
are contained in the following table:
_ 77(1 +
[ + u02)2 f
— u°v)2 \
(1
he
0 + #=V2D3-
1 + F
v2(l +
1 — u
<>1.
'v j ’
hence the formula for the time becomes
7; (1 + u°2)2
(1
;02)2fi +«o2n
V)2 V+3" 1 — 7^ J ‘
Epochs.
October 22‘68488
30-68670
34*72088
Longitudes.
a0 = 163° 20' 53"
a = 183 48 32
a’ = 191 46 15
Latitudes.
b° = 22° 59'53"
b = 15 37 21
b’ = 12 2 29
/
COMET.
Comet. I. The first step is to compute the arc described by the
mean motion of the earth in the time 6 4* &'• Let this arc
be represented by 0; then since 6 and V are expressed in
mean solar days, we have © = being the
circumference of a circle whose radius is unit, and
365-2o638 the mean solar days in a sidereal year. The
logarithm of © will therefore be found by adding the
constant logarithm 8-2355821 (which is the logarithm of
365 25638) t0 the loSarilhm °''« + «'•
From the above table we have 6 = 8-00182 days,
6 — 4-03418 days, d O’ =z 12-03600 days ; hence taking
the logarithms of these numbers, and adding 8-2355821,
we have the following results expressed in logarithms :
& = 9-1387708 ff = 8-8413373
0 + 0’== 9-3160643 0 + ^ 9-3160643
—zr 9-8227065 -i— 9-5252730
0 + 9 6 + d
It may be here remarked, that although the computa¬
tions are considerably shortened when 0 = 0’, a condition
which may in general be satisfied by interpolation, yet it
is preferable to avoid any preliminary calculations, and to
employ the direct results of observation. The intervals,
however, should not be greatly different; and as the so¬
lution is founded on the supposition that quantities of the
fourth order in respect of the time may be neglected, the
longest interval cannot safely exceed ten days. In the
present example, 6 is considerably greater than it there¬
fore affords no facilities for computation, and the approxi¬
mations must be carried as far as the method admits.
II. The places of the sun at the time of the respective
observations are next to be taken from the solar tables.
These places, increased by 180°, give the three longitudes
of the earth A0, A, A'. The same tables also give the
corresponding distances R°, R, R'; and the quantities
and Rj, which denote the longitude and radius vector of
the earth at the time ^ + 3 (0 + O’), corresponding to the
mean epoch of the three observations, will be obtained with
sufficient accuracy by assuming A, =4 (A° + A + A'),
and log. Rj = ^ log. (R°RR').
At the epochs given in the above table, we find from
the solar tables,
A° = 29° 19' 50" log. R°...9-997421
A = 37 19 48 log. R ...9-996496
A' =41 22 26 log. R'...9-996053
By taking a mean among these numbers we shall have
= 36° 0' 41"
log. Rx... 9-9966567.
posing errors in the observations amounting to four or five
minutes. By reason of the smallness of P and Q, no use
can be made of the equation (16) ; we can only infer from
it, since P and Q have the same sign, that r < R ; that is
to say, the distance of the comet from the sun is less than
the sun’s distance from the earth.
IV. It is now necessary to make a supposition with re¬
gard to the value g. In general a few trials will suffice to give
an approximate value, by means of which and g may be
computed from the formulae (18) or (19), according to the
different cases. In the first trials we may suppose E = 0,
e — 0, X — ^ X' — jjqp-jy ; but when approximations
to the values of g° and g' have been obtained on this sup¬
position, we must employ the more exact expressions
given in the formulae (6.) In the present case, on account
of the great inequality between 6 and P, the values of g°
and g' deduced from the supposition of E = 0, e = 0, &c.
would not have that degree of approximation which would
render them of any use in directing the subsequent hypo¬
theses; we may therefore have recourse at once to the se¬
cond degree of approximation. The formulae (6) give
0X0-Q')\
6r> y
from which we deduce
I — e _Q + O' /
X 0 V
1 —g _ 0_+J_ /
X' ff V ’
e _ 0'(0 + O')
X ~ 2T3 “ ’
E _ &(0 + O')
X 2R3 ’
O'(20 + 0')\
6? )’
0(20' + 0)\
fir3 /
e _ 0(0 +O')
X' ” 2r3 ’
E _ 0(0 +O')
X' 2R3 *
In order to convert these formulae into numbers, we
must recollect that if 6 is a small number in comparison
of a, we have log. (a + b) = log.« + ^ M, where M de¬
notes the modulus of the tables, or the number 4342945,
the logarithm of which is 6*6377843; and reciprocally, if
we have log. x = log. a + b, then x — a + Accord¬
ing to these formulae
log- —= log. 
Now log. ~j" ■ = 0-1772935; and to find the number
177
Comet.
III. With the results now found, we may proceed to
compute the quantities P, Q from the expressions given in
§ 5, namely,
P = sin. (A, —a°) tan. V—sin. (Ax —a') tan. b°
Q = sin. (a° — a') tan. b + sin. (a! — a) tan. b° +
sin. (a — a0) tan. b'.
For this purpose the following logarithms are required:
sin. (a' —a) 9-1414978 tan. b° 9-6278110
sin. (a! — a°) 9-6775831 tan. b 9-4465812
sin. (a —a0) 9-5435305 tan. V 9-3290147
sin. (a! — Ax) 9-6133857
sin. (a° — Ax) 9-9004139
On computing P and Q by means of these numbers, we
find P = 0-0046585, and Q = 0-0002617. The signs of
both are positive, and though Q is thus a very small num¬
ber, yet its sign could not become negative without sup-
VOL. VII.
01(20 + Of)
■ III. * V~0ra—' we have 20 + 01 =■ 20-03782 days, therefore
log. (20 + O') = 1-3018505
add 8-2355821
log. O' = 8-8413373
8-3787699
log. 6 = 0-7781513
log. -(2 = 7-6006186
If therefore we denote by (L) the number whose loga¬
rithm is L, we shall have
log. = 0-1772935 —(7-6006186)^ ;
178
COMET.
Comet. an(j passing to numbers
^ = (0-1772935) — (7-7779121)
By proceeding in the same manner, we find
i P M
log. = 0-4747270 — (7-8022223)
whence
1
(0-4747270) — (8-2769493) -3.
X' ' ' ' r"
The following logarithms are found without difficult}-:
e , ^ = 7.85637i6_]og.?3
log. - = log.
2r3
e _ , _ 6(6 + 6’)
X'
log-- = tog. 2r3
8-1538051 —tog. z-3
l°g.^ = tog.
l0g'f “ l0g‘
+ 6 ^ = 7-8668836
2R3
6(6 + 6') _
2R3
= 8-1643171.
In the present example the motion in longitude is more
considerable than in latitude; it is therefore preferable to
employ the equations (19), namely,
o _ (1 — e) £ sin. (a' — a) + (E — e) R j sin. (a’—Aj)
^ X' sin. (af — a°)
 (1 — e) g sin. (a — a0) + (e— E) Ri sin. (a°—A1).
* ~ X sin. (a' — a°)
to compute which, the following logarithms are required
in addition to those already found, namely,
sin, (a' a ) _ 9.4539 j47
sin. (a' — a0)
R! sin. (a' — Aj_) _ 9.9334593
tog.
log.
tog.
log.
sin. (a' >— a°)
sin. (a — a°)_ _ 9.3559474
sin. (a' — a°)
R1 sin. (a°—A i ) _ 0.2194875}
sin. (a' — a°)
1 — e
by adding which to the values of —, &c. the above two
equations become
g° = g(9-9386417) — i (7-7408640)
+ (8-0967764) — ^ (8-0862644)
g' = g(0*0432409) — i (7-6438595)
— (8-0863711) + ^ (8-0758591)
V. Having assumed a hypothetical value of g, the ra¬
dius vector r will be obtained from the equation (17),
namely,
t2 ^ R2 + 2gR cos. (A — a) + g2 sec.2 5,
which, on taking the logarithms of the known quantities,
becomes
r2 = 0-9839930 — g (0-2185267) + g2 (0-0326962) ;
and on substituting this value of r in the above two equa¬
tions, we shall obtain the values of g° and g\
It is now necessary to calculate r°, r', and c. With
regard to r° and r', we have the two equations, correspond¬
ing to equation (17),
r°‘z = RC2 + 2g° R° cos. (A0 — a0)-f-g02 sec.2 b0,
r'2 = R/2 + 2 g'R' cos. ( A' —a') + g'2 sec.2 b',
which being reduced to numbers, become
r°2 = 0-9881934 — g°(0-1403596) + go2(0-0719354), Comet.
r°' = 0-9819876 — g' (0-2363369) + f (0-0193249).
The chord c is determined by the equation
c2 = r'2 + r°2—2F,
in which F =
R°R'cos. (A'—A°) + g°g,{cos. (a' — a°) + tan.5' tan.6°}
+ g°R' cos. (A' — a°) + g'R° cos. (A° — ar).
On taking the logarithms of the constant quantities, this
becomes
F= + S°S'(9-9867701).
Lastly, the error of the hypothesis will be found from
the equation of the time
6(6 + 6') = (r° + r' + c)2 + (r° + F — c)2 =1-2422687.
As the present object is merely to illustrate the method
of computation, it is unnecessary to begin with an assump¬
tion very far from the truth. Suppose, in the first place,
g rr 0-6 = (9-7781512). This will give the following re¬
sults :
r2 = 0-3797624 = (9-5795120), r = (9-7897560)
g° = (9-6695087), g' = (9-8389800)
r02 = 0-6003290 = (9-7783893)
F2 = 0-2906613 = (9-4634172)
ro2 + /2 = 0-8909903
2F = 0-7537670
c2 = 0-1372233 = (9-1374278)
r° = (9-8891946) = 0-7748089
F = (9-7317086) = 0-5391475
r° + F  = 1-3139564
c = (9-5687139) = 0-3704366
F5 + F + e = a= 1-6843930
r° + F^— c — b — 0*9435208
a2 = 2-1860775
b2 = 0-9164888
—b2 = 1-2695887
but 6(6 + d) - 1-2422687
Error -f -0273200
For a second hypothesis let us make g = 0-58 =
(9-7634280). On going through the same calculations,
there will result
F> -f F + c = a = 1-6833303, a2 = 2-1840703
r° -f F — c zr b — 0-9631377, b2 = 0-9452192
al _ bl = 1*2388511
6(6 + 6') = 1-2422687
Error — -0034176
T -0034176
Let n = 
•02732 + -0034176
= 0-11119, then the true
value of any quantity which is denoted by A in the first
hypothesis, and by B in the second, will be B — n (B — A).
Computing from this formula, there results,
g° = (9-6569463) r° = (9-8906184)
g = (9-7650651) r = (9-7935971)
g' = (9-8259598) F = (9-7362737)
c = (9-5577858).
VI. In most cases the solution which has now been ob¬
tained would be sufficiently approximate; but in the pre¬
sent case, on account of the great inequality between
COMET.
179
Comet, tli6 intervals 6 and d\ it is necessary to recommence the
calculations, and to determine X, X', and e from the more
accurate expressions which form the third degree of ap¬
proximation. Let
M02 .
o =  ^ —   ^ ; the equations (7) give
6(r°r)2 6(rr')&
Iog-x =log- (TTl) - m • a> 6 = 2W?’
log. X - log. ^ ^ + :,-+ p • 3, E = .TjTojTJTl.
from which, employing the approximate values of r°, r,
and /, already obtained, there results
3 =(7-3643107), (e — E) = (8-1358552),
X = (9-8219310), (\ — e) = (9-9919393),
X' = (9-5268112).
If we now proceed to substitute these results in the
equations (19), we shall find the following expressions
for f and g':
f = g(9-9290428) — (8-5415033),
g' = g(0-0359557) — (8-5334117),
in which the only indeterminate quantity is g. We must
now make another hypothesis with respect to g. If we
assume the value given by the last approximation, name¬
ly g = (9-7650651), we shall find that it is considerably
too small, and that the first approximation is consequent¬
ly insufficient, owing to the imperfect values it gave of
the quantities X and X', and e.
Let us suppose g = 0-6045 = (9-7813963). By pro¬
ceeding as before with the corrected values now found,
we obtain
g° = (9-6799602), g' = (9-8393705),
r°2 = 0-5973194 = (9-7762067)
r'2 = 0-2905081 = (9-4631582)
c2 = 0-1313662 = (9-1184836)
whence
r° + r' + c = a = 1-6742972, a^ = 2-1664512
7'0 + r' — e = b = 0-9494078, 1# = 0-9250798
from taking the mean of the three longitudes of the earth, Comet,
we may make use of the equations (13), namely,
0 = X^'g' + X'/w°g0 — (1 — e) wg + M,
0 = Xwy -f Xrn°f — (1 — e) ??g + N,
in which M = (e — E) R1 cos. Ax = cos.
N — v sin. Aj, and we shall have in the present example
v cos. A! = X(9-8713530) + X'(9-9378419) — (1 — e)
(9-8969484)
tt sin. Aj = X(9-8162347) + X'(9-68748]9) — (1 — e)
(9-7792587)
whence, substituting for X, X', and (1 — e), the above
values,
cr cos. Aj = (8-0399020), tan. = (9-8969484)
‘X sin. Aj = (7-9115731), Ax = 36° 39' 20",
= (8-1355982).
The value of Aj, thus found, differs considerably from
that which was employed in the previous approximation,
namely, Ax = 36° O' 41".
On substituting cr for (e — E) Rj, the equations (19)
become
_ (1 — e) g sin. (a' — a) — <r sin. (ar—Aj)
X' sin. (a' — a°) ’
_ (1 — e) g sin, (a' — a) -f- «r sin. (a° — A!)
X sin. (a' — a°) ’
whence, making Aa = 36° 39' 20",
g° = g(9 9288916) — (8-5552427),
g7 = g(0-0358507) + (8-5401948),
from which two equations we shall obtain the nearest ap¬
proximation of which this method of solving the problem
is susceptible.
Suppose g = (9-7790000). On going through the same
computation as before, we shall find
r°4-r, + c = a= 1-6758479, a2 = 2-1694623
r°-f/ — c=b = 0-9509163, b^ = 0-9272854
a2 — b2 = 1-2421769
6(0 + O') = 1-2422687
a2 —b2 = 1-2413714
6(0 + O') = 1-2422687
Error— -0008973
Suppose, therefore, g = 0-6055 = (9-7821141). Comput¬
ing as above, we shall find
r° + R + c= a= 1-6742754, a^ = 2-1664090
r° + R—c = b = 0-9485938, b2 = 0-9238902
Error —918
Suppose, secondly, g = (9-7791000). This supposition will
give
r° + r' + c= a= 1-6758426, a2 = 2-1694511
r° + S — c = b = 0-9508021, b2^ = 0-9271186
a2 — b2 = 1-2423325
6(6 + 6') = 1-2422687
a2—b2 = 1-2425188
6(6 -M) = 1-2422687
Error + -0002501
Let n — ———, = 0-218 ; the mean between the
8973 + 2501
two values of the same quantity in the two hypotheses is
B + (A — B) (0*218), by taking which, there results
r° = (9-8880427), r = (9-7886828), R = (9-7314028).
These values being considerably different from those found
by the first approximation, it becomes necessary to have
recourse to a third operation.
The values of X, X', and 1 — e, deduced from the values
of r°, r, R now found, are
X = (9-8219155), X'= (9-5268419), 1 — e = (9-9918188).
In order to find a more exact value of Aj than results
Error + 638
From these errors, the mean to take between A and B,
the two values of the same quantity in the two hypo¬
theses, is B + (A — B) (0-41), whence the following
solution :
g° = (9-6762680), r° - (9-8884811) = 0-77353695,
g' = (9-83738895), / = (9-7322409) = 0-53981000,
c — (9-5593056) = 0-3624980.
VI. It now remains only to indicate the method of com¬
puting, from the foregoing solution, the elements of the
parabolic orbit.
•
It was shown in § 12 that v = tan. = =—,
Vsd
and also that v — ^/D ■ ~S- .
Vsd
Comparing these
1
180
COMET.
Comet.
values, a/t’t0 —sd — Vrf), and, consequently*
^  dr0 — sd,  (s — r°) (s — r')
~ Ws — Vdf ~ Ws ~ Vdf
Having obtained the perihelion distance D, the true ano¬
maly 4<0 of the point C° will be given by the equation of
the parabola, namely, r° cos.2 = D, from which
O , ,0 _ r°) (*— O
cos- H
The calculation of D and •4'° is as follows:
i(r°Jtr'JrC) = s = (9-9232039)
? = + 1j — e)=d = (9-6770815)
s — r° — (8-80878805)
s — S =(9-47438015)
w°
(s — r°) (s — d) = (8-2831682)
Vd = (9-8385407) = (9-9616019)
^ = (9-8769388)
•7532495
1_\/d_ .2467505 = (9-39225808)
Vs
Vs = (9-9616019)
\/ r/\
Vs — Vd=Vs(l — ™)= (9-35385998)
VsJ
(Vs-Vdf = (8-70771996)
(s — r°) (s — d) = (8-2831682)
D = (9-5754482)
r° = (9-8884811)
compute the heliocentric latitudes and longitudes. Let o°»
a' be the heliocentric longitudes of the points C° and C' 5 v
j3°, j3' their heliocentric latitudes; then, denoting for an
instant by tf the comet’s distance from the earth, we shall
have r sin. /3 = tfsin. b ; but o' = g sec. b, therefore
P
sin. 3 tan. b, whence
i r
p° g
sin. (3°=^ tan. b°, sin. 3' zz tan. b.
These two formulae, which are very easily computed, give
the heliocentric latitudes at the extreme observations. In
the present case they become
sin. 3° = (9 4155979), sin. /S' - (9-4341627).
Now, to compute the heliocentric longitudes, let us sup¬
pose K to be the projection of C on the plane of the ecliptic.
In the rectilinear triangle ESK, formed by joining the po¬
sitions of the earth, the sun, and the projected place of the
comet, we have EK = g; SK = rcos. /3; the angle ESK,
opposite to EK, = a — A, the difference between the helio¬
centric longitude of the comet and the longitude of the
earth; and the angle KES, opposite to SK, zz a — A, the
difference between the geocentric longitude of the comet
and the longitude of the sun ; therefore
g : r cos. (3 :: sin. (a — A) : sin. (a — A),
from which, since — = -—7, we deduce for the first and
’ r tan.b
third observations,
tan
sin. (a0 — A0),
Comet.
—W
tan. 3°
sin. (a° A )=t^7ji
sin,
(a' — A')
tan. 3’
sin. (a! — A').
008/4-4/° = (9-6869671)
tan. 14/0 =(0-0118412).
Having thus obtained the perihelion distance and the
true anomaly, we must now find the time required for de¬
scribing this anomaly. For this purpose it is usual to em-
tan. b'
In the present case these formulae become
sin. (ao _ A°) = (9-6598371), sin. («'— A') = (9-8155230)
a° A° = 27° 11' 18", a'—A' = 40° 50' 15"-45
A° = 29 19 50, A' = 41 22 26
= 56 31 8
a' = 82 12 41-45
Let N be the ascending node, y its longitude, and I the
ploy arable constructed from the following property of inclination of the orbit. In the spherical triangle NCK,
 :— rp T' tjie gide jqK = a — y, CK = 3> anc^ ^ie ang'e LNK = I.
Therefore, by Napier’s analogies, cot. I = cot. 3 s‘n*
(a — y)? which, on substituting the longitudes a° and a',
gives the double equation
cot. I = cot. 3° sin- (a° — 7) = cot. 3' sin. (af— y);
from which we have
sin. (a° — y)  tan. 3°
sin. (a' — y) tan. 3' ’
whence
bodies moving in a parabolic orbit, namely, if T and T' be
the times of describing the same anomaly in two parabo¬
las whose perihelion distances are respectively D and D',
3 3
then T : T' : : D2 : D'2. Hence, if a table is formed
showing the time T' in which every degree, &c. is de¬
scribed in a parabola whose perihelion distance is D' = 1,
it will give the time T' in which the same anomaly is de¬
scribed in the parabola whose perihelion distance is D, by
5
simply multiplying the tabular time by D2 ; for when
D' = 1, we have T = D2T'. The time T must be added
to the epoch of the first observation, if the comet is ap¬
proaching the perihelion of its orbit, but subtracted from
that epoch if it has already passed the perihelion.
But instead of employing a table of parabolic motion,
the time may be computed directly from the formula
T = V/2D'4tan. + ^tan.3 i^0),
observing to add to the logarithm of T the constant loga¬
rithm 1-7644179 (the compliment of 8-2355821), in order
that T may be expressed in mean solar days.
Computing from this formula, there results in the pre¬
sent case,
T = 26-35895
Epoch of first observation, October 22-68488
sin. (a° — y) sin. (a' — y)  tan. 3° ^an- $
sin. (a° — y) — sin. (a' — y) tan. 3J ^an- $
But if A and B represent two arcs, then, by the trigono¬
metrical formulae,
sin. A + sin. B _ tan. (A + B)
sin. A — sin. B tan. ^(A — B)
and
Passage through perihelion, November 18-04383.
To determine the position of the orbit, we must first
tan. A + tan. B _ sin. (A 4~ B) _
tan. A — tan. B — sin. (A — B) ’
whence the above equation becomes
tan. {Ha° + “') “ /} — sin- (3 + 3°)
tan. £(«' —a°) sin. (3'— 3°)’
consequently
_ sin. (3' + 3°)
+ “) 7} sin. (/3' — 3°)
tan.
{i(“°
tan.
o
M
G O M
C
181
Commes. The tangent now found belongs to two different angles ;
but this circumstance can occasion no ambiguity ; for as
the inclination I is supposed to be always less than 90°,
the cotangent of I must be always positive, so that sin.
(a0 — 7) must always have the same sign as cot. /3. This
consideration will enable the computer to choose between
the two values of 7, which correspond to tan. (a° + a')
— yj. With regard to the sign of fi, the northern lati¬
tudes are supposed positive, and the southern negative;
and the motion will be direct or retrograde, according as
a' — a° is positive or negative.
On computing the above formula, there results
1 (a° + a') — 7 = 84° 14' 30''
but “ Ka° + a') = 69 21 54
therefore — 7 =: 14 52 36
and consequently 7 = 345 7 24.
By correcting this value of 7 so as to satisfy the equation
cot. sin. (a°—7) = cot. ft' sin. (a'— 7), Legendre finds
— 7= 14° 52' 34"-5
7 = 345 7 25 -5.
Having found the longitude of the node, the inclination I
is given by the formula cot. I = cot. ft0 sin. (a° — 7), from
which we deduce
log. cot. I = 0-5458488, I = 15° 53' 0"-5.
Lastly, let H be the angular distance of the comet
from the node, and n be the longitude of the perihelion.
Then
cos. H == cos. ft0 cos. (a0 — 7)
n = H + 7 + if the comet is ad¬
vancing to the perihelion ; or
n = II + 7 —
ed the perihelion.
In the present example,
a° —7 = 71° 23' 42"-5
cos. (oc° — 7) — 9*5038445
cos. ft° = 9-9847558
Comines.
i]/°, if it has already pass-
H = 72° 3' 32"-9
7 -345 7 25 -5
4° = 91 33 43 -3
cos. H = 9-4886003 II = 148 44 41 -7
The elements of the orbit of this comet, therefore, as
deduced from the above solution, are as follows:
Log. n 9-5754481
Passage through the perihelion, November 18-04383
Inclination 15° 53' 0"-5
Longitude of ascending node 345 7 25 -5
Longitude of the perihelion 148 44 41 -7
Motion direct.
The orbit determined according to the method which
has here been explained, will always satisfy the first and
third observations. In general it will also represent the
second ; but should it occur that the place of the comet
at the second observation, computed from the elements
thus found, differs considerably from its observed place,
we may then conclude that the true orbit cannot be repre¬
sented by a parabola. In this case recourse must be had
to the ellipse, for computing which, the best method is
that which is given by Gauss in his Theoria Motuum Cor-
porum Ccelestium. (t. g.)
COMINES, Philippe de, Sieur d’Argenton, was de¬
scended from an illustrious family of Flanders, and born at
the castle of Comines, near Menin, in 1445. He passed his
youth at the court of Philip the Good, Duke of Burgundy,
where he became attached to the Comte de Charolais; and
attending him in the war of the Public Good, was present
at the battle of Montlhery. When the count had suc¬
ceeded his father, under the name of Charles the Rash, Co¬
mines continued to enjoy his confidence and intimacy, and
was in attendance on him when, irritated by the bad faith of
Louis XL, the duke detained that artful monarch a prisoner
at Peronne. Comines, though then young, showed his pru¬
dence and sagacity in endeavouring to calm his headstrong
master, who was transported with the most violent resent¬
ment against Louis; and by his wise counsels he contri¬
buted to the conclusion of the treaty of pacification which
for the moment united these princes. He was afterwards
employed in various negotiations, which he conducted with
equal ability and address. But the impetuous temper of
the Duke of Burgundy becoming more and more exaspe¬
rated by his reverses, and a species of frenzy having seized
him in consequence of the failure of schemes rashly under¬
taken and imprudently executed, Louis took advantage of
the faults of his rival to detach from the duke’s service all
the men of ability or consideration by whom he had been
surrounded ; and Comines was one of those who were thus
gained over by the artful monarch. Various reasons have
been assigned for this desertion, respecting which Comines
himself observes the most guarded silence in his Memoires.
By Louis he was loaded with favours; for scarcely had he en¬
tered the service of that monarch when he received a do¬
nation of the principality of Talmont, and of the lordships
of Olone, La Chaume, Curzon, Chateau-Gontier, Chastel-
Berry, Brem, and Barndois. The king also married him to
Helene de Jambes, the heiress of a rich and noble family
of Poitou, assisted him to purchase the estate of Argenton,
conferred upon him the office of seneschal of Poitou, and con¬
firmed all his grants and donations by letters patent. Co¬
mines, in fact, became one of the most confidential servants
of the king ; and although he was neither the friend nor the
favourite of Louis, who never had any such, he was better
suited to the government of that monarch than any other
person of his time, and maintained his influence solely by
rendering himself useful. He executed several important
commissions with great ability, and preserved undiminished
to the last the confidence of his jealous and suspicious mas¬
ter. On the death of Louis, Comines, who had plunged
into a variety of intrigues against the government of Anne
of Beaujeu, was at length expelled from the court by Duke
Rene of Lorraine, and retired to Moulins, the residence of
the Constable of Bourbon, to whose party he had attached
himself. Nor did his misfortunes end here. The con¬
stable, having made his peace with the court, discarded
Comines, who soon afterwards became involved in a new
conspiracy formed by Count Dunois and the Duke of Or¬
leans. The plot having been discovered, Comines was ar¬
rested and sent prisoner to Loches, where he passed eight
months in one of those iron cages which Louis XI. had em¬
ployed for the confinement of state criminals. “ Plusieurs
les ont maudites, et moi aussi,” says he, “qui en ai tate sous
le roi d’a present.” When the Duke of Orleans had been
vanquished and taken prisoner at St Aubin, and the autho¬
rity of the regent had been confirmed by victory, Comines
underwent his trial by the parliament, upon a charge of
having maintained a treasonable intercourse with the rebels;
and being found guilty, he was sentenced to banishment
for ten years to his estates, and to forfeit the fourth part
of his property. It does not appear, however, that this
sentence was executed. In 1493 he assisted in the treaty
which was concluded at Senlis between the king and the
Archduke of Austria as Duke of Burgundy. He accom¬
panied Charles VIII. to Italy; and when the expedition to
Naples had been resolved upon, he was sent to Venice in
order to induce that republic to observe a strict neutrality—
182 COM
Comines a matter of the utmost consequence to the success of the
Comitia enterPr‘se* Ccmines discharged this important duty with
v ^ ) h's us,ial ability, and delayed, though he could not prevent,
v ~* the declaration of the republic in favour of the enemies of
France; upon which he returned to Florence, where the
king then was. Comines does not seem to have been em¬
ployed in any public capacity during the last three years of
Charles VIII.; but when Louis XII. ascended the throne
in 1498, he appeared at court to render homage to the new
sovereign. This is the last circumstance in the life of
Comines of which any notice has been preserved. He died
at Argenton, August 16, 1509, at the age of sixty-four. It
was after his return from Italy that he commenced his Me¬
moir es, at the solicitation of A ngelo Cattho, Archbishop of
Vienne, who, like himself, had been in the service first of the
Duke of Burgundy, and afterwards in that of Louis XI.; and
it is to this work that he is alone indebted for the celebrity
of his name. Indeed, among modern historians, no one
has been estimated more highly than Comines, who, to the
charm of a natural and flexible style, which receives the
direct impress of his thoughts, and to the interest which be¬
longs to the fresh and animated recital of an eye-witness,
unites a profound knowledge of men and affairs, and dis¬
plays cool observation in happy alliance with sound judg¬
ment and accurate discrimination. In estimating the qua¬
lities of conduct and the shades of character, Comines is
perhaps unrivalled. Taking men as he found them, and
regarding them merely as the instruments of Providence,
he depicts them with a cool, rigorous, yet apparently un¬
studied severity; and so true do his delineations appear, that
he seems to have looked into their very souls, and to have
discovered the real principles or motives of which their
actions were the necessary result or expression. We look
in vain in his Memoires for noble sentiments, chivalrous
feelings, or lofty aspirations. He never rises above the
level of his subject, nor sacrifices that calm dignity of tone
which he sustains without effort, because it seems to have
been natural to his character. He speaks little of himself;
and the most important circumstances of his life are omitted,
probably because the recital of them might have embarrassed
him. The first edition of the Memoires of Comines, pub¬
lished at Paris in 1525, contains only the reign of Louis XL
from 1464 to 1483, and is divided into six books; but two
more, containing the history of Charles VIII. till the year
1498, appeared in 1528, Paris, folio. A new edition, how¬
ever, revised and corrected, was published at Paris in 1552,
folio, by the Sieur du Parc, and has often since been re¬
printed. Of modern editions, the most complete and valu¬
able is that of Lenglet-Dufresnoy, London, 1747, 4 vols. 4to.
Comines, or Commines, a town of Belgium, province of
West Flanders, on the left bank of the Lys, 10 miles S.E.
of Ypres. Pop. (1850) 3443. On the opposite bank of
the river, in the department of Nord, is the French town of
this name, with about 3000 inhabitants. The two towns
are connected by a drawbridge. 1 he manufactures are rib¬
bons, thread, cottons, See.
C OMIT A'I US, in law, a county. England was first
divided into counties, the counties into hundreds, and these
again into tythings, by Alfred the Great. Sometimes it
is taken for a territory or jurisdiction of a particular place.
COMI FIA, in Homan Antiquity, general assemblies of
the people, convened by a magistrate for the purpose of
putting any subject to their vote.
The proper comitia were of three sorts, curiata, centu-
nata, and tmbuta, with reference to the three grand divi¬
sions of the city and people into curice, centuries, and tribes:
for by comitia calata were meant all the comitia in general,
the term calata (from calare, i. e., vocare) being their
common epithet, though it was at last restricted to assem¬
blies for the creation of priests, and the regulation of last wills
and testaments, to which the people acted as witnesses merely.
COM
The comitia curiata owed its origin to the division which Comitia
Romulus made of the people into thirty curias, ten being v ^ ^ ^
contained in every tribe. The curiae answered in most re¬
spects to the parishes in our cities, being not only separated
by proper bounds and limits, but distinguished too by the
different places set apart in each for the celebration of reli¬
gious service, which was performed by particular priests
(called curiones), one to every curia.
Before the institution of the comitia centuriata, all the
great concerns of the state were transacted in the assembly
of the curiae; as the election of kings and other chief officers,
the making and abrogating of laws, and the judging of capi¬
tal crimes. After the expulsion of the kings, when the
commons had obtained the privilege of having tribunes and
aediles, they were for some time elected at these assemblies;
but that ceremony being at length transferred to the comitia
tributa, the curiae were never convened to give their votes,
excepting upon occasion of making some particular law, re¬
lating to adoptions, wills, and testaments, or the creation of
officers for an expedition, or for electing some of the priests,
as the f amines, and the curio maximus, who were them¬
selves chosen by every particular curia. The power of
calling these asst mblies belonged at first only to the kings ;
but on the establishment of the democracy, this privilege
was allowed tc most of the magistrates, and sometimes to
the pontifices.
The persons who had the liberty of voting were such
Roman citizens as belonged to the curiae, or actually lived
in the city, and conformed to the customs and rites of their
proper curiae; and all were excluded who dwelt without
the bounds of the city, or retained the ceremonies of their
own country, even although they had been honoured with
the jus civiiatis. (See Citizen.) The place where the curiae
met was the comitium, a part of the forum. No fixed time
was appointed for holding any of the comitia, but they were
convened as business required.
The people being met together, and confirmed by the
report of good omens from the augurs, which was necessary
in all the assemblies, the rogatio or business to be proposed
to them was publicly read. After this, if none of the magis¬
trates interposed, upon the order of him who presided in the
comitia the people divided into their proper curiae, and con¬
sulted of the matter; and then the curiae on being called
out, as it happened by lot, gave their votes man by man,
in ancient times viva voce, and afterwards by tablets; the
most votes in every curia going for the voice of the whole
curia, and the most curiae for the general consent of the
people.
In the time of Cicero, the comitia curiata were so much
out of fashion that they were formed only by thirty lictors
representing the thirty curiae; whence, in his second ora¬
tion against Rullus, he calls them comitia adumbrata.
The comitia centuriata were instituted by Servius Tul¬
lius, who had obliged every one to give a true account of
w'hat he was worth, and divided the people, according to
the returns, into six ranks or classes, which he subdivided
into a hundred and ninety-three centuries. The first classis,
containing the equites and richest citizens, consisted of
ninety-eight centuries. The second, including the trades¬
men and mechanics, consisted of twenty-two centuries ; the
third of twenty; the fourth of twenty-two; the fifth of thirty;
and the sixth, composed of the poorer sort, of only one
century ; but this though it had the same name with the
rest, yet was seldom regarded, and scarcely allowed any
power in public matters. Hence it is common with the
Roman authors, when they speak of the classes, to reckon
no more than five, the sixth not being worth their notice.
This last classis or order was divided into two parts or orders,
the proletarii and the capite censi. The former, as their
name implies, were designed purely to stock the republic
with men, since they could supply it with so little money ;
C 0 M
^omitia. and the latter, who paid the lowest tax of all, were rather
—v~—counted and marshalled by their heads than by their estates.
See Capite Censi.
Persons of the first rank, by reason of their pre-eminence,
had the name of classici; and hence the name of classici
auctores came to signify the most approved writers. All
others, of what classis soever, were said to be infra classem.
The assembly of the people by centuries was held for the
election of consuls, censors, and praetors; as also for the
judging of persons accused of what was called crimen per-
duellionis, or actions by which the party had showed him¬
self an enemy to the state, and for the confirmation cf all
such laws as were proposed by the chief magistrates, who
had the privilege of calling these assemblies.
The place appointed for their meeting was the Campus
Martins; because, in the primitive times of the common¬
wealth, when they were under continual apprehensions of
enemies, the people, to prevent any sudden assault, went
armed, in martial order, to hold these assemblies, and were
for that reason forbidden by the laws to meet in the city,
because an army w^as upon no account to be marshalled
within the walls ; yet in later ages it was thought sufficient
to place a body of soldiers as a guard in the Janiculum,
where an imperial standard was erected, and the taking
down of which denoted the conclusion of the comitia.
Though the time of holding these comitia for other mat¬
ters was undetermined, yet the magistrates, after the year
of the city 601, when they began to enter upon office on
the kalends of January, were constantly designed (designati)
about the end of July and the beginning of August.
All the time between their election and confirmation they
continued as private persons, that inquisition might be made
into the election, and that the other candidates might have
time to enter objections, if they thought fit to do so. Yet
at the election of the censors this custom did not hold ; for
as soon as they were elected they were immediately invested
with the honour.
By the institution of these comitia, Servius Tullius se¬
cretly conveyed the whole of the power from the commons ;
for the centuries of the first and richest class, who were
called out first, being more numerous by three than all the
rest put together, if they agreed, as they generally did, the
business was already decided, and the other classes were
needless and insignificant. However, the three last scarcely
ever came to vote.
In the time of freedom, the commons, in order to remedy
this disadvantage, obtained that, before the centuries pro¬
ceeded to vote any matter at these comitia, that century
should give its suffrages first upon which it fell by lot to do
so, with the name of eenturia prerogativa ; while the rest
were to follow according to the order of their classes.
After the constitution of the thirty-five tribes into which
the classes and their centuries were divided, the tribes cast
lots, in the first place which should be the prerogative
tribe, and then the centuries of the tribes also cast lots for
the honour of being a prerogative century. All the other
tribes and centuries had the appellation of jure vocatce,
because they were called out according to their proper
places.
The prerogative century being chosen by lot, the chief
magistrate, sitting in a tent in the middle of the Campus
Martius, ordered that century to come out and give their
voices; upon which they presently separated from the rest
of the multitude, and came into an inclosed apartment,
which they termed septa, or ovilia, passing over the pontes
or narrow boards laid there for the occasion ; on which ac¬
count de pontibus dejici signifies to be denied the privilege
of voting ; and persons thus dealt with were called depon-
tani.
At the further end of the pontes stood the diribitores (a
sort of under officers, so called from their marshalling the
I T I A. 183
people), who delivered to every man, in the election of Comitia.
magistrates, as many tablets as there appeared candidates, v—^
and one of these names was written upon every tablet. A
proper number of great chests were set ready in the septa,
and every voter threw in which tablet he pleased.
Close by the chests were stationed some of the public
servants, who took out the tablets of every century, and
for every tablet made a prick or a point in another tablet,
which was kept for the purpose. Thus, the business be¬
ing decided by most points, gave occasion to the phrase
ornne tulit punctum, and the like.
The same method was observed in the justiciary pro¬
cess at these comitia, and also in the confirmation of laws,
except that, in both these cases, only two tablets were offer¬
ed to every person, on one of which was written U. R.
and on the other A. in capital letters ; the two first stand¬
ing for uti rogas, “ be it as you desire,” relating to the ma¬
gistrate who proposed the question ; and the last for anti-
quo, or “ I forbid it.”
It is remarkable, that though in the election of magis¬
trates, and in the ratification of laws, the votes of that
century whose tablets were equally divided signified no¬
thing ; yet in the trials of life and death, if the tablets for
and against were the same in number, the person was ac¬
tually acquitted.
1 he division of people into tribes was an invention of
Romulus after he had admitted the Sabines into Rome ;
and though he constituted at that time only three, yet as
the state increased in power, and the city in number of
inhabitants, they rose by degrees to thirty-five. For a
long time after this institution, a tribe signified no more
than a certain space of ground with its inhabitants. But at
last the matter was quite altered, and a tribe was no longer
pars urbis, but pars civitatis—not a quarter of the city,
but a company of citizens living wherever they pleased.
This change was chiefly occasioned by the original differ¬
ence between the tribes in point of honour; for Romulus
having committed all mechanic arts to the care of strangers,
slaves, and libertines, and reserved the labour of agricul¬
ture to the freemen and citizens, who by this active course
of life might be prepared for martial service, the tribus rus¬
tics were for this reason esteemed as more honourable
than the tribus urbance. And now all persons being de¬
sirous of getting into the more creditable division, and
there being several ways of accomplishing their wishes, as
by adoption, by the power of censors, or the like, that rus¬
tic tribe which had the most worthy names in its roll had
the preference to all others, though of the same general
denomination. Hence all of the same great family bringing
themselves by degrees into the same tribe, gave the name
of the family to the tribe which they honoured; whereas
at first the generality of the tribes did not receive their
names from persons but from places.
The first assembly of the tribes we meet with is about
the year of Rome 263, which was convened by Sp. Sici-
nius, tribune of the commons, upon account of the trial of
Coriolanus. Soon after the tribunes of the commons were
ordered to be elected here, and at last all the inferior ma¬
gistrates and the collegiate priests. The same comitia
served for enacting laws relating to war and peace, and
all others proposed by the tribunes and plebeian officers,
though they had not properly the name of leges, but only
that of plebiscita. They were generally convened by the
tribunes of the commons ; but the same privilege was al¬
lowed to all the chief magistrates. They were confined to
no place ; and therefore we sometimes find them held in the
comitium, sometimes in the Campus Martius, and now and
then in the capitol. The proceedings were in most respects
conformable to those already described in the account of
the other comitia, and therefore need not be insisted on.
We may only observe further of the comitia in general,
184 C 0 M
Comitialis that when any candidate was found to have most tablets
II for a magistracy he was declared to be designed or elected
Commerce. the president of the assembly, and this they termed
V '“r v '' renunciari consul, prcetor, or the like ; and that the last
sort of the comitia only could be held without the consent
or approbation of the senate, which was necessary to the
convening of the other two.
COMITIALIS Morbus, a name given by the ancient
Romans to epilepsy—for this reason, that the comitia weie
dissolved if any person in the assembly happened to be
seized with that distemper.
COMMA. See Punctuation.
Comma, in Music, a small interval found, in some cases,
between two sounds produced under the same name by
different harmonic progressions : generally in the ratio of
80 to 81. r. r i
COMMANDERY, a kind of benefice or fixed revenue
attached to certain military orders, and conferred on knights
of merit. u • j u
There were strict or regular commanderies, obtained by
merit or in order; others of grace and favour, conferred
by the grand master. There were also commanderies
for the religious of the orders of St Bernard and St An¬
thony. . , •
The commanderies of Malta were of different kinds, viz.,
for knights, chaplains, and brothers servitors. The knight
to whom one of these commanderies was given was called
COM
commander. The commanders of Malta were rather farmers Commen-
of the order than beneficiaries, since they paid a certain tri- dam
bute or rent, called responsio, to the common treasury ofQomij|erce
the order. ,
At the suppression of the religious houses in the time of
Henry VIII., there were in England at least fifty com¬
manderies, or preceptories as they were often called, and a
few of them were possessed of considerable estates ; but
the greater number were only farms or granges.
COMMENDAM. See Benefice.
COMMENSURABLE, among geometricians, an ap¬
pellation given to such quantities as are measured by one
common measure.
Commensurable Numbers, whether integers or frac¬
tions, are such as can be measured or divided by some
other number without a remainder; as 12 and 18, which
may be measured by 6 and 3.
Commensurable in Power, is said of right lines when
their squares are measured by the same space or superficies.
Commensurable Surds, those which, being reduced to
their least terms, become true figurative quantities of
their kind; and are therefore as a rational quantity to a
rational one.
COMMENTARY, a comment explaining or illustrating
the difficult or obscure passages of an author. It also de¬
notes an historical narrative or memoir of particular trans¬
actions ; as the Commentaries of Caesar.
COMMERCE.
Commerce, in its most general sense, implies the ex¬
change of articles of any kind for money or other ai tides.
The earliest form of such exchanges is by barter, because
the use of gold and silver is not adopted until society has
made a certain progress. “ The armour of Diomed,” says
Homer, “ was plain, and was paid for by nine oxen ; whilst
the splendid armour of Glaucus cost a hundred.” Barter
being now disused in all improved countries, commerce is
almost always understood to denote the exchange of com¬
modities for money. In France and the south of Europe the
words used to designate commerce are derived from the
Latin ; in Holland, Germany, and other northern countries,
a vernacular word is more frequent; but all are alike in
meaning, being applied equally to home and foreign trade.
We propose in the present essay to treat of,
I. The history of commerce, particularly in England and
Holland ;
II. The principles of commerce, and the evils of interfer¬
ing with the free course of trade;
III. Commercial fluctuations in the present age—evils of
an undue expenditure by government.
I. HISTORY OF COMMERCE.
Origin of It has been an object with many writers to ascertain
Commerce, in what nation of antiquity commerce was first carried to
a considerable extent; but as that extent implies a pre¬
vious population, the more simple inquiry would be, in
what country population first acquired density, particular¬
ly in towns. The answer is, that mankind first increased
their numbers in warm latitudes, especially in situations
where irrigation, whether effected by the overflowing of
rivers, by the descent of streams from a range of moun¬
tains, or by any other means, was so extensive as to coun¬
teract the parching effect of heat, and give to vegetation
a luxuriance unknown in colder regions. It was thus that
the Nile gave fertility to Egypt, the Euphrates to Chaldea,
and the Ganges, in the lower part of its course, to Bengal.
The earliest written notice of commercial intercourse is
in Scripture, where we read of Joseph being sold by his
brethren to a company of Ishmaelites or Arabs, who were
going to Egypt with spices, balm, and myrrh, conveyed
on the backs of camels. These itinerant traders probably
brought back corn, Egypt being, even at that remote
period, an occasional granary for Syria and other adja¬
cent countries. The conveying of goods on the backs of
animals ought to be remarked as indicative of a primitive
state of commercial intercourse—of that which is carried
on before the forming of roads or the use of wheel-carriages.
Such was the case in England two centuries ago; such at
present is the case in Spanish America, and, in some de¬
gree, in Old Spain, the mountainous nature of that coun¬
try making it a matter of some difficulty to form roads.
But whatever might be the inland traffic of the Ara- Phornicii
bians, Chaldeans, or Egyptians, they made very little pro- Sidon an
gress in navigation; that was the province of the Phceni-Tyre,
cians, who acted as naval carriers to the neighbouring na¬
tions, in the same way as the Dutch did during the six¬
teenth and seventeenth centuries to the rest of Europe.
This almost exclusive possession of navigation may seem
strange in the present age, but the cause was the same in
both cases, namely, the difficulty in a rude age of finding
men capable of conducting vessels in the open sea. Seaman¬
ship, now so familiar to the inhabitants ot almost every
port in Europe, was in those days understood by only a
limited number, and was carried on with a degree of cau¬
tion and slowness hardly credible to a modern reader.
Thus the seamen of ancient times made it a rule to keep
within sight of land, as if trusting for protection to a situa¬
tion which the mariners of our days look on as attended
with considerable risk. This arose from the great differ¬
ence in the mode of propelling vessels, for which the mo¬
derns trust chiefly to the wind, and navigate with com¬
paratively few hands. The small barks of the ancients
were fitted out with oars; a method which required a
great sacrifice of manual labour, but was attended with
C O M M
jmmerce. the advantage of finding a ready shelter in a bay or creek
**~y~*~/ whenever the sky portended tempestuous weather.
What, it may be asked, was the chief cause of the ex¬
tension of the navigation of Phoenicia? The vicinity of
Egypt, and the quantity of provisions and merchandise
exported from that fertile country. The navigation of the
Red Sea also was conducted chiefly by Phoenicians. His¬
tory is not sufficiently explicit in regard to the commodi¬
ties forming the object of traffic along the Red Sea, nor
have we any certain knowledge of the era at which the
trade with India by that channel commenced. Bonaparte,
when meditating his expedition to Egypt, was led, in his
sanguine estimate of its advantages, to consider the Red
Sea as the fittest line of communication with India, and to
ascribe the wealth of Thebes in Egypt, one of the earliest
of commercial cities, to intercourse with the coast of Ma¬
labar. But whether the navigators of the Red Sea pro¬
ceeded at that early date as far as the shores of India, it
is evident that an extensive traffic was carried on with
Cosseir, or a sea-port on the Red Sea which communicat¬
ed with Thebes. The epoch at which Homer celebrated
the wealth of that city, is nearly the same as that at which
Phoenician mariners navigated the Red Sea on account of
the Jewish government in the reign of Solomon; but no
historical investigator has been able to fix with certainty
the situation of Ophir and Tarshish, the ports with which
these vessels traded. Some confident calculators have con¬
sidered them to have been in India; but, judging from the
limited skill of navigators in that early age, it seems more
likely that these harbours were near the eastern or more
remote parts of the Red Sea, a part from which there pro¬
bably was a direct communication with India.
Such was the traffic of the Phoenicians with the south
and east; it extended also to countries less peopled and
in a still more primitive state in the west. The island of
Crete seems to have owed to them its early civilization ;
and after Crete came Attica, Boeotia, the Peloponnesus,
in all of which tradition recorded the early introduction
of the arts by settlers arriving from Phoenicia or Egypt.
fleece. These arrivals seem to have taken place about a thousand
years before the Christian era, and half of that time elap¬
sed in the gradual attainment of that state of civilization
to which Greece had arrived at the period of her political
celebrity—the invasion of her territory by the Persians
under Darius and Xerxes.
Extent of Greece is in several respects well fitted for foreign
oast. commerce. Her coast is greatly indented by the sea, and
presents a number of inlets hardly inferior to the well-
known gulfs of Argos and Corinth. Hence an early fami¬
liarity with the use of shipping, and the practice of send¬
ing forth colonies at so early a date as a century after the
Trojan war. These colonies proceeded in various direc¬
tions, to Asia Minor in the east, to Thrace and the Euxine
in the north, to Sicily and Italy in the west. The progress
made by the inhabitants of these colonial settlements was
rapid, particularly at Syracuse, whose capacious harbour
soon acquired it extensive commerce and a numerous po¬
pulation. Agrigentum, Messina, Tarentum, were likewise
places of considerable importance. It was the custom of
these and other colonies to maintain an alliance and mer¬
cantile connection with the parent states, such as Athens,
Corinth, Argos; and a number of characters eminent in
literature and the arts appeared in the colonies, at a time
when their establishment might have been considered as
too recent to afford more than the necessaries of life. But
in a newly-settled country, such as the United States of
America, various circumstances concur to increase the
number and improve the condition of the inhabitants;
provisions are abundant, in consequence of the extent of
unoccupied land ; the connection with the mother country
VOL. VII.
E R C E. 185
insures a certain extent of trade ; while the monopolies and Commerce
other abuses natural to a long-settled community are in a v^'Y'w/
manner unknown.
On the other hand, the inland territory of Greece was
not well fitted for commercial intercourse. It is traversed
by no navigable river; and being mountainous and rugged,
it could not, even in the days of its prosperity, boast of
roads, merchandise being in those days, as at present, con¬
veyed, not in carriages, but on the backs of horses and oxen.
This deficiency of communication by land was one cause
of the different states of Greece so long maintaining their
independence, and of the limited ascendency attained by
Lacedaemon, which, in extent of military means, was so
superior to the other states of the Peloponnesus. Sparta
and Thebes being inland towns, and Corinth comparative¬
ly a small state, Athens was the chief commercial city of Athens,
ancient Greece. Her distance from the sea, five miles,
was such as to afford her security against a sudden descent
from an invading armament, while it was sufficiently near
to her harbour, the Peiraeus, for the easy transmission of
merchandise. The trade and shipping of Athens, however
small it might appear to a modern reader, was such as to
give it an ascendency over the different islands to the
eastward of Greece, and to enable it to maintain, in the
Peloponnesian war, a long struggle against a strong confe¬
deracy. When overcome at last, in consequence of what
may be termed an accidental cause, the capture of its
fleet by Lysander, its political depression was of short du¬
ration ; the activity and industry of its inhabitants revived
its trade, so that Athens continued for ages the most po¬
pulous and commercial place in Greece.
Tyre, though at no time a town of great extent, re-Tyre,
mained long in the enjoyment of considerable trade. From
the reign of Solomon, when its commercial activity is
described in Scripture, to its capture and destruction by
Alexander the Great, there elapsed a period of seven cen¬
turies. The formidable resistance it made to the Macedo¬
nian arms impressed Alexander with a strong sense of the
valueof commerce,andof its effect in increasing the sources
of national power. Though known to the world chiefly as
a warrior, Alexander had considerable claims to the cha¬
racter of a politician. He adopted, and caused his followers
adopt, to a certain extent, the manners of the nations
they conquered ; and by the expedition of Nearchus from
the mouth of the Indus to the Persian Gulf, he discovered
a commendable zeal for maritime discovery. Equal judg-Alexandria
ment was evinced by him in founding his new city ofm Lgypt.
Alexandria in a position such as to command an extensive
range of intercourse. The Nile brought to it on one hand
the valuable products of Egypt, and afforded on the other
a ready inlet to the merchandise imported from Europe.
To India also the route by Alexandria and the Red Sea
was preferable to that of the Persian Gulf, which involved
the necessity of a considerable journey by land.
Contemporary with the decline of Athens and the rise Carthage
of Alexandria, but superior to either in commercial acti¬
vity, was Carthage, the destruction of which forms one of
the foulest blots in the history of the Romans. The situ¬
ation of Carthage was well adapted for trade; its harbour
was good, its range of navigation extensive, both to east
and west. Founded by a colony from Tyre, it maintained
a friendly intercourse with Phoenicia; while in the west
of the Mediterranean, in Sicily, Spain, and the south of
France, it met with no commercial rival. These countries,
at that time uncivilized, and almost uncultivated, were
greatly indebted to Carthage for the introduction of intel¬
ligent settlers, and derived from her the same advantages
which Greece, several centuries before, had received from
Phoenicia and Egypt. In Spain the fine harbours of Car-
thagena and Cadiz were rendered the resort of shipping
2 A
186 C O M M
Commerce.by tne t^artnaginians; and without calling on our readers
to believe the traditional assertions of the extent of their
navigation, either to the north of Europe or the south of
Africa, we may with confidence affirm, that had not this
state unhappily fallen, from the jealousy of the Romans, it
would have been the means of diffusing industrious ha¬
bits over a great part of the west of Europe, and of advan¬
cing by several centuries the progress of the useful arts.
The policy of Carthage, though not uniformly pacific,
was far less pernicious than the perpetual tendency to ag-
Rome. gression of a military state like Rome. In navigation the
Romans were at no time remarkable. During their con¬
flicts with the Carthaginians they sustained repeated losses,
* chiefly from the unskilfulness of their seamen, and their
inability to cope with the fury of the elements. After they
had triumphed over the Carthaginians, and extended their
conquests to Macedon and Greece, the Romans were no
longer under the r.ecessit}' of equipping fleets, because no
maritime state dared to dispute their supremacy. But the
extension of the Roman power was favourable, in several
respects, to commerce; piracy was suppressed, and mer¬
chant vessels had free access to almost every part of the
Mediterranean. Hence a gradual increase in the length
of mercantile voyages, which now extended on one hand
to the north of France and Germany, on the other to the
Indian Ocean, to which it became easy, from the pro¬
gressive improvement of navigation, to proceed either by
the Red Sea or the Persian Gulf. The mariners’ compass
was still unknown, but the uniform direction of the wind
in certain seasons enabled the navigators to and from In¬
dia to complete their voyages with little difficulty.
The mid- It was towards the middle of the fifth century, about a
die ages, hundred years after the removal of the seat of empire to
Constantinople, that the Romans became unable to de¬
fend their frontier against the uncivilized tribes who
pressed on them from the north and east. The conse¬
quence was, that the country along the Rhine, the inland
provinces of Gaul, and, some time afterwards, Spain and
the north of Italy, were overrun by these rude assailants.
The increase in the population of towns was checked,
many places being plundered, others subjected to heavy
contributions, and property in general rendered unsafe.
There was no longer a central or general government; the
territory of the empire was divided into a number of se¬
parate states, the rulers of which had no just idea of the
importance of commerce. These uneducated governors,
accustomed to appeal on almost all occasions to the sword,
were not sufficiently enlightened to forego the temptation
of a present seizure, for the sake of the lasting advantage
of mercantile intercourse.
Venice. The apprehension engendered by the approach of bar¬
barians from the north and east, led a number of traders
and manufacturers settled in the north of Italy to fix
their families in the small islands near the mouths of the
Po. There the surrounding waters afforded them a de¬
gree of protection against invaders, who, however for¬
midable by land, had no means of carrying on hostilities
by sea. Such was the origin of Venice, a city situated in
the midst of the waters, and destined to acquire extensive
trade from the security attendant on her position, and to
take a lead amidst the mercantile states of the middle
ages.
Pisa. Next to Venice in the history of modern commerce
came Pisa, a town built on the banks of the Arno, at a
distance of nearly three leagues from the sea. Its trade
was chiefly with the western coast of Italy, with Sardinia,
Corsica, and Sicily. Its commercial importance was prior
by two centuries to that of Genoa, although it never
equalled the latter in extent of navigation, nor in the num¬
ber of distant settlements. Pisa declined from its com-
E R C E.
mercial rank, in consequence of Leghorn, which was situ- Commerce,
ated immediately on the coast, being better adapted to
foreign intercourse.
Genoa continued flourishing from the year 1000, until Genoa,
its ill-judged hostilities with Venice in the latter half of
the fourteenth century. These were injurious to both, yet
both recovered from the effects, so as to hold, during
several centuries, a distinguished rank in trade. They
were remarkable also, particularly Venice, for a variety of
the finer manufactures. Neither could boast of a supply
of the raw materials of almost any manufacture in their
respective territories ; but their numerous merchant ves¬
sels brought a variety of products from a distance, and
the amount of the population of either city was such as to
render practicable that division of employment which is
the soul of manufacture, and which was at that time al¬
most unknown in other parts of Europe.
Constantinople had the good fortune to remain un-Constanti.
touched by the enemies of the empire until the middle ofnople.
the fifteenth century, a time when civilization had made
progress in the west of Europe, and literature was on the
eve of receiving a great extension by the discovery of the
art of printing. To this fortunate coincidence of the re¬
vival of the arts in the west, at the time when the east of
Europe was sinking under the pressure of barbarism, we
owe the preservation of much that was valuable in the
ancient world; and, among other things, that of certain
manufactures and branches of commerce. Constantinople
had all along maintained a commercial intercourse with
Venice and other ports in Italy, and, in general, with
Alexandria. The same had been the case in regard to Trade wHii
India; for when the occupancy of Egypt by the Sara-India,
cens prevented the trade to India by the Red Sea, it was
kept up by the Caspian and Euxine. But by far the
shortest course from the east of Europe to India is by the
Euphrates and the Persian Gulf. It was to the extent of
intercourse carried on by this channel, some time after
the Christian era, that we are to ascribe the wealth and
grandeur of Palmyra, a city erected in the midst of de¬
serts. This would have continued one of the chief routes
of communication between Europe and India during the
middle ages, had not the caravans been in perpetual dan¬
ger from the Arabs, after the decline of the civilized go¬
vernments in this part of Asia.
The trade between Europe and India, though of con-Venice;
siderable value, was not extensive enough to be produc-causes of
tive of the wealth ascribed to it by Dr Robertson andRs in-
other historians, who, unacquainted practically with com-crease'
merce and its limited gains, are ready to lend an ear
to the sanguine statements of early writers. Thus the
wealth of Venice, commonly ascribed to its trade with
Alexandria and India, wras the consequence of a variety
of causes, no one being of particular importance, because
several centuries were passed in the gradual increase of
its population and capital. Venice afforded a secure re¬
sort in ages when other countries were in danger of inva¬
sion and plunder. It had also a prudent government, in
times when, in most parts of Europe, there was little idea
of a free constitution, or of a regular administration of jus¬
tice. Venice was in this state when, in the twelfth and
thirteenth centuries, the increase of traffic, arising from
conveying the crusaders, with their military stores, and
the readiness of those zealous combatants to extend the
sway of a Christian state, enabled that commercial repub¬
lic to increase her foreign territories. In general, the
foreign policy of Venice w'as pacific, but she found it diffi¬
cult to avoid hostilities with the Turks, or to escape from
taking a part in the repeated contests which took place
between France and Austria for the territory of the Mi¬
lanese.
COMM
bommeree. Those who take an interest in tracing the gradual ex-
tension of industry, will find in Venice the origin of seve¬
ral important commercial institutions. In that city was
established the first public bank, and there also was first
introduced a funded debt transferable from hand to hand.
The same thing held in regard to lesser matters connected
with the details of mercantile business. Bills of exchange,
if not invented by Venetian merchants, were first carried
by them to a great extent; and the principles of book¬
keeping by double entry were there first understood and
applied in practice. However familiar those principles may
be to merchants of the present day, they were too refined
for the rude and primitive state of most parts of Europe
in the middle ages.
Spain. And here it may be well to point out the fallacy of a
notion general in Spain, and not uncommon in other parts
of Europe, namely, that in the middle ages Spain was a
flourishing country, and possessed, in Tarragona, Tortosa,
and Zaragoza, great population and wealth, each of these
towns being said to have contained several hundred thou¬
sand inhabitants. This singular opinion was widely spread,
in consequence of the prominent figure made by Spain in
the politics of Europe, in the reigns of Charles V. and
Philip II. The public did not take into account the great
addition of power conferred on Spain by her possessions
in Italy and the Low Countries ; nor were there in these
days statisticians capable of explaining the very slow
manner in which either cultivation or commerce can ac¬
quire extension in a country so mountainous, and with so
few means of transport, as Spain. Of roads she can boast
only the few that are required for the purposes of govern¬
ment, the cross roads being little more than bridle paths,
and the traffic of the country being in general carried on
by mules. All this indicates a scanty population and a
backward state of society, as has been the case in Spain
in every age; for there is no truth in the traditionary opi¬
nion that her population was greatly thinned by emigra¬
tion to America. The number of persons who proceeded
annually from Spain to America never exceeded the tenth
part of those who at present go annually from Ireland to
Canada. The truth is, that the power of Charles V. and
Philip II. was great only because the power of the other
princes of Europe was very limited. The military esta¬
blishments of that age were quite insignificant compared
to those of the present times.
TheHanse One of the chief features in mercantile history during
Towns. the middle ages was the association of towns in the north
of Europe for the purpose of giving security to mercantile
property. At that time the different countries of Europe
were very imperfectly governed; there were then no re¬
gular posts and very few roads, so that the means of re¬
dressing grievances, or of making communications from
one part to another, were very imperfect. Too much has
been said of the political power exercised by the Hanse
Towns, but the association was of great use in protecting
Lubeck. individual property. It dated from the middle of the
thirteenth century, and originated at Lubeck, a sea-port,
which had not in those days more population or wealth
than at present, but possessed much more comparative
importance, because very few places in Europe could at
that time boast of 30,000 or 40,000 inhabitants. The
trade between the Baltic and the west of Germany cen¬
tred in the harbour of Lubeck, in ages when navigators
were not sufficiently skilled to proceed to or come from
the Baltic by the circuitous route of the Sound. The as¬
sociation of the Hanse Towns consisted first of Lubeck,
Hamburg, and Brunswick, but soon extended to other
places—to Amsterdam, Dordt, Cologne, on the one side,
to Dantzic, Kbnigsberg, Riga, on the other. These and
many smaller towns, to the number of sixty and upwards,
E R C E. 187
became members of this protecting body, which continu- Commerce,
ed in a state of union during three centuries. At the end
of that time it was gradually dissolved, not by any vio¬
lence or exercise of authority, but by the continued pro¬
gress of civilization ; the different governments in the
north of Europe having by that time acquired the power
of protecting their mercantile subjects. It is now about
two centuries since the association of the Hanse Towns
ceased to exist in a comprehensive sense ; and for a con¬
siderable time the name has been confined to Hamburg,
Lubeck, and Bremen.
Hamburg took the lead of other trading towns of the
north of Germany, by means chiefly of the extent of its
river, and the consequent easy communication with the
sea on the one hand, and the interior of Germany on the
other. It gained also by the improvement of navigation
in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, when vessels from
the south of Europe found it no longer necessary to sus¬
pend their voyage at Bruges, but found it practicable, and
even easy, to proceed at once as far as the Elbe.
The wealth and possession of the Netherlands belong, The Xe-
like the early opulence of Tyre, and the magnitude of the therlands.
trade of Carthage, to the remarkable phenomena of mer¬
cantile history. To judge from the physical aspect of
Holland, the general marshiness of the soil, the indiffer¬
ent climate, and the total absence of mineral products,
we should be inclined to consider it among the least fa¬
voured countries of Europe ; but all these disadvantages
were balanced, and more than balanced, by the possession
of extensive water communication. No part of Europe
equals Flanders and Holland in extent of inlets from the
sea, in the breadth of navigable rivers, or in the ease with
which canals may be excavated. To these advantages,
much more than to civil institutions, we are to ascribe
the early prosperity of the Netherlands; for these appa¬
rently unpromising countries took a lead in civilization,
almost as remarkable as the more favoured regions of the
north of Italy. That they were not so early in the career
of improvement, was owing to the comparative barbarism
of the countries in the north of Europe with which they
held intercourse; while Italy had communication on one
hand with Constantinople and the eastern empire, on the
other hand with the south of France, the west of Italy,
and various sea-ports which still preserved a portion of
ancient civilization.
The soil of Flanders, without being naturally fertile, Flanders,
was more easily cultivated than the comparatively marshy
districts of Holland. Hence the early superiority of the
Flemings in agriculture and manufactures. It was in the
fourteenth century that the art of weaving the finer wool¬
lens was introduced from Flanders into England, and in
the sixteenth that we derived from the same quarter many
useful imports in agriculture and gardening. The pro¬
gress of the Dutch in navigation was equally remarkable. Holland.
The Maese and Rhine enabled them to bring down the
bulky produce of the interior, such as timber, con. or
cattle, to their own coast, as well as to carry up these
rivers to the inland provinces, the various articles of mer¬
chandise imported from the south of Europe. Hence the
increase of Dordt and Rotterdam. The rise of Amster¬
dam was owing to a different cause ; to the extent of the
Zuyder Zee ; to the easy access which that expanse of
water afforded to vessels from the Elbe, the Weser, and
the Baltic.
Bruges owed its increase to its adoption as an interme- Bruges,
diate port for vessels from the north and south of Europe.
A voyage from the Mediterranean to the Baltic was in
those days a formidable undertaking; seafaring men ac¬
counted it too long to be performed out and home in one
188 COMM
Commerce. seasor)5 ari(] glacl]v embraced the opportunity afforded by
tbe warehouses of Bruges for landing their cargo from the
south, and taking on board another from the north, with¬
out the delay of a passage through the Sound. Hus plan
of dividing the voyages to the north continued during
the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries ; in the fifteenth
it in a great measure ceased, because the improvements
in seamanship made it easy for vessels to proceed direct
to Hamburg, Copenhagen, and other northern parts.
Antwerp. Antwerp succeeded Bruges as the station authorized by
the Hanse Towns; but its prosperity was mainly owing to
the width and depth of the Scheldt, which may be said to
surpass any of the maritime inlets in the north of Europe.
The time of the chief prosperity of Antwerp was in the
sixteenth century; its population and wealth had attained
a great height for so unimproved an age, and would have
continued to increase, had not the tyranny of Philip II.
provoked the inhabitants to insurrection, and exposed
them to all the evils of a siege and capture by a military
force. The consequence of this misfortune, and of the
continued intolerance of the Spanish government, was the
removal to Amsterdam of many of the inhabitants, and of
a great share of the mercantile business of Antwerp.^ In
the next century the Dutch acquired great political weight,
and took advantage of it to prevent the navigation of the
Scheldt, that Amsterdam and Rotterdam might possess
exclusively the trade with the interior provinces. I his
singular prohibition, unexampled in the history of com¬
merce, remained in force 150 years ; for the Scheldt was
not opened to merchant vessels until 1794, when the Ne¬
therlands fell under the dominion of France. During all
that time Antwerp was deprived of the benefit of foreign
trade ; its population ceased to increase, and remained sta¬
tionary at the number, on an average, of 50,000.
Discovery T]ie great object of navigators in the fifteenth century
of a man- wag tQ reach in(j;a by tile ocean, and to carry on what
toTndia was accounted a lucrative traffic without interruption from
' the Turks or Arabs. The discoveries required for this
purpose were made by the Portuguese, who, in situation,
were nearer than other Europeans to the western coast of
Africa, the line necessarily followed by those who aimed
at reaching India by a new course. The Portuguese had
in those days more than one prince of the blood disposed
to patronize maritime discovery; but their seamen were
very unskilful, so that in following their awkward efforts
at discovery, we find season after season passed in tracing
the unknown part of the coast of Africa to a distance of
only fifty or sixty leagues. This inconceivable slowness
marked the navigation of the Portuguese in their progress
towards the equator, until, in 1484, they ventured to for¬
sake the coast, stood out to the open ocean, and penetrat¬
ed 1500 miles to the south of the line. From that time
a bolder course was taken by these adventurers, and at last
the discovery of the route to India by the Cape of Good
Hope was accomplished in 1497.
Discovery The discovery of America was effected in a very differ-
of Arneri- ent manner. Though accomplished by Spanish vessels,
ca’ the honour of the enterprise belonged more properly to
Italy; for it was only in a country accustomed to naviga¬
tion, and possessing well-educated mariners, that so dis¬
tant a voyage could have been accounted practicable.
Many years were passed, as is well known, by Columbus
in forming his plan, and soliciting the aid required to
carry it into effect; but, once embarked in the attempt,
the success was speedy, because the mind of the conductor
was sufficiently enlightened to persevere in the voyage,
instead of returning, as would probably have been done
by an inferior navigator before traversing the half of the
Atlantic.
E R C E.
We now come to the sixteenth century, the time whenCunmerce
the productive industry of Europe received a considerable
impulse from the influx of the precious metals from Ame¬
rica. At that time the chief trading towns of Europe were
in Italy, the Netherlands, and, in a much less degree, in
France, England, and Germany. In the latter countries
the towns were very small, not being peopled to the
extent of one third of their present numbers. Nothing
shows more clearly the backwardness of manufactures in
that age, the imperfect division of employment, or the li¬
mited communication between one province and another.
There were in those days few lines of intercourse entitled
to the name of roads, or fit for conveying corn or mer¬
chandise by wheel carriages. Even in countries compa¬
ratively level, such as the south of England, the north of
France, the north of Germany, there were no carriage
roads, and goods were conveyed on the backs of mules
and horses, in the same manner as over the mountainous
regions of the Alps. Nor were there in that time post-
office establishments for the service of either governments
or merchants.
An increase in town population is the best evidence of
improvement in agriculture, as in commerce. In a rude
state of cultivation, the labour of seventy or eighty persons
is required to raise provisions for a hundred ; so that three
fourths of the inhabitants are obliged to live in country
districts, for the mere purpose of raising subsistence. But
as machinery and implements become improved, and the
art of husbandry is better understood, the iarmer can ren¬
der more effectual the labour of himself and his assistants ;
there remains a greater surplus of provisions for the sup¬
port of the inhabitants of towns; and somewhat more of
the population are enabled to attach themselves to em¬
ployments distinct from agriculture, namely, those of me¬
chanics and manufactures. To this improved condition Eu¬
rope was slowly advancing, when the discovery of the sil¬
ver mines of America had the effect of materially quicken¬
ing its progress. This renders it proper to make a few re¬
marks on the supply of gold and silver in early ages.
It is somewhat singular that Egypt, a country never re- The pre.
markable for mines in its own territory, should have been clous me-
among the first to give an example of mining on a large tals;<4Fec'
scale. But the Egyptians had extended their conquests
to the southward, where, in the mountains of Nubia, there pr0liuct1Ve
were extensive mining districts. In these, as in the mines industry,
of other parts of the world, masses of ore contained only
particles of silver, and the task of raising the ore to the
surface was very laborious. 4 his was performed in the
Nubian mines with little aid from machinery, and chiefly
by manual labour, as is still the case in many parts of Spa¬
nish and Portuguese America.
The next accounts of mining in ancient history relate to
Greece, where, from the mountainous nature of the coun¬
try, the mines were numerous, though not particularly
productive. They were wrought in Attica, Ihrace, and
several of the islands. The labourers were paid partly
in money, partly in provisions; and the accounts handed
down to”us by Greek writers show that mining, like agri¬
culture, afforded a fair return for the capital and labour
employed, but no remarkable profit. Spain in those times,
as at present, was remarkable for extensive mining; as
were in a less degree Sardinia, Corsica, and the small
island of Elba.
Such undertakings were long carried on for the public
account; but towards the fifth century of the Christian
era, the Roman government withdrew from most of its
mining establishments, allowing individuals to carry them
on for their own account. The quantity of gold and sil¬
ver in circulation appears to have subsequently decreased;
but we are greatly at a loss for correct information in re-
COMMERCE.
Commerce. gar(j either to the state of mines or the prices of commo-
—-Y’'-' dities, as represented in money, during the middle ages.
Influx of It is now three centuries since the importation of silver
silver from from America, in particular from Mexico and Peru,amount-
Imerica, etj at t0 hair'a million annually, and increased to one,
and afterwards to two millions. This sum was such as to
affect the prices of corn, labour, and merchandise gene¬
rally. It caused a gradual rise of prices, carried to the
greatest length in maritime districts, in parts connected
with each other by navigation. The published works of
the sixteenth century contain many notices of the rise in
the price of commodities, and of the inconvenience result¬
ing to the consumers from such rise : the advantages to
agriculturists and producers generally were not so clearly
perceived, or the humble classes enjoying them had not
equal means of stating them to the public.
The supplies of gold and silver from America continued
during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, and on
a much larger scale than during the sixteenth ; yet their
effect was not so great for several reasons, hirst, the
number of persons among whom silver now circulated
was far greater than formerly. Gold also had become
more common, and began to form the chief, or almost
the sole medium for large payments; and, lastly, the use
of silver for [date, jewellery, watches, and other orna¬
mental purposes, increased greatly in consequence of the
improved circumstances of the middle and upper classes.
There remained thus less silver to add to the coin in cir¬
culation.
It was in the eighteenth century, particularly after
1750, that the use of bank notes became general in Eng¬
land, and subsequently in the United States of America.
This may be compared in its effect on prices to an addi¬
tional supply of gold from the mine, because its tendency
to raise prices is considerable, though not so great as is
vulgarly supposed ; because bank paper payable in cash
on demand, of which alone we speak, can never be undu¬
ly extended.
Bank notes have as yet obtained little currency on the
Continent of Europe; but in Great Britain, Ireland, and
North America, their effect on prices maybe said to have
been similar to that of the importation of the precious me¬
tals from America. In either case, the consequence was a
rise in the money price of corn, and commodities general¬
ly. To comprehend the benefit of such rise, we should
consider society as divided into two great parts; the pro¬
ducing and the non-producing classes. I he latter consist
of capitalists, landholders, or fixed annuitants ; the former
of farmers, especially tenants on lease, manufacturers, mer¬
chants, and, in general, all persons who carry on business
with borrowed capital. If a tenant on lease continue to
pay during twenty-one years the same rent, while the
market price of his crops experiences a progressive rise,
it follows that his circumstances will improve. Thus, on
the augmented importation of silver from America, which
began three centuries ago, there took place a slow but
steady rise in prices, the effect of which was of great ad¬
vantage to agriculturists, in particular to those who held
land on lease. The yeoman who was cautious and perse¬
vering thus laid the foundation of a little property, the
next generation added to it, and the third rose from the
condition of cottagers to that of farmers. I his, or some-
189
thing like this, was the course of circumstances in Eng-Commerce,
land, during the chief part of the sixteenth, seventeenth,
and eighteenth centuries. If the effect was at no time very
great, it was continued and progressive; for we can trace
no great or general decline in the price of agricultural
produce until the general peace of 1814.1
The trade and navigation of England, unexampled as Trade of
it now is in extent, did not by any means make an early England,
figure in the commercial history of Europe. Of this the
principal cause was the thinness of our population com¬
pared to that of the north of Italy or the Netherlands, and
the consequent insignificance of our towns. Our slow
progress in trade is also to be ascribed to political causes,
to the civil troubles originating with the great barons, the
frequent wars with France, and still more to the long and
sanguinary contests in the fifteenth century, respecting the
rival claims of the houses of York and Lancaster. It was
not till the reign of Henry VIE, little more than three
centuries ago, that the advantages arising from our extent
of coast and abundance of fuel began to be brought into
active operation. During the reign of his successor, the
progress of improvement received little patronage from
the court, but a most efficient indirect aid from the intro¬
duction of Protestantism. The advantages resulting from
that happy change, and the development of national indus¬
try, were strongly displayed during the iong reign of Eli¬
zabeth, under the wise administration of Cecil. At that
time, also, was felt the benefit arising to the productive
classes, from the augmented import of gold and silver from
America.
We pass over the very questionable, though popular The nar*-
opinion, that the adoption of our navigation laws had agationiaws.
beneficial effect on our shipping. They accelerated its
increase; but that increase would probably have taken
place to an equal extent, and on a surer foundation, had
foreigners been allowed to frequent our harbours, until
the course of circumstances gradually led to a preference
of British vessels. In all the departments of productive
industry which have as yet had a fair trial, interferences
and exclusive privileges have been found detrimental to
national prosperity ; nor does there seem any reason for
making an exception in the case of mercantile shipping.
Thus, in no department have more efforts been made to
cause increase by artificial encouragements, than in our
fisheries. Government, desirous of extending these great
nurseries of seamen, have granted large bounties, particu¬
larly on the vessels employed in the herring fishery; still
the result has never been satisfactory, and bounties are
now withdrawn from fishing vessels, in the same manner as
from exported linens, and other articles of merchandise.
Our navigation laws date from the middle of the
seventeenth century ; and in the course of fifty years
our mercantile shipping was increased to somewhat
more than double its amount. But the great period of
increase was during the eighteenth century, at the begin¬
ning of which the mercantile navy of England amounted
to 270,000 tons; while in the middle (about 1750) it ex¬
ceeded 600,000, and in the end of the century approached
to 1,600,000. On the 31st December 1852, the total
number of ships belonging to the British empire, including
the colonies, was 31,993 sailing vessels, and 1414 steam
1 The effect of a progressive rise of prices in stimulating the productive industry of a people was first started by Mr Hume, about
a hundred years ago in his Essay on Money. He had seen the effect of this rise in the war of 1740, as well as in that of 1750 ; and a
war carried on by annual loans has the effect of raising prices nearly in the same manner as an increased supply of the precious meta s.
Mr Hume had also the means of observing, in some degree, the effect on prices of an augmented issue of bank paper. _ His remarks
on these subjects, though not expressed in the language of a man of business, do credit to his reasoning powers, considering his limited
means of information on a subject so foreign to his pursuits. How little were such conclusions attended to by parliament in the dis¬
cussions of 11119 on the resumption of cash payments, or of 1826 on the recal of small notes !
190
COMMERCE.
Commerce.
Manufac¬
tures.
Custom¬
house re¬
turns.
Commer-
cial trea¬
ty with
France in
1786.
F.xports
to North
America,
India, and
the West
Indies.
vessels, and the tonnage of these, 4,080,385, and 223,616
respectively.
Of our national manufactures, woollen was long the most
considerable ; but it is now surpassed by cotton, the ex¬
tension of which since the year 1770 has, like the increase
of our population, been one of the wonders ot the age.
Another manufacture surprisingly extended during the
last half century is that of iron and hardware. Our supe¬
riority in the latter, both as to quality and cheapness, is
such as to give to our exporters a decided preference in
foreign markets.
It is now fully a century and a half since there has
been kept at the custom-house in London a yearly regis¬
ter of our exports and imports. But such returns exhibit
a very imperfect statement of the aggregate of our foreign
trade ; because remittances take place in bills of exchange,
and in various other ways, which escape the notice of the
official registrar. It has long been the practice of merchants
to consider our exports as exceeding our imports ; but this
has arisen chiefly from the different mode of valuing the
two. The truth is, that the sum of our imports is nearly
as great as that of our exports ; but this approach to equa¬
lity is by no means a preventive of profit. Articles are
worth more in one country than in another ; and a gain is
made by the mere exchange, in the same way that a na¬
tion augments its wealth by the interchange of commodi¬
ties between its different provinces.
The commercial treaty with France, concluded in 1786,
was entitled to particular notice, as well for the fairness of
its conditions, as for being the first commercial compact,
on a comprehensive scale, between two nations so long
divided by political causes. The freedom of competition
opened by this treaty put to the test the ability of either
country to supply the great articles of manufacture.
While in silk, jewellery, and ornamental work generally,
the French continued to be superior, England had the ad¬
vantage in such substantial articles as hardware and pot¬
tery, as well as in the rapidly increasing manufacture of
cottons. This principally arose, not from the conditions
of the treaty being unfair towards France, but from our
advantages on the grand points of fuel, canal communica¬
tion, and amount of capital. Unfortunately the operation
of this judicious compact was cut short by the war of 1793.
Had the peace continued longer, there is little doubt that
whatever was obnoxious in the conditions of the treaty
would have been gradually removed, by the mutual ac¬
commodations which insensibly take place between na¬
tions in a state of amity and free intercourse.
A striking feature in the trade of England, compared to
that of France, Germany, and other continental countries,
is the magnitude of its exports to distant parts, such as
India, North America, and the West Indies, ihese dif¬
ferent branches of trade employ a number of seamen, and
make a conspicuous figure in the list of our yearly exports.
They are considered by foreigners, as well as by the ma¬
jority of our countrymen, as the pillars of our commercial
prosperity ; but those who estimate them so highly have
no idea of the large sums of capital that have been with¬
drawn by each of these countries from England. The
United States of America consumed our manufactures
largely for nearly a century, but in no one year did they
remit to this country the full value of the articles which
we exported to them. The amount due from them to
England has long exceeded the general estimate, and is
known only to the merchants, who feel the deduction thus
made from their pecuniary means. A similar drain has
long been made by our West India colonies, but in a less
degree, until within these fifty years, since which the ca¬
pital drawn from England has amounted to many millions.
With India our commercial intercourse was more limited ;
and the exports, confined to the East India Company and Commerce,
to a few mercantile houses in London, were on a compa-
ratively small scale until the present age, during which
the extension of the private trade from Liverpool, and the
advance of capital on indigo plantations, made our India
business assume a considerable resemblance to that with
North America and the West Indies.
The real and substantial benefit arising from commerce
takes place at home, and shows itself in the extension of
manufactures, the increase of towns, the improvement of
roads, canals, and harbours. In all these England has
in the last century taken a decided lead of France, the
Netherlands, and every continental state. Happily the
grounds of our superiority appear likely to continue, rest¬
ing as they do on our abundant capital, our formed habits
of business, the general subdivision of employment, and
the extent of national improvements conducive to useful
purposes. These substantial advantages are, it may be
hoped, so great as to enable us to overcome the burdens
arising from financial mismanagement, and our too ardent
interference in foreign politics.
Of the course of trade in this country during the last
half century, the following is a brief summary. After the
peace with the United States of America in 1783, our
trade suffered for some time by the transition from war to
peace, but gradually improved; and in the years 1789,1790,
1791, 1792, was decidedly prosperous. After this came the
war with France, which was at first injurious to trade, but
after the abundance of money consequent on the extend¬
ed circulation of bank paper in 1797, assumed a very dif¬
ferent appearance, and seemed to bring a yearly addition
to the national wealth. This ostensible increase of profits
was kept up during the chief part of the war, but at the
peace the state of circumstances underwent a complete
change ; the transition was great beyond example ; prices
fell in every department of business, and the year 1816
was among the most gloomy in our commercial history. A
revival of trade took place in 1817 and 1818, but it was
succeeded by along depression. In 1823 trade revived once
more; in 1824 it became prosperous, and 1825 afforded a
striking example of the abuse of mercantile prosperity ; at
the end of that year a general fall of prices took place, and
afterwards the heavy calls to meet the expenses of the late
gigantic railway undertakings, aggravated by the fail ure of the
potato crop of 1846, occasioned the greatest difficulty in pro¬
curing pecuniary accommodation, and led to the crisis of 1847.
From the ease with which money was borrowed by the F.ffect of
government of this country during the eighteenth century, war expen.
the wars we carried on were both of frequent occurrence
and on a scale of great expense. The result was a conti-ofcomtn0.
nued increase of debt and taxation ; but the burden did Cities and
not appear beyond our means, until the unprecedented the income
length to which it was carried by the wars ot 1793 andofindivi-
1803. Both took place under the ministry of Mr Pitt, and duala‘
the extreme to which he allowed expenditure to be car¬
ried was the more remarkable when we consider his long
experience in finance, and that from the time ot his com¬
ing into office his attention was given to the state ot our
trade and revenue. Several of his early measures, such
as the commutation of the duty on tea, and the commer¬
cial treaty with France in 1786, were entitled to great
commendation. A similar opinion is not now entertained
of his revival of the sinking fund ; and it was in an evil
hour that he allowed himself to be diverted from his paci¬
fic course by the urgency of the aristocracy and his sove¬
reign, to take up arms against the French revolutionists.
Unfortunately the atrocities of these men, the endless
usurpations of Bonaparte, and, above all, the tacilities af¬
forded by the unchecked issue of bank paper, carried our
expenditure to an unprecedented height.
COM M
Commerce. In the midst of this hazardous career, the death of Mr
Pitt, and the removal from office of his immediate succes¬
sors, transferred the management of our finances to the
hands of men wholly unequal to the task; of men uncon¬
scious of the precarious nature of our paper currency, and
of the danger of such measures as a stoppage of neutral na¬
vigation, or a war with the United States of America.
The consequence was a depreciation of our bank paper dur¬
ing five years, an enormous waste of the public money, and
a burden on the country of unparalleled amount.
A state of war is attended by a great demand for the ser¬
vice of individuals, as well in the army and navy as in the
public offices. A great number of persons are thus with¬
drawn from productive employment, and the consequence
is an increase of the w7ages and incomes of those who re¬
main so employed, as well as bringing into activity a num¬
ber of persons who in a season of peace would hardly have
been accounted worthy of employment.
A rise in the price of corn and other produce is another
consequence of a state of wrar ; this leads to a rise o^rent;
a rise of rent to increased expenditure on the part of the
landlord; and that to a general activity and continued
employment of working classes. Such was the condition
of this country during the twenty years from 1794 to
1814, while in the twenty years that followed the peace
there was a corresponding decline, and then a gradual re¬
turn to higher prices. The fall in the price of produce
lowered rents, and greatly lessened the income of the upper
classes ; hence a contracted expenditure, and a want of em¬
ployment for the lower orders. All this exemplifies the
precarious nature of such a rise of prices as took place in
the late wars, and will, more than any other argument, con¬
firm the public in an adherence to peace.
Decrease The supply of gold and silver from America continued
n the sup- regularly to increase until the year 1810, since wdiich the
I jly of the disorders in Spanish A merica, particularly in Mexico, short-
neTal0118 ene(* s,,PPty ^rorn fiuarter at ieast one-half.
Mr Jacobs, in his work on the precious metals, calculated
the reduction in the quantity of circulating coin, during
the twenty years that succeeded the peace of 1814, at not
less than 20 per cent. This decrease in the supply of the
precious metals must have had some effect in lowering the
prices of commodities, but to what extent it is not possible,
with our imperfect data, to form an opinion.
But the discovery of gold in California in 1848, and in
Australia in 1851, has not only Tiade up for any deficiency in
the supplies from other quarters, but from these two countries
alone there has been furnished more than twice the amount
of the entire annual produce of the precious metals from all
parts of the world in the most productive periods of their
working. The effect of this has been to raise wages and
prices very largely both in this country and America, and to
give a great stimulus to emigration from Britain, and especi¬
ally from Ireland, and to some extent from Germany.
In 1845 Sir Robert Peel abolished the customs duties on
420 different articles. This measure was a virtual abandon¬
ment of the system of protection, which was shortly after
followed by the total repeal of the corn lawrs.
Till recently, our shipping interest was subjected to a va¬
riety of burdens and restrictions, by which their energies
were weighed down and fettered. These, however, are hap¬
pily now either wholly abolished or greatly modified. In con¬
sequence of these alterations, all the building-yards and all
the seamen of the world may be made subservient to the
wants and purposes of our merchants and shipowners, when
we add to these recent improvements the increased facilities
afforded for the transport of goods by means of the increased
number and power of steam-ships, and the great extent of
railways. The eventual progress of trade seems decidedly
favourable to this country, provided as we are with coal and
E R C E. 191
iron, with canals, roads, and machinery, as well as with abun- Commerce,
dant capital, intelligent merchants, and expert workmen. V—
It was feared by some that the introduction of free-trade
measures and the repeal of the laws which favoured our
own shipping would prove ruinous to our trade by bring¬
ing foreigners into competition with our own merchants, but
the experience of the years that have passed since the adop¬
tion of a liberal mercantile policy has completely falsified all
the evil forebodings of the timorous and the contracted.
No doubt foreigners will derive some advantage from the
freedom in which they will participate. But why should we
grudge their having some share in the more abundant pros¬
perity which has fallen to our lot: would it be wise in us
to fetter ourselves in order that we might restrict others ?
During the forty years of peace our trade has progres¬
sively advanced,our exports, which in 1814 amounted only to
L.51,358,398, had advanced in 1852 to L.219,515,699 ; and
if we can avoid wars and internal commotions, there is every
reason to expect that our prosperity will go on increasing.
Of all the important countries to which our commerce ex¬
tends, the empire of Russia is one of the least profitable.
Although it includes a seventh part of the globe, it only
consumes British products to the amount of about a million
annually, and for many years its imports from Britain have
been diminishing till it has reached this amount. The
small kingdom of Portugal nearly equals Russia in its con¬
sumption ; and Holland takes three times the amount of
British manufactures.
In this view it may appear that a war with Russia would
not materially injure the commercial prosperity of this
country ; nevertheless, the calamitous effects of a state of
warfare, not only in its immediate, but in its more remote
consequences, will be seriously felt even in this case.
The trades which draw their raw materials from the Bal¬
tic and the Black Sea will suffer from short supplies ; the
prices of their manufactures will be enhanced, taxes will be
increased, freights and insurance will be more expensive,
the demand for money will be greater, and the interest
raised, and in many ways the war will operate injuriously to
the public.
We shall conclude our historical sketch of commerce by close of
a brief notice of its prominent characteristics at different the histori-
periods. cal view of
The chief features of the commerce of antiquity were commerce,
the early opulence of Tyre, and the great extent of the
trade of Carthage, and Alexandria in Egypt. In modern
times the earliest points of commercial history entitled to
notice were the prosperity of Venice, Genoa, and other
towns in Italv, the era of whose splendour was the fifteenth
century. In the sixteenth and seventeenth the lead in
commerce was taken in a remarkable degree by Hol¬
land ; in the eighteenth by England. But as to the
effect on commerce of an increase of circulating medium,
it was felt in the sixteenth century by the influx of the
precious metals from America, which caused, it is said, a
great rise in prices. This rise continued during the seven¬
teenth and eighteenth centuries with a steady but not a
remarkable progress. After this came the addition to the
circulating medium, arising from the use of bank paper; it
became considerable only in the eighteenth century, par¬
ticularly in the latter half of that period. From 1797 to
1814 the issue of bank or government paper was carried
to an unexampled length in England and other coun¬
tries ; the sufferings of the succeeding twenty years were
mainly owing to the re-action proceedirg from its recal.
That period is the only one in the history of modern Eu¬
rope in which the circulating medium has been much
contracted, or the prices of commodities and the income
of individuals have experienced a long continued decline.
192
COMMERCE.
Commerce.
II. PRINCIPLES OF COMMERCE.
Having treated the historical part of our subject at con¬
siderable length, it is now fit to bestow some attention on
its principles or general rules. By “ principles of com¬
merce,” we understand conclusions of two kinds ; those
deduced from the practice of merchants, and applicable
to the management of trade by individuals ; and those of
a more comprehensive character, which, resulting from
the course of productive industry generally, are entitled
to the attention of a minister, a member of Parliament, or
whoever is engaged in the task of devising regulations for
trade. Most of those conclusions seem so plain as to ad¬
mit of little question ; but it is a fact that several of them
have been the result of long, and, in some cases, of dearly
bought experience. As a specimen we give the following:
Meroan- 1. Short credits and quick returns, however small the
tileaxi- commission or profit, are eventually better than long cre-
ems ; ex- antj a iarge commission or charge.
them6 ° The greatest mercantile profit arises from intercourse
with populous and long-settled countries, such as Holland,
because the inhabitants are in general possessed of capital,
and punctual in their payments.
3. Recently-settled countries, like the United States of
America, the West Indies, Spanish and Portuguese Ame¬
rica, are always bare of capital. There is a perpetual
tendency in them to draw it from Europe; and mercan¬
tile transactions with these countries, profitable in the
outset, often become otherwise, from delays of payment,
and ultimate insolvency.
4. Trade should be left as much as possible to its natural
course, interference being almost always hurtful. Govern¬
ments ought merely to remove obstacles and grant faci¬
lities. Privileges and monopolies were formerly very
general in England; but these, if necessary in an early
age, when individual capital was too scanty for distant un¬
dertakings, should be withdrawn as soon as such capital
becomes sufficient.
5. Division and subdivision of employment can be car¬
ried to only a limited extent in agriculture. In manufac¬
tures they may be carried very far, and are productive of
the greatest advantage. They afford employment to per¬
sons of every age, and they conduce greatly to the finish¬
ed execution of work. Hence the superiority of towns,
in particular of the larger towns. This was the cause of
our manufacturers not going abroad after the peace of
1815, when wages fell, although provisions were still high
priced.
Rules or observations like these are very seldom met
with, either in printed works or in personal intercourse ;
and the reason is, that while few departments of industry
have been followed in practice to so great an extent as
commerce, hardly any other has been less an object of
study in regard to its principles. While the professions
of law, medicine, and the church, possess in abundance
printed works for the guidance of those who intend to
follow them, the case is quite different in regard to trade.
There are hardly any books or written compositions for
the purpose of instructing the merchant in the practical
management of his business, and not many containing
statistical or other information connected with trade. To
no profession are written precepts considered to be so
little applicable ; in none is proficiency thought to depend
so exclusively on practice. Hence an unacquaintance
with principles or general rules, and the commission of
grievous errors, as well by merchants in the pursuit of
business, as by members of parliament in the enactment
of commercial regulations. Of the former we may take as
examples the repeated glutting of foreign markets with
our goods, and the injudicious extension of sugar cultiva¬
tion in the West Indies; of the latter, the oppressive du- Commerce,
ties on Baltic timber, or the fetters so long imposed by
act of parliament on our country banks.
The belief that it is for the advantage of a nation to
manufacture almost every article it consumes, has been
the cause of the most serious inconvenience and loss. It
is thus that in Erance the making of sugar from beet-root,
and the more serious error of erecting blast furnaces for
making iron in districts unprovided with coal fuel, has
placed a large amount of capital in a situation where it is
subject to reduction year by year, and whence it cannot
be withdrawn without heavy loss. In like manner, the
privileges so long conferred by act of parliament on the
silk manufacture in England,frequently tended to produce
embarrassment, because they interfered with the natural
course of trade. No branch of industry can be of per¬
manent advantage to a nation, unless it can support itself
without indirect or artificial aid. Were merchants and
manufacturers left to themselves, the natural course of
things would point out the branches of productive indus¬
try likely to succeed or not in a particular country ; and
capital would not then be advanced on an insecure foun¬
dation. Plain as this appears, it is quite at variance with
the creed of our ancestors; a creed which, under the
name of “mercantile system,” long retained an influence
over our traders, and, in some degree, over members of
the legislature.
The basis of that system was, that “ wealth consisted The mer-
in the precious metals; that what is gained in trade bycantilesys.
one nation must be lost by another; and that our greattenj ex*
object in receiving returns for our exports should be toP*ainet*'
get money instead of merchandise.” It followed from such
notions, that of all possessions, a mining country, such as
Mexico and Peru, was the most desirable; and hence in
a great measure our rupture w'ith Spain in 1740, which
led to our unfortunate expedition to Carthagena, involved
us in a contest with France, and caused us in the course
of eight years an immense waste of blood and treasure.
The return to a state of peace in 1748 obliged us to de¬
sist from attempts on Spanish America, but the influence
of the mercantile system continued, and was singularly
favoured by the annual custom-house returns. These re-Fallacy of
turns exhibit an apparent excess of exports above imports, custom-
and give rise to the notion that the balance is sent to thish°use re-
country in the shape of money. Supposing the exports of1,1'™8,
England to the Continent of Europe to amount for any given
year to L.20,000,000, and the imports to L.14,000,000;
the difference, or L.6,000,000, is, according to this absurd
notion, the amount of profit paid to us in money. It is
clear, however, that the custom-house returns take no no¬
tice of some very important items, such as the export of
public money for our foreign garrisons, the transmission
of bills of exchange to foreign merchants, or the import
of smuggled goods. Besides, if the quantum of our circu¬
lating medium remain, as it probably does, very nearly on
a par, what becomes of the supposed importation of mo¬
ney ? Were England in possession of all the annual ba¬
lances which the advocates for this system suppose her
to have received in money during the last century, our me¬
tallic stock would not be below L.400,000,000 sterling ;
that is, ten times its actual amount 1
When a merchant exports goods, the sale, of course,
takes place abroad, and a remittance is made, either by
bill or by the return of other merchandise. It hardly
ever enters into the contemplation of the exporter that he
would find an advantage by obtaining a return in coin or
bullion. Money owes the reputation it has acquired, as Wealth
an object of national interchange, to its convenience in supposed
other respects ; to its being the commodity with which we t0 consist
regularly go to market, and to its fitness for the smallestin goltiact'
COMMERCE. 193
Commtrce. purchases, by the minuteness of its subdivisions. But this
recommendation, however important in private business,
should have no weight in the intercourse of nations; mer-
cliants can be at no loss to dispose of a remittance made
in the shape of goods, nor is it any object with them to
multiply the means of petty purchases.
The interest of a commercial country is not to increase
the amount of its currency, but to quicken its circulation ;
the same sum performing double and triple duty when pass¬
ed expeditiously from hand to hand. Now nothing promotes
circulation so much as exemption from arbitrary interfer¬
ences, were the effect nothing more than the general pre¬
servation of credit. In France, the monstrous abuse made
of the paper system in the beginning of the Revolution
has long prevented the use of any other circulating medium
than coin ; the result is an annual loss of three millions ster¬
ling to the public, such being the difference between the
cost of paper and the precious metals, even after making an
allowance for the retention of a portion of the latter suf¬
ficient for the purposes of banking. Some people, how¬
ever, imagine that, to increase the amount of the circulat-
Capital ing medium, is to increase the capital of a country. These
defined. persons should recollect that capital is by no means limit¬
ed to money, but embraces all that mass of property which
is devoted to reproductive consumption. When we wish
to lend capital, or to employ it in business, we begin by
selling the various articles at our disposal: the amount is
then in our hand in the shape of money; but this is very
transient; the money disappears as soon as we make pay¬
ment for the new purchases. The public not having time
to enter into all this reasoning, judge from first impressions,
and take for granted that money is capital, because its
agency is required to put capital in motion. Governments,
however, might have saved themselves much trouble in
providing supplies of metallic currency, since the natural
course of business will invariably provide them for itself.
The plenty or scarcity of the precious metals depends on
considerations altogether different from the imagined ba¬
lance of trade. Specie was so scarce in England in 1809
that government was not a little embarrassed to find
L.200,000 for the Walcheren expedition ; yet in that year
our custom-house returns presented an apparent balance
of above L.7,000,000 in our favour.1
Losses to No country has suffered so much from the errors of the
England mercantile system as England; partly on account of the
mercantile in^uence traders and manufacturers in our legislature;
system partly from the temporizing policy of our ministers, who
’ have seldom scrupled to buy the consent of any great
body of the community to a new tax, by the grant of some
injurious preference. Hence a variety of pernicious regu¬
lations in favour of the landed, the shipping, and the ma¬
nufacturing interests; hence, also, a number of unfortu¬
nate measures in our foreign policy.
Our ancestors laid it down as a fundamental rule, that
there could be no profit on the one hand, without a corre¬
sponding loss on the other. They considered trade as a
game of mere transfer, and had no idea how a country
could derive wealth by an intercourse between its own
inhabitants. Charles II. entered on the war of 1672 with
high hopes, imagining that, by destroying the commerce
of Holland, we should not only increase our own, but in a
m the 17th manner absorb that of the world. Political reasons led us
and 18th afterwards into close alliance with Holland, and prevent-
nes. etj t|ie ebQUitiojjg 0f our jealousy in that direction ; but the
alarming power of Louis XIV. and the prospect of his ac¬
quiring the crown of Spain, led us to a closer connection
with Portugal, and particularly to the well-known Meth-
ven treaty, concluded in 1703, the object of which was toCommerce,
favour the consumption of port wine, in return for a simi-
lar preference to our manufactures. The result has been,
that we have not scrupled, for more than a century, to
punish our palates and injure our health for the sake of
an imaginary political advantage ; we say imaginary, be¬
cause France would evidently have agreed to take our
manufactures in return for her produce; and if the in¬
crease of her trade had, on one hand, the effect of aug¬
menting, to a certain extent, her national power, it would,
on the other, have increased her dependence on us, and
have rendered a war with us extremely impolitic and un¬
popular.
Our attachment to Portugal arose, in a great measure,
from her not being a manufacturing country, and likely,
in the opinion of the calculators of the day, to be so much
the more advantageous to us in the capacity of a custom¬
er. This notion has prevailed in our councils to a very
recent period ; the administration of 1808 and 1809 not
scrupling to give encouragement to the export of merchan¬
dise, on a large scale, to the unproductive occupants of
Brazil and Spanish America. Now, the fact is, that the
means of extending our trade, and consequently our pro¬
fits, with a foreign country, are to be estimated by a quite
opposite rule; they depend on the productive power of
that country, on its means of affording equivalents for our
commodities; in other words, on its capability of paying
for that which it suits us to sell to it. Now, what country
was ever wealthy without industry ? The mines of Mex¬
ico and Peru, the richest the world ever saw, fall, in point
of annual produce, far short of the annual value of the
cotton, the tobacco, the flour, and other less tempting
products of the United States. In like manner, the co¬
chineal, the cocoa, the barilla, and even the indigo of
Spanish America, form a small amount when put in com¬
petition with the exchangeable commodities possessed by
the industrious nations in our own neighbourhood, such as
France, the Netherlands, or the north of Germany.
If from our own favourite policy we turn our attention Mercantile
to that of continental states, we find Holland steering apohcy °f'
course of impartiality, and guarded from an imitation ofot.herco in'
our trespasses, not indeed by superior knowledge, but bytnes;
the characteristic moderation of her government. The
northern kingdoms deserve comparatively little attention,
their rulers having in general given their thoughts much
more to war than to discussions of internal policy. The
same thing was long true of a country where the commer¬
cial interest has at no time been very considerable; the
personal will of the sovereign, and the influence of the
noblesse, having afforded the grand raisons determinantes
for public measures. Still the history of France is not of France,
without traces of the effects of mercantile prejudices.
Among other regulations of the kind, there formerly ex¬
isted several for the purpose of favouring linen manufac¬
tures instead of cotton, because flax was a home product,
whilst the purchase of cotton carried money out of the
country.
At last it was found out by some Frenchmen of greater
sagacity than the rest, that cotton might be safely admit¬
ted to entry, the money required to buy it proceeding ne¬
cessarily from the employment of French industry in some
shape or other. But the extent of popular prejudice was
most singularly exemplified at the time when it was pro¬
posed to permit the unrestrained use of toiles peintes, or
printed calicoes; every town that had a chamber of com¬
merce remonstrated against it. A deputation sent from
Rouen affirmed, that “ the proposed measure would throw
9
B
VOI,. VII.
1 Appendix to the Report of the Bullion Committee, 1810.
194 COM M
Commerce, its inhabitants into despair, and make a desert of the sur-
rounding countryLyons, the centre of the silk manu¬
facture, declared that “ the news had spread terror into
all its workshops Tours “foresaw a commotion likely to
cause a convulsion in the body politic Amiens asserted
“ that the proposed act would become the tomb ot the
manufacturing industry of Franceand Paris declared,
“ that her merchants came forward that they might bathe
the throne with their tears.” The government, however,
stood firm ; the duty on printed calico was withdrawn, and
the inspector-general of manufactures ventured some time
afterwards to challenge the authors of those elegant effu¬
sions to compare their predictions with the result. “ W ill
any of you,” he said, “ deny that the manufacture of
printed calico has been the cause of giving a vast exten¬
sion to the industry of the country, by employing a num¬
ber of hands in spinning, weaving, bleaching, and print¬
ing ? Look only to the branch of dyeing, and say whether
this change has not done more for it in a few years than
other manufactures would have accomplished in a cen¬
tury.”
In some countries government go much farther, and still
act in a commercial or manufacturing capacity, notwith¬
standing all the admonitions of political economists, or the
of Austria, more home-felt lessons of experience. The Austrian go¬
vernment conducts the gold and silver mines of Hungary
to so little account, that the profit realized from these
splendid establishments does not exceed a few thousands
a year. In the year 1817 the French government, desirous
of laying in a stock of corn for Paris, obtained a loan of
money, with which they made purchases in various mar¬
kets both in and out of the kingdom. The result was most
distressing; the price of corn rose from 80s. to 120s. per
quarter. The people in the provincial towns became ap¬
prehensive of a scarcity, and, though in general submissive
to a fault, attempted at Rouen and other places to impede
the course of the market, and to prescribe a limit to the
price of corn. The alarm, once given, extended through
great part of Europe, and gave occasion to a sudden rise,
as may be seen by reference to the corn prices at the time
in London, Amsterdam, and Hamburg. Nothing is,
therefore, more impolitic than the interference of the pub¬
lic treasury with markets, however good the motive; a
truth which has been so thoroughly felt in England as to
prevent any thing of the kind during the last sixty years,
government having confined itself in seasons of scarcity,
as 1800, 1810, 1816, to permitting the free import of
corn.
The pre- We are next to advert to the mercantile system in its most
sent modi- limited sense, in the shape which it now bears, after all the
fied state modifications of the experience of a century and a half. The
of the mer* predilection for the importation of “ hard dollars” has disap-
Cm? eSyS’Peared among a portion ofthe public,particularlysince mak¬
ing the discovery that bank paper can be made to answer
the purposes of gold and silver. But even these persons are
far from admitting the doctrines of political economists in
all their extent; they still cling to the notion that we should
discourage the import of a foreign article whenever a cor¬
responding commodity can be raised at home; that we
should impede, or even prohibit, all foreign manufactures ;
and that we should not scruple to encourage certain fa¬
brics of our own by bounties. Such was formerly the
creed of the majority of our merchants and manufacturers ;
such was, forty years ago, the creed of our ministers and
presidents of the board of trade. . It proceeds on the
plausible idea, that we cannot provide too much employ¬
ment, and that our people would be in danger of falling
short of work were we to purchase finished articles at the
hands of foreigners. But there is not in the natural course
of things any such deficiency of labour as to make it ne-
E it c E.
cessary, or even expedient, for us to turn things out of Commerce
their regular order for the sake of giving employment to
our population. Providence has evidently ordained that
industry should be at no loss for objects; the interruptions
to its peaceful course arise from our own wayward policy ;
from our restraints, prohibitions, and, above all, from our
sudden changes from war to peace, and from peace to war.
These are the true causes of such scenes of embarrass¬
ment and bankruptcy as we witnessed in 1793, at the close
of profound peace, and as we have unhappily witnessed
since the end of the war in 1815.
Equally erroneous is the notion, that it is more for our in¬
terest to send abroad manufactures than raw produce or mo¬
ney. If you grant a bounty on an export, you do nothing
more or less than bribe a foreigner to make a purchase from
you; you withdraw from its natural destination a portion
of your capital and labour; for the sake of extending one
branch of business, you weaken your means of competition
in other’s. The money so long paid in the shape of boun¬
ties on one of our most popular exports, we mean British
linen under Is. 6d. a yard, is a public loss not only to the
extent in question, but to twice or three times that extent
in indirect injury; it has withheld the industry of our
countrymen from other lines, which they might have pro¬
secuted without a premium, and in which they would have
no occasion to dread the rivalship of their neighbours.
Mr Hume has justly remarked, that in a question of per¬
sonal right, the perception of a half-educated man may be
sufficiently sound; but that the case is very different in re¬
gard to matters of general policy, where the real is often
different from the apparent result. Now, this state of half
knowledge has been the origin of almost all our mercan¬
tile miscalculations; we have listened to first impressions,
and have not scrupled to give them a practical operation
by acts of parliament, without ever considering that the
remote consequences would be injurious to ourselves.
To what fatality is it then owing, that in this great Cause of
commercial country the public should still be so far behind false views
hand in a knowledge of the principles of trade. Unfortu-in trade.
nately these doctrines, though closely connected with the
national prosperity, have never formed an object of atten¬
tion at the English universities, and but indirectly and
imperfectly in those to the northward of the Tweed. Add
to this, that most of the works hitherto published on po¬
litical economy are written in an abstract, unattractive
style, fatiguing the attention of the reader by a long series
of reasoning, and seldom relieving him by diversity of
subject, or by the introduction of practical illustrations.
The public is still in want of a work which should convey
the liberal doctrines of the philosopher in the plain lan¬
guage of business, and support the course of reasoning by
an appeal to facts familiar to the mind of the merchant.
Our limits do not by any means admit of our supplying
this deficiency, or of bringing forward the arguments ne¬
cessary to erect a structure of conclusive reasoning; they
enable us only to state some of the more important re¬
sults, to which we shall now make a few additions.
We may safely discharge from our minds all that hasThetnn
been said, and all that has been written, in regard to the principles
greater relative advantage attendant in trading in this or °* com*
that particular commodity; we may feel satisfied thatme
profits are much more on an equality than is commonly
supposed; that no one would long be a dealer in that
which did not afford him advantage, or remain a stranger
to that which was throwing an extra gain into the pockets
of his neighbour. The same rule is applicable in a na¬
tional sense, the traffic in one commodity being either di¬
rectly or indirectly as productive of profit as in another.
Even foreign articles of luxury should not be discouraged,
since the money required to pay for them must be pre-
COM M E U C E.
Commerce, viously raised by the employment of British industry in
some useful manner. This affords a new proof of the fal¬
lacy of first impressions, and leads to the grand practical
conclusion of allowing people to “ buy commodities wher¬
ever they can be got cheapest, without seeking to favour
home produce above colonial, or colonial above foreign.”
Trade Merchants should possess unrestricted freedom, not only
ought to be in regard to the articles they deal in, but in respect to the
perfectly tjme 0p keeping them back or bringing them to market;
^ree" and this not only from the general title which every one
has to the management of his own property, but from a
conviction that whatever benefits the individual will be
productive of corresponding benefit to the public. This is
a point of the last importance, as reconciling the lower
orders to a variety of unpopular employments of capital,
such as buying up goods to be warehoused, and not
brought to market till prices are advanced. Take, for in¬
stance, the capitalist who buys a thousand hogsheads of
sugar on its arrival from the West Indies in August, for
the purpose of selling it in the succeeding March or
April. Such a transaction is of use to all parties, afford¬
ing, in the first instance, a customer for the planter or
planter’s correspondent; a depository for the public dur¬
ing the season that the article ought in great part to be
stored up; and finally a seller, at a time when, without
such deposits and such forthcoming of supply, the price
might have become exorbitant, and might have continued
so until the arrival of the next year’s crop. How appli¬
cable are these arguments to the most obnoxious of all
traders, the engrosser of corn !
The more we study the natural progress of commerce,
the more we shall be satisfied of the expediency of leav¬
ing all its various agents to their uncontrolled manage¬
ment. Business then divides itself, particularly in a large
city, into a variety of separate branches, each of which
may be carried on to a surprising extent by separate esta¬
blishments. The commission charged by such persons is
small, their dispatch extraordinary; capital does not re¬
main locked up in their hands, and goods find their way
to the market whenever prices are encouraging, that is,
whenever the consumers are in want of them; they are
withheld only when the market is glutted, and when to
force sales would be productive of eventual injury to the
buyers themselves. The doctrine of the happy medium is
nowhere more applicable than in commerce : if you reduce
prices for one season below what is necessary to indem¬
nify the producer, you discourage production for the next,
and you expose yourself to the hazard of a dearth.
Evil of mo- Monopoly is now generally admitted to be highly im-
nopolies. politic. No new grants of the kind have been issued
among us for many years, and every renewal of the char¬
ter of the East India Company has been marked by a di¬
minution of its restrictive character, till in 1834 its mono¬
poly was abolished. The public are now aware that a privi¬
leged company cannot make its purchases abroad on bet¬
ter terms than individuals, and that the chief operation of
the privilege is to enhance the sale prices, or, in other
words, to put money into the hands of a few at the ex¬
pense of the nation. They are further aware that the
concerns of a large corporation cannot be managed with
the minute economy and vigilance of the private mer¬
chant, and that its grand advantage lies in the intelligence
and dexterity acquired by the transaction of business to
a large extent by one establishment; an advantage of
great importance, but which has nothing to do with the
possession of exclusive privileges.
Commer- It is now about seventy years since the conclusion of Mr
Cial trea- Pitt’s well-known commercial treaty with France ; a treaty
ties> which many on both sides of the channel were inclined to
think particularly advantageous to us, and which certainly
195
afforded a grand object of declamation to Bonaparte. The Commerce,
fact, however, is, that such treaties are good only in as
far as they give general confidence to the merchants of
both countries; whenever they go farther, and interfere
by specific provisions, they are infallibly pernicious, and
not the least so to the apparently favoured nation. It
is a symptom of some promise in the present age that,
though backed by all Europe, our ministers did not, in the
treaties of either 1814 or 1815, go the length of imposing
any restraints on the trade of France, but left things to
their free course, subject only to such restrictions as might
be deemed indispensable by either government for the
protection of particular branches of manufacture.
The final conclusions to be drawn from the principles
of commerce are of the most comprehensive and benefi¬
cent nature. They teach us that every nation finds its
account in the prosperity of its neighbours ; that it would
experience a corresponding suffering from their decline ;
that to aim at engrossing more trade than naturally falls
to our share, is sooner or later injurious to ourselves ; and
that war, even when successful, is attended with the most
serious losses. War turns to waste a large portion of our
productive means; it leaves us oppressed with a ruinous
burden in peace; it impedes the future extension of our
exports, for the injury done to our neighbours recoils on
ourselves ; in short, it is so replete with evil to the public
and individuals, as to be justifiable only in an extreme
case, such as the defence of national independence, or the
overthrow of a tyrannical usurper.
Division and subdivision of employment forms the great Division of
distinction between a backward and an improved state ofempl°.v*
productive industry. It increases the efficiency of the men^ ?
mechanic or manufacturer to an extent of which no one 1
who has not studied the subject can have an adepuate tages.
conception. Now, the degree to which employment is
subdivided depends mainly on the size of a city or town;
and in estimating the state of civilization in a particular
country, we cannot have a better guide than the propor¬
tion of the inhabitants of towns to those of the open coun¬
try. Flanders and Holland were long the most improved
part of the north of Europe, and had the greatest number
of towns on a given extent of territory. This they still
have, with the exception of the counties (Lancashire and
the West Riding of York) which are the chief seats of
our manufactures. After the Netherlands in town popu¬
lation come the north of Italy and north-east of France,
along with the western part of Germany. Prussia and
Austria have each a comparatively small number of towns ;
Poland has still fewer, and Russia is the most deficient of
any country in Europe. In England the increase of town
population has been progressive during the last eighty or
ninety years, and bids fair to go on in an equal or greater
ratio.
The division of employment is the result of commerce
and of increased population. It is of two kinds; that
among individuals, by which a specific task is appropriated
to each, and that among nations, by which particular
kinds of products are raised to a greater extent in one
country than in another. * The latter is as yet only begin¬
ning to claim the attention of public men, for it has been
a frequent error with government to establish, in their
respective territories, a variety of manufactures, without
sufficiently weighing the local obstacles or disadvantages.
Of this France furnishes some striking examples, particu¬
larly in the case of iron. The abundance of coal in Eng¬
land, and the ease in conveying it, and other bulky goods,
by canals, give to our manufactures of iron and hardware
an advantage which France in vain endeavours to equal.
Her true policy would be to repeal the very heavy duties
on the import of our iron and hardware, and to trust to
196 COMM
Commerce, her means of supplying us with wine, brandy, and the other
/ natural products of her country to an equal or greater
amount.
Principles In point of knowledge of the great doctrines of political
of com- economy, Germany, or, to speak more properly, the Protes-
merce; |.ant. part 0p Germany, particularly Saxony, may be said to
understood ^eac^ °^er countries on the Continent. I he
abroad. Dutch, however exemplary in their practical legislation,
have little turn for speculative reasoning; the French have
not patience to follow through its various links a chain of
philosophical deductions ; but their admiration of whatever
is humane or liberal makes them wonderfully delighted with
the brilliant conclusions of the science. 1 hey have the ad¬
vantage of possessing, in the work of the late J. B. Say, the
best arranged general treatise that has hitherto appeared on
the subject; and they are by no means ill prepared for a
very extensive application of political improvements, such
as the abolition of privateering, the repeal of all heavy duties
on foreign goods, and the substitution of inland taxes for
those custom-house imposts which impede the free com¬
munication of nations. The rest of Europe is so much in
the dark in regard to the great truths of political science as
to see merely through the medium of local governments.
Such is the case likewise in Italy, although that country can
boast individuals of some note among the writers on the
principles of commerce, and the reflecting turn of the people
is favourable to such investigations; and even in Britain a
large party is still adverse to the unrestricted application of
these simple and beneficent principles, but this party is
daily diminishing. The happy effects of the free-trade prin¬
ciples, which have been for some time in operation, as proved
by the periodical returns of the Board of Trade, are facts
which cannot be withstood; and we may safely calculate,
that a few years will convert the remaining advocates of
protection to the free-trade faith.
It is surprising that a people so quicksighted, and so
keenly alive to their own interests, as the citizens of the
United States of America, should cling so obstinately to the
illiberal doctrines exploded in this country. If their na¬
tional expenditure demanded a revenue which could only
be raised with difficulty, there would be some apology for
their laying on heavy import duties; but with a large surplus
revenue there can be no good reason for laying on duties on
imported goods merely to protect certain manufacturers, and
so to interfere with the natural course of trade, and to enable
these manufacturers to charge a higher price for their com¬
modities than they could demand if the trade were left
free; or, in other words, to enable a portion of the com¬
munity to tax the great body of the citizens for their own
benefit.
Having thus briefly stated the principles of free trade,
we shall proceed to the practical topics which we proposed
to discuss, beginning with the consideration of the average
profit of capital employed in trade.
Limited !• It was common during the war to estimate the emolu-
profits of rnent of a wholesale business in Britain, in a well established
trade. concern, at ten per cent, on the capital. Moderate calcula¬
tors qualified this by calling it between eight and ten per
cent.; but they who were at great pains to take everything
into the account, and to enumerate a variety of petty deduc¬
tions which escape the sanguine reckoner, found that, in a
large concern, seven per cent, was in general the extent of
the clear earnings, leaving only two per cent, above that
which was the current rate of interest during the war.
Mercantile profits arc subject to a variety of unforeseen
deductions, originating partly in an accumulation of petty
expenses; but more, at least in business of long credit,
from deficient payments. The latter are technically called
bad debts, and almost always exceed the anticipated amount,
in consequence both of the sanguine temper of our country¬
men, and of the actual capital of the buyers being much in-
E R C E.
ferior to its appearance. Secrecy both as to capital and an- Commerce,
nual profit is considered as a first-rate point amongst mer-
cantile men. To the latter there can be no objection ; but
the concealment of the amount of capital, and the almost in¬
variable consequence, its exaggeration, are productive of
very pernicious effects. It is founded partly on the general
vanity, and more perhaps on an expectation of advantage
from a command of credit. But were the practice of trans¬
acting with ready money to become general, a merchant
would have no greater motive to be thought in affluence
than an individual in any other line. But be this as it may,
the fact is, that the clear profits of trade, whether home or
foreign, whether mercantile or manufacturing, whether re¬
tail or wholesale, are greatly below what the world imagines.
Many hold a contrary language with regal’d to trade in gen¬
eral ; but few do so in respect to their own particular busi¬
ness. “ Ours,” say they, “ is of limited emolument; but
other lines are very different, inasmuch as they admit of
speculation and of higher charges.” Whoever takes the
trouble to question men in almost any business or profession
may reckon on receiving a succession of such answers ; an¬
swers not suggested by a wish to deceive or to conceal the
profits of the individual, but originating in the general dis¬
position to take the ignotum pro magnifico.
We have naturally a strong disposition to contemplate
the past or the distant through a magnifying medium, and
to believe whatever the confident assertions of others, or
the love of wonder in ourselves, suggests with regard to re¬
ported wealth. Hence the allegations so confidently brought
forward in regard to the riches of ancient cities, and the no¬
tion generally entertained with respect to the rapidity of
fortune-making in our foreign settlements. India was long The East
proverbial in this respect; and it requires much more than Indies,
the usual stock of information to discover, that if we make
allowance for deaths, and disappointments from various
causes, the proportion of those who succeed in that country
is not greater than at home*; and that a fortune, when it
does happen to be made, is the result of the length of time,
of a habit of saving favoured by exemption from the ex¬
pense of a family, of rare political contingencies, or, finally,
of unusual opportunities consequent on the mortality of
competitors.
Another point in which delusion prevails, relates to the
effects of war, particularly that of 1793 ; a war in which we
still believe ourselves, and are believed by foreigners, to
have engrossed and absorbed the commerce of the world.
A reference, however, to official documents will show that
the exports and imports of the most boasted years of the
war in question were below those of the succeeding years
of suffering. The flag of our enemies was indeed expelled
from the ocean, but the greater proportion of trade passed
into the hands of neutrals; and when, in 1808, we took it
out of their possession, we were taught, by dear-bought ex¬
perience, that war, under any circumstances, is adverse to
commerce.
These observations must be understood not as intended
to depreciate the value of commerce, or to damp in the
individual the hopes of eventual success. They show, in¬
deed, that the ratio of profit is generally small, but they
afford the consolatory assurance that mercantile concerns
may be carried to a great extent, and that the amount of
gain may, in process of time, be rendered very considerable.
This leads us to advert to a matter of great interest to us
as we now stand relatively to the rival countries of the Con¬
tinent. It is a maxim, that commercial establishments,
whether in the mercantile or manufacturing line, should be
confined to a few objects, and conducted on a large scale.
It is by this only that the task of individuals can be simpli¬
fied, that employment can be subdivided, that work can be
put quickly through hands, or that we can provide on the
spot a supply of the various and indispensable requisites of
COMMERCE.
197
Commerce.
Specula¬
tion in
trade.
Frequency
of disap¬
pointment.
business. A large establishment affords the means of em¬
ployment to every kind of capacity ; in fact, the duty is so
facilitated as to become, in many cases, a mere routine ;
while the more intelligent and attentive workmen act as
superintendents, the mass of the unambitious and unthink¬
ing are occupied with the detail. It is owing to this pro¬
cess of subdivision, and to the relative magnitude of the
London workshops, that many articles can be supplied in
our metropolis as cheaply as in the provincial towns, where
labour is 40 per cent, lower. The same rule accounts for
the charge on the transaction of business by merchants, ac¬
countants, attornies, notaries, and agents, being less heavy
than might be apprehended from the greater expense of
living in London. Similar results take [dace in regard to
manufacture in such towns as Birmingham, Sheffield, Man¬
chester, Leeds ; and it is to this, more than to any other
cause, that we owe our ability to compete with the cheaper
labour of the Continent.
2. This analysis of the profit of trade leads us to say a
few words on a topic which has hitherto been very gene¬
rally misunderstood, we mean the profits of speculation in
trade. Among men of business this expression is applied
to incurring extensive hazards in the hope of extensive
emolument; in short, to whatever is foreign to the proper
business of the individual, or beyond the control of com¬
mon rules. It is to such undertakings that vulgar credulity
ascribes extraordinary profits ; and even well-informed men
are apt to give way to the assertions so confidently made,
of vast occasional gains in this line of business. Dr Smith
himself, after remarking ( Wealth of Nations, book i. chap.
10) that to make a fortune in a regular line commonly re¬
quires a long life of industry and frugality, adds, no doubt
on the faith of repeated assurances from mercantile friends,
that there are many examples of fortunes realized by spe¬
culators in the course of a few years. Now, the men who
embark in speculation are, in general, very loose account¬
ants'; their estimate of profits applies to the gross, never to
the net return ; besides, they are almost always adventurers,
and adventurers are seldom noted for the observance of
truth. Their favourite season of activity is a time like that
of 1808, when the sudden stoppage of ordinary intercourse
caused a rapid fluctuation in the price of commodities, and
when the regular merchants withdrew from the scene.
Now, what sober estimate can be formed of loss or gain in
such a chaos ? Add to this, that these men trade almost
always on credit, and are in need of all the support which
flattering representations, and rumours of sudden profit, can
give them. All these reasons seem to justify a deliberate
inquirer in doing what is seldom done on such occasions,
we mean in withholding his belief from the confident alle¬
gations of speculators, so long as they are not supported by
collateral evidence.
Our opinion is, that instead of the large profits com¬
monly ascribed to this course of trade, the individuals con¬
cerned in it experience little else than disappointments, and
maintain a perpetual struggle to keep up a fair appearance
to the world. This opinion is founded partly on a know¬
ledge of the actual career and circumstances of speculators,
but more on the wrell-known fact, that almost every line of
business is in the hands of established merchants, who, of
course, are too vigilant to overlook the opportunity of emo¬
lument, and who have much better means of information
than temporary interlopers. Still, should there remain
doubts as to the accuracy of our opinion, the question may
be brought to a point by reference to the account-books
of any given number of celebrated speculators ; their affairs
end almost always in bankruptcy ; their papers continue
open to access for years in the hands of their solicitors or
assignees; and we are much mistaken if an inspection of
them would show in one case out of ten, that the parties
had at any period succeeded in realizing their boasted profits.
We have been induced to dwell the more on the boasts Commerce,
of speculators, because they are productive of great mis- —^
chief in unsettling persons in business, particularly young Pernicious
men, and in making them look on their proper line with effects of
comparative indifference. It would be endless to attempt specula-
an enumeration of the various w’ays in wffiich the rage fortlon*
speculation has brought misfortune on merchants and
manufacturers. The opening of a new country, such as
Buenos Ayres, Brazil, or Caraccas, led to the export not
only of a prodigious overstock of merchandise fitted for the
country, but of many articles totally unsuited to the climate
and habits of the people. Again, in 1814, when the wrar
with France was drawing to a close, goods, both colonial
and manufactured, were poured into the Continent of
Europe, as if the compass of the markets was unbounded,
and as if the calamities of war had produced no decrease of
disposable capital. In 1825, our speculations abroad were
most unfortunate, while at home vast sums were lavished
in buildings, in mines, in manufactories, and other establish¬
ments, which never had a fair prospect of success, and owed
their origin to the sanguine imagination of one projector,
and the credulity of another.
The country in which trade shone forth in all its splen-Holland;
dour, where it was cultivated without the support of arms instruc"
or prohibitory regulations, where, in short, it developed tlve.ex’
its beneficial tendency in all its extent, was Holland. If ^
we look to the early enterprises of the Dutch, we find them
enabled, by the power of their productive industry, to assert
their independence at home, and to assail their enemies in
the remotest part of their empire. The Portuguese in
the east, and the Spaniards in the west, were each found
unequal to the task of resisting these republicans. A proud
stand was made by them against the navy of England, and
they did not fall into despair even when assailed by our
forces in conjunction with those of France. Afterwards,
when happily restored to our alliance, and when they co¬
operated with us in the great struggle against Louis XIV.,
it is surprising how large a proportion both of troops and
subsidies was furnished by this apparently inconsiderable
state. “No country,” says Sir William Temple, “can be
found where so vast a trade has been managed, yet the in¬
habitants have no native commodities towards building ves¬
sels, and hardly any that are considerable for traffic with
their neighbours. Holland is grown rich by force of in¬
dustry, by improvement and manufacture of foreign growths.”
Proceeding to specify more particularly the causes of this
mercantile prosperity, Sir William enumerates “ the easy
communication of water, particularly by the Rhine and
Maese; the security of property; the undisturbed liberty
of conscience, and the progressive influx of people perse¬
cuted for their religious opinions in Flanders, England,
France, and Germany.” Such were the original causes:
those of subsequent operation were the “ general habit of
industry and economy ; the formation of canals ; the insti¬
tution of banks ; the low interest of money ; the appropria¬
tion of particular towns to particular branches of business ;
application to the fisheries, and, what he regrets much should
not exist in England, the practice of keeping an official re¬
gister of all purchases of land or houses ;” a practice intro¬
duced into Holland and Flanders in the reign of Charles
V., and which at present exists in Scotland, to the incal¬
culable convenience and security of money transactions.
3. We are now to say a few words on a different topic, Effects of
namely, the effects of trade in forming the character of in- trade upon
dividuals ; a matter of no little importance in a country like individu-
ours, where merchants both constitute so large a portion ofals-
the community, and exercise such influence on the proceed¬
ings of government. The mercantile character has a num¬
ber of good points, being exempt from the vacuity and in¬
decision so frequent in fashionable life, as well as from the
various vices consequent on idleness, and which are so
198
Commerce.
Merchants
unaccus¬
tomed to
general
views.
Open to
erroneous
impres¬
sions.
Ead effect
of long cre¬
dits ;
exempli-
tied in our
export
business.
COMM
strikingly exemplified in the gambling and libertinism of
the French metropolis. Whatever good is produced by
continued activity, and by a pointed attention to the specific
objects of one’s occupation, may be confidently looked for
among commercial men; with the farther advantage, in
large concerns, of an exemption from petty jealousies and
invidious interferences. In such cities as London and
Amsterdam, merchants are aware that the field is ample for
all; that the prosperity of one is very far from impeding
that of others ; and that when disappointment and failure
occur, their origin will be found in a very different cause
than competition. Here, however, we must close our
encomium, and, in the spirit of impartiality, proceed to ex¬
hibit the opposite side of the picture. I he merchants
knowledge is particular, not general; he obtains a habit of
understanding individual character, and a dexterity in man¬
aging his own affairs; but he has not, and cannot, from his
course of occupation, acquire the power of reasoning com¬
prehensively on the interests of trade. If he observe in
war a tendency to raise prices, or to invigorate particular
lines of trade, such as ship-owning or insurance, he will
probably be led to the general inference, that to a mari¬
time country war is advantageous. Our last contests hav¬
ing been attended with the undisputed command of the
ocean, nothing more was required to satisfy the majority of
traders that our mercantile marine was in a state of equal
ascendency. They took au pied de la lettre the custom¬
house reports of our annual exports, without observing how
much was to be deducted on account of the depreciation of
our bank paper, or how surely we were laying the founda¬
tion of future distress, by submitting to enormous taxation.
Again, when in 1807 the long continuance of war had given
a serious wound to our trade and navigation, a majority of
the merchants ascribed it, not to the true cause, but to the
undermining competition of the Americans. Their range
of reflection was not such as to enable them to perceive
that, by overturning the prosperity of the latter, we should
sap the foundation of our own ; and that every million
which we prevented our Transatlantic neighbours from
adding to their capital, was so much withdrawn from a fund
devoted to the increase of the productive industry of Britain.
Hence our unfortunate orders in council, the main cause of
the overthrow of our exchanges with the Continent, of the
increase of our expenses in Spain and Germany, of our war
with the United States, in short, of the long continuance
of our sufferings since the peace.
4. Nothing would, in our opinion, conduce more to the
prosperity of trade than the adoption of the plan of doing
all wholesale business for ready money, and the relinquish¬
ment of that habit of long credit which prompts to unguarded
enterprise, and has for so many years been the principal
cause of crowding the columns of our gazettes.
To show the results of long credit, it is necessary to go
at some length into practical illustration, and to apprise our
readers of the real situation of the majority of our manu¬
facturers and export merchants. A manufacturer on the
present footing receives orders in the course of the year
from twenty or thirty mercantile houses; the goods to be
exported probably to the West Indies, the United States,
the Spanish Main, or Brazil; the understood term of credit
twelve months. The manufacturer does not receive the
orders from abroad; he has an intermediate guarantee, that
of the exporting merchant. Still the risk is considerable ;
but he naturally hopes for the best, and is unwilling to de¬
cline an order when it comes to him from a quarter of re¬
spectability. Now by mercantile respectability our readers
are to understand integrity, and the intention of acting up
to engagements; but the power of doing so, especially at a
remote date, is a very different question, and is, in general,
possessed in a much smaller degree than the public imagine.
The trader whose capital is L.30 000 will not scruple to
E R C E.
ship goods to the value of L 40,000, first in the hope, so Commerce,
general among merchants, of realizing a handsome profit,
and next in the confidence that should the foreign market
be dull, and should delays occur in obtaining returns within
the given time, his credit will procure him indulgence for
several months, at the end of which the expected remit¬
tances can hardly fail to arrive. He may, and in general
does go on for several years without much embarrassment,
receiving indeed less than he sends out, but informed that
all has been well sold, and cannot fail to be soon realized.
He thus goes on pleasing himself at every balance of his
books with the seeming profit, and only regretting that
hitherto that profit has not been tangible, since it exists in
the shape of a debt due by his Transatlantic correspondents.
He continues, however, under a favourable expectation of
their making up for past deficiencies, and flatters himself
that the delay has resulted from partial or temporary causes.
He begins to find himself straitened for funds, but has as
yet little difficulty in obtaining relief from a monied friend,
or a prolonged credit from the manufacturers. His cor¬
respondents continue to w rite in a strain of confidence, and
to call for more goods, which, if he be of a confiding cha¬
racter, wall lead him to extend the annual amount of his ship¬
ments ; but at all events he is obliged to continue a certain
supply, for the sake of keeping up the assortment of stock.
Still he finds that year after year a larger portion of his
capital remains on the other side of the Atlantic, and that
his correspondents, however desirous (for we by no means
put an extreme case), are unable to prevent an accumula¬
tion of debt, because they are in like manner left unpaid
by the inhabitants of the country. To go to law would be
of no avail, since it is the policy of almost every government
in a recently-settled country to favour the debtor, and to
give him the means of retaining capital in his hands. Affairs
now begin to be serious with the exporter; the manufac¬
turers and other creditors cannot or will not give further
time, and demand an explanation of his circumstances.
This explanation takes place, and serves to show that their
debtor is a man of honour, with more assets than debts, but
the latter are certain, while the former are at a distance of
3000 miles. The consequence is a grant of time, an allow¬
ance to the debtor of two, three, or four years, to act under
letter of license, in the hope of accomplishing that which, it
is evident, cannot be performed sooner. This is, in general,
both the wisest and most liberal course; still it is not often
found to succeed, because the foreign debts can seldom be
realized in climates where life is held by so uncertain a
tenure, where respectable agents are so rarely found, w'here
buyers of goods have so little capital, and, above all, where
the law allows them such a length of time for payment. A
few of the promised instalments are probably made good
but in general the merchant recognises the impracticability
of fulfilling the remainder, and finds it eventually necessary
to submit to bankruptcy.
In Holland, we find that in its better days, bargains were Holland a
almost always made for ready money, or for so short a date country of
as six weeks or tw'o months; profits were small in their short cre-
ratio, but the quickness of returns made them eventuallydit*
large; failures were rare, even in so distressing an era as
the occupation of their country by the French, which began
in 1795, and involved, from the outset, a stoppage of mari¬
time intercourse with all their possessions in India and
America. The consequence of this stoppage was a decay
of trade, a suspension of various undertakings, a scarcity of
work, a miserable dulness in the sale of goods ; all leading,
in the first instance, to diminished income, and eventually
to encroachment on capital; but, amidst this distress, the
failures were surprisingly few, fewer indeed than occur in
Britain in any ordinary season. Another example, equally
replete w'ith instruction, was the state of France after the
double invasion of 1814 and 1815. There prevailed at
COMMERCE. 199
Commerce, that time a general discouragement among the upper ranks,
and a great deal of wretchedness among the lower, trade
being at a stand, and stocks of goods lying unsold in shops
or warehouses for years; still bankruptcy was exceedingly
rare. All this shows what a satisfactory prospect we may
anticipate when we adopt the plan of transacting the greater
part of our business for ready money.
Benefit Yet we are far from recommending any law or measure
from an to enforce that object; the evident advantage of the plan
abolition of wp] not fap to secure its adoption. One great obstacle which
[aws110116^ st0°d in waY °f the system of cash payments in
mercantile transactions, arose from the impolitic laws which
limited the interest on borrowed money to five per cent.
The usury laws being now repealed, the money-holder may
lend to the merchant at such a rate of interest as the state
of the market entitles him to receive. Formerly, when the
market rate of interest exceeded five per cent., the merchant
could only borrow money for the purposes of his trade by
resorting to some subterfuge, such as life policies, which had
the effect of enhancing the interest to an extravagant
rate.
III. COMMERCIAL FLUCTUATIONS IN THE PRESENT AGE ;
EVILS OF AN UNDUE EXPENDITURE BY GOVERNMENT.
The present age has been remarkable beyond all others
for fluctuations in the state of trade, and in the value of pro¬
perty as represented in money. During the twenty years
of war, from 1794 to 1814, there was a continued rise of
prices; while a decline, almost equally great and long con¬
tinued, has taken place since the peace. The public long
flattered themselves that individual property in this country
had received during the war an increase unexampled in our
history ; the visions inspired by high prices have disappeared,
and the computation of our augmented wealth seems to have
had no solid foundation.
The reaction in the money value of income and property
has been productive of great embarrassment and distress.
The causes of it are and have long been a subject of anxious
consideration, but they have not as yet been satisfactorily
explained. To this we shall devote the rest of this article,
premising that the subject is rather intricate, and will call
for the close attention of the reader.
The rise in the price of commodities in the late wars
with France was steadily progressive, and reached event¬
ually a great height. If we compute the degree of en¬
hancement in provisions, wages, rents, and almost every
thing except manufactures, we shall find it to have been
at the close of the war sixty or seventy per cent, on the
prices of 1792 ; in other words, in the year 1812, L.160 or
L.170 were required to make the purchases which in 1792
might have been made for L.100.
This great advance is commonly ascribed to our bank
paper, in particular to its increased issue and inconvertibility
into cash in 1797. Admitting these to have been the main
causes of the rise, it may be well to explain the mode in
which they operated, and to endeavour to give a definite
form to what is generally brought forward as vague allega¬
tion. This is a nice question, and will require a reference
to our expenditure in former years.
It is now fully a century and a half since this country
adopted the funding system, or the plan of carrying on war
with borrowed money. The result was both a great in¬
crease of yearly expenditure, and a continuance of that in¬
crease for a number of years. That a state of war en¬
hances the price of commodities is generally admitted ; the
point is, to define in what manner it produces that effect.
It does so chiefly in three ways:
1. By increasing taxes.
2. By withdrawing capital from productive to unproduc¬
tive purposes; from agriculture, manufactures, and trade,
to the maintenance of fleets and armies. The manner of
doing this is by public loans, and the result is a rise gener- Commerce,
ally very considerable in the rate of interest.
3. By withdrawing several hundred thousand men from
productive to unproductive employment; that is, from agri¬
culture, manufactures, and the work of mechanics, to service
in the army and navy, or to preparing arms, clothing, and
the various naval and military stores required by govern¬
ment. The number of men thus withdrawn from produc¬
tive employment in the late wars was on an average 600,000,
or fifteen per cent, of our able-bodied population.
These causes of enhancement have operated powerfully
in every war since the time of William III.; but in the
military contests of the present age there were two addi¬
tional causes of great importance, viz.
4. The repeated insufficiency of our crops, and the neces¬
sity of importing large quantities of corn.
5. The inconvertibility and eventual depreciation of our
bank paper.
The effect of an insufficient crop in raising prices is easily
understood ; that of our bank paper requires some expla¬
nation. What then was the consequence of our bank pa¬
per becoming inconvertible, or no longer payable in cash ?
It was not so much an increase in the amount of our circu¬
lating medium, as a certainty of a continued supply. Dur¬
ing the first years of the war, 1793, f 794, 1795, 1796, and
the early part of 1797, our financial difficulties had been
serious, and the expenditure of government had been re¬
peatedly checked by remonstrances from the bank, founded
on the state of foreign exchanges, and the drain, or appre¬
hended drain, of gold from its coffers. But after the exemp¬
tion of the bank from cash payments, there was an end of
such apprehensions, and government possessed an uninter¬
rupted command of money, because the checks on its sup¬
ply were removed.
Again, the direct causes of rise of prices in war are in¬
crease of taxation, and the withdrawing of men and capital
from productive employment. Now to these causes, which
in former times were restricted both in their duration and
extent, the exemption from paying bank paper in cash gave
a scope almost unlimited. The uninterrupted supply of
money consequent on the exemption was felt in every de¬
partment ; among agriculturists in the payment of rents,
among merchants in the discount of bills, and in the commu¬
nity at large by a silent acquiescence in the rise of wages,
salaries, and the price of commodities ; a rise which the war
rendered necessary, but which had been strongly resisted
until 1 797. Hence a power in the public of paying taxes
and making loans to an unexampled amount. Facilities so
many and so great went far to persuade the public that the
successive additions to the sums of money paid for rents,
wages, and the purchase of commodities, were proofs of in¬
creasing wealth. Few persons could perceive that this in¬
crease was, in a great measure, nominal; and still fewer
could foresee the distressing extent of a reaction on the
return of peace. Had our ministry been at all aware of that
reaction, their scale of expenditure would have been very
different.
Such were the causes of the rise of prices during the war;
the fall has been almost as great since the peace, because
circumstances have been altogether different. Government
have needed less both of men and money, and have left
both to be employed productively by the public. Many
persons imagine that, had there been no such act as that of
1819, and had the exemption from cash payments been con¬
tinued, prices would have been kept up, and the public
would have been saved a great part of the distress that took
place after 1819. In this, however, they go too far; their
argument holds good only to a limited extent. During the
war the exemption from cash payments had a most power¬
ful effect on the prices; in peace its operation would have
been temporary and partial, because the circumstances of
200
COMMEECE.
Commerce.
the country were entirely altered. The causes of enhance¬
ment arising from war no longer existed; our men and
capital were restored to productive employment; both served
to augment our yearly supply of commodities, and conse¬
quently to furnish them at a cheaper rate. We were, be¬
sides, in open intercourse with the Continent, and in that
case there is a continued tendency to a reduction ot prices.
Every year our markets felt the lowering effects of imports
from countries less heavily burdened.
This was in a manner proved by experience. During no
less than five years of peace, from 1814 to 1819, our bank
notes were exempt from payment in cash, yet our prices
progressively declined. All this shows that our prices would
have decreased greatly after 1819, by the mere operation
of peace, had there been no return to cash payments. It
suggests also a consideration of considerable importance at
the present moment, namely, that we ought to form a very
moderate estimate of the effect that a return to small notes
would produce on prices. That measure would tend to
arrest the progress of distress, by preventing a further fall of
prices; but it would be too much to expect that it could cause
them to be reinstated, or to rise in any material degree.
It is a remarkable fact, that the difference in value be¬
tween gold and bank paper was very slight for a length of
time after the bank notes had ceased to be payable in cash.
During no less than twelve years after 1797, the deprecia¬
tion of our bank paper seldom reached five or six per cent.,
and that only at intervals when the import of foreign corn,
as in 1801, or the payment of large subsidies, as in 1805,
brought down our exchanges with the Continent. At last,
in 1809, the fall of the exchanges, and the depreciation of
bank notes, became very serious, and continued to be so
during the remainder of the war. The causes were, the ex¬
pense of the war in Portugal and Spain, which could not be
defrayed by bills or bank notes, but required a great deal of
coin; and the stoppage, by our orders in council, of the
trade of America with the Continent of Europe, and of the
large remittances to England arising from that trade.
These facts ought to be carefully considered, for they
enable us to make a distinction of great importance in re¬
gard to bank paper when not convertible into cash. Irre¬
gular as such paper is, it may, when issued by so respect¬
able an establishment as the Bank of England, and received
and circulated freely for the purposes of sound money, such
as paying taxes, making purchases, and discharging debts,
maintain the value of coin for many years. It falls only
when large sums are required abroad, and the payment of
them must of course take place in gold and silver. It was
thus that our bank paper, after so long maintaining its value,
fell so suddenly and to so great an extent after 1809. From
that time forward it proved a most unprofitable mode of pay¬
ing on the Continent; while in this country it continued to
circulate without any perceptible loss.
This difference in the local value of our notes, their de¬
preciation abroad while their value was maintained at home,
was long unperceived by the public. The want of this dis¬
tinction accounts for a great part of the contradiction that
prevailed on the bullion question. Of the various witnesses
examined before the committee in 1810, a number insisted
positively, and without qualification, that our bank paper
was depreciated, and an equal number that it was not. The
writers of the report maintained the former, and alleged
that the depreciation arose from over-issue ; but they were
wholly unable to reconcile their opinion with facts, for it was
contradicted by the official returns from the bank, which
showed that there was no necessary connection between
the amount of the notes in circulation and the degree of
their depreciation. What was the result of this singular Commerce,
discrepancy? Each opinion had its advocates, and perhaps
in equal number, until 1814, when, on the return of Bona¬
parte from Elba, an apprehension by the public of imme¬
diate war caused our exchanges with the Continent, and
consequently our bank notes, compared with specie, to fall
ten per cent, in one week. A few months afterwards, on
the close of the war, the exchanges and bank paper were
promptly reinstated, and all without altering the quantity
of notes in circulation ; for it had neither been increased at
the time their value fell, nor contracted when it recovered.
These remarkable facts were observed by the late Mr
Horner, and led his candid mind to review its former im¬
pressions. He then felt that in the bullion report he had
carried too far the charge of over-issue by the bank, and
made an admission to that effect before his death to Mr
William Blake, the author of two very able pamphlets on
subjects connected with the currency.
It appears, therefore, that the depreciation of our bank
paper, compared to coin, though eventually great, was local
and temporary. It applied strongly to foreign parts, but at
home its effect was far from being general, and affected
chiefly the articles which we wrere in the habit of importing
from the Continent. Of these, corn was by far the most
important. It happened unfortunately that the crops of 1809
and 1811 were both deficient, and that large imports were
indispensable : hence a rise in our corn markets to a de¬
gree which would certainly not have taken place had not
our currency been greatly depreciated on the Continent.
We are thus enabled to perceive the great defect in the
report of the bullion committee in 1810; a defect which
was productive of very general perplexity. It consisted in
making no distinction between two things which were very
different; the rise of prices in consequence of the war, and
the rise from the depreciation of our bank paper. The bul¬
lion report implied a belief that the two were coincident in
point both of time and amount; whereas with regard to
time, the rise of prices from the war had begun in 1 795,
before our bank paper could be depreciated; and as to
amount, it (the rise of prices) had reached the height of
thirty or forty per cent., compared to the prices of 1792, at
a time (1805, 1806) when the inferiority of our paper to
coin was not above five or six per cent. In short, the rise
of prices began soon after the war, and lasted twenty years
without intermission; whilst the depreciation of our bank
notes was slight and temporary until 1809, and prevailed to
a serious extent during little more than five or six years.
Enough has now been stated to show the importance ofconcla-
studying the principles of trade, leading as they do tocon-sion.
elusions very different from those of the multitude. How
few men would have believed, half a century ago, that after
the separation of the North American colonies our trade
with them would be greater than ever! How few would
formerly have believed that, of the French public, described
as so eager for war, nine persons in ten are anxious for peace;
regarding war, at least war with England, as the greatest
misfortune that could befal their country! Equally unpre¬
pared were many persons to believe that, amidst all the dis¬
tress of late years, amidst the general fall of prices, and the
decline of wages, salaries, and incomes, the real wealth of this
country, and the yearly amount of our manufacturing and
agricultural produce, have been steadily on the increase.
Such are a few of the results of the study of the principles
of commerce; results sufficiently gratifying to repay that
anxious investigation, that long-continued and pains-taking
research, which are indispensable to place our conclusions
on a sure basis. (J. l—e.)
COM
Commercy COMMERCY, a town of France, capital of a cogno-
II _ minal arrondissement in the department of Meuse, on the
Commis- ieft 0f the river of that name, 20 miles east of Bar-
, le-Duc. Pop. (1851) of town, 3735 ; of arrondissement,
—* 87,664.
COMMEWINA, a river of Guiana, in South America,
which rises in the mountains in the interior, and falls into
the Surinam, about ten miles from its mouth. It is from
two to four miles in breadth, but so shallow, and so full of
quicksands, small islands, and rocks, that its navigation is
very difficult. On its banks are some fine plantations of
coffee and sugar.
COMMINATION (Lat. comminatio), a denunciation
of ill; a threatening of punishment or vengeance. In the
liturgy of the Church of England, an office appointed to be
read on the first day of Lent, or Ash-Wednesday. It is sub¬
stituted in the room of that (jodhj discipline in the primitive
church, by which, as the introduction to the office expresses
it, “ such persons as stood convicted of notorious sins were
put to penance, and punished in this world, that their souls
might be saved in the day of the Lord; and that others,
admonished by their example, might be the more afraid to
offend.” This discipline, in after ages, degenerated in the
Church of Rome into a formal confession of sins upon Ash-
Wednesday, and the empty ceremony of sprinkling ashes
upon the heads of the people. But our reformers rejected
the ceremony as mere show and shadow, and substituted in
its room this office, which is entitled “ A Comminution or
Denouncing of God’s anger and judgment against sinners.”
COMMINUTION (Lat. comminuere, to reduce into
small parts), the crushing, or rather grinding a body into
minute particles.
COMMIRE, John, a learned French Jesuit, born at
Ambois in 1625; died in 1702 at Paris, where he taught
rhetoric and divinity. He wrote odes and fables in Latin,
and also paraphrased the psalms and prophets.
COMMISSARY (one to whom any thing is committed),
in the ecclesiastical law, an officer of the bishop, who exer¬
cises spiritual jurisdiction in places of a diocese so far from
the episcopal see that the chancellor cannot call the people
to the bishop’s principal consistory court without putting
them to inconvenience.
Commissary Court, in Scotland, a court originally con¬
stituted by the bishops, and anciently called the bishop’s
court, curia Christianitatis, or consistorial court. This
court was regulated by Queen Mary at the Reformation,
and continued in a certain modified form as a separate tri¬
bunal until a recent period, when the power and jurisdic¬
tion was transferred to the Court of Session. See Scot¬
land.
COMMISSION—COMMISSIONER. The word com¬
mission, from one of the many meanings of the Latin com-
mitto, whence it is derived, has been extensively used to
express the imparting of power and authority by a superior
to an inferior. The terms are used for a great variety of
functionaries both in this and in other countries; and while
the prime minister of Britain is generally the first commis¬
sioner of the treasury, the person whose duty it is to carry
the messages for the guests at a French inn is called the
commissionaire. In its older use in Britain it was gene¬
rally restricted to authority proceeding directly from the
Crown. In many late instances, however, persons employed
by the secretary of state or any other minister to conduct
investigations for the public service have been called com¬
missioners, and more lately the term has been applied to
persons employed to make special inquiries into local abuses
or other matters of interest by the publishers of newspapers.
In the army the old distinction is still preserved, those who
from the rank of ensign upwards receive their authority to
command under the sign-manual being called commis¬
sioned officers, while serjeants and corporals are called non-
VOL. VII.
COM 201
commissioned. There are some great offices of state which Commis-
it has lately been the practice to supersede by commissions. sion>
The lord high treasurer, and the lord high admiral, whose
authority was exercised by mere investment with the in¬
signia of office, have been superseded by commissions, the
head of each department being called the first lord com¬
missioner. The great seal is sometimes placed in commis¬
sion. An account of the various commissions in Great
Britain would be an account of the greater part of the offi¬
cial administration of the country. Many of them are
judicial, as the commissioners of oyer and terminer in
England, the commission of teinds in Scotland, and the
various commissions of the peace. Others are purely ad¬
ministrative, such as the poor-law commission, the board
of health, and the revenue boards. Some commissioners
are especially appointed by statute, as the commission of
supply in Scotland ; while others are elected by certain con¬
stituencies acting under statutory authority, as, for instance,
police and improvement commissioners. The permanent
commissions are generally of immemorial constitutional ex¬
istence, or have been created by statute. Sometimes com¬
missions of inquiry have been issued by the sovereign on a
parliamentary address, or without this preliminary. It is
usual in such commissions to impart authority for summon¬
ing and examining witnesses. From the general spirit of
co-operation in all useful public inquiries, such powers have
seldom been disputed, and in general those appointed to
make inquiries under mere ministerial instruction have sel¬
dom felt any difficulty in obtaining testimony. When, how¬
ever, the royal commission for inquiry into municipal cor¬
porations in England was issued, the London companies con¬
ceived themselves sufficientlypowerful to resist investigation.
The Merchant Tailors’ Company, in November 1833, ex¬
pressing their readiness to disclose their affairs to any com¬
petent tribunal, passed, among other resolutions, one to the
effect “ that this court being satisfied that any information
given by their authority to the municipal corporation com¬
missioners would be purely voluntary, feel that they can¬
not, consistently with the ancient and lawful oath taken by
each individual on his admission to the court of assistants,
disclose any matter which in their knowledge or judgment
was not intended to be published,” They were backed by
an elaborate opinion from Sir James Scarlett (afterwards
Lord Abinger), Mr Follet, and Mr Rennell. Sir James said,
“ I am of opinion that the Crown cannot by virtue of the
prerogative alone compel any subject to make communica¬
tions or disclosures upon oath or otherwise, except in a due
course of the administration of justice. The Crown may
issue a commission to hear and determine offences against
the law; and in cases where the Crown is visitor of eccle¬
siastical corporations or hospitals, it may visit by special
commissioners as well as by the chancellor. But even then
the visitorial power must be called into action like any other
judicial power by the complaint of some party grieved, to
whom the ordinary means of redress have been refused, or
by way of appeal from some domestic forum which has ex¬
ercised its judgment upon a specific complaint. But I ap¬
prehend that a roving commission to inquire for grievances
and to compel answers, even in cases where the Crown can
visit by commissioners, much more in cases where it can¬
not, is clearly contrary to law.” (j, h. b.)
Commission of Bankrupt. See Bankruptcy.
Commission, in Commerce. See Commerce.
Commission of Lunacy issues out of the court of chan¬
cery, in order to try whether a person represented to be a
lunatic be so or not. See Mental Diseases.
Commission, Military, the warrant authorizing the holder
to exercise the functions of his office in military affairs.
In the British army, as well as in the navy, all the com¬
missions of officers are signed by the sovereign. The ori¬
ginal commission, and each step in promotion, may either
2 c
202
COMMISSION.
Commis- be acquired by purchase, according to the rules of the ser-
sion. vjce . or t]ie appointment and promotion may be made with-
out purchase by the commander-in-chief; but the commis¬
sions in the navy, the artillery, the engineers, and the
marines, are conferred by the ministry without purchase.
Cadets who have completed a course of military education
at Sandhurst are likewise appointed without purchase.
Prices of Commissions.
strength of the various regiments, for this retrenchment of Commis.
their emoluments. sion.
Rank.
Life Guards.
Lieutenant-Colonel.
Major 
Captain 
Lieutenant 
Cornet 
Royal Regiment of Horse Guards.
Lieutenant-Colonel 
Major 
Captain   
Lieutenant  
Cornet 
Dragoon Guards and Dragoons.
Lieutenant-Colonel 
Major 
Captain 
Lieutenant 
Cornet 
Foot Guards.
Lieutenant-Colonel 
Major, with rank of Colonel 
Captain, „ Lieut.-Col..
Lieutenant, „ Captain —
Ensign, „ Lieutenant.
Regiments of the Line.
Lieutenant-Colonel..
Major 
Captain  
Lieutenant 
Ensign 
Fusilier and Rifle Regiments.
1st Lieutenant 
2d Lieutenant 
missions,
L.
7250
5350
3500
1785
1260
7250
5350
3500
1600
1200
6175
4575
3225
1190
840
9000
8300
4800
2050
1200
4500
3200
1800
700
450
700
500
Difference in
value between
the several
Commissions
in succession.
L. s.
1900 0
1850 0
1715 0
525 0
1900 0
1850 0
1900 0
400 0
1600 0
1350 0
2035 0
350 0
700 0
3500 0
2750 0
850 0
1300 0
1400 0
1100 0
250 0
200 0
Difference in
value between
Full and Half-pay
L. s. d,
1533 0 0
1352 0 0
1034 3 4
632 13 4
300 0 0
1314 0 0
949 0 0
511 0 0
365 0 0
150 0 0
365 0 0
200 0 0
Rates of Daily Pay of Officers.
Rank of Offices.
Lieutenant-Colonel 
Major 
Captain  
Do. having higher rank hy l
hrevet  J
Lieutenant 
Do. after 7 years’ ser- |
vice as a Lieutenant j
Cornet   
Ensign.   
Paymaster 
Do. after 5 years’ ser- j
vice in that rank on full i
Pay i
Do. after 15 years 
Do. after 20 years (or
25 on full pay as a commis¬
sioned officer, including not
less than 15 as a Paymas¬
ter)  
Adjutant (in addition to the i
pay of Subaltern) J
Surgeon 
Do. after 10 years’ ser- \
vice on full pay in the army l
as medical officer )
Do. after 20 years 
Do. after 25 years 
Assistant-Surgeon 
Do. after 10 years’ 1
service J
Veterinary Surgeon 
Do. after 3 years’ser-
vice as a medical officer on
full pay 
Do. after 10 years
service.....  
Do. after 20 years
service  
Quarter Master 
Do. after 10 years
service  
Do. after 15 years
service   
Dragoon
Guards and
Dragoons.
L. s. d.
13 0
0 19 3
0 14 7
0 9 0
0 8 0
0 12 6
0 15 0
0 17 6
10 0
0 2 6
0 13 0
0 15 0
0 19 0
12 0
0 8 6
0 11 0
0 8 0
0 10 0
0 12 0
0 15 0
0 8 6
0 10 6
0 12 0
Infantry of
the Line.
L. s. d.
0 17 0
0 16 0
0 11
0 13
0 6
0 7
0 5 3
0 12 6
0 15 0
0 17 6
10 0
0 3 3
0 13 0
0 15 0
0 19 0
12 0
0 7 6
0 10 0
0 6 6
0 8 6
0 10 0
Staff Corps,
L. s. d.
0 15 0
0 9 0
0 6 6
0 8 6
0 10 0
The commissioned officers of a battalion of infantry are
as follows :—colonel, lieutenant-colonel, and major, who are
called field-officers ; captain, lieutenant, and ensign, who are
called regimental officers ; and chaplain, adjutant, quarter¬
master, and surgeon, who are called staff-officers.
Rate of Annual Pay of Officers.
Rank of Officek (Colonel).
If appointed before 1st March 1834
If appointed after that day 
first
Dragoon
Guards.
L.
1000
Other Re¬
giments of
Cavalry.
L.
1000
900
Regular
Infantry.
L.
600
500
The regiments of guards have not only higher pay and
greater sums allowed for clothing than the other regiments,
but the officers take precedence of officers of other corps.
The ensigns in the guards take rank as lieutenants, lieu¬
tenants as captains, and captains as lieutenant-colonels.
Until lately, colonels of cavalry and infantry, besides their
regular pay, derived a considerable addition to their emolu¬
ments from the off-reckonings of the clothing allowance.
But now (1854) government intend to issue the clothing of
soldiers in kind, and allow a compensation of from L.450
to L.1000 per annum to the colonels, according to the
A military commission was in 1854 appointed by her
Majesty to report upon the several modes of promotion in
the army ; and the result of their deliberations has been, that
promotion is in future to be bestowed on account of merit,
and not altogether from seniority. This principle, which
was to a certain extent a concession to the popular de¬
mands, is calculated more than anything else to raise the
character of the service, and to put the British army on the
same footing with regard to the people as the armies of
continental Europe stand to the nations to which they re¬
spectively belong. It will, however, only obtain gradually,
by the alternate promotion of senior colonels on the list
with those promoted from distinguished service, until the
existing establishment is reduced to 234 general officers,
of whom 50 shall be generals, 70 lieutenant-generals, and
114 major-generals. We understand also that the rank of
field-marshal is to be given without reference to seniority,
and that periodical brevets are to be discontinued.
Commissioned officers, who have served certain periods,
receive when reduced, or off duty, certain sums denomi¬
nated half-pay. All officers placed upon half-pay during
the late wrar, or reduced upon the formation of a peace esta¬
blishment, or compelled for the public convenience to retire
upon half-pay, or in consequence of ill health, are entitled
to wliat is called the neiv half-pay.
COMMISSION.
203
Table of Rates of Half-Ray.
Rank of Offices.
Colonel (per day)  
Lieutenant-Colonel   
Major 
Captain 
Do. of infantry, having 0
superior brevet rank, and |
having served 2 years as !
captain immediately he- j
fore retirement J
Do. of cavalry, with bre¬
vet rank, exchanging to
half-pay, after 2 years’
full pay service, with a |
captain of infantry J
Lieutenant 
Do. of infantry, if')
commissioned 7 years as [
a lieutenant in the army [
previous to retirement... J
Do. of cavalry, of S')
years’ standing, if enti- !
tied to reckon 2 years for [
the battle of Waterloo j
Cornet 
Second Lieutenant and Ensign
Adjutant, if not commis- 1
sioned as Lieutenant  |
Cavalry.
New Rate. Old Rate,
s. d.
15 6
12 6
10 0
7 6
4 8
5 2
3 6
4 0
s. d.
13 0
10 0
8 0
5 6
3 0
2 6
4 0
Infantry.
New. Old
s. d.
14 6
11 0
9 6
7 0
8 0
7 6
4 0
4 6
3 0
4 0
s. d,
12 0
8 6
7 6
5 0
2 4
1 10
4 0
voted for compassionate allowances, and gratuities to the Commis-
families and relatives of deceased officers in distressed cir- S10n•
cumstances, and to officers who have sustained bodily injury
in the service.
Medical officers, if placed on half-pay by reduction of
establishment, are allowed the following rates:—
Rank of Medical
Offices.
Inspect. Gen. Hosp.
Deputy Inspect, do.
Staff surgeon 
Regt. surg.& staff |
surg. 2d class.. J
Assistant surgeon...
After a service on full full pay of
80 years.
L. s. d.
1 10 0
10 0
0 17 0
0 15 0
0 7 6
25 but
under 30.
L. s. d.
15 0
0 17 0
0 15 0
0 13 0
0 7 0
20 but
under 25.
L. s. d.
10 0
0 14 0
0 12 6
0 11 0
0 6 0
10 but
under
20.
s. d.
10 * 6
10 0
8 6
5 0
Less
than
10.
s. d,
8 ’ 0
7 6
6 0
4 0
Medical officers, placed on half-pay from any other cause
than reduction, are allowed the following rates :—
The number of officers receiving half-pay in 1846-47 was
3722, and the sum awarded to them L.429,786 ; while in
1853-4 the number was 2920, at a charge of L.358,000,
and in 1854-5 the number was 2853 at a charge of
L.356,000. Besides this, above L.100,000 is annually
Rank of Medical
Officek.
Inspect. Gen. Hosp.
Deputy Inspec. do.
Staff Surgeon 
Regt. surg.& staff )
surg. 2d class... J
Assistant surgeon...
After a service on full pay of
30 years.
L. s. d.
10 0
0 18 0
0 17 0
0 15 0
0 7 0
25 but
under 30.
L. s.
0 15
0 14
0 13
0 11 6
0 6 0
20 but
under 25.
L. s. d.
0 12 0
0 10 0
0 9 6
0 8 0
0 5 0
10 but
under
20.
s. d.
s’o
7 6
6 0
4 0
Less
than
10.
s. d.
7 "o
6 6
5 6
3 0
The following is a list of pensions to widows :—
Pensions to Widows, fyc., and Compassionate Allowance to the Children of General, Regimental, Medical
Staff, and Garrison Officers.
Rank of the Officers.
General Officers.,
Regimental Officers.
Colonels, not General Officers  
Lieut.-Colonels ) „ „ , ^ ,
1 of Foot Guards 
Majors J
Lieutenant-Colonels   
Majors   
Captains, Paymasters  
Lieutenants, Adjutants 
2d Lieutenants, Cornets, Ensigns, Quar- )
ter-Masters J
Regimental Chaplains married prior to!
1796, and in the receipt of the reduced f
Allowance of 4s. a day at the time of(
their Deaths )
Veterinary Surgeons   
Veterinary Surgeon dying subsequently )
to 7th October 1846 J
Medical Officers?-
Inspectors-General of Hospitals 
Deputy-Inspector-General of Hospitals...
Assistant-Inspectors of Hospitals... 
Surgeon Majors of Foot-Guards 
Staff Surgeons, 1st Class 
Staff Surgeons, 2d Class 
Regimental Surgeons 
Purveyors   
Assistant Surgeons  
Deputy Purveyors 
Widows’
Pension,
Special Pensions in cases of
Officers killed in Action.
L.120
90
80
70
50
40
36
30
30
40
80
60
50
45
40
30
To the Widow in. m ,,
lieu of the To the Mothers
OrdinaryPension or •5isters-
According to the
circumstances
of the case.
L.200
200
120
70
60
46
40
50
200
90
70
55
50
40
L.120
90
80
70
50
40
36
30
40
80
60
50
45
40
30
Compassionate Allowances
to Legitimate Children.
If the Officer
was killed in
Action.
L.25 to L.40
each per
annum.
18 to 25
16 — 20
12 — 16
8 — 14
8 — 14
8 — 14
8 — 14
16 — 20
12 — 16
12 — 16
12 — ...
8 — 14
8 — 14
If the Officer
was not killed
in Action,
L.16to L.20
each per
annum.
14 to 16
12 — 14
9 — 12
5 — 10
5 — 10
5 — 10
5 — 10
5 — 10
12 — 14
9 — 12
9 — 12
9 — 12
5 — 10
5 — 10
Agg. amount of Allow, to the Fa
milyofany 1 Officer not to exceed
If killed in
Action.
L.500
350
250
150
100
80
65
80
350
200
150
125
100
65
If not killed in
Action.
L.300
>>
cS
Px
o g
<2©
§ ^
i-H
ci
£ 2
^ o
o
>-£
O)
bo-a
9 §
s
o
X
o
1 The widows of half-pay medical officers holding any commission, giving a rank not included in the above scale, if eligible, have
the rates of pension specified in the scale annexed to the warrant of 13th June 1826.
t
204
COM
COM
Commis-
The pension allowed to the widows of staff and garrison
officers, such as chaplains to the forces, district paymasters,
and the provost-marshal commissioned as such, is L.5Q.
The children of these officers, if killed in action, are allowed
pensions varying from L.9 to L.12. Other staff or garrison
officers according to their regimental commissions when
placed on half-pay.
Number of Commissioned officers in the Army on the 25th
of January in the years
1829. 1835. 1840. 1847.
Royal Horse Guards and Life Guards ... 104 99 96 96
Foot Guards    221 218 220 218
Cavalry ..    545 525 493 494
Infantry   3325 3297 3226 3210
4195 4139 4035 4018
Regiments in India.
Cavalry, 1 including recruiting com- f 188 188 236 236
Infantry, J panics  \ 1121 1020 1122 1352
Colonial Corps  185 266 316 467
5689 5613 5709 6073
Add supernumerary officers, to fall into
vacancies as they occur—-
In the Royal Horse Guards  2 2 1 0
Foot Guards    19 21 21 22
5710 5636 5731 6095
Commission of Teinds, a court at Edinburgh, instituted
in room of a committee of the Scottish parliament, for
erecting new parishes, and valuing teinds for the support
of the clergy. It is vested in the Lords of Session. See
Scotland.
COMMISSURE (Lat. commissura, a joining together),
a joint or seam ; the place where two bodies or parts of a
body meet and unite, as the bones of the skull; an inter¬
stice between particles or parts, as between plates or lamellae.
COMMITMENT, in criminal law, is the sending to
prison a person who has been guilty of any crime, or
charged with any offence. This takes place where the
offence is not bailable, or the party cannot find bail. It
must be done by proper warrant, containing the cause of
the commitment; and it continues till put an end to by the
course of law, imprisonment being intended only for safe
custody, and not for punishment.
COMMITTEE, one or more persons to whom any mat¬
ter or business is referred, either by some court, or by con¬
sent of parties whom it concerns.
COMMODORE, a general officer in the British ma¬
rine, invested with the command of a detachment of ships
of war destined on any particular enterprise, during which
time he bears the rank of brigadier-general in the army, and
his ship is distinguished from the rest of his squadron by a
broad red pendant tapering towards the outer end, and
sometimes forked. The word is corrupted from the Spanish
comendador, which signifies both the superior of a monas¬
tery, and a knight who holds a commandery.
Commodore is also a name given to the convoy or lead¬
ing ship in a fleet of merchantmen, which carries a light in
her top to guide the other ships. See Conyoy.
COMMODUS, L. Aurelius, emperor of Rome from
a.d. 180 to 192, was the son of M. Aurelius and the
younger Faustina, and was born at Lanuvium a.d. 161. At
an early period he was provided by his guardians with the
best teachers that the most enticing offers could allure to
Rome, and under their care his progress in every branch of
philosophy and the sciences was such as to buoy up his
friends with the brightest prospects of happiness and pros¬
perity as soon as the time should come for him to assume
the purple. Before he reached manhood, titles and hon¬
ours were lavished on him by his countrymen and the
senate, which his conduct till that time amply warranted.
On the death of his father, whom he accompanied in his Common
German wars, he concluded a peace with the barbarians, ||
and hastened to the capital, where he was warmly received C'omnion-
by the senate and people, and where he began his reign placeB<>ok.
under the most favourable auspices. His lavish expendi- ^
ture of the public money first awakened the suspicions of
his subjects, but did not materially shake their confidence
in the new emperor, till a conspiracy formed against him
by his sister roused the dormant blood-thirstiness and fero¬
city of his nature, and urged him to excesses of cruelty un¬
paralleled even in Roman history. His cruelty was only
equalled by his sensuality, in the gratification of which he
lavished the resources of the empire. In his thirst for pub¬
lic applause he did not scruple to exhibit himself in the
arena as a charioteer, a dancer, or a buffoon, and especially
delighted to display his skill as a gladiator, in which charac¬
ter he fought publicly seven hundred times, and slew many
thousands of wild beasts in the circus. When the people
at length grew tired of his atrocities, many plots were
formed against his life, which, however, he always contrived
to elude, till, in a.d. 192, he was slain by his mistress
Marcia, with the assistance of a celebrated athlete, by name
Narcissus. See Roman History.
COMMON (Lat. communis), belonging equally to more
than one, or to many indefinitely. Also usual, ordinary, &c.
Common, in Grammar, is applied to the gender of such
nouns as are both masculine and feminine ; as parens, a
parent.
Common Divisor, a quantity or number which divides two
or more other quantities or numbers without a remainder.
Common, Communia {quod ad omnes pertinet), in law,
signifies that soil, the use of which is common to a particu¬
lar town or lordship ; or it is a profit that a man has in the
land of another person, usually in common with others; or
a right which a person has to put his cattle to pasture in
ground that is not his own. And there is not only common
of pasture, but also common of piscary, common of esto¬
vers, common of turbary, &c. In all cases of common, the
law respects the custom of the place; for the rule is, con-
suetudo loci est observanda.
CoMMON-Place Book, a book in which things to be re¬
membered are recorded, and arranged under general heads.
The advantages of a common-place book are manifold. It
not only makes a man read with accuracy and attention,
but induces him insensibly to think for himself, provided he
considers it not so much a register of sentiments which
strike him in the course of reading, as a register of his own
thoughts upon various subjects. Many valuable thoughts
occur even, to men of no extraordinary genius ; but these,
without the assistance of a common-place book, are gene¬
rally lost both to himself and others. There are various
methods of arranging common-place books : that of Mr
Locke is as good as any that has hitherto been contrived.
The first page of the book serves as a kind of index to
the whole, and contains references to every place or mat¬
ter in it; and in the convenient arrangement of this index,
so as to admit of a sufficient variety of materials without
any confusion, the whole method consists.
In order to this, the first page, as already mentioned, or,
for more room, the first two pages that front each other,
are to be divided by parallel lines into twenty-five equal
parts, of which every fifth line is to be distinguished by its
colour or other circumstance. These lines are to be cut
perpendicularly by others, drawn from top to bottom; and
in the several spaces the several letters of the alphabet, both
capital and minuscular, are to be written.
The form of the lines and divisions, both horizontal and
perpendicular, with the manner of writing the letters there¬
in, will be conceived from the following specimen ; in which,
what is to be done in the book for all the letters of the
alphabet is here shown in the first four, A, B, C, D.
C 0 M
C O M
205
Common
Pleas
II
Common ■
alty.
B
e 2,3.
D
Commoner
Consider to what head the thing to be entered may most
naturally be referred, and under which one would be led to
look for such a thing: in this head or word regard is had
to the initial letter, and the first vowel that follows it, which
are the characteristic letters on which all the use of the index
depends.
Suppose, for instance, we would enter down a passage that
refers to the head beauty. B is the initial letter, and e the
first vowel; then looking upon the index for the partition B,
and the line e, which is the place for all words whose first
letter is and the first vowel e, as beauty, beneficence,
bread, breeding, blemishes, and finding no numbers already
down to direct us to any page of the book where words of
this characteristic have been entered, we turn forward to the
first blank page we find, which, in a fresh book, as this is
supposed to be, will be page second, and there write what
we have occasion for on the head beauty; beginning the
head in the margin, and indenting all the other subservient
lines, that the head may stand out and show itself. This
done, we enter the page in which it is written, viz., 2, in the
index in the space Be; from which time the class b e be¬
comes wholly in possession of the second and third pages,
which are consigned to letters of this characteristic.
Had we found any page or number already entered in
the space B e, we must have turned to the page, and have
written our matter in whatever space was left therein. Thus,
if after entering the passage on beauty, we should have occa¬
sion for benevolence, or the like, finding the number 2 al¬
ready possessed of the space of this characteristic, we would
begin the passage on benevolence in the remainder of the
page ; but this not containing the whole, we would carry it
on to page third, which is also for b e, and add the number
3 in the index.
Common Pleas is one of the queen’s courts, now held con¬
stantly in Westminster Hall; but in former times it was
moveable.
All civil causes, as well real as personal, are or were for¬
merly tried in this court, according to the strict law of the
land. In personal and mixed actions it has a concurrent
jurisdiction with the king’s bench, but has no cognizance of
the pleas of the Crown. The actions belonging to the court
of common pleas come thither by original, as arrests and
outlawries; or by privilege, or attachment for or against
privileged persons; or out of inferior courts, not of record,
by pone, recordari, accedas ad curiam, writ of false judg¬
ment, and so forth. The chief judge of this court, called
lord chief justice of the common pleas, is assisted by three
other judges, called puisne judges.
Common Prayer. See Liturgy.
COMMONALTY, the lower of the two divisions of the
civil state. See Civil State. The commonalty, like the
nobility, are divided into several degrees; but although
some commoners are greatly superior to others, all in
law are commonalty in respect of their want of nobility.
These several degrees are noticed under their respective
heads.
COMMONER, or Gentleman Commoner, a student of
the second rank in the universities of Oxford and Cambridge.
COMMONS, House of. See Parliament.
COMMONTY, in Scotch Law, sometimes signifies lands
belonging to two or more common proprietors ; sometimes
a heath or muir, though it should belong in property to
one, if there has been a promiscuous possession of it by
means of pasturage ; and the act 1695 mentions common-
ties belonging in property to the king and to royal burghs.
COMMONWEALTH. See Republic and Britain,
vol. v., p. 412.
COMMOTE, an ancient term in Wales, denoting half
a cantred, or hundred, containing fifty villages. Wales
was anciently divided into three provinces, each of which
was subdivided into cantreds, and every cantred into two
commotes or hundreds. Giraldus, however, in his Itine¬
rary, says that a commote is but a quarter of a hundred.
COMMUNE, the name given in France to a subordi¬
nate territorial division of the country, which in area may
be considered as corresponding to the English parish. In
other respects, however, they differ considerably—the com¬
mune being a division for civil and military purposes, and
governed by a mayor, with one or more assistants and a
certain number of councillors. Also, that our larger cities and
towns comprehend several parishes, whereas those of France,
with the exception of Paris, constitute only one commune.
COMMUNIS, the name of a class in Linnaeus’s Me-
thodus Calycina, consisting of two plants which, like teazel
and dandelion, have a calyx or flower-cup common to many
flowers or florets. These are the aggregate or compound
flowers of other systems.
COMMUNIBUS Louis, a Latin term, in frequent use
among philosophical and other writers, implying some me¬
dium or mean relation between several places. Dr Keil sup¬
poses the ocean to be one-quarter of a mile deep, communibus
locis, that is, at a medium, or taking one place with another.
Communibus Annis has the same import with regard to
years that communibus locis has with regard to places.
COMMUNICA TING, in Theology, the act of receiving
the sacrament of the eucharist. Those of the Reformed
and of the Greek Churches communicate under both kinds ;
those of the Roman Catholic Church under only one. The
oriental communicants receive the wine by a spoon; and
anciently they sucked it through a pipe, as observed in
Rheanus upon Tertullian. See Supper of the Lord.
COMMUNICATION, in a general sense, the act of
imparting something to another. It is also used for the
connection of one thing with another, or the passage from
one place to another.
COMMUNION (Lat. communio, mutual participation),
in matters of religion, the being united in doctrine and dis¬
cipline; in which sense different churches are said to hold
communion with each other. In the primitive Christian
church, every bishop was obliged, after his ordination, to
send circular letters to foreign churches, to signify that he
was in communion with them.
206
COM
COM
Commu¬
nion
Commun¬
ism.
Communion is also used for the act of communicating
at the sacrament of the eucharist, or the Lord’s supper.
The fourth council of Lateran decrees that believers
shall at least receive the communion at Easter, which
seems to import a tacit desire that they should do it of-
tener ; as, in fact, they did in the primitive days. Gratian
and the master of the sentences prescribe it as a rule for
the laity to communicate three times a-year, at Easter, at
Whitsuntide, and at Christmas. But in the thirteenth
century the practice was adopted never to approach the
eucharist except at Easter; and the council thought fit to
enjoin it by a law, lest coldness and remissness should
go farther still. The council of Trent renewed the same
injunction, and recommended frequent communion, with¬
out enforcing it by an express decree.
In the ninth century the communion was still received
by the laity in both kinds; or rather the species of bread
was dipped in the wine, as is admitted by the Roman Ca¬
tholics themselves. See Acta SS. Benedict. Scec. III.
M. de Marca observes, that the people received it at first in
their hands {Hist, de Bearn), and believes the communion
under one kind alone to have had its rise in the West under
Pope Urban II. in 1096, at the time of the conquest of the
Holy Land. But it was more solemnly enjoined by the
council of Constance in 1414. The twenty-eighth canon
of the council of Clermont distinctly enjoins the commu¬
nion to be received under both kinds ; adding, however, Commu-
two exceptions ; the one of necessity, the other of caution, nion Ser.
nisi per necessilatem et cautelam ; the first in favour of the vice
sick, and the second in favour of the abstemious, or those p II
who had an aversion to wine. 01”™un'
It was formerly a kind of canonical punishment for clerks v ^
guilty of any crime, to be reduced to lay communion, that
is, only to receive it as the laity did, under one kind.
There was another punishment of the same nature,
though under a different name, called foreign communion,
to which the canons frequently condemned bishops and
other clerks. This punishment was not any excommuni¬
cation or deposition, but a kind of suspension from the
function of the order, and a degradation from the rank they
held in the church. It had its name because the commu¬
nion was only granted to the criminal on the footing of a
foreign clerk; that is, being reduced to the lowest of his
order, he took place after all those of his own rank, as all
clerks and others did in the churches to which they did not
belong. The second council of Agda orders every clerk
who absents himself from the church to be reduced to fo¬
reign communion.
Communion Service, in the liturgy of the Church of Eng¬
land, the office for the administration of the holy sacrament,
extracted from several ancient liturgies, as those of St
Basil, St Ambrose, &c.
C 0 M M UNIS M
Is one of the terms which have been applied to the various
classes of projects for re-organizing society, and subjecting
men to a more or less strict system of regulations calculated,
as their framers maintain, to promote human welfare. It is
impossible to give a scientific definition of the word Com¬
munism, any more than of Socialism or other miscellaneous
terms, in which groups of varying theories and projects are
colloquially referred to. The influence which these pro¬
jects have from time to time exercised upon mankind, and
their late tragic connection with European history, render
it necessary that some notice of them should be found in a
work of general reference. It will be seen presently that
it is convenient to bring them all under one head ; and the
word Communism presents itself as preferable to any other,
because it applies generally to the highest developments
which artificial systems have aimed at. It thus includes
the minor within the greater projects, and admits of the
general review of the whole question between artificial
systems and the natural laws of society. Under the head
of Communism it is usual to class those organizations which
propose to adjust the whole conduct of the human being,
and not only to regulate property, industry, and the sources
of livelihood, but also to revolutionize the domestic relations
and the social morals of mankind. The less unpopular term
of Socialism is generally applied to a revolution in the laws
of property and the organization of labour. But no such
distinction is fully established, and all the views and pro¬
jects of the re-organizers run more or less into each other.
Investigation lays open an indefinite series of schemes, from
the vast projects for taking possession of the new-born infant,
and subjecting him to a strict daily and hourly discipline
through life, down through an indefinite gradation of organiz¬
ing schemes, until we reach projects of pauper management
or of joint-stock partnership, which may be merely spoken
of as carrying in their nature a tinge of socialism. To
give under the head of each separate artificial system—as,
for instance, under Phalanstery, St-Simonianism, Fourier¬
ism, or Owenism—a specific account of the minutiae of each
system thus propounded, after the manner in which an ac¬
count is given of the several sciences and philosophical
systems, is the course which would naturally give most satis¬
faction to the supporters of each scheme; for, as there has
been little good understanding among the several projectors,
and each has generally attacked the others, an inquiry in
which their systems are mixed up with each other would be
received as a confusion of truth with falsehood, and of saga¬
city with quackery. But if it were desirable to describe
each system to the satisfaction of its supporters, it would
be scarcely practicable. Fourier’s alone might occupy years
of study; and he himself maintained to the last that none,
even of his most ardent disciples, rightly understood his
system in all its complexity; there was always something
or other overlooked in its intricate machinery, which, like
the absence of some essential wheel in a complex piece of
clock-work, disorganized the whole.
Even, however, if each system could be satisfactorily pur¬
sued through all its ramifications and laid distinctly before the
reader, it does not appear that the result would justify the
labour and space necessary for the object. A question an¬
tecedent to any question as to the merits of the details of
each system is, whether a case is made out for artificial in¬
tervention at all—whether nature has not established laws
which accomplish the object in view better than any pro¬
jects which human ingenuity can devise.
It is to the social laws developed by the domestic rela¬
tions, and to those wider and less rigid principles of action
which are indicated by the science of political economy,
that we go to find the system on which it has pleased the
Deity to provide that mankind should live. It is true that,
in investigating the true principles which rule the domestic
relations, inquirers may, as in scientific investigations of any
kind, make mistakes; and they are perhaps still more liable
to err when they investigate the laws of political economy,
and endeavour to distinguish what they are sufficient from
what they are insufficient to accomplish. But both systems
proceed upon the belief that there are laws of social and
economic development, as there are laws of mineral crystalli¬
zation, or of animal and vegetable physiology; and to find out
these laws is the constant endeavour of all social and poli¬
tical economists.
The propounders of communistic or socialistic projects,
on the other hand, deny the existence of the whole or of a
COMMUNISM.
ommun- great part of such a system—maintain that man is living in
ism. chaos, and offer to regulate him and put him into shape as
so much inorganic matter. As a simple example, social
economy says that in the general case parents ought to have
the adjustment of their childrens’ destiny left in their hands,
because a law of nature makes them love their offspring and
desire its welfare; and though there may be exceptional
cases, yet the law of family affection is so general that a re¬
liance on it affords a better chance of accomplishing the
desired object than any artificial arrangement. On the
other hand, a communist will maintain that children ought
to be immediately removed from their parents and brought
up by a committee of management, because, to use the
words of Robert Owen, “ the affections of parents for their
own children are too strong for their judgments ever to do
justice to themselves, their children, or the public, in the
education of their own children, even if private families
possessed the machinery—which they never do—to well
manufacture character from birth.”
To take another simple example from political economy.
This science teaches us that the best means of supplying
mankind with the material objects of their desire is to leave
the function to the spirit of commercial competition, and to
secure an absolute property in the fruits of industry to those
who bring them into existence. On the other hand, Louis
Blanc says that commercial competition is a source of misery
and degradation, while Prudhon says property is robbery,
and each desires to adjust the whole matter according to an
organization of his own.
Those therefore who believe in the truth of political eco¬
nomy cannot admit that there is any need for the projects of
the socialists and communists, and consequently cannot admit
that there is any necessity for studying and developing the
ramifications of each system, and showing precisely where
they differ and agree, or wherein one is preferable to the other.
Hence it is that, proceeding upon the basis that the princi¬
ples of political economy express with more or less accuracy
certain natural laws which it is unnecessary to supersede,
it is not considered necessary to investigate the ultimate
arrangements of each projector’s system ; and so it has been
deemed expedient to treat here merely of the primary ques¬
tion between the natural system and the artificial systems.
For the whole matter receiving attention to this extent
in a work like the present, there are various reasons. In
the first place, late European events have made the projects
of the socialists and communists a part of the history of the
world. But further still, at the point where the plans of the
artificial projectors depart from the received doctrines of
political economy, they are an important means of testing
the accuracy of these doctrines by the application of a sort
of experimentum crucis. Hence the readers of socialist
works often say that the system, as a system, is unsound,
yet there is some truth in its foundation ; while what they
really mean is, that there is some mistake or defect in the
received doctrines of political economy for which the in¬
ventor is offering an artificial remedy. Wherever opinions
in favour of these artificial systems prevail—and in later
times they have occasionally prevailed to a sufficiently alarm¬
ing extent—there must be something wrong in the condi¬
tion of the people. There is some error in the political
economy which rules their actions, and either they are im¬
properly interfered with, or they are so neglected that the
true laws of nature have not freedom to develop themselves.
One organic defect developed in nearly all the instances
where such projects become popular, is an extent of popular
ignorance, rendering the laws of political economy nugatory
among a people who cannot understand even their simplest
rudiments. From such causes, the social and communistic
movements with which the world has been occasionally
visited are, taken collectively, an interesting and valuable
object of inquiry.
207
The literature of this department of inquiry is indefinite, Commun
since it blends itself with theology, ethics, politics, political ism-
economy, and history. Every one who proposes anything
for the improvement of mankind is liable to come within the
category, if, instead of aiding nature, his project should pro¬
pose to supersede her laws. Hence communistic literature
covers all the range from such vast plans of reconstruction
as Fourier’s or St Simon’s, down to the pamphlet on Pauper
Management, which may become liable to the suspicion of
communism. The great conceptions or plans of govern¬
ment which have from time to time appeared, generally
mix up an artificial organization with that which is in actual
operation; and sometimes the former character so entirely
preponderates, and carries the whole project so far out of
the course of actual practice and probability, that it is set
down as a fanciful dream, of which the author never antici¬
pated the realization. Such is the Utopia of Sir Thomas
More, which has afforded a term for characterizing impos¬
sible or preposterous schemes. Some of the French writers
are proud of saying, that the great dispute between social¬
ism and political economy—between the world as it should
be made, and the world as it is—began when Plato wrote
his Republic, and Aristotle in his Politics bent his power¬
ful practical mind to the examination of the actual con¬
dition and political organization of mankind. The Re¬
public of Cicero, from which the world expected important
views on government, supplied from the practice of Rome,
embodied the platonic vagueness ; and the same spirit has
pervaded the works of a multitude of writers on political
philosophy. It has to be observed, that before it can give
expression to a distinct theory of communism, the press
must be free, or in a state of defiance, because in proposing
a new plan of organization, it proposes to supersede the
government of the day. Hence it was in the midst of the
great contest in England in the seventeenth century, that
the boldest practical opinions were expressed in such works
as the Leviathan of Hobbes and the Oceana of Harrington.
When works like Rousseau’s Social Contract were popular,
it may be said that the French press was in a state of licensed
rebellion, since under despotic rule, opinions of the most an¬
archical and revolutionary character were promulgated with
such systematic calmness, as if the possibility of their being
adopted and carried into practice were not to be enter¬
tained. In France, since the first revolution, while the
press has sometimes been controlled, yet opportunities have
been afforded from time to time for issuing such works as
have to be presently noticed. In 1848, not only in France,
but throughout Germany, a current of socialistic literature
broke out. It has now been forced back again, and there
is no freedom on the Continent to publish communistic doc¬
trines. In Britain the whole question has been left freely
to develop itself, with what effect we shall presently see.
Communistic arrangements have been from time to time
in partial practical operation among isolated bodies of men,
and the character of this partiality of operation is peculiarly
instructive. The most illustrious example is that of the
Spartan discipline. From his cradle to his grave, the La¬
cedaemonian citizen was regulated in all his movements by
the state. He had no home or family. When the state
permitted him to marry, it adjusted his conjugal intercourse,
and might temporarily or permanently transfer his rights to
another person. Everything was adjusted to the produc¬
tion and training of healthy and strong men fit for the war¬
like service of the state. The men living in separate bar¬
racks were, if possible, not to be acquainted with their child¬
ren by sight, lest, according to the view resuscitated by Mr
Owen, paternal weakness might interfere with the rigid cha¬
racter of public discipline. At the sysitia or public mess,
there was a meal renowned for its frugality distributed with
impartial uniformity to rich and poor. Competition in trade
was rendered impossible, since no commercial or productive
COMMUNISM.
20S
Commun- pursuits could be followed by free citizens; and, in reality,
*SI11, there wyas no money or circulating medium, the celebrated
iron coin being rather a practical sarcasm on the gold and
silver of other states, than a substitute for them. W ith all
their elaborate and stern enforcement of equality, Spartan
citizens had however in some way the command of wealth,
and they were divided like the rest ot mankind into the rich
and the poor. But their great inequality which carried off all
the social difficulties of their complicated organization was
their vast system of slavery. As not only servile drudgery,
but productive commerce, and, it might be said, all the aits of
peace, wrere committed to the helot class, their numbers and
capacity made them powerful, and only a ceaseless watchful¬
ness and severity interspersed with some acts of ferocious
cruelty kept them from reversing the social order. In fact,
this instance goes with others of minor moment, to show
that to the extent to which there is artificial organization,
there must be a corresponding amount of slavery or coer¬
cion, since men must be forced to do that which it is not
lawful to bribe them by competitive pecuniary recompense
to do. The philosophy of the Spartan example was in the
mind of a Scottish workman, who, when a brilliant commu¬
nist lecturer had finished his description of the uniformity
and happiness of his parallelogram, stood up and said, “ but
whae’s to dee the durty wark ” The lecturer ingeniously
pointed to the number of primarily disagreeable occupa¬
tions which men may be induced to undertake without pay¬
ment—as when the anatomist handles macerating garbage,
and the sportsman pursues the chase of the unprofitable wild
beast through cold and heat, wet and hunger. But whatever
speculators may anticipate as to the future of human nature, it
is a fact as to the past and present visible every day, that there
are services, and these important to human happiness, that
nothing but coercion or pecuniary inducement will extract.
Among the practical instances of artificial organization in
later times, we may cite the guilds and other associations of
traders and artificers whose peculiar privileges have scarcely
yet entirely disappeared, while they are in some measure
virtually revived by trade-unions and combinations. Their
object was to suppress competition and freedom of action ;
but it was so far different from such views as those of Owen
and Louis Blanc, that, instead of providing some substitute
for competition of which all were to reap the advantage, the
object was to confine all the benefits of trade or productive
industry to a chosen few, exclusive of the rest of the world.
Thus, so long as they were sufficiently powerful to retain
their privileges and suppress external competition, they pos¬
sessed a compactness which enabled them to enforce their
internal restrictions and obligations as the price paid for the
possession of lucrative privileges. In other words, as it was
more profitable for a man to belong to a corporation, though
it restricted him from competing with its other members,
than it would be for him to compete with the world at large,
he assented to restrictions ; and submission to them in these
instances does not show that the world at large will ever
consent to accept and obey them.
The power of religion has in many instances acted as that
force which will keep men in associative action on principles
contrary to the natural laws of society. It is not difficult
to imagine the early Christians in small clusters, with the
firmest reliance in each other and in the continual fear of
persecution, enjoying all things in common. The monastic
establishments were communistic institutions, and they in¬
fused a tinge of their character into the early universities.
Relics of its tone may still be found even lingering in such
uncongenial ground as Cambridge and Oxford. The mo¬
nastic communities, however, attempted by their organization
to supply only a portion of that which nature does by social
laws. They cut off entirely those relations of husband and
wife, and of parent and child, which, as they are in them¬
selves the most complex and powerful portion of the natural
organization, are of course the least easily accomplished by Commun-
the artificial. There are some small communities at pre- is®-
sent in America, such as the Shakers, who, exacting the '''“V''*"'
same observance of celibacy, manage, through a system of
communism, to supply within the limited sphere of opera¬
tion left to it the natural laws of society. Their orderly
habits, and the success with which their agricultural opera¬
tions have been pursued, have often been cited in support
of communistic principles. It was chiefly by religious in¬
fluence that the Jesuits established their empire in Para¬
guay, where their authority was not merely that of a govern¬
ment, but extended over the social direction and organiza¬
tion of the peculiar people among whom they established
their mission. The classes of religious societies scattered
through central Europe, and known as Moravians, Bohe¬
mian Brethren, or Herrnhuters, in a similar manner derive
the power of social organization, so effectively exercised by
them, from a religious source. The pressure of persecution
has imparted to them a species of social compactness often
exemplified in isolated religious bodies. The Huguenots
of France, for instance, the Vendeans of the revolution, the
Waldenses of the seventeenth century, and the Covenan¬
ters of Scotland, submitted to an amount of moral discipline
from their proscribed and hunted priesthood, to which the
followers of an established or protected clergy will rarely
submit; for there are none to whom censure or the depriva¬
tion of privileges is so formidable as to those who brave per¬
secution for the sake of belonging to a religious communion,
A very remarkable instance of the organizing power of re¬
ligious authority, especially when strengthened by persecu¬
tion, has been exhibited in the late history of the American
Mormons; and, to make it the more emphatic, its potency
has exhibited itself in direct and immediate contrast with
the feebleness of pure communism as an artificial system of
temporal organization. Through the spiritual power wdiich
they had established, the leaders of the sect, Joseph Smith
and Brigham Young, exacted so ready and implicit an obe¬
dience, that they were really able to accomplish that distri¬
bution of functions which the social organizers strive after
in vain. The man whose assigned function it was to dig
this drain, or plough yonder field, or weed, or make a fence,
went to his duty unresisting, and did it with all his heart,
It was thus that, when they set their foot on the desert, they
surrounded themselves with the fruits of skilled industry,
and assumed the character of an old and permanently or*
ganized community with almost miraculous celerity. But
when they were driven from their possessions in Isauvoo,
and a body of French communists took their place, these, far
from rivalling the industrial organization of their predeces¬
sors, had not even enough of that quality to preserve the
fruit of their predecessors’ labours; and, in the hands of
the new-comers, the cultivated fields of the Mormons lapsed
again into a wilderness.
The communists, whose failure proved so signal a con¬
trast to the practical ability of the most preposterous fa¬
natics of the day, were led to form a settlement in America
by the bold persuasions of M. Cabet, who was afterwards
tried and punished for the sufferings he had occasioned to
them. Icaria, the place selected for the great experiment,
was on the Red River, a tributary of the Mississippi, dividing
Arkansas from the newly annexed state of lexas. He pro¬
fessed to have there purchased a million of acres of land;
and the most alluring descriptions were given of its beauty
and fertility, and its capability not only of providing for all
the sordid wants of ordinary mankind, but of ministering af¬
fluently to the enjoyment both of the senses and of the in¬
tellect. The classes who are usually attracted by emigra¬
tion schemes, as offering them a life in contrast with their
uneasy struggle at home, were charmed with the prospect.
Soon after a small body had put themselves into M. Cabet’s
hands, the colony was represented as in active existence,
COMMUNISM.
^oinmun- and in the full enjoyment of all the promised elements of
ism. subsistence and luxury. It had its organ called La Popu-
laire, and was trumpeted both in France and by the socialist
organs in Britain. While the scheme had as yet a scarcely
defined existence, the revolution of February 1848 swept
past. The hurricane would have obliterated any ordinary
social scheme in the hands of ordinary social reformers, but
the Icarians seized the tide of socialism, and made their pro¬
ject so prominent that 500 eligible emigrants were obtained.
T he first condition of adoption into the new republic was a
startling one—the emigrant required to give up all his pro¬
perty into the hands of M. Cabet the president. Some en¬
tertained misgivings as to their position, but did not act on
them until it was too late to retreat, for the author of the
scheme had furnished himself with the means for compul¬
sory enforcement. After a miserable voyage, the emi¬
grants, in extreme wretchedness, arrived at New Orleans,
where they expected to find their promised land. Instead
of it, they met with a few of their wretched fellow-country¬
men, portions of the advanced party, who could find no
Icaria, or any other place where they were permitted to oc¬
cupy land without paying a high price for it. A portion of
the 500 proceeded on the voyage up the Mississippi with
their president. They had a land journey of between two
and three hundred miles, which but a small portion of them
accomplished, several dying by the way, while others made
their escape to France. Those who reached Icaria found
only a desert, with a few ruined huts, and an abundance of
graves.
Finding that the land, such as it was, did not belong to
M. Cabet, and that its owners demanded for it a price far
beyond their means, the unhappy remnant of the expedi¬
tion adopted the idea of taking possession of the still warm
nest whence the Mormons had been driven by the wrath of
their neighbours ; but at Nauvoo their failure was so imme¬
diate that they scarcely left behind them a trace of their oc¬
cupancy, and the fields on which the Mormons were be¬
coming rich reverted almost to a state of nature in their
hands.
From the incidental communism to be found scattered
throughout general literature, or exemplified here and there
in the manner in which we have just seen it on a small and
isolated scale, it is a great step to go to the consideration of
those vast systems which have been designed in our own
day for the complete reconstruction of society. France is,
as the world has had too much reason to know, their great
productive emporium. The two patriarchs of these systems
are Fourier and St Simon, two men of whom each enter¬
tained towards the other and his opinions that unmitigated
contempt which it is the peculiar character of social organ¬
izers to entertain for the works of each other. They were
men of totally different habits and character, and though at
a distance their systems might appear to be so much alike
that they would naturally have blended with each other,
they took their separate courses with their respective clus¬
ters of disciples, as distinctly as two rivers from the same
mountain chain pursue their courses to opposite coasts.
Of Fourier and his system it is difficult to speak, since, as
already has been observed, it is so complex that he never
admitted that even his most ardent disciples understood it,
and to the last he would sanction nothing as an announce¬
ment of his views which he had not himself written. It
may suffice to say, that those who have glanced at his writ¬
ings have been astonished to find how far they have differed
from all anticipation of their contents, and from all other
systems of artificial human organization. Instead of the dry
details of industrial training and household economy, the
reader finds himself in a gorgeous imaginative world, over¬
loaded with an exuberance of sensual and intellectual joys,
such as an oriental sage might picture in his opium dreams.
His theories were almost in wider contrast with the real-
VOL. VII.
209
ities of his own life than with the writings of the other Commun-
communists. He spent the greater part of his days as a ism.
humble drudge in a commercial office, living frugally on a
small income, and writing books which startled the few who
could be prevailed on to read them, by their vast theories
and the rich and ingenious imagination which peopled tfiem
with wonderful and captivating analogies. They were of the
kind of writing which, once admitted at all, is accepted im¬
plicitly like a revelation ; and though those who gave ear to
him were but few, yet among these few were some zealous
and fanatical believers.
Fourier was born in the year 1772, and it was about the
year 1825, when he was upwards of fifty years old, that fie
appears to have enrolled his earliest disciples. The revolu¬
tion of 1830 afforded a hearing in France for all who had
startling social novelties to proclaim ; and Fourier then be¬
gan to gather a popular audience. Out of comparative ob¬
scurity he thus rose to an extent of popularity and power
which astonished men more conversant with the ordinary
world, and induced them to look to theories of social or¬
ganization as a more promising field of enterprise, than it
had seemed to be in a country so entirely under the subjec¬
tion of immediate practical influence as France. Fourier
found, however, that there were rivals to his popularity, and
his system, founded on calculations which he maintained to
be the counterpart of Newton’s physical system, was in his
eyes the true science which admitted of no contradiction or
divergence. Hence he thought it necessary to warn the
world against the efforts of fools and impostors, by the pub¬
lication in 1831 of his Pieges et Charlatanisms des deux
sectes, St Simon et Owen. He received soon afterwards
more effective opposition in an attempt to put his theories
into practice. Nothing, indeed, could be better fitted to dis¬
pel the gorgeous visions which he created in his studious
retirement, than the vulgar exigencies of a set of people
brought together to struggle with the difficulties of a new
method of living; and thus, when his friends collected a
considerable sum of money to begin the system of phalanges
with which he promised to celestialize the human race, his
instinct made him deprecate the attempt, and discounte¬
nance it as premature. The experiment of a practical em¬
bodiment of Fourierism failed according to the universal
expectation of those not engaged in it; Fourier himself
expecting that it would fail from deficiency of Fourierism,
and the rest of the world anticipating its fall from a super¬
fluity of that quality. The experiment was made in the
neighbourhood of the small town of Rambouillet, easily ap¬
proached from Paris. The sum expended on it has been
calculated at L.20,000. Fourier was pretty far advanced
in life when the attempt was made, and he died soon after¬
wards, in the autumn of ] 837.
If his writings had been less elaborate and diffuse than
they were found to be, the socialist impulse connected with
the French revolution of 1848 might have made them very
popular. Many interpretations and digests of them were
then published, a few of them finding their way into British
periodical literature. It is understood, however, that the
greater part of his works still remain in manuscript, as they
were deposited in the Phalansterian Academy at Paris.
Fourier professed to be a believer in revelation ; but he
practically dispensed with another world, since his system
accomplished the perfection of happiness in this. When it
was fully developed it was to be the third dispensation—
counting the establishment of Christianity as the second.
In one of his own expressive analogies, mankind was when
he wrote (and would be still held by him to be) in the first
or chrysalis state, which he expresses by the term civilizee;
but when the system of harmony is accomplished, his de¬
velopment will be perfected with a metempsychosis as striking
and beautiful as the metamorphosis of the caterpillar into the
butterfly. He had a peculiar method of bringing out hi&
2 n
210 ' COMMUNISM.
Commun- grand results, by multiplying the passions and their grati-
ism. fications by each other, so as to produce square or cubical
^ quantities of felicity rational and sensual, while he was able
entirely to dispense with all elements of frailty or reaction.
In contrasting the state of man “ in harmony” with his
civilizee condition, he certainly drew the imperfections and
frailties which protrude through modern civilization with a
potent pen; and there are few such vivid pictures of the
effects of filthy and careless living, bad air, and degrading
habits, as those drawn by Fourier. Yet man’s escape from
them is not to be in a purification of the soul from the pas¬
sions and propensities of the body, but in a compound
multiplication of their intensity and fruition; so that the
earth is to be a sensual paradise of unceasing enjoyment. _
To accomplish this consummation, the rapid perfecti¬
bility of mankind was to be accomplished by cosmical de¬
velopments, of such a startling kind as we would expect to
have excited an incredulous smile in the most devoted fol¬
lower. His system of full enjoyment seems to have re¬
quired the creation of new natural elements, and especially
the existence of animals capable of conveying mankind with
increased fleetness from place to place—and here his follow¬
ers have given him credit for having anticipated results,
though he was not quite precise as to the means, since ra¬
pid transit has been accomplished by railways and steam¬
ships, instead of the new animals of the lion and the whale
kind, who were in “Harmony” to be subjected to the will of
man. Some of his other cosmical views are so extraordi¬
nary, that we shall only venture to give them in a quota¬
tion from the curious introductory essay of his chief English
exponent, who speaks rather as an admirer than a believer.
“ The planets procreate their own species, but their func¬
tions of creative industry consist in furnishing each other with
the various types of animal and vegetable life, which live
and grow upon the surface of each globe respectively.
Thus all the moons and planets of our solar system have
contributed to the creations of our globe, in the mineral,
the vegetable, and the animal kingdoms. The elephant,
the oak, and the diamond, were created by the sun; the
horse, the lily, and the ruby, were created by Saturn ; the
cow, the jonquil, and the topaz, w'ere created by Jupiter;
the dog, the violet, and opal stones, were created by our
earth itself; and all the moons and planets have created
special series, classes, orders, and varieties of animals, vege¬
tables, and minerals upon our globe, and also on each moon
and planet of our solar system.” (Doherty’s Introduction
to The Passions of the Human Soul, by Charles Fourier,
p. 14.) The system of phalanges or phalansteries formed,
as it were, the Jacob’s ladder which connected such cloudy
speculations with the sublunary earth. Reserving these as
esoteric revelations to the initiated, he plied the ordinary
public of France with seductive descriptions of the economic
influence of his primary organization—an organization which
would, he maintained, if once begun, prove itself so benefi¬
cent that it could never lose its hold on mankind, but must
be carried out indefinitely until the great system of “ Har¬
mony” was completed over the earth.
Each phalange or phalanstery was to consist of 400
families, or 1800 persons; this estimate rested on minute
and certain calculations, which, like Newton’s, were inca¬
pable of deceiving. Each was to be held in 1128 shares—
a number derived from equally certain calculations. Of
these, five-twelfths were to go to labour, four-twelfths to
capital, and three-twelfths to skill or talent. The phalange
was to include everything in structure and character which
could gratify the highest taste and sense of enjoyment. In
the meantime, however, before the whole earth was covered
with phalanges, each multiplying the enjoyment-creating
potency of the others, the efficacy of the system was to be
established by its subsidation of the human passions to its
service. The pursuits and functions of the members of the
phalange were to be infallibly adjusted through a distribu- Commun-
tion, by which each person was to be set precisely to that ism.
function in life to which his passions and propensities directed
him. Life at the phalange was thus to be perpetual enjoy¬
ment, and everything tending to supply the comforts,
luxuries, and felicities of life was to be ceaselessly pro¬
duced by men who, instead of labouring with the sweat of
the brow, were to be all the time as fully indulging their
own passions and pleasures as the hunter when he hears the
view halloo, or the gambler when he is gaining a fortune, or
the philosopher when he is achieving some great discovery.
When the principles of an existence of supreme and in¬
exhaustible enjoyment were applied to the intercourse ot
the sexes, and “ the condition of woman in Harmony,” they
naturally assumed a character calculated to create astonish¬
ment and indignation. The vindication put forth by the
pupils of the system was, that in harmony man is to be di¬
vested of the vice and grossness which attend on the un¬
limited indulgence of his passions in his present state, and that
then the same wretched precautions by which our imperfect
morality is now fenced round will no longer be necessary.
In attestation of his sincerity they refer to his opinion that
some three or four generations would require to live under
something like the existing restraints, until mankind had
acquired the proper development for full and at the same
time pure enjoyment.
Persons taking a glance at the great French schemers at
a distance, and without any prejudice in favour of one over
the other, will find a rival to Fourier in one whom his disci¬
ples would have hooted from any claim to equality as loudly
as the St-Simonians would have scorned the Fourierists.
St Simon, born in the year 1760, was descended of one
of the most illustrious houses of the old noblesse of I ranee,
and his system was pervaded by the aristocratic tendencies
of his birth and education. His family claimed descent
from Charlemagne, and he said that the emperor had ap¬
peared to him in a dream, and told him that his race having
produced a grand monarque, was also to produce a grand
philosophe. When a young cavalry officer, his servant was
instructed to awaken him in the morning with the injunction,
“Arise, Sir Count, you have great things to do—Levez vous,
Monsieur Le Comte, vous avez de grandes choses a faire.”
Napoleon’s celebrated demand from the Institute, of an esti¬
mate of the progress of science, seems to have fired his
ambition to be the lord of the intellectual, as his master
desired to be lord of the physical world. He established
at his house assemblages of scientific men, and of the
leaders in every department of intellectual exertion, as¬
suming the position of the great philosophic generalize!',
who employed them as his workers in the several details,
and reserved for himself the higher task of bringing to¬
gether in systematic array the results of their several labours.
By his profuse hospitality he reduced himself to penury.
But this change did not seem to give him much concern, as
it was part of his project to experimentalize in his own per¬
son on all the conditions of humanity. For this purpose he
practised all the vices, alternating them in proper scientific
rotation with all the virtues, and his experience of poverty
came at the right time to afford a contrast with the luxury
and profusion in which he had been indulging. Among his
other eccentricities, he attempted on one occasion to commit
suicide, but only succeeded in blowing out one of his eyes.
It was immediately after this that, as it the shock had elec¬
trified him, his social system discovered itself to him in
a single intuition, and enabled him to announce himself
as the"divine man, saying, “ Moses has promised to men uni¬
versal fraternity, Jesus Christ has prepared it, St Simon has
realized it.” It presented itself to his view as the comple¬
tion of that circle of the sciences which he considered that
he had been employed in systematizing. In this respect it
in some measure anticipated, and no doubt it suggested, the
COMMUNISM.
211
Commun- system of Positivism developed by Comte. They have the
ism. common features that, beginning with what are termed the
exact sciences, they try to prove that each of the other sciences
is made certain by the discovery and application ofits laws, and
to carry up this certainty gradually to the more complex and in
popular belief dubious, sciences, until it reaches sociology,
when the rules by which men must be organized can be set
forth with abstract certainty. But the two philosophers dif¬
fered greatly in this—that while Comte felt his way with a ri¬
gorous scrutiny, and was obliged to stop on the borders of the
sciences into which he could carry strict laws, rather indicating
how certainty was, as the result of man’s progressive labours,
to characterize the whole, St Simon at once found his way to a
certain or positive system of social organization, paying little
heed to the steps necessary for reaching this congenial
ground through the less inviting medium of the other
sciences. His plan was thoroughly hierarchical. It was
a religion to which all things were to be subservient, and of
which he, and after him the ablest of his disciples, was to be
the head. Property and all other conflicting institutions
were to be abolished, and nothing was to interfere with the
leadership of the Father or supreme leader, whose authority
was thus purely absolute. The abolition of competition, and
the organization of labour on such a more fitting and effec¬
tive scale as the superior wisdom of the St-Simonian priest¬
hood would naturally suggest, was a portion of the system ;
but the condition of the mass of the people had by no
means that alluring prominence afterwards given to it,
and the matter was all along viewed more from the right
of their superiors to organize and govern them, than from
the right of the working classes to privileges not possessed
by them. The unholy bond of matrimony was to be abo¬
lished, and there was substituted for its restraints obe¬
dience to the sacred instincts of inclination, as directed by
the unerring wisdom of the Supreme Father. The difficul¬
ties felt in giving any intelligible account of artificial pro¬
jects in general, accumulate and thicken in a contemplation
of the mystic ramifications of St-Simonianism, and perhaps
the most satisfactory and clear explanation of it may be given
in the words of Louis Blanc, who, as a rival projector, may
be supposed to speak with the scientific precision of the
craft. He thus epitomizes the chief elements of St-Simo¬
nianism, “ that industry should be regulated in obedience to an
authority self-constituted, and thejudgeof its own legitimacy;
that production should be concentrated to excess, and its ad¬
vantages portioned out in the ratio of merit; that the transmis¬
sion of property should be abolished, as well as that of offices ;
that marriage, the legalization of adultery, should give place
to the sovereignty of inclination and to the emancipation of
pleasure ; that the empire of society should be substituted
for that of the family.1
It happens, not unfortunately, that no men are more clear¬
sighted to the anomalies of such projects than rival projec¬
tors ; and the literature of communism may be said to sup¬
ply its own confutation by embodying a system in which
each man demolishes what his neighbour has set up. Hence,
to form an accurate notion of the transcendent absurdities
of the St-Simonians we must read the lively narrative of the
author of the Organization of Labour, who, while the St-
Simonians held that rewards should be distributed according
to ability and merit, maintained the fundamentally opposite
doctrine that people should be supplied not according to their
abilities, but their needs. In his narrative it will be seen
how Father Enfantin took the chief command, to which he
was called by the commanding beauty of his person, his per¬
suasive abilities, and his incomparable impudence. It wfil
be seen how, as supreme judge of the world in matters both
spiritual and temporal, he summoned Louis Philippe the king
of the French to appear before him, and answer for his usur¬
pation of the authority of the “supreme father,” and other mis- Commun-
deeds. Though restricted in extent, however, it would ap- ism>
pear that among his own followers, called “ the Family,” the '
sway of the supreme father was as despotic as that of any
eastern potentate; and the power of compulsion possessed and
wielded by him, is another instance of that capacity of en¬
forcement for temporal purposes which religious adhesion so
signally affords. Like all human authority, however, even
Enfantin’s was subject to rebellious antagonism, and within
the college, or the cabinet as it might be termed, of the
supreme father, there was a formidable conflict in the autumn
of 1831. Though this high matter of state was kept secret
from the family at large, yet we are told that “ from the
wearied step of the members of the college, from their worn
and pallid faces which gave manifest evidence of sleepless and
anxious nights, from their white lips, from the wild disorder
of their remarks, from the mystery with which they care¬
fully surrounded their proceedings, the members of the second
degree saw that some terrible drama was going forward.2
The insurrection was headed by Bazard, chief of the
dogma department of the college, who not only was united
to a wife, over whom he wished to continue exclusive posses¬
sion, but also desired to have his daughter married accord¬
ing to the usual formalities of French law and custom. As
the supreme father was inexorable both on this and other
points, there was a considerable secession from the Family.
The next great incident in their history is the dispersal of
their college of Menilmontant, and the trial and condemna¬
tion of their chiefs, as propagators of immorality and irreli-
gion. They marched to the tribunal in procession, clothed
in the solemn costume of their order—a blue robe with a
leathern girdle, white trousers, a red cap, the neck bare,
and a flowing beard. The picturesqueness of the whole
scene, and the reverential awe and passive obedience en¬
joyed by the supreme father, naturally created much sensa¬
tion in the Parisian world; but even the French toleration
of the bombast was outraged, when Enfantin stood gazing
at the court, calling attention to his own handsome face and
commanding figure, and demanding for them the homage
due to such advantages. The supreme father, and his dis¬
ciples Duverier and Michael Chevalier, were each subjected
to a year’s imprisonment, and a fine of 100 francs. Two
others, Rodriguez and Barault, were fined fifty francs each.
The Family were dispersed to diffuse their system in a modi¬
fied shape, and mystic St-Simonianism gradually yielded to
the more attractive views of its historian.
The three great living representatives of French projects
of organization are Auguste Comte, C. J.Prudhon,and Louis
Blanc. Both in his works, and in his personal history, each of
them has marked individual characteristics, which give them
a dissimilarity to each other, more immediately and promi¬
nently obvious than the differences in the views of their pre¬
decessors. The first is laborious, repulsive, and calm, pursu¬
ing his system of inquiry to startling and offensive conclusions,
such as the non-existence of a deity, with the most arid
deliberativeness. The other two are impulsive and passionate;
but Louis Blanc seizes a popular key note, and goes right
to the feelings and interests of the humbler and uneducated
classes with a sort of sympathetic respect for all that men
venerate in the shape of religion or the domestic aftections,
leaving to them all these undiminished, while he offers them
other substantial blessings; while Prudhon lifts his voice
with savage ferocity against every object of human venera¬
tion, and endeavours to break every bond tending to the
preservation of order and morality.
Perhaps it is scarcely just to rank Comte as one of the
artificial organizers, since his system rather pointed to a
future organization as the result of the growth of Positiv¬
ism ; and in reality the vast progress in the development of
1 History of Ten Years, i., 387.
8 16. i., 568.
212
COMMUNISM.
Commun- mankind which he represents as the necessary preliminary
v *smi ) to the acquisition of socialistic science, is a practical censure
on the crude and ephemeral designs which propose an im¬
mediate decomposition and reconstruction ot society. Ihe
aim of his positive system is to show that mankind possess
the means of gradually acquiring as certain a command over
the whole field of thought and action as they at present possess
over the exact sciences. In these, so far as the human intel¬
lect has worked, there is an absolute and satisfying certainty,
which leaves no room for difference of opinion or for intel¬
lectual anarchy. To astronomy, comprehending the grand¬
est operations of the physical world, the same ceitainty
has been applied, and the motions, distances, and sizes of
the heavenly bodies have been adjusted with an absolute¬
ness which leaves for opposition or scepticism no possible
foundation. Passing through the other sciences with ex¬
traordinary labour and ingenious acuteness, he endeavours
to show that they possess the elements of the same sort of
certain laws, and that these will in time be developed, the
development being much aided and accelerated by his own
discovery of the positive system of philosophy. In the phy¬
sical system his chief difficulty lies in biology, or the laws of
animal and vegetable life; and after seeing and admiring the
fragments as it were of certainty which he brings out of
mechanics and even chemistry, the contrast of struggling
difficulty exhibited in this department tells its own tale of
caution to human presumption. The last of all the sciences
to be subjected to supreme human intellect by the dis¬
covery and development of its absolute laws is sociology.
This is to be the science whereby men are to be governed
and directed in all their conduct and relations, with an as¬
sured conformity to the laws of their nature; a conformity
as assured, for instance, as that by which man already regu¬
lates any of the portions of physical nature, such as steam,
over which the progress of science has already given him
control. We have thus an imperfect type of the certainty
with which man may be governed, in the regulation of a
steam-engine and its machinery by a highly competent
engineer.
The prospect which this certainty held out to the mass
of the people, supposing them possessed of patience to fol¬
low Comte’s long deductions, was not flattering. It anni¬
hilates freedom of action and opinion. The world will be
under the absolute despotism of the intellects which can
grasp the greatest quantity of the positive science of socio¬
logy, as the pupils of a mathematical class are, in the matter
of mathematics, entirely subjected to the teacher who knows
so much more than they do. But it is to be a despotism to
which people will willingly submit, because it is certain and
irremediable as fate. The man destined for the humbler du¬
ties of life will never struggle against his destiny, for he will
feel that he occupies the inferior position, by a law as fixed
and immutable as that which makes the fern smaller than
the oak, and the sheep less powerful than the tiger. It
must at least be conceded to Comte that he does not ap¬
peal to vulgar prejudices. His atheism is reiterated so per¬
tinaciously and prominently, and is so closely connected with
his denial of the possible exercise of a will in the organi¬
zation of the world, that it must necessarily be mentioned
by every one who notices his system. But some of his ad¬
mirers have thought that a more legitimate result of his
system is the secondary argument for the existence of a
deity, from the perfection with which he shows the world
to be governed.
Hitherto we have found in the framers of artificial sys¬
tems, either abstract philosophers whose works are unsuited Commun-
to popular taste, or inventors of vast plans in which the ism.
people at large did not see any distinct and immediate pros-
pect of participating. To Louis Blanc has fallen the lot of
striking the key note of popular enthusiasm. He avoided
the features on which his predecessors had offensively dwelt,
—the necessity of subjection to the true laws of social or¬
ganization, and the duty of those destined to the humbler
grades of the human hierarchy to occupy them without re¬
pining. With the instinct of the genuine demagogue, he
told them solely of the wealth they were to gain, not of the
liberty they were to lose. The fervid eloquence of his
Organisation du Travail luxuriated in a theme which
can never fail to be attractive—the spoliation of the poor
by the affluent, and the right of restitution which the hum¬
bler classes possess against their more fortunate neighbours.
His views are expressed with a pleasing eloquence and a
touching earnestness, which make the perusal of the book
agreeable even to those who see from the beginning the
monstrous and almost incredible paradoxes on which the
reasonings are founded. That competition is ruinous to
the working classes, and not even propitious to their em¬
ployers, may be called his fundamental principle. He at¬
tacks it in various ways ; it is selfish and demoralizing, ren¬
dering men sordid and jealous—it produces unfair inequa¬
lities in the distribution of the produce of industry—it has
several other grave defects, but its grand offence is its po¬
tency for the destruction of the working classes. The fol¬
lowing brief extract will perhaps show as distinctly as a
fuller exposition, the extreme nature of his views. “ A con¬
tractor requires a workman—three present themselves for
his selection. ‘ How much wages do you want ?’ he says
to one. £ Three francs—I have a wife and children.’ ‘ So,
so—and you?’ 4 Two francs and a half—I have no chil¬
dren, but I have a wife.’ 4 Very well—and you ?’ 4 Two
francs will do with me—I am a bachelor.’ 4 Then you
get the job.’ It is done—the bargain is made; and
what is to become of the two excluded workmen ?—it is
to be hoped that they will permit themselves to die of fa¬
mine. But what if they should become robbers ? Don’t
be afraid—we have a police. Or assassins ? Why we
have the hangman.”1 In this country the answer which
would at once be made to this, both by theoretic rea¬
soning and by facts, is, that competition induces the man
who requires three francs to work up to their value : and
it is at the same time very certain to all who know the
general proportion which the profit of capital bears to the
wages of labour, that if the unburdened workman s labour
is only worth two francs there is no possible fund out of
which three francs can be paid to the burdened fellow-work¬
man who requires them. It is competition that creates the
fund out of which high wages are paid, and those who would
abolish it because it makes an unequal distribution of the
realized fund, would not have that fund at all to distribute.
He endeavours to show that competition is injurious to
trade, since it must necessarily bring things into existence
which are supernumerary. The process is the same as that
which leads to the starvation of the workmen. A man
wants a commodity—three manufacturers competing with
each other make triplicates of it—he selects that which is
offered at the lowest price, and the other two are lost. It
is almost needless to say that, though the supply sometimes
does outrun the demand, yet the general object of pro¬
ducers collectively is to produce no more of any commodity
than what will find a market; and though they may not be
1 “ Un entrepreneur a besoin d’un ouvrier : trois se presentent. ‘ Combien pour votre travail ?’ ( Trois francs—j’ai une femme et des
enfants.’ ‘ Bien. Et vous V ‘ Deux francs et demi—je n’ai pas d’enfants, mais j’ai une femme.’ ‘ A merveille. Et vous ?’ ‘ Deux francs
me suffiront—je suis seul.’ ‘ A vous done la preference.’ C’en est fait: le marche est conclu ! Que deviendront les deux proletaires
exclus? Ils se laisseront mourir de faim, il faut 1’esperer. Mais s’ils allaient se faire voleurs ? Ne craignez rien, nous avons des gens-
d’armes. Et assassins? Nous avons le bourreau.”—Organisation du Travail, p. 43. Bruxelles, 1843.
COMMUNISM.
Commun- perfect judges of the quantity, they are undoubtedly ren-
ism. dered by self-interest the best that can be found. But the
whole large branch of competition which operates through
tender and acceptance is overlooked in Louis Blanc’s argu¬
ment. His statement of facts would be exemplified if, when a
man wants a house of a peculiar shape, two or three archi¬
tects build according to his plan, in the hope that one will be
accepted; or when a new judge takes his seat,all the tailors of
London set to making robes, one only of which can have the
good fortune to be of use. But when individual commo¬
dities are required, either there is a reliance on the prices
adjusted by ordinary competition, or there is a special com¬
petition by previous tender. The service of the post-office
is often referred to by Louis Blanc as an instance of or¬
ganized labour from which competition is excluded; but it
is far otherwise. There are contracts for carrying the let¬
ters from place to place; there is competition for the con¬
struction of the vehicles and other facilities for locomotion,
whether under the direct control of the post-office autho¬
rities or in the hands of those who contract with them; and
finally, among the various persons employed there is the
usual competition to obtain as much remuneration as pos¬
sible, while the government, relying on the same spirit, en¬
deavours to obtain the greatest amount of service for its
outlay. The army is another department loudly appealed
to as an instance of the accomplishment of the greatest ob¬
jects through organization without competition. But it is
for destruction alone that organization here suffices. The
productive part of the army service—the supply of food,
apparel, barracks, and weapons—is the object of ordinary
competition,
His ultimate project was to substitute a perfect system
of state organization for the imperfect and pernicious sys¬
tem of employment and competition. At the time when
his work was published, however, the state was a monarchy,
of whose abuses he had himself made many a bitter exposure.
Having therefore considered that state management had, in
the experience of the world, always tended to abuse and in¬
equality, he admitted that his system could not be committed
to any state such as had existed among mankind. The first
step must be the establishment of a perfectly pure demo¬
cracy, which would have the interests of all impartially at
heart. This once done, the organization of labour might
be carried out. To make the change adjust itself to exist¬
ing interests, he proposed to make the competitive efforts of
the state, in the first place, absorb all other competition.
The state was to begin by raising a loan to establish a
limited number of workshops in each department of industry.
In these establishments government should regulate thefunc-
tions and gradations of the men; but after a time, when they
became acquainted with each other, and with the principle
of co-operation, they would adjust their own social hierarchy
on the elective system. From the commencement the men
would be allowed wages or subsistence money. The profits
being struck at the end of the year, would be divided into
four parts. One would be a sinking fund for the repayment
of the capital,—though it is difficult to see how, when the
system fully developed itself, there should be any person in
a position to receive payment of capital; another fourth
would be divided among the men ; the third would go to
fund an hospital for the sick and infirm ; and the last would
be retained as a reserve for special purposes.
By the perfection of their management, their extensive
capital, and their general popularity, these national work¬
shops would gradually drive private establishments out
of the field, and, enlarging themselves, fill the place occu¬
pied by them. But, as this competition would be worked
by a perfectly benevolent, pure, and conscientious govern¬
ment, it would be deformed by none of the exterminat¬
ing defects of the ordinary competitive system, and one
of its principles should be, that its pressure be as gentle as
213
may be consistent with its effectiveness. In a short time Commun-
all private competition would be vanquished, and the or- ism.
ganization of every department of labour wrould be vested
in the state, to be regulated with that perfect wisdom and
justice of which the state, as formed by Louis Blanc, would
be certainly possessed.
It is the policy of Louis Blanc to find fault with nothing
in the existing social and moral condition of things beyond
that portion of them which must be superseded to admit of
his own favourite plan for the organization of labour.
Hence, in his endeavours to engraft his novel projects on
the ordinary institutions of society, and to prove their supe¬
riority over what they displace by arguments founded on
mere ordinary utility and profit, he renders his fallacies much
more palpable than those of his contemporary Prudhon, who,
proposing to demolish every existing institution and belief,
sets arguments of a merely utilitarian character at defiance,
and challenges a contest on a wider and more fundamental
ground. But of the two, the paradoxes stated with so much
deference to received opinions, and with so much amiable be1
nevolence proved far more calamitous than the vast revolu¬
tions of Prudhon, which, suggested by a relentless hatred
of all that men have been accustomed to love and revere,
have carried with them their own practical confutation to
the greater portion of those who have read them. Without
examining more minutely Prudhon’s system, it is appro¬
priate to the point immediately under consideration to show
that his practical conclusions are directly the reverse of
those of Louis Blanc, whom, after the usual method of or¬
ganic social reformers when speaking of each other’s plans,
he lashes with condign ridicule.. Gathering up all the phy¬
sical and moral wealth of which the rights of property and
other human institutions have robbed mankind, Prudhon
seems to advocate a distribution according to each human be¬
ing’s contributions as a productive worker to the riches of the
world. With his usual felicity of illustration, he compares
the man who obtains, by property, office, or in any other
shape, more than the proportion corresponding with his exer¬
tions, to areaper who receives aloaf for cutting an ear of corn.
On the other hand, Louis Blanc’s principle of distribu¬
tion is, that men should receive not according to their ca¬
pacities or exertions, but their needs; and the whole object
of his organization of labour, both in its theoretic form, and
when afterwards, as one of the provisional government of
1848, he endeavoured to put it in practice, was to carry
out this result. In his national workshops, all competi¬
tion, all rivalry, all selfishness, were to be dead. Each man
on a principle of honour was to perform his assigned duty—
the distribution of the proceeds was to be a separate ope¬
ration, proceeding on grounds totally distinct from the com¬
parative services of the producers.
A suspicion is suggested by the tone of some parts of the
Organisation du Travail—which will be confirmed by a
perusal of its author’s clever history of ten years of the reign
of Louis Philippe—that his strong hatred of competition
rests on opinions, or more properly speaking impulses, totally
different from those economical arguments on which he pro¬
fesses to found them. In treating of the working classes,
he always speaks of them as mere mute instruments who
must take, collectively, the position which the capitalists,or—
when they are superseded—the predominant party in the
state, assign to them; and he never makes allowance for
energy or activity promoting an improvement in their con¬
dition. In his history he complains of their becoming selfish
and sordid, and accumulating money in the savings-banks
during the early prosperous years of Louis Philippe’s reign.
These indications of a feeling that the working classes are
a mere inanimate mass at the command of organizers, are
accompanied by unmistakeable references to the time of
conquest, aggression, and tyranny, as that of the true glory
of France, and bitter allusions to the sordid spirit of peace-
214 COM M UNIS M.
Commun- ful productive industry, which has been the source of British
ism. greatness. He refers repeatedly to the admitted prosperity
and influence which Britain has achieved by the spirit of
commercial competition, pointing out what Fi’ance must ac¬
complish to excel us in such a race, and pointing it out in a
tone of deprecatory despondency. It is clear that the pre¬
dominating influence which has produced his mischievous
books is, that in a struggle with Britain for national supe¬
riority, the chance for his own country is not in diiecting
her people to industrial productiveness, but in abandoning
competition and peaceful wealth, and assuming an organi¬
zation which, as in the days of Napoleon s greatest achieve¬
ments, will place all France in array against any nation
competing with her for the supremacy of the world. 1 hat,
in short, the best chance for France being great and for¬
midable is not by producing wealth, but by destroying the
wealth created by others.
The opinions of the Organisation du Travail spread
rapidly among the Parisian workmen, and those of the
larger provincial towns. Many other works promulgating
views of the same kind were eagerly devoured, and even
the more abstruse and forbidding treatises of previous or¬
ganizers were received into favour, as being so far on the
side of the abolitionists, that they were against property and
other existing institutions. Thus a large body of men ra¬
diated from central Paris through all the populous portions
of France, whose opinions on government were not merely
republican as against monarchy, but were communistic ox-
socialistic as against property and other social institutions.
It belongs rather to the history of France than to the
immediate object of this paper to describe the influence of
these far-spread opinions on the eventful history of the year
1848. Among those who had obtained a popular position
in the common arena of politics, the provisional government
of France included Louis Blanc, and others for whom power
was demanded, rather on account of their anti-economic
than their anti-regal opinions. Between the merely politi¬
cal republicans on the one hand, and the communists and
socialists on the other, there was a long conflict which it
required a stronger party than either to put down. The
miseries of the period of conflict, and the subsequent sub¬
jugation of Fx-ance, were the legitimate fruit of the doc-
tx-ines which Louis Blanc, Prudhon, and other writex-s had
been px-omulgating. Strongly represented as they were in
the pi’ovisional government, they could not obtain a direct
practical adoption of their principles as the universal law of
France. They obtained, however, general resolutions from
the px-ovisional government, importing that an end must be
put to the sufferings of the labouring classes, and that they
ought to be guaranteed the legitimate fruits of their labour.
The committee of the Luxembom-g was at the same time
appointed, with Louis Blanc at its head, to consider the con¬
dition of the woi'kmen. The object of the majority of the
provisional government was in this shape to get rid of the
whole question by making it a mex-e matter of inquiry. The
object of M. Blanc and bis friends was to make the committee a
means of action rather than of mere investigation. They suc¬
ceeded, at least, so far as to induce a vast body of workmen to
look to them for a regenex-ation of their lot, and abandon all
projects of honest industry. A portion of these were em¬
ployed, neither to their own satisfaction nor to the benefit of
the commxxnity, in national workshops where all were paid
alike. The idle, who constituted the majority, admired the
system. In the hotel Clichy a special experiment was tried on
a government order for the uniforms of the Garde Mobile.
Fifteen hundred tailors were assembled, with an establish¬
ment of foremen, clerks, and cxxtters. The sum at which an
army contractor would during the monarchy have furnished
the dresses having been set down as their proper price, the
men were allowed two francs a-day as sxibsistence money
while they wox-ked, and were in the end to obtain the bal¬
ance equally divided among them. But when the day of Commun*
reckoning came, it was found that not only was thex-e no ism.
balance of gain, but that there was loss, and that the two
francs a-day of sxibsistence money—the lowest i-ate of wages
paid by master tailors—had overpaid the men for the wox-k
actually done by them under the mere impulse of “ liberty,
equality, and fraternity.” Their energies, unexcited by the
spirit of competition, relaxed when each man found that the
proceeds of his increased exertions were not to be received
by himself alone, but to be distributed over the whole body
of 1500 fellow-workmen.
It is the peculiax-ity of all great systems of social organi¬
zation, that when they are put in practice and fail, the failure
is attributed to the imperfect character of the experiment.
Louis Blanc and his friends have ever maintained that
the reason why the efforts to put his projects in force in
1848 failed, was because they were imperfectly and not com¬
pletely tried. The circumstances under which he fled fi-om
Fx-ance, and his contributions to the socialist press of Eng¬
land, indicate that he purposed to carry oxit his system by
foi'ce, when it was seen that the majority of the suffi’ages of
the people were against it. A true fanatic to his views,
he held that the popular mind had been impregnated with
false principles by the corrupt system of employment and
competition ; and that, to afford a fair field for the true sys¬
tem, it was necessary in the first place to use the power
possessed by the wielders of supreme authority in France
to carry it out by fox-ce. He readily—like all protestei's
against tyi'anny who are going to commit a flagrant act of
coercion—found an excuse for his conduct in the necessity
soundly to indoctrinate the people, and enable them to ap¬
preciate the truth.
The manner in which the communist and socialist doc¬
trines spread through Europe, and were suppressed in
Fx-ance as well as elsewhere, forms one of the most memo¬
rable chapters in late European history. It has only to be
noticed that, while the public organs of these opinions have
been suddenly silenced on the Continent, no one can at this
moment say how far the opinions themselves may be xxnder-
mining the govei’nments which appear to keep them down,
and the whole order of society. In our own country we
know with fortunate distinctness how the matter stands, and,
as the following explanation will show, we have to thank the
freedom of the press for a feeling of security of which other
nations are lamentably deficient.
Socialistic and communistic notions, though they have
sometimes been very prevalent in Bx-itain, have never en¬
listed any great amount of intellect, either in devising ox-
promulgating them. The few stray writers who have gone
beyond a sentimental and hesitating sympathy with the
views of the continental communists have belonged to a to¬
tally different class in the intellectual hiei'archy from those
men who have by their genius and fervid eloquence from time
to time convulsed the public mind of Fx-ance. The name of
Robert Owen stands supreme as the prophet and champion of
British communism. But, though his position is thus lofty
with relation to his peculiar department, he is a man of very
moderate literary abilities. A continued perseverance in
one tone, an undying sanguineness which made him speak
with the assux-ance of success at the time when the px-os-
pects of his caxxse were at the extremity of hopelessness, and
an entire reliance on his own infallibility, have been the
qualities which, mox-e than once in the course of his long life,
have pi-ocured him an attentive hearing from a considerable
portion of the public.
The conditions under which he fxx-st appealed to public
sympathy were favourable to his demands, since he advocated
the cause of a portion of society to which the social institu¬
tions of the age failed to communicate their oi*ganizing in¬
fluence. The inventions of Hargreaves and Arkwright had
just given their impulse to the manufacturing system. By
COMMUNISM.
Commun- the creation of cotton mills in districts which had been but
ism. thinly peopled, a portion of the people \vere dragged out of
the bosom of ordinary society and all the organizing prin¬
ciples which had arisen with its slow growth, and were
chaotically massed together in large groups, without the ap¬
plication of any sanction to replace those influences which
they had left behind them, in the shape of ecclesiastical mem¬
bership, corporate or parochial supervisance, the genial con¬
trol of hereditary neighbours, and the family ties. In Scot¬
land the social revolution was signally conspicuous and disas¬
trous. The cheapness of labour in that part of the empire,
and the geological facilities for obtaining water power, at¬
tracted English manufacturing capital northwards, and often
in some solitary glen several hundreds of persons were at
once set down as mere producing machines, without any
consideration for their moral condition or any effort to sup¬
ply for them those elements of social organization which,
naturally of slow growth, cannot be voted and adopted at
once by a working population even had they knowledge
enough to be aware of their necessity.
Owen was himself practically engaged in manufactures,
and the first revelations of his system came to the English
public with all that authority which disinterested benevo¬
lence, supported by practical sagacity, is sure to command.
So in the year 1815, in a tract called “ Observations on the
Effect of the Manufacturing System, with Hints for the
Improvement of those parts of it which are most injurious
to Health and Morals,” we may read the following excellent
remarks:—
“ In the manufacturing districts it is common for parents
to send their children of both sexes, at seven or eight years
of age, in winter as well as summer, at six o’clock in the
morning, sometimes of course in the dark, and occasionally
amidst frost and snow, to enter the manufactories, which are
often heated to a high temperature, and contain an atmo¬
sphere far from being the most favourable to human life, and
in which all those employed in them very frequently con¬
tinue until twelve o’clock at noon, when an hour is allowed
for dinner, after which they return to remain, in a majority
of cases, till eight o’clock at night.
“ The children now find they must labour incessantly for
their bare subsistence ; they have not been used to innocent,
healthy, and rational amusements ; they are not permitted
the requisite time if they had been previously accustomed
to enjoy them. They know not what relaxation means,
except by the actual cessation from labour. They are sur¬
rounded by others similarly circumstanced with them¬
selves ; and thus passing on from childhood to youth, they
become gradually initiated, the young men in particular,
but often the young females also, in the seductive pleasures
of the pot-house and inebriation, for which their daily hard
labour, want of better habits, and the general vacuity of
their minds tend to prepare them.
“ Such a system of training cannot be expected to pro¬
duce any other than a population weak in bodily and men¬
tal faculties, and with habits generally destructive of their
own comforts and the well-being of those around them, and
strongly calculated to subdue all the social affections. Man
so circumstanced sees all around him hurrying forward at a
mail-coach speed to acquire individual wealth, regardless of
him, his comforts, his wants, or even his sufferings, except
by way of a degrading parish charity, fitted only to steel the
heart of man against his fellows, or to form the tyrant and
the slave. To-day he labours for one master, to-morrow for
a second, then for a third, and a fourth, until all ties between
employers and employed are frittered down to the consider¬
ation of what immediate gain each can derive from the other.
, The employer regards the employed as mere instruments
of gain, while these acquire a gross ferocity of character,
which, if legislative measures shall not be judiciously devised
to prevent its increase, and ameliorate the condition of this
215
class, will sooner or later plunge the country into a formid- Commun-
able and perhaps inextricable state of danger.” ism.
This was new to the world in the year 1815, and the best
testimony that it was not only new but true and valuable, is
to be found in the too frequent repetition of the same causes
of complaint down to the present day, uttered with a general
similarity of tone which makes these sentences scarcely seem
obsolete or antiquated after the lapse of forty years.
But when a few such apt elucidations are culled from
Owen’s earlier works, it is easily perceived that their merits
are exhausted; and through the tremendous voluminousness
of his writings during the ensuing forty years, we may wade
in vain, finding nothing at the utmost better than an ex¬
hausted repetition, after many years, of some judicious sen¬
timent to be found in his early pamphlets. That Owen was
connected with a manufactory, the organization in which
contrasted with such descriptions, was a very well known
fact, which gave much emphasis to his writings. But it
must be questioned whether any great portion of either the
practical or theoretical wisdom of which he has obtained the
merit was his own. The New Lanark cotton mill, with
which Owen’s name has long been associated, was founded
in the year 1784 by Mr David Dale. Owen married his
daughter, and thus succeeded to a patrimonial interest in
the establishment. In the multifarious works in which he
has proclaimed his own merits, he occasionally, but very
rarely, mentions the organizing efforts of Mr Dale as a sort
of introduction to his own. It is known, however, that Mr
Dale was the author of at least a very large proportion of
the practical arrangements in the New Lanark mill; and
when it is mentioned that he is not known to have ever
solicited public attention to his exertions, while Mr Owen
has been an incessant prater about himself, his services, and
his projects, for half a century, it may be conjectured that
his practical footing in a well-organized manufactory was
made for him. In fact, though he professes to have found
his predecessor struggling by imperfect remedies with social
difficulties which he himself afterwards overcame through
means of his peculiar solvent, there is no doubt that all that
was beneficently and judiciously effected at New Lanark
was the doing of Mr Dale. Owen had at least sense enough
to see the usefulness of his arrangements, and to improve on
them. Whether by his own talent, or from the instructions of
his father-in-law, he could generalize on the lesson taught by
the defects of the ordinary manufactory system in the manner
of the passage quoted above; and thus, being a vain good
humoured man, frivolous and fond of popularity, it fell to his
lot to acquire a very high reputation, as a social philosopher
who had accomplisbed the unwonted feat of putting his the¬
ories into practice. The New Lanark mills were for some years
deemed one of the wonders of the world, and no member of
a royal house, or illustrious stranger travelling in Scotland,
failed to visit them. Owen when he went to London de¬
livered addresses in Exeter Hall, at which members of the
royal family thought they were doing a public duty by at¬
tending ; and it was at one time rumoured that the Duke
of Kent intended to give the princess who is now the queen
of the British empire the benefit of instructions, in social
science, by Robert Owen. Among the many foreign tri¬
butes to his popularity, was the offer of a province in Texas
where he might carry out his system much more freely than
he could in the New Lanark mills, but he declined the
banishment involved in such an arrangement.
As time passed, however, the practical base on which
Owen appeared to found his system was seen to slip from
beneath him. His partners in the New Lanark mill found
it necessary to buy him off. He wras continually writing
papers explaining how the human race had heretofore been
left in ignorance, darkness, and misery, which he possessed,
by the establishment of his “ Rational System of Society,”
the means of immediately correcting. Pie indicated his
216 COMMUNISM.
Commun- opinion that the New Lanark works had reached successfully
ism. j-wo p0jnts 0f twenty which were necessary to perfecti-
bility; and some of his partners who appeared to be well
contented with the pecuniary results of the undertaking,
afraid that Owen might defeat them by attempts to carry
out a portion of the remaining eighteen points, resolved il
possible to be rid of him.
With the capital which he drew out of the concern a
considerable sum—Owen immediately projected an esta¬
blishment in more entire conformity with his now matured
system. The place selected was Orbiston in Lanarkshire,
where a great parallelogram was to be erected, that being
the only form of edifice in which the perfect uniformity of
organization which was to reign throughout the administra¬
tion would have its proper development. 1 he edifice was
commenced in 1825, and Owen s own funds were sufficient
to build a portion of it. Of the whole sum necessary, how¬
ever, which he fixed at L.96,000, so small a proportion was
available that only one angle of the parallelogram was com¬
pleted. In this mutilated shape it was of course impossible
that the social organization dependent on the parallelogram
form could be developed. Nearly two hundred inmates oc¬
cupied it for some time, but they lived with so little of the
promised harmony of The New Moral World, that the country
people called the place Babel.
It was treated as a great moral nuisance, and the society-
soon breaking up, the building was levelled with the ground,
much to the satisfaction of the neighbourhood. By this
time, indeed, Owen had turned the tide of popular feeling
against him by views calculated to be extremely offensive.
Among his observations on the habits of the manufacturing
population, he had laid it down that in their moral consti¬
tution vice and superstition alternated. To a person coming,
as he did, from England, into close contact with the most un¬
restrained section of the Scottish population, the rigidness of
the Calvinistic principles of the people would naturally appear
in startling and unpleasing contrast with their deep vices.
To fathom the depths of such a social system, and adjust
the proper remedies, required a stronger judgment than
Owen’s, and a less presumptuous will. He immediately be¬
gan an unequal theological contest, in which he omitted no¬
thing that could rouse the jealousy and indignation of the
clergy, or shock the prejudices of the people. He was not
only to be the lawgiver, but the prophet of his system, esta¬
blishing in it a new rational religion of his own; and though
he did not require a communion of wives as well as a com¬
munion of goods, yet he made the marriage tie dissolvable
with alarming facility.
On the other hand, the supporters of free political insti¬
tutions were alarmed by the complex official hierarchy which
was to rule with absolute power. It is true that there was
in the eyes of its constructor a perfectly efficient check on
tyranny, injustice, and rapacity, but it was not sufficient to
convince the rest of the world. It arose from the perfec¬
tion of nature which men would obtain under the rational
system of society—their entire divestiture of all human pas¬
sions and prejudices. These expectations, along with as¬
surances that every human being would possess under the
new system an abundance of everything desirable to an
inhabitant of the world, were conveyed in unceasing streams
of such mellifluent prophecies as the following:—
“ In these separate societies there will be no contest or
competition between the members; nor yet will there be
any between the societies, however near or distant or nu¬
merous they may be . . . all will be trained and edu¬
cated to acquire the greatest amount of useful and valuable
knowledge; and then possessing the spirit of charity, kind¬
ness, and love for all their fellows, which spirit will be given
to them by their new mode of instruction from birth,—all
will of necessity feel the greatest desire to aid and assist Conunun-
each other to the full extent of their powers, and their ’sm.
greatest pleasure will arise from being thus occupied. There
will also be in each of these societies the due proportion of
manufactures, trades, and commerce, for the number of
members and their wants; but manufactures, trades, and
commerce will be established and conducted on principles
very different to those prevalent throughout present society.
. . . In this manner will these societies, being always
supplied with the latest and best machinery for performing
whatever it can be made to well execute, produce the
greatest amount of the most valuable wealth in the shortest
time and in the best manner, so as to produce health and
enjoyment to all while engaged in the department of pro¬
duction.” 1
Owen appeared to have obtained another and a still
more satisfactory opportunity of attesting his principles in
the year 1843. The communists and socialists, acting under
the impulses to be presently mentioned, had collected a con¬
siderable sum of money, and resolved to centralize their
societies under the authority of a congress, which was to
meet in Harmony Hall, an edifice built by them in Hamp¬
shire, to serve both as a central office for socialist organiza¬
tion, and a model for other quadrangular establishments.
Here, on the 10th of May, Mr Owen was solemnly chosen
President of the Congress. From that time, in the official
organs of his sect, we find him making progresses among
the provincial establishments, like a sovereign inspecting the
several local institutions of his realm ; and it would be re¬
corded that he visited the Concordium, and after having in¬
spected the premises, was presented with an address by the
Pater and Elder, and was entertained by the whole family
at dinner.
But it soon turned out that a total difference of view lay
between Owen and his supporters. He, ever looking to
the broad measures of universal human regeneration over
which he had been now for several years a theoretic dreamer,
contemplated only the blessings which the world was to
reap from an entire social regeneration, while his disciples
were bent on obtaining personal advantages from the imme¬
diate application of its principles. These they did not find
at Harmony Hall, and they consequently deposed their chief.
The history of the new race of communists and socialists,
who had thus lost all respect for the patriarch of their sect,
must be briefly given.
While the policy of protection to native agriculture and
other interests prevailed, and the Apprentice Act, with various
corporate restrictions on labour, was in full observance, the
workman, far from being taught that he must depend on
his own industry and prudence, was led to expect that the
state would take care of him. It professed to protect the
landed and farming interest, the shipping interest, and va¬
rious other separate interests. It did not entirely neglect
the workman. By acts for restraining the introduction of
foreign silk and cotton goods, and by various other legis¬
lative efforts, he was professedly protected. Still, while the
landowner, the farmer, the shipowner, and the master-ma¬
nufacturer w ere rich, he was poor and miserable. He main¬
tained, therefore, that what the state had done for them it
had not done for him, and he hailed the doctrines of the
communists and socialists as affording him a more entire and
effective protection. Hence those principles had spread so
widely from the passing of the Reform Bill downwards as to
create much alarm. While some wisely considered that
free discussion, and the remedy of admitted evils, would be
the best cure for this social disease; others proposed a re¬
sort to coercion. On the 20th of January 1840, the Bishop
of Exeter asked in the House of Lords if the government
had taken any steps to repress the progress of socialism, and
1 The Book of the New Moral World, explanatory of the Elements of the Science of Society, by Robert Owen, I., t. xi., p. 19.
COM
COM
217
Commu- was answered by Lord Normanby, the home secretary, that
nity no such steps had been taken ; but that, if the persons re-
II ferred to were guilty of any offence, the proper proceedings
Como. wou]j ke adopted. On the 24th the bishop resumed the dis-
cussion, on the presentation of a petition by 40,000 of the
clergy, magistrates, merchants, and traders of Birmingham,
praying their Lordships to interpose for the suppression of
socialism. He stated that “ Great Britain was divided into
fourteen principal districts. A congress met annually, which
assumed to itself legislative power for directing the whole
proceedings of the general body. That congress assembled,
he believed, at different points in different years. Two
delegates were sent from all the places where there were
charter branches of the society, not amounting to less than
61. There was besides an executive body, the Central
Court. He did not know how often that met; but he be¬
lieved it was in a constant state of capacity for meeting.
That body superintended the formation of associations
throughout the land, and appointed missionaries to each of
the fourteen districts into which the United Kingdom was
divided by the society. There were no fewer than 350
towns regularly visited by these missionaries.”—Hansard’s
Debates.
The vehement and intolerant terms in which the bishop
demanded the suppression of the offensive doctrines created
an immediate reaction in their favour. Whatever amount
of adhesion they had obtained was speedily increased, and
several able periodicals for some time represented the opi¬
nions of various clusters of communists and socialists. Free
discussion, however, and the known failure of the partial ex¬
periments which had occurred, accompanied by the abolition
of the protective system, soon undermined any position which
such doctrines had obtained in the public mind. The revo¬
lution of 1848 was followed by an expiring flash. The com¬
munistic periodicals, after a brief period of excitement and
success, dropped one by one out of existence. There is at
the present moment no known public organ of these systems
in Britain; and while this has been the happy result of entire
freedom of discussion, there can be little doubt that, in those
nations where opinion has been coerced, a communistic spirit of
themost dangerous kind still smoulders, ready, when an occa¬
sion offers itself, to burst forth in a consuming flame, (j.h.b.)
COMMUNITY, a society of people living in the same
place, under the same laws, regulations, and customs. It
also signifies common possession or enjoyment; as commu¬
nity of goods.
COMNENA. See Anna Comnena.
COMO, Lake of, Lago di Como, the Lacus Larius of
the ancients, in the province of Como, Lombardy, is, from
the beauty of its situation and the delightful mildness of its
climate, the most celebrated lake of northern Italy. It is
formed by the Adda and numerous streams and rivulets
which empty themselves into it. The lake is of a very irre¬
gular form, about 35 miles in length; its greatest breadth
three miles, but its general breadth is only between one and
two. The southern portion is divided by the promontory
of Bellagio into two branches, the one extending S.W. to
the city of Como and retaining the name of Lago di Como,
and the other, by which the Adda makes its exit, extending
S.E. to Lecco, and hence called the Lago di Lecco.
Steamers ply between its principal towns, but its naviga¬
tion is frequently rendered hazardous by sudden squalls.
The banks are formed of precipitous mountains from 2000
to 3000 feet in height, in some places overhanging the
water, in others partially covered with wood and studded
with hamlets, cottages, villas, chapels, and convents. The
most beautiful point of view is undoubtedly at Bellagio.
The upper waters are there seen winding up to the very
foot of the higher chain of the Alps, and terminating within
a short distance of the terrific pass of the Splugen. The
loftier hills bordering the lake of Lecco rise on one side,
while on the other the wider expanse of the lower lake re¬
tires behind the beautiful foreground rocks and hanging
woods that form the promontory of Bellagio. Numbers of
trading boats are seen gliding under the broad reflection of
the gigantic mountains, their white sails occasionally gleam¬
ing in the sunshine; while several little villages lie scattered
along the shores.—Sketches of Italy.
Como, a province in the Austrian kingdom of Venetian
Lombardy, bounded on the N. by Switzerland and Valte-
line, on the E. by Bergamo, on the S. by Milan, and on
the W. by the kingdom of Sardinia. Being towards the
foot of the Alps, the northern part is mountainous, and the
southern undulating. Between the spurs of the mountains
are some beautiful and fertile valleys. It extends over
1000 square miles, and in 1851 had 423,206 inhabitants.
The chief productions are, corn, wine, fruit, and fish. The
manufactures are silk and linen articles ; but the inhabitants
of many of the districts subsist by making looking-glasses,
spectacles, and mathematical, surgical, and physical instru¬
ments. The purity of the atmosphere attracts many of the
VOL. VII.
richer families of Italy to the district, where they have built
numerous rural villas.
Como, city of. See Comum.
COMORES, or Comoro Islands, a group of 4 volcanic
islands in the Mozambique Channel, between Madagascar
and the east coast of Africa. The group consists of Anga-
ziya or Great Comoro, Anzuan or Johanna, Mohilla, and
Mayotta. The islands are mountainous and fertile, afford¬
ing pasturage to large herds of cattle. The Great Comoro
contains 12,000 inhabitants, who are chiefly Arabs, and
almost all Mohammedans.
COMORIN, Cape, the southern extremity of the con¬
tinent of India, situated in the native state of Tra van core.
According to Captain Horsburgh, it is formed of a circular
low sandy point, not discernible above the distance of about
four leagues from sea. The land is bold, and may be ap¬
proached within about a mile and a half or two miles; be¬
yond which it is dangerous for ships to proceed in conse¬
quence of the rocky character of the coast. An elevated
summit, some distance north of the cape, has by navigators
sailing at a distance been sometimes mistaken for the cape
itself. Long. 77. 35. Lat. 8. 5.
COMPACT (Lat.compactus,co7npingo),m Philosophy,is
said of bodies which are of a close, dense, and heavy texture.
Compact (Lat. compactum), in a legal sense, an agree¬
ment or contract between parties.
COMPANY, a collective term, understood of several
persons assembled together. The word is derived from the
French compagnie, and that from companio or companies,
which, Chifflet observes, are found in the Salic law, tit. 66,
and are properly military words, being understood of soldiers
who, in modern phrase, are comrades or messmates, that is,
lodge together and eat together. The real etymology of
the word would therefore seem to be the Latin cum, with,
and panis, bread. Another etymon also has been proposed
—namely, that it is a compound of cum and pannus, cloth
(Spanish joa/fo, cloth, Teutonic fahne or man, a flag); hence
“ company ” would signify a body of soldiers under one
standard. It may be added, that in some Greek authors
under the Western Empire the word Kavpiravia. occurs in
the sense of society. In modern military phrase, company
denotes a subdivision of a regiment of infantry, under the
command of a captain, and consisting of from 60 to 100 men.
Company also denotes a number of persons united for
tbe same purpose in any joint concern; as a company of
merchants, of mechanics, or of players. The word is ap¬
plicable to private partnerships, or to incorporated bodies.
The mechanics of all corporations, or towns incorporated,
are thus erected into companies, with privileges and immu-
2 E
218 COM
Company, nities bestowed on them by royal charter. The original
'''-—vobject of these associations was the protection and advance¬
ment of trade ; and they might have answered some use-
fid purposes in the rude age in which they were esta¬
blished. But they have long ceased to be useful; and, so
far from promoting, they tend to obstruct the progress of
industry. The privilege which they possessed ot enacting
bye-laws for the regulation of their own members, enabled
them to pass rules for the purpose of maintaining a strict
monopoly of their trade. No one was at liberty within the
city over which their authority extended to exercise his
calling without becoming a freeman of the coi’poration, and
paying the necessary dues, which were often so high as to
prevent a workman from ever prosecuting his business as a
master. The restraints imposed by these coipoxations are
now, however, happily either antiquated or abolished.
The term company seems more particularly appropriated
to large commercial associations vested by chartei with pe¬
culiar privileges.
“ There are some branches of industry which must be
carried on in some degree in common, but with respect to
the prosecution of which the views and interests of indivi¬
duals are so very various, that government is obliged to in¬
terfere to regulate their respective pretensions. The salmon
fishery is an instance of this sort. Government has not
only to fix when the fishery shall begin and terminate, but
it has also to decide how far the proprietors near the mouths
of rivers shall be entitled to carry weirs and other fishing
machinery into their channels.
“ Undertakings in which the hazard is considerable, or
that require, in order to their successful prosecution, a larger
amount of capital than can be conveniently furnished by
individuals, are usually carried on by companies, which fre¬
quently require the sanction of the legislature to their for¬
mation. And when these bodies claim no peculiar privi¬
leges, but are formed on the principle of coming into fair
and open competition with each other and with individuals,
there does not seem, in ordinary cases, to be any good
reason for opposing their incorporation. But in the event
of their claiming any peculiar privileges, or if the purpose
for which they seek to be incorporated would necessarily
give them such privileges, the fair presumption being that
they will employ them to promote their own private in¬
terests in preference to those of the public, they should not
be incorporated without the maturest deliberation. Still,
however, there are many cases in which it is for the public
advantage that companies with such privileges should be
established, under proper regulations. A city is ill supplied
with water ; there is a copious spring ten or twenty miles
distant, and a company offer to bring this water into the
city, on their getting an act authorizing them to appro¬
priate the spring, and to lay pipes or to construct an aque¬
duct for the conveyance of the water. In this case the
object in view is most desirable ; but it is plain that, were
the authority they require given unconditionally to the
company, it would be in their power to raise the price of
water to the highest level, and perhaps to make an enor¬
mous profit, to the great injury of the inhabitants. The
same is the case with railways and canals. It is of the
greatest importance that the best means of communication
should be established between all great towns; and every
facility should be given for the formation of companies for
their construction. But then it is to be borne in mind, that
there is always some one line between any two places de¬
cidedly better fitted for a railway or canal than any other
line ; and if a company get an act of parliament authorizing
them to appropriate this line, they get, in fact, a substantial
monopoly of the traffic between the places connected by the
railway or canal, and may, in consequence, supply the public
with inferior accommodation, and add proportionally to their
charges. And hence, in authorizing the establishment of
COM
Compari¬
son.
companies for such purposes, such conditions should be in- Compara.
sorted in the acts as may be adequate for the protection of tive Ana-
the public interests. This important consideration has, how- tomy
ever, been far too little attended to. In this country, we
have in most cases contented ourselves with endeavouring
to provide against overcharges, by fixing maximum rates of
profit on the company’s stock, and maximum rates of charge
for the services to be performed by them. But overcharges
are not the only evils to be guarded against; and if they
were, experience has shown that the restrictions referred to
are ill fitted to attain their object. A limitation of the rate
of dividend tempts a prosperous company to engage in sub¬
sidiary undertakings, though of doubtful utility and profit;
and it farther tempts them to countenance an extravagant
system of management; to give by underhand methods
unfair advantages to their proprietors; and, in short, to
adopt every device by which they may retain the highest
(or unnecessarily high) rates of charge, without apparently
raising their revenue above the sum required to defray the
maximum rate of dividend. A limitation of the rates of
charge is equally ineffectual. The rates are uniformly such
as it is supposed will yield, when the railway or other pub¬
lic work is about to be constructed, an adequate remunera¬
tion for the capital to be vested in it. But the fair pre¬
sumption is, that the country will continue to increase in
wealth and population for an indefinite period, with the
same rapidity that she has increased since the close of the
American war; and if so, these rates will, in a few years,
yield a profit or interest far beyond any that was in the
contemplation of the parties when the work was entered
upon. Now, it is plain that in such cases there will be no
way of abating the company’s profits, or, which is the same
thing, its charges against the public, except by the forma¬
tion, at a vast expense, of a new, and otherwise, perhaps,
a perfectly unnecessary road. Hence the obvious expe¬
diency, in passing acts for the formation of railways, canals,
docks, water and gas companies, and other public works, of
reserving power to government to make periodical revisions
of the tolls or rates of charge for the services to be per¬
formed ; to control their management, in the view of pro¬
viding for the greater security and convenience of the
public; and, if needs be, to purchase up the works on rea¬
sonable terms.”—(il/£ CtdlocJis Principles of Political Eco¬
nomy.')
COMPARATIVE Anatomy. See Anatomy, vol. iii.,
p. 74.
Comparative Degree, in Grammar, that between the
positive and superlative degrees, expressive of any particu¬
lar quality as above or below the level of another. See
Grammar.
COMPARISON, in a general sense, the consideration
of the relation between persons or things, with a view to
discover their agreement or difference.
Comparison, in Rhetoric, a figure by which two things
are considered with regard to a third that is common to both.
Instruction is the principal, but not the only end of com¬
parison. It may be employed with success in putting a
subject in a strong point of view. A lively idea is formed
of a man’s courage by likening it to that of a lion; and
eloquence is exalted in our imagination by comparing it to
a river which overflows its banks, involving all in its im¬
petuous course. The same effect is produced by contrast.
A man in prosperity becomes more sensible of his happi¬
ness by comparing his condition with that of a person in
want of bread. Thus comparison is subservient to poetry
as well as to philosophy.
Comparisons serve two purposes; when addressed to the
understanding, their purpose is to instruct; when to the
heart, their purpose is to please. The means which con¬
tribute to the latter are various ; as, first, the suggesting of
some unusual resemblance or contrast; secondly, the set-
COMPARISON.
!ompari- ting of an object in the strongest light; thirdly, the as-
son. sociating of an object with others which are agreeable ;
—V—^ fourthly, the elevating of an object; and, lastly, the de¬
pressing of it. And that comparisons may thus afford
pleasure, will be made evident by examples, after premis¬
ing some general observations.
Objects of different senses cannot properly be compared
together; for such objects are totally separated from one
another, and have no circumstance in common to admit
either resemblance or contrast. Objects of hearing may be
compared together, as also of taste, of smell, and of touch;
but the chief fund of comparison consists of objects of
sight; because, in writing or speaking, things can only be
compared in idea, and the ideas of sight are more distinct
and lively than those of any other sense.
It has no good effect to compare things by way of simile
that are of the same kind, nor to contrast things of differ¬
ent kinds. The following is a comparison built upon a re¬
semblance so obvious as to make little or no impression.
Speaking of the fallen angels searching for mines of gold,
Milton says,
A numerous brigade hasten’d : as when bands
Of pioneers, with spade and pickaxe arm’d,
Forerun the royal camp, to trench a field
Or cast a rampart.
In the following passage, again, we have things con¬
trasted which are of different kinds.
Queen. What! is my Richard both in shape and mind
Transform’d and weak ? Hath Bolingbroke depos’d
Thine intellect ? Hath he been in thy heart ?
The lion, dying, thrusteth forth his paw,
And wounds the earth, if nothing else, with rage
To be o’erpower’d: and wilt thou, pupil-like,
Take thy correction mildly, kiss the rod,
And fawn on rage with base humility ?
This comparison has scarcely any force. A man and a
lion are of different species, and therefore are proper sub¬
jects for a simile ; but there is no such resemblance be¬
tween them in general as to produce any strong effect by
contrasting particular attributes or circumstances.
A third general observation is, that abstract terms can
never be the subject of comparison, otherwise than by
being personified. Shakspeare compares adversity to a
toad, and slander to the bite of a crocodile ; but in such
comparisons these abstract terms must be imagined to be
impersonations, not entities.
To have a just notion of comparisons, they must be dis¬
tinguished into two kinds ; one common and familiar, as
where a man is compared to a lion in courage, or to a
horse in speed; and another more distant and refined, as
where two things which have in themselves no resemblance
or opposition are compared with respect to their effects.
Thus there is no resemblance between a flower and a song ;
and yet they may be compared with respect to their effects,
because the emotions they produce in the mind are felt or
imagined to be similar.
We now proceed to illustrate, by particular instances, the
different means by which comparisons, whether of the one
kind or the other, can afford pleasure; and, in the order
above established, we shall begin with such instances as
are agreeable, by suggesting some unusual I'esemblance or
contrast. Thus:
Sweet are the uses of Adversity,
Which, like the toad ugly and venomous,
Wears yet a precious jewel in her head.
Again:
See how the morning opes her golden gates,
And takes her farewell of the glorious sun;
How well resembles it the prime of youth,
Trimm’d like a younker prancing to his love.
219
Once more :
Thus they their doubtful consultations dark
Ended, rejoicing in their matchless chief:
As when from mountain tops the dusky clouds
Ascending, while the north wind sleeps, o’erspread
Heaven’s cheerful face, the lowering element
Scowls o’er the darken’d landscape, snow, and shower;
If chance the radiant sun with farewell sweet
Extends his ev’ning beam, the fields revive,
The birds their notes renew, and bleating herds
Attest their joy, that hill and valley rings.
None of the foregoing similes tends to illustrate the prin¬
cipal subject, and therefore the chief pleasure they afford
must arise from suggesting resemblances which are not
obvious ; for undoubtedly a beautiful subject introduced to
form the simile affords a separate pleasure, which is felt in
the similes mentioned, particularly in that cited from Milton.
Following the order above mentioned, the next effect of
a comparison is to place an object in a strong point of view ;
which effect is remarkable in the following example :
As when two scales are charg’d with doubtful loads,
From side to side the trembling balance nods
(While some laborious matron, just and poor,
With nice exactness weighs her woolly store),
Till pois’d aloft, the resting beam suspends
Each equal weight, nor this nor that descends ;
So stood the war, till Hector’s matchless might,
With fates prevailing, turn’d the scale of fight.
Fierce as a whirlwind up the wall he flies,
And fires his host with loud repeated cries.
As words convey but a faint and obscure notion of great
numbers, a poet, to give a lively notion of the object he
describes, with regard to number, does well to compare it
to what is familiar and commonly known. Thus Homer,
in one passage, compares the Grecian army in point of num¬
ber to a swarm of bees; and in another to that profusion
of leaves and flowers which appear in the spring, or of in¬
sects in a summer’s evening. Thus also Milton,
 As when the potent rod
Of Amram’s son in Egypt’s evil day
Wav’d round the coast, up call’d a pitchy cloud
Of locusts, warping on the eastern wind,
That o’er the realm of impious Pharaoh hung
Like night, and darken’d all the land of Nile ;
So numberless were those bad angels seen,
Hov’ring on wing under the cope of hell,
’Twixt upper, nether, and surrounding fires.
Comparisons like these have, by some writers, been con¬
demned for the lowness of the images introduced, but with¬
out reason ; for, in regard to number, they place the prin¬
cipal subject in a strong light.
The foregoing comparisons operate by resemblance ;
others have the same effect by contrast. Thus;
York. I am the last of noble Edward’s sons,
Of whom thy father, prince of Wales, was first.
In war was never lion rag’d more fierce,
In peace was never gentle lamb more mild,
Than was that young and princely gentleman.
His face thou hast, for even so look’d he,
Accomplish’d with the number of thy hours;
But when he frown’d, it was against the French,
And not against his friends. His noble hand
Did win what he did spend ; and spent not that
Which his triumphant father’s hand had won.
His hands were guilty of no kindred’s blood,
But bloody with the enemies of his kin.
Oh, Richard, York is too far gone with grief,
Or else he never would compare between.
Milton has a peculiar talent for embellishing the princi¬
pal subject by associating it with others that are agreeable;
which is the third end of a comparison. Similes of this kind
have besides another effect: they diversify the narration,
by new images which are not strictly necessary to the com¬
parison, and are short episodes, which, without drawing us
from the principal subject, afford great delight by their
beauty and variety. Thus, in Milton :
Compari¬
son.
220
COMPARISON.
He scarce had ceas’d, when the superior fiend
Was moving toward the shore; his pond’rous shield,
Ethereal temper, massy, large, and round,
Behind him cast: the broad circumference
Hung on his shoulders like the moon, whose orb
Through optic glass the Tuscan artist views
At evening from the top of Pesole,
Or in Valdarno, to descry new lands,
Rivers, or mountains, in her spotty globe.
Next, with regard to comparisons which aggrandize or
elevate, these affect us more than any other species of
similes, as will be evident from the following instance:
As when a flame the winding valley fills,
And runs on crackling shrubs between the hills,
Then o’er the stubble up the mountain flies,
Fires the high woods, and blazes to the skies,
This way and that the spreading torrent roars;
So sweeps the hero through the wasted shores.
Around him wide, immense destruction pours,
And earth is deluged with the sanguine show’rs.
The last article mentioned is that of lessening or de¬
pressing a hated or disagreeable object; which is effectually
done by comparing it to anything low or despicable. Thus
Milton, in his description of the rout of the rebel angels,
happily expresses their terror and dismay in the following
simile:—
 —   As a herd
Of goats or timorous flock together throng’d,
Drove them before him thunder-struck, pursu’d
With terrors and with furies to the bounds
And crystal wall of heav’n, which opening wide,
Roll’d inward, and a spacious gap disclos’d
Into the wasteful deep; the monstrous sight
Struck them with horror backward, but far worse
Urg’d them behind ; headlong themselves they threw
Down from the verge of heav’n.
The different purposes of comparison, and the various
impressions it makes on the mind, may easily be under¬
stood from these familiar examples. But it is more diffi¬
cult to lay down rules concerning the propriety or impro¬
priety of comparisons; in what circumstances they may be
introduced, and in what circumstances they are out of
place. It is evident that a comparison is not proper upon
every occasion: a man in his cool and sedate moments is
not disposed to poetical flights, nor to sacrifice truth and
reality to the delusive phantasies of the imagination; far
less is he so disposed when oppressed with care, or inter¬
ested in some important transaction which occupies his
whole mind. On the other hand, it is observed, that a
person, when elevated or animated by any passion, is dis¬
posed to elevate or animate all his subjects; he avoids
familiar names, exalts objects by circumlocution and meta¬
phor, and gives even life and voluntary action to inanimate
beings. In this ardour of mind, the highest poetical flights
are indulged in, and the boldest similes and metaphors
relished. But without soaring so high, the mind is fre¬
quently in a tone to relish chaste and moderate ornament;
such as comparisons which place the principal object in a
strong point of view, or embellish and divei'sify the narra¬
tion. In general, when by any animating passion, whether
pleasant or painful, an impulse is given to the imagination,
we are in that condition which predisposes to every sort of
figurative expression, and in particular to comparisons.
This is in a great measure evident from the comparisons
already mentioned, and shall be further illustrated by other
instances. Love, for example, in its infancy rousing the
imagination, prompts the heart to display itself in figurative
language, and in similes. Thus:—
Come, gentle night; come, loving black-brow’d night!
Give me my Romeo: and when he shall die,
Take him and cut him out in little stars,
And he will make the face of heav’n so fine
That all the world shall be in love with night,
And pay no worship to the garish sun.
But it will better illustrate the present head, if we give Compari-
examples where comparisons are improperly introduced. sou.
Similes are not the language of a man in his ordinary state
of mind, despatching his daily and usual work; for which
reason the following speech of a gardener to his servant is
extremely improper:
Go, bind thou up yon dangling apricots,
Which, like unruly children, make their sire
Stoop with oppression of their prodigal weight:
Give some supportance to the bending twigs.
Go thou, and, like an executioner,
Cut off the heads of two fast growing sprays,
That look too lofty in our commonwealth:
All must be even in our government.
Rooted grief, deep anguish, terror, remorse, despair, and
all the severe dispiriting passions, are declared enemies, per¬
haps not to figurative language in general, but undoubtedly
to the pomp and solemnity of comparison. Upon this ac¬
count the simile pronounced by young Rutland, under ter¬
ror of death from an inveterate enemy, and praying for
mercy, is unnatural:
So looks the pent-up lion o’er the wretch
That trembles under his devouring paws ;
And so he walks insulting o’er his prey,
And so he comes to rend his limbs asunder.
Ah, gentle Clifford, kill me with thy sword,
And not with such a cruel threat’ning look.
A man exhausted and dispirited after losing a battle is not
disposed to heighten or illustrate his discourse by similes.
York. With this we charg’d again; hut out! alas,
We bodg’d again; as I have seen a swan
With bootless labour swim against the tide,
And spend her strength with over-matching waves.
Ah ! hark, the fatal followers do pursue,
And I am faint and cannot fly their fury.
The sands are number’d that make up my life;
Here must I stay, and here my life must end.
Similes thus unseasonably introduced are finely ridiculed
in the Rehearsal.
Bayes. Now here she must make a simile.
Smith. Where’s the necessity of that, Mr Bayes ?
Bayes. Because she’s surprised ; that’s a general rule. You must
ever make a simile when you are surprised; ’tis a new way of
writing.
A comparison is not always faultless even where it is pro¬
perly introduced ; for, like other human productions, it may
fall short of its end. Of this defect instances are not rare
even among good writers ; and to complete the present sub¬
ject, it will be necessary to make some observations upon
such faulty comparisons. Nothing can be more erroneous
than to institute a comparison too faintly ; a distant resem¬
blance or contrast fatigues the mind with its obscurity, in¬
stead of amusing it, and tends not to fulfil any one end of a
comparison. The following similes seem to labour under
this defect:—
K. Rich. Give me the crown. Here, cousin, seize the crown.
Here on this side, my hand ; on that side, thine.
Now is this golden crown like a deep well,
That owes two buckets, filling one another;
The emptier ever dancing in the air,
The other down, unseen, and full of water ;
That bucket down, and full of tears, am I,
Drinking my griefs, whilst you mount up on high.
York. My uncles both are slain in rescuing me:
And all my followers to the eager foe
Turn back, and fly like ships before the wind,
Or lambs pursued by hunger-starved wolves.
The last of these two similes is good; the first, because
of the faintness of the resemblance, produces no effect, and
crowds the narration with an useless image.
In an epic poem, or in any elevated subject, a writer
ought to avoid raising a simile upon a low image, which
never fails to lower the principal subject. In general, it is
C O M
Compass a rule, that a grand object ought never to be resembled to
one that is diminutive, however delicate the resemblance
Compasses. may be; for it is the peculiar character of a grand object to fix
the attention and dilate the mind ; in which state, it is dis¬
agreeable to contract the mind to a minute object, however
elegant. The comparing an object to one that is greater,
has, on the contrary, a good effect, by raising or exalting the
mind; for one passes with satisfaction from a small to a
great object, but cannot be drawn down, without reluctance,
from great to small. Hence the following simile is faulty:
So burns the vengeful hornet (soul all o’er),
Repulsed in vain, and thirsty still of gore;
(Bold son of air and heat) on angry wings
Untamed, untired, he turns, attacks, and stings.
Fired with like ardour, fierce Atrides flew.
And sent his soul with every lance he threw.
An error opposite to the former is the introducing of a
resembling image, so elevated or great as to bear no pro¬
portion to the principal subject. The remarkable disparity
of the things compared being the most striking circum¬
stance, seizes the mind, and never fails to depress the prin¬
cipal subject by contrast, instead of raising it by resemblance.
And if the disparity be exceedingly great, the simile assumes
an air of burlesque ; nothing being more ridiculous than to
force an object out of its proper rank in nature, by assimi¬
lating it to one greatly superior or greatly inferior. This
will be evident from the following comparison :—
Loud as a bull makes hill and valley ring,
So roar’d the lock when it released the spring.
Such a simile regarding the simplest of acts, that of opening
a lock, is absurd from its inaptitude, and burlesque from its
extravagant disproportion.
COMPASS, or Mariner’s Steering Compass. See Na¬
vigation, § Mariner's Compass.
CoMPAss-Dials, small horizontal dials, fitted in brass or
silver boxes, for the pocket, to show the hour of the day,
by the direction of a needle that indicates how to place
them right, by turning the dial about till the cock or style
stands directly over the needle. An objection to this in¬
strument is, that it can never be very exact, because of the
variation of the needle itself. See Dialling.
COMPASSES, or Pair of Compasses, a mathematical
instrument for describing circles, measuring figures, &c.
The common compasses consist of two sharp-pointed
branches or legs of metal, joined together at the top by a
rivet, on which they move as on a centre. One of the legs
is sometimes so contrived as to admit of the substitution of
a point with a pen or a pencil for the convenience of des¬
cribing figures more visibly.
Compasses of Three Legs, or Triangular Compasses, are,
setting aside the excess of a leg, of the same structure with
the common ones. Their use is to take three points at
once, so as to form triangles, and for similar purposes.
Beam-Compasses consist of a long branch, or beam, of
brass or wood, carrying two brass cursors, the one fixed at
one end, the other sliding along the beam, with a screw to
fasten it occasionally. To the cursors may be screwed steel
or pencil points. Beam-compasses are used to draw large
circles, to take great extents, &c. To the fixed cursor is
sometimes applied an adjusting or micrometer screw, by
which an extent is obtained to extreme nicety.
Clockmakers' Compasses are joined like the common com¬
passes, with a quadrant or bow to keep the instrument firm
at any opening. They are made very strong, with the
points of their legs of well-tempered steel, being used to
draw lines on pasteboard or copper.
Cylindrical and Spherical Compasses consist of four
branches, joined in a centre, two of which are circular and
two flat, being a little bent on the ends. Their use is to
take the diameter, thickness, or calibre of round or cylindric
bodies, such as cannons, pipes, &c.
C O M 221
Elliptic Compasses are used to draw ellipses or ovals. Compasses.
They consist of a beam about a foot long, bearing three
cursors, to one of which may be screwed points of any kind.
To the bottom of the other two are rivetted two sliding
dovetails, adjusted in grooves made in the cross branches of
the beam. As the dovetails have a motion every way, by
turning about the long branch, they go backwards and for¬
wards along the cross ; so that when the beam has gone
half way about, one of these will have moved the whole
length of one of the branches ; and when the beam has got
quite round, the same dovetail will have got back the whole
length of the branch. The use of this compass is easy ; by
turning round the long branch, the ink, pencil, or other
point, will draw the ellipsis required.
German Compasses have their legs a little bent cut-
wards towards the top; so that when shut the points only
meet.
Hair Compasses are so contrived inside, by a small ad¬
justing screw to one of the legs, as to take an extent to a
hair’s breadth.
Lapidaries' Compasses, a piece of wood in form of the
shaft of a plane, cleft at top, as far as half its length; and
with this the angles, &c., of jewels and precious stones are
measured. There is in the cleft a little brass rule, fastened
at one end by a pin, but so chat it may be moved in the
manner of a brass level. With this kind of square lapi¬
daries take the angles of the stones, laying these on the
shaft as they cut them.
Proportional Compasses are those whose joint lies be¬
tween the points terminating each leg. They are either
simple or compound. In the former the centre is fixed, so
that one pair of these serves only for one proportion. The
latter consist of two parts or sides of brass, which lie upon
each other so nicely as to appear but one when they are
shut. The sides open easily, and move about a centre,
which is itself moveable in a hollow canal cut through the
greater part of their length. To this centre, on each side,
is affixed a sliding piece, of a small length, with a fine line
drawn on it, serving as an index, to be set against other
lines or divisions placed upon the compasses on both sides.
These lines are, 1. a line of lines; 2. a line of superficies,
areas, or planes ; 3. a line of solids; 4. a line of circles, or
rather of polygons to be inscribed in circles. These lines
are all unequally divided ; the three first from one to twenty,
the last from six to twenty.
The use of the first is to divide a line into any number
of equal parts ; by the second and third are found the sides
of like planes or solids in any given proportions ; and by the
fourth, circles are divided into any number of equal parts,
or any polygons inscribed in them.
Spring Compasses, or dividers, those with an arched
head, which by its spring opens the legs ; the opening being
directed by a circular screw fastened to one of the legs and
let through the other, worked with a nut.
Trisecting Compasses consist of two central rules, and an
arch of circles of 120 degrees, immoveable, with its radius,
which is fastened with one of the central rules, like the two
legs of a sector, in order that the central rule may be car¬
ried through all the points of the circumference or the arch.
The radius and rule should be as thin as possible; the rule
fastened to the radius should be hammered cold, to attain
the greater elasticity; and the breadth of the central rule
should be triple that of the radius. There must also be a
groove in this rule, with a dovetail fastened on it for its mo¬
tion, and a hole in the centre of each rule. The use of
this instrument is to facilitate the trisection of angles geo¬
metrically.
Turn-up-CoMPAssEs. The body of this instrument is
like the common compasses; but towards the bottom of the
legs, outside, are added two other points besides the usual
ones, the one of which carries a drawing pen point, and the
222 COM
CompLegne other a port-crayon, both adjusted so as to turn round, and
II be in the way of use, or out of it, as occasion requires.
ment;6* COMPIEGNE, a town of France, department of Oise,
. ; and capital of a cognominal arrondissement, stands on the left
bank of the Oise, here crossed by a handsome bridge of
3 arches, and on the Paris and St Quentin railway, 36 miles
E. by S. of Beauvais. The town is ancient and ill built,
but contains some fine edifices, among which may be men¬
tioned the town-house, new theatre, several of the churches,
and the royal palace. This last is for extent and magnifi¬
cence one of the first of the kind in France. It was built
under Louis XV. and XVI., and renovated by Napoleon ;
and is surrounded by extensive gardens, adjoining which is
a forest covering 37,000 acres. Compiegne was formerly
strongly fortified; and it was at the siege of this place in
1430 that Joan of Arc was taken prisoner by the English.
There is a communal college, a tribunal of primary instance,
and a public library of 28,000 volumes. It has manufac¬
tures of hosiery, muslins, and ropes; and a considerable
trade in corn and wood. Pop. (1851) of town 8986; of ar¬
rondissement, 98,190.
COMPITALIA, or Ludi Compitalitii, in Antiquity,
a moveable feast celebrated annually at Rome in honour of
the Lares. It was so called from compita, i. e., a place where
several roads meet, in which it was held. (Macrob. Saturn, i.
7.) The Compitalia were more ancient than Rome itself;
though by some writers the institution is ascribed to Tarqui-
nius Priscus, in commemoration of a miraculous circum¬
stance attending the birth of Servius Tullius, which induced
the belief that he was the son of a Lar Familiaris. The story
is related by Pliny (xxxvi. 27). Dionysius Halicarnasseus
(iv. 14.) ascribes the institution to Servius Tullius; and in
describing the Compitalia as celebrated in his time, he ob¬
serves, that the rites were performed by slaves, who were
permitted during these ministrations to lay aside every badge
of servitude. He further adds, that this festival was cele¬
brated a few days after the Saturnalia. Macrobius observes
{loc. cit.) that the Compitalia were re-established by Tarquin
the Proud, on occasion of a response of the oracle that they
should sacrifice capita pro capitibus; i. e., that for the
health and prosperity of each family a child was to be sacri¬
ficed to Mania (madness) the mother of the Lares. This
abominable practice was abolished by the consul Junius
Brutus, after the expulsion of the Tarquins; and, in order
to satisfy the oracle, garlic and heads of poppies were offered
in place of human victims. During the civil wars the Com¬
pitalia fell into disuse, but were restored by Augustus, whose
Lares were substituted for those of the state. At the same
time, for the purpose of superintending their worship, he
instituted an order of priests, who were chosen from the
Libertini, and were designated Augustales. These must
not be confounded with the Augustales appointed to attend
to the worship of that emperor after his decease. (See
Zumpt, 7)e Augustalibus, &c.) The Compitalia were cele¬
brated always during winter, and usually about the beginning
of January. The words in which the festival was announced
are preserved in Macrobius (Saturn, i. 4), and by Aldus
Gellius (x. 24). During its celebration, each family placed
at the door of their house the statue of the goddess Mania,
and also hung up at their doors figures of wool, represent¬
ing men and women; accompanying them with supplica¬
tions that the Lares and Mania would be contented with
those figures, and spare the people of the house.
COMPLEMEjN I (Lat. complementum, from conipleo, to
fill up), the full number or quantity requisite to complete¬
ness : that which is wanted to complete some quantity or
thing. Thus the complement of an angle is the difference
between the given angle and a quadrant, or 90°. To find
the complement of any given angle expressed in degrees,
minutes, and seconds, subtract it from 90° if acute; or if
obtuse, subtract 90° from it. The complements of a paral-
C O M
lelogram are the two spaces which, together with the paral- Complex
lelograms about the diagonal, make up the whole figure. ||
COMPLEX (Lat. complex, from complico, to fold to- to¬
gether), composed of two or more parts; composite; as Plexion-
a complex being, a complex term, a complex idea.
COMPLEXION, the temperament, habitude, and na¬
tural disposition of the body; but it is more particularly
used to signify the colour of the face and skin.
Few questions in philosophy have engaged the atten¬
tion of naturalists more than the diversities among the
human species, among which that of colour is the most
remarkable. The great differences in this respect have
given occasion to several authors to assert that the whole
human race have not sprung from one original, but that
as many different species of men were at first created as
there are now different colours to be found among them.
It is certainly a matter of no small difficulty to account
for the remarkable variations of colour that are to be found
among different nations. On this subject Dr Hunter pub¬
lished a thesis, in which he considers the matter more ac¬
curately than has commonly been done, and determines
absolutely against any specific difference among mankind.
He introduces his subject by observing, that when the
question has been agitated, whether all the human race
constituted only one species or not, much confusion has
arisen from the sense in which the term species has been
adopted. He therefore thinks it necessary to set out with
a definition of the term. Fie includes under the same spe¬
cies all those animals which produce issue capable of pro¬
pagating others resembling the original stock from whence
they sprung. This definition he illustrates, by having re¬
course to the human species as an example; and, in this
sense of the term, he concludes that all of them are to be
considered as belonging to the same species. And as, in
the case of plants, one species comprehends several varie¬
ties depending upon climate, soil, culture, and similar ac¬
cidents ; so he considers the diversities of the human race
to be merely varieties of the same species, produced by
natural causes. Of the different colours observable among
mankind, he gives the following view:—
Black. Africans under the line.
Inhabitants of New Guinea.
Inhabitants of New Holland.
Swarthy. The Moors in the northern parts of Africa.
The Hottentots in the southern parts of it.
Copper coloured. The East Indians.
Red coloured. The American Indians.
Brown coloured. Tartars.
Persians.
Arabs.
Africans on the coast of the Medi¬
terranean.
Chinese.
Brownish. The inhabitants of the southern parts of
Europe; as Sicilians and Spaniards, as
well as the Abyssinians in Africa.
Turks, and likewise the Samoiedes and Lap¬
landers.
White. Most of the European nations; as,
Swedes.
Danes.
English.
Germans.
Poles, &c.
Kabardinski.
Georgians.
Inhabitants of the islands in the Pacific Ocean.
In attempting to investigate the causes of these differ¬
ences, Dr Hunter observes, that there can be no dispute of
the seat of colour being placed in the skin ; that it is not
COMPL
Com- even extended over the whole of this, but confined to
plexion. that part named the cuticle, consisting of the epidermis
and reticulum ; and that it chiefly occupies the latter of
these. The cuticle is much thicker and harder in black
than in white people ; the reticulum in the latter being a
thin mucus, in the former a thick membrane. He con¬
cludes that this seat of colour in the whites is transpa¬
rent, and either totally deprived of vessels, or only fur¬
nished with very few; as the yellow colour appearing in
jaundice vanishes on the cause of the disease being re¬
moved, which is not the case with stains in the cuticle
from gunpowder or similar causes. He next points out
three causes destroying the pellucidity of the cuticle,
giving it a brown colour, and rendering it thicker. These
are, access of air, nastiness, and the heat of the sun. The
influence of each of these he proves by many examples,
and from them he is inclined to consider the last as by
much the most powerful. If, however, it be admitted
that these causes have this effect, he thinks that all the
diversity of colour which is to be observed among man¬
kind may be thus accounted for. He remarks that all the
inhabitants of the torrid zone incline more or less to a
black colour. When w'e observe the differences which
occur among them, we must at the same time remember
that a black colour is not referred to heat alone, but to
the other causes also ; and when we attend to the diver¬
sity of temperature that occurs even in the torrid zone,
the existence of a white nation there would by no means
destroy the argument. He is further of opinion that the
existence of a brown colour, and of considerable varieties
from white, in the northern and coldest parts of Europe,
may very easily be explained. This he accounts for from
the manner of life of the inhabitants, by which they are
either exposed to the inclemency of the air, or to con¬
stant nastiness from smoky houses.
Having thus attempted to account, from natural causes,
for the varieties which occur among mankind with respect
to colour, Dr Hunter observes that, to all this reasoning
an objection will naturally be made from considering
that infants bring these marks into the ■world along with
them, before they can be exposed to any such causes.
He imagines, however, that this may readily be explained
upon the supposition that many peculiarities acquired by
parents are transmitted to their posterity; and of this he
thinks no one can entertain the least doubt who attends to
hereditary diseases. Thus gout, scrofula, mania, and many
other affections, although at first induced by particular
accidents, will continue to affect families for many gene¬
rations. In the same manner a parent exposed to causes
destroying the natural whiteness of his complexion will
beget swarthy children ; and the same causes continuing
to operate upon the son, the blackness will be increased.
Thus all the different shades may have been at first in¬
duced, and afterwards continued.
The subject of complexion has been very well illustrat¬
ed by Mr Clarkson, in a dissertation introduced in his
essay on the commerce and slavery of the human species.
The first point that occurs to be ascertained is, what part
of the skin is the seat of colour ? The old anatomists
usually divide the skin into two parts or laminae ; the ex¬
terior and thinnest, called by the Greeks epidermis, by the
Homans cuticula, and hence by us cuticle ; and the inte¬
rior, called by the former derma, and by the latter cutis,
or true skin. Hence they must necessarily have supposed
that, as the true skin was in every respect the same in all
human subjects, however various their external hue, so
the seat of colour must have existed in the cuticle or upper
surface.
Malpighi, an eminent Italian physician of the seventeenth
century, was the first person who discovered that the skin
E X I O N. 223
was divided into three lamina? or parts, the cuticle, the Com-
true skin, and a certain coagulated substance situated be- plexion.
tween both, which he distinguished by the title of rete 'w
mucosum; which coagulated substance adhered so firm¬
ly to the cuticle as, in all former anatomical prepara¬
tions, to have come off with it, and from this circum¬
stance to have led the ancient anatomists to believe that
there were but two laminae or divisible portions in the hu¬
man skin.
This discovery was sufficient to ascertain the point in
question ; for it appeared afterwards that the cuticle, when
divided according to this discovery from the other lamina,
was semitransparent; that the cuticle of the blackest ne¬
gro was of the same transparency and colour as that of
the purest white ; and hence, the true skins of both being
invariably the same, that the rete mucosum was the seat
of colour.
This has been further confirmed by all subsequent ana¬
tomical experiments, by which it appears that, whatever
is the colour of this intermediate coagulated substance,
nearly the same is the apparent colour of the upper sur¬
face of the skin. Neither can it be otherwise ; for the
cuticle, from its transparency, must necessarily transmit
the colour of the substance beneath it, in the same man¬
ner, though not in the same degree, as the cornea trans¬
mits the colour of the iris of the eye. This transparency
is a matter of ocular demonstration in white people. It is
conspicuous in every blush ; for no one can imagine that
the cuticle becomes red as often as this happens : nor is
it less discoverable in the veins, which are so easy to be
discerned ; for no one can suppose that the blue streaks
which he constantly sees in the fairest complexions are
painted, as it were, on the surface of the upper skin.
From these, and a variety of other observations, no maxim
is more true in physiology than that on the rete mucosum
depends the colour of the human body ; or, in other words,
that the rete mucosum being of a different colour in differ¬
ent inhabitants of the globe, and appearing through the
cuticle or upper surface of the skin, gives them that va¬
rious appearance which strikes us so forcibly in contem¬
plating the human race.
As this can be incontrovertibly ascertained, it is evident
that, whatever causes co-operate in producing this differ¬
ent appearance, they produce it by acting on the rete
mucosum, wdiich, from the almost incredible manner in
which the cuticle is perforated, is as accessible as the
cuticle itself. These causes are probably those various
qualities of things which, combined with the influence of
the sun, contribute to form what we call climate. For
when any person considers that the mucous substance be¬
fore mentioned is found to vary in its colour, as the cli¬
mates vary from the equator to the poles, his mind must
be instantly struck with the hypothesis, and he must adopt
it without any hesitation as the genuine cause of the phe¬
nomenon.
This fact of the variation of the mucous substance, ac¬
cording to the situation of the place, has been clearly
ascertained in the numerous anatomical experiments that
have been made, in which subjects of all nations have
come under consideration. The natives of many of the
kingdoms and isles of Asia are found to have their rete
mucosum black : those of Africa, situated near the line, of
the same colour ; those of the maritime parts of the same
continent of a dusky brown, nearly approaching to it; and
the colour becomes lighter or darker in proportion as the
distance from the equator is either greater or less. The
Europeans are the fairest inhabitants of the world. Those
situated in the most southern regions of Europe have in
their rete mucosum a tinge of the dark hue of their Afri¬
can neighbours ; hence the epidemic complexion prevalent
224. C O M I’ L
Com- among them is nearly of the colour of the pickled Spa-
plexion. nish olive ; while in this country, and those situated nearer
the north pole, it appears to be nearly, if not absolutely,
white.
These are facts which anatomy has established ; and we
acknowledge them to be such that we cannot divest our¬
selves of the idea that climate has a considerable share in
producing a difference of colour.
The only objection of any consequence that has ever
been made to the hypothesis of climate is this, that people
under the same parallels are not exactly of the same co¬
lour. But this is no objection in fact; for it does not fol¬
low that those countries which are at an equal distance
from the equator should have their climates the same.
Indeed nothing is more contrary to experience than this.
Climate depends upon a variety of accidents. High
mountains in the neighbourhood of a place make it cooler,
by chilling the air that is carried over them by the winds.
Large spreading succulent plants, if among the produc¬
tions of the soil, have the same effect; they afford agree¬
able cooling shades and a moist atmosphere from their
continual exhalations, by which the ardour of the sun is
considerably abated. While the soil, on the other hand,
if of a sandy nature, retains the heat in an uncommon de¬
gree, and makes the summers considerably hotter than
those which are found to exist in the same latitude where
the soil is different. To this proximity of what may be
termed burning sands, and to the sulphureous and metallic
particles which are continually exhaling from the bowels
of the earth, are ascribed the different degrees of blackness
by which some African nations are distinguished from
each other, though under the same parallels. To these
observations we may add, that though the inhabitants of
the same parallel are not exactly of the same hue, yet
they differ only by shades of the same colour; or, to speak
with more precision, that there are no two people in such
a situation, one of whom is white and the other black To
sum up the whole, suppose we were to take a common globe,
to begin at the equator, to paint every country along the
meridian line in succession from thence to the poles, and
to paint them with the same colour which prevails in the
respective inhabitants of each, we should see the black,
with which we had been obliged to begin, insensibly chang¬
ing to an olive, and the olive, through as many interme¬
diate colours, to a white ; and if, on the other hand, we
should complete any one of the parallels according to the
same plan, we should see a difference perhaps in the ap¬
pearance of some of the countries through which it ran,
though the difference would consist wholly in shades of
the same colour.
The argument, therefore, which is brought against the
hypothesis is so far from being an objection, that it may
be considered as one of the first arguments in its favour;
for if the climate has really an influence on the mucous
substance of the body, it is evident that we must not only
expect to see a gradation of colour in the inhabitants from
the equator to the poles, but also different shades of the
same colour in the inhabitants of the same parallel.
To this argument may be added one that is incontro¬
vertible, which is, that when the black inhabitants of Africa
are transplanted to colder, or the white inhabitants of Eu¬
rope to hotter climates, their children born there are of a
different colour from themselves; that is, lighter in the
first, and darker in the second instance. As a proof of the
first, we shall give the words of the Abbe Raynal. “ The
children,” says he, “ which they (the Africans) procreate
in America, are not so black as their parents were. After
each generation the difference becomes more palpable.
It is possible, that after a numerous succession of genera¬
tions, the men come from Africa would not be distmguish-
E X X O N.
ed from those of the country into which they may have Gom¬
been transplanted.” The accuracy of this statement has plexion.
been confirmed by a variety of persons who have been
witnesses of the fact; but particularly by many intelligent
Africans, who have been parents themselves in America,
and who have declared that the difference is so palpable in
the northern provinces, that not only they themselves have
constantly observed it, but that they have heard it observed
by others.
Neither is this variation in the children from the colour
of the parents improbable. The children of the blackest
Africans are born white. In this state they continue for
about a month, wdien they change to a pale yellow. In
process of time they become brown. Their skin still con¬
tinues to increase in darkness with their age, till it becomes
of a dirty sallow black; and at length, after a certain period
of years, glossy and shining. Now, if climate has any in¬
fluence on the mucous substance of the body, this varia¬
tion in the children from the colour of their parents is an
event which must be reasonably expected; for being born
white, and not having equally powerful causes to act upon
them in colder, as their parents had in the hotter climes
which they left, it must necessarily follow that the same
effect cannot possibly be produced.
Hence also, if the hypothesis be admitted, may be de¬
duced the x-eason why even those children who have been
brought from their country at an early age into colder re¬
gions, have been observed to be of a lighter colour than
those who have remained at home til] they arrived at a
state of manhood. For having undergone some of the
changes wdxich we mentioned to have attended their
countrymen from infancy to a certain age, and having been
taken away before the x-est could be completed, these far¬
ther changes, which would have taken place had they re¬
mained at home, seem either to have been checked in
their progress, or weakened in their degree, by a colder
climate.
We come now to the second and opposite case; for a
proof of which we shall appeal to the wnrds of Dr Mitchell,
in the Philosophical Transactions, No. 476, sect. 4: “The
Spaniards who have inhabited America under the torrid
zone for any time, are become as dai’k coloured as our
native Indians of Virginia, of which I myself have been a
witness ; and were they not to intermarry with the Euro-
peans, but lead the same rude and barbai’ous lives with the
Indians, it is very probable that, in a succession of many
generations, they would become as dark in complexion.”
To this instance may beadded one mentioned by an African
traveller, who, in describing the coast of that country, and
the European settlements there, has the following passage.
“ There are several other small Portuguese settlements,
and one of some note at Mitomba, a river in Sierra Leone.
The people here called Portuguese are principally persons
bred from a mixture of the first Portuguese discoverers
with the natives, and now become, in their complexion, and
woolly quality of their hair, perfect negroes, retaining,
howevei’, a smattei'ing of the Portuguese language.”
These facts with respect to the colonists of the Euro¬
peans are of the highest importance in the present case,
and deserve a serious attention. For when we know to a
certainty from whom they are descended ; when we know
that they were, at the time of their transplantation, of the
same colour as those from whom they severally sprung;
and when, on the other hand, we are credibly informed
that they changed it for the native colour of the place
which they now inhabit; the evidence in support of these
facts is as great as if a person, on the removal of two or
three families into another climate, had determined to as¬
certain the circumstance; as if he had gone with them
and watched their children; as if he had communicated
COM
Com- his observations at his death to a successor ; as if his suc-
plexion. cessor had prosecuted the plan ; and thus an uninterrupted
chain of evidence had been kept up from their first removal
to any determined period of succeeding time.
But though these facts seem sufficient of themselves to
confirm our opinion, they are not the only facts which can
be adduced in its support. It can be shown, that the mem¬
bers of the very same family, when divided from each other,
and removed into different countries, have not only changed
their family complexion, but that they have changed it to
as many different colours as they have gone into different
regions of the world. We cannot have, perhaps, a more
striking instance of this than in the Jews. These people
are scattered over the face of the whole earth. They have
preserved themselves distinct from the rest of the world by
their religion; and as they almost never intermarry but with
those of their own sect, so they have no mixture of blood
in their veins that they should differ from each other; and
yet nothing is more true, than that the English Jew is white,
the Portuguese swarthy, the Armenian olive, and the Ara¬
bian copper : in short, that there appear to be as many dif¬
ferent species of complexion among Jews as there are coun¬
tries in which they reside.
The same principles with the above we find adopted and
further illustrated by Professor Zimmerman in his Geogra¬
phical History of Man. He there proves in the most satis¬
factory manner that the complexion of the human species is
uniformly correspondent with the degree of heat or cold to
which they are habitually exposed. In maintaining this
position, he makes a very proper distinction with regard to
climate. By climates we are to understand, not simply or
solely those distinguished by the geographical divisions of
the globe, to the exclusion of what he terms physical climate,
or that which depends on the changes produced in any given
latitude by such adventitious circumstances as the lower or
more elevated situations of a country, its being encompassed
by water or large tracts of land, overspread or surrounded
with forests, placed in an extensive plain, or environed by
lofty mountains. Peculiarities of the like kind, as has been
already noticed, frequently prevent \\\cphysical climate from
corresponding entirely with the geographical, as a country
influenced by them is often much warmer or colder than
other regions placed under the same degree of latitude.
The influence of these secondary or modifying circum¬
stances has been already adverted to. At Senegal, and in
the adjacent lands, the thermometer is often at 112 or 110
degrees in the shade; and here we find the inhabitantsjet
black, with woolly hair. The heat is equally great in Congo
and Loango, and these countries are inhabited by negroes
only; whereas in Morocco, to the north of these regions,
and at the Cape of Good Hope, to the south, the heat is
not so intense, nor are the inhabitants of so deep a hue.
If it be asked why are not the Abyssinians and the inhabi¬
tants of Zahara of as dark a complexion as the Moors on the
coast of Guinea ? it may be answered in the words of Zim¬
merman, that “ these countries are much cooler. The de¬
sert is not only farther from the equator, but the winds
blowing over the Atlas Mountains, which, like the Alps,
are covered with snow, and the westerly wind coming from
the sea, must considerably mitigate the heat. Nor is Abys¬
sinia so warm as either Monomotapa or Guinea. The N.E.
winds from the side of Persia and Arabia are cooled by
their passage over the Red Sea; the northern winds from
Egypt lose much of their heat on the chain of the mountains
that is extended between the countries; the winds from the
south and the west are sea winds. Thus, the only quarter
from which they can derive excessive heat is from the west,
as the air on this side must pass over tracts of heated lands.”
For a similar reason it is that negroes are not found either
in Asia or South America under the equator. The situa¬
tions of these countries (as the author just quoted remarks)
VOL. VII.
COM 225
expose them to sea-breezes and cooling winds from the Con- Compline
tinent; and he confirms this hypothesis by observing that II
the mountaineers of warm climates, as in Barbary and Ceylon, Composi-
are much fairer than the inhabitants of the valleys; that the v tl0D' y
Saracens and Moors who conquered the N.E. part of
Africa in 1700, from being brown, are become like the ne¬
groes near the equator ; that the Portuguese who settled
at Senegal in 1400 became blacks; and that Tudelathe
Jew asserts, that his countrymen in Abyssinia acquired the
dark complexion of the original natives.
Upon the whole, colour and figure may be styled habits
of the body. Like other habits, they are created, not by
great and sudden impressions but by continual and almost
imperceptible touches. Of habits both of mind and body
nations are susceptible as well as individuals. They are
transmitted to offspring, and augmented by inheritance.
Long in growing to maturity, national features, like national
manners, become fixed only after a succession of ages.
They become, however fixed at last; and if we can ascertain
any effect produced by a given state of weather or of cli¬
mate, it requires only repetition during a sufficient length
of time to augment and impress it with a permanent cha¬
racter. The sanguine countenance will, for this reason, be
perpetual in the highest latitudes of the temperate zone ;
and we shall for ever find the swarthy, the olive, the tawny,
and the black, as we descend to the south. See Man.
COMPLINE, the last division of the Romish breviary.
It was instituted to implore God’s protection during the
night, and is recited after sunset. It is so called because
it completes the office for the day.
COMPLUTENSIAN Polyglot, the name given to
an edition of the Hebrew Scriptures published in 1522 at
Alcala de Henares, the ancient Complutum, at the expense
of Cardinal Ximenes. See Bible, vol. iv., p. 697.
COMPLUVIUM. See Architecture, vol. iii., p. 472.
COMPOSITE, compounded or made up of several
others united together.
Composite Numbers, such as can be measured exactly
by a number exceeding unity ; as 6 by 2 or 3, or 10 by 5 ;
so that 4 is the lowest composite number. Composite num¬
bers, between themselves, are those which have some com¬
mon measure besides unity; as 12 and 15, both of which
are measured by 3.
Composite Order, in Architecture, tbe last of the five
orders of columns, and so called because its capital is com¬
posed of those of the other columns, a quarter-round being
borrowed from the Tuscan and Doric, a row of leaves from
the Corinthian, and volutes from the Ionic. See Archi¬
tecture.
COMPOSITION, in a general sense, the uniting or
putting together several things, so as to form a whole or
compound.
Composition of Ideas, the act of uniting simple ideas
in a complex idea or conception. It is opposed to analysis.
Composition, in Grammar, the joining of two words
together; or prefixing a particle to another word, to aug¬
ment, diminish, or change its signification.
Composition, in Larv. See Bankruptcy, vol. ii., p. 416.
Composition, in Literature, the act of forming and ar¬
ranging sentiments, and clothing them with language suit¬
able to tbe nature of the subject.
Composition, in Logic, a method of reasoning by which
we proceed from some general self-evident truth to other
particular and singular ones.
In disposing and putting together our thoughts, there
are two modes of proceeding equally within our choice ; for
we may arrange the truths relating to any part of knowledge
as they presented themselves to the mind in the course of
investigation, carrying on the series of proofs in a reverse
order, till at last they terminate in first principles; or, be¬
ginning with these principles, we may take the contrary
226
COM
COM
Composi¬
tion
Compton.
mode, and from them deduce, by a direct train of reasoning,
the several propositions we want to establish.
This diversity in the manner of arranging our thoughts
gives rise to the twofold division of method established
among logicians. The first is the analytic method, or the
method of resolution, inasmuch as it traces things back to
their source, and resolves knowledge into its first and ori¬
ginal principles. And this stands in contradistinction to
the method of composition, or, as it is otherwise called, the
synthetic method; for here we proceed by gathering toge¬
ther the several scattered parts of knowledge, and combin¬
ing them into one system, in such a manner as that the
understanding is enabled distinctly to follow truth through
all the different stages of gradation.
Composition, in Music. See Music.
Composition, in Painting, Sculpture, and Architecture,
the disposition of several component parts in such a manner
as to produce unity of effect, and set off the whole to ad¬
vantage.
Composition, in Printing, commonly termed composing,
the arranging of the types in the composing stick, to form
a line; and of several lines placed in order in the galley, to
make a page; and of several pages to make a form. See
Printing.
COMPOST, a mixture or composition of various ma¬
nuring substances. See Agriculture, § Manures.
COMPOSTELLA, St James of, or St James of the
Sword, an ancient order of knighthood in Spain, founded
either towards the close of the twelfth or in the beginning
of the thirteenth century. It is the chief of the four mili¬
tary orders, namely, Compostella, Calatrava, Alcantara, and
Manresa. This order received its rules of government
from Pope Alexander III. See Santiago.
Compostella, a town in Spain. See Santiago.
Compostella, an inland town of Mexico, state of Xalisco,
100 miles W. of Guadalaxara. Tobacco was formerly cul¬
tivated in the adjacent country, but was soon found to be
quite unprofitable. The soil is barren, but there are several
silver mines in the neighbourhood.
COMPOUND, that which is composed or made up of
different things.
Compound Interest, is interest charged not only on the
principal sum, but also on the interest forborne.
Compound Motion, that motion which is effected by two
or more conspiring powers. Powers are said to conspire if
the direction of the one be not quite opposite to that of
the other, as when the radius of a circle is conceived to
revolve about a centre, and at the same time a point to
move straight along it.
Compound Numbers, those which may be divided by
some other number besides unity without a remainder;
such as 18 and 20, the first being measured by 2, 6, 9, and
the second by 2, 4, 5, 10.
Compound Ratio is that which the product of the ante¬
cedents of two or more ratios has to the product of their
consequents. Thus 6 to 72 is in a ratio compounded of
2 to 6, and of 3 to 12.
COMPREHENSION (Eat. comprehensio, from com-
prehendo, to seize), the act or quality of comprehending or
containing. Also, capacity of the mind to understand, &c.
Comprehension, in Rhetoric, a trope or figure by which
the name of a whole is put for a part, or that of a part for a
whole, or a definite for an indefinite number.
Comprehension, Scheme of. See Britain, vol. v., p. 429.
COMP TON, Henry, Bishop of London, the youngest
son of Spencer, Earl of Northampton, was born in 1632.
After the restoration of Charles II. he became cornet in a
regiment of horse ; but soon afterwards quitted the army
for the church. He was made Bishop of Oxford in 1674,
and in the following year translated to the see of London.
Having been admitted into the privy-council, he was in¬
trusted with the education of the two princesses Mary and Compton
Anne. For his firmness in refusing to suspend Dr Sharp, ||
whose vindication of the doctrine of the Church of England ( ornum-
against Popery had rendered him obnoxious to the court,
Bishop Compton was himself suspended by James II., but
was restored at the Revolution, when he and the Bishop of
Bristol constituted the majority for inviting a king to fill the
vacant throne. He performed the ceremony of the corona¬
tion of William and Mary, was afterwards appointed one of
the commissioners for revising the liturgy, and laboured -
with great zeal to effect a reconciliation between dissenters
and the church. During the reign of Anne he was again
sworn of the privy-council, and was one of the commis¬
sioners for the union of England and Scotland. Bishop
Compton died in 1713.
Compton, Spencer-Joshua-Aboyne, Marquis of North¬
ampton, was born in 1790, and received his education at
Trinity College, Cambridge. On quitting the university
he was returned to parliament for the town of Northamp¬
ton, and distinguished himself by the independence and
liberality of his opinions. He succeeded to the family title
in 1828, when residing in Italy, where he exerted himself
on behalf of the patriots of Lombardy and Naples. On
the death of Lady Northampton he returned to England
and resumed his place in parliament. He was elected
President of the Royal Society after the retirement of the
Duke of Sussex from that office, and became known to the
literary world through the pages of The Tribute, a work
which he afterwards edited for the benefit of the family of
its founder. He was known also as a lover of science, and
especially attached to mineralogy and geology. The Mar¬
quis of Northampton died January 17, 1851.
COMPTONITE, in Mineralogy, one of the zeolite
family, in delicate transparent or semi-transparent crystals,
which occupy the drusy cavities of the anciently ejected
masses on Mount Vesuvius. Its form is an oblique four-sided
prism, truncated on its lateral edges, and terminated with an
extremely dihedral summit. It was first brought to this
country by Lord Compton in 1818.
COMPURGATOR, one who bears testimony or swears
to the veracity or innocence of another. Compurgators were
introduced as evidences in the jurisprudence of the middle
ages. Their number varied according to the importance of
the subject in dispute, or the nature of the crime with which
the person was charged.
COMUM (Como), a flourishing city of Transpadane
Gaul, at the extreme southern extremity of the Lacus La-
rius, and at the foot of the Rhaetian Alps. Comum was
founded by the Gauls, and was considered as lying within
the territory of the Galli Insubres, though Pliny mentions
that its foundation was in his day attributed to the Orobii,
a tribe which long before that date had ceased to exist as a
separate community. Though Comum seems to have been
from a very early period a flourishing and important city, it has
never at any time played a very conspicuous part in history.
Soon after the beginning of the second century b.c., the peo¬
ple of Comum joined the Insubres in an attack on the Ro¬
mans ; but they were defeated, and their city fell into the
hands of the conquerors. Comum now became a Roman
colony. The first colonists who settled there, however,
were unable to maintain themselves against the inroads of
the Rhaetian Gauls. Additional settlers were therefore sent
down from time to time. Julius Caesar in particular sent
down 5000, of whom a tenth were Greeks. The colony
now assumed the name of Novum Comum, which, however,
it only retained for a short time. On the accession of Julius
Caesar to supreme power, Comum obtained the complete
right of citizenship ; yet though it was at this time at the
height of its prosperity, it never took rank higher than a
municipal town. The elder and the younger Pliny are be¬
lieved to have been both natives of Comum or its neigh-
CON
Comus bourhood ; and the younger Pliny had several villas on the
II banks of the Larian lake. His efforts to make the town an in-
Conca. dependent seat of learning do not appear to have been pecu-
liarly successful. No interesting remains of the ancient
Comum are now visible at Como, except a few inscriptions.
The modern Como is a handsome episcopal city, with a
splendid marble cathedral begun in 1396. Its commerce is
as flourishing as that of the ancient town used to be ; and its
commercial importance is greatly enhanced by the excel-
‘ lence of its roads and the easy navigation of the lake. Its
manufactures consist chiefly of woollens, silks, cottons, soap,
&c. Como was the birthplace of Pope Innocent XI. and the
natural philosopher Volta. Pop. (including suburbs) about
20,000.
COMUS, a mythological personage, the god of jollity
and festive mirth. The word is Greek, and properly de¬
notes “ a merry-making; ” thence also applied to a band of
revellers, or the village youths and maidens who danced and
sung together in the choric performances in honour of the
presiding deity of the district. Warton has referred to
.lEschylus for the first notice of this god ; but the passage
in the “ Agamemnon ” to which he alludes scarcely seems
to bear out the idea of a personification of the word kw/xos-
(See his note on the 58th verse of Milton’s Masque of Comus})
It appears rather to be in the leones of Philostratus (i. 2)
that this deity appears for the first time ; and there Comus
is described as a youth of delicate mien, slumbering in a
standing attitude, his legs crossed, his countenance flushed
with wine, and his head, which is sunk upon his breast,
crowned with dewy flowers ; his left hand feebly grasps a
hunting spear, w hile in his right there is an inverted torch.
This deity has been identified by some with the Chemosh
of the Moabites, and with Beel-Phegor, Baal-Peor, Priapus,
and Bacchus. However this may be, Comus is principally
indebted for his celebrity to the genius of Milton; and al¬
though he had previously been introduced on the English
stage by Decker and by Jonson, yet the coarse deity of those
writers can scarcely again be recognized in the exquisite
impersonation of Comus in Milton’s celebrated masque.
CONANT, Dr John (1608-1693), a learned English
divine, was educated at Exeter College, Oxford. He was
appointed one of the assembly of divines, and in 1657 was
admitted vice-chancellor of the university. On the restora¬
tion he was one of the commissioners at the conferences in
the Savoy, but was deprived by the Act of Uniformity. After
a suspension of eight years he was re-admitted into the
church, and installed into the archdeaconry of Norwich,
and prebendary of Worcester. During the lastseven years of
his life, Conant was afflicted with total blindness. His ser¬
mons were published in 6 vols.
CONATUS (Latin, effort), a term defined by some to
mean a quantity of motion not capable of being expressed by
any time or length. Thus the conatus recedendi ab axe mo-
tus, is the endeavour which a body, moved circularly, makes
to recede or fly oft’ from the centre or axis of its motion.
CONCA, Sebastiano, called Cavaliero, an historical and
portrait painter of the Neapolitan school, born at Gaeta in
1679. The churches and chapels in almost every part of
Italy are enriched with his compositions, of which the num¬
ber is almost incredible: for he lived to a very advanced
age, and continued his labours to the last. He was ear¬
nestly invited by Philip V. of Spain to visit his court, but
could not be prevailed on to leave Rome. He was at last
so strongly urged to visit Naples that be undertook the jour¬
ney, and was received with all the respect and honour due to
his merit. Pie there completed some very noble designs, as
also at Gaeta, his native city. While at Naples he received
from the king a snuff-box of great value; and in 1757 the
same monarch conferred on him and his descendants a pa¬
tent of nobility. At that time he was seventy-eight years
of age; and it is probable that he died in the following
CON 227
year. He understood perspective and architecture thorough- Concan
ly, and possessed a perfect knowledge of chiaroscuro. His II
style of composition is grand and elegant; his design cor- Concave-
rect; his attitudes and expression are full of truth, nature,
and variety ; and his colouring is excellent.
CONCAN, a maritime tract of western India, situate
within the limits of the Presidency of Bombay; and extend¬
ing from the Portuguese settlement of Goa on the south to
the territory of Damaun, belonging to the same nation, on the
north. On the east it is bounded by the Ghauts, and on
the west by the Indian Ocean. This tract comprises the
two British districts of Tannah and Rutnagherry, and may
be estimated at 300 miles in length, with an average breadth
of about 40. From the mountains on its eastern frontier,
which in one place attain a height of 4700 feet, the surface,
marked by a succession of irregular hilly spurs from the
Ghauts, slopes to the westward, where the mean elevation
of the coast is not more than 100 feet above the level of the
sea. Several mountain streams, but none of any magni¬
tude, traverse the country in the same direction. One
of the most striking characteristics of the climate is the
violence of the monsoon rains—the mean annual fall at
Mahabulishwar amounting to 239 inches. It is believed
that the abundant moisture borne along from the Indian
Ocean by this aerial current becomes arrested and con¬
densed by the mountain barrier of the Ghauts, and in this
manner accounts for the excessive rains which deluge the
Concan. The products of this country are the same as those
of Malabar; and the hemp raised is said to be of a stronger
quality than that raised above the Ghauts. The coast has
a very straight general outline, but is much broken into
small bays and harbours. This, with the uninterrupted view
along the shore, the elevated coast favourable to a distant
view, and the land and sea breezes which blow alternately
in the twenty-four hours, and which force the vessels steer¬
ing along the coast to be always within sight of it, had ren¬
dered this country from time immemorial the seat of piracy;
and so formidable had the pirates become in the eighteenth
century, that all ships suffered which did not receive a pass
from the chiefs of the pirates. The Great Mogul main¬
tained a fleet for the express purpose of checking them,
and they were frequently also attacked by the Portuguese.
British commerce having suffered from their depredations,
expeditions w^ere despatched from time to time from Bom¬
bay for tbe purpose of suppressing them, commencing as
early as 1756; but the piratical system was not finally ex¬
tinguished until the year 1812. According to ancient tra¬
ditions, this country was inhabited by a tribe of savages,
till they were conquered by the Hindus, who gave it to a
tribe of Brahmins; and it was held by them until it was
taken possession of by the Mohammedan kings of Bejapoor.
It was conquered in the seventeenth century by Sevajee,
the founder of the Mahratta empire. Towards the close of
the same century Conajee Angria established a kingdom on
this coast, extending 120 miles from Tannah to Bancoote,
together with the inland country as far back as the moun¬
tains. The dominion of this prince and his family, over a
portion of the tract, continued until within the last ten or
twelve years, when the legitimate line of descent to the
state became extinct, and the territory lapsed to the para¬
mount power.' The remainder of the Concan had been
already incorporated with the British dominions since the
fall of the Peishwa in 1818.
CONCATENATION (late Lat. concatenare), to link
together), a term chiefly used in speaking of the mutual de¬
pendence of second causes upon each other.
CONCAVE (Lat. concavus), hollow, and arched or
rounded, as the inner surface of a spherical body. Concavo-
concave signifies concave or hollow on both surfaces, as
in double concave lenses. Concave is the opposite of
convex. Concavo-convex is applied to bodies which are
228
CON
CON
Concen- concave on one side and convex on the other. See Con-
taina VEXITY.
Concord CONCENTAINA, a town of Spain, province of Ali-
cante, and 29 miles N. of that city. It has extensive ma¬
nufactures of woollen cloths. Pop. about 5800.
CONCENTRATION literally signifies the bringing
things nearer a centre. In Chemistry, concentration de¬
notes the act of increasing the strength of a fluid by evapo¬
rating its more volatile part.
CONCENTRIC, having the same centre with another.
It stands opposed to eccentric.
CONCEPCION, a province of Chile. See Chile,
passim.
Concepcion, the capital of the above province, situate on
the Biobio, about eight miles from the sea. Itwasonceaflour-
ishing city and possessed a handsome cathedral, but it has not
vet recovered from the disastrous earthquake of 1835, which
laid the greater part of its buildings in ruins. Its export
trade consists chiefly of hides and tallow, and is carried on
through the port of Talcahuano at the head of Concepcion
Bay, which affords a secure anchorage ground six miles
long and four miles wide. Pop. 20,393.
CONCEPTION, in Mental Philosophy. See Meta¬
physics.
Conception, in Physiology, the first formation of the em¬
bryo or foetus in the womb.
Conception, Immaculate, of the Holy Virgin, a feast esta-
bished inhonourof theholy Virgin, particularly with regard to
her having been conceived and born immaculate, or without
original sin. It is held in the Roman Catholic Church on the
8th of December. The immaculate conception is the great
head of controversy between the Scotists and Thomists, the
former maintaining and the latter impugning it. The con¬
troversy is at present (1854) under the consideration of the
pope, and will in all probability be settled by the issuing of a
bull in favour of the doctrine. This feast is also celebrated
in the Greek Church on the same day, under the title of the
Conception of St Anne (the mother of Mary).
CONCERT, an assemblage of musicians who perform
pieces of vocal and instrumental music.
CONCHITE (Koyxg, Eat. concha, a bivalve shell-fish),
a fossil or petrified shell.
CONCHOID, in Geometry, the name of a curve, given
to it by its inventor Nicomedes.
CONCHOLOGY. See Mollusca.
CONCHYLIA, a general name for all petrified shells,
as cardia, nautili, anomiae, lepades, and the like.
CONCIATOR, in crystal glass-works, is the person who
weighs and proportions the salt on ashes and sand, and
works and tempers them with a strong fire till they are fit
for use.
CONCLAVE (Lat. conclave, a chamber that may be
secured by means of a key, clavis), the place in which the
cardinals of the Roman Catholic Church meet in privacy for
the election of a pope. It also denotes the assembly itself.
The conclave is a series of small cells or apartments ranged
in a line along the galleries and hall of the Vatican ; and
each cell has the arms of the particular cardinal over it. By
the constitutions of the church the cardinals may make
choice of any place for the conclave as they deem conve¬
nient ; but it is generally held in the Vatican.
CONCLUSION, in Logic, the consequences or judg¬
ment drawn from premises or previous judgments.
CONCORD, the capital of the state of New Hampshire,
North America, stands on both sides of the Merrimac river,
here crossed by several handsome bridges, 64 miles N.N.W.
of Boston. It is connected by railways with Boston,
Montreal, and other places; and has several large cotton
factories, paper mills, potteries, and a variety of other in¬
dustrial establishments. Its neighbourhood abounds in
granite, which is exported. The state house is a hand¬
some building of hewn granite. Pop. (1840) 4897 ; (1850) Concord
8584. ii
Concord, one of the capitals of Middlesex county, state Concordia,
of Massachusetts, North America, situated on both sides of 's*v^/
the Concord river, 17 miles W.N.W. of Boston. Pop.
2249. It was here, on the 19th April 1775, that the first
forcible resistance was made to the British power; and a
handsome monument now marks the spot where the first
blood was spilt in the war of the revolution. The monu¬
ment is a granite obelisk 25 feet high, with a square base
5^ feet in diameter, and about 3 feet high, with an appro¬
priate inscription on a slab of Italian marble. There are
many other places of this name in the United States.
CONCORDANCE, a verbal index to the Bible. The
earliest work of the kind is the Concordantice Morales of
Antony of Padua, who lived a.d. 1195 to 1231. It was
formed from the Vulgate translation, and was the basis of
the larger compilation of Cardinal Hugo de Santo Caro.
The first Hebrew concordance was produced by Rabbi
Mordecai Nathan (Venice 1523), and was entitled The
light of the icay. An improved edition was afterw ards pub¬
lished by Calasio, a Franciscan friar (Romae, 1621). This
was followed by the masterly work of the elder Buxtorf,
based on the Masoretic divisions of the Old Testament.
An edition adapted to the use of the English reader soon
afterwards appeared from the pen of Dr Taylor of Nor wich.
These earlier works, however, have been almost entirely
superseded by the Hebrew and Chaldee concordance of
Dr Julius Fiirst. To the Septuagint, the best concord¬
ance is that of Trommius, 2 vols. fob, Amst. 1718. Of
Greek concordances to the New Testament, the most valu¬
able is that of Erasmus Schmid, Vetemb. 1638, an abridged
edition of which has been published by Messrs Bagster
in their Polymicrian Series. A greatly improved edition
of the entire work has been edited by C. H. Bruder. To
students acquainted only with the vernacular, the Eng¬
lishman's Concordance to the Old and New Testaments
presents invaluable exegetical aid, and is highly useful in
giving a combined view of the different English renderings
of the same Greek and Hebrew vocables. Of English
concordances, that of Alexander Cruden stands unrivalled.
CONCORDAT, in the canon law, a covenant or agree¬
ment concerning some beneficiary matter, as a resignation,
permutation, promotion, or the like.
The council of Trent (sess. vi., de reform., cap. 4), speak¬
ing of concordats made without the authority and approba¬
tion of the pope, calls them concordias qua} tanturn suos
obligant auctores, non successores. And the congregation
of cardinals who have explained this decree, declare also
that a concordat cannot be valid so as to bind successors,
unless confirmed by the pope.
In particular, it signifies an agreement between the Holy
See and a sovereign prince or state, for regulating the man¬
ner of nominating to benefices and other matters connected
with religion. Such was the concordat concluded at Bologna,
in 1516, between Leo X. and Francis I., for the abolition of
the pragmatic sanction ; and, in modern times, that concluded
between Napoleon and Pius VII. in 1801.
The concordat serves instead of the pragmatic sanction ;
or rather, it is the pragmatic sanction softened and reformed.
CONCORDIA, the goddess of concord, a Roman divi¬
nity, in whose honour several temples were erected at
Rome. The most ancient of these was that built on the
declivity of the Capitol by Camillus, b.c. 367. In this tem¬
ple the senate frequently assembled. Having fallen into
disrepair, it was restored by Livia the wife of Augus¬
tus, and consecrated by her son Tiberius, a.d. 9. It was
afterwards destroyed by fire, but again restored. The se¬
cond temple, constructed of brass, was erected on the Pala¬
tine Hill by Cn. Flavius; and there was a third on the
Capitoline Hill. Concordia was represented as a matron
CON
Concrete holding in her right hand a patera, or sometimes an olive
branch, and in her left hand a cornucopia. Her symbols
Concubin- were two hands joined together, and two serpents entwined
aSe- about a caduceus. She was invoked to promote peace
among the members of families and the citizens.
CONCRETE (Eat. concrescere, to grow together, to
coalesce), a compound, a mass formed by concretion. Among
builders it is used to denote a composition of stone chip-,
pings or pebbles, lime, and sand, cemented together into one
mass, for the purpose of forming an artificial foundation for
buildings in soft or boggy ground.
Concrete Term, in Logic, a term that includes both
the quality and the subject in which it exists ; as nigrum,
a black thing.
CONCRETION, the act by which soft bodies become
solid or hard ; or an insensible motion of the particles of
a fluid or soft body, by which they come to a consistence.
It is indifferently used for induration, condensation, con-^
gelation, and coagulation.
CONCUBINAGE (Eat. concubina, a concubine), the
state of a man and woman cohabiting together as married
persons without the sanction of a legal marriage. In a
scriptural sense, it denotes the state of cohabiting law-,
fully with a wife of second rank, who enjoyed no other con¬
jugal right but that of cohabitation, and whom the husband
could repudiate and dismiss with a small present (Gen. xxi.)
In like manner he could, by means of presents, exclude his
children by her from the heritage (Gen. xxv.) Such w'ere
the concubines of Nahor, of Abraham, of Jacob, Eliphas,
Gideon, Saul, David, Solomon, Caleb, Manasseh, Rehoboam,
Abiah, and Belshazzar. To judge from the conjugal his¬
tories of Abraham and Jacob, the immediate cause of con¬
cubinage was the barrenness of the lawful wife, who in that
case introduced her maid-servant to her husband, for the
sake of having children. In process of time, however, con¬
cubinage appears to have degenerated into a regular cus¬
tom among the Jews ; and the institutions of Moses were
directed to prevent excess and abuse in that respect.
The Roman law calls concubinage an allowed custom
(licita consuetudo). When this expression occurs in the
constitutions of the Christian emperors, it signifies what we
now sometimes call a marriage of conscience. The concu¬
binage tolerated among the Romans, in the time of the re¬
public and of the heathen emperors, was that between per¬
sons not capable of contracting legal marriage. Concu¬
binage between such persons they looked on as a kind of
marriage, and even allowed it several privileges.
Concubinage is also used to signify a marriage with a
woman of inferior condition, to whom the husband does not
convey his rank. Dajos (Paratilla) observes, that the an¬
cient laws allowed a man to espouse, under the title of con¬
cubine, certain persons who w ere esteemed unequal to him,
on account of the want of some qualities requisite to sustain
the full honour of marriage ; and he adds, that though such
concubinage was beneath marriage both as to dignity and
civil rights, yet was concubine a reputable title, and very
different from that of mistress” among us. Also, that the
concubine might be accused of adultery in the same man¬
ner as a wife.
This kind of concubinage is still in use in some coun¬
tries, particularly in Germany, under the title of halb-ehe
(half-marriage), or left-hand marriage, in allusion to the
manner of its being contracted, namely, by the man giving
the woman his left hand instead of the right. This is areal
marriage, though without the usual solemnity; and the
parties are both bound to each other for ever, though the
female cannot bear the husband’s name and title.,
Du Cange observes, that one may gather from several
passages in the epistles of the popes, that they anciently
allowed of such connections. The seventeenth canon of
the first council of Toledo declares, that he who with a
CON 229
faithful wife keeps a concubine, is excommunicated; but Conda-
that if the concubine serve him as a wife, so that he has mine,
only one woman, under the title of concubine, he shall not
be rejected from communion.
It is certain the patriarchs had a great number of wives,
and that these did not all hold the same rank ; some being
subaltern to the principal wife, or what may be termed con¬
cubines or half wives. Solomon had seven hundred wives
and three hundred concubines ; and the emperor of China
is said to have sometimes two or three thousand in his harem.
Q. Curtius observes, that Darius was followed in his army
by three hundred and sixty-five concubines, all in the equi¬
page of queens.
CONDAMINE, Charles Marie be la, a practical
geographer and cultivator of science in general, son of
Charles de la Condamine, a receiver-general of finances,
and Margaret Louise de Chources, w?as born Jan. 28, 1701.
His early education was by no means neglected, although
he complains that he wras made to learn too much by rote,
without understanding the complete sense and bearing of
the words which he repeated. He afterwards pursued his
studies under Father Brisson ; and in 1717 he supported a
thesis on the Cartesian philosophy, which the Jesuits were
then beginning to introduce into their seminaries. In 1719
he entered the army, and accompanied his uncle, the Che¬
valier de Chources, to the siege of Rosas, as a volunteer;
and both on this and other occasions he exhibited proofs of
the contempt of danger and the spirit of enterprise which
were so much required in those pursuits that afterwards
occupied a considerable portion of his life. Unlike most
young men of his time, he was moderate in the pursuit of
pleasure, and used to consider the disfigurement which the
smallpox had left in his features as affording him some
compensation for the injury done to his vanity, by diminish¬
ing the temptations to which he might otherwise have
been exposed.
Having no prospect of speedy advancement in the army,
and having suffered considerably in his fortune from a par¬
ticipation in the extravagant speculations of Law, he quit¬
ted the service, in hopes of finding a more advantageous
employment in scientific pursuits. He distinguished him¬
self as an active member of a society of arts, then recently
established at Paris by the Count de Clermont; and in
1730 he obtained a situation in the Academy of Sciences,
as adjunct of the class of chemistry, having previously pre¬
sented to the academy a memoir on the mathematical and
mechanical properties of the lathe, which obtained him con¬
siderable credit. Soon afterwards he embarked in the
squadron of Duguay Trouin, and made a voyage in different
parts of the Mediterranean. He passed several months at
Constantinople, and visited the plain of Troy, and many
other parts of the Levant; and after his return he gave an
account of his tour to the academy. His servant, too, who
had accompanied him, published a separate journal of his own.
Chemistry, as cultivated at that period, afforded but little
scope for the employment of an active mind; and La Con¬
damine, after the publication of one chemical memoir only,
was removed from the class of chemists in the academy to
that of astronomers. In this capacity he was the first to
propose the measurement of a degree of latitude in the
neighbourhood of the equator. His ideas were readily se¬
conded by Maurepas, then prime minister ; and he was ap¬
pointed by the academy, together with Bouguer and Godin,
for carrying the proposal into effect.
In this expedition he was absent from 1735 to 1745 ; and
had to encounter difficulties of every kind. A long series
of dangers and disasters, to say nothing of the awful appear¬
ance of an eruption of Cotopaxi, and the no less formidable
operations of the hostile squadron of Lord Anson, required
nothing less than the dauntless spirit and energy of charac¬
ter which he possessed to bear him up against them ; and
230 CONDAMINE.
mine. ^ie little jealousies, which will often arise among
Persons of science employed in the same pursuits, embar¬
rassed and embittered the conclusion of his enterprise. The
activity and fluency of La Condamine made the public dis¬
posed to imagine that Bouguer had been only his humble
attendant; and Bouguer was too conscious of his own su¬
periority as a mathematician to bear this injustice with
patience. He retaliated by refusing all communication in
the statement of the results of the operations ; so that each
observer gave ultimately a separate account of his own
measurements and calculations.
In consequence of the fatigues and vicissitudes to which
La Condamine had been exposed, he became extremely
deaf, and partially paralytic; but the powers of his mind
appear to have remained unimpaired.
In 1 748 he was elected a foreign member of the Royal
Society of London ; and he afterwards exerted himself
with great zeal and success in promoting among his coun¬
trymen the general introduction of the variolous inoculation,
which had long been practised in England and elsewhere.
In 1757 he visited Italy, and spent a considerable time at
Rome, principally, it would appear, in order to obtain a dis¬
pensation from the pope for a marriage with his niece, who
seems, notwithstanding the disparity of their ages, and his
capricious and irritable temper, to have been sincerely
attached to him. In 1760 he became one of the forty
members of the French Academy, and contributed consi¬
derably to an improved edition of their dictionary. In
1763 he paid a visit to England, which was rendered less
agreeable to him from the difficulty that he found in ob¬
taining legal redress for some slight injury he had received.
After his return, the insensibility of his limbs increased, and
he was obliged to relinquish all his pursuits of science, re¬
taining only the amusement of making some light attempts
in poetry, and occasionally inserting in the periodical works
of the day a few tales in verse, besides a poetical transla¬
tion of a part of Virgil’s Eneid.
His first publication was a Memoir on the Conic Sections,
M. Ac. Par. 1731, p. 240. It contains a comparison of the
equations of the various parallel sections of a given cone
with that of the surface of the cone itself; but it is not dis¬
tinguished either for clearness of conception or for accuracy
of expression.
2. On Metallic Vegetation, M. Ac. Par. 1731, p. 466, H.
P. 31. The experiments described in this paper relate to
the precipitation of nitrate of silver, or other metallic solu¬
tions placed upon a flat surface of glass or agate, by means
of an iron nail.
3. Observations made in the Levant, M. Ac. Par. 1732,
p. 295; relating principally to navigation, geography, and
natural history.
4. Account of an Instrument for determining a Parallel
Circle on the Earth’s Surface, M. Ac. Par. 1733, p. 294,
H. P. 53; a telescope fixed perpendicularly on an axis pa¬
rallel to that of the earth, and consequently capable of being
directed only to objects situated in the parallel circle re¬
quired, proper allowance being made for the effects of re¬
fraction.
5. Description of a Variation Compass, M. Ac. Par. 1733,
p. 446. A wire is fixed in the axis of the card, and a gra¬
duated ring of paper round its circumference, half above
and half below, on which the shadow of the wire is to fall
at sunset.
6. Two Memoirs on the Lathe, M. Ac. Par. 1734, pp. 216,
295. A description of the rosette and of other parts of the
figure lathe, with a mathematical determination of the epicy¬
cloids, conchoids, and other curves, which are traced by
their combination. Ihe apparatus is represented among
the machines approved by the Academy, vol. v. pp. 83, 89.
7. A Letter relating to the Variation Compass, M. Ac.
Par. 1734, p. 597.
8. On the Determination of small Differences of Longi- Conda-
tude, M. Ac. Par. 1735, p. 1 ; a discussion of the kinds of mine,
signals best adapted for contemporaneous observations at a
distance.
9. Measurement of the Length of the Pendulum at St i
Domingo, M. Ac. Par. 1735, p. 529. See Cohesion.
10. Account of the Quinquina Tree, M. Ac. Par. 1738
p. 226.
11. Abstract of a Journey through a part of South Ame¬
rica, M. Ac. Par. 1745, p. 391, H. 63.
12. Abstract of the Geographical Operations performed
in South America, M. Ac. Par. 1746, p. 618. The length
of a degree at the equator appears, from these calculations,
to be 56,750 toises. Bouguer, who employs the same de¬
termination of the arc, but a different series of trigonome¬
trical observations, makes it 56,753; and Godin, on the
other hand, somewhat less than Condamine. This is more
than 300 toises less than the degree measured in France,
and almost 700 less than the degree in Lapland; and it
gives for the earth’s ellipticity, by comparison with the for-
merJ som an(l wRh the latter The terminations of the
base were marked by pyramids, and the length of the toise
was identified by a bar of metal let into a tablet of marble.
13. Mesure des Trois premiers Degres du Mcridien, 4.
Par. 1751, with a complete journal of the operations.
14. A Proposal for an Invariable Standard of Measures,
M. Ac. Par. 1747, p. 489, H. P. 82.
15. Account of an Elastic Resin, M. Ac. Par. 1751, p.
319, H. P. 17; a description of several trees affording the
cahuchu, or caoutchouc, especially of the Hheve, or syringe
trees.
16. A History of the Variolous Inoculation, M. Ac. Par.
1754, p. 615 ; a candid and judicious statement of the ad¬
vantages of the inoculated above the natural smallpox, in
a style calculated to meet the prejudices of the day, and the
various superstitious and interested motives which retarded
the practice in France, while it had become universally
prevalent in England; although, in more recent times, the
public spirit in this country appears to have been less fa¬
vourably disposed to the admission of beneficial innovations;
for it is well known how strenuously an interested or an ig¬
norant opposition was organized against the practice of
vaccination.
17. Abstract of a Journey in Italy, M. Ac. Par. 1757, p.
336, H. P. 6. From an examination of several ancient
standards, and from a comparison of the remains of build¬
ings supposed to have occupied a certain round number of
feet, M. de la Condamine concludes that the old Roman
foot was equal to 130'9 French lines; that is, to 969
thousandths of an English foot. Mr Folkes had before
made it 966; but Mr Raper has shown, in the Philosophi¬
cal Transactions for 1760, by a very careful comparison of
a multitude of documents, that before the reign of Titus it
somewhat exceeded 970, and under Severus and Diocletian
it was less than 965 ; the original standard in the temple of
Juno Moneta having probably been destroyed by fire. M.
de la Condamine also viewed the races on the Corso with an
eye equally mathematical, and observed that the Barbary
horses ran at the rate of about forty English feet in a second;
but his correspondents in England furnished him with un¬
exceptionable evidence that the horse Childers ran the four-
mile course at Newmarket at the rate of very nearly fifty
English feet in a second, while no other horse exceeded forty-
eight ; and he observes that, in this instance, truth far out¬
runs probability ; a remark which has been somewhat mis¬
represented in this country, and converted, by the lovers of
the amusements of the turf, into a laugh against the lovers
of the amusements of science ; the story being told as if the
French mathematicians had demonstrated the absolute maxi¬
mum of a horse’s utmost possible speed, and, a bet having
been made on the occasion, an English horse had been found
C O N
Conda- that actually exceeded the maximum. Our author also
pilly notices the awkward effect of the Roman mode of beginning
II the day at sunset, which renders it necessary to make con-
Conde. tjnuai alterations in the clocks—directions being given in the
almanacks for putting them forwards or backwards a quarter
of an hour at a time ; and the precise time of noon happen¬
ing in summer at sixteen o’clock, and in winter not till
nineteen. He observes that a single signal, properly placed
on the Apennines, would be visible at once near Trieste
and near Monaco, giving a difterence of longitude of not
less than five degrees.
18, 19. On Inoculation, M. Ac. Par. 1758, p. 439; 1765,
p. 505.
20, 21. M. de la Condamine published also a series of
Lettres sur les Dictionnaires, and another of Lettres sur
V Education,
In 1768 his name is mentioned as having excited the
attention of the members of the academy by a relation of
Spallanzani’s experiments on the reproduction of the heads
of snails, which several of them repeated with success. In
fact, there was scarcely any one of the sciences to which
he did not occasionally render some service, although he
wanted patience and perseverance to make any very impor¬
tant discoveries or improvements by his individual exertions
only. But his knowledge was universal; he understood
and wrote all languages; corresponded with men of cele¬
brity in all countries ; published upon all subjects ; contri¬
buted to all the literary and scientific journals of the day ;
answered all criticism, and accepted all compliments, even
from persons whom he despised; for he delighted in the
parade of a pre-eminent reputation. His style was simple
and natural, somewhat negligent, but still elegant and
lively ; his manner was animated and somewhat singular ;
his temper warm and restless; he sighed for repose, and
was incapable of enjoying it; thinking nothing that occurred
indifferent to him, and allowing none about him to be idle.
He obtained the rank of chevalier in several orders, and
was a member of several foreign academies. He held also
the appointment of honorary secretary to the Duke of Or¬
leans. At the age of sixty-eight he addressed to his wife
an account of his education, and of the earlier progress of
his mental faculties, as a practical illustration of his opinions
respecting the cultivation of the mind. The memoir was
not published. A few years before his death he printed a
memorial in behalf of M. Godin, who had been reduced to
indigence; and he had the pleasure of obtaining for him
the assistance which he required. He suffered occasionally
from a hernia; and having read of the marvellous cures
which some empiric professed to have performed by the
application of caustic, he made the experiment on himself,
without the knowledge of his family, and fell a victim to his
temerity. In the course of the six weeks that he survived,
he was still employed in writing or dictating a memoir con¬
taining answers to some questions respecting the manners
of the Americans. He died Feb. 4, 1774, leaving many of
his books and instruments by will to the Academy of Sci¬
ences. {Hist. Acad. Par. 1774, p. 85.) (t. y.)
CONDAPILLY, a town of Hindustan, in the Northern
Circars, and the ancient capital of a district of the same
name which is now comprised within the collectorate of
Masulipatam. It is situated on a hill which has an elevation
of 1700 feet above the level of the sea ; and being fortified
in the Indian style, was formerly a place of considerable
strength. But the fortifications have of late been much ne¬
glected, and are now gone to decay. This place was first
conquered from the Hindu princes about the year 1471, by
the Bhamenee sovereigns of the Deccan ; and it came into
the possession of the British in 1765. The distance from
Madras is 245 miles. N. Lat. 16. 39.; E. Long. 80. 37.
CONDfi, Louts de Bourbon, Prince of, was born at
Paris on the 8th of September 1621. He was styled Duke
CON 231
d’Enghien, till in 1646 he succeeded to the title of Prince Conde.
of Conde by his father’s death. As he was of a tender and V J
delicate constitution, the prince sent him to the castle of
Montrond, in Berri, where he spent his infancy under the
care of some experienced and trustworthy persons. But
when sufficiently advanced in age, the prince took upon
himself the task of governor, and appointed as his assistant
a gentleman of the name of M. de la Boussieres. Two Je¬
suits distinguished for their abilities and acquirements were
also given him as preceptors.
With these attendants the Duke d’Enghien went to set¬
tle at Bourges, where he prosecuted his education at the
college of Jesuits, and made such progress, that before
the age of thirteen he defended in public some questions in
philosophy with great eclat. On his return from Montrond
he received as his tutor M. de Merille, a man deeply versed
in ancient and modern jurisprudence, theology, and mathe¬
matics. Under his direction the duke went through a new
course of study, and acquired a critical taste in the arts and
sciences, which he ever afterwards cultivated. The bent of
his mind, however, inclined him to the military art. Accord-
ingly at the age of eighteen, he obtained permission to
make his first campaign as a volunteer in the army com¬
manded by M. de la Meilleraye; and notwithstanding the
misfortunes that attended this campaign through the mar¬
shal’s imprudence, it was in it that the young duke laid the
foundation of his subsequent renown.
On his return to Paris he waited upon Cardinal Riche¬
lieu at Ruel; and so pleased was that minister with his
conversation, that he soon afterwards made proposals of an
alliance with the Prince of Conde, by marrying the Duke
d’Enghien to Claire Clemenee de Maille Breze, the car¬
dinal’s niece. The duke consented to this match only in
obedience to his father; but so deeply was he wounded by
the constraint, that he fell dangerously ill immediately after,
and it was long before he recovered.
The duke served two more campaigns as a volunteer;
one under the Marshal de la Meilleraye, and the other in
the army of Louis XIII. which conquered Roussillon. In
1643, at the age of twenty-two, he obtained from the king,
through Cardinal Mazarin, the command of the army des¬
tined to cover Champagne and Picardy ; and the appoint¬
ment was confirmed after the king’s death by the queen
regent, Anne of Austria, to whose interest he was strongly
attached. In this situation he defeated the Spaniards, who
threatened France with an invasion, and destroyed their
hitherto invincible infantry, at Rocroi, May 19, 1643,—an
exploit which made him from that time be considered as
the guardian genius of his country. Having gained a re¬
luctant consent from the regency to his project of besieging
Thionville, the duke attacked it with such skill, activity,
and courage, that in two months the fortress surrenderee!.
At length, having covered Alsace and Lorrain from toe
Imperialists, he returned to Paris, where he obtained the
government of Champagne and of Stenai.
The three following years were little more than a series
of military operations. The battle of Fribourg, in which
the Duke d’Enghien triumphed over Field Marshal Count
de Mercy, the greatest general in all Germany; the cap¬
ture of Philipsbourg, and other places, which rendered him
master of the Palatinate, and of the whole course of the
Rhine ; the victory of Nordlingen, by which he revenged
the Viscount de Turenne’s defeat at Mariendal; the siege
and conquest of Dunkirk ; the success of his arms in Cata¬
lonia, where, though forced to raise the siege of Lerida, he
kept the Spaniards in awe, and cut to pieces their rear¬
guard ; these are the principal events which distinguish the
campaigns of 1644, 1645, and 1646.
Ihe popularity of the Duke d’Enghien, on account of
these splendid victories, began now to give umbrage to
Mazarin, 'who manifested his dislike to him on the death of
232 C O N D E.
Conde. the Duke de Breze, admiral of France. The Prince of
Conde earnestly demanded for his son the Duke de Breze s
places; but Mazarin, afraid of increasing the wealth and
power of a prince already too formidable, evaded his re¬
quest, by persuading the queen to take the admiralty to her¬
self. On the death of his father, the minister attempted to
ruin the popularity of the young Prince oi Conde by ap¬
pointing him to the command of the army in Catalonia;
when, on his arrival at Barcelona, he found neither troops
money, artillery, provisions, nor ammunition. Enraged at
this deception, Conde vented his resentment in bitter com¬
plaints and severe reproaches; but his genius enabled
him to triumph over every obstacle. In the campaign of
1648, Conde thwarted the projects of the Archduke Leo¬
pold by carrying the war into the Low Countries, and by
the capture of Ypres in sight of the enemy’s forces.
Notwithstanding this success, Conde saw' himself on the
point of experiencing the greatest reverse of fortune. His
army was a prev to scarcity, to nakedness, contagious dis¬
tempers, and desertion. For eight months it had received
no supply from the minister except half a muster. Every
thing was furnished by the prince himself, who expended
what money he had, and borrowed more, in order to sup¬
ply his troops. When it was represented to him that he
was in danger of ruining himself by such an enormous ex¬
pense, he replied, that since he every day ventured his life
for the service of his country, he could very well sacrifice
his fortune to it. Let but the government exist, added he,
and I shall want for nothing.
The French army having been reinforced by four thou¬
sand of the troops of Weimar, Conde attacked and routed
the Spaniards, near Lens. He afterwards besieged Furnes,
and compelled the garrison, five hundred strong, to surren-
t der. The prince, however, was wounded above the right
hip by a musket-shot; and the contusion proved so great
that he was forced to submit to several incisions.
At this time a general revolt broke out at Paris, in con¬
sequence of the imprisonment of Broussel and Blancmenil,
two of the leaders of the country faction, who had ren¬
dered themselves peculiarly obnoxious to the court. To
quell the disturbance it was found necessary to release them ;
but from that time the regal authority was annihilated, and
Mazarin durst no longer venture out of the Palais Royal.
In this embarrassment the queen recalled the Prince of
Conde, who in the meantime had retired to Ruel with the
young king and Mazarin ; and proposed to him the reducing
of Paris by force of arms. Calming her resentment, he
directed all his efforts to pacify the kingdom; and at length
brought about an accommodation between the contending
parties. The treachery of Mazarin, and the artifices of the
popular leaders, occasioned fresh cabals and fresh troubles ;
but Conde at last preferred the ingratitude of the court to
the arrogance of the malcontents.
On the night of the 5th January 1646, the royal family,
the Duke of Orleans, Conde, and Mazarin, left Paris pri¬
vately, and w'ent to St Germains, whither the parliament
sent deputies to confer with the queen in regard to her de¬
parture. Mazarin had the imprudence to dismiss the envoys
without any answer. Exasperated at this, the people again
took up arms in order to defend themselves ; and the court
resolved to suppress the party of malcontents (who had been
armed principally by the instrumentality of De Retz), by
blockading the capital. Accordingly, with seven or eight
thousand men—the broken relics of the last campaign—the
Prince of Conde, though destitute both of money and
magazines, succeeded in seducing the army under Tu-
renne from their allegiance; stopped the progress of the
Duke de Longueville; got the start of the Spaniards, who
were advancing to give him battle ; and ultimately reduced
the refractory capital. Peace was at length signed at St
Germains ; but neither party carried its point, and scarcely
any one but Conde acquired glory in the war. After the Condg.
conclusion of the treaty, the prince repaired to the capital,
and received from parliament the thanks of the nation for
the peace to which he had so powerfully contributed.
The important service which Conde had just rendered the
court entitled him to the acknowledgments of the queen,
and especially of Mazarin ; but the cardinal remembered
him only as a too fortunate and too powerful protector, and
privately vowed to render the prince obsequious, or procure
his submission. However, not to excite public indignation,
he still kept up appearances with the prince, and deceived
him by the most flattering proposals, which he always found
means to evade. On the other hand, the prince despised
the minister, and treated him with disdain. After this they
were again reconciled only to be again at variance. Each
in his turn courted the country party, in order to make it
subservient to his designs. At length Mazarin thought of
an expedient, which had but too frequently answered his
purpose—of creating an irreconcilable quarrel between that
party and the prince. Among the malcontents, the Mar¬
quis de la Boulaye, a man of an infamous character, had
obtained the confidence of thp party by false appearances
of hatred to the cardinal, with whom he secretly kept up a
correspondence. It is pretended that he made him an offer
of killing Conde privately. Mazarin was charmed with the
proposal; but he only required Boulaye to exhibit all the
proofs of an assassination in which everything might con¬
cur to render the country party suspected of the crime.
He was punctually obeyed; the coach was stopped; some
pistols w’ere fired at it, by which two of the footmen were
dangerously wounded; and after this shameful exploit, La
Boulaye took refuge in the hotel of the Duke of Beaufort,
who was the hero of the party, in order, no doubt, to coun¬
tenance the prince’s suspicion of the malcontents. Luckily
Conde was not in his coach when it was stopped ; the car¬
dinal had spread the report of his intended assassination,
and, in concert with the queen and the prince, he sent the
coach away empty, in order to prove the reality of the at¬
tempt. Mazarin, counterfeiting a zeal for the prince’s safety,
declaimed furiously against the malcontents ; and inflamed
Conde’s resentment against the Duke of Beaufort and the
coadjutor, whom he supposed to be the authors of this hei¬
nous outrage. The prince was so strongly prejudiced that
he refused to hear them when they appeared before him to
justify themselves. The affair was brought before the par¬
liament ; the accused defended themselves ; and the coad¬
jutor, who had discovered the cardinal’s secret, unmasked
the plot so well, that the prince agreed to a private nego¬
tiation with the malcontents, requiring nothing more than
the coadjutor’s leaving Paris, but with the rank of ambas¬
sador to Rome or Vienna. That prelate would have con¬
sented to this to satisfy Conde, had not Mazarin, some days
afterwards, given him the choice of any recompense, in
order to gain his concurrence in the prince’s destruction.
Master of the queen’s mind, wrhich he guided as he pleased,
and sure of having inflamed against Conde the resentment
of the malcontents, he sought and obtained, by means of
the Duchess of Chevreuse, the support of that powerful
faction, which connected itself the more readily with him,
in the hope that the prince’s fall would soon enable it with¬
out difficulty to crush the cardinal himself. The coadjutor
had private conferences with the queen and the minister.
Conde had been informed of the plot, and in order to dis¬
cover if it were true, endeavoured to extort by surprise an
admission from Mazarin’s own mouth. “ Cardinal,” said he
one day, “it is publicly reported that you have nightly
meetings with the coadjutor, disguised like a trooper,” ac¬
companying this speech with a quick and penetrating look.
But the cardinal, who was a perfect master of dissimulation,
answered him in such a free and apparently artless manner
that he entirely removed Conde’s apprehensions; and the
CON
CON
233
Conde.
latter slighted the information he had received of the plot
forming against him. Mazarin at last found means, through
the Duchess of Chevreuse, to inflame the jealousy of the
Duke of Orleans, and to engage him to consent to the im¬
prisonment of Conde. And having thus united all parties,
the ungrateful and perfidious minister made preparations
for privately arresting the prince ; and signed an order to
that effect, Jan. 18th, 1650. Conde having that day re¬
paired as usual to the Palais Royal, to assist at council with
the Prince of Conti and the Duke of Longueville, the three
princes were immediately ai’rested and conveyed to the cas¬
tle of Vincennes.
In this unexpected reverse of fortune, the fortitude and
greatness of Cnnde’s mind were remarkable. Confined
with the two other princes in the tower of Vincennes, where
neither supper, furniture, nor beds were provided, he con¬
tented himself with the humblest fare, and slept twelve
hours without waking on a truss of straw. He still retained
his cheerfulness ; dedicating the greater part of his time to
reading and conversation, and the remainder to playing at
battle-door and shuttle-cock, to bodily exercises, and the
cultivation of flowers.
Meanwhile the prince’s friends, though strictly watched,
found means to keep up a regular correspondence with him,
and made various attempts to release him. Troops were
raised by the Dukes of Bouillon and Ilochefoucault, and
the Viscount de Turenne ; and the Princess of Conde en¬
gaged the province of Guienne to declare in his favour.
But all those efforts would perhaps have been ineffectual,
if other and more powerful resources had not been em¬
ployed.
In that gallant and warlike age, everything was managed
by the' intrigues of five or six women, who possessed the
confidence of the leaders of the state, and of the various
parties. The Princess of Mantua, wife to one of the sons
of the Elector Palatine, king of Bohemia, who principally
directed the counsels in the party of the princes, found
means to reconcile the Duke of Orleans, the coadjutor, and
the malcontents, with the friends of the prince, and all
united their efforts against the cardinal; while the parlia¬
ment, on the other side, loudly demanded the release of the
prisoners. The different orders of the state also united in
soliciting it, insomuch that the queen was at last prevailed
on to give her consent. At this news Mazarin was so con¬
founded that he fled in the disguise of a trooper, and ar¬
rived at the gates of Richelieu, where a body of horse
waited for him. The parliament, informed by the king of
his flight, thundered forth an arret, by which he was obliged
to leave the kingdom, with his family and foreign servants,
in the space of fifteen days, under the penalty of being ex¬
posed to a criminal prosecution. The queen wished to
follow him ; but the nobles and burgbers invested the Pa¬
lais Royal, and prevented the execution of this project,
which would have kindled a civil war. Mazarin, therefore,
perceiving that it was impossible for the queen to join him,
determined to go himself to restore the princes to their
liberty, and to get the start of the deputies who were com¬
ing to acquaint them with their release. On his arrival at
Havre, he informed the princes that they were free, and
prostrating himself at his feet, entreated Conde’s friend¬
ship. Conde gave him a polite reception, and spoke to him
in a free and cheerful tone ; but, tired with the mean sub¬
missions which the cardinal lavished upon him, left him
without making any promise, and returned to Paris, where
he was received with demonstrations of a most sincere and
general joy.
In the civil war which ensued, Conde sided with the mal¬
contents. Being pressed by the king’s army, he retired
into the faubourg of St Antoine, where he behaved with
the utmost bravery ; upon which the citizens opened their
gates and received him, and a peace soon afterwards en-
YOL. VII.
sued. His hatred of the cardinal, however, induced him to
quit Paris, and take refuge among the Spaniards, who made
him generalissimo of their forces ; and at their head he cap¬
tured Rocroi. But the peace of the Pyrenees restored him
to his country ; and he again signalized himself at the head
of the king’s armies. Being afflicted with gout, he refused
the command of the army in 1676, and retired to Chantilly,
where he was as much esteemed for the virtues of peace
as he had before been for his military talents. He died in
1686, at Fontainebleau.
Conde, a town of France, situated at the confluence of
the Haine with the Scheldt, department of Nord. It is a
fortress of the first class, its defences having been con¬
structed by Vauban ; and possesses a handsome church,
town-hall, military hospital, &c. The navigation of the river
enables it to carry on an extensive trade in coals, cattle,
and corn. Manufactures—starch, leather, and cordage.
In the early history of France, Conde was subjected to
frequent sieges. It surrendered to the Austrians in 1794,
but was recaptured at the close of the same year. Pop.
3500.
Conde sur Notreau, an ancient town at the confluence
of the Durance with the Noireau, department of Calvados.
Manufactures—woollens, cotton goods, leather, and cutlery.
It also trades in cattle, yarn, and honey. Pop. 5970. There
are several other towns and villages of this name in
France.
CONDENSATION (Eat. condensatio), the act by
which a body is rendered more dense, compact, or of
greater specific gravity, by bringing its particles into closer
union. The word is commonly applied to the conversion
of vapour into water, by distillation, or by a natural process.
Condensation is the reverse of expansion. All matter
which is expansible is capable of condensation ; and con¬
densation may convert a gas into a liquid, and a liquid into
a solid. Hence solidity and increased weight are conse¬
quences of condensation. Dew and rain are produced by
the condensation of vapour from the air. See Evapora¬
tion and Clouds.
CONDENSER, a pneumatic machine or syringe for
compressing air, by means of which ten or more atmo¬
spheres, or ten times as much air as exists in a given space
under the ordinary pressure of the atmosphere, may be
forced into that space.
The syringe consists of a brass cylinder in which there
is a moveable piston which forces the air into a receiver ;
and a valve prevents the air from escaping. The receiver
or vessel in which the air is condensed should be made
very strong, to bear the increased force of the air: for
which reason vessels of this sort are generally made of
brass, and the orifice is fitted with a female screw to re¬
ceive the male screw at the end of the condenser. See
Pneumatics. The term is also applied to vessels in which
aqueous or spirituous vapours are reduced to a more dense
state, either by the injection of cold water, as in the con¬
denser of a steam-engine; or, when this is inapplicable, as
in the distillation of spirituous liquors, by surrounding the
condenser with cold water, which is perpetually renewed,
and is applied over a large surface of the condensing vessel.
See Distillation, Steam-Engine, &c.
CONDER (Fr. conduire, to guide), a name given to a
person who stands on a cliff or on any elevated position
during the time of fishing, for the purpose of directing the
fishermen by signs in which direction the shoals are pass¬
ing ; the peculiar appearance which is occasioned in the
water by the motion of the fish being more readily ob¬
served from an eminence than from the level of the water.
Conders are otherwise called balkers.
CONDILLAC, Etienne Bonnot de, Abbe de Mu-
reaux, well known as an eminent writer on metaphysics and
education, was born at Grenoble in 1715. He was brother
2 G
231
CONDILLAC.
Condillac, to the Abbe de Mably ; and, like him, arrived at high ce-
v—lebrity, though in a different line of pursuit. He seems to
have been actuated by the purest motives of utility to his
species, in directing his exertions to the elucidation of
those subjects in metaphysical science, the imperfect state
of which had involved the studies, as well as the public
pursuits, of the thinking world, in perplexity, and had re¬
tarded the attainment of that degree of sound knowledge
and of happiness for which the faculties of man entitled
him to hope. The field of metaphysical research had been
for some time laid open by the destruction of the imperi¬
ous authority of Aristotle and the schools; a variety of
contending doctrines, which had made their appearance,
created in active minds a spirit of independence ; and no
admiration of the genius of another prevented the sugges¬
tions of the philosophic critic from mingling themselves
with the illustrations of the enlightened pupil. Locke
had led the way to a mode of investigation now rising into
favour, and promising to impart a luminous simplicity to
the science of mind ; and philosophers emulated one an¬
other in their efforts to correct or to extend the doctrines
of this author, or to found upon them others distinguished
by new improvements. Condillac was one of the first who
introduced this style of metaphysical inquiry into French
literature. His earliest work was his JEssai sur l Origine
des Connoissances Humaines, which appeared in 1746. This
work contains those favourite opinions which are exhibited
with more correct taste in his subsequent productions.
It is not, however, superseded by the latter, as it contains
a variety of interesting illustrations peculiar to itself; and
although here we find his errors particularly prominent,
that circumstance seems rather to proceed from the ab¬
sence of art and of plausibility, than from the subsequent
adoption of views more radically correct. From the out¬
line which he first formed of philosophic methods, he
seems never to have departed. The object of the first part
of this essay is to confirm and extend the doctrine of Locke,
that all ideas originate in the senses, and consist of sen¬
sations variously modified. Readers who conceive that
Locke’s doctrine, when followed to its consequences, tends
to lower the estimation in which the human mind ought to
be held, will probably attach the same blame to Condillac.
His curious saving clause will not vindicate his opinions
among the philosophers of this country, however conve¬
nient it might be found among the adherents of the Roman
Catholic church, that the dependence of the soul on the
senses is one of the effects of the fall of man, and a proof
of his present state of degradation. Readers who are not
ambitious of possessing a fixed theory in a department of
metaphysics so abstruse, will be pleased with those traits
of acuteness in the observation of mental phenomena which
abound in this essay, and which are often expressed with
great felicity, even while the slight distortions communi¬
cated to some of his representations of facts by the ten¬
dencies of his theories obtrude themselves on our notice.
The doctrine now mentioned is followed up by two other
leading positions, “ that the association of ideas is the
foundation of the most important mental operations,’* and
“ that language is absolutely necessary to the develop¬
ment of the human faculties.” Ideas, he asserts, cannot
be associated with one another, except by being associat¬
ed with words or other signs which become the materials
of a language. On this doctrine he establishes a defini¬
tion of memory, which is altogether unique, that it con¬
sists in the recalling of words or circumstances relating
to a perception ; the recalling of the perception itself be¬
longs to imagination, while it is reminiscence that makes
us recognise it as one which we have formerly entertain¬
ed. He denies all memory to animals, because they have
no language. Thus a futile fallacy led him to form a ver¬
bal distinction, founded on no difference in the nature of Condillac
things. A person destitute of language, and wishing to
have it in his power, on future occasions, to recal a par¬
ticular idea, might certainly find means adapted to his
purpose, by associating it with different objects. These
objects would serve the same purpose as the signs of which
our languages consist. Some such associations are essen¬
tial to memory. The slightest attention will show us that
words or signs serve no other purpose than is done by all
kinds of ideas, in assisting the mind to make use of one
another. What this author calls a sign, is merely another
idea intentionally associated with that which we princi¬
pally wish to recollect. We may give the latter numer¬
ous associations, that it may have many chances of being
recalled. W'e associate it either with the most important
or with the readiest of our perceptions, that it may be re¬
called more perfectly, or with greater certainty. The only
circumstances that render some perceptions better adapt¬
ed to this end than others, are their importance, their fa¬
miliarity, and their analogy with those which have been
previously used. We generally choose our instruments
of private recollection from the materials of language, be¬
cause these materials are already employed for communi¬
cation. They are rendered convenient by their variety,
and by the classifications and analogies which were fol¬
lowed in the first tormation of them, as necessary for ren¬
dering them the media of communication, and which, by
connecting them powerfully together, give them a high
adaptation for extensive arrangements. Language, in
that state of improvement in which it exists in a culti¬
vated age, extends intellectual operations; but it neither
adds any radically distinct faculty, nor gives origin to any
new genus of mental exercise. Condillac says, that “ a
man without language could not recal his ideas, except
when placed in the same circumstances in which they had
been formerly presented.” The obvious answer to this is,
that language, in so far as it serves this purpose, consists
in the multiplication of the assisting circumstances in
which a man is placed when a perception is formed.
Many ingenious illustrations are subjoined, which are de¬
serving of attention; but when well considered they will
lead to conclusions differing from those which the author
endeavours to establish. In viewing the mind in its ac¬
tive state, he justly observes, that objects attract its at¬
tention only as they are connected with our temperament,
our passions, our condition, and our wants; and this prin¬
ciple is afterwards beautifully applied to the illustration
of the earliest acquisitions of knowledge, and of the dif¬
ference of character between them and many that succeed
at a later period. But no person would affirm that our
wants are the signs of our perceptions, though various
perceptions are powerfully recalled by their means.
I he opinions of the author certainly led him to ascribe
too much to language. It is to the want of signs that he
traces the whole disadvantages of the deaf, whereas we
know that they are entirely owing to the deficiencies of
their mental intercourse with others, that is, to their pri¬
vation, not of the private, but of the social use of lan¬
guage. We find that the great improvements now made
in the art of communicating with the deaf have made
these disadvantages to disappear. The young man of
Chartres, who was born deaf, but acquired the faculty of
hearing when of adult age, and was therefore able to de¬
scribe the state of his understanding during his former
deafness, declared, that when he made the sign of the
cross, and joined in the other ceremonies of the Roman Ca¬
tholic religion, he had never attached to them any mean¬
ing, or supposed that any thing was represented by them.
Ihus, for want of language, he is represented as destitute
of ideas. In this instance, however, we only perceive
CONDILLAC.
Condillac, the facility with which men imitate one another’s acts
and professions, without exercising independent thought.
The difference between this deaf man and most other per¬
sons was, that he took the propriety of the ceremonies for
granted, being entirely led by example, while those who
had heard their meaning explained acquiesced with reve¬
rence and complacency in certain verbal positions con¬
nected with them, without ever inquiring into their mean¬
ing or their merits. Another illustration is taken from a
man, who, though he enjoyed the faculty of hearing, had
lived apart from all association with his species in the fo¬
rest of Lithuania. But it is easy to show that the great
mental deficiencies of that individual arose from the want
of society, and not simply from the want of a language to
supply his private meditations with signs.
It is in the art of calculation that the utility of signs is
most conspicuous in forwarding the progress of intellec¬
tual operation, and it is there that we find a language pre¬
sented to the eye, which is adapted in a most perfect de¬
gree to the purposes of the mind. Hence the use of signs
for expressing our ideas of number is a favourite topic
with Condillac and the other adherents of the doctrines
of the Nominalists. The number ninety-nine could not
be distinguished from a hundred, except by language.
Ninety-nine objects placed together would not convey a
different perception from a number varying from it by one
less or one more. It is an error, however, to imagine,
that the words one hundred, or the ciphers (100) by
which the number is represented, give us a perfect idea
of any number. They only represent one relation of it to
a certain mode of accumulation, the decimal series. In¬
dependently of all language, general features may be per¬
ceived to characterize objects too complicated to be com¬
prehended by any human mind.
Condillac, seduced by his favourite theories, condemns
one of the most profound and useful of the practical ob¬
servations of Locke, that the best way of arriving at cor¬
rect knowledge is to consider ideas by themselves, inde¬
pendently of their signs. This exercise our author pro¬
nounces to be utterly impracticable; and all that he at¬
tempts to recommend in its stead is the precaution of em¬
ploying only such words as are well understood. How
can words be understood, unless the ideas which they re¬
present are considered as detached from all association
with them, and thus exempted from the embarrassing in¬
fluence of fallacious analogies ?
Regarding language as a necessary instrument of men¬
tal operations, he makes some observations on the parts
of speech, and the manner in which they are connected
in sentences. He describes with ingenuity the steps by
which words pass from expressing sensible qualities to be¬
come the names of mental faculties. Here we perceive a
glimmering of some truths which have been since lumi¬
nously displayed in the Philosophical Essays of Mr Du-
gald Stewart. He introduces at the same time some spe¬
culations on the origin of abstract terms, which are not
entitled to equal approbation. He takes occasion, how¬
ever, to make one remark which is both beautiful and just,
that men have too often imagined that words perfectly
explain the essence and nature of things, whereas they
express in reality nothing more than some imperfect ana¬
logies. This position, followed to its consequences, would
suggest a correction of a great part of the author’s errors.
In describing the pronoun, he gives way to a species of
metaphysical mysticism, b}r which he is grievously misled.
He conceives that this class of words must be of late for¬
mation, because some difficulty must have occurred in
substituting another word for the proper name of an ob¬
ject. He did not here consider that nothing of the es¬
sence of an object, nothing but qualities, circumstances,
235
or accidents, is expressed by the proper name, more than Condillac,
by the pronoun. The same man may be “ John,” “ fa-
ther,” “ brother,” “ master,” “ subject,” “ I,” “ thou,” or
“ he,” according to the occasions on which the mention of
him is introduced. All the designations applied to him
are equally proper and easily made.
Yet this work is well worthy of an attentive perusal.
We find in it a brilliancy of expression which renders it
more amusing than metaphysical dissertations often are;
although it must be confessed that there is in some in¬
stances a false simplicity, arising from an attempt to re¬
present metaphysical science as easier than it really is.
In his subsequent works he acknowledges that he had fal¬
len into some errors from the precipitate views which he
took of the mental powers; but he specifies no particu¬
lars ; and a reader who does not acquiesce in all his im¬
proved views will not easily see the exact corrections
which the author made on those contained in his Essai.
In 1749 he published his Traite des Systemes, the ob¬
ject of which was to show the futility of the doctrines de¬
rived from those hypothetical systems which were the off¬
spring of an erroneous mode of procedure in the pursuit
of knowledge; such as those which set out with general
or abstract maxims, and pretend to establish on them a
body of profound science. Another kind consists of arbi¬
trary suppositions, laid down as principles for the expla¬
nation of things which cannot be otherwise accounted for.
These are a convenient resource for ignorance; they are
formed with so much pleasure and so little trouble, that a
man in bed may, by their aid, create and govern the uni¬
verse. He illustrates the conspicuous influence which
this mode of systematizing had on opinions in metaphy¬
sics. He takes a view of the system of innate ideas as
maintained by Descartes; that of Malebranche, who re¬
duced all knowledge and all mental activity to operations
which had the divine essence for their objects; that of
Leibnitz, who explained the laws both of matter and of
mind by general functions pertaining to simple and indi¬
visible beings, which he called monades; and that of Spi¬
noza, who reduced all nature and all existence to one
simple substance, of which the various phenomena, mate¬
rial and mental, are only modifications. The last of these
systems had created some commotion in the philosophical
and religious world, as adverse to a belief in moral dis¬
tinctions. Condillac treats the argument with a dignified
delicacy, as having received a wrong direction in the writ¬
ings of that author, in consequence of the erroneous me¬
thods of investigation which he employed. His words
are, “ Does Bayle believe that he has refuted Spinoza, by
exposing the consequences which he himself draws from
the system of that philosopher ? If these are not really
its consequences, he does not attack Spinoza. If they are,
Spinoza will reply that they are not at all absurd, and only
appear so to persons who are unable to ascend to the prin¬
ciples of things. Destroy, he will say, my principles, if
you would overthrow my system; or if you let my prin¬
ciples alone, assent to the propositions which are their
necessary consequences.” “ My object,” says Condillac,
“ has been to show that Spinoza had no idea of the posi¬
tions which he' advanced; that his definitions are vague,
his axioms inaccurate, and his propositions entirely the
work of imagination, and include nothing that can lead to
the knowledge of things. Having done this, I proceed no
farther. To attack the phantoms which arise from his
principles, would be as preposterous as the feats of the
knights-errant, who combated the^spectres of the sorcer¬
ers. The wisest plan is to destroy the enchantment.”
Having shown the radical fallacy of the principles adopt¬
ed by the preceding writers, he points out the cases in
which hypotheses assist human knowledge. The first is,
236 C O N D
Condillac, when we can exhaust all the hypotheses that can be
formed on any subject, and possess a rule for distinguish¬
ing that which is admissible. Of this we have examples
in the pure mathematics. A second kind of hypothesis
includes those which are employed in astronomy, provid¬
ed they are limited to the object of accounting for the
revolutions of the heavenly bodies. A third occasion on
which they ought not to be rejected is, when they facili¬
tate observation, by giving greater palpability to truths
attested by experience. He mentions the importance of
general systems formed by a process of induction. He
points out the necessity of general systems in politics,
founded on the character and condition of the different
classes of men who constitute the body politic; and con¬
cludes with a view of the advantage derived from system
in the arts. He gives some useful practical observations
on the application of mathematical and metaphysical ana¬
lysis. This treatise abounds in excellent remarks on hu¬
man character, as displayed both in intellectual pursuits
and in the business of life. His comparison of Locke and
Malebranche is a masterpiece of description.
Next in order, his Traite des Sensations made its appear¬
ance in 1754; a work which displays a truly philosophi¬
cal spirit, uniting boldness with circumspection. The
mode in which he investigates the origin of ideas of sense,
and the progress of intellectual operation, had the merit
of some originality, and afforded an undoubted advantage
to the prosecution of the most interesting inquiries. He
considers the sense in a separate state, by forming the
supposition of a being created without sensations. He
supposes this , being in the first instance to be endowed
with the sense of smell, and describes the mental charac¬
ter which would thus be formed. He gives a similar ac¬
count of the other senses, and examines successively the
effects of their combinations, till he arrives at the descrip¬
tion of a complete human being.
His uniform aim is to show that all ideas and all mental
phenomena consist of sensations transformed. Those who
reject that doctrine will still acknowledge the beauty and
ingenuity of his train of description. The conclusion it¬
self is refuted by the slightest reflection on the very scope
of the author. He evidently supposes the man who be¬
comes thus complete by receiving his different external
senses in succession, to have been previously in posses¬
sion of dormant intellectual faculties ; for his descriptions,
while they apply to man, will not apply to many other
animated beings whose senses are equally perfect, because
the use which they are able to make of the impressions
received is either incomparably more limited or different
in kind. If the results of intellectual operation are no¬
thing else than sensations transformed, the transformation
is certainly more important than the original materials,
and the transforming power cannot be lightly esteemed
by any one who values extended knowledge. The fa¬
vourite theme of the author, however, detracts but little
from the pleasure which this ingenious work imparts.
Some would pronounce the discussions which it contains
to be not strictly analytical. Analysis should begin with
man as he exists in a complicated state, with all his senses
as well as his faculties entire, and proceed to separate his
constituent powers by successive subdivisions, till, in its
progress downwards, it arrives at the description of each
sense and each species of intellectual operation in a sepa¬
rate and simple state. I he description of a man endowed
in that kind of succession which Condillac describes, is a
purely hypothetical process, more allied to arbitrary syn¬
thesis than to analysis. ‘ By analysis, however, the author
means, in a general way, the task of surveying in succes¬
sion the parts of which compound objects consist, and ex¬
amining separately the relations by which they are con-
[ L L A C,
nected, without any reference to the order of procedure. Condillac,
Decomposition and recomposition he, in a subsequent
work, represents as alike belonging to analysis ; and though
from etymology the Greek word synthesis is the same
with that of the Latin word composition, he limits the
former term to that mode of composition which he con¬
demns, that which begins with general or abstract doc¬
trines, and which regards these as the ground of systems
pretending to explain the existing world. Although his
order of description of the senses is so far hypothetical as
to have nothing corresponding to it in the natural history
of man, he regarded it as sufficiently capable of being sub¬
stantiated by close comparison with every man’s expe¬
rience, and thus distinguished from the offspring of an ar¬
bitrary synthesis.
These works having procured for the author a distin¬
guished character in the philosophical world, he was ap¬
pointed preceptor to the infant Duke of Parma, grandson
of Louis XV.; and, in applying himself to the discharge
of the duties of that office, he brought into exercise the
same talents which had shone so conspicuously in his writ¬
ings. He composed a course of studies (CWs d'Etudes)
in thirteen volumes, including Grammaire, XArt d'Ecrire,
TArt de Raisonner, VArtde Penser, occupying the first four
volumes, succeeded by nine volumes On Ancient and Mo¬
dern History. His Grammaire exhibits, in his own able
manner, doctrines in universal grammar nearly allied to
those which generally prevailed, and which we find in the
Grammaire Generate et Raisonnee of the Port Royal. The
author’s favourite principle, that every language is an ana¬
lytical method, runs through the body of his work, and
probably leads him to pay too great respect to the tech¬
nical differences of the parts of speech, as indicating
thoughts of different classes. E Art d!Ecrire is a most
agreeable and enlightened system of general criticism,
and adds to this the merit of exhibiting an interesting
view of French literature, in the examples of good and of
faulty writing by which the precepts contained in it are
illustrated. The whole rules relative to style are refer¬
red to one principle, that a writer ought to conform his
diction and his imagery to the most fundamental associa¬
tions of ideas. His rules thus deduced do not exhibit
any such difference from those of other authors as to form
in his readers a style marked by any singularities. On
the contrary, we find him exempting literature from the
shackles of some rules, the close observance of which se¬
cures an apparent accuracy at the expense of a natural
ease, and showing his susceptibility to the influence of a
pure taste by bestowing approbation on passages which a
critic of a more formal cast would have thought himself
called upon to censure. His Art de Raisonner is a work
of singular excellence and utility. It is a luminous ex¬
emplification of the rules of reasoning, in the steps of that
mental progress by which physical philosophers have un¬
folded the laws of motion, the principles of mechanics,
and the theory of the heavenly bodies. He discriminates
with just and beautiful effect the different kinds of evi¬
dence on which the various doctrines of those branches of
natural philosophy rest. This treatise is well worthy of
being known in our language, as it exhibits an uncom¬
monly pleasing road to an elegant department of physical
knowledge, and furnishes a model for the prosecution of
other studies. His^4r£ de Penser, notwithstanding all the
ability which it displays, will probably be found the least
interesting part of the Cours d’Etudes, as it chiefly con¬
sists in an explanation and recommendation of the author’s
peculiar notions on the nature of mind. His Ancient and
Modern History forms a body of morality and legislation.
His details are not inspirited with the ardent eloquence
of a popular historian who excites a deep interest in indi^
CON
Condillac, vidual characters or insulated events. He does not exlii-
bit paintings to the imagination, but contents himself with
furnishing leading principles to the understanding. His
style, though pure, is without ornament and without fire,
and hence his history has been much less read than his
other works.
In 1768 he was admitted into the Academy of Sciences,
on the death of the Abbe d’Olivet; but he never after¬
wards appeared at any of the meetings of that body.
His attention being habitually directed to those subjects
in which intellectual exertion was most wanted, for the
advancement of objects of general utility, he published, in
1776, the results of his studies on Political Economy, in a
work entitled Le Commerce et le Gouvernement, consideres
relativement Fun d l'autre. This work became an object of at¬
tack to the Economists ; and the author, no doubt, like most
others who have written on that subject, committed some
mistakes. Yet he essentially improved the discussions
connected with it, and he exhibits a model of luminous
arrangement in his mode of delivering his opinions.
The extended fame of Condillac procured for him a most
honourable testimony of esteem from the Polish nation.
The council of public instruction of that nation requested
him, through the medium of Count Ignatius Potocki, to
draw up an elementary treatise on logic, for the use of
their palatinal schools. This gave birth to his Logique,
which was published in 1780, a few months before his
death. The object of this work is to give a condensed
account of the principles of analysis, taken in the accep¬
tation already mentioned. This process, he observes, is
taught by nature, and is always conducted with accuracy
when man is in quest of the means of supplying the urgent
necessities of his being. It is when curiosity forms to him
a separate order of objects for his gratification, that he be¬
comes precipitate in grasping at conclusions, and embraces
them with readiness, though not the produce of that rigor¬
ous correctness of method which necessity imposes on his
earlier pursuits. In giving an account of the origin of ideas
and the mental faculties, he exemplifies his views of ana¬
lysis, and, at the same time, prepares the way for further
applications of the mental powers of his pupils. He ad¬
heres to his doctrine of the supreme and exclusive influ¬
ence of language in conducting all intellectual pursuits.
Generalization and classification are, with him, nothing
more than the contrivance of generic names. The art of
reasoning is made to consist in the formation of an appro¬
priate language for the different sciences. He considers
the justness of our reasonings as depending on the degree
of perfection of the languages which wre possess. The
superior certainty of mathematical compared with other
knowledge is ascribed by him to the superior accuracy of
mathematical language. Hence his favourite illustrations
of the progress of the mind are taken from arithmetic and
algebra. This principle is certainly carried by him to
great excess in the framing of his general positions ; yet
we find him on other occasions recommending to his read¬
ers to cultivate the unbiassed study of nature, and to
choose their words rather from the correctness of their
application to objects, as they have fallen under actual ob¬
servation, than from having their meaning fixed by the un¬
satisfactory formality of verbal definitions. He lays down
some highly useful rules for the prosecution of knowledge.
His errors arise chiefly from a strained effort to give to
his subject a degree of simplicity not adapted to its nature.
Hence some of his maxims are more quaint than just; but,
compared with the complicated systems of logic previous¬
ly in use, that of our author formed an improvement which
merited the grateful reception that was given to it; and,
even at the present day, if we pardon the paradoxical ge¬
neralities by which it is disfigured, we may profitably trace,
CON 237
in company with the author^ the steps by which many in-Conditional
tellectual attainments are made, and the means by which II
the process admits of being facilitated. Condom.
The last work of Condillac, his posthumous treatise, en-
titled La Langue des Calcids, formed an important acqui¬
sition to science, which has not in this country been duly
appreciated. In some subordinate points it is not unex¬
ceptionable ; for example, he here, as in some of his for¬
mer works, particularly his Art de Raisonner, perpetually
repeats the assertion as of the greatest importance, that
just reasoning consists in tracing identical propositions, and
in passing from identity to identity. Aware of the objec¬
tion to which this assertion was exposed, that identical
propositions can amount to nothing more than futile and
stagnant truisms, he imagines that this objection is an¬
swered by stating that, in the different steps of a process
of calculation, there is an identity of ideas, but a difference
in words, which is certainly a gross paralogism. In one or
two passages he states with greater truth, though appa¬
rently by accident, that a process of calculation consists in
considering the same objects in different points of view; a
proposition which ought to have had that conspicuous
place in his treatise which he gives to his doctrine of per¬
fect identity. If this single alteration is made in the mind
of the reader, the luangue des Calculs will be perused with
the highest profit. An English translation of it would
form an important accession to the means of an enlighten¬
ed education in this country, as leading, by pleasant steps,
to the highest scientific attainments.
Condillac is to be considered as in the soundest sense of
the word an amiable man. If he had an apparent reserve,
and in some respects a want of fervour, these apparent de¬
fects were more than compensated by the steadiness of his
conduct. In early life he was intimate with J. J. Rous¬
seau, Diderot, and Duclos. But he indulged no hazard¬
ous speculations on the general interests of mankind, and
cherished no modes of thinking which tended to divide or
distract the age. He was sincerely public-spirited; and
his conciliating sentiments will, perhaps, among those who
most accurately weigh them, be respected as morally su¬
blime. As a well-wisher to the fortunes of his species, he
acted^on a principle which he considers as having uniform¬
ly operated in the production of former improvements.
He dwells on the value of the attainments already made,
as an exercise fitted to create a spontaneous disposition to
extend them, divested of the spirit of party, and exempt
from rashness. Hence his works were not only much read
by individuals, but were employed in many of the conti¬
nental seminaries of education, and, without exciting dis¬
content or apprehension, except among the inflexible scho¬
lastics of Spain, proved successful in illuminating the age
in which they appeared. He died in August 1780, on his
estate near Bangenci, where he had passed a life of re¬
tirement, though not more allied to solitude than as it
was exempt from the scenes of public bustle and preva¬
lent ambition. See First Preliminary Dissertation, vol. i.,
p. 172. (h. d.)
CONDITIONAL, not absolute, but subject to condi¬
tions.
Conditional Conjunctions, in Grammar, are those
which serve to make propositions conditional; as if, unless,
'provided, fyc.
Conditional Propositions, in Logic, such as consist of
two parts connected together by a conditional particle.
Conditional Syllogism, a syllogism where the major is
a conditional proposition. Thus,
If there is a God, he ought to be worshipped.
But there is a God;
Therefore he ought to he worshipped.
CONDOM, a town of France, department of Gers, and
238 CON
Condor capital of a cognomina! arrondissement, is situated on the
Condorcet ®a'se> which is here crossed by two stone bridges. The
v ~.j town itself is very irregularly built, but its suburbs are
adorned with handsome villas. In the market square is a
noble Gothic edifice, once the cathedral, but now reduced
to the status of a parish church. Manufactures—cotton and
woollen fabrics, and earthenware : its principal trade is in
rural produce. Bossuet was bishop of Condom in 1669.
Pop. 7027.
CONDOR, the largest of the Vulturidse. See index to
Ornithology.
CONDORCET, Marie-Jean-Antoine-Nicolas-Ca-
ritat, Marquis of, a French philosophical, political, and
biographical writer of distinguished eminence, descended
from an ancient family in the principality of Orange, was
born at Ribemont in Picardy, in 1743. He received his
education at the college of Navarre, where he was distin¬
guished at an early period of life for his strong attachment
to the study of physics and mathematics. On his entrance
into public life, he established a friendly intercourse with
Voltaire, D’Alembert, and other literary characters who
professed opinions analogous to his own, and formed a very
powerful party among the French literati, whose united
efforts to propagate their ideas of religion and politics have
been applauded or condemned according to the principles
of their different judges. Condorcet first attracted the at¬
tention of the public as a mathematician, obtaining their
approbation for his treatise on integral calculations, which
he composed at the age of 22. In the year 1 767 his solu¬
tion of the problem of the Three Bodies made its appear¬
ance, and in the following year the first part of his Essay on
Analysis. In the year i 769 he was received as a member
of the Academy of Sciences, the memoirs of which were
greatly enriched by him with different papers on the most
abstruse branches of mathematical science. His justly-
merited reputation pointed him out as a fit person to co¬
operate with D’Alembert and Bossut in assisting the cele¬
brated minister and able financier M. Turgot with arith¬
metical calculations. In the mean time he laboured inde-
fatigably in the study of politics and metaphysics, and de¬
fended, in an anonymous publication, the sect of philosophers
to which he had attached himself^ from an attack made
upon them in the Trois Siecles; and replied to M. Necker’s
essay on Corn Laws. He was appointed secretary to the
Academy of Sciences in the year 1 773, when he employed
much of his time in writing eulogies on such of its deceased
members as Fontenelle had passed over in silence. Con¬
dorcet having, like D’Alembert and some others, united in
himself the characters of an elegant writer and a man of
profound research, was admitted into the French academy
in 1783, when he pronounced an oration on the influence
of philosophy, which was ordered to be printed. From the
time of D’Alembert’s death, which happened this year, he
filled the situation of secretary to that academy, rendering
his name conspicuous by the publication of eulogies on
different eminent characters. His panegyric on D’Alem-
beit, to whom he was most sincerely attached, is a very
elaborate performance, and is esteemed as a candid account
of the genuine merits of that great philosopher. The en¬
comium he bestowed on Euler furnished him with a favour-
able.opportunity of giving a circumstantial account of the
specific improvements and inventions conferred on a pecu-
har branch of science by the labours of that illustrious in¬
dividual. Flis eulogy on the minister Turgot was read with
avidity, and admired by all those who approved of Turgot’s
plans of government and system of finance. In the year
1/87 he published his Life of Voltaire, which, whatever be
the opinion of that philosopher’s merits, is highly elaborate,
and replete with lofty panegyric. The last of his biogra¬
phical works was a eulogy on the celebrated Dr Franklin,
published in 1 /90 ; but all of these will be read with some
CON
degree of prejudice by those who are inimical to the school Condorcet
of philosophy to which Condorcet belonged. s—
I he French Revolution, which the writings of Condorcet
and his associates unquestionably accelerated, naturally in¬
terested his feelings, and called forth his exertions ; and at
an early period he employed his talents to promote those
reforms which, as he thought, were to pave the way to a
new order of things. A work entitled La Bibliotheque de
VHomme Public, intended to exhibit an analysis of the
writings of the most eminent politicians, was chiefly con¬
ducted by him ; as was also a newspaper called La Chro-
nique de Paris, filled with declamation against royalty. He
had likewise a share in the celebrated Journal de Paris.
About the time when the king fled to Varennes, he pro¬
posed a paper called Republicain, the intention of which
is clearly deducible from its title. He was an indefatigable
member of the Jacobin club, and spoke frequently, though
not forcibly, at their meetings. He was chosen a repre¬
sentative for Paris when the constituent assembly was dis¬
solved, and followed the general political course of the Bris-
sotine party. He exerted his abilities in devising a plan
for public instruction, the draft of which is contained in two
elaborate memoirs on the subject; but, though it contains
some exalted and enlarged ideas, it was too extensive and
sweeping to be ever reduced to practice. He was likewise
author of the manifesto addressed to the European powers
by the people of France on the approach of a war. While
he was president of the assembly he wrote a letter of ex¬
postulation to the king, which some have considered as un¬
necessarily severe ; and when the king was insulted by the
populace at the Tuilleries, in being offered the red cap, it
is said that he vindicated their proceedings. While he was
degrading royalty in this manner, it seems that he was se¬
cretly soliciting the office of tutor to the Dauphin, and re¬
jected by the king on account of his avowed infidelity. He
has also been charged with the basest ingratitude by those
who regard him as accessory to the murder of the Due de
la Rochefoucault, to whom he was closely allied by a mar¬
riage exceedingly fortunate for his interests ; but this is
generally believed to be a calumny. When the trial of the
king came to be debated, Condorcet gave it as his opinion
that he could not legally be brought to judgment. His
conduct, however, in regard to the sentence was rather of
an ambiguous nature, and betrayed that timidity and want
of resolution which formed a prominent feature of his poli¬
tical career. The judgment pronounced by Madame Ro¬
land on this extraordinary man seems an impartial esti¬
mate of his merits. “ The genius of Condorcet,” said
that lady, “ is equal to the comprehension of the great¬
est truths; but he has no other characteristic besides fear.
It may be said of his understanding, combined with his
person, that it is a fine essence absorbed in cotton. The
timidity which forms the basis of his character, and which
he displays even in company, does not result from his frame
alone, but seems to be inherent in his soul; and his talents
furnish him with no means of subduing it. Thus, after
having deduced a principle or demonstrated a fact in the
assembly, he would give a vote decidedly opposite, over¬
awed by the thunder of the tribunes, armed with insults,
and lavish of menaces. The properest place for him was
the secretaryship of the academy. Such men should be
employed to write, but never permitted to act.” After the
execution of the king, the Girondist party employed him
to frame a new constitution ; the plan of which was pre¬
sented to the convention, and obtained their approbation.
It was not so highly esteemed by the people at large ; and it
has, perhaps not without reason, been considered as a mass of
metaphysical absurdities. During the violent struggle be¬
tween the Girondist and Mountain parties, Condorcet took no
decided part with either; a circumstance which seems to
have been owing to the native timidity of his mind, and his
CON
tondorcet. abhorrence of the state of public affairs. He was not com-
prehended among the number of those who were sacrificed
with their leader Brissot; but having employed his pen
against the victorious party, he fell under the invincible
displeasure of Robespierre, who issued a decree of accusa¬
tion against him in July 1793. He, however, found means
to effect his escape from the arrest, and during nine months
concealed himself in Paris. But at length dreading that
the tyrant would order a domiciliary visit for the purpose
of discovering the place of his retreat, he passed through
the barriers without being noticed, and went to the house
of a person in whom he confided, on the plain of Mont-
Rouge. Unfortunately for Condorcet, however, this friend
was at that time in the metropolis; and he was in conse¬
quence reduced to the necessity of passing two dreary nights
in the open fields, a prey to hunger and cold. On the
third day he obtained an interview with his friend, who
unhappily durst not venture to shelter him under his roof;
so that he was once more compelled to wander in the fields.
At length, worn out by hunger and fatigue, and on the
point of perishing for want of sustenance, he applied at a
public house for an omelette, which he obtained and de¬
voured greedily. His cadaverous appearance and uncom¬
monly keen appetite roused the suspicion of a municipal
officer who happened to be present; and the ambiguity
and hesitation which characterized his answers when in¬
terrogated, justified his apprehension. He was accordingly
consigned to a dungeon, to be next day conducted to
Paris; but his melancholy fate rendered such a measure
unnecessary. He was found dead in the morning; and,
as it was generally understood that he constantly carried
with him a dose of poison, to this cause his melancholy
fate wras ascribed. Thus, on the 28th of March 1794,
terminated the career of Condorcet, who for manv years
sustained a brilliant and honourable reputation in the re¬
public of letters. His manners w'ere replete with urbanity,
and he was as well qualified to please in company as could
be expected in a man who w7as conceived, whether rightly
or not, to be destitute of heart. “ La bonte brillait dans ses
yeux,” says Grimm, “ et il aurait eu plus de tort qu’aucun
autre de n’etre pas homnete homme, parce qu’il aurait
trompe davantage par sa physionomie, qui annonyait les
qualites les plus paisibles et les plus donees.” His charac¬
ter, though not exempt from pride, was always peaceful and
obliging. He appeared timid and embarrassed in a nume¬
rous circle ; but among his friends he displayed a gaiety and
liveliness quite fascinating, and never made any pretensions
to superiority on account of the great extent of his know¬
ledge. He had read a great deal, and his memory was pro¬
digious. Soon after his death appeared his Sketch of an
Historical Draught of the Progress of the Human Mind,
in which he strongly advocates his favourite scheme of the
gradual perfectibility of human nature. In spite of its fan¬
ciful character, it is clearly the effort of a superior genius,
and acquires peculiar interest as being composed while its
author was in circumstances of danger and distress. The
idea of man’s progressive advancement towards perfection
and happiness inspired him with consolation under his com¬
plicated misfortunes. Condorcet, although an enemy to
revealed religion, was certainly a man of virtue and integrity;
and his generous and arduous services on behalf of liberty
and social improvement entitle him to a conspicuous place
amongst those who have wielded the destinies of his
country.
A uniform edition of the works of Condorcet was printed at Paris
in 1804, in 21 vols. 8vo. For a complete list the reader is referred
to the France Littcraire of M. Ersch. It will he sufficient here
to notice the more remarkable, which are as follow:—1. Essai
d Analyse, Paris, 1768, 4to; 2. Lettres d'un Thtologien d VAuteur du
Eictionnaire des Trots Siecles, Berlin, 1774, 8vo; 3. Eloges des Aca-
demiciens de VAcademic Royale des Sciences, marts depuis 1666 jus-
gu en 1699, Paris, 1775, 12mo; 4. Eloge et Pensles de Pascal, Lon-
CON 239
don, 1776,8vo ; 5. Essai sur VApplication de VAnalyse d la probabi- Condottieri
litk des decisions rendues d Plurality des Voix, Paris, 1785, 4to; 6.
Vie de M. Turgot, London, 1786, 8vo; 7. Vie de Voltaire, Geneva, Confedera-
1787, and London, 1790,2 vols. 18mo; 8. Rapport sur VInstruc- tion.
tion Publique, prSsente d la Convention Rationale, Paris, 1792, 8vo; , | j
9. Bibliotheque de VHomme Public, ou Analyse Raisonnte des prin-
cipaux ouvrages Franqais et Hr angers sur la Politique en general, la
Legislation, les Finances, <fcc., Paris, 1790, 1792; 10. Esquisse d'un
Tableau Historique des progres de VEsprit //wmam,ouvrage posthume,
1795, 8vo; 11. Moyen d’ apprendre a compter surement et avec faci¬
lity, Paris, 1799, 12mo ; 12. A volume of notes to the Recherches sur
la Nature et les Causes de la Richesse des Nations, translated from
the English of Dr Adam Smith. Along with Lecroix he published
a new edition of Euler’s Lettres a une Princesse d'Allemagne ; and he
contributed to the Journal Encycloptdique, the Chronique des Mois,
the Rejjublicain, the Journal d'Instruction Publique, and other pe¬
riodicals. (See Notice sur la Vie et les Ouvrages de Condorcet, by
Diannyere, 1796, 8vo.)
CONDOTTIERI (chiefs), in Italian history, a class of
mercenary adventurers in the fourteenth and fifteenth cen¬
turies, who put themselves at the head of military bands,
and carried on war on their own account, destroying some
towns, ransoming others, and olundering on every side. See
Italy.
CONDRIEU,a town ofFrance, department of Rhone, on
the river of that name, 21 miles south of Lyons. It has about
3500 inhabitants, and carries on a considerable trade in grain,
and in the white wines, for which the district is celebrated.
CONDUCTORS of Electricity. See Electricity.
CONDYLURA, a name first applied by Uliger to an
American genus of the family Soricida of the Plantigrada,
the star-nosed shrews. They resemble our mole in habit
and manners, but their nasal disk is rayed, and their tails
are longer. Latreille has applied this name to a genus
of Mollusca.
CONE, a solid body or figure of which the base is a
circle, and which diminishes in diameter till it terminates
in a point, which is called its vertex. A sugar-loaf is a fa¬
miliar example. The term is also applied to the conical¬
shaped fruit of several evergreen trees, as that of the pine,
fir, cypress, and cedar.
CONEGLIANO, a town of the delegation of Venetian
Lombardy, and 15 miles north of Treviso. It manufac¬
tures silk and woollen goods, and has some trade in wine.
Pop. (1843) 6459. Marshal Moncey was created Duke of
Conegliano by Napoleon.
CONFARREATIO, a ceremony observed among the
ancient Romans at the nuptials of those persons more par¬
ticularly whose children were destined for the priesthood.
Confarreatio was the most solemn of the three forms of mar¬
riage ; but in later times this ceremony fell much into disuse ;
hence Cicero mentions but two, namely, coemptio and usus.
In the ceremony of confarreatio, according to Servius, the
pontifex maximus, or flamen dialis, joined and contracted
the man and woman, who went through the form of par¬
taking of the same cake of salted bread, called far, or panis
farreus ; whence the term confarreatio. Ulpian says that
the ceremony consisted in the offering up of some pure
wheaten bread, and rehearsing a certain formula, in presence
of ten witnesses. Dionysius Halicarnassensis adds, that the
man and woman partook of the same wheaten bread, and
threw a part on the victim, which was a sheep. This form
of marriage could only be dissolved by another equally
solemn ceremony, called disfarreatio. The children sprung
from this kind of marriage were styled patrimi and ma-
trimi ; and from these alone were chosen certain priests—
as the flamen dialis and the vestal virgins. According to
Festus, those were so called whose parents were both liv¬
ing ; and if the father only was alive, they received the
appellation of patrimi or patrimes ; or if the mother only,
they were called matrimi or mat rimes.
CONFEDERATION of the Rhine, the name of a
well-known league entered into by several German princes
in 1805, by which they separated themselves from the em-
240
CON
CON
4,000 collec¬
tively.
Confedera- pire, and formed a new political association, under the pro-
tiGii. tection of France. This league was an immediate conse-
^ quence of the reverses of Austria in the campaign of 1805,
and was the first great and avowed measure of Buonaparte
to assume the control of the German empire. After re¬
maining in force somewhat more than seven years, it fell,
along with its prime mover; but is still deserving of historical
notice for its effects, both in giving for a time a co-operating
power to France, and in serving as an introduction to sub¬
sequent changes in the organization of the Germanic body.
The treaty in question was signed at Paris on 12th July
1806, and ratified at Munich on the 25th of the same month.
It consisted of forty articles, and was subscribed by the fol¬
lowing powers:—
Contingents.
The Emperor of France, who engaged to
furnish a contingent of. 200,000 men.
The King of Bavaria  30,000
The King of Wirtemberg  12,000
The Prince Primate...-, 
The Grand Duke of Baden  8,000
The Grand Duke of Berg  5,000
The Grand Duke of Hesse-Dannstadt  4,000
The Duke of Nassau 
The Duke of Aremberg 
The Prince of Nassau-Weilburg 
The Prince of Hohenzollern Hechingen
The Prince of Hohenzollern Siegmarin-
^gen 
The Prince of Lichtenstein 
The Prince of Salm-Salm 
The Prince of Salm-Kyrburg 
The Prince of Isenburg-Birstein 
The Prince of Leyen 
Most of the subscribing princes assumed, on this occa¬
sion, titles different from those which they had borne when
members of the empire. It was stipulated that they should
renounce most of the laws and all the peculiar titles of the
empire ; that their common interests should be discussed
in a diet to be assembled at Frankfort on the Maine, and
to be divided into the colleges of kings and princes, with
the Prince Primate as president of the former, and the
Duke of Nassau of the latter; that the members of the con¬
federation should be unconnected with any power except
France, between which and the confederation an intimate
compact was formed, and the emperor of which was declared
hereditary protector of the alliance, with the right of nomi¬
nating the future prince primates. It was further stipu¬
lated, that the confederated princes should exercise the
rights of sovereignty over the territories newly incorporated
by this act with their dominions, leaving private property,
however, undisturbed ; and that, in the event of any neigh¬
bouring power making preparations for war, the contracting
parties should arm to the extent of the above-mentioned
contingents. Finally, it was provided that other German
princes and states should be allowed to accede to the con¬
federation ; and the league was accordingly strengthened by
the Grand Duke of Wurzburg (on 3d October 1806),
with a contingent of 2000 men; by the king of Saxony
(on 11th December 1806) with 20,000 men; by the king
of Westphalia (in 1807), with 25,000; and in the course
of that and the following year, by the Saxon princes, the
Dukes of Mecklenburg, and, in short, by all the lesser
princes of the west and north of Germany.
Immediately after the communication of the treaty of
confederation to the German diet in August 1806, the Em¬
peror Francis made a formal abdication of the title of Em¬
peror of Germany ; the ancient constitution of which, long
in a state of decline, now became completely dissolved.
Buonaparte had soon occasion to put his new auxiliaries to
the test—the war with Prussia breaking out in the course of
a couple of months after the formation of the alliance. The Conferva;
victory of Jena, and its unparalleled results, rivetted the
yoke around the necks of his new vassals, and supplied him
with recruits to go through the short but sanguinary cam¬
paign of 1807 in Poland. Unfortunately, the confederation
afforded him a numerous and efficient body of auxiliaries at
a very interesting period, we mean in April 1809, when
Austria, encouraged by the resistance of Spain, ventured,
alone and unassisted, to take the field in the assertion of her
independence. But the battle of Wagram put an end to
her hopes, and rendered Buonaparte the uncontrolled arbiter
of Germany; a station which, in all probability, he would
have continued to hold for life, had he not wasted, in the
deserts of Russia, the finest army that Europe ever saw.
This loss was most acutely felt by the states of the confe¬
deration, particularly by Bavaria, its first and principal
member.
It was in the beginning of December 1812 that the great
mortality took place among the Bavarians, after they were
brought up from Wilna, in the vain hope of affording protec¬
tion to the wreck of the French as they fled across the Bere-
sina. The general melancholy occasioned by the death of
so many of their brave countrymen, and a conviction of the
insatiable ambition of Buonaparte, raised among the states
of the confederation a spirit of national independence, and
paved the way to that alliance which it was soon in the
power of Austria and Prussia to offer to their German neigh¬
bours. Hence the easy entry of the allies into Saxony in
April 1813, and the memorable defection of the Saxons in
the battle of Leipsic on the 18th of October; and hence,
also, the conclusion of a treaty between Austria and Bava¬
ria in the month last mentioned, the eager march of the
Bavarians to Hanau to intercept the retreating French, and
the obstinate though unavailing conflict which took place in
the neighbourhood of that city.
The Confederation of the Rhine, already virtually dis¬
solved, became finally annulled in 1814, and was replaced
at the Congress of Vienna by an association on a larger
scale under the name of the Germanic Confederation. Of
this new and comprehensive body a more particular account
will be found under the head Germany. (j. l—e.)
CONFERVA), a division of algce or water plants, con¬
taining many species which agree in having jointed tubular
stems, and living chiefly in fi’esh water.
CONFESSION, among divines, the verbal acknowledg¬
ment which a Christian makes of his sins.
Among the Jews it was the custom, on the annual feast
of expiation, for the high priest to make confession of sins
to God in the name of the whole people. And besides this
general confession, the Jews were enjoined, if their sins
were a breach of the first table of the law, to make confes¬
sion of them to God; but violations of the second table
were also to be acknowledged to their brethren. The prac¬
tice of auricular confession, now elevated to the dignity of
a sacrament in the Roman Catholic Church, seems to have
originated in the ninth century, but did not become obli¬
gatory till the thirteenth. Confession once a-year to a
priest was first enjoined by Innocent III.; and the priest is
bound not to reveal it, under pain of the highest punishment.
Confession of Faith, a formulary detailing the articles of
faith held by any church. The most ancient of these are
the Apostles’, the Nicene, and Athanasian creeds (which see
under their respective heads). As standards of the Romish
Church may be reckoned the decrees and catechism of the
Council of Trent, the creed of Pius IV. (promulgated 1564),
and subordinately Bossuet’s Exposition of the Catholic
Faith. The recognised creed of the Greek Church is that
drawn up by Mogila, metropolitan of Kiow, in 1642. In
the Church of England, all candidates for ordination sub¬
scribe the 39 articles, and the 3 articles of the 36th canon
relating to the supremacy of the king. The Book of Com-
Confession
of Faith.
I
CON
Confes- mon Prayer and the Homilies are also recognised expositions
sional 0f the doctrines of this church. The confession of the West-
11 minster Assembly, drawn up in 1643, was in 1690 ratified by
1'onflagra- ac(. pariiament as the doctrinal standard of the Church of
tl0nl > Scotland.
CONFESSIONAL, or Confession ary, a place in
churches under the great altar, where the bodies of deceased
saints, martyrs, and confessors were deposited.
This word is also used by the Roman Catholics for that
place in a church where the confessor sits to hear confes¬
sions.
CONFESSOR, one who confesses. The term was used
in early times to denote a Christian who made a solemn pro¬
fession of the faith, and suffered in its defence. A mere
saint is called a confessor, to distinguish him from the roll
of dignified saints, such as apostles, martyrs, &c. In eccle¬
siastical history, the word confessor is frequently used as
synonymous with martyr; but afterwards it was applied to
those who, after having been persecuted and tormented,
were permitted to live and die in peace ; and at last it was
also applied to those Christians who had lived a good life and
died with the reputation of sanctity. According to St Cy¬
prian, he who presented himself to torture, or even to mar¬
tyrdom, without being called to it, was not denominated a
confessor, but a. professor ; and if one, from want of courage,
abandoned his country, and became a voluntary exile for
the sake of the faith, he was called exterris.
Confessor also signifies a priest in the Roman Catholic
church who hears confessions and grants absolution. The
church calls him in Latin confessarius, to distinguish him
from confessor, which is a name consecrated to saints. The
confessors of the kings of France, from the days of Henri
IV. have, with rare exceptions, been Jesuits; but before
his time the Dominicans and Cordeliers shared the office
between them. The confessors of the house of Austria have
also ordinarily been Dominicans and Cordeliers; but the
later emperors have all employed Jesuits.
CONFIGURATION (Lat.co«/%Mm^‘o),external form;
the figure which bounds a body, and gives it its external
appearance; being that which, in a great measure, consti¬
tutes the specific difference between bodies.
CONFIRMATION, the act of confirming or establish¬
ing. In an ecclesiastical sense, it denotes the ceremony of
laying on of hands, in the admission of baptized persons to
the enjoyment of Christian privileges. The antiquity of
this ceremony is, by all the older writers, carried as high as
the apostles, and founded upon their example and practice.
In the primitive church, the ceremony was performed im¬
mediately after baptism, if the bishop were present at the
solemnity. Among the Greeks, and throughout the East,
it still accompanies baptism ; but the Roman Catholics make
it a distinct and independent sacrament. Seven years is
the stated age for confirmation ; however, persons are con¬
firmed sometimes before and sometimes after that age. The
person confirmed releases his godfather and godmother,
by taking upon himself the baptismal vows in their place.
The order of confirmation in the church of England does
not determine the precise age of the persons to be con¬
firmed.
CONFLAGRATION (Lat. conflagratio), a general
burning or consuming with fire ; as of a city or a forest.
The word is applied in particular to that grand catastrophe
when the world is to be changed by fire, as it formerly was
by water. The opinion that the end of the world is to be
effected by the agency of fire is very ancient, and was com¬
mon amongst heathen philosophers. (Ovid, Metamorph.
i. 256.) Other testimonies are quoted by Grotius {De Veri-
tate Rel. Chr., lib. i. § 22). It is not easy to discover the
origin of this opinion; it can scarcely be traced to tradition
derived from revelation, since there is no distinct reference
to such a catastrophe in the Old Testament. It is, more-
VOL. VII.
CON 241
over, remarkable, considering how universal and definite is Confolens
the ordinary belief on the subject, that there is only one II
passage in the New Testament, viz., 2 Pet. iii. 7-10, which ('onfuc^U8)’
can be adduced as speaking distinctly of this event. This
passage is, indeed, very explicit; but it should not be for¬
gotten that some learned and able expositors (among whom
are Lightfoot and Owen) have referred it altogether to the
destruction of Jerusalem and of the Jewish polity. If, how¬
ever, with the majority of interpreters, we refer the predic¬
tion to the end of the world, we could not have a more dis¬
tinct statement of the fact that the present order of things
is to be terminated by the world we inhabit and all the works
of man it contains being ‘ burnt up.’ There is no reason
for assuming that the whole material universe is to be in¬
volved in this catastrophe; the mention of the heavens leads
our thoughts no further than the atmosphere and vapours
surrounding this planet. Nor should we regard this con¬
flagration as involving the absolute destruction or annihila¬
tion of the world: it is more consistent with the narrative
itself, as well as with physical science, to consider it as in¬
troductory to a new and better state of things—“ new hea¬
vens and a new earth wherein dwelleth righteousness” (ver.
11). By what means the conflagration is to be effected we
are not informed, and all attempts to explain how this is to
be accomplished must be mere speculation. Such an event
is not inconsistent with physical facts. We know that the
temperature of the earth increases gradually and with con¬
siderable regularity as we descend below tbe surface (Phil¬
lips, Geology, vol. ii. p. 232), and have every reason to be¬
lieve that the central mass is intensely hot. We know,
moreover, that there are subterranean fires of great extent,
if not forming part of this heated central mass. The means,
therefore, of combustion are near at hand. But even if
there were no such central heat, chemistry points out very
easy means by which the conflagration may be effected
through the agency of various elementary substances (Phil¬
lips, Geology, vol. ii. p. 211). We find evidence also in the
pyrogenous rocks which form so large a part of the crust of
the earth, that the world has already been subjected, if not
to conflagration, yet to a more intense and general action of
heat than any which is now observed on the surface of the
earth; and it is clearly not impossible that the action may
be yet more intense and more general. Some conceive that
the conflagration is to be effected miraculously, by fire from
heaven ; while others suppose an eruption of the central fire
sufficient for the purpose. Others look for the cause of the
conflagration in the atmosphere, and suppose that some of
the meteors there engendered in unusual quantities, and
exploded with unusual vehemence, from the concurrence of
various circumstances, may effect the object. The astrolo¬
gers sought to explain it by a conjunction of all the planets
in the sign Cancer; as the deluge, according to them, was
occasioned by their conjunction in Capricorn. Others, again,
have maintained, that the world is to undergo conflagration
from the near approach of a comet in its return from the sun.
CONFOLENS, a town of France, capital of a cogno-
minal arrondissement in the department of Charente, situate
on the right bank of the Vienne, 37 miles N.E. of Angou-
leme. It has a tribunal of primary instance ; and some
trade in corn, cattle, and timber. Pop. (1851) of town
3069, of arrondissement 71,440.
CONFORMITY, in the schools, is the congruency or
relation of agreement between one thing and another; as
between the measure and the thing measured, the object
and the understanding, the thing and the division thereof.
CONFUCIUS, the Latinized form given originally
by the Jesuits to the name of the great Chinese philo¬
sopher, Khoung-fou-tseu. As a sage and a religious law¬
giver, Confucius is regarded by his countrymen as the
greatest man China has produced. He was unquestionably
an extraordinary man, remarkable in the influence he exer-
2 H
242
CONFUCIUS.
Confucius, cised over his countrymen when alive, and the still greater
influence he has ever since exercised by his writings.
Confucius was bom about 5.50 years before Christ, in the
kingdom of Loo, a portion of north-eastern China, nearly
corresponding with the modern province of Shan-tung. At
that time China was divided into nine independent states;
and it was not till three centuries later that it was united
into one kingdom. From his earliest years Confucius was
distinguished by an eager pursuit of knowledge. From
his father, who was prime minister of the state in which
he lived, he inherited a taste for political studies; but
being left an orphan when still but a child, he was edu¬
cated for the most part in retirement by his mother Ching
and his grandfather Coum-tse. The anecdotes which are
related of his boyhood tend to show that he wras distin¬
guished by those qualities most highly esteemed by his
countrymen, and afterwards most strictly enforced by him¬
self—a profound reverence for his parents and ancestors,
and for the teaching of the ancient sages. “ Coum-tse, his
grandfather,” says one of his biographers, “ was one day
sitting absorbed in a melancholy reverie, in the course of
which he fetched several deep sighs. The child observing
him, after some time approached, and, with many bows and
formal reverences, spoke thus—‘ If I may presume, without
violating the respect I owe you, sir, to inquire into the
cause of your grief, I would gladly do so. Perhaps you
fear that I who am descended from you may reflect dis¬
credit on your memory by failing to imitate your virtues.’
His grandfather, surprised, asked him where he had learned
to speak so wisely. ‘From yourself, sir,’ he replied; ‘I
listen attentively to your words, and I have often heard you
say that a son who does not imitate the virtues of his an¬
cestors deserves not to bear their name.’ ”—Meng-tseu, i.
4. It may be well to remark here that the accounts given
of his life are credible enough. There seems no "good
reason to doubt the facts related of him by his biographers ;
and a full and authentic life of the sage might easily be
compiled by collating the various biographies, and expung¬
ing the few wonderful incidents which may readily be dis¬
tinguished as the interpolation of some marvel-loving ad¬
mirer. In this respect the accounts we have of Confucius
differ materially and strikingly from those of Gotama Buddha,
and Zoroaster, the contemporaneous sages of Northern In¬
dia and Persia, whose biographies are almost entirely com¬
posed of the legendary and miraculous, from which their
genuine history can hardly be disentangled.
The position which his father had held in the state seems
to have inspired Confucius at an early age with a desire to
distinguish himself in moral and political studies, and
prompted him to investigate the early history of his coun¬
try- He laboured zealously to fit himself for filling offices
of high political trust; and in his endeavours to master the
learning of the early sages he was ably assisted by his
grandfather. He married at nineteen years of age, and is
said to have divorced his wife a few years afterwards, when
she had given birth to a son, that he might devote himself
without interruption to study; but owing to the general
contempt of women in the East the subject is only slightly
alluded to by his biographers.
He entered upon political employment at twenty years
of age, as superintendent of cattle,” an office probably
established that the revenue might not be defrauded, and
necessary where much of it was paid in kind. In this si¬
tuation his reverence for antiquity and the ancients did not
prevent Confucius from attempting reforms and checking
long-established abuses. Under his administration men
who were dishonest were dismissed, and a general inquiry
was set on foot with a view to the reformation of all that
was unworthy or pernicious. The activity of Confucius
brought him into favour with his sovereign, and he was
promoted to the distribution of grain,” an office of which
it is not easy to discover the nature. Whatever were his
duties, however, the energy that Confucius displayed was
extremely distasteful to his colleagues. He was now in the
vigorous manhood of 35, and the eyes of the nation were
turned to him as their future prime minister, when a revo¬
lution occurred in the state which drove him from power.
Deprived of his office, he wandered for eight years through
the various provinces of China, teaching as he went, but
without as yet making any great impression upon the mass
of the people. He returned to Loo in his forty-third year.
Flis enemies, during those eight years, had gradually lost
their authority; and he was again employed in political offices
of trust and responsibility. Immorality prevailed at this
time to a frightful extent. Confucius set himself up fear¬
lessly as a teacher of virtue. His admonitions were not
thrown away; and having gained the approbation of the king
a few years after his return from exile, he was appointed
prime minister with almost absolute authority. The ene¬
mies of order and virtue excited troubles on his elevation;
but Confucius sternly repressed the symptoms of dissatis¬
faction, and though of compassionate disposition, he did not
hesitate to resort to capital punishment when necessary to
rid himself of his enemies.
Reformation made rapid strides in the territories of Loo;
the nobles became more just and equitable; the poor were not
oppressed as before; roads, bridges, and canals were formed,
“ 1 he food of the people,” says his biographer, “ was the
first care; it was not until that had been secured in abun¬
dance that the revenues of the state were directed to the
advancement of commerce, the improvement of the bridges
and highways, the impartial administration of justice, and
the repression of the bands of robbers that infested the
mountains.” For four years he steadily persevered in his
endeavours, until Loo began to be regarded as a model state
by the surrounding kingdoms. It was not the interest of the
neighbouring princes to permit this state of things to con¬
tinue. One of them, more crafty than the others, knowing
the weakness of the sovereign of Loo, trained some fasci¬
nating courtezans after his own views, and sent them as a
present to the voluptuous prince. They were greedily re¬
ceived, for the king had long tired of Confucius and his
stern morality. The courtezans roused him and his nobi¬
lity to action. A strong party rose against the sage; and
at the age of 57, he was driven once more from his native
state to wander as a teacher through the different provinces
of China.
It was only by concealment and disguise that the life of
the exiled prime minister was preserved. For twelve years
he wandered from province to province, at first harassed,
persecuted, hunted, but after a while allowed to travel un¬
molested. A faithful little band of disciples collected around
him in his wanderings, and their numbers, as time advanced,
might soon be counted by thousands. Seventy-two of
these, we are told, were particularly attached to him, but
only ten of them were “ truly wise.” With these ten he
finally retired at the age of 69 to a peaceful valley in his
native province, where, in the midst of his disciples, he
passed a happy literary period of five years, in collating
and annotating the works of the ancients. These sacred
books have been for twenty-three centuries the fountains of
wisdom and goodness to all the educated of China. They
are the works in which every student must be a proficient
ere he can hope fo advance in the political arena, and for
twenty-three centuries have had an incalculable influence
on a third of the human race.
His life was peacefully concluded in the midst of his
friends at the age of 73, in the valley to which he had re¬
tired five years previously. It has been for all succeeding
ages a sacred spot—a place of pilgrimage for the learned
and the superstitious; and the Chinese of 1854, amid con¬
flicting Buddhism and Christianity, still point with reve-
CONFUCIUS.
Confucius, rence to the tomb of their great sage in the province of
Shan-tung.
In his manner of teaching, Confucius was strikingly con¬
trasted with the other great religious teachers of Asia—Go-
tama Buddha, Zoroaster, and Mohammed. He made no pre¬
tensions to universal knowledge or external inspiration. “ I
was not born,” said he to his disciples, “ endowed with all
knowledge. I am merely a man who loves the ancients, and
who do all I can to arrive at truth.” {Lun-yu, vii. 19.)
On particular points of religious and other knowledge he
was equally frank in his confessions of ignorance. Having
been asked, for instance, by his disciples, how superior spirits
might be acceptably worshipped, he candidly answered that
he did not know; although with strange inconsistency, when
asked of military matters, his reply was, “ If you had asked
me of ceremonies or sacrifices, I might have been able to
reply to you, but with regard to the military science I never
studied it.” {Lun-yu, xv. 1.) On another occasion, when
asked what death was, he gave the memorable answer,
“ When I know not the nature of life, how shall I inform you
what death is r” {Lun-yu, xi. 11.) “He was entirely with¬
out self-love,” says Meng-tseu, one of his most enthusiastic
disciples, “he was entirely without self-love, prejudice, ob¬
stinacy, and egotism ; when he saw any one in mourning,
or in the garb of a magistrate, or blind, or older than him¬
self, if seated, he rose at his approach.” His disciples, how¬
ever, were not satisfied with this simplicity and unaffected
abnegation of mystery. They came to him on one occa¬
sion in a body, demanding that he should teach them the
recondite subtilties of his doctrine, the esoteric dogmas,
which should be theirs and theirs only, but which should be
hid from the world. “ O my disciples,” he exclaimed, as
they thus importuned him, “do you believe then that
I have for you hidden doctrines ? I have not. What I
have done and what I have thought I have duly communi¬
cated to you, for such has ever been my method of instruc¬
tion.” {Lun-yu, vii. 23.) The disciple who records this
transaction adds, that the subjects he taught were four,
“ literature, the practice of virtue, rectitude, and fidelity.”
In his precepts, as his disciples have handed them down to
us, there is nothing austere or repulsive; no attempt what¬
ever made to bind down the minds of his followers to any
rigidly ascetic rule of his own. On the contrary, he de¬
sired them to be open to every enlivening and ennobling idea,
to practise singing and music, to cultivate and reverence the
sublime, to open their hearts to the influence of joy—in
short, by every means consistent with virtue to render their
existence happy.
Simple and natural as he was, however, in his manner of
life and method of teaching, he himself informs us, in a say¬
ing recorded by one of his disciples that he was not under¬
stood by his age. {Lun-yu, xiv. 37.)
But although he saw all men in arms against him often,
he met their assaults with all the calmness of a Socrates.
“ When I examine myself,” he says boldly, “ and find my
heart right, although I should have for adversaries a thou¬
sand or ten thousand men, I will march without fear against
my enemies.” {Meng-tseu, i. 2.)
The literary labours of Confucius consisted, for the most
part, of a revision of the sacred books, which had been from
time immemorial regarded by the Chinese as the sources of
all true wisdom and knowledge. These he pruned of
many extravagancies; and, in the text as well as in the
notes, stated his own opinions, and added much to the ori¬
ginal value of the works. Of the sacred books thus edited
there are two classes—the first, the most highly esteemed,
and generally called by Europeans the classical works of the
first order, consist of five works or kings, {king or kiing,
243
meaning sacred book); the Y, the Chou, the Chi, the Li, Confucius,
and the Tchun-tsiou. The classical books of the second
order are four in number. The Chinese call them the
See-chou: two of them are treatises by Confucius, one on
the art of government, and the other on the golden mean;
the other two are the Lun-yu, a collection of his sayings,
and Meng-tseu, a philosophical treatise bearing the name of
its author or disciple, Latinized by the Jesuits into Mencius.
The Y-king, or “ sacred book of changes,” called also
Ye-king and Uk-king by European writers, is the first and
the most esteemed of “ the classical works of the first order.”
The foundation of the treatise, as it has come down to the
present day, consisted of what are generally called “ the
trigrams or enigmatical lines of Fohi.” This Fohi, who
must not be confounded with Fo the Chinese Buddha, is re¬
ported to have been the first king of China, the first lawgiver
and sage; and the date of his reign is thrown back by the
Chinese historians to twenty-five centuries before our era.
These trigrams consist of three lines varied by one or more
of them being broken in the midst; two of these trigrams are
in each variation placed together, and out of the six lines thus
combined, sixty-four variations are formed. These serve as
the divisions of the work. “ It was not at first, properly
speaking, a book,” says M. Visdelou, “ nor anything ap¬
proaching to it; it was but a very obscure enigma, and more
difficult a hundred times to explain than that of the Sphinx.”
Twelve centuries before our era, according to Chinese tradi¬
tion, another monarch (Ouen-ouang or Ven-vang) undertook,
like another CEdipus, to solve the enigma; adding, for that
purpose, to each hexagram a short sentence scarcely less ob¬
scure than the lines themselves. The successor of Ven-vang
added a concise interpretation to each of these enigmatical
sentences, and in this crude state the work remained until the
time of Confucius. Confucius, by giving full explanations
to these hexagrams, at once unintelligible and highly revered,
annexing in fact a dissertation to each, procured for his own
opinions the sanction of antiquity. The praises lavished
upon the Y-king by enthusiastic disciples of Confucius are
unbounded—“ it so comprehends the heaven and the earth,”
exclaiqis one “ that there is nothing good which it does not
contaiiV’ “ Not only is it the origin of the other canonical
books,”\isserts a second, “ but it is as it were the elucidator
of all things visible and invisible.” “To know the other
books and not to know the Y-king,” cries a third, “would
be to examine a river and neglect its source; to take the
branches and leave the root.”
The origin of these mystical trigrams is thus accounted
for by Chinese tradition. As Fohi was one day walking on
the banks of the Hoang-ho, there came towards him on a
sudden from the stream a great dragon, or tortoise, or tur¬
tle. Fohi was not a whit appalled by this apparition ;
watching the animal attentively, he discovered the trigrams
on its back. Fohi copied them immediately. The trans¬
action was of course miraculous.
Through the watchful jealousy of his disciples, the Y-king
has reached our time exactly as it was left by Confucius. Of
its contents, M. Visdelou,1 one of its translators, gives the
following account:—“ It embraces a great variety of sub¬
jects ; it is in fact the Encyclopaedia of the Chinese. Its
contents, may, however, be reduced to three heads, to wit,
metaphysics, physics, and morals.” “ These subjects are
not treated of methodically and in order. They are merely
treated of in detached passages. It may be said to contain
a fourth head—the explanation of destiny. From the ear¬
liest antiquity it has served for predictions, of which, like all
rude nations, the Chinese are particularly fond.”
The Chou-king (also written Chu-king, Seu-king, and
Chang-chou by European writers) is the second of the five
1 Y-king, antiquissimus Sinarum liber quern ex Latind interpretatione P. Regis aliorumque ex Soc. Jesu P. P., edidit Julius Mohl. Stutt*
gartise, 1834. The introduction prefixed to this translation is from M, Yisdelou’s Disquisition on the Y-king,
244
CONFUCIUS.
Confucius, first-class canonical books. It consists of a plain historical
narrative of the events which occurred during the first dy¬
nasties of Chinese kings. Like the Y-king, the Chou ap¬
pears to have received its present form from Confucius, and
it abounds in moral reflections and appropriate inculcations
as to the pursuit and practice of virtue.
The Chi-king, the third of these works (written See¬
king by Marshman), consists of 311 popular odes, some se¬
lected, and others composed by Confucius—all of a patrio¬
tic and moral character. These poems are usually com¬
mitted to memory by Chinese students and sung on public
occasions, as well as in the festivities of private life. “ The
verses of the Chi-king,” said Confucius to his disciples,
“ are as a speculum, offering to us the contemplation of good
and evil: they teach us to serve our parents at home and
our king abroad.” (Lun-yu, 17.) “ It is evident,” says M.
Biot, “ that this collection of pieces, all perfectly authentic,
and of a form generally simple and naive, represents the man¬
ners of the ancient Chinese in all their unsophisticated sim¬
plicity, and that it offers to any one who wishes to make a
study of these manners a mine more easy to explore than the
historical works such as the Chou-king, in which the facts
relating to the manners and social constitution of the an¬
cient Chinese are combined with long moral discourses.”1
The Li-king (called also Li-ki and Ly-khee) or book of
ceremonies, is the fourth of the great canonical works. It
appears, from the imperfect accounts of those who have in¬
vestigated the subject, to have been a collection by Confu¬
cius of the various customs inculcated by former sages.
Some maintain, however, that it is entirely his own work.
Whether quite original, or only a compilation, it is certain
that it went through his hands, and that he inculcated the
greatest reverence for it upon his disciples. “ My son,” said
he to a young man, “ unless you have studied the book of
rites, you cannot thoroughly understand how to act in con¬
formity with established usage and with virtue.” In the
Li-king all the minutiae of daily life are dwelt upon, and the
pi’cper mode of action inculcated, under almost all possible
contingencies. It is of course by far the most voluminous
of the kings, being nearly equal in bulk to all the others
put together. “ One has but to read the Li-king,” says a
student of Chinese philosophy, “ to understand the fixed¬
ness and immobility of Chinese customs.”2
The fifth and last of these canonical books is the Tchun-
tsiou (the Chun-chou of Marshman). Tchun means spring,
and tsiou autumn ; and the work was so called because Con¬
fucius commenced it in the former season, and ended it in
the latter. It was the work of the philosopher’s extreme old
age, and consists, for the most part, of a continuation of the
Chou-king, particularly containing a history of his native
state, Loo, for two hundred and forty years. It contains a
fuller account of the political system inculcated by Confu¬
cius than any of the other sacred books.
The physical system inculcated by the Chinese philoso¬
pher somewhat resembled that of the early Grecian sages,
and was undoubtedly in advance of the opinions of the age.
The five king or elements stand at its base—water, fire,
wood, metals, and earth. Of these, says the Chou-king,
water flows and is ever in motion ; fire burns and ascends;
wood is crooked and straightens itself; the metals are earthy
and susceptible of change; the earth is humid and descends.
Lach of these so-called elements is symbolized by one or
more mystical lines placed in various positions. The uni¬
verse, according to this fanciful theory, has been generated
by the union of two material principles—a heavenly and an
earthly, Yang and Yn. The heaven and the earth repre¬
sent the corporeal substance of these principles; their intel¬
lectual manifestations pervade all things. In consequence
of its origin and nature, the universe is destined to be de¬
stroyed and reproduced constantly after countless ages in
never-ending successions. The proper office of the mate¬
rial and heavenly Yang is to produce, to make strong and
to sustain. Its nature is firmness, inflexibility, and perse¬
verance. What rises, what appears, what produces or con¬
tains motion, exists from it. The nature of Yn is to give
place to, to fall to decay, to be weak, opaque, slow, inert,
save when receiving vigour and motion from Yang, to obey
and to be obsequious.
The heavens and the earth being thus mystically united
as Yang and Yn, the origin of man appears to be intimately
connected with their union. “ The heaven and the earth,”
says the Y-king, “ had a beginning ; and if that can be said
of them, how much more truly of man?” “ After there
was a heaven and an earth, all material things were formed;
male and female appeared, man and woman.” We seek,
however, in vain, for a Creator in the system. True, there is
a Tai-y, a “ Grand Unity,” a mysterious “ heaven,” whose
existence is declared to have been prior to all other exist¬
ences, and particularly to the material developments of
Yang and Yn; but although this Tai-y has many of the
characteristics of the Godhead, he or it is not represented as
creating.
The system of Confucius agrees with the universal tradi¬
tions of our race, that man was originally happy and pure,
and that, by his own act, he fell from that happiness and
purity. So far Confucius agrees wdth our Christian teach¬
ing ; but he goes on to inculcate that, by his own act, man
can recover the happiness and purity he has lost. The ob¬
ject of one of his small treatises, entitled Ta Hio, is expressly
declared to be “ to bring back fallen man to the sovereign
good—to what is perfect.” “ All people are naturally good,”
he asserts, “ but a desire of pleasure changes them.” With
an earnest wish to develop “ the inward light,” pure and
sincere intentions, fixed determination, a calm spirit, and
much meditation, the Chinese teacher believed it quite pos¬
sible for man to attain to this “ sovereign good.” Virtue he
divides into two great parts ; first, the reverence for Heaven
and superior beings, for parents and those in authority, with
the worship due to the former class; and, secondly, that justice
or equity which consists in rendering to every one his due.
The tutelary spirits, to whom Confucius teaches that
worship is due, are divided into two classes—the spirits of
mountains, rivers, and other natural objects, and the disem¬
bodied spirits of our ancestors—to both of which propitiatory
sacrifices are due. There is a Chinese book,” says, M.
De Guignes, “compiled from the writings of Confucius,
which gives figures of the two orders of spirits, informs us
where they reside, and the particular object for which they
should be invoked.”3 The duty of filial obedience and re¬
verence is inculcated by the Chinese sage with an earnest¬
ness unknown in any other system. Indeed his entire po¬
litical system is based solely on this foundation. Of all
crimes, filial disobedience is the greatest and least expiable.
Even truth may be sacrificed by the son to hide the faults
of the father.
His political system, founded on the idea he entertained
of the parental relationship, is one of absolute unmitigated
despotism. The sovereign stands in a purely paternal rela¬
tion to his subjects, and revolt or disobedience is under any
circumstances a crime. He enumerates clearly and distinctly
the duties both of the sovereign and of the people; but if
the sovereign choose to be a tyrant, his lieges, so far as Con¬
fucius teaches, have no redress.
Of the extraordinary estimation in which Confucius has
been always held by his countrymen, we scarcely require
any proofs. Although he was allowed to end his days
Confucius,
1 Recherches sur les Mceurs des Anciens CMnois.
Historical Essay on the Study of Philosophy amongst the Ancient Chinese.
2 Calcutta Review, vol. vii., p. 386.
CON
Confusion in comparative obscurity, his descendants have ever since
of Tongues enjoyed, during seventy generations, the highest honours
and privileges. They are indeed the only hereditary nohi-
Congo. jjty jn empjre> They are found principally in the neigh-
bourhood of the district in which Confucius lived; and it
was computed 150 years ago, that they numbered 11,000
males. Through every revolution in Chinese history their
privileges and honours have hitherto remained intact.
In every city of the empire, of the first, second, and third
class, there is one temple at least dedicated to Confucius.
The civil and political rulers, nay, the emperor himself, are
all equally bound to worship there. The service appointed
for this worship is similar to that which each family performs
in honour of its ancestors in their “ hall of the ancients.”
A plain tablet is erected above an altar, on which there is a
suitable inscription. Sweet smelling gums are burned in the
chamber with frankincense and tapers of sandal wood ; fruit,
wine, and flowers are placed upon the altar ; and appropriate
verses are chanted from the Chi-king in praise of deceased
worth and wisdom. The ceremony concludes with an ad¬
dress resembling a prayer, delivered by the highest digni¬
tary present. (Les livres sacres de VOrient, par M. Pauthier,
Paris, 1840 ; Y-king antiquissimus Sinarum liber, edidit J.
Mohl, Stuttgartiae 1834; The Works of Confucius, Marsh-
man, Serampore, 1809 ; Le Chou-king, traduit etenrichi de
notes, &c., Paris, 1770; China, by S. Kidd, London, 1841 ;
The Calcutta Hevieiv, vol. vii.) (w. K.)
CONFUSION of Tongues. See Tongues.
CONGlD d’Elire, in ecclesiastical policy, the king’s li¬
cense or permission to a dean and chapter to choose a bishop;
or to an abbey or priory, of his own foundation, to choose
their abbot or prior.
The sovereign of England, as temporal head of the
church, had formerly the appointment of all ecclesiastical
dignities ; investing first per bacculum et annulum (by cro¬
sier and ring), and afterwards by letters patent. But now,
the queen, on demand, sends her conge d’dire to the dean
and chapter, with a letter missive containing the name of
the persons he would have them elect; and if they delay
the election twelve days, the nomination devolves on the
sovereign, who may appoint by letters patent.
CONGELATION. See Cold.
CONGER. See Eel, index to Ichthyology.
CONGIUS, in Roman Antiquity, a. measure for liquids,
containing the eighth part of an amphora, or six sextarii.
It was equal to the larger chous of the Greeks, or six pints
English nearly.
CONGLETON, a market-town and municipal borough
of Cheshire, parish of Astbury and hundred of Northwich,
33 miles east from Chester. It stands in a deep valley on
the banks of the Dane, and derives a considerable trade
from the manufacture of silk ribbons, cotton, and leather,
and from extensive coal mines in the vicinity. In its west¬
ern suburb are numerous mansions with ornamental shrub-*
beries. The principal buildings in the town are the guild¬
hall, the market-hall, and the three parish churches. Con-,
gleton is the seat of a county court and petty sessions. Its
municipal corporation consists of 6 aldermen and 18 coun¬
cillors, of whom one is mayor. It is a station on the North
Staffordshire railway, and communicates with Macclesfield
by a canal. Pop. (1851) 10*520.
CONGO, a considerable country of S.W. Africa, ex¬
tending from the river Congo or Zaire, which separates it
from Loango on the north, to the Dando separating it from
Angola on the south. On the west it is bounded by the
Atlantic, and on the east by unknown countries in the in¬
terior. Various boundaries, however, have been assigned
to it by different writers. The Portuguese, by whom it was
discovered in 1487, included under this name, not only
Congo proper, but also Loango, Angola, and Benguela.
The accounts of the splendour, population, and civilization
CON 245
of this country given by the missionaries and others sent Congo,
out by the Portuguese is altogether incredible. One states
that the king could muster an army of 900,000 men, and
that he actually opposed the Portuguese with 80,000, who
were however completely overthrown by 400 Europeans and
2000negroes. Of itsformer populationand splendour neither
trace nor tradition remains ; and of the benefits which re¬
sulted to the inhabitants from their intercourse with Chris¬
tians, the only evidences which existed at the time of Cap¬
tain Tuckey’s visit were a few forts and factories for carry¬
ing on the slave trade, and some crucifixes, which were not
however held in equal veneration with their own Pagan
fetiches, or representations of tutelary deities.
In the general appearance of its surface, in its natural
products, and in the state of society and the condition of
the native inhabitants, this country is by no means so in¬
teresting as many other parts of Africa. Along the sides
of the river the mountains are numerous, but not high;
the most elevated probably not exceeding two thousand
feet. These are destitute of vegetation, with the exception
of a few rank grasses; and the lesser ranges of hills are
without those gigantic and wide-spreading forests which we
might expect to find in such a climate. Only a few large
trees are scattered upon their sides and summits. Between
the bases of these hills, however, and the margins of the
river, the alluvial banks, which extend from the mouth to
a considerable distance upwards, are clothed with exuber¬
ant vegetation, presenting to the eye one continuous forest
of majestic trees, covered with ever-green foliage. The
river is studded with numerous islands, which are mantled
with the thick mangrove, intermingled with the tall and
elegant palm, whilst others are covered with the Egyptian
papyrus. The alluvial flats are succeeded by naked and
precipitous mountains, resting on micaceous slate, which
forms the two banks of the river for at least fifty miles ; the
only interruption to this range of heights being a few nar¬
row ravines, in which the villages of the natives are situated.
Many of the hills are also crowned with small villages; and
the soil is sufficient for the cultivation of the ordinary arti¬
cles of food, but it is of an indifferent description. Beyond
these masses of mica slate the geological character of the
country changes. The granite hills give way to those of
limestone, and numerous promontories of marble project
into the river, with fertile vales between them. The whole
country, according to Captain Tuckey, wore a more inviting
aspect as they penetrated into the interior ; and towns and
villages followed each other in rapid succession far beyond
the Congo territory. But the sickly state of the party put
a stop to the expedition, just as the improved condition of
the country held out a prospect of its complete success.
The climate is said to be cool, dry, and agreeable. A
westerly breeze sets in from the Atlantic a few hours after
sunset, and continues till midnight-^thus materially cooling
and purifying the air. Of course much depends upon loca¬
lity, and accordingly at different situations, and these not
very far apart, the range of the thermometer in the shade
at noon showed a difference sometimes of thirty degrees.
The winter in Congo is compared to the mild spring or
autumn of Italy : it is not subject to heavy rains, but every
night the earth is fertilized by falls of dew.
The vegetable productions of this country are numerous,
but for the most valuable of these the natives are indebted to
the Portuguese. The staple products are manioc or cas¬
sava, yams, and maize. To these may be added, sweet po¬
tatoes, pumpkins, millet of two or three species, calavanses,
cabbages, spinach, pepper, capsicum, the sugar-cane, and to¬
bacco. Of fruits they have the plantain, the papaw, oranges,
limes, and pine apples. The principal beverage of the
inhabitants is the juice of the palm tree, which goes by the
name of palm wine. It is of three different kinds, and is a
refreshing and wholesome liquor.
CONGO.
246
Congo. There is a sufficiency of domestic animals for food, but
very little care appears to be bestowed upon them. They
consist chiefly of goats, hogs, fowls, the common and Mus¬
covy duck, and pigeons. There are also a few sheep,
which have a coat of hair instead of wool. No beasts of
burden of any description were found in the country. Of
wild animals there is a great variety; but from the indolent
habits of the natives they have never been converted to
any useful purpose. Elephants, leopards, buffaloes, monkeys,
and antelopes of various species abound. There are also
several other kinds of quadrupeds in abundance, and the
supply of wild fowl is plentiful. The country appears to be
remarkably free from those noxious insects which swarm
almost universally in tropical climates: fleas, bugs, and^
black ants must, however, be excepted. The lower part of
the Congo river abounds in excellent fish, of which bream,
mullet, and cat-fish are the most abundant. Many of the
natives gain a livelihood by fishing for these, and also in
dragging for a shell-fish which bears a resemblance to the
pecten. The river swarms with hippopotami, and alliga¬
tors, or rather crocodiles. The flesh of the former is excel¬
lent food, though but little used.
The principal articles of subsistence, at least in the dry
season, appear to be manioc, ground nuts, and palm wines.
Yams and Indian corn are also used. Of the latter they
have regularly two crops a-year. Animal food is not in
very general use, although sold in the market held daily at
Embamma. The negroes are exceedingly filthy in their
preparation and eating of animal food. The fowls are
broiled with the feathers unplucked, and pieces of goat
without the skin or even the hair being removed ; and they
are devoured voraciously when scarcely warm. Cannibalism,
however, appears to be totally unknown in Congo.
None of the villages seemed to be of great extent, the
largest apparently not exceeding one hundred huts. Their
huts are formed of mats woven from a reedy grass, or the
fibres of plants; six pieces of which, being put together,
compose the house. That of the Chenoo or chief, how¬
ever, is formed more skilfully of palm leaves, and encom¬
passed with a fence of reeds. The villages are usually em¬
bosomed in the midst of palms and other lofty trees. The
household furniture and utensils, in simplicity and rudeness,
are on a par with the domestic inclosures. They make
baskets of the fibres of the palm tree ; bowls and bottles of
gourds and other vegetables, for holding provisions and
water; earthen vessels for boiling their victuals, with wooden
spoons to eat them ; while a mat of grass thrown on a raised
platform constitutes their only bedding. The articles of
dress are equally primitive, the common people being satis¬
fied with a small apron tied round the loins, and an orna¬
mented cap made of grass. Rings of brass or iron enclasp
the arms and ankles, and sometimes bracelets of lions’ teeth
are used. The women in general adorn their necks, arms,
and legs with strings of beads.
For agricultural purposes, a rude hoe is the principal or
only implement in use; but a slight scratch on the surface
of the ground is sufficient for securing a good crop in that
propitious climate. The natives make no provision for fu¬
ture contingencies, such as a year of scarcity; they only
raise what will exactly meet their wants until the usual har¬
vest time comes round. This, it would appear, arises prin¬
cipally from indolence, and not from a distrust in the right
and security of property. This is so well understood by
them, that almost all their disputes arise from their tenacity
in the division of property, whether in land or stock ; and
the amount of this is frequently so trifling that it is not un¬
common to see a fowl or a pig partitioned amongst three or
four proprietors.
The paramount sovereign of Congo resides at a place of
the same name, situated at about six days’ journey into the
interior, supposed to be the St Salvador of the Portuguese.
Besides this regal personage, society in Congo appears to Congo,
consist—first, of the Chenoo ; secondly, of the members of
his family; thirdly, of the Mafooks; fourthly, of the Foo-
moos; fifthly, of the fishermen, coolies, and labouring peo¬
ple ; and, sixthly, of the domestic slaves. The title and
authority of the Chenoo are hereditary in the female line:
none of his sons can inherit unless the mother be of royal
blood. The Chenoo is little distinguished from his subjects
by dress or accommodation ; and his ensign of office consists
of a rod of black wood inlaid with lead or copper. The
daughter of the Chenoo chooses her own husband, over
whom she has sovereign control, and can sell into slavery if
she pleases. The members of the royal family are the Che-
noo’s councillors, by whose advice he acts in all matters of
consequence. The Mafooks are the collectors of the reve¬
nue, who begin their career as interpreters, and having rea¬
lized what is there considered a competency, are entitled to
pass into the higher grade of tax-gatherers. The Foomoos
are those who possess houses and lands of their own, with
two or three wives, and pei’haps a few slaves to work for
them. They would appear to be the yeomanry of the
country. The fishermen and labourers have no fixed pro¬
perty of their own, and are therefore much at the disposal
of the Chenoo. The domestic slaves are not numerous,
and are not considered as transferable property, unless they
are found guilty of some serious crime.
The natives of Congo are about the middle size, and they
have in a somewhat less degree both the black colour and
the characteristic features of the race. Their physiognomy
is mild, and said to bear the stamp of simplicity and in¬
nocence. They are lively, good-humoured, and hospitable
to strangers. In energy and reflection they appear to be
below the other African tribes, and their habits of indolence
are inveterate. This forms the chief bar to the progress of
improvement throughout the continent. As is generally
the case amongst an uncivilized people, the most laborious
offices are here performed by the weaker sex. Every man
has wives in proportion to his rank; the Chenoo has some¬
times fifty. But the practice of polygamy has caused the
diffusion of very loose ideas in the relations of the sexes ; a
glass of rum or a few beads being a sufficient allurement
even to the highest women in the country. A case of thiev¬
ing came under the notice of Captain Tuckey, yet he speaks
favourably of their general honesty. The atrocious crime
of poisoning, however, evidently prevails amongst them.
With respect to religion, the Congoese are Pagans of the
lowest description. A fetiche (from the Portuguese fetico,
signifying a charm, witchcraft, magic) is a sort of tutelary
deity, and seems to be the Alpha and Omega of their vene¬
ration. Anything serves for a fetiche ; the guardian genius
being nowise fastidious about the symbol which recognises
his existence. The beak of a bird, the fin of a fish, or the
hoof of a quadruped, answers the purpose perfectly well. The
making of these fetiches is carried on as a trade by a certain
class of men, who may be styled the priesthood of the coun¬
try. These ridiculous appendages are considered as absolutely
necessary for guaranteeing the safety of the houses and
persons of the negroes, and they are looked upon as talis¬
mans of infallible efficacy in preventing every evil to which
human nature is liable. The fetiche is employed in the
discovery of theft. For this purpose it is exposed in some
public place, when the people of the village dance round it,
and with hideous yells call upon it either to reveal the thief,
or to oblige him to deposit in some fixed place the article
stolen, under the penalty of destruction to himself and his
relations. The restoration of the stolen article seldom fails
to ensue after this public exhibition. The Congoese have
but a very vague idea of a good and evil principle, or a fu¬
ture state; and the fetiche system seems to constitute the
religion of the country. With respect to the number of the
inhabitants it is impossible to form even a conjecture.
CON
Congo Congo, or Zaire, a large river of Africa, which falls into
|| the Atlantic Ocean in about the sixth degree of south lati-
Congrega- tude. From the volume of water which it discharges into
tion. tjie ocean, the probable length of its course, the greater part
of which is still unknown, and the rapidity of its current, it is
entitled to be ranked amongst the first class of rivers. It was
for a length of time surmised that the Niger and the Congo
were identically the same river. This opinion, however, has
been exploded by the discovery of the termination of the
former river by the Messrs Lander. But the source of the
latter still remains as a problem to be solved by the enter¬
prise of travellers. The breadth of the Congo at its mouth is
about ten or twelve miles ; and its depth is extraordinary, no
bottom having been found by Captain Tuckey, who sounded
it with a line of 113 fathoms. Its breadth at 140 miles
from its mouth continues to be from two to three miles.
At this point the narrows commence, when the river con¬
tracts to from three to five hundred yards in breadth, and
so continues for a very considerable distance upwards.
The banks are lined with bristling rocks, which in several
places shoot in ledges across the bed of the river, and form
rapids or cataracts. It is only, however, during the perio¬
dical floods that the lowest and most formidable of these de¬
serves the name of cataract. Beyond these mountainous
regions the Congo again expands to the breadth of two,
three, or even four miles, and flows with a current of from
two to three miles an hour. At the place where Captain
Tuckey relinquished his journey, which was about 280 miles
from Cape Pedron, on the sea-coast, the banks were clothed
with luxuriant vegetation. Beyond this limit nothing
certain is known of its course ; but the natives stated that
there was no obstacle to its continued navigation, with
the exception of a rapid, which, however, was passable by
canoes.
CONGOON, a town of Pars, in Persia, situated on the
northern shore of the Persian Gulf. It contains about 6000
inhabitants, and has an excellent roadstead, where a frigate
may ride in safety in the most tempestuous weather. Good
water and firewood, which are both scarce in the gulf, may
be procured at this place.
CONGREGATION (Lat. con and grex a flock), the
act of bringing together or assembling; an assemblage of
persons or of things. It is used appropriately for an assem¬
bly of persons met together for religious worship; and is
also applied to an assembly of ecclesiastics,—as to those
assemblies of cardinals appointed by the pope, and distri¬
buted into several chambers, for the discharge of certain
functions and jurisdictions, after the manner of our offices
and courts. The first of these is the congregation of the
holy office, or the inquisition ; the second that of jurisdic¬
tion over bishops and regulars ; the third that of councils,
which has power to interpret the Council of Trent; the
fourth that of customs, ceremonies, precedencies, canoniza¬
tions, called the congregation of rites ; the fifth that of St
Peter’s fabric, which takes cognizance of all causes relating
to piety and charity, part of which is due to the church of
St Peter; the sixth, that of waters, rivers, roads ; the
seventh, that of fountains and streets ; the eighth that of
the index, which examines the books to be printed or cor¬
rected ; the ninth that of the council of state, for the
management of the territories belonging to the pope
and church; the tenth, de hono regimine, the cardinal
nephew being the chief of this and the preceding one;
the eleventh that of money; the twelfth that of bishops,
m which those who are to be promoted to bishoprics in
Italy are examined, and which is held before the pope;
the thirteenth that of consistorial matters, the chief of
which is the cardinal dean ; the fourteenth a congregation
for propagating the faith ; and the fifteenth that of eccle¬
siastical immunity, for settling suits against churchmen.
There is also a congregation of alms, which takes care of
CON 247
everything that relates to the subsistence of Rome and the Congrega-
state of the church. tion
Congregation is also used to signify a company or so- II
ciety of religious persons cantoned out of a particular order, Congreve-
and forming, as it were, an inferior order, or subdivision of
the order itself.
The word is also applied to assemblies of pious persons
in the manner of fraternities, frequent among the Jesuits,
in honour of the Virgin, &c.
CONGREGATIONALISTS, a sect of Christians, so
called because they hold that the affairs of each society of
Christians should be managed by the members, as a congre¬
gate body, acting under their spiritual rulers, and neither
by any extrinsic power, nor by the rulers acting apart from
the members. See Independents.
CONGRESS, in political affairs, an assembly of com¬
missioners, envoys, or deputies, from several courts, meet¬
ing to concert matters for their common good.
Congress, in America, the assembly of delegates from
the United States. See United States.
CONGREVE, William, the celebrated English dra¬
matist, was a younger brother of an ancient family in Staf¬
fordshire. His father was employed as steward on the
estates of the Earl of Burlington in Ireland, where he re¬
sided many years ; and there the future poet was born in
1672. . Young Congreve, when he came to England, en¬
tered into the Middle 4 emple, and began to study the
law ; but the bent of his mind soon attracted him to polite
literature and poetry. His first performance was a novel
entitled Incognita, or Love and Duty reconciled. He
soon afterwards began his comedy of the Old Bachelor,
which, though merely the amusement of his leisure hours
during a slow recovery from illness, yet was in itself so per¬
fect, that Dryden is said to have declared he had never in
his life seen such a first play. When brought on the stage
in 1693, it met with universal approbation, and established
his fame as a writer of dramatic poetry. It procured him
the friendship of Lord Halifax, and elicited a peculiar mark
of distinction from Queen Mary. In the following year, he
produced the Double Dealer, which, for reasons which are
not so obvious, did not meet with so much success as its pre¬
cursor. In 1695 his comedy of Love for Love was produced
at the opening of the new theatre in Lincoln’s Inn Fields,
and met with such triumphant success that he was imme¬
diately offered a share in the management of the house, pro¬
vided he would furnish them with one play yearly. This
offer he accepted ; but whether through indolence, or from
that fastidiousness which made him elaborate his works, his
Mourning Bride did not appear till 1697, nor his Way of
the World till two years afterwards. The indifferent re¬
ception which the latter of these met with from the public
completed that disgust for the theatre already forced on
him by a long contest with Jeremy Collier in regard to the
moralities of the English stage and some of his own pieces
in particular, and determined Congreve to write no more
for the stage. He seems, however, to have abandoned
literary composition altogether, as the only pieces written
after this period consist of small and fragmentary poems, all
of which have been preserved as memorials of this cele-
biated diamatist. I his apathy in regard to literary pursuits
seems to have been increased, if it were not produced, by
the affluence in which his earlier efforts had placed him.
Through the friendship of Lord Halifax he was appointed
one of the commissioners for licensing hackney coaches, or,
according to Coxeter, a commissioner of the wine license.
Lord Halifax also bestowed on him a place in the pipe of¬
fice, and not long afterwards gave him a situation in the
customs worth L.600 per annum; while in the year 1718
he was appointed secretary of Jamaica; so that his income,
towards the latter part of his life, was upwards of L.1200
a-year.
248 CON
Congreve. The greater part of the last twenty years of his life was
spent in ease and retirement; and he either ceased, or af¬
fected to cease, caring for his reputation. His conduct in this
matter seems to have proceeded in a great measure from
pride, as may be seen from the following anecdote related of
him by Cibber:—“ When the celebrated Voltaire was in
England, he waited upon Mr Congreve, and passed some com¬
pliments upon the merit and reputation of his works. Con¬
greve thanked him, but at the same time told that ingenious
foreigner that he did not choose to be considered as an
author, but only as a private gentleman, and in that light
expected to be visited. Voltaire answered, that if he had
never been anything but a private gentleman, in all proba¬
bility he had never been troubled with that visit.” Vol¬
taire observes, in his own account of the interview, that he
was not a little disgusted with so unseasonable a piece of
vanity.
Congreve towards the close of his life was much afflicted
with gout and blindness. His death, which took place
January 19, 1729, was hastened by a fall from his carriage
while residing at Bath for the benefit of the waters. He
was buried in Westminster Abbey.
“ Congreve,” says Dr Johnson, “ has merit of the high¬
est kind. He is an original writer, who borrowed neither
the models of his plot nor the manner of his dialogue.
He formed a peculiar idea of comic excellence, which he
supposed to consist in gay remarks and unexpected an¬
swers ; but that which he endeavoured he seldom failed of
performing. His scenes exhibit not much of humour,
imagery, or passion ; his personages are a kind of intellec¬
tual gladiators ; every sentence is to ward or to strike ; the
contest of smartness is never intermitted ; his wit is a meteor
playing to and fro with alternate coruscations. His come¬
dies have therefore, in some degree, the operation of trage¬
dies ; they surprise rather than divert, and raise admiration
oftener than merriment. But they are the works of a mind
replete with images, and quick in combination.” It may
be added, that their licentiousness and immorality have
been severely but justly censured. Of Congreve’s miscel¬
laneous poetry nothing favourable can be said. His powers
seem to desert him when he leaves the stage, and he be¬
comes feeble, impotent, and dull, without elevation of fancy,
selection of language, or skill in versification.
There is an elegant edition of his works in three volumes
8vo, printed by Baskerville in 1761.
Congreve, Sir William, Bart., (1772-1828), inventor
of the rocket called by his name, was member of parlia¬
ment successively for Gatton and Plymouth. He was also
a general of artillery, and co-operated with the Duke of
York in reforming the British army. He wrote an Elemen¬
tary Treatise on the Mounting of Naval Ordnance (Lond.
1812); and a Description of the Hydro-pneumatic Lock
(Lond. 1815). He died at Toulouse in 1828.
The Congreve rockets, first used against Boulogne in
1806, are of various dimensions, and differently armed, as
they are intended for the field or for bombardment. Those
of the former class carry shells or case-shot; those of the
latter are armed with a very combustible material contained
in a strong metallic cylindrical case with a conical head.
M hen once inflamed, this substance is unextinguishable, it
scatters its burning particles in every direcfion, and when
spent, the ball explodes like a grenade. The rocket is pro¬
jected horizontally, and makes a loud whizzing noise in its
passage through the air. The ammunition used varies from
CON
6 to 42 lbs. and upwards. These rockets were certainly Congruity
a very important invention ; but from their liability to de¬
flection and other defects, they are now regarded as less Cona-
advantageous than the ordinary red-hot shot and bombs.
The secret of their composition also is not so great as to
defy imitation by foreign artillerists.
CONGRUITY, (Lat. congruo to agree), a suitableness
or relation of agreement between things.
It is a matter of experience that congruity, wherever per¬
ceived, is agreeable; and that incongruity is disagreeable.
The only difficulty is to ascertain what are the particular
objects which in conjunction suggest these relations; for
there are many objects that do not. The sea, for example
viewed in conjunction with a picture, or a man viewed in
conjunction with a mountain, suggests neither congruity
nor incongruity. It seems natural to infer, what indeed will
be found true by induction, that we never perceive con¬
gruity or incongruity except among things which are con¬
nected together by some relation ; such as a man and his
actions, a principal and his accessories, a subject and its
ornaments. Congruity is so nearly allied to beauty as com¬
monly to be regarded as a species of it; and yet they differ
so essentially as never to coincide. Beauty, like colour, is
placed upon a single subject; congruity upon a plurality;
and a thing beautiful in itself may, with relation to other
things, produce the strongest sense of incongruity.
Congruity is also to be distinguished from propriety ; con¬
gruity being the genus of which propriety is a species.
CONI or CUNEO, an administrative division of Pied¬
mont, bounded north by that of Turin ; east by Alessandria;
south and west by the Apennines and Maritime Alps. It
embraces an area of 2700 square miles, and is divided into
the provinces of Cuneo, Alba, Mondovi, and Saluzzo. The
surface of the division is intersected by numerous branches
from the Alps and Apennines; but the inclosed valleys,
which are well watered by the tributaries of the Po, yield
abundance of corn, maize, and fruits, for the wants of the
inhabitants, who are principally employed in agriculture
and in the rearing of silk. Mulberries are extensively cul¬
tivated in the low grounds as food for the silkworm; while
the higher slopes are covered with chestnut forests, and the
elevated table-land affords a luxuriant summer pasturage.
The principal streams are the Tanaro, the Stura, the Vraita,
and the Maira. Of these the Tanaro is navigable, but only
for a short distance. The mineral products of Coni include
iron, lead, slate, and marble, &c. Pop. (1848) 600,872.
Coni or Cuneo, the capital of the cognominal province,
situated on the right bank of the Stura, at its confluence
with a mountain torrent called the Gesso, 46 miles S.W.
from Turin. It was famous in Piedmontese warfare as a
place of great strength; but in 1801, after the battle of
Marengo, it was dismantled by the French, and its fortifi¬
cations have been only replaced by a wall. It is the seat
of a bishopric (founded in 1817), and the official residence
of the intendant-general of the division. The principal
public buildings are the cathedral and churches, the royal
college, and town-hall. Coni possesses extensive manufac¬
tories of cloth and silk, and is the great mart for the agri¬
cultural produce of the district. Pop. 18,000, exclusive of
the garrison.
CONI A, the fluid alkaloid to which the poisonous quali¬
ties of hemlock are owing. It is transparent at the ordi¬
nary temperature of the air, but becomes turbid when
gently heated—a quality peculiar to this fluid.
249
CONIC SECTIONS.
INTRODUCTION.
Introduc- The mathematicians of antiquity regarded the sf-rnio-Tit
tion. line and the circle as the most simple of all geometri-
''-''■V"-' cal lines, and the celebrated geometer Euclid^has em¬
ployed no other in his well known Elements. By these
alone the ancients resolved a great number of problems,
of which the more simple are contained in Euclid’s Ele¬
ments; but many of higher difficulty were resolved in his
other writings, and in treatises of Archimedes and Apollo¬
nius, which have only in part reached our times. There is,
however, fiom the very nature of geometrical science, a
limit to the applicability of the straight line and circle.
Some problems admit of only one solution : these can be
resolved by the intersection of two straight lines. Others
again admit of two solutions, and such require lines which
intersect each other in two points ; therefore they may be
resolved by the straight line and circle, or two circles.
If, however, a problem be of such a nature as in its
most general form to admit of three solutions, it must ne¬
cessarily be determined by the intersection of two lines which
intersect each other in three points : it therefore cannot
be resolved by the straight line and circle alone. Now
the ancients had actually proposed to themselves such
pioblems, and in this way it may be supposed they had
discovered the necessity of admitting other lines, in'addi-
tion to the straight line and circle, into their geometry.
The interest which mankind take in mathematical spe¬
culations is but little in comparison to that which is excit¬
ed by works of poetry, oratory, or history; hence it has
happened that ancient treatises on these subjects have
had a better chance of descending to our times. It is not,
therefore, wonderful that none of the works of the more
early Greek geometers have reached us, nor have we any
work of great antiquity professedly written on the subject
of the conic sections. Our curiosity must therefore rest sa¬
tisfied with the knowledge of a few incidental notices and
facts gleaned from different authors.
The discovery of the conic sections seems to have ori¬
ginated in the school of Plato, in which geometry was
highly respected and much cultivated. It is probable that
the followers of that philosopher were led to the discovery
of these curves, and to the investigation of many of their
properties, in seeking to resolve the two famous problems
of the duplication of the cube, and the trisection of an
angle, for which the artifices of the ordinary or plane geo-
metiy were insufficient. Two solutions of the former pro¬
blem, by the help of the conic sections, are preserved by
Eutocius,1 and are attributed by him to Mensechmus, the
scholar of Eudoxus, who lived not much posterior to the
time of Plato : and this circumstance, added to a few words
in an epigram of Eratosthenes,2 has been thought sufficient
authority, by some authors, to ascribe the honour of the
discovery of the conic sections to Menaechmus. We may at
least infer that, at this epoch, geometers had made some
progress in developing the properties of these curves.
The writings of Archimedes that have reached us expli¬
citly show that the geometers before his time had advanced
a great length in investigating the properties of the conic
sections. This author expressly mentions many principal
propositions to have been demonstrated by preceding wri¬
ters ; and he often refers to properties of the conic sections,
as truths commonly divulged and known to mathemati- Introduc.
cians. His own discoveries in this branch of science are tion.
worthy of the most profound and inventive genius of an- 's—
tiquity. In the quadrature of the parabola he gave the
first and the most remarkable instance that has yet been
discovered, of the exact equality of a curvilinear to a rec¬
tilinear space. He determined the proportion of the ellip¬
tic spaces to the circle; and he invented many proposi¬
tions respecting the mensuration of the solids formed by
the revolution of the conic sections about their axes.
It is chiefly from the writings of Apollonius of Perga, a
town in Pamphylia, on the subject of the conic sections,
that we know how far the ancient mathematicians carried
their speculations concerning these curves. Apollonius
flourished under Ptolemy Philopater, about forty years
later than Archimedes. He formed his taste for geometry,
and acquired that superior skill in the science, to which he
is indebted for his fame, in the school of Alexandria, under
the successors of Euclid, Besides his great work on the
conic sections, he was the author of many smaller trea¬
tises relating chiefly to the geometrical analysis, the ori¬
ginals of which have all perished, and are only known to
modern mathematicians by the account given of them by
Pappus of Alexandria, in the seventh book of his Mathe¬
matical Collections. (See Apollonius.)
1 he work of Apollonius on the conic sections, written
in eight books, was held in such high estimation by the
ancients, as to procure for him the name of the great geo¬
meter. The first four books of this treatise only have come
down to us in the original Greek. It is the purpose of
these four books, as we are informed in the prefatory epistle
to Eudemus, to deliver the elements of the science; and
in this part of his labour the author claims no further
merit than that of having collected, amplified, and redu¬
ced to order, the discoveries of preceding mathematicians.
One improvement introduced by Apollonius is too remark¬
able to be passed over without notice. Phe geometers who
preceded him derived each curve from a right cone, which
they conceived to be cut by a plane perpendicular to its
slant side. It will readily be perceived, from what is
shown in the first section of the fourth part of the follow¬
ing treatise, that the section would be a parabola when
the vertical angle of the cone was a right angle, an ellipse
when it was acute, and a hyperbola when it was obtuse.
Thus each curve was derived from a different sort of cone.
Apollonius was the first to show that all the curves are
produced from any sort of cone, whether right or oblique,
according to the different inclinations of the cutting plane!
This fact is one remarkable instance of the adherence of
the mind to its first conceptions, and of the slowness and
difficulty with which it generalizes.
The original of the last four books of the treatise of
Apollonius is lost; nor is it easy to ascertain in what age it
disappeared. In the year 1658 Borelli discovered at^Flo-
rence an Arabic manuscript entitled Apollonii Pevgcei
Conicorum Lihri Octo. By the liberality of the Duke of
luscany, he was permitted to carry the manuscript to
Home, and, with the aid of an Arabic scholar, Abraham
Ecchellensis, he published in 1661 a Latin translation of
it. I he manuscript, although irom its title it was expected
2 i
VOL. VII.
1 In Arch. lib. ii. De Sjjh. et Cyl.
J Hid.
250 CONICS
Introduc- to be a complete translation of all the eight books, 3'et was
tion. found to contain only the first seven books : and it is re-
' markable, that another manuscript, brought from the East
by Golius, the learned professor of Leyden, so early as
1664, as well as a third, of which Ravius published a trans¬
lation in 1669, have the same defect. All the three manu¬
scripts agreeing in the want of the eighth book, we may
now consider that part of the work of Apollonius as irre¬
coverably lost. Fortunately, in the Collectiones Mathemati¬
cs of Pappus, in whose time the entire treatise of Apollo¬
nius was extant, there is preserved some account of the sub¬
jects treated in each book, and all the Lemmata required
in the investigations of the propositions they contain. Dr
Halley, who in 1710 gave a correct edition of the Conics
of Apollonius, guided in his researches by the lights de¬
rived from Pappus, has restored the eighth book with so
much ability as to leave little room to regret the original.
The last four books of the Conics of Apollonius, con¬
taining the higher or more recondite parts of the science,
are generally supposed to be the fruit of the author’s own
researches ; and they do much honour to the geometrical
skill and invention of the great geometer. Even in our
times the whole treatise must be regarded as a very ex¬
tensive, if not a complete work on the conic sections.
Modern mathematicians make important applications of
these curves, with which the ancients were unacquainted;
and they have been thus led to consider the subject in
particular points of view, suited to their purposes; but
they have made few discoveries of which there are not
some traces to be found in the work of the illustrious an¬
cient.
The geometers who followed Apollonius seem to have
contented themselves with the humble task of comment¬
ing on his treatise, and of rendering it of more easy access
to the bulk of mathematicians. Till about the middle of
the 16th century, the history of this branch of mathema¬
tical science presents nothing remarkable. The study of
it was then revived; and since that time this part of ma¬
thematics has been more cultivated, or has been illustrated
by a greater variety of ingenious writings.
Among the ancients the study of the conic sections was a
subject of pure intellectual speculation. The applications
of the properties of these curves in natural philosophy
have, in modern times, given to this part of the mathe¬
matics a degree of importance that it did not formerly
possess. That which, in former times, might be consider¬
ed as interesting only to the learned theorist and profound
mathematician, is now a necessary attainment to him who
would not be ignorant of those discoveries in nature that
do the greatest honour to the present age.
It is curious to remark the progress of discovery, and
the connexion that subsists between the different branches
of human knowledge ; and it excites some degree of ad¬
miration to reflect, that the astronomical discoveries of
Kepler, and the sublime theory of Newton, depend on the
seemingly barren speculations of Greek geometers con¬
cerning the sections of the cone.
Apollonius, and all the writers on conic sections before
Dr Wallis, derived the elementary properties of the curves
from the nature of the cone. In the second part of his
treatise De Sectionihus Conicis, published in 1665, Dr
Wallis laid aside the eonsideration of the cone, deriving
the properties of the curves from a description in piano.
Since his time authors have been much divided as to the
best method of defining those curves, and demonstrating
their elementary properties; many of them preferring
that of the ancient geometers, while others, and some of
great note, have followed the example of Dr Wallis.
In support of the innovation made by Dr Wallis, it is
urged, that in the ancient manner of treating the conic
S C TIO N S.
sections, young students are perplexed and discouraged Introduc.
by the previous matter to be learnt respecting the genera- tion.
tion and properties of the cone ; and that they find it no
easy task to conceive steadily, and to understand, dia¬
grams which represent lines drawn in different planes ; all
these difficulties are avoided by defining the curves in
piano from one of their essential properties. It is not our
intention particularly to discuss this point; and we have
only to add, that in the following treatise we have chosen
to deduce the properties of the conic sections from their
description in piano, as better adapted to the nature of a
work designed for general readers.
A geometrical treatise on the conic sections must neces¬
sarily be founded upon the elements of geometry. As
Euclid’s Elements of Geometry are generally studied, and
in every one’s hands, we have chosen to refer to it in the
demonstrations. The edition we have used is that pub¬
lished by the late Professor Playfair of Edinburgh. Al¬
though the references are made to Euclid’s Elements, yet
they will also apply to the treatise on Geometry given in
this work ; for a table is there given, indicating the parti¬
cular proposition of our treatise that corresponds to each
of the most material propositions in Euclid’s Elements.
The references are to be thus understood; (20, 1, E.)
means the 20th prop, of the first book of Euclid’s Elements ;
(2 Cor. 20, 6, E.) means the second corollary to the 20th
prop, of the sixth book of the same work ; and so of others.
Again, (7) means the seventh proposition of that Part
of the following treatise in which such reference happens
to occur ; (Cor. 1) means the corollary to the first propo¬
sition ; (2 Cor. 3) means the second corollary to the third
proposition, &c.—such references being all made to the
propositions in the division of the treatise in which they
are found.
We shall conclude this brief history of this most inte¬
resting part of the ancient geometry, with a catalogue of
authors and their wrorks.
Archimedes On the Quadrature of the Parabola, and
on Conoids and Spheroids. Archimedes lived about 180
years before the Christian era. The best editions of his
works are Torelli’s, in Greek and Latin, Oxford, 1792;
and Peyrard’s French translation, Paris, 1808.
Collectiones Mathematics Pappi Akxandrini, lib. vii.
Bononiae, 1660. Here some account of Apollonius’ Co¬
nics, and the Lemmata, is given. Apollonius lived about
forty years later than Archimedes. There have been vari¬
ous editions of his Conics, viz. Apollonii Pergsi Conicorum
libri iv. cum Commentariis R. P. Claudii Richardi. Ant¬
werp, 1655.
Apollonii Pergsi Conicorum lib. v. vi. vii., Paraphraste
Abalphato Asphahnensi, ex Arabico in Latinum per Abra¬
ham Ecchellensem Maronitam redditi, cum Notis J. Al-
fonsi Borelli. Florent. 1661.
Apollonii Perg. Con. Sect. lib. v. vi. vii. in Grscia de-
perditi, jam vero ex Arabico MS. ante quadringentos annos
elaborata opera subitanaa Latinitate donati a Christiano Ra-
vio. Upsal, 1669.
Apollonii Conica Methodo Nova illustrata et succincte
demonstrata, per Isaacum Barrow. London, 1675.
Emendatio et Restitutio Conicorum Apollonii Pergsi.
Autore Francisco Maurolyco. Coloniae, 1675.
Apollonii Pergsi Conicorum libri octo, et Sereni Antis-
sensis de Sectione Cylindri et Coni libri duo. Oxford,
1710. This is Dr Halley’s edition. The first four books,
together with the Lemmata of Pappus, and the commen¬
taries of Eutocius, have been published from Greek ma¬
nuscripts, accompanied with a Latin translation ; the fifth,
sixth, and seventh books, which also contain the Lemmata,
have been translated from Arabic into Latin; the eighth
CONIC SECTIONS.
The books of Serenus
'—V
Introduc- has been restored by Dr Halley,
tion. are jn Greek and Latin.
De Maximis et Minimis, Geometrica Divinatio in quintwn
Conicorum Apollonii Pergm, nunc desideratum librum.
Autore Vincentio Viviani. Florence, 1659.
De Locis Solidis, Secunda Divinatio Geometrica in quin-
que libros injuria temporum amissos Aristcei Senioris Geo¬
metry. Aut. Yin. Viviani. &c. Opus Conicorum, continens
Jblementa Iractatuum ejusdem Viviani. Florence 1701.
Apollonius Cattus, a work on Conics in German by
Benjamin Bramer, printed 1634. ’ ^
Claudii Mydorgii Patricii Parisini Prodromi Catoptri-
corum et Dioptricorum : sive Conicorum Operis ad abdita
radii reflexii etrefracti mysteria prcevii et facem prceferentis.
Libn iv. priores. Paris, 1641.
Francisci a Schooten Leydensis de Organica Conicarum
Sectionum in piano descriptione. Lugd. Batavor. 1646.
P. Gregorii a Sto. Vincentio, Opus Geometricum Quad¬
rature!} C/irculi et Sectionum Coni decern libris comprehen-
sum. Antverpiae, 1647.
Jobannis Wallisii De Sectionibus Conicis nova methodo
expositis tractatus. Oxonii, 1655.
Joannis de Witt Elementa Curvarum Linearum per
Franciscum. Schooten edita cum Cartesii Geometria. Am-
stelodami, 1659 et 1661.
Euclides Adauctus et Methodicus Alathematicaque Uni¬
versalis. Autore Guarino. Augusta? Taurin. 1671.
Nouvelle methode en Geometric pour les Sections des super¬
ficies Coniques et Cylindriques qui ont pour base des cercles,
ou desparaboles, des ellipses, et des hyperboles. Par Ph. de
la Hire. Paris, 1673.
Nouveaux Elemensdes Sections Coniques, &c. par M.dela
Hire. Paris, 1679. r
Secliones Conicy in novem libr. distribute, &c. Aut.
Phil, de la Hire. Paris, 1685.
Traite des Lignes du Premier Genre, expliquees par une
Methode nouvelle et facile, par M. Ozanam. Paris, 1687.
Sectionum Conicarum Elementanova methodo demonstrata.
Autore Jacobo Milnes. Oxoniae, 1702.
Traite Analytique des Sections Coniques, et de leur usage,
&c. Ouvrage posthume de M. le Marquis de I’Hopital.
Paris, 1707.
Compendia delle Sezioni Coniche d'Apollonio di P. Gui¬
do Grando. Firen. 1722.
Delle Sezioni Coniche dedotte nuovamente in Piano del
cerchio di Vincent. Santini. Luca, 1722.
Sectionum Conicarum Elementa methodo facillime demon¬
strata. Autore L. Trevigar. Cantabrigiae, 1731.
A Treatise on Conic Sections, by R. Steel. Dublin
1723.
Elementa Sectionum Conicarum. Autore Nicolas de
Martino. Tomii ii. Neapoli, 1734.
Elements of Conic Sections, in three books, by R. Jack.
Edinburgh, 1742.
A Mathematical Treatise, containing a System of Conic
Sections, 8$c. by J. Muller. London, 1736.
Sectionum Conicarum Elementa. Autore Josepho Bos-
covich. This treatise forms part of his Elementa Uni-
versy Matheseos. Romae, 1754.
De Sectionibus Conicis tractatus geometricus, in quo ex
natura ipsius Coni Sectionum affectiones facillime dedu-
cuntur methodo nova. Autore Hugone Hamilton. Dub¬
lin, 1758. There is an English translation of this excel¬
lent work.
251
Sectionum Conicarum libri quinque. Autore R. Sim- Introduc-
son. Edinburgi, 1735 and 1750. tion.
Antonii Rochii Conicarum Sectionum nova methodo ex- ''-""V'"-'
positarum specimen de proportionum compositione suntaa-
ma. Patavii, 1756.
Introduction aux Sections Coniques, par M. Mauduit
Paris, 1761.
Sectionum Conicarum Compendium. Autore D. Octa-
viano Cametti. Venetiis, 1765.
The Elements of the Conic Sections, in three books, by
W. Emerson. London, 1767.
The Elements of the Conic Sections, as preparatory to
the reading of Newton’s Principia, by the Rev. S. Vince.
Cambridge, 1781.
Elements of Conic Sections, &c. by Charles Hutton,
LL.D. 1787.
Sectionum Conicarum Libri Septem. Accedit Tractatus
de Sectionibus Conicis, et de Scriploribus qui earum doctri-
nam tradiderunt. Autore Abramo Robertson, A. M
Oxonii, 1792.
A Geometrical Treatise on Conic Sections, in four books,
&c. by the Rev. Abram Robertson. Oxford, 1802.
A Short Treatise on the Conic Sections, in which the
three Curves are derived from a general description on a
Plane, by the Rev. P. Newton. Cambridge, 1794.
A System of Conic Sections adapted to the Study of Na¬
tural Philosophy, by the Rev. D. M. Peacock. 1810.
A Compendious and Practical Treatise on the Construc¬
tion, Properties, and Analogies of the Three Conic Sections,
by the Rev. D. Bridge. 1811.
Essai de Geometric Analytique applique aux Courbes
et aux Surfaces du second ordre, par J. B. Biot. Paris
1810.
A Treatise on Lines of the Second Order. This is part
of a work entitled Geometry of Curve Lines, by Sir John
Leslie, formerly Professor of Mathematics, afterwards of
Natural Philosophy, in the University of Edinburgh. Edin¬
burgh, 1821.
A Treatise on the Conic Sections, in five books, by G
Walker, F. R. S. London, 1794.
The Elements of the Ellipse, together with the Radii of
Curvature, by James Adams. London, 1818.
An Analytical System of the Conic Sections, by the Rev.
H. P. Hamilton. Cambridge, 1828.
A Geometrical Treatise on the Conic Sections, by Wil¬
liam Wallace, Professor or Mathematics in the University
of Edinburgh. Edinburgh, 1833.
There is much valuable matter relating to the conic
sections in several v/orks which do not treat expressly on
the subject; particularly in Newton’s Principia, lib. i.
The learned Jesuits Le Seur and Jacquier have given a
concise treatise in their commentary on the work, at Prop.
8, lib. i. Maclaurin has treated of the conic sections in
his Geometria Organica, sect. 1; in his Fluxions, chap,
xiv. and in sect. 2 of the appendix to his Algebra. Euler
has treated of them in his Introductio in Analysin Infini-
torum, lib. ii. cap. 5; and De Moivre in his Miscellanea
Analytica, lib.'viii. cap. 2. The Synopsis Palmariorum
Matheseos of Jones also treats.of the subject; but it would
extend oui catalogue too much to name all the writers
who have improved the theory. The reader may see a
copious list of them in Bibliotheca Mathematica, Auctore
Fred. Guil. Aug. Murhard. Lipsiae, 1798.
CONIC SECTIONS.
252
Parabola.
PART I.—OF THE PARABOLA.
Parabola.
Definitions.
I. If a straight line BC, and a point without it F, be
given in position in a plane, and a point D be supposed
to move in such a manner that DF, its distance from the
given point, is equal to BD, its distance from the given
line; the point D will describe a line DAD', called a Pa¬
rabola.
II. The straight line BC, which is given in position, is
called the Directrix of the parabola.
III. The given point F is called the Focus.
IV. A straight line perpendicular to the directrix, ter¬
minated at one extremity by the parabola, and produced
indefinitely within it, is called a Diameter.
V. The point in which a diameter meets the parabola
is called its Vertex.
VI. The diameter which passes through the focus is call¬
ed the Axis of the parabola ; and the vertex of the axis is
called the Principal Vertex.
Corollary. A perpendicular drawn from the focus to
the directrix is bisected at the vertex of the axis.
VII. A straight line terminated both ways by the para¬
bola, and bisected by a diameter, is called an Ordinate to
that diameter.
VIII. The segment of a diameter between its vertex
and an ordinate, is called an Absciss.
IX. A straight line quadruple the distance between the
vertex of a diameter and the directrix, is called the Para¬
meter, also the Lotus Rectum of that diameter.
X. A straight line meeting the parabola only in one
point, and which everywhere else falls without it, is said
to touch the parabola at that point, and is called a Tangent
to the parabola.
Proposition I.
The distance of any point without the parabola from the
focus is greater than its distance from the directrix;
and the distance of any point within the parabola from
the focus is less than its distance from the directrix.
is a point in the parabola, DB = DF (Definition 1), there¬
fore PF r= PD -j- DB; but PD -|- DB is greater than
PB (20, 1, E.), and therefore still greater than PG (19, 1,
E.), therefore PF is greater than PG.
Again, let Q be a point within the parabola; QF, a line
drawn to the focus, is less than QB, a perpendicular to
the directrix. The perpendicular QB necessarily cuts the
curve ; let D be the point of intersection ; join DF. Then
DF = DB (Def. 1), and QD + DF = QB; but QF is
less than QD + DF, therefore QF is less than QB.
Cor. A point is without or within the parabola, ac¬
cording as its distance from the focus is greater or less than
its distance from the directrix.
Prop. II.
Every straight line perpendicular to the directrix meets
the parabola, and every diameter falls wholly within it.
(See Figure to Prop. I.)
Let the straight line BQ be perpendicular to the direc¬
trix at B; BQ shall meet the parabola. Draw BF to the
focus, and make the angle BFP equal to FBQ; then, be¬
cause QBC is a right angle, QBF and PFB are each less
than a right angle, therefore QB and PF intersect each
other ; let D be the point of intersection, then DB — DF
(5, 1, E.); therefore D is a point in the parabola. Again,
the diameter DQ falls wholly within the parabola ; for
take Q any point in the diameter, and draw FQ to the fo¬
cus, then QB or QD + DF is greater than QF; therefore
Q is within the parabola (Cor. 1).
Cor. The parabola continually recedes from the axis,
and a point may be found in the curve that shall be at a
greater distance from the axis than any assigned line.
Prop. III.
The straight line which bisects the angle contained by
two straight lines drawn from any point in the parabola,
the one to the focus, and the other perpendicular to
the directrix, is a tangent to the curve in that point.
Let DAd be a parabola, of which F is the focus, GC the
directrix, and P a point without the curve, that is, on the
same side of the curve with the directrix; PF, a line
drawn to the focus, will be greater than PG, a perpendi¬
cular to the directrix. For, as PF must necessarily cut
tie cuive, let D be the point of intersection; draw DB
perpendicular to the directrix, and join PB. Because D
Let D be any point in the curve; let DF be drawn to
the focus, and DB perpendicular to the directrix; the
straight line which bisects the angle FDB is a tangent to
the curve. Join BF meeting DE in I, take H any other
point in DE, join HF, HB, and draw HG perpendicular
to the directrix. Because DF — DB, and DI is common
to the triangles DFI, DBI, and the angles FDI, BDI, are
equal, these triangles are equal, and FI = IB; and hence
FH = HB (4, 1, E.): but HB is greater than HG (19, 1,
E.) ; therefore the distance of the point H from the focus
is greater than its distance from the directrix, hence that
point is without the parabola (Cor. 1), and therefore HDI
is a tangent to the curve at D (Def. 10).
Cor. 1. A perpendicular to the axis at its vertex is a
tangent to the curve. Let AM be perpendicular to the
axis at the vertex A, then RS, the distance of any point
in AM from the directrix, is equal to CA, that is to AF,
CONIC SECTIONS.
Parabola, and therefore is less than RF, the distance of the same
point from the focus.
Cor. 2. A straight line drawn from the focus of a para¬
bola perpendicular to a tangent, and produced to meet the
directrix, is bisected by the tangent. For it has been
shown that FB, which is perpendicular to the tangent DI,
is bisected at I.
Cor. 3. A tangent to the parabola makes equal angles
with the diameter which passes through the point of con¬
tact, and a straight line drawn from that point to the fo¬
cus. For BD being produced to Q, DQ is a diameter,
and the angle HDQ is equal to BDE, that is, to EDF.
Cor. 4. The axis is the only diameter which is perpen¬
dicular to a tangent at its vertex. For the angle HDQ,
or BDE, is the half of BDF, and therefore less than a
right angle, except when BD and DF lie in a straight
line, which happens when D falls at the vertex.
Cor. 5. There cannot be more than one tangent to the
parabola at the same point.
253
For let any other line DK, except a diameter, be drawn
through D; draw FK perpendicular to DK; on D for a
centre, with a radius equal to DB or DF, describe a circle,
cutting I K in N; draw NL parallel to the axis, meeting
DK in L, and join FL. Then FK = KN (3, 3, E.), and
therefore FL =: LN. Now BD being perpendicular to the
directrix, the circle FBN touches the directrix at B (16, 3,
E.) ; and hence N, an}' other point in the circumference, is
without the directrix, and on the same side of it as the pa¬
rabola ; therefore the point L is nearer to the focus than
to the directrix, and consequently is within the parabola.
Scholium. From the property of tangents to the pa¬
rabola demonstrated in Cor. 3, the point F takes the name
of the Focus. For rays of light proceeding parallel to the
axis of a parabola, and falling upon a polished surface
whose figure is that produced by the revolution of the pa¬
rabola about its axis, are reflected to the focus.
Prop. IV. Problem.
To find any number of points in a parabola, having given
the focus and axis.
through C draw the directrix BC6 : draw DF to the focus, Parabola.
DE perpendicular to the axis, and DB perpendicular to
the directrix: Take AH equal to FD.
Because AH is equal to DF, and DF is greater than
AF (Cor. Prop. 2), therefore AH is greater than AF,
and H is always in AF produced.
Now CE is equal to AH, for each is equal to DF; there¬
fore, taking from these the equals AC, AF, we have
AE = FH.
Construction. In AF produced take any point H,
and take AE equal to FH. Through E draw DEc? per¬
pendicular to the axis, and with F as a centre, at the
distance AH, describe a circle which will cut the perpen¬
dicular in D and d: these are points in the parabola.
For AE = FH, therefore CE = AH, and DB = DF,
therefore D is in the parabola, and in the same way it ap¬
pears that d is in the parabola.
Cor. 1. Any perpendicular to the axis meets the para¬
bola in two points, and in no more, and the straight line
between the points is bisected by the axis. For if the
perpendicular could meet the curve in another point D',
then FD' being joined, we would have FD' equal to D'B',
that is, to DB or to FD, which is impossible (19, 1, E.).
Cor. 2. Every chord ~Dd, in a parabola, perpendicular to
the axis, is bisected by the axis, and therefore is an ordi¬
nate to it. For the chord in the parabola is also a chord in
a circle, the centre of which is in the axis of the parabola.
Scholium. From this proposition it appears that the
parabola is composed of two branches, which recede con¬
tinually from the directrix and from the focus, also from
the axis (Cor. Prop. 2). And it appears that the indefi¬
nite spaces between the curve and axis on each side are
exactly alike, so that if the whole space comprehended
within the parabola were divided into two portions by
cutting it through the axis, and one of them were turned
over upon the other, they would entirely coincide.
Prop. V.
If a straight line be drawn from the focus of a parabola to
the intersection of two tangents to the curve; it makes
equal angles with straight lines drawn from the focus
to the points of contact.
Let HP, Up, tangents to a parabola at P and p, inter¬
sect each other at H ; draw PF, />F, HF, to F the focus;
the line HF makes equal angles with FP, Fjo.
Draw YK, pk perpendicular to the directrix, and join
HK, H£. The triangles HPK, HPF have PK = PF, PH
common to both, and the angles KPH, FPH equal (3),
therefore they are in every way equal (4, 1, E.), and have
Let F be the focus, AH the axis, and A the vertex. HK z= HF, and the angle HKP equal to HFP. In the
Suppose the problem resolved, and that D is a point in same way it may be shown, that the triangles Wpk, H^oF,
the parabola. In FA produced take AC equal to AF, and are in every way equal, and therefore HA = HF, and the
254
CONIC SECTIONS.
Parabola, angle HKjo is equal to HFjo: But HK being equal to m,
for each has been proved equal to HF, the angles HK/d,
H^K are equal (5, 1, E.), and adding to these the right
angles PKA, pkK, the angles HKP, llkp are equal; but
these have been proved equal to HFP, HFjt>; therefore
these last are equal, and the line HF makes equal angles
with FP, Fj».
Cor. 1. Perpendiculars drawn from the intersection of
two tangents, to lines drawn from the points of contact
through the focus, are equal. For HI, Hi, being drawn
perpendicular to PF, PF, the triangles HFI, HFi, are
manifestly equal (26, 1, E.), and therefore HI = Hi.
Cor. 2. Perpendiculars from the intersection of two
tangents to diameters passing through the points of con¬
tact are equal.
Draw GHd/ through H perpendicular to PK, pk, and be¬
cause the triangles HPG, HPI have HP common to both,
the angles at P equal, and the angles G and I right
angles, the triangles are in every way equal (26, 1, E.),
and hence HG is equal to HI. In like manner it is proved
that H.g is equal to Hi; but HI is equal to Hi, therefore
HG is equal to Yig.
Prop. VI.
If a straight line be drawn from the intersection of two
tangents to the focus, and another perpendicular to the
directrix; these will make equal angles with the tan¬
gents.
part of this tangent intercepted between the other two Parabola,
is bisected at the point of contact.
Let HD, He?, be tangents at the extremities of the
chord T)d, and KP£ a tangent parallel to Dt/, meeting the
other tangents in K and k ; the line KA is bisected at P,
the point of contact.
From H, K, k, the intersections of the tangents, draw
perpendiculars to the diameters passing through their
points of contact, viz. HI, H2, perpendicular to DL and
dl; and KM, KN, perpendicular to DL and PE, and/$m,
kn, perpendicular to dl and PE.
The triangles DHI, DKM, are manifestly equiangular,
also the triangles c?H«, dkm ; therefore
i-ID : DK = HI: KM (4, 6, E.),
and He?: dk — He: km.
But because K& is parallel to De?,
HD : DK r= Hd:dk(2, 6, E.) ;
therefore HI ; KM — He : km.
Now HI = He (2 Cor. 5), therefore KM = km.
But KM KN, and Km — Kee (2 Cor 5) ;
therefore KN — kn.
And since KN : kn — KP : £P(Cor. 6, E.),
therefore KP — kP.
Lemma.
Let KL? be a triangle, having its base L? bisected at p,
and let H/e, any straight line parallel to the base, and ter¬
minated by the sides, be bisected at P; then P, p, the
points of bisection, and K, the vertex of the triangle, are
in the same straight line; and that line bisects Dc?, any
other straight line parallel to the base.
Let F be the focus of a parabola, and KA the directrix ;
and let straight lines HP, Hp, which intersect each other
at H, touch the parabola at P and p, also let HF be
drawn to the focus, and HE perpendicular to the di¬
rectrix ; the angles PHE, je>HF are equal.
The same construction being made as in Prop. V.
In the triangles HEK, HE£, it may be shown, as in
that proposition, that HK is equal to Uk; and therefore
that the angle HKE is equal to the angle HAE (5, 1, E.).
The angles HEK, HEA are also equal; therefore the
angles KHE, AHE are equal (26, 1, E.). Now the angle
KHE = KHP + PHE; but the triangles KHP, FHP are
m every way equal (as was shown in Prop. V.) Therefore
KHP — FHP, and hence
KHE = FHP + PHE = FHE + 2PHE.
In the same way it appears that
AHE = FHp -f yiHE = FHE +2FHo •
therefore FHE + 2PHE = FHE + 2FHo • P’
and hence 2PHE = 2j»HF and PHE = j»HF.
Prop. VII.
If two tangents to a parabola be at the extremities of a
chord, and a third tangent be parallel to the chord; the
Complete the parallelograms KHPM, KLjoN. The
triangles KHA, KL/ being similar, and HA, PI similarly
divided at P and p,
KH : KL — HA : L/ — HP : Pp,
hence the parallelograms KHPM, KLjoN are similar. Now
they have a common angle at K, therefore they are about
the same diameter, that is, the points K, P, p are in the
same straight line (26, 6, E.).
Next, let Pd meet Pip in E, then
HP: DE (= KP:KE) = PA:Erf;
therefore DE is enual to Pd.
Prop. VIII.
Any chord parallel to a tangent is bisected by the diame¬
ter which passes through the point of contact, or is an
ordinate to that diameter.
Parabola.
CONIC
SECTIONS.
Let DH, a tangent to the curve at D, meet the diame¬
ter EP in PI, and let DEt/ be an ordinate to that diame¬
ter: the segment HE is bisected in P.
Draw PK, a tangent at P, meeting the tangent DH in
K, and draw IK«, perpendicular to the diameter PE at
and meeting a diameter drawn through D at I.
The triangles DKI, HKz are similar (29, 1, E.), there¬
fore IK : Ki = DK : KH (4, 6, E.); and because in the
triangle DHE, KP is parallel to the side DE, DK : KH
~ EP : PH, therefore IK : Kz = EP : PH; but IK and
Ki are equal (2 Cor. 5), therefore EP and PH are equal.
Pkop. X.
255
Parabola.
The chord Dd, which is parallel to the tangent KPk, is
bisected at E by PE, the diameter that passes through
the point of contact.
Let DH, c?H be tangents, and DN, dn diameters at the
extremities of the chord; let the tangent at P meet the
other tangents in K and k, and the diameters in L and l,
and through H draw OHo parallel to Dtf, and IHz perpen¬
dicular to the diameters DN, dn.
Because of the parallels L/, Oo, and DO, do, the triangles
DKL, DHO are similar, also the triangles dkl, dWo, and
the triangles OHI, oHz, therefore
DK : DH — KL: HO,
and dk : dR z=kl:Ro (4, 6, E„);
But because T)d is parallel to Kk,
DK : DH — dk:dR (2, 6, E.),
therefore KL : HO =. kl:Ro ;
but HO : HI - Ho : Ri,
therefore, ex. ceq. KL : HI = Ri.
Now HI = Ri (2 Cor. 5), therefore KL = kl j but
KP = kp (7), therefore PL = PI, and ED = Ed (34, 1, E.)
Cor. 1. Straight lines which touch a parabola at the ex¬
tremities of an ordinate to a diameter intersect each other
m that diameter ; for K/j and Dd being bisected at Pand
E, the points H, P, E lie in a straight line. (Lemma.)
Cor. 2. Every ordinate to a diameter is parallel to a
tangent at its vertex: For if it be not, let a tangent be
drawn parallel to the ordinate; then the diameter which
passes through the point of contact would bisect the ordi¬
nate, and. thus the same line would be bisected in two dif¬
ferent points, which is impossible.
Cor. 3. All ordinates to the same diameter are parallel
to each other.
Cor. 4. A straight line that bisects two parallel chords,
and terminates in the curve, is a diameter.
Cor. 5. The axis is perpendicular to its ordinates, and
every other diameter cuts its ordinates obliquely.
Prop. IX.
If a tangent at any point in a parabola meet a diameter,
and from the point of contact an ordinate be drawn to
that diameter; the segment of the diameter between the
vertex and tangent is equal to the segment between
the vertex and the ordinate.
If an ordinate to any diameter pass through the focus ; the
absciss is equal to one fourth of the parameter of that
diameter, and the ordinate is equal to the whole para¬
meter.
Let DEe?, a straight line passing through the focus, be
an ordinate to the diameter PE; the absciss PE is equal
to one fourth the parameter, and the ordinate Dd is
equal to the whole parameter of the diameter PE.
Let DH, PI be tangents at D and P; let DH meet the
diameter in H; draw PF to the focus, and DL parallel to
EP. The angles HPI, IPF, being equal (3), and PI pa¬
rallel to EF (2 Cor. 8), the angles PEF, PFE, are also
equal (29, 1, E.), and PE = PF ^ the parameter (Def. 9
and Def. 1). Again, the angle HDE is equal to LDH
(3), and therefore equal to DHE; consequently ED is
equal to EH, or to twice EP (9): therefore Dd is equal
to 4EP, or to 4PF, that is, to the parameter of the dia¬
meter.
Prop. XL
If any two diameters of a parabola be produced to meet a
tangent to the curve ; the segments of the diameters be¬
tween their vertices and the tangent are to one another
as the squares of the segments of the tangent intercept¬
ed between each diameter and the point of contact.
Let QH, RK, any two diameters, be produced to meet
PI, a tangent to the curve at P, in the points G, I; then,
HG : KI = PG2 ; PI2
256
CONIC SECTIONS.
Parabola. Let PN, a semi-ordinate to the diameter HQ, meetKR
in O, and let PR, a semi-ordinate to the diameter KO,
meet HN in Q; from H draw parallels to NO and QR,
meeting KR in L and M; thus HL is a tangent to the
curve, and HM a semi-ordinate to KR.
Now KI = KR, and KL = KM (9) ;
therefore, by subtraction, LI = MR — HQ.
But LO = HN = HG (9);
therefore, by addition, 10 = GQ.
The triangles PGN, PIO, are similar, as also PGQ,
PIR,
therefore GN, or 2GH : 10 = PG : PI,
and GQ : IR, or 10 : 2IK = PG : PL
Hence, taking the rectangles of the corresponding terms,
2GH • 10 : 210 • IK = PG2: PI2,
therefore GH : IK =: PG2 : PI2.
Cor. The squares of semi-ordinates, and of ordinates
to any diameter, are to one another as their correspond¬
ing abscisses.
i
lonius called the curve line to which the property belonged Parabola,
a Parabola.
Prop. XIII.
If AB, an ordinate to a diameter PG, is cut by any
other diameter CD in D; the rectangle AD • DB contain¬
ed by its segments is equal to the rectangle contained by
CD, the segment of the diameter between its vertex and
the ordinate, and the parameter of the diameter PG.
Draw CH, a semi-ordinate to the diameter PG, and let
L be its parameter.
Because AG2 rr L*PG (12),
and DG2 = CH2 = L • PH,
therefore AG2 — DG2 = L (PG — PH),
that is (5 and 6, 2, E.), AD • DB = L • CD.
Cor. If a chord AB is cut by any two diameters CD,
EF, the rectangles AD • DB, AF* F13, are to one another
as CD, EF, the segments of the diameters between their
vertices and the chord.
For since AD • DB = L • CD ; and AF • FB — L • EF;
therefore AD • DB: AF • FB = L • CD: L-EF= CD : EF.
Let HE4, KNA be ordinates to the diameter PN ; draw
PG a tangent to the curve at the vertex of the diameter,
and complete the parallelograms PEHG, PNKI; then
PG, PI, are equal to EH, NK, and GH, IK, to PE, PN,
respectively; therefore HE2 : KN2 = PE : PN.
Prop. XII.
If an ordinate be drawn to any diameter of a parabola;
the rectangle under the absciss and the parameter of the
diameter is equal to the square of the semi-ordinate.
Let KBA be an ordinate to the diameter PB; the rect¬
angle contained by PB, and the parameter of the diameter
is equal to the square of KB, the semi-ordinate.
Let DEg? be that ordinate to the diameter which pass¬
es through the focus. The semi-ordinates DE, Eg? are
each half of the parameter, and the absciss EP is one
fourth of the parameter (10) ;
therefore Dd: DE = DE : PE,
and Drf • PE = DE2 (16, 6, E.).
But T>d' PE : Dg?* PB, or PE : PB = DE2: KB2 (Cor. 11);
therefore Dg?- PB — KB2.
Scholium. It was on account of the equality of the
square of the semi-ordinate to a rectangle contained by
the parameter of the diameter and the absciss, that Apol-
Prop. XIV.
A straight line drawn from the focus of a parabola, per¬
pendicular to a tangent, is a mean proportional between
the straight line drawn from the focus to the point of
contact, and one fourth the parameter of the axis.
Let FB be a perpendicular from the focus upon the tan¬
gent PB, and FP a straight line drawn to the point of con¬
tact ; let A be the principal vertex, and therefore FA
equal to one fourth of the parameter of the axis; FB is a
mean proportional between FP and FA.
Produce FB and FA to meet the directrix in D and C,
and join AB. The lines FC, FD are bisected at A and
B (2 Cor. S), therefore (2, 6, E.) AB is parallel to CD, or
perpendicular to CF, and consequently is a tangent to the
curve at A (1 Cor. 3). Now BP is a tangent at P, there¬
fore the angle AFB is equal to BFP (5); and since the
angles FAB, FBP are right angles, the triangles FAB,
FBP are equiangular; hence
FP: FB = FB : FA.
Cor. 1. The common intersection of a tangent, and a
perpendicular from the focus to the tangent, is in a straight
line touching the parabola at its vertex.
CONIC SECTION
S.
Parabola. Cor. 2. If PH be drawn perpendicular to the tangent,
meeting the axis in H, and HK be drawn perpendicular
to PF; PK shall be equal to half the parameter of the axis.
For the triangles HPK, FBP, are manifestly equiangular;
therefore
HP: PK = PF: FB FB : FA — FD : FC.
But if PD be joined, the line PD is evidently perpendicu¬
lar to the directrix (3), therefore the figure HPDF is a
parallelogram, and HP — FD, therefore PK — FC = half
the parameter of the axis.
Prop. XV.
If from a point in a parabola a perpendicular be drawn to
any diameter, and also, from the same point, an ordi¬
nate to that diameter: the square of the perpendicular
is equal to the rectangle contained by the absciss of
the diameter and the parameter of the axis.
257
tersect each other in the middle diameter produced. For Parabola,
the semi-ordinates PK, Yk, are the halves of chords so
diawn, and DI, d\ are tangents parallel to these chords.
Prop. XVI.
Let CD, any diameter of a parabola whose vertex is
C, intersect a chord AB in D ; from the ends of the chord
inflect straight lines AE, BE, to E, any point in the curve,
and let these cut the diameter in H and K, the point H
being in AE, and K in BE ; the segments AD, BD of the
chord shall have the same ratio as the segments CH, CK
of the diameter between its vertex and the inflected lines.
From A, either extremity of the chord, draw AF paral¬
lel to the diameter CD, meeting BE in F.
By similar triangles, BF : BK = BA : BD,
and FE : KE =: AF : HK ;
therefore, taking the rectangles of corresponding terms of
the ratios,
BF • FE : BK • KE = BA • AF : BD • HK.
But (13) BF • FE : BK • KE = AF : KC = BA • AF
: BA • KC (1, 6, E.);
Let P bea point in a parabola, DK any diameter, PH a
perpendicular, and PK a semi-ordinate to that diameter;
the square of PH is equal to the rectangle contained by
DK and the parameter of the axis.
Let F be the focus, and FA the segment of the axis be¬
tween the focus and vertex, and therefore one fourth of
the parameter; join FD, draw DB touching the parabola
at D, and FB a perpendicular from the focus on the tan¬
gent. The triangles PKH, FDB are similar, for the an¬
gle FDB is equal to BDH (3 Cor. 3), that is, to PKH
(2 Cor. 8), and the angles at B and H are right angles,
therefore their sides are proportionals,
and KP2: PH2 = DF2 : FB2.
But since DF: FB = FB : FA. (14),
DF2 : FB2 = DF : FA (2 Cor. 20, E.);
therefore KP2 : PH2 = DF : FA = 4 DF-DK : 4 FA-DK
Now KP2 = 4 DF-DK (12), therefore PH2=4 FA-DK.
_ Cor. 1. Hence, if two diameters DK, d/i, on opposite
sides of a third PQ, be at equal distances from it, semi-or¬
dinates PK, PA to the other two, drawn from P the vertex
of the middle diameter, wall cut off equal abscisses DK,
dA. For the perpendiculars PH, PA, on the two extreme
diameters, are equal.
Cor. 2. And if tangents DI, dl, be drawn at the ver¬
tices of the extreme diameters, they will intersect each
other in the middle diameter QP produced. For the
tangents being parallel to the ordinates (8), each will
cut off from PQ a segment PI equal to the absciss of the
diameter at the point of contact; and the abscisses DK, dA
being equal, the tangents will cut off equal segments from
PQ, and therefore will pass through the same point I.
Cor. 3. And if two diameters be at equal distances
from a third, on opposite sides, and chords be drawn from
the vertex of the middle diameter to the vertices of the
other two, tangents drawn parallel to the chords will in-
vol. vn.
therefore BD • HK = BA • KC ;
and hence BA : BD = HK : KC;
and, by division, AD : BD = HC : KC.
Cor. Let BA be any chord in a parabola, and BI a
tangent to the curve at one extremity of the chord; let
any straight line DCL parallel to the axis meet the chord
in D, the curve in C, and the tangent in L ; the chord AB
and the line DL will be similarly divided at D and C, that
is, AD : DB = DC : CL.
Draw chords to E, any point in the curve, and let them
meet DL in H and K: by the proposition AD: DB=HC: CK.
Suppose now that the point E moves along the curve,
until at last it come to B, the point of contact of the tan¬
gent ; the line BK will then become BL, and AH will
become AD, and the ratio of CH to CK will become the
ratio of CD to CL ; therefore AD : DB = CD : CL.
Prop. XVII. Problem.
The directrix and focus of a parabola being given by posi¬
tion, to describe the parabola by a mechanical construc¬
tion.
i
2 k
258
CONIC SECTIONS.
Ellipse. Let AB be the given directrix, and F the focus. Place
the edge of the ruler ABKH along the directrix, and
keep it fixed in that position. Let LCG be another ruler
of such a form that the side LC may slide along AB, the
edge of the fixed ruler ABKH, and the part CG may have
its edge CD constantly perpendicular to AB. Let GDF
be a string of the same length as GC, the edge of the
moveable ruler; let one end of the string be fixed at F,
and the other fastened to G, a point in the moveable ru¬
ler. By means of the pin D let the string be stretched
so that the part of it between G and D may be applied
close to the edge of the moveable ruler, while at the same
time the ruler slides along BA, the edge of the fixed ruler;
the pin D will thus be constrained to move along CG, the
edge of the ruler, and its point will trace upon the plane
in which the directrix and focus are situated, a curve line
DE, which is the parabola required. For the string GDF
being equal in length to GDC, if GD be taken from both,
there remains DF equal to DC ; that is, the distance of
the moving point D from the focus is equal to its dis¬
tance from the directrix, therefore the point D describes
a parabola.
Prop. XVIII. Problem.
A parabola being given by position, to find its directrix
and focus.
Ellipse.
Let DPe? be the given parabola; draw any two parallel
chords T)d, Ee, and bisect them at H and K ; join KH,
meeting the parabola in P; the straight line PHK is a
diameter (4 Cor. 8), the point P is its vertex, and Dc?, Ee
are ordinates to it. In HP produced take PL equal to
one fourth part of a third proportional to PH and HD, and
draw LN perpendicular to PL, the line LN will evidently
be the directrix (12, and Def. 9). Draw PM parallel to
the ordinates to the diameter PK, then PM will be a tan¬
gent to the curve at P (2 Cor. 8). Draw LM perpendi¬
cular to PM, and take MF = ML, and the point F will
be the focus of the parabola (3 Cor. 3).
PART II.—OF
Definitions.
6
I. If two points F and fbe given in a plane, and a point
D be conceived to move around them in such a manner
that D/+ DF, the sum of its distances from them, is al¬
ways the same ; the point D will describe upon the plane
a line AV>ab, which is called an ellipse.
II. The given points- F, f are called the foci of the
ellipse.
III. The point C which bisects the straight line between
the foci is called the centre.
IV. The distance of either focus from the centre is
called the eccentricity.
V. A straight line passing through the centre, and ter¬
minated both ways by the ellipse, is called a diameter.
VI. The extremities of a diameter are called its ver¬
tices.
VII. The diameter which passes through the foci is
called the transverse axis, also the greater axis.
VIII. The diameter which is perpendicular to the trans¬
verse axis is called the conjugate axis, also the lesser axis.
IX. Any straight line not passing through the centre,
but terminated both ways by the ellipse, and bisected by
a diameter, is called an ordinate to that diameter.
X. Each of the segments of a diameter intercepted be¬
tween its vertices and an ordinate, is called an absciss.
XI. A straight line which meets the ellipse in one point
only, and everywhere else falls without it, is said to touch
the ellipse in that point, and is called a tangent to the
ellipse.
THE ELLIPSE.
Prop. I.
If from any point in an ellipse two straight lines be drawn
to the foci, their sum is equal to the transverse axis.
Let ABa6 be an ellipse, of which F, f are the foci,
and Aa the transverse axis; let D be any point in the
curve, and DF, E)/’lines drawn to the foci; D/'+DF
— Aa.
Because A, a are the points in the ellipse,
A/-F AF = aF + a/(Def. 1),
therefore Ff + 2 AF = Ff + 2 af ;
hence 2 AF = 2 af, and AF = af,
and Af + AF = Af of =■ Aa.
But D and A being points in the ellipse,
D/+ DF = A/+ AF,
therefore F>f + DF = Aa.
Cor. 1. The sum of two straight lines drawn from a
point without the ellipse to the foci is greater than the
transverse axis. And the sum of two straight lines drawn
from a point within the ellipse to the foci is less than the
transverse axis.
Let PF, P/ be drawn from a point without the ellipse
to the foci; let Ff meet the ellipse in D ; join FD; then
P/ + PF is greater than E)/\+ DF (21, 1, E.), that is,
than Aa. Again, let QF, Q/’be drawn from a point with¬
in the ellipse, let Qf meet the curve in D, and join FD ;
Qf + QF is less than Df + DF (21, 1, E.), that is, than Aa.
Cor. 2. A point is without or within the ellipse, accord¬
ing as the sum of two lines drawn from it to the foci is
greater or less than the transverse axis.
Ellipse.
CONIC SECTIONS.
Cor* 3* Tho transverse rxis is bisected in the centre*
Let C be the centre, then CF=C/(Def. 3), and FA=:/a*
therefore CA = Ca. J ’
Cor. 4. The distance of either extremity of the conju¬
gate axis from either of the foci is equal to half the trans¬
verse axis. Let be the conjugate axis; join F6, fb.
Because CF and Q,b is common to the triangles
CF6, Cfb, also the angles at C are right angles, these^tri-
angles are equal; hence F6 = fb, and since F6+ bf= Aa
Fb = AC. J ’
Cor. 5. The conjugate axis is bisected in the centre.
Join fb, /B • By the last corollary B^" bf; therefore the
anglesyBCj/ZiC are equal; now fC is common to the tri¬
angles /CB, fCb, and the angles at C are right angles,
therefore (26, 1, E.) CB = CA
Prop. II.
Every diameter of an ellipse is bisected in the centre.
Let Fp be a diameter, it is bisected in C. For if Cp be
not equal to CP, take CQ, equal to CP, and from the points
P, p, Q, draw lines to F, f the foci. The triangles FCP,
/CQ having FC = Cf, FC = CQ, and the angles at C
equal, are in all respects equal, therefore FP=/Q; in
like manner it appears that fP = FQ, therefore FQ +VQ
is equal to FP + fP, or (Def. 1) to Fp fp, which is
absurd (21, 1, E.) ; therefore CP = Cp.
Cor. 1. Every diameter meets the ellipse in two points
only. 1
Cor. 2. Every diameter divides the ellipse into two
parts, which are equal and similar, the like parts of the
curve being at opposite extremities of the diameter.
Prop. III.
The square of half the conjugate axis of an ellipse is equal
to the rectangle contained by the segments into which
the transverse axis is divided by either focus.
Draw a straight line from / either of the foci, to B,
either of the extremities of the conjugate axis.
Then BC2 + C/2 = B/2 = Ca2 (4 Cor. 1).
But because Aa is bisected at C,
Ca2 = Af' fa + C/2;
therefore BC2 + C/2 == A/'- fa + C/2,
and BC2 = A/- fa.
Prop. IV. Problem.
To find any number of points in an ellipse, having given
the transverse axis and foci.
Let F,f be the foci, Aa the transverse axis, and C the
centre. Suppose the problem resolved, and that D is a
point in the ellipse; join DF, D/; take AH in the axis
equal to DF; then «H will be equal to D/Yl).
And HA — Ha — DF — Df; '
?Ut ^ — Ha = HC + Ca — Ha = 2CH;
therefore DF — D/*= 2CH.
Now DF <Ff+ Df;
and hence DF — E/Z If;
therefore 2CH < I/and CH Z Cf.
Thus it appears that the point H may be anywhere
between the foci; but that it cannot be between the foci
and the vertices.
Comstrucpion. Take H, any point between the foci,
and from F and/as centres, with the distances HA, Ha
describe circles, which will cut each other in two points
D, tf, one on each side of the axis. These are points in
the ellipse.
Join DF, Df, also dF, df. Because DF -j- D/= HA
+ Ha _ Aa, therefore D is a point in the ellipse. In
like manner, it appears that d is in the ellipse.
In this way, by taking different points H, may any num¬
ber of points be found. J
Cor. 1. Any perpendicular to the transverse axis be¬
tween its extremities meets the ellipse in two points, and
in no more. For, if the perpendicular Dd could meet the
curve in two points D, D', on the same side of the axis,
then DF, Df also D'F, Df, being drawn to the foci, DF
+ D/would be equal to D'F + Df Now, supposing D'
to be the point nearer to the axis, DF will be greater than
DF, and DJ greater than D/(19, J, E.), and DF + Df
greater than D'F + D/; therefore D and D'cannot both
be points in the ellipse.
Cor. 2. Every chord Dd, in an ellipse, perpendicular
to the transverse axis, is bisected by that axis, and there¬
fore is an ordinate to it. For the chord Dd in the ellipse
is also a chord in a circle, the centre of which is in the
axis.
Cor. 3. Of all the straight lines that can be drawn
from either focus to the curve, the longest is that which
passes through the centre ; and the shortest is the remain¬
der of the transverse axis. And only two equal straight
lines can be drawn from the focus to the curve, one on
each side of the axis.
Sckolutm. From this proposition it appears that an
ellipse is a curve, which returns into itself, thus inclosing
a finite area; also, that the spaces between the curve and
the axis on each side are alike in every way • so that if
the ellipse were resolved into two portions, by cutting it
along the axis, the space ABDa, if turned over, would^co-
incide entirely with the space Abda. Now it has been
shown that the same spaces will coincide if one of them
be reversed (2 Cor. 2); and then the curve ABDa will
coincide with adbA. Hence it follows that the two axes
divide the whole ellipse.into four portions exactly alike;
and which, by superposition, may be applied on each other,
260
Ellipse.
CONIC SECTIONS.
Prop. V.
The straight line which bisects the angle adjacent to that
which is contained by two straight lines drawn from any
point in the ellipse to the foci, is a tangent to the curve
in that point.
Let D be any point in the curve ; let DF, D/be straight
lines drawn to the foci; the straight line DE which bisects
the angle/DG adjacent to/DF, is a tangent to the curve
at D.
Take H any other point in DE; take DG = D/J and
join Ilf HF, HG, /G ; let /G meet DE in L. Because
T/ = DG, and DL is common to the triangles E/L,
DGL, and the angles /DL, GDL are equal, these trian¬
gles are equal, and/L = LG, and hence/H = HG (4,
1, E.), and FH + /H = FH + HG; but FH + HG is
greater than FG, that is, greater than FD +/D or A«,
therefore FH +/H is greater than Aa ; hence the point
H is without the ellipse (2 Cor. 1); and therefore DHE is
a tangent to the curve at D (Def. 11).
Cor. 1. There cannot be more than one tangent at the
same point; for D is such a point in the line DE, that the
sum of DF, D/ the distances of that point from the foci,
is evidently less than the sum of HF, H/ the distances of
H, any other point in that line; and if another line KDI
be drawn through D, there is in like manner a point K in
that line which will be different from D, such, that the
sum of FK, /K is less than the sum of the distances of
any other point in KI, and therefore less than FD +/D ;
therefore the point K will be within the ellipse (2 Cor. 1)’
and the line KI will cut the curve.
Cor. 2. A perpendicular to the transverse axis at either
of its extremities is a tangent to the curve. The demon¬
stration is the same as for the proposition, if it be consi¬
dered that when D falls at either extremity of the axis,
the point L falls also at the extremity of the axis; and
thus the tangent DE, which is always perpendicular to
/L> is perpendicular to the axis.
Cor. 3. A perpendicular to the conjugate axis at either
of its extremities is a tangent to the curve. For the per¬
pendicular evidently bisects the angle adjacent to,that
which is contained by lines drawn from the extremity to
the foci.
Cor. 4. A tangent to the ellipse makes equal angles
with straight lines drawn from the point of contact to the
foci. For the angle /DE being equal to GDE, is also
equal to FDM, which is vertical to GDE.
Scholium. From the property of the ellipse which
foims this last corollary, the points F and /Take the name
of Foci. For writers on optics show that if a polished con¬
cave surface be formed, whose figure is that produced by
the revolution of an ellipse about its transverse axis, rays
of light which flow from one focus, and fall upon that sur¬
face, are reflected to the other focus; so that if a lumi¬
nous point be placed in one focus, there is formed by re¬
flection an image of it in the other focus.
Prop. VI.
The tangents at the vertices of any diameter of an ellipse
are parallel.
Let Pjo be a diameter, and HPK, hpk tangents at its
vertices ; draw straight lines from P and p to V and / the
foci. The triangles FCP,/Cp, having FC =/C, CPr=C/>
(2), and the angles at C equal, are in all respects equal;
and because the angle FPC is equal to Cpf FP is parallel
to fp (27, 1, E.) ; therefore Vf is equal and parallel to
pF (33, 1, E.), thus FP/p is a parallelogram, of which
the opposite angles P and p are equal (34, 1, E.). Now
the angles FPH, fph are evidently half the supplements
of these angles (4 Cor. 5), therefore the angles FPH,
fph, are equal, and hence CPH, Cph are also equal, and
consequently HP is parallel to hp.
Cor. 1. If tangents be drawn to an ellipse at the ver¬
tices of a diameter ; straight lines drawn from either focus
to the points of contact make equal angles with these tan¬
gents. For the angle Ypk is equal to FPH.
Cor. 2. The axes of an ellipse are the only diameters
which are perpendicular to tangents at their vertices.
For let Vp be any other diameter, then PF and jt?F are
necessarily unequal, and therefore the angles Fy?P, FPja
are also unequal; to these add the equal angles Yph, FPH,
and the angles Cph, CPH are unequal; therefore neither
of them can be a right angle (29, 1, E.).
Prop. VII.
If a straight line be drawn from either focus of an ellipse
to the intersection of two tangents to the curve; it will
make equal angles with straight lines drawn from the
same focus to the points of contact.
Let HP, Up, tangents to an ellipse at P and/?, inter¬
sect each other at H; draw PF, pF, HF to F, either of
the foci; the line HF makes equal angles with FP, Fp.
Draw Ff pf H/ to / the other focus, and in FP, Fp
produced take PK = Ff and pk = pf; join HK, Uk, and
draw fK,fk, meeting the tangents in G and g.
The triangles HPK, HP/"have PK i= Ff, PH common
to both, and the angles KPH, /PH equal (5), there¬
fore they are in every way equal (4, 1, E.), and have
PIK — H/ In the same way it may be shown that the
triangles Flpk, H//are in every way equal, and therefore
that Flk — Flf.
The triangles HFK, UFk have HK = Hk (for each is
equal to H/), HF common to both, and FK=F^, because
each is equal to PF + 1/ or /?F + pf that is, to the trans-
CONIC SECTIONS.
261
Ellipse.
verse axis; therefore they are in all respects equal, and
the angle HFK is equal to the angle HF£; wherefore HF
makes equal angles with FP and Fjo.
Cor. Perpendiculars drawn from the intersection of
two tangents to straight lines drawn from either focus
through the points of contact are equal.
Let HI, Hi be perpendiculars drawn from H, the in¬
tersection of the tangents PH, pH on the lines FP, Fp.
The triangles HFI,HFiare in all respects equal (26, L E.\
therefore HI = Hi. J
Prop. VIII.
Straight lines drawn from the intersection of two tangents
to the foci, make equal angles with the tangents.
an e^‘Pse> and let straight lines
HP, Hp, which intersect each other at H, touch the el¬
lipse at P and p, also let HF, Hf be lines drawn to the
foci; the angles PHF, pH/’are equal.
The same construction being made as in Prop. VII be¬
cause the angles FHK, FHA are equal,
f = FHP +PHK
A =
and FHKFHP +PH/
(=2FHP + FH/
and in like manner,
( = FHp + pHk
F1H - Flip + pH/
( = 2/Hp + FH/
therefore 2FHP + FH/= S/’Hp + FHf
and hence 2FHP = 2/Hp, and FHP -/Hp.
Prop. IX.
If two tangents to an ellipse be at the extremities of a
chord, and a third tangent be parallel to the chord ; the
part of this tangent intercepted by the other two is
bisected at the point of contact.
Let HD, He? be tangents at the extremities of the
chord Hd, and KPA a tangent parallel to Hd, meeting the
other tangents in K and k ; the intercepted segment KA
is bisected at P, the point of contact,
from the points of contact D, P, d, draw lines to F,
either of the foci, and from H, K, k, the intersections of
the tangents, draw perpendiculars to the lines drawn from
the points of contact to the foci, viz. HI, H* perpendicu¬
lar to DF, g?F; and KM, KN perpendicular to FD, FP;
and km, kn perpendicular to Yd, FP.
The triangles DHI, DKM are manifestly equiangular,
also the triangles dHi, dhn ;
therefore DH : DK = HI : KM (4, 6, E.),
and dH : dk = H* ; km ;
but because Hd is parallel to KA, a side of the triangle
HKA,
DH : DK = dH : dk (2, 6, E.),
therefore HI : KM r= H* : km.
Now HI = H? (Cor. 7), therefore KM — km ; but KM
= KN and km — kn (Cor. 7), therefore KN = kn ; and
since from the similar triangles KPN, APrc, KN : kn z=. KP,
AP, therefore KP is equal to AP.
Prop. X.
Any chord not passing through the centre, but parallel
to a tangent, is bisected by the diameter that passes
through the point of contact; or it is an ordinate to
that diameter.
The chord DEd, which is parallel to KA, a tangent at
P, is bisected at E by the diameter PCjo.
Draw Hpl, a tangent at p, the other end of the diameter,
and DH, dH, tangents at D and d, the extremities of the
chord, meeting the other tangents in K, A, and L, l: Then
KPA and Hpl are bisected at P andjt? (9); therefore the
diameter Yp, when produced, will pass through H, and
bisect Hd, which is parallel to KA or HI, in E. (Lemma
to Prop. 8, Part I.)
Cor. 1. Straight lines which touch an ellipse in the ex¬
tremities of an ordinate to any diameter, intersect each
other in that diameter.
Cor. 2. Every ordinate to a diameter is parallel to a
tangent at its vertex: for if not, let a tangent be drawn
parallel to the ordinate ; then the diameter drawn through
the point of contact would bisect the ordinate ; and thus
the same line would be bisected in two different points,
which is absurd.
Cor. 3. All the ordinates to the same diameter are pa¬
rallel to each other.
Cor. 4. A straight line that bisects two parallel chords,
and terminates in the curve, is a diameter.
Cor 5. I he ordinates to either axis are perpendicular
to that axis : and no other diameter is perpendicular to
its ordinates.
Prop. XL
If a tangent to an ellipse meet a diameter, and from the
point of contact an ordinate be drawn to that diameter ;
the semidiameter will be a mean proportional between
the segments of the diameter intercepted between the
centre and the ordinate, and between the centre and
the tangent.
Ellipse.
262
Ellipse.
CONIC SECTIONS.
Let DH, a tangent to the ellipse at D, meet the diame¬
ter P» produced in H, and let DEc? be an ordinate to that
diameter; CE : CP = CP : CH.
Through P and p, the vertices of the diameter, draw
the tangents PK, j»L, meeting DH in K and L; draw
PF, pF, to either of the foci; join FD, and draw KM and
KN perpendicular to FD and FP, also LO and LI per¬
pendicular to FD and Fj9.
The triangles PKN, pLl, are equiangular; for the
angles at N and I are right angles, and the angles NPK,
I»L are equal (1 Cor. 6); therefore
PK : pL = KN : LI (4, 6, E.) = KM : LO (Cor. 7).
But the triangles KDM, LDO, being manifestly equian¬
gular,
KM : LO = KD : LD;
therefore PK : joL rr: KD : LD.
But because of the parallel lines PK, ED, jdL, the tri¬
angles HPK, HpL, are equiangular; and the lines HL,
Hp, are similarly divided in K, D, and in P, E (10, 6, E.),
hence
PK : pF. = HP : Up, and KD : LD z= PE : pE;
therefore HP : Up rr PE : pF.
Take CG = CE, and then PE = pG, and by conversion
HP : Pj9 = PE : EG;
and taking the halves of the consequents,
HP : PC = PE : EC;
and by composition, HC : PC zz PC : EC.
Cor. 1. The rectangle PE • Fp is equal to the rect¬
angle HE • EC.
For PC2 = HC • CE (17, 6, E.)
zz HE • EC + EC2 (3, 2, E.);
also PC2 zz PE • Ejt? + EC2 (5, 2, E.);
therefore HE • EC zz PE*Ey?.
Cor. 2. The rectangle PH • Up is equal to the rec¬
tangle EH • HC.
For HC2 zz PH * Up + CP2 (6, 2, E.);
and HC2 zz EH • HC + EC • HC (1, 2, E.),
zz EH • HC + CP2 (by the Prop.) ;
therefore PH • Up zz EH • HC.
Prop. XII.
If a diameter of an ellipse be parallel to the ordinates to
another diameter; the latter diameter is parallel to the
ordinates to the former.
-.L
Let Q.q, a diameter of an ellipse, be parallel to DEc?, Ellipse,
any ordinate to the diameter Yp; the diameter Pjo shall
be parallel to the ordinates to the diameter Qg.
Draw the diameter dCd! through one extremity of the
ordinate Ud, and join d' and D, the other extremity of
the ordinate, meeting Qq in G. Because dd! is bisected
in C (2) and CG is parallel to dU, the line Ud' is bisected
at G (2, 6, E.) ; therefore Ud' is an ordinate to the diame¬
ter (Def. 9), and because dd' and Ud are bisected at
C and E, the diameter Yp is parallel to Gd’ (2, 6, E.);
therefore Yp is parallel to any ordinate to the diameter Qq.
Definitions.
XII. Two diameters are said to be conjugate to one
another when each is parallel to the ordinates to the other
diameter.
Cor. Diameters which are conjugate to one another are
parallel to tangents at the vertices of each other.
XIII. A third proportional to any diameter and its con¬
jugate is called the Parameter, also the Latus Rectum of
that diameter.
'Prop. XIII.
If an ordinate be drawn to any diameter of an ellipse ; the
rectangle contained by the segments of the diameter
will be to the square of the semi-ordinate as the square
of the diameter to the square of its conjugate.
(See Figure to Prop. XII.)
Let DEe? be an ordinate to the diameter Yp, and let
be its conjugate,
PE • Ejo : DE2 zz P/>2: Q?2.
Let KDL, a tangent at D, meet the diameter in K, and
its conjugate in L; draw DG parallel to Yp, meeting
in G. Because CP is a mean proportional between CE
and CK (11),
CP2: CE2 = CK : CE (2 Cor. 20, 6, E.),
and, by division, CP2 : PE • Fp =. CK : KE.
But because ED is parallel to CL,
CK : KE zz CL ; DE or CG,
and because CQ is a mean proportional between CG and
CL (11),
CL : CG z= CQ2: CG2 or ED2 (2 Cor. 20, 6, E.),
therefore CP2 : PE • Fp =z CQ2 : DE2,
and, by inversion and alternation,
PE • Ejt? : DE2 zz CP2 : CQ2 zz Pp2 : Q92.
Cor. 1. The squares of semi-ordinates and of ordinates
to any diameter of an ellipse are to one another as the
rectangles contained by the corresponding abscisses.
Cor. 2. Ihe ordinates to any diameter, which intercept
equal segments of that diameter from the centre, are equal
to one another; and, conversely, equal ordinates intercept
equal segments of the diameter from the centre.
Cor. 3. If a circle be described upon Aa, either of the
axes of an ellipse, as a diameter, and DE, de, any two
semi-ordinates to the axes, meet the circle in H and h,
DE shall be to de as HE to he.
7
CONIC SECTIONS.
Ellipse. For DE2: d£ — AE • Ea : Ae • m = HE2 : he1,
therefore DE : de — HE : he.
Cor. 4. If a circle be described on Aa the transverse
axis as a diameter, and DE, any ordinate to the axis, be
produced to meet the circle in H; HE shall be to DE as
the transverse axis Aa to the conjugate axis BA For,
produce the conjugate axis to meet the circle in K, then,
by last corollary,
HE : DE = KC, or AC : BC =: Aa : BA
Cor. 5. And if HE be divided at D, so that HE is to
DE as the transverse axis to the conjugate axis, D is a
point in the ellipse, and DE a semi-ordinate to the axis Aa.
Prop. XIV.
In ¥>b, the conjugate axis of an ellipse, let there be taken
on each side of the centre C, straight lines CK, Ck,
each a fourth proportional to CF, the eccentricity, and
CA, CB, half the transverse and conjugate axes: If
then from P, a vertex of any diameter, there be drawn
PH perpendicular to ¥>b; the square of the semi-dia¬
meter PC will have to the rectangle contained by the
segments KH, AH, the constant ratio of the square of
CF to the square of CB.
Draw PL perpendicular to the transverse axis.
Because (13 of this, and 5, 2, E.)
CA2: CB2 = CA2 — CL2: PL2,
and, by division,
CA2 — CB2 : CB2 - CA2 — (CL2 + PL2) : PL2;
therefore (4 Cor. 1, and 47, 1, E.)
CF : CB2 = CA2 — PC2 : PL2 or CH2.
But, by hypothesis, CF : CB2 — CA2 : CK2;
therefore CA2 : CK2 — CA2 — PC2 : CH2, '
and hence (19, 5, E.)
PC2: CK2 — CH2 = CA2: CK2
and (5, 2, E.)
PC2: KH • HA — CA2: CK2 = CF : CB2.
Cor. 1. Hence the squares of any semidiameters PC,
QC, are to one another as the rectangles KH • HA,
KI • IA, contained by the segments of the line KA, be¬
tween its extremities, and perpendiculars from the ver¬
tices of the diameters.
Cor. 2. The transverse axis is the greatest diameter,
and the conjugate axis the least; and a diameter which
is nearer to the transverse axis is greater than one more
remote.
By hypothesis CF : CA = CB : CK, therefore CK is
greater than CB, and the points K, A, are without the
ellipse : Suppose now a semidiameter PC to turn about C,
and that in every position PH is perpendicular to KA.’
The rectangle KH • HA will manifestly be greatest when
PC coincides with AC, and least when it coincides with
BC, and will decrease continually while PC passes from
the position AC to BC; therefore the same will be true
of the revolving semidiameter PC, which has a constant
ratio to the rectangle KH • HA.
Cor. 3. Diameters which make equal angles with the
transverse axis on opposite sides of it are equal ; and only
two equal diameters can be drawn, one on each side of
the transverse axis.
Prop. XV.
If an ordinate be drawn to any diameter of an ellipse, the
rectangle under the abscisses of the diameter is to the
square of the semi-ordinate as the diameter to its pa¬
rameter.
Let DE be a semi-ordinate to the diameter Yp, let PG
be the parameter of the diameter, and Qq the conjugate
diameter. By the definition of the parameter (Def. 13),
Yp : Q,q z= Qq : PG,
therefore P/> : PG == Yp2 : Q^2 (2 Cor. 20, 6, E.).
But Yp2 : Qq2 = YE -Ep: DE2 (13) ;
therefore PE - Ep : Y>E2 z= Yp PG.
Cor. Let the parameter PG be perpendicular to the
diameter Yp ; join pG, and from E draw EM parallel to
PG, meeting pG in M. The square of DE, the semi¬
ordinate, is equal to the rectangle contained by PE
and EM.
For PE • Ejo : DE2 = Yp : PG,
and Yp : PG :: Ep : EM = PE • Ejo : PE * EM,
therefore DE2 = PE • EM.
Scholium. If the rectangles YGEp, HGKM, be com¬
pleted, it will appear that the square of ED is equal to
the rectangle MP, which rectangle is less than the rect¬
angle KP, contained by the absciss PE and parameter
PG, by a rectangle KH similar and similarly situated to
LP, the rectangle contained by the diameter and para¬
meter. It was on account of the deficiency of the square
of the ordinate from the rectangle contained by the ab¬
sciss and parameter that Apollonius called the curve line
to which the property belonged an ellipse.
Prop. XVI.
If from the vertices of two conjugate diameters of an el¬
lipse there be drawn ordinates to any third diameter;
the square of the segment of that diameter intercepted
between either ordinate and the centre is equal to the
rectangle contained by the segments between the other
ordinate and the vertices of the same diameter.
264
CONIC SECTIONS.
Ellipse. Let Vp, Qq be two conjugate diameters, and PE, QG
semi-ordinates to any third diameter Hr ; CG2 = RE" Er,
and CE2 = RG * Gr.
Draw the tangents PH, QK meeting Rr in H and K.
The rectangles HC • CE and KC • CG are equal, for each
is equal to CR2 (11), therefore
HC : CK = CG : CE.
But the triangles HPC, CQ.K are evidently similar (Cor.
Def. 12), and PE being parallel to QG, their bases CH,
KC are similarly divided at E and G, therefore
HC : CK = HE : CG,
wherefore CG : CE = HE : CG,
consequently CG2 = CE • EH = (1 Cor. 11) RE ■ Er. In
like manner it may be shown that CE2 = RG • Gr.
Cor. 1. Let Ss be the diameter that is conjugate to Rr,
then Rr is to Ss as CG to PE, or as CE to QG.
For Rr2 : Ss2 = RE • Er, or CG2 : PE2;
therefore Rr : Ss :: CG : PE.
In like manner Rr : Ss : : CE : QG.
Cor. 2. The sum of the squares of CE, CG, the seg¬
ments of the diameter to which the semi-ordinates PE,
QG are drawn, is equal to the square of CR the semi-
diameter.
For CE2+ CG2 = CE2 + RE • Er = CR2(5,2,E.)
Cor. 3. The sum of the squares of any two conjugate
diameters is equal to the sum of the squares of the axes.
Let Rr, Ss be the axes, and Yp, Qq any two conjugate
diameters; draw PE, QG perpendicular to Rr, and PL,
QM perpendicular to Ss. Then
pi?2 _i_ pri2 — PTJ2
and CM2 + CL2, or GQ2 + PE2 =CS2,
therefore CE2 + PE2 + CG2 + GQ2= CR2 + CS2;
that is, (47, 1, E.) CP2 + CQ2 = CR2 + CS2,
therefore Pjo2 + Q^2 =z Rr2 -f- Ss2.
Prop. XVII.
If four straight lines be drawn touching an ellipse at the
vertices of any two conjugate diameters ; the parallelo¬
gram formed by these lines is equal to the rectangle
contained by the transverse and conjugate axes.
Let Yp,Qq be any two conjugate diameters; a paral¬
lelogram DEGH formed by tangents to the curve at their
veitices is equal to the rectangle contained by Aa, B6,
the two axes. j > >
. Produce Aa, one of the axes, to meet the tangent P
m K ; join QK, and draw PL, QM perpendicular to Aa.
Because CK : CA = CA : CL (11),
and CA : CB = CL : QM (1 Cor. 16),
ex aeq. CK : CB = CA : QM,
K .rv*™- CK ' «M = CB • CA (16, 6, E.).
ButCK • QM—twice tnan. CKQ=paral. CPEQ ('41,1,E.'
therefore the parallelogram CPEQ = CB • CA
?^^Lking the1 <3ua1druPles of these, the parallelograr
DEGH is equal to the rectangle contained by Aa and B^
Prop. XVIII.
If two tangents at the vertices of any diameter of an ellipse
meet a third tangent; the rectangle contained by their
segments between the points of contact and the points
of intersection is equal to the square of the semidia¬
meter to which they are parallel. And the rectangle
contained by the segments of the third tangent between
its point of contact and the parallel tangents is equal
to the square of the semidiameter to which it is pa¬
rallel.
Let PH, ph, tangents at the vertices of a diameter Pp,
meet HDA, a tangent to the curve at any point D, in H
and^.* let CQ be the semidiameter to which the tan¬
gents PH, ph are parallel, and CR that to which HA is
parallel;
PH • ph = CQ2, and DH • DA = CR2.
, If the tangent HDA be parallel to Pp, the proposition
is manifest. If it be not parallel, let it meet the semi¬
diameters CP, CQ, in L and K. Draw DE, RM parallel
to CQ, and DG parallel to CP.
Because LP • Ljo = LE • LC (2 Cor. 11),
LP : LE =: LC : Pp ;
hence, and because of the parallels PH, ED, CK, ph,
PH ; ED = CK : ph,
wherefore PH • ph = ED • CK.
But ED • CK = CG • CK = CQ2 (11),
therefore PH ' ph = CQ2.
Again, the triangles LED, CMR are evidently similar,
and LE, LD similarly divided at H and P, also at A and »,
therefore PE : HD = (LE : LD =) CM : CR,
also pp : AD = (LE : LD =) CM : CR;
hence, taking the rectangles of the corresponding terms,
PE • pp : HD • AD :: CM2 : CR2 (3 Cor. 20, 6, E.)
But if CD be joined, the points D and R are evidently
the vertices of two conjugate diameters (Cor. Def. 12),
and therefore PE ' pp — CM2 (16);
therefore HD * AD = CR2.
Cor. The rectangle contained by LD and DK, the seg¬
ments of a tangent intercepted between D, the point of
contact, and Pp, Qq, any two conjugate diameters, is equal
to the square of CR, the semidiameter to which the tan¬
gent is parallel.
Let the parallel tangents PH, ph meet LK in H and A,
and draw DE a semi-ordinate to Pp. Because of the pa¬
rallels PH, ED, CK, ph, *
LE : LD = EP : DH,
and EC : DK :: Ep : DA ;
therefore LE • EC ; LD • DK :: EP • E» : DH • DA.
But LE • EC = EP • pp (1 Cor. 11),
therefore LD • DK = DH • DA = (by this Prop.) CR2.
Prop. XIX.
If two straight lines be drawn from the foci of an ellipse
perpendicular to a tangent; straight lines drawn from
Ellipse.
the centre to the points in which they meet the tan
gent will each be equal to half the transverse axis.
CONIC SECTIONS.
265
gate axis in h; the rectangle contained by CL and DH Ellipse,
is equal to the square of CB, the semi-conjugate axis;
and the rectangle contained by CL and DA is equal to
the square of CA, the semi-transverse axis.
Let DPg? be a tangent to the curve at P, and YD,fd
perpendiculars to the tangent from the foci; the straight
lines joining the points C, D, and C, d, are each equal to
AC, half the transverse axis.
Join FP,/P, and produce FD,/P till they intersect in
E. The triangles FDP, EDP have the angles at D right
angles, and the angles FPD, EPD equal (5), and the side
DP common to both ; they are therefore equal, and con¬
sequently have ED=:DF, and EP=:PF, therefore E/
= FP + P/= Aa. Now the straight lines FE, ¥f being
bisected at D and C, the line DC^ is parallel to E/, and
thus the triangles F/E, FCD are similar ;
therefore F/r/E or Aa = FC : CD.
But FC is half of Fy, therefore CD is half of Aa. In like
manner it may be shown that Cd is half of Aa.
Cor. If the diameter Qq be drawn parallel to the tan¬
gent Y)d, it will cut off from PF, P/ the segments PG, P<7,
each equal to AC half the transverse axis. For CefPG,
CDP#, are parallelograms, therefore PG =: dC = AC, and
Vg = DC = AC.
Prop. XX.
The rectangle contained by perpendiculars drawn from
the foci of an ellipse to a tangent is equal to the square
of half the conjugate axis.
(See Figure to Prop. XIX.)
Let DPd be a tangent, and FD,/d, perpendiculars from
the foci; the rectangle contained by FD and/a? is equal to
the square of CB half the conjugate axis.
It is evident from the last proposition that the points D,
d are in the circumference of a circle whose centre is the
centre of the ellipse, and radius CA half the transverse
axis ; now FDg? being a right angle, if dC be joined, the
lines DF, dC, when produced, will meet at H, a point in
the circumference ; and since FC=/C, and CH=:C</, and
the angles FCH,/Cc? are equal, FH is equal iofd; there¬
fore
DF • c?/==DF • FH=AF • Fa (35, 3, E.)=CB2 (3).
Cor. If PF, Vf be drawn from the point of contact to
the foci, the square of FD is a fourth proportional to jV,
FP and BC2. For the lines fP, FP make equal angles
with the tangent (4 Cor. 5), and /th3, FDP are right angles,
therefore the trianglesfFd, FPD are similar, and
/P : FP =fd : FD =fd • FD or CB2: FD2.
Prop. XXL
If from C the centre of an ellipse a straight line CL be
drawn perpendicular to a tangent LD, and from D the
point of contact a perpendicular be drawn to the tan¬
gent, meeting the transverse axis in H and the conju-
VOL. VII.
Produce the axes to meet the tangent in M and m, and
from D draw the semi-ordinates DE, De, which will be
perpendicular to the axes.
Ihe triangles DEH, CLm are evidently equiangular,
therefore
DH : DE = Cm : CL;
hence CL • DH=DE • Cm.
But DE • Cm, or Ce • Cm = BC2 (11),
therefore CL • DH=BC2.
In the same way it is shown that CL • D^=AC2.
Cor. 1. If a perpendicular be drawn to a tangent at the
point of contact, the segments intercepted between the
point of contact and the axes are to each other recipro¬
cally as the squares of the axes by which they are termi¬
nated.
For AC2 : BC2 : : CL • D/t : CL • DH : : D^ : DH.
Cor. 2. If DF be drawn to either focus, and HK be
drawn perpendicular to DF, the straight line DK shall be
equal to half the parameter of the transverse axis.
Draw CG parallel to the tangent at D, meeting DH in
N, and DF in G. The triangles GDN, HDK are similar,
therefore
GD : DN = HD : DK,
and hence GD • DK = HD • DN.
But GD = AC (Cor. 19), and ND = CL,
therefore AC • DK = HD • CL = (by the Prop.) CB2;
wherefore AC : BC =: BC : DK;
hence DK is half the parameter of Aa (Def. 13).
Definition.
XIV. If a point G be taken in the transverse axis of an
ellipse produced, so that the distance of G from the centre
may be a third proportional to CF the eccentricity, and
CA the semi-transverse axis; a straight line HG/*, drawn
through G perpendicular to the axis, is called the directrix
of the ellipse.
Cor. 1. If MFm, an ordinate to the axis, be drawn
through the focus ; tangents to the ellipse at the extremi¬
ties of the ordinate will meet the axis at the point G (11).
2 L
266
CONIC SECTIONS.
Ellipse.
Cor. 2. The ellipse has two directrices, for the point G
may be taken on either side of the centre.
Prop. XXII.
The distance of any point in an ellipse from either direc¬
trix is to its distance from the focus nearest that direc¬
trix in the constant ratio of the semitransverse axis to
the eccentricity.
Let D be any point in the ellipse, let DK be drawn per¬
pendicular to the directrix, and let DF be drawn to the
focus nearest the directrix; DK is to DF as CA, half the
transverse axis, to CF, the eccentricity.
Draw T>f to the other focus, and DE perpendicular to
A«; take L a point in the axis, so that AL — FD, and
consequently La — Y)f; then CL is evidently half the
difference between AL and «L, or FD and /D, and CE
half the difference between /"E and FE; and because
D/+DF :/F =/E — FE :D/— DF (K, and 16 of 6, E.).
By taking the halves of the terms of the proportion,
CA : CF CE ; CL.
But CA : CF = CG : CA (Def. 14),
therefore CG : CA = CE : CL;
hence (19, 5, E.) EG : AL = CG : CA = CA : CF,
that is, DK : DF = CA : CF.
Cor. 1. If the tangent GMN be drawn through M, the
extremity of the ordinate passing through the focus, and
ED be produced to meet GM in N, EN shall be equal to
DF. For draw MO perpendicular to the directrix, then,
because M and D are points in the ellipse,
FM : FD = MO : DK = FG ; EG.
But the triangles GFM, GEN being similar,
FG : EG = FM : EN;
therefore FM : FD = FM : EN,
and hence FD = EN.
Cor. 2. If AI and ai be drawn perpendicular to the
transverse axis at its extremities, meeting the tangent GM
in I and i, then AI — AF and ai — aF.
For GA : AF = OM : MF = GF : MF = GA ; AI,
therefore AF — AI; and, in like manner, it may be show'n
that aF = ai.
Prop. XXIII. Problem.
Two unequal straight lines which bisect each other at
right angles being given by position; to describe an
..ellipse of which these may be the two axes, by a me¬
chanical construction.
Let Aa be the transverse, and B6 the conjugate axes. Ellipse.
About either extremity of the conjugate axis as a cen-
tre, with a radius equal to CA, half the transverse axis,
describe arcs cutting that axis in F and/; these points
"will be the foci (4 Cor. 1). Let the ends of a string equal
in length to Aa be fastened at the points F, / and let the
string be stretched by a pin at D, and while it is kept uni¬
formly tense, let the point of the pin be carried along the
plane about the centre C, till it return to the place from
whence it set out. By this motion the point of the pin
will trace on the plane a curve which will be the ellipse
required, as is evident from the definition of the ellipse.
Prop. XXIV.
An ellipse being given by position; to find its axes.
H u
A
i /o
Let AV>ab be the given ellipse : draw two parallel
chords H/i, K&, and bisect them at L and M; join LM,
and produce it to meet the ellipse in P and p, then Vp is
a diameter (4 Cor. 10). Bisect Py> in C ; the point C is
the centre of the ellipse (2).
lake D any point in the ellipse, and on C as a centre,
with the distance CD, describe a circle. If this circle be
wholly without the curve, then CD must be half the trans¬
verse axis ; but if it be wholly within the curve, then CD
must be half the conjugate axis (14). If the circle neither
be wholly without nor wholly within the ellipse, let the
circle meet it again in d. Join Dd, and bisect Dd in E ;
join CE, and produce CE to meet the ellipse in A and a :
then Aa will be one of the axes (5 Cor. 10); for it is per¬
pendicular to the line Do? (3, 3, E.), which is an ordinate
to Aa: the other axis B6 will be found by drawing a
straight line through the centre perpendicular to Ac.
Prop. XXV.
If a moveable circle roll along the concave circumference
of a fixed circle in the same plane, and the radius of the
former be half that of the latter ; any given point in its
circumference will describe a diameter of the fixed circle.
Let ABHO a moveable circle (which may be called the
generating circle), whose centre is C, roll along DEM a
CONIC SECTIONS.
Ellipse, fixed circle, of which O is the centre, both being in the
same plane, and let the radius CH be half of the radius
OH; any given point A in the circumference of the ge¬
nerating circle will always be in D^, some diameter given
in position of the other circle.
Let H be the point of contact of the circles: the points
H, C, 0 are in a straight line (11, 3, E.); and because the
diameter of the inner circle is half that of the outer circle,
one of its extremities will always be at O, the centre of
the fixed circle.
Suppose that at the beginning of the motion the point
A was at D, a given point in the circumference of the
fixed circle, and that by rolling along the arch DH, the
generating circle has come to the position OAH: draw
AC to its centre, and bisect the angle ACH, and conse¬
quently the arch AH, by the radius BC.
The arch DH is equal to the arch AH, because every
element of the one has been applied to an equal cor¬
responding element of the other: therefore the arch DH
is double the arch BH, and the radius of the circle DH
is by hypothesis double the radius of the circle BH. Now
in different circles, equal angles at their centres stand on
arches which have the same ratio as their circumferences
or their radii, therefore an angle at 0, the centre of the
fixed circle, standing on the arch DH, will be equal to
the angle BCH, that is, to the angle AOH (20, 3, E.);
hence a straight line drawn through O and A will pass
through the given point D; thus A will always be in the
diameter DOof, which is given by position, and by the mo¬
tion of the circle will describe that diameter.
Cor. 1. A diameter DOc? drawn through the moving
point A, in any one position, will be its Locus in every po¬
sition.
Cor. 2. The generating circle will have made two com¬
plete revolutions about its centre C when its diameter
has completed one revolution about the centre O.
Cor. 3. When the generating circle has made a com¬
plete revolution about O, every point in its circumference
will have described a diameter, passing twice through the
centre, and have returned to its first position.
Scholium. The refined notion of generating lines by
supposing a curve to roll along a straight line or curve, is
due to the moderns.
Galileo appears to have been the first who introduced
it into geometry, and in this way he indicated the cycloid,
the discussion of which by Mersenne, Descartes, Pascal,
and others, was the beginning of that series of discoveries
which has since gradually expanded into the modern geo¬
metry. The ancients, however, in some cases employed
motion in the formation of geometrical figures. Euclid
defined a sphere to be the solid figure described by the
revolution of a semicircle about its diameter, which re¬
mains unmoved; and Archimedes defined his spiral by the
uniform motion of a point along a straight line which at
the same time turns with an uniform angular motion about
one of its extremities. The preceding proposition, and the
following, may be established by the ordinary method of
geometrical reasoning; or instead of supposing one circle
to roll on another, we might suppose the diameter of the
generating circle to turn about the centre of the fixed
circle with a uniform angular motion, while at the same
time it turned uniformly about its own centre, so as to
make two complete revolutions in the time its diameter
makes one. It then might be easily shown, that the ex¬
tremity of any radius of the revolving circle would de¬
scribe a diameter of a fixed circle.
I lie property here demonstrated is elegant, and re¬
markable in having been applied in mechanics to the pro¬
duction of a reciprocating rectilinear motion by means of
a rotatory motion.
Prop. XXVI.
If a moveable or generating circle roll along the concave
circumference of a fixed circle in the same plane, and
the radius of the former be half that of the latter, as in
the preceding proposition ; any given point in the plane
of the generating circle, within or without it, will de¬
scribe an ellipse, of which conjugate diameters will be
given in position.
Let DHED'E' be the fixed circle, O its centre, and
AHBO the generating circle, which rolls along the con¬
cave circumference DHE : any given point P (the ge-
neiating point) in the plane of this circle, within or with¬
out it, will describe an ellipse given in position.
Take a given point A anywhere in the circumference
of the generating circle, and draw a straight line through
A, and the generating point P, meeting the circumference
in B: Thus A and B will be'given points in the circle,
and AP, PB lines given in magnitude. Draw OD, OE,
radii of the fixed circle, through the points A and B:
these will be lines given in position. (Preceding Prop.)
. ^et GCH be the revolving diameter of the generating
circle, and C its centre. When OH has made a complete
revolution about the centre O, the point A will have been
twice at O, and BP, one of the segments of AB, will have
coincided entirely with OM, OIVP, equal segments of the
diameter DD', on opposite sides of the centre; therefore,
if in DD there be taken OM and OM', each equal to the
line BP, M and M' will be given points in which the locus
of P cuts the line DD'.
For a like reason AP, the other segment of AB, will
have coincided with segments of the diameter EE' in two
opposite positions, viz. ON, ON'; therefore, if ON and
ON' be taken each equal AP, N and N' will be also given
points in which the locus of P intersects the line EE'.
By the motion of the generating circle, the point B,
either of the extremities of the revolving chord AB, will
in the course of a revolution have come to E, a point in
the circumference of the fixed circle. The angle OAB
will then be in a semicircle (of the generating circle), and
AB will have the position of a. perpendicular to OD. Let
this be the line Eh, which will be given in position, and
also in magnitude, because it is equal to the chord BA.
lake 1’Q, = AP, therefore QE — PB; then Q will be a
fifth given point in the locus of P. Join QO, and take
OQ' rr OQ : the line QQ', which is bisected at O, will be
given in position and magnitude. Draw BK perpendicu-
268 CONICS
Ellipse. lar to OD, and PI parallel to it, meeting BK in I. The
triangles BPI, BAK are similar (4, 6, E.), therefore
BI : IK = BP : PA = EQ : QF:
Because the lines BK, EF are similarly divided at Q and
I, the points O, I, Q, are in a straight line (Lemma to
Prop. 8, Part I.), so that I is in the line QOQ'.
Again, because EO : OB = QO : 01,
and that OB cannot exceed OE, therefore 01 cannot be
greater that OQ; and when AB is not perpendicular to
DD', the point I will always be between Q and Q': in no
case can it be beyond these limits.
The triangles OQE, OIB, are similar (4, 6, E.), there¬
fore their sides are proportionals, and
OQ2: OI2 = QE2 or BP2 : BI2,
and, by division, OQ,2 : QI • IQ' = BP2 : PI2 ;
hence, by alternation, and observing that BP = OM,
OQ2 : OM2 = QI • IQ': PI2 ;
therefore the point P is in an ellipse, of which QQ' and MM',
lines given in magnitude and position, are conjugate dia¬
meters (converse of 13).
Cor. 1. The ellipse described by the generating point P
depends entirely on the magnitude of the generating cir¬
cle AOB, and the position of the point in its plane, that
is, on OC the radius of the circle, and CP its distance
from the centre ; therefore, whatever be the position of
the revolving chord AB, if it always pass through the
same point P, the ellipse will be the same, and have the
same position on the plane of the fixed circle.
Cor. 2. 1 he position of DD', EE', the diameters of the
fixed circle, which are the loci of the extremities of the
revolving chord AB, and consequently the position of
MM' NN', the diameters of the ellipse, depend entirely
on the position of the chord in respect of the centre ;
they will be different for different chords, but for the
same chord they will have a fixed position. This is evi¬
dent from the last proposition.
Cor. 3. I he semidiameters OM, ON of the ellipse in
which (produced if necessary) the revolving chord termi¬
nates, are equal to the distances of the generating point
P from the ends of the chord, viz. OM to PB, and ON to
PA, and the angle which the diameters MM', NN' make
at the centre is half the angle which the chord subtends
at the centre of the generating circle ; for in the course
of a revolution of the generating circle about the centre
Q, the segments PB, PA of the chord will have been ap¬
plied upon the lines OM, ON, so as entirely to coincide
with them: the rest is evident (20, 3, E.).
Cor. 4. When the revolving chord AB comes into the
position EF, a perpendicular to MM', either of the diame¬
ters, which are the loci of its extremities, it then passes
through Q, a vertex of the diameter QOQ', which is the
conjugate of MM', and in this position it is a normal to
the ellipse : for a tangent to the ellipse at Q is parallel to
MM', and therefore perpendicular to EF.
Scholium. From this proposition it appeal’s that if the
ends of a straight line AB of a given length be carried
along two straight lines DOD', EOE', given in position ; any
point P in AB (or in AB produced), at given distances
from its extremities, will describe an ellipse, the centre of
which will be at the intersection of the lines given in po¬
sition. It is upon this principle that elliptic compasses and
lathes for turning ovals are constructed. An instrument
for describing ellipses will be described farther on.
Prop. XXVII.
Supposing the ellipse MPN, whose centre is O, to have
been described according to the hypothesis of Prop.
XXVI.; let AOB be the generating circle in any posi¬
tion on the plane of the fixed circle, and P the generat¬
ing point, which is also a point in the ellipse ; through
E C TIO N S.
P draw any chord APB ; join OA and OB ; take OM Ellipse*
and OM' in contrary directions, each equal to PB, and
ON and ON' in contrary directions, each equal to PA ;
then MM', NN' will be two diameters of the ellipse.
Since A and B are points in the circumference of the
generating circle, and O is the centre of the fixed circle,
the lines AO, BO will have the same position in the el¬
lipse for all positions of the chord AB, because they are
the loci of the points A, B ; therefore (3 Cor. 26) the semi¬
diameters OM, ON will be respectively equal to PB and
PA, the distances of P from the ends of the chord AB ;
hence if OM, ON be taken equal to PA and PB, the
points MN will be the vertices of diameters of the ellipse.
Cor. And if other chords ab, &c. be drawn through P,
and Oa, Ob, &c. be joined, and there be taken Om equal
to &P, and On equal to Pa, &c. then m, n, &c. will be
points in the ellipse ; and in this way any number of points
whatever may be found from a single position of the gene¬
rating circle.
Prop. XXVIII.
Supposing an ellipse to be described according to the hy¬
pothesis of Prop. XXVI. if the generating point be
within the generating circle (fig. 1), half the sum of its
semiaxes is equal to the radius of the circle; and half
their difference, to the distance of the generating point
from its centre. But if the point be without the circle
(fig. 2), then half the difference of the semiaxes is equal
to its radius, and half their sum to the distance of the
generating point from its centre.
Let AOB be the generating circle (fig. 1 and 2), and
P the generating point, at any point in the curve. It ap¬
pears from Prop. XXVI. Cor. 4, that a chord in the circle
passing through P and A, the intersection of the circle,
and MM', one of the axes, will also pass through B, the
point in which it meets the other axis NN’; and in this
C O N I C S E C T I O N S. 269
Hyperbola.case the chord will pass through C the centre (31, 3, E.),
because the axes form right angles at the centre of the
ellipse. Therefore when the point P is within the circle
AOB (fig. 1), the radius OC or AC is half the sum of
BP and AP, that is, of OM and ON, the semiaxes (27);
and CP, the distance of the generating point from the
centre, is half the difference of PA and PB, or of OM and
When the generating point P is without the circle AOB
(fig. 2), then the radius OC or AC is manifestly half the
difference of AP and BP; and CP, the distance of the
generating point from the centre, is half the sum of AP
and BP, that is, of OM and ON, the semiaxes.
Cor. 1. Hence it appears that the same ellipse maybe
described by two different generating circles (each rolling
on its own fixed circle), viz. by one whose diameter is the
sum of the semiaxes, and by another whose diameter is
their difference ; in the first way the generating point will
be within the circle, and in the second without it.
Cor. 2. Also it appears that the chord of the generating
circle, intercepted between the diameters of the ellipse that
pass through its extremities (and which passes through
the generating point), is equal to the sum of the semidia¬
meters when the generating point is within the circle, but
to their difference when the point is without the circle.
Scholium. The curves which may be generated by a
point in the plane of a moveable circle which rolls along the
circumference of a fixed circle, are called cycloids, also
epicycloids. They are of two kinds, one generated by a
circle rolling on the convex circumference, and another
by its rolling on the concave. Some writers confine the
name epicycloids to the first class, and call the second
hypocycloids. It appears from this proposition that an el¬
lipse is an hypocycloid. This property of the curve has
not been observed, as far as we know, by any writer on
the conic sections, although the extreme case, viz. that in Hyperbola,
which the ellipse, by the shortening of its lesser axis, de-
generates into a straight line of a given length (Prop.
25), is always mentioned by writers on cycloids.
The property in question has suggested an instrument
for generating an ellipse elegantly, by continued motion.
A and B are two wheels, the axes of which turn in holes
C, O, near the ends of the connecting bar D. One of the
wheels B must be just half the diameter of the other A,
which may be of any size, and a band EF goes round them,
outside; an arm CP is attached to the wheel B, and ad¬
mits of being lengthened or shortened by sliding along its
surface in a socket which may be anywhere on the wheel.
Suppose now that the wheel A is fixed or kept from turn¬
ing, and that the bar D is turned round the centre O, car¬
rying at its other extremity the wheel B; the action of
the band EF will then turn this wheel B round its centre
C, and while the bar makes one revolution round the cen¬
tre of the fixed wheel, the other wheel will make two re¬
volutions about its centre.
The use of the sliding arm CP is to give extension to
the surface of the wheel, so that P, any point in the arm,
may be regarded as a point in the plane of a circle turn¬
ing about a moveable centre C, while that centre revolves
about a fixed centre O. From this description it is easy to
see that C, the centre of the wheel B, maybe regarded as
the centre of a circle which rolls on the inside of a circle
whose centre is O; also that any point P in the plane
which is the extension of the surface of the wheel, is just
a point in the plane of the rolling circle; and since the
circle of which C is the centre makes two turns in going
round that of which O is the centre, the radius of the one
circle must be double that of the other; and hence it fol¬
lows from the proposition that the path of the point P in
space is an ellipse.
PART III.—OF THE HYPERBOLA.
Definitions.
I. If two points F,/ be given in a plane, and a point D
be conceived to move in such a manner that Df-—DF, the
difference of its distances from them, is always the same ;
the point D will describe upon the plane a line DAD1
called an Hyperbola. By assuming first one of the given
points F, and then the other/ as that to which the moving
point is nearest, the difference of the lines DF and T>f in
both cases being the same, there will be two hyperbolas
DAD', dad' described, opposite to each other, which are
therefore called Opposite Hyperbolas.
Cor. The lines DF, D/ may become greater than any
given line, therefore the hyperbolas extend to a greater
distance from the given points F,/ than any which can be
assigned.
II. The given points F,/ are called the Foci of the hy¬
perbola.
III. The point C, which bisects the straight line be¬
tween the foci, is called the Centre.
IV. The distance of either focus from the centre is call¬
ed the Eccentricity.
V. A straight line passing through the centre, and ter¬
minated by the opposite hyperbolas, is called a Transverse
Diameter. It is also sometimes called simply & Diameter.
VI. The extremities of a diameter are called its Vertices.
VII. The diameter which passes through the foci is call¬
ed the Transverse Axis.
270
CONIC SECTIONS.
Hyperbola. Cor. The vertices of the transverse axis lie between the
foci. Let A be either of the vertices, then, because any
side of a triangle is greater than the difference between
the other two sides, Fy” is greater than jf D—DF, which is
equal to fA—FA (Def. 1). Now this can only be true
when A is between F and/.
VIII. A straight line passing through the centre,
perpendicular to the transverse axis, and limited at B and
b by a circle described on one extremity of that axis, with
a radius equal to the distance of either focus from the
centre, is called the Conjugate Axis. It is also called the
Second Axis.
Cor. The conjugate axis is bisected in the centre. This
appears from 3, 3, E.
IX. Any straight line terminated both ways by the hy¬
perbola, and bisected by a transverse diameter produced,
is called an Ordinate to that diameter.
X. Each of the segments of a transverse diameter pro¬
duced, intercepted by its vertices and an ordinate, is
called an Absciss.
XI. A straight line which meets the hyperbola in one
point only, and which everywhere else falls without the
opposite hyperbolas, is said to touch the hyperbola in that
point, and is called a Tangent to the hyperbola.
Cor. 3. Ihe transverse axis is bisected in the centre. HyperhnlJ
Let C be the centre; then CF=C/(Def. 3), and FA=
/z, therefore CA=Ca. "
Prop. I.
If from any point in an hyperbola two straight lines be
drawn to the foci; their difference is equal to the trans¬
verse axis.
\ P
Let DA, da be opposite hyperbolas, of which F, / are
the foci and Aa the transverse axis; let D be any point
in the curve, and DF, E/lines drawn to the foci’
D/— DFz= Aa.
Because A and a are points in the hyperbola,
Af—AF=aF—af, (Def. 1),
therefore I/—2AF— Yf—^af;
hence 2&F=2af, and AFz= af,
and Af—AF — Af—af= Aa.
But D and A being points in the hyperbola,
D/—DF= A/—AF, therefore T)f—DF=Aa.
Cor. 1. The difference of two straight lines drawn from
a point without the opposite hyperbolas to the foci is less
than the transverse axis, and the difference of two straight
lines drawn from a point within either of them to the foci
is greater than the transverse axis.
Let Ff, PF be lines drawn from a point without the hy-
perbolas, that is, between the curve and its conjugate axis.
1 he line Pt must necessarily meet the curve; let D be the
point of intersection; 1/is less than PD + D/Y20, ], E.)
therefore P/_ PF is less than (PD + D/) _ PF, that is
less than D/_ DF, or Art. Again, let Q/J QF be lines
drawn from a point within either of the hyperbolas, Qf
must necessarily meet the curve ; let D be the point of in¬
tersection, join FD ; QFis less than QD + DF, and there-
tore Q/ QF is greater than Q/—(QD + DF), that is,
greater than D/—Dh or Aa.
Cor. 2. A point is without or within the hyperbolas,
according as the difference of two lines drawn from that
point to the foci is less or greater than the transverse axis.
Lemma I.
Let APB be a triangle, of which the side PA is great¬
er than the side PB; draw a straight line from P, the ver¬
tex, to O, the middle of the base AB, and straight lines
AQ, BQ, to any point in PO ; the line QA will be greater
than the line QB ; and the excess of PA above PB will
be greater than the excess of QA above QB.
\P
Draw AC perpendicular to PO, and BD parallel to it,
meeting AC in D, and join QD, PD, this last line meet¬
ing QB in E.
The triangles AOP, BOP have AO = BO, PO com¬
mon to both, and PA greater than PB, therefore the angle
AOQ is greater than the angle BOQ (25, 1, E.); and
hence again, in the triangles AOQ, BOQ, the line AQ
will be greater than BQ (24, 1, E.).
And because CO is parallel to DB, and AO = OB,
therefore AC = CD (2, 6, E.). The triangles AGP, DCP
have thus AC = DC, CP common, and the angle ACP
equal to DCP, therefore PA rr PD ; and in the same way
it appears that QA QD.
And since PA is greater than PB, and QA than QB,
therefore PD is greater than PB, and QD than QB,
Again, since DE + EQ>DQ,
therefore DE + EQ—QB>DQ—QB;
that is, DE—EB>AQ—QB ;
also, since PB<+E + EB,
therefore DP—PB>DP—PE—EB ;
that is, AP—PB>DE—EB.
Now it was shown that DE—EB> AQ—QB;
much more then is AP—PB>AQ—QB.
Prop. II.
Every transverse diameter of an hyperbola is bisected in
the centre.
Let Pp be a transverse diameter; it is bisected in C;
for if CP and Cp be unequal, take CQ equal to CP; from
the points P, p, Q, draw straight lines to F and f the foci.
The triangles PCF, QCf have PC equal to QC and CF
CONIC SECTIONS,
271
yperbola. equal to Cf (Def. 3), and the angles at C equal, there-
fore they are in every way equal, and PF is equal to Qf.
In the same way, it appears that the triangles PC/, QCF
are equal, and that Pf is equal to QF ; therefore I/—PF
= QF—Of; but because P and jo are points in the hyper¬
bola I/—PF—joF —pf, therefore pV—pf— QF—Qf. But
by the preceding LemmapF —jt/>QF—Q/; now this is
impossible ; therefore CP and Cp are not unequal, that is,
they are equal.
Cor. 1. Every transverse diameter meets the hyperbola
in two points only.
Cor. 2. Every transverse diameter divides the opposite
hyperbolas into two parts which are equal and similar,
the like parts being at opposite parts of the diameter.
Again, since CD<DH + CH, Hyperbola.
therefore AD—CD>AD—DH—CH ; '  —'
that is, AD—CD>AH—CH.
But it was shown that AH—CH/>-AB—BC ;
much more then is AD—DC>AB—BC.
Next let the perpendicular fall within the triangle
ABC'; take EC=EC', and join BC, DC: then BCzrBC',
and DC=DC', therefore DAt'DC',
and BA—BC = BA—BC',
also DA—DC=DA—DC';
bcrt DA—DC 7BA—BC,
therefore DA—DC'7 BA—BC'.
Prop. IV. Problem.
Prop. III.
The square of half the conjugate axis of an hyperbola is
equal to the rectangle contained by the straight lines
between either focus and the extremities of the trans¬
verse axis.
Draw a straight line from A, either of the extremities
of the transverse axis, to B, either extremity of the conju¬
gate axis. Then, BC2 + CA2 = BA2 (47, 1, E.) = CF
(Def. 7). But because Aa is bisected at C and produced
to F,
CF2 = AF • Fa + CA2 (6, 2, E.),
therefore BC2 + CA2 = AF • Fa + CA2 ;
and BC2 = AF • Fa.
Lemma II.
Let ABC be a triangle, of which the side BA is greater
than the side BC ; draw BE perpendicular to the side AC,
and straight lines AD, CD to any point in BE; the line
DA will be greater than the line DC ; and the excess of
DA above DC will be greater than the excess of BA
above BC.
First, let the perpendicular BE fall without the triangle
ABC, and let AD meet BC in H.
The angle DC A is greater than BCA; but BCA being
an obtuse angle, is greater than BAG, which is acute;
and again BAG is greater than DAC ; much more then is
DCA greater than DAC ; therefore DA is greater than
DC (19, 1, E.).
And since AH + HB>AB,
therefore AH + HB—BC>AB—BC ;
that is, AH—HC>AB—BC.
To find any number of points in an hyperbola, having
given the transverse axis and foci.
_ sd.
Let F,/be the foci, Aa the transverse axis, and C the
centre. Suppose the problem resolved, and that D is a
point in the hyperbola. Join DF, D/ Take AH in the
axis equal to DF; then all will be equal to D/YDef. 1),
and HA + Ha=DF+D/;
but HA + Haz=HC + Ca + Ha=2CH,
therefore DF-f-D/=:2CH.
Now DF+D/>F/
therefore 2CH>I/and CH>C/
Thus it appears that the point H cannot be between
the foci F,/ and that it may be anywhere in the line 1/
produced both ways.
Construction.—Take H, any point in the axis pro¬
duced both ways, except between F and / the foci, and
from F and / as centres, with the distances HA, Ha,
describe circles which will cut each other in two points
D,(f, one on each side of the axis. These are points in
the hyperbola.
Join DF, D/ also c?F, df. Because DF—= HA
■—IL* — Aa, therefore D is a point in the hyperbola ; and in
like manner it appears that 6? is a point in the hyperbola.
In this way may any number of points in the hyperbola
be found.
Cor. 1. Any perpendicular to the transverse axis which
meets it produced either way, will cut the curve in two
points, and in no more. For if the perpendicular Qd could
meet the curve in two points D, D', on the same side of
the axis, then DF, D/, also D'F, D/ being drawn to the
foci, DF—D/would be equal to D'F— D/ which is im¬
possible (Lemma 2).
Cor. 2. Every chord T)d in an hyperbola, perpendicular
to the transverse axis, is bisected by that axis, and there¬
fore is an ordinate to it.
Cor. 3. Of all the straight lines which can be drawn
from either focus to either of the opposite hyperbolas, the
shortest is that which passes through the centre (being
produced if necessary) ; and only two equal straight lines
can be drawn from either focus to one of the opposite hy¬
perbolas, viz. one line on each side of the centre.
Scholium. From this proposition it appears that the
opposite hyperbolas recede continually from the foci and
from the axis, and that they are entirely separated from
272
CONIC SECTIONS.
Hyperbola, each other, their nearest approach being at the vertices
of the transverse axis. Also, that if the space Dad, bound¬
ed by either, were resolved into two by cutting it along
the axis CH, the portions on each side of the axis would
entirely coincide if one were turned over on the other.
' Now it was shown that the opposite hyperbolas might
be applied one upon the other, viz. the curve Dad on
flAA (2 Cor. 2), therefore the transverse axis divides the
opposite hyperbolas into four spaces, indefinite in extent,
but which are exactly alike, and may be placed one on
another, so as entirely to coincide.
Prop. V.
But FD is greater than/D (Def. 1), therefore FE is Hyperbola,
greater than/E, and hence E is between C and the ver-
tex of the hyperbola to which DE is a tangent.
Scholium. From the property of the hyperbola which
forms this proposition, the points F and/are called/oci;
for rays of light proceeding from one focus, and falling
upon a polished surface whose figure is that formed by
the revolution of the curve about the transverse axis, are
reflected in lines passing through the other focus.
Prop. VI.
The tangents at the vertices of any transverse diameter
of an hyperbola are parallel.
The straight line which bisects the angle contained by
two straight lines drawn from any point in the hyper¬
bola to the foci is a tangent to the curve at that point.
Let D be the point in the curve, let DF, F/be straight
lines drawn to the foci; the straight line DE which bisects
the angle/DF, is a tangent to the curve.
Take FI any other point in DE,make DG = Df and
join FI/ F1F, HG,/G; let /G meet DE in L. Because
Df = DG, and DL is common to the triangles E/L, DGL,
and the angles/DL, GDL are equal, these triangles are
equal, and/L = LG, and hence/H = HG (4, 1, E.) ; and
FH—/FI =: FFI — FIG: but since FH is less than FG
+ GH, FH — HG is less than FG, that is, less than
FD—fD or Aa, therefore FH—/H is less than Aa ;
hence the point H is without the hyperbola (2 Cor. 1),
and consequently DHL is a tangent to the curve at D
(Def. 11).
Cor. I. There cannot be more than one tangent to the
hyperbola at the same point. For D is such a point in
the line DE, that the difference of the lines DF, Df, the
distances of that point from the foci, is evidently greater
than the difference of FH, /H, the distances of H, any
other point in that line; and if another line KD be drawn
through D, there is in like manner a point K in that line,
which will be different from D, such that the difference
of FK, /K is greater than the difference of the distances
of any other point in KD, and therefore greater than
FD —fD; therefore the point K will he within the hy¬
perbola (2 Cor. 1), and the line KD will cut the curve.
Cor. 2. A perpendicular to the transverse axis at either
of its extremities is a tangent to the curve. The demon¬
stration is the same as for the proposition, if it be consi¬
dered that when D falls at either extremity of the axis,
the point L falls also at the extremity of the axis, and
thus the tangent DE, which is always perpendicular to
/L, is perpendicular to the axis.
Cor. 3. Every tangent to either of the opposite hyper¬
bolas passes between that hyperbola and the centre. Let
the tangent DL meet the axis in E. Because DE bisects
the angle FD/,
FD :/D :: FE :/E (3, 6, E.).
Let P/> be a diameter, HP, hp tangents at its vertices;
draw straight lines from P and to F and/ the foci. The
triangles FCP, fCp, having FC = /C, CP = Cp (2), and
the angles at C equal, are in all respects equal; and be¬
cause the angle FPC is equal to Cpf, FT is parallel to
fp (27, 1, E.), therefore Yf is equal and parallel to joF
(33, 1, E.): thus YYfp is a parallelogram of which the
opposite angles P and p are equal (34, 1, E.). Now the
angles FPH, fph are the halves of these angles (4),
therefore the angles YYY[,fph, and hence CPH, Cph, are
also equal, and consequently HP is parallel to hp.
Cor. 1. If tangents be drawn to an hyperbola at the
vertices of a transverse diameter, straight lines drawn from
either focus to the points of contact make equal angles
with these tangents; for the angle Fph is equal to FPH.
Cor. 2. The transverse axis is the only diameter which
is perpendicular to tangents at its vertices. For let Yp
be any other diameter. The angle CPH is less than
FPH, that is, less than the half of FYf, therefore CPH
is less than a right angle.
Prop. VII.
If a straight line be drawn from either focus of an hyper¬
bola to the intersection of two tangents to the curve, it
will make equal angles with straight lines drawn from
the same focus to the points of contact.
CONIC SECTIONS.
Hyperbola, tangents to an hyperbola at P and p,
intersect each other at H; draw PF, pF, HF, to F,
either of the foci; the line HF makes equal angles with
FP, Fp.
Draw Yf pf, Ylf, to f the other focus, and in FP, Yp
take PK = P^and pk — pf; join HK, HA.
The triangles HPK, HP/1 have PK — Yf PH common
to both, and the angles KPH,/PH equal (5); there¬
fore they are in every way equal, and have HK = H/.
In the same way it may be shown, that the triangles
Upk, Yipf are in every way equal, and therefore that
HA = H/
The triangles HFK, HFA have FIK = HA (for each is
equal to H/), HF common to both, and FK = FA, be¬
cause each is equal to PF—P/ or pY—pf that is, to the
transverse axis; therefore they are in all respects equal;
and the angle HFK is equal to the angle HFA ; wherefore
HF makes equal angles with FP and Yp.
Cor. Perpendiculars drawn from the intersection of
two tangents to straight lines drawn from either focus
through the points of contact are equal. Let HI, YU be
perpendiculars drawn from H, the intersection of the
tangents PH, pH on the lines FP, Yp. The triangles
HFI, HF* are in all respects equal (26, 1, E.): therefore
HI=H*. V '
Prop. VIII.
Straight lines drawn from the intersection of two tangents
to the foci, make equal angles with the tangents.
Let F, / be the foci of an hyperbola, and let straight
lines HP, Hp, which intersect each other at H, touch the
hyperbola at P and p; also let HF, H/be lines drawn to
the foci; and let FH be produced to any distance O, the
angles PHO, pHf are equal.
The same construction being made as in Prop. 7, be¬
cause the angles FHK, FHA are equal, the angles KHO
AHO are equal.
= KH/+/HO,
= 2PH/ + /HO,
= 2PHO—/HO,
“ = AH/—/HO,
v = 2pHf—/HO
therefore 2PHO = 2pH/ and PHO = pH/
273
Hyperbola.
Now KHO
and AHO
Prop. IX.
If two tangents to an hyperbola be at the extremities of
a chord, and a third tangent be parallel to the chord,
the part of this tangent intercepted by the other two is
bisected at the point of contact.
VOL. VII.
Let HD, He? be tangents at the extremities of the chord
Dr?; and let KA, a tangent parallel to Dr?, meet the other
two tangents in K and A. The intercepted segment KA is
bisected at P, the point of contact.
From the points of contact D, P, d, draw lines to F,
either of the foci; and from H, K, A, the intersections
of the tangents, draw perpendiculars to the lines drawn
from the points of contact to the foci, viz. HI, H* perpen¬
dicular to DF, r?F, and KM, KN perpendicular to FD,
FP, and Am, Aw perpendicular to Fr?, FP.
The triangles DHI, DKM are manifestly equiangular,
also the triangles e?H*', e?Am;
therefore DH : DK = HI: KM (4, 6, E.),
and r?H : r?A = H* : Am.
But because Dr? is parallel to KA, a side of the triangle
HKA, DH : DK = <?H : <?A (2,6, E.),
therefore HI : KM = He, Am.
Now HI = H* (Cor. 7), therefore KM = Am; but KM
= KN, and Am = Aw (Cor. 7), therefore KN = Aw;
and since from the similar triangles KPN, APw, KN : Aw
= KP : AP, therefore KP is equal to AP.
Lemma III.
Let KL? be a triangle, having its base L? bisected at
p, and let HA, any straight line parallel to the base, and
terminated by the sides produced, be bisected at P, then
P, p, the points of bisection, and K, the vertex of the tri¬
angle, are in the same straight line, and that line bisects
Dc? any other line parallel to the base.
Join KP, Kp; the triangles KHA, KL? being similar,
and HA, L? similarly divided at P, p,
KH : KL = (HA : L?) HP : Lp.
Now the angles at H and L are equal, therefore the triangles
KHP, YYLp are similar, and the angle PKH is equal to
pKL; to both add the angle HKjo, and the angles PKH,
HK/? are equal to pKL, HYLp, that is, to two right angles;
therefore KP, Kp lie in the same straight line (14, 1, E.)
Next let D*? meet KP in E, then
HP : DE ( = PK : EK) = PA : E<?, and DE = Yd.
Prop. X.
Any chord not passing through the centre, but parallel to
a tangent, is bisected by the diameter which passes
2 m
CONIC SECTIONS.
through the point of contact; or it is an ordinate to
that diameter.
The chord DEc?, which is parallel to K/e, a tangent at
P, is bisected at E by the diameter PC/>.
Draw Lp, a tangent at ^7, the other end of the diameter,
and DH, cM tangents at D and d, the extremities of the
chord meeting the other tangents in K, k and L, l. Then
KP/i and Lpl are bisected at P and p (9), therefore the
diameter Pjo, when produced, will pass through H, and
bisect Y)d, which is parallel to K/i or Li in E. (Lemma.)
Cor. 1. Straight lines which touch an hyperbola in the
extremities of an ordinate to any diameter, intersect each
other in that diameter.
Cor. 2. Every ordinate to a diameter is parallel to a
tangent at its vertex; for if not, let a tangent be drawn
parallel to the ordinate ; then the diameter drawn through
the point of contact would bisect the ordinate, and thus
the same ordinate would be bisected in two different
points, which is absurd.
Cor. 3. All the ordinates to the same diameter are pa¬
rallel to each other.
Cor. 4. A straight line that bisects two parallel chords,
and terminates in the curve, is a diameter.
Cor. 5. The ordinates to either axis are perpendicular
to that axis, and no other diameter is perpendicular to its
ordinates.
Prop. XL
If a tangent to an hyperbola meet a transverse diameter,
and from the point of contact an ordinate be drawn to
that diameter, the semidiameter will be a mean propor¬
tional between the segments of the diameter intercept¬
ed between the centre and the ordinate, and between
the centre and the tangent.
(See Figure to Prop. X.)
Let DH, a tangent to the hyperbola at D, meet a trans¬
verse diameter Vp produced in H, and let DEJ be an or¬
dinate to that diameter: CE : CP = CP : CH.
Through P and p, the vertices of the diameter, draw
the tangents PK, yiL, meeting DH in K and L ; draw PE,
•PF t0 eitier of the foci, and draw KM and KN perpendi-
cu ar to ED and FP, and also LO and LI perpendicular to
ED and Fjo. r
The triangles PKN, plA are equiangular, for the angles
at N and I are right angles, and the angles NPK, I»L
are equal (1 Cor. 6); therefore
PK : pL = KN : LI (4, 6, E.) = KM : LO : (Cor. 7).
But the triangles KDM, LDO being manifestly equi¬
angular, KM : LO = KD : LD; J ^
therefore PK : pL = KD : LD."
But because of the parallel lines PK, ED, pL, the triangles Hyperbola.
HPK, HpL are equiangular, and the lines HL, Hp are
similarly divided in K, D, and in P, E (10, 6, E.); hence
PK :pL = HP : Hp, and KD : LD = PE : »E ;
therefore HP : YLp = PE : pE.
1 ake CG — CE, and then PE — »G, and, by composition,
HP : Vp — PE : EG;
and taking the halves of the consequents,
HP : PC = PE : EC,
and, by division, HC : PC = PC : EC.
Cor. 1. The rectangle PE • Eo is equal to the rect¬
angle HE - EC.
For PC2 = HC • CE (17,6, E.) = EC2 — HE • EC (1,2,E.),
also PC2 = EC3 — PE * Ep (6, 2, E.) ;
therefore HE • EC = PE • Ejo.
Cor. 2. The rectangle PH • H» is equal to the rect¬
angle HE • HC.
For HC2 = CP2 — PH • Ho (6, 2, E.),
and HC2 = EC • HC — EH • HC (1, 2, E.) =
CP2 — EH • HC (by the Prop.) ;
therefore PH • Yip = EH • HC.
Prop. XII.1
In Aa, the transverse axis of an hyperbola, let there be
taken on each side of the centre straight lines CK, C£,
each a fourth proportional to CF the eccentricity, and
CA, CB, half the transverse and conjugate axes: if
then from P, a vertex of any diameter, there be drawn
PF1 perpendicular to Aa; the square of the semidia¬
meter PC, will have to the rectangle contained by the
segments KH, /eH the constant ratio of the square of
CF to the square of CA.
\P L
Draw PL perpendicular to the conjugate axis.
Because CB2 : CA2 = CB2 + CL2: PL2 (1 Cor. 22),
by composition, CB2 + CA2 : CA2 = CB2 + CL2 4-
PL2: PL2, T
therefore (47, 1, E. and Def. 8) CP : C A2 = CB2 4- PC2
PL2 or CH2;
but, by hypothesis, CF2 : CA2 = CB2 : CK2,
therefore CB2 : CK2 =r CB2 + PC2 : CH2;
and hence (19, 5, E.) PC2 : CH2 —CK2 = CB2 • CK2
and (6, 2, E.) PC2: KH • H£ = CP : CA2.
Cor. 1. Hence the squares of any semidiameters PC,
QC are to one another as the rectangles KH • H/?, KI • Ik
contained by the segments of the line Kk between its ex¬
tremities, and perpendiculars from the vertices of the dia¬
meters.
Cor. 2. The transverse axis is the least of all the dia¬
meters, and a diameter which is nearer to the transverse
axis is less than one more remote, and a semidiameter
may be found greater than any given line.
By hypothesis CF or AB : CA = CB : CK : Now AB is
greater than CB (19, 1, E.), therefore CA is greater than
CK, and the points K, k are between A,a, the vertices of
the transverse axis. Suppose now a semidiameter PC to
1 This proposition was misplaced by accident. It ought to have followed Proposition XXII.
Definition.
CONIC SECTIONS.
Hyperbola.turn about C, and that in every position PH is perpendi-
cular to O produced both ways; the rectangle KH •
and the square of PC, to which the rectangle has a con¬
stant ratio, will manifestly be least when PC coincides
with AC, and both will increase as H recedes from C ;
and, as the rectangle may exceed any given space, the
semidiameter may become greater than any given line.
Cor. 3. Diameters which make equal angles with the
transverse axis on opposite sides of it are equal; and only
two equal diameters can be drawn, one on each side of the
transverse axis.
Prop. XIII.
If a tangent to an hyperbola meet the conjugate axis, and
from the point of contact a perpendicular be drawn to
that axis, the semiaxis will be a mean proportional be¬
tween the segments of the axis intercepted between the
centre and the perpendicular, and between the centre
and the tangent.
Hyperbola.
XII. If through A, one of the vertices of the transverse
axis, a straight line HA/i be drawn, equal and parallel to
B6 the conjugate axis, and bisected at A by the trans¬
verse axis; the straight lines CHM, Chm drawn through
the centre, and the extremities of that parallel, are called
Asymptotes.
Cor. 1. The asymptotes of two opposite hyperbolas are
common to both. Through a, the other extremity of the
axis, draw H'a/f, parallel to B6, and meeting the asymp¬
totes of the hyperbola DAD' in H' and hr. Because aC is
equal to AC, «H' is equal to Ah, and ah' to AH.
Cor. 2. The asymptotes are diagonals of a rectangle
formed by drawing perpendiculars to the axes at their
vertices; for the lines AH, CB, ail', being equal and pa¬
rallel, the points H, B, H' are in a straight line parallel to
Aa ; the same is true of the points h, h, h!.
Let DH, a tangent to the hyperbola at D, meet the con¬
jugate axis B6 in H, and let DG be perpendicular to that
axis, then CG : CB—CB : CH.
Let DH meet the transverse axis in K ; draw DE per¬
pendicular to that axis, draw DF, D f to the foci, and de¬
scribe a circle about the triangle D/F; the conjugate
axis will evidently pass through the centre of the circle;
and because the angle FDy is bisected by the tangent
DK, the line DK will pass through H the intersection of the
conjugate axis with the circumference ; therefore the circle
passes through H. Draw DL to the other extremity of
the diameter. The triangles LGD, KCH are similar, for
each is similar to the right-angled triangle LDH, therefore
LG : GD (or CE) = CK : CH;
hence LG • CH rr CE • CK = CA2 (11.)
Now LC • CH rr CF2 (35, 3, E.),
therefore LC * CH — LG • CH — CF2—CA2 ;
that is, CG • CH = CB2 (Def. 8),
wherefore CG : CB = CB : CH.
Prop. XIV.
The asymptotes do not meet the hyperbola; and if from any
point in the curve a straight line be drawn parallel to the
conj ugate axis, and terminated by the asymptotes, the rect¬
angle contained by its segments between that point and the
asymptotes is equal to the square ofhalfthe conjugate axis.
Through D, any point in the hyperbola, draw a straight
line parallel to the conjugate axis, meeting the transverse
axis in E, and the asymptotes in M and m ; the points M
and m shall be without the hyperbola, and the rectangle
MD • equal to the square of BC.
Draw DG perpendicular to B6 the conjugate axis; let
a tangent to the curve at D meet the transverse axis in
K, and the conjugate axis in L, and let a perpendicular at
the vertex A meet the asymptote in H. Because DK is
a tangent, and DE an ordinate to the axis, C A is a mean
proportional between CK and CE (11); and therefore
CK : CE=CA2 : CE2 (2 Cor. 20, 6, E.).
But CK : CEzrLC : LG,
and CA2 : CE2 :: AH2 : EM2,
therefore LC : LG :: AH2 : EM2.
Again, CB being a mean proportional between CL and
CG (13),
LC : CG=CB2 : CG2,
and therefore, by composition,
LC : LG = CB2 : CB2 + CG2, or CB2-fED2;
wherefore AH2 : EM2 = CB2 : CB2+ED2.
Now AH2 = CB2 (Def. 12),
therefore EM2=CB2-|-ED2,
consequently EM2 is greater than ED2, and EM greater
than ED, therefore M is without the hyperbola. In like
manner it appears that m is without the hyperbola, there¬
fore every point in both the asymptotes is without the by-
276
CONIC SECTIONS.
Hyperbola, perbola. Again, the straight line M/m, terminated by the
asymptotes, being manifestly bisected by the axis at E,
ME2=MD-D/m + DE2;
but it has been shown that
ME2=BC2 + DE2,
therefore MD • D/m—BC2.
Cor, 1. Hence, if in a straight line Mm, terminated by
the asymptotes, and parallel to the conjugate axis, there
be taken a point D such that the rectangle MD * D/m is
equal to the square of that axis, the point D is in the hy¬
perbola.
Cor. 2. If straight lines MDm/, NRm, be drawn through
D and R, any points in the hyperbola, or opposite hyper¬
bolas, parallel to the conjugate axis, and meeting the
asymptotes in M, m, and N, n, the rectangles MD • D/m,
NR * Rm are equal.
Prop. XV.
The hyperbola and its asymptote, when produced, continu¬
ally approach to each other, and the distance between
them becomes less than any given line.
Take two points E and O in the transverse axis produ¬
ced, and through these points draw straight lines parallel
to the conjugate axis, meeting the hyperbola in D, R, and
the asymptotes in M, m and N, n.
Because NO2 > ME2
and NR • Rm — MD • Dm (2 Cor. 14),
therefore NO2—NR • Rm > ME2—MD • Dm ;
that is, RO2 > DE2,
and RO > DE.
Now On > Em,
therefore Rm )> Dm;
and since Rm : Dm = DM : RN (2 Cor. 14),
DM > RN,
therefore the point R is nearer to the asymptote than D,
that is, the hyperbola when produced approaches to the
asymptote.
Let S be any line less than half the conjugate axis;
then, because Dm, a straight line drawn from a point in
the hyperbola, parallel to the conjugate axis, and termi¬
nated by the asymptote on the other side of the trans¬
verse axis, may evidently be of any magnitude greater
than Ah, which is equal to half the conjugate axis, Dm
may be a third proportional to S and BC; and since Dm
is also a third proportional to DM (the segment between
D and the other asymptote) and BC, DM may be equal
to S; but the distance of D from the asymptote is less
than DM, therefore that distance may become less than
S, and consequently less than any given line.
. Cor. Every straight line passing through the centre
within the angles contained by the asymptotes through
which the transverse axis passes, meets the hyperbola,
and therefore is a transverse diameter; and every straight Hyperbola,
line passing through the centre within the adjacent angles
falls entirely without the hyperbola.
Scholium. The name asymptotes (non concurrentes)
has been given to the lines CH, Oh, because of the pro¬
perty they have of continually approaching to the hyper¬
bola without meeting it, as has been proved in this pro¬
position.
Prop. XVI.
If from two points in an hyperbola, or opposite hyperbolas,
two parallel straight lines be drawn to meet the asymp¬
totes, the rectangles contained by their segments be¬
tween the points and the asymptotes are equal.
. Let D and G be two points in the hyperbola, or oppo¬
site hyperbolas; let parallel lines EDe, HGA be drawn to
meet the asymptotes in E, e, and H, h: the rectangles
ED • De, HG * Oh are equal.
Through D and G draw straight lines parallel to the
conjugate axis, meeting the asymptotes in the points L, l,
and M, m. Ihe triangles HGM, EDL are similar, as also
the triangles hOm, eDl,
therefore DL : DE = GM : GH,
and D/ : De — Gm : GA ;
hence, taking the rectangles of the corresponding terms of
the proportions,
LD • D/: ED • De = MG • Gm : HG • Oh;
but LD • Dl — MG • Gm (2 Cor. 14),
therefore ED • De = HG • Gh.
Cor. 1. If a straight line be drawn through D, d, two
points in the same or opposite hyperbolas, the segments
DE, de between those points and the asymptotes are equal.
For in the same manner that the rectangles ED • De,
HG • G^ have been proved to be equal, it may be shown
that the rectangles Eg? • de, HG • Gh are equal, therefore
ED • De == Eg? • de. Let Ee be bisected in O, then ED •
De — EO2—OD2, and Eg? • de — EO2—Og?2, therefore
EO2 — OD2 - EO2 — Og?2 ; hence OD = Od, and ED
— ed.
Definitions.
Hyperbola.
Hyperbola. Cor. 2. When the points D and d are in the same hy-
perbola, by supposing them to approach till they coincide
at P, the line Ee will thus become a tangent to the curve
at P. Therefore any tangent KP/e, which is terminated
by the asymptotes, is bisected at P, the point of contact.
Cor. 3. And if any straight line KP/e, limited by the
asymptotes, be bisected at P, a point in the curve, that line
is a tangent at P. For it is evident that only one line can
be drawn through P, which shall be limited by the asymp¬
totes, and bisected at P.
Cor. 4. If a straight line be drawn through D, any
point in the hyperbola, parallel to a tangent KP£, and
terminated by the asymptotes at E and e, the rectangle
ED • De is equal to the square of PK, the segment of the
tangent between the point of contact and either asymp¬
tote. The demonstration is the same as in the propo¬
sition.
Cor. 5. If from any point Din an hyperbola a straight
line be drawn parallel to Pjo, any diameter, meeting the
asymptotes in E and e, the rectangle ED • De is equal to
the square of half that diameter. The demonstration is
the same as in the proposition.
Prop. XVII.
If two straight lines be drawn from any point in an hyper¬
bola to the asymptotes, and from any other point in the
same or opposite hyperbolas two other lines parallel to
the former be drawn to meet the same asymptotes;
the rectangle contained by the first two lines will be
equal to the rectangle contained by the other two lines.
From D, any point in the hyperbola, draw DH and DK
to the asymptotes, and from any other point d draw dh and
dk parallel to DH and DK. The rectangles HD * DK,
hd • dk are equal.
Join D, d, cutting the asymptotes in E, e. From si¬
milar triangles
ED : DH = Ed : dh,
and eD : DK — ed : dk ;
therefore, taking the rectangles of corresponding terms,
ED • De : HD • DK — Y,d - de \ hd ' dk;
but ED ■ De = Ed • de (l Cor. 16),
therefore HD • DK = hd • dk.
Cor. 1. If the lines D'K', DTP, dk!, dh!, be parallel to
the asymptotes, and thus form the parallelograms D'K'CH',
dh C/f, these are equal to one another (16, and 14, 6, E.).
And if D'C, d'C be joined, the halves of the parallelograms,
or the triangles D'K'C, d'/fC are also equal.
Cor. 2. If from D', d, any two points in an hyperbola,
straight lines D'K', d'k' be drawn parallel to one asymp¬
tote, meeting the other in K'and k', these lines are to each
other reciprocally as their distances from the centre, or
D'K': dk':: CP : CK'. This appears from last corollary,
and 14, 6, E.
XIII. If Act be the transverse axis and the conjugate
axis of two opposite hyperbolas DAD, dad, and if be
the transverse axis and Aa the conjugate axis of other
two opposite hyperbolas EBE, ebe, these hyperbolas are
said to be conjugate to the former. When all the four hy¬
perbolas are mentioned they are called conjugate hyperbolas.
Cor. The asymptotes of the hyperbolas DAD, dad are
also the asymptotes of the hyperbolas EBE, ebe. This is
evident from Cor. 2 to Definition 12.
XIV. Any diameter of the conjugate hyperbolas is call¬
ed a second diameter of the other hyperbolas.
Cor. Every straight line passing through the centre,
within the angle through which the conjugate or second
axis passes, is a second diameter of the hyperbola.
XV. Any straight line not passing through the centre,
but terminated both ways by the opposite hyperbolas, and
bisected by a second diameter, is called an ordinate to that
diameter.
Prop. XVIII.
Any straight line not passing through the centre, but ter¬
minated by the opposite hyperbolas, and parallel to a
tangent to either of the conjugate hyperbolas, is bisect¬
ed by the second diameter that passes through the point
of contact, or is an ordinate to that diameter.
The straight line De? terminated by the opposite hyper¬
bolas, and parallel to the tangent KQ^, is bisected at E
by Q^, the diameter that passes through the point of con¬
tact.
Let De? meet the asymptotes in G and g, and let the
tangent meet them in K and k. The straight lines Gg,
K/e are evidently similarly divided at E and Q, and since
KQ — Qk (2 Cor. 16), therefore GE = Eg; nowDG =
gd (1 Cor. 16), therefore DE = Ee?.
Cor. 1. Every ordinate to a second diameter is parallel
to a tangent at its vertex. The demonstration is the same
as in Cor. 2, Prop. 10.
Cor. 2. All the ordinates to the same second diameter
are parallel to each other.
Cor. 3. A straight line that bisects two parallel straight
lines which terminate in the opposite hyperbolas is a se¬
cond diameter.
278
CONIC SECTIONS.
Hyperbola.
'    
Cor. 4. The ordinates to the conjugate or second axis
are perpendicular to it, and no other second diameter is
perpendicular to its ordinates.
Cor. 5. The opposite hyperbolas are similar to one an¬
other, and like portions of them are in all respects equal.
Prop. XIX.
If a transverse diameter of an hyperbola be parallel to the
ordinates to a second diameter; the latter shall be pa¬
rallel to the ordinates to the former.
Let Vp, a transverse diameter of an hyperbola, be paral¬
lel to DGd', any ordinate to the second diameter Qq ; the
second diameter Qq shall be parallel to the ordinates to
the diameter Pjo.
Draw the diameter d'Cd through one extremity of the
ordinate d'T), and join c?andD, the other extremity, meet¬
ing Fp in E. Because ddr is bisected at C, and CE is pa¬
rallel to c?D, the line Bd is bisected at E, therefore Bd
is an ordinate to the diameter Pp. And because Bd' and
dd' are bisected at G and C, the diameter is parallel
to Bd (2, 6, E.); therefore is parallel to any ordinate
to the diameter Pp.
„ Definitions.
XVI. Two diameters are said to be conjugate to one an¬
other when each is parallel to the ordinates to the other
diameter.
Cor. Diameters which are conjugate to one another are
parallel to tangents at the vertices of each other.
# XVII. A third proportional to any diameter and its con¬
jugate is called the Parameter, also the Latus rectum of
that diameter.
Prop. XX.
The tangent at the vertex of any transverse diameter of
an hyperbola, which is terminated by the asymptotes,
is equal to the diameter that is conjugate to that dia¬
meter.
any transverse diameter of an hyperbola,
HP.« a tangent at its vertex, meeting tbe asymptotes in H
and h, and the diameter which is conjugate to Pp ;
the tangent HA is equal to the diameter
Through D, any point in the hyperbola, draw a straight Hyperbola,
line parallel to the tangent and diameter, cutting either
of the conjugate hyperbolas in d, and the asymptotes in
I and i, and through D and d draw lines parallel to BA,
the conjugate axis, meeting the asymptotes in the points
K, h, and L, /. The triangles DIK, dYL, are similar, as
also iBk, idl, therefore
KD : DI : : LJ: dl,
and AD : Di :: Id : di;
therefore, taking the rectangles of the corresponding
terms,
KD • DA :IB % Bi : :Bd' dl: Id- di.
But KD • DA= BC2 (14), and BC2=Lrf • dl (5 Cor. 16),
therefore ID • D* zr Id • di.
Now ID • Bi r= HP2 (4 Cor. 16),
and Id' di =: QC2 (5 Cor. 16);
therefore HP2= QC2, and HP=QC,
and consequently HA=Q<p
Cor. 1. If another tangent be drawn to the curve at p,
meeting the asymptotes in H' and A', the straight lines
which join the points H, H', also A, A', are tangents to the
conjugate hyperbolas at Q and q. For pH', as well as
PH, is equal and parallel to CQ; therefore the points
H, Q, H', are in a straight line parallel to Pp, and HQ
= H'Q (34, 1, E.), therefore PIQH' is a tangent to the
curve at Q. In like manner it appears that hqh' is a tan¬
gent at q.
Cor. 2. If tangents be drawn at the vertices of two
conjugate diameters, they will meet in the asymptotes,
and form a parallelogram, of which the asymptotes are
diagonals.
Prop. XXI.
If a tangent to an hyperbola meet a second diameter, and
from the point of contact an ordinate be drawn to that
diameter; halt the second diameter will be a mean pro¬
portional between the segments of the diameter inter¬
cepted between the centre and the ordinate and be¬
tween the centre and the tangent.
Let DL, a tangent to the curve at D, meet the second
diameter Q^ in L, and let DG<t' be an ordinate to that
diameter; then
CG : CQ = CQ : CL.
Let Pp be the diameter that is conjugate to Qq, let
HPA be a tangent at the vertex, terminated by the asymp¬
totes ; through D draw the ordinate DEc? to the diameter
Pp, meeting the asymptotes in M and m; let K be the
intersection of DL and Pp. Because DK is a tangent at
D, and DEc? an ordinate to Pp, CP is a mean proportional
between CE and CK (11), and therefore
CE2 : CP2 : : CE : CK.
Now, the lines CQ, PH, EM, being parallel (2 Cor. 10,
and Def. 16), from similar triangles,
CONIC SECTIONS.
279
CE2 : CP2 = EM2: PH2,
and CE or DG : CK = LG : LC ;
therefore EM2 : PH2= LG : LC,
and, by division, &c.
EM2—PH2: PH2=CG : LCz=CG2: CG • LC.
But since PH2=MD • Dm (4 Cor. 16),
EM2—PH2— ED2=: CG2 (5, 2, E.) ;
therefore PH2=CG • LC ;
hence, and since PH=:CQ (20),
CG : CQzzCQ : CL.
Prop. XXII.
If an ordinate be drawn to any transverse diameter of an
hyperbola; the rectangle under the abscisses of the dia¬
meter will be to the square of the semi-ordinate as the
square of the diameter to the square of its conjugate.
lyperbola.
Let DE<f be an ordinate to the transverse diameter
Vp, and let Qq be its conjugate diameter;
PE • Ep : DE2 =, Vp2 : Qq2.
Let DEL, a tangent at D, meet the diameter in K,
and its conjugate in L. Draw DG parallel to P/>, meet¬
ing Qq in G. Because CP is a mean proportional be¬
tween CE and CK (11),
CP2 : 'CE2 = CK : CE,
and, by division, and (5, 2, E.) CP2: PE • E/> = CK: KE.
But, because ED is parallel to CL,
CK: KEz= CL: DE, or CG;
and because CQ is a mean proportional between CG and
CL (21),
CL : CG = CQ2 : CG2, or DE2,
therefore CP2 : PE • Ep : CQ2: DE2,
and, by inversion and alternation,
PE-Ep: DE2 = CP2 : CQ2 = Pjd2 : Qq2.
Cor. 1. If an ordinate be drawn to any second diame¬
ter of an hyperbola, the sum of the squares of half the
second diameter and its segment, intercepted between the
ordinate and the centre, is to the square of the semi-ordi¬
nate as the square of the second diameter to the square
of its conjugate.
Let DG be a semi-ordinate to the second diameter
Qq. It has been shown that
CG2 : CQ2 = PE-Ep: CP2 ;
therefore, by composition,
CQ2 + CG2 : CQ2 = CE2 or DG2 : CP2,
and by alternation,
CQ2 + CG2 :DG2 = CQ2 : CP2 = Qq2 : Pp2.
Cor. 2. The squares of semi-ordinates, and of ordi¬
nates to any transverse diameter, are to one another as
the rectangles contained by the corresponding abscisses ;
and the squares of semi-ordinates, and of ordinates to
any second diameter, are to one another as the sums of
the squares of half that diameter, and the segments inter¬
cepted between the ordinate and the centre.
Cor. 3. The ordinates to any transverse diameter, which
intercept equal segments of that diameter from the centre,
are equal to one another, and, conversely, equal ordinates
intercept equal segments of the diameter from the centre.
Prop. XXIII. HyperboR..
The transverse axis of an hyperbola is the least of all its
transverse diameters, and the conjugate axis is the
least of all its second diameters.
Let R?’ be the transverse axis, Pp any other transverse
diameter; draw PE perpendicular to Rr; then CE being
greater than CR, and CP greater than CE, much more is
CP greater than CR, therefore Pp is greater than Rr.
In like manner it is shown, that if Ssbe the conjugate axis,
and any other second diameter, Qq is greater than Ss.
Prop. XXIV.
If an ordinate be drawn to any transverse diameter of an
hyperbola, the rectangle under the abscisses of the dia¬
meter is to the square of the semi-ordinate as the dia¬
meter to its parameter.
Let DE be a semi-ordinate to the transverse diameter
Pp ; let PG be the parameter of the diameter, and the
conjugate diameter. By the definition of the parameter
(Def. 16), Pp : Qq — Qq : PG,
therefore Pp : PG z= Pp2 : Q^2 (2 Cor. 20, 6, E.).
But Py>2 : Q<f = PE • Ep : DE2 (22);
therefore PE • Ep : DE2 Pp : PG.
Cor. Let the parameter PG be perpendicular to the dia¬
meter Pp ; joiny>G, and from E draw EM parallel to PG,
meeting pG in M. The square of DE, the semi-ordinate,
is equal to the rectangle contained by PE and EM.
For PE * Ep : DE2 = Pp : PG,
and Pp : PG = Ep : EM = PE • Ep : PE • EM,
therefore DE2 — PE • EM.
Scholium.
If the rectangles PGLp, HGKM be completed, it will
appear that the square of ED is equal to the rectangle
MP, which rectangle is greater than the rectangle KP,
contained by the absciss PE, and the parameter GP, by a
rectangle KH similar and similarly situated to LP, the
rectangle contained by the parameter and diameter. It
%
280
CONIC SECTIONS.
Hyperbola was on account of the excess of the square of the ordinate
above the rectangle contained by the absciss and parame¬
ter that Apollonius gave the curve to which the property
belonged the name of Hyperbola.
Prop. XXV.
If from the vertices of two conjugate diameters of an hy¬
perbola there be drawn ordinates to any third transverse
diameter; the square of the segment of that diameter,
intercepted between the ordinate from the vertex of the
second diameter and the centre, is equal to the rectan¬
gle contained by the segments between the other ordi¬
nate and the vertices of the third transverse diameter.
And the square of the segment intercepted between
the ordinate from the vertex of the transverse diameter
and the centre is equal to the square of the segment
between the other ordinate and the centre, together
with the square of half the third transverse diameter.
Let Vp, Qq be two conjugate diameters, of which Pp is
a transverse and Q,q a second diameter; let PE, QG be
semi-ordinates to any third transverse diameter Rr ; then
CG2 = RE • Er, and CE2 = CG2 + CR2.
Draw the tangents PH, QK, meeting Rr in H and K.
The rectangles HC • CE and KC * CG are equal, for each
is equal to CR2 (11), therefore
HC : CK = CG : CE.
But the triangles HPC, CQK are evidently similar (Cor.
Def. 16); and since PE, QG are parallel, their bases CH,
KC are similarly divided at E and G, therefore
HC : CK = HE : CG,
wherefore CG : CE = HE : CG,
consequently CG2 = CE • EH = (1 Cor. 11), RE • Er.
Again, from the similar triangles HPC, CQK,
HC : CK = CE : KG.
Now, it was shown that HC : CK = CG : CE,
therefore CG : CE = CE : KG,
consequently
CE2 = CG • GK = (3, 2, E.), CG2 + GC • CK;
but GC • CK - CR2 (21),
therefore CE2 = CG2 + CR2.
Cor. 1. Let Ss be the diameter that is conjugate to
Rr, then Rr is to Ss as CG to PE, or as CE to QG.
For Rr2 : Ss2 = RE • Er, or CG2 : PE2 (22),
therefore Rr : Ss = CG : PE.
In like manner Rr : Ss = CE : QG.
Cor. 2. The difference between the squares of CE, CG,
the segments of the transverse diameter to which the
semi-ordinates PE, QG are drawn, is equal to the square
of CR the semi-diameter. For it has been shown that
CE2 = CG2 + CR2,
therefore CE2 — CG2 = CR2.
Cor. 3. The difference of the squares of any two con¬
jugate diameters is equal to the difference of the squares
of the axes. Let Rr, Ss be the axes, and Vp, Q.q any
two conjugate diameters; draw PE, QG perpendicular to
Rr, and PL, QM perpendicular to Ss. Then
CE2—CG2 = CR2, Hyperbola,
and CM2 — CL2, or GQ2 — PE2 = CS2; '—^
therefore CE2 + PE2—(CG2 + GQ2)=CR2—CS2;
that is (47, 1, E.), CP2—CQ2=CR2—CS2,
therefore Yp9—Qq9=^Y\r9—Ss2.
Prop. XXVI.
If four straight lines be drawn touching conjugate hyper¬
bolas at the vertices of any two conjugate diameters;
the parallelogram formed by these lines is equal to the
rectangle contained by the transverse and conjugate
axes.
Let Yp, Qq be any two conjugate diameters, a paral¬
lelogram DEGH formed by tangents to the conjugate hy¬
perbolas at their vertices is equal to the rectangle con¬
tained by Aa, Bft, the two axes.
Let Aa, one of the axes, meet the tangent PE in K;
join QK, and draw PL, QM perpendicular to Aa.
Because CK : CA = CA : CL (11),
and CA : CB = CL : QM (1 Cor. 25),
ex. aeq. CK : CB = CA : QM,
therefore CK • QM = CB • CA.
But CK • QM twice trian. CKQ =: paral. CPEQ,
therefore the parallelogram CPEQ =CB • CA ;
and, taking the quadruples of these, the parallelogram
DEGH is equal to the rectangle contained by Aa and B5.
Prop. XXVII.
If two tangents at the vertices of any transverse diameter
of an hyperbola meet a third tangent; the rectangle
contained by their segments between the points of
contact and the points of intersection is equal to the
square of the semidiameter to which they are parallel.
And the rectangle contained by the segments of the
third tangent between its point of contact and the pa¬
rallel tangents, is equal to the square of the semidia¬
meter to which it is parallel.
Let YYl,ph, tangents at the vertices of a transverse dia¬
meter Yp, meet DH^, a tangent to the curve at any point
D, in H and h; let CQ be the semidiameter to which
CONIC SECTIONS.
281
Hyperbola, the tangents PH, ph are parallel, and CR that to which
Dh is parallel; then
PH • ph = CQ2 and DH • Dh ~ CR2,
Let U/i meet the semidiameters CP, CQ in L and K.
Draw DE, RM parallel to CQ, and DG parallel to CP.
Because LP • Lp — LE • LC (2 Cor. 11),
LP : LE = LC : Lp ;
hence, and because of the parallels PH, ED, CK, ph,
PH : ED — CK : ph,
wherefore PH • ph — ED • CK.
But ED • CK = CG • CK = CQ2 (21),
therefore PH • ph — CQ2.
Again, the trianglesLED, CMR are evidently similar,and
LE, LD are similarly divided at P andH, also atp and h :
therefore PE : HD = (LE : LD =) CM : CR,
also pE : hD = (LE : LD =) CM : CR ;
hence, taking the rectangles of the corresponding terms,
PE •/?E : HD • hD - CM2 : CR2.
But if CD be joined, the points D and R are evidently
the vertices of two conjugate diameters (Cor. Def. 16),
and therefore PE • pJL = CM2 (25);
therefore HD * AD = CR2.
Cor. The rectangle contained by LD and DK, the
segments of a tangent intercepted between D the point of
contact, and Pp, Qq, any two conjugate diameters, is equal
to the square of CR, the semidiameter to which the tan¬
gent is parallel.
Let the parallel tangents PH, ph meet LK in H and h,
and draw DE, a semi-ordinate to Pp. Because of the
parallels ED, PH, CK, ph,
LE : LD = EP : DH,
and EC : DK = Lp : DA,
therefore
LE EC : LD • DK = EP • Lp : DH • DA.
But LE • EC = EP • Lp (1 Cor. 11),
therefore LD • DK z= DH • DA = (by this Prop.) CR*.
sequently have ED = DF, and EP zr PF; wherefore Hyperbola.
Lf — FP — Pf Aa. Now the straight lines FE, Lf
being bisected at D and C, the line DC is parallel to Lf,
and thus the triangles F/E, FCD, are similar,
therefore Ff: fL, or Aa — FC : CD;
but FC is half Ff, therefore CD is half of Aa.
Cor. If a straight line Q^ be drawn through the centre
parallel to the tangent F)d, it will cut off from PF, Pf the
segments PG, Pff, each equal to AC half the transverse
axis. For Cc?PG, CDP^ are parallelograms, therefore
PG = dC = AC, and Pp = DC = AC.
i
Prop. XXIX.
The rectangle contained by perpendiculars drawn from
the foci of an hyperbola to a tangent is equal to the
square of half the conjugate axis.
(See Figure to Prop. XXVIII.)
Let Pe?D be a tangent, and FD,fd perpendiculars from
the foci, the rectangle contained by FD and fd is equal to
the square of BC half the conjugate axis.
It is evident from last proposition that the points D, d,
are in the circumference of a circle, whose centre is the
centre of the hyperbola, and radius CA half the transverse
axis; now FDc? being a right angle, if dC be joined and
produced, it will meet DF in H, a point in the circum¬
ference ; and since FC = fC, and CH — Cd, and the
angles FCH, fCd are equal, FH is equal to fd, therefore
DF • df = DF • FH z= AF • aF (36, 3, E.) = CB2 (3).
Cor. If PF, P^ be drawn from the point of contact to
the foci; the square of FD is a fourth proportional to fP,
FP, and CB2. For the angles fPd, FPD are equal (5),
and FDP,/dP are right angles, therefore the triangles
FDP,^c?P are similar, and
fP : FP =fd: FD = fd • FD or BC2 : FD*.
Prop. XXX.
Prop. XXVIII.
If two straight lines be drawn from the foci of an hyper¬
bola perpendicular to a tangent; straight lines drawn
from the centre, to the points in which they meet the
tangent, will each be equal to half the transverse axis.
Join FP,/P, and produce FD, Pf till they intersect in
E. The triangles FDP, EDP have the angles at D right
angles, and the angles FPD, EPD equal (5), and the side
HP common to both ; they are therefore equal, and con-
YOL. VII.
If from C the centre of an hyperbola a straight line CL
be drawn perpendicular to a tangent LD, and from D
the point of contact a perpendicular be drawn to the
tangent, meeting the transverse axis in H and the con¬
jugate axis in A; the rectangle contained by CL and
DH is equal to the square of CB, the semiconjugate
axis; and the rectangle contained by CL and DA is
equal to the square of CA, the semitransverse axis.
X ^ 9 , fl
Let the axes meet the tangent in M and m, and from
D draw the semi-ordinates DE, De, which will be perpen¬
dicular to the axes.
The triangles DEH, CLwj, are evidently equiangular,
therefore DH : DE = Cm : CL,
hence CL • DH = DE • Cm ;
but DE • Cm or Ce • Cm = BC2 (12),
therefore CL • DH = BC2.
In the same way it may be shown that CL * DA = AC2.
Cor. 1. If a perpendicular be drawn to a tangent at the
point of contact; the segments intercepted between the
point of contact and the axes are to each other recipro-
2 N
282
CONIC SECTIONS.
Hyperbola, cally as the squares of the axes by which they are ter-
ruinated.
For AC2: BC2 = CL • DA : CL • DH = DA : DH.
Cor. 2. IfDF be drawn to either focus, and HK be
drawn perpendicular to DF; the straight line DK shall
be equal to half the parameter of the transverse axis.
Draw CG parallel to the tangent at D, meeting DH in
N, and DF in G. The triangles GDN, HDK, are similar,
therefore GD : DN HD : DK ;
and hence GD • DK = HD • DN.
But GD — AC (Cor. 28) and ND = CL,
therefore AC * DK =: HD • CL = (by the Prop.) CB2,
wherefore AC : BC z= BC : DK;
hence DK is half the parameter of Aa (Def. 17).
Definition.
(See Figure to next Prop.)
XVIIL If a point G be taken in the transverse axis of
an hyperbola, so that the distance of G from the centre
may be a third proportional to CF, the distance of either
focus from the centre, and CA the semitransverse axis;
a straight line HGA drawn through G, perpendicular to
the axis, is called the directrix of the hyperbola.
Cor. 1. If an ordinate to the axis be drawn through
the focus; tangents to the hyperbola at the extremities of
the ordinate will meet the axis at the point G (11).
Cor. 2. The hyperbola has two directrices, for the point
G may be taken on either side of the centre.
Prop. XXXI.
The distance of any point in an hyperbola from either di¬
rectrix is to its distance from the focus nearest that di¬
rectrix, in the constant ratio of the semitransverse axis
to the distance of the focus from the centre.
extremity of the ordinate passing through the focus, and Hyperbola.
ED be produced to meet GM in N; EN shall be equal to
DF. For draw MO perpendicular to the directrix, then,
because M and D are points in the hyperbola, and from
similar triangles,
FM : FD = MO : DK = GF : GE = MF : EN,
therefore FD rr EN.
Cor. 2. If AI and ai be drawn perpendicular to the
transverse axis at its extremities, meeting the tangent
GM in I and i, then AI = AF and ai — aF.
Prop. XXXII.
If through P and Q the vertices of two semidiameters
of an hyperbola there be drawn straight lines PD, QE
parallel to one of the asymptotes CM, meeting the other
asymptote in D and E; the hyperbolic sector PCQ is
equal to the hyperbolic trapezium PDEQ.
Let CQ meet PD in I. The triangles CDP, CEQ are
equal (1 Cor. 17); therefore, taking the triangle GDI
from both, the triangle CIP is equal to the quadrilateral
DEQI. To these add the figure PIQ, and the hyperbo¬
lic sector PCQ is equal to the hyperbolic trapezium PDEQ.
est the directrix ; DK is to DF as C A, half the transverse
axis, to CF, the distance of the focus from the centre.
Draw D/to the other focus, and DE perpendicular to
Aa ; take L a point in the axis so that AL — FD, and
consequently La — T)f; then CL is evidently half the
sum of AL and aL, or of FD and/D, and CE half the
sum of FE and /E ; and because
D/— DF : F/ = /E + FE : D/ + DF (K, 6, E.)5
by taking the halves of the terms of the proportion,
CA ; CF = CE : CL.
But CA : CF — CG : CA (Def. 18),
therefore CG : CA = CE : CL;
hence (19, 5, E.) EG : AL = CG : CA = CA : CF,
that is, DK : DF CA ; CF.
Cor. 1. If the tangent GMN be drawn through M, the
Prop. XXXIII.
If from the centre of an hyperbola the segments CD,
CE, CH be taken in continued proportion in one of the
asymptotes, and the straight lines DP, EQ, HR be
drawn parallel to the other asymptote, meeting the
hyperbola in P, Q, R; the hyperbolic areas PDEQ,
QEHR are equal.
(See Figure to preceding Prop.)
Through Q draw a tangent to the curve, meeting the
asymptotes in K and L : join PR, meeting the asymptotes
in M and N; draw the semidiameters CP, CQ, CR; let
CQ meet PR in G. ,
Because QE is parallel to CM, and KQ is equal to QL
(2 Cor. 16), CE is equal to EL; and because MC, PD,
RH, are parallel, and MP is equal to RN (1 Cor. 16),
CD is equal to HN. Now, by hypothesis,
CD : CE = CE : CH,
therefore NH : LE — CE : CH;
but CE : CH = HR : EQ (2 Cor. 17),
therefore NH : LE — HR : EQ,
and, by alternation, NH : HR = LE : EQ.
Now the angles at H and E are equal, therefore the
triangles NHR, LEQ are equiangular, and NR is parallel
to LQ; consequently RP is an ordinate to the diameter
CQ (10)> and is bisected by it at G; and as CQ bisects
all lines which are parallel to KL, and are terminated by
the hyperbola, it will bisect the area PQR. Let the equal
areas PQG, RQGbe taken from the equal triangles PCG,
RCG, and there will remain the hyperbolic sectors PCQ,
RCQ equal to each other. Therefore (32) the areas
DPQE, EQRH are also equal.
Cor. Hence if CD, CE, CIT, &c. any number of seg¬
ments of the asymptote, be taken in continued proportion,
the areas DPQE, DPQRH, &c. reckoned from the first
line DP, will be in arithmetical progression.
CONIC SECTIONS.
283
Cone< Prop. XXXIV. Problem.
Two straight lines Aa, B5, which bisect each other at
right angles in C, being given by position ; to describe
an hyperbola, of which Aa shall be the transverse and
B£> the conjugate axes.
Join AB, and in Aa produced take CF, Cf each equal
to AB ; the points F, /will be the foci of the hyperbola.
Let one end of a string be fastened at F, and the other
to G the extremity of a ruler /DG, and let the difference
between the length of the ruler and the string be equal to
Aa. Let the other end of the ruler be fixed to the point
f and let the ruler be made to revolve about/as a centre
in the plane in which the axes are situated, while the string
is stretched by means of a pin D, so that the part of it be¬
tween G and D is applied close to the edge of the ruler;
the point of the pin will by its motion trace a curve line
DAD upon the plane, which is one of the hyperbolas re¬
quired.
If the ruler be made to revolve about the other focus
F, while the end of the string is fastened to / the oppo¬
site hyperbola will be described by the moving point D ;
for in either case Gf— (GD + DF), that is, T)f—DF is
by hypothesis equal to Aa the transverse axis.
Prop. XXXV. Problem.
An hyperbola being given by position; to find its axes.
Cone.
Let HA^ be the given hyperbola. Draw two parallel
straight lines H/a, KA, terminating in either of the oppo¬
site hyperbolas, and bisect them at L and M; join LM,
and produce it to meet the hyperbola in P ; then LP will
be a transverse diameter (4 Cor. 10). Let jo be the point
in which it meets the opposite hyperbola, bisect Vp in C,
the point C is the centre (2). Take D any point in the
hyperbola, and on C as a centre with the distance CD de¬
scribe a circle; if this circle lie wholly without the oppo¬
site hyperbolas, then CD must be half the transverse axis
(23); but if not, let the circle meet the hyperbola again
in d ; join D^, and bisect it in E ; join CE, meeting the op¬
posite hyperbolas in A and a, then Aa will be the trans¬
verse axis (5 Cor. 10); for it is perpendicular toDe? (3, 3,
E.), which is an ordinate to Aa. The other axis will be
found by drawing B& a straight line through the centre
perpendicular to Aa, and taking CB so that CBI. 2 may be
a fourth proportional to the rectangle AE • Ea, and the
squares of DE and CA; thus CB is half the conjugate
axis (22).
PART IV.
Sect. I.—Of the Cone and its Sections.
Definitions.
I. If through the point V, without the plane of the circle
ADB, a straight line AVE be drawn, and produced inde¬
finitely both ways, and if the point V remain fixed while
the straight line AVE is moved round the whole circum¬
ference of the circle ; two superficies will be generated by
its motion, each of which is called a Conical Superficies,
and these mentioned together are called Opposite Conical
Superficies.
II. The solid contained by the conical superficies and
the circle ADB, is called a Cone.
III. The fixed point V is called the Vertex of the cone.
IV. The circle ADB is called the Base of the cone.
V. Any straight line drawn from the vertex to the cir¬
cumference of the base is called a Side of the cone.
VI. A straight line VC drawn through the vertex of the
cone, and the centre of the base, is called the Axis of the
cone.
VII. If the axis of the cone be perpendicular to the base,
it is called a Right cone.
VIII. If the axis of the cone be not perpendicular to
the base, it is called a Scalene cone.
Prop. I.
If a cone be cut by a plane passing through the vertex;
the section will be a triangle.
Let ADBV be a cone of which VC is the axis ; let AD
be the common section of the base of the cone and the
cutting plane ; join VA, VD. When the generating line
comes to the points A and D, it is evident that it will coin¬
cide with the straight lines VA, VD; they are therefore
in the surface of the cone, and they are in the plane which
passes through the points V, A, D, therefore the triangle
VAD is the common section of the cone and the plane
which passes through its vertex.
Prop. II.
If a cone be cut by a plane parallel to its base ; the sec¬
tion will be a circle, the centre of which is in the axis.
GO U
E
4
CONIC SECTIONS.
Let EFGbe the section made by a plane parallel to the
base of the cone, and VAB, VCD two sections of the cone
made by any two planes passing through the axis VC ; let
EG, HF be the common sections of the plane EFG, and
the planes VAB, VCD. Because the planes EFG, ADB
are parallel, HE, HF will be parallel to CA, CD. and
AC : EH = (VC : VH =) CD : HF;'
but AC = CD, therefore EH — HF. For the same rea¬
son GH = HF, therefore EFG is a circle of which H is
the centre and EG the diameter.
Prop. III.
If a scalene cone ADBV be cut through the axis by a
plane perpendicular to the base, making the triangle
VAB, and from any point H in the straight line AV a
straight line HK be drawn in the plane of the triangle
VAB, so that the angle VHK may be equal to the angle
VBA, and the cone be cut by another plane passing
through HK perpendicular to the plane of the triangle
ABV, the common section HFKN of this plane and the
cone will be a circle.
Take any point L in the straight line HK, and through
L draw EG parallel to AB, and let EFGN be a section
parallel to the base, passing through EG; then the two
planes HFKN, EFGN being perpendicular to the plane
VAB, their common section FLN is perpendicular to ELG,
and since EFGN is a circle (by last Prop.), and EG its dia¬
meter, the square of FL is equal to the rectangle contain¬
ed by EL and LG (35, 3, E.); but since the angle VHK
is equal to VBA or VGE, the angles EHK, EGK are
equal, therefore the points E, H, G, K, are in the circum¬
ference of a circle (21, 3, E.), and HL • LK = EL • LG
(35, 3, E.) = FL2, therefore the section HFKN is a circle
of which HLK is a diameter (35, 3, E.)
This section is called a Subcontrary Section.
Prop. IV.
If a cone be cut by a plane which does not pass through
the vertex, and which is neither parallel to the base nor
to the plane of a subcontrary section ; the common sec¬
tion of the plane and the surface of {die cone will be an Cone,
ellipse, a parabola, or an hyperbola, according as the
plane passing through the vertex parallel to the cutting
plane falls without the cone, touches it, or falls within it.
Let ADBV be any cone, and let ONP be the common
section of a plane passing through its vertex and the plane
of the base, which will either fall without the base, or touch
it, or fall within it.
Let FKM be a section of the cone parallel to VPO;
through C the centre of the base draw CN perpendicular
to OP, meeting the circumference of the base in A and
B ; let a plane pass through V, A, and B, meeting the plane
OVP in the line NV, the surface of the cone in VA, VB,
and the plane of the section FKM in LK ; then, because
the planes OVP, MKF are parallel, KL will be parallel to
VN, and will meet VB one side of the cone in K; it will
meet VA the other side in H, fig. 1, within the cone;
it will be parallel to VA in fig. 2, and it will meet VA,
produced beyond the vertex, in H, fig. 3.
Let EFGM be a section of the cone parallel to the base,
meeting the plane VAB in EG, and the plane FKM in
FM, and let L be the intersection of EG and FM; then
EG will be parallel to BN, and FM will be parallel to PO,
and therefore will make the same angle with LK, where-
ever the lines FM, LK cut each other; and since BN is
perpendicular to PO, EG is perpendicular to FM. Now the
section EFGM is a circle of which EG is the diameter
(2), therefore FM is bisected at L, and FL2 = EL • LG.
Case 1. Let the line PNO be without the base of the
cone. Through K and H draw KR and HQ parallel to
AB. The triangles KLG, KHQ are similar, as also HLE,
HKR; therefore KL : LG = KH : HQ,
and HL : LE = KH : KR ;
therefore KL • HL : LG • LE or LF2 :: KH2: HQ • KR.
Now the ratio of KH2 to HQ • KR is the same wherever
the sections HFKM, EFGM intersect each other; there¬
fore KL • HL has a constant ratio to LF2, consequently
(1 Cor. 13, Part II.) the section HFKM is an ellipse, of
which HK is a diameter and MF an ordinate.
CONIC SECTIONS.
285
Curvature. Case 2. Next, suppose the line ONP to touch the cir-
cumference of the base in A. Let DIS be the common
section of the base and the plane FKM; the line DIS is
evidently parallel to FLM, and perpendicular to AB,
therefore DP = AI • IB,
hence DP : FL2 = AI • IB : EL • LG.
But since EG is parallel to AB, and IK parallel to AV,
AI is equal to EL, and
IB : LG = KI : KL,
therefore DP : FL2 = KI : KL.
Hence it appears (Cor. 11, Part I.), that the section
DFKMS is a parabola, of which KLI is a diameter, and
DIS, FLM ordinates to that diameter.
Case 3. Lastly, let the line PNO fall within the base;
draw YT through the vertex parallel to EG. The tri¬
angles HVT, HEL are similar, as also the triangles KVT,
KGL, therefore
HT : TV = HL : LE,
and KT : TV = KL : LG;
therefore HT • KT = TV2 = HL -LK : LE*LG or LF2.
Hence it appears that HL • LK has to LF2 a constant
ratio, therefore the section DFKMS is an hyperbola, of
which KH is a transverse diameter, and FM an ordinate
to that diameter (2 Cor. 22, Part III.).
Scholium. From the four preceding propositions it
appears, that the only lines which can be formed by the
common section of a plane and the surface of a cone, are
these five : 1. A straight line, or rather two straight lines
intersecting each other in the vertex of the cone, and
forming with the straight line which joins the points in
which they meet the base, a triangle; 2. A circle; 3. An
ellipse; 4. A parabola; 5. An hyperbola. The first two
of these, however, viz. the triangle and circle, may be re¬
ferred to the hyperbola and the ellipse; for if the axes of
an hyperbola be supposed to retain a constant ratio to
each other, and, at the same time, to diminish continu¬
ally, till at last the vertices coincide; the opposite hyper¬
bolas will evidently become two straight lines intersecting
each other in a point; and a circle may be considered as
an ellipse, whose axes are equal, or whose foci coincide
with the centre; so that the only three sections which
require to be separately considered are the ellipse, the pa¬
rabola, and the hyperbola.
Sect. II.-^-Of the Curvature of the Conic Sections.
Definitions.
I. A circle is said to touch a conic section in any point
when the circle and conic section have a common tangent Curvature,
at that point.
II. If a circle touch a conic section in any point, so that
no other circle touching it in the same point can pass be¬
tween it and the conic section on either side of the point
of contact, it is said to have the same curvature with the
conic section in the point of contact, and it is called the
Circle of Curvature.
Lemma.
If straight lines be drawn touching a circle at the ex¬
tremities of any chord, and from any point in the circum¬
ference straight lines be drawn parallel to the tangents,
to terminate in the chord; these lines will be equal; and
the square of each will be equal to the rectangle contain¬
ed by the segments of the chord between each line and
the point of contact of the tangent to which it is parallel.
Let PL be any chord in a circle, and FPG, FLK tan¬
gents at P and L; if from any point H in the circum¬
ference there be drawn HE, HD parallel to FG, FL re¬
spectively, meeting the chord in E and D ; the lines HE,
HD are equal; and the square of each is equal to the
rectangle LD • PE.
The sides of the triangle HDE being parallel to those
of the triangle FLP, viz. HD to FL and HE to FP, the
triangles are equiangular (29, 1, E.) ; now the angles FPL,
FLP of the latter are equal (32, 3, E.), therefore the cor¬
responding angles HED, HDE of the former are equal,
and HD = HE.
And because the angle DHL is equal to HLK (29, 1,
E.), and this last is equal to EPH (32, 3, E.); also, be¬
cause the angle HLD is equal to HPG (32, 3, E.), which
again is equal to PHE (29, 1, E.); the triangles DHL,
EPH are equiangular. Therefore
LD : DH = HE : EP,
and (16, 6, E.) LD • EP = DH • HE = HD2 = HE*.
If the point h be in the arc of the opposite segment, and
hd be drawn parallel to FL, and AE to PF, it will in like
manner appear that
LeL EP = hd1 ■=. ^E2.
Cor. 1. The points D and d being determined as direct¬
ed in the proposition,
LP : LD = LH2: LD2,
and LP ; Lc? = 'Lh~: Lrf2.
The triangles DLH, HLP have the angle at L common
to both, and the angles DHL, HPL equal, because each
is equal to the angle HLK (29, 1, E. and 32, 3, E.), there¬
fore they are equiangular ; hence
LP : LH = LH : LD (4, 6, E.),
and LP: LD (= LP2: LH2) = LH2: LD2 (Cor. 19,6, E.>
In the same way it may be proved that
LP ; Le? = L/i2 : Ld2.
Fig. 2.
Cumture,
286
CONIC SECTIONS.
Curvature. Cor. 2. If E, the intersection of the chords llh, PL, be
between P and L, the points D, d will be on opposite
sides of the point P. For in this case the chord LH will
be greater than the chord LP, and the chord L4 will be
less; therefore LH2 will be greater than LP2, and L/t2
less ; consequently (from Cor. 1) LD will be greater than
LP, and L<i less than LP.
Cor. 3. If the chord Wi, which is parallel to the tan¬
gent PF, be supposed to approach continually towards
that tangent; the points D, d, and E will continually ap-
proach to P, and may come nearer to it than any assign¬
able distance.
Prop. I.
If a circle be described touching a conic section, and cut¬
ting off from the diameter that passes through the point
of contact a segment greater than the parameter of that
diameter; a part of the circumference on each side of
the point of contact will be wholly without the conic
section; but if it cut off a segment less than the para¬
meter, a part of the circumference on each side of the
point of contact will be wholly within the conic section.
Fig. 1.
Case 1. Let the section be a parabola KNP«^; let Vp
be any diameter, and PG a tangent at P its vertex. Let
a circle KHPM touch the parabola and tangent at P, and
cut off from the diameter a segment PL either greater
or less than its parameter (fig. 1, 2). An arc HPA of
the circle, extending to each side of the vertex P, will
be wholly without the parabola or wholly within it.
First let PL be greater than EL, a segment of the dia¬
meter equal to the parameter (fig. 1); draw LQ, touching
the circle at L; let N«, an ordinate to the diameter Pj»,
meet the circle in H and h, and draw HD, hd parallel to
LQ, meeting the diameter in D and d.
Because NE2 = nW = PE • LR (12, Part I.),
and HE2 = PE • LD'
emma) ;
also hW =: PE • Ld
therefore NE2 : HE2 = LR : LD,
and »E2 : hW = LR : Lrf.
Now since Pc? may be less than any given line (Cor. 3
to Lemma), let it be less than PR ; then LD and Lc? will
both be greater than LR, and consequently HE will be
greater than NE, and 7/E greater than «E; therefore the
arc of the circle HP4 will be wholly without the parabola.
Next let PL, the segment of the diameter cut off by the
circle, be less than LR the parameter; as before, let N»
an ordinate to the diameter Vp meet the circle in H and
h, and let HD, hd be parallel to the tangent LQ; then, as
in the preceding case,
NE2 : HE2 = LR : LD,
and wE2 : hW = LR : L<7.
Suppose now PD to be less than PR (Cor. 3, Lemma),
then LD and Le? will each be less than LR, and therefore
HE will be less than NE, and AE less than nVi; hence the
arc* HP/i of the circle will be within the parabola.
Fig. 3.
Case 2. Now let the curve be an ellipse or hyperbola
(fig. 3 and 4).1 First let the circle, which has a common
tangent PG wdth the curve at the vertex of the diameter,
cut off from it a segment PL greater than LR, a segment
of the chord equal to its parameter. Let N«, an ordinate
to Vp, meet the circle in H and h : draw LQ touching the
circle at L, and draw FID, hd parallel to LQ. Take a
point V in Vp, such that
Vp : pV = LR : LV;
then Vp : LR = Vp : LV.
Now PE • Ep : NE2 = Vp : LR = Vp : LV (15, Part II.,
and 21, Part III.) ;
1 The reasoning in the case of the hyperbola is exactly like that for the ellipse ; therefore, to avoid multiplying figures, those for
the hyperbola are omitted.
CONIC SECTIONS.
28T
Curvature.hence also PE • Ejo: NE2 = PE • Ep: PE *.LV (1, 6, E.),
therefore NE2 =: wE2 = PE • LV.
Now HE2 = PE • LD, and AE2 = PE • Lrf,
therefore NE2 : HE2 = LV : LD,
and «E2 : 4E2 = LV : Lof.
Let the chord HA of the circle have such a position that
Vd is less than Pli (Cor. 3 to Lemma) ; then pd and pD
will both be greater than joR, and consequently greater
than pY, which is less than joR. In this position of the
chord, and in every other nearer to the tangent, NE will
be less than HE, and «E less than 7<E; therefore the arc
HPA of the circle will be entirely without the ellipse or
hyperbola on each side of their common point P.
Lastly, suppose that the segment LP of the diameter
cut off by the circle is less than LR its parameter; then
the same construction being made as in the other case, we
shall have NE2: HE2 = LV : LD,
wE2: AE2 = LV : LcA
Now, when the ordinate N» approaches toward the tan¬
gent PG, the point D will approach to P, and the point V
to R ; therefore there will be a position of the ordinate in
which LD and Le? will be both less than LV; and the
same will be true for all positions nearer to the tangent.
In these, NE will be greater than HE, and «E greater
than AE; thus it appears that the arc HPA will be with¬
in the curve, to a certain extent, on each side of the
point P.
Cor. 1. If a circle touch a conic section, and cut off
from the diameter that passes through the point of con¬
tact a segment equal to its parameter, it will have the
same curvature with the conic section in the point of con¬
tact.
tion; but the circle of curvature at the vertex of the Curvature,
conjugate axis of an ellipse falls wholly without the
conic section.
Fig. 1.
v
Let Pp be the axis of a parabola, and PHLA the circle
of curvature at its vertex, which therefore (Cor. 1) cuts
off from the axis a segment PL equal to the parameter of
the axis; if a tangent were drawn to the parabola at its
vertex, it would also be a tangent to the circle at that
point, therefore the centre of the circle is in Pjo. Let
NEra, an ordinate to the axis, meet the circle in H and
A. It may be shown, as in the preceding proposition,
that NE2 : HE2 = LP : LE.
Now, in every position of the ordinate, LP is greater than
LE : therefore NE2 is always greater than HE2, and mE2 is
greater than AE2; therefore the circle is wholly within
the parabola.
Next, let Pp be the transverse axis of an ellipse (fig. 2),
or hyperbola (fig. 3), or the conjugate axis of an ellipse
(fig. 4), and PHLA the circle of curvature ; then, as in the
parabola, the centre of the circle will be in the axis. In
each case draw Nrc, an ordinate to the axis meeting the
circle in H and A, and take a point V in PL, so that
pP : pE — LP : LV;
then it will appear, as in the last Proposition, that
NE2: HE2 = LV : LE.
Fig. 2.
For if a greater circle be described, it will cut off a seg¬
ment greater than its parameter, therefore a part of its
circumference on each side of the point of contact will be
wholly without the conic section; and as it will also be
without the former circle, it will not pass between that
circle and the conic section at the point of contact. If,
on the other hand, a less circle be described, it will cut
off from the diameter a less segment than its parameter,
therefore a part of the circumference on each side of the
point of contact will fall within the conic section; and as
it will be within the former circle, it will not pass between
that circle and the conic section at the point of contact.
Hence (Def. 2), the circle which cuts off a segment
equal to the parameter is the circle of equal curvature.
Prop. II.
The circle of curvature at the vertex of the axis of a
parabola, or at the vertex of the transverse axis of an
ellipse or hyperbola, falls wholly within the conic sec-
Now, when Pp is the transverse axis of an ellipse (fig.
2), since Py> is greater than LP and Pp : PL =PE : PV,
therefore PE is greater than PV; and hence LV is al¬
ways greater than LE; therefore NE2 is greater than
HE2, also wE2 is greater than AE2; hence the circle falls
wholly within the ellipse.
288
CONIC SECTIONS.
Curvature. Again, when ~Pp is the transverse axis of an hyperbola
(%• 3), joE is greater than pP, and therefore LV is
greater than LP, and consequently greater also than LE ;
hence NE2 is greater than HE2, and «E2 greater than AE2,
and the circle is wholly within the hyperbola.
Fig. 4.
than LE, and consequently NE2 is less than HE2, and
«E2 less than AE2; therefore the circle is wholly without
the ellipse.
Prop. III.
The circle of curvature at the vertex of any diameter of
a conic section which is not an axis, meets the conic
section again in one point only ; and between that point
and the vertex of the diameter the circle falls wholly
within the conic section on the one side, and wholly
without it on the other.
Case 1. Let the conic section be a parabola, of which
PL is a diameter, and let PLK be the circle of curvature
at its vertex; cutting off from the diameter a segment PL
equal to its parameter ; draw PG touching the circle and
parabola at P, and LQ touching the circle in L ; also draw
PK parallel to LQ, meeting the circle in K, and KT paral¬
lel to PG, meeting the axis in T. The lines KP, KT
will be equal, and
KT2 = PT • LP (Lemma);
therefore KT is a semi-ordinate to the diameter PL (12,
Part I.), and K is a point in the parabola. And since
only one line PK can be drawn parallel to the tangent
LQ, only one such point K can be found ; therefore the
circle of curvature cuts the parabola in one point, be¬
sides the vertex of the diameter, and in no more. Be-Curvature,
tween P and I draw NEw any ordinate to the diameter
PL, meeting the circle in H and h, and draw HD, hd pa¬
rallel to the tangents LQ, HD, meeting the axis in D and
d; and because
NE2 also nE2 = PE • PL (12, Part I.)
and HE2 r= PE * LD 1 /T .
and A E2 r= PE • Ld j (Lemma)>
therefore NE2 : HE2 = PL : LD,
and «E2 : AE2 = PL : Ld
Now PL is less than LD; therefore NE is less than HE,
and the circular arc PHK is without the parabola from the
vertex to the intersection K. If the ordinate be more re¬
mote from the vertex than the position KT, then D and d
will be both on the same side of the vertex, and therefore
PL will be greater than LD, also greater than Lc?, and
consequently NE will be greater than HE, also wE than
AE; hence it follows that the arc PLK falls wholly with¬
in the parabola.
Case 2. Let the conic section be either an ellipse or a
hyperbola, of which Pp is a diameter, and PLK the circle
of equal curvature at its vertex, cutting off a segment PL
equal to its parameter. Draw LQ touching the circle, and
pQ touching the curve; and because this line is parallel
to the line PG, which touches the circle and ellipse at P,
the lines LQ, pQ, make equal acute or obtuse angles (but
in opposite directions) with pL; therefore they will meet
at a point Q. Join PQ; and because Q is without the
circle, and P is in the circumference, the line PQ, which
cannot be a tangent, must cut the circle in one other point
K, and in no more. Draw KS and KT parallel to QL and
Q/>, meeting Pp in S and T.
Because of the parallels,
Pp : pT = PQ : QK = PL : LS (2, 6, E.) ;
therefore (by alt.) Pp: PL = joT: LS = pT - TP: LS • TP.
But LS • PT =: KT2 (Lemma),
therefore Pp : PL =pT ° TP : KT2.
Hence KT is a semi-ordinate to the diameter Pp, and K is
a point in the ellipse or hyperbola (15 of Part II. and 24
of Part III.)
Draw NE«, any ordinate to the diameter, so as to meet
the equicurve circle in H and A, and the line PQ in Y.
Draw HDZ, hdz parallel to LQ, meeting Pp, PQ in D, Z
and in d, z; also draw YV parallel to LQ, meeting Pp in
Because of the parallel lines,
Py> : Ep = PQ : YQ = PL : VL,
hence P/> : PL ( =: Ejo : VL) = PE • Ep : PE
But Pp : PL = PE • Ep : NE2 or rcE2,
therefore NE2 = wE2 = PE • VL.
But HE2 = PE • LD)
and AE2 = PE • ~Ld J
VL.
(Lemma),
CONIC SECTIONS.
Curvature. therefore NE2 : HE2 = VL : LD = YQ : QZ,
and wE2 : ^E2 = VL : ~Ld = YQ : Qz.
Now wherever the point H be taken in the arc PHK, it
is manifest that YQ will be less than QZ, therefore also
NE is less than HE; thus the arc PHK falls wholly
without the conic section. Again, since YQ always ex¬
ceeds Qz, therefore nE always exceeds /*E; hence the
arc PAK falls wholly within the section.
Prop. IV.
The chord of the circle of curvature which is drawn from
the point of contact through the focus of a parabola is
equal to that which is cut off from the diameter; and
half the radius of the circle is a third proportional to the
perpendicular from the focus upon the tangent, and the
distance of the point of contact from the focus.
Let PL be the chord cut off from the diameter, and PFH
the chord passing through F the focus; draw PM the dia¬
meter of the circle ; join HL, HM, and draw FK perpen¬
dicular to the tangent at P. Because the lines PFH, PL
make equal angles with the tangent at P (3 Cor. 3, Part I.),
the angles PHL, PLH are equal (32, 3, E.); hence PH
= PL. Secondly, the triangles FKP, PHM being mani¬
festly similar,
FK : FP = PH, or 4 PF : PM,
hence FK : FP =: FP : ^ PM, or i the radius.
2FP2
Cor. 1. Hence the radius is equal to .
2FK3
Cor. 2. The radius is also equal to , where AF is
the distance of the focus from the vertex of the parabola;
FK2
for FP (14, Part I.).
IL-FP3
Cor. 3. Hence also the radius is equal to 2 W3 , where
L denotes the parameter of the axis ; for
2FP2 2AF-FP3
FK3
FK “ AF-FP-FK
1L-FP3
- FK3 •
AC
CQ3
Cor. 2. The radius of curvature is also equal to 5
AC-BC
for PS =
QC
(17, Part II. and 26, Part III.)
hence CQ = X BC, and
FK
CQ3
_FP!.V
AC-BC “ FK3 AC
BC2 FP3
FK3
X
This expression for the radius of curvature is the same
for all the three conic sections.
Let PL be the chord cut off from the diameter, and
PFH the chord passing through F the focus; draw PM
the diameter of the circle, and from the centre O draw
OR perpendicular to PL, which will bisect PL in R ;
join HM, and draw the conjugate diameter QC^ meeting
PH in N and PM in S, then PS is equal to the perpendi¬
cular from the centre C upon the tangent. The triangles
PSC, PRO are similar ; therefore
PS : PC = PR : PO ;
but PC : CQ = CQ : PR (Def. of param.),
therefore PS : CQ = CQ ; PO.
Secondly, the triangles PSN, PHM are similar,
therefore PN : PS = PM : PH.
But PS : CQ = (CQ : PO =) Qq : PM,
therefore PN : CQ = Qq : PH,
or, since PN = AC (Cor. to 19, Part II. and to 28, Part
HI.) Aa :Qq= Qq: PH.
Cor. 1. Hence the radius of curvature is equal to
CQ2
pg- ; and the chord passing through the focus is equal to
2CQ2
Cor. 3. Draw FK from the focus perpendicular to the
tangent, and let L denote the parameter of the transverse
jl L X FP3
axis ; the radius of curvature is also equal to   vvfvs—•
1 FK3
For the triangles PFK, NPS are manifestly similar; there¬
fore FK : FP = PS : PN, or AC = BC : CQ;
FP
Prop. V.
Sect. III.—Areas of the Conic Sections.
The radius of the circle of curvature at the vertex of any
diameter of an ellipse or hyperbola is a third propor¬
tional to the perpendicular drawn from the centre upon
the tangent and half the conjugate diameter; and the
chord which is drawn from the point of contact through
the focus is a third proportional to the transverse axis
and conjugate diameter.
VOL. VII.
Lemma.
Let ABCD, abed, two trapeziums, have each two pa¬
rallel sides, and let the angles which the parallel sides AB,
DC of the one figure make with its side BC be equal to
the angles which ab, dc, the parallel sides of the other
figure, make with its side be ; also, in the one figure, let
2 o
Areas.
290
CONIC SECTIONS.
Areas. EF, which is parallel to AB and DC, bisect the opposite
■*nrw' sides BC, AD in F and E, and in the other figure let ef,
a parallel to ab and dc, bisect be and ad in / and e; the
trapezium ABCD is to the trapezium abed as the rect¬
angle BC'EF to the rectangle bc‘ef.
Through E and e draw GH and gh parallel to BC and
be, forming the parallelograms GC, gc. The triangles
AEG, DEH are manifestly equal (26, 1, E.) ; therefore
the trapezium ABCD is equal to the parallelogram GBCH.
In the same way it appears that the trapezium abed is
equal to the parallelogram gbch. Now the parallelogram
GC has to the parallelogram gc the ratio compounded
of the ratios of BG to bg, and of BC to be (23, 6, E.);
and the rectangle BC'BG has to the rectangle bc'bg the
ratio which is compounded of the same ratios ; therefore
trap. ABCD : trap, abed = BC’BG : bc'bg — BC*EF: bc'ef.
Prop. I.
In a parabola, let ABCD be a trapezium formed by PB,
any diameter, AB, CD semi-ordinates to that diameter,
and AD a chord in the curve ; and let EFGH be ano¬
ther trapezium formed by PF, a tangent at the vertex
of the diameter PB, by AF, DG, diameters produced
at A, D, and EH a tangent parallel to the chord: the
trapezium ABCD is double the trapezium EFGH.
Let L be the point of contact of the tangent EH; draw
a diameter through L, meeting the chord AD in I, and
the tangent PF in N; draw LM a semi-ordinate to the
diameter PB, and IK parallel to LM. Let be the pa¬
rameter of the diameter PB. And because AD is bisect¬
ed in I, and BK : KC = AI: ID = FN : NG, therefore
BC is bisected in K and FG in N.
And because /> • PB = AB2 = PP,
and p • PC = DC2 — PG2;
therefore p * BC = PF2 — PG2
= (PF + PG) (PF — PG),
that is, • BC = 2PN • FG = 2LM • FG.
Now p • PM — p • LN r= LM2,
therefore p * BC : p * LN = 2LM • FG : LM2,
and BC : LN = 2FG : LM or IK,
and hence BC • IK = 2FG • LN.
Now, by the premised lemma, the trapezium ABCD is
to the trapezium EFGH as the rectangle BC • IK to the
rectangle FG • LN; therefore the trapezium ABCD is
double the trapezium EFGH.
Scholium. Since GH may be of any magnitude, the
proposition will still be true when the points H and G co¬
incide in the line PF.
Prop. II.
Let AB be a semi-ordinate to PB, any diameter of a para¬
bola ; complete the parallelogram ABPC, by drawing
PC a tangent at the vertex, and AC parallel to PB :
the space comprehended by PA, the arc of the para¬
bola, and PB, AB, the absciss and ordinate, is two
thirds of the parallelogram PBAC.
Divide PC into any odd number of equal parts, seven
for example; let Vd be one, Pe three, and Pf five of
these; take Pd' equal to Pd, and draw d'T)', dD, eH, /K
parallel to PB, meeting the curve in D' D, H, K; these
lines, when produced, will be diameters ; and they will be
equidistant, because they divide the line Cd' into equal
parts. Because Pd — Pd', therefore dD — dD' (11, 1, of
this). Join DD', which will be parallel to dd' (33, 1, E.);
let it meet PB in N; produce it to meet the other dia¬
meters in E, F, G. Draw HL, KM parallel to PC, also
the chords DH, HK, KA, and, parallel to them, the tan¬
gents dh, hk, ha. And because the diameters whose ver¬
tices are D', D, H, are equidistant, the tangents dd’, hd
will intersect each other at d, a point in the diameter
passing through D (3 Cor. 15, 1); for a like reason the
tangents hd, hk will intersect in He, and hk, ak in FK.
The triangles HED, hed are in all respects equal, for
DH = dh (34), 1, E.) DE = de ; and since Dh = Dd = Ee,
therefore HE = he. The trapeziums KHEF, khef are also
equal; for HE, a side of the one, is equal to he, a side of
the other, and HK, EF are equal to hk,ef respectively,
and make equal angles with the equal sides FIE, he be¬
tween them; therefore if the trapeziums be applied, one
pn the other, so that the equal sides HE, he coincide, the
Areas.
Areas, sides HK, lik will coincide, also EF, ef and the trapezi-
ums will entirely coincide. In like manner, the trapeziums
AKFG, akfC are proved to be equal; and because the tra¬
pezium LHDN is double the triangle hde or its equal
HDE (preceding Prop.), and the trapezium MKHL dou¬
ble the trapezium fk/ie, or its equal FKHE, and the tra¬
pezium BAKM double aCfk, that is, double AGFK, the
polygon NDHKAB will be double the polygon DHKAG;
but these together make up the parallelogram ABNG;
therefore the polygon NDHKAB, inscribed in the para¬
bola, is two thirds of the parallelogram ABNG. Now the
space bounded by the arc PA, the absciss PB, and semi¬
ordinate AB, exceeds the inscribed polygon; therefore it
also is greater than two thirds of the parallelogram ABNG,
or two thirds of the parallelogram ABPC, diminished by
two thirds of the parallelogram PCGN.
The parallelograms EDefe are equal (35, 1, E.),
so also are KHAA, Ee/P, and AKka, GFfC (36, 1, E.)
Therefore the sum of the four parallelograms Ak, KA, Hd,
DP is equal to the parallelogram GNPC. Now if the po¬
lygon inscribed in the parabola be increased by these four
parallelograms, there will be formed the polygon PdhkaB,
which exceeds the parabolic area; therefore that area is
less than two thirds of the parallelogram ABNG increas¬
ed by the whole parallelogram GNPC, and consequently
less than two thirds of the parallelogram ABPC increased
by one third of the parallelogram G NPC.
Let the parabolic space PAB be denoted by S, the pa¬
rallelogram PCAB by II, and the parallelogram PNGC
by V.
It has been proved that S > R—% V,
and that S Z § R + £ V.
This is true whatever may be the magnitude of V; but
the line Fd may be taken auch that V may be less than
any assignable space; therefore S can be equal to no as¬
signable space that is either greater or less than two
thirds of the space R, and consequently is exactly equal
to two thirds of tile space R.
Definition.
If the axes of a hyperbola be equal, it is called an Equjr
lateral hyperbola.
Prop. III.
If two ellipses, or two hyperbolas, have a common trans¬
verse axis, and if from the same point in the axis there
be drawn a semiordinate to each; the areas contained
by the common absciss, the ordinates, and the curves,
will be to each other as their conjugate axes.
Let AMBa, Amba be two ellipses, and AMD, Amd two
hyperbolas, which have each pair a common transverse
axis Aa ; and let BC, AC be their conjugate axes, andDE,
eTE semiordinates at the same point E in the common
axis; the area AMDE is to the area AmdE, as the axis
BC to the axis AC/
Let the common absciss in both curves be divided into
any number of equal parts AP, PQ, QE; draw semior¬
dinates PmM, QwN, and the chords AM, MN, ND, Am,
mn, nd.
In the case of two ellipses,
MP2 : AP • Pa = BC2 : AC2 ;1 /1Q ox
and AP • Pa : m?2 = AC2 : AC2; J ^ >
therefore, ex. ceq. MP2: wiP2 = BC2; AC2,
and MP : mP — BC : AC.
In the same way, in the two hyperbolas it may be
proved that
MP : mP - NQ : «Q = DE : cAE = BC : AC.
Now, in both curves (by 1, 6, E.),
triangle APM : triangle APm = PM : Pm = BC : AC;
and since MP : NQ = mP : «Q,
therefore, by composition and alternation,
MP +NQ : mP + «Q = NQ : «Q = BC : AC.
But MP + NQ : mP + nQ = trap. MPQN : trap. mPQn,
therefore, trap. MPQN : trap. mPQn = BC : AC.
In the same way it appears that the trapezium NQED
is to the trapezium nQEd as BC to AC; therefore (12, 5,
E.), polygon AMNDE : polygon AmndE = BC : AC.
This must be true, however great may be the number
of sides of the polygon AMNDE, AmndE inscribed in the
curvilinear spaces ; but by a known principle in geometry,
the limits of the polygons (which are the curvilinear spaces)
must have the same ratio as the polygons themselves;
therefore the curvilinear spaces AND, AttcHiave the same
ratio as the semiconjugate axes BC, AC.
Cor. 1. Hence it appears that the area of an ellipse is
to that of its circumscribing circle as the conjugate axis
to the transverse axis.
Cor. 2. It also appears, that the area of any segment
of an ellipse may be found from that of a corresponding
segment of a circle ; and the area of a segment of any hy¬
perbola from the corresponding segment of an equilateral
hyperbola.
The quadrature of the parabola was perfectly accom¬
plished by Archimedes : but it has been found impossible
to find rectilinear spaces exactly equal to elliptic and hy¬
perbolic areas; these can only be exhibited numerically
by infinite series. In what follows, series will be inves¬
tigated from principles as elementary as the nature of the
subject will admit of; but it will be convenient to employ
the symbols of algebra in the reasoning; and we shall con¬
fine the investigation to sectors of a circle and an equila¬
teral hyperbola, from which sectors of any ellipse and hy¬
perbola may be found.
Prop. IV.
Let C be the centre of a circle, or of an equilateral hyper¬
bola, and CA the semitransverse axis; let ACB, BCD
be two equal sectors of the circle or hyperbola, and let
AHK, a tangent at the vertex A, meet the semidiame¬
ters CB, CD in H and K,
292
CONIC SECTIONS.
Areas. In the circle 2C A : AK = C A2 — AH2: C A • AH.
In the hyperbola 2CA : AK — CA2 + AH2: CA • AH.
In each curve draw DA, Da to the extremities of the
axis; let the chord AD meet the semidiameter CB in O,
and draw DE perpendicular to the axis.
Because AO = OD (3, 3, E. and Prop. 33, Part III.),
and AC = Cay the lines CH, aD are parallel (2, 6, E.),
therefore the triangles CAH, aED are similar.
Now ED2 = AE • Ea (35, 3, E. and 22 of Sect. III.),
therefore AE : ED = ED : Ea (16, 6, E.);
hence the triangles DEA, aED are similar (6, 6, E.),
and each is similar to CAH, therefore
aE : ED = AC : AH = AC2: AC • AH •
AE: ED = AH: AC = AH2: AC • AH.
Hence, in the circle,
aE — AE or 2CE: ED = AC2 — AH2: AC • AH,
and in the hyperbola (24, 5, E.),
aE + AE or 2CE: ED = AC2 + AH2: AC • AH •
But 2CE:ED = 2CA: AK;
therefore, in the circle, 2C A: AK= AC2—AH2: AC* AH-
and, in the hyperbola, 2CA: AK = AC2 + AH2: AC • Ah!
Prop. V. Problem.
To investigate a formula that shall express the area of any
sector of a circle, or of an equilateral hyperbola.
Let ACD be a sector of a circle or hyperbola, and AC
the radius of the circle, or semitransverse axis of the hy¬
perbola ; let the sector be bisected by the semidiameter
CB, and again each of the sectors ACB, BCD by the semi¬
diameters CP, CQ, and so on; thus dividing the sector
ACB first into two equal sectors, then into four, then into
eight, and so on. Draw tangents to the curves at the al¬
ternate points A, B, D, andbecause, from the nature of the
curves, the chords which join these points are ordinates
to the semidiameters CP, CQ, which pass between them,
the tangents will intersect each other at G and L, points
in the semidiameters (1 Cor. Prop. 10, Sect. III.). Join
A, B, any two contiguous points, and let the chord AB
meet CP in I; and because the triangles ACI, BCI are
equal (38, 1, E.), and also the triangles AGI, BGI, the tri¬
angles C AG, CBG are equal. In the same way it appears
that the triangles DCL, BCL are equal.
Again, because the semidiameter CB bisects the chord
which joins the points P, Q, it will bisect GL, the tangent
parallel to the chord; therefore the triangles GCB, LCB
are equal. Hence it appears that the triangles ACG,
GCB, BCL, LCD are all equal; and this will be true
whatever be their number.
Let AK, a tangent at the vertex A, meet the semidia¬
meters CP, CB, CD in G, H, K. Put a to denote CA,
the radius of the circle or semiaxis of the hyperbola, and
let the lines AK, AH, AG, &c. be denoted by t, t', t", &c.
These lines in the circle are the tangents of the arcs AD,
AB, AP, &c. We shall, by analogy, consider them as tan¬
gents corresponding to the sectors DCA, BCA, PCA in
the two curves.
And because
%a\t-d1 z+r i'2: aV (Prop. 4 of this Sect.),
the upper sign applying to the circles, and the lower to
the hyperbola, therefore
a2 __ a2 t'
~t — 2t'~*~ 2’
and similarly
d4.
Let the value of —, found from this second formula be
substituted instead of it in the first, and there is obtained
t ~~ 4<" \2 4/’
, , .a3 a2 /tf .
and hence again, _ = _ ^
Now 4a^ or 4CA • AG is eight times the triangle ACG,
that is, double the polygon CAGLD. Let s? denote this
polygon, and then we have
a3 _ a2 _+_ /t'
2?~ T \2 + ij*
By carrying on the process of bisecting the sector ACD
continually, so as to divide it next into 8, then into 16,
then into 32 equal parts, and so on, putting f" for the tan-
CONIC SECTIONS.
Areas.
gent corresponding to its 8th part; r'for that correspond-
' mg to its 16th, &c. there is obtained
a? _ a2 _j_ n' t" t'" t"" \
2sf~t \2 4 "s' 16 &C’J-
Now the polygon CAGLD manifestly approaches con¬
tinually to the area of the sector in either curve, as the
number of its sides is increased, and at last may differ
from it by less any than assignable quantity; therefore, put¬
ting now s for the area of the sector ACB, and consider¬
ing that s is the limit of the polygon, we have
a3 _ a2 ft' T t'" t"" \
2s ~ t \2 + 4 "8" 16 &Cy ’
the series in the parenthesis being carried on ad infini¬
tum ; and hence, putting
a . t” . r , r" „
C-2 + 4 + T+16’&C-
we have 2s =
and hence t! = a-
1 ?;4 — 1 vH
v — a —; , t* — a —r-
+1
+ 1
+ 1
This is the formula which was to be investigated, and in
its application the upper part of the sign r±= applies to the
circle, and the lower to the hyperbola.
Scholium. In computing the area of a sector of a cir¬
cle, or hyperbola, the values of the tangents AH, AG, &c.
that is, t\ t", &c. must be found from the first t, and from
each other. In the circle
2a : t = a2 — t'2 : at' (Prop. 4);
hence 2a2tr = aH — tt'1.
From this, by the resolution of a quadratic equation, we
find
1 + sin. z
1 — sin. z
_ tan- (j + 42)
1
tan-(l-
Now tan. (£ + J *) = ' + ta'1' ’ 5
h*
and tan. (f - i =) = j
tan. -1 z'
tan. i z
Algebra,
sect. 241.
therefore
+ tan. % z’J
1 + sin, z _ /l + tan. ^
(A.)
<'-7{v/(1 + |)-1}!
and similarly, ^ ^ | ^^ 1 + 11, &c
A few of the quantities t', t”, t'", &c. may be computed
from this formula; but when one (t'", for instance) has
t'"
been found such that — is a small fraction, those which
a
follow may be most readily computed by a series obtain¬
ed from */(• + by evolution, or the binomial theo-
m; thus, since
y(i+5)=i+iA-^+A^-,&c.
I — sin. z \1
Now we have, in the hyperbola,
1 + A
a
rem
therefore V — \t — 4 — +
1?
—, &c.
For the quadrature of the hyperbola, the tangents U, t",
&c. are found from the first by formulas entirely similar to
the above, differing only in the signs of the terms. In this
curve, however, the tangents have a property which those
in the circle have not, by which their computation may be
facilitated. For since, in the hyperbola,
a : t=. a2 + f2 : 2aH (Prop. IV.)
therefore a + t: a — t = a2 + 2at' + t'2 : a2 — 2at'+t'2;
that is, « + t: a — t — (a + tfi : (a — £')2.
i
a V
i _ i (i --V’ i — - (i
a \ QJ a \ a)
• • t/ /
From this it appears that - is related to - exactly as in
« a J
the trigonometrical formula tan. £ z is related to sin. z;
and a like remark may be made on the relations between
tn L ^
J ) &C.
a a
Hence we have the following formula for finding the
area of the hyperbolic sector.
Find from the trigonometrical tables the series of sines
sin. z, sin. z', sin. z?, sin. zw, &c. such that sin. z =■ L
a
sin. z' — tan. ^ z, sin. z'* ~ tan. ^ zf, &c.; then s denoting,
as above, the hyperbolic sector,
2 s = — 
a — t2Q sin. ^ z + ^ sin. ^ z + T sin. ^ z +, &c.)
a2
2 s =
f (1 S^n’ ^ + 4 S‘n- Z" + 8 Sin> rf'' +5 &C.)
Hence
Now, let - * = v, then
a — t ’
a + t' ± a + t" 1
, = v*,
t"
Since the series in the denominator approaches continu¬
ally to a geometrical series, of which the common ratio is
£, any term is nearly three times the sum of all the terms
which follow it. If then a term be found which agrees
in all the figures with \ of that before it, then £ 0f that
term may be taken as the sum of the remaining terms.
These expressions, and others, for the areas of the cir¬
cle and hyperbola, were given by Professor Wallace of
_ Edinburgh, in the Edinburgh Philosophical Transactions,
— v4,, &c.; v°4 y* They are also contained in his Treatise on Conic
Sections* (w. w.)
293
Areas.
&C.
This series of fractions, by which the tangents H, f, tm,
are expressed, being formed in a very simple manner from
the square, the fourth, the eighth root, &c. of v — a — *
a — t
they may be easily computed, and thence the values of
t', t'\ &c., and the sector, readily found.
The trigonometrical tables may be made available in
the quadrature of the hyperbolic sector, by the preceding
formula in this way.
It has been proved in the calculus of sines, that v and
z being any two arcs,
sin. v + sin. z tan. 4 (« 4- z) , . . ,
  v— =- fA———/. (Algebra, sect. 246.)
sin. v — sin. z tan. % (v — z) ' 2
Suppose now that v is a right angle = ^ ir, then the for¬
mula becomes
294 CON
Conich- CONICHTHYODONTES, or Plectrontt^, a name
thyodontes sometimes applied to the fossil teeth of fishes.
Con- CONIFERiE, a natural order of exogenous plants, in¬
naught. eluding the pines, fir-trees, cypresses, junipers, &c. See
i , j Botany.
CONIROSTRES. See index to Ornithology.
CONJEVER AM, a considerable town of Southern India,
in the British district of Chingleput, presidency of Madras,
situate on the route from the city of Madras to Arcot. It
has all the appearance of a flourishing place. The streets
are wide, and cross each other at right angles, and have a
row of cocoa-nut trees on each side. The houses are gene¬
rally built of mud, and for the most part roofed with tiles.
Conjeveram contains several water-tanks, lined with stone
and in good repair. It is chiefly supported by a famous
Hindu temple dedicated to Mahadeva. The principal en¬
trance is very grand and lofty, and the sides of the steps
leading to the temple are formed by two elephants drawing
a chariot carved in stone. The sanctuary is surrounded by
a double wall, the outer inclosure of which contains an ex¬
tensive chantrai or caravanserai for pilgrims and devotees.
Distance from Madras, S.W., 42 miles. Eat. 12. 50., Long.
79. 46.
CONJUGATE Diameter or Axis of an Ellipsis, the
shortest of the two diameters, or that which bisects the axis.
CONJUGATION, in Grammar, a regular distribution
of the several inflections of verbs into their different voices,
moods, tenses, numbers, and persons.
CONJUNCTION, in Astronomy, the meeting of two
or more stars or planets in the same degree of the zodiac.
Conjunction, in Grammar, an indeclinable word or par¬
ticle which serves to join words and sentences, and shows
their relation or dependence upon one another.
CONJURATION (Lat. con, and juro, to swear), the
act of using certain magical words, characters, or ceremo¬
nies, to expel evil spirits, allay storms, or perform superna¬
tural or extraordinary acts. The priests of the Roman Ca¬
tholic Church pretend to expel devils by the sprinkling of
holy water over the possessed, accompanied with a number
of conjurations and exorcisms.
CONNAUGHT, the smallest of the four provinces into
which Ireland is divided, and, together with Munster, the
most western portion of Europe ; bound chiefly, and penin-
sulated, by the Atlantic Ocean and the river Shannon. It
comprises an area of 6862 square miles, or 4,392,043 acres ;
of which 2,220,960 are arable; 1,906,002 uncultivated;
48,340 in plantations; 3877 in towns and villages; and
212,864 under water. The population may be considered
even now as almost pure Celtic, having never been much
affected by the very slight intermixture which has taken
place with other races ; and the Irish language is still the
ordinary language of the people. The number of inhabi¬
tants in the province at and since the census of 1821 has
been ascertained to have been as follows:—
Inhabitants. Increase. Decrease.
1821 1,110,229
1831 1,343,914 233,685
1841 1,418,859 74,940
1851 1,010,211 ... 408,648
In early times Connaught comprised, beyond its present
limits, the territory of Thomond, forming the present county
of Clare, and North Breifne, the present county of Cavan.
When Sir Henry Sydney, in the sixteenth century, divided
the province into counties, he adopted the ancient boun¬
daries, excluding North Breifne; but in 1602 the county
of Clare was restored to Munster, and Connaught com¬
prises now the counties of Galway, Mayo, Sligo, Leitrim,
and Roscommon, including Joyce’s country, Connemara,
Erno, Tyrawley, and other tracts of wild and romantic
scenery. The chief towns are the sea-ports,—Galway
(pop. 20,686); Sligo (pop. 11,104); and Ballina (pop.
CON
5,230). The annual value of property, according to Grif- Connectl-
fith’s valuation, is L.1,353,720. The western portion is cut-
hilly, and occasionally mountainous; while the eastern part
is generally level. It is well watered, and has on the greater
portion of its eastern boundary the river Shannon. The
river Moy is navigable from Killala to Ballina; the exten¬
sive lakes Conn, Corrib, and Mask, are navigable ; and the
sea-coast affords many fine bays and harbours. The climate
is moist, but temperate and healthful. Agriculture, although
the main support of the population, has hitherto been much
neglected: the chief crops in cultivation are oats, potatoes,
and green crops. The value of live stock in 1841 was com¬
puted to be L.3,369,078, and in 1852 L.4,832,842. The
trade of the province is merely local and retail, and there are
no manufactures. The mineral treasures of the soil have
not been developed, and their extent is very doubtful, little
capital having been heretofore engaged in their extraction.
There are no canals in Connaught; and the only line of
railway, viz., that portion of the Midland Great Western
which extends from Athlone to Galway, was constructed
by means of an advance of the necessary sum from the im¬
perial treasury, the interest of the loan being secured in
case of rates levied on the counties of Roscommon and
Galway.
Ecclesiastically the province is under the control of the
Archbishop of Armagh, the Bishops of Kilmore and Tuam,
and the Archbishop of Dublin, with his suffragan, the
Bishop of Killaloe. The great majority of the population,
however, are Roman Catholics; and Connaught corresponds
exactly in extent to the Roman Catholic archdiocese of
Tuam. See Galway, Leitrim, Mayo, Roscommon,
Sligo, and Ireland. (h. s—r.)
CONNECTICUT, one of the United States of North
America, bounded on the N. by Massachusetts, W. by New
York, S. by Long Island Sound, and E. by Rhode Island.
It lies between 4Land 42.2.N.Lat.,and between 71.40. and
73. 43. W. Long; is 90 miles in length from E. to W., and
from 60 to 70 miles in breadth from N. to S., and has an
area of about 4750 square miles.
Its coast is deeply indented by numerous bays and creeks,
affording excellent harbours. Of these harbours the best is
that of New London, which is spacious, deep, and not liable
to be frozen over in wfinter: next in importance are those
of New Haven, Stonington, and Bridgeport. The surface
of the state is much diversified by hills and valleys. None
of the hills attain an elevation of more than ] 000 feet. The
principal ranges are spurs of those of Massachusetts, and ex¬
tend in a southerly direction towards the coast. The Hous-
atonic range enters the state on the N.W., and extends
along the Housatonic river to the coast. The Green moun¬
tain range terminates at West Rock, 2 miles N.W. of New
Haven. Between this and the Connecticut river is the
Mount Tom range, which terminates at East Rock a little
N.E. by New Haven. On the E. side of the Connecticut
is a fourth range which crosses the river at Chatham, and
terminates at East Haven.
The state is watered by numerous rivers and streams.
Few of the rivers are navigable for more than a short dis¬
tance from their mouths. The principal is the Connecti¬
cut, which rises on the N. border of New Hampshire, and
after a course of about 400 miles falls into Long Island
Sound between Saybrook and Lyme. Its general direction
is S. by W., separating New Hampshire from Vermont, and
afterwards passing through the western part of Massachu¬
setts and the central part of Connecticut. Below Middle-
ton it turns to the S.S.E., and continues in that direction to
its mouth. It is navigable to Middleton, 30 miles from the
sea, for vessels drawing 10 feet, and to Hartford, 20 miles
higher, for vessels drawing 8 feet of water. The canals and
other improvements recently made to overcome the rapids
and falls, have rendered it navigable for small boats as far
CONNECTICUT.
295
Connect!- as Well’s River, 250 miles above Hartford. The principal
cut. tributary of the Connecticut in this state is the Tunxis or
Farmington, which rises in the E. slope of the Green moun¬
tains in Massachusetts, and flows southward to Farmington,
where it abruptly changes its course to the N. On break¬
ing through the trap range of the Talcott mountains, it again
takes a southerly direction, and falls into the Connecticut
opposite East Windsor. The Housatonic rises in the west¬
ern part of Massachusetts and enters this state near its N.W.
corner, after which it has a S. and S.E. course to the Sound.
Its entrance is obstructed by a bar, but there is a sloop navi¬
gation for 12 miles. The Thames, formed by the junction
of the Quinnebang, Shetucket, and Yantic rivers near Nor¬
wich, falls into the Sound at New London.
The mineral wealth of Connecticut is considerable. Iron
ore of excellent quality is found abundantly in various parts.
The copper mines of Bristol and Plymouth are said to be
the most profitable in the United States. According to
Professor Silliman, the Bristol vein extends in a southerly
direction for more than 30 miles, and if fully worked is
capable of affording employment to 30,000 miners. The
Plymouth mines are considered to be equally rich. Copper
is also found at Granby. Fine marbles of different kinds
are abundant, and extensive quarries of freestone exist in
the mountain regions, and furnish an excellent building
material. Zinc, cobalt, manganese, and plumbago, are also
found; and the mineral waters of Stafford have long been
celebrated.
The soil for the most part is fertile, but is in general con¬
sidered to be better suited for grazing than for grain. Some
of the river valleys, however, produce very fine crops. The
principal valley is that of the Connecticut, a rich agricultural
district, varying in breadth from 10 to 16 miles, and ex¬
tending northward from Middleton for about 30 miles in this
state. It has a strong argillaceous loam, varying in differ¬
ent parts from a hard stiff clay to a light sandy loam. The
valleys of the Quinnebang and Housatonic are also of great
fertility. In the eastern part of the state the prevailing soil
is excellent for grasses ; in the western are many fertile dis¬
tricts. The north-western is more cold and sterile, but con¬
tains some good grazing districts. The farms are chiefly
small; and most of the farmers follow some manufacturing
occupation during a part of the year. In 1850 there were
22,445 farms, consisting of 1,768,178 acres of improved, and
615,701 acres of unimproved land in the state. The chief
productions are wheat, oats, rye, maize, barley, potatoes, peas,
beans, tobacco, maple sugar, flax, and wine.
The country is healthy, notwithstanding its being ex¬
posed to the extremes of heat and cold, and also to sudden
changes of temperature. In winter keen north-west winds
prevail; but the serenity of the sky and the dryness of the
atmosphere during the same season compensate in some
degree for the severity of the weather. Upon the coast, in
particular, the wind is exceedingly variable, but the inland
country is less subject to this vicissitude.
The following table shows the decennial increase of the
population since 1790:—
Whites.
1790 232,581
1800 244,721
1810 255,279
1820 267,161
1830 289,603
1840 301,856
1850 I Males....179,884
( Females 183,215
Free Coloured.
2801
5330
6453
7944
8047
8105
3820
3873
Slaves.
2759
951
310
97
25
17
Total.
238,141
251,002
262,042
257,202
297,675
309,978
370,792
The federal population in 1850 was 370,792, returning
4 members to the house of representatives. The present
constitution was framed in 1818, and superseded the pre¬
vious form of government under the charter granted in 1662
by Charles II. The legislature meets annually on the first
Monday of May, alternately at Hartford and New Haven.
The governor exercises the chief executive power, and has Connecti-
power to grant reprieves, except in cases of impeachment, cut.
but not pardons : he may also veto a bill, but a majority of
both houses may pass it again, after which it becomes law.
The judiciary consists of a supreme court, a superior
court, county courts, Sic. The supreme court consists of
a chief and four associate justices, and meets annually in
each county. The superior court is held by one judge
of the superior court every half year, in each county.
County courts are held three times a-year in the several
counties by a judge elected annually by the legislature.
In 1850 there were 734 churches in the state, with ac¬
commodation for 307,299 persons. Of these 114 were
Baptist churches, 252 Congregational, 101 Episcopal,
and 185 Methodist. There were 1656 public schools, with
1787 teachers, and 71,269 pupils ; 202 academies and other
schools, with 329 teachers, and 6996 pupils; and 4 colleges,
with 56 teachers and 738 pupils. This state has a school
fund, derived in 1795 from the sale of some lands situated
in the north-eastern part of Ohio. The proceeds of this
sale constituted a fund, the annual income of w’hich was ap¬
propriated to the support of common schools. This fund
is now estimated to be of the value of #2,049,482, and the
dividends from it for the year ending March 1852 amounted
to #132,792. The number of common school societies in
1851 was 217; of school districts 1652 ; and of children
between 4 and 16 years of age 94,852. The legislature in
1849 appropriated #10,000 for the establishment of a state
normal school. The principal of the normal school is ex
officio superintendent of common schools. The number of
pupils is limited to 220, to be selected one from each school
society : tuition free. The number of pupils in 1850 was
154. Connected with the normal school are Schools of
Practice, containing (in 1851) 400 pupils organized into three
grades. In 1851 a state reform school was established “for
the instruction, employment, and reformation of juvenile
offenders.” Boys under 16 years of age, convicted of
offences punishable by imprisonment, may, at the discretion
of the court, be sent to this school, to be kept disciplined,
instructed, &c., until they shall either be reformed and dis¬
charged, or bound out to service by the trustees, or remanded
to prison as incorrigible. Yale college at New Haven is one
of the oldest, most richly endowed, and most extensively
useful institutions of learning in the United States. It was
founded in 1701 by the gentleman whose name it bears,
and in 1850 had 432 students in the academical depart¬
ment, 38 in theology, 26 in law, 38 in medicine, and 21 in
philosophy and the arts. Trinity college at Hartford is an
Episcopal institution, founded in 1824 ; and in 1850 had 9
professors and 66 students. The Wesleyan university at
Middleton was founded in 1831, and in 1850 had 8 profes¬
sors and 125 students. There is also a theological institu¬
tion at Hartford in connection with the Congregationalists,
having, in 1850, 3 instructors and 17 students. The re¬
treat for the insane, opened in 1824, at Hartford, contained
at 1st April 1851, 157 patients ; and during the subsequent
year 158 patients were admitted, and 134 discharged, leav¬
ing at 1st April 1852, 181 patients in the retreat. The
American asylum for the deaf and dumb, also at Hartford,
was the first institution of the kind in the states, and has
been well endowed by individual, state, and federal bounties.
The number of pupils, who must on admission be between
8 and 25 years of age, for year ending 1st May 1852, was
207, of whom 118 were males, and 89 females. The state
prison at Wethersfield contained, at 1st March 1851, 158
convicts. They receive instruction in the rudiments of
learning ; and there is a small library for their use. The
receipts for the year were #15,083, and the expenditure
#10,901. The state in 1850 had 42 public libraries with
38,609 vols.; 4 school libraries, with 5039 vols.; 107 Sun¬
day-school libraries, with 38,445 vols.; 8 college libraries,
296 CON
Connecti- with 82,600 vols.; and 3 church libraries, with 625 vols.;
cut River being in all 142 libraries, with 165,318 vols. ihe total
II number of newspapers and periodicals published in the
v LonOD‘ y state in 1850 was 51, of which 30 were political, and 21
religious, scientific, &c.
The manufacturing establishments in the state, producing
annually to the value of 0500 and upwards, amounted in 1850
to $3913: of these 128 were cotton factories, 149 woollen
mills, and 91 engaged in the manufacture of iron-work.
The remainder include establishments for the manufac¬
ture of various kinds of hardware, cutlery, fire-arms, gun¬
powder, paper, boots, shoes, &c. A considerable part of
the manufacturing industry is carried on in small shops not
noticed in the census, but which, it is calculated, add one-
third to the apparent extent of the manufacturing interest
of the state. The foreign commerce is comparatively small.
The exports for year ending 30th June 1851 amounted to
$434,078, and the imports to $342,994. In the same year
35 vessels of 3414 tons were built in the state. The amount
of shipping owned in 1850 was 113,085 tons, of which
31,028 tons were employed in foreign commerce, 11,483
tons in the whale fishery, 5249 in cod fishing, 571 in mac¬
kerel fishing, and the remainder chiefly in the coasting
trade. The roads are numerous and well kept. In 1853,
591 miles of railway were completed, and 106 miles in course
of construction. The total revenue of the state for year
ending 31st March 1852, including $26,266 balance of last
year, was $176,456, and the expenditure $137,326: the
state debt, chiefly contingent, was $91,212.
Connecticut River. See preceding article.
CONNOISSEUR (French, from connoitre, to know), a
person well versed in any subject; a critical judge or master
of any art, particularly of painting, sculpture, or virtu.
CONNOR, Bernard (1666-1698), a learned physician,
born in Kerry, Ireland. He studied medicine at Mont¬
pellier, and afterwards at Paris. Having travelled through
Italy with the two sons of the high-chancellor of Poland,
he was introduced at the court of Warsaw, and appointed
physician to King John Sobieski. In 1695 he visited Eng¬
land, and read a course of lectures on the animal economy in
London and Oxford. He was afterwards elected member of
the Royal Society and College of Physicians; and was invited
to Cambridge, where he also read public lectures. He
was the author of a treatise entitled Evangelium Medici
(the Physician’s Gospel), in which he endeavoured to ex¬
plain away the Christian miracles as physical events, upon
the principles of natural philosophy. He also wrote a his¬
tory of Poland in 2 vols.
CONOID, in Geometry, a solid body generated by the
revolution of a conic section around its axis.
CONON, a renowned Athenian general and admiral
who flourished about 390 b.c. (See Attica.) After his
defeat by Lysander, he fled to Evagoras, king of Cyprus,
and then put himself under the protection of Artaxerxes,
king of Persia, with whose army he delivered Athens from
the Lacedaemonian yoke and restored the walls. He after¬
wards (b.c. 394) defeated the Lacedaemonians in a naval
encounter near Cnidos, and thus deprived them of the
empire of the sea (which they had held ever since the tak¬
ing of Athens), besides crippling their resources in other re¬
spects. According to one account, he is said to have been
put to death by Teribazus, when on an embassy to the
Persian court; but it seems more probable that he escaped
to Cyprus, where he had considerable property, and that he
died there a natural death b.c. 388.
Conon, of Samos, a mathematician and astronomer,
who flourished during the reigns of Ptolemy Philadelphus
and Euergetes. He was the inventor of the curve called
afterwards from its more famous expounder the spiral of
Archimedes, and is mentioned in terms of admiration by the
Syracusan mathematicians. None of his treatises are ex-
C 0 N
tant. There is also a grammarian of the same name who Conops
flourished in the age of Augustus, and wrote a work on the ||
mythical period of the early colonies. Consan-
CONOPS, a genus of insects belonging to the order Suinity.
Diptera. See index to Entomology.
CONQUEST, in Law, the acquiring of property by other
means than by succession ; as by purchase, donation, &c.
CONRAD II., the Salic, elected Emperor of Germany
in 1024. He was crowned as emperor and king of the
Romans by Pope John XIX.; and having taken the field
against the insurgent German dukes, he put Ernest, Duke
of Suabia, under the ban of the empire. As this is one of the
earliest instances of such a proscription, the formula is in¬
serted here on account of its singularity:—“ We declare
thy wife a widow, thy children orphans ; and we send thee,
in the name of the devil, to the four corners of the world.”
It was for the most part during the reign of this prince that
the German fiefs became hereditary. Conrad died at
Utrecht in 1039, and was succeeded by his son Henry III.,
who during the lifetime of his father had been invested with
the crown of Burgundy.
Conrad III., elected Emperor of Germany in 1138.
His election having been opposed by the Duke of Bavaria,
Conrad put that prince under the ban of the empire, and
deprived him of his duchy, a disgrace which he could not
survive. The Margrave of Austria being ordered by the
emperor to take possession of Bavaria, Welst, uncle of the
deceased duke, attacked him, but was defeated near the
castle of Winsburg. The battle fought upon this occasion
is famous in history, as having given rise to the party names
of Guelfs and Ghibelines, afterwards assumed in Italy.
The parole of the day with the Bavarians was Welst, from
the name of their general; that of the Imperialists Wai-
hlingen, from the patrimonial seat of the family of their com¬
mander. These names were gradually used to distinguish the
two parties, and by the Italians were corrupted into the more
euphonic Guelfi and Ghibelini. Conrad joined with Louis
VII. in the second crusade (see Crusades) ; but the flower
of his army perished before Damascus and Ascalon, and he
was compelled to return home to check the intrigues of
Welst. After defeating the insurgents, Conrad was prepar¬
ing to set out for Italy to be crowned by the Pope, when
he died at Bamberg in 1152.
Conrad, or Conradin, the younger son of Conrad, was
an infant at his father’s death. He was acknowledged
as emperor by the Ghibelines, who received him in triumph
at Rome ; but Pope Alexander IV. published a crusade
against him ; and Urban VII. gave the empire to Charles
of Anjou, brother of Louis IX. king of France. The un¬
fortunate youth, though powerfully supported even by the
Turks, lost a battle, in which he was taken prisoner; and in
1229, in the eighteenth year of his age, he was publicly
beheaded at Naples, by order of his base opponent. With
him the race of the dukes of Suabia, which had produced
several kings and emperors, became extinct.
CONSANGUINITY (Lat. consanguinitas; con, and
sanguis, blood), or Kindred, is defined by the writers on
this subject to be vinculum personarum ab eodem stipite
descendentium, that is, the connection or relation of persons
descended from the same stock or common ancestor. This
consanguinity is either lineal or collateral.
Lineal consanguinity is that which subsists between per¬
sons of whom one is descended in a direct line from the
other. It falls strictly within the definition of vinculum
personarum ab eodem stipite descendentium; since lineal
relations are such as descend one from the other, and both
of course from the same common ancestors.
Collateral kindred answers to the same description:
collateral relations agreeing with the lineal in this, that
they descend from the same stock or ancestor, but with this
diflerence, that they do not descend the one from the other.
CON
Conscience Collateral kinsmen, then, are such as lineally spring from
one and the same ancestor, who is the stirps, or root, as
Conscrip- we]i as the stipes, trunk, or common stock whence these
tion. re]ations branch out.
CONSCIENCE. See Moral Philosophy.
CONSCIOUSNESS. See Metaphysics.
CONSCRIPT, in Roman Antiquity, an appellation
given to the senators of Rome, who were called patres con-
scripti (conscript fathers), because their names were written
in a register of the senate. See Senate.
CONSCRIPTION, the plan adopted by the French and
some other nations for recruiting their armies.
The Code de la Conscription forms a part of the French
system of jurisprudence, and furnishes the most complete
body of regulations for working this tremendous engine of
military despotism.
The conscription was first published in the form of a ge¬
neral law by the Council of Ancients in 1798, and after¬
wards underwent some slight modifications.
By the law of the Directory, which is attributed to
Carnot, all Frenchmen are pronounced soldiers; and, when
the country is in danger, they are liable to be summoned to
its defence ; but in ordinary circumstances the wants of the
army are to be supplied by the conscription. The legisla¬
tive body, at the suggestion of the executive government, de¬
termines the requisite number of conscripts. The contingent
of each department is regulated by the law in proportion to
its population, and subdivided by the same rule among the
districts, cantons, and municipalities. All Frenchmen be¬
tween the full age of 20 and 25 complete are liable to the
conscription.1
At the drawing or designation by lot of those who are to
form the quota of the district, those who draw the numbers
below the amount of the quota are taken for active service.
Absentees not presenting themselves within a month after
the drawing, are declared and pursued as deserters. Be¬
sides the contingent for active service, the law requires an
equal number to form the conscription of the reserve, who
are to march only in cases of emergency, which emergency,
however, during war, has almost always been found to exist.
These are all organized and carefully disciplined. A third
class is also balloted for equal to one-fourth of the whole
contingent, who are called the supplemental conscripts,
being destined to fill up the vacancies that may occur be¬
fore junction at headquarters. The conscription is enforced
with rigour, and parents are held responsible for their ab¬
sent children, till they can produce an official attestation of
their death.
CON 297
Against all parents, public functionaries, or others, who Conscrip-
contribute to defeat or retard the operation of the law, there tion-
are heavy denunciations. Any health officer convicted of
furnishing a false certificate of infirmity, is subjected to five
years’ imprisonment in irons. Other offences against the
Code de la Conscription are punished with corresponding
severity. Every conscript absenting himself for 24 hours
from his depot is treated as a deserter. The penalty for
desertion is—public or hard labour, the punishment of the
ball, or death. In the punishment of the ball, an iron ball
of eight pounds weight, fastened to an iron chain of seven
feet in length, is attached to the leg of the deserter. He
first hears his sentence read on his knees, and is condemned
to ten hours hard labour daily, and in the interval of rest
chained in solitary confinement. The duration of the pun¬
ishment is ten years, aggravated by every mark of ignominy
in dress and appearance ; and in cases of contumacy it is
prolonged beyond ten years, with an additional ball fastened
to the leg.
The directory admitted of no substitution, and it is still
studiously discouraged by the Government; but the severity
of this principle is now relaxed in a few special cases. Even
in these, however, the conditions attached to them are exceed¬
ingly oppressive. For the great majority even of the better
classes of conscripts, it is almost impossible to obtain proxies.
The legal duration of the service is seven years; but the
dread of the hardships and of the indeterminate duration of
military service, enhance enormously the price of eligible
substitutes.
The system of conscription is no doubt a simple and
ready means for obtaining the requisite number of soldiers ;
and so would a system of confiscation be a ready means
for obtaining funds for carrying on a war. In fact, the
conscription is a system of confiscation ; it falls with pe¬
culiar hardship upon the poor, and upon those of slender
fortunes. When dragged from their peaceful pursuits,
their prospects in life are often ruined ; and whether they
sacrifice their domestic happiness and join the ranks, or
ransom themselves at the expense of their small property,
they are equally despoiled of their most valued possessions.
In an impending invasion it might be imperative to
call upon all who are fit to bear arms, or such of them
as can be most readily gathered together, without dis¬
tinction, to rally round the standard of their country ;
but in the ordinary cases of warfare this is not necessary.
Louis XIV., when at war with the whole of the north
of Europe, maintained an army of 300,000, made up by or¬
dinary levies; and even the forces of Louis XVI., recruited
1 ha Presse of September 1, 1849, contained, under the head of “ The Net Product of Twenty Years of War,’ a remarkable article in
support of its arguments in favour of a reduction of the army. It is as follows :—
Men.
Levy of June 24, 1791,   150,000
... September, 1792,   109,000
... February 24, 1793,   300,000
... April 16, 1793,   30,000
Requisition of August 16, 1793  1,050,000
Conscription of Vend. 3, an VIL,  190,000
... Germin. 28, an YIL,.. 150,000
... Messidor 24, an VII., 110,000
Floreal 28, an X  120,000
Floreal 5, an X  120,000
... ... XII  60,000
Men.
Conscription of Nivose 8, an XIII.,... 60,000
Nivose 27, an XIH.,.. 60,000
Vend. 2, an XIV., ... 80,000
... December 15, 1806,.. 80,000
April 7, 1807,  80,000
... January 21, 1808, ... 80,000
... September 10, 1808,.. 80,000
...' September 12, 1808,.. 80,000
... January 1, 1809,  80,000
April 25, 1809  40,000
October 5, 1809  36,000
Men.
Conscription of December 13, 1809,... 120,000
... Same day,  40,000
... September 1, 1812, ... 120,000
January 11, 1813, .... 350,000
April 3, 1813,   180,000
... August 24, 1813,  30,000
October 9, 1813,    280,000
November 15, 1813,... 300,000
Total,   4,556,000
Napoleon, for his part, obtained by the conscription 2,476,000 men. Those who set out were never freed from service. Spain was the
tomb of most of our own soldiers ; what remained perished almost entirely in the snows of Russia. The army of 1813 was composed of
recruits of from 18 to 20 years of age. Illness, fatigue, and privation, decimated them. Of the 1,260,000 men raised in 1813, there re¬
mained, in 1814, to defend the soil of France, but 100,000 men above the guard. In 1792 France had, as now, 86 departments. The
conquests of the Republic gave her, in two years, the Rhine and the Alps for frontiers. From 1794 to 1800, the number of our depart¬
ments was increased by 19, and made 105. Napoleon, in 1805, joined to France, Holland, maritime Germany, and half of Italy, and
created 27 new departments, France then having 132. In 1814, France was reduced to her old limits of 1790, and from her were taken
Marienburg, Philippeville, and Landau. Such, then, was the net produce of twenty years’ gigantic wars, heroic efforts, immeasurable
sacrifices, and bloodshed on every battle-field of Europe. A single battle lost, that of Waterloo, sufficed to take from France the fruit
of twenty immortal victories, and to render her smaller in 1845 than in 1790. But that is not all! To 4,500,000 of men (how many
nations have not 4,500,000 souls !) cut down by balls and bullets, must be added 7,000,000 of indemnity of war paid by France to the
Allied Powers, and which was payable in equal portions in five years by means of bans to bearer on the royal treasury, 490,000,000
for the support of the foreign garrison, jpZws a multitude of various indemnities, the whole amounting to nearly two milliards.
VOL. VII. 2 P
298
Consecra¬
tion
II
Consentes.
CON
in the same manner, amounted to 200,000. The regular
troops levied by enlistments, and maintained by Great Brit¬
tain, in 1815, exceeded 250,000, exclusive of the ordnance.
W ere war and conquest, as in some of the states of antiquity,
the great object and business of a nation, then it might be
advisable to have such an organization as would furnish a
constant supply to replace the wear and tear of successive
military campaigns, and the population at large might be
treated as the materiel for this purpose ; but since civilized
nations have learnt to consider war as an unmitigated evil,
to be encountered only when every means to avoid it con¬
sistent with safety has failed, it is surely unwise to have re¬
course to an organized system of compulsion to force a large
portion of the population to forsake the arts of peace and
those industrial pursuits which are the true sources of national
wealth and prosperity. And what adds to the malignity of
the system is the fact, that the conscripts are taken at a time
of life when they are beginning to settle down into those
habits of industry and enterprise which form the useful and
respectable citizen; habits which can scarcely be acquired af¬
ter years of roving restless excitement in camps and warfare.
If a country requires soldiers, why should not fair induce¬
ments be offered to recruits, as well as to others employed
in the public service ? There is no difficulty in finding an
abundance of qualified candidates for the lowest situations
in the public offices, and there is even no want of competi¬
tors to fill the ranks of the police establishments. Then
let there be sufficient inducement and fair remuneration held
out, and the ranks of the army will be voluntarily filled by
men disposed to adopt the military life as a profession, and
whom it will neither be a hardship nor a loss to withdraw
from other pursuits to military service.
CONSECRATION, the act of devoting anything to
sacred uses. The Mosaic law ordained, that all the first¬
born both of man and beast should be consecrated to God.
We find also that Joshua consecrated the Gibeonites, as
Solomon and David did the Nethinims, to the service of
the temple; and that the Hebrews sometimes consecrated
their fields and cattle to the Lord, after which they were no
longer in their own power.
In England, churches have always been consecrated with
particular ceremonies, the form of which is left in a great
measure to the discretion of the bishop.
Consecration is also used for the benediction of the ele¬
ments in the eucharist.
Consecration, or the ancient ceremony of the apothe¬
osis of an emperor, is thus represented on medals:—On
one side is the emperor’s head, crowned with laurel, some¬
times veiled, while the inscription gives him the title of
divus ; on the reverse is a temple, a bustum, an altar, or an
eagle taking its flight towards heaven, either from off the
altar, or from a cippus. In others the emperor is borne up
in the air by the eagle. The inscription is always conse-
cratio. These are the usual symbols ; yet on the reverse
of that of Antoninus is the Antonine column. In the apo¬
theosis of empresses, instead of an eagle there is a peacock.
The honours rendered to these princes after death were ex¬
plained by the words consecratio, pater, divus, and deus.
Sometimes around the temple or altar are put the words
memoria felix, or memories ceternce; and for princesses,
ceternitas, and sideribus recepta ; whilst on the one side of
the head is dea, or 0ea.
CONSENTES, in the Etrusco-Roman language of re¬
ligion, the twelve superior deities who formed the common
council of the gods assembled by Jupiter. Their names
are comprehended in the two following verses of Ennius,
as quoted by Apuleius, De Deo Socratis :—
Juno, Yesta, Minerva, Ceres, Diana, Venus, Mars,
Mercurius, Jovi’, Neptunus, Vulcanus, Apollo.
The word is derived from consentio, to agree, to unite upon
something accordantly. These deities were also styled DU
CON'
Magni, and Ccelestes, or Nobiles, as distinguished from the
inferior gods.
CONSEQUENCE, in Logic, the conclusion, or that
which results from the premises.
CONSERVATORY, a place for preserving anything; as
a greenhouse for exotic plants, an ice-house, &c.
Conservatory, in Music(from the Italian conservatorio),
is applied to a school for training boys and girls to the mu¬
sical profession. At one time conservatorj were numerous
and flourishing at Venice and Naples ; but they began to
decline in the last century, and are now almost extinct in
Italy, except at Milan and Bologna. The French have
their Paris Conservatoire ; and in Germany there are se¬
veral excellent schools of the same kind. The only one in
Great Britain is the London Royal Academy of Music.
CONSISTENTES, in Church History, penitents who
were allowed to assist at prayers, but not admitted to receive
the sacrament.
CONSISTORY, a term commonly used to denote a
council-house of ecclesiastical persons, or place of justice in
the spiritual court, and also a session or assembly of pre¬
lates.
Consistory, at Rome, denotes the college of cardinals,
or the pope’s senate and council, before which causes are
pleaded. The word is derived from the post-classical Latin
consistorium,, which, according to Du Cange, is locus ubi
consistitur; a vestibule, gallery, or ante-chamber, where
courtiers wait for admission, and so called a consistente mul-
titudine.
The consistory is the first court or tribunal of Rome,
and only meets when convoked by the pope, who presides
in person, seated on a magnificent throne, and habited in
his pontifical robes. On the right are the cardinal-bishops
and priests, and on the left the cardinal-deacons. It is held
in a large hall in the apostolical palace where princes and
ambassadors are received. The rest of the prelates, the
prothonotaries, auditors of the rota, and other officers, are
seated on the steps of the throne. The courtiers sit below,
ambassadors on the right, and consistorial and fiscal advo¬
cates behind the cardinals.
Besides the public, there is also a private consistory, held
in a chamber called the chamber of papogay. None are
admitted but cardinals, whose opinions are collected, and
called sentences. Here are first proposed and passed all
bulls for bishoprics, abbeys, &c.; and hence bishoprics and
abbeys are said to be consistorial benefices. Anciently
they were elective ; but by the concordat, which abolishes
elections, they are appointed to be collated by the pope
alone, on the nomination of the prince.
Consistory is also used in the reformed church to sig¬
nify a council or assembly of ministers and elders, convened
in order to regulate matters of discipline, and other church
affairs.
Consistory Court, in the English law, is a council of
ecclesiastical persons, or the place of justice in an ecclesias¬
tical or spiritual court. Every diocesan bishop has a con¬
sistory court, which is held before his chancellor or com¬
missary, in their several cathedrals, or in some other con¬
venient place of the diocese, for the trial of all ecclesias¬
tical causes arising within their respective dioceses, and for
granting probates and administrations. Under the 24th
Hen. VIII., cap. 12, an appeal lies to the archbishop of the
province from the decision of the consistory court.
CONSOLE, in Architecture, a projecting bracket, usu¬
ally in the form of the letter S. Consoles are often placed
as ornaments on the side of door-cases. In Vitruvius, the
terms ancon (dyKwv) and prothyris (jrpodvpls) appear to be
other names for the same thing. See Architecture,
vol. iii., p. 508.
CONSOLS (an abbreviation of “ consolidated”), a terra
familiarly used to denote a considerable portion of the pub-
Conse-
quence
Consols.
CON
Consonance lie debt of this kingdom, properly known as the three per
|| cent, consolidated annuities. There is a similar description
Constable. 0f stock called the “ reduced threes,” or three per cents.
See England, § National Debt.
CONSONANCE, in Music. See Music.
CONSONANT, a letter which cannot be sounded with¬
out the aid of a vowel placed before or after it; as, b,
c, d,f m, &c.
CONSPIRACY—Conspirator. These, and the cog¬
nate terms, come from the Latin, which literally expresses
breathing together. Two eminent characteristics of con¬
spiracy are thus indicated; the one extreme secrecy, the
other a union of action among persons—more than one :
conspiracy is incapable of being committed by one person.
In history it may be contrasted with rebellion, which is a
public offence, and capable of being committed by a single
person. Private conspiracy to injure an individual person
by some illegal act is an offence punishable by every criminal
code. The most common and dangerous species is that by
which a plan is concocted for bringing home to the victim
a false charge of the commission of a crime. The punish¬
ment of private conspiracy in England is adjusted by 14th
and loth Viet., cap. 100, § 29.
CONSTABLE. This word, according to Coke, Sel-
den, and several other writers, is derived from the Saxon
words honing^ king, and stabel or stapel, a stay or support—
quasi columen regis, the stay or support of the king. But
as we borrowed the name as well as the office from the
French, it is rather to be deduced, according to Spelman,
Menage, Du Cange, Vossius, Cowell, and Skinner, from
comes stabuli, a term denoting a kind of master of the horse ;
an officer, as Blackstone observes, “ well known in the Em¬
pire, and so called because, like the Lord High Constable
of England, he was to regulate all matters of chivalry, tilts,
tournaments, and feats of arms, which were performed on
horseback.
The Constable of France was the first officer of the
crown, and had the chief command of the army ; and it was
his duty also to regulate all matters of chivalry and feats of
arms. This office was suppressed by an edict of Louis XIII.
in 1607. It was revived by Napoleon ; but in 1814, on the
restoration of the Bourbon dynasty, it was finally abolished.
The Lord High Constable of England was anciently
an officer of the crown of the highest dignity. This office
appears to have been first instituted immediately after the
Norman Conquest, with duties, powers, and jurisdiction
very similar to those of the Constable of France. As judge
of the court of chivalry, along with the Earl Marshal, the
power of the Lord High Constable was so formidable, and
so improperly used, that a statute was passed in the 13th
of Richard II. to restrict the jurisdiction of that court to
“ contracts and deeds of arms and things which touch war,
and which cannot be discussed or determined by the com¬
mon law.” This office became hereditary in the family of
the Bohuns, earls of Hereford and Essex; and afterwards
passed into that of the Staffords, as their heirs-general: but
in 1521 it became forfeited to the crown in the person of
Edward Stafford, duke of Buckingham, who was attainted
of high treason. Since that time no Lord High Constables
have been appointed, otherwise than pro hac vice—as at
coronations, and on other solemn occasions.
The Lord High Constable of Scotland. The office of
Lord High Constable of Scotland is also one of great anti¬
quity, since as many as eleven Lord High Constables of
Scotland are enumerated in a list of the twelfth century.
To him belonged (according to the Leges Male. IF), jointly
with the mareschal, the trial of all offences committed within
certain limits of the king’s court; though, in fact, such
offences, it appears, were judged by the lord justiciar—the
Constable merely protesting in favour of his right. The ex¬
tent and nature of this jurisdiction, as defined in the report
CON 299
of the commission of inquiry in the reign of Charles I., were Constable,
found to apply to all slaughters and riots committed within
four miles of the king’s person, of the privy-council, or the
parliament; which precinct was called the Chcdmer of Peace.
The office was conferred heritably on Sir Gilbert de Hay
by King Robert Bruce in 1314; and it still remains in the
noble family of Errol, the office having been expressly re¬
served by the Treaty of Union.
Inferior Constables. From the great office of high
constable is derived that inferior order since called the
constables of hundreds and franchises. These were first
instituted in the thirteenth year of Edward I. by the statute
of Winchester, which, for the conservation of the peace, and
view of armour, appointed two constables to be chosen in
every hundred and franchise. These are what are now
called constabularii capitales, or high constables ; because,
with the increase of population, it was found necessary to
appoint in every town others of like nature but inferior
authority, called sub-constabularii, or petty constables.
These were first instituted about the reign of Edward III.
In Scotland, constables are the officers of the justices of
the peace, intrusted with the execution of their warrants,
decrees, and orders. They are appointed by the justices
at their quarter-sessions, and in royal burghs by the magis¬
trates. It is the duty of constables, without any special
warrant, to apprehend offenders against the peace, vagrants,
and such as can give no account of themselves, and to take
them to the next justice. It is also their duty to suppress
riots, and apprehend the rioters; but after the riot is over,
a constable is not authorized to seize brevi manu any person
concerned in it, unless some one has been dangerously
wounded in the affray. See Police.
Constable, Archibald, an eminent bookseller and pub¬
lisher, was born Feb. 24th, 1774, at Kellie, in Fifeshire,
where his father was land-steward on the estate of the Earl
of Kellie. He received the usual branches of education at
the parish school of Carnbee ; and in 1788 was apprenticed
to Mr Peter Hill, bookseller in Edinburgh. After the ex¬
piry of his apprenticeship he married the daughter of Mr
Willison, a respectable printer; and established himself as
a bookseller in a small shop in the High Street, to which
his sale catalogues of curious and rare books soon attracted
all the bibliographers and lovers of learning in the city.
In 1801 he became the proprietor of the Farmer’s Maga¬
zine, and also of the Scots Magazine—a miscellany which,
under the editorial superintendence of Dr John Leyden
and the Rev. Dr Alexander Murray, attained a considerable
reputation. Constable is, however, chiefly known from his
connection with the Edinburgh Review ; the first number
of which was published by him in October 1802. How¬
ever much his sagacity may have tended to guide its pro¬
jectors in the carrying out of their design, it is certain that
he himself was not the author of the project, and was rather
startled at the boldness of the scheme when first propounded
to him.
His reputation as a publisher was greatly enhanced by
his connection with the novels of Sir Walter Scott, the first
of which appeared in 1805. For some of these tales Mr Con¬
stable had the merit of occasionally suggesting subjects and
finding titles. He was also the proprietor of the Encyclo-
pwdia Britannica, and published a supplement to one of
its earlier editions. In 1826, whilst busily engaged in the
publication of the Miscellany which bears his name, Mr Con¬
stable became bankrupt; and a sudden illness shortly after¬
wards brought him to the grave, July 21, 1827.
Constable, John, (1776-1837), an eminent English
landscape painter, was born near Woodbridge, Suffolk, where
his father was a miller. By his parents he was destined for
the church, but being averse to study, he was apprenticed
to his father’s trade. His passion for painting, however, led
him quickly to abandon this employment; and in 1799 ho
300 CON
Constance, was admitted a student at the Royal Academy, London.
He first appeared as an exhibitor in 1802 ; and in 1829 he
was elected an academician.
Like all painters who have attained eminence in their art.
Constable delighted in the contemplation of nature ; and in
his compositions he laboured to give a faithful transcript of
its simplicity and beauty. Before sketching from nature, he
used to remark, he first tried to forget that he had ever seen
a picture. His picture of the Corn Field, in the National
Gallery, is a good specimen of his style and abilities.
CONSTANCE (Costnitz), the capital of the Baden
See-Kreis or Lake Circle, situated on the Swiss side of
the Rhine, on a peninsula at the W. extremity of the Bo¬
densee or Lake of Constance. It is an ancient town, and its
population has fallen from 40,000 in the fifteenth century
to 5300 in the present. Its fortifications consist of a wall
flanked by towers, and one of its suburbs, that of Kreuzlin-
gen, is defended by two bastions. The suburb of Peters-
hausen, which was originally a free abbey of the empire,
communicates with the city by means of a long covered
wooden bridge raised on stone piers. The only other
suburb, that of Briihl, contains the field in which Huss suf¬
fered martyrdom. The principal buildings of Constance are
the minster, the old Dominican convent on the island of
Genf, now a cotton-printing establishment, and the Kauf-
haus or public mart, in the hall of which sat the famous
council of Constance (1414-18). It contains also a lyceum,
a hospital, a conventual school for females, and several
museums. Constance is the seat of the circle and district
governments, and has a considerable local trade. There are
a few manufactures of cotton and silk stuffs ; and a consider¬
able proportion of the inhabitants are engaged in the fisher¬
ies and navigation of the lake.
Constance, Lake of (Bodensee Costnitz), a large lake
of Central Europe, on the confines of Baden, Wirtemberg,
Bavaria, Austria, and Switzerland. Greatest length from
Bregenz to Bodmann 44 miles ; greatest breadth between
Rorshach and Friederichshafen 13 miles; greatest depth
912 feet; height above the level of the sea 1280 feet. It
is divided into the upper and lower lakes, the latter of which
contains the fertile island of Reichenau. They are con¬
nected with each other by the channel of the Rhine, which
enters the lake at Rheineck, and leaves it at Stein. The
shores of the lake are flat and undulating, being more fertile
than picturesque. The navigation is rendered dangerous
by sudden squalls, but there is a considerable traffic in rural
produce, and numerous steamboats ply between the towns
on the margin of the lake. Its waters are subject to sudden ris¬
ings, proceeding from some unknown subterraneous agency :
they abound in salmon, trout, pike, carp, &c., and are fre¬
quented by numerous species of aquatic birds. To the
Romans the lake of Constance was known as the Brigan-
tinus Lacus. Its northern shore was inhabited by the Vin-
delicians, the southern bank was held by the Helvetians,
and the south-east by the Raetians.
CONSTANT, Benjamin (1767-1830), a celebrated
French political writer, was born at Geneva, where his
father, who had been a general officer in the Dutch service,
lived in retirement. For some time the younger Constant
held a situation at the court of Brunswick ; but at the out¬
break of the French revolution he went to Paris, and being
descended from an exiled French family he claimed the
privileges of a French citizen. At this time he published
several small political tracts containing his views on the cha¬
racter of the existing governments, one in support of the Di¬
rectory, and a second in condemnation of the Reign of
Terror. Under the First Consul Constant became a mem¬
ber of the tribunate, but his systematic opposition to the
measures of the consular government procured his expulsion
from Paris along with Madame de Stael. Returning to Paris
for a short time he afterwards repaired to Gottingen, where
CON
he wrote his History of the Different Modes of Worship, and Constants
a tragedy entitled Wolstein. At the restoration he again ||
appeared at Paris as the advocate of the Bourbons, and de- cpnstan-
nounced Napoleon on his escape from Elba. He had the ^tinoPle-
meanness, however, to accept from Napoleon the title of
councillor of state, and afterwards to employ his pen in rous¬
ing the nation to rally round the Emperor. He retired
from Paris for a short time after the restoration of Louis
XVIII., and on his return he joined the constitutional op¬
position, and obtained a seat in the Chamber of Deputies.
He wrote in Le Mercure, and was conjoint editor of La
Minerve for several years before his death.
CONSTANTIA, a small village about eight miles W,
from Cape Town, celebrated for its luscious red and white
wines, of which it produces about 10,000 gallons yearly.
CONSTANTINA (the modern name of the ancient
Roman Cirta), the capital of the French province of
Constantina, Algiers. It stands on a peninsulated emi¬
nence, surrounded by deep ravines, which are traversed by
the Rummell; and it is fortified by walls and gates, which,
though of Arabic masonry, seem to have been formed from
the ruins of Roman edifices. The streets of the town are
narrow and irregular, and the houses generally two stories
high with sloping roofs. The principal manufacture is that
of saddles, and leather goods generally. A large trade is
carried on with the south, in which the corn of the district
and various articles of European manufacture are exchanged
for the gold dust, ostrich feathers, and other products of
Central Africa. Pop. (1849) 22,994, of whom 2050 were
Europeans. See Cirta.
CONSTANTINE the Great, Roman emperor, a.d.
306-337. See Roman History.
Constantine VII. {Flavius Porphyrogenitus), Emperor
of the East, 911-959. During his retirement under the
usurpation of Romanus Lecanenus, he had acquired a taste
for literature and art; and after having assumed the purple,
he abandoned the cares of the empire in a great measure to
his wife Helena, and devoted himself to his favourite pur¬
suits. During his reign, however, the arms of the empire
were crowned with victory, and the power of the emperor
was strengthened by alliances with the Khalifs of Baghdad
and Africa. Constantine’s end was hastened by poison, ad¬
ministered by his son Romanus. His works are peculiarly
valuable as throwing light on the manners and customs of
a period otherwise wholly unknown to us.
CONSTANTINOPLE, the capital of the Turkish em¬
pire, the Stanboli of the Greeks, or Istanboul of the Turks.
An attempt was made to change this latter name into
Islamboul, that is, the town of Islam or Mohammedanism,
and coins were even struck bearing the new name; but the
attempt failed, and the coinage again bears the impression
“ struck at Istanboul.” The entire civil and ecclesiastical
authority of the Turkish empire is concentrated in the city,
where reside the chief pashas, muftis, and ulemas ; the
patriarch and synod of the Greek Church; an Armenian
and a Catholic archbishop. That part of it which is now
occupied by the seraglio, and which is separated from the
rest by a wall, is understood to have been the Byzantium
of the ancients. See Byzantium.
It is built on a triangular promontory, of which the base is
toward Europe, and is bounded by the sea of Marmora on
the south-eastern, and the harbour or Golden Horn on the
northern side. The seraglio is at the apex of the triangle,
and forms the western side of the mouth of the Bosporus,
of which the harbour is an extensive inlet. The city stands
upon and between seven hills or risings, and was defended on
the side of the land by a triple wall from 14 to 20 feet high,
beyond which was a ditch 25 feet broad. These defences
still remain apparently as left at the conquest of the town.
A single wall around the water boundary of the city is still
quite visible on the Marmora side, and though concealed
CONSTANTINOPLE.
Constan- towards the harbour by buildings on the shore, may yet be
tinople. easily traced by the square towers which are placed at short
distances along it, and of which the number is said to be
548. These walls give evidence of having been constructed
in great haste; and the materials of which they are com¬
posed seem to have been taken in good part from the valu¬
able remains of antiquity which abounded in the city. An
immense number of columnar pieces have been laid as the
foundation, for which they were ill-adapted from their round¬
ness ; and fragments of architraves and entablatures have
been fitted in with their mouldings, inwards or outwards as
suited the convenience of the mason. In one or two places
the workmen seem to have amused themselves by trying
to keep the more ornamental pieces together; and one edi¬
fice, described by tourists as the Lion’s Fountain, has been
ludicrously transferred to the top of the wall, the arch stones
which had probably come first to hand having been clumsily
stuck together below. Sometimes also an attempt had
been made to preserve the inscriptions, some of which may
be seen in that part of the wall wdiich defends the palace
towards the Marmora, but disjointed and occasionally even
inverted. Before these walls were constructed, there seems
to have existed an immense breakwater all along the Mar¬
mora side of the town. Many of the stones of this break¬
water are several tons in weight, and are much waterworn.
In many places the wall has been built upon the breakwater,
and in some cases the ignorant masons have used the old
stones as building material. Those above the sea-level
seem as much w'aterworn as those below, \vhich have been
for 500 years exposed to the action of the waves. In the
interior of the town the Greeks had constructed extensive
subterraneous cisterns : one of these is still in use; and
another, celebrated as the Bin bir Direk, or thousand and
one columns, is now converted into a receptacle for street
sweepings.
The town has extensive suburbs. The largest of these
Scutari, called by the Turks Iskudar, is situated on the
Asiatic side of the Bosporus. The second is the town of
Galata on the northern side of the harbour’—celebrated
for the obstinacy with which it was long held by the Genoese
against the Turks. The defence walls of Galata also re¬
main almost as at the date of the conquest, and still bear
tablets with the insignia of Genoa. Galata has gradually
become the principal seat of mercantile enterprise, which is
almost entirely in the hand of Franks and Christian subjects.
Two bridges of boats connect Galata with Stanboli. The
first of these was built by Sultan Mahmoud, who has left
funds to keep it in repair. Originally it was built on logs,
but has lately been renewed on copper-sheathed pontoons.
The second bridge was constructed by the present Sultan
Abdul Medjid, and is maintained in repair by means of a
toll of five paras (about one farthing) for each foot passen¬
ger. A third bridge has been thrown across the upper part
of the harbour by a joint stock company ; but from the in¬
judiciousness of the position it has proved a failure.
The almost total absence of roads is compensated by the
vast number of caiques which ply for moderate fares on the
harbour and the Bosporus. These again are beginning to
be supplanted by small steamers : and a considerable num¬
ber of large steamers keep up the communication with the
more distant parts of the empire. Steamers also sail regu¬
larly to Britain, France, Trieste, and Greece.
The gentle undulations on which the town stands, and
the great number of whitewashed minarets, give a magnifi¬
cent appearance to Constantinople as seen from the water,
and the view is particularly grand from the opening of the
Bosporus and harbour; but the internal by no means cor¬
responds with the external appearance. The streets are
most irregular and badly paved, and the houses are wretch¬
edly built of wood. There are neither names to the one,
nor numbers to the other; but the town is divided into se-
301
parate districts, somewhat like our parishes, allotted to the Constan-
Turks, Greeks, Armenians, and Jews. The Franks chiefly re- tinople.
side in the suburbs of Pera and Galata. The Turkish
districts are the most extensive, and, on account of the yearly
diminution of Turkish inhabitants, have often a most dila¬
pidated appearance: they are at once recognised from a dis¬
tance by the extent of open ground which is often allowed
to lie waste around them. The Christian quarters, on the
other hand, are closely built and densely peopled, the va¬
lue of ground being several times that of similar ground in
the contiguous Turkish quarter.
Of late years, some little attention has been paid to the
keeping of the streets. The vulture, which once was com¬
mon, has now disappeared, and the number of kites and dogs
which live on the offal is rapidly diminishing; yet even now
few large towns can compete with the so-called Deri Saa-
det (Gate of Felicity) in filthiness and defective drainage.
Conflagrations are common, and said, indeed, to be frequently
wilful. Thus within fifteen years the whole of Pera has been
burned down : the principal part, however, has been rebuilt in
stone, and contrasts favourably with Stanboli, on the opposite
side of the harbour. In one night, in 185 lor 1852, there were
no fewer than seven fires in various parts of the city and sub¬
urbs, which consumed an aggregate of some 3500 houses.
A new law, ordaining that every house w'hich has been
burned or taken down shall be rebuilt one arsheen (30 inches)
further from the street than that which it replaces, is mak¬
ing a rapid improvement in the airiness of the streets, but
leaves them as crooked as ever.
In the neighbourhood of the seraglio and the government
offices is an open space called the At-Meidan (horse place),
about 500 feet in length and 300 in breadth, which was the
Hippodrome, and in which the game of throwing the jereed
was practised by the Turks. Along the centre line of it
are placed an Egyptian obelisk, the remains of a small
column, composed of three twisted serpents in bronze,
and a tall obelisk much decayed. Though much vaunted,
the At-Meidan has a very mean appearance ; the buildings on
the east, north, and west sides are irregular, but the south
side is occupied by the magnificent mosque of Sultan Ahmed
with its six minarets. Among the mosques, the most cele¬
brated is that of Agia (Aya) Sofia, converted from a Chris¬
tian church to a Mohammedan jamih. St Sophia is 260 feet
long by 230 broad, and has a large dome supported on marble
and granite pillars, of which it is said there are 170 about
the building. Some of these, in green jasper, are reported to
have been the supports of the temple of Diana at Ephesus.
Several other mosques vie in magnitude with St Sophia, or
even exceed it; and of smaller ones, there are said to be
above a thousand scattered through the town.
The Seraglio is the chief object of curiosity in Constanti¬
nople. It is not a single building, but an assemblage of
various palaces, mosques, and gardens. In the outer court
is the palace of the grand vizier, the exchequer, and the
mint, including the church in which Theodosius convened
that council distinguished as the second of Constanti¬
nople. The mint was fitted up about the year 1844 with
improved coining machinery from England, which is worked
under the superintendence of British foremen. In the
middle court is the divan, where may be seen the celebrated
pillar of Theodosius the Great. In the third or inner divi¬
sion of the seraglio is the especial presence-chamber, with
the hall of the throne, the treasure apartment, as well as the
summer and winter harems, and the library, which is believed
to be very rich in manuscripts. The Seraglio is in fact a city
of itself, and is said to contain upwards of 6000 inhabitants.
The present sultan has never resided in the Seraglio: he
passes a short time there on state occasions, but usually lives
during winter at the palace of Tsheragan on the European
side, and in summer at Beylerbey on the Asiatic side of the
Bosporus. He is building a magnificent palace in stone at
302
CON
CON
Constan- Dohna-Baghtshe, on which it is said that above two millions
tinoplo. sterling have already been expended, and yet is is far from
's*being finished.
As the Turks do not allow a census to be taken, all
statements of the number of inhabitants in their dominions
must be doubtful and conjectural. Eton calculates the po¬
pulation of Constantinople at no more than 300,000; whilst
General Andreossy calculated it, without including Scutari,
at 597,600 ; his calculation being founded on the daily con¬
sumption of bread. The number of houses is about 88,100.
According to Andreossy the division of the inhabitants is
as follows :—300,000 Turks, Tatars, and other Mussul¬
mans ; 200,000 Greeks ; 50,000 Armenians ; 30,000 Jews;
and the remainder of the various Frank nations. In 1851,
the census of the resident British gave only 200. The
mortality is said to be greater than in any other city in
Europe ; but the recruits that arrive from all parts of the
Turkish dominions, and especially the slaves brought for
sale, fill up the numbers faster than they fall away by death.
Of late years, too, the rayahs seek refuge from the exactions
of the provincial pashas in the neighbourhood of the seat
of government, where the Tanzimat or new constitution is
better observed. Although the public slave market has
been shut for a few years, the trade in slaves is still carried
on with all its episodes of horror and abomination. The
closely latticed windows of the harems of the rich, the pri-
son-like aspect of the better streets, and the caravan of
gaunt shoeless Nubian girls in their cotton wrappers, are
part and parcel of the odious system.
There are four establishments for education on the Euro¬
pean system. The first of these was founded by Sultan
Selim at Sudlijeh near the top of the harbour. This esta¬
blishment has lately been enlarged so as to accommodate
about 200 students, of whom two-thirds are intended as
military, and the remaining third as civil engineers. A litho¬
graphic and copperplate printing office is attached to this
school. On the height beyond Pera there is an extensive
military school capable of admitting 300 students; and on
the island of Heibileh (Khalki) there is a naval school for
200 pupils. In all of these the students are lodged, fed, and
clothed by the state, and receive besides a monthly pay
regulated according to the rank: but the progress made is
insignificant, the systematic corruptness of the examinations
paralyzing every exertion. In the centre of Pera there is
also the medical school of Galata Serai. Its buildings were
burned down about six years ago, and the classes are tem¬
porarily transferred to Cumbur-Hana near Sudlijeh. Chris¬
tians and Jews are admitted to this school along with the
Turks, and any progress that is made is almost exclusively
confined to these and to the Arab Mussulmans.
In general, each jamih has its attendant school, at which
the education consists in the rehearsal of the Koran in an¬
cient Arabic, and the merest elementary reading and count¬
ing. There is a second class of schools called rushtii, at
which a little more progress is made. Above these are the
academies of Mohammed the Second and Mustapha the
Third, numbering 400 or 500 students, from among the
graduates of which the ulemas are taken. An immense
building for a university is in progress near the jamih of
St Sophia.
By the generosity of the pashas, the viziers, and other
wealthy persons, many charitable institutions have been
founded. Connected with most of the mosques there is a
hospital; with others, a house for the reception of lunatics;
and with some, a cooking institution for the poor. There
is an orphan house, a Greek and Frank hospital, and four
pest-houses for those who have the smallpox.
The trade of Constantinople consists chiefly in the sup¬
ply of the wants of the state officers, and of the military
and naval persons who are attracted to the capital; but it is
chiefly by foreigners that the handicraft operations are per¬
formed. The principal manufactures are these of cotton and Constan-
silk goods. The Armenians are the chief jewellers and silver- tinopolitau
smiths. The Jews are perfumers, druggists, and brokers; History,
the Franks are the principal mechanics; and the chief busi-
ness is transacted at the several bazaars.
The foreign trade of Constantinople is favoured by its
excellent harbour, capable of containing 1200 ships. It
is the medium of intercourse between that part of Asia
whence laden camels arrive, and the different divisions of
Europe, collecting the drugs and silks of the one, and distri¬
buting them among the others. It would require much
space to collect and enumerate the ramifications of such a
trade as is carried on in minute articles to and from the city
of Constantinople. This city is distant 1680 miles from
London.
The geographic position of the mosque of St Sophia is
Eat. 41. 0. 16. north. Long. 28. 59. 74. east of Green¬
wich.
CONSTANTINOPOLITAN History. Constanti¬
nople, anciently Byzantium, became the seat of empire
under Constantine the Great. Its removal to this quarter
is generally considered as having been one of the principal
causes of the sudden decline of the western empire after
this period.
In the year 332 the Sarmatians implored Constantine’s
assistance against the Goths, who had made an irruption
into their territories, and destroyed every thing by fire
and sword. The emperor readily granted their request,
and gained a complete victory. Nearly a hundred thousand
of the enemy perished, either in the battle, or after it from
hunger and cold. In consequence of this overthrow the
Goths were obliged to sue for peace; but the ungrateful
Sarmatians were no sooner delivered from their enemies
than they turned their arms against their benefactor, and
ravaged the provinces of Mcesia and Thrace. The em¬
peror, having received intelligence of this treachery, re¬
turned with incredible expedition, cut great numbers of
them in pieces, and obliged the remainder to submit to
such terms as he pleased to impose.
Constantine seems to have been a prince very highly
respected, even by distant nations. In the year 333, ac¬
cording to Eusebius, ambassadors arrived at Constanti¬
nople from the Blemyes, Indians, Ethiopians, and Persians,
to solicit his friendship. They were received in a most
gracious manner ; and having ascertained from the ambas¬
sadors of Sapor, king of Persia, that there were great num¬
bers of Christians in their master’s dominions, Constan¬
tine wrote a letter in their behalf to the Persian monarch.
Next year the Sarmatians being again attacked by the
Goths, found themselves obliged to set at liberty and to
arm their slaves against the assailants. By this means
they were enabled to overcome the Goths; but the vic¬
torious slaves turning their arms against their masters,
drove the latter out of the country. This misfortune
obliged them, to the number of three hundred thousand,
to apply for relief to the Roman emperor, who incorpo¬
rated with his legions such of them as were capable of
service, and gave settlements to the remainder in Thrace,
Scythia, Macedonia, and Italy. This was the last remark¬
able action of Constantine the Great. He died on 15th
May 337, after having divided the empire among his chil¬
dren and nephews. Constantine, his eldest son, obtained
Gaul, Spain, and Britain; Constantius, the second, Asia,
Syria, and Egypt; and Constans, the youngest, Illyricum,
Italy, and Africa. To his nephew Dalmatius he gave
Thrace, Macedonia, and Achaia; and to King Annibalia-
nus, his other nephew, Armenia Minor, Pontus, Cappado¬
cia, and the city of Caesarea, which he desired might be
the capital of his kingdom.
After the death of Constantine the arm}' and senate
proclaimed his three sons emperors, without taking any
Constan- notice of his two nephews, who were soon afterwards mur-
tinopolitan dered, with Julius Constantius the late emperor’s brother,
an(1 a11 tl’eir frlends and adherents. Thus the family of
337 50 Constantine was at once reduced to his three sons, and two
nephews, Gallus and Julian, the sons of Julius Constantius ;
and of these the former owed his life to a malady, from
which no one thought he could recover, and the latter to
his infancy, being then about seven years of age. The
three brothers divided among themselves the dominions of
the deceased princes; but they did not long agree toge¬
ther. In 340, Constantine, having in vain solicited Con-
stans to yield to him part of Italy, raised a considerable
army, and, under pretence of marching to the assistance
of his brother Constantius, who was then at war with the
Persians, made himself master of several places in Italy.
Upon this Constans detached part of his army against
him; and Constantine, having been drawn into an am¬
buscade near Aquileia, was cut off with his whole forces.
His body was thrown into the river Ansa; but being af¬
terwards discovered, it was sent to Constantinople, and
interred there near the tomb of Constantine.
By the defeat and death of his brother, Constans re¬
mained sole master of all the western part of the empire,
in the quiet possession of which he continued till the year
350. This year Magnentius, the son of one Magnus, a
native of Germany, finding that Constans was despised by
the ai my on account of his indolence and inactivity, re¬
solved to murder him, and set up for himself. Having
found means to gain over to his designs the principal of¬
ficers of the army, he seized on the imperial palace at Au-
tun, distributed among the populace the sums which he
found there, and thus induced not only the city, but the
neighbouring country, to espouse his cause. Constans,
informed of what had passed, and unable to resist the
usurper, fled towards Spain. He was, however, overtaken
by Gaiso, whom Magnentius had sent after him with a
chosen body of troops, and dispatched with many wounds,
at Helena, a small village situated at the foot of the Py¬
renees. J
Thus Constantius acquired a right to the whole Roman
empire, though one half of it had been seized by Mag¬
nentius after the murder of Constans. The former had
been engaged in a war with the Persians, in which little
advantage was gained on either side ; but as the Per¬
sians now gave him scarcely any disturbance, the emperor
marched against the usurpers in the West. Besides Mag¬
nentius, there were at that time two other pretenders to
the western empire. Veteranio, general of infantry in Pan-
nonia, had, on the first news of the death of Constans,
caused himself to be proclaimed emperor by the legions
under his command. He was a native of Upper Moesia,
and advanced in years when he usurped the sovereignty,
but so illiterate that he then for the first time learned to
read. The third pretender was Flavius Popilius Nepotia-
nus, son of Eutropia, the sister of Constantine the Great.
Having assembled a company of gladiators and men of
desperate fortunes, this person assumed the purple on the
3d of June 350, and in that attire presented himself be¬
fore the gates of Rome. The prefect Anicetus, who com¬
manded there for Magnentius, sallied out against him with
a body of Romans, who, however, were soon driven back
into the city. Soon afterwards Nepotianus made himself
master of the city itself, which he filled with blood and
slaughter. Magnentius being informed of what had hap¬
pened, sent against this new competitor his chief favourite
and prime minister Marcellinus. Nepotianus received
dim with great resolution ; and a bloody battle ensued
etween the soldiers of Magnentius and the Romans who
ad espoused the cause of Nepotianus ; but the latter
emg betrayed by a senator named Heraclitus, his men
CONSTANTINOPOLITAN HISTORY.
303
351.
weie put to flight, and he himself killed, after having en- Constan-
joyed the sovereignty only twenty-eight days. Marcelli-tinopolitan
nus ordered his head to be carried on the point of a lance History.
through the principal streets of the city; put to death all   
those who had declared for him; and, under pretence of
preventing disturbances, commanded a general massacre
of all the relations of Constantine. Soon afterwards Mag¬
nentius himself came to Rome to make the necessary pre¬
parations for resisting Constantius, who was exerting him¬
self to the utmost in order to revenge the death of his bro¬
ther. In the city he behaved most tyrannically, putting
to death many persons of distinction in order to seize their
estates, and obliging others to contribute half of all they
were worth towards the expense of the war. Having by
this means raised a great sum, he assembled a mighty
army, composed of Romans, Germans, Gauls, Franks, Bri¬
tons, Spaniards, and other nations; and at the same time,
dreading the uncertain issues of war, he dispatched am¬
bassadors to Constantius with proposals of accommoda¬
tion. Constantius set out from Antioch about the begin¬
ning of autumn, and, passing through Constantinople,
ai lived at Heraclea, where he was met by deputies from
Magnentius and Veteranio, who had agreed to support
each other in case the emperor would hearken to no terms.
The deputies of Magnentius proposed in his name a match
between him and Constantia, or rather Constantina, the
sister of Constantius and widow of Annibalianus, offering
at the same time to Constantius the sister of Magnentius.
At first the emperor would listen to no terms; but after¬
wards, that he might not be obliged to contend with two
enemies at once, he concluded a separate treaty with Ve¬
teranio, by which he agreed to adopt him as his partner
in the empire. But when Veteranio ascended the tribunal
along with Constantius, the soldiers pulled him down, cry-
ing out that they would acknowledge no other emperor
than Constantius. Upon this Veteranio threw himself at
the emperor’s feet and implored his mercy. Constantius
received him with great kindness, and sent him to Prusa,
in Bithynia, where he allowed him a maintenance suitable
to his quality.
Constantius, now master of Illyricum, and of the army
commanded by Veteranio, resolved to march without de-
layngainst Magnentius. In the mean time, however, being
informed that the Persians were preparing to invade the
eastern provinces, he married his sister Constantina to his
cousin-german Gallus, created him Caesar on the 15th of
March, and allotted him as his share not only all the East,
but likewise Thrace and Constantinople. About the same
time Magnentius conferred the title of Caesar on his brother
Decentius, whom he dispatched into Gaul to defend that
country against the barbarians who had invaded it; for
Constantius had not only stirred up the Franks and Saxons
to break into that province, by promising to relinquish to
them all the places which they should conquer, but had
sent them large supplies of men and arms for the purpose.
On this encouragement the barbarians invaded Gaul with
a mighty army, overthrew Decentius in a pitched battle,
committed everywhere dreadful ravages, and reduced the
country to a most deplorable situation. In the mean time
Magnentius having assembled a numerous army, left Italy,
and crossing the Alps, advanced into the plains of Panno-
nia, where Constantius, whose main strength consisted in
cavalry, waited his approach. Magnentius hearing that
his competitor had encamped at a small distance, invited
him by a messenger to proceed to the extensive plains of
Sciscia, on the Save, there to decide which of them had
the best title to the empire. I his challenge Constantius
received with great joy; but as his troops marched to¬
wards Sciscia in disorder, they fell into an ambuscade,
and were put to flight with great slaughter. This sue-
CONSTANTINOPOLITAN HISTORY.
304
Constan- cess so elated Magnentius that he rejected the terms of
tinopolitan peace which were now offered by Constantius; but after
v_ IS 01~3r^ some time a general engagement ensued at Mursa, in
which Magnentius was entirely defeated, with the loss of
twenty-four thousand men.
After his defeat at Mursa, Magnentius retired into
Italy, where he recruited his shattered forces as well as
he could. But in the beginning of the following year, 352,
Constantius, having assembled his troops, surprised and
took, without the loss of a man, a strong castle on the Ju¬
lian Alps belonging to Magnentius. After this the empe¬
ror advanced in order to force the remainder; upon which
Magnentius, struck with terror, immediately abandoned
Aquileia, and ordered the troops who guarded the other
passes of the Alps to follow him. Thus Constantius having
entered Italy without opposition, made himself master of
Aquileia, and thence advanced to Pavia, where Magnen¬
tius gained a considerable advantage over him. Notwith¬
standing this loss, however, Constantius reduced the whole
country bordering on the Po, and Magnentius’s men de¬
serted to him in whole troops, delivering up the places
which they had garrisoned; which circumstances so dis¬
heartened the tyrant, that he left Italy, and retired with
all his forces into Gaul. Soon after this, Africa, Sicily,
and Spain, declared for Constantius, upon which Mag¬
nentius sent a senator, and after him some bishops, to
negotiate a peace; but the emperor treated the senator
as a spy, and sent back the bishops without any answer.
Magnentius now finding that his affairs were desperate,
and that there were no hopes of pardon, recruited his
army in the best manner he could, and dispatched an as¬
sassin into the East to murder Gallus Caesar; hoping that
the death of the latter would oblige the emperor to with¬
draw his forces from Gaul, and to march in person for the
defence of the eastern provinces, which were threatened
by the Persians. The assassin gained over some of Gal-
lus’s guards ; but the plot being discovered before it could
be put in execution, they were all seized and executed as
traitors.
In the year 353, the war against Magnentius was car¬
ried on with more vigour than ever, and at last happily
ended by a battle fought in the higher Dauphiny. Mag¬
nentius, being defeated, took shelter in Lyons; but the
few soldiers who attended him, despairing of any further
success, resolved to purchase the emperor’s favour by de¬
livering up his rival, the author of so calamitous a war.
Accordingly they surrounded the house where he lodged ;
upon which the tyrant in despair slew with his own hand
his mother, his brother Desiderius, whom he had created
Caesar, and such of his friends and relations as were with
him ; and then fixing his sword in a wall, threw himself
upon it, in order to avoid a more shameful death, which he
had every reason to apprehend.
After the death of Magnentius, his brother Decentius
Caesar, who was marching to his assistance, and had al¬
ready reached Sens, finding himself surrounded on all
sides by the emperor’s forces, chose rather to strangle
himself than to fall alive into the hands of his enemies.
Thus Constantius was left sole master of the Roman em¬
pire. His panegyrists tell us that, after his victory, he
behaved with the greatest humanity, forgiving and receiv¬
ing into favour his greatest enemies ; but other historians
affirm that Constantius now became haughty, imperious,
and cruel, of which disposition many instances are given.
This year the empire was subjected to the most grievous
calamities. Gaul was ravaged by the barbarians beyond
the Rhine, and the disbanded troops of Magnentius. At
Rome, the populace rose on account of a scarcity of
provisions. In Asia, the Isaurian robbers overran Ly-
caonia and Pamphylia, and even laid siege to Seleucia,
a city of great strength, of which, however, they failed to Constan.
make themselves masters. At the same time the Sara-bnopolitan
cens committed dreadful ravages in Mesopotamia; and History,
the Persians also invaded the province of Anthemusia on
the Euphrates. But the eastern provinces were not so
much harassed by the barbarians as by Gallus Caesar him¬
self, who ought to have protected them. That prince was
naturally of a cruel, haughty, and tyrannical disposition,
and being elated with his successes against the Persians,
he behaved more like a tyrant and a madman than a go¬
vernor. His natural cruelty is said to have been height¬
ened by the instigations of his wife Constantina, who is
styled by Ammianus the Megcera. or fury of her sex ; and
he adds, that her ambition was equal to her cruelty. Thus
all the provinces and cities in the East were filled with
blood and slaughter. No man, however innocent, could
be sure to live or enjoy his estate a whole day ; for Gallus’s
temper being equally suspicious and cruel, those who had
any private enemies took care to accuse them of crimes
against the state, and with Gallus to be accused was to
be condemned. At last the emperor being informed from
all quarters of the evil conduct of his brother-in-law, and
being at the same time told that he had aspired at the
sovereignty, resolved upon his ruin. For this purpose he
wrote letters to Gallus and Constantina, inviting both of
them to repair to Italy. Though they had each sufficient
reason to dread the worst, yet they durst not venture to
disobey the emperor’s express command. Constantina,
who was well acquainted with her brother’s temper, and
hoped to pacify him by her artful insinuations, set out
first, leaving Gallus at Antioch ; but she had scarcely en¬
tered the province of Bithynia when she was seized with
a fever, which put an end to her life. Gallus now despair¬
ing of being able to appease his sovereign, thought of re¬
volting openly; but most of his friends having deserted
him on account of his inconstant and cruel temper, he was
at last obliged to submit to the pleasure of Constantius.
He advanced, therefore, according to his orders; but at
Petavium he was arrested, stripped of all the ensigns of
his dignity, and thence carried to Fianona, now Fianone,
in Dalmatia, where he was examined by two of his most
inveterate enemies. He confessed most of the crimes laid
to his charge ; but urged as an excuse the evil counsels of
his wife Constantina. The emperor, provoked at this plea,
which reflected on his sister, and instigated by the enemies
of Gallus, signed a warrant for his execution, which was
accordingly carried into effect.
During this time the emperor had been engaged in a
war with the Germans; he had marched against them in
person ; and, though he gained no important advantage,
the barbarians thought proper to make peace with him.
This, however, was but short lived. No sooner had the
Roman army withdrawn than they began to make new in¬
roads into the empire. Constantius dispatched Arbetio
with the flower of the army against them ; but the latter
fell into an ambuscade, and was put to flight, with the loss
of a great number of men. This, however, was soon re¬
trieved by the valour of Arinthaeus, and of two other offi¬
cers, who, falling upon the Germans without waiting for
the orders of their general, put the barbarians to flight,
and obliged them to withdraw from the Roman territories.
The tranquillity of the empire which ensued on this
repulse of the Germans, was soon interrupted by a pre¬
tended conspiracy, which in the end produced a real one.
Sylvanus, a leading man among the Franks, commanded in
Gaul, and had there performed great exploits against the
barbarians. He had been raised to this post by Arbetio;
but only with the design of removing him from the em¬
peror’s presence in order to accomplish his ruin, which he
succeeded in effecting. One Dynames, keeper of the em-
CONSTANTINOPOLITAN HISTORY.
305
Constan- peror’s mules, on leaving Gaul, begged of Sylvanus letters
;inopolitan 0f recommendation to his friends at court, which being
History. granted, the traitor erased from them all but the sub-
scription. He then inserted directions to the friends of
0 Sylvanus for carrying on a conspiracy ; and delivering
these forged letters to the prefect Lampidius, they were
by him shown to the emperor. Thus Sylvanus was forced
to revolt, and to cause himself to be proclaimed emperor
by the troops under his command. In the mean time, how¬
ever, Bynames having thought proper to forge another
letter, the fraud was discovered, and an inquiry set on
foot, which brought the whole matter to light. Sylvanus
was now declared innocent, and letters were sent to him
by the emperor, confirming him in his post; but these had
scarcely been dispatched when certain news arrived at
court of Sylvanus having revolted and caused himself to
be proclaimed emperor. Constantius, thunderstruck at
this news, dispatched against him Ursicinus, an officer of
great integrity, as well as valour and experience in war;
who, forgetting his former character, pretended to be
Sylvanus’s friend, and thus found means to cut him off by
treachery.
The barbarians, who had hitherto been kept quiet by
the brave Sylvanus, no sooner heard of his death than
they broke into Gaul with greater fury than ever. They
took and pillaged above forty cities, and amongst the rest
Cologne, which they levelled with the ground. At the
same time the Quadi and Sarmatians entering Pannonia,
destroyed every thing by fire and sword. The Persians
also, taking advantage of the absence of Ursicinus, over¬
ran, without opposition, Armenia and Mesopotamia; Pros¬
per and Mausonianus, who had succeeded that brave com¬
mander in the government of the East, being more intent
upon pillaging than defending the provinces committed
to their care. Constantius not thinking it advisable to
leave Italy himself, resolved at last to raise his cousin Ju¬
lian, the brother of Gallus, to the dignity of Caesar. Ju¬
lian, it seems, was a man of extraordinary talent and abi¬
lity ; for although before this time he had been entirely
buried in obscurity, and conversed only with books, no
sooner was he put at the head of an army than he be¬
haved with the same bravery, conduct, and experience,
as if he had been all his life bred up to the practice of
war. He was appointed governor of Gaul; but before he
set out, Constantius gave him in marriage his sister He¬
lena, and made him many valuable presents. At the same
time, however, the jealous emperor greatly limited his
authority ; gave him written instructions how to behave ;
ordered the generals who served under him to watch all
his actions no less than those of the enemy; and strictly
enjoined Julian himself not to give any largesses to the
soldiery.
Julian set out from Milan on the first of December 355,
the emperor himself accompanying him as far as Pavia,
whence he pursued his journey to the Alps, attended
only by three hundred and sixty soldiers. On his arrival
at Turin he was first informed of the loss of Cologne,
which had been kept concealed from the emperor. He
arrived at Vienna before the end of the year, and was re¬
ceived by the people of that city and the neighbourhood
with extraordinary joy.
In 356, the barbarians having besieged Autun, Julian
marched with what forces he could raise to the relief
of the place. When he arrived there he found the siege
had been raised ; on which he went in pursuit of the bar¬
barians to Auxerre, crossing with no small danger thick
woods and forests, from Auxerre to Troyes. On his march
he was surrounded on all sides by the barbarians, who
moved about the country in great bodies ; but he put
them to flight with a handful of men, cut great numbers
VOL. VII.
357.
of them in pieces, and took some prisoners. From Troyes Constan-
he hastened to Rheims, where the main body of the army, tinopolitan
commanded by Marcellus, waited his arrival. Leaving History.
Rheims, he pursued his route towards Decempagi, now ~
Dieuze, on the Seille, in Lorrain, with the design of op¬
posing the Germans, who were busy in ravaging that pro¬
vince. But the enemy having unexpectedly attacked
his rear, would have cut off two legions, had not the
rest of the army, alarmed at the sudden noise, turned
back to their assistance. A few days afterwards he de¬
feated the Germans, though with great loss to his own
army; the victory, however, opened him the way to Co¬
logne. This city he found abandoned by the barbarians.
They had neglected to fortify it; but Julian commanded
the ancient fortifications to be repaired with all possible
expedition, and the houses to be rebuilt; after which he
retired to Sens, and there took up his winter quarters.
This year also Constantius entered Germany on the side
of Rhaetia, laid waste the country far and wide, and ob¬
liged the barbarians to sue for peace, which was readily
granted. The same year he enacted two laws; one of
which declared it capital to sacrifice or pay any kind of
worship to idols ; and the other granted the effects of con¬
demned persons to their children and relations within the
third degree, except in cases of magic and treason ; but
this last one he revoked two years after.
In the beginning of the year 357 the barbarians besieg¬
ed Julian for a whole month in Sens; Marcellus, the com-
mander-in-chief, never once offering to assist him. Julian,
however, defended himself so valiantly with the few forces
he had, that the barbarians at last retired. After this
Constantius declared Julian commander-in-chief of all the
forces in Gaul, and appointed under him one Severus, an
officer of great experience, and of a more accommodating
disposition than Marcellus. On his arrival in Gaul, Julian
received him with great joy, raised new troops, and sup¬
plied them with arms which he had luckily found in an old
arsenal. The emperor, resolving at all events to put a stop
to the terrible devastations committed by the barbarous
nations, chiefly by the Alemans, wrote to Julian to march
directly against them ; and at the same time he sent Barba-
tio, who had been appointed general in stead of Sylvanus,
with a body of twenty-five or thirty thousand men, from
Italy, in order to inclose the enemy between two armies.
The Leti, however, a German nation, passing between the
armies, advanced as far as Lyons, hoping to surprise that
wealthy city; but meeting with a warmer reception than
they had expected, they contented themselves with ra¬
vaging the country all round. On the first notice of this
expedition, Julian detached strong parties to guard the
passages through which he knew the barbarians must re¬
turn ; and thus they were ail cut off, excepting those who
marched near the camp of Barbatio, who was so far from
intercepting their retreat, that he complained by a letter
to Constantius of some officers for attempting it. These
officers, among whom was Valentinian, afterwards empe¬
ror of the West, were, by the order of Constantius, ca¬
shiered for their disobedience. The other barbarians either
fortified themselves in the countries which they had seized,
stopping up all the avenues with huge trees, or took shel¬
ter in the islands formed by the Rhine. Julian resolved
first to attack the latter, and with this view he demanded
some boats of Barbatio ; but the latter, instead of comply¬
ing with his just request, immediately burnt all his boats,
as he did on another occasion the provisions which had
been sent to both armies, after he had plentifully supplied
his own. Julian, not in the least disheartened by this
unaccountable conduct, persuaded some of the most re¬
solute of his men to wade over to one of the islands, where
they killed all the Germans who had taken shelter in it.
2 Q
306 CONSTA NTINOPOLITAN HISTORY.
Constan- They then seized the boats belonging to the barbarians,
tmopolitan arK| pursued the slaughter in several other islands, till the
^^enemy abandoned them all, and retired to their respec-
^ve countries with their wives and what booty they could
carry. On their departure Barbatio attempted to con¬
struct a bridge of boats over the Rhine ; but the enemy, ap¬
prised of his intention, threw a great number of huge trees
into the river, which being carried by the stream against
the boats, sunk several of them, and parted the rest. The
Roman general then thought proper to retire; but the
barbarians falling unexpectedly upon him in his retreat,
cut great numbers of his men in pieces, took most of his
baggage, laid waste the neighbouring country, and re¬
turned in triumph loaded with booty. Elated with this
success, they assembled in great numbers under the com¬
mand of Chnodomarius, a prince of great renown among
them, and six other kings. They encamped in the neigh¬
bourhood of Strasburg. Here they were encountered
by Julian, who put them to flight, with the loss of six or
eight thousand men killed on the field, and a greater num¬
ber drowned in the river; whilst Julian himself lost only
two hundred and forty-three private men and four tri¬
bunes. In this action Chnodomarius was taken prisoner
and sent to Rome, where he soon afterwards died.
After the battle Julian advanced with his army to May-
ence or Mentz, where he formed a bridge over the Rhine,
and entered Germany, having with difficulty prevailed upon
his army to follow him. Here he ravaged the country
till the time of the autumnal equinox, when being pre¬
vented by snow from advancing farther, he began to re¬
pair the fort of Trajan, by some supposed to be the castle
of Cromburg, about three or four leagues from Frankfort.
The barbarians were now so much alarmed that they sent
deputies to treat of peace ; but this Julian refused to grant
them upon any terms. He consented, however, to a truce
for seven months, upon their promising to store with pro¬
visions the fort he was building in their country. This
year Constantins made some remarkable laws. By one he
punished with confiscation such as renounced the Christian
for the Jewish religion; and by another, addressed to Fe¬
lix, bishop of Rome, he exempted all trading ecclesiastics,
with their wives, children, and domestics, from every im¬
position ordinary and extraordinary; supposing that the
gains made by them were applied to the relief of the poor.
In 358, as soon as the season for action arrived, Julian
took the field against the Franks, with a design to conquer
them before the truce he had concluded with the Ale¬
mans had expired. The Franks were at that time divided
into several tribes, the most powerful of which were the
Salii and Chamavi. The first of these sent deputies, en¬
treating that he would suffer them to remain as friends to
the empire in the country they possessed. But Julian,
disregarding this deputation, entered their country, and
obliged them to submit; after which he allotted them
lands in Gaul, incorporating great numbers of them into
his cavalry. He next marched against the Chamavi,
whom he defeated and obliged to retire beyond the Rhine ;
and he afterwards rebuilt three forts on the river Meuse,
which had been destroyed by the barbarians; but provi¬
sions becoming scarce in a country so often ravaged, he
ordered six or eight hundred vessels to be built in Britain
for the purpose of conveying corn from thence into Gaul.
Julian continued in the country of the Chamavi till the
expiration of his truce with the Alemans, and then con¬
structing a bridge of boats over the Rhine, he entered
their country, putting all to fire and sword. At last two
of their kings came in person to him to sue for peace,
which Julian granted, upon their promising to set at liber¬
ty the captives they had taken, to supply a certain quan¬
tity of corn when required, and to furnish wood, iron, and
carriages, for repairing the cities they had ruined. The Constan.
prisoners whom he at this time released amounted to up-Bnopolitan
wards of twenty thousand. History.
Soon after the vernal equinox of this year, 358, Con-
stantius marched in person against the Quadi and Sarma-
tians, whose country lay beyond the Danube. Having
crossed that river on a bridge of boats, he laid waste the
territories of the Sarmatians, who thereupon came in
great numbers, together with the Quadi, pretending to
treat for peace. Their true design was to surprise the Ro¬
mans ; but the latter suspecting it, fell upon them sword
in hand, and cut them in pieces. This obliged the rest
to sue for peace in good earnest, which was granted on
the delivery of hostages. The emperor then marched
against the Limigantes, that is, the slaves who, in 334,
had driven the Sarmatians out of their country, and seiz¬
ed it for themselves. They used the same artifice as the
Sarmatians and Quadi had done, coming in great numbers
under pretence of submitting, but prepared to fall upon
him unexpectedly if opportunity offered. The emperor,
observing their surly looks, and distrusting them, caused
his troops to surround them insensibly while he was speak¬
ing. The Limigantes then, displeased with the conditions
which he offered them, laid their hands on their swords;
whereupon they were attacked by the Roman soldiers.
Finding it impossible to make their escape, they rushed
with great fury towards the tribunal, but were repulsed
by the guards forming themselves into a wedge, and every
one of them cut in pieces. After this, the emperor ra¬
vaged their country to such a degree, that they were in
the end obliged to submit to the only condition he thought
proper to allow them, which was to quit their country, and
retire to a more distant region. The country was then
restored to the Sarmatians, who were its original posses¬
sors.
This year is also remarkable for an embassy from Sapor,
king of Persia. The ambassador, named Narses, brought
a letter, in which the Persian monarch styled himself
King of Kings, brother of the Sun and Moon, and appro¬
priated other epithets of the same hyperbolical kind. He
acquainted the emperor, that he might lawfully insist on
having all the countries beyond the river Strymon in Ma¬
cedonia delivered up to him ; but lest his demands should
seem unreasonable, he would be contented with Armenia
and Mesopotamia, which had been most unjustly taken
from his grandfather Narses. He added, that unless jus¬
tice were done him, he had resolved to assert his right
by force of arms. This letter was presented to Constan-
tius wrapped up in a piece of white silk; but the empe¬
ror, without entering into any negotiation with the ambas¬
sador, wrote a letter to Sapor, in which he told the Per¬
sian monarch, that as he had maintained the Roman do¬
minions in their full extent when he was possessed only
of the East, he could not suffer them to be curtailed now
when he was master of the whole empire. In a few days,
however, he sent another letter, with rich presents ; being
desirous at least to postpone the war until he had secured
the northern provinces against the incursions of the bar¬
barians, that he might then employ all the forces of the
empire against so formidable an enemy. This embassy
proved unsuccessful, as did also another which was sent
soon afterwards. The last ambassadors were imprisoned
as spies, but afterwards dismissed uninjured. By a law of
Constantins dated in 358, all magicians, augurs, astrolo¬
gers, and pretenders to the art of divination, were declar¬
ed enemies to mankind ; and such of them as were found
in the court, either of the emperor or of Julian, he com¬
manded to be put to the torture, at the same time specify¬
ing what torments they were to undergo.
In 359, Julian continued his endeavours for relieving the
CONSTANTINOPOLITAN HISTORY.
Constan- province of Gaul, which had suffered so much from the
tinopolitan incursions ot the barbarians. He erected magazines in
History, different places, visited the cities which had suffered most,
and gave orders for repairing their walls and fortifications.
He then crossed the Rhine, and pursued the war in Ger¬
many with so great success that the barbarians submitted
to such terms as he pleased to impose. In the mean time,
the emperor, having received intelligence that the Limi-
gantes had quitted the country to which he had driven
them, hastened to the banks of the Danube, in order to
prevent their entering Pannonia. On his arrival he sent
deputies, desiring to know what had induced them to aban¬
don the country which had been allotted them. The
Limigantes answered with the greatest apparent submis¬
sion imaginable, that they were willing to live as true sub¬
jects of the empire in any other place ; but that the coun¬
try he had allotted them was quite uninhabitable, as they
could demonstrate if they were but allowed to cross the
river, and lay their complaints before him. This request
was granted ; but whilst he ascended his tribunal, the bar¬
barians unexpectedly fell upon his guards sword in hand,
killed several of them, and the emperor with difficulty
saved himself by flight. The rest of the troops, however,
soon took the alarm, and surrounding the Limigantes, cut
them off to a man. This year Constantius instituted a
court of inquisition against all those who had consulted
heathen oracles. Paulus Catena, a noted and cruel in¬
former, was dispatched into the East to prosecute them;
and Modestus, then count of the East, and equally remark¬
able for his cruelty, was appointed judge. His tribunal
was erected at Scythopolis, in Palestine, whither persons
of both sexes, and of every rank and condition, were daily
dragged in crowds from all parts, and either confined in
dungeons, torn in pieces in a most cruel and barbarous
manner by racks, or publicly executed.
In 359, Sapor, king of Persia, began hostilities, being
encouraged thereto by the absence of Ursicinus, whom the
emperor had recalled, having appointed in his stead one
Sabinianus, a person very unfit for such an office. During
this campaign, however, he made very little progress,
having only taken two Roman forts, and destroyed the
city of Amida, the siege of which is said to have cost him
thirty thousand men. On the first news of the Persian
invasion, Constantius thought proper to send Ursicinus
into the East; but his enemies prevented him from receiv¬
ing the supplies necessary for carrying on the war; so
that he found it impossible to take any effectual means
for stopping the progress of the Persians. On his return,
he was unexpectedly charged with the loss of Amida, and
all the disasters which had happened during the campaign.
Two judges were appointed to inquire into his conduct;
but they, being creatures of his enemies, left the matter
doubtful. On this Ursicinus was so much exasperated,
that he appealed to the emperor, and in the heat of pas¬
sion let fall some unguarded expressions, which, being im¬
mediately carried to the emperor, irritated him so much
that the general was deprived of all his employments.
Constantius resolved to march next year in person
against the Persians; but in the mean time dreading to
encounter so formidable an enemy, he applied himself
wholly to the assembling of a mighty army, by which he
might be able fully to cope with them. For this purpose
he wrote to Julian to send him part of his forces, without
considering that by so doing he left the province of Gaul
. exposed to the ravages of the barbarians. Julian resolved
immediately to comply with the emperor’s orders, but at
the same time to abdicate the dignity of Caesar, that he
might not be blamed for the loss of the province. Ac¬
cordingly he suffered the best soldiers to be draughted
from his army. They were, however, vei’y unwilling to
307
leave him, and at last proclaimed him emperor. Whether Constan¬
tins was done absolutely against Julian’s consent or not is tinopolitan
uncertain; but he wrote to the emperor, and persuaded Hist°iy
the whole army also to send a letter along with his, in
which they acquainted Constantius with what had hap- ' ’
pened, and entreated him to acknowledge Julian as his
partner in the empire. But this was positively refused by
Constantius, who began to prepare for war. Julian then,
designing to be beforehand with the emperor, caused his
troops to take an oath of allegiance to himself, and with
surprising expedition made himself master of the whole
country of Ulyricum, and of the important pass separating
that country from Thrace. Constantius was thunder¬
struck with this news ; but hearing that the Persians had
retired, he marched with all his force against his compe¬
titor. On his arrival at Tarsus, in Cilicia, he was seized
with a feverish distemper, occasioned chiefly by the un¬
easiness and perplexity of his mind. He pursued his
march, however, to Mosucrene, a place on the borders of
Cilicia, at the foot of Mount Taurus, where he was ob¬
liged to stop by the violence of his disorder, which in¬
creased every day, and at last carried him off on the thir¬
teenth of November 361, in the forty-fifth year of his age.
By the death of Constantius, Julian now became mas¬
ter of the whole Roman empire without a rival. He had
been educated in the Christian religion, but had secretly
apostatized from it long before; and as soon as he saw him¬
self master of Illyricum, he openly avowed his apostacy,
and caused the temples of the gods to be opened. When
the messengers arrived at Naissus, in Illyricum, where he
then was, to acquaint him with his being sole master of
the empire, they found him consulting the entrails of vic¬
tims concerning the event of his journey. As the omens
were uncertain, he was at that time very much embar¬
rassed and perplexed; but the arrival of the messengers
put an end to all his fears, and he immediately set out for
Constantinople. At Heraclea he was met by almost all
the inhabitants of the metropolis, into which he made his
public entry on the 11th of December 361, attended by
the whole senate in a body, by all the magistrates, and
by the nobility magnificently dressed, every one testifying
the utmost joy at seeing such a promising young prince
raised to the empire without bloodshed. He was again
declared emperor by the senate of Constantinople ; and as
soon as that ceremony was over, he caused the obsequies
of Constantius to be celebrated with great pomp.
The first care of Julian was to inquire into the conduct
of the late emperor’s ministers, several of whom being
found guilty of enormous crimes, were condemned and
executed; particularly the noted informer Paulus Catena,
and another one named Apodamus, who were sentenced
to be burnt alive. Along with these, however, was put to
death Ursula, a man of unexceptionable character, to whom
Julian himself had been highly indebted. He had been
supplied with money by Ursula, unknown to the emperor,
at the time when he was sent into Gaul with the title of
Caesar, but without the means necessary for the support
of that dignity. For what reason he was now put to death
historians do not acquaint us. Julian himself assures us
that Ursula was executed without his knowledge.
The emperor next set about reforming the court. As
the vast number of offices had in his time become an in¬
tolerable burden, he discharged all those whom he thought
useless: among the rest, he reduced the officers called
agentes in rebus, from ten thousand to seventeen ; and dis¬
charged thousands of cooks, barbers, and others, whose
large salaries had drained the exchequer. The curiosi,
whose office it was to inform the emperor of what had
passed in the different provinces, were all discharged, and
that employment entirely suppesserd. Thus he was en-
308 CONSTANTINOPOLITAN HISTORY.
Constan- abled to disburthen the people of the heavy taxes with
which they were loaded ; and this he did by abating a fifth
or^' part of all taxes and imposts throughout the kingdom.
3g3< As to religious matters, Julian, as before observed, was
a Pagan, and immediately on his accession to the throne
restored the heathen religion. He invited to court the
philosophers, magicians, and such like persons, from all
parts ; nevertheless, he did not institute any persecution
against the Christians. On the contrarj^, he recalled from
banishment all the orthodox bishops who had been sent
into exile during the former reign ; but with a design, as
is observed both by the Christian and Pagan writers, to
raise disturbances and sow dissensions in the church.
As the Persians were now preparing to carry on the war
with vigour, Julian found himself under the necessity of
marching in person against them. But before he set out,
he enriched the city of Constantinople with many valuable
gifts : he formed a large harbour to shelter the ships from
the south wind; built a magnificent porch leading to it;
and founded a stately library, in which he lodged all his
books. In the month of May 362 he set out for Antioch,
and on the first of January renewed in that city the sacri¬
fices to Jupiter for the safety of the empire, which had so
long been omitted. During his stay in this city, he con¬
tinued his preparations for the Persian war; erecting ma¬
gazines, making new levies, and above all consulting the
oracles, aruspices, magicians, and the like. The oracles of
Delphi, Delos, and Dodona, assured him of victory. The
aruspices, indeed, and most of his courtiers and officers,
did all that lay in their power to divert him from his in¬
tended expedition ; but the deceitful answers of the ora¬
cles and magicians, and the desire of adding the Persian
monarch to the many kings whom he had already seen
humbled at his feet, prevailed over all other considera¬
tions. Many nations sent deputies to him offering their
assistance; but these offers he rejected, telling them that
the Romans were to assist their allies, but stood in no need
of any assistance from them. He likewise rejected, in a
very disobliging manner,, the offers of the Saracens; and
when they complained of his stopping the pension paid
them by other emperors, he told them that a warlike prince
had steel, but no gold; a reply which irritated them so
much that they joined the Persians, and continued faith¬
ful to them to the last. However, he wrote to Arsaces,
king of Armenia, enjoining him to keep his troops in readi¬
ness to execute the commands which he should soon trans¬
mit to him.
Having made the necessary preparations for so impor¬
tant an enterprise, Julian sent orders to his troops to cross
the Euphrates, designing to enter the enemy’s country be¬
fore they had the least notice of his march ; and for this
purpose he had placed guards on all the roads. From
Antioch he proceeded to Litarba, a place about fifteen
leagues distant, which he reached the same day; and
thence he marched to Beraea, where he halted a day, and
exhorted the council to restore the worship of the gods ;
but this exhortation, it seems, was complied with by few.
From Beraea he proceeded to Batnae, and was better
pleased with the inhabitants of the latter, because they
had, before his arrival, restored the worship of the gods.
I here he offered sacrifices, and having immolated a great
number of victims, pursued the next day his journey to
Hierapolis, the capital of the province of Euphratesiana,
which he reached on the 9th March 363. Here he lodged
in the house of one for whom he had a particular esteem,
chiefly because neither Constantius nor Gallus, who had
both lodged in his house, had been able to make him re¬
nounce the worship of his idols. As he entered this city,
fifty of his soldiers were killed by the fall of a porch. He
left Hierapolis on the I3th of March, and having passed
363.
the Euphrates on a bridge of boats, arrived at Batnae, a Constan-
small city of Osrhoene, about ten leagues from Hierapolis. tinopolitan
From Batnae he proceeded to Carrhae, where, in the fa- History,
mous temple of the moon, it is said he sacrificed a woman
to that planet.
While Julian continued in this city, he received advice
that a party of the enemy’s horse had broken into the Ro¬
man territories. On this he resolved to leave an army in
Mesopotamia, to guard the frontiers of the empire on that
side, whilst he advanced on the other into the heart of the
Persian dominions. This army consisted, according to
some, of twenty thousand, but according to others of thirty
thousand chosen troops. It was commanded by Proco¬
pius, and Sebastian, a famous Manichean who had been
governor of Egypt, and had there persecuted, with the
utmost cruelty, the orthodox Christians. These two were
to join, if possible, Arsaces, king of Armenia, to lay waste
the fruitful plains of Media, and to meet the emperor in
Assyria. To Arsaces Julian himself wrote, but in the
most disobliging manner imaginable, threatening to treat
him as a rebel if he did not execute, with the utmost
punctuality, the orders given him, and in the conclusion
telling him, that the God he adored would not be able to
screen him from punishment, in the event of disobedience.
There were two roads leading from Carrhae to Persia;
the one to the left by Nisibis, and the other to the right
through the province of Assyria, along the banks of the Eu¬
phrates. Julian chose the latter, but caused magazines to
be erected on both roads; and, after having reviewed his
army, set out on the 25th of March. He passed the Abora,
which separated the Roman and Persian dominions near
its conflux with the Euphrates ; after which he broke down
the bridge, that his troops might not be tempted to desert.
As he proceeded on his march, a soldier and two horses
were struck dead by lightning; and a lion of extraordi¬
nary size presenting himself to the army, was in a moment
dispatched by the soldiers with a shower of darts. These
omens occasioned great disputes between the philosophers
and aruspices. The latter looking upon them as inauspi¬
cious, advised the emperor to return ; but the former re¬
futed their arguments with others more agreeable to Ju¬
lian’s temper.
Having passed the Abora, Julian entered Assyria, which
he found very populous, and abounding in all the neces¬
saries of life ; but he laid it waste far and near, destroying
the magazines and provisions which he could not carry
along with him ; and thus he put it out of his power to re¬
turn the same way he advanced, a step which was judged
most impolitic. As he met with no army in the field to
oppose him, he advanced to the walls of Ctesiphon, the
metropolis of the Persian empire, having reduced all the
strongholds that lay in his way. Here, having caused the
canal to be cleared which had formerly been dug by Trajan
between these two rivers, he conveyed his fleet from the
former to the latter. On the banks of the Tigris he was
opposed by the enemy. But Julian passed that river in
spite of their utmost efforts, and drove them into the city
with the loss of a great number of their men.
Julian had now advanced so far into the enemy’s coun¬
try that he found it necessary to think of a retreat, as it
was impossible for him to winter in Persia. For this rea¬
son he made no attempt on Ctesiphon, but began to march
back along the banks of the Tigris, soon after he had pass¬
ed that river. In the mean time the king of Persia had
assembled a formidable army, with the intention of falling
upon the Romans in their march ; but being desirous of
putting an end to so destructive a war, he sent advan¬
tageous proposals of peace to Julian. These, however,
the Roman emperor most imprudently rejected; and soon
afterwards, deceived by treacherous guides, he quitted
CONSTANTINOPOLITAN HISTORY.
Constan- river, and entered into an unknown country totally laid
tinopolitan wagje t]ie enemys ant| where he was continually haras-
^istory. ^y strong parties, who in a manner surrounded his
364. army> and attacked him sometimes in front and sometimes
in rear. But the treacherous guides already mentioned
persuaded him to take a step still more ruinous and fatal,
namely, to burn his fleet, lest it should fall into the hands
of the enemy. As soon as the fleet had been set on fire,
the whole army cried out that the emperor was betrayed,
and that the guides were traitors employed by the enemy.
Julian ordered them immediately to be put to the rack,
upon which they confessed the treason ; but it was too
late. The fleet was already in flames which could by no
means be extinguished; and no part was saved except
twelve vessels, which were designed to be made use of in
the building of bridges, and which for this purpose were
conveyed over land in waggons.
The emperor thus finding himself in a strange country,
and his army greatly dispirited, called a council of his
chief officers, in which it was resolved to proceed to Cor-
duene, which lay south of Armenia, and belonged to the
Homans. But they had not proceeded far in this direction
when they were met by the king of Persia, at the head of a
numerous army, attended by his two sons, and all the prin¬
cipal nobility of the kingdom. Several sharp encounters
happened, in which, though the Persians were always de¬
feated, yet the Romans reaped no advantages from their
victories, but were reduced to the last extremity for want
of provisions. In one of these skirmishes, when the Ro¬
mans were suddenly attacked, the emperor, eager to re¬
pulse the enemy, hastened to the field of battle without
his armour, when he received a mortal wound by a dart,
which, through his arm and side, pierced his very liver.
Of this wound he died the same night, the 26th of June
363, in the thirty-second year of his age, after having
reigned scarcely twenty months from the time he became
sole master of the Roman empire.
As Julian had declined naming any successor, the choice
of a new emperor devolved on the army, who unani¬
mously chose Jovian, a very able commander, whose fa¬
ther had lately resigned the post of comes domesticorum,
in order to lead a retired life. The valour and expe¬
rience of Jovian, however, were not sufficient to extri¬
cate the Roman army from the difficulties in which it
had been plunged by the imprudence of his predecessor.
Famine raged in the camp to such a degree, that not a
single man would have been left alive, had not the Per¬
sians unexpectedly sent proposals of peace, which were
now received with the utmost joy. A peace was conclud¬
ed for thirty years, the terms of which were that Jovian
should restore to the Persians the fine provinces which
had been taken from them in the reign of Diocletian, with
several castles, and the cities of Nisibis and Singara. Af¬
ter the conclusion of the treaty, Jovian pursued his march
without molestation. When he arrived at Antioch, he re¬
voked all the laws which had been made in the former
reign against Christianity, and in favour of Paganism. He
also espoused the cause of the orthodox Christians against
the Arians; and he recalled all those who had been for¬
merly banished, particularly Athanasius, to whom he wrote
a very obliging letter with his own hand. It is generally
believed also that Athanasius, at the desire of Jovian,
now composed the creed which still bears his name, and
is subscribed by all the bishops in Europe. But this em¬
peror did not live to make any great alterations, nor even
to visit his capital as emperor; for in his way to Constan¬
tinople he was found dead in his bed, on the 16th or 17th
of February 364, after having lived thirty-three years, and
reigned seven months and forty days.
After the death of Jovian, Valentinian was chosen em-
§
309
peror. Immediately on his accession the soldiers muti- Constan-
nied, and with great clamour required him to choose a^nopobta11
partner in the sovereignty. He did not instantly comply History,
with this demand; but in a few days he chose his brother
Valens as his partner; and the empire being threatened
on all sides with an invasion of the barbarous nations, he
thought proper to divide it. This famous partition was
executed at Mediana, in Dacia. Valens received as his
share the whole of Asia, Egypt, and Thrace; and Valen¬
tinian retained all the West, including Illyricum, Italy,
Gaul, Spain, Britain, and Africa.
After this partition Valens returned to Constantinople,
where the beginning of his reign was disturbed by the re¬
volt of Procopius, a relation of Julian. On the death of
that emperor, he had fled into Taurica Chersonesus, from
dread of Jovian; but not trusting the barbarians who in¬
habited that country, he returned in disguise into the
Roman territories, where, having gained over an eunuch
of great wealth, called Eugenius, lately disgraced by Va¬
lens, and some officers who commanded the troops sent
against the Goths, he got himself proclaimed emperor.
At first he was joined only by the lowest of the people,
but at length he was acknowledged by the whole city of
Constantinople. On the news of this revolt, Valens would
have abdicated the sovereignty, had he not been prevent¬
ed by the importunities of his friends. He therefore dis¬
patched some troops against the usurper; but these were
gained over, and Procopius continuing for some time to
gain ground, it is probable he would finally have suc¬
ceeded, had he not become so much elated with his good
fortune that he grew' tyrannical and insupportable to his
own party. In consequence of this alteration in his dis¬
position, he was first abandoned by some of his principal
officers, and soon afterwards defeated in battle, taken pri¬
soner, and put to death.
This revolt produced a war betwixt Valens and the
Goths. The latter, having been solicited by Procopius,
had sent three thousand men to his assistance. On hear¬
ing the news of the usurper’s death, they countermarched ;
but Valens detached against them a body of troops, who
took them all prisoners, notwithstanding the vigorous re¬
sistance they made. Athanaric, king of the Goths, ex¬
postulated with Valens against this proceeding; but that
emperor proving obstinate, both parties prepared for war.
In 367 and 369, Valens gained great advantages over his
enemies, and obliged them to sue for peace, which was
concluded upon terms advantageous to tbe Romans. The
rest of his reign contains nothing remarkable, except the
cruelty with which he persecuted the orthodox clergy.
The latter sent eighty of their number to him, in order
to lay their complaints before him; but, instead of giv¬
ing them any relief, he determined to put them all to
death. The person, however, who was ordered to execute
this sentence, fearing lest the public execution of so many
ecclesiastics might raise disturbances, ordered them all to
be put on board a ship, pretending that the emperor had
ordered them only to be sent into banishment; but when
the vessel was at some distance from the land, the mari¬
ners set fire to it, and made their own escape in a boat.
The ship was driven by a strong wind into a harbour,
where it was consumed, with all who were on board. A
persecution was also commenced against magicians, or
those who had books of magic in their custody. This oc¬
casioned the destruction of many innocent persons; for
books of this kind were often conveyed into libraries, un¬
known to the owners of them, an act which was certainly
followed by death and confiscation of goods. Persons of
all ranks were consequently seized with such terror that
they burnt their libraries, lest books of magic should be
secretly conveyed amongst those of which they consisted.
310 CONSTANTINOPOLITAN HISTORY.
Constan. In 378 the Goths whom Valens had admitted into Thrace
^Hnrtor anat*VanCe^ from t^iat Prov^nce to Macedonia and Thessaly,
0V^, where they committed dreadful ravages. They afterwards
3^ blockaded the city of Constantinople, plundered the sub¬
urbs, and at last totally defeated and killed the emperor
himself. The day after the battle, hearing that an immense
treasure was lodged in Adrianople, the barbarians laid
siege to that place; but being strangers to the art of be¬
sieging towns, they were repulsed with great slaughter,
upon which they abandoned the enterprise, and returned
before Constantinople. But here great numbers of them
were cut in pieces by the Saracens, whom Maria, the
queen of that people, had sent to the assistance of the
Romans; so that they were obliged to abandon this design
likewise, and retire from the neighbourhood of the city.
By the death of Valens the empire once more fell into
the hands of a single person. This was Gratian, who had
held the empire of the West, after the death of Valenti-
nian. He repulsed many barbarous nations who threat¬
ened inroads on various sides; but finding himself severe¬
ly pressed, he soon resolved to take a colleague, in order
to relieve himself of part of the burden. Accordingly, on
the 19th of January 379, he declared Theodosius his part¬
ner in the empire, and committed to his care all the pro¬
vinces which had been governed by Valens.
Theodosius is greatly extolled by the historians of those
ages on account of his extraordinary valour and piety;
and for these qualifications he has been honoured with
the surname of Great. From the many persecuting laws,
however, made in his time, it would seem that his piety
was at least very much misdirected; and that if he was na¬
turally of a humane and compassionate disposition, super¬
stition and passion had often totally obscured it. He cer¬
tainly was a man of great conduct and experience in war;
and indeed the present state of the empire called for an
exertion of all his abilities. The provinces of Dacia,
Thrace, and Illyricum, were already lost; the Goths, Tai-
fali, Alans, and Huns, were masters of the greater part
of these provinces, and had ravaged and laid waste the
remainder. The Iberians, Armenians, and Persians, were
likewise up in arms, and ready to take advantage of the
distracted state of the empire. The few soldiers who had
survived the late defeat kept within the strongholds of
Thrace, without even daring to look abroad, much less
to face the victorious enemy, who moved about the coun¬
try in great bodies. But notwithstanding this critical si¬
tuation, the historians of those times give us no account
of the transactions of the year 379. Many great battles
indeed are said to have been fought, and as many victo¬
ries obtained by Theodosius; but the accounts of these
are so confused and contradictory, that no stress can be
laid upon them.
In the month of February 380, Theodosius was seized
with a dangerous malady, so that Gratian found himself
obliged to carry on the war alone. This emperor, appre¬
hending that the neighbouring barbarians might break into
some of the provinces, concluded with the Goths a peace,
which was confirmed by Theodosius on his recovery. The
treaty was very advantageous to the barbarians; but they,
disregarding all their engagements, no sooner heard that
Gratian had left Illyricum than they passed the Danube,
and breaking into Thrace and Pannonia, advanced as far
as Macedonia, destroying all with fire and sword. Theo¬
dosius, however, having collected his forces, marched
against them, and, according to the most respectable au¬
thorities, gained a complete victory; though Zosimus re¬
lates that he was utterly defeated.
The following year Athanaric, the most powerful of all
the Gothic princes, being driven out by a faction at home,
applied to Fheodosius, by whom he was received with
great tokens of friendship. The emperor himself went Constan.
out to meet him, and attended him with his numerous bn°politan
retinue into the city. The Gothic prince died the same History.
year, and Theodosius caused him to be buried after the
Roman manner, with such pomp and solemnity that the
Goths who attended him in his flight returned home with
a resolution never to molest the Romans any more. Nay,
out of gratitude to the emperor, they took upon them to
guard the banks of the Danube, and prevent the empire
from being invaded on that side.
In 383, one Maximus revolted against Gratian in Bri¬
tain ; and having at length got the unhappy emperor into
his power, caused him to be put to death, upon which the
usurper assumed the empire of the West himself. Gra¬
tian had divided his dominions with his brother Valenti-
nian, whom he allowed to reign in Italy and Western Illy¬
ricum, reserving the rest to himself. Maximus, therefore,
immediately after his usurpation, sent deputies to Theodo¬
sius, assuring him that he had no designs on the dominions
of Valentinian. As Theodosius at that time found himself
in danger from the barbarians, he not only forbore to at¬
tack Maximus after this declaration, but even acknowledg¬
ed him as his partner in the empire. It was not long, how¬
ever, before the ambition of the usurper prompted him to
violate his promise. In 387 he suddenly passed the Alps;
and meeting with no opposition, marched to Milan, where
Valentinian usually resided. The young prince fled first
to Aquileia, and thence to Thessalonica, in order to im¬
plore the protection of Theodosius. The latter, in answer
to Valentinian’s letter, informed him that he was not at
all surprised at the progress Maximus had made, because
the usurper had protected, and Valentinian had perse¬
cuted, the orthodox Christians. At last he prevailed on
the young prince to renounce the Arian heresy, which the
latter had hitherto maintained; after which Theodosius
promised to assist him with all the forces of the East. At
first, however, he sent messengers to Maximus, earnestly
exhorting him to restore the provinces which he had taken
from Valentinian, and content himself with Gaul, Spain,
and Britain. But the usurper would hearken to no terms.
This very year he besieged and took Aquileia, Quaderna,
Bononia, Mutina, Rhegium, Placentia, and many other
cities in Italy; and the following year he was acknowledged
in Rome, and in all the provinces of Africa. Theodosius,
therefore, finding a war inevitable, spent the remaining
months of this and the beginning of the following year in
making the necessary preparations. His army consisted
chiefly of Goths, Huns, Alans, and other barbarians, whom
he was glad to take into his service in order to prevent
their raising disturbances on the frontiers. He defeated
Maximus in two battles, took him prisoner, and put him
to death. The usurper had left his son Victor, whom he
created Augustus, in Gaul, to overawe the inhabitants in
his absence. Against him the emperor dispatched Arbo-
gastes, who took him prisoner after having dispersed the
troops that attended him, and put him to death. The vic¬
tory was afterwards used by Theodosius with great cle¬
mency and moderation.
In 389 Theodosius made a journey to Rome, and, ac¬
cording to Prudentius, at this time converted the senate
and people from idolatry to Christianity. The next year
was remarkable for the destruction of the celebrated
temple of Serapis in Alexandria, which, according to the
description of Ammianus Marcellinus, surpassed all others
in the world, that of Jupiter Capitolinus alone excepted.
The reason of its being now destroyed was this. Theo-
philus, bishop of Alexandria, having begged and obtained
of the emperor an old temple, formerly consecrated to Bac¬
chus, but then ruined and forsaken, with the design of
converting it into a church, the workmen found among the
CONSTANTINOPOLITAN HISTORY. 311
Constan- rubbish several obscene figures, which the bishop, in order
tinopolitan (.0 ridicule the superstition of the heathens, caused to be ex-
History. p0Sed to public view. This provoked the Pagans to such
a degree that they flew to arms; and falling unexpected¬
ly upon the Christians, cut great numbers of them in
pieces. The latter, however, soon took arms in their own
defence; and being supported by the few soldiers who
were quartered in the city, began to repel force by force.
Thus a civil war was kindled, and no day passed without
some encounter. The Pagans used to retire to the temple
of Serapis, and thence sallying out unexpectedly, seized
on such Christians as they met, and dragging them into
the temple, either forced them by the most exquisite tor¬
ments to sacrifice to their idol, or, if they refused, racked
them to death. As soon as they expected to be attacked
by the emperor’s troops, they chose a philosopher named
Olympus as their leader, with the design of defending
themselves to the last extremity. The emperor, however,
would not suffer any punishment to be inflicted upon them
for the lives of those whom they had put to death, but
readily forgave them ; however, he ordered all the temples
of Alexandria to be immediately pulled down, and com¬
manded the bishop to see his orders put in execution.
The Pagans no sooner heard that the emperor was ac¬
quainted with their proceedings than they abandoned the
temple, which was in a short time destroyed by Theophi-
lus; nothing being left except the foundations, which could
not be removed, on account of the extraordinary weight
and size of the stones. Not satisfied with the destruction
of the Alexandrian temples, the zealous bishop encou¬
raged the people to pull down all the other temples, ora¬
tories, chapels, and places set apart for the worship of the
heathen gods throughout Egypt, and ordered the statues
of the gods themselves to be either burnt or melted down.
Of the innumerable statues which at that time were to be
found in Egypt, he is said to have spared but one, name¬
ly, that of an ape, in order to expose the Pagan religion
to ridicule. On his return to Constantinople, Theodosius
ordered such temples as were yet standing to be thrown
down, and the Arians to be everywhere driven out of the
cities.
In 392 Valentinian, emperor of the West, was treacher¬
ously murdered by Arbogastes his general, who, though he
might afterwards have easily seized on the sovereignty
himself, chose to confer it upon one Eugenius, and to
reign in his name. This new usurper, though a Christian,
was greatly favoured by the Pagans, who were well ap¬
prised that he only bore the title of emperor, while the
whole power lodged in Arbogastes, who pretended to be
greatly attached to their religion. The aruspices appear¬
ed anew, and informed him that he was destined to the
empire of the whole world, and that he would soon gain a
complete victory over Theodosius, who was as much hated
as Eugenius was beloved by the gods. But though Euge¬
nius seemed to favour the Pagans, yet in the very begin¬
ning of his reign he wrote to St Ambrose. The holy man
did not answer his letter till he was pressed by some
friends to recommend them to the new prince; and then
he wrote to the usurper with all the respect due to an em¬
peror. Soon after his accession to the empire, Eugenius
sent deputies to Theodosius, who is said to have received
them in a very obliging manner. He did not, however,
intend to enter into any alliance with this usurper, but
immediately began his military preparations. In 394 he
set out from Constantinople, and reached Adrianople on
the 15th of June that year. He bent his march through
•Dacia, and the other provinces between Thrace and the
Julian Alps, with the design of forcing the passes of these
mountains, and breaking into Italy before the army of
Eugenius was in a condition to oppose him. On his ar¬
rival at the Alps he found these passes guarded by Fla- Constan-
vianus, prefect of Italy, at the head of a considerable body tin°P°^tan
of Roman troops. These, however, were utterly defeated
by Theodosius, who thereupon crossed the Alps and ad- 394I467
vanced into Italy. He was soon met by Eugenius, and a
bloody battle ensued, without any decisive advantage on
either side ; but the next day the emperor led his troops in
person against the enemy, utterly defeated them, and took
their camp. Eugenius was taken prisoner by his own men,
and brought to Theodosius, who reproached him with
the murder of Valentinian, with the calamities which he
had brought on the empire by his unjust usurpation, and
with putting his confidence in Hercules, and not in the
true God; for on his chief standard he had displayed the
image of that fabulous hero. Eugenius begged ear¬
nestly for his life; but whilst he lay prostrate at the em¬
peror’s feet, his own soldiers cut off his head, and carrying
it about on the point of a spear, showed it to those in
the camp who had not yet submitted to Theodosius.
At this they were all thunderstruck; but being informed
that Theodosius was ready to receive them into favour,
they threw down their arms and submitted. After this
Arbogastes, despairing of pardon, fled to the mountains;
but being informed that diligent search was made for him,
he laid violent hands on himself. His children, and those
of Eugenius, took sanctuary in churches; the emperor,
however, not only pardoned, but took the opportunity of
converting them to Christianity, restored to them their
paternal estates, and raised them to considerable employ¬
ments in the state. Soon after this, Theodosius appointed
his son Honorius emperor of the West, assigning him as his
share Italy, Gaul, Spain, Africa, and West Illyricum. But
the next year, as he prepared for his return to Constan¬
tinople, he was seized with a dropsy, owing to the great
fatigues he had undergone during the war. As soon as he
perceived himself to be in danger, he made his will, by
which he bequeathed the empire of the East to Arcadius,
and confirmed Honorius in the possession of the West. He
likewise confirmed the pardon which he had granted to
all those who had borne arms against him, remitted a tri¬
bute which had proved very burdensome to the people,
and charged his two sons to see that these points of his
will were executed. He died at Milan on the 17th of Ja¬
nuary 395, in the sixteenth year of his reign, and fiftieth
of his age.
From the time of Theodosius to the time when the Ro¬
man empire in the West was totally destroyed by the
Goths, we find but very little remarkable in the history of
Constantinople. At this time the eastern empire was
usurped by Basiliscus, who had driven out Zeno, the law¬
ful emperor, being assisted in his conspiracy by the em¬
press Verina, his sister. Zeno fled into Isauria, whither
he was pursued by Ulus and Trecondes, two of the usurp¬
er’s generals, who having easily defeated the few troops
he had with him, forced the unhappy prince to shut him¬
self up in a castle, which they immediately invested. But
in a short time Basiliscus having disobliged the people by
his cruelty, avarice, and other bad qualities, for which he
was no less remarkable than his predecessor had been, his
generals joined with Zeno, whom they restored to the
throne. After his restoration, Zeno having got Basiliscus
into his power, confined him in a castle of Cappadocia, to¬
gether with his wife Zenonides, where they both perished
with hunger and cold. This happened in the year 467,
after Basiliscus had reigned about twenty months. During
the time of this usurpation a dreadful fire happened at
Constantinople, which consumed great part of the city,
with the library containing 120,000 volumes, among which
wrere the works of Homer, written, as is said, on the great
gut of a dragon a hundred and twenty feet long.
CON STANTINOPOLITAN HISTORY.
312
Constan- The misfortunes which Zeno had undergone did not
tinopolitan work any reformation upon him. He still continued the
History. same vicious courses which had given occasion to the usur-
^485^5^ pation of Basiliscus; and other conspiracies were formed
against him, but he had the good fortune to escape them.
He engaged in a war with the Ostrogoths, in which he
proved unsuccessful, and was obliged to yield to them
the provinces of Lower Dacia and Moesia. In a short
time, however, Theodoric their king made an irruption
into Thrace, and advanced within fifteen miles of Con¬
stantinople, with the design of besieging that capital; but
the following year, 485, they retired in order to attack
Odoacer, king of Italy, of which country Theodoric was
proclaimed king in 493. The emperor Zeno died in the year
491, in the sixty-fifth year of his age, and seventeenth of
his reign.
The Roman empire had now for a long time been on
the decline; and the valour and military discipline which
had for so many ages rendered the Romans superior to
other nations had now greatly degenerated. The tumults
and disorders which had happened in the empire from
time to time by the many usurpations, had also greatly con¬
tributed to weaken it. But what proved of the greatest
detriment was the allowing vast swarms of barbarians to
settle in the different provinces, and to serve in the Ro¬
man empire in separate and independent bodies. This
had proved the immediate cause of the dissolution of the
western empire; but as it affected the eastern parts less,
the Constantinopolitan empire continued for upwards of
nine hundred years after that of the West had been totally
dissolved. The weak and imprudent administration of
Zeno, and of Anastasius, who succeeded him, had reduced
the eastern empire still more; and it might possibly have
expired in a short time after the western one, had not the
wise and vigorous conduct of Justin and his partner Jus¬
tinian revived in some measure the ancient martial spirit
which had originally raised the Roman empire to its highest
pitch of grandeur.
Justin ascended the throne in 518. In 521 he engaged
in a war with the Persians, who had all along been formi¬
dable enemies to the Roman name. Against them he em¬
ployed the famous Belisarius, of whom, however, we hear no¬
thing remarkable till after the accession of Justinian. This
prince was the nephew of Justin, and was by him taken as
his partner in the empire in 527 ; and the same year Jus¬
tin died, in the seventy-seventh year of his age and ninth
of his reign. Justinian being now sole master of the em¬
pire, directed his whole force against the Persians. The
latter proved successful in the first engagement, but were
soon afterwards utterly defeated by Belisarius on the fron¬
tiers of Persia, and likewise by another general, named
Dorotheus, in Armenia. The war continued with various
success during the first five years of Justinian’s reign. In
the sixth year a peace was concluded upon the conditions
that the Roman emperor should pay to Cosrhoes, the king of
Persia, a thousand pounds weight of gold; that both princes
should restore the places they had taken during the wars ;
that the commander of the Roman forces should no longer
reside at Daras, on the Persian frontiers, but at a place
called Constantina, in Mesopotamia, as he had formerly
done; and that the Iberians who had sided with the Ro¬
mans should be at liberty either to return to their own
country or to remain at Constantinople. This peace, con¬
cluded in 532, was styled “ eternalbut in the event it
proved of very short duration.
About this time happened at Constantinople the great¬
est tumult mentioned in history. It began among the dif¬
ferent factions in the circus, but ended in an open rebel¬
lion. The multitude, highly dissatisfied with the conduct
of John, the prefectus prcetorio, and of Tribonianus, then
questor, forced Hypatius, nephew of the emperor Anasta- Constan-
sius, to accept the empire, and proclaimed him with great ^"opolitan
solemnity in the forum. As the above-mentioned mi- Ristory.
nisters were greatly abhorred by the populace on account
of their avarice, Justinian immediately discharged them,
hoping by that means to appease the tumult; but this
was so far from answering the purpose, that the multitude
only grew the more outrageous ; and most of the senators
joining them, the emperor became so much alarmed that
he had thoughts of abandoning the city and making his
escape by sea. In this dilemma the Empress Theodora
encouraged and persuaded him rather to part with his
life than with his kingdom; and he at last resolved to de¬
fend himself to the utmost, with the few senators who had
not yet abandoned him. In the mean time, the rebels hav¬
ing attempted in vain to force the gates of the palace, car¬
ried Hypatius in triumph to the circus, where, whilst he
was beholding the sports from the imperial throne, amidst
the shouts and acclamations of the people, Belisarius, who
had been recalled from Persia, entered the city with a
considerable body of troops. Being then apprised of the
usurpation of Hypatius, he marched straight to the circus,
fell sword in hand upon the disarmed multitude, and with
the assistance of a band of Heruli, headed by Mundus,
governor of Illyricum, cut about thirty thousand of them in
pieces. Hypatius the usurper, and Pompeius, another of
the nephews of Anastasius, were taken prisoners and car¬
ried to the emperor, by whose orders they were both be¬
headed, and their bodies cast into the sea. Their estates
were confiscated, and likewise the estates of such senators
as had joined with them ; but the emperor caused great part
of their lands and effects to be afterwards restored to their
children, together with their honours and dignities.
Justinian having now no other enemy to contend with,
turned his arms against the Vandals in Africa, and the
Goths in Italy, both of which provinces he recovered out of
the hands of the barbarians. But before his general Beli¬
sarius had time to establish fully the Roman power in
Italy, he was recalled in order to carry on the war against
Cosrhoes, king of Persia, who, in defiance of the treaty
concluded in 532, had entered the Roman dominions at the
head of a powerful army. The same year, however, a peace
was concluded between the two nations, upon the condi¬
tions that the Romans should, within two months, pay to
the Persian king five thousand pounds weight of gold, and
an annual pension of five hundred ; that the Persians should
relinquish all claim to the fortress of Daras,.and maintain
a body of troops to guard the Caspian gates, and prevent
the barbarians from breaking into the empire; and that
upon payment of the above-mentioned sum, Cosrhoes should
immediately withdraw his troops from the Roman domi¬
nions. The treaty being signed, and the stipulated sum
paid, Cosrhoes began to march back again; but on the
way he plundered several cities, as if the war had still con¬
tinued. Justinian therefore resolved to pursue the war
with the utmost vigour, and for this purpose dispatched
Belisarius into the East. But soon afterwards he was
obliged to recal him in order to oppose the Goths, who
after his departure had gained great advantages in Italy.
The Persian war was then carried on with indifferent suc¬
cess till the year 558, when a peace was concluded upon
the emperor again paying an immense sum to the enemy.
The same year the Huns, having passed the Danube in the
depth of winter, marched in two bodies directly for Con¬
stantinople, and laying waste the countries through which
they passed, came, without meeting the least opposition,
within a short distance of the city. But Belisarius having
marched out against them with a handful of men, put them
to flight. The emperor, however, in order to prevent them
from invading the empire anew, agreed to pay them an
CONSTANTINOPOLITAN HISTORY.
Constan- annual tribute, upon their promising to defend the empire
tinopolitan gainst all other barbarians, and to serve in the Roman
armies when required. This was the last exploit perform-
505 0'J7 ec^ Relisarius, wdio on his return to Constantinople was
‘ disgraced, stripped of all his employments, and confined
to his house, on pretence of a conspiracy against the empe¬
ror. In the year 565 a real conspiracy was formed against
Justinian, which he happily escaped, and the conspirators
were executed; but the emperor did not long survive it,
being carried off by a natural death in 566, in the thirty-
ninth year of his reign.
During the reign of Justinian, the majesty of the Ro¬
man empire seemed in some measure to revive. He re¬
covered the provinces of Italy and Africa from the hands
of the barbarians, by whom they had been held for a num¬
ber of years; but soon after his death they were lost to
the empire, which now tended fast to dissolution. In
569 Italy was conquered by the Lombards, who held it
for the space of two hundred years. Some amends, how¬
ever, was made for the loss by the acquisition of Persar-
menia, the inhabitants of which, being persecuted by the
Persians on account of the Christian religion, which they
professed, revolted to the Romans. This produced a
war between the two nations, who continued to weaken
each other, till at last the Persian monarchy was utterly
overthrown, and that of the Romans greatly reduced, by
the Saracens. These new enemies attacked the Romans
in the year 632, and pursued their conquests with incre¬
dible rapidity. In the space of four years they reduced
the provinces of Egypt, Syria, and Palestine. In 648 they
were also masters of Mesopotamia, Phoenicia, Africa, Cy¬
prus, Aradus, and Rhodes; and having defeated the Ro¬
man fleet commanded by the Emperor Constans in person,
they concluded a peace on condition of retaining the vast
extent of territory which they had seized, and paying for
it a thousand nummi a year.
An expedition against the Lombards was about this time
undertaken, but with very little success ; a body of twenty
thousand Romans having been almost entirely cut off by
one of the Lombard generals. In 671 the Saracens ravaged
several provinces, made a descent on Sicily, took and plun¬
dered the city of Syracuse, and overran the whole island,
destroying every thing with fire and sword. In like man¬
ner they laid waste Cilicia, and having passed the winter
at Smyrna, entered Thrace in the year 672, and laid
siege to Constantinople itself. Here, however, they were
repulsed with great loss; but next spring they renewed
their attempt, in which they met with the same ill suc¬
cess, many of their ships being consumed by the sea-fire,
as it was called, because it burned under water; and in
their return home their fleet was wrecked off the Scyllsean
promontory. At last a peace was concluded for thirty
years, on condition that the Saracens should retain all the
provinces which they had seized, and that they should
pay the emperor and his successors three thousand pounds
weight of gold, fifty slaves, and as many choice horses.
This peace had scarcely been concluded when the em¬
pire was invaded by a new enemy, who for a long time
proved very troublesome. These were the Bulgarians, who
breaking into Thrace, defeated the Roman arm}' sentagainst
them, and ravaged the country far and wide. The emperor
consented to pay them an annual pension rather than con¬
tinue a doubtful war, and allowed them to settle in Lower
Moesia, which from them was afterwards called Bulgaria.
In 687, they were attacked by Justinian II. who entered
their country without provocation, and in disregard of the
treaties formerly concluded with them. But, having fallen
suddenly upon him, they drove him out of their country,
and obliged him to restore the towns and captives he had
taken. In 697 this emperor was deposed, and in his exile
VOL. VII.
313
M)U-U7y.
fled to Trebelis, king of the Bulgarians, by whom he was Constan-
kindly entertained, and by whose means he was restored to tinopolitan
his throne ; but soon forgetting this favour, he invaded the History,
country of the Bulgarians, with a design of wresting from V
them those provinces which he had yielded to them. In
this expedition, however, he was attended by no better
success than his ingratitude deserved, his army being utter¬
ly defeated, and he himself obliged to make his escape in
a light vessel to Constantinople. The Bulgarians continued
their inroads and ravages at different times, generally defeat¬
ing the Romans who ventured to oppose them, till the year
800, the seventh of the reign of Nicephorus, when they
surprised the city of Sardica, in Mcesia, and put the whole
garrison, consisting of six thousand men, to the sword. The
emperor marched against them with a considerable army,
but the enemy retired at his approach, and he, instead of
pursuing them, returned to Constantinople. Two years
afterwards he entered Bulgaria at the head of a powerful
army, destroying every thing with fire and sword. The
king offered to conclude a peace with him upon honoura'ble
terms; but Nicephorus, rejecting his proposals, continued
to waste the country, destroying the cities, and putting all
the inhabitants, without distinction of age or sex, to the
sword. The king was so much affected with these cruelties
which were exercised on his subjects, that he sent a second
embassy to Nicephorus, offering to conclude a peace with
him upon any terms, provided he would quit his country.
But Nicephorus having dismissed the ambassadors with
scorn, the Bulgarian monarch unexpectedly attacked the
Roman camp, forced it, and cut off almost the whole army,
with the emperor himself, and a great number of patricians.
His successor Michael likewise engaged in a war with the
Bulgarians ; but being utterly defeated, he was so grieved
that he resigned the empire. After this the Bulgarians
continued to be formidable enemies of the empire till the
year 979, when they were attacked by Basilius II. The
Bulgarians were at that time governed by a king named
Samuel, who ravaged the Roman territories, as was the
common practice of his nation; upon which Basilius sent
against him one Nicephorus Uranus, at the head of a power¬
ful army. Uranus, leaving his baggage at Larissa, reached
the Sperchius by forced marches, and encamped with his
whole army opposite the enemy, who lay on the other
bank. As the river was greatly swelled with heavy rains
which had lately fallen, Samuel, not imagining the Ro¬
mans would attempt to pass it, suffered his troops to roam
in large parties about the country in quest of booty. But
Uranus having at length found out a place where the river
was fordable, passed it in the dead of the night without
being perceived. He then fell upon the Bulgarians who
remained in the camp, and lay for the most part asleep;
cut a great number of them in pieces; took many pri¬
soners, with all their baggage, and made himself master of
their camp. Samuel and his son were dangerously wound¬
ed, and would have been taken had not they all that day
concealed themselves among the dead. The next night
they stole away to the mountains of iEtolia, and thence
made their escape into Bulgaria. The following year
the emperor entered Bulgaria at the head of a numerous
and well-disciplined army, defeated Samuel in a pitched
battle, and took several strong cities. The emperor him¬
self, however, at last narrowly escaped being cut off with
his whole army, being unexpectedly attacked by the Bul¬
garians in a narrow pass. From this danger he was
relieved by the arrival of Nicephorus Xiphias, governor
of Philippopolis, with a considerable number of troops,
who, falling upon the enemy’s rear, put them to flight.
Basilius pursued them closely, and having taken an in¬
credible number of prisoners, caused their eyes to be
pulled out, leaving to every hundred a guide with one
2 R
314
CONS TAN TIN OPOLITAN HISTORY.
Constan- eye, that he might conduct them to Samuel. This shock-
tinopolitan ing spectacle so affected the unhappy king, that he fell
History. jnto a (jggp swoon, and died two days afterwards. The
Roman emperor pursued his conquests, and in the space
‘ of two years made himself master of most of the enemy’s
strongholds. He also defeated the successor of Samuel
in several engagements; and having at last killed him in
battle, the Bulgarians submitted themselves without re¬
serve. The vast treasures of their princes were by Basi-
lius distributed among his soldiersby way of donative. Soon
afterwards the widow of the late king, with her six daugh¬
ters and three of her sons, surrendered themselves to the
Roman emperor, by whom they were received with the
utmost civility and respect. This obliging behaviour en¬
couraged the three other sons of the late king, and most
of the princes of the blood, who had taken shelter in the
mountains, to submit, and throw themselves on the empe*
ror’s clemency.
Ibatzes, however, a person nearly allied to the royal
family, who had distinguished himself during the whole
course of the war, refused to submit, and fled to a steep
and craggy mountain, with the design of defending him¬
self there to the last extremity. Basilius endeavoured to
induce him to submit by fair means; but he equally de¬
spised both threats and promises. At last Eustathius
Daphnomelus, whom Basilius had lately appointed go¬
vernor of Achridus, the chief city of Bulgaria, undertook
to seize him. Without communicating his design to any,
he repaired, with two persons in whom he could confide,
to the mountain on which Ibatzes had fortified himself,
hoping to pass undiscovered among the many strangers
who flocked thither to celebrate the approaching feast of
the Virgin Mary, for whom Ibatzes had a particular vene¬
ration. In this, however, he found himself mistaken; for
he was discovered by the guards, and carried before the
prince. To the latter he pretended to have something of
importance to communicate; but as soon as Ibatzes had
retired with him into a remote place, Daphnomelus threw
himself suddenly upon him, and with the assistance of the
two men whom he had brought with him, pulled out both
his eyes, and got safely to an abandoned castle on the top
of the hill. Here they were immediately surrounded by
the troops of Ibatzes; but Daphnomelus exhorting them
now to submit to the emperor, by whom he assured them
they would be well received, they congratulated Daph¬
nomelus on his success, and suffered him to conduct the
unhappy Ibatzes a prisoner to Basilius. The emperor was
no less surprised than pleased at the success of this bold
attempt, and rewarded Daphnomelus with the govern¬
ment of Dyrrhachium, and all the rich moveables of his
prisoner. After this, having accomplished the entire re¬
duction of Bulgaria, he returned with an incredible num¬
ber of captives to Constantinople, where he was received
by the senate and people with all possible demonstrations
of joy.
During this time the Saracens had at intervals invaded
the Roman dominions, and even attempted to make them¬
selves masters of Constantinople. Their internal divisions,
however, rendered them now much less formidable enemies
than they had formerly been; so that some provinces were
even recovered for a time out of their hands, though the
weak and distracted state of the empire rendered it im¬
possible to preserve such conquests. In 1041, the empire
was invaded by an enemy, not very powerful at that time,
indeed, but who by degrees gathered strength sufficient to
overthrow both the Roman and Saracen empires. These
were the lurks, who, having quitted their ancient habita¬
tions in the neighbourhood of Mount Caucasus, and pass¬
ed the Caspian Straits, settled in Armenia Major about
the year 844. 'Ihere they continued, an unknown and de¬
spised people, till the intestine wars of the Saracens gave Constan.
them an opportunity of aggrandizing themselves. About linopolita'n
the year 1030, Mohammed, the son of Sambrael, sultan History,
of Persia, not finding himself a match for Pisaris, sultan of—J
Babylon, with whom he was at war, had recourse to the 1030-GU'
Turks, who sent him three thousand men, under the com¬
mand of Tangrolipix, a leading man among them. By
their assistance, Mohammed defeated his adversary; but
when the Turks desired leave to return home, he refused
to part with them. Upon this they withdrew without his
consent to a neighbouring desert; and there being joined
by several discontented Persians, began to make frequent
inroads into the sultan’s territories. Mohammed imme¬
diately dispatched against them an army of twenty thou¬
sand men, who being surprised in the night, were utterly
defeated by Tangrolipix. The fame of this victory drew
multitudes from all parts to his standard; so that in a short
time Tangrolipix saw himself at the head of fifty thou¬
sand men. Upon this, Mohammed marched against them
in person, but was thrown from his horse in the beginning
of the engagement, and killed by the fall; upon which
his men threw down their arms, and submitted to Tan¬
grolipix.
After this victory, the Turkish general made war upon
the sultan of Babylon, whom he at length slew, and an¬
nexed his dominions to his own. He then sent his nephew,
named Cutlu-Moses, against the Arabians ; but he was de¬
feated by them, and forced to fly towards Media. But he
was denied a passage through this province by Stephen,
the Roman governor; upon which Cutlu-Moses was obliged
to force his way, by encountering the Roman army. These
he put to flight, took the governor himself prisoner, and
without any further opposition reached the confines of Per¬
sia, where he sold Stephen as a slave. Returning thence
to Tangrolipix, he excused, in the best manner he could,
his defeat by the Arabians; but at the same time acquaint¬
ed him with his victory over the Romans in Media, encou¬
raging him to invade that fertile country, which he said
might be easily conquered, as it was inhabited by none but
women, meaning thereby the Romans. At that time Tan¬
grolipix did not hearken to his advice, but marched against
the Arabians at the head of a numerous army. He was,
however, attended with no better success than his nephew
had been, and therefore began to reflect on what the latter
had told him. Soon afterwards he sent Asan, his brother’s
son, with an army of twenty thousand men, to reduce Me¬
dia ; and, pursuant to his orders, the young prince entered
that country, and committed everywhere dreadful ra¬
vages ; but being in the end drawn into an ambuscade by
the Roman generals, he was cut off with his whole army.
Tangrolipix, nowise discouraged by this misfortune, sent
a new army into Media, nearly one hundred thousand
strong, which, after having ravaged the country without
opposition, laid siege to Artza, a place of great trade, and
reckoned the most wealthy in those parts. But not being
able to reduce it by any other means, they set it on fire,
and thus in a short time it was utterly destroyed; the
buildings being reduced to ashes, while one hundred and
fifty thousand of the inhabitants perished either by the
flames or the sword. After this Abraham Halim, brother
to Tangrolipix, hearing that the Romans, reinforced with
a body of troops under the command of Liparites, governor
of Iberia, had taken the field, marched against them and
offered them battle, which they accepted. The two armies
engaged with incredible fury, and the victory continued
Jong doubtful, but at length inclined to the Romans, who
nevertheless did not think proper to pursue the fugitives,
as their general Liparites had been taken prisoner. The
emperor, greatly concerned for the captivity of Liparites,
dispatched ambassadors with rich presents, and a large
CONSTANTINOPOLITAN HISTORY.
Constan- sum of money to redeem him, and at the same time to
tinopolitan conclude an alliance with Tangrolipix. The sultan re-
History. ceived the presents, but generously returned them, toge-
th.er with the money’t0 Liparites, whom he set at liberty
without ransom, only requiring him at his departure to
promise never more to bear arms against the Turks. Not
long, afterwards, Tangrolipix sent "a person of great au¬
thority among the lurks, in the capacity of ambassador,
to Constantinople ; but he having arrogantly exhorted the
emperor to submit to his master, and acknowledge himself
his tributary, was ignominiously driven out of the city.
Tangrolipix, highly affronted at the reception which his
ambassador had met with, entered Iberia while the em¬
peror Constantine Monomachus was engaged in a war
with the Patzinacae, a Scythian nation. Having ravaged
that country, he returned thence to Media, and laid siege
to Mantzichierta, a place defended by a numerous garri¬
son, and fortified by a triple wall and deep ditches. How¬
ever, as it was situated in an open and level country, he
hoped to be master of it in a short time. But finding the
besieged determined to defend themselves to the last ex¬
tremity, he resolved to raise the siege, after he had con¬
tinued it for thirty days. One of his officers, however,
named Alcan, prevailed on him to persevere one day longer,
and to commit the management of the attacks to him. This
being granted, Alcan disposed his men with such skill, and
so encouraged them by his example, that, notwithstanding
the vigorous opposition they met with, the place would
have probably been taken, had not Alcan been slain as he
was mounting the wall. The besieged, knowing him by
the richness of his armour, drew him by the hair into the
city, and cutting off his head, threw it over the wall amongst
the enemy; a circumstance which so disheartened them
that they gave over the assault and retired. The next
spring Tangrolipix returned, and ravaged Iberia with the
utmost cruelty, sparing neither age nor sex. But on the
approach of the Homan army he retired to Tauris, leav¬
ing thirty thousand men behind him, with orders to infest
the frontiers of the empire. This they did with great suc¬
cess, the borders being through the avarice of Monoma¬
chus left unguarded. Till the time of this emperor, the
provinces bordering on the countries of the barbarians had
maintained, at their own charge, forces to defend them,
and were on that account exempted from paying tribute;
but as Monomachus had exacted from them the same
sums which were paid by others, they were no longer in a
condition to defend themselves.
In 1062 died the emperor Constantine Ducas, having
left the empire to his three sons, Michael, Andronicus,
and Constantine; but as they were all very young, he ap¬
pointed the empress Eudocia regent during their minority,
after having required of her an oath never to many, which
oath was with great solemnity lodged in the hands of the
patriarch. He likewise obliged the senators solemnly to
svvear that they would acknowledge none for their sove¬
reign but his three sons. No sooner was he dead, however,
than the Turks, hearing that the empire was governed by
a woman, broke into Mesopotamia, Cilicia, and Cappadocia,
destroying all with fire and sword. The empress was no¬
wise in a condition to oppose them, the greater part of the
army having been disbanded in her husband’s lifetime, and
the troops that were still on foot being undisciplined, and
altogether unfit for service. The concern which this gave
the.empress was aggravated by the seditious speeches of
a discontented party at home, who repeated on all occa¬
sions, that the present state of affairs required a man of
courage and address at the helm, instead of a weak and
helpless woman; and as they imagined that the empress
would never think of marrying, in consequence of the oath
which she had taken, they hoped by these speeches to
induce the people to revolt and choose a new emperor. Constan-
This Eudocia was aware of, and therefore determined totinoP°htan
prevent the evils which threatened herself and her family, History-
by marrying some person of merit, capable of defeating
her enemies both at home and abroad. At this time one
Romanus Diogenes, a person of a beautiful form, extra¬
ordinary parts, and illustrious birth, being accused of
aspiring to the empire, tried, and convicted, was brought
forth to receive sentence of death ; but the empress, touch¬
ed with compassion at his appearance, gently upbraided
him with his ambition, set him at liberty, and soon after¬
wards appointed him commander-in-chief of all her forces.
In this station he acquitted himself so well, that the em¬
press resolved to marry him, if she could but recover the
writing which contained her oath, out of the hands of the
patriarch. In order to this, she applied to a favourite eu¬
nuch, who having repaired to the patriarch, told him that
the empress was so taken with his nephew named Bardass,
that she was determined to marry and raise him to the
empire, provided the patriarch absolved her from the oath
which she had taken, and convinced the senate of the law¬
fulness of her marriage. The patriarch, dazzled with the
prospect of his nephew’s promotion, readily undertook to
perform both. He first obtained the consent of the senate,
by representing to them the dangerous state of the em¬
pire, and exclaiming against the rash oath which the jea¬
lousy of the late emperor had extorted from the empress.
He then publicly discharged her from it, restored the writ¬
ing to her, and exhorted her to marry some deserving per¬
son, who being intrusted with absolute authority, might be
capable of defending the empire. The empress, thus dis¬
charged from her oath, married a few days afterwards
Romanus Diogenes, who was thereupon proclaimed em¬
peror, to the grievous disappointment of the patriarch.
As the new emperor was a man of great activity and ex¬
perience in war, he no sooner saw himself vested" with the
sovereign power, than he took upon him the command of
the army, and passed over into Asia with the few forces
he could assemble, recruiting and training them on his
march to military discipline, which had been utterly ne¬
glected in the preceding reigns. On his arrival in that
continent, he was informed that the Turks had surprised
and plundered the city of Neocaesarea, and were retiring
with their booty. On this news he hastened after them
at the head of a chosen body of light-armed troops, and
came up with them on the third day. As the Turks were
marching in disorder, without the least apprehension of
an enemy, Romanus cut great numbers of them in pieces,
and easily recovered the booty; he then pursued his
march to Aleppo, which he retook, together with Hiera-
polis, where he built a strong castle.
As he was returning to join the forces he had left be¬
hind, he was met by a numerous body of Turks, who at¬
tempted to cut off his retreat. At first he pretended to
decline an engagement through fear; but afterwards at¬
tacked them with such vigour, when they least expected it,
that he put them to flight at the first onset, and might have
gained a complete victory, had he thought proper to pursue
them. After this, several towns submitted to him ; but the
season being now far spent, the emperor returned to Con¬
stantinople. The following year he passed over into Asia
early in the spring; and being informed that the Turks had
sacked the rich city ot Iconium, besides gaining other con¬
siderable advantages, he marched in person against them ;
but the Turks not thinking it advisable to wait his arrival,
retired in great haste. I he Armenians, however, encou¬
raged by the approach of the emperor’s army, fell upon
the enemy in the plains of Tarsus, put them to flight, and
stripped them of their baggage and of the booty which they
had taken. The spring following, the emperor once more
316
CONSTANTINOPOLITAN HISTORY.
Constan- entered Asia at the head of a considerable army which he
tinopolitan jia(j raisecl5 an{} with incredible pains disciplined, during
w*n,-er' When the two armies approached each
other, Axan, the Turkish sultan, and son of the famous
Tangrolipix, sent proposals to Romanus for a lasting and
honourable peace. These were imprudently rejected, and
a desperate engagement ensued, when, in spite of the
utmost efforts of the emperor, his army was routed, and
he himself wounded and taken prisoner. When this news
was brought to Axan, he could scarcely believe it; but
being convinced by the appearance of the royal captive in
his presence, he tenderly embraced him, and addressed
him in an affectionate manner: “ Grieve not,” said he,
“ most noble emperor, at your misfortune ; for such is the
chance of war, sometimes overwhelming one, and some¬
times another. You shall have no occasion to complain of
your captivity; for I will not use you as my prisoner, but
as an emperor.” The Turk was as good as his word; he
lodged the emperor in a royal pavilion, assigned him at¬
tendants, with an equipage suitable to his quality, and dis¬
charged such prisoners as he desired. After he had for
some days entertained his royal captive with extraordinary
magnificence, a perpetual peace was concluded betwixt
them, and the emperor dismissed with the greatest marks
of honour imaginable. He then set out with the Turkish
ambassador for Constantinople, where the peace was to be
ratified; but by the way he was informed that Eudocia
had been driven from the throne by John, the brother of
Constantine Ducas, and Psellus, a leading man in the se¬
nate, who had confined her to a monastery, and proclaim¬
ed her eldest son, Michael Ducas, emperor. On this in¬
telligence, Romanus retired to a strong castle near Theo-
dosiopolis, where he hoped in a short time to be joined by
great numbers of his friends and adherents. But in the
mean time John, who had taken upon him to act as guar¬
dian to the young prince, dispatched Andronicus with a
considerable army against him. Andronicus having easily
defeated the small army which Romanus had with him,
obliged him to fly to Adana, a city in Cilicia, where he
was closely besieged, and at last obliged to surrender.
Andronicus carried his prisoner into Phrygia, where he
fell dangerously ill, being, as was suspected, secretly poi¬
soned. But the poison being too slow in its operation,
John ordered his eyes to be put out, which was performed
with such cruelty that he died soon afterwards, in the year
1067, having reigned three years and eight months.
Axan was no sooner informed of the tragical end of his
friend and ally, than he resolved to invade the empire
anew, and that not with a design to plunder as formerly,
but to conquer, and to keep what he had once conquered.
The emperor dispatched against him Isaac Comnenus
with a considerable army; but he was utterly defeated
and taken prisoner by Axan. Another army was quick¬
ly sent off under the command of John Ducas, the empe¬
ror’s uncle, who at first gained some advantages, and would
probably have put a stop to their conquests, had not one
Ruselius, or Urselius, revolted with the troops he had un¬
der his command, caused himself to be proclaimed empe¬
ror, and reduced several cities in Phrygia and Cappadocia.
John marched against him with all his forces, suffering
the Burks in the mean time to pursue their conquests; but
coming to an engagement with the rebels, his army was
entirely defeated, and himself taken prisoner. Notwith¬
standing this victory, Ruselius was so much alarmed at
the progress of the Turks, that he not only released his
prisoner, but joined him against the common enemy,
by whom they were both defeated and taken prisoners.
Axan, however, was for some time prevented from pursu¬
ing his conquest, by Cutlu-Moses, nephew to the late Tan¬
grolipix, The latter had revolted against his uncle; but
1077.
being defeated by him in a pitched battle, had taken re- Constan.
fuge in Arabia, whence he now returned at the head of a tinopolitan
considerable army, in order to dispute the sovereignty History.
with Axan. But whilst the two armies were preparing ' ^ '
to engage, the caliph of Babylon, who was still looked
upon as the successor of the Prophet, interposed his au¬
thority. He represented the dangers of their intestine dis¬
sensions ; and by his mediation an agreement was at last
concluded, on condition that Axan should enjoy undisturb¬
ed the monarchy lately left him by his father, and Cutlu-
Moses should possess such provinces of the Roman em¬
pire as he or his sons should in process of time conquer.
After this agreement both the Turkish princes turned
their forces against the empire, and before the year 1077
made themselves masters of all Media, Lycaonia, Cappa¬
docia, and Bithynia, fixing the capital city of their empire
at Nice, in the latter province. During this time the em¬
perors of Constantinople, as well as their subjects, seem¬
ed to be in a manner infatuated. No notice was taken of
the great progress made by these barbarians. The gene¬
rals were ambitious only of seizing the tottering empire,
which seemed ready to become a prey to the Turks; and
after it had been obtained, they spent their time in op¬
pressing their subjects, rather than in making any attempts
to repulse the enemy.
At last Alexius Comnenus, having wrested the empire
from Nicephorus Botoniates in 1077, began to prepare for
opposing so formidable an enemy. But before he set out,
as his soldiers had committed great outrages on his acces¬
sion to the empire, he resolved to make confession of his
sins, and do open penance for those which he had suffered
his army to commit. Accordingly he appeared in the at¬
tire of a penitent before the patriarch and several other
ecclesiastics; acknowledged himself guilty of the many
disorders which had been committed by his soldiers; and
begged of the patriarch to impose upon him a penance suit¬
able to the greatness of his crimes. The penance enjoined
him and his adherents by the patriarch was to fast, lie upon
the ground, and practise several other austerities for the
space of forty days. This command was religiously obey¬
ed, and the emperor then began to prepare for war with
so much vigour, that Solyman, the Turkish sultan, son
and successor to Cutlu-Moses, dispatched ambassadors to
Alexius with proposals of peace. These were at first
rejected ; but the emperor was at last glad to accept them,
on receiving certain advices that Robert Guiscard. duke
of Puglia and Calabria, was making great preparations
against him in the West.
To this expedition Robert was incited by Michael Du¬
cas. That prince had been deposed by Nicephorus Boto¬
niates, and towards the end of the usurper’s reign fled into
the west, where he was received by Robert, who was pre¬
vailed upon to favour his cause. For this purpose Robert
made great preparations ; and these were continued even
after the deposition of Botoniates. Fie sailed with all his
forces from Brundusium, and landing at Buthrotum, in
Epirus, made himself master of that place; whilst his son
Bohemond with part of the army reduced Aulon, a cele¬
brated port and city in the country now called Albania.
From this they advanced to Dyrrhachium, which they in¬
vested both by sea and land ; but met with a most vigor¬
ous opposition from George Palaeologus, whom the empe¬
ror had intrusted with the defence of that important place.
In spite of the utmost efforts of the enemy, this command¬
er held out till the arrival of the Venetian fleet, by which
Robert’s navy, commanded by Bohemond, was utterly de¬
feated, and the admiral himself narrowly escaped being
taken prisoner. After the victory the Venetians landed
without loss of time, and being joined by Palaeologus’s
men, fell upon Robert’s troops with such fury that they de-
CONSTANTINOPOLITAN HISTORY. 317
Constan- stroyed their works, burnt their engines, and forced them
tinopolitan retreat to their camp in great disorder. As the Venetians
^History. were now masters at sea, the besieged were supplied with
JOW. Plenty provisions, whilst a famine began to rage in the
camp of the enemy ; and this calamity was soon followed
by a plague, which is said to have destroyed ten thousand
men in the space of three months. Notwithstanding all
these disasters, however, Robert did not abandon the siege.
Having found means to supply his famished troops with pro¬
visions, he continued it with such vigour that the courage
of the besieged began at last to fail them, and Palaeologus
sent repeated messages to the emperor, acquainting him
that he would be obliged to surrender unless very speed¬
ily relieved. On this Alexius marched in person to the
relief of the city, but was defeated with great loss by Ro¬
bert. The whole right wing of Alexius’s army, finding
themselves hard pressed by the enem)’-, fled to a church
dedicated to St Michael, imagining that they would there
find themselves in a place of safety; but the victorious
army pursuing them, set fire to the church, which was
burnt to ashes with all who were in it. The emperor him¬
self with great difficulty made his escape, leaving the ene¬
my masters of his camp and all his baggage. Soon after
this defeat the city surrendered ; and Alexius being des¬
titute of resources for carrying on the war, seized on the
wealth of churches and monasteries, which gave serious
offence to the clergy, and had nearly occasioned great dis¬
turbances in the imperial city. At the same time, Alex¬
ius having entered into an alliance with Henry, emperor of
Germany, persuaded him to invade the dominions of Ro¬
bert in Italy. At first Henry met with great success, but
he was soon overcome and driven out of that country by
Robert. Bohemond, in the mean time, reduced several
places in Illyricum ; and having defeated Alexius in two
pitched battles, entered Thessaly, and sat down before La¬
rissa. But this place, being defended by an officer of great
courage and experience in war, held out till the emperor
came to its relief. Soon after his arrival he found means
to draw a strong party of Bohemond’s men into an ambus¬
cade, and cut them off almost entirely. In the battle which
was fought a few days afterwards, however, Bohemond had
the advantage ; but Ids troops having mutinied and refused
to carry on the war, he was obliged to return into Italy.
Alexius taking advantage of his absence, recovered several
cities; and being informed that Robert was making great
preparation against him, he had recourse once more to the
Venetians. By them he was assisted with a powerful fleet,
which defeated that of Robert in two engagements; but
being soon after surprised by bim, they were defeated with
the loss of almost their whole navy. Robert is said to have
used his victory with great barbarity, putting many of his
prisoners to death with unheard-of torments. The Vene¬
tians equipped a second fleet, which having joined that of
the emperor, fell unexpectedly upon Robert’s navy, while
riding at anchor, without the least apprehension, in Buth-
rotum, sunk most of his ships, and took a great number of
prisoners, his wife and younger sons having narrowly es¬
caped falling into their hands. Robert made great prepa¬
rations to revenge this defeat, but was prevented by death
from executing his designs ; and after his decease his son
Roger did not think proper to pursue so dangerous and ex¬
pensive a war. He therefore recalled his troops ; and the
places which had been conquered by Robert and Bohe¬
mond submitted anew to the emperor.
This war had scarcely ended, when the Scythians, pass¬
ing the Danube, laid waste great part of Thrace, and com¬
mitted everywhere the greatest barbarities. The emperor
dispatched against them an army under the command of
Pacurianus and Branas. The latter insisted upon engag¬
ing the enemy, contrary to the opinion of his colleague ;
and his rashness caused the loss of the greater part of the Constan-
army, which was cut off by the Scythians, together with tinopolitan
the two generals. Talicius, an officer who had signalized history*
himself on many occasions, was appointed to command the
army in their stead; and he fell upon the enemy as they
lay encamped in the neighbourhood of Philippopolis, cut
great numbers of them in pieces, and obliged the remain¬
der to retire in great confusion. The following spring,
however, they returned in such numbers that the emperor
resolved to march against them in person. Accordingly
he set out for Adrianople, and thence proceeded to a place
called Lardea. Here, contrary to the advice of his best
officers, he ventured a battle, in which he was utterly de¬
feated with great loss, and himself escaped with the utmost
difficulty. The next year he was attended with no bet¬
ter success, his army being entirely defeated, with the
loss of his camp equipage and baggage. In the year fol¬
lowing, 1084, the emperor retrieved bis credit, and inflict¬
ed on the Scythians such an overthrow that very few escap¬
ed the general slaughter. Notwithstanding this disaster,
however, they again invaded the empire in 1093. To this
they were encouraged by an impostor called Leo, who
pretended to be the eldest son of Romanus Diogenes.
The young prince had been slain in a battle with the
Turks; but as the Scythians only wanted a pretext for
renewing the war, they received the impostor with joy.
Leo, however, was murdered by stratagem ; and the Scy¬
thians being afterwards overthrown in two great battles,
were obliged to submit on the emperor’s own terms.
Since the year 1083, the war had been carried on against
the Turks with various success ; but now an association
against these infidels was formed in the West, and threa¬
tened the utter ruin of the Turkish nation. This was occa¬
sioned by the superstition of the Christians, who thought
it a meritorious action to venture their lives for the reco-
vei'y of the Holy Land, at that time possessed by the Turks
and Saracens. Had the western princes been properly as¬
sisted by the emperors of the East in this undertaking, the
Turks undoubtedly would have been unable to resist them;
but so far from this, the Latins were looked upon by them
as not less enemies than the Turks ; and indeed whatever
places they took from the infidels, they never thought of
restoring to the emperors of Constantinople, to whom they
originally belonged, but erected a number of small inde¬
pendent principalities, which neither having sufficient
strength to defend themselves, nor being properly sup¬
ported by one another, soon became a prey to the Turks.
In the year 1203 happened a dreadful fire at Constanti¬
nople, occasioned by some Latin soldiers. These men hav¬
ing plundered a mosque which the Turks residing in Con¬
stantinople had been suffered to build there, they were
attacked by the infidels ; and the latter being much su¬
perior in number, the Latins found themselves obliged to
set fire to some houses, in order to cover their retreat.
The flames spread in an instant from street to street, and
in a short time reduced great part of the city to ashes, with
the capacious storehouses which had been built at a vast
expense on the quay. The emperor Isaac Angelus, who
had been restored to his throne by the Latins, died soon
after their departure from Constantinople, leaving his son
Alexius sole master of the empire. The young prince, in
order to discharge the large sums he had promised the
French and Venetians for their assistance, was obliged to
impose heavy taxes on his subjects ; a circumstance which,
with the great esteem and friendship which he showed
towards his deliverers, raised a general discontent among
the people of Constantinople, who were sworn enemies of
the Latins. This encouraged John Ducas, surnamed
Murtzuphlus, from his joined and thick eyebrows, to at¬
tempt the sovereignty. Unhappily he found means to put
318 CONSTANTINOPOLITAN HISTORY.
Constan- his treacherous designs in execution, and strangled the
tinopolitan young prince with his own hands. After this he present-
llistory. e(i himggjf to the people; told them what he had done,
pretending that it was in order to secure their liberties ;
and earnestly entreated them to choose an emperor who
had courage enough to defend them against the Latins,
who were ready to oppress and enslave them. Upon this
he was instantly saluted emperor by the inconstant multi¬
tude ; but this usurpation proved the ruin of the city. The
Latins immediately resolved to revenge the death of the
young prince; and, as they had been so often betrayed
and retarded in their expeditions to the Holy Land by the
emperors of Constantinople, they also determined to make
themselves masters of that city, and seize the empire for
themselves. In consequence of this resolution they muster¬
ed their forces in Asia, and having crossed the straits, laid
siege to Constantinople both by sea and land. The tyrant,
who was a man of great courage and experience in war,
made a vigorous defence. The Latins, however, after hav¬
ing battered the walls for several days together with an
incredible number of engines, gave a general assault on
the 8th of April 1204i. The attack lasted from break of
day till three in the afternoon, when they were forced to
retire, after having lost some of their engines and a great
number of men. The assault was nevertheless renewed
four days subsequently to this; when, after a warm contest,
the French planted their standard on one of the towers;
which the Venetians having observed, quickly made them¬
selves masters of four other towers, where they likewise
displayed their ensigns. In the mean time three of the
gates being broken down by the battering rams, and those
who had scaled the walls having killed the guards, and
opened the gates between the towers they had taken, the
whole army entered, and drew up in battle array between
the walls. The Greeks fled in the greatest confusion;
and several parties were dispatched by the Latins to scour
the streets, and put all they met to the swoi’d, without
distinction of age or condition. Night alone put a stop to
the carnage, when the princes sounding the retreat, placed
their men in different quarters of the city, with orders to
be upon their guard, not doubting that they would be at¬
tacked early next morning. They were surprised, how¬
ever, by the entire submission of the Greeks, to whom they
promised their lives, but at the same time ordered them to
retire to their houses; upon which they gave up the city
to be plundered by the soldiers for that day. They strictly
enjoined their men to abstain from slaughter, to preserve
the honour of the women, and to bring the whole booty
into one place, that a just distribution might be made,
according to the rank and merit of each individual. The
Greeks had undoubtedly concealed their most valuable
effects during the night; many persons of the highest
rank had escaped, carrying along with them immense
treasures ; and the soldiers, as is usual in all such cases,
had probably reserved things of great value for themselves,
notwithstanding all prohibitions to the contrary; yet the
booty, exclusively of statues, pictures, and jewels, amount¬
ed to a sum almost incredible. As for Murtzuphlus, he
made his escape in the night; having embarked in a small
vessel with Euphrosyne, the wife of Alexius Angelus, a
late usurper, and her daughter Eudoxia, for whose sake
he had abandoned his lawful wife.
Constantinople continued subject to the Latins until the
year 1261, when they were expelled by one Alexius Stra-
tegopulus. He was a person of an illustrious family, and,
on account of his eminent services, distinguishedby the title
of Csesar. He had been sent against Alexius Angelus, des¬
pot of Epirus, who now attempted to recover some places
in Thessaly and Greece from Michael Palgeologus, one of
the Greek emperors, who, since the capture of Constanti¬
nople, had kept their court at Nice ; and also to try whe- « .
ther on his march he could surprise the imperial city it- tinopoHtl'n
self. Alexius, having passed the straits, encamped at Rhe- History,
gium, where he was informed by the natives that a strong
body of the Latins had been sent to the siege of Daphnusa, *261.
that the garrison was in great want of provisions, and that
it would be no difficult matter to surprise the city. On
receiving this intelligence, the Greek general resolved at
all events to attempt it; and in this he was encouraged
by some of the inhabitants, who, coming privately to his
camp, offered to act as guides to his troops. He approach¬
ed the walls in the dead of the night, which some of his men
scaled without being observed, and, killing the sentries,
whom they found asleep, opened one of the gates to the
rest of the army, when the Greeks rushing in, put all they
met to the sword, and, at the same time, in order to create
greater terror, set fire to the city in four different places.
The Latins, concluding that the enemy’s forces were far
more numerous than they really were, did not so much
as attempt either to drive them out or to extinguish the
flames.
In this general confusion, the emperor Baldwin, quitting
the ensigns of majesty, fled with Justinian, the Latin pa¬
triarch, and some of his intimate friends, to the sea-side ;
and there, embarking in a small vessel, he sailed first to Eu¬
boea, and afterwards to Venice, leaving the Greeks in full
possession of Constantinople. When tidings of this surpris¬
ing and altogether unexpected success of Alexius were
first brought to Palaeologus, he could scarcely give credit
to the intelligence ; but having soon afterwards received
letters from Alexius himself, containing a particular ac¬
count of this memorable event, he ordered thanksgivings
to be made in all the churches, appeared in public in his
imperial robes, attended by the nobility in their best ap¬
parel, and ordered couriers to be dispatched with the agree¬
able tidings into all parts of the empire.
Palaeologus having settled his affairs at Nice, soon after¬
wards set out for Constantinople, with the empress, his son
Andronicus, the senate, and nobility, in order to take pos¬
session of the imperial city, and to fix his residence in that
place which had originally been designed for the seat of the
eastern empire. Having passed the straits, he advanced
to the Golden Gate, and continued some days without the
walls, whilst the citizens were busied in making the neces¬
sary preparations to receive him with a magnificence suit¬
able to the occasion. On the day appointed, the golden gate,
which had been long shut up, was opened, and the empe¬
ror having entered it amidst the repeated acclamations of
the multitude, marched on foot to the great palace. He was
preceded by the Bishop of Cyzicus, who carried an image of
the Virgin Mary, supposed to have been made by St Luke,
and followed by all the great officers, nobility, and principal
citizens, pompously dressed. Public thanks were again re¬
turned in the church of St Sophia, at which the emperor
assisted in person, with the clergy, the senate, and nobility.
These exercises were succeeded by all sorts of rejoicings;
after which the emperor carefully surveyed the imperial city.
This survey greatly allayed his joy. He saw the stately
palaces and other magnificent buildings of the Roman em¬
perors lying in ruins; the many capacious edifices which
had been erected by his predecessors, at an immense charge,
were destroyed by fire, and other unavoidable accidents
of war; and several streets abandoned by the inhabitants,
and choked up with rubbish. These objects gave the em¬
peror no small concern, and kindled in his mind a desire
of restoring the city to its former lustre. In the mean time,
looking upon Alexius as the restorer of his country, he
caused him to be clad in magnificent robes; placed with
his own hand a crown upon his head; ordered him to be
conducted throughout the city in a sort of triumph; de-
Constan* creed that for a whole year the name of Alexius should
wTnrv11156 j°ined in the public Prayers with his own; and, to per-
petuate the memory of so great and glorious an action, he
commanded his statue to be erected on a stately pillar of
marble, in front of the church of the apostles. His next
care was to re-people the city, many Greek families having
withdrawn from it while it was occupied by the Latins.
The former were recalled home; while the latter, from
the great tiade they carried on, were allowed many va-
luable privileges, which induced many of them not to re¬
move. The Greeks were permitted to live in one of the
most beautiful quarters ot the city, to be governed by
their own laws and magistrates, and to trade without pay¬
ing customs or taxes of any kind. Great privileges were
likewise granted to the natives of Venice and Pisa, which
encouraged them to lay aside all thoughts of removing;
and the commerce they carried on proved afterwards highly
advantageous to the state.
ft was not long, however, before these regulations were
altered. Ihe emperor being soon afterwards informed that
Baldwin, lately expelled from Constantinople, had married
us daughter to Charles, king of Sicily, and given him, by
way of dowry, the imperial city itself, he ordered the Ge¬
noese, who had become very numerous, to remove first to
Heraclia, and afterwards to Galata, where they were oer-
mitted to remain. As for the Pisans and Venetians, who
weie not so numerous and wealthy, they were allowed to
continue in the city. Palaeologus, though he had caused
himself to be proclaimed emperor, and was possessed of
absolute sovereignty, was as yet only guardian to the
young emperor John Lascaris, then about twelve vears
of age. But having now settled the state, and having
gained the affections of both natives and foreigners, he
began to think of securing himself and his posterity in
the full enjoyment of the empire; and for this purpose he
cruelly ordered the eyes of the young prince to be put
out, pretending that none but himself had any right to
the city or empire of Constantinople, which he alone had
recovered from the hands of the Latin conquerors.
This piece of treachery and inhumanity involved him in
gieat troubles. The patriarch immediately excommuni¬
cated him ; and he would in all probability have been dri¬
ven from the throne by a combination of the western prin¬
ces, had he not engaged Pope Urban IV. to espouse his
cause, by promising to submit himself and his dominions
to the Latin church. By this means he succeeded in di¬
verting the present storm; but the proceeding itself caused
the greatest disturbances, not only in Constantinople, but
throughout the whole empire: nor was Palaeologus able
to reconcile his subjects to this union.
In 1283 Michael died, and was succeeded by his son An-
dronicus, whose first step was to restore the ancient Greek
ceremonies, thinking that he could not begin his reign
with a more popular act. But he thereby involved himself
in greater difficulties than ever; for, although Michael
had not been able fully to reconcile his Greek subjects to
the Latin ceremonies, yet he had in some degree accom¬
plished his object. The Latins having obtained a consi¬
derable footing in the city, defended their ceremonies with
great obstinacy; and the empire was again thrown into a
ferment by this imprudent step.
During this time the Turks had continued their en¬
croachments on the empire, of which, had it not been for
the crusades published against them by the pope, they
would already have, in all probability, made themselves
masters. They were now, however, very successfully
opposed by Constantine, the emperor’s brother; but his
va our rendered him suspected by the emperor, and he
was therefore thrown into prison, along with several per¬
sons of great distinction. On the removal of this brave
CONSTANTINOPOLITAN HISTORY.
319
commander, the Turks, under the famous Othoman, made Conslan-
themselves masters of several places in Phrygia, Caria, and tinopolitan
Bithynia, and, among these, of the city of Nice. To put History,
a stop to their conquests, the emperor dispatched against
them Philanthropenus and Libadarius, two officers of great l2y--la57.
experience in war. The former gained some advantages
oyer the enemy, but being elated with his success, caused
himself to be proclaimed emperor. This rebellion, how¬
ever, was soon suppressed, Philanthropenus having been
betrayed by his own men; but the Turks taking advan¬
tage of these intestine commotions, extended their domi¬
nions in Asia, conquered most of the islands in the Me¬
diterranean, and, being masters at sea, infested the coasts
of the empire, to the utter ruin of trade and commerce.
Irom this time the Roman empire declined fast towards
total dissolution. After the revolt of Philanthropenus, the
emperor could no longer trust his subjects, and therefore
hired the Massagetes to assist him; but the latter, conduct¬
ing themselves in a careless manner, were first defeated by
their enemies, and afterwards turned their arms against
those whom they came to assist. He next applied to the
Catalans, who behaved in the same way; and having ra¬
vaged^ the few places left the emperor in Asia, returned
into Europe, and called the Turks to their assistance.
This happened in the year 1292, and was the first ap¬
pearance of the Turks in Europe. The enterprise, how¬
ever, proved unsuccessful. Having loaded themselves writh
booty, they offered to depart quietly if they were allowed
a safe passage, and ships to transport them to Asia. To
this the emperor, willing to get rid of such troublesome
guests, readily consented, and ordered the vessels to be
got ready with all possible expedition. But the Greek
officers observing the immense booty with which they
were loaded, resolved to fall upon them in the night, and
to cut them off at one blow, ibis scheme, however, not
having been managed with due secrecy, the Turks received
notice of it, and were therefore prepared for their defence.
They first surprised a strong castle in the neighbourhood,
and then found means to inform their countrymen in Asia
of their dangerous situation. The latter, enticed by the
hope of booty, were not long in corning to their assist¬
ance ; and having crossed the Hellespont in great num¬
bers, ravaged the adjacent country, making excursions as
far as the gates of Constantinople. At last the emperor
determined to root them out, and accordingly marched
against them with his whole forces, the country people
flocking to him from all quarters. The Turks at first gave
themselves over for lost; but finding the Greeks negligent
of discipline, they attacked their army unexpectedly, utter¬
ly defeated it, and made themselves masters of the camp.
After this unexpected victory, they continued for two
years to ravage Thrace in the most terrible manner. At
last, however, they were defeated; and being afterwards
shut up in the Chersonesus, they were all either cut in
pieces or taken prisoners.
Soon afterwards, new commotions occurred in the unhap¬
py empire, of which the Turks did not fail to take advan¬
tage. In 1327 they made themselves masters of most of
the cities on the Maeander, and, among the rest, of the
strong and important city of Prusa, in Bithynia. The next
year, however, Othoman, who may justly be styled the
founder of the Turkish monarchy, being now dead, the
emperor seized the opportunity to recover Nice, and some
other important places, from the infidels. But these were
lost the year following, together with Abydus and Nico-
media ; and in 1330 a peace was concluded, upon condition
that the 1 urks should retain all their conquests. But this
peace they observed no longer than suited their own pur¬
poses ; for new commotions having arisen in the empire, they
pursued their conquests, and by the year 1357 had reduced
320 CONSTANTINOPOLITAN HISTORY.
Constan- all Asia. They next passed the Hellespont under the
^opolitanconduct 0f S0]ynianj t]le sonj orj as others allege, the bro-
t_r_ ther of Orchane, the successor of Othoman, and seized on
1307-1424. a strong castle on the European side. The Turkish sul¬
tan died soon afterwards, and was succeeded by Amurath,
who extended the conquests of his predecessors, and in a
short time reduced all Thrace, making Adrianople the seat
of his empire. Amurath was slain by treachery a little
time afterwards, and was succeeded by his son Bajazet,
who greatly enlarged his dominions by new conquests.
In a short time he reduced the countries of Thessaly,
Macedonia, Phocis, Peloponnesus, Mysia, and Bulgaria,
driving out the despots or petty princes who ruled there.
Elated with his frequent victories, he began to look upon
the Greek emperor, to whom nothing was now left but
the city of Constantinople and the neighbouring country,
as his vassal. Accordingly he sent him an arrogant and
haughty message, commanding him to pay a yearly tri¬
bute, and send his son Manuel to attend him in his mili¬
tary expeditions. This demand the emperor was obliged
to comply with, but soon afterwards died, in the year 1392.
Manuel no sooner heard of his father’s death than he
hastened to Constantinople, without taking leave of the
sultan, or acquainting him with the reason of his sudden
departure. Bajazet was so highly offended at this, that
he passed with great expedition out of Bithynia into
Thrace, ravaged the country adjoining to Constantinople,
and at last invested the city itself, both by sea and land.
In this extremity Manuel had recourse to the western prin¬
ces, who sent him an army of a hundred and thirty thou¬
sand men, under the command ofSigismund, king of Hun¬
gary, and John, count of Nevers. But though the western
troops proved at first successful, they were in the end de¬
feated with great slaughter by Bajazet, who then returned to
the siege with greater vigour than ever. As he found, how¬
ever, that the citizens were determined to hold out to the last,
he applied to John, the son of Manuel’s elder brother, who
had a better title to the crown than Manuel himself, with
whom he entered into a private agreement, by virtue of
which Bajazet engaged to place John upon the throne of
Constantinople, while, on the other hand, John consented to
deliver up the city to the Turks, and remove the imperial city
to Peloponnesus, which the sultan promised to relinquish to
him and his posterity. At the same time he sent deputies
to the inhabitants of Constantinople, offering to withdraw
his army, and cease from further hostilities, provided they
expelled Manuel, and placed John upon the throne. This
proposal rent the city into two factions; but Manuel pre¬
vented the mischiefs which were ready to ensue, by a vo¬
luntary resignation, upon condition that he should be al¬
lowed to retire with his wife and children to any place he
might think proper to fix upon.
John readily complied with this condition, and Manuel
having received him into the city, and conducted him to
the palace, set sail for Venice, and thence proceeded to
the courts of all the western princes, to solicit assistance
against the lurks, whose power had grown formidable to
all Europe. He was everywhere received with the greatest
demonstrations of esteem, and promised large supplies ; for
all Christendom had now become alarmed at the progress
of the infidels.
In the mean time Bajazet did not fail to put John in
mind of his promise; but the citizens refusing to comply
with so scandalous a treaty, the siege was renewed, and the
city assaulted with more fury than ever. When it was re¬
duced almost to the last extremity, news were brought to
the sultan that rimour,or iamerlane, the victorious Tatar,
having overrun all the East with incredible celerity, had
turned his arms against the Turks, and was preparing to
break into Syria. Bajazet, alarmed at the danger which
threatened him, raised the siege in great haste, and ad- Constan.
vanced against Tamerlane with a numerous and well-ap-tinopolitan
pointed army; but the Tatar totally defeated and took History,
him prisoner, after having cut most of his men in pieces ;
and thus Constantinople was for the present saved from*424-1453
destruction.
But this relief proved of short duration. In 1424 the city
was again besieged by Amurath II.; and although, the in¬
habitants defended themselves with great bravery, they
must in the end have submitted, had not the emperor pre¬
vailed upon the Prince of Caramania to countenance an im¬
postor and pretender to the Turkish throne. This obliged
Amurath to raise the siege, and to march with all his forces
against the usurper, whom he soon overthrew. Having then
no other enemies to contend with, he entered Macedonia
at the head of a powerful army, and having ravaged the
country far and near, he took and plundered Thessalonica,
as he did also most of the cities of iEtolia, Phocis, and
Boeotia. From Greece he marched into Servia, which
country he soon reduced. He next broke into the domi¬
nions of the king of Hungary, and besieged the strong city
of Belgrade ; but here he met with a vigorous repulse, no
fewer than fifteen thousand Turks having been slain by
the Christians in one sally, a circumstance which obliged
the sultan to abandon the enterprise and retire.
In his retreat he wras attacked by the celebrated John
Hunniades, who slew great numbers of his men, and ob¬
liged the rest to fly with the utmost precipitation. Not long
afterwards, Hunniades gained a still more complete victory
over the enemy in the plains of Transylvania, with the loss
of only three thousand of his own men, whereas twenty
thousand of the Turks were slain on the field of battle,
and almost an equal number in the pursuit. Amurath,
who was then at Adrianople, sent into Transylvania an
army far more numerous than the former; but they were
attended with no better success, being cut off almost to a
man by the brave Hungarian. Hunniades gained several
other victories no less remarkable, but was at last entirely
defeated in 1448; and with this defeat ended all hopes
of preserving the Roman empire. The unhappy emperor
was now obliged to pay an annual tribute of three hun¬
dred thousand aspers to the sultan, and to yield up some
strongholds which he still held on the Euxine Sea. How¬
ever, as he doubted not that Amurath would soon attempt
to become master of the city itself, he renewed the union
between the Greek and Latin churches; hoping that this
would induce the western princes to assist him in the
detence of the city against the Turks. This union pro¬
duced great disturbances, which the emperor did not long
survive, for he died in 1448, leaving the empire, now con¬
fined within the walls of Constantinople, to his brother
Constantine.
Amurath the Turkish sultan died in 1450, and was suc¬
ceeded by his son Mohammed. In the beginning of his
reign the latter entered into an alliance with Constantine,
and pretended a great desire to live in friendship with him
and the other Christian princes; but no sooner had he
put an end to a war in which he was engaged with Ibra¬
him, king of Caramania, than he built a strong fort on the
European side of the Bosporus, opposite to another in
Asia, in both of which he planted strong garrisons. These
castles commanded the straits ; and the former being only
five miles from the city, kept it in a manner blockaded.
This soon produced a misunderstanding between him
and the emperor, which ended in his laying siege to the
city. The siege commenced on the 6th of April 1453,
Mohammed’s numerous forces covering the plains before
it on the land side, and a fleet of three hundred sail block¬
ading it by sea. The emperor, however, had taken care to
secure the haven, in which were three large ships, twenty
CONSTANTINOPOLITAN HISTORY.
321
Constan- small ones, and a great number of galleys, by means of a
tinopolitan chain drawn across the entrance. Mohammed began the
History. gjege ^ planting batteries as near the city as he could,
and raising in several places mounds as high as the walls
u * themselves, whence the besieged were incessantly galled
with showers of arrows. He had in his camp a piece of
ordnance of prodigious size, which is said to have carried a
ball of a hundred pounds weight made of hard black stone
brought from the Euxine Sea. With this vast piece the
enemy made several breaches in the walls ; which, how¬
ever, were repaired with incredible expedition by the be¬
sieged. But Mohammed, in order to carry on the siege
with greater vigour, caused new levies to be made through¬
out his extensive dominions, by which his army was soon
increased to near four hundred thousand men ; while the
garrison consisted only of nine thousand regular troops,
viz. six thousand Greeks and three thousand Genoese ancl
Venetians. As the enemy continued to batter the walls
day and night without intermission, a great part of them
was at last beaten down ; but whilst the Turks were busy
in filling up the ditch, in order to deliver the assault, a new
wall was constructed. This threw the tyrant into a pro¬
digious rage, which was greatly heightened when he saw
his whole fleet worsted by five ships, four of which were
laden with corn from Peloponnesus, and the other with
all manner of provisions from the isle of Chios. These
opened themselves a wray through the whole Turkish fleet,
and, to the inexpressible joy of the Christians, at last got
safe into the harbour.
The Turks attempted several times to force the harbour ;
but all their efforts proved ineffectual; upon which Mo¬
hammed formed the design of conveying into it eighty
galleys over land for the space of eighty miles. This he
accomplished by means of certain engines, the contrivance
of a renegado; and having either taken or sunk all the
ships in the harbour, he caused a bridge to be built over
it with surprising expedition, by which means the city was
laid open to an assault from that as well as from the other
sides. A general attack was now made ; and Constantine,
aware that he could not long hold out against a mighty
fleet and a numerous army, sent deputies to Moham¬
med, offering to acknowledge himself his vassal, by pay¬
ing him yearly such tribute as he should think proper to
impose, provided he raised the siege and withdrew. The
tyrant answered that he was determined at all events to
become master of the city ; but if the emperor delivered
it up forthwith, he would yield up to him Peloponnesus,
and give other provinces to his brothers, which they might
enjoy peaceably as friends and allies ; but if he held out to
the last extremity, and suffered it to be taken by assault,
he would put him and the whole nobility to the sword,
abandon the city to be plundered by his soldiers, and
carry the inhabitants into captivity.
This condition was rashly rejected by the emperor, who
thereby involved himself and all his subjects in a terrible
calamity. The siege was renewed with more vigour than
ever, and continued till the 25th of May ; when a report
having been spread in the Turkish camp that a mighty
army was advancing in full march to the relief of the city,
under the conduct of the celebrated John Hunniades, the
common soldiers, seized with a panic, began to mutiny, and
pressed Mohammed in a tumultuous manner to break up
the siege; nay, they openly menaced him with death if
he did not immediately abandon the enterprise and re¬
tire from before the city, which they despaired of being
able to reduce before the arrival of the supposed succours.
Mohammed was upon the point of complying with their
demand, when he was advised by Zagan, a Turkish officer
of great intrepidity, and an irreconcilable enemy to the
Christian name, to deliver without loss of time a general
VOL. VII.
History.
1453.
assault; to which, he said,- the soldiery, however mutinous, Constan-
would not be averse, provided the sultan solemnly promis- tinopolitan
ed to abandon the city to be plundered by them. As this
advice was best suited to the humour of Mohammed, he
readily embraced it; and caused a proclamation to be pub¬
lished throughout the camp, intimating that he gave up to
his soldiers all the wealth of that opulent city, and re¬
quired for himself only the empty houses.
The desire of plunder soon overcame the panic which
had seized the Turkish army, and they unanimously desir¬
ed to be led on to the attack. Constantine was now sum¬
moned for the last time to deliver up the city, with a pro¬
mise of life and liberty; but to this he answered, that he
had unalterably determined either to defend the city or to
perish with it. The attack began at three in the morning
on Tuesday the 29th of May. The troops first employed
were those which the sultan valued the least, and he de¬
signed them for no other purpose than to tire out the Chris¬
tians, who made a prodigious havock of that disorderly mul¬
titude. After the carnage had lasted several hours, the
Janizaries and other fresh troops advanced in good order,
and renewed the attack with incredible vigour. The Chris¬
tians, summoning all their courage and resolution, twice re¬
pulsed the enemy ; but becoming at last quite exhausted,
they were no longer able to stand their ground, and the ene¬
my broke into the city in several places. In the mean time,
Justiniani, the commander of the Genoese and a select
body of Greeks, having received two wounds, one in the
thigh and the other in the hand, became so disheartened
that he caused himself to be conveyed to Galata, where he
soon afterwards died of grief. His men, dismayed at the
sudden flight of their general, immediately quitted their
posts and fled in the utmost confusion. However, the
emperor, attended by a few of the most resolute among
the nobility, still kept his post, striving with unparalleled
resolution to oppose the multitude of barbarians that now
broke in from every quarter. But being in the end over¬
powered with numbers, and seeing all his friends lie dead
on the ground, “ What 1” cried he aloud, “ is there no
Christian left alive to strike off my head ?” He had scarcely
uttered these words, when one of the enemy, not knowing
him, gave him a deep cut across the face with his sabre ;
and at the same time, another coming behind him, with
a blow on the back part of his head laid him dead on the
spot which he had so bravely defended. After the death
of the emperor, the few Christians who were left alive
betook themselves to flight; and the Turks meeting with
no further opposition, entered the city, which they filled
with slaughter and blood. They gave no quarter, but put
all they met to the sword, without distinction. Many
thousands took refuge in the church of St Sophia; but
they were all massacred in this asylum by the enraged
barbarians, who, prompted by their natural cruelty, the
desire of revenge, and the love of booty, spared neither
place nor person. Most of the nobility were, by the sul¬
tan’s orders, cut off, and the rest preserved for purposes
more grievous than death itself. Many of the inhabitants,
among whom were several men of great learning, found
means to effect their escape while the Turks were busied
in plundering the city, and embarking on board some ships
which were then in the harbour, they arrived safe in Italy ;
where, with the study of the Greek tongue, they revived
the liberal sciences, which had long been neglected in the
West. After the expiration of three days, Mohammed
commanded his soldiers to forbear all further hostilities,
on pain of death ; and then put an end to as cruel a pillage
and massacre as any mentioned in history. The next day
he made his public and triumphal entry into Constanti¬
nople, and chose it as the seat of the Turkish empire,
which it has continued to be ever since.
2 s
322 CON
Constella- CONSTELLATION, in Astj'onomy, a system of stars
tl'|n seen near one another in the heavens. The stars are dis-
Construc- tiHguished by their situation and position in respect to each
tion. other; and they are distributed into asterisms or con-
stellations by astronomers, who, for the better distin¬
guishing them, reduce the constellations to the forms of
animals, or give them the names of remarkable person¬
ages.
The division of the stars by images and figures is of gr^at
antiquity, and seems to be as old as astronomy itself; for in
the Book of Job (which is undoubtedly as old as the time
of Moses) Orion, Arcturus, Mazzaroth, and the Pleiades
are mentioned; and the names of many of the constella¬
tions are met with in Homer and Hesiod. See Astro¬
nomy.
CONSTITUTION (Lat. constitution con and statuo, to
set), in matters of policy, the established form of govern¬
ment in any country, state, or kingdom.
Constitution also denotes an ordinance, decision, regu¬
lation, or law, made by authority of any superior, civil or
ecclesiastical.
Apostolical Constitutions, a collection of regulations
respecting the doctrine and discipline of the church, attri-
C O N
buted to the apostles, and said to have been collected by Constitu-
Clemens Romanus, whose name they likewise bear. tion
It is the general opinion, however, that these Constitu- II
tions are spurious, and also that St Clement had no hand in Construc-
them. They appeared first in the fourth century ; but they v t‘on'
have been much changed and corrupted since that time,
They are divided into eight books, consisting of a great
number of rules and precepts, relating to the duties of
Christians, and particularly to the ceremonies and discipline
of the church. Whiston, in opposition to the general opi¬
nion, asserts that they are a part of the sacred writings, dic¬
tated by the apostles at their meetings, and written down
from their own mouths by St Clement, and intended as a
supplement to the New Testament, or rather as a system
of Christian faith and polity. The reason why the Consti¬
tutions are suspected by the orthodox, and perhaps the rea¬
son also why their genuineness is defended by Whiston, is,
that they seem to savour of Arianism.
Constitution, in a physical sense, the particular tempera¬
ment or condition of the body.
CONSTRICTOR, an appellation given to several
muscles, on account of their drawing together or closing
some of the orifices of the body.
C 0 N S T KU C T I 0 1ST.
The sense in which the term “Construction” is used in this
place, is that in which it is employed in the supplement
to Architecture ; purporting, however, rather fabrication
than conformation.
The object of construction is to adapt and combine fit
materials in such a manner that they shall retain in use the
forms and dispositions assigned to them by the constructor.
If an upright wall be properly constructed upon a sufficient
foundation, the combined mass will retain its position, and
bear pressure acting in the direction of gravity, to any extent
that the ground on which it stands and the component ma¬
terials of the wall can sustain. But pressure acting laterally
has a necessary tendency to overturn a wall, and therefore
it will be the aim of the constructor to compel, as far as pos¬
sible, all forces that can act upon an upright wall to act in the
direction of gravity; or else to give it permanent means of
resistance in the direction opposite to that in which a disturb¬
ing force may act. Thus when an arch is built to bear against
an upright wall, the constructor applies a buttress or other
counterfort in a direction opposed to the pressure of the arch.
In like manner the inclined roof of a building, spanning
from wall to wall, tends to thrust out the walls; and hence
the constructor applies a tie to hold the opposite sides of
the roof together at its base, where alone a tie can be fully
efficient, and thus compels the roof to act upon the walls
wholly in the direction of gravity; or where an efficient tie
is inapplicable, he adds buttresses or counterforts to the
walls, to enable them to resist the pressure outwards. A
beam laid horizontally from wall to wall, as a girder to
carry a floor and its load, may sag or bend downwards, and
tend thereby to force out the walls; or the beam itself may
break. Both these contingencies are obviated by trussing,
which renders the beam stiff enough to place its load on the
walls in the direction of gravity, and strong enough to carry
it safely. Or if the beam be rigid in its nature, or uncer¬
tain in its structure, or both (as cast iron is), and will break
without bending, the constructor, by the smith’s art, will
supply a check and ensure it against the possible contin¬
gency.
Stability is then the aim of the constructor ; but perfect
and enduring stability is not to be attained with materials
which are subject to influences beyond the control of man,
and all matter is subject to certain influences of that nature.
The influences with which the constructor has mostly to
contend are heat and humidity ; the former of which pro¬
duces movement of some kind, or to some extent, in all
bodies; the latter, movement in many kinds of matter; whilst
the two acting together tend to disintegration or to decay
in all materials available for the purposes of construction.
These pervading influences the constructor seeks to coun¬
teract, by the selection and disposition of his materials ac¬
cordingly. From the tenacity of wrought iron, and its almost
plastic character in the hands of the smith, the constructor
will employ it to tie together other more bulky but less costly
and more rigid materials; but on account of its exceeding
susceptibility of heat, and its consequent expansion and con¬
traction, he will use wrought iron in short lengths only, un¬
less where protected from great alternations of heat and
cold. The rapid decay, too, of wrought iron when exposed
to humidity, and especially to alternations of wet and dry,
will teach the constructor not to expect enduring stability
in his works if he makes them dependent upon wrought iron.
Cast iron is brittle, and may not be exposed with impunity to
transverse strain, especially if such strain be attended by ac¬
tion tending to induce vibration: it expands and contracts
under the influence of heat, but it resists compression also in
every direction, and if used in small bodies, is valuable as a
means of connecting other materials. Timber, being prac¬
tically unchangeable in the direction of its length from the
mere absorption of either heat or humidity, and at the same
time practically both inextensible and incompressible in that
direction, and being also readily wrought and easily combined
alike with itself and with iron, is a valuable material in the
hands of the constructor; but it shrinks and swells in the
direction of its thickness, and, in consequence, is subject to
rapid decay when exposed to alternations of moisture and
dryness; and although in many varieties timber is per¬
durable and unchangeable in form if it be kept either alto¬
gether free from moisture or always wholly wet, its quality
of inextensibility is greatly diminished in value to the con¬
structor on account of the comparatively slight resistance it
offers to compressing power, and the comparative ease with
which its fibrous structure is torn asunder. From this
cause it cannot be grasped or otherwise held so that its
power of resisting extension may be made available in any
degree proportioned to its strength ; whilst its quality of in¬
compressibility in the opposite direction is of less value to
the constructor for many purposes which require that
CONSTRUCTION.
Construe- quality in the material, because it absorbs moisture by the
tion. ends of the fibre more readily, and with a far more mischie-
■—v-*'' vous effect, than it does in the direction in which it is com¬
pressible. Hence timber rots more rapidly by the ends
than by the sides.
Stone and brick, the other main available materials in
general construction, keep their places in combination by
means of gravity. They may be merely packed together,
but in general they are compacted by means of mortar;
so that although the main constituent materials are wholly
incompressible, masses of either, or of both combined in
structures, are compressible until the mortar has indurated
to the same condition of hardness.
That kind of stone is best fitted for the purposes of
general construction which is least absorbent of moisture,
and at the same time free to w'ork. Absorbent stone ex¬
posed to the weather rapidly disintegrates; and for the
most part non-absorbent stone is so hard that it cannot
always be used with a due regard to economy. The con¬
structor therefore, when he can command fitting stone of
both qualities, exposes a face of harder stone to the weather,
or to the action which the softer stone cannot resist, and
forms the main body of the structure of the latter so pro¬
tected. The hard and the soft should be made to bear alike,
and should therefore be coursed and bonded together by
the mason’s art, whether the work be of stone wrought into
blocks and gauged to thickness, or of rough dressed, or
otherwise unshaped rubble compacted with mortar.
Brick, if good, is less absorbent of moisture than any stone
of the same degree of hardness, and it is a better non¬
conductor of heat than stone. As the basis of a stable
structure, brickwork is more to be relied upon than stone
in the form of rubble, when the constituents bear the re¬
lation to one another last above referred to, the setting
material being the same in both ; because the brick by its
shaped form seats itself truly, and produces by bonding
a more perfectly combined mass; whilst the imperfectly-
shaped and variously-sized stone as dressed rubble can
neither bed nor bond truly; the inequalities of the form
being to be compensated for with mortar, and the irregula¬
rity of size of the main constituent accounted for by the
introduction of larger and smaller stones.
The most perfect stability is to be obtained nevertheless
from truly wrought and accurately seated and bonded
blocks of stone, mortar being used to no greater extent
than may be necessary to exclude wind or water, to pre¬
vent the disintegrating action of both upon even the most
durable stone. When water alone is to be dealt with, and
especially -when it is liable to act with force, mortar is neces¬
sary for securing to every block in the structure its own
full weight and the aid of every other collateral and super¬
imposed stone in order to resist the loosening effect which
water in powerful action is sure to produce.
In the application of construction to any particular object,
the nature of the object will greatly affect the character of
the constructions and the materials of which they are to
be formed. The object of a breakwater is to check the
run of the sea when it is acted upon with power. It may
be that in some cases piles of timber driven into the bed of
the sea, and made rigid by repetition or by combination,
might have strength enough to withstand and to break the
rim of the sea; but there is a range between high and low
tide throughout which the piles would be exposed alter¬
nately to opposite influences, either of which alone would do
the timber little injury, but which acting in rapid succession
will in a short time destroy what might otherwise have
resisted the extremest force of the sea for ages. Timber
failing in enduring usefulness, which it will the more rapidly
if it be left in any degree dependent upon wrought iron ; or
if the depth and the run of the sea be too great for timber,
stone is adopted. Large blocks of the densest stone may
323
be tipped into the sea, and serve as a base to other blocks Construc-
in succession until a mound, mole, or dike, be formed reach- tion-
ing above high-water level. This dike may have had such
slopes given to it as experience had shown that heaped up
blocks of rough-hewn stone would take on dry ground ; but
if, even while the work is yet in progress, a gale of wind oc¬
casion a great run of the sea, the half-raised breakwater will
be converted into something little better than a shoal of
rubble;—it having been overlooked that the blocks of stone,
when immersed in water, had lost so much of their weight
that far less force than was necessary to move them in air
tumbled them about in the water as small pebbles are rolled
on the sea-shore. The stones were uncombined, and every
surface stone was exposed in a half floating condition to the
force of the sea, while its fellows below became exposed as
those above them were rolled away. The construction
wanted rigidity. The water must be excluded from among
the stones, so that the whole shall form one mass, from the
level at which the run of the sea in a storm can first be felt,
up to and above the highest high-water level at the place.
By such a process, labour and skill will perform effectually,
with a comparatively small body of stone, what a huge mass
of crude material unskilfully dealt with had failed to accom¬
plish.
In a line of road, the object sought in constructing an
embankment is a firm foundation to the roadway or the
railway, by which the traffic may be carried on with perfect
safety. The work that failed as a breakwater may form an
enduring embankment on dry land. The loose blocks of
stone which, when immersed in water, were too light to
resist the force of the sea, will remain undisturbed by the
trains rolling over them when heaped up in air, though
unarranged by the art of the mason, if the stones be al¬
lowed to make such slopes as they will naturally form when
dropped down from above as if dropped into the sea;
or as a measure of dry sand tipped out upon an earthen
floor will form its own slopes, so a rubble tipped embank¬
ment will take slopes and maintain them against any pres¬
sure from above. Such a construction is rigid in air, but
subject to movement in water: the circumstances are dif¬
ferent. But construction would nevertheless dictate the pro¬
priety of filling in the interstices between the rubble, to pre¬
vent water, as rain and snow, from passing through the em¬
bankment, and so to soften the ground beneath that the
stones would sink into it, and thus produce movement in
the otherwise rigid structure.
With these considerations would come also another. A
small amount of skill in packing stone rubble will greatly
reduce the quantity of material necessary to form such an
embankment, by substituting less inclined slopes for the
natural inclination of the dropped rubble. From merely
packing dry rubble to laying it in courses,—and from the
construction of a heavy mound of rubble to the construc¬
tion of a series of piers and arches,—the steps are gradual;
but safe structure and a stable foundation may be ob¬
tained by any of the means indicated. Circumstances must
dictate the kind of construction proper in each particular
case. The quiet traffic of a canal might seem to permit
the use of constructions less carefully carried out than those
which may be necessary to the carriage road, and more par¬
ticularly to a railway ; but while derangements may occur
in the substructure of a railway without stopping its traffic,
the canal must be so constructed as to prevent the possi¬
bility of defect, for the water is constantly and insidiously
working to make defects, the existence of which may involve
the safety of the surrounding country, as well as the inter¬
ruption of its traffic. Hence canal works must be sound
and secure constructions ;—there is no tampering with
water;—and the same rigorous attention to security should
be given to railway constructions, which so often verge
upon the dangerous.
324 CONS T R
Construe- The railway or road embankment is more commonly
v tl0n* made of clays and other plastic earths than of stone; and,
as usually made, it is a formation rather than a construction.
But an earthen embankment ought to be a construction in
the sense in which a wall is a construction. It ought to be
executed in layers, and not tipped in heaps.
The lateral spread of an earthwork embankment from
its crest to its base will depend mainly on the character of
the soil. This is to be ascertained by experiments upon
the inclination at which it will stand; but as there are soft
and yielding places over which earthwork embankments
have to be formed, it may be that an embankment will re¬
quire a wider base because of the yieldingness of the
ground under it, than the soil of which the embankment is
to be made would require for itself, even as a merely tipped
deposit. On the other hand, it will be found in practice
that the application of the principle of construction, as above
stated, to the formation of earthwork embankments, gives
the means of compelling the earth in any case to stand at
much steeper slopes than it wall without such disposition and
working.
The converse of an embankment in a line of road of any
kind, is a cutting, the matter cut out being the material
of which the constructed embankment is formed. The sides
of a cutting must be securely retained, and constructions of
some kind may become necessary. They may be neces¬
sary from the peculiar character of the soil, or desirable for
economy’s sake, whether it be on account of the costliness
of the site, or of the heavy earth-works involved to give the
sides of a cutting such long slopes as the soil in the case
may require. Constructions, that is to say, combinations
of foreign materials disposed artificially, do become neces¬
sary both with or to embankments and in cuttings. Bridges
over rivers or other water-courses, in the bottom of a valley
so deep that the material from the nearest cuttings will not
fill it, or fill it only at a cost greater than the cost of a bridge;
or cuttings so deep, or in such a soil, that economy or sta¬
bility dictate the employment of retaining constructions
which shall be wholly independent of the soil in the work
or in the slopes;—these involve considerations of the same
nature and character as those which arise in the apparently
complex design of Cologne Cathedral, or of the Abbey
Church of Westminster.
Every piece of construction should be complete in itself,
and independent as such of everything beyond it. A door
or a gate serves its purpose by an application wholly foreign
to itself; but it is a good and effective, or a bad and inef¬
fective piece of construction, independently of the posts to
which it may be hung.
Whilst the wheel of a wheel-barrow, comprising fellies,
spokes, and axle-tree, is a piece of construction complete in
itself, and independent as such of everything beyond it, an
arch of masonry, however large it may be, is not necessarily
a piece of construction complete in itself,—it would fall to
pieces without abutments. Thus, a bridge consisting of a
series of arches, however extensive, may be but one piece
of construction, no arch being complete in itself without
the collateral arches in the series to serve as its abutments,
and the whole series being dependent thereby upon the ul¬
timate abutments of the bridge, without which the structure
would not stand.1
A bridge, of which the bridging way is formed upon arches
of masonry, may be thus but one piece of construction; and
U C T I 0 N.
in like manner, that paragon of constructive skill, the com- Construe,
plete church, whether cathedral or otherwise, as built in the tion.
pointed style when that style was practised with perfect v’**'
knowledge of and in full accordance with true constructive
principles, is but one piece of construction Like the long
series of arches in a bridge, viaduct, or other such work, in
which the piers are vertical supports to the bridging struc¬
ture, and may be of no greater substance than is necessary to
bear the weight coming directly by vertical pressure from the
superincumbent structure and its possible load, but throw¬
ing all the pressure arising from weight acting laterally, or as
thrust, upon terminal abutments ;—nothing may be omitted,
as nothing can be removed from the structure of the pointed-
arch cathedral, or other church built in that style,^—the
whole system of which is bridge-like in construction,—with¬
out leaving something unsupported or unresisted that re¬
quires vertical support or lateral resistance. The western
towers of a pointed cathedral form effective abutments to
the long series of arches of the inner ranges over the piers
which stand between the nave and the aisles on either side,
whilst turrets or massive buttresses and deep porches upon
the northern and southern transept fronts perform the same
duty in respect of the arches of the transepts. The counter¬
acting east end of the chancel forms a true constructive
abutment to the arches of the chancel, whilst the tower,
with, it may be, a spire upon it, at the intersection of the
four grand compartments of the cross, gives, by its weight,
abuttal to them all. The want of this last-named grand
and essential body in the system is but too strongly marked
in many of the English cathedrals by the iron bars which
have been applied to tie in the arches of the nave, tran¬
septs, and chancel, and to relieve the piers upon which the
transept arches bear at a higher level, from the thrust to
which—being without the weight of a tower upon them—
they have continually yielded.
Transversely the weight and the thrust of the vaulted
ceilings of the nave are brought up to, and thrown against, the
piers of the clerestory, which stand upon the main piers or
columns of the interior below, and are abutted by flying
buttresses, which carry the thrust down to the pinnacle-
weighted buttresses of the outer aisle walls which have al¬
ready received the weight and thrust of the vaulted ceilings
of the aisles themselves. Corbels in the walls, and spread¬
ing capitals upon shafts take the weight directly, and leave
the walls and piers but little encumbered in the middle, so
that the vertical structure is continued upwards without
bearing upon the springing stones of the arches.
But it is not necessary that the arch employed should be
the pointed arch to produce combinations as effective in
construction as the most perfectly designed and extensively
elaborated work of the kind referred to as models of con¬
structive skill; the skill consists in a full and clear percep¬
tion of the bearing and leaning of every part, and of the
means necessary to support and counteract the bearings and
the leanings within the reasonable limits of the work with
reference to its object and purpose—to the end that the
work may become complete in itself, and independent as a
piece of construction of everything beyond it.2
An application of the principles of construction exhibited
in the most perfect works of constructive skill ever exe¬
cuted, as above indicated, may be made in the rougher
operations of mere practical utility. It has been intimated
that the sides of cuttings through certain earths in the for-
x 1 Thl® lllust^atl0n k8 intended to apply to the widely distended masses of the older bridges, by which each pier becomes sufficient
to abut the arches springing from it; but which, in providing for a way over a river, chokes up the way by the river itself, or compels
the river to throw it down, or otherwise destroy its own banks. r j j
In making reference to the noble works of construction above referred to, and in which the art of the mason is mainly employed,
as works exhibiting construction most fully and most truly, the Hall must not be passed over without remark.
Of ail the great halls of the class to which Westminster Hall belongs, this hall is itself the most effective as a work of construction ;
and its effect is wholly produced by the magnificent roof which covers it. This roof is a piece of carpentry admirably designed to re¬
solve it into a compact body to act upon the walls in the direction of gravity alone. But the object was not wholly attained, and of this
CONSTRUCTION.
325
Construe- mation of lines of inland communication, whether carriage-
tion. roads, railways, or canals, are sometimes required to be
^ widened out to an inordinate extent because of the loose¬
ness or slipperiness of the soil, or otherwise to be retained
or held upright by special constructions.
The expense of the first formation of a cutting under
given circumstances is easily calculable, and so is the time
within which the work may be effected. Experience has
proved that there is for every soil a limit in depth beyond
which it becomes more expedient to drift the required way,
and construct a vaulted tunnel of sufficient dimensions,
than to make an open cutting with the requisite slopes.
Even when the first cost would not decide the question, the
preference is nevertheless often given to the tunnel because
of the greater security of constructed work.
A tunnel is expensive, not from the nature and extent of
its constructions, but from the circumstances in which those
constructions must be executed. The mere constructions
are less than would be consumed by common retaining walls
to the sides of a cutting not deeper than the height of an
ordinary railway tunnel: the several parts of a tunnel de¬
rive support from each other, which is not the case with
ordinary retaining walls, whose efficiency depends wholly
upon the resistance which their own mass or weight and
extent of base enable them to offer to the pressure of the
body to be retained. If to two opposite retaining walls be
given sufficient means of assisting one another, they may
be at once reduced to one-third of the bulk they would
otherwise require, and would then be as safe as the sides of
a constructed tunnel, the strength of which, supposing the
work to be properly executed, is only limited by the power
of the setting material employed in the work to resist com¬
pression.
Before proceeding to the consideration of the means of
enabling opposite retaining walls to assist each other, it may
be worth while to consider, whether retaining walls are ge¬
nerally constructed so as best to adapt their components to
the duty to be performed.
No one would place a buttress intended to resist the
thrust of an arch, within the springing walls, or under the
arch whose thrust is to be resisted; yet in the construction
of retaining walls, according to the common practice, the
counterfort is placed on that side which receives the pres¬
sure, whei'e its utility is very questionable, except to keep
the retaining wall from falling back against its load, which,
from the transverse section generally given to such walls,
they would be apt to do, if not so propped up by their
counterforts. Wharf and quay walls, and the revetment walls
of military works, may require a face unbroken by pro¬
jections ; but this is not the case with retaining walls
for roads and railways, where a long line of projecting
buttresses would be unobjectionable, the counterforts be¬
coming but tresses and merely changing places with the
wall.
On account of the common practice of battering the faces
of retaining walls in curved lines and of radiating the beds
of the brickwork composing them from the centre of curva¬
ture in every part, the back of the wall must contain more
setting material than the face, with the same quantity of
solid brick ; that is, if the work be bonded through. Coun¬
terforts must be built in the same courses, and consequently
must have still thicker beds of compressible mortar than
the wall; or the bond between the wall and its counterfort Construo-
must be dropped, and the counterfort thus become utterly tion.
inefficient.
The retaining walls in the cutting upon the line of the ex¬
tension of the London and North-Western railway, from
Camden Town to Euston Square, are, according to the com¬
mon practice, built wholly of brickwork in radiating courses
and with counterforts following their own contour. In this
case the centre of gravity of the wall falls wholly behind its
base ; and the counterforts not commencing until the wall
has reached one-third its height, render it still more de¬
pendent for support upon the ground it is intended to re¬
tain. It is well known that these extensive walls, though
furnished with all the collateral works necessary to protect
them from exposure to undue influences, and although set
nearly one-fourth of their height in the ground, failed to a
considerable extent. A system of strutting with cast-iron
beams, across from the opposite walls, to make each aid the
other, was applied to meet the emergency; but this is limited
to the upper parts of the walls.
Transverse section of the Euston Incline retaining walls, one-half as executed
with cast-iron struts to counterforted and reclining walls, and the other
half with the brick-built abutting beam to counter-arched retaining walls
strutted at the toes of the springing walls by inverted arches.
Plan of the above showing the part as executed above the iron struts, with
the rails passing underneath, and the other part at the level of the rails,
with the inverts in plan under them.
Abutting struts from opposite walls, occurring at intervals
only, leave the intermediate portions of the walls exposed
to pressure from behind without support, unless these in¬
termediate portions are so disposed as to communicate the
pressure upon them to the struts. Hence a common re¬
taining wall, abutted at intervals, would require these inter¬
vals to be more or less distant, in proportion to the strength
of the wall between them. Instead, therefore, of a con¬
tinuous wall on each side of the cutting, buttress walls
should be placed at intervals, opposite to one another, and
strutted apart at their toes by an inverted arch, and above,
at a height sufficient for whatever traffic the cutting is to
accommodate, by a built beam of brickwork, in vertical
the constructor was fully conscious; for whilst erecting massive walls on which to place his elaborate combination of timber, he threw
up against the lateral walls a series of flying buttresses to check the tendency of the roof to spread under its own weight in the absence
of a thorough transverse tie. These buttresses are supposed still to remain (and it is to be hoped they will still remain), though they
are mostly incorporated in or encased by the recent erections on the flanks of the hall.
The open or untied roof, of which that of Westminster Hall is so egregious an example, had its origin probably in the want of timber
long enough to serve as tie-beams at the higher level of the collars in these roofs, or to reach across from wall to wall where it was
sought to dispense with inner ranges of supports as columns and piers. But the great old roofs of this kind are placed upon stout walls
■well and safely abutted, whilst the puny modern imitations of such roofs are made temporarily safe—and onlu temporarily so—by the
aid of straps and screws. J v r * j
326 CONSTRUCTION.
Construe- courses, supported on an arch, and prevented from rising
tion. under the pressure by an invert upon it. This built beam
will then be, as it w'ere, a piece of walling turned down on
its vertical transverse section, and will resist any pressure
brought upon it through the buttress walls, to the full ex¬
tent of the power of such a wall built vertically, to bear
weight laid upon its summit;—the pressure would be applied
in the line of the greatest power of resistance, and there
would be no tendency to yield, except to a crushing force.
Let such transverse buttress walls, so strutted apart, with
the road between them, be the springing walls of longitu¬
dinal counter-arched retaining walls, which, being built ver¬
tically and in horizontal courses, but arched in plan, against
the ground to be retained, will carry all the force exerted
against them to their springing walls, and the springing walls
or buttresses will communicate, through the struts, the
power of resistance of each side to the other, and thus insure
the security of both.
This arrangement may be carried to any extent in height,
by repeating the abutting beam or strut at such intervals as
the thrust to be resisted and the strength of the buttress
springing-walls may require.
To constructions thus arranged, any requisite power may
be given, by altering the quantity of materials in each part;
the length of the buttresses transversely of the cutting,—
the number of struts to each pair of buttresses,—or the
length of the compartments. The thickness of the but¬
tresses should be in proportion to their height and length,
and their length should be in proportion to the flatness and
weight of tne struts with their arches, and to the space in
height between any two of them, as well as to the magni¬
tude of the thrust brought to them by the counter-arched
retaining walls. The inverted arch below and the built
beam above must, of course, have sufficient substance to
enable them to resist, without yielding in any direction, the
pressure brought to them through the buttresses; and the
retaining walls themselves must have substance given to
them according to their height,—to the pressure they are
liable to receive from behind,—to the length of the com¬
partments—and the extent of their flexure;—subject, of
course, as to all these, to the nature of the materials, work¬
manship, and mode of structure.
The positive strength which such constructions should
possess depends much, of course, upon the nature of the
soil, and its susceptibility of being affected by external in¬
fluences ; but it depends, even in a greater degree, upon
the manner in which the constructions can be applied to
the ground they are intended to retain. A very slight
powei will retain at rest a body w'hich the exertion of great
foice coulu not stop it once in motion ; and a half-brick
counter-arch, set in close contact with undisturbed ground,
would hold safely up what three times the substance would
not stop if there were space and opportunity for motion
between the gtound and the brickwork. It is impossible,
therefoi e, to state precisely what is the least strength which
the retaining constructions must have ; but there can be
no question that too much strength is better than too
little, and it is generally cheaper to pay in materials than
in labour to save materials.
These diagrams represent a cutting 65 feet deep to the Co
level of the rails. It is assumed, that the ground at the top
Transverse Section through the centre of a Bay.
may stand for the first 15 feet at less than 2 to 1, and that
it may, therefore, be cheaper to run out to that depth with
slopes, leaving 50 feet from the rails, or about 52 feet in
allj to be retained. As the bricklayer may follow up the
excavator with bay after bay, his work lying mostly on the
side and out of the way of the excavator, the latter would
run out the spoil without interruption, his work being
benched onwards and shored as he proceeded. As every
compartment, with its buttresses, invert, abutting beams
and counter-arches is complete in itself, the ground being
backed against the counter-arches as the work rises, the
shoring would come out, and be sent on for use on the for¬
ward benches.
The invert may be turned upon footings in half-brick
rings, to get the largest quantity of solid resisting matter in
the curved line. At a height from the surface of the rails
sufficient for headway—assumed at 14 feet 6 inches—a
14-inch bonded arch is turned from buttress to buttress,
springing from skewLacks on corbelled courses. Upon the
back of this arch the abutting beam is built of brick on end
and edge, bonded as a wall, with beds vertical and widening
over the haunches of the discharging arch and under the
similar inverted arch turned upon it; so that although the
beam be in the centre but 21 inches deep, it presents an
abutment at each end of three times that depth. The ob-
Plan at twice the Scale of the Section.
ject of the invert over the abutting beam is to stiffen it and
to bring down and distribute the weight and pressure from
the buttresses more effectually.
CONSTRUCTION.
Construe- The built beam, and its sustaining and stiffening arches,
tion. should be composed of particularly well-formed bricks of
really good quality, set in Roman cement or other quick¬
setting mortar, that there may be no yielding to the pres¬
sure which must be immediately thrown upon this part of
the construction.
Another built beam, of greater depth, because of the
absence of any inverted arch to stiffen it, is thrown across
over the back of a semi-circular arch, with its abutting ends
extended in like manner.
To relieve the work from water, a drain being run along
over the middle of the inverts, or side-drains being passed
by ring culverts through the buttresses, drain-shafts are
carried up at the backs of the buttresses against the spring-
ings of the counter-arches, to within a few feet of the sur¬
face. These shafts being steened with open joints at in¬
tervals to admit drainage water and communicating with
the drains below, prevent the possibility of water lodging
about the backs of the counter-arches, or even in the ground
itself. The drain shafts should be semi-domed with bricks
set dry and covered in, and the walls also backed up with
good clean gravel, through which the surface water might
percolate and pass freely down to the shafts.
The constructions are assumed to be of brickwork, for
the obvious reason that the cases supposed being clay cut¬
tings, brick is the material which would be most econo¬
mical. But if masonry be cheaper, it may of course be
used with the same effect. Where a cutting intersects
loose beds of laminated stone, and particularly strata inclined
to the horizon, so as to be unsafe with the ordinary slopes,
such constructions are available; and in cases where the
sides of the cutting will stand vertically or nearly so, as in
chalk, it may be useful to apply similar constructions,
though of slight character, to check the separation and fall
of masses from the precipitous sides.
It is obvious, too, that these constructions present the
means of security, when the stratum forming the base of
any cutting is too weak to bear the weight of slopes, or of
retained sides, without rising between them. Sheet-piling
may be driven to any depth along the backs of the counter-
arched walls so as to be retained at the head by the walls;
and thus in effect the walls would be carried down to a safe
depth, even through the weak stratum ; whereas such piling
at the toes of slopes is commonly found to be almost if not
wholly useless, for the want of a stay to the head.
Embankments formed in the manner already described—
that is, by a process of construction—may be, as previously
stated, raised higher and with a relatively narrower base than
if formed in the usual inartificial way; but there is a limit
which may not be passed in heaping up compressible or
otherwise yielding materials, how skilfully soever they may
be disposed, and this will indicate the limit at which con¬
structions proper may be introduced with economy, as in
the converse case of retaining constructions to avoid inse¬
cure or expensively long slopes in cuttings.
The height to which the particular soil may be raised
upon itself with safety and economy being determined, the
greater height required is to be obtained, not by an en¬
deavour to encase the bank by constructions extending
laterally as retaining walls, but by bridge-like culverts
327
built under the bank, or of so much of the bank as may be Constmo
safely built of earth. tion.
Such bridge-like culverts may be composed with great ad-
vantage, both in respect of economy and of strength, in the
manner suggested by the present writer for the upper works
of Westminster Bridge, in the practical treatise on Bridge
Building, forming part of the Theory, Practice, and Archi¬
tecture of Bridges, published by Mr Weale in 1842. This
involves a system of groining whereby that important ele¬
ment in construction—rigidity—is obtained, whilst the com¬
position is but a variety of that which is embodied in the
structure of the nave and aisles of the model of construc¬
tion before referred to. Such substructed works may be
rough but must be sound as work, and being covered with
fifteen or twenty feet in depth of earth, they would not
feel the vibrations which act so mischievously upon the lofty
and costly viaducts in which railway-makers have exhibited
their skill and taste to the cows and the crows, and which
react both upon the upper works of the railway and upon
the rapidly passing train in the shock felt throughout when
the moving load passes the line between earthwork and
masonry.
CONSTRUCTION AS APPLIED TO CIVIC STRUCTURES
GENERALLY.
The ignitibility of timber, and the rapidity with which
it burns when placed in circumstances so favourable to
that effect as by its disposition in an erected building,
have led to its prohibition for the purposes of the main
inclosures of houses, and buildings generally, in London,
and in some of our largqr provincial towns. It is possible,
however, so to protect timber employed in the inclosures
and for the internal partitions and floors of buildings as to
render mere dwelling-houses practically fire-proof. Whilst,
however, the liability of timber to take fire and to burn may
in a great measure be counteracted, and notwithstanding that
this material combines the advantage of economy with secu¬
rity, stone and brick are undoubtedly better adapted for the
main structure of a building. Brick or stone, or brick and
stone together, with mortar as a setting material, ought to be
employed, but in such manner only as to be free from depen¬
dence upon other and less trustworthy materials. The most
perfect erections as buildings are those in the composition
of which this principle has been understood and fairly prac¬
tised. If adventitious aid be given to brick or stone walls
by foreign materials, the materials ought to be at the least
harmless. Iron in bulk is not a proper substance to in¬
corporate with walls, because of its great expansibility by
heat’; but iron used in thin laminae, as hoop-iron laid in
walls in the bed-joints of the brick or stone, cannot be
productive of any bad consequences whilst it is most bene¬
ficial in that form as a tie to the structure.
Bricks come ready shaped to the hands of the workman in
a form the best adapted for the arrangement in the con¬
struction of a wall which, under the designation of bond,
gives it such a degree of consistency that a weight placed
upon the top is carried by the wall in every part through¬
out its whole thickness, and throughout a greater or less
proportion of the length according to the height of the
wall.1 /
Bond in brickwork is most conveniently and most effectively formed and maintained by disposing the bricks in their courses either
endwise and lengthwise (technically, header and stretcher), alternately brick and brick, or course and course; that is to say, that the
bricks in every course should be laid alternate header and stretcher, or that the courses should consist of all headers and all stretchers
alternately. The former arrangement—alternate header and stretcher in the same and in every course—is known in this country as
Flemish bond; and the latter—alternate courses of header and stretcher—is distinguished by the term English bond. Neat work in
lace can be produced more easily with Flemish bond, but English bond has the reputation of being the best bond structurally. But why
these two arrangements should be distinguished by the names they bear is unknown ; at least it is unknown to the present
writer, who supposed, in common with most other people with whom he had conversed upon the subject, that alternate header and
stretcher in the same course was the practice in Flanders, and generally in the neighbouring countries on the Continent, whilst the term
English bond seemed to imply that the arrangement which bears that designation is peculiar to England. A visit made a few years ago
to the countries where Flemish bond ought most to abound, if the name be properly applied, enabled the writer to observe what had
328 CONSTRUCTION.
Construe- Stone, on the other hand, comes to the workman with-
tion. 0U(- regUlar form ; and with skill on his part to dispose and
arrange the materials, good erections may be produced ot
rubble ; for although the thickness of which walls may be
built of rubble with safety will depend in a great degree
upon the quality of the mortar, much depends also on the
skill of the workman in bedding and bonding the stones.
Under any circumstances, however, a wall so composed can¬
not, safely, be charged with heavy weights, nor be exposed
to the vibrating action of floors, until the mortar shall have
indurated to some extent; whereas a wall of brickwork is se¬
cure by the horizontal bedding of the bricks, and by the ef¬
fect of the transverse bond which the alternation of header
and stretcher almost necessarily produces. Stone, again, may
be dressed to any shape, and so as to mould it to every
variety of construction with the smallest possible quantity
of mortar or cement. From blocks with rough hammer-
dressed parallel beds, up to the most complete and per¬
fectly wrought parallelopipeds adapted to any arrangement
of bond that may be best adapted to the structure, and with
combinations of rudely formed and perfectly formed pieces
of stone, walls may be built of stone of greater strength than
the best bricks can be made to yield, whilst stone walls are
liable to be inferior in every respect to brick-built walls of
ordinary quality.
Some combinations of the two kinds of materials have
the effect, however, of making a better wall than could be
produced by the main constituent in the form employed
alone. A stone-rubble or pebble-built wall is greatly im¬
proved by one or two bonding courses of brickwork at
short intervals; and a brick wall is improved and adapt¬
ed for a higher purpose by thorough courses, at intervals,
of good stone, wrought to bed and joint truly ; whilst on the
ether hand, a wall substantially of stone-rubble or pebble,
and faced with brickwork, is essentially an unsound wall;
as in like manner a brick wall faced with wrought stone is
liable to be weaker than the brickwork would have been
without the stone.
With regard to the thicknesses of the walls of build¬
ings, it is generally considered that these should be go¬
verned by the height of the structure; but they ought
not to be determined by that condition alone. Chimney-
breasts, or other buttress-like projections, built up with
a wall, and extending to more than the thickness of the
wall, make it in fact stronger in its transverse section,
and justify less general thickness in the body of the wall,
whilst window and other openings in a wall leave piers
which ought to be of greater thickness than the mere
height would require. But all returns, indeed, whether as
chimney-breasts or as cross walls, built and bonded with a
wall, tend to render unnecessary the full thickness which
the height might require ; whilst, as just intimated, the
omission of portions of a wall for door and window open¬
ings should be compensated for by additional substance to
the parts which remain.
Walls subjected to undue action, such as that arising from
slight joists tailed into them, or that occasioned by in¬
clined timbers, as under galleries in churches, chapels, and Construe,
theatres, require to be of greater thickness than they other- tion.
wise would; whilst it is quite wonderful to what great heights
brick walls may be built with safety, if they are well built,
and exposed to no other action than direct vertical weight.
When, indeed, such walls stand upon a sufficient foundation,
direct vertical weight without motion is a means of security
to the walls so long as the weight is reasonably within the
power of resistance of the materials to crushing pressure.
The object to be looked at, therefore—the walls being
honestly built—is, as hereinbefore remarked, to make the
weight to be imposed upon any wall act upon its solids ver¬
tically and steadily.
Floors upon girders, or framed to strong trimmers—the
girders or the trimmer-joists running into and bearing upon
the piers or solids of the walls—are far preferable to what
are termed single floors, of which each joist runs into the
wall. Girders, as the basis of floors, render plates in the
walls wholly unnecessary, by depositing the weight in the
right places, without requiring plates to carry it on from
the weaker to the stronger places ; and being of necessity
stout and rigid, they form a fair tie and strut to the walls
into which their bearing ends are tailed.
Whether girders or trimmer joists be employed for placing
the weight of floors upon the walls of a building in the
safest manner, the bearing timbers ought to be placed
upon pieces of stone as templates built into the walls,
and be made to take a cog-hold of the templates, so as
to enable them to tie and stay the walls by means of the
cogs.2
It is by means of the girder bearing upon the solids of
the walls, though with bad carpentry, that the French are
able to carry up their soft stone rubble walls to heights
that would certainly be unsafe if the walls were seamed
with wooden plates, and shaken by floors of single joists ;3
and it is by means of the solidity given to the floors by
the girders, and the solid bearings which the girders ob¬
tain, that the floors are able to carry the dead weight of
matter which renders them practically fireproof, as here¬
inafter described, in addition to the moving weights to
which the floors of buildings are necessarily exposed in
use.
We can and do frame floors most effectively by car¬
pentry alone ; whereas the French do the work so badly,
that no important bearing is, or indeed may be, trusted by
them to the framed joint—dog-nailed stirrup straps of iron
being always brought in aid. But the common px-actice
with us is to use single or unframed floors, which carry the
weight and the vibration to which flooi’s are exposed into
the walls, over voids as well as over solids ; while the French
frame their floors to or upon girdei’s, by means of which the
floors are brought to bear upon the solids of the walls.
The walls ai-e thus not only less exposed to vibi’atory action,
but are both tied together and strutted apart with better
effect by the stout girders stiffened by joists, than by joists
which themselves require some foreign aid to stiffen them.
Moreover, single floors of joists, unless trimmed at frequent
never, to his knowledge, been remarked by any person who had published his remarks, and what was quite unknown to every one to
whom he has stated, since his return, what he had observed. At Rotterdam and at the Hague, at Antwerp, at Brussels, and at Liege, at
Cologne, at Mayence, and at Frankfort, and again throughout the north-eastern parts of France, brick walls are built according to the
arrangement distinguished in England as English bond; and Flemish bond is unknown, at least no single example of it fell under the
writer s observation in any of the towns and countries indicated, although his attention was called to the subject by the quay walls at
Rotterdam before he set foot on shore.
2 A cog-hold is best obtained through the agency of a chair of cast iron, which should, however, he itself cogged or joggled to a stone
template laid in the wall under it, and be capped or covered by another broad flat stone, as an inverted template, with a joggle from the
chair running up into it.
3 The author, being at Paris in 1846, measured the thickness in the ground-floor story of a newly-built coursed-rubble party-wall, in
the Rue de la Banque (the Gresham Street of Paris), and found it to be exactly 18 English inches in that part, whilst the total height of
the wall was not less than 85 feet. The wall ran up of that same thickness through six stories, a height of not less than 65 feet, and was
terminated by a gable of from 12 to 15 feet high, of the same kind of structure ; and there was besides a vaulted basement story, through¬
out which the wall might have been 20 inches thick, as other similar walls then in progress to neighbouring buildings provid to be.
CONSTRUCTION.
329
Construe- intervals, when, indeed, they may be termed half-framed,
tion. are supposed to require plates of timber laid along the in-
/ side faces of outer walls and upon internal walls. This de¬
fect is avoided by our neighbours, who exclude all timber,
except the bearing ends of girders, from their walls, and use
framed floors.
When the walls of a building have reached their full
height, the wall-plate comes into use legitimately—to cope
the walls, in fact, and to form a curb as a base upon which
to place the loof, which should deposit its weight, never¬
theless, by means of its tie-beams upon the plates over the
solids of the wall below, and which should, moreover, over¬
sail, so as to covei and effectually shelter from the weather,
the inclosing walls also.
In setting fbith the structural advantages derivable from
the use of girders as the bases of floors, it may be ne¬
cessary to repeat the warning already intimated against
the use of girders of a material of uncertain strength, and
of tieacheious character when exposed to transverse
strain.
Cast iron is of uncertain strength, mainly because of the
imperfections which the most skilful founders, with the best
mateiials and every appliance at command, cannot always
avoid, and which are most liable to occur in the production of
complex forms in long lengths ; whilst careless founding and
rapid cooling are contingencies connected with the produc¬
tion of cast-iron girders—-which are necessarily long and
complex castings. Cast iron is treacherous, inasmuch as it
is brittle and liable to be startled into fracture by impact
trifling when compared with what it may have borne safely
as a dead-weight.
Proving long metal castings by straining them upon their
transverse section does but aggravate imperfections, and leave
the casting weaker; whilst no dead-weight proof is proof as
against blows or other action inducing vibration. It is only
under circumstances which do not admit of concussive action
upon the beam, or which prevent it from vibrating under
any shock that may reach it, that cast iron can be safely
used in beams of long lengths to carry heavy weights, with¬
out some appliance to mitigate, at least, the imperfections
which this substance exhibits.
The application of wrought-iron tension bars as soles
to beams and girders of cast iron, would prevent the most
serious consequences from attending the failure of the cast¬
ing, if the beam were also prevented by binders, or by
other sufficient means from turning round when the blow
produces an oblique fracture.
The foundation of a building of ordinary weight is, for
the most part, sufficiently provided for by applying what are
technically termed footings to the walls. The reason for a
footing is, that the wall obtains thereby a bearing upon a
breadth of ground so much greater than its own width or
thickness above the footing, as to compensate for the dif¬
ference between the power of resisting pressure of the wall
and of the ground or ultimate foundation upon which the
wall is to rest. It will be clear from this, that if a building
is to be erected upon rock as hard as the main constituent
of the walls, no expanded footings will be necessary; if
upon chalk—upon strong or upon weak gravel—upon sand
or upon clay—the footing must be expanded with refer¬
ence to the power of resistance of the stratum to be used as
a foundation ; whilst in or upon made-ground, or other loose
and badly combined or imperfectly resisting soil, a solid
platform bearing evenly over the ground, and wide enough
not to sink into it, becomes necessary under the constructed
footing. For this purpose the easiest, the most familiar,
and, for most purposes, the most effectual and durable, is a
layer of concrete, which may be formed so as to cover Construc-
a surface large enough to obtain from the most yield- tion.
ing soil the amount of resistance to pressure required to ^
support the weight of the intended building. It will be
evident that upon a concrete foundation a footing or ex¬
panded base may or may not be required to a wall, ac¬
cording to the hardness of the concrete and the kind of wall
to be built; but it is perhaps better to give the footing to
the wall than to wait for the sufficient induration of the con¬
crete to enable the wall to do without a footing; and better
still, to lay the concrete of such height only with reference
to the spread or extent of base beyond the toes of the
footing, that the gravel of which the concrete is made would
stand at in an uncombined condition.1
Inasmuch, however, as some soils are liable to change in
form, expanding and contracting under meteoric influences,
as clays which swell when wetted and shrink when dried,
concrete foundations are commonly interposed upon such
soils to protect the building from derangement from this
cause; or rather, to that effect walls are brought up from
a level sufficiently below the ordinary surface of the ground
of the cheaper material, concrete, instead of the more ex¬
pensive brick or stone structure.
When concrete is used to obviate the yieldingness of the
soil to pressure, expanse or extent of base is required to
answer the end ; and to this end the concrete, being widely
spread, should be deep or thick as a layer, only with refer¬
ence to its own power of transmitting to the ground the
weight of the wall to be built upon it, without breaking
across or being crushed. But when concrete is used as a
substitute for a wall, in carrying a wall down to a low
level, it is in fact a wall, wide only in proportion to its com¬
parative weakness in the absence of manipulated bond in
its construction, and encased by the soil within which it is
placed.
Concrete, indeed, is at all times more safely to be re¬
garded as a substance to be placed as a layer, than as a sub¬
stance to be set up as a wall; for although excellent erec¬
tions as walls may be made of concrete—as erections in the
same form may be made of tempered claj?—-neither con¬
crete nor tempered clay is to be regarded as a proper sub¬
stance with which to form the lofty walls of buildings in
towns.
SECURITY OF BUILDINGS AGAINST FIRE.
It is seldom that houses take fire from common ac¬
cidents such as occur to the lighter moveable furniture
and to drapery; but, for the most part, from the exposure
of timber in or about the structure to the continued action
of fire, or of heat capable sooner or later of inducing the
combustion of timber; and as the source is most commonly
in some stove, furnace, flue, pipe, or tube, for generating or
for conveying heat, or for removing the products of combus¬
tion, much of the real danger to buildings from fire would
be prevented by avoiding that degree of proximity be¬
tween timber and all such things as can lead to its com¬
bustion.
With a view to lessen the danger to which buildings with
timber in their structure are exposed from fire, it will be
well to consider how far the timber, and wooden fittings
commonly used, may be necessary either to the stability of
the buildings, or to comfort and convenience.
So long as danger of fire is brought to buildings through
pipes and tubes, the necessity must be admitted of guarding
the combustible materials used in buildings from any chance
of becoming ignited. When heat is produced and passed
turp +n »S 18 !ndfed the_only safe practice in cases in which the full induration of concrete cannot be obtained before the wall or other struc-
nation tn+uu ^P°n 1118 beSun t0 be bulIt* Gravel poured dry upon the ground will resolve itself into a cone, having an angle of incli-
ie orizon more or less acute according to the sharpness, or otherwise, of the sand and stones of which it is composed.
' Oiw* VII*
2 T
B30
CONSTRUCTION.
through pipes in any manufactory, whether it be to act as
power, or for drying or for warming, the fires used may be
guarded, and the machinery which regulates the intensity
of the heat to be transmitted may be under constant care ;
but even in such cases there can be no certain assurance
that the heat shall not at some time arrive at the point of
danger as it regards the ignition of combustible substances.
But when heat is diffused throughout dwelling-houses by
means of apparatus which is committed to persons unskilled
in its use, and unconscious or careless of the danger which
may arise from neglect, it seems impossible to lay down in¬
flexible rules for distances from timber which shall render
it safe from heated pipes. Twelve or fifteen inches may
not be a greater distance than safety requires under some
circumstances, whilst there are many cases in which the ac¬
tual contact of such pipes with timber is hardly inconsis¬
tent with safety. When the air about the heated bodies
is not confined, as it is between the joists and the floor
and ceilings of an ordinary floor, a distance between tim¬
ber and the heated surface equal to the longest diameter
of any tube or pipe, will be found a safe distance if the
temperature of the pipe does not exceed that of boiling
water.
It is to be understood, at the same time, that a piece of
wood will bear a powerful dead heat upon its sides for an
indefinite period without igniting, unless a transverse sec¬
tion of the fibre, as at or around a live knot, or where a
branch had been lopped, present itself to the action. It is
by the end that a piece of wood exposed to powerful heat
most readily ignites. The gases evolved in the substance
of the timber by the action of heat applied to its surface
expanding as they are evolved, are thrown out by the pores
among the fibres at their ends, if the ends are near enough
to the action to allow of this effect, with less power than
may be enough to obtain vent for the inflammable gases
laterally
The legislature in this country, when it has legislated
upon such matters, has generally confined itself to making
provision that the inclosing walls of buildings should be
formed of incombustible materials. In providing of what
least thicknesses such walls might be, these were generally
determined with reference to the height of the building,
and to the area to be inclosed, as an indication of the pro¬
bable lengths of the walls ; and this both for the purpose of
promoting safety of structure, and of checking the spread
of fire from building to building. As, however, in most
cases greater thickness is required in the side wall of an or¬
dinary dwelling-house in a town to render its structure se¬
cure, than is necessary to enable it to check the spreading
of fire, such walls are frequently made of greater thickness
than would be necessary to fulfil the objects which the le¬
gislature has had in view, if the walls were not supposed to
extend the whole length of the two longer sides of a paral¬
lelogram without intermediate cross or return walls. A
solid well-built brick wall, one brick or nine inches thick,
between two ordinary dwelling-houses of five or six squares
in area each, will prevent the communication of fire through
it from one to the other.
But, in towns, ordinary dwelling-houses which occupy
each an area of five or six squares are generally disposed
in plan as parallelograms, having their opposite sides 18 or
20 feet, and 28 or 30 feet respectively in length, and are
seldom carried up to less height than 35 or 40 feet; and
walls of such lengths and heights could hardly be deemed
safe if not more than one brick thick. Consequently, a
greater thickness has been prescribed, as the least thickness
of the walls of buildings of the sizes indicated. In the
older Metropolitan Building Acts much greater thicknesses
were prescribed for the walls likely to be the longer walls;
whilst the only necessity for more than one brick arises
from structural requisites, and not from any insufficiency of
a wall of solid brickwork, one brick thick, as a means of
preventing the spread of fire. But the requisites of the
structure would be as well fulfilled by one-brick walls upon
the long sides as by 1^-brick walls, if the ordinary internal
cross partition for dividing a house into front and back
rooms were built of brickwork, abutting upon, and at right
angles to, the longer walls, and carried up coursed and
bonded with them. That is to say, party-walls of one brick
or nine inches in thickness, connected at their ends by 1|-
brick or 13-inch front and back walls, and at or about
the middle of their length by other 9-inch cross walls,
would be at the least as strong as 1^-brick party-walls,
though connected in the same manner at the two ends, but
without the abutting and connecting cross-wall of brick¬
work. Instead, however, of such internal cross walls, hollow
partitions of timber are commonly used in all stories above
the basement story; and it is by these partitions, and by
the light and highly inflammable wooden stairs, that fire
extends itself rapidly throughout ordinary dwelling-houses;
whilst the substitution of a brick wall for the cross timber
partition would in most cases justify the abatement of a half
brick of the thickness otherwise necessary to party-walls, and
give an indestructible internal support to the floors, whereby
also one of the means by which fire travels rapidly through
a house would be removed. It is true that there must be
openings as doorways, and fittings in them for doors, in such
internal partition wall; but the wall could not carry fire up
from floor to floor through its own heart, as the hollow wood-
lathed quartering partition carries it. Doors and shutters,
and door and window linings, in and against brick or stone
walls, may take fire and burn in any story of an ordinarily
built dwelling-house, without carrying it beyond the story
in which the fire occurs; for a plastered ceiling of the
most common description will resist the action of flame
upon its surface for a long time, and plastering of really
good quality, though upon wood laths, will keep fire off
from the joists by which it is held up, almost without danger,
so long as the fire acts upon the face only of the plastering.
If, however, fire reach the joists through the agency of hollow
quartering partitions, the enemy has turned the flank of the
plastering, and the floors and skirtings above and behind it
taking fire, the building almost inevitably falls a prey to the
flames. Any step, indeed, from the hollow quartering parti¬
tion towards a solid wall, is a step towards security. A brick
wall is, perhaps, the best internal partition for all the pur¬
poses of strength and security from fire ; and in small houses,
which will not afford the expense of 9-inch walls, half¬
brick walls with 9-inch jambs at the doors, and short 9-inch
piers on alternate sides of the partition, at intervals of
three or four feet in length, will give sufficient strength;
but even quartering partitions, if based upon brick walls,
may be rendered nearly proof against fire by brick-nogging
them, especially if care be taken to fill in with brickwork
between the joists over the head of one partition and under
the sill of another, as well as between the timbers of the
partitions. Filling in between the joists, and up as high as
the skirtings go, will do something, indeed, towards dimin¬
ishing the dangerous tendency of even lathed and plastered
timber partitions ; whilst the adoption of the plan now
commonly practised in Paris, in forming not only inter¬
nal partitions, but the rearward external inclosures of
buildings, would secure to the structure the structural
efficiency of timber on end in carrying weight, and give
the solid and incombustible character of a brick or stone
wall to a partition or inclosure which is structurally of
timber.
The plan referred to is, to frame and brace with timber
quarterings much in the manner practised in England, ex¬
cept that the timber used in Paris is commonly oak, and is
generally seasoned previously. The framed structure being
complete, strong oak batten-laths, from two to three inches
Construe-
tion.
C O N S T R
Construe- wide, are nailed up to the quarterings horizontally, at four,
tion. six, or even eight inches apart, according to the character
“v—^ of the work, throughout the whole height of the inclosure
or partition; and the spaces between the quarterings, and
behind the laths, are loosely built up with rough stone
rubble, which the laths prevent from falling out until the
next process has been effected. This is, to apply a strong
mortar, which in Paris is mainly composed of plaster of Paris,
which is there of excellent quality, laid on from both sides at
the same time, and pressed through from the opposite sides
so that the mortar meets and incorporates, embedding the
stone rubble by filling up every interstice, and with so much
body on the surfaces as to cover up and embed also the
timber and the laths—in such manner, indeed, as to render
the concretion of stone and plaster, when thoroughly set, an
independent body, and giving strength to, rather than receiv¬
ing support from, the timber.
Our brick-nogged partition is, in point of structure,
nothing but through the aid of the timber; the plastering
is merely spread out upon the surfaces of brick and wood,
and is fragile in the extreme, and always liable to crack
and drop off; whilst, on the other hand, according to the
French practice, the mortar, meeting through the interstices
of the rubble, becomes one consistent mass throughout the
whole thickness of the partition. Our lathed and plastered
partition is composed of the hollow framework of the tim¬
ber quarters, with two slight thicknesses of mortar, as plas¬
tering, hung upon slighter laths, over and between which
the flaccid mortar forms a key for itself; but all necessarily
depends upon the timber, and fails with it wherever decay
or fire may destroy it.
Only second in importance to the internal partition as a
source of danger or as a means of safety, are the stairs;
and the stairs are second in importance only when the par¬
titions are made to carry the floors of the several stories.
In England, and in London particularly, even when the
steps and intermediate landings are of stone, it is but
too common to find the passage from the street door
to the foot of the stairs, and the floors which connect
flight with flight at the several landings, either wdiolly
of wood or of slight stone paving laid upon wooden
joists or bearers. Any stone paving upon wooden joists
will certainly retard the action of fire upon the joists, espe¬
cially if assisted by a well-plastered ceiling; but in this,
again, if the floors be not formed of wholly incombustible
materials, the French practice as to floors would be better
than ours.,
In Paris stone stairs are far less common in modern
houses than they are in London in houses of correspond¬
ing character and date ; but wooden staircases in Paris are
rendered almost as safe as common stone staircases are
made with us, by a process similar in character to that ap¬
plied to partitions and inclosures. The result is an al¬
most incombustible structure. Wooden staircases formed
between brick or stone wralls, or between partitions of
the kind above described, as commonly made in modern
buildings in Paris, filled with a solid mass of concreted
rubble, may perhaps be set on fire, but they can hardly
burn.
It has been remarked that a mere plastered ceiling will
resist the action of fire for a long time, although the plaster¬
ing be upon wmoden laths, and the laths nailed to joists of
timber ; and as fire does not readily act downwards, floor¬
ing boards may take fire from above without any imme¬
diately serious consequence to the joists under them, so
long as there is no access of air from below. But our in¬
door plastering upon laths is commonly of the most fragile
kind, and the slightest weight falling upon the back of a
ceiling will make a breach through it, whilst our floors are
commonly of deal laid upon fir joists, and are exposed to the
action of fire from below directly the lathed and plastered
U C T I 0 N. 331
ceiling has failed; if, indeed, the fire have not found its Construc-
way to the joists under the flooring boards by the hollow tion.
lathed and plastered quartering partitions. In the timber
inclosures and partitions, which economy induces the Paris
builder to introduce as substitutes for walls, the timber is
so embedded in and made part of a solid concrete, as to be
protected from almost every casualty of which it is sus¬
ceptible.
But the French render their floors also so nearly fire¬
proof as to leave but little to desire in that respect, and in
a manner attainable with single joists, as well, at the least,
as with joists framed into girders. According to their prac¬
tice, the ceiling must be formed before the upper sur¬
face or floor is laid, as the ceiling is formed from above
instead of from below. The carpenters’ work being com¬
plete, strong batten-laths are nailed up to the under sides of
the joists, as laths are with us ; but they are much thicker
and wider than our laths, and are placed so far apart that
not more, perhaps, than one-half of the space is occupied by
the laths. The laths being affixed—and they must be
soundly nailed, as they have a heavy weight to carry—a
platform, made of rough boards, is strutted up from below
parallel to the plane formed by the laths, and at about an
inch below them. Mortar is then laid in from above over
the platform, and between and over the laths, to a thickness
of from two inches and a-half to three inches, and is forced
in under the laths, and under the joists and girders. The
mortar being gauged, as our plasterers term it, or rather, in
great part composed of plaster of Paris, it soon sets suffi¬
ciently to allow the platform to be removed onwards to an¬
other compartment, until the whole ceiling is formed. The
plaster ceiling thus produced is, in fact, a strong slab or table,
in the body of which the batten-laths which hold it up
are incorporated, and in the back of which the joists, from
which the mass is suspended, are embedded. The finish¬
ing coat of plastering is then laid on. Such a ceiling will
resist any fire that can act upon it from below, under ordi¬
nary circumstances; and it would be difficult for fire to
take such a hold from above as to destroy the joists to
which a ceiling so composed is attached, the laths and the
under side of the joists being alike out of its reach ; and
consequently such a ceiling alone would diminish the dan¬
ger from fire, although the floor above the joists were
laid with deal boards. But a boarded floor in Paris is a
luxury not to be found in the dwellings of the labouring
classes, nor, indeed, are boarded floors to be found in any
dwelling-houses but those of the more costly description.
Whether the eventual surface is to be a boarded floor or
not, however, the flooring joists are covered by a table of
plaster above, as completely as they are covered by a
plaster 'ceiling below. Rough battens, generally split and
in short lengths, stout enough to bear the weight of a
man without bending, are laid with ends abutting upon
every joist, and as close together as they will lie without
having been shot or planed on their edges. Upon this
rough loose floor mortar of nearly similar consistence to
that used for ceilings is spread to a thickness of about three
inches; and as it is made to fill in the voids at the ends
and sides of the floor-laths upon the joists, the laths become
bedded upon the joists, whilst they are to some extent also
incorporated with the plaster. The result is a firm floor,
upon which, in ordinary buildings, paving-tiles are laid,
bedded in a tenacious cement.
It must be clear that the timbers of a floor so encased
could hardly be made to burn even if fire were let in be¬
tween the floor and ceiling. But it has been already
stated that the practice of making these almost fire-proof
floors is connected with the use of walls which have no
timber laid in them bedwise, and that the timber inclosures
employed instead of walls, and the internal partitions, are
rendered practically fire-proof, whilst the wooden staircase
332
CONSTRUCTION.
which economy dictates to the Parisian builders—the free¬
stone which is used in building walls being altogether too
soft for the purpose—is also rendered, in the manner already
shown, almost unassailable by fire.1
It may be added in explanation of the statement that
in Paris the practice of forming a table of plaster over the
joists when tiles are to be used as the flooring surface, is
employed also when a boarded floor is to supervene—that
as the surfaces of the true joists lie under the mortar,
a base is formed for the boards of what English carpen¬
ters would call stout fillets of wood, about 2^ inches
square, ranged as joists, and strutted apart to keep them
in their places, over the mortar table, to which they are
sometimes scribed down, and that to these fillets, or false
joists, the flooring boards are secured by nails; so that in
truth the boarded floor is not at all connected with the
structure of the floor, but is formed upon its upper coat of
plaster. The wooden floor thus becomes a mere fitting in
an apartment, and not extending beyond the room the floor
might burn without communicating fire to the stairs, even
if the stairs were readily ignitible.2
The necessity which arises with us of dividing the upper
stories of houses into more rooms, as bed-rooms, than are
commonly required in the lower stories, will be made an
objection to any process that would render the partitions
heavier; but it is not in the upper stories that the lathed
and plastered partition is most dangerous in respect of fire.
Generally the stairs may be inclosed by solid partitions
throughout almost the whole height of an ordinary dwelling-
houses without occasioning any inconvenience as regards the
greater weight of such a partition ; and generally, too, the
partition which divides the front from the back rooms of such
houses may be carried up throughout the whole height of a
house without removing the bearing, if the house be judi¬
ciously disposed. But even if a partition rest upon a beam
or girder, a very slight addition to the scantling of the tim¬
ber will make up for the additional weight which the filling in
of the partition woidd involve, if the materials of the core be
well chosen ; and it is well known that a piece of timber
placed over a void as a brest-summer, and carrying a wall,
resists the action of fire for a long time, and the longer if
it be of oak or other hard wood. It is not necessary, how¬
ever, that the timber employed in partitions and inclosures
should be of oak; though it is desirable that main bearing
timbers, in situations which render them most liable to be
exposed to the action of fire, in the event of casualty,
should be of such-like timber rather than of fir: but the
quarterings, or partition timbers, which the plaster con¬
crete wholly encases, may be of fir as safely almost as of
oak.
The core used in Paris consists for the most part of chips
and spalls arising in the process of dressing the soft free¬
stone which is the main constituent of the walls of most
buildings in that city. Almost any hard material, however,
will furnish rubble fit for the purpose, which must be angular
and irregular in form, so as to allow the mortar to pass freely
through the rubble, and embed it all. Rubble of brick ma¬
terial, as broken burrs, or even of old bricks freshly broken,
will answer very well; but if brickbats or shreds of plain
tiles be used, care must be taken in packing not to bring
flat beds together, or the mortar will not pass through and
make a perfect concrete. Rubble of almost any kind may
be used ; but the kinds of stone which are themselves con¬
cretions, and present rough surfaces upon the fracture, afford
the best, while schistose, or scaling slaty stones, are the worst
for the purpose. But there is no better substance for coring
partitions upon the plan described than clay burnt into a
kind of brick rubble,—an excellent ingredient, indeed, in
concrete for any purpose.
The same process applied to external inclosures will jus¬
tify the use of timber in their structure in situations and
under circumstances in which it may be properly prohibited
when the timber is merely lathed and plastered, or even
brick-nogged, for brick-nogging adds nothing, as already re¬
marked, to the strength of a partition or an inclosure, but
rather takes from it, being itself a source of infirmity. But
chimneys and their flues ought not under any circumstances
to be formed in an inclosure in which timber is employed
as a part of the structure. Chimneys—with their con¬
geners, stoves and furnaces—should be confined to walls
of brick or stone; and as these almost always occur most
conveniently in party-walls when buildings stand together,
or in walls which, though not technically party-walls, are
so near to other buildings, as to require to be similarly
dealt with, inclosures of the kind indicated need not be
desired, because it would not be prudent to form flues in
them.
Under some circumstances, again,—that is to say, when
any street of a town is so wide and the buildings to be built
fronting to it are to be of such small elevation, as to make
the communication of fire from one side to the opposite
side so nearly impossible as, for all the purposes of se¬
curity, to be so, if the buildings adjoining laterally are
effectually separated from one another by sufficient walls,
party or otherwise, and these project before the outside
faces of the front and back inclosures so as effectually to
prevent fire from passing round them,—the temperature
of dwelling-houses may be much more easily maintained
and regulated if the outside surface be boarded. Weather¬
boarding is a safe and economical, as well as a neat, whole¬
some, and equable outside casing for the fronts of a dwelling-
house, if the boarding be backed up solidly, and the timber
quarterings necessary to secure it be properly filled in be¬
tween and behind with brick or stone work, or with rubble
and concrete in the manner already described. Brickwork
builds up badly with the raking braces of timber-framed
inclosures, and the concrete described would not be so
perfect with weather-boarding on one side as if the mortar
were thrown in from both sides; but raking braces are less
essential to inclosures which are filled in and backed with
a heavy body of brickwork or concrete, than when mere
lathing or even brick-nogging is to be employed on the
inside. A nine-inch brick wall may, indeed, be very well
built up with framed quarterings without raking braces, if
the work be built between and around the quarterings,
carrying, that is to say, the inner half-brick before the inside
faces of the quartering, and so as to show on the inside a
plain brick wall.
The foregoing remarks have been written with reference
to the articles Architecture, Building, Carpentry,
Masonry, &c.. to which, accordingly, the attention of the
reader is directed. (w. h—G.)
Construe.
tion.
1 It may be remarked here, with reference to the employment of any substance such as cinder, being of the nature of pozzolano, or
volcanic scoria, in mortar, to form a floor in the manner above described (about three inches thick), that as all such mortars expand in
setting, the walls of buildings may be forced out by the expansion of the plaster floors, if the whole surface of the floor in any story be
at once covered with the mortar. A margin of four or five inches on every side should be left void until the expansion has taken place,
when the floor may be completed with an assurance of close joints, and without injury to reasonably stable walls.
2 The most recent practice in Paris, in respect of floors, is to form the structure of slight wrought-iron bars rolled to the form known
with us as T and |_ iron, and to fill in with the same strong plaster between, below, and above the iron, and so to form a slab of plaster
from 6 to 8 inches thick, according to the bearing and the depth of the iron bars—the bars being enveloped in the plaster as the bottom
laths are when the structure is of timber.
Consualia
II
Consul.
CON
CONSUALIA, in Roman Antiquity, an annual festival
in honour of the god Census or Neptune, but different from
those other feasts of the same deity which were called
Neptunalia. They were introduced with a magnificent
cavalcade or procession on horseback, because Neptune was
reputed to have first taught men the use of horses.
Evander is said to have first instituted this feast, and it
was re-established by Romulus under the name of Census,
because it was some god under the denomination of Census
who suggested to him the rape of the Sabines ; and it was
probably with a view to the achievement in question that
he established the festival. To this feast all his neighbours
were invited ; when, taking advantage of the opportunity,
he carried off the women.
The consualia were of the number of feasts called sacred,
as being consecrated to a divinity. Originally they were
not distinguished from those of the circus ; and hence it is
that Valerius Maximus says the rape of the Sabines was
effected at the games of the circus.
Plutarch observes that, during the days of this solemnity
horses and asses were left at rest, and were dressed up with
crowns and other ornaments, on account of its being the
feast of Neptunus Equestris. According to Festus, the
cavalcade was performed with mules, it being an opinion
that this was the animal originally used in drawing the car.
Servius gives us to understand that the Consualia were
celebrated on the 13th of August; but Plutarch, in the life
of Romulus, places them on the 18th, and the old Roman
calendar on the 21st of that month.
CONSUBSTANTIAL, a theological term of the same
import with co-essential, denoting something of the same
substance with another. It is generally used to desig¬
nate the relationship subsisting between the Father and the
Son, as an equivalent to the term oyoovaios, adopted by the
councils of Antioch and Nice to express the orthodox doc¬
trine more precisely, in opposition to the errors of Arius.
(See Akius). Sandius and others maintain that the word
consubstantial was unknown till the time of the council of
Nice. It was, however, proposed to the council of Antioch,
and rejected there, according to Athanasius, only because
it was supposed to imply the idea of a pre-existent matter.
CONSUBSTANTIATION, a term descriptive of the
doctrine held by the Lutheran Church regarding the pre¬
sence of Christ in the eucharist; according to which they
maintain that, after consecration, the body and blood of our
Saviour are substantially present, together with the substance
of the bread and wine. This is otherwise called impanation.
CONSUEGRA, a town of Spain, on the Amarguilla,
province of and 36 miles S.E. of the city of Toledo. Pop.
about 5000, principally engaged in the manufacture of coarse
woollens. It contains various Roman inscriptions and anti¬
quities ; and on a neighbouring hill are remains of its ancient
castle.
CONSUL (waros), the highest ordinary magistrate of
the Roman republic. It is probable that the word is com¬
pounded of con and salio, and is formed like exsul and pree-
sul, so that consules signifies those who go together. They
were anciently called pradores, imperatores, ox judices.
From the abuse of that power which had been vested
in the kings, the Romans were induced not only to expel
the hated Tarquins from the city, but even to abolish the
monarchical form of government altogether. Brutus and his
companions, after the rape of Lucretia, made the people
swear that no king should ever again reign at Rome. The
state was henceforth ruled by two supreme magistrates
called consuls. The consular office was instituted after the
expulsion of the kings, b.c. 510, and continued, with few in¬
terruptions, till the establishment of the empire—a period of
nearly 500 years. The leaders of the revolution which had
expelled the kings were first raised to this rank. All the
royal insignia were preserved excent the crown. Twelve
CON S33
lictors preceded them alternately. The elder of the two, or Consul,
he who had most children, or who had been first elected, had
the fasces first, the other meanwhile being preceded by a
public officer called accensus, and followed by the lictors.
Sometimes they agreed to enjoy the fasces in alternate
days, but generally in alternate months. By the law of
Poplicola, the axe was taken from them and their fasces were
lowered when they entered the assemblies of the people.
A cloak with a scarlet border, and an ivory staff, were badges
of their office. On public occasions they used a seat of
ornamented ivory called the curule chair.
The popular excitement and tumult, which forms so for¬
midable an objection to the elective form of government,
was particularly conspicuous in the early days of the Roman
consulship. From the great power which they originally
possessed in the state, tbe patricians succeeded for a long
time in retaining the consulship among themselves. It was
not till the year b.c. 445 that the plebeians acquired suffi¬
cient courage and strength to make any attempts to acquire
the right of being elected to this office. Having once be¬
gun the struggle, however, they maintained it for the space
of 80 years with a spirit and resolution which made even
a foreign war desirable as a relief from internal contests.
Livy relates that for five years (b.c. 375-371) the opposi¬
tion raised by the plebeians, under the guidance of the tri¬
bunes L. Licinius Stole and L. Sextius, was so formidable
that neither consuls nor any other magistrates could be ap¬
pointed, and there was what he expressly calls a solitudo
magistratuum. At length the patricians, after attempting
an evasion by the appointment of five military tribunes,
were compelled to accede to the Licinian law, by which it
was ordained (b.c. 367) that in all time coming one of the
consuls should be a plebeian. L. Sextius was the first ple¬
beian consul. But the power which was effectual in the
passing of the law was not equal to its enforcement, for in
b.c. 355 both consuls were patricians; and, as was often
the case with Roman laws, it was found necessary to re¬
enact it. This time, however, the demands of the plebeians
increased; and not satisfied with having one consul, they
tried to add a clause ordaining it to be lawful for the people
to elect both consuls from their own number. Although
the attempt was successful, no example of the appointment
of two plebeian consuls occurs till the year b.c. 215. The
honour seems for the most part to have been equally divided
between both orders. The first foreigner who obtained the
consulship was Cornelius Balbus, a native of Cadiz, and a
man of extraordinary wealth.
The legal age for enjoying the consulship was 45; but
this regulation was not strictly observed. Pompey was
made consul in his 36th year, M. Valerius Corvus in his
23d. T. Quinctius Flaminius was created consul before he
was 30, Scipio Africanus the elder at 28, and the younger
at 38. It was necessary for candidates to have discharged
the inferior duties of quaestor, aedile, and praetor, before
they were eligible ; and a regulation was made that they
should be present at the election in a private capacity. It
was also enacted that no one should be made consul a second
time till after the lapse of ten years. But we find cases in
which all these conditions were disregarded. Some were
elected who had not previously borne any curule magistracy;
and others were appointed in their absence. Some con¬
tinued in office more than a year, as Marius, who was seven
times consul without intermission ; and others were elected
before the allotted time had elapsed.
The election of consuls was made by the Comitia Cen-
turiata in the Campus Martius. The assembly at which
they were elected was always convoked and presided over
by a consul, dictator, or interrex. It generally took place
in the month of July, that an opportunity might be afforded
for investigating the conduct of the successful candidates
before they entered on their office, and that they might
334 CON
Consul, have time to become conversant with their duties. From
V'—“v—their appointment to the day of their induction they were
called consules designati or eonsuls-elect, and had the pri¬
vilege of being first asked their opinion in the senate. The
day upon which they assumed office was repeatedly changed.
It seems originally to have been the ides of September,
when, in the rude days of Roman history, the consuls used
annually to fix a nail in the temple of Jupiter Capitolinus
to mark the year ; but as it sometimes happened, when one
died before the term of his office had expired, that another
was immediately chosen to fill his place, the year of his suc¬
cessor was naturally finished before the usual time, and this
necessitated a repeated change in the days of their appoint¬
ment and induction. Sometimes, too, civil commotions pre¬
vented the election taking place at the usual time. As the
consul whose year wras completed could not in such cases
discharge any of the consular duties, it was customary for
the senate to nominate a temporary magistrate called In¬
terrex. His authority being limited to five days, a succes¬
sion of interreges had frequently to be chostn before tran¬
quillity was restored. At length (b.c. 154) it was enacted
that consuls and all the ordinary magistrates, with the ex¬
ception of the tribunes of the people, should begin their
duties on the 1st of January. That day was marked by
peculiar solemnities. At day-break the consuls arose and
consulted the auspices. Afterwards the senate and people
waited upon them at their houses, and then, with the new
magistrates clad in their state robes at their head, they all
marched in solemn procession to the capitol. There victims
were offered, and prayers presented for the safety and pros¬
perity of the Roman people. After the conclusion of the
religious rites a meeting of the senate was held, and the
new consuls first exercised their functions by consulting it
about the performance of religious ceremonies. Within
five days after their induction they were obliged to swear,
as they had done at their election, that they would strictly
observe the laws ; and at the close of their consulship they
were required to take a similar oath declaring that they had
done nothing contrary to the constitution.
The power of the consuls appears at first to have been
similar to that of the kings ; but in process of time several
distinctions arose which combined to render the consular
authority inferior to the regal. The office of high priest,
which had been discharged by the kings, was in the time
of the consulship executed by a special magistrate, called
rex sacrorum, or rex sacrijiculus. The power of life and
death was afterwards denied to the consuls, and the sym¬
bolic axe removed from the fasces. While there was only
one king, there were two consuls. The obvious design of
the Romans in dividing the consulship was that their power
might be weakened, and the safety of the people made more
secure by the resistance which the ambitious designs of the
one would receive from the other. For the same reason
they elected them annually, and thus prevented that inso¬
lence of authority which the long continuation of it is apt
to produce. 1 hey were restrained from illegal measures still
farther by fear of punishment when their term of office had
expired ; for the people had reserved to themselves the right
of bringing them to trial for misconduct. The Valerian
law weakened their authority by decreeing that no magis¬
trate should scourge or put to death a Roman citizen who
appealed to the people. Even the decision of one consul
could be repealed by the other. But it was the creation of
the tribunes of the people that especially contributed to
limit their prerogatives, and strengthen the cause of liberty.
And as additional magistracies were instituted, many of
their old privileges were taken from them. Their judicial
power was transferred to the praetors, and their censorial to
the censors; while other duties originally discharged by
them devolved upon aediles and other new magistrates.
But notwithstanding these limitations, the power of the
SUL.
consuls was at all times very great. As civil magistrates Consul,
they were at the head of the government, and all others,
with the exception of the tribunes of the people, were sub¬
ject to them. They assembled and presided over the sen¬
ate and comitia centuriata; they introduced subjects of de¬
liberation, proposed laws, and executed the decrees of both
senate and people. The laws proposed by them generally
received their name. The year was called after them. They
gave audience to embassies, and communicated with other
states. Before the establishment of the praetorship and
censorship, they discharged the highest judicial functions,
and superintended the assessment of the citizens. They
had the right of summoning and enforcing the presence of
any one they pleased. Every person was bound to turn
out of the way, dismount, rise up, uncover the head, or
show some similar token of respect, when they passed. The
consul Acilius ordered the curule chair of the praetor Lu-
cullus to be broken in pieces for a breach of this regulation.
As military commanders they had absolute authority. They
had the power of life and death over the lives of their sol¬
diers ; and accordingly they had axes in their fasces when
in the field. When any great danger threatened the state,
the consuls were invested by the senate with extraordinary
powers, which made them supreme in the city as well as
out of it. Accordingly, in the early days of the republic,
when the patricians were in sole possession of the consulship,
and wished to subdue any outbreak of the plebeians, they
feigned that some powerful enemy was marching against
the city, and thus succeeded in obtaining extraordinary
powers for the consuls. This being accomplished, the lives
of all the citizens were at the mercy of their party.
After the consuls had resigned their office, they were
commissioned by the senate to assume the government of
provinces under the title of proconsuls. It was the prero¬
gative of the senate to determine the provinces for the con¬
suls, although it was left to themselves to decide by lot or
agreement which of them each should receive. When the
time arrived for a proconsul to set out for his province, he was
furnished by the senate with the troops appointed for him,
and everything requisite for his command. Surrounded
by a train of friends, and a numerous personal staff, he
marched out of the city with great pomp. He was bound
to travel direct to his province ; and the towns through
which he passed had to supply him with necessaries for his
journey. Within his province he had the command of the
troops, and could employ them as he pleased. He was
supreme judge both in criminal and civil causes, and could
inflict the punishment of death—except on Roman citizens,
who could appeal to Rome. Justice was generally ad¬
ministered at circuit-courts, held once a-year in the prin¬
cipal towns. The proconsulship continued likewise for one
year only, but it was often prolonged by a decree of the senate.
Under the empire, the consuls were superseded by the
emperors. The title indeed remained, and all the cere¬
monies were performed with exactness, and perhaps even
with more magnificence than formerly. It would seem as
if they attempted to conceal the loss of real power by the
trappings of external pomp. The day of their induction
was even more than ever a day of note in the city. Sitting
on curule chairs, which were placed on lofty chariots, ar¬
rayed in rich dresses in imitation of those which used to be
worn by generals in a triumph, with shoes of cloth of gold
upon their feet, and sceptres in their hands, they passed
through the city, scattering money among the crowd, and
bestowing gifts upon their friends. Their first duty, however,
no longer consisted in consulting the senate about the reli¬
gious duties of the state ; but in formally returning thanks to
the emperor for their election. The emperors had arrogated
the right of assuming the consulship to themselves, or dis¬
posing of it as they thought proper. Julius Caesar was dic¬
tator and consul at the same time. Augustus made himself
CON CON 335
Consuls, consul thirteen times during his reign. Vespasian pro-
claimed himself perpetual consul. And in bestowing it
upon others, they were not content with having one pair of
consuls for one year. Desirous to conciliate as many of
their friends as possible, they greatly shortened the duration
of the office. It was held generally for two months, which
allowed twelve consuls during one year. But sometimes
it lasted only a few weeks, a few days, or even a few hours,
according to the pleasure of the emperor. There happened
to be twenty-five consuls in the year a.d. 189. But those
who entered upon their office on the 1st of January were
held in greater respect, and gave their names to the year.
They were called, as in the time of the republic, consules
ordinarii; while those who were raised to the office at other
times were termed consules suffecti, or consules minores.
While the republic lasted, the time that elapsed between the
election and ordination of consuls was short, generally from
July to January. In the time of the emperors, ordination
was sometimes deferred several years. The Triumvirs in b.c.
39 nominated consuls for eight succeeding years. In this
way the title of designatus was frequently enjoyed long be¬
fore the actual consulship. Cains, the grandson of Au¬
gustus, was consul designatus for five years. Nero was
fourteen years old when he was nominated consul designatus,
and twenty when he became consul.
Besides these different kinds of consuls, all of which
existed in the republic, we find another class peculiar to the
later days of the state—honorary consuls. These enjoyed
the titles and badges of consuls, but nothing more. They
possessed their honours, though altogether free from their
duties. All the consuls, in truth, during the period of
which we speak, may with propriety be termed honorary,
for the substance of their power had been taken from them.
They had become the mere slaves of the emperors, although
they still continued the formal discharge of their functions.
Nevertheless, even in this degraded condition, the consul¬
ship was always regarded with veneration, and considered
the highest dignity to which a Roman citizen could
asPire* (j. T. G.)
Consuls, Mercantile, are appointed by the Secretary
for foreign Affairs, and are under the direction of the
Foreign Office. They are sent to the various countries
that have commercial relations with Great Britain. The
office of consul seems to have originated in Italy about the
middle of the twelfth century; and after the establishment
of the various trading companies in England and France
they were generally established over Europe. The duties
assigned to British consuls are these:—To make themselves
acquainted with the laws that regulate commerce, to give
advice and assistance to British subjects when required, to
make annual returns of the trade with the principal ports of
their consulate, and quarterly returns of the prices of agri¬
cultural produce, to attend to the interests of the British
navy, take charge of wrecks, to watch, protect, and promote
British interests generally, and to see that justice is dealt
to British subjects. A consul has also to report to the go¬
vernment any attempts at illicit trading made in violation
of the laws of his own country, or of the country in which
he resides, and to keep them duly informed in regard to the
appearance of infectious disease within the limits of his
consulate. Consuls occasionally partake of a certain kind of
diplomatic character; and in Turkey, according to an an¬
cient treaty and certain bye-laws of the Levant Company,
they enjoy extensive judicial powers. Various opinions
have been expressed in regard to the propriety of such an
arrangement; but in the peculiar circumstances of that
country it seems indispensable that justice should only be
administered to British subjects by a responsible British
officer. Similar judicial powers, however, are guaranteed
m Sweden to the American consulate, but this is an excep¬
tion to the general rule.
They nominate vice-consuls where they consider it ne- Consuls,
cessary; but before these are permitted to act, they must
receive the sanction of the Secretary of State, and after
their appointment they can only be dismissed with the same
sanction.
All the consuls holding a royal commission are British
subjects, but many of the vice-consuls are not such.
The emoluments of the consuls arise from salaries from
the crown, and fees fixed by act of parliament,—these aris¬
ing principally from notarial acts, certificates connected
with shipping, &c. An account of the amount of these
receivable by each consul is transmitted to the Foreign
Office annually or half-yearly. In most cases it is small;
but in some, such as at Constantinople and New York, it
is very considerable, being in the first L.1700 for the year
1847, and in the latter L.1230,—the salaries being L.1600
and L.800 respectively.
The whole consular establishment was revised by Lord
Palmerston in 1831. In 1852 it consisted of 241 consuls
and vice-consuls, exclusive of the consular staff in China, re¬
ceiving salaries the aggregate amount of which was L. 101,199.
There were also 257 vice-consuls discharging their duties
without salaries.
Previously to the general peace in the year 1814, the
greater part of the British consuls abroad, who held com¬
missions from the crown, were merchants at the respective
places of their consular residence. Many of such consuls
had no salary from government. Their emoluments con¬
sisted of fees, which they levied upon the tonnage of Bri¬
tish ships, and upon the value of their cargoes. This mode
of remunerating consuls having created dissatisfaction
amongst the commercial classes, a new system was intro¬
duced in 1826, and an act of parliament was passed to abo¬
lish all consular fees on tonnage and cargoes, and to enable
the crown to give remunerating salaries to consuls. Accord¬
ing to the system founded upon the act of 1826, it was de¬
termined “ that British consuls should not be in any way
concerned, directly or indirectly, in commercial pursuits.”
This system was acted upon, with some few exceptions,
until 1832, when a very considerable reduction was made
in the salaries assigned to the consuls, and “ permission was
given to engage in mercantile pursuits,” in order to indem¬
nify them for the loss occasioned by the reduction of salary.
This permission, however, is not indiscriminate, and the
principle on which it is granted is somewhat arbitrary; but
the practice is sufficiently prevalent to enable us to regard
the act of 1826 as reversed—restriction “ to engage in mer¬
cantile pursuits” being made the exception instead of the
rule.
The advantage in permitting consuls to trade is this, that
in consideration of the profits accruing to them as traders
a lower salary may be given to them as consuls. This is
met, however, by the obvious disadvantage, that if they have
any political duties to perform, those political duties are not
so well performed by a person who is liable to the imputa¬
tion, however unfounded, of making his political actions
subservient to his personal and commercial interests. In
many cases jealousy has likewise been expressed by other
traders and merchants in the same place, who, suspecting
that the consul-merchant reaps undue advantage from
information derived through his office, use means to de¬
prive him of the information to which for statistical pur¬
poses he is entitled. It is therefore only in cases where these
disadvantages are not likely to be in formidable dispropor¬
tion, that liberty may be granted to the consul to engage
in trade; but it were better, to prevent the interests and
honour of his country from being endangered by his com¬
mercial character and fortunes, that this liberty should in
every case be refused. The repeal of the act of 1826 is,
therefore, very questionable in point of commercial po¬
licy.
336
C 0 N S U
List of Consuls-General, Consuls, and Vice-Consuls, with their respective Salaries for the year 1854.
Consuls
Residence. Rank. Salary.
Russia—
St Petersburgh...Consul  L.750
Archangel  Do  300
Riga  Do  500
Wiborg   Do  150
Warsaw Consul-general... 1,000
Odessa  Do. ... 750
Do Vice-consul  80
Ismail  Do.   200
Taganrog Consul   200
Kertch Vice-consul  200
Sweden—
Stockholm Consul   500
Oottenburg   Do 
For way—
Christiania Consul-general.
Denmark—
Elsinore  Consul  700
Do Vice-consul 
Copenhagen  Do,  
St Thomas Consul 
Prussia—
Danzig Consul-general..
Memel Vice-consul  
Pillau  Do.  
Stettin  Do.  
Konigsberg  Do.  
Cologne Consul 
Hans Towns—
Hamburg Consul-general... 1,500
Do.  Vice-consul  300
Bremen  Do.   150
Lubeck  Do.   150
Cuxhaven  Do.   100
Saxony—
Leipzig Consul-general... 750
Frankfort—
Frankfort Consul   350
Fetherlands—
Amsterdam Consul   ... 300
Rotterdam  Do  500
Middleburg Vice-consul  100
Batavia Consular Agent.. 200
400
600
100
150
200
700
200
50
50
60
100
200
200
Surabaya  Do.
Samarang  Do
Belgium—
Antwerp  Consul   500
Ostend  Do    300
France—
Paris  Consul  100
Dunkirk  Do  400
Calais  Do  400
Boulogne  Do  400
Havre  Do  650
Caen  Vice-consul   50
Cherbourg Consul   500
Granville Vice-consul   100
Brest Consul   500
Nantes  Do  300
Charente   Do  300
Bordeaux  Do    450
Bayonne  Do  300
Marseilles  Do  550
Toulon Vice-consul  50
Corsica Consul  200
Martinique  Do  100
Algiers—
•Algiers Consul   800
Oran Vice-consul  400
100
100
200
350
Bona  Do.
Philippeville  Do.
Spain—
Madrid Consul
Bilbao  Do.
San Sebastian Vice-consul  100
Vigo Consul  400
Cadiz   Do  500
San Lucar Vice-consul  150
Malaga Consul  300
Carthagena  Do  400
Residence. Rank. Salary.
Spain—
Alicante Consul.   L.300
Barcelona.  Do  400
Mahon Vice-consul  300
TenerifFe Consul  500
Havana Consul-general... 1,000
StJagodeCuba Consul  300
Porto Rico  Do  800
Manilla  Do  1,000
Portugal—
Lisbon  Consul  600
Do Vice-consul  300
Loanda - Do  50
Oporto  Consul  500
Madeira  Do  300
St Michael’s  Do  400
Fayal Vice-consul  100
Terceira  Do  100
C. Verde Islands..Consul  400
Switzerland—
Geneva Consul  50
Sardinia—
Genoa Consul  400
Nice  Do   200
Cagliari  Do  250
Tuscany—
Leghorn Consul   350
Roman States—
Ancona Consul  350
Do Vice-consul  50
Two Sicilies—
Naples Consul  400
Do Vice-consul  100
Gallipoli  Do  100
Otranto   Do  25
Palermo Consul  400
Messina  Do  200
Austria—
Venice Consul-general... 700
Trieste Vice-consul  100
Fiume  Do  100
Greece—
Patras...... Consul  700
Syra  Do  400
Piraeus  Do   350
Missolonghi....... Vice-consul  150
Turkey—
Belgrade Consul-general.... 800
Bucarest Agent & Con.-gen. 900
Jassy Consul  700
Galatz and IbrailVice-consul  250
Constantinople.. .Consul-general.... 1,500
Do Vice-consul Can-
cellier  400
Do Vice-consul  300
Do ...Phys. and Surg... 300
Dardanelles Consul  300
Enos. Consular Agent... 40
Salonica Consul  350
Monastir  Do  500
Janina  Do  550
Do Vice-consul Can-
cellier    150
Prevesa Vice-consul..,  70
Scutari  Do  130
Varna  . Consul  500
Brussa  Do  350
Smyrna  Do  700
Do Vice-consul Can-
cellier   200
Do Chaplain  250
Do Surgeon  200
Adalia Vice-consul  100
Macri  Do  50
Rhodes Consul  400
Scio Vice-consul  100
Mytilene Vice-consul  200
Crete Consul   300
Erzeroom  Do  600
Trebizond Vice-consul  200
Residence. Rank.
Turkey—
Diarbekir Consul 
Batoom  Do 
Samsoon Vice-consul 
Tarsous  Do 
Moussul  Do 
Damascus Consul 
Aleppo   Do  
Alexandretta Vice-consul  
Beirout  ...Consul  
Do   Vice-consul 
Jerusalem Consul 
Jaffa   Do  
Jedda Vice-consul   
Egypt—
Egypt Agent & Con.-gen.
Alexandria Consul 
Do.   Vice-consul Can-
cellier  
Do Surgeon 
Cairo Consul 
Damietta Vice-consul 
Suez   Do 
Tripoli—
Tripoli  Consul 
Do.    Vice-consul  
Bengazi   Do 
Mourzouk  Do 
Ghadames.,  Do 
Tunis—
Tunis  Agent & Con.-gen.
Do.   Vice-consul 
Susa  Do 
Morocco—
Tangier Agent & Con.-gen.
Do Vice-consul 
Mogador   Do 
Tetuan   Do 
Rabat  Do 
Persia—-
Tabreez  Consul 
Tehran  Do 
Asterabad  Do 
Abyssinia—
Massoah  Consul    
United States—
Portland Consul 
Boston   Do 
New York  Do 
Philadelphia  Do 
Baltimore   Do 
Norfolk  Do 
Charleston  Do 
Savannah  Do 
Mobile    Do 
New Orleans  Do 
Galveston  Do 
California  Do 
Cincinnati  Do 
Mexico—
Mexico  Consul.   
Vera Cruz  Do 
Tampico  Do 
San Bias  Do 
Mazatlan Vice-consul 
Acapulco  Consul 
Guatemala—
Guatemala Consul-general...
Salvador Vice-consul 
Nicaragua—
Realejo Vice-consul ...
Costa Rica-—
San Jose Vice-consul 
Honduras Vice-consul 
Mosquito—
Grey Town Consul  
Blewfields Vice-consul  
Hayti—
Port-au-Prince.. .Consul-general 
Do Vice-consul 
Salary,
. L.400
250
200
250
250
600
500
300
500
150
550
300
150
1,800
600
300
100
400
60
200
600
300
400
200
200
1,600
450
300
1,600
350
100
100
100
500
500
500
500
300
200
600
500
500
300
500
300
450
500
300
300
400
250
500
500
300
150
400
1,000
200
200
200
200
600
200
200
500
CON
CON
337
Contagion
I!
Contarini.
Kesidence. Rank. Salary.
St Domingo—•
St Domingo Consul L.600
New Granada—
Bogota Consul-general.... 1,600
Do Vice-consul  400
Carthagena  Consul  1,000
Panama  Do  1,200
Sta. Martha Vice-consul   400
Kio Hachi  Do   300
Venezuela—
Caracas  Consul-general... 1,200
La Guaira Vice-consul  200
Puerto Cabello... Do  200
Maracaibo  Do     200
Bolivar  Do    200
Eqtjador—
Guayaquil Consul  1,000
Do Vice-consul   200
Peru—
Lima Consul-general
Callao  Consul  
Islay Vice-consul ....
Arica  Do 
Payta   Do 
Bolivia—
Sucre Consul-general... 1,200
Chile—
St Jago Consul-general... 1,600
Valparaiso Consul  300
Concepcion Vice-Consul  250
1,700
200
500
300
100
Rsidence. Rank. Salary.
Chile—
Coquimbo   Consul L.300
Caldera Vice-Consul.,  250
Buenos Ayres—
Buenos Ayres Consul-general  1,600
Do Vice-consul  500
Paraguay Consul  700
Monte Video—
Monte Video Consul-general... 1,400
Do Vice-Consul  500
Brazil—
Rio de Janeiro...Consul  800
Maranham   Do  300
Para  Do  450
Pernambuco  Do  500
Maceio  Vice-consul    200
Bahia  Consul  800
Paraiba  Do  400
Do Vice-consul   200
Rio Grande do
Sul  Consul  800
St Catharine’s ... Do  500
Sandwich Islands—
Woahoo Consul-general... 800
Georgian or Windward Islands—
Tahiti Consul   500
Society or Leeward Islands—
Raiatea Consul  500
Navigators’ Islands—
Samoa Consul  350
Residence. Rank. Salary. Contingent
Borneo—
Sarawak .....Commissioner and Conventi-
Consul-general L.500 cie>
Comoro Islands— y, ' j
Johanna... Consul  150
Sherboro’ River—
Consular Agent... 250
Liberia—
Monrovia Consul  500
Bight of Benin—
Lagos Consul   500
Bight of Biafra—
Fernando Po Consul  500
China—
Hong Kong Superintendent of
Trade  4,000
Do Secretary  700
Canton  Consul  1,800
Do Vice-consul   750
Whampoa....,,... Do    750
Amoy Consul  1,200
Do Vice-consul  750
Foo-chou-foo  Do  800
Ningpo   Do    80 J
Shanghai  Consul  1,500
Do. ...........Vice-consul  750
Besides these there are in China, at each
consular station, several salaried assistants
and interpreters ; and elsewhere nearly
260 vice-consuls, discharging their duties
without salaries from the British govern¬
ment.
CONTAGION (from contagto—co?i together, and tango
to touch). This term is used to express the propagation
of diseases of a specific nature from one individual to an¬
other, and also the matter by which this propagation is
effected. In the latter sense contagion is a morbific agent,
suigeneris, which on being introduced into the blood, pro¬
duces a definite train of morbid phenomena, and communi¬
cates to the blood the property of generating a similar
poison, capable of originating a similar disease if introduced
into the blood of another individual. Diseases so propa¬
gated are termed contagious, and the matter by which they
are propagated is called contagious matter, or simply con¬
tagion.
Strictly speaking, the term contagious ought to be limited
to those diseases which are alone propagated directly by
actual contact of the body which receives the poison with
that which produces the poison. It has, however, become
customary to class under the same term diseases which are
also propagated by means of the poison of the contagion
being diffused through the air. Contagious diseases, there¬
fore, are divisible into two great classes,—1st, those which
are alone capable of being propagated from person to person
by the direct application of the contagious matter—imme¬
diate or contactual contagion; and 2d, those which are
communicable in this way, and also through the medium of
the air—mediate or remote contagion. To the first class
belong itch, ringworm, syphilis, cow-pox, &c. To the
second belong smallpox, scarlet fever, measles, typhus fe¬
ver, &c.
The term infection is frequently and improperly con¬
founded with, and used synonymously for, the term conta¬
gion. But this term is not properly applicable to diseases,
but to the effects produced by malaria or effluvia arising
from marshes, or that from decaying animal and vegetable
substances.
CONTARINI, Andrea, a doge of Venice of a very
illustrious family, who in 1380, though then 80 years of
age, led the fleet of his country against that of Genoa, and
saved the republic, which was then in imminent peril.
Another of the Contarini family, Ambrogio, was ambas¬
sador of the state to the Schah of Persia in 1473. He re¬
turned to Venice in 1477, and wrote a curious and seemingly
VOL. VII.
faithful account of what he had seen and collected during
his residence in Persia. This work was published at
Venice in 1524, under the title of “Itinerario nelf anno 1473
al’Usum Cassan Re di Persia.” Many other men eminent
in arms and in literature have sprung from the noble family
of Contarini.
CONTINGENT, in politics, is used to denote the pro¬
portion of troops, money, &c., furnished by each state in a
confederation, according to compact, for the general behoof.
CONTINUED Bass, in Music. See Music.
CONTOURNIATED (Ital. contornato, turned about),
in Numismatics, a term applied to medals of which the
edges appear as if turned in a lathe.
CONTRABAND. See Neutrality.
CONTRE in Heraldry, an appellation given to several
bearings, on account of their cutting the shield contrary
and opposite ways. Thus we meet with contre-bend, con-
tre-chevron, contre-pale, and the like, when there are two
ordinaries of the same nature opposite to each other, so that
colour may be opposed to metal, and metal to colour.
CONTRITION (Lat. contritiofxom conterere, to break
or bruise), among divines, is used to denote that sincere
sorrow for sin resulting from the reflection of having
offended an infinitely holy and benevolent God, and at¬
tended with a sincere resolution of reformation. It is dis¬
tinguished from attrition, which is applied to grief for sin
arising from fear of punishment—the lowest degree of re¬
pentance,
CONTROL (French contre, and role, a roll or list), is
properly a double or counter register of acts, issues, and the
like, of the officers or commissioners in the revenue, army,
or other departments, in order to perceive the true state,
and to certify the truth thereof, and the due keeping of the
acts subject to the enregisterment.
CONTROLLER, an officer appointed to control or
oversee the accounts of other officers, and, on occasion, to
certify whether or not things have been controlled.
CONVENT. ICLE conve?iticulum, dim. of conven-
tus), properly denotes a cabal or secret assembly of a part
of the monks of a convent, to form a brigue or party in the
election of an abbot. From the abuse of these assem¬
blies, the wrord has come into disrepute; and now stands
2 u
338 CON CON
Convention for any mischievous, seditious, or irregular assembly. The
II term conventicle is said to have been first used in a con-
v onvex'/ temptuous sense for the meetings of the followers of Wic-
J“r v-"~ liffe ; and it has since been applied in England to the reli¬
gious assemblies of petty sects, and of dissenters in general
from the established church.
CONVENTION (Lat. convention from convenire, to
come together), a treaty, contract, or agreement between
two or more parties, military commanders, &c.
Convention is also the name given to an extraordinary
assembly of the estates of the realm, held without the king’s
writ; as the assembly which restored Charles II. to the
throne. Such also was the convention of estates in 1688,
which, upon the flight of James II., declared that he had
abdicated the throne, and that the right of succession had
devolved to King William and Queen Mary ;—upon which
the assembly expired as a convention, and was converted
into a parliament.
Convention of Estates, in Scotland, previous to the
Union, was partly of the nature of a parliament, but differed
in this, that the former could only propose taxes, whereas
parliament could both impose taxes and make laws.
CONVENTUAL, belonging to a convent. Hence, one
that lives in a convent; a monk or nun. See Monk.
CONVENTUS Juridici, were courts of justice esta¬
blished in the Roman provinces, with an extent of juris¬
diction circumscribed within certain limits of district, and
to which all who were included might repair for justice.
Conventum agere is to hold a court of justice.
CONVERGING or Convergent Lines, in Geometry,
are such as continually approach nearer to one another, or
whose distances become still less and less. These are op¬
posed to divergent lines, the distances of which become
continually greater. Lines which converge one way diverge
the other.
Converging Series, in Mathematics, are series of which
each succeeding term is smaller than the preceding, and
which consequently tend to a certain limit: in opposition to
diverging series, in which the terms gradually increase. See
Series.
CONVERSANO, an episcopal city of Naples, province
of and 20 miles S.E. of the city of Bari, with about 9000
inhabitants. It has a castle, cathedral, several convents,
diocesan seminary, hospital, and foundling asylum ; and
trades in wine, oil, almonds, and cotton.
CONVERSE, in Mathematics, an opposite proposition;
as, after a conclusion has been drawn from something as¬
sumed, the order is inverted, and the conclusion is made
the supposition or premises, and thence is drawn the con¬
clusion previously assumed. Thus, if two sides of a trian¬
gle be equal, the angles at the base are equal; and, con¬
versely, if these angles be equal, the two sides are equal.
CONVERT, a person who has undergone conversion
from one opinion or practice to another.
Convert is chiefly used in respect of change from one
religion, or religious sect, to another. Converts with rela¬
tion to the religion espoused are denominated apostates
with regard to that which they have relinquished.
I he Jews formerly converted to Christianity in England
were called conversi. Henry III. built them a house in
London, and allowed them a competent subsistence for life.
This house was called domus conversorum ; but as their
numbers increased, they became a burden to the crown,
and accordingly were distributed among the monasteries.
After the expulsion of the Jews under Edward III. the
domus conversorum was given for the custody of the rolls.
CONVEX (Lat. convexus, arched), a term applied to
the exterior surface of any gibbous or rounded body, as a
bowl; in opposition to the hollow inner surface of such
body, which is said to be concave.
Convexity and concavity are of particular importance in
catoptrics and dioptrics, as applied to lenses and mirrors. A Conveyan-
lens when convex on both sides is said to be convexo-con- cing
vex—otherwise termed a double-convex lens ; when plane II
on one side and convex on the other, plano-convex ; and Coi?voca-
when convex on one side and concave on the other, con- K tl0n~
vexo-concave, or concavo-convex if the convex surface be
a portion of a smaller sphere than the concave side. See
Optics.
CONVEYANCING, the art of preparing writings to
effect the transference or conveyance from one person to
another of any piece of property or valuable right It is
sometimes applied in a restricted sense to the cumbrous
forms which the feudal system has rendered necessary for
the transference and tenure of landed property. When left
to shape itself by individual practice, without legislative in¬
tervention, there wTere several causes rendering such con¬
veyancing cumbrous and complex. The theory of the feu¬
dal tenures and hierarchy remaining unchanged throughout
the social revolution which had virtually abolished supe¬
riority and vassalage, and brought land out of feudality into
ordinary commerce, it became necessary to retain the feudal
ceremonies of the middle ages, and to adapt them by fic¬
tions and explanations to modern exigencies. Hence, eight
years have not yet passed since, in Scotland, when a field
was bought and sold, a party of men assembled on it, and
went through the old form of symbolic investiture by the
delivery of so much earth and stone from the superior bailiff
to the vassal’s attorney, who took instruments and had the
whole recorded at length by a notary of the empire. In
England, from the want of the general system of registra¬
tion known in Scotland, the complexities of conveyancing
had become so inextricable, that one of the most approved
forms of transference was a fictitious suit and judgment of
possession called a fine and recovery. To these innate
sources of complexity must be added the timidity of con¬
veyancers, who, afraid to commit themselves by attempting
to abbreviate or reconstruct the forms which they find in
existence, repeat them with additions from time to time as
new circumstances must be provided for. Hence, to keep
conveyancing within rational bounds, the legislature must
interfere from time to time to sweep away excrescences,
and provide brief and simple forms. This, however, is a
task which cannot be easily accomplished, since it requires
the very highest legal skill to adjust simple forms to all exi¬
gencies, and anticipate the various shapes in which property
may fall to be dealt with. This service has been on various
occasions performed by distinguished lawyers ; and, while it
is productive of the greatest benefits to society, it is one of
the public services least susceptible of popular appreciation.
In 1834 the act abolishing fines and recoveries created a f
reform of this kind in the conveyancing of England, and a
series of statutes passed in 1847 purified and simplified the
conveyancing of Scotland. (j. h. b.)
CONVOCATION, a term applied ambiguously both to
purely ecclesiastical assemblies and to meetings of the clergy
of a more political character. At the present day the distinc¬
tion is not sufficiently recognised, and consequentlv meetings
of the clergy for their own internal government and that of
the church in its purely spiritual relations, are apt to be
confounded with convocation, in a much stricter and more
modern sense. From the earliest times until the reign of
Henry VIII., the English Church, like all churches in Chris¬
tendom, exercised the power, by means of its bishops, of
convening the clergy; and what every bishop did in his own
diocese, the archbishops had power to do in their provinces;
they called together first the bishops, and afterwards their
inferior clergy, as occasion required. These meetings con¬
stituted the diocesan synods and the provincial councils, and
were confined entirely to the transaction of the spiritual af¬
fairs of the church. Afterwards the papal power introduced
another element; and by means of legates sent from Rome,
CON
Convolu- national church councils were formed. In all these respects
ti°n- England only acted as other churches did, exhibiting the
order of universal Christianity.
But besides these assemblies, there were two others pecu¬
liar to ourselves, and springing out of our own peculiarities
of government. These were of a mixed character, con¬
templating the good of the realm, as well as the interests of
the church, and they were originated by the fact, that large
possessions of land and money gradually fall into the hands
of ecclesiastics. The first was the meeting of the bishops in
parliament to consult and legislate with the laity; the second
was the assembling of the clergy to tax themselves, that their
large property might bear a portion of the public burdens.
In Saxon times the church was expected to contribute
largely to the service of the state, and the meetings called
to grant these aids were called Convocations. This part
of the constitution was more clearly defined and settled in
the reign of Edward I., who wished to the clergy a
third estate, so that the bishops should not only sit in the
parliament for temporal purposes, but also with the inferior
clergy in convocation. After many struggles from the in¬
disposition of the clergy to meet on the authority of the
king, the two ecclesiastical synods were agreed upon, under
the summons of each of the archbishops: there the clergy
sat, and made canons, by which each respective province was
bound, and gave aids and taxes to the king. This convo¬
cation had great freedom, and was endowed with consider¬
able powers; but its authority was much lessened by the
statute of 2oth Henry VIII., which made the king’s consent
necessary not only to give validity to any act, but also to
enable the convocation to proceed to business. Thus the
clergy form a convocation by the writ of summons; but
they cannot form a council or act as such without the
king’s license to do so. This state of things continued until
13th Charles II., cap. 4, when the clergy gave their last sub¬
sidy, and were afterwards taxed by a land-tax and poll-tax;
and in 1664 the clergy waived the right of taxing their own
body, and permitted themselves to be included in the money
bills prepared by the commons. They then received the
right to vote for knights of the shire, if freeholders, like the
laity,—a power they did not before possess.
It is thus evident, that although convocation meets at
the assembling of parliament, it no longer possesses the
functions for exercising which it was first called into exist¬
ence. Stat magni nominis umbra; and even if the sovereign
should give it power to proceed to business, it could only
act as in the ancient provincial council. It thus appears
that, the ancient forms remaining without, their power, the
church is really less at liberty to act than it should be, ac¬
cording to all theories of ecclesiastical government. It is
still in the power of the archbishops and bishops to convene
their clergy for religious purposes; and it is nothing but the
lingering in a spot and among circumstances venerable with
a hoar antiquity, and the use of a name long since inappli¬
cable, that encumbers the government of the Church of
England. As a theory, surely none can deny the desir¬
ableness of any religious body meeting to transact its
own business; and in practice it would probably be found
that the evils of synodical action predicted by many
are no greater than what are incident to all deliberative bo¬
dies.
Those who wish to gain full information on the subject
of convocation, in both its historical and moral bearings,
should consult Burns’ Ecclesiastical Law, and Bishop
Wake’s Authority of Christian Princes over their Ecclesi¬
astical Synods asserted: ivith particular respect to the Con¬
vocations of the Clergy and the Realm and Church of Eng¬
land. I he latter work, from the interest attached to this
question, is exceedingly scarce and dear. (h. b.)
CON V OLU LTON (Lat. convolvo, to roll together, roll
round), the act of rolling or winding together; a winding
COO 339
motion proper to some plants, as the convolvulus, the Convoy
claspers of vines, &c. ||
CONVOY (French convoyer; Lat. veho, to carry, bring Cook,
along;) in naval affairs, one or more ships of war employed
to accompany and protect merchant ships against pirates, or
the enemies of the state in time of war.
Convoy, in military matters, a body of men who guard
any supply of money, ammunition, or pirovisions, conveyed
by land to a town, army, or the like, in time of war.
CONWAY. See Aberconway.
COOCH BAHAR, a raj or native state of Hindustan,
in the province of Bengal, situated between the twenty-sixth
and twenty-seventh degrees of north latitude. It compre¬
hends an area of 1364 square miles, and is bounded on the
N. by Bhootan, on the E. by the district of Goalpara, on the
S. and S.W. by the British district of Rungpore, and on the
W. by that of Dinajepore. There is a gradual slope of the
surface from N.W. to S.E., as indicated by the flow of the
rivers in that direction. Of these the principal are the Durlah
and the Neelcomer, with its tributaries the Manchee and
T oresha. Towards the S.W. the country is in a highly im¬
proved state and very fertile, producing abundant crops of
rice, wheat, barley, indigo, cotton, tobacco, and the opium
poppy. The betel-nut, the semmel, and the banyan tree,
thrive well, and attain to great luxuriance. In approaching
the northern frontier, the country partakes of the character
of the tract extending along the base of the mountains of
Bhootan, being in many places ill cultivated or totally waste.
It is, moreover, extremely unhealthy, the land being low
and marshy, interspersed with deep woods, and everywhere
almost choked with a coarse vegetation of rank grass, reeds,
and fern.
It was about the year 1018 that the sultan Mahmoud
penetrated into the country of which Cooch Bahar formed
a part. It was also frequently plundered by the Afghan
governors of Bengal, but it always recovered its indepen¬
dence. In the year 1578 a Mogul army overran the coun¬
try, and laid the rajah under contributions. About seven¬
teen years afterwards, the prince voluntarily became a vas¬
sal of the Emperor Acbar. During the reign of Aurung-
zebe, the rajah of Cooch Bahar not only threw off his alle¬
giance, but actually wrested from the imperial yoke several
districts. This insult was speedily avenged by the emperor,
who, sending his lieutenant, Meer Jumla, in 1661, into
the country, took the capital, and changed its name to
Alumgeernagur; and at the same time the bigotry of the
Mussulmans was so intense that they destroyed the Hindu
temples, broke in pieces a celebrated image of Vishnu, and
converted the son of the rajah. In 1738 Cooch Bahar was in¬
vaded and plundered by Sayid Ahmed, military governor of
Rungpore. The rajah was compelled to take refuge in the
mountains ; and another portion of the country was annexed
to Bengal. In 1772 it was invaded by the chief of Bhootan,
who laid claim to it, and, meeting with little resistance from
the natives, rapidly gained possession of the country. The
a-ld of the British being solicited by the expelled rajah, two
battalions of native infantry were sent to the aid of the in¬
habitants ; and the invaders were not only driven back, but
the Bhootan chief, alarmed for his own safety by the advance
of the Company’s troops into his own dominions, was soon
compelled to sue for peace. Cooch Bahar is one of the
states under the protection of the East India Company, its
rajah paying an annual tribute equal to a moiety of his re¬
venues. The town of Cooch Bahar, situate on the river
Toresha, 45 miles north of the town of Rungpore, is in Lat.
26. 16., Long. 89. 29.
COOK, Captain James, the celebrated navigator, was
born Oct. 27, 1728, at the village of Marton, Yorkshire,
where his father was an agricultural labourer and farm-bailiff.
Before the age of thirteen he was apprenticed to a haber¬
dasher at Straiths, near Whitby ; but having quarrelled with
340
COOK.
Cook, his master, he went as an apprentice on board a collier be-
longing to the port, and was soon afterwards appointed mate.
Early in the year 1755, Cook joined the royal navy, and
served on board the Eagle of sixty guns. Having distin¬
guished himself as an active and diligent seaman, he was, on
the recommendation of Sir Hugh Palliser his commander,
successively appointed master of the Grampus sloop, of
the Garland, and the Mercury ; in the last of which he
served in the St Lawrence, and was present at the capture
of Quebec. He was employed also in sounding and sur¬
veying the river, and published a chart of the channel from
Quebec to the sea. After this expedition he was appointed
master of the Northumberland; and while in this situation he
eagerly studied mathematics and astronomy. In 1762, he
was present at the recapture of Newfoundland; and the same
year he returned to England. Early in the following year,
Cook was employed in surveying the coasts of Newfound¬
land ; and in 1764 he was appointed marine surveyor of
Newfoundland and Labrador.
While in this capacity, Cook published in the Philoso¬
phical Transactions an Observation of an Eclipse of the
Sun, which he had made atone of the Burgeo Islands, near
Cape Ray; and the accuracy of his results, as compared
with similar observations at home, obtained for its author
the character of an able astronomer.
In the mean time, a spirit for geographical discovery,
which had gradually declined since the beginning of the
seventeenth century, began to revive; and Cook’s former
services pointed him out as a fit person to conduct an ex¬
pedition which was then projected for the purpose of making
observations on the impending transit of Venus, and pro¬
secuting geographical researches in the South Pacific
Ocean.
For this purpose he received a commission as lieutenant,
and set sail in the Endeavour, a vessel of 370 tons, accom¬
panied by several scientific gentlemen, among whom was
Sir Joseph Banks. On the 13th April 1769 he reached
Otaheite, where he erected an observatory, and succeeded
in making the necessary astronomical observations.
From Otaheite Cook sailed in quest of the great continent
then supposed to exist in the South Pacific, and reached
the islands of New Zealand, which had remained a terra
incognita since the time of their first discovery. His at¬
tempts to penetrate to the interior, however, were thwarted
by the continued hostility of the natives; and he had to
content himself with a voyage of six months’ duration round
the coast, in which he traced the existence of a narrow
channel dividing the territory of New Zealand into two
large islands. From New Zealand he proceeded to New
Holland, and on the 28th April came in sight of Botany
Bay. On account of the hostility of the natives, his dis¬
coveries here also were confined to the coast, of which he
took possession in the name of Great Britain. The prose¬
cution of this voyage was attended with the most imminent
dangers, which on several occasions threatened the entire
loss of the ship and crew.
From New Holland he sailed to New Guinea, establish¬
ing ^the complete separation of the two islands; and thence
to Batavia, where his ship, greatly shattered and disabled,
had to put in for repairs. During their stay the pestilen¬
tial nature of the climate caused an extraordinary sickness
among the crew, of whom 30 died before the vessel reached
St Helena. Arriving in England June 11, 1771, Cook was
immediately raised by the king to the rank of captain.
Shortly after his return, the existence of a great southern
continent began to be matter of renewed speculation, and
Cook was again appointed to conduct an exploratory ex¬
pedition in higher southern latitudes than those which he
had formerly traversed. For this purpose he was placed
in command of the Resolution, a ship of 462 tons burden,
and a smaller ship called the Adventure, with a comple¬
ment in all of 193 men. Setting sail from Plymouth July
13, 1772, he reached Madeira on the 29th of the same
month, and after touching at the Cape of Good Hope, he
made his traverses in the specified latitudes, but without dis¬
covering land. Satisfied that no land existed within the
limits of his researches, he abandoned the investigation on
the 17th Jan. 1773, and sailed for New Zealand.
After wintering among the Society Islands, Cook again
set out to explore the same latitudes further to the east¬
ward, between Lat. 60° and 70°; and afterwards steering
northward, he navigated the southern tropic from Easter
Island to the New Hebrides, and discovered the island
named by him New Caledonia. After a third traverse in
still higher latitudes, he at length gave up all hope of find¬
ing land, and returned to England, where he arrived July
30, 1774. On his return, he was immediately raised to
the rank of post captain, appointed captain of Greenwich
Hospital, and soon afterwards unanimously elected a mem¬
ber of the Royal Society ; from whom he received the prize
of the Copley gold medal for the best experimental paper
which had appeared during the year.
During the absence of Cook in the southern seas, the at¬
tention of government had been turned towards the dis¬
covery of a north-west passage in the arctic regions; and
while it was thought unfair to appoint him immediately to
the command of a third laborious expedition, every effort
was made to enlist his services for the purpose. Stimulated
by the glowing descriptions of the results likely to follow
from the discovery, he at length volunteered to conduct the
expedition, and his offer was willingly accepted.
Two ships, the Resolution and the Discovery, the latter
under the command of Captain Charles Clerke, were speedily
equipped and placed under his care. His instructions were,
to sail first into the Pacific through the chain of the newly
discovered islands which he had recently visited, and on
reaching New Albion to proceed northward as far as Lat.
65°, and then to endeavour to find a passage to the Atlantic
by the high northern latitudes, between Asia and America.
To aid in the expedition, several ships were fitted out to
attempt a passage on the other side from the Atlantic to the
Pacific Ocean. Setting sail from the Nore June 25, 1776,
he cruised for a considerable time in the South Pacific, dis¬
covering several small islands ; and in the spring of 1777,
judging it too far advanced in the season for attempting the
navigation of the northern seas, he bore away to the Friendly
Islands. Here he continued for several months, and only
set sail for the north in January 1778. On his passage
from the Friendly Islands, he discovered a group which he
named the Sandwich Islands, after the Earl of Sandwich,
who had taken great interest in the expedition. After cir¬
cumnavigating these, and laying down their position in a
chart, Cook reached the coast of America in March 1778 ;
and following the coastline northward, penetrated into the
bay afterwards known as Cook’s Inlet. Disappointed of a
passage in this direction, he sailed for Behring’s Straits,
where he found the passage again intercepted by an impe¬
netrable wall of ice. Returning to winter at the Sandwich
Islands, he discovered Mowee and Owhyhee, at the latter
of which he met his tragical death. During the night of the
13th February 1779, one of the Discovery’s boats was
stolen by the natives; and Cook, in order to recover it, pro¬
ceeded to put in force the usual expedient of seizing the
person of the king until reparation should be made. Having
landed on the following day, a scuffle ensued with the na¬
tives, which compelled the party of marines who attended him
to retreat to their boats. Cook was the last to retire ; and
as he was nearing the shore he received a blow from behind
which felled him to the ground. He rose immediately, and
vigorously resisted the crowds that pressed upon him ; but as
the boat’s crews, partly from confusion and partly from the
distance at which they were compelled to act, could render
Cook.
coo
Cooke him no assistance, he was soon overpowered. His body was
' left in possession of the natives, and on the return of the
Coomassie. crews only the bones could be recovered. These were
carefully put into a coffin, and committed to the deep with
the usual honours, Feb. 21, 1779.
Captain Cook was a man of plain address and appear¬
ance, but looked well, and was upwards of six feet in height.
His head was small; and he wore his hair, which was brown,
tied behind. His face was full of expression ; his nose well
shaped; his eyes small, quick, and piercing; and his eye¬
brows prominent, which gave his countenance altogether an
air of austerity. But notwithstanding his appearance, it
was impossible for any one to excel him in kindness of dis¬
position; as is evident from the M'hole tenor of his beha¬
viour both to his own men and the many savage tribes with
whom he had occasion to interfere.
As a navigator, the merits of Captain Cook were of the
very highest order. His sagacity, decision, and persever¬
ance, enabled him to overcome all difficulties; while his
humanity and sympathetic kindness rendered him a favour¬
ite with his crews. His valuable researches into the na¬
ture and use of antiscorbutic medicines have proved of the
highest utility to the navy of his country. The account of
his first voyage was published under the care of Dr Hawkes-
worth, but his second was chronicled directly by himself. A
narrative of his third voyage was published from his notes
by Lieutenant King. Distinguished honours were paid to
his memory both at home and by foreign courts; and a
suitable pension was settled upon his widow.
After the death of Cook, the command of the expedition
devolved on Captain Charles Clerke; and after an unsuccess¬
ful attempt to penetrate the Polar Sea in the following sum¬
mer the ships returned to England in Oct. 1780.
COOKE, Sir Anthony, tutor to Edward VI., was born
in 1505, and was descended from Sir Thomas Cooke, lord
mayor of London. He is supposed to have been educated
at Cambridge, where he soon became eminent for his learn¬
ing and piety. He had four daughters, whom he educated
in the same manly studies with the prince. Of these, Mild¬
red was afterwards married to Lord Burghley ; Anne to Sir
Nicholas Bacon, lord keeper of the great seal; Elizabeth
to Sir John Russell, son and heir of the earl of Bedford;
and Catharine to Sir Henry Killigrew. Sir Anthony lived
in exile during the persecution under Mary; but returned
on the accession of Queen Elizabeth, and died in 1576.
COOKSTOWN, a town of Ireland, county of Tyrone,
andbaronyofUpper Dungannon,on the Ballinderry, 14 miles
north of Dungannon. The town consists of one long wide
street planted with trees on each side. It has a large Gothic
parish church, neat market-house, court-house, linen-hall,
and union workhouse. Its principal trade is in linens. Pop.
(1851) 2993, exclusive of 296 in workhouse.
COOMASSIE, in Africa, the capital of the Ashantee
country, is situated upon the side of a large rocky hill, and
is nearly surrounded by a marsh. It is built in an oblong
form, and is about four miles in circumference, exclusive of
the suburbs, which are about half a mile distant, and were
formerly connected by streets with the city. Four of the
principal streets are half a mile long, and from 50 to 100
yards broad. A long and wide street runs through the
middle of the town; and here the palace and other resi¬
dences of the royal family are situated. At the back of it
there is a small grove, into which are thrown the bodies of
all the victims sacrificed in the barbarous rites of the Ash¬
antee superstition. The town is supplied with water from
the marsh, which contains springs. The existence of this
swamp, however, is highly injurious to the place, giving
rise to a putrid exhalation, which envelopes the town in a
dense fog, and thus engenders disease. The markets of
Coomassie are plentifully supplied with the various neces¬
saries of life. Pop. estimated by Bowdich at about 15,000.
COO 341
COOMTA, in Hindustan, a seaport-town in the British Coomta
district of Canara, within the limits of the presidency of
Madras. The place is of importance from its presenting Cooper-
greater natural advantages as a port than most others on
the western coast of India, between Bombay and Cochin.
It has accordingly been selected as the port of shipment
for the cotton wool produced in the southern Mahratta
country and the Madras collectorate of Bellary. These
districts contain the principal cotton marts of the south of
India, and an easy communication between them and the
coast has been recently opened by means of an excellent
road measuring upwards of 130 miles in length. A head¬
land protects the roadstead from the N.W. wind, which
usually prevails during the shipping season, and hence the
bay is comparatively calm at that time of the year. It is
however exposed to the S.W. monsoon, after the commence¬
ment of which it is unsafe for country vessels to remain
there. Distance from Bombay S.E. 328 miles. Lat. 14.
26., Long. 74. 29.
COONOOR, in Hindustan, one of the minor sanitary
stations on the Neelgherry hills, within the limits of the
presidency of Madras. The site is about 6000 feet above
the level of the sea, and from its inferior elevation the
settlement presents to the invalid an intermediate station
with a more temperate climate, previous to exposure on the
higher level of Ootacamund. Coonoor is situate on the
crest of the hills at the head of the magnificent ghaut or
pass of the same name, and is distant ten miles from the
commencement of the ascent at the base of the hills. From
Coonoor to Ootacamund, a farther distance of ten miles
with a gradual rise of 1700 feet, there is an excellent road.
The mean annual temperature at Coonoor is given at 62°,
the annual rainfall at 55 inches. Distance from Coimba¬
tore N. 26 miles. Lat. 11. 21., Long. 76. 56.
COOPER (Dutch kuiper), an artificer who makes casks
and coops, tubs, barrels, and all kinds of wooden vessels
which are bound together with hoops.
The art of the cooper is of great antiquity, and soon at¬
tained all the perfection which it at present possesses.
There are some countries, however, in which it is as yet
unknown ; and in others, from the scarcity of wood and other
causes, earthen vessels and skins lined with pitch are used
for containing liquors. The Latin word dolium, usually
translated a cask, was employed by the Romans to denote
earthen vessels used for the same purposes. The word
dolare, to chip with an axe, to hew, from which dolium is
derived, and the word dolarius, a cooper, may naturally
enough be applied, the former to the construction of casks,
which are made of several pieces of wood planed and fitted
for joining together, and the latter to the artificer himself.
Pliny ascribes the invention of casks to the people who
lived at the foot of the Alps. In his time they lined them
with pitch. From a.d. 70, in the time of Tiberius and
Vespasian, the art of constructing vessels of different pieces
of wood seems to have been well known. Indeed, previous
to this period, Varro and Columella, in detailing the pre¬
cepts of rural economy, speak distinctly of vessels formed
of different pieces, and bound together with circles of wood,
or hoops. The fabrication of casks, on account of the great
abundance of wood, was probably very early introduced
into France. It is uncertain when this art was first prac¬
tised in Britain; but it seems not improbable that it was
derived from the French.
The figure of a cask is that of two truncated cones, or
rather conoids, joined together ; for the lines are not
straight, as in the cone, but are curved from the vertex to
the base. The part of greatest circumference is called the
belly of the cask. In the choice of wood, old, thick, and straight
trees are preferred, from which thin planks are hewn,and then
formed into staves. In France the wood is prepared in win¬
ter : the staves and bottoms are then formed, and they are
342 COO COO
Cooper, put together, or, in the language of the artificer, the cask is
—mounted, in summer. Planing the staves is one of the
most difficult, and at the same time most important parts
of the work. In dressing staves with the plane, the work¬
man is directed to cut across the wood, in order probably
to prevent the instrument following the course of the fibres,
which may not always be in the same plane with the sur¬
face of the stave, and thus render it of unequal thickness.
In the formation of the staves, it ought to be recollected
that each must constitute part of a double conoid. It must
therefore be broader at the middle, and gradually become
narrower, but not in straight lines, towards the extremities.
The outside of the staves across the wood must be wrought
into the segment of a circle, and it must be thickest near the
middle, growing gradually thinner towards the ends. Great
experience is requisite for the nice adjustment of the different
curves to the size and shape of the cask ; but less attention is
paid to the rounding or dressing of the inside of the stave.
After the staves have been dressed and are ready to be
arranged in a circular form, it might be supposed necessary,
for the purpose of making the seams tight, to trim the thin
edges in such a manner that the contiguous staves may
be brought into firm contact throughout the whole joint,
or sloped similar to the arch-stones of a bridge. But this
is not the practice usually followed by the artificer. With¬
out attempting to slope them so that the whole surface of
the edge may touch in every point, he brings the contigu¬
ous staves into contact only at the inner surface ; and in
this way, by driving the hoops hard, he can make a closer
joint than could be done by sloping them from the outer to
the inner side. In this, perhaps, and in giving the proper
curvature to the staves, consist the principal part of the
cooper’s art. Machinery is now frequently employed in
preparing the staves.
Cooper, Antony Ashley, first Earl of Shaftesbury, was
the son of Sir John Cooper, Bart, of Rockburn, Hampshire,
and was born at Wirnborne, St Giles, July 22, 1621. He
inherited the patrimonial estates when only ten years of age,
and was entered at Exeter College, Oxford, in 1636. After
studying law for a short time at Lincoln’s Inn, he was chosen
one of the representatives of Tewkesbury, when only nine¬
teen, and took his seat in the short parliament of 1640. Al¬
though zealously attached to the royal interest, he did not
sit in the long parliament. Having incurred the suspi¬
cions of the court during his government of Weymouth, he
joined the parliamentarian party, accepted a commission dur¬
ing the civil war, and signalized himself by storming Ware-
ham and reducing the surrounding country. As member
for \\ iltshire he took his seat in Barebone’s parliament; and
though avowedly hostile to the measures of the protector,
he formed one of his council of state. He continued his
opposition unmolested for several parliaments, and after the
death of Cromwell he joined his enemies in depreciating his
memory. After the deposition of Richard Cromwell, Sir
Antony lent his whole energies to the party who favoured
the Restoration, and was one of the commissioners sent over
to Breda with an invitation to the king. For his services
on this occasion he was appointed chancellor of the exche¬
quer, and made a privy-councillor; and these honours were
quickly followed by his elevation to the peerage as Baron
Ashley of Wimborne, St Giles. In his new situation he
made himself conspicuous by the indelicate zeal with which
he prosecuted his duties as commissioner for the trial of the
regicides ; but his fortunes, which rose with every tide of
politics, gained him admiration even from the party which he
had betrayed. W ith Clarendon he stood in the same relation
in which he had formerly stood to Cromwell, resisting the fa¬
vourite measures of the ministry, but never with such vio¬
lence as to endanger his office or damage his chance of pro¬
motion. In this way, though opposing the Uniformity Bill,
the French connection, and the Dutch war, he secured to
himself a seat in the treasury ; and ultimately sacrificing his Cooper,
views on the question of the French alliance to the inclina- v'—
tion of Charles, he became one of the most powerful mem¬
bers of the famous Cabal administration. (See Britain,
vol. v., p. 425.) In 1672 he was created Earl of Shaftes¬
bury, and soon after raised to the post of lord high chan¬
cellor; but in 1673 he was dismissed from office, and on the
fall of the Cabal he, along with Buckingham, made peace
with the opposition, and appeared at the head of the stormy
democracy of the city. Throwing himself into the current
of the anti-popish agitation, he made the alleged martyr¬
dom of his dismissal from office a means of swelling his in¬
fluence with the people; and in the following sessions of
parliament he found himself surrounded by a band of faith¬
ful supporters. The government, outvoted in the house, had
recourse to frequent prorogations; and when at length com¬
pelled to meet for pressing business, Shaftesbury contended
that such frequent interruptions amounted to a virtual dis¬
solution. For this he was ordered humbly to beg the king’s
pardon, and refusing, was committed to the Tower. At the
intercession of the lords he was soon after released, and in
the trials of Titus Oates and his confederates he found a
golden opportunity of gratifying his revenge, and extending
his popularity. In the new council formed under Temple,
Shaftesbury was appointed lord president, and had the
honour of carrying through parliament the famous Habeas
Corpus Act. He was, however, soon after dismissed from
office; and placing himself at the head of the exclusionist
party, he cited the Duke of York before the court of king’s
bench as a popish recusant. The trial failed, but the com¬
mons eagerly took up the cause, and the danger was averted
only by repeated prorogations, which allowed time for a Tory
reaction. In J681 the government resolved to strike a de¬
cisive blow by bringing Shaftesbury to trial for his life. For¬
tunately for him the jurymen before whom he was arraigned
were citizens of London, where the Whigswere still dominant,
and the bill was thrown out. Foreseeing, however, that the
ruin of his party was at hand, after a fruitless effort to raise an
armed rebellion, he retired to Holland, where he died Jan. 21,
1683. In regard to the character of Shaftesbury we have
the contemporary portraits of Butler and Dryden. The one
depicts his wondrous versatility and perfidious restlessness;
and dwells especially on his dexterity at every change of
fortune in extricating himself from the snares in which he
left his associates to perish. The other, writing at the close
of his career, has blended these with the equally character¬
istic traits of implacable revenge, and boldness amounting
to temerity.
Of these the false Achitophel was first;
A name to all succeeding ages cursed;
For close designs and crooked counsels fit;
Sagacious, bold, and turbulent of wit;
Restless, unfixed in principles and place;
In power unpleased, impatient of disgrace;
A fiery soul, which, working out its way,
Fretted the pigmy-body to decay,
And o’er-infortn’d the tenement of clay.
A daring pilot in extremity ;
Pleased with the danger, when the waves went high
He sought the storms; but for a calm unfit,
Would steer too nigh the sands to boast his wit.
Absalom and Achitophel, 150-162.
Shaftesbury left behind him the Memoirs of his own Time;
but the MS. is said to have been destroyed by his friend
Locke, to whom it was confided. His Life was drawn up
and published by his grandson, under the editorial care of
Dr Kippis and B. Martin. It has since been reprinted.
Cooper, Anthony Ashley, third Earl of Shaftesbury, and
grandson of the preceding, was born in 1671, at Exeter
House, London, where his grandfather then resided. In
1683 he was sent to Winchester school; but the memory of
his grandfather subjected him to frequent insults, and he
coo
Cooper, prevailed on his father to travel with him abroad. In 1689
he returned to England; and after an interval of five years
spent in study, he was elected member of parliament for
Poole. In the House of Commons he distinguished himself
principally by the share which he had in promoting “ the act
for regulating trials in cases of high treason but his health
was so much impaired by his attendance, that in 1698 he was
induced to resign his seat and retire to Holland, where he
enjoyed the friendship of Bayle, Le Clerc, and other learned
men. During his absence there appeared at London an
imperfect edition of his Inquiry concerning Virtue, surrep¬
titiously taken from a rough sketch made when he was twenty
years of age. He succeeded in buying up the impression
before many copies were sold, but this circumstance induced
him to complete the treatise, which afterwards appeared in
the second volume of the Characteristics. Soon after his
return to England, he became Earl of Shaftesbury, on the
decease of his father. In the House of Lords he exerted
himself in supporting the measures of King William, and
would probably have been made secretary of state, but
for the declining state of his health. He was, however,
often consulted by the king on matters of the highest im¬
portance ; and amongst other things he had the princi¬
pal share in composing the celebrated last speech of King
William, delivered Dec. 31, 1701. On the accession of
Queen Anne he retired to private life ; and in 1703 paid a
second visit to Holland. It was during this tour that, in re¬
ference to the extravagancies of the French prophets, he
wrote the Letter concerning Enthusiasm, which was pub¬
lished in 1708. His Moralists, a philosophical rhapsody,
appeared in January 1709 ; and in the May following
his Sensus Communis, an essay upon the freedom of wit
and humour in a letter to a friend. In 1710 was pub¬
lished his Soliloquy, or Advice to an Author. While
thus employed in literary composition, the declining state of
his health rendered it necessary for him to try the benefit
of a warmer climate. Accordingly, in 1711, he proceeded
to Naples, where, after a brief interval of comparative con¬
valescence, in which he was able to resume his literary pur¬
suits, he died Feb. 15, 1713.
The first complete edition of the Characteristics was
published in 1711 ; but after his death there appeared a
more elegant edition, containing his final corrections, and
embellished with prints designed by himself. In the three
volumes of the Characteristics of Men, Manners, Opinions,
and Times, he included the whole of his works which he
intended for the public eye. Not long before his death
he commenced to wu'ite a discourse on painting, sculpture,
and the other arts of design, but his premature death
prevented him from making much progress in the under¬
taking. He had a high esteem for the works of the great
English divines, and wrote a preface to a volume of Dr
Whichcot’s Sermons published in 1698. For an account
of his ethical system and a critique on his works, see
Sir James Mackintosh’s Preliminary Dissertation to this
work.
Cooper, Sir Astley, Bart., the celebrated surgeon, was
the fourth son of the Rev. Dr Cooper, and was born at the
village of Brooke, in Norfolk, Aug. 23, 1768. It is said
that in early youth he was less distinguished for any pre¬
cocity of intellect or love of study than for his vivacity and
good humour. In his choice of surgery as a profession he
seems to have received a bias from a circumstance that could
scarcely fail to make a considerable impression on his youth¬
ful mind. One day he found a boy with his thigh severely
lacerated by a cart-wheel, which had laid open the femoral
artery, so that he was in danger of bleeding to death. With
much presence of mind, young Astley Cooper bound his
handkerchief tightly around the upper part of the thigh,
and thus succeeded in arresting the circulation in the vessel
until professional assistance could be procured.
COO 343
In August 1784 he was sent to London and placed under Cooper.
Mr Cline, surgeon to St Thomas’s Hospital, one of the
most celebrated surgeons of the time. As he became early
impressed with the necessity of a correct knowledge of ana¬
tomy, he assiduously attended the dissecting rooms, and
seems to have profited largely from the lectures of the
celebrated John Hunter. In 1787 he visited Edinburgh ;
and on his return was appointed demonstrator of anatomy
at St Thomas’s Hospital. In 1791 he was permitted to
deliver part of the course of lectures on anatomy and sur¬
gery then given by Mr Cline. This year he married ; and
in the spring of 1792 visited Paris. The outbreak of the
revolution on the 10th August obliged him to return to
London, when he delivered a course of lectures on surgery
distinct from the course of anatomy, with which it was then
generally associated. He was also this year appointed pro¬
fessor of anatomy to Surgeons’ Hall; a situation which heagain
filled in 1794 and 1795. In 1800 he was appointed surgeon
to Guy’s Hospital, on the death of his uncle William Cooper.
Two years previously he had published a volume of papers
entitled “Medical Records and Researches and in 1802
he received the award of the Copley medal for two papers
read before the Royal Society of London on the effects
resulting from the destruction of the membrana tympani.
He was elected a fellow of the Royal Society in 1805.
Having taken an active part in the formation of the Medico-
Chirurgical Society, he published in the first volume of its
Transactions an account of an unsuccessful attempt to tie
the carotid artery. In 1804 he brought out the first, and
in 1807 the second, part of his great work on Hernia; the
operation for which, on account of the defective knowledge
of the local anatomy, was then frequently unsuccessful. So
greatly did this work add to his reputation, that in 1813 his
annual professional income rose to L.21,000 sterling. He
was soon after appointed professor of Comparative Ana¬
tomy to the Royal College of Surgeons; and in 181 7 he per¬
formed one of the most remarkable operations of surgery,
that of tying the aorta. In the following year, along with
Mr Travers, he commenced publishing a series of Surgical
Essays, but only two parts of the work appeared. In 1820,
having been called to attend on George IV. (although
he held no official appointment at court), he removed a stra-
tomatous tumour from the head of the king. About six
months afterwards he accepted a baronetcy, which, as he had
no son, was to descend to his adopted son and nephew, Astley
Cooper. In 1822 he was elected one of the Court of Exa¬
miners of the College of Surgeons ; and the same year he
brought out his great work on Dislocations and Fractures.
In 1827 he was elected president of the Royal College of
Surgeons ; but grief for the loss of his wife, and his own pre¬
vious ill health, induced him to resign his practice, and re¬
tire to his estates at Gadesbridge. He soon, however, tired
of a country life; and returning to London, resumed his
practice in the following year, when he married again, and
was appointed sergeant-surgeon to the king.
In 1829 appeared the first part of his Treatise on the
Anatomy and Diseases of the Breast, the publication of
which extended to the year 1840. In 1830 he was elected
a vice-president of the Royal Society ; and in 1832 he pub¬
lished his Anatomy of the Thymus Gland. In 1837 he
visited Edinburgh, when the freedom of the city was voted
him, and he was entertained at a public dinner given by the
Royal College of Surgeons. He also received the honorary
degree of LL.D. from the University of Edinburgh.
For about a year previous to his death, Sir Astley was sub¬
ject to frequent attacks of giddiness, accompanied with diffi¬
culty of breathing, which gradually increased till the 12th
Feb. 1841, when he died at the advanced age of 73. He
was interred, by his own desire, beneath the chapel of Guy’s
Hospital; and a colossal statue by Bailey was erected to
his memory in St Paul’s Cathedral.
344 COO
Cooper. Cooper, James Fenirnore, the American novelist, son
°f Judge Cooper, was born at Burlington, New Jersey,
Sept. 15, 1789. At the age of thirteen he became a student
in Yale College, and speedily distinguished himself by his
classical acquirements. In 1805 he entered the American
navy as a midshipman, and continued in that service for six
years. This was the school in which he obtained that
nautical knowledge which is conspicuous in his works, and
in which he laid the foundation of his spirited descriptions
of naval life. In 1810 he quitted the service, and settled
on his patrimonial estate at Cooper’s Town. He then
married, and thenceforward devoted himself to literary
pursuits. He had previously published Precaution, a novel,
which fell nearly still-born from the press. This, how¬
ever, did not discourage him ; and in the fifteen succeed¬
ing years he poured forth other creations of his fancy,
with almost unprecedented exuberance, as in The Pioneer,
The Pilot, Lionel Lincoln, The Last of the Mohicans, &c.
In 1826 he first visited Europe, where he remained a con¬
siderable time; and there he produced some of his most
popular novels, as The Bravo, The Red Rover, and The
Prairie. Everywhere in Europe he was cordially received
by men of letters and by the public.
On returning to his native country he continued his
literary avocations, and among other works he produced
The Pathfinder, The Destroyer, The Two Admirals, Wing
and Wing, works that well sustained his reputation ; but
some of his later productions exhibited strong marks of de¬
caying powers. It is creditable to Cooper that the moral of
his tales is always good, and that he proved himself the
friend of virtue ; and if he wants the exquisite knowledge
of human nature that we recognise in Scott, he exhibits
the same admiration for purity and magnanimity, (t. s.t.)
Cooper, John Gilbert (1723—1769), a miscellaneous
writer, descended from a decayed family in the county of
Nottingham, where his father was high sheriff in 1739. He
was educated at Westminster school, and at Trinity College,
Cambridge. His first attempts at authorship consisted in
the publication anonymously, in 1745, of a poem entitled
The Power of Harmony, and in contributing under the
signature of Philalethes several essays and poems to Dods-
ley’s Museum. These were soon after followed by the Life
of Socrates, compiled chiefly from Xenophon and Plato.
In 1754 Cooper published his Letters on Taste, and in the
following year The Tomb of Shahspeare, a Vision. In
1756 he assisted Moore in writing for the World, and pub¬
lished a variety of occasional pieces, including a translation
of Cresset’s Ver- Vert. His poems were afterwards collected
and published with a preface by Dodsley.
Cooper, Samuel, a miniature painter of surpassing ex¬
cellence, was born in London in 1609. He appears to have
united great spirit and expression with careful finish. Among
his finest productions is the head of Cromwell, engraved by
Vertue, and the portrait of a Mr Swingfield, which gained
him the highest applause and patronage at Paris, as well as
in Holland, where he resided for some time. After the
Restoration he returned to London, and was much employed
by the court of Charles II. Cooper died there in 1672,
and was buried in the church of St Pancras, where there is
a monument to his memory.
Cooper, Samuel, F.R.S., was deservedly celebrated for
the variety and extent of his surgical information. He was
admitted a member of the Royal College of Surgeons in
1803, and soon afterwards entered the army and became
staff surgeon. In 1807 he obtained the Jacksonian prize
for an elaborate Treatise on the Joints; and in 1832 he
delivered the annual oration in memory of the founder of
the Hunterian Museum. In 1835 he was appointed an
examiner, and in 1845 was elected president, of the Royal
College of Surgeons. For 17 years he was connected with
the London University College and Hospital, and obtained
COO
great popularity as a teacher. On the death of Mr Liston, Cooper
in 1847, a misunderstanding arose between Mr Cooperand I!
the senate in regard to the appointment of a successor, which v 00r&-
induced him to resign his appointments. He retired to his "
country residence at Shipperton, where he died Dec. 3, 1848,
in the 68th year of his age. He is the author of First
Lines of the Practice of Surgery, and of a Dictionary of
Surgery.
Cooper or Couper, Thomas (1517-1594), bishop of
Winchester in the reign of Queen Elizabeth, was born at
Oxford. In 1540 he was elected fellow of Magdalene
College; but on the accession of Mary he resigned his fel¬
lowship, and applied himself to the study of medicine. Hav¬
ing taken the degree of bachelor in that faculty in 1556, he
continued to practise as a physician at Oxford till the ac¬
cession of Elizabeth, when he resumed the study of divinity,
and became a distinguished preacher. He was afterwards
appointed dean of Christ-Church and vice-chancellor of the
university, having previously taken the degrees of bachelor
and doctor in divinity. In 1569 he was made dean of
Gloucester, and in the following year bishop of Lincoln,
whence in 1584 he was translated to the see of Winchester.
He wrote, 1. The Epitome of Chronicles, from a.d. 17 to
1560 ; 2. Thesaurus Linguce Romance et Britannicce, and
Dictionarium Historicum et Poeticum, 1565, folio, which
was highly valued by Queen Elizabeth, and procured his
promotion ; 3. A Brief Exposition of the Chapters of the
Old Testament usually read in the Church on Sundays,
1573, 4to ; 4. An Admonition to the People of England,
1589, 4to ; besides some miscellaneous Sermons.
COORG, a mountainous and woody district of Southern
India, among the western Ghauts, situated between the king¬
dom of Mysore and the British province of Malabar. This
country lies between Lat. 11. 56. and 12. 45., Long. 75.
25. and 76. 13., and extends about 60 miles from N. to S.,
and 35 from E. to W., with a superficies of 1420 square
miles. The mountains produce sandal wood of the very
best species, teak timber, rice, pepper, and some other spices.
The woods also abound with elephants and ferocious ani¬
mals, especially tigers. Previous to its conquest by the
British, the country had been governed by a line of rajahs
of the Nair caste of Hindus, who are mentioned in history
as early as the year 1583. The ascendency of the last
family of these rulers dates from the year 1632. Its princes
retained their independence till the year 1773, when Hyder
Ali, who had in vain attempted to subdue them, found an
opportunity for interfering in a dispute about the succes¬
sion, and, by the destruction of one of the parties and the
captivity of the other, took possession of the country.
Upon Tippoo’s accession to the sovereignty, he ordered the
royal prisoner to be removed from Bednore to the fort of
Periapatam; whence having made his escape in the year
1778, his faithful subjects crowded to his standard, and
drove the armies of Tippoo from his dominions. In the war
which the British declared against Tippoo in the year 1791,
they found the rajah of Coorg a useful auxiliary ; and upon
the termination of hostilities, it was determined to transfer
his tributary dependence from Tippoo to the power whose
interests the rajah had so zealously served. This was ac¬
complished by the treaty of 1792. The change, however,
though beneficial to the ruling family in Coorg, did not se¬
cure the permanent advantage of its subjects. After a
time it was discovered that, under a succeeding rajah, op¬
pression and misgovernment had been substituted for the
calamities of war. At length the tyranny of the rajah be¬
came intolerable. In 1832 fugitives from his vengeartce
appeared within the British territories, and implored the
protection of the ruling authorities. These parties were
not criminals ; and as the object of their flight was not to
elude the claims of justice, but solely to withdraw from the
violence of tyranny, the asylum which they sought was ac-
COP
Coote corded to them. The claim of the rajah to their surrender was
II _ disregarded, but at the same time negotiations were set on
Copais. f00t by tile British government to explain to the rajah the
grounds of their refusal, and to remove any unfavourable
impression which it was calculated to produce. These,
however, were relinquished upon the detention by the rajah
of the British emissary, and recourse was had to arms.
The result may be briefly told. Coorg was subdued and
annexed to the British dominions, and a stipend of L.6000
a-year bestowed upon the chief. The population in 1836
has been officially returned at 65,437. Since the annexa¬
tion of the territory to the British empire, its revenue has
improved, cultivation has been extended, and the general
prosperity of the country is stated to have steadily increased.
The rajah is now (1854) in this country, where his daughter
is to be educated in the Christian faith; the Queen and Sir
James Weir Hogg, chairman of the East India Company,
having been sponsors at her baptism. (e. t.)
COOTE, Sir Eyre, a celebrated general, was born in
Ireland in 1726. He served against the rebels in 1745 ; and
afterwards went to the East Indies, where he became com¬
mander-in-chief, and gained several distinguished victories.
He died at Madras in 1783; and a monument has been erect¬
ed to his memoryin Westminster Abbey. See Hindustan.
COOTEHILL, a town of Ireland, county of Cavan, on
a small river of the same name, 28 miles W.N.W. of Dun¬
dalk. The town consists chiefly of four wide streets;
and has a market-house, court-house, bridewell, a neat
parish church, Roman Catholic chapel, and several places
of worship for other bodies. It has also an active trade in
linen and agricultural produce. Pop. (1851) 2105, besides
1101 in workhouse.
COPAE, a town of Boeotia. See Copais.
COPAIBA, or Balsam of Copaiya, is the fluid resin¬
ous exudation of various species of Copaiferae, which are
tall handsome trees, belonging to the natural order Legu-
minoscB, and are chiefly natives of the tropical parts of South
America and of the West Indies. The juice is properly a
turpentine and not a balsam, as it contains no benzoic acid.
It is obtained from deep incisions made into the trunks of
the trees during the wet season, or immediately afterwards.
The juice which flows from the incisions is collected in
calabashes, after which the incisions are closed with vvax or
with clay. The balsam obtained differs somewhat in colour,
consistence, acridity, quantity of volatile oil. &c., according
to the species of trees from which it has been obtained, and
the season of the year at which it has been extracted. Two
kinds are principally met with in the English market—the
Brazil and the West Indian. The Brazil copaiba, which
is the most esteemed, is rather thinner in consistence than
new honey, is transparent, pale wine-yellow in colour, has
a peculiar resinous not unpleasant odour, and a mild, slightly
aromatic, oily taste, which soon becomes acrid and bitter.
The West Indian copaiba is of thicker consistence, darker
in colour, is less agreeably aromatic, and has a more acrid,
bitter taste. When the balsam is subjected to distillation
along with water, it yields a volatile oil, which possesses all
the valuable properties of the copaiba, and a resinous resi¬
duum. The volatile oil seems identical in composition with
oil of turpentine. Copaiba, both in its state of balsam and
of essential oil, acts as a stimulant to the mucous surfaces,
and is consequently chiefly employed in cases where there
is an excessive secretion from these surfaces. Hence in
chronic bronchitis, in gonorrhoea, and some other diseases, it
is largely prescribed, and is found to be a valuable remedy—
its action in some being considered quite specific. The best
is the production of Copaifera guia?iensis, and C. Langs-
dorffii; the West Indian chiefly of C. officinalis or Jaquini.
COPAIS, an extensive lake in Northern Bceotia, so called
from the town of Copae, at its northern extremity. This
lake is mentioned in the ancient classics under many names.
VOL. VII.
COP 345
By Homer it is called Cephissis, from the name of the river Copal.
Cephissus, which falls into it; while by other writers it is
called Onchestus, Orchomenos, Haliartus, &c., from the
towns of those names on its shores. The waters of the
lake are deepest at its northern extremity, on which Copae
stands, and since they were never dried up there in the hot¬
test summer, as they generally were in the neighbourhood
of the other towns, the title Copais was gradually recognised
as the most appropriate. The lake itself was formed by the
waters of the Cephissus, which, instead of flowing into the
sea by an open channel, spreads itself over an extensive
tract of low-lying country, surrounded on every side by
lofty mountains. Four principal catavothra serve to draw
off the superfluous waters of the Copais into the sea; but as
these were found to be sometimes insufficient, two great
artificial tunnels were constructed at a very early period at
the depth of more than 100 feet below the ground, and
with shafts let down into them at regular distances. By
means of these tunnels the bottom of the lake was origin¬
ally kept dry, and either served as pasture ground for im¬
mense herds of cattle, or yielded valuable corn crops to
the inhabitants of the cities on its banks. In course of
time the tunnels were choked up, and though attempts were
made by Alexander the Great to clear them out, they were
never again rendered fully serviceable. In consequence of
this neglect, the waters of the river were gradually allowed
to accumulate, and now form, according to the description
of Colonel Mure, “ a large yellow swamp, overgrown with
sedge reeds and canes, through which the river may be
distinguished oozing its sluggish path for several miles.
Even where the course of the stream could no longer be
traced in one uninterrupted line, the partial openings among
the reeds in the distance appeared but a continuation of its
windings. Nor is the transition from dry land to water in
any place distinctly perceptible ; the only visible line of
boundary between them, unless where the mountains stretch
down to the shore, is the encroachment of the reeds on the
arable soil, or the absence of the villages with which the
terra firma is here studded in greater numbers than usual.”
COPAL, a pure resin which exudes from the Rhus
copallinum, a tree which is a native of Mexico ; and also
from the Elceocarpus copalifer, an East Indian tree, as well
as from some unascertained trees on the Guinea coast.
Copal occurs in lumps of various sizes, and it has different
shades of colour and degrees of transparency, from the palest
and most transparent greenish-yellow hue, to a dark and
somewhat opaque brown. It is too hard to be scratched by
the nail, and hence the durability of the varnish prepared
from it. It breaks with a conchoidal fracture, and possesses
neither sensible taste nor odour. Copal forms one of the
most valuable varnishes we possess, but it is extremely in¬
soluble in the various menstrua while in its ordinary state.
It is soluble in ether, and the solution may be mixed with
alcohol without precipitating it. It is insoluble in boiling
alcohol of the strength 0825, but one and a half parts of
anhydrous alcohol digested for 24 hours with one part of
copal dissolves it completely; that portion of the copal
which is insoluble in alcohol being soluble in a saturated
solution of that portion which is soluble in the anhydrous
alcohol. Camphor, however, possesses the peculiar pro¬
perty of enabling alcohol to dissolve copal in the cold. Pure
caoutchoucine acts very feebly on copal even at the boiling
temperature ; but equal parts of this fluid and of alcohol of
0’825 strength, according to Dr Ure, readily dissolve copal
without the aid of heat, forming a perfectly liquid varnish.
Fresh rectified oil of rosemary dissolves the East Indian
copal in any proportion; but it will not dissolve the West
Indian, or more properly the Mexican, copal. Spirit of
turpentine only dissolves from one to two per cent, of raw
copal. When copal is melted by means of heat its solvent
properties are greatly altered, and it then dissolves freely
2 x
346
cor
COP
Coparce- in alcohol and in turpentine—a property that is turned to
nary account in the preparation of most of the varnishes made
II with this resin. See Varnish.
0gen.a" COPARCENARY, the share or quota of a copar-
v ' ‘ j cener.
COPARCENERS (con, together, particeps, partner) or
Parceners, such as have equal portions in the inheritance
of their ancestor.
COPE, an ecclesiastical vestment, usually worn by
chanters and subchanters when officiating in solemnity.
It reaches from the shoulders to the ankles. The word
also signifies anything spread or extended over the head,
the roof of a house, &c.
COPENHAGEN (in Latin Hafnid), the capital of the
Danish kingdom, was only a fishing village about the middle
of the twelfth century when Valdemar I. made a present
of it and some adjoining lands to Axel Hvide, renowned in
Danish history as Absolon, bishop of Roeskilde, afterwards
archbishop of Lund. In 1168, this prelate erected a castle
on the spot where the Christiansborg palace now stands,
and which was after him called Axel-huus. This castle pro¬
tected the haven from the pirates who at that time infested
the Baltic, and hence the town acquired its earliest name of
Havn (the haven). As its trade increased it became a
place of great resort for merchants, and took the name of
Kiobmcendhavn (the haven of merchants), which has been
contracted into Kiobenhavn its present nane. Bishop
Absolon bestowed the castle and town with the lands of
Amageron the see of Roeskilde. In 1254, Bishop Erland-
sen of Roeskilde granted it municipal rights and privileges,
and these were confirmed and augmented in 1284 by King
Eric Glypping. The town having become of great import¬
ance and the most suitable for the royal residence, attempts
were made by several kings to obtain it from the see of
Roeskilde. But it was not till after a struggle of nearly
two centuries that an arrangement was come to in 1443,
and Copenhagen was made the royal residence and capital
of the kingdom. The numerous fires and bombardments
to which this city has been subjected have left no traces of
its earlier buildings. It has been thrice destroyed by fire,
and most of the present edifices have been built since the
last fire in 1795. In 1801 Nelson here gained a great
victory over the Danish fleet, and compelled Denmark to
abandon its alliance with Napoleon against England. In
1807 it was bombarded by a British army under Lord Cath-
cart, when great injury was done to the city, and all the
ships and military stores were conveyed to England.
Copenhagen is situated at the southern extremity of the
Sound, which is here about 20 miles broad ; in N. Lat. 55.
42., E. Long. 12.34. The principal part is on the east coast
of the island of Zeeland ; the smaller called Christianshavn
stands on the north coast of the island of Amager or Amak,
and is separated from the former by a narrow arm of the
sea, forming an excellent harbour. It is surrounded by
ramparts and moats, and defended by 24 bastions besides
outworks, and towards the sea by the strong citadel of Fre-
derickshavn. The walls inclose a circuit of 5 miles, includ¬
ing the harbour and docks. With the exception of a few
of the public buildings, the architecture of the city is totally
devoid of beauty or picturesque effect; the houses are plain
uninteresting structures, built of brick and stucco. The
Zeeland portion of the city is divided into two nearly equal
parts by the Gothers Gade, a street extending almost north
and south from the city ramparts to the Strommen or chan-
nel which separates Zeeland from Amager. The western
division or old town consists for the most part of narrow
winding streets, but contains the university and several of the
finest churches, and the Castle Island, on which stand the
Christiansborg palace, exchange, Thorwaldsen’s museum,
&c. 1 he new town or eastern division is regularly built
with wide streets; the southern and finest part being called
Frederickstad. Christianshavn is united with the rest of Copenha-
the city by two bridges. Copenhagen contains 258 streets, gen*
and 17 public squares. The land entrances are the East,
North-West, and Amager gates. The chief public squares
are Amalienborg Plads or Fredericks Plads, a handsome
octagon formed by four palaces of uniform size and design,
and having in the centre an equestrian statue of Frederick
V. ; Kongens Nytorv (the King’s new market), an irregu¬
lar square, the largest in the city, with an equestrian statue
of Christian V. in the centre, remarkable only for its
size ; the Gammel and Nytorv (old and new market) with
a small fountain in the centre; the Slotsplads on which
stands the Christiansborg palace, chapel royal, exchange,
and chancery buildings. The citadel called Frederickshavn,
standing on the north side, is a fortress of great strength.
It is a regular polygon with 5 bastions, and is connected
with the city by an esplanade. The ramparts of the town
and citadel are planted with trees, and form agreeable pro¬
menades.
The royal palace of Christiansborg, originally built by
Christian Vi., but afterwards destroyed by fire in 1794, has
since been rebuilt on a scale altogether disproportioned to
the extent or wealth of the kingdom. Over the principal
entrance are two bas-reliefs by Thorwaldsen, representing
Minerva and Prometheus, Hercules and Hebe, Jupiter and
Nemesis, and Alsculapius and Hygeia. The Riddersal
(knights’ hall) is a magnificent apartment, 120 feet long, 44
feet high, and 50 feet wide, with a gallery supported by Co¬
rinthian columns. In the great entrance hall is the Tri¬
umphal March of Alexander into Babylon by Thorwaldsen.
In the upper part of the building is the Royal Gallery
of Paintings, containing about 1000 pictures, including
many valuable specimens of the Flemish, Dutch, and
Italian schools. The Royal Museum of Northern Antiqui¬
ties, instituted in 1807, and now (1854) under the able di¬
rection of Mr Worsae, occupies a suite of seven rooms in
the north wing of the palace. It contains from 7000 to
8000 objects, and is particularly rich in weapons of all kinds,
ornaments, &c. The palace also contains the council
chamber and apartments in which both chambers of the
diet hold their sittings. The large exterior court on the
W. side of the palace forms a riding ground, and is inclosed
on both sides by regular buildings with piazzas, containing
the court theatre, stables, and riding-house. In connection
with the palace is the royal library, containing an exten¬
sive collection of rare books and valuable MSS. amounting
to about 400,000 volumes ; and the chapel, adorned with
works by Thorwaldsen and Bissen.
The palace of Rosenborg, supposed to have been planned
by Inigo Jones, was erected in 1604. It is an irregular
building in the Gothic style, with a high pointed roof, and
flanked by four towers of unequal dimensions. It contains
the coin and medal cabinet, a fine collection of Venetian
glass, the famous silver drinking horn of Oldenburg, the
regalia, and other objects of interest as illustrating the
history of Denmark. The Riddersal, a spacious room, is
covered with tapestry representing the various battles of
Christian V., and has at one end a massive silver throne.
The gardens are open to the public, and form an agreeable
promenade. They were formerly much more extensive
and contained numerous summer-houses, but they have
now only a small pavilion and a fountain.
The palace of Charlottenborg, on the Kongens Nytorv,
is a huge desolate-looking building, built in 1672. Frederick
V. made a grant of it to the Academy of Arts ; and the
garden was in 1788 given to the university for a botanical
garden.
The four palaces on the Amalienborg were built for the
j’esidence of four noble families; but on the destruction of
Christiansborg in 1794 they became the residence ot the
king and court, and so continued till the death of Christian
COPENHAGEN.
347
Copenha- VIII. in 1848. Prindsens palace originally belonged to a
gen. rich merchant, but was purchased by Frederick IV., and
was the residence of Christian V. and Frederick VI. when
crown princes. It now contains the Royal Museum of Art,
the Ethnographical Museum, and other public collections.
The chancery buildings, immediately adjoining the Chris-
tiansborg, and united to it by a corridor, consist of a large
main building erected by Frederick IV., and of three others
since added. Here are deposited the privy archives of the
state and of the royal family. The town-hall and court¬
house (built 1805-1815) contains the municipal council
chamber, the police and criminal courts, the pass office, &c.
The exchange, situated on the Castle Island, is surmounted
by a remarkable spire, formed of four dragons, with their
heads pointing to the four points of the compass, and their
bodies entwining each other till their tails come to a point
at the top.
The museum of Thorwaldsen, built 1837-46, is in the
Egyptian style of architecture, 230 feet in length, 125 feet
in breadth, and 46 feet high, and consists of two stories. In
the centre is an open court, 116 feet long and 50 feet broad,
containing the artist’s tomb. The exterior walls are deco¬
rated with groups of figures of coloured stucco, illustrative
of events connected with the formation of the museum.
Over the principal entrance is the chariot of Victory drawn
by four horses, executed in bronze from a model by Bissen.
The front hall, corridors, and apartments, are painted in the
Pompeian style, with brilliant colours and with great art¬
istic skill. The museum contains about 300 of Thor-
waldsen’s works ; and in one apartment is the furniture of
that artist’s sitting-room, arranged as it was found at the
time of his death in 1844.
The university is attended by about 1000 students, and
has 34 professors, ordinary and extraordinary, divided in five
faculties—theological, juridical, medical, philosophical, and
mathematical. In 1851 an English, and in the following
year an Anglo-Saxon lectureship, was established. All the
professors are bound to give a series of lectures, which
are open to the public gratis. It was founded by Chris¬
tian I. in 1479, and possesses considerable endowments.
The present stately edifice was completed in 1836. Con¬
nected with the university are several foundations for the
assistance of poor students. The principal of these is the
regent’s charity, affording free residence and a small al¬
lowance to 100 students. Among the other scientific
institutions may be mentioned the Royal College of Sur¬
geons, Royal Veterinary College, Polytechnic School, Mili¬
tary Academy, Military High School, Naval Academy,
botanic garden, and the observatory. The university library
contains about 100,000 volumes, besides a large collection
of valuable MSS. Both this and the Royal Library are en¬
titled to a copy of every book published in Denmark. The
Classenske Library contains about 35,000 volumes, chiefly
on scientific subjects. The Athenaeum reading room is well
supplied with European newspapers and periodicals, and has
a library of about 40,000 volumes.
The principal church or cathedral, the Fruekirke (Church
of our Lady), was almost entirely destroyed in the bombard¬
ment of 1807, but has since been completely restored. The
works of Thorwaldsen, by which it is adorned, constitute
its chief attraction. In the pediment is a group in terra
cotta of 16 figures, representing John the Baptist preach¬
ing in the wilderness; and over the entrance within the
portico a bas-relief of Christ’s entrance into Jerusalem. In a
niche behind the altar is a colossal marble statue of our Sa¬
viour; and magnificent marble statues of the twelve apostles
adorn both sides of the church. Nearly opposite the pre¬
ceding is St Peter’s church, built in a quasi Gothic style,
and with a spire 260 feet high. The round tower of Trinity
Church is 115 feet high, and is considered to be unique in
Europe. It was constructed from a plan of Tycho Brahe’s
favourite disciple Longomontanus, and has on the summit
an observatory which now is not used. It is ascended by
a broad inclined spiral way, up which Peter the Great is
said to have driven in a carriage and four. The church
of our Saviour has a curious steeple 300 feet high, ascended
by an external spiral staircase. The lower part of the altar
is composed of Italian marble, with a representation of
Christ’s sufferings in the garden of Gethsemane. The organ
is considered the finest in Copenhagen. The Marble Church,
intended to have been an edifice of great extent and mag¬
nificence, was commenced in the reign of Frederick V., but
after twenty years a stop was put to farther proceedings,
and it is now little more than a melancholy ruin. The
dome was to have risen 264 feet above the ground, the
walls inside and outside of polished Norwegian marble, and
the whole was to have been finished on the grandest scale.
The church of St Nicholas, one of the oldest in the city,
was almost destroyed by the fire of 1795. It has not been
rebuilt, but the tower which escaped has been converted
into a watch tower, where a watchman is stationed to give
alarm on the appearance of fire.
Among the literary and scientific associations may be
mentioned the Danish Royal Society, founded in 1742, for
the advancement of the sciences of mathematics, astronomy,
natural philosophy, &c., by the publication of papers and
essays; the Royal Antiquarian Society for diffusing a know¬
ledge of northern and Icelandic archaeology, by the publi¬
cation of Icelandic sagas, with commentaries, glossaries, &c.;
the Society for the Promotion of Danish Literature, by the
publication of works chiefly connected with the history of
Danish literature ; the Natural Philosophy Society; the
Royal Agricultural Society; the Danish Church History So¬
ciety ; the Industrial Association ; several musical societies,
&c. There are asylums for the blind, deaf and dumb, or¬
phans, and lunatics, the Royal Charity School, general, mili¬
tary, and naval hospitals, lying-in hospital, &c. The Aca¬
demy of Arts was founded by Frederick V. in 1754, for the
instruction of artists, and for disseminating a taste for the
fine arts among manufacturers, operatives, and others. At¬
tached to it are schools for the study of architecture, orna¬
mental drawing, and modelling. The principal theatre is
the Royal, on Kongens Nytorv, capable of containing about
1200 persons. The royal court theatre is elegantly fitted
up, and can accommodate about 800 spectators. The Ves-
terbroe’s theatre, outside the Western gate, is seated for
about 1400 persons. The Casino, built in 1846, was origi¬
nally planned for a variety of diversions, of which dramatic
performances were only to form a subordinate part. The
ground floor was laid out as a bazaar, refreshment room,
&c.; the pergola on the first floor was arranged as a winter
garden; and the two saloons were fitted up for concerts,
masquerades, &c. This, however, proved a failure, and the
large saloon is now converted into a theatre, capable of con¬
taining about 2300spectators; while the small saloon, seated
for from 600 to 700 persons, is usually let for concerts, &c.
The Trivoli gardens, immediately beyond the Western gate,
form the favourite place of resort in the summer evenings.
The amusements include concerts, pantomimes, gymnastic
feats, and other performances.
The trade of Copenhagen has latterly increased consi¬
derably, particularly the corn trade with England. At the
commencement of 1852, 297 merchant vessels of about
35,000 tons burden belonged to the port. The harbour is
large and commodious, capable of containing 500 merchant
vessels besides the navy; and by the aid of canals, large ves¬
sels can come almost to the centre of the town. The en¬
trance is conrmanded by the powerful batteries of Trek-
roner and Sextus. The principal imports are timber, pitch,
and tar, chiefly from Norway and Sweden; flax, hemp,
masts, sailcloth, and cordage, from Russia; tobacco from
America; wines and brandy from France; coal, earthen-
Copenha-
348
COP
Copernkanware, iron, steel, and salt from England; and West India
System produce. The principal exports are corn, rape-seed, but-
Copermcuster’ cheese, ■ beef, pork, horses, cattle, wool, hides, skins,
v« < . bones, grain-spirits. -
The manufactures of Copenhagen are not important, but
are making considerable advances. There are extensive
cloth and calico factories, foundries, and iron-works; also
breweries, distilleries, tanneries, sugar refineries, &c. Piano¬
fortes, clocks, watches, surgical and mathematical instru¬
ments, tobacco, chocolate, porcelain, are among its other
productions. The royal China factory is celebrated for its
models of Thorwaldsen’s works in biscuit China. The po¬
pulation of Copenhagen was (1769) 92,571; (1801) 100,975;
' (1834) 119,292; (1840) 120,819; (1845) 126,787; and
(1850) 129,695; of which last 60,592 were males, 69,103
females, including a Jewish population of 2500. The
climate is damp, changeable, and unhealthy; which, added
to the almost total want of sanatory regulations, renders the
mortality greater here, it is said, than in any other town of
Europe with the exception of Vienna.
COPERNICAN System (so called from its author
Copernicus), that system of the universe in which the sun is
supposed to be at rest in the centre, while the planets, with
the earth, move in ellipses round him. See Astronomy.
COPERNICUS, Nicolas, was born at Thorn, in Prus¬
sia, on the 19th February 1473. Zernecke, in his Chro¬
nicle of Thorn, affirms that he was the son of a peasant
serf, and that his name was Zopernick; but the common¬
ly received opinion is, that he was descended from a fa¬
mily of distinction in that part of the Prussian territory ;
and, indeed, the circumstances of his education are in¬
compatible with the supposition of his having been of ser¬
vile origin. The first elements of learning he acquired in
his paternal mansion, where he seems to have been ini¬
tiated in the rudiments of Greek and Latin ; and he then
went to prosecute his studies at Cracow, where he applied
himself to philosophy and medicine, and ultimately took
the degree of doctor in the latter department of science.
But having, from his earliest years, evinced a strong pas¬
sion for the mathematics, he followed with avidity the
lessons which he received, and soon signalized himself by
uncommon proficiency therein. He also studied astronomy,
and familiarized himself with the use of the instruments
then employed in astronomical observations. At that
time, Regiomontanus enjoyed the highest reputation as an
astronomer; and so much was Copernicus dazzled with
the lustre which this celebrated man had shed upon the
science of which he was accounted so great a master, that
the young enthusiast resolved to undertake a journey into
Italy for the purpose of visiting him ; and, in order that
he might profit to the utmost by his tour, he applied him¬
self to painting and design, in which he made considerable
progress. At the age of twenty-three he set out for Italy,
and passed some time at Bologna, where he attended the
prelections of the astronomer Dominico Maria, and also
made some astronomical observations. He then proceeded
to Rome, where he was kindly received by Regiomontanus,
and honoured with his friendship, as he had previously
been with that of Professor Maria at Bologna. Here he was
appointed to a chair of mathematics, which he filled with
much distinction, continuing at the same time to extend
both his knowledge and his reputation. But after some
years he returned to his native country, where he was
most favourably received on account of his great acquire¬
ments, combined with the simplicity and amenity of his
manners. At length he took up his residence at Frauen-
burg, where his uncle, Bishop of Warmia, procured him a
canonry. But owing to the conflicting claims and unjust
pretensions of others, this situation did not immediately
afford him the leisure and tranquillity which it promised,
COP
and he was for some time involved in ungrateful disputes Coperni.
and vexatious contentions. His clear right, however, aid- cus,
ed by his firmness and constancy, soon carried him through
all his difficulties; and he afterwards enjoyed that peace¬
ful calm alike congenial to his disposition, and favourable
to the pursuit in which he had so zealously embarked.
Having accomplished this object, he then divided his time
into three portions, one of which he employed in assisting
in the divine offices, another in dispensing medical advice
gratuitously to the poor, and a third in the prosecution of
his favourite studies. The house which he then occupied
is still to be seen at Allenstein, with the perforations
which he had made in the walls of his chamber in order
to observe the passage of the stars across the meridian ;
and there are also shown the remains of a hydraulic ma¬
chine, similar to that at Marly, which he had constructed
for the purpose of raising the water of a rivulet for the
supply of Frauenburg. But although he lived in a state
of retirement and seclusion, devoted to his clerical duties
and the pursuits of science, this did not prevent him from
undertaking the administration of the temporalities of the
bishopric, which was several times confided to him during
vacancies of the see ; a trust which required both probity
and courage, and which he executed in a manner highly
honourable to his character. He had, in fact, to defend
the rights and privileges of the bishopric against the en¬
croachments of the Teutonic knights, who were then very
powerful; and this duty he discharged without being either
dazzled by their authority or intimidated by their threats.
We mention this, foreign as it may seem to the object of
a notice like the present, in order to show that the spirit
of study and contemplation was, in his character, united
with firmness and constancy; qualities which are not less
necessary than genius for attacking and subverting preju¬
dices, hallowed, as it were, by the belief or the credulity
of ages.
Copernicus had seen and conversed with the most cele¬
brated astronomers of his own time. He knew the labours
of the ancients, and he was also astonished at the compli¬
cation of their systems, no less than the discordance and
want of symmetry which these supposed in the arrange¬
ment of the universe. He therefore determined to re¬
examine all these systems, to study them comparatively,
to distinguish in each whatever might seem most pro¬
bable as well as natural, and to try whether it might not
be possible to combine the whole in a single system, at
once more symmetrical and more simple. Amidst the
variety of hypotheses which thus engaged his attention,
two forcibly struck his mind, and therefore deserve parti¬
cular attention ;—that of the Egyptians, who made Mer¬
cury and Venus revolve round the sun, but who neverthe¬
less carried Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, and the Sun himself,
round the earth ;—and that of Apollonius Pergaeus, who
chose the sun as the common centre of all the planetary
movements, but who made that luminary revolve round the
earth like the moon ; an arrangement which afterwards be¬
came the basis of the system of Tycho Brahe. The circum¬
stance which particularly fixed the attention of Coperni¬
cus on these hypotheses was, that they represented admi¬
rably the limited excursions of Mars and Venus around the
sun, and explained their movements, direct, stationary, and
retrograde ; an advantage, indeed, which the hypothesis of
Apollonius extended even to the superior planets. Thus
the astronomical systems were already to him only play¬
things of fancy. He had tried them by the test of expe¬
riment and observation ; he had found the conditions which
it was necessary they should satisfy; and as he knew the
means by which alone they were to be judged of, the most
difficult part of his discovery was already made. On the
other hand, he saw that the Pythagoreans had removed the
COPERNICUS.
Copemi- earth from the centre of the system, and had there placed
cus. the sun; and hence it appeared to him that the system of
'J v' ^ Apollonius would become more simple and symmetrical
by only changing this circumstance; namely, rendering
the sun fixed in the centre, and making the earth to re¬
volve around him. He had also perceived that Nicetas,
Heraclides, and other philosophers, in placing the earth
in the centre of the system, had ventured to give it a
movement of rotation round its axis, in order to produce
the phenomena of the rising and setting of the stars,
and the alternations of day and night; nor could he fail
to be even more forcibly struck with the bold conception
of Philolaus, who, removing the earth from the centre of
the system, had not only given it a movement of rotation
round an axis, but also a movement of annual circulation
or revolution round the sun ; and although it might then
appear difficult, and even absurd, to displace the earth
from the centre, in order to make it a simple planet, never¬
theless, as he observed that the astronomers had hitherto
conceived themselves at liberty to imagine circles in the
heavens to represent the celestial phenomena, he thought
that he might in like manner be permitted to try if he
could invent some other arrangement which would esta¬
blish a more simple order in the movement of the hea¬
venly bodies. And thus, taking in each system whatever
was true, and rejecting whatever was false and compli¬
cated, he at length composed that admirable whole, which
is now called, after him, the Copernican System, and which
is, in reality, the true arrangement of the planetary move¬
ments, such as it has been established by evidence which
can never be shaken.
About the year 1507 Copernicus began to digest the
ideas of which we have here traced the gradual formation,
and to write down his discoveries; but, as has been al¬
ready observed, he did not confine himself to general ap¬
pearances, nor remain satisfied with their accordance or
conformity to the great law which he had thus detected.
He felt that, to prove his system, it was necessary to
enter into detail, and even to calculate particular pheno¬
mena, in order to deduce therefrom tables of all the celes¬
tial notions ; and thus to afford the means of predicting
them with all the simplicity and precision which the grand¬
ness of the conception itself, and the first trials which
it had undergone;, seemed equally to promise. This was
the labour of his whole life. He set himself to make ob¬
servations ;1 he collected and combined those which had
been made by others ; and, in particular, he studied to
deduce from his theory those phenomena of the svstem
of the world which had hitherto appeared the most com¬
plicated, such as the stations and retrogressions of the
planets, and the precession of the equinoxes. Lastly,
when he conceived that he had accumulated sufficient
observations and proofs, he undertook to expound the
whole of his discoveries, in a work divided into six books,
and entitled De Orbium Calestium Revolutionibus, in which
he unfolds his ideas nearly in the order in which we have
here endeavoured to present them, and subjects the whole
of astronomy to the dominion of a single principle or
law. It appears that this work was completed about the
year 1530, when Copernicus had attained the age of fifty-
seven ; and it certainly forms one of the proudest monu¬
ments of genius and sagacity, happily united with patient
thinking and persevering research, which any age or coun¬
try has produced.
The fame of his discoveries had already been bruited
349
abroad; the most celebrated astronomers became impa- Coperni-
tient to see them fully developed, and he was pressed to cus.
publish them to the world ; "but, resisting all importuni- v'""-'’
ties, he still deferred, correcting daily the data with which
more exact observations furnished him, and adding what¬
ever further reflection supplied: perhaps, also, he was
afraid to endanger his peace, by submitting himself to the
judgment of his contemporaries; and this apprehension
was unhappily but too well founded. There is nothing
so confident in itself, or so intolerant, as ignorance. Show
the truth to men, and if the object interest them but
little, they will perhaps pardon your doing so ; but if you
wish to root from their minds an opinion which they
have long admitted without question, and believed with¬
out inquiry, be it a prejudice ever so groundless and un¬
tenable, the fact of their having constantly admitted it is
of itself sufficient to offend their pride, perhaps even to
arm their hostility, against him who may have proved
himself more cautious or more sceptical than themselves.
Of this we have a striking example in the case of Coper¬
nicus. Whilst the most distinguished men of learning and
science, the only proper judges in such matters, ranged
themselves on the side of the new discoveries, the com¬
mon herd were discomposed by them, and attempted either
to denounce them as extravagant, or to represent them as
absurd and chimerical. Copernicus, in fact, was about to
be publicly ridiculed in a comedy, as Socrates had been
by Aristophanes ; but the respectable character of this
great man, perhaps also the silence which he had hitherto
observed, preserved him from this insult, and he who had
so unworthily attacked him became an object of general
contempt. After this need we be astonished that Galileo
and Descartes were persecuted, and that even Newton
should have hesitated to give his great discoveries to the
world ? Nevertheless, Copernicus seems to have felt that,
in delaying longer the publication of his researches, he
would be leaving the field open to ignorance ; and that the
exposition of truths so evident, accompanied with proofs
so numerous and palpable, would be the best means of
refuting the charges which presumptuous ignorance had
by anticipation brought against his opinions. According¬
ly, he permitted his friends to publish his book, which he
dedicated to Pope Paul III.; in order, as he says, that he
might not be accused of seeking to shun the judgment of
enlightened men, and that the authority of bis holiness,
if he approved of the work, might protect him from the
baleful tooth of calumny.
The work was printed at Nuremberg, under the super
intendence of Rheticus, one of the disciples of Copernicus
The impression had just been completed, and the first copy
transmitted by Rheticus to his great master and friend,
when Copernicus, who had all his life enjoyed the most
perfect health, was attacked with dysentery, followed al¬
most immediately by a paralysis of the right side, which
again was accompanied with loss of memory and an ob¬
scuration of the understanding. In this melancholy state
he lingered for several days. On that of his death, and
only a few hours before he expired, the copy of his work
sent by Rheticus arrived, and was placed in his hands. He
saw it, touched it, and seemed conscious what it was ; but,
after regarding it for an instant, relapsed into a state ot
insensibility, which soon terminated in death. He died
on the 24th May 1543, at the age of seventy. His tomb,
which is not distinguished from that of the other canons,
was, in 1581, adorned with a Latin epitaph by Bishop
• * Tych.° Brahe sent Olaus, one of his pupils, to measure at Frauenburg the height of the pole on the tower where Coper-
meus had made his observations. He also preserved with religious care the parallactic instrument, composed of two wooden rules,
oiviaed each into 1414 parts, which Copernicus had himself constructed for his own use.
350 COP
Cophti Cromer, the Titus Livius of Poland ; and in 1800 a small
Copiapo nionurnent was erected in honour of the illustrious dis-
x. coverer of the true system of the heavens. The first work
in which the labours of Copernicus were formally announ¬
ced, in contradistinction to the notions which had hitherto
prevailed, was a letter published by Rbeticus, and entitled
Ad Clar. V. d. Schonerum de Libris Revolutionum erudi-
tiss. viri et Mathematici excellentiss. Rev. Doctoris Nicolai
Copernici Torunncei., Cartonici Warmiensis, per quemdam
juvenem Mathematicce studiosum, Narratio prirna, Dantzic,
1540, 4to ; reprinted, with an eulogium, at Basil, 1541,
8vo. The works of Copernicus are, 1. De Revolutionibus
Orbium Ccelestium, libri VI. Nuremberg, 1543, small
folio ; reprinted at Basil in 1566, with the letter of Rheti¬
cus, and also included in the Astronomia Instaurata of
Nicolas Muler, Amsterdam, 1617 and 1640, 4to; 2. A
treatise on trigonometry, with tables of sines, entitled De
Lateribus etAngulis Triangular urn, Wittemberg, 1542, 4to;
3. Theophylactici Scholastici Simocattce Epistolce morales,
rurales, et amatorice, cum versione Latina. In 1521, Co¬
pernicus presented to the states of his provinces a work
on money; and several manuscript treatises of his are still
preserved in the library of the bishopric of Warmia. His
life has been written by Gassendi, and immediately fol¬
lows that of Tycho Brahe.
Chronique de Thorn, Berlin, 1727; Lalande, Bibliogra¬
phic Astronomique, p. 63 ; Annales des Voyages, tome i.
p. 361 ; Biographic Universelle, v. Copernicus, (j. b—e.)
COPHTI, Copti, or Cophts, a name given to the
Christians of Egypt, who belong to the sect of Jacobites,
or rather Cobites, and are descended from the ancient
native population of the country.
Critics are divided as to the origin and orthography of
the word. Some write it Cophti or Copti, others Coph-
tites, Cophtitae, Copts, and so on. Scaliger derives the
name from Coptos, the ancient metropolis of the Thebaid.
Kircher, however, maintains that the word originally signi¬
fies “ cut ” or “ circumscribed,” and that it was given to
these people because of their practice of circumcising;
but this is evidently absurd, as circumcision could neither be
a distinction nor a reproach in a country where the rite was
generally practised. Scaliger afterwards changed his opi¬
nion, and derived the word from AtyvTrros, [quasi dicas
At-ron-Tos) Egypt, by retrenching the first syllable ; and
this is the true etymology, GOP or KOP being manifestly
the basis or root of the wrord which the Greeks wrote
"AtyvTTTos, and probably at first vA<,yo7rros. An account of
the state of the Coptic population of Egypt is given under
Egypt.
COPHTIC, or Coptic, the language of the Cophts,
being the language of the ancient Egyptians, mixed with a
little Greek, and written in letters which are chiefly Greek,
though fashioned on the model of the enchorial, demotic, or
civil characters of the country. It has a form and construc¬
tion peculiar to itself, having no inflections of the nouns or
verbs, but expressing number, case, gender, person, mood,
and tense, and forming the possessive pronouns by means
of letters and particles prefixed.
Kircher was the first who published a grammar and voca¬
bulary of the Cophtic. More lately we have a “ Compen¬
dious Grammar of the Egyptian Language,” Lend. 1830;
“Lexicon Egyptiaco-Latinum,” Oxon. 1825; “Lexicon
Linguae Copticae,” I urin, 1835. The only books extant
in Cophtic are translations of the Scriptures, or of eccle¬
siastical offices, and others that relate thereto, as grammars
and dictionaries.
Cophtic Liturgies. Of these there are three ; one at¬
tributed to Basil, another to St Gregory, and a third to
Cyril. They have been translated into Arabic, for the use
of the priests and people.
COPIAPO, a town of Chile, the capital of a department
COP
of the same name in the province of Atacama, on a cogno- Copiata
minal river, 50 miles from its mouth in the Pacific. Pop. about ||
5000. The neighbourhood is rich in minerals, as silver, CoPPer-
copper, lead, iron, bismuth, cobalt, antimony, arsenic, and
quicksilver. Its port, Caldera, at the mouth of the river, is
now one of the stopping places for the Pacific Company’s
steamers. It has a good landing wharf and mole, with 24
feet water, at which vessels of 1200 tons may discharge
cargo. In 1851 3,030,874 oz. of silver w’ere exported.
There is a railway between Copiapo and Caldera. The
exports of metals from Copiapo for 1853 are estimated at
no less than 10 millions of dollars ; and no copper is sent
under a yield of 25 per cent, from the ores. See an account
of the mines of Copiapo in the Royal Geographical Society’s
Journal for 1853 ; also the article Chile.
COPIATA, under the western empire, signified a grave¬
digger. In the first ages of the church there were clerks
destined for this employment. In 357, Constantine made
a law in their favour, exempting them from the lustral con¬
tribution levied upon all traders. During his reign also
they were first called copiatce., i.e. clerks destined for bodily
labour, from Kcando) to toil. Before that time they were
called decani and lecticarii ; probably because they were
divided into decades or tens, each of which had a bier or
litter for the carriage of dead bodies. Their place among
the clerks was the next in order before the chanters.
COPPER (including its alloy brass) and iron are the
first metals named in the most ancient authentic history of
the world, as having been made use of by man. Tubal-
cain was “an instructor of every artificer in brass and iron.”
The words AEs and yakKos (usually translated brass) of the
ancient Romans and Greeks were used indifferently to ap¬
ply to the pure metal copper (as when they spoke of their
money) and to its alloys with other metals, as when they
spoke of their brazen statues, or of their defensive and
offensive armour, in which case the copper was alloyed with
tin. The enormous statue of the Sun, known by the name
of the Colossus of Rhodes, was composed entirely of bronze
(see Colossus) : and many others are mentioned, which
prove that the ancients were at least as well acquainted
with the difficult art of working in brass as we are at the
present day.
In a pure state, copper is a very brilliant metal, and sus¬
ceptible of a high polish. It is of a fine red colour, differing
in this respect from every other metal except titanium. Its
specific gravity varies, according to its density, from 8’584
to 8‘9. According to Brard, the cubic foot of melted
copper weighs 545 lb.
Of native metal 600 lb.
Of copper medals 620 lb.
In a native state, it is not an uncommon mineral. It occurs
in arborescent groups, very beautifully crystallized, in
Siberia, imbedded in limestone, and in very considerable
masses. In the cabinet of Ajuda, near Lisbon, a mass of
native copper is said to be preserved, of the enormous
weight of 2617 pounds (Brard). In Cornwall it occurs in
many of the mines, and also in the island of Anglesea; and
in the island of Nalsoc, one of the Feme group, it occurs
very beautifully crystallized, along with zeolite, imbedded
in amygdaloidal trap.
Metallic copper is used for culinary vessels in many parts
of Europe ; but for this purpose the inner surface of the
vessel should be tinned. Large vessels for distilling, brew¬
ing? dyeing, and the like processes, are made of copper.
The making of these vessels constitutes the ordinary busi¬
ness of the coppersmith.
Copper rolled into sheets is employed for covering the
wooden work of the roofs of churches and large edifices in
Germany, Sweden, and other countries. It is a costly co¬
vering, and does not possess any commensurate advantage
over lead.
C 0 P P E K.
351
Copper.
A modern, and now a very extensive use of sheet-cop-
' per; is for the sheathing of ships. That part of the hull of
a ship that is in the water is covered with sheet-copper.
This covering preserves the wood from the attacks of the
teredo, and thereby gives the ship the advantage of passing
more rapidly through the water, as the copper bottom re¬
mains always smooth ; for sea-weed and shells will not
take root and attach themselves to copper, as they do to
bare planks, owing to the galvanic effect produced by the
action of sea water. As this action, however, produces a
rapid decay of copper, it was proposed by Sir Humphry
Davy to neutralize it by applying metallic protectors—an
object which he accomplished; but as this also deprived
the copper of the effect it was intended to produce, and al¬
lowed the molluscous tribes to attach themselves, the pro¬
tecting process was abandoned.
Its malleability and ductility are very considerable. A
wire of O078 of an inch diameter will support 302 pounds
avoirdupois.
Copper bolts are used for fastening the planks and tim¬
bers of ships. This is a great improvement in ship-build¬
ing. A copper-fastened ship or boat is preferable to one
with iron fastenings, because the copper bolts remain un¬
altered by rust, and endure longer than the wood which they
hold together, particularly when used in the state of alloy,
which preserves it from waste by neutralizing the galvanic
action.
For the frames of delicate dipping needles and magnetic
compasses, copper is employed; as it has been found that
the brass generally used in philosophical instruments some¬
times contains iron, which of course might affect the magne¬
tic needle.
Copper is drawn into wire, used for the communication
with the bells in houses, and for other purposes.
Small pipes for conveying coal-gas from the level of the
street to the aperture by which the gas issues, were formerly
made of copper or of brass, till superseded by tin. These
pipes were fitted on an iron cylindrical mandril, and a cy¬
lindrical ring drawn over the outside. By this means cop¬
per and brass tubes are drawn out. The brass tubes for
telescopes are drawn out in the same manner.
Copper may be plated ; that is, its surface may be covered
with a layer of silver, by rubbing the surface with a mix¬
ture of nitrate of silver, muriate of soda, and acidulous tar¬
trate of potass (cream of tartar). But the method practised
at Birmingham is the most permanent and effectual. A
plate of copper, with a plate of silver applied to it, and borax
placed in the interstice, is heated to a particular degree,
which it requires the skill of the workman to know; a de¬
gree of heat, in short, near that at which copper and silver
melt. The two metals thus heated, and in contact, are
then taken out of the furnace and passed through rollers.
There is a fusion and combination of the adjacent surfaces ;
and their adhesion is perfected by the pressure of the rol¬
lers. Copper thus plated is manufactured at Birmingham
into candlesticks, teapots, buttons, buckles, and a variety of
other articles.
Standard silver coins contain a small proportion of copper,
for the purpose of giving them hardness. This proportion
is regulated by government in the several countries of
Europe, and varies in different states. The combination
of gold and copper in various proportions is used for making
rings and other trinkets.
Copper is gilded by applying on its surface an amalgam
of gold with mercury. Bronze ornaments are gilded in the
same way.
Copper united with zinc forms brass : when alloyed with
tin it forms bronze. This combination is hard and brittle
if the proportion of tin be great; but when the proportion
of tin is small, the bronze is soft, and possesses tenacity so
as not to be easily broken. The ancients employed hard
bronze, containing much tin, in making sword blades, spear Copper
heads, hatchets, and cutting instruments. Bronze cramps II
are found in ancient buildings in Egypt. Statues and bas- CoPPer-
reliefs, culinary vessels, and a variety of other articles of ^ me tln^)
soft bronze, are to be seen in different collections of anti- "
quities. In modern times soft bronze is used for casting
canon and statues.
Copper melted with a large proportion of tin constitutes
bell-metal, which is hard and brittle. The metal of which
the Chinese gongs are made is composed of the same in¬
gredients ; and it has the property of being in some degree
malleable at a certain stage of its cooling, for their gongs
are covered with marks of the hammer.
The most common ore of copper, from which the chief
supplies of that metal are derived, is the yellow copper ore,
or copper pyrites, essentially a combination of copper with
sulphur and iron. There are, however, numerous other
ores of copper in which the metal is in combination with
oxygen, carbonic acid, various other metals, &c.
Copper in its varied artificial combinations, as in that of
verdegris (acetate of copper), blue vitriol (sulphate of cop¬
per), Scheel’s green (arsenite of copper), verditer (carbonate
of copper), &c., is largely used in the arts of dyeing, paint¬
ing, enamelling, glass and porcelain colouring, &c.
The salts of copper are poisonous; and from the facility
with which copper utensils become oxidated, their use
should be as prescribed as possible. One or two of the
salts of copper are occasionally used in medicine ; and the
sulphate of copper has been found to be one of the most
efficacious emetics in croup, checking the disease and pre¬
venting the effusion of the fibrinous matter into the trachea.
This salt is also used as a lotion in the treatment of ulcers,&c.
Quantities of Copper Ore imported into the United King¬
dom for home consumption in 1851, with the Duties
charged thereon.
Quantities. Duties.
Countries. Tons. cwts. qrs. lbs. L. s. d.
Holland,   202 8 0 0 10 2 5
France,    1,026 11 1 27 51 6 9
Spain,   1,085 11 0 12 54 5 7
Italy,     3 0 0 20 0 3 1
Algeria,   891 18 0 9 44 11 11
West Coast of Africa,   11 13 3 2 0 11 8
British Posses, in S. Africa, 144 0 0 0 7 4 0
British Territories in E. Indies, 87 3 2 24 4 7 3
South Australia,   4,157 10 2 24 207 17 10
New South Wales,    991 2 0 19 49 11 1
Victoria,   664 13 3 12 33 4 9
Van Diemen’s Land,   199 4 0 0 9 19 3
New Zealand,   209 IS 0 0 10 9 11
British N. America & Colonies, 728 11 1 23 36 8 7
Cuba,   20,871 2 0 0 1,043 11 4
Chile,   3,154 15 1 8 157 15 0
Bolivia,    245 0 0 0 12 5 0
Peru  1,054 0 3 13 52 14 3
Other Parts,     54 18 0 23 2 15 2
Deduct quantities exported 1
subsequently to the pay- I
ment of duty and over- J
entered,  ]
35,783 2 3 11 1,789 4 10
289 11 0 19 Repaid, 29 6 4
Total, 35,493 11 2 20 L.1,759 18 6
In 1853 the duty on copper ores and on wrought copper
was repealed.
Copper, as a mineral. See Mineralogy.
COPPER-SMELTING. Copper seems to have been
known from the earliest times. The great beauty which
copper ores in general possess, and the ease with which the
metal is obtained from these by fire, may have brought it
early into notice. That the metal was obtained by fusion
at a very early period, is indicated by the following sen¬
tence in the Book of Job (xxviii. 2)—
“ Copper is molten out of the stone.”
352
COPPER-SMELTING.
Copper- Copper is often found in nature in the metallic state, and
Smelting, occasionally in considerable quantity, such as the masses re-
centlyfound at Lake Superior; but the principal source is
from ores; the metal in them being in combination with
other matters, such as oxygen, sulphur, carbonic acid, &c.,
forming an extensive variety of minerals of distinct forms
and character, and of great scientific interest.
The principal sources of copper ore in this country are
Cornwall and Devonshire: great quantities, however, are
imported from Ireland, Cuba, Chile, and Australia. The
average quantity of ore raised in this country during these
last five years is about 155,000 tons, yielding about 12,000
tons of metal; and the quantity imported about 60,000
tons, yielding about 10,000 tons of metal. The ores are
mostly all taken to Swansea and neighbourhood, where the
principal smelting-works are situated.
The ores are divided by the smelter into two general
classes—those containing sulphur, and those having little or
no sulphur. The former are subdivided according to cer¬
tain qualities which they are known to possess, such as
having much silica, iron pyrites, tin, arsenic, &c.: some con¬
sideration is also given to the quantity of copper they con¬
tain. The object of these arrangements and classifications
of ores in the yard is to enable the operative smelter to se¬
lect from and make up a constant working mixture, having
the following characters :—
1. That the copper in the mixture be not under 9 nor
above 13 per cent.: if under the former, it is unprofitably
poor; if over the latter, the slags have a tendency to con¬
tain copper, creating a loss.
2. That after being calcined for an ordinary length of
time, it will fuse easily without the necessity of adding flux,
giving a clean and easily fused slag.
3. That the mat or coarse metal obtained from fusion
contain as nearly as possible 30 per cent, of copper. And
4. That the mixture do not contain ores having impuri¬
ties calculated to make the copper of a lower quality than is
desired. There is no definite or fixed rule to guide the
smelter in these classifications, except a practised eye in
distinguishing the character of ores, and the report of the
assayer.
The mixture of ores being selected according to these
rules, it is carried to hoppers on the top of a large rever¬
beratory furnace, termed the calcining furnace, and then let
down into the hearth, where, after drying a little, it is spread
equally over the bottom, and covered to a depth of from six
to eight inches. The quantity of ore put in varies, accord¬
ing to the size of the furnace, from three tons to six tons.
The fire of the furnace is kept low at first: after two or
three hours the ore on the surface becomes visibly red, the
heat is gradually increased to a yellow red; but this heat
only penetrates to the depth of about two inches, conse¬
quently the ore has to be stirred and turned over by means
of long iron paddles every hour, so as to expose a new surface
to the action of the air and fire. This calcination lasts gen¬
erally nine hours; but when ores are known to be stiff,
containing much silica and sulphuret of iron, twelve hours
are allowed. The following changes and chemical actions
take place : the sulphur is partly burned off by combining
with oxygen and forming sulphurous and sulphuric acids,
and partly volatilized as sulphur uncombined; arsenic is
volatilized either as metal or oxide; the copper and iron
lose a part of their sulphur and combine wfith oxygen, form¬
ing oxides.
W hen the ore is sufficiently calcined, it is let down into
the cubs or vaults beneath, by openings in the floor. Water
is added to the hot ore in the cubs to prevent dust and as¬
sist further oxidation; the ore is then removed to a yard, and
there stored up, ready for the fusing furnace. The follow¬
ing analysis of ore, before and after calcining, will give an
idea of the changes that have taken place.
Before Calcination. After Calcination.
Copper-
Smelting.
Copper... 
Iron    32w
Sulphur...  31-0
Silica  24-0
100-0
Copper  12-2
Iron  22-7
Oxide of Iron  IS’S
Sulphur  16-2
Silica  30-4
100-0
The next operation is the fusing of the calcined ore, which
is done in a reverberatory furnace, termed an ore-fusing fur¬
nace, fitted also with a hopper on the top for charging it.
The charge consists of
From 25 to 30 cwt. of calcined ore.
From 7 to 9 cwt. of sharp slag from more advanced operations.
From 2 to 3 cwt. cobbing.1
When the charge is let down into the furnace it is spread
equally over the bottom, the doors are all closed, every air¬
hole is stopped with clay, and the heat of the furnace increased
as rapidly as possible.
Alter about five hours’ firing, when the furnace has
reached a white heat, the door-plate is removed and a long
iron rake passed through the fused contents to make sure
that the whole is perfectly fused. This being the case, the
workman begins the operation of skimming, that is, drawing
off the scoriae or slag, which from its less specific gravity
floats on the surface of the mat: this is effected by means
of a long rake, the scoriae being drawn out at the front
door. When the surface is skimmed, the common practice
is to let down a second charge of ore, and to fuse and skim
in the same manner, before tapping the furnace to let out the
metal or mat, which is generally tapped into a large pit of
water which granulates it. These pits are from 6 to 8 feet
deep, and from 4 to 5 feet square, and into them a perforated
box is lowered which receives the charge of metal, and is
raised by a crane or pulley. The metal is then removed to
a yard for the next operation. This mat is termed granu¬
lated coarse metal.
The average composition of good coarse metal is
Copper  3I-4
Sulphur  27’3
Iron  41-3
100-0
and the slag or scoriae, as
Silica  71
Protoxide of iron    27
Lime, &c  2
100
The next operation is the calcination of the granulated
coarse metal. This is done in the same manner as the cal¬
cination of the ore. The charge of metal covers the bot¬
tom of the hearth to the depth of about 4 inches, making
about 4 tons to the charge, which is put in through the hop¬
pers fitted upon the top of the furnace, as described for the
ore.
The coarse metal being easily fused, great care is required
not to raise the heat of the furnace too high, otherwise the
metal will cake, and by adhering to the bricks will prove
prejudicial both to the calcination and the furnace. When
the charge is let into the furnace, it is slowdy brought to a
visible red, and the fire is gradually and cautiously increased
until the metal acquires a bright red heat, which should take
about fourteen hours. This temperature is continued until
the charge has been altogether twenty-four hours in the
furnace, when it is let down through the bottom into the
cubs or vaults beneath, and a quantity of water is thrown
upon it to prevent dust, &c., from accumulating above it.
Cobbing is a term given to old bricks and bottoms of furnaces that have absorbed copper, and are broken down into pieces.
COPPER-SMELTING.
353
Copper-
melting.
The following analysis gives an average result of the
changes effected in this operation :—
Metal put in|o calciner.
Copper  32
Iron ,  39
Sulphur  25
Other matters and loss 4
Metal after calcination.
Copper    33
Iron  38
Sulphur    13
Oxygen, &c  16
100 100
The next operation is fusing the calcined coarse metal.
The charge for an ordinary-sized furnace of 8 feet by 13
feet is—•
25 cwt. of calcined metal,
5 to 7 cwt. slags from the roasters,
2 to 3 cwt. of cobbing.
In this mixture the oxide of iron is in excess in relation to
the silica, and it is therefore much more easily fused than
the ore ; but the reactions which take place are similar: the
silica and oxide of iron combine to form slag, which floats
upon the surface of the mat and has to be skimmed off, after
which the mat is tapped out into sand-moulds. Two charges
are generally fused before the metal is tapped out. This
mat is termed blue metal, from its being of a slate-blue
colour; the scoria is termed sharp slag, from its containing
an excess of oxide of iron, and being consequently used as a
flux for fusing the ore.
The following is the composition of good blue metal and
sharp slag.
Blue Metal.
Copper  58'8
Sulphur  20-5
Iron  12 6
Insoluble  4'2
Oxygen and loss.... 3-9
Sharp Slag.
Oxide of iron   .. 53
Oxide of copper    2
Silica, &c   45
100
100
Should there be no ores such as carbonates or oxides on
hand to smelt, the blue metal, instead of being tapped into
sand-beds as described, is run into pits of water in the same
manner as coarse metal, and subjected to another calcina¬
tion and fusion.
When oxides and carbonates, such as the Australian ores,
are on hand, they are generally fused with the calcined
coarse metal, by which means a double advantage is ob¬
tained ; the excess of oxide of iron in the calcined metal
fluxes the silica of the ore which has little iron, and the cop¬
per in the ore is converted into subsulphuret—a condition
necessary for reduction by the present method of smelting.
The produce of this fusion is a mat termed pimpled metal,
from its having small rough granules on the surface of the
ingots. The average composition of this metal is—
Copper  78
Sulphur  18
Iron  2
Silica  2
100
The composition of this slag is very irregular: it always
contains copper, and has to be remelted.
The next operation is roasting—a process generally iden¬
tified in books on chemistry with calcining, but which is
distinct. The roasting furnace differs from the fusing fur¬
nace by having a large opening in the side for putting in the
charge, and is furnished with more air-holes in the bridge.
The charge for an ordinary-sized furnace is three tons. When
the metal is brought to fusion, the air-holes of the furnace
are all opened, and a free current is allowed to pass over the
surface of the fused mass: the heat of the fire is then re¬
gulated so as to keep the charge in a sort of semifluid state.
1 his is continued for about twenty-four hours, during which
a great portion of the sulphur is driven off with the whole of
the iron, which, with silica and other matters, forms scoria,
and is from time to time skimmed off. When all these im¬
purities are removed, and when the composition of the mat or
VOL. VII.
regulus is a subsulphuret of copper Cu2 S, then begins what Copper-
may be termed roasting proper ; and which, unless when the Smelting,
regulus has been very rich, constitutes another operation s—
termed the second roasting, requiring other 24 hours.
In this last roasting, when the air-holes are opened a brisk
effervescence ensues over the surface of the fluid mass.
The chemical reactions which take place during this effer¬
vescence may be explained thus : if we take 1 equivalent of
subsulphuret of copper, which is composed of 16 sulphur and
64 copper, and 2 equivalents of oxide of copper, which is
composed of 16 oxygen and 64 copper—incidentally equal
weights,—mix them together in a crucible, and expose
them to a heat sufficient to melt copper, the whole of the
copper will be reduced, and the sulphur evolved as sulphu¬
rous acid, Cu2S + 2Cu0 = S02 + 4 Cu.
The reactions which occur in the process of roasting are
the same. The oxygen of the air combines in the first
place with a portion of the sulphur, forming sulphurous acid.
A portion of the copper is also oxidized, and instantly re¬
acts upon another portion of the subsulphuret, reducing the
metal, as shown above. The process is a very beautiful
one, and exhibits a nice adaptation of principles to practice.
The sponge regulus has a specific gravity of 5, the reduced
copper of about 8; so that the copper sinks to the bottom
where it is protected, and a new surface of regulus becomes
exposed to the action of the air.
If the ore be pure, or if no select copper be required, the
operation of roasting is continued until the whole of the
copper is reduced ; when it is tapped out into sand-moulds,
forming coarse copper, bed copper, pimpled copper, or blis¬
tered copper, according to quality. The term coarse copper
is applied occasionally to all these kinds except the blistered.
If the ingot sets with contraction with a smooth hollow sur¬
face, it is termed bed, and generally indicates the presence
of other metals, as tin. When the surface of the ingot is
covered with pimples, it is termed pimpled copper, and in¬
dicates the presence of sulphur. When covered with large
scales or blisters of oxide of copper, it is termed blistered;
which only takes place when the copper is good and ready for
refining. When making select copper, the roasting is car¬
ried on until about one-fourth of the copper in the regulus
is reduced; the furnace is then tapped, and the reduced
metal is obtained at the bottom of the first and second in¬
gots or pigs, as copper bottoms which contain most of the
metallic impurities. The regulus is collected and again
roasted, which produces the purest metal the ordinary pro¬
cess of smelting can give : it is termed best select.
The reader will not have failed to remark that the reduc¬
tion and purifying of the copper are effected without the aid
of carbonaceous matters of any sort, contrary to what is
stated in all chemical books in reference to the reduction of
copper; indeed, the addition of carbonaceous matters would
be detrimental.
The next operation is that of refining—bringing the metal
into a state fit for the market. The refining-furnace is similar
in form to a roasting-furnace, but a little smaller, and the
bottom is made to incline a little to the front door, where a
small well is made. The copper being ladled from the fur¬
nace, this well allows of the ladles being dipped into the
metal when the quantity in the furnace is small, so that the
last portions of the metal can be taken out.
About six tons of copper from the roasting-furnace are
put into the refining furnace, the doors and air-holes of
which are closed, and the heat raised until the metal is in
fusion, when the air-holes are opened. A short roasting is
generally required, which is done in the manner we have
described, and the scoria which collects is carefully skimmed
off. The separation of impurities is facilitated by occa¬
sionally stirring the metal with a rake. Some refiners throw
pieces of green wood upon the surface, under the impression
that it assists the escape of sulphur. The roasting is con-
' 2 Y
354 COP
Copperas tinued until a ladleful of the metal taken out sets with con-
11. traction. If the metal be very coarse, it will set with a sur-
Coppice. face laying a frothy appearance; if finer, it sets with ex-
' pansion, first round the edge, then swelling towards the
centre, forming a little mound or cone, and occasionally boil¬
ing over and throwing up jets of metal, forming a miniature
volcano. These phenomena are caused, no doubt, by the
presence of gases in the copper. Several metals when in
fusion absorb oxygen; but the fact that copper, when it
sets in this way, does not refine well by the operation of
poling, which would soon take away oxygen, is presumptive
that the gas which escapes is not oxygen, and renders pro¬
bable the prevailing idea that it is caused by the presence
of sulphur or sulphurous acid.
When the setting of the metal in the ladle is favourable,
the charge is ready for the operation of poling. A quantity
of charcoal or anthracite coal is first thrown upon the metal
to prevent oxidation by the air, and then the end of a large
pole of green wood, generally of birch or oak, is inserted
into the melted copper, and kept pressed down to the bot¬
tom of the metal, which occasions violent ebullition, the
metal spurting and boiling with loud noise. The action
which takes place during this operation will be apparent to
every one slightly versed in chemistry—the reduction of any
oxide or suboxide. But the reason why such an operation
as poling is required is, that oxide of copper dissolves in
metallic copper as a salt dissolves in water and makes it
brittle. To put pieces of wood or charcoal upon the sur¬
face would not remove the oxygen ; hence the necessity of
poling, in order to bring the carbonaceous matters into con¬
tact with the dissolved oxide. As the poling proceeds the
refiner takes from time to time small samples called assays,
w hich he hammers and breaks for examination. When the
copper is in the proper pitch the assay bends without break¬
ing, and if cut and broken the fracture presents a fibrous
silky lustre. When this pitch is attained the pole is with¬
drawn, and a quantity of charcoal thrown upon the surface ;
and, if the copper is for rolling or hammering, a little lead
is added to the charges, to insure toughness.
When the copper is brought to the proper pitch by the
refining operation, it is ladled out into moulds. A ladle
holds about 30 lb. of fluid metal, three of which form a
cake, the ordinary size of which is 14 X 10 inches. Twenty
moulds are set round the floor in front of the furnace, three
ladlefuls are poured together into each mould, going over
the whole, by which time the cake first poured is set, and
the mould is ready to receive another charge. Each mould
holds five such charges or cakes. During the lading out
the refiner takes an assay at short intervals, as the metal is
liable to get out of pitch, or become dry, as underpoled
copper is termed; in which case poling has to be resumed.
So much depends upon refining, that the best copper by a
defect in this operation will be rendered unmarketable.
In making what is termed best select copper, the refining
is performed in the manner described, but no lead is added.
This quality of copper is used for the manufacture of fine
alloys, such as Muntz’s yellow metal. Copper a little over¬
poled is generally preferred for these purposes.
A great variety of improvements have been proposed and
patented for copper-smelting. One or two have been use¬
fully applied, but the greater portion of them exhibit a want
of practical knowledge of the processes in use, and conse¬
quently of the requirements of the trade, and a few of them
an entire want of principle to effect the objects sought
after. (j. N—R.)
COPPERAS, green vitriol, or sulphate of iron. It is
much employed in dyeing black and for making ink, and
medicinally as a tonic. The copperas of commerce is usually
obtained by the decomposition of iron pyrites. See Che¬
mistry.
COPPICE, or Copse (Fr. covper to cut, from Gk.
COP
koVtco), a wood or plantation which is cut down at stated Coprolite
periods for fuel or for making charcoal.
COPROLITE, (/coTrpos excrement, At#os stone), the Copyhold,
petrified faeces of carnivorous reptiles. Coprolites are of
various sizes, and very much resemble pebbles of an oblong
form. See Geology.
COPTOS, in Ancient Geography, a trading town of the
Thebais, on the right bank of the Nile, about a mile from
the river. Its modern name is Kouft or Keft. The in¬
habitants are chiefly Egyptians and Arabs.
COPY, in a law sense, a transcript of a writing or
instrument, made for the use and satisfaction of some
party concerned, or in order to preserve the document
itself.
COPYHOLD, a term of English law, describing the
nature of the tenure by which certain property is held.
In the early period of English history the greater barons,
who held extensive domains under the crown, frequently
granted smaller manors to inferior persons, to be held of
themselves. The superior lord in these cases is called the
lord paramount over all the manors ; but, in imitation of the
greater barons, the inferior lords began to grant to their
villeins (the inhabitants of the villages, so named from
villa) still smaller portions of land. This w^as a species
of tenure neither strictly feudal, Norman, nor Saxon, but
a compound of them all. Under the Saxon government
a great part of the rustic population were held in servitude
•—they, their children, and effects, belonging to the* lord of
the soil, like the cattle and rest of the stock upon it. It is
probable that the Normans, who were regulated entirely by
the feudal law, might introduce some slight relaxation of the
bondage in which they were held; but though the villeins
were raised above absolute slavery, they were still retained
in a condition inferior to every other. The small portions of
land which they held for the sustenance of themselves and
their families were granted on the condition of their per¬
forming the lowest services to their superior, who might
dispossess them whenever he pleased.
From so disadvantageous a condition as this, it is not a
little surprising that the peasantry of England should ever
have emerged; but through various causes the services of
villenage were gradually rendered less onerous and uncer¬
tain, and at length were generally commuted for a small
pecuniary quit-rent. In the time of Edward I. we find the
tenants in some manors bound only to stated services, as
recorded in the lord’s book: by and by they acquired the
right to be entered in the court-roll of the lord of the manor
upon the same terms as their predecessors; and eventually
they were allowed to get copies of the terms on which the
land was held. Proofs of this remarkable transformation from
tenants in villenage to copyholders are found in the reign
of Henry III.; and in the year-book of the 42d Edward
III. it is said to be “ admitted for clear law, that if the
customary tenant or copyholder does not perform his ser¬
vices, the lord may seize his land as forfeited;” from which
it is implied, that as long as the copyholder continued to
perform the stipulations of his tenure, the lord was not at
liberty to divest him of his estate.
Though in general they were still said to hold their estates
at the will of their lord, yet that will must be in conformity
with the customs of the manor, as preserved in the rolls of
the several barons’ courts in which they are entered, or
agreeable to the constant and immemorial usage of the
manors in which the lands lie. And as such tenants had
nothing to show for their estates but these customs, and ad¬
missions in pursuance of them entered on those rolls, or
the copies of such entries witnessed by the steward, they
came to be called tenants by copy of court-roll, and their
tenure itself a copyhold. Thus, according to Blackstone,
two conditions are essential to copyhold tenure,—1st, “ that
the lands be parcel of, and situate within, the manor in
COP
Copyhold, which they are held ; 2d, that they have been demised or
demisable by copy of court-roll immemorial!y.”
In some manors where the custom has been to permit
the heir to succeed the ancestor in his tenure, the estates
are styled “ copyholds of inheritance in others, where the
lords have been more vigilant to preserve their rights, they
remain copyholds for life only; for though the tenure is
nominally by the will of the lord, in both cases it is regu¬
lated by the custom of the manor, as testified in the roll of
the barons’ court.
The burdens upon copyholds are fealty services (as well
in rents as otherwise), reliefs, and escheats. The two lat¬
ter belong only to copyhold of inheritance; the former to
those for life also. Besides these, copyholds are also sub¬
ject to wardship, fines, and heriots ; which last is a custom
derived from the Danes, and gave the lord the right to
demand the best beast or other article of his tenant’s per¬
sonal property on his death. Of fines, some are due on the
death of each tenant, others on the alienation of land : they
are sometimes arbitrary, at the will of the lord; but the
law has provided that in no case they shall exceed two
years’ value of the property.
So great were the inconveniences and vexations affecting
copyhold property, that the legislature was at length in¬
duced to interfere, with the view of rendering the tenure
more simple and fixed.
Heriots form one of those vexatious incidents affecting
copyhold tenure which are apt to create a feeling of irrita¬
tion. The most valuable picture may be seized as a chattel
heriot, in respect of a copyhold tenement not worth L.10;
and in the case of live heriots, race-horses, and other valu¬
able animals, may be seized under like circumstances. In¬
stances of the full exercise of such rights though rare, are
not unknown.1—The more substantial evils of the copyhold
tenure consist in uncertain fines, which drive capital from
improvements, and in rights to timber, and a control over
buildings. To remove these evils the act 4th and 5th Viet.,
cap. 35, was passed in 1841, “ For the commutation of
manorial rights in respect of lands of copyhold and custom¬
ary tenure, and in respect of other lands subject to such
rights, and for facilitating the enfranchisement of such lands,
and for the improvement of such tenure.”
By this act commissioners were appointed for the pur¬
pose of arbitrating between the lords of manors and copy-
holders, who might be desirous of commuting the uncertain
rights for fixed terms of tenure.
The act provides that the lord of the manor, or any ten
copyholders on the manor, or one-half of the copyholders
should their number be less than ten, may call a meeting
to agree upon terms of commutation. These may be pay¬
ment of an annual sum as rent charge, and a small fixed
fine upon death, which in no case should exceed 5s.: and
alter confirmation of agreement of commutation, lands to
be discharged from rents, fines, and heriots, now payable,
and from the lord’s right of timber, and a fixed rent to be
charged. Lands thus enfranchised become equal to freehold.
Two other acts were passed to amend and explain this
statute; viz. 6th and 7th Viet., cap. 23, and 7th and 8th
Viet., cap. 55.
After six years’ experience the commissioners reported
that, although there had been a slow and gradual advance in
the voluntary enfranchisement of copyholds under ecclesias-
COP 355
tical lords, leading to the expectation that the whole of the Copyright,
copyholds under their control would in time disappear, it was s—
very different with the lay lords, very few of whom had effected
enfranchisements ; and suggested that some more effectual
measures be adopted, such as either empowering each indivi¬
dual tenant to call on the commissioners to commute his
uncertain payments, and to assign the lord a consideration,
or enjoining the commission to take the manors of England
seriatim, and completely commute all the uncertain inci¬
dents in each by turns. This last the commissioners say
“ would be a more rapid operation no doubt; but then it
would be rougher and less practicably and immediately use¬
ful.” By the Extension Act, 15th and 16th Viet., cap. 51, it
was provided (with certain exceptions) that, after the next
admittance to any land which shall take place after the 1st
July next, either lord or tenant may compel an enfranchise¬
ment ; and since that time the number of enfranchise¬
ments has greatly increased.
COPYRIGHT denotes the property which an author
has in his literary works, or which a bookseller, or any other
person, may acquire by purchase; a property consisting, in
either case, in the exclusive right to print, publish, and sell
a particular work.
In former times, before an author could venture to go to
press, it was necessary that he should secure a patron who
would assist him in bringing his work to light.
“ The recompense which the wits of the age of Charles
II. could obtain from the public was so small, that they were
under the necessity of eking out their incomes by levying
contributions on the great. Every rich and good-natured
lord was pestered by authors, with a mendicancy so impor¬
tunate, and a flattery so abject, as may in our time seem
incredible. The fee paid for the dedication of a book was
often much larger than the sum which any bookseller would
give for the copyright.”
“ The sale of books was so small, that a man of the greatest
name could expect only a pittance for the copyright of the
best performance. There cannot be a stronger instance
than the fate of Dryden’s last production—the Fables. That
volume was published when he was universally admitted to
be the chief of living English poets. It contains above
twelve thousand lines. The versification is admirable ; the
narratives and descriptions full of life. The collection in¬
cludes Alexander’s Feast, the noblest ode in our language.
For the copyright Dryden received L.250—'less than in our
days has sometimes been paid for two articles in a review.
Nor does the bargain seem to have been a hard one, for
the book went off slowly ; and a second edition was not re¬
quired till the author had been ten years in his grave.”—
(Macaulay’s England, vol. i., p. 405.)
The general diffusion of education in later times has pre¬
pared for the author a far more munificent patron in the
public, the intermediate agent between him and his patron
being the bookseller, who is either employed simply in the
character of an agent to dispose of the works of the author,
and receives a certain commission on the amount of the
sales of the publication, or who contracts to pay the author
a certain sum for the right to publish an edition or editions,
or for the sole right to continue to publish the book during
the statutory term.
Booksellers have some data on which they can make cal¬
culations of the probable value of the manuscript of an au-
u _ I-'ord C ran worth, in his speech on the Enfranchisement of Copyholds Bill (as reported in the Times, May 26, 1852), remarked that
‘‘instances had occurred in quite modern times when that law had been enforced so as to become a very grievous practical hardship.
He remembered that the famous race-horse Smolensko, worth some L.2000 or L.3000, had been seized upon the death of the then owner,
Sir C. Bunbury. A somewhat similar circumstance, he believed, had occurred on the death of Sir G. Heathcote. About thirty years
ago, when the late Lord Abinger was on circuit, it was falsely rumoured that he had died; and the first intimation which Mrs Scarlett
received of the melancholy event was from the agent of the lord of the manor, who went to seize three of Lord Abinger’s horses. The
1 itt diamond was at one time pledged to a pawnbroker who had a small copyhold tenement in Westmoreland liable to heriot; and upon
is death the owner of the copyhold manor either did seize, or intimated to the parties that he had a right to seize, and he (Lord Cran-
worth) believed that he had seized that diamond.”
356
COPYRIGHT.
Copyright, thor of established literary reputation; but an untried author
is likely to be much disappointed with the reception his first
adventure receives. The subject on which he has written
is one, it may be presumed, in which he takes an especial
interest, and he is apt to imagine that others cannot be
indifferent to it. It has cost him days and nights of la¬
borious investigation and mental toil; and he hears of the
rich prizes that have been drawn in the lottery of literature.
But the bookseller is more familiar with the blanks. It is a
remarkable fact, disclosed by a parliamentary discussion,
that only “ one publication in eight is found to come to a se¬
cond edition.” (See Evidence before the Copyright Commit-
Uncertain tee in f 814.) A great proportion of these do not sell to pay
value of the expense of printing. In the great majority of cases, the
copyrights, contract between an author and a bookseller is made without
previous data, and is nothing more nor less than what is com¬
monly called a blind bargain. Dr Paley, on finishing the ma¬
nuscript of his Moral and Political Philosophy, tendered
the copyright of it to a bookseller for L.300, and was offered
in return L.250, exactly in the way that a cautious purchaser
bids for unknown merchandise. During this negotiation, a
brother of the trade, apprised of the value of Paley’s work,
came boldly forward and offered L.1000 for the copyright.
The author having consented to give the party first in treaty
the previous option, the latter now saw' the matter in a new
light, and ended by paying four times the amount of his
original offer.
No notion is more general among authors than that book¬
sellers make rapid fortunes at their expense. One writer
has published that Jacob Tonson and his nephew died worth
L.200,000 (D’Israeli’s Calamities of Authors, vol. i., p. 29) ;
and not one reader in twenty will stop to question the accu¬
racy of the allegation, though it may be doubted if such a
sum was ever realized in trade by any bookseller. In the
bookselling trade, as in all lines of business, there are examples
of considerable capitals; but these are realized only in the
case of long-established concerns, and after a progress of
acquisition infinitely slower than the angry imagination of a
disappointed author will allow him to believe.
It is, on various accounts, a matter of regret that the
limited profits of the bookselling business should not be
better understood by literary men. The discovery of it
would remove the film from their eyes, and would lessen
greatly their habits of complaint. A small offer from a book¬
seller, as in the case of Paley, is indicative, not of a design to
overreach, but of an apprehension that to give more would
be to injure himself. On the other hand, w'e are by no means
disposed to launch out into a panegyric of the liberality either
of particular individuals, or of the body at large. Like other
men of calculation, they naturally mete out their advances,
not by attachment to the writer, nor from a patriotic desire
to enlighten the public, but by the extent of the expected
return. A large allowance for a finished book denotes a
confidence of a still larger return from its sale; while the
scanty, and apparently niggardly payment of an unknown
author, is a token of the fear and trembling with which a
bookseller handles a production of doubtful promise.
Example agreement between a bookseller and a new author
of a new proceeds commonly as follows :—The latter having prepared
publica- a work, of which perhaps he has high hopes, but in which he
tion. has not had either guidance or advice, sets out by making an
offer of his manuscript; and, after some time taken for consi¬
deration, he is answered that, his name not being yet known
to the public, the publishers cannot take on themselves to
make him a payment for his labour, but are willing to give
it to the world on their joint account. This leads to a com¬
pact, in terms somewhat like the following:—
It is agreed between Messrs Y and Company, booksellers,
and Mr Z, that Messrs Y and Company shall print and pub¬
lish, on their account, jointly with Mr Z, in two volumes
octavo, his historical work on , Mr Z supplying the
manuscript, and Messrs Y and Company taking on them- Copyright,
selves the paper, printing, and other publishing charges;
the statement of the account to be made up every year at
Midsummer—and when, after deducting the various pub¬
lishing expenses, there shall appear a balance of profit, the
same to be equally shared between Mr Z and Messrs Y and
Company. The books to be accounted for at the regular
trade sale price.
The publication now takes place ; and in a twelvemonth
afterwards an account is made up in the following form:—
Dr. History of —
Printing 60 sheets, at 40s...£120 0 0
Overrunning and correc¬
tions    9 0 0
Paper, 90 reams, at 20s  90 0 0
Advertising  30 0 0
Boarding 750 copies «... 37 10 0
 , by Mr Z.
750 copies printed, retail
price 21s., the price to the
trade 15s., 150 copies sold
at 15s 
Balance at Dr. carried to
next year..., 
Cr.
£112 10 0
184 0 0
£296 10 0
£296 10 0
Next year the account is considerably shorter, the charges
consisting only of advertising and interest of money ; but the
attraction of novelty having gone off, the sale is also less, and
does not probably exceed eighty copies, leaving still an ad¬
verse balance of L.100. The bookseller goes on with mer¬
cantile punctuality to render him a further account; but the
sale is now in a state of progressive decrease, and does not,
for the third year, exceed fifty copies, leaving still an un¬
favourable balance of L.80. The author now loses patience,
and entreats the bookseller to relieve him of all responsi¬
bility, by taking over the remaining copies, and considering
the account as closed. But it is not every one that escapes
so easily : it too often happens that, instead of deriving any
profit from his labours, the unfortunate author has to bear
the whole expense of paper and printing.
Even the most shrewd and experienced bookseller is un¬
able to calculate accurately what will be the result of his
publishing speculations: but, as in other undertakings into
which hazard enters, his expectations are often too san¬
guine ; and, in order to secure the eclat of publishing the
works of an author of reputation, he will venture to give
fully more for his copyrights than the prospect of returns
will justify.
An author may either dispose of the entire copyright of
his works, or retain the copyright and bargain for so many
editions, or lease the publication for a certain number of
years.
It is understood that Sir Edward Lytton Bulwer lately
leased the publication of his works for ten years to a book¬
seller for L.20,000. Perhaps no works ever yielded the
author so large a sum of money as those of Sir Walter Scott,
which amounted to between L,140,000and L.150,000. Of
this sum, L.110,000 was realized between 1826 and 1847,
while the works were published as a joint speculation be¬
tween the author and the publisher.
The number of new literary works which are published
in Great Britain annually is computed at about 2500, or
about 3000 volumes. This is exclusive of reprints, pam¬
phlets, and periodical publications. Taking the average
editions of each at 750 copies, we have a total of above two
millions of new volumes published annually in Great Britain.
In France the number of ne wly published volumes is greater,
because the impressions are larger; but of all countries Ger¬
many is in this respect the most remarkable, the new works
published there annually exceeding five thousand, or three
to one compared to those of England or France.
Printing became general in England about a century
after its discovery ; and it was in the year 1556 that a charter
was granted to the Stationers’ Company, an incorporation
consisting, not of venders of stationery in the present sense
of the word, but of booksellers and printers, who, for their
general benefit, determined to keep at their hall a register,
in which should be entered the title of every new book, the
name of the proprietors, and the successive transfers of the
copyright. By-laws were enacted by the company ; fines
COPYRIGHT. 357
Copyright, were levied on members acting in contravention of their re-
^ gulations; and, in course of time, these resolutions of the
association were confirmed by a well-known measure of go¬
vernment, we mean the licensing act of 1662, an act pro¬
hibiting the publication of any book unless first licensed by
the lord chamberlain and entered in the Stationers’ Register.
In 1684 a new charter was issued to the company, partly
for the purpose of securing the property of books, but more
with the view of interposing the royal interdict on any publi¬
cation at variance with the arbitrary government of Charles
II. In the more auspicious reign of William (1691) this
act was repealed; but whilst the liberty of the press was
restored, the door was unluckily thrown open to infractions
of literary property by clandestine editions of books. It
was in vain for the owner of a copyright to bring an action
against the trespasser ; he had no other protection than com¬
mon law; he could recover only to the extent of the “damage
proved”—that is, he could not adduce evidence of the tenth
or perhaps the twentieth part of the damage suffered, as
he could not prove the sale of one copy out of twenty.1 This
led to applications to parliament in 1 703 and 1706 ; but no
act was passed until 1709, when, after much discussion, the
sanction of the legislature was given to a bill of which the
prominent features were two,—first, an obligation to deliver
nine copies to as many public libraries ; and, next, a provi¬
sion for guarding, by severe penalties, the property of copy¬
right during fourteen years. The public libraries entitled
to the receipt of a copy each were,—^the King’s Library,
now transferred to the British Museum ; the Bodleian at
Oxford, and the University Library at Cambridge ; in Lon¬
don, Sion College, or the Library of the London Clergy ;
in Scotland, the libraries of the universities of Edinburgh,
Glasgow, St Andrews, and Aberdeen, with that of the Fa¬
culty of Advocates ; to which were added, by a subsequent
act in 1791, two Irish libraries, viz. Trinity College, Dublin,
and the Society of the King’s Inns in that city ;—thus mak¬
ing in all eleven copies to be delivered.
The delivery of so many copies of every new book was
a heavy tax, and one which booksellers were indefatigable
in their efforts to evade—giving at one time only a single
volume, and at others venturing to omit the ungracious
duty altogether. Hence a necessity for new acts of par¬
liament, more particularly those of 1775 and 1791. Still
these acts were not sufficiently positive ; and it having
been decided in 1798 (in the case of Beckford v. Hood)
that publishers were not prevented by such irregularities
from obtaining damages for pirated editions, they became
more and more remiss in their deliveries. At last, in
1811, the university of Cambridge having determined to
bring the question to an issue, brought an action for the
non-delivery of Fox’s History, and obtained a verdict.
The booksellers, finding that this act was now no longer a
dead letter, applied to parliament; but a committee of the
House of Commons, appointed in March 1813, made a
report in favour of their opponents; and in the succeed¬
ing spring an act was passed, confirming in the most ex¬
plicit terms the claims of the public libraries, who were Copyright,
not even required to pay any proportion of the price of such ^
books as they thought proper to require. In this respect the
law of England differs from that of other countries. In se¬
veral states of the continent of Europe, and in the United
States of America, only one copy of a book is required
from an author; in France and Austria not more than
two.2
For many years, we might more properly say for a Term of
couple of centuries, the property of a book seems to have f°pyright;
been considered as permanent as the property of an estate ; ltsT succes*
shares of literary works being bought and sold without any ®|^svaria
idea of their expiring. It is not till 1709 that we discover
a trace of interference with its permanency, the act of that
year defending it against intruders during fourteen years,
and no longer. The limitation, however, had no practical
effect; copyright was considered as permanent both by the
booksellers and the public; nay, even by three out of the four
judges of the Court of King’s Bench, in the celebrated trial
Millar v. Taylor, which took place in 1769, and led to a very
memorable display of judicial erudition. The plaintiff
charged the defendants with a trespass in publishing an edi¬
tion of Thomson’s Seasons, of which the plaintiff was the sole
proprietor. Lord Mansfield, with Judges Willes and Aston,
gave an opinion in favour of the permanency of the copyright,
in which they were confirmed by Judge Blackstone; but one
of their brethren, Judge Yates, took a very different course,
and adhered resolutely to the literal construction of the act.
An action for a similar trespass was some time after¬
wards brought before the Court of Session in Scotland ; the
London proprietor of a copyright claiming damages for
an infraction by a provincial bookseller (case of Hinton v.
Donaldson). Here the majority of the bench were adverse
to the opinion formerly delivered by Lord Mansfield, and
discharged the defendant without a dissentient voice, ex¬
cept that of the well-known Lord Monboddo. At last, in
the session of 1773-4, the question came decisively before
parliament, the booksellers having brought in a bill for de¬
claring copyright perpetual. This bill passed the Commons,
but was thrown out, after much debate, in the Lords.
To avoid perplexity, we shall endeavour to comprise the Objections
arguments on both sides in these various discussions in aandan-
kind of regular succession, adopting the plan of appending swers.
a rejoinder to each argument, as the best method of doing
justice to both sides.
Objection. Ideas cannot be the object of property : they
are not visible, tangible, or corporeal. (Judge Yates.)
Answer. Whatever admits of exclusive enjoyment may
be property. (Hargrave.)
O. Another person may arrive, by his own process of
thought, at similar conclusions ; would you deny to him
what you granted to his predecessor ?
A. There is very little apprehension of such a coinci¬
dence ; the plans and the results of study admit of as in¬
finite variety as the human countenance ; the same views
or the same conclusions wall never come from two persons,
1 The following curious statement of a copyright case is extracted from the Records of the Town Council of Edinburgh :
“ Edinburgh 26th August 1719.
“ The same day, the Councill, upon ane address from Allan Ramsay, representing that he was prejudged in his interest and reputa¬
tion, and that the leidges are abused by some printers, ballad cryers, and others, by printing, and causeing to be printed, poems of his
composure, without his notice or allowance, upon false and uncorrect coppies; as also, that the ballad cryers refuse to vend and pub¬
lish his papers, unless he give them at rates below what really they can be printed for, they doe therefore discharge all printers or
paper cryers wdthin this citie or suburbs, to print or vend any poems or papers of his composure, without his licence ; and ordains the
said paper cryers to publish and vend the said Allan Ramsaj’s papers, he allowing them one third of the selling price as their profite,
under the penaltie of twentie pounds Scots money, and confiscation of the papers so vended and printed, besides forfiture of the papers
cryers their privilege of publishing or vending papers ;—anent all which, this shall be a warrand, (Ext.)”
2 This burden was alleviated by the act of 1836, which reduced the number of presentation copies to five. When the number was
eleven, publishers had good reason to complain, but relief from the heavier burden reconciles them to the lighter. The amount of tax
on the last edition of the Encyclopedia Britannica, on this head alone, was L.415, 16s., calculated at the selling price, while the duty on
the paper exceeded L.6000; and large sums were paid as advertisement duty, which is now happily repealed, and the paper duty re¬
duced one-half: may the other half soon follow !
358 COPYRIGHT.
Copyright, or even from the same person at different times, in the
V*»v—same language. At all events, an arbitrator or a court of
justice can be at no loss to decide whether a second pub¬
lication on the same subject comes within the description
of plagiarism.
O. A literary composition is undoubtedly the property
of the writer so long as it remains in manuscript; but by
the act of publishing he gives it to the world ; he lets the
bird fly ; his property is gone. (Judge Yates.)
A. He gives the public the free use of the knowledge
contained in his book; but this is a very different thing
from the profit as publisher. The ten shillings paid for a
volume entitles the reader to the use of its contents, but
can certainly give him no claim to the hundred pounds
which may be expected from a new edition. (Lord Mans¬
field, Judges Willes, Blackstone, and Aston.)
O. It is not clear that common law ever sanctioned the
exclusive enjoyment of copyright. The only titles appear
to have been the royal patent and the license of the Sta¬
tioners’ Company. (Lord Camden.)
A. It seems to have been always taken for granted by
Chancery and other courts that an exclusive right existed.
There is a confirmatory example in the highest quarter;
the king is perpetual proprietor of the right of publishing
acts of parliament and all public documents. (Lord Mans¬
field, Judges Willes, Blackstone, and Aston.)
O. The patentees of mechanical inventions possess but
a limited term; none of them ever advanced a claim to
perpetuity. (Judge Yates.)
A. Such patentees are much. sooner reimbursed than
authors ; the fruit of their invention is of direct practical
application. Besides, the stranger who makes a duplicate
of a machine incurs a much greater relative expense than
the stranger who reprints an edition of a book; in the one
the materials form the chief part of the cost; in the other,
they are comparatively insignificant, and copies may be
multiplied by thousands.
O. The statute of the 8th of Queen Anne expressly
limits the duration of copyright; it enacts that the pro¬
tecting penalties shall be in force during fourteen years,
and no longer. (Judge Yates.)
A. This is, no doubt, the apparent meaning of the
statute, but the preamble of the act declares that it is
passed for the protection of literature. To make the act an
instrument for curtailing a literary privilege would certainly
be at variance with its general language. (Lord Mansfield.)
O. If such property be admitted for a time, is not the
term of fourteen years sufficient ? What good could the
public expect from the writings of men so selfish as to call
for a perpetual monopoly ?
A. Monopoly is not the proper word ; the object may
be obtained, as will be shown presently, under modifica¬
tions which insure to the public a complete supply of
books at reasonable prices.
O. “ Glory,” said Lord Camden, “ is the reward of
science, and those who deserve it scorn all meaner views.”
A. Reputation is, and always will be, the grand stimu¬
lus to literary exertion, but it requires long-continued ex¬
ertion ; and if we do not enable a writer to live by his
works, we confine the possibility of acquiring reputation
to a very small class—to the rich, or to those who derive
an income from other means. Such, in fact, has hitherto
been the case : standard works have been attempted only
by men who, like Gibbon, possessed patrimony, or who,
like Robertson and Hume, arrived at the possession of in¬
come from other sources. No one imagines that our mili¬
tary or naval officers follow their profession for the sake of
pay ; yet no one would propose to abridge it on the ground
of reputation being their primary object.
O. “ It was not for gain,” said Lord Camden, “ that
Bacon, Newton, Milton, and Locke, instructed the world.”
A. Each of these distinguished men was obliged to tres- Copyright,
pass on the time devoted to literature, and to seek an in-
come from public employments. How much better would
it have been could they have given an undivided and unin¬
terrupted attention to their favourite pursuits.
The grand error on the part of the booksellers lay in
demanding perpetuity instead of prolongation. The idea
of perpetuity has in it something very serious, and will not
be sanctioned by a legislature without the clearest proof of
public advantage.
Foiled in the House of Peers, the booksellers deter¬
mined to do what men always will endeavour to do when
unjustly controlled, namely, to evade that which they can¬
not resist. They resorted to the alternative of giving an
ostensible renewal to a work, by adding, at the end of the
term of each copyright, notes and other appendages, which
remained their property during another period of fourteen
years, and afforded them a kind of guarantee in two ways:
first, because a competitor, whatever he might do with
the original text, could not touch the addenda ; and, next,
because the great body of publishers residing in London
acted as a corporation, and combined to give circulation
to works thus edited, to the complete exclusion of rival im¬
pressions.
The law continued on this footing for forty years, the Prolonga-
term of copyright receiving no extension till 1814. On thattion in
occasion it was apparent that the universities would carry 1814.
the point of the delivery copies; and the only alternative
was, to seek an indemnity in an extension of copyright to
twenty-eight years, which was obtained.
By another act passed in 1836, the number of copies to
be furnished to the public libraries was limited to five, viz.,
the British Museum, the Bodleian Library at Oxford, the
Public Library at Cambridge, that of the Faculty of Advo¬
cates at Edinburgh, and that of Trinity College, Dublin ;
whilst the Libraries of Sion College, the four Universities of
Scotland, and the King’s Inns at Dublin, received compen¬
sation for the loss of their privileges by grants from the
treasury, calculated on the annual average value of the books
each had received during the preceding three years.
The last statute, that which now regulates literary copy¬
right, was passed in 1842. By this act the term of copy- !
right was prolonged to forty-two years; and if the author
should live longer than forty-two years after the date of (
his publication, he retains the property during his lifetime.
The property of literary works is vested in the proprietor
of the manuscript from which the work shall be first pub¬
lished, and in his assigns.
In cases of copyright subsisting at the time of the pass¬
ing of the act, the author, or, if dead, his representatives,
and the proprietor of the copyright, on coming to a mu¬
tual agreement, and inserting a minute to that effect in
the books of Stationers’ Hall, may secure the benefit of the
extended term; but in default of such minute the copy¬
right expires at the end of twenty-eight years. But such
publishers or others as have acquired the copyright from
“ love and affection” shall be entitled to the extended term
without any such agreement.
The Judicial Committee of the Privy Council are em¬
powered to license the republication of books which the
proprietor refuses to republish after the death of the
author.
A copy of every book, and of every subsequent edition
published with additions or alterations, upon the best paper
on which the same shall be printed, is to be delivered to the
British Museum within one calendar month after the same
has been published, if published within the bills of morta¬
lity, or within three calendar months if published in any
other part of the United Kingdom; and a copy of each
book, on the paper on which the largest number has been
COPYRIGHT.
359
Copyright, printed, as well as of every subsequent edition containing
additions or alterations, is to be delivered either at Station¬
ers’ Hall, or to any person authorized by the managers of
the respective institutions, within a month after demand, for
the following libraries :—The Bodleian at Oxford; the Pub¬
lic Library at Cambridge; that of the Faculty of Advo¬
cates at Edinburgh ; and that of Trinity College, Dublin.
It is enacted that a book of registry be kept at the hall of
the Stationers’ Company, in which shall be entered the pro¬
prietorship in the copyright of books, dramatic and musical
pieces, whether in manuscript or otherwise, which book
shall be open for the inspection of any person, on payment
of Is. for every entry which shall be searched for. And the
officer at Stationers’ Hall shall give a certified copy of any
entry when required, on payment of 5s., and such certified
copy shall be received in evidence in the courts of law in
all summary proceedings, as prima facie proof of proprietor¬
ship or assignment of copyright or license, as therein ex¬
pressed ; and in the case of dramatic or musical pieces, shall
be prima facie proof of the right of representation or per¬
formance.
The entry in the registry book is to record the title of the
book, the time of its publication, the name and place of abode
of the publisher or assignee, and the share held by each,
where there are more than one proprietor.
In case of piracy the proprietor may bring an action
against the offender in any court of record in that part of
the British dominions in which the offence shall be com¬
mitted ; and in the event of any such action being brought,
the defendant, on pleading thereto, shall give to the plain¬
tiff a notice, in writing, of any objection on which he means
to rely on the trial of such action.
No person except the proprietor is allowed to import into
the British dominions for sale, or have any book first pub¬
lished in the United Kingdom, and reprinted elsewhere,
under the penalty of forfeiture of the book, of the sum of
L.10, and double the value of every book so imported.
By this statute it is provided that the proprietor of any
Encyclopaedia, Review, Magazine, Periodical Work, or work
published in a series of books or parts, or who shall have
employed any person to compose the same, or any volumes,
parts, essays, articles, or portions thereof, for publication,
on the terms that the copyright thereon shall belong to such
proprietor, shall enjoy the term of copyright granted by this
act. But the proprietor shall not be at liberty to publish
separately any article or review, without the consent of the
author, and neither shall the author, unless he has reserved
to himself the right of separate publication. Where neither
party has reserved the right, they may publish by mutual
agreement, but the author, at the end of twenty-eight
years, may publish his contributions separately. Proprie¬
tors of periodical works may enter them as soon as they
commence to publish, and thus secure the benefit of the
entry to the whole of the work. The benefits of this act
are likewise extended to dramatic and musical pieces, the
sole liberty of representing or performing which is granted
to the authors or their assigns, during the term of copyright
in books, as provided in this act. The assignment of the
copyright of any book containing a dramatic piece, or musi¬
cal composition, does not convey the right of representing
or performing the same.
Books pirated may be recovered by action, and become
the property of the proprietor of the copyright; but no pro¬
prietor of copyright shall be entitled to sue for any infringe¬
ment before making entry in the book of registry; and all
actions for any offence committed against this act must be
commenced within twelve calendar months next after such
offence is committed.
The act 5th and 6th William IV., cap. 65, gives to authors
of lectures the sole right of printing and publishing the
same, provided they have given notice of their intention
in writing to two justices living within five miles of the Copyright,
place at least two days before the delivery of the lecture ;
and a penalty is imposed on such as shall print or publish
them without the author’s leave ; but the act does not ex¬
tend to lectures delivered in any university or public school,
or public foundation.
The law of copyright recognises the right of property in
the productions of mental as well as in the productions of
physical power; and it must be allowed that nothing can
more justly be said to belong to a man than the creations
of his own thinking faculties, and, in this view, he and his
heirs are entitled to whatever profit or advantage may re¬
sult from them in perpetuity.
The act of 1842 acknowledges this right of property in the
author during his lifetime, and confers on his heirs a limited
extension of it in the event of the author’s dying before
the expiry of forty-two years after the publication of his
writings. This limitation may appear an unjust interfer¬
ence with the rights of property; but in this, as in other
cases, the rights of individuals must give way to the gene¬
ral benefit of the community. And as it is obvious that
the application of the rules of law to the conveyance of lite¬
rary property through successive generations, as in the case
of heritable property, would trammel and limit the circula¬
tion of the published thoughts of the instructors of their
race, and, in many instances, might even extinguish the
brightest lights of science and literature, therefore it was
for the interest of all that exclusive property in literary pub¬
lications should not be held in perpetuity.
In France and Belgium the copyright is protected to the
author during his life, and to his heirs for twenty years after
his death.
The German confederation, by a decree of 19th June
1845, has extended the protection of literary property to
the lifetime and thirty years after the death of the author.
By an earlier decree of the confederation, 22d August 1841,
it conferred ten years’ protection against the illegal perform¬
ance of musical compositions and the representation of dra¬
matic pieces.
The laws of many German countries—for instance, the
Bavarian law (15th April 1840), the Saxon (22d February
1844), the Wirtembergian (24th August 1845), had before
the law of the confederation granted a protection of thirty
years reckoned from the death of the author.
Austria, in a treaty with Sardinia, Tuscany, and the States
of the Church, protects copyright in the Italian states of the
empire during the author’s lifetime and for thirty years after
his death, and allows forty years for posthumous publications.
In Russia copyright is secured to the author for life, and
to his heirs for twenty-five years.
The copyright law of the United States of America gives
the author the exclusive right of publication for twenty-
eight years, with the privilege of a renewal for fourteen years
to himself and his representatives : these are defined to be
his wife and children. A publisher who purchases a copy¬
right cannot obtain a renewal. The privilege of renewal
can only be obtained by the author or his representatives
(whom it is intended to benefit), if they reside in the United
States at the time the renewal is applied for.
No foreigner can establish a copyright in the United
States unless resident there, but if resident he may acquire
a copyright, whether citizen or not. By the American law
an author may acquire copyright by merely entering the
title of the book without actually publishing it; it being
sufficient if a copy be deposited within three months after
publication.
If it be acknowledged that the creations of his brain are
the lawful property of the author, which his countrymen are
to be punished for invading, is robbery by a foreigner a less
heinous offence ? And yet, while it has been considered
disgraceful and criminal for the citizens of the same state to
360 COPYRIGHT.
Copyright, plunder each other, it has been held justifiable for the citi-
zens of one state to commit literary piracy on the citizens
of another. In Germany, popular writers have been de¬
frauded of the fruit of their labours by the piracies of pub¬
lishers in neighbouring states. The Belgians and others
have pirated the works of the most distinguished French
writers ; and the Americans have subjected British authors
to the same treatment; they have sometimes even inflictecl
more serious injuries on the foreign author by garbling his
works, or by perpetuating imperfect editions.
We have heard a popular writer of the present day say,
that, when in the shop of an American bookseller who re¬
printed one of his books, on looking at the American re¬
print, of which large numbers had been sold and were con¬
tinuing to sell, he found it was copied from the first edition
of his work, while later editions had been greatly improved.
He asked the American bookseller why he did not rather
print from the correct edition, and was answered that the
book was stereotyped, and it would involve the loss of the
plates to reprint from the last edition ; that the present sold
very well, and he did not know if a reprint from the last
edition would sell any better. The author, desirous that
his views should be fairly presented, proposed to an¬
other bookseller that he should publish the same work,
copied from the last and correct English edition. But, as
there is honour among thieves, the bookseller refused, al¬
leging that it was considered a point of honour not to inter¬
fere with another bookseller who had the priority in reprint¬
ing a British publication ; and in consequence of this rule, it is
presumed, the Americans continue to enjoy the benefit of the
imperfect work, and the author the discredit of its defects.
With the view of remedying this evil, the British Legis¬
lature passed an act in 1838 for securing to authors, in cer¬
tain cases, the benefit of international copyright. In con¬
formity with this statute, conventions have been entered
into with France, Prussia, Saxony, Hanover, Brunswick,
and some others, by which it is agreed that the authors in
the two contracting states shall, “ with regard to any such
work or articles first published in either of the two states,
enjoy in the other the same privilege of copyright as would
by law be enjoyed by the author, inventor, designer, or en¬
graver of a similar work if first published in such other
state, together with the same legal remedies and protection
against piracy and unauthorized republication.” Certain
regulations ai-e provided for the purpose of giving effect to
this general principle, and moderate duties on importation
are agreed to, viz.:—
Works originally produced in the United Kingdom,
and republished in , the cvvt. . . L.2 10 0
Works not originally produced in the United King¬
dom . !   0 15 0
Prints or drawings, plain or coloured, each . . 0 0 0|-
Bound or sewed, the dozen . . . . . 0 0 IJ
It is to be regretted that the offer of Great Britain to
enter into treaties for the establishment of international
copyright has been accepted by so few ; especially that the
United States of America should have refused to reciprocate
in the protection of literary property. If the unfortunate
authors are to be considered fair subjects of plunder by the
booksellers of either country, it cannot be denied that the
United States will intercept greater numbers, and secure a
richer booty; still the adage that “ honesty is the best
policy” will hold good even in this instance. American
literature has been dwarfed by the treatment it has received
from those who should be its most munificent patrons—the
booksellers—who, instead of encouraging the literary manu¬
facture of native genius and industry, by affording it a fair
remuneration, have preferred to lay wait for the rich car¬
goes of foreigners which they may appropriate.
Were both countries to agree to protect literary property,
and to permit importation on the payment of moderate
duties, such as those stated above, not only would authors Copyright,
receive the just reward of their labours, but the booksellers
would be enabled to carry on a larger and less hazardous
trade, and the public would be more extensively benefited.
Many valuable books are published in Britain which have
a limited sale ; and these no American bookseller would re¬
print, since if he were to import copies, he must pay a high
duty, which, when added to the original price, effectually
checks the sale. Could the publisher calculate on both the
British and American market, open and unfettered, he could
remunerate the author more highly, the edition might be
larger, and the cost of paper and print smaller; and the
public would receive the benefit of this free intercommu¬
nion. The advantage would not be confined to either
country. As the British authors and booksellers suffer by
the present piratical system, so do the authors and book¬
sellers of America. As the larger trade is carried on by the
British publishers, they will suffer more in degree, but the
punishment of the American publishers will be in propor¬
tion. In two states carrying on a war of piracy against
each other, individuals now and then might capture rich
prizes; but the unhallowed warfare would not promote the
prosperity of either country, and the sooner both discon¬
tinued it the better for all.
In February 1854 articles of an international copyright
treaty were drawn up with great ability by John James
Crampton, minister plenipotentiary on the part of Great
Britain, and Edward Everett, secretary of state on the part
of the United States, and reported to the Senate in exe¬
cutive session.
The treaty, however, is likely to be strongly opposed;
and even if it were to force its way through the senate,
there are but slender hopes of its passing the House of
Representatives.
The temptation to continue to appropriate the best works
of British authors without compensation or control is too
great for our transatlantic brethren to withstand. There is
no doubt that if the American booksellers appropriate with¬
out compensation literary copyrights which have cost the
British bookseller from perhaps a hundred to a thousand
pounds a volume, they will be able to sell them at a greatly
reduced rate and in much larger numbers. This will so
far benefit the transatlantic readers by furnishing them
with the best copyright books at a small price, and give
employment to papermakers, printers, and bookbinders.
(See Bookselling). In these circumstances it can hardly
be expected that a body of representatives depending on
the universal suffrages of the people will venture to act in
opposition to what their constituents will doubtless consider
valuable rights. They may probably acknowledge that the
property they are purchasing at a cheap rate is not honestly
come by ; but the questionable practice has existed so long
as to have grown into a prescriptive right, and it has been
acted on by so many as to give a kind of sanction to piracy.
The United States of America have enjoyed not only a
great advantage over Britain by the balance of literary
trade being so greatly in their favour, they being able to
reprint ten British authors for one that the mother country
could reprint in return; but, besides this,while appropriating
to themselves the numerous copyrights of Britain, they
have contrived to prevent the English booksellers from
reprinting the smaller number of copyright books pub¬
lished by Americans.
The plan that has been adopted by American and other
foreign authors, is to publish in the foreign country and in
Britain on the same day, and by this means to acquire a
copyright in both countries. Both this question, whether
a foreign author can acquire a British copyright by simul¬
taneous publication, and the wider question whether a fo¬
reign author resident abroad can acquire a British copy¬
right at all, except under the international copyright act,
COPYRIGHT.
Copyright, have given occasion to several important lawsuits and keen
^ discussions, followed by conflicting decisions of the courts.
It has been contended that the copyright statutes were
passed for the benefit of authors who by birth or residence
were subjects of this country, and not to encourage the
importation of foreign books by securing a monopoly in
their favour. On the other hand it has been argued that
an alien, though resident abroad, may enjoy personal pro¬
perty, and enforce personal rights in this country, and that
therefore he may hold copyright here. But if copyright
were personal property like other goods which the foreigner
possessed, then he would be entitled to retain it without
any limitation of times, not for 42 years, but for ever.
Copyright differs from personal property in this, that the
one is an inherent and permanent right, whereas the other
is a terminable privilege conferred by the statutes of the
country on its subjects.
It has also been said that on the principles of free trade
foreign copyright ought to be recognised. The result of
free trade is to break down monopolies, and to lower the
price of commodities; but the recognition of the foreign copy¬
right would have a diametrically opposite effect,—it would
enable the foreigner to extend the evils of monopoly, and
greatly enhance the price of his publications in this country.
If this state of the law be continued, it will be vain to
expect further adoption of the international copyright act by
foreign countries, for in this view they already possess the
advantages it would confer. They retain the copyright
in their own country, and are likewise able to secure it in
this, and at the same time to appropriate the copyright of
British authors without compensation ; the “ reciprocity” is
all on one side.
In 1835, Lord Abinger, in the cause D’Almainev. Boosey,
held that a foreigner might have copyright under the statute.
The same opinion was held by Vice-Chancellor Shadwell,
in Bentley v. Foster, but he sent the point to be decided
by another court. In Chappell v. Purday, the Court of Ex¬
chequer, in 1845, delivered a solemn judgment, in which they
expressed an opinion, that neither a foreign author residing
abroad, who composed a work abroad, nor his assignee in
this country, had any copyright in Britain. But, on the
other hand, the Court of Common Pleas in 1848 affirmed,
in the case of Cocks v. Purday, the exactly opposite doc¬
trine, which was shortly afterwards supported by the Court
of Queen’s Bench, in Boosey v. Davidson, professedly in
consequence of the decision in the case of Cocks v. Purday.
Then followed Boosey v. Purday, in which the Court of
Exchequer unanimously and distinctly decided, that a foreign
author residing abroad was not an author within the mean¬
ing of the statutes, which were intended for the encourage¬
ment of British talent and industry ; and that a foreigner by
sending to, and first publishing his work in, Great Britain,
acquired no copyright. In a subsequent case of Boosey v,
Jeffreys, tried in the Court of Exchequer in 1850, that
Court affirmed its judgment in Boosey v. Purday. But
in May 1851, the Court of Error, consisting of the judges
of the Queen’s Bench and Common Pleas, overruled that
judgment: the case, however, was carried to the House of
Lords by appeal.
Here are three recent solemn decisions of English courts
of law on one side, and five on the other—a state of judicial
administration neither creditable to the British courts, nor
conducive to the protection of the property of the British
people. It is of the greatest importance that the uncer¬
tainty introduced into the publication trade by these deci¬
sions should be removed ; and if the preponderance of judi¬
cial authority should affirm that, by the strict legal interpre¬
tation of the statutes, foreign authors and publishers are
entitled to privileges which are denied to British authors
and publishers, then the legislature should deal with the
case, and bring the law into conformity with the copyright
VOL. VII.
361
laws of other states, not for the purpose of giving protection Copyright,
to British literature in the sense of an odious monopoly, but
by placing British and foreign authors and publishers on a
footing of equality, and enabling the British public to enjoy
the foreign literature on the same cheap terms as the fo¬
reigner obtains the English.
The object of the international copyright act is to induce
other governments to concede to the authors in the domi¬
nions of the contracting parties equal rights in their respec¬
tive countries. If the law shall be confirmed to be in con¬
formity with the decisions of the Courts of Common Pleas
and Queen’s Bench, then foreign nations will have no in¬
ducement to accede to these treaties, as they already enjoy
all the advantages they propose to confer. But if the prin¬
ciple of' these treaties is reasonable and mutually advan¬
tageous, then the same principle ought to induce parliament
to bring our laws as nearly as possible into conformity with
the system of reciprocity which the international copyright
treaties seek to establish.
This article was prepared forthe printer before the decision
given (August 1,1854) on the appeal to the House of Lords,
which settles this vexed question, and establishes the copy¬
right, as regards foreigners, on a satisfactory basis.
But the following extracts from the speeches of the three
law lords who were present on the occasion will exhibit the
grounds on which they arrived at the conclusion, that a
foreign author can neither hold copyright himselfj nor as¬
sign it to another, unless resident in this country.
The Lord Chancellor, in moving the judgment of the
house in the appeal case Jeffreys (plaintiff in error) v.
Boosey (defendant in error), said he adhered to the view
which he had originally taken of the matter. “ The right in
dispute was not the right to publish, or to refrain from pub¬
lishing a work which had not yet been given to the world,
but was the right to have the exclusive power of publish¬
ing such given work. Now, copyright in this way defined
was, if not the creature of the statute law, at least a right
regulated by that law. The legislature, primd facie, must
be taken to legislate for its own subjects only, and the object
declared by the preamble of the act must be taken to be a
merely natural object. A foreigner, of course, who was not a
resident abroad but was a resident in this country, and there¬
fore subject to its laws, was for the time in the condition of a
native born subject, and, if he came to this country and pub¬
lished his work here, he would be within the protection of the
statute. But if at the time of such publication he was residing
out of the kingdom, the statute did not protect him. There
was a distinction to be taken between the patents for in¬
ventions and the copyrights in books. By the common
law the Crown had a right to give to a subject a monopoly in
a particular manufacture ; and all that the statute of James
did was to confine the exercise of that patent within definite
limits. With regard to his own opinion on the matter, it
was founded on the general doctrine that a British senate
would legislate for British subjects, properly so called, or
for such persons who might obtain that character for a
time by being resident in this country, and therefore under
allegiance to the Crown, and under the protection of the
laws of England.”
Lord Brougham said, coming to the case itself, “ it was to
be taken that the right of an author prior to publication
was unquestioned ; that he had the exclusive right in his
own manuscript; that he might communicate it or with¬
hold it, or that he might exercise his discretion as to whom
he would communicate it. Then came the question as to
the right of publication. The statute of Anne had been
passed for the purpose of encouraging learned men, and
with that view that act had given them the exclusive right
in their publications for twenty-one years. This, however,
was clear, they had no copyright by common law, for if
2 z
362
COP
Copyright, they had there would then have been no necessity for the
passing of that statute. It could scarcely be said that the
legislature had decided a century and a half since that an act
was to be passed to create a monopoly in literary works solely
for the benefit of foreigners. In the present case, he was
clearly of opinion that the copyright claimed did not exist,
and therefore that foreign law should not prevail over Bri¬
tish law where there was such diversity between the two.
In his opinion the ruling of his learned friend on the wool¬
sack was perfectly correct.”
Lord St Leonards concurred in all that had fallen from
his noble and learned friends, and gives his view of what con¬
stitutes residence—a point which might have led to serious
disputes. “ He could not at the present moment take upon
himself to say what would be a sufficient residence to en¬
title a foreigner having come to this country to claim a
copyright. But he would say that whatever would consti¬
tute a residence so as to subject him to allegiance while he
was in this country, and would confer upon him the rights
of a foreigner resident in England, would give him a copy¬
right during the period of his residence here. The Ameri¬
cans on this point experienced no difficulty, for it was ex¬
pressly defined in their enactments that the law of their
country permitted the importation of foreign works. They
must not in this country put on their own acts of parlia¬
ment a strained construction to give to foreigners those
rights which foreigners denied to them. He was perfectly
clear that if it were necessary, as he held that it was, that
Bellini must have resided in England in order to possess
the copyright, he had no legal power to assign that copy¬
right as regarded this country, and, the assignment not
being valid, the right of action was not maintainable, and
therefore the judgment of the Court of Exchequer Cham¬
ber ought to be reversed.”
The judgment of the Court of Exchequer Chamber was
thereupon ordered to be reversed. (a. b.)
Copyright in the Arts and Designs.—The statutes af¬
fecting copyright in the arts of designing and engraving
prints are 8th Geo. II., cap. 13, and the 7th Geo. III., cap. 56.
Copyright in Designs for Manufactures. Mr Emer¬
son Tennant’s act, 5th and 6th Victoria, cap. 100, gives
to the proprietors of designs for manufactured goods not
previously published, the sole right of applying them to
articles of the following descriptions for three years :—
Articles of manufacture composed wholly or chiefly of
Metals, of Wood, of Glass, or of Earthenware—Paper-hang¬
ings, and Carpets.
Shawls, when the design is not applied by printing.
Woven fabrics of linen, cotton, wool, silk, or hair, or of
a mixture of these coming within the description of what
is technically called furnitures ; if the design be applied by
printing, or by any other process, the repeat of the design
being more than twelve inches by eight.
It also gives to the proprietors the sole right of applying
the design to the following articles for nine months :—
1^, Shawls, where the design is applied solely by print¬
ing, or by any other process by which colours may be pro¬
duced upon textile fabrics.
2d, Yarn thread, or warp, where the design is applied by
printing, or by any other process by which colours may be
produced.
3c/, Woven fabrics composed of linen, cotton, wool, silk,
or hair, or of a mixture of these, if the design be applied
by printing, or by any other process by which colours are
produced upon textile fabrics.
The sole right of applying them is granted for twelve
months to the proprietors of designs. For woven fabrics,
lace, and any other article of manufacture not comprised
in any of the preceding classes, whether such design be
applicable for the pattern, the shape, or ornament, or be
produced by printing, painting, weaving, modelling, or
COR
any other means whatsoever, manual, mechanical, or che¬
mical.
Piracy is punished by a penalty of not less than L.5, or
more than L.30, payable to the proprietor of the design, to
be recovered by an action for debt or damages, or by sum¬
mary proceedings before two justices; but the benefits of
copyright can only be acquired by having the designs re¬
gistered before publication.
COQUES, Gonzalez, a painter of portraits and conver¬
sazioni, was born at Antwerp in 1618, and became a dis¬
ciple of David Ryckaert the elder. His admiration of the
style of Vandyck induced him to fix on that great artist as
his model; and he was so successful, that, after Vandyck,
he was esteemed equal to any other painter of his time. In
the school of Ryckaert he had been accustomed to paint
conversazioni, and he frequently composed fancy pieces after
the manner of Teniers, Ostade, and Vandyck ; a habit by
which he introduced a very agreeable style of portrait
painting. In this way he produced several fine pictures for
Charles I., the Archduke Leopold, and the Prince of Orange;
and from the latter he received a rich gold chain, with a
medal on which the prince’s bust was impressed. Coques
died in 1684. He had an excellent pencil: his portraits
were well designed, with easy, natural attitudes; his figures
were disposed in his compositions so as to avoid confusion ;
he gave an extraordinary clearness of colour to his heads
and hands ; and his touch was free, firm, and broad—a kind
of excellence seldom seen in works of small size.
COQUIMBO, or La Serena, a seaport-town of Chile,
capital of a department of the same name, situated on the
Coquimbo, in S. Lat. 29. 53. 43.; W. Long. 71. 18. 40. It
is a regularly laid out and clean-looking town, interspersed
with numerous gardens; but the houses, which are built
of sun-dried brick, seldom exceed the height of one
story. The harbour, one of the best in Chile, is much fre¬
quented ; being well sheltered and capacious, and of depth
sufficient to admit large vessels. Pop. about 10,000. (See
Chile.)
COR Caroli, in Astronomy, an extra-constellated star
in the northern hemisphere, between the Coma Berenices
and Ursa Major. It was so called by Halley in compli¬
ment to Charles II.
Cor Hydrce, a fixed star of the first magnitude in the
constellation Hydra.
Cor Leonis, a fixed star of the first magnitude in the
constellation Leo.
CORA, in Ancient Geography, a very old and interesting
city of Latium, on the Via Appia, about 39 miles from
Rome. Its name, and various traditions connected with it,
appear to assign to the city a Pelasgic origin. As it stood
on the confines of the Volscian territory it suffered much
in the wars between the Volsci and the Romans. It ulti¬
mately fell under the dominion of the latter power, and
gradually declined from the important place it once occupied
among the thirty cities of the Latin league at the beginning
of the fifth century b.c. Cora possesses extensive remains
of antiquity. The most interesting of these are the Cyclo¬
pean walls, which seem to have encircled the city in three
several tiers, and the bridge on the road to Norba, which
spans a deep ravine with a single arch, and is justly reck¬
oned one of the most remarkable structures of this kind in
Italy.
CORACHIE. See Kurrachee.
CORA CESIUM (Alaya), in Ancient Geography,a natu¬
ral fortress of great strength in Cilicia Trachaea, on the con¬
fines of Pamphylia, overhanging the sea. Its position has
often been compared with that of Gibraltar, and in an¬
cient times the town had a reputation for impregnability
analogous to that enjoyed by the modern stronghold.
It successfully resisted all the attempts of Alexander the
Great to take it, and maintained itself to the last against all
Coques
COR
Coracle
I!
Coram.
the efforts of the Seleucidae. In later times it became the
headquarters of the notorious pirates of Cilicia, who were
here utterly routed by Cn. Pompey. (See Cilicia.)
CORACLE, a small kind of boat, constructed of wicker,
and covered with leather, or with cloth made waterproof
with oil or tar. From its extreme lightness it may be trans¬
ported on the shoulders from place to place. Coracles are
common in Wales. A similar kind of boat has been used
in the East from remote antiquity.
CORAH, or Korah, in Hindustan, a district in the
British province of Futtehpore, situated in the plains be¬
tween the Ganges and Jumna, and between the 26th and
27th degrees of north latitude. It is in general a level
country, with the exception of the high banks of the Ganges,
on which the villages are usually situated, surrounded by
mango trees. It produces every kind of grain except rice ;
also excellent crops of sugar-cane, tobacco, and cotton. It
has good roads and navigable rivers on its eastern and west¬
ern boundaries, by which an extensive commerce is carried
on. Upon the dismemberment of the empire of Delhi this
part of India became the field of contention between the
king of Oude, the Mahrattas, and the English ; and in 1765
the district was ceded to the emperor Shah Alum by the
British, as a royal domain for the support of his majesty. A
few years later, upon that prince throwing himself into the
power of the Mahrattas, the territory was regarded as having
escheated, and was thereupon transferred to the king of
Oude, from whom, under the treaty of 1801, it passed with
other districts to the East India Company. The tractcontains
an area of 230 square miles, with a population of 82,316.
Corah, the capital of the above district, is situated nearly
half-way between the Ganges and the Jumna. The town
is surrounded by a mud wall with mud towers, and the
houses are mostly constructed of the same material, and
have flat roofs. It has a considerable trade in grain and
cotton. Distant from Futtehpore W.N.W. 30 miles. Lat.
26. 7., Long. 80. 35. (e. t.)
CORAL (Fr. corail; Gr. KopdXXtov), is a marine pro¬
duction bearing a resemblance to the branch of a tree,
which always grows to the under surface of rocks, and pro¬
jects perpendicularly downwards. It consists of the united
stony cells or habitations of certain minute animals (poly-
pariae), whose fleshy parts surround a branching hard and
stony centre, which is the coral of commerce. Coral is
found abundantly in many parts of the Mediterranean, the
Red and Chinese seas, and in the Persian Gulf. The coral
branches require about twelve years to attain the length of
ten or twelve inches, and the thickness requisite to fit them
for cutting into beads for necklaces or other ornaments.
On this account, in prosecuting the coral fishing, the fisher¬
men endeavour not to disturb the same ground for that
period of time. The mode of obtaining the coral is by
drawing among the rocks where the coral grows a heavy
cross of wood, which is weighted with stones, and has its
projecting extremities furnished with loosely twisted hemp
or coarse nettings. The w ood in rubbing along the under
surface of the rocks breaks off the coral branches, w hich get
entangled in the netting, and are drawn to the surface.
Coral is of various colours, from black or bright red to a
dull white, and according to its colour, size, and hardness,
greatly varies in price.
CORAM, Captain Thomas (1668-1751), an eminent
philanthropist, who projected the Foundling Hospital, Guild-
lord Street, London, and set on foot a scheme for the edu¬
cation of Indian females in America. He spent all his pro¬
perty in promoting charitable undertakings, and was at
length reduced to subsist on a subscription raised on his
behalf, and headed by the Prince of Wales. He was buried
in a vault under the chapel of the Foundling Hospital. A
fine portrait of him, by Hogarth, has been engraved among
the other works of that artist.
COR
363
CORAN, AL. See Alcoran. Coran, Al
CORBAN, a Hebrew word translated “gift” in the [I*
New Testament. It has reference to a formula occurring Corcyra.
in the Talmud, which was used to release a man from the ‘s——^
performance of a distasteful duty under the fiction of a re¬
ligious vow. Thus a son might relieve himself from his
duty to his parents by affirming that his property, so far as
it might benefit them, was Corban, that is, already dedi¬
cated to God, and therefore beyond his control.
Corban, or Koorban (in Arabic, a, sacrifice), is also a
ceremony which the Mohammedans perform at the foot of
Mount Arafat in Arabia, near Mecca. It consists in kill¬
ing a number of sheep and distributing them among the
poor.
CORBEIL, a town of France, department of Seine-et-
Oise, capital of an arrondissement of the same name, situ¬
ated at the junction of the Essonne with the Seine, 18
miles S.S.E. of Paris. It has very extensive flour mills,
and a large corn magazine belonging to government, for
the supply of Paris. It has also considerable manufac¬
tures of linen, cotton, paper, leather, &c. Pop. (1851)
4645.
CORBEILS (Fr. corbeilles), in Fortification, little bas¬
kets of earth about a foot and a half in height, and eight
inches wide at bottom by twelve at top; set one against
another upon a parapet to shelter men from the fire of be¬
siegers.
CORBEL, in Architecture, a knob, boss, or console,
projecting from the vertical face of a wall, to support some
superincumbent object. Corbels are frequently sculptured
into the form of grotesque heads, &c.
Corbel-Sous is used to distinguish a corbel essential in
the construction of a building from one that is merely used
as an ornament.
CORBET, Richard (1582-1635), an English poet and
divine, born at Ewell, Surrey, and educated at Oxford,
where he was esteemed one of the most celebrated wits of
the university. Having officiated for some time as chap¬
lain to James L, in 1629 he was appointed bishop of Ox¬
ford, and in 1632 translated to the see of Norwich. His
poems, which w'ere written long previous to his elevation to
the episcopal bench, and not intended for publication, were
published after his death, under the title of Poetica Stro¬
mata. He left behind him a character for hospitality, and
was a generous encourager of public designs.
CORCULUM (dim. of cor, the heart), in Botany, the
part of a seed, or rudiment of the future plant, attached to
and involved in the cotyledons.
CORCYRA, now Corfu, an island in the Ionian Sea,
off the coast of Epirus, from which it is separated by a strait
varying in breadth from two to fifteen miles. At its north¬
ern extremity, where its breadth is greatest, Corcyra is
about twenty miles broad ; half-way between the cities of
Cassiope and Corcyra it contracts to about a third of that
width; at Corcyra it again expands to about twelve miles;
from Corcyra southwards the average breadth of the island
is only three miles ; length from north to south nearly forty
miles ; total area 227 square miles. The northern part of
the island is intersected from east to west by a chain of
mountains, the highest peak of which, San Salvatore, nearly
4000 feet in height, is covered with forests to the top. A
spur from this northern range intersects the southern por¬
tion of the island, and is indented throughout its whole ex¬
tent with numerous valleys, renowned for their fertility both
in ancient and modern times.
The ancient Corcyreans delighted to identify their isl¬
and with the Homeric Scheria, the kingdom of Alcinous
and his Phaeacian subjects. It is with a description of this
happy isle that nearly a third of the Odyssey is occupied.
But the first authentic event in the history of Corcyra is
its colonization by the Corinthians. So favourable was the
364 COR
Corcyra position of Corcyra for trade that in a short time it rivalled
II the mother country, set it at defiance, and destroyed the
^Corday fjeet jt
sent to vindicate its sovereignty. This is the
rma s-firgtnavaj battle on record. (See Corinth.) TheCorcyreans
^" were shortly after, however, compelled to acknowledge the
supremacy of Corinth by the tyrant Periander, the son of
Cypselus. After his death they regained their independ¬
ence ; but at the time of the Persian invasion their pusilla¬
nimity drew down upon them the contempt of all Greece.
At a subsequent period their dissensions with the parent
state brought on the Peloponnesian war. They remained
faithful to the Athenian alliance during that war, and re¬
pelled several attempts of the Lacedaemonians to bring them
under the dominion of Sparta. After the death of Alex¬
ander, Corcyra experienced various vicissitudes of fortune,
but ultimately fell into the hands of Pyrrhus king of Epire.
After his death it was seized by the Illyrian pirates, wdio re¬
tained it till b.c. 229, when it surrendered to the Romans.
Under them it became an important naval station in their
wars with Greece, and continued to be so till the downfall of
the Eastern Empire. From the Romans it passed to the Nor¬
mans, and from them to the Venetians. In 1797 it shared
the fate of the Venetian republic. (For the subsequent
history of Corfu see Ionian Islands.)
Corcyra, the chief city of the island, was situated on a
peninsula on the east coast, nearly half-way between its
northern and southern extremities. It had two excellent
harbours, which served for the headquarters of the Cor-
cyrean fleet. The only other town of importance in the
island was Cassiope, on the ,N.E. side. Some remains of it,
which still exist, are known under the name of Cassopo.
CORD. See Chord.
Cord-Wood, wood cut and piled for sale by the cord,
in distinction from long wood : properly, w'ood cut to the
length of four feet; but in this respect the practice is not
uniform. In Scotland, cord-wood is such as is conveyed to
market on board a vessel, in opposition to wood that is
floated.
CORDAGE. See Rope-Making.
CORDATE, or Cordated, heart-shaped ; a term used
by naturalists, as of leaves, &c.
CORDAY D’ARMANS, Marie-Anne-Charlotte,
born in 1768, at St Saturnin, near Seez in Normandy, was
descended of a noble family ; and numbered among her an¬
cestors the celebrated Corneille. After the events of the
31st May 1793, the heads of the republican party of the con¬
vention, Gaudet, Gensonne, Petion, and others, having been
proscribed by Robespierre, sought refuge in the departments
of the Eure and the Calvados, where they hoped to stir up
in their favour the numerous population of Normandy. At
this time the works of certain popidar writers, and particu¬
larly those of the Abbe Raynal, her favourite author, had
obliterated from the mind of Charlotte Corday those lessons
of gentleness and resignation which she had imbibed in the
peaceful convent where she had been educated ; whilst the
cause of the refugees, which she now accounted alike hon¬
ourable and patriotic, the energy and charm of their conver¬
sation, and the interest which a generous nature always
feels in behalf of men of merit unjustly persecuted, excited
beyond measure her ardent imagination. Accordingly, ob¬
serving that those around her manifested but little desire to
inflict vengeance upon the oppressors of her country, she
resolved singly to strike a blow which should spread terror
and dismay among the ranks of the triumphant taction. She
therefore repaired to Paris, where she at first occupied her¬
self in endeavouring to ascertain the temper of the public
mind; and she then managed to get introduced to the gal¬
lery of the convention by the Abbe Fauchet, to whom she
applied for the purpose, and who soon afterwards expiated
on the scaffold this simple act of complaisance towards an
unknown female stranger. At that time the convention
COR
resounded with the most violent declamations against the Corday
proscribed patriots, and the only question was who should D’Armans-
propose to adopt the most furious measures against them.
Such vehement invectives against men whose cause she had
embraced, redoubled the indignation of Charlotte Corday,
and she hesitated no longer about executing the project she
had formed. Marat, who of all the conventional deputies
had contributed the most publicly to the revolution of the
31st May, had not for several days made his appearance
in the assembly. But this extraordinary woman, whose
purpose nothing could shake, having discovered his lodging,
wrote to him in these terms:—“ Citizen, I have just ar¬
rived from Caen. Your love for your native place doubt¬
less makes you desirous to learn the events which have oc¬
curred in that part of the republic. I shall call at your
residence in about an hour;—have the goodness to receive
me ;—I will put you in a condition to render a great service
to France.” This letter, and a second of a similar descrip¬
tion, having remained unanswered, she wrote a third, on the
15th July 1793, in which she spoke of great secrets which
she had to reveal, and of personal misfortunes to which she
hoped the generous soul of Marat would not be insensible.
She followed the bearer of this last billet, and arrived almost
as soon as he at the door of the deputy. Two women, who
were in the antechamber, refused at first to allow her to
enter; but Marat, having gathered from their conversation
that it was the person who had repeatedly written to him,
ordered her to be admitted. He was then in a bathing-
tub, being afflicted with a disgusting malady, which had re¬
duced him almost to a state of putrefaction. The conver¬
sation commenced as to what was passing in the Calvados,
when Marat inquired of his unknown visitor the names of
the deputies and administrators who were then at Caen and
at Evreux, wrote them down from her dictation, and ended
by saying, that in a few days he would cause them all to be
guillotined at Paris. This was enough. Without waiting
to hear more, she drew a knife which she had concealed
under her gown, and buried it to the hilt in the breast of
Marat, who, having exclaimed “A moi, ma chere amie!”
almost instantly expired. The two women, alarmed by the
noise, rushed into the apartment just as the wretch was
breathing his last, whilst Corday, still holding the bloody
knife in her hand, endeavoured to make her escape. Not
daring to lay hold of her, the women overturned some ar¬
ticles of furniture in her way, and shouted out murder. The
guard arrived, and the heroic assassin being seized, was im¬
mediately handed over to the revolutionary tribunal. But
her firmness did not for an instant forsake her. Fouquier-
Tinville attempting to pronounce an eulogy on the mur¬
dered terrorist, she interrupted him sharply, declaring that
Marat was a monster, who well merited his fate. The of¬
fence and all its circumstances being not only confessed,
but defended by the accused as a meritorious and patriotic
act, her doom could not for a moment be doubtful. Still
this bloody tribunal, which had so often condemned without
evidence or against it, affected to exhaust all the ordinary
judicial formalities before pronouncing sentence, and ap¬
pointed Chauveau-Lagarde to defend the accused. The de¬
fence consisted merely of a repetition of the confession which
the prisoner herself had previously made, with a striking al¬
lusion to the imperturbable tranquillity and sublime abnega¬
tion of every personal or selfish consideration exhibited by
her almost in the presence of death itself, and a hint, which,
however, was wholly thrown away, that she might have
acted under the influence of some strong mental hallucina¬
tion. The prisoner gracefully thanked her counsel lor the
few w'ords he had uttered in her defence, declaring at the
same time that the only plea worthy of her was an avowal
of the act in which she gloried ; and she heard sentence of
death pronounced with the same unequalled serenity, and
without the least perceptible change either in the colour or
COR
Cordelier the expression of her countenance. The same extraordi-
II nary force of character or strength of enthusiasm sustained
Cordova, jn |ier ]ast moments, and rendered her at once an object
of interest, astonishment, and terror. On her way to the
guillotine she was assailed, without being in the slightest
degree affected, by the hootings of the rabble ; and, in pre¬
sence of the apparatus of death, she stood unmoved, whilst
her fine and noble figure seemed to assume a more dignified
and imposing attitude. When the executioner proceeded
to remove part of her dress, the sentiment of offended mo¬
desty was strongly expressed by her features ; but as to the
life of which she was about to be deprived, it seemed not to
cost her a thought, nor to give her an instant’s concern.
She was decapitated on the 17th July 1793, at the age of
twenty-five. (Couet de Gironville, Charlotte Corday de-
capitee d Paris le 17 Juillet 1793, ou Memoires pour ser-
■vir d VHistoire de la Vie de cette Femme celebre, Paris,
1796, 8vo.) (j.b—e.)
CORDELIER, a Franciscan friar ; one of the religious
order founded by St Francis, a Gray friar. The Cordeliers
wear a thick gray cloth, a little cowl, a chaperon, and a
cloak, with a girdle of rope or cord tied with three knots ;
and hence the name. They are otherwise called Minor
Friars, which was their original denomination. The name
of Cordelier is said to have been first given them in the
war of St Louis against the infidels, in which the Minor
Friars repulsed the barbarians ; and when the king inquired
their name, it was answered, they were people cordeliez, or
tied with ropes. The Cordeliers are professed Scotists.
Cordeliers was also the name assumed by one of the
political clubs which abounded in Paris during the French
revolution of 1789. The leading members of this club were
Danton, Marat, and Camille-Desmoulins.
CORDEMOI, Gerald de, a Cartesian philosopher and
historian, born at Paris about the beginning of the seven¬
teenth century. He gained the friendship of Bossuet, who
appointed him reader to the dauphin. He was admitted a
member of the French Academy in 1675, and died in 1684.
Cordemoi wrrote several historical and metaphysical works,
which were afterwards selected and published in 1704.
CORDILLERAS. See Andes.
CORDON (French), in Fortification, a row of stones
jutting out between the wall of the fortress which lies aslope
and the parapet which is perpendicular ; serving as an orna¬
ment, and used only in fortifications of stone-work. Cor¬
don also denotes a line of troops drawn around a town or a
district, in order to prevent ingress or egress.
CORDOVA, or Cordoba, one of the eight provinces
into which the ancient kingdom of Andahifia is divided :
bounded N. by the province of Ciudad Real, N.W. by Ba-
dajoz in Estremadura, S.W. by Seville, and E. by Jaen.
Area 4150 square miles. Pop. 306,760. It is watered by
the Guadalquiver and its tributaries ; and is intersected in
the N. from E. to W. by the Sierra Morena, and in the S.
by the Montes de Granada. The mountainous region of
the Sierra affords abundant pasturage for sheep and goats ;
and its forests give shelter to numerous animals of the chase.
The southern part is distinguished for its fertility; but the
cultivation of the cereal crops is neglected for the easier
production of wine and oil. In the summer months the
soil is parched by the heats ; and the system of letting the
land for short terms, and receiving the rent in produce, is
unfavourable to the investment of capital in irrigation and
other agricultural improvements. Both divisions of the
province possess rich metalliferous veins. Its manufactur¬
ing industry has declined since the expulsion of the Moors,
and is confined to the production of coarse linen and wool¬
len stuffs, soap, pottery, leather, and silversmith’s goods.
For the statistics of the province see Andalucia.
Cordova (Lat. Cordubd), the capital of the above pro¬
vince, situated on the southern declivity of the Sierra Mo-
COR 365
rena, on the right bank of the Guadalquiver, 75 miles N.E. of Cordova.
Seville. Itswalls, the foundations of which are of Roman archi-
tecture, and the superstructure principally Moorish, inclose a
very large area; but much of the space is occupied with gar¬
den-ground, which has been cleared from the ruins of an¬
cient buildings. The streets are narrow and crooked, and
with the exception of a single great square the houses are
exceedingly dilapidated. The southern suburb communicates
with the town by means of a bridge of 16 arches, exhibiting
the usual combination of Roman and Moorish masonry.
The principal public buildings are the various ecclesiastical
edifices, many of which have been secularized ; the Alcazar,
now converted into stables for the royal stud; the ly-
ceum, the city hall, and the colleges. By far the most im¬
portant is the cathedral originally built by Abderrahman I.,
as a Mohammedan mosque, and probably erected on the
site of a Roman temple. The exterior is castellated, with
square buttress towers, and wears a very peculiar aspect.
The interior is a labyrinth of columns, principally brought
from the spoils of Nismes, Narbonne, Seville, Tarragona, and
Carthage. They are of red porphyry, verd-antique, and other
marbles, and have been adjusted to their present position
either by being sunk into the soil, or, when too short, by
receiving the addition of a variable Corinthian capital. These
columns (12 feet high) support a double tier of open Moor¬
ish arches, the upper tier of which springs from the apex of
the arches of the lower. They support the cypress frame
of the original roof. Out of the 1200 columns of the ori¬
ginal building, the writer of the present article counted in
1814 no more than 657, exclusive of some fragments of
shafts sticking in the pavement around the building as
posts. The area is about 395 feet from E. to W., and 356
feet from N. to S ; and it is pillared off longitudinally into
19, and transversely into 29 aisles. The roof is about 35 feet
high, and was flat previously to the introduction of the
modern cupolas. A small space parted off for the use of
the Imans now serves for a chapter-house, sacristy, and
treasury.
It is greatly diminished in size, by having a part which
served the Mohammedans for their ablutions converted into a
garden, planted with orange trees and cypresses, and adorned
with three beautiful fountains. This garden and the portico,
supported by pillars, is 510 feet in length. The originality
of the style of the building is destroyed by the addition of a
modern lofty tower, and by the erection within the mosque of
a magnificent Crucero or high altar and choir, of good Roman
style, the work of the architect Hernan Ruiz, and by the ad¬
dition of numerous chapels along the sides of the vast quad¬
rangle. Of its original splendour some conception may be
formed from the fact that its gates are said to have been
covered with bronze curiously embossed ; and 4700 lamps
to have been lighted in the mosque every night, the oil used
in them being mixed with the wood of aloes, with ambergris,
and other expensive perfumes.
Under the Romans, Corduba was a flourishing city of His-
pania Bsetica, having been founded by Marcus Marcellus
during the war with the Celtiberi, b.c. 152. The original
inhabitants of the city were Roman colonists, and picked
men from the well-affected Spanish tribes. It was the resi¬
dence of the praetor and the seat of the provincial assize.
From the great number of provincial nobility who dwelt
there, Corduba received the title of Patricia; and to this
day the Cordovese pique themselves on the antiquity of
their descent and the purity of their blood. In the wars
between Caesar and the sons of Pompey, Corduba espoused
the cause of the latter. After the battle of Munda, it fell
into the hands of Caesar, who avenged the obstinacy of its
resistance by putting 20,000 of the inhabitants to the sword.
In literary history, Corduba was famous as the birth-place
of Lucan and the two Senecas. Under the Goths Corduba
maintained its importance ; and in the person of Osius its
366 COR
Cordus bishop it furnished a president for the council of Nice.
II Under the Moors it was at first an appanage of the kalifate
v °rea' y of Damascus, but it soon became the capital of the Moorish
dominion in Spain, and maintained its literary reputation
as the birth-place of Avicenna and Averroes. At the death
of Abderrahman, this city is said to have contained within its
walls 200,000 houses, 600 mosques, 900 baths, and nume¬
rous public libraries ; whilst on the bank of the Guadal-
quiver, under the power of that monarch, there were eight
cities, 300 towns, and 12,000 populous villages. In the be¬
ginning of the thirteenth century, the Moorish empire be¬
came dismembered, and fell an easy prey to St Ferdinand
of Castile in 1235. Since that period it has gradually de¬
clined ; and in modern times it has never recovered the
visitation of Dupont in 1808, who stormed the town and
made a great massacre of the inhabitants.
Cordova was formerly celebrated for its silversmiths who
came originally from Damascus, and for the manufacture of
a peculiar kind of leather. Its industry in these depart¬
ments, however, has disappeared with the race who intro¬
duced it. There still are a few artists who chase silver in
the ancient filagree style ; but the manufacture of Cordo¬
van has been almost entirely superseded by the introduction
of Morocco leather. Pop. about 55,000.
CORDUS, Valerius (1515-1554), a learned botanist,
was the son of Euricius Cordus, professor of botany at Er¬
furt. He wrote Remarks on Dioscorides, a Descriptive
Account of the Flora of Italy, and other botanical works.
CORDWAINERS, or Cordiners, the term by which
shoemakers are designated in the statutes. The word is
formed from the French cordonnier, which Menage derives
from cordouan, a kind of leather brought from Cordova, and
used for the upper leathers of shoes. Others derive it from
corde, rope, because shoes were anciently made of cords;
as, indeed, they still are in some parts of Spain, under the
name of alparqates. But the former etvmoloffv is evidently
more proper.
COREA, a large peninsula of Asia, formed on one side
by the Yellow Sea, and on the other by the Sea of Japan.
It is situated immediately to the east of China; and its
length may be estimated at 400 miles, by 150 in average
breadth. A great part of what was formerly supposed to be
its western coast was found by Captains Hall and Maxwell
to consist of an immense archipelago of small islands, which
have since been subdivided into several groups, and are
known as Amherst’s Islands, the Corean, and Hall’s Archi¬
pelago. The largest of these is the island of Quelpaert,
called by the natives Musa, in the centre of which there is a
mountain peak about 6000 feet above the level of the sea.
Though rocky and bare, these groups are for the most part
inhabited. The peninsula itself is divided from the Japanese
island of Kiusin by the straits of Corea, and by a high moun¬
tain range called the Shanalin or Champeshan, from the
country of the Mantchoos. It embraces an area of about
95,000 miles, with a population of about eight millions. The
interior of the country is rugged and mountainous, being
intersected by a lofty branch of the northern range ; which
in turn sends off numerous offshoots to the sea. The prin¬
cipal valleys lie towards the western and southern coasts,
and these districts alone enjoy a temperate climate. The
eastern coast is bleak and precipitous, while the northern
frontier is cold and desolate, and thus subserves the pur¬
poses of despotism by cutting off'all friendly communication
with the mainland. The principal products of the country
comprise wheat, millet, rice, ginseng, tobacco, silk, cotton,
and hemp. 1 lie three last are exported both in the raw and
manufactured state. I imber and cattle are plentifully sup¬
plied from the forests and pasture-grounds, as well as furs
from the northern jungles. Its mineral wealth is said to
include gold, silver, iron, rock-salt, and coal; and from the
tribute sent to the emperor of China—consisting both of
COR
bullion and manufactured articles—-the precious metals seem Corelli
to be wrought to a considerable extent. The Coreans re- II
semble the Japanese and Chinese in dress, habits, and reli- Corfinium
gion, but are said to be as inferior to either of these in mental
vigour as they are superior in strength and stature. Their
mode of writing is alphabetic, and they are said to possess an
extensive literature ; but as all ingress into the country is de¬
nied to Europeans, and all egress to natives, little is known
of these particulars. They keep up considerable commer¬
cial intercourse with China and Japan, whence they import
pepper, aromatic woods, alum, and goods of Dutch manu¬
facture ; but most of the trade is managed by a circuitous
overland route, and, being discouraged by the government,
is carried on with secrecy and at considerable risk. The
kingdom of Corea, although tributary to China, is governed
at will by its own king—the Chinese emperor doing little
more than formally ratifying his decrees. It is divided into
eight provinces; and contains, according to Chinese ac¬
counts, 161 towns. The capital, King-ti-tao, stands on the
river Kiang, a small stream which flows into the Yellow Sea.
It is the residence of the king, and contains, amongst other
things, an extensive library. In modern times a few French
missionaries have penetrated into the country, but with little
success.
CORELLI, Arcangelo, a distinguished violinist and
composer, was born at Fusignano, near Imola, in the terri¬
tory of Bologna, in February 1653, and died at Rome on
the 18th of January 1713. After finishing his musical
studies in Italy he visited Germany, where he obtained em¬
ployment at the court of Bavaria. In 1681 he returned to
Italy and settled at Rome, residing in the palace of Cardi¬
nal Ottoboni, his steady friend and patron. Fie published
twelve violin concertos, forty-eight violin trios in four
books, and twelve violin sonatas. These sonatas, pub¬
lished at Rome in 1 700, were his fifth work ; and they have
to the present day retained their high reputation in every
violin school of Europe. All well-trained violinists have
studied Corelli’s twelve sonatas, in order to attain firmness
of tone and breadth and dignity of style. In the first six
of these sonatas, the movements with double stops and ar¬
peggios, and others which give scope to all possible varieties
of bowing in rapid passages, form admirable exercises for
the student. In Corelli’s time, and in his music, the shift¬
ing of the hand upon the finger-board of the violin was of
very limited extent. We find a surprising change in the
miisic of Corelli’s pupil, Pietro Locatelli (that Paganini of
the eighteenth century), who freely used the whole range
of the finger-board. (See Locatelli.) Dr Burney, in
the third volume of his History of Music, pp. 550-559, gives
an account of Corelli’s career and compositions, (g. f. g.)
CORENZIO, Belisario, by birth a Greek, was the
pupil of Tintoretto at Venice. Having adopted his mas¬
ter’s style in painting, he obtained thereby great reputation
at Naples, where he settled about 1590; but his name is
execrated on account of the assassinations to which he was
believed to have been a party. Fie was associated wdth the
Spaniard Ribera and the Neapolitan Carraccioli in most of
the great works of art in Naples about that period; and
by them the murder of Domenichino by poison was per¬
petrated. Annibale Caracci, Guido, and several other
eminent painters were driven from Naples by their threats
and machinations; while a promising young artist, Luigi
Rodrigo, was destroyed by poison administered by the hand
of his envious master Corenzio. This detestable man was
an able colourist in oil, and has left several grand works in
fresco in the churches and palaces of Naples. His picture
of Christ feeding the multitude was finished in forty days.
Corenzio was killed in 1643, when an old man, by a fall
from a scaffold while repairing one of his own pictures.
CORFINIUM, a once large and important city of Sam-
nium, capital of the Peligni, situated on the right bank of
COR
Corfu the Aternus, a few miles from Sul mo the birth-place of
II Ovid. It is chiefly celebrated in history as the place se-
Corinth. jecte(j by the a]ijes jn the sociai warj b.c/90, to be the rival
of Rome and the capital of the confederation. At this time
its name was changed into Italica. Though the place was
strongly fortified both by nature and art, it fell into the
hands of the Romans without resistance. In the civil war
it was stormed by Caesar after a week’s siege. After this
event Corfinium continued to flourish as a municipal town
for many ages. It was destroyed about the beginning of
the tenth century. Traces of its site, and some ruins of its
public buildings have recently been discovered.
CORFU. See Corcyra, and Ionian Islands.
CORIANDER, the popular name of a genus of plants
of one species, Coriandrum sativum, belonging to the na¬
tural order Umbelliferae. The fruit or seeds of this species
when ripe and dry have a strong aromatic odour and taste;
but when fresh gathered the smell of the fruit resembles
that of bugs ; whence its original name, from Ko'pis a bug.
Coriander is occasionally employed in medicine as a sto¬
machic and carminative ; also to flavour sweetmeats and
certain liqueurs ; and it forms one of the ingredients of
curry-powder. I he source of its aroma is a volatile oil.
The plant is an annual, and is cultivated in the south of
Europe. It also grows in some parts of Britain. See
Botany, vol. v., p. 195.
CORIGLIANO, a town of Naples, province of Calabria
Citra, 6 miles W. of Rossano. Pop. 13,000.
CORINGA, a seaport of Hindustan, in the Northern
Circars, and district of Rajamundry, situated on the western
side ot the bay of Bengal. It is the best port on the coast
of Coromandel, and affords the only smooth water on that
coast in the south-west monsoon,—Point Godavery project¬
ing out to the southward and breaking the swell from the
sea. A wet dock has been constructed which is capable of
admitting a frigate. Coringa carries on a considerable trade
with Bengal and Pegu; the principal exports being teak
wood and salt to the former, and piece goods to the latter.
In 1787 a dreadful storm and inundation of the sea swept
away the greater part of the town, and almost the whole
inhabitants. A similar disaster occurred in 1832, when
several vessels were carried into the fields by the inunda¬
tion and left aground ; and one new ship on the stocks was
swept into the river and lost. The French had an establish¬
ment here before any other Europeans, and they still retain
the neighbouring town and territory of Yanaon. The Eng¬
lish took possession of the place in 1759, and established
their factory five miles to the south of Coringa. Long. 82.
29. E.; Lat. 16.49. N. (e.t.)
CORINNA, a Greek poetess, born at Tanagrain Bceotia.
She is said to have been a contemporary of Pindar, and to
have carried away the prize from him five times in the public
games at Thebes. Plutarch says that she was the instruc¬
tress of her antagonist; and Pausanias ascribes her victory
to her beauty and the copious use of the familiar iEolic dialect,
rather than to her talents. By the Greeks she wras esteemed
as the first of the nine lyrical muses, and her statues were
to be found in almost every part of Greece. She received
the popular surname of Myia or the Fly. The fragments
of her poetry have been collected by Ursinus, Wolf, and
Schneider.
CORINTH (now corrupted into Gortho), originally
Ephyre, one of the most celebrated and important cities of
ancient Greece, was the capital of the small district of
Corinthia, which, along with Megaris, formed the isthmus
that connected the Peloponnesus with Greece Proper. A
considerable portion of Corinthia was covered with the
ridges and spurs of the Geranian and Oneian mountains,
and was thus rendered useless for purposes of agriculture.
The only arable land in the province was the region lying
between the city of Corinth and the little river Nemea,
COE 367
which separated Corinthia from Achaia; but the fertility of Corinth,
this district, and its proximity to a great city and to the sea, >
made it a place of proverbial wealth. The Geranian moun¬
tains, which occupy the northern part of the province, belong
rather to Megaris than Corinthia ; but the Oneian moun¬
tains in the south are interesting, inasmuch as one of their
spurs, an isolated hill overhanging Corinth—and from this
circumstance called Acrocorinthus—formed the citadel of
the town. From this hill also issued the well-known spring
Pirene, so often mentioned in the ancient classics as the
spot where Bellerophon caught the winged horse Pegasus.
On its western side Corinth was connected with its harbour
Lechseum by two long walls (about a mile and a half in
length), like those which connected Athens with the Piraeus.
On the side of the east it was protected by its fortified har¬
bour Cenchreae, about 8 miles distant. The position of
Corinth was such as completely to command all the great
roads leading from Greece Proper through the defiles of
the Geranian and Oneian mountains into the Pelopon¬
nesus, and to fit it peculiarly for becoming a great mari¬
time power. On the one side through the Saronic gulf
it attracted all the commerce of the Algean Sea and the
East, and on the other through the Sinus Corinthiacus
it commanded the trade of the Ionian and Sicilian Seas.
rIhe Greeks have never at any period of their history been
remarkable as seamen: at a very early period they discovered
the advantages of the overland route across the Corinthian
isthmus, which saved them a dangerous voyage round the
Peloponnesus. The favourable position of Corinth for
commercial enterprise was a frequent subject of remark
among the ancient writers both of Greece and Rome.
From traces of orientalism in the early worship of the
Corinthians, as well as from some Phoenician words in use
among them, it is argued that Corinth was founded by
a Phoenician colony. Before the age of authentic history
it appears to have been inhabited by a mixed population of
Alolians and lonians, though the former are always repre¬
sented as the dominant race. The founder of this dynasty,
according to the traditions, was Sisyphus, the father of
Glaucus, and grandfather of Bellerophon ; and by him were
laid the foundations of that great commercial prosperity
which Corinth afterwards attained. Upon this legend of
Sisyphus the Corinthian iEolids grafted another, in order to
trace their descent from Medea. .Eetes the father of the
renowned sorceress was said to have reigned originally over
Corinth, and to have exchanged that kingdom for Colchis.
On the death of Corinthus (his last male representative), the
Corinthians are said to have sent for Medea to be their
queen. After a short reign she returned home, and resigned
the throne in favour of Sisyphus, of whom according to the
myth she had been enamoured.
The first historical king of Corinth was Aletes, the leader
of the Dorian adventurers who subdued the yEolic inhabi¬
tants of the city, and incorporated them in their own number
with all the privileges of citizenship. The dynasty of Aletes
lasted for twelve generations, interrupted only by the changes
introduced by Baechis, who converted the regal into an
oligarchical government. The oligarchy was in turn over¬
thrown by the Commons with the aid of Cypselus, who
established a tyrannis which endured for thirty years. The
reign of Aletes began b.c. 1074, and his descendants (in¬
cluding the Bacchiad oligarchy) held the chief power till
the year 657 b.c. It was under Bacchis and his successors
that Corinth first emerged into importance as a maritime
power. Its fleets were soon powerful enough to rival those
of the iEginetans, whose supremacy was undisputed in the
iEgean sea. For the protection of its commerce Corinth
now (b. c. 754) fitted out a fleet of war-galleys and began
to colonize. Its first and greatest colonies were Corcyra
(which afterwards became its rival) and Syracuse; but
speedily all the western seas of Greece acknowledged the
368 C 0 R I
Corinth, supremacy of the Corinthian flag, and the flourishing colo-
nies of Leucas, Anactorium, Ambracia, &c., betokened the
naval power of the mother-country. See Corcyra.
The accession of Cypselus to the supreme power (b.c.
657), gave a great impulse to the prosperity of Corinth ;
which was still further promoted under the able administra¬
tion of his son Periander, who reigned forty-four years
(b.c. 627-583). Soon after the death of Periander, Corinth
allied itself with Sparta, restored the oligarchical form of
government, and threw its weight into the scale of the
Peloponnesian confederation. It had at first befriended the
Athenians and assisted them with a fleet against TEgina ;
but becoming jealous of the growing naval power of that
state, had declared war against it and been defeated in a
great battle in Megaris. A peace was now concluded be¬
tween the rival powers. This lasted till the revolt of the
Corcyreans, whom the Athenians aided in their rebellion
against the parent state, and thus brought about the Pelo¬
ponnesian war. The events of that war are so well known
that they need not be recapitulated here. The power of
Athens was annihilated at the sea-fight of Aigospotami; and
when the city surrendered after this disaster, the Corin¬
thians recommended that it should be razed to the ground.
But the jealousy with which the Corinthians had watched the
rise and prosperity of Athens nowanimated them against their
own allies and kinsmen the Lacedaemonians. Gained over by
Persian diplomacy and Persian gold, the Corinthians leagued
themselves with the Argives, Boeotians, and Athenians, against
Sparta; and at the beginning of the fourth century b.c.
began what was called the Corinthian war. Twice the allies
were defeated in bloody battles, once near Corinth, b.c.
394, and again at Coroneia in the same year. After this
the war was conducted with various success, till it was
brought to a close by the peace of Antalcidas b.c. 387. In
the wars which again disturbed the peace of Greece when
the star of Thebes rose under Epaminondas, Corinth took
part at first with her ancient allies the Spartans ; but ex¬
hausted by her late struggles, she soon concluded a separate
peace with Thebes, and remained neutral till the end of the
war. From this date till the battle of Chaeronaea, Corinth
took little part in the affairs of Greece ; and her history is
only saved from being uninteresting by the romantic ex¬
ploits of her last hero, Timoleon, in Sicily. Her govern¬
ment was oligarchical as in her best days; and no attempt
was made to change or remodel it except by Timophanes,
the brother of Timoleon. This attempt, as is well known,
proved a failure, and Timophanes fell by the hand of his
patriot brother. After Chaeronaea, Corinth shared the
fate of the other states of Greece, and passed into the hands
of the Macedonian conquerors. Its citadel was by them
regarded as the key of the Peloponnesus, and they always
took care to maintain a strong garrison in it. In 243 B.c.
Corinth was stormed by Aratus, the general of the Achaean
league, and incorporated by him with the other states which
formed that confederation. It w'as shortly afterwards made
over once more to the Macedonians ; in whose hands it con¬
tinued till the defeat of the last Macedonian king by the
Romans at the battle of Cynoscephalae in 197 b.c. By
the Romans it was re-annexed to the Achaean league and
declared a free city ; but its citadel was occupied by a
Roman garrison. The same year which witnessed the de¬
struction of Carthage witnessed also that of Corinth. The
Achaeans rebelled against their Roman conquerors. Their
troops were routed with great slaughter; and Mummius the
Roman general entered Corinth in triumph. The city was
sacked ; its magnificent temples and buildings were levelled
with the ground ; its paintings, marbles, bronzes, and price¬
less works of art, were carried off to Rome ; and the male in¬
habitants slaughtered to a man, while the women and chil¬
dren were sold into captivity. No attempt was made to raise
the city from its ruins till the days of Julius Caesar, who esta-
N T IX.
Wished there a colony of his veterans two years before his Corinth,
death. The city soon rose from its ashes, and began again v/-*-
to prosper. In the days of the apostle Paul, who visited it
about the middle of the first century of the Christian era, it
was a considerable place. Two of the most important letters
of that apostle were addressed by him to the members of the
church which he had founded there. The subsequent his¬
tory of Corinth is an unbroken record of disasters. In the
later days of Rome it shared the fate of the mistress of the
world, and was sacked by the Visigoths under Alaric,
about the beginning of the fifth century. On the downfall
of the Roman empire in the east, it passed into the hands
of the Venetians, who retained it till the overthrow of the
western empire. In 1458 it was taken by the Turks, who
held it till the year 1687, when it once more fell under the
Venetian yoke. In 1715 it was again occupied by the
Turks, who retained it till the re-establishment of Greece
as an independent kingdom.
The modern Gortho, which occupies the site of the ancient
Corinth, is a wretched place, on the shores of the gulf of
Lepanto, with a population of about 2000. It carries on a
small export trade in dried fruit, corn, and honey. The
only traces of its ancient greatness are the ruins of a Doric
temple, believed to be one of the oldest extant specimens
of that order of architecture.
At an early period of her history, Corinth became dis¬
tinguished as a seat of the fine arts. The art of paint¬
ing is said to have originated here, and to have found its
most munificent patrons among the wealthy merchants who
resided in the city. At the time of its destruction by
Mummius, Corinth is said to have been adorned with
some of the most splendid masterpieces of ancient art.
Polybius, who witnessed the sacking of the town, records
that he saw some Roman soldiers playing at dice on a pic¬
ture of Bacchus by theTheban Aristides (the contemporary
and rival of Apelles), for which Attalus, king of Pergamus,
offered L.5000 of our money. So inadequate were the
ideas of art prevalent among the Romans at this time, that
Mummius threatened the shipmasters who conveyed the
art-treasures of Corinth to Rome, that if they lost or in¬
jured any of them they should be obliged to replace them
at their own cost. It is not known that any of the great
architects of antiquity were natives of Corinth ; yet in
Corinth originated the most ornate and beautiful of all the
orders of Grecian architecture. The wealth of the inha¬
bitants enabled them to adorn their city w ith a greater
number of splendid buildings than any other town in
Greece could boast. Statuary too was extensively en¬
couraged, and the bronzes of Corinth were the most fa¬
mous of antiquity. Some have thought that the celebrated
Corinthian brass was an amalgam of the various precious
metals which were fused together at the conflagration of
the city. But this opinion has now been proved to be in¬
correct, as records are still extant of artists who worked in
that metal long before the period in question. The Corin¬
thian brass is said by Pliny to have been of three kinds—
the white, into whose composition silver entered largely;
the yelloiv, in which gold predominated ; and a third tint
produced by an amalgam of both these metals. Others
have denied that the <xs Corinthiacum was any other than
a highly refined species of bronze. In the humbler walks
of art the Corinthians were equally eminent. The vases
of terra cotta made at Corinth were the finest produced in
Greece ; and in the days of the Roman empire the old
Greek cemeteries were ransacked in quest of them. When
discovered they were sent to Rome, where they brought
fabulous prices. Literature w'as also cultivated by the
Corinthians, but not with such pre-eminent success as art.
Their w’ealth nurtured habits of luxurious indolence, and
they were better able to appreciate foreign poets and philo¬
sophers than to train them in their own state. Some of the
369
COR
!orinth older cyclic poets were natives of Corinth, which, however,
|| could claim none of the great writers who moulded Greek
C(?nn‘ thought in later times. The wealth of Corinth, as has been
hiaP3, , observed, was proverbial among the ancients. Like the
Capuans of Italy the Corinthians were noted for the luxu¬
rious magnificence of their houses and entertainments, and
the profligacy of their manners. The goddess most scrupu¬
lously worshipped in this city was Venus, for the service of
whose temple a thousand sacred female slaves (hierodouloi)
were kept. This fact has often been adduced as conclusive
evidence of the oriental origin of the founders of the city,
as it is well known that in many cities of Asia Minor a
large staff of servants was maintained for the worship of the
tutelary deity. The gross immorality of the Corinthians
is proved by the flagrant publicity with which the Phallus-
worship was carried on among them. Corinth was prover¬
bial among the Greeks themselves for the number and ex¬
travagance of its courtezans.
The population of Corinth when at the acme of its power
and prosperity has been conjecturally estimated at about
100,000 souls. (j. c—l.)
Corinth, the Isthmus of, in the Morea, is a neck of land
which joins the Morea to Greece, and reaches from the
gulf of Lepanto or Corinth to that of JEgina. Attempts
were made to cut a canal through this isthmus by Periander,
Alexander, Demetrius, Julius Caesar, Caligula, Nero, and
Herodes Atticus; but from some cause or other these all
proved abortive. A wall was afterwards built across it, and
was called Hexamilium, because it was six miles in length.
This was demolished by Amurath II. and afterwards re¬
built by the Venetians, but was levelled a second time
by Mahommed II.
CORINTHIAN, pertaining to Corinth, as Corinthian
brass, Corinthian order, &c.
Corinthian Order. See Architecture.
CORINTHIANS, Epistles to the, two canonical
epistles of the New Testament, addressed by St Paul to
the church which he had planted with his own hand at Co¬
rinth, during an eighteen months’ residence there in the years
a.d. 50 and 51. From an incidental allusion in the former
of these, it seems that this was not the first epistle that St
Paul had addressed to the Corinthian converts, and two
letters still exist in an Armenian version, which, by Whiston
and others, have been regarded as furnishing authentically
the apostle’s previous correspondence. These letters are
now, however, universally regarded as spurious. In the
note appended to the common version, the first epistle is
said to have been Written from Philippi, but from internal
evidence we know it to have been written from Ephesus,
and this is confirmed by the note appended to the Vatican
MS. and the Coptic version. The date of its composition
is generally assigned to a period very shortly before Easter
A.n. 58. In writing it the apostle aimed chiefly at re¬
pressing the unseemly manifestations of party-spirit which
had been betrayed by some of the leading members of the
church, and also at giving them decisive answers on certain
points of duty, in regard to which the practice of the Co¬
rinthian converts had been somewhat influenced by the
characteristic immorality of the place. Of the parties then
prevailing in the church there are generally distinguished
four; but it is not to be supposed that these existed in open
schism, and from the allusions to them in Clement’s epistle,
it seems that they w7ere all of short duration. The party
claiming Apollos as their leader differed from those who
still held by Paul, i-n their peculiar fondness for the Alex¬
andrian forms of thought; the Petrine section differed from
both in still clinging to the shadows of Judaism; while the
Christine party seems to have sprung from a reaction in fa¬
vour of unity, which, however, in the troubled state of the
church only caused farther division. The second epistle
was written shortly after the first, and despatched from Phi-
vol. VII.
COE
lippi in that same year. It is in the main apologetic, and as Corio
a piece of oratory has been admired by the rhetoricians of
every age. The authenticity of both epistles has scarcely Cork,
ever been questioned.
CORIO, Bernardino (1459-1519), an Italian historian,
born of an illustrious family at Milan. He was secretary of
state to that duchy; and was employed by Ludovico, duke
of Sforza, to write the history of his native town. The best
edition of his history (Milan, 1503, folio) is very scarce. Corio
wrote also Vitee Ccesarum, and a poem entitled Utile Dia¬
log o Amoroso.
CORIOLANO, the name of three excellent engravers
on wood in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, Cris-
toforo, Giambattista, and Bartolomeo. The latter was the
most celebrated, and has executed, in chiaroscuro, several
excellent prints, after the two Caracci and Guido.
CORIOLANUS, C. Marcius, one of the haughtiest
leaders of the patrician party at Rome in the early ages of
the republic. His name is associated with one of the most
beautiful of the legends which adorn that period of Roman
history. This legend will be found detailed in full under
the article Roman History. See also Corioli.
CORIOLI, an ancient Latin city, celebrated as giving a
surname to the Roman C. Marcius. Corioli is first men¬
tioned in Roman history as falling into the hands of the
Volsci, and being retaken from them by the Romans, b.c.
493. When Coriolanus made common cause with the
Volsci against his countrymen, this city was one of the first
that yielded to his victorious arms. It was never a very
large or important place, and seems to have dropped out of
existence before the close of the fifth century b.c. The site
of Corioli is now unknown. Some geographers have assigned
it to the hill called Monte Giove about nineteen miles from
Rome on the way to Antium. Others have suggested a hill
four miles nearer Antium as a more plausible locality.
CORK, the bark of a species of oak (Quercus Suber),
common in the southern parts of Spain, France, and Italy.
When the tree is fifteen years old, it may be barked for
eight years successively ; and the quality of the bark im¬
proves with the age of the tree. When stripped from the
tree, it is piled up in water and loaded with heavy stones to
flatten it. It is then dried and put up in bales for carriage.
If care be not taken to strip the bark, another bark formed
underneath will cause the outer one to split and peel off.
The cork tree, and the uses to which the bark may be
applied, were known to the Greeks and Romans. Pliny
mentions that the Romans employed it to stop all kinds of
vessels; but the use of it for this purpose does not appear
to have been common till glass bottles came into general
use, which, according to Beckmann, was not till the fifteenth
century.
Other vegetable productions have been sometimes em¬
ployed instead of cork; as, for instance, the spondias lutea,
a tree which grows in South America, particularly in moist
places, and which is there called monbin or monbain. The
roots of liquorice are applied to the same use, and on this
account the plant is cultivated in Sclavonia, and exported.
A tree called nyssa, which grows in North America, has
been found also to afford a substitute for cork.
Cork Jacket, an apparatus to buoy up the body in swim¬
ming. It consists of pieces of cork inclosed between two
pieces of strong canvas, and is shaped so as to be worn like
a jacket, but without arms. It is now almost quite super¬
seded by the air-belt made of waterproof cloth. The cork-
jacket appears to be a very old invention ; for Plutarch, in
his life of Camillus, mentions that the messenger sent by
that general to his fellow-citizens wrhen besieged in the Ca¬
pitol, made use of a cork-jacket in swimming across the
Tiber, the Gauls being in possession of the bridge. See
Life-Preservers.
Cork, a maritime county in the province of Munster ;
3 A
370 COR K.
Cork. the largest and most southern in Ireland ; bounded N. by
Limerick, E. by Waterford, W. by Kerry, S., S.E., and
S.W. by the Atlantic Ocean. Area 2885 square miles, or
1,846,333 acres,—i.e. 1,308,882 arable ; 465,889 unculti¬
vated (of which it is estimated that 100,000 acres might
be reclaimed, 150,000 drained for coarse meadow and pas¬
ture, and 216,000 may be considered as not worthy of im¬
provement); 52,180 in plantations ; 6515 in towns; 12,86*
under water. Xhe county is divided into east and west
ridings (the county of the city of Cork being included in the
east riding); and it is subdivided into 23 baronies, containing
251 parishes, which form the dioceses of Cork, Cloyne and
Ross, and a part of that of Ardfert. The county is in the
Cork military district, having barracks at Cork (which is
the headquarters of the district), at Kinsale,Fermoy, Ballin-
collig about five miles from Cork ; at Spike Island, which is
strongly fortified ; at Youghal, Buttevant. &c. Theconsta-
bulary force consists of 647 men and officers, with head¬
quarters at Cork and Bandon, and 20 subinspectors’ dis¬
tricts. The assizes are held in Cork city, where the county
prison and the county lunatic asylum are situated. There
are savings-banks at Cork, Fermoy, and Youghal, with an
aggregate amount of upwards of L.315,000 deposited by
9000 individuals. The poor-law unions are Bandon, Ban-
try, Castletown, Clonakilty, Cork, Dunmanway, Fermoy,
Kanturk, Kinsale, Macroom, Mallow, Midleton, Millstreet,
Mitchelstown, Skibbereen, Skull, and Youghal. The amount
of property in the county, valued under the act 6th and 7th
Will. IV., cap. 84 (Griffith’s valuation), is L.1,150,643 ; and
the net annual value of property rated to the poor, L.971,622.
The county returns eight members to the imperial par¬
liament, two for the county at large (constituency in 1853
13,474) ; two for Cork city, (constituency 3152) ; and one
for each of the boroughs of Youghal, Bandon, Mallow, and
Kinsale (constituencies 317, 205, 243, and 156 respec¬
tively). Previous to the union this county returned 26
members to the Irish parliament. At the union the num¬
ber was reduced to eight, and the Reform Act made no
change in the number of representatives.
According to Ptolemy, the district was inhabited by the
Uterini, the Vellebori, the Coriundi, and the Vodii. Be¬
fore the arrival of the English it was considered as a dis¬
tinct sovereignty or principality under the MacCarthys;
but in 1172 Dermod MacCarthy, who had sworn fealty to
Henry II., threw oft-his allegiance, and attacked the Eng¬
lish under Raymond le Gros, thereby forfeiting the crown.
What formed his kingdom was granted by Henry II. to
Robert Fitzstephen and Milo de Cogan, with the excep¬
tions of the city of Cork and the adjoining cantred be¬
longing to the Ostmen of the same city, which were re¬
tained by the king. It was made shire ground by King
John in 1210, who appointed sheriffs and other local officers
for its government. For many years, however, the royal
writs were of little efficacy in many parts of it, as the great
families still virtually commanded the allegiance of the in¬
habitants.
Fitzstephen’s share of the grant descended through the
female line to the Barrys and Roches, whilst that of De
Cogan became vested in Maurice Fitzgerald, growing into
an extent of territory and consequent power far exceeding
any ever possessed by the MacCarthys. Whilst making a
show of attachment to the English, the Fitzgeralds in¬
trigued with the foreign Roman Catholic powers (who pro¬
jected the conquest of Ireland during the reign of Queen
Elizabeth), and ultimately broke out into open rebellion.
After being utterly defeated, Gerald, the fifteenth and last
Earl of Desmond, when a fugitive in the wilds of Kerry,
was slain by an obscure individual named Kelly. Against
this Earl of Desmond an act of attainder was passed in
1583, and the Fitzgeralds of Desmond, after having main¬
tained their power and possessions for upwards of 300
years, were reduced to utter ruin ; their strong castles were Cork,
seized, and their vast estates, to the extent of no less than
574,628 acres, confiscated by the crown. These were
again transferred to English settlers, called undertakers or
planters, who were bound not to convey any part of the
lands to the native Irish, or to intermarry with, or maintain
any of them. Sir Walter Raleigh obtained 40,000 acres,
which afterwards passed to the familyof Boyle, Earl of Cork ;
Arthur Robins 18,000; Hugh Worth 12,000; Fane
Beecher 12,000; Arthur Hyde 12,000; Sir War ham St
Leger 6000 ; Sir Thomas Norris 6000 ; Hugh Caffe 6000 ;
Thomas Say 5800; Sir Richard Beacon 1600; and Ed¬
mund Spenser the poet 3028. This attempt to set aside or
extirpate the native population failed. The Irish outbade
the English settlers, and were, therefore, at least for a time,
found to be more profitable tenants, so that ultimately they
re-occupied nearly all the lands as tenants under the Eng¬
lish undertakers. In 1602 a large portion of the estates of
Sir Walter Raleigh and Fane Beecher were purchased by
the Earl of Cork, who had them colonized with English
settlers: and by founding or rebuilding the towns of Ban¬
don, Clonakilty, Baltimore, Youghal, and afterwards those
of Midleton, Castlemartyr, Charleville, and Doneraile, which
were incorporated and made parliamentary boroughs, the
family of Boyle became possessed of nearly the entire poli¬
tical power of the county. In 1641 and the following years
the sons of the Earl of Cork, more especially Lord Brog-
hill, rendered good service to the parliamentary cause, and
obtained considerable military renown. Thecourse of events
led to the forfeiture of the estates of Lords Muskerry and
Roche ; afterwards of those of the Earl of Clancarty, Vis¬
count Kenmare, Sir Richard Nagle, and others, to the ex¬
tent of 250,000 acres. Since that period no events of equal
importance have occurred in this county.
The earlier antiquities of the county are rude monu¬
ments of the Pagan era, such as stone circles, druids’ altars,
raths or circular mounds of earth, and stone pillars.
The ecclesiastical antiquities consist of numerous ruins
of religious houses, built chiefly since the invasion of Ireland
by Henry II., and owing their existence to the descendants
of English adventurers. The most ancient ecclesiastical
edifice in the county is the abbey of Rosscarbery, pictur¬
esquely situated upon a rocky eminence, partly insulated
by the tide. The abbey of Timoleague is also beautifully
situated, with the tide flowing up to its walls; and that of
Kilcrea, about eleven miles from Cork, is placed in the
centre of a rich vale on a green bank above the river Bride.
The interior of the ruins of Kilcrea has long been the fa¬
vourite burial-place of the peasantry of the country: tbe
architecture is plain, but the ruins are in tolerable preserva¬
tion. There are also numerous ruins of the old parochial
churches, built of stone without mortar, generally of very
small dimensions, and destitute of ornament. The cathedral
of Cork was rebuilt in the eighteenth century, the old ca¬
thedral having been taken down in 1725, in consequence of
injury received during the siege of Cork by King William’s
forces under the Earl of Marlborough. Cloyne cathedral is
a plain Gothic building, and is now one of the few remaining
ancient cathedrals. That of Ross exhibits no particular
feature of antiquity. Near the cathedral of Cloyne is the
only round tower now remaining in the county, excepting
that of Kinneagh.
Of castles, or rather square towers, there are numerous
remains. The chief of these are Blarney, Macroom, and
Lohort.
The county of Cork contains but a small quantity of dead
level land, and presents a great variety of surface. Al¬
though hilly, it cannot be called mountainous, and there is
but little lowland bog. The unimproved land is therefore
trifling as compared with that of some other counties, or
with its own superficial extent. The barony of Duhallow
CORK.
Cork, in the north-west, contains the chief portion of unreclaimed
^ , / ]ancl, but even that is now much improved. The prevail¬
ing character of the western part of the county, which is
bold, rocky, and mountainous, is wildness ; the northern and
eastern parts are distinguished for their richness and fertility.
The natural formation of the eastern and southern parts of
the county is highly favourable to picturesque effect. That
this county was once profusely adorned with timber is evi¬
dent from the numerous vestiges still to be found above
and beneath the surface. The ranges of high and low lands
are observed to run nearly in the direction of east and west;
the chief deviation from this general character being the
high barren tract of the Boghra mountains, situate between
the Lee and the Blackwater: these extend in every direc¬
tion, not rising into sharp or narrow summits, but spreading
out into an ample area of deep boggy surface. The lime¬
stone rocks, which are not so general in this as in some
other Irish counties, form the most extensive tracts of low¬
land running east and west, and are remarkable for their
purity. The marble of this county is of considerable value.
It is generally of a dark gray colour with various shades,
and presents a rich display of fossil shells. The rivers gene¬
rally mark the limestone districts. The greater part of the
surface of the county of Cork, however, rests on the old red
sandstone, of which rock it is the chief locality in Ireland.
It commences in the west, on the limits of the upper slate
formation, and extends throughout the entire breadth of the
county to Waterford county, comprising the various districts
of limestone already mentioned. Next in extent to the old
red sandstone is the upper clay slate which forms the adjoin¬
ing county of Kerry, and enters this county on the west,
stretching from Dunmanway to Macroom, and thence to the
neighbourhood of Mallow, forming the group of the Boghra
mountains. The south-west coast, which is formed of im¬
mense masses of this rock standing as barriers against the
waves of the Atlantic Ocean, is remarkable for its extreme
boldness of character. Carboniferous slate occupies a con¬
siderable area of the south-eastern coast. It rests on yellow
and red sandstone, and contains rich ores of copper, lead,
and manganese. In the extreme north-west of the county
is a portion of the Munster coal-field. Coal was formerly
raised, but the disadvantages of situation in a mountainous
district remote from water carriage prevented its general
use. Marl, fuller’s earth, potter’s clay, and brick-clay, are
also found. The chief mines and quarries are Allihie’s
copper mine, near Berehaven, which has realized large
sums, and employs upwards of 1000 persons; Audley cop¬
per mine, near Skibbereen; the Dromagh collieries, near
Kanturk; the limestone quarries on Little Island, in Cork
harbour; and the Irish Dove marble quarries near Cloyne.
The copper ores found in this county have been ascertained
to be extremely rich.
The most extensive tracts of rich lowland in the county
are those in which limestone is found. The largest lies on
the north side of the river Blackwater, occupying parts of
the baronies of Orrery and Fermoy including the towns of
Fermoy and Mallow. This district furnishes, on the banks
of the Blackwater from Mallow to Fermoy, a succession of
picturesque scenery seldom equalled. In another limestone
vale, extending in an easterly direction until it reaches the
sea near Youghal, the city of Cork is situated.
The climate of this county is mild ; winter along the
coast being disarmed of its severity by the south wind,
while the summer heat is tempered by breezes from the sea.
Its climate, like that of Devonshire, is sufficiently moist to
be injurious to grain crops, which are generally inferior to
those of drier climates.
The chief rivers are the Blackwater, the Lee, and the
Bandon. The picturesque Blackwater rises on the confines
of Kerry, and flowing eastward past the towns of Mallow
and Fermoy, through the northern baronies, enters the
371
county of Waterford, where, changing its direction, it flows Cork,
southward, returns to the boundary of the county, and
empties its waters into Youghal bay. During its course,
among other tributary streams, it receives the Awbeg
(Spenser’s “ Mulla fair and bright,” and “ Gentle Mulla”),
not far from whose banks, on a rivulet joining the A*,rbeg
at Doneraile, stand the ruins of the poet’s castle of Kilcol-
man. Since 1580 Spenser had been in Ireland as secretary
to the Lord Deputy, Arthur Grey, and here was written
his great poem The Faery Queen, which abounds in beau¬
tiful descriptions of Munster scenery. The river Lee also
rises on the borders of Kerry out of the small but romantic
lake of Gougane Barra, and passing through the larger lake
of Inchigiela runs through varied and beautiful scenery to
the city of Cork, where it becomes navigable for large ves¬
sels ; and after a further course of eleven miles, the beauty
of which from Cork to Queenstown it would be difficult to
overpraise, it terminates in the magnificent harbour or inland
bay of Cove—or Queenstown as it is now called. The “plea
sant Bandon crowned with many a wood,” rises a few miles
east of the head of Bantry Bay, and passing the towns of
Dunmanway and Bandon, ultimately expands into Kinsale
harbour.
There are no extensive lakes in the county, but many of
diminutive size in the western portion of the county. Among
others, the small lake of Gougane Barra, generally consi¬
dered the source of the river Lee, is highly interesting on
account of its sanctified character and wildly picturesque
scenery. Nearly surrounded by gigantic mountains rising
in almost perpendicular masses from the waters of the lake,
it incloses within its limits a small wooded island occupied
chiefly by the ruins of a chapel and ancient religious house.
It is a favourite resort of pilgrims and pleasure seekers com¬
bined on the 'pattern days, either to bathe in its waters and
offer up vows to the tutelar saint Fin Bar, the founder of
Cork cathedral, or from curiosity and other motives.
There are no canals or extended means of inland navi¬
gation in this county ; but rapid communication is main¬
tained with the metropolis by means of the Great Southern
and Western railway, which enters the county at Charleville,
and passing the towns of Buttevant and Mallow terminates
at Cork. A branch line from Mallow extends to Killarney,
and Cork is also the terminus of the Cork and Bandon and
Cork and Passage railways.
The want of the means of inland navigation is in a great
degree compensated by tbe numerous bays and inlets capa¬
ble of admitting large vessels, W’ith which the coast is in¬
dented. Proceeding westwards from Youghal Bay, which
has good anchorage without the bar, and passing that of
Ballycotton, which is wholly unsheltered, the fine and capa¬
cious inlet of Cork harbour appears, many miles in diame¬
ter, completely landlocked, studded with numerous islands
rising abruptly and high above the water, and capable of
accommodating the entire fleet of the kingdom. It is much
resorted to by wind-bound merchantmen, and used as a
rendezvous for ships from abroad waiting for orders. Its
narrow entrance is defended by batteries on each side, and
on the Great Island opposite to its mouth. Spike Island
and Hawlbowline Island, within the harbour, are strongly
fortified, and used as naval arsenals. Kinsale harbour,
though incommoded by a bar at the entrance, has depth
enough within for the largest vessels. Clonakilty and Cas-
tlehaven harbours are fit for smaller vessels only; but Bal¬
timore Bay has deep water, and enjoys the shelter of Cape
Clear Island, and several others at its entrance. Crook-
haven is narrow, but well sheltered. Dunmanus Bay,
though having deep water and good anchorage, is little fre¬
quented except by small craft, or during summer, in con¬
sequence of its exposure to the western gales and proximity
to Bantry Bay, which is large, safe, and commodious for
vessels of any size. It is surrounded by the most magnifi-
372 C O
Cork. cent scenery; and within its entrance is Bere Haven, and
farther inwards Whiddy Island, off which lay the French
fleet when contemplating an invasion in 1796. The water
is deep almost close to the shores, and free from rocks and
shoals. Ballydonaghan Bay and Quolagh Bay lie near the
mouth of Kenmare river. This last-named inlet, though
called a river, is an estuary of large dimensions, separating
the counties of Cork and Kerry, and capable of accommo¬
dating the largest vessels.
The most remarkable among the numerous islands along
the coast, besides those already mentioned, are Inchidony,
in Clonakilty Bay; Cape Clear, Inisherkin, and Ringa-
rona or Donegal Island, in Baltimore Bay; Bere Island,
in Bantry Bay, affording a secure shelter from the storms
of the Atlantic ; and Dursey’s Island, off the southern point
of Bere Barony. Of these, Cape Clear is the largest and
most remarkable. It is the most southern point of Ireland
except the Fastnet rock, which lies in the sea four miles to
the S.S.W. The inhabitants of Cape Clear—a hardy, primi¬
tive people, occupied in fishing and agriculture—live almost
wholly secluded from the world; and, like other islanders,
are superstitious, and tenaciously attached to their rocky and
sterile home. The lighthouse, on the south side of the
island, is a circular tower, erected in 1817.
Numerous chalybeate and other springs exist, but most
of them are now totally neglected. The thermal spring of
Mallow resembles the waters of Clifton, and is impregnated
with magnesia in its passage through the limestone rocks
of the district. It has long been celebrated for the
cure of chlorotic, stomachic, and urinary complaints; but
is not now quite so much frequented as formerly. The
town is favourably situated on the banks of the Blackwater,
sheltered on all sides by high grounds thickly planted, and
in the midst of scenery of great natural beauty. There are
also many summer bathing places along the sea-shore, but
Kinsale and those in the neighbourhood of the city of Cork
are more especially frequented. The chief of these are
Monkstown, Blackrock, Summercove, Passage, and Cove
(or Queenstown), which is now more frequented as a sum¬
mer residence for invalids than any other spot in Ireland, and
is remarkable for its equable temperature, being protected
from the colder winds and open to those from the warmer
quarters.
The soils of the county exhibit no great variety : they may he
reduced in number to four. The calcareous in the limestone dis¬
tricts ; the deep mellow loams found in districts remote from lime¬
stone, and generally occurring in the less elevated parts of the gray
and red sandstone districts; the light shallow soils and the moor¬
land or peat soils, the usual substratum of which is coarse reten¬
tive clay. '
In a district of such extent and variety of surface, the state of
agriculture must be liable to much variation. The more populous
parts near the sea, and in the vicinity of the great lines of commu¬
nication, exhibit very favourable specimens of agricultural im¬
provement. In the more retired and mountainous districts, the
cultivation of the soil is carried on according to the habits of the
past century. Spade cultivation is used to a considerable extent.
In the improved parts, where there are facilities of carriage, lime¬
stone and sea-sand are largely used. Dairies are extensive, and
the character of the Cork butter stands high, both in the British
and foreign markets.
The number of acres under crop in 1852 was 492,883, viz.:—
wheat, 52,049 ; oats, 150,581 ; barley, bere, and rye, 43,293 ; peas
and beans, 133; potatoes, 92,055 ; turnips, 41,683; mangel-wurzel,
oo^qq’s °ther &r.een crop, 10,076; flax, 1710; meadow and clover,
99,885. The live stock of the county consisted of 51,624 horses ;
7751 mules and asses; 264,272 cattle; 215,469 sheep; 121,300
pigs ; 30,717 goats; and 612,637 poultry, of the total value of
L.2,568,230.
Even proportionately to the great extent of this county, in few
others has more property passed through the court for the sale of
encumbered estates, and much facility for improvement may be
expected to result from the change or disembarrassment of owners
of land, for nowhere more than in Ireland has it been matter of
practical experience that “ a landlord of straw may break a tenant
of steel.”
Tl K.
Manufactures are not carried on to any great extent, the frequent Cork
attempts made to establish them having generally failed. The only v
extensive manufactures are those of whisky and porter, which
cause a considerable demand for the agricultural produce ; and the
chief trade of the county is in the export of provisions—a branch
of business which was a source of great profit during war time.
The. population of the county, including that of the city and
liberties, has been ascertained at various periods to be as follows
1791. By returns of the hearth-money collectors  460,434
1812. By the first parliamentary census  603,328
1821. By the second parliamentary census  730 444
1831. By the third parliamentary census  807,446
1841. By the fourth parliamentary census  854,118
1851. By the fifth parliamentary census  649,071
In 1824-26 there were, according to the reports of the board of
education, 1354 schools, in which somewhat more than 69,000 pupils
were instructed (45,000 boys and 24,000 girls). Of the whole num¬
ber, 9494 were of the Established Church, 58,174 were iloman Ca¬
tholics, 340 Dissenters; leaving a remainder of 1110 whose reli¬
gious persuasion had not been ascertained.
In 1852, of 54,424 children on the rolls of the national schools,
471 belonged to the Established Church, 12 were Presbyterian or
other Protestant Dissenters, and 53,941 were Roman Catholics.
The following was the state of instruction of the inhabitants above
the age of five years in 1851:—
Rural Districts. Civic Districts. Total.
Could read and write  116,346 67,089 183,435
Could read only  50,465 23,485 73,950
Could neither read nor write... 267,716 64,439 342,155
There has been much intermixture of English blood among the
inhabitants. Besides the followers of Strongbow, whose descen¬
dants have long ranked among the most influential families, Eng¬
lish settlers were the founders of most of the towns, and the ser¬
vices of numerous bands of adventurers were rewarded at different
periods with grants of conquered or forfeited lands. With these
came many followers, whose intermarriages with the natives gra¬
dually instilled their manners and prejudices into their posterity,
who have sometimes been charged with having become more Irish
than the Irish themselves. The Danes also, who possessed several
of the sea-ports and the adjoining districts, increased these inter¬
national varieties of character. The easy communication between
this county and the Spanish peninsula also led to a commercial in¬
tercourse, which, together with the military invasions of the Span¬
iards during the reigns of the Tudors, has had its due effect in im¬
pressing a distinctive character on the inhabitants.
Cork, a city and river-port, a county in itself, and
the shire town of the county of the same name, 159 miles
S.W. of Dublin, in N. Lat. 51. 53. 39-3., and W. Long.
8. 20. Upwards of 150 years since it ranked below
Limerick and Waterford, and was considered the fourth
city in Ireland; but having risen rapidly in importance, it
long maintained its place as second only to the metropolis.
Of late, however, it has taken rank after Belfast in popu¬
lation, wealth, and commerce. According to the census of
1851 the population of the city was 85,745, inhabiting 9419
houses ; being an increase of 5025 inhabitants and 646 in¬
habited houses since the census of 1841.
The city is finely situated in the centre of the valley of
the Lee, inclosed on each side by high ground through
which the river pursues its course to the harbour through a
perpetual variety of beautiful scenery. The site of the city,
which owes its origin either to the Danes, or more probably
to a religious establishment founded at a remote period, was
originally part of a series of small islands and marsh land
formed by various channels of the river, many of which
have at different times been covered over; and carriage
drives and walks are formed upon ground over which even
lately the tide flowed. The ancient group now forms one
extensive island, formed by the two main branches of the
Lee, and which is the chief portion of the present site of
the city. It is connected with the mainland by six bridges,
beyond which are extensive suburbs. The unevenness of
much of the ground on which the city is built, the irregu¬
larity of the streets, the variety of the style of building, the
intersecting river, and the overhanging heights, give a very
pleasing and a somewhat picturesque aspect to the city of
Cork. There are only a few good streets in it, and its public
buildings will stand no comparison with those of Dublin.
COR
Cork. It contains seven parishes, in which are the cathedral, six
churches, two chapels of ease, three Roman Catholic paro¬
chial chapels, four monasteries and two nunneries with a
chapel attached to each. These buildings have in general
very small pretensions to architectural merit, and few towns
of similar extent are so destitute of spires or other indica¬
tions of ecclesiastical distinction. There are also two Pres¬
byterian, a Baptist, an Independent, and two Methodist
chapels. A Friends meeting-house also exists; and in this
city the celebrated William Penn, together with several
soldiers of the republican garrison, became converted to
Quakerism. The palace of the bishop of Cork, Cloyne, and
Ross, is a comfortable residence, without architectural pre¬
tensions. The county and city court-house, an elegant
Grecian structure with a bold Corinthian portico thirty feet
in height, is one of the few fine buildings in Cork. Also
may be noticed the military barracks, a large building com¬
manding the city, and capable of accommodating four regi¬
ments of infantry and 1000 cavalry; the new lunatic asylum,
beautifully situated on the brow of a hill; the county and
city gaols, with more of a palatial than a prison aspect. Be¬
sides these, there are other buildings less deserving of parti¬
cular notice; as the savings-bank, the custom-house, the cham¬
ber of commerce, and the commercial buildings. The Royal
Cork Institution is the chief literary association in the city. It
obtained a charter in 1807, and a parliamentary grant of
L.2000 per annum, afterwards increased to L.2500, but with¬
drawn in 1830. A society of arts was formed in 1815, but has
long ceased to exist,—their fine collection of casts from the
antique being deposited in the government school of design,
which, together with the Royal Cork Institution's transferred
to the old custom-house. The new queen’s college, built on
the site of an ancient religious establishment, west of the
bishop’s palace on the south branch of the river Lee, is a
handsome quadrangular building in the Tudor-Gothic style.
It was opened in 1849. Cork abounds in religious, edu¬
cational, literary, scientific, and charitable institutions, which
have accommodation in appropriate buildings. Like the
Liffey at Dublin, the river Lee is walled in by handsome
quays erected at an expense of more than L.100,000. Near
the city is the “ Pere la Chaise” of Cork, founded by the
Rev. Father Matthew, on the site of the old botanic gar¬
den of the Cork Institution, and containing many curious
and valuable trees; and the citizens of Cork are justly proud
of their delightful public walk, the Mardyke, shaded by
noble elms extending in a straight line about a mile in
length; and of the principal entrances to the city, com¬
manding fine panoramic views in all directions. Within the
boundaries of the borough, however, are numerous narrow
and WTetched streets and lanes, with a numerous population
huddled together in a manner utterly repugnant to cleanli¬
ness or comfort.
Since the time of Henry II. no less than seventeen char¬
ters have been granted to the city; but extensive changes
in the corporation were ultimately made by the Municipal
Act, 3d and 4th Viet. cap. 108. It is now styled the “ Mayor,
Aldermen, and Burgesses of Cork,” and consists of a mayor,
16 aldermen, and 48 town-councillors, whose jurisdiction is
limited within the municipal boundaries, whilst that of the
water bailiffs extends to the harbour. Since 1559 the city
has returned two representatives, before the union to the
Irish, and since that period to the imperial parliament.
Although the area of the municipal borough contains only
2680 acres, the right of voting for the city members is
still possessed by the inhabitants of the barony of Cork,
essentially a rural population.
The trade of Cork is very extensive, consisting chiefly in
the export of grain, provisions, and butter, &c., to the value
of several millions annually. The principal branches of
manufacture are distilling, brewing, tanning, iron-founding,
and glove-making. The aggregate tonnage of vessels re-
COR 373
gistered at the port is about 50,000 : the number and ton- Corleone
nage of vessels entering the port employed in the cross H
channel and coasting trade reaches 1900 vessels and Corn.
240,000 tons; in the British colonial trade 50 vessels of
15,000 tons ; in the foreign trade 370 vessels, tonnage
77,613. The foreign and colonial trade is chiefly with
Portugal, the Mediterranean, the Baltic, and Canada; and
the produce of the customs duties of the port average about
L.240,000 per annum.
The harbour, to the existence of which Cork is mainly
indebted for its rise and progress, is situate about 11 miles
below the city. It is completely land-locked, surrounded by
charming scenery on every side, and capable of sheltering
the entire navy of the United Kingdom. See Queens¬
town.
Cork has not much prominence in historical records.
When surrendered to Henry II. in 1172 by Dermod
MacCarthy, king of Cork or Desmond, it was a walled town.
In 1493, as a punishment for having received and given
encouragement to the pretender Perkin Warbeck, the city
was deprived of its charter; and in the 16th century Cam¬
den describes it as a populous trading town, much resorted
to, but beset with rebel enemies on all sides. In 1688
James II. landed in Cork; and two years after the city,
which is incapable of being made a place of strength, was
besieged by the forces of King William, under the com¬
mand of the Earl afterwards the Duke of Marlborough.
The town was defended for five days, when it surrendered.
Henry Fitzroy, the second illegitimate son of Charles
II., who had been created Duke of Grafton, and was one
of the first who deserted the cause of James, was wounded
at the storming of the city, and died there about a fortnight
afterwards. (h. s—R.)
CORLEONE, a town of Sicily, intendancy of Palermo,
and 22 miles S. of the city of that name, on the declivity
of a hill near the source of the Belici. It is pretty well built,
and has several churches and convents, a royal college, a
prison, and some other public buildings. Pop. 15,000.
CORMONTAIGNE (1695-1752), an eminent French
engineer, who fortified many border strongholds of France.
His system is explained under Fortification.
CORN (Saxon corri), the grain or seeds of plants sepa¬
rated from the spica or ear, and used for making bread.
There are several species of corn, such as wheat, rye,
and barley, millet and rice, oats, maize, and lentils, peas,
and a number of other kinds, each of which has its peculiar
qualities and usefulness. Egypt was anciently the most
fertile of all countries in corn. This appears both from
sacred and profane history. It supplied a considerable part
of the people subject to the Roman empire, and was called
the dry nurse of Rome and Italy. Ceres has the credit of
being the first who taught them the use of corn, on which
account she was ranked by them as a deity. Some, however,
attributed the honour to Triptolemus; whilst others award
the honour to both alike, making Ceres the first discoverer,
and Triptolemus the first planter and cultivator of corn.
Diodorus Siculus ascribes the whole to Isis; in which, as
Polydore Virgil observes, he does not differ from other au¬
thors—Isis and Ceres being in reality the same person. The
Athenians pretended that it was among them the art of sow¬
ing corn took its rise ; and the Cretans or Candiots, Sicilians,
and Egyptians, also lay claim to the distinction. Some
think the title of the Sicilians best supported, Sicily being
the country of Ceres; and it is alleged that she did not
teach the secret to the Athenians till she had first instructed
her own compatriots. Others says that Ceres passed first
into Attica, thence into Crete, and last of all into Sicily.
Many scholars, however, maintain that it was in Egypt
that the art of cultivating corn first began ; and it is certain
that there was corn in Egypt and the East long before
the time of Ceres.
374
CORN LAWS AND CORN TRADE.
History of I. HISTORICAL SKETCH of the corn laws.
the Corn _ .
I.a\vs. All governments, in every age of tne world, have in-
; terfered too much with the affairs of their subjects. A no¬
tion has very generally prevailed, that certain branches of
commerce were sometimes advantageous to society, though
ruinous to those who should attempt to carry them on;
and that other branches, though profitable to individuals,
were frequently inconsistent with the general advantage.
On a first view, this opinion, though essentially erroneous,
seems sufficiently plausible. Many of the pursuits of in¬
dividuals apparently conduce very little, and may some¬
times even seem hostile, to the interests of the whole ; and
hence we are naturally enough led to infer, that the pub¬
lic advantage would be best consulted by their prohibition.
Nothing evinces more strikingly the prevalence of this no¬
tion of the propriety of restricting and directing the ope¬
rations of industry and the investment of capital, than the
regulations respecting the trade in corn. This, no doubt,
is only what might have been expected. To secure an
adequate supply of food, and to obviate famine and scar¬
city, must always be an object of the first importance with
legislators; and while the efficacy of the regulating system
is unquestioned, it is here it will be chiefly called into ac¬
tion.
When legislators abandon the principle of free compe¬
tition, and imagine they can give a more advantageous
direction to national industry, their habits and station in
society have a powerful influence in determining the re¬
gulations they adopt. Agriculturists raise corn for sale,
as well as for their own consumption ; and as they natu¬
rally endeavour to obtain the highest price for their pro¬
duce, where their voice predominates in the legislature of
a country, it is reasonable to presume, that the regula¬
tions respecting the trade in corn will be framed with a
design rather to enhance than to lower its price. Whether
they have that effect is an entirely different, and often a
very delicate inquiry ; but unless there be pretty explicit
evidence to the contrary, it is not easy to imagine, that
agriculturists, or those supported by agriculture, should
give their consent to any law intended to lower the value
of the products they have to dispose of. On the other
hand, where the legislature of a country is principally com¬
posed of merchants, manufacturers, capitalists, and others
depending on the profits of stock, as was formerly the case
in Holland, or where it is chiefly influenced by them, it
is n<early certain it will not intentionally adopt any mea¬
sure which may have for its object to raise the price of
corn. When it is low, such persons obtain a comparative¬
ly large quantity in exchange for their peculiar products
or services. How then is it to be expected that they should
voluntarily consent to any measure which they supposed
would contribute to raise the price of so important an ar¬
ticle ?
Throughout the principal continental states, the regu¬
lations affecting the corn trade have been mostly framed
with a view to keep down the price of corn. This fact,
however, is perfectly consistent with what has now been
stated. After the feudal system lost its energy, and the
power of the great barons had been weakened by the rise
of cities and the consolidation of the royal authority, mo-
narchs were able to take such measures as appeared most
likely to benefit the lower classes of their subjects, which
it was then their object to exalt. Of these, none seems
more natural, or better calculated to effect its object, than
the imposing of restrictions on the exportation of raw pro¬
duce. If a nation raise more corn than is required for its History of
consumption, the first consequence of a prohibition of ex- the Corn
port is undoubtedly to lower its value. It is certain, in- Laws,
deed, that this effect will very soon cease ; but, in early
ages, men seldom attend to prospective considerations,
and it is not a very easy matter, even now, to convince
the bulk of mankind that the granting liberty to send
abroad the necessaries of life lowers their price at. home.
To demonstrate, or even apprehend this principle, requires
a considerable acquaintance with political economy, a sci¬
ence altogether unknown when the first laws respecting
the corn trade were framed in the European common¬
wealth. With a view still further to reduce the price of
corn, its free importation was very generally allowed ; and,
in periods of scarcity, bounties or premiums, over and
above the market price, were sometimes given by the
state to the importer.
In this country, an opposite course has been pursued.
The Lords and Commons, the first depending entirely,
and the latter principally, on agriculture, having attained
great power and influence, we cannot be surprised at their
having more frequently exerted it to increase than to
lower the price of corn.
Restrictions on the exportation of corn, without being
in any degree advantageous to the consumers, are emi¬
nently hurtful to agriculturists. While they exist, no mar¬
ket can be found for that excess of produce which an agri¬
cultural countrygenerally has to dispose of in favourable sea¬
sons. Farmers are not, therefore, stimulated to exertion,
because, in a country thus situated, a luxuriant crop, by
its causing a great fall of price, is nearly as prejudicial to
them as a scarcity ; which, indeed, by its lessening the
quantity sown next year, it seldom fails to occasion. In
most countries, however, these very simple considerations
have been overlooked, and the exportation of corn, unless
in years of extreme plenty, has been forbidden under severe
penalties. In the reigns immediately succeeding the con¬
quest, this was done in England; but, in 1436, in the Statute of
reign of Henry VI. an act was passed permitting exporta-14.3(5; Per'
tion without license, whenever the price of wheat did notmittl”gex’
exceed 6s. 8d. (equal in amount of pure silver to 12s. 10|d.^or a 10U'
present money) per quarter, and barley 3s. 4d. In this
act it is stated, that the previous regulations had obliged
farmers to sell their corn at low prices, to the great pre¬
judice of the whole kingdom. But, in addition to the
reason assigned for this important measure, we may ob¬
serve, that, for a considerable time posterior to the con¬
quest, rents were paid in kind, and the high or low price
of corn was not, therefore, a matter of so much importance
to landlords, as it became after money rents were gene¬
rally introduced. In Henry I.’s time, the rents of the crown
lands were paid in corn and other farm produce, and were
only converted into pecuniary payments, in consequence
of the great complaints made by the tenants of the in¬
conveniences they suffered in bringing necessaries for the
king’s household from distant partsof the kingdom. (Eden’s
Inquiry into the State of the Poor, vol. i. p. 55.) The same
causes would doubtless affect, though in a less degree, the
tenants of the great barons ; and, when once money rents
were introduced, it was for the advantage of the proprie¬
tors that all obstacles to a rise in the price of corn should
be removed. A more favourable opportunity could not
have been found for effecting their abolition. Henry,
weak and irresolute, with a disputed title to the throne,
and a powerful competitor, could not, had he been so
disposed, have made any effectual opposition to a change
CORN LAWS AND CORN TRADE. 375
History of of the system on which the corn trade had been con-
the Corn ducted.
Laws. At the time when this act was passed, the prices of
corn were exposed to fluctuations of which we can now
form a very inadequate conception ; and hence it is not
easy to determine whether the exportation price of 6s. 8d.
was above or below the medium price. While the trade
of corn merchants and corn factors was unknown, or la¬
boured under degrading restrictions, very little providence
was exercised in the distribution of the crops, and the su¬
perfluous produce of one year scarcely ever compensated
for a deficiency in the crop of the next. “ Purchasers,”
says Sir F. M. Eden, “ who only looked to their imme¬
diate wants, having corn cheap, were naturally wasteful
and improvident in the consumption ; the price, therefore,
almost invariably rose as the year advanced, and was fre¬
quently at an enormous height just before harvest; and,
before a fresh supply could be obtained, the stock of the
preceding year was often entirely exhausted.” (Inquiry
into the State of the Poor, vol. i. p. 18.) Of this Sir Fre¬
derick has collected many instances ; and he conjectures,
seemingly with great probability, that the enthusiastic joy
with which the rustic feast of harvest-home was ancient¬
ly celebrated, arose chiefly from the almost constant fall
that then took place in the price of corn.
That the act of 1437 was advantageous to the agricul¬
turists cannot be doubted ; and having experienced the
benefit of legislative interference in one instance, they
Statute of were not slow in again having recourse to it. Not satis-
14t;3, pro- fied with the liberty of exporting, they procured in the
hibiting following reign (1463) the enactment of a law prohibit-
importa- jng importation from abroad until the home price exceed-
tlon' ed the price at which exportation ceased. Had the un¬
certain and fluctuating policy of the times permitted the
proper execution of these laws, the restrictive system
would have been thus early perfected ; and, with the ex¬
ception of the bounty, all the refinements of modern policy
would have been in full operation. In practice, however,
they were nearly inoperative, and a lengthened period elap¬
sed before the agriculturists succeeded in obtaining a real
monopoly of the home market. (Dirom’s Inquiry, p. 34.)
Until the reign of Elizabeth, these acts nominally regu¬
lated the prices at which the exportation and importation
of corn might take place. In that period, however, the
coin had been greatly degraded ; and the value of silver,
owing to the discovery of the American mines, was rapidly
falling throughout Europe in the latter part of the fifteenth
and in the sixteenth century. The consequent rise of prices, History ef
as it could not, in a nearly stationary state of society, f'orn
when capital was but slowly accumulating, be speedily
followed by a corresponding rise of wages, was necessa- ’
rily productive of much distress. But neither the go¬
vernment nor the people seems to have been at all aware
of the real cause of the rise of prices, and of the extraor¬
dinary increase of pauperism in this interval.1 It was not
yet known that silver may fall in value, and that this fall
must always be attended by a proportional rise in the
money price of the commodities for which it is exchanged.
Instead, therefore, of ascribing the enhancement of prices
to the degradation of the coin, and the greater plenty of
gold and silver, it was universally affirmed to be owing to
the decay of tillage, and to the improper practices of corn
merchants ; and many (now obsolete) statutes for the im¬
provement of tillage, with the laws against engrossing,
forestalling, &c. owe their origin to the absurd attempts
that were then made to lower the price of corn.
That the complaints respecting the decay of tillage were
very ill founded, appears evident. The great foreign de¬
mand for English wool, the exportation of which was not
then prohibited, caused the consolidation of some smell
farms, and the more general introduction of inclosures.
But this fact, so far from being any proof of the alleged
decay of tillage, affords satisfactory evidence of the accu¬
mulation of capital, and shows that some improvement had
been made in agriculture.2 An increase in the size of
farms is, no doubt, always disagreeable to the lower classes ;
and being then attended by a great rise of prices, raised
the popular indignation to such a pitch that, in the reign
of Edward VI. the greater part of the inclosures were vio¬
lently demolished. As might have been foreseen, t*he
statutes directing the extension of tillage effected nothing ;
unfortunately, however, those against engrossing were not
quite so inefficient.
By the statute fifth and sixth of Edward VI. cap. 14, it Statutes
was enacted, that whoever should buy any corn or grain, against
with intent to sell it again, should be reputed an unlawful forestalling
engrosser, and should, for the first fault, suffer two mon^ls orossinff
imprisonment, and forfeit the value of the corn; for the”
second, suffer six months imprisonment, and forfeit double
its value; and for the third, be set in the pillory, suffer
imprisonment during the king’s pleasure, and forfeit all his
goods and chattels. And by the same law no person could
transport corn from one part to another, without a license,
ascertaining his qualifications as a man of probity and fair
1 In 1436 the pound sterling contained as much pure silver as is now contained in L.l. 18s. 9d. In 1464 the value of the pound
sterling was reduced to L.l. 11s. present money, at which sum it remained stationary until 1527, when it was reduced to L.l. 7s. 6fd.
present money. In 1543 the previous value of the coin was again reduced about one seventh part, or to L.l. 3s. 3|d. present money.
In the ten years subsequent to this era, the process of degradation advanced with unparalleled rapidity ; the weight of the coin being
not only diminished, but the standard purity of the metal itself debased; so that in 1551 the pound sterling only contained as much
silver as is now contained in 4s. 7|d. In 1552, the last year of the reign of Edward VI. the standard was restored to its former purity ;
but the weight of the coin, and consequently the quantity of pure silver which it contained, was at the same time reduced about
one seventh part below its weight in 1543, and hence the value of a pound sterling in 1552 corresponded to L.l. 6|d. present money.
Since that period the standard has undergone almost no variation, either as to weight or purity.
It therefore appears, that between 1527 and 1552, the value of the pound sterling was reduced from L.l. 7s. 6|d. to L.l. 6|d., or
about one fourth part; and this degradation of the value of the coin, accompanied as it was by an extraordinary fall in the value of
the precious metals themselves, leaves us at no loss to account for the distress hy which the people of England were then assailed,
and for the universal comp'aints of a rise of prices. The dissolution of the monasteries by Henry VIII. in 1536 and 1538 has com¬
monly been considered as the immediate cause of the institution of a legal provision for the support of the poor in England; but it
seems abundantly certain that this was really a consequence of the misery of the lower classes, caused by the degradation of the
standard, and the fall in the value of gold and silver. “ The principal real grievance at this time,” says Mr John Smith {Memoirs of
Wool, 8vo edit. vol. i. p. 88), when adverting to some riots and complaints caused by the high prices in 1550, “ of the poorer ma¬
nufacturers, thev do not appear to have been sensible of, and historians have since overlooked it, was the state of the com. The de¬
basement of thecoin, which was now of several years standing, had undoubtedly given a nominal advance to all things vendible ; and,
though perhaps to wages too, yet probably nothing near in proportion to the difference of the coin. And, as the money in which
they were paid, not containing as much silver as it did before, would not purchase the same quantity of the necessaries of life it was
wont to do; that, in course, must have bore hard upon the lower sort of people especially, who had every thing to buy, and nothing
to sell except their labour.” This idea has been borrowed, and illustrated, in an article of considerable merit, published in the 22d
volume of the Edinburgh Review.
s In 1553 an act was passed, restraining the number of sheep to be kept in one flock to 2000. It is mentioned in that act, that
some proprietors had then flocks of 24,000 sheep. Anderson states, that in 1551 no fewer than sixty ships sailed from Southampton
for the Netherlands loaded with wool. (History of Commerce, vol. ii. p. 89.)
376 CORN LAWS AND CORN TRADE.
History of dealing. Neither could corn be purchased to be laid up
the Corn in granaries for home sale, unless the quarter of wheat
,3aJvs_, was at or under 6s. 8d. and oats at 2s. money of the time.
By the same statute the authority of three justices of the
peace was necessary in order to grant a license ; and even
this restraint not being thought sufficient, a statute of
Elizabeth confined the privilege of granting it to the quar¬
ter sessions.
That the landed interest should have made little oppo¬
sition to the laws restricting the freedom of the internal
corn trade, does not appear very surprising. Before the
principles of trade began to be understood, it was natural
for landlords and farmers to conclude that they would
deal on fully more advantageous terms by selling their
produce directly to the consumers, than by transacting
with them through the medium of a third party. For¬
getting that the profits of the corn merchants were but a
fair remuneration for the capital they had engaged in the
most important of all employments—that of distributing
the supply of food equally throughout the year, and ac¬
cording to the effective demand—the farmers believed
that they were acquired from the community at their ex¬
pense, and, of course, felt no repugnance to the virtual
annihilation of the trade of the dealer.
But as society improved, and as the principles of com¬
merce were better understood, the bad effects of these
laws became apparent. The statute of 1548 was consi¬
derably modified in 1624, and at last, by the 15th of
Charles II. cap. 7, the engrossing or buying of corn, in order
to sell it again, so long as the price of wheat did not ex¬
ceed 48s. the quarter, was declared lawful to all persons
not being forestallers, that is, not selling again in the same
market within three months; an act, as Dr Smith has
justly observed, which, with all its imperfections, has con¬
tributed more, both to the plentiful supply of the home
market, and to the increase of tillage, than perhaps any
other law in the statute book.
The act of Henry VI. regulating the export prices of
corn was again renewed, but without any variation of the
rates, in the reign of Philip and Mary. As the coin, how¬
ever, had in the interim been greatly degraded, no ex¬
portation could now take place, until prices had really
fallen much below the level of 1436. This act, like that
against engrossing, was no doubt framed in the view of
reducing the rising money price of corn, and of quieting
the discontent then prevalent among the labouring classes ;
although, by shackling and discouraging cultivation, its real
effects must have been extremely different.
In 1562 the prices at which exportation might take History of
place were extended to 10s. per quarter for wheat, and the Com
6s. 8d. for barley and malt. This scale, however, was Laws-
soon after abandoned; and in 1570 it was enacted that^“7v^
corn might be exported from particular districts; wheat1562*ami
paying a duty of Is. and other grain of 8d. per quarter, 1570.
whenever no prohibition to the contrary was issued by
government; and that the lord presidents and councils
for shires, and the justices of assize, at their different ses¬
sions, should consult with the respectable inhabitants of
the counties, and determine whether any exportation
could with propriety be allowed.
The provisions of this act allowing corn to be exported
from one part of the country, at the same time that its
exportation was prohibited in another, arose from the ex¬
treme inequality of prices. At this era roads were scarce¬
ly formed; and as there hardly existed any communica¬
tion between distant parts of the kingdom, the prices in
the different counties diftered exceedingly from each other,
and from the price in London. England was then in the
same situation as Spain in the present day. A particular
province might be afflicted with scarcity, without deriving
any assistance from the superfluous produce of its neigh¬
bours. But the complex nature of the regulations pre¬
vented their being properly executed ; and they were
superseded by a fresh law (35th Eliz. cap. 7), which per¬
mitted exportation on paying a duty of 2s. on wheat, and
of Is. 4d. on all other species of corn, whenever the price
of wheat did not exceed 20s. per quarter, and barley
and malt 12s. This act did considerable service to agri¬
culture, by repealing several absurd statutes for the pro¬
motion of tillage, and against the enlargement of farms.
It deserves to be remarked, that the check given to cul- Origin of
tivation by the injudicious imposition of heavy duties on the poor,
the exportation of corn, and still more, the rapid depre-^"8,
ciation of money in the reign of Elizabeth, caused an as¬
tonishing rise in the price of commodities. A contempo¬
rary author, quoted by Mr Hume, estimates this rise in
the twenty or thirty years previous to 1581, at no less
than fifty per cent. Wages not having increased in pro¬
portion, pauperism became very general; and this circum¬
stance, combined with the excessively high prices of 1596,
1597, and 1598, resulting from the bad harvests of those
years, occasioned the enactment of the famous statute of
1601, which has served as a basis to the whole of the
present English system for supporting and managing the
poor.1
No alteration was made in the duties payable on the
1 The contemporary author quoted hy Mr Hume {Hist, of England, vol. v. p. 485), and by Sir F. M. Eden {State of the Poor, vol. i.
p. 119), says, that in 1581 it required L 200 to keep as good a house as might have been kept sixteen years before for 200 merks,
or L.133. 6s. 8d—“ Cannot you remember,” says he, “ that within these thirty years 1 could, in this town, buy the best pig or
goose I could lay my hands on for 4d., which now costeth 12d., a good capon for 3d. or 4d., a chicken for Id., a hen for 2d., &c. Now
a payre of shooes costs 12d.; yet in my time I have bought a better for 6d.” Latimer, in his sermons, ascribes this increase of price
to landlords raising their rents. “ Notwithstanding,” says he, “ God doth send us plentifully the fruits of the earth mercifully, ac¬
cording to our desertes, these rich men causeth such dearth, that poore men, which live of their labour, cannot with the sweat of
their face have a living, all kinde of victuals is so dear.” • A variety of passages to the same import may be found in other contem¬
porary authors, quoted by Sir F. M. Eden, and by Mr Smith in his Memoirs of IVool.
This extraordinary advance of prices, caused partly by the degradation of the coin, but more by the fall in the real value of the
precious metals, as it very far exceeded the rate at which capital, and consequently the demand for labour, was then increasing, must,
even supposing wages had been left to find their own level, and to be adjusted on the principles of fair competition, have been at¬
tended by a very great deterioration in the circumstances of the labouring classes. But positive enactments were framed to pre¬
vent the increase of wages; so that, while the prices of all sorts of commodities were advancing with unprecedented rapidity, the
sums paid the labourers were violently kept down to near their former level.
By the statute 11th Henry VII. c. 22, regulating the wages of labour, a common labourer was allowed 4d. per diem, from Easter
to Michaelmas; and, taking the average prices of wheat, rye, and barley at that period at 6s. 8d., 4s., and 3s. per quarter respective-
ly, it will follow that a labourer who had 4d. a day, could earn a quarter of wheat by twenty days’ labour, a quarter of rye by twelve
days’ labour, and a quarter of barley by nine days’ labour.
But in the latter part of the reign of Queen Elizabeth, the labourer’s situation was very different. The prices of corn may be sup¬
posed to have nearly corresponded with the rates at which exportation was allowed by statute 35th Eliz. c. 7, that is, wheat probably
averaged 20s. a quarter, rye 13s. 4d., and barley 12s. It appears, however, from the determination of the justices of the East Riding
of Yorkshire, in the same year, that the wages of a common labourer, without meat or drink, were limited to Jive pence a day, from
the 1st March to the Feast of All Saints. Consequently, a common labourer could not, in the latter part of the reign of Queen Eliza¬
beth, earn a quarter of wheat by less than 48 days’ labour, a quarter of rye in less than 32 days, nor a quarter of barley in less
than 28| days. If barley was his common sustenance, he could have earned three times as much in 1495 as in 1593, of rye 2| as
CORN LAWS AND CORN TRADE.
History ofexportation of corn, during the pacific reign of James I.;
the Corn but the prices at which exportation might take place were,
Laws, after some trifling alteration in 1604, fixed in 1623 at the
high rate of 32s. the quarter for wheat, and of 16s. the
quarter for malt and barley. In this and the preceding
reigns, and for a considerable time afterwards, importa¬
tion continued unrestricted ; and notwithstanding the im¬
provement of agriculture, the nation was partially depen¬
dent for supplies of corn on the trade with the countries
round the Baltic, and others.
During the agitation of the civil wars, the people of
England, intensely occupied in endeavouring to throw off,
or at least to restrict and modify, the royal authority, paid
no regard to the corn trade. But this inattention does
not seem to have been attended with any bad effects.
The high prices of that turbulent period, if they were not
altogether caused by a fall in the value of the coin, wdiich,
previously to the recoinage under Cromwell, was very
much clipped and debased, were most probably owing to
the interruptions thrown in the way of agricultural labour.
Statute of On the restoration of Charles II. in 1660, an act was
1660,regu-passed, permitting the exportation of corn on the same
lating ex- terms as other commodities on which duties were pay-
portation. aye) whenever the price of wheat did not exceed 40s. per
quarter, barley and malt 20s., and oats 16s. But as this
law laid a duty of 20s. on every quarter of wrheat export¬
ed, and on other grain in proportion, it really amounted
to a prohibition; and neither the agriculturists nor the
revenue derived any advantage from the extent to which
exportation was permitted, although both must have been
somewhat benefited by the high duties it imposed on im¬
portation.
Mr Dirom’s opinion, that the prohibitory duties on ex¬
portation were the chief causes of the high prices of this
and the two following seasons, seems entirely destitute of
foundation. The law against exportation could not cer¬
tainly raise the prices of the year in which it was framed,
and this high price, as far as it was not caused by a defi¬
ciency in the crop, or by any fluctuation in the value of
the coin, was unquestionably owing, not to the duties on
exportation, but to the exorbitancy of those on importa¬
tion, which had really secured a monopoly of the home
market to the agriculturists.
This view of the matter appears to have been soon after
taken by parliament; for in 1663 the high duties on im-
377
portation w^ere taken off, and an ad valorem duty of nine History of
per cent, imposed in their stead. The exportation price the Corn
of wheat was at the same time extended to 48s. per quar- t^aw^’
ter, chargeable with a duty of 5s. 4d. and other grain in
proportion.
This act, however, by permitting the importation of fo-Statute of
reign grain on paying a moderate duty, not being reckoned
sufficiently advantageous to the landholders, a more de¬
cided step was subsequently taken, and in 1670 exporta¬
tion prices were extended to 53s. 4d. per quarter for wheat,
and other grain in proportion, while import duties, amount¬
ing to a complete prohibition, were imposed on foreign
wheat till the home price reached 53s. 4d., and between
that price and 80s. a duty of 8s. was exigible. But this
law, though extremely favourable to the agriculturists, by
whom indeed it had been framed, did not perfectly corre¬
spond with their wishes. The necessities of the crown
caused the continuance of impolitic duties on exportation,
and the prohibition of importation was rendered to a cer¬
tain extent nugatory, by the want of any proper and
settled method for ascertaining prices. Groundless com¬
plaints of the decay of agriculture, and of the evils of fo¬
reign competition, were therefore continued, and gave oc¬
casion to the act of 1685, designed more effectually to
check importation from abroad, by securing correct re¬
turns of the home prices.
We have now reached a period no less memorable in Bounty
the economical than in the political history of Great Bri- act*
tain. A bounty on the exportation of corn was granted
at the revolution. The Prince of Orange could not op¬
pose the wishes of the landed interest, who then consti¬
tuted the immense majority of parliament, on this particu¬
lar subject. Whether he really approved of the measure
cannot now be ascertained; but whatever may have been
William’s private sentiments, it was necessary for him to
give way to the inclinations of those who had so lately
raised him to a throne, and on whose assistance he was
chiefly to depend in prosecuting his war against France.
The bounty payable under the act 1st William and Mary,
cap. 12, amounted to 5s. for every quarter of wheat ex¬
ported, while the price continued at or below 48s.; 2s. 6d.
for every quarter of barley or malt, while their price did
not exceed 24s.; and 3s. 6d. for every quarter of rye,
when its price did not exceed 32s.
A still more essential advantage was shortly after con-
niuch, and of wheat 2|. As far, therefore, as the necessaries of life were concerned, the situation of the labourer was not one half so
advantageous in 1593 as it had been in 1495. (Edinburgh Review, vol. xxii. p. 195.)
This extraordinary rise in the price of provisions being unattended by any proportional rise in the price of labour, was the real
cause of the institution of poor-rates. In the long interval between 1379 and 1530, it does not appear that any statute was passed
directly referring to the maintenance of vagrants or beggars. At the latter era, however, when the prices of all sorts of commodities
began suddenly to rise, pauperism became very prevalent, and engaged a considerable portion of the attention of the legislature.
The following extract from Dr Burn’s Justice of Peace (vol- iii. p- 608), shows in a very distinct manner the various steps by which
the compulsory maintenance was established in England:—“ By 22d Henry VIII. c. 12, the justices were to distribute themselves
into several divisions; within which divisions respectively they might license persons to beg. By 27th Henry VIII. c. 25, the several
hundreds, towns corporate, parishes, or hamlets, were required to sustain the poor with such charitable voluntary alms, as that none of
them might, of necessity, be compelled to go openly in begging, on pain that every person making default should forfeit twenty shil¬
lings a month. And the churchwardens, or other substantial inhabitants, were to make collections for them with boxes on Sundays,
and otherwise by their discretions. And the minister was to take all opportunities to stir up and exhort the people to be liberal and
bountiful. By the 1st Edward VI. c. 3, houses were to be provided for them by the devotion of good people, and materials to set them
at work ; and the minister, after the gospel every Sunday, was specially to exhort the parishioners to a liberal contribution. By the
5th and 6th Edward VI. c. 2, the collectors of the poor, on a certain Sunday in every year, immediately after divine service, were to
take down in writing what every person was willing to give weekly, for the ensuing year; and if any should be obstinate, and refuse
to give, the minister was gently to exhort him; if he still refused, the minister was to certify such refusal to the bishop of the dio¬
cese, and the bishop was to send for him, to induce and persuade him by charitable ways and means, and so according to his discretion
to take order for the reformation thereof. By the 5th Elizabeth, c- 3, if he stood out against the bishop’s exhortation, the bishop was to
certify the same to the justices in sessions, and bind him over to appear there; and the justices at the said sessions were again gently
to move and persuade him; and, finally, if he would not be persuaded, then they were to assess him in what they thought reasonable
towards the relief of the poor; and, in case of refusal, were to commit him till paid. By 14th Elizabeth, c. 5, power was given to the
Justices to lay a general assessment; and this hath continued ever since; for the statute of the 43d Elizabeth, c. 2, is only a re-enact¬
ing of former provisions, with some additional alterations.”
In a tract published in 1611, the author dwells with great earnestness on the extreme dearth of victuals. They were grown more
dear in price, he affirms, in the six years foregoing, than in the twenty years before—See Memoirs of Wool, vol. i. p. 128. The fall
m the value of gold and silver, caused by the discovery of the American mines, seems to have ceased about 1630 or 1640.
VOL. VII. 3 B
378 CORN LAWS AND CORN TRADE.
History offeired on agriculture, by the act 11th and 12th William
the Corn III. cap. 20, which repealed all previous duties on the ex-
^aW-!L Portat‘on corn, and prevented the operation of the
bounty from being in the slightest degree counteracted.
No alteration having been made in the prices and du¬
ties regulating importation, as fixed in 1670, and these
duties being rigorously exacted, the act repealing the
duties on exportation completed the restrictive system.
Every part of this complex machine was now in operation ;
and while no foreigner was allowed to contend with the
home growers, the liberality of the state enabled them to
contend with foreigners, even when the price of corn in Great
Britain was considerably higher than its price abroad!
Scotch The policy adopted in Scotland respecting the trade in
corn laws. corn wag near]y tile same as that of England. Previ¬
ously to 1663 the importation of corn into this kingdom
was permitted without limitation or duties (Dirom, p. 61) ;
but in that year it was loaded with an ad valorem duty of
about forty per cent.; while its free exportation was al¬
lowed, on payment of a trifling duty, until the prices ex¬
ceeded those mentioned below.1 This duty was after¬
wards relinquished, and a bounty granted by the statute
William, Par. 1, cap. 32. At length, by the treaty of
union, the corn laws of both kingdoms were incorporated,
and it was settled that “ the allowances, encouragements,
and drawbacks, prohibitions, restrictions, and regulations
of trade, and the customs and duties on import and ex¬
port, settled in England when the union commences, shall,
from and after the union, take place throughout the whole
united kingdom.” Oats not having been mentioned in
the English statute granting the bounty, it was declared,
that whenever oats did not exceed the price of 15s. ster¬
ling per quarter, there should be paid a bounty of 2s. 6d.
for every quarter of oatmeal exported.
Effects of Whatever may have been the ultimate consequences of
act °Unt^r ^ie bounty act, there can be no doubt that it was framed
in the view of enhancing the value of corn. In the pre¬
amble to this celebrated statute, it is stated “ that the
exportation of corn and grain into foreign parts, when the
price thereof is at a low rate in this kingdom, hath been a
great advantage, not only to the owners of land, but to
the trade of this kingdom in general.” It would indeed
be absurd to suppose that the landed interest should have
unanimously urged the adoption of a law, had it been ima-
, gined to have any tendency to lower the value of agricul¬
tural produce.
We shall afterwards endeavour to show that the bounty
had in fact no such tendency; but at present we shall only
offer a few observations explanatory of the fall in the price
of corn posterior to 1690, which has, as it appears to us,
without any sufficient reason, been ascribed to the bounty.
It is obvious that no certain conclusions can ever be
drawn as to whether the real value, that is, the expense
of producing a commodity, is diminished, from the fact of
its money price having declined. Before forming any ac¬
curate conclusions as to a rise or fall in the real price of
commodities, from variations in their money price, it is es¬
sential to know, not only the state of the coin as to purity
and weight, but also whether the value of bullion be itself
stationary. A fall of money price may be as effectually
produced by a rise in the value of gold and silver, as by a
diminution of the cost of production; and the real price
of a commodity may be increasing at the very time its
money price is falling. To produce this effect it is only
necessary that the real price of bullion should increase
faster than the real price of the commodity with which it
is compared.
That the real value of gold and silver rose in the early History of
part of last century, has been maintained by Dr Smith, the Com
apparently on pretty good grounds. As no remarkable im- Laws,
provements in agriculture were then made, either on the
continent or in England, the expense of producing corn J0jjUe 0/
may be reckoned to have remained nearly the same, or silver hi
rather to have increased, as the increase of population, the early
however slow, would cause recourse to be had to inferior part of last
soils. But during this period the money price of corn fe]l,century.
not only in this country, where a bounty was given on ex¬
portation, but in those continental kingdoms where ex¬
portation was prohibited. Conclusive evidence of this fact,
as far as regards France, will be found in the table of the
prices of wheat, at the Paris or Rosoy market, annexed to
the work of Dupre de St Maur, entitled Essai sur les Mon-
noies, ou Reflexions sur le Rapport entre lArgent et les
Denrees. Paris, 1746. And the table of the price of wheat
at Seville, from 1675 to 1764 inclusive, published in the
appendix to the Bullion Report, strongly confirms the rea¬
soning of Dr Smith, and shows that prices declined con¬
siderably in Spain in the first fifty years of last century.
The impulse imparted to this country by the revolution,
the abolition of all oppressive and arbitrary exactions, and
the number of intelligent and wealthy foreigners who
sought refuge in England from the persecution of intole¬
rant and bigoted governments, coupled with the revival of
trade and the establishment of the bank in 1694, caused
the extension of commerce, and a considerable accumu¬
lation of capital, subsequently to the treaty of Ryswick.
The wars of Queen Anne counteracted this progress; but
during the long and pacific administration of Sir Robert
Walpole, the increase of capital, and the improvement of
every species of industry, though not so great as they
afterwards became, continued uninterrupted. A rise in
the money price of labour in Great Britain during that in¬
terval is not therefore inconsistent with the fact of an ad¬
vance in the value of the precious metals, but, as Dr Smith
has stated, is a natural consequence of the improving state
of the country, and of the increasing demand for labour.
In France, which had been completely exhausted by the
ruinous enterprises of Louis XIV. and where, of course,
the demand for labour remained nearly stationary, wages
fell as the price of corn declined. ( Wealth of Nations,
i. 313.)
But whatever weight may be attached to these conclu- Stateoftbs
sions, respecting a general rise in the real value of goldcoin in the
and silver in the early part of last century, there can be^fj"0^
no question as to the fact of a rise having taken place in ^j ra
the value of the coin of Great Britain, in consequence of
the recoinage in the latter part of King William’s reign.
At that period silver constituted the English standard of
value, and to such an extent had the silver currency been
debased by clipping, filing, &c. that, in 1695, the common
price of silver bullion was 6s. 5d. per ounce, or Is. 3d.
above the mint price. A guinea then passed current for
about 30s., and the nominal exchange between London,
Holland, and Hamburg was rather more than twenty-five
per cent, against the first. ( Wealth of Nations,304.) That
this degraded state of the coin raised the price of every
other commodity as well as bullion, might be concluded
for certain, although no direct evidence of the fact had
been transmitted to us. Mr Lowndes, however, in his Re¬
port on the state of the silver coin in 1695, mentions its
degradation as “ one great cause of the raising the price, not
only of all merchandises, but of every article necessary for
the sustenance of the common people, to their great grievance.”
(Liverpool on Coin, p. 70.) And Mr Locke, in his answer
1 W heat, L.12 Scots per boll; bear and barley, L.8 do.; oats and peas, 8 merks.
CORN LAWS AND CORN TRADE. 379
Tistory of to Lowndes’ proposal for lowering the standard, confirms
the Corn statement, and asserts, that the “ price of all sorts of
provisions and commodities had risen excessively'' (Idem.)
~ The medium rise in the price of undepreciated gold
coin, and of silver bullion, compared with the clipped and
degraded coin, appears, from the statements of Locke and
Lowndes, to have rather exceeded thirty per cent. And
it is of importance to remark, that, in 1700, the year in
which the new coin came into general circulation, the
market price of corn, which had previously been rising,
declined to very near the same extent. That this fall may
in some degree have been owing to luxuriant crops, is
probable; but it is quite certain that the increased value
of the circulating medium wrould of itself have speedily
lowered the money price of corn, and of every other com¬
modity.
Mr Charles Smith, Mr Malthus, and others who con¬
tend that a bounty on the exportation of corn tends to
lower its price, admit that the bounty granted in 1688
had no such effect anterior to 1700! This fact should
have stimulated them to inquire whether any thing pecu¬
liar belonged to that year. They should have recollected,
that a fall of money prices may be as effectually brought
about by a rise in the value of the currency, as by a fall
in the value of commodities. Had they kept this principle
in view, and adverted to the circumstances under which
the recoinage of 1696,1697, and 1698 took place, perhaps
they would not have been so very confident in their asser¬
tions as to the effects of the bounty; and, at all events,
they would not have adduced the fall of prices in 1700,
and subsequently, as any proof of their correctness.
We do not certainly mean to affirm that the whole rise
of price, from 1692 to 1698 inclusive, is to be ascribed to
the depreciation of the currency. The bounty, and, in a
still greater degree, bad seasons, contributed to produce
this rise; and the fair inference is, that had there been no
bounty, prices would have fallen still lower after the re¬
coinage.
In considering the effects of the bounty, it ought always
to be recollected that prices were gradually falling pre¬
viously to its being granted.
From 1649 to 1658, the average price of the Winches¬
ter quarter of middling wheat was L.2 7 0
  1659 to 1668 2 6 8
  1669 to 1678 2 3 4
  1679 to 1688 1 18 41
The bounty was given with the avowed intention of
checking this fall, and it was, in our opinion, well calcu¬
lated to accomplish its object. But, whatever may have
been its effects, it cannot surely be assigned as the cause
of the fall of prices between 1700 and 1746, seeing that
that very fall began thirty years before it was granted, and
that prices rose in the first ten years of its existence.
Perhaps part of the fall of corn in England subsequent¬
ly to 1640 may be justly ascribed to the prohibition of the
exportation of wool, which, after several previous attempts,
was carried into full effect by the act of 1660. The wool
formerly raised in Great Britain having much exceeded
what was required for our manufactures, its price declined
as soon as its exportation was put an end to; and, of
course, some portion of the soil employed in rearing sheep
would be brought under tillage, and a greater quantity of
good land, besides an additional capital, would be turned
to the raising of corn.
Although the mint price of gold had been reduced by
King William, it was still rated too high as compared with
silver; and consequently the currency again became de- History of
ranged. The deficiency of new silver coin, caused by the ^ C°rn
inducement to melt it down, was not immediately expe- Eaws.
rienced ; but towards the latter part of Queen Anne’s reign, w’V'w/
a want of silver, and a difficulty in making payments, were
universally felt and complained of. As might have been
expected, prices rose, and, from 1709 to 1717 both inclu¬
sive, were much above the average of the eight preced¬
ing or of the following years. That this could not be an
effect of deficient crops, is evident from the fact of a con¬
siderable exportation, forced, no doubt, to a certain ex¬
tent, by the bounty having then taken place. The govern¬
ment did not indeed entertain any such opinion, but hav¬
ing wisely adopted the suggestion of Sir Isaac Newton,
and reduced the mint value of the guinea, the melting and
hoarding of silver ceased, and prices, as in 1700, fell to
their former level.
In accounting for the low price of corn in the reigns of
George I. and George II., after allowing for the increased
value of the coin, the relaxation of the laws against fore-
stallers and engrossers must not be forgotten. Large ca¬
pitals being engaged in the corn trade, extraordinary fluc¬
tuations of price were avoided. The home demand was
rendered more steady and equal; while the perfect secu¬
rity of property, and the greater political influence at¬
tached to landed possessions, naturally attracted a more
than ordinary portion of the accumulating capital of the
country towards agriculture.
The bounty, by extending the foreign market, no doubt
contributed materially to the extension of cultivation, al¬
though, by forcing recourse to worse soils in order to ob¬
tain additional supplies of corn, it raised prices. In the
period from 1740 to 1751, the cheapest in last century,
the bounties paid on exportation amounted in all to
L.1,515,000; and in 1749 alone they somewhat exceed¬
ed L.324,000. The bounty, however, had by this time
been too long in operation to permit the growers or ex¬
porters to realise more than the common and ordinary
profits of stock ; and, therefore, had it never been granted,
the quantity of corn exported, and the home price (which
must have been regulated by the expense necessary to
produce the increased supply required by the bounty on
the poorest soils in cultivation), would both have been re¬
duced. We shall afterwards elucidate this principle at
greater length; but it is of importance to remark how
much this forced exportation must have raised the real
price of corn, at the very time when it is supposed to have
reduced it.
But notwithstanding the factitious stimulus thus given Diminu-
to exportation, the exports which, in 1750, amounted to tion of ex-
1,667,778 quarters of all sorts, rapidly diminished; andPortssub-
the gradual increase of the home demand, in the last ten ®®<h’ent
years of the reign of George II. accompanied as it was by ' *
a rise of prices, reduced the annual average exportation,
at the accession of George III. in 1760, to about 600,000
quarters. After the peace of Paris in 1763, the progress
of improvement was prodigiously accelerated. The ex¬
tension of industry caused by the acquisition of new
branches of commerce, by the increase of our colonial
possessions, and, perhaps more than all the rest, by the
introduction of improved machinery into the cotton ma¬
nufacture,2 was followed by a sudden increase of the po¬
pulation, and, as importation was prohibited, by a corre¬
sponding rise of prices.
The admirers of the restrictive system have generally
reasoned as if this rise of price and the cessation of ex-
1 See table of prices of wheat at Eton College, annexed to this article.
* Jennies were invented in 1766, by Richard Hargraves, weaver in Lancashire, who, to the disgrace of his age and nation, was
suffered to pass his days in obscurity and poverty.
380 CORN LAWS AND CORN TRADE,
History of portation had been a consequence of the alteration of the
the Corn COrn laws in 1773. But it should be carefully observed
,_t"avvji' that this alteration was an avowed, and indeed a necessary
consequence of the previous rise. In 1765, before any
suspension of the restrictive system had taken place, the
balance on the side of wheat exported amounted to only
77,000 quarters, and the home price in that and the two pre¬
ceding years rose to an unusual height. The general and
growing dissatisfaction at continuing the prohibition of im¬
portation under such circumstances, produced a suspen¬
sion of the high duties in 1766; and by temporary enact¬
ments, this suspension (accompanied occasionally with
Statute of restrictions on exportation) was continued to 1773, when
1773. a permanent act was framed under the auspices of Mr
Burke. By this act foreign wheat was allowed to be im¬
ported on paying a nominal duty of 6d. whenever the
home price reached 48s. a quarter; and the bounty and
exportation were together to cease when the price reach¬
ed 44s. This statute also permitted the importation of
corn at any price, in order to be again exported, duty free,
provided it was, in the mean time, lodged under the joint
locks of the king and the importer.
The prices, when exportation was to cease, seem to have
been fixed too low in this act; and, as Dr Smith has ob¬
served, there appears a good deal of impropriety in pro¬
hibiting exportation altogether at the precise prices at
which the bounty given to force it is withdrawn ; yet with
all these defects, the act of 1773 was a material improve¬
ment on the former system, and should not have been al¬
tered unless to render the trade perfectly free.
The idea that this law must, when enacted, have been
injurious to the farmers, seems altogether illusory. The
permission to import foreign grain, when the home prices
rose to a certain rate, certainly prevented their realizing
exorbitant profits at the expense of the other classes, and
prevented an unnatural proportion of the capital of the
country being turned towards agriculture. But as this
rate was fixed very considerably higher than the average
price in the reign of George II., it cannot be maintained
that it had any tendency to lower prices, which alone could
discourage agriculture ; and in fact no such reduction took
place.
It is indeed true, that but for this act we should not
have imported so much foreign grain in the interval be¬
tween 1773 and 1791. This importation, however, was not
occasioned by the declining state of our agriculture, for
it is universally admitted that every department of rural
economy was more improved in that period than in the
whole course of the preceding century ; but arose entire¬
ly from a still more rapid increase of the manufacturing
population, and hence of the effective demand for corn.
By referring to the tables of exports and imports annex¬
ed to this article, it will be seen that, in 1772, the balance
on the side of wheat imported amounted to 18,515 quar¬
ters; and in 1773, 1774, and 1775, all years of great pros¬
perity, this balance was very much increased. The loss,
however, of a great part of our colonial possessions, and
the stagnation of commerce occasioned by the American
contest, diminished the consumption ; and this diminution
concurring with luxuriant harvests, the balance was high
on the side of exportation in 1778, 1779, and 1780. In
1783 and 1784 the crop was unusually deficient, and con¬
siderable importations took place ; but in 1785, 1786, and
1787, the exports again exceeded the imports ; and it was
not till 1788, when the country had fully recovered from
r ^le effects of the war, and when manufacturing improve-
produce6 ° I11611*'8 were carried on with extraordinary spirit, that the
between imPorts permanently overbalanced the exports.
1773 and The growing wealth and commercial prosperity of the
ij'Jl. country had thus, by increasing the population, and ena¬
bling individuals to consume additional quantities of food, History tf
caused the home supplies to fall somewhat short of the de- the Corn
maud; but it must not therefore be concluded that agri- Laws,
culture had not at the same time been very greatly ame-
liorated. “ The average annual produce of wheat,” says
Mr Comber, “ at the beginning of the reign of George III.
was about 3,800,000 quarters, of which about 300,000
had been sent out of the kingdom, leaving about three
and a half millions for home consumption. In 1773, the
produce of wheat was stated to the House of Commons
to be 4,000,000 of quarters, of which the whole, and
above 100,000 imported, were consumed in the kingdom.
In 1796 the consumption was stated in the House of Com¬
mons, by Lord Hawkesbury, to be 500,000 quarters per
month, or six millions annually, of which about 180,000
were imported, showing an increased produce, in about
twenty years, of 1,820,000 quarters. It is evident, there¬
fore, not only that no defalcation of produce had taken
place in consequence of the cessation of exportation, as
has been too lightly assumed, from the occasional neces¬
sity of importation; but that it had increased with the
augmentation of our commerce and manufactures.” (Com¬
ber on National Subsistence, p. 180.)
These estimates are, no doubt, very loose and unsatis¬
factory, but the fact of a large increase of produce is un¬
questionable. In the Report of the House of Commons
on Waste Lands, drawn up in 1797, the number of acts
passed for inclosing, and the number of acres inclosed, in
the following reigns, are thus stated:
In Queen Anne’s reign
In George I 
In George II 
In George HI. to 1797,
Number Number
of Acts. of Acres.
 2 1,429
 16 17,660
...226 318,728
1,532 2,804,197
It deserves particular notice, that from 1771 to 1791,
both inclusive, the period when these great agricultural
improvements were principally carried on, there was no
rise of prices.
The landholders, however, could not but consider the Statute of
liberty of importation granted by the act of 1773 as inju- *
rious to their interests, inasmuch as it prevented prices
from rising with the increased demand. A clamour, there¬
fore, was raised against that law; and, in addition to this
interested feeling, a dread of becoming habitually depen¬
dent on foreigners for supplies of corn operated with many,
and produced a pretty general acquiescence in the act of
1791, by which the price, when importation could take
place at the low duty of 6d., was raised to 54s., under 54s.
and above 50s. a middle duty of 2s. 6d., and under 50s. a
prohibitory duty of 24s. 3d., were exigible. The bounty
continued as before, and exportation without bounty was
allowed to 46s. It was also enacted that foreign wheat
might be imported, stored under the king’s locks, and again
exported free of duty; but if sold for home consumption
in the kingdom, it became liable to a warehouse-duty of
2s. 6d. in addition to the ordinary duties payable at the
time of sale.
Mr Comber has justly blamed this imposition of duties
on the warehousing of foreign corn ; but the deficient crops
of 1795 and 1797, followed as they were by a great rise
of prices, superseded these provisions, and even caused the
granting of high bounties on importation.
In 1797 the Bank of England was restricted from pay¬
ing in specie, and the consequent facility of obtaining dis¬
counts gave a fresh stimulus to agriculture; the efficacy
of which was most powerfully assisted by the great scar¬
city and high prices of 1800 and 1801. These may in¬
deed be said to have inspired all classes with a sort of agri-
CORN LAWS AND CORN TRADE. 381
History of cultural mania ; and as the prices of 1802 and 1803 would
the Corn not permit the profitable cultivation of the poor soils which
Laws, had been taken into tillage during the scarcity, a new corn
law was loudly called for by the farmers, and passed in
Statute of 1804. This act imposed a prohibitory duty of 24s. 3d. per
1804, in- quarter on all wheat imported when the home price was
creasing at or below 63s.; between 63s. and 66s. a middle duty of
the duties wag pajj. an(i above 66s. a nominal duty of 6d.
tation^" Pr‘ce at which the bounty was paid on exportation
was extended to 40s. and exportation without bounty to
54s. By the act of 1791, the maritime counties of Eng¬
land had been divided into twelve districts, and importa¬
tion and exportation had been regulated by the particular
prices of each; but by the act of 1804, they were regu¬
lated in England by the aggregate average of the twelve
maritime districts, and in Scotland by the aggregate aver¬
age of the four maritime districts. The averages, as at pre¬
sent, were taken at four periods in the year, and the ports
were either open or shut for not less than three months.
This method of ascertaining prices was, however, modi¬
fied in the following season, and it was then fixed that im¬
portation both in England and Scotland should be regu¬
lated by the average price of the whole twelve maritime
districts.
To prohibit the importation of the necessaries of life
into a country where the supply is short of the demand,
till prices rise to a certain height, has an obvious ten¬
dency to raise them still higher. In 1805 the crop was
very considerably deficient, and the average price of that
year was about 22s. above the price at which importa¬
tion was allowed by the act of 1804. The depreciation
of paper compared with bullion, being at that time about
four per cent., the high price must have been owing to the
new corn law preventing importation till the home price
was high, and then cramping mercantile operations ; and
to the war rendering the cost of importation unusual¬
ly great. In 1806, 1807, and 1808, the depreciation of
paper, compared with bullion, continued at nearly four per
cent.; and the price of wheat in these years being gene¬
rally from 66s. to 75s., a small importation only took place.
From autumn 1808 to spring 1814, the depreciation of our
currency was rapid beyond all former example ; and seve¬
ral crops in that interval being likewise deficient, the
money price of corn, influenced by both causes, rose to a
surprising height. The following is a statement of the
money or paper price, and of the bullion price of corn, from
1809 to 1814, both inclusive :—
Paper Price per Quarter.
1809   97s. 4d.
1810  106s. 5d.
1811   95s. 3d.
1812  126s. 6d.
1813  109s. 9d.
1814   74s. 4d.
Bullion Price per Quarter.
1809   94s. 9d.
1810   91s. lid.
1811   87s. 9d.
1812  100s. 3d.
1813   86s. 6d.
1814   55s. 8d.
The crops of 1809 and 1810 were much below an ave¬
rage, and the bullion price of these years is a good deal
higher than the importation price fixed by the act of 1804.
This excess is to be ascribed partly to that law, and part¬
ly to the extraordinary difficulties then thrown in the way
of importing grain. At that time no vessel could be load¬
ed in any continental port for England, without purchas¬
ing a license ; and the freight and insurance were at least
Jive times as high as during peace. The same causes ope¬
rated in 1812 ; but in the autumn of 1813 the destruc¬
tion of Napoleon’s anti-commercial system having increas¬
ed the facilities of importation, a large quantity of corn was
poured into the kingdom ; and in 1814 its bullion price was
reduced below the point at which importation was allowed.
Before this fall of price, a committee of the House of
Commons had been appointed to inquire into the state of History of
the laws affecting the corn trade ; and their report (dated the Com
11th May 1813) recommended a very great extension of Laws,
the rates at which exportation was formerly allowable,
and when importation free of duty could take place. The
recommendation of this committee was not adopted by
the House ; but the fact of its having been made when
the home price was at least 112s. per quarter, displays a
surprising solicitude to exclude foreigners from all com¬
petition with the home growers.
The lessening of the dependence of the country on fo- Proceed-
reign supplies formed the sole ostensible ground on which in/s re-
this committee proposed to alter the act of 1804. ButsPecBng
after the fall of price in autumn 1813, and in the early a tPe.r,a'
part of 1814, it became obvious, on comparing our former corn lawg
prices with those of the Continent, that, without an alter-in 1814.
ation of the existing law, this dependence would be con¬
siderably increased ; that a good deal of the poor lands,
which the recent high prices had forced into cultivation,
would have to be thrown into pasturage ; and that rents
would be materially reduced. These consequences alarm¬
ed the landlords and occupiers, and in the early part of
the session of 1814 a series of resolutions were voted by
the House of Commons, declaring that it was expedient
to repeal the bounty; to permit the free exportation of
corn, whatever might be the home price, and to impose
a graduated scale of duties on foreign corn when import¬
ed. Thus, wheat imported when the home price was at
or under 64s. was to pay a duty of 24s.; when at or
under 65s. a duty of 23s.; and so on till the home
price reached 86s. when the duty was reduced to Is.,
at which it became stationary. Corn imported from
the British colonies in North America was to pay only
half the above duties. As soon as these resolutions
were agreed to, two bills founded on them, one regu¬
lating the importation of foreign corn, and another re¬
pealing the bounty, and permitting unrestricted exporta¬
tion, were introduced. Very little attention was paid to
the last of these bills ; but that which imposed fresh du¬
ties on importation encountered a very keen opposition.
The manufacturers, and every class not directly support¬
ed by agriculture, stigmatized it as an unjustifiable attempt
to keep up the price of food, and to secure excessive
rents and large profits to landlords and farmers, at the
expense of the consumers. Meetings were generally held,
and resolutions entered into strongly expressive of this
sentiment, and dwelling on the fatal consequences that a
continuance of high prices would have on our manufac¬
tures, in a season of peace, when we could no longer mo¬
nopolize the commerce of the world. This opposition,
coupled with the indecision of ministers, and perhaps, too,
with an expectation, on the part of some of the landlords,
that prices would speedily rise, without any legislative
interference, caused the miscarriage of this bill. The
other was passed into a law.
Committees of both houses of parliament were appointed Report on
in 1814 to examine evidence and to report on the state of1*10 corn
the corn trade ; and a great number of the most eminent tra<*e an(*
agriculturists were in consequence examined. The wit-
nesses were unanimous in this only, that the protecting ^14,
prices fixed by the act of 1804 were insufficient to enable
the farmers to make good the engagements into which they
had subsequently entered, and to continue the cultivation
of the inferior lands lately brought under tillage. Some of
them thought 120s. ought to be fixed as the limit when
wheat might be imported free of duty ; others varied from
90s. to 100s.; others from 80s. to 90s.; and a few from 70s.
to 80s. The general opinion, however, seemed to be that
80s. would answer; and, as prices continued to decline, a
set of resolutions, founded on this assumption, were sub-
382
CORN LAWS AND CORN TRADE.
History of mitted to the House of Commons by Mr Robinson (now
the Corn Lord Goderich), and having been agreed to, a bill found-
^ Caws. ecj Qn t]lem wag) after a very vi0]ent; opposition, carried in
both houses by immense majorities, and finaily passed into
a law (55th George III. c. 26).
History of The agriculturists confidently expected that this act
from DDs wou^ immediately raise prices, and render them steady
to 1828. at about 80s. But, for reasons which will be afterwards
stated, these expectations were entirely disappointed ; and
there has been a more ruinous fluctuation of prices since
1815, when it was passed, than in any previous period of
our recent history. In 1821, when prices had sunk very
low, a committee of the House of Commons was appoint¬
ed to inquire into the causes of the depressed state of
agriculture, and to report their observations thereupon.
This committee, after examining a number of witnesses,
drew up a report, which, though not free from error, is a
very valuable document. It contains a forcible exposition
of the pernicious influence of the law of 1815, of which it
suggested several important modifications. These, how¬
ever, were not adopted ; and as the low prices and conse¬
quent distress of the agriculturists continued, the subject
was brought under the consideration of parliament in the
following year. After a good deal of discussion, a new
act was then passed (3d Geo. IV. cap. 60), which enact¬
ed, that, after prices had risen to the limit of free impor¬
tation fixed by the act of 1815, that act was to cease, and
the new statute to come into operation. This statute
lowered the prices fixed by the act of 1815, at which im¬
portation could take place for home consumption, to the
following sums, viz.
For Corn not of the For Com of the British
British Possessions Possessions in North
in North America. America.
Wheat 70s. per quarter. 59s. per quarter.
Rye, peas, and beans..46s. 39s.
Barley, bear, or big...35s. 30s.
Oats. 25s. 20s.
But in order to prevent any violent oscillation of prices
from a large supply of grain being suddenly thrown upon
the market, it was enacted, that a duty of 17s. a quarter
should be laid on all wheat imported from foreign coun¬
tries during the first three months after the opening of
the ports if the price was between 70s. and 80s. a quarter,
and of 12s. afterwards; and if the price was between 80s.
and 85s. the duty was to be 10s. during the first three
months, and 5s. afterwards ; and if the price should ex¬
ceed 85s. the duty was to be constant at Is.; and propor¬
tionally for other sorts of grain.
This act, by preventing importation until the home
pi ice rose to lOs. and then loading the quantities import¬
ed between that limit and the limit of 85s. with heavy
duties, was certainly more favourable to the views of the
agriculturists than the act of 1815. But, unluckily for
them, no species of corn except barley was sufficiently
ugh while this act existed to bring it into operation.
In 1825, the first approach was made to a better sys¬
tem, by permitting the importation of wheat from British
Worth America, without reference to the price at home,
on payment of a duty of 5s. a quarter. But the act for
this purpose was passed with difficulty, and was limited to
one years duration.
Owing to the drought which prevailed during the sum¬
mer of 1826, there was every prospect that there would
be a great deficiency in the crops of that year; and in
oi del to prevent the disastrous consequences that might
have taken place had importation been prevented until
the season was too far advanced for bringing supplies from
the great corn markets in the north of Europe, his ma¬
jesty was authorized to admit 500,000 quarters of foreign
wheat, on payment of such duties as the order in council History of
for its importation should declare. And when it was the Com
ascertained that the crops of oats, peas, &c. were greatly Laws,
below an average, ministers issued an order in council, on
their own responsibility, on the 1st of September, autho¬
rizing the immediate importation of oats on payment of a
duty of 2s. 6d. a boll, and of rye, peas, and beans, on pay¬
ment of a duty of 3s. 6d. a quarter. A considerable
quantity of oats was imported under this order, the timely
appearance of which had no doubt a considerable effect in
mitigating the pernicious consequences arising from the
deficiency of that species of grain. Ministers obtained an
indemnity for this order in the subsequent meeting of par¬
liament.
Nothing could more strikingly evince the impolicy of
the acts of 1815 and 1822 than the necessity under which
the legislature and government had been placed of pass¬
ing the temporary acts and issuing the orders alluded to.
The more intelligent portion of the agriculturists began at
length to perceive that the corn laws were not really cal¬
culated to produce the advantages they had anticipated;
and a conviction that increased facilities should be given
to importation became general throughout the country.
The same conviction made considerable progress in the
House of Commons; so much so, that several members
who supported the measures adopted in 1815 and 1822
expressed themselves satisfied that the principle of ex¬
clusion had been carried too far, and that a more liberal
system should be adopted. Ministers having participat¬
ed in these sentiments, Mr Canning moved a series of re¬
solutions, as the foundation of a new corn law, on the 1st
of March 1827. These resolutions bore that foreign corn
might be imported, at all times, free of duty, for ware¬
housing; and that it should always be admissible for
home consumption on payment of certain duties. Thus,
in the instance of wheat, it was resolved that, when the
home price was at or above 70s. a quarter, the duty should
be a fixed one of Is. a quarter ; and that for every shilling
that the price fell below 70s. a duty of 2s. should be im¬
posed ; so that, when the price was at 69s., the duty on
importation was to be 2s.; when at 68s. the duty was to
be 4s. and so on. The limit at which the constant duty
of Is. a quarter was to take place in the case of barley
was originally fixed at 37s.; but it was subsequently raised
to 40s.; the duty increasing by Is. fid. for every shilling
which the price fell below that limit. The limit at which
the constant duty of Is. a quarter was to take place in the
case of oats was originally fixed at 28s.; but it was sub¬
sequently raised to 33s., the duty increasing at the rate
of Is. a quarter for every shilling that the price fell below
that limit. The duty on colonial wheat was fixed at 6d.
the quarter when the home price was above 65s.; and
when the price was under that sum, the duty was con¬
stant at 5s.; the duties on other descriptions of colonial
grain were similar. These resolutions were agreed to by
a large majority; and a bill founded on them was subse¬
quently carried through the House of Commons. Owing,
however, to the change of ministers which took place in
the interim, several peers originally favourable to the bill,
and some even who assisted in its preparation, saw reason
to become amongst its most violent opponents : a clause
interdicting all importation until the home price exceeded
66s. having been carried in the Lords, ministers gave up
the bill, justly considering that such a clause was entirely
subversive of its principle.
A new set of resolutions with respect to the corn trade
were brought forward in 1828 by Mr Charles Grant. They
were founded upon the same principles as those which had
been rejected during the previous session. But the duty
was not made to vary equally, as in Mr Canning’s resolu-
CORN LAWS AND CORN TRADE. 383
History of tions, with every equal variation of price; it being 23s.
the Corn gd. when the home price was 64s. the imperial quarter,
Laws, when it was 69s., and Is. only when it was at or
above 73s. a quarter; a difference of 4s. in the price
making a difference of no less than 15s. 8d. in the duty.
After a good deal of debate Mr Grant’s resolutions were
carried, and embodied in the act 9th Geo. IV. cap. 60.
The prices which governed the duties in this act were
ascertained from the sales of corn in most of the principal
towns of England. The dealers were bound, under a pen¬
alty for each omission, to make weekly returns of these
sales to the corn inspectors resident in the different towns,
who reported them to the comptroller of corn returns
in London. The latter deduced from them a general
average price, published weekly in the Gazette. Attempts
have sometimes been made to falsify the average, by mak¬
ing reports of fictitious sales ; but it is generally believed
that the prices as reported have corresjxmded very closely
with the real prices at the time.
Varying Besides the objections which, it will be immediately
duties in- sh0Wn, may be made to all protecting duties, from their
risk (rf the tendency t0 f°rce UP aYeraSe prices, and to render expor-
corn trade. tation ’n abundant years impossible, the duty imposed by
the 9th Geo. IV. cap. 60 is liable to some weighty ob¬
jections, which may be looked upon as peculiar to itself.
From the way in which it was graduated, it introduced a
new element of uncertainty into every transaction con¬
nected with the corn trade, producing a disinclination on
• the part of the merchant to import, and of the foreigner
to raise corn for our markets. Suppose a merchant had
commissioned a cargo of wheat when the price was at 71s.
a quarter, in the event of the price declining only 3s. or
to 68s., the duty rose from 6s. 8d. to 16s. 8d.; and if the
merchant brought the grain to market he realised 13s.
a quarter less than he expected, and 10s. less than he
would have done had there been no duty, or the duty been
constant!
It may perhaps be said, that if, on the one hand, the
late scale of duties was injurious to the merchant when
prices were falling, and when importation w^as consequently
either unnecessary, or of less advantage, it was, on the
other hand, equally advantageous to him, when prices
were rising, and wdien the public interests required that
importation should be encouraged. But the prices in the
view of the merchant when he gives an order are usually
such as he supposes will yield a fair profit; and if they
rise, this rise would, supposing the duty to be constant,
yield such an extra profit as would of itself encourage him
to increase his importations to the utmost. If it were
possible to devise a system that should diminish the losses
of the merchants engaged in unfavourable speculations, by
making a proportional deduction from the extraordinary
gains of those whose speculations turn out to be unusually
successful, something perhaps might be found to say in its
favour. But the system we have been considering pro¬
ceeded upon quite opposite principles; its effect was not
to diminish risks, but to increase them ; it added to the
loss resulting from an unsuccessful, and to the profit re¬
sulting from a successful speculation !
It is plain, therefore, that if a duty be imposed, one that
is constant is preferable to one that fluctuates. When the
duty is constant, all classes, farmers as well as merchants,
are aware of its amount, and can previously calculate the
extent of its influence. But the effect of a duty that fluc¬
tuates with the fluctuations of prices can never be appre¬
ciated beforehand. Its magnitude depends on contingent
and accidental circumstances, and it must, therefore, of
necessity prejudice the interests of the farmer as well as
of the corn-dealer.
The crops having been deficient in 1829 and 1830,
there was a large importation of corn in these years, its History of
average price being at the same time about 65s. a quarter. ^ Lorn
But the crops from 1831 to 1836 having been more than
usually abundant, importation almost wholly ceased, and History of
the price of wheat sunk in 1835 to 39s. 4d. a quarter, the corn
being less than it had been in any previous year since laws from
1776. In consequence of this succession of good harvests l8'28 t0
and low prices, the corn laws ceased for a while to attract18,18-
any considerable portion of the public attention, and an
impression began to gain ground that the improvement
of agriculture was so rapid, that, despite the increase of
population and the existence of the corn laws, our prices
would fall to about the level of those of the Continent.
But the cycle of favourable seasons having terminated in
1837, the crops of that and the succeeding five years were
considerably deficient; so much so, that prices rose in
1839 to 70s. 8d. a quarter, the importations in that and
the three following years being also very large. This in¬
crease in the price of corn, combined with the depressed
state of commerce, originating in the pecuniary revul¬
sion in the United States, and other causes, again attract¬
ed a great deal of attention to the corn laws; and the
oppressive magnitude and injurious operation of the du¬
ties were very strongly animadverted upon at public meet¬
ings in the manufacturing towns and elsewhere. An
association, denominated the Anti-Corn-Law League, ori¬
ginally founded in Lancashire, but which subsequently
extended its ramifications to most parts of the country,
was set on foot for the express purpose of keeping up an
incessant agitation against the corn laws, which, in conse¬
quence of these concurring circumstances, were assailed
with greater bitterness than ever. The importance of the
subject at length forced it on the attention of government;
and in 1841, ministers, actuated partly by a sense of the
mischievous influence of the sliding scale, and partly also
b}' a wish to strengthen their declining popularity, brought
forward a plan for remodelling the corn laws, by repealing
the sliding scale, and imposing in its stead a constant duty
of 8s. a quarter on wheat, and in proportion on other grain.
But, having no majority in parliament, ministers wrere
obliged to resort to a dissolution ; and their proposal hav¬
ing, notwithstanding its moderation, excited the greatest
apprehensions among the agriculturists, without being very
warmly supported by the other classes, a new parliament
was returned, which gave a decided majority to the oppo¬
sition. It was, however, felt on all hands to be necessary
to make some considerable change in the existing law, and
in 1842 a measure was introduced in that view by Sir
Robert Feel, which was subsequently passed into a law,
5th Viet. 2d Sess. cap. 14.
Unfortunately, however, this measure, like that by which
it w as preceded, was bottomed on the principle of making
the duties vary with the variations in the price of corn ;
and though the duties were decidedly less oppressive than
those imposed by the 9th Geo. IV. cap. 60, still they were
in no ordinary degree objectionable, as w'ell from their too
great magnitude as from their adding to the natural inse¬
curity of the corn trade, and increasing the chances and
severity of fluctuations. It is not, therefore, to be won¬
dered at that the new measure gave but little satisfaction.
Instead of being abated, the agitation and clamour against
the corn laws continued progressively to gain strength ;
and the conviction began at the same time gradually to
extend itself among many of those by whom these laws
had hitherto been supported, that farther modifications
would have to be made in them, and that they might be
made without inflicting any very serious injury upon agri¬
culture.
This conviction was greatly strengthened by the result
of the important changes made by Sir Robert Peel in the
384 CORN LAWS AND CORN TRADE.
History oftariffin 1842, and more especially by those which had re-
^°rn ference t° the importation of live cattle and fresh provi-
-, a<N-S^_- sions. These had previously been prohibited ; but the
minister proposed that this prohibition should be repealed,
and that their importation should be permitted under
reasonable duties. This proposal, when first brought for¬
ward, excited the greatest apprehensions among the far¬
mers and graziers, and wras followed by an immediate fall
in the price of cattle. Happily, however, the measure was
carried, and it was speedily discovered that there was no
such difference between the prices of cattle of the same
quality here and in the adjacent parts of the Continent as
had been supposed, and that the fears entertained by the
agriculturists of the approaching ruin of the businesses of
breeding and grazing were altogether visionary and un¬
founded. The experience afforded by the reduction and
subsequent abolition of the duty on wool was exactly
similar. Instead of being injured, the interests of the
British sheep farmers were promoted by these measures,
the demand for home-grown wool having been rendered
comparatively steady, and its price considerably increased
by the stimulus which the change in the duty on foreign
wool gave to the woollen manufacture.1
In the following year, that is, in 1843, a measure was
adopted, which made a wide breach in the corn laws. In
1842 the Legislature of Canada passed a law, imposing a
duty of 3s. a quarter on all wheat imported into the pro¬
vince, unless from the United Kingdom, stating, in the
preamble to this act, that it was passed in the expectation
and belief that a corresponding reduction would be made
in the duties on wheat and wheat-flour imported into the
United Kingdom from Canada. And conformably to this
anticipation, the act 6th and 7th Viet. cap. 29, passed in
1843, reduced the duty on wheat imported from Canada
to Is. a quarter, and proportionally on wheat-flour. This
act met with much opposition from a part of the agri¬
cultural interest in this country, who contended that it
would lead to the introduction of unlimited supplies
of corn from the United States, at a duty of only 4s. a
quarter, or, allowing for smuggling, at perhaps only half
that amount. But experience showed that these antici¬
pations were not likely to be realised ; for, though the
imports from Canada were materially increased, the ob¬
stacles in the way of the importation of corn from the
United States into Canada, and the danger and expense
of the voyage from Montreal or Quebec to England, must
necessarily have prevented the importation through this
channel from ever becoming of much importance. Still,
however, the measure was in so far an abandonment of the
corn laws ; and if we were justified in admitting the produce
of the United States to our markets in this indirect way,
it was not easy to discover satisfactory grounds on which
to exclude the produce of other States.
The success of the measures adopted in 1842 encouraged
Sir Robert Peel to attempt still more considerable changes
in 1845, when he abolished the customs’duties onabout420
articles, some of which were of very considerable impor¬
tance. The measures then adopted were equivalent, in
fact, to the virtual abandonment of the protective system;
and, under such circumstances, it could not be expected
that the corn laws, on which so serious an inroad had been
made by the Canada act, would be able to maintain their
place on the statute-book for any very lengthened period.
1 hey might, however, have been continued for some
time longer, had not the unsatisfactory corn harvest, and
the failure of the potatoe crop of 1845, made it necessary
to adopt measures for averting the anticipated deficiency History of
in the supplies of food. Under the critical circumstances A10 Corn
in which the population was then believed to be placed, Laws,
the temporary suspension of the corn laws could hardly ^
have been avoided ; but, if once suspended, their re-enact¬
ment would have been all but impossible, and it was better,
perhaps, by at once providing for their repeal, to make an
end of the system, and of the dissatisfaction and agitation
to which it had given birth, than to endeavour to continue
it in any modified shape. Such was the view of the matter
taken by Sir Robert Peel; and he fortunately succeeded,
despite difficulties that none else could have overcome, in
carrying the act 9th and 10th Viet. cap. 22, for the imme¬
diate modification of the corn laws, and for their total re¬
peal at the end of three years, or on the 1st February
1849. From that date wheat and other corn will be sub¬
jected, on importation, to a fixed duty of Is. a quarter;
and flour and meal, of all sorts, to a fixed duty of 4|d. a
cwt.
The policy on which the corn trade of Ireland was con- |r;sh corn
ducted during the last century, was not materially differ-laws,
ent in its principles from that followed in Great Britain.
In 1707 the Irish parliament granted, by a statute framed
in imitation of the English act of 1689, a bounty of Is. 6d.
per quarter on every quarter of wheat exported when the
price was at or under 14s.; of Is. on the quarter of barley,
bear, or big, when at or under 10s.; and of Is. on the
quarter of oats when at or under 9s. This act, however,
did not by any means place the Irish agriculturists on the
same footing with those of Great Britain. The bounty
scarcely exceeded a fourth part of what had been grant¬
ed in this country; and Mr Newenham has shown, that
the prices, when it became payable, were fixed much below
the average rate at the time. (Natural and Political
Circumstances of Ireland, p. 124.)
Though we are very far from imagining that Ireland
lost any thing by this different treatment, it shows the
spirit which influenced, at that period, the English Go¬
vernment in its conduct towards that country. If bounties
were really beneficial, as they were then supposed to be,
Ireland had a right to every advantage that could be de¬
rived from them. We had just succeeded in putting a stop
to her rising progress in the woollen manufacture; and if
the government of England, and its dependents in the Irish
parliament, had not been actuated by an illiberal jealousy
of Irish agriculture, as well as of Irish manufactures, the
same encouragements to cultivation would doubtless have
been held forth in both countries.
The bounty continued to be regulated by the act of
1707 till 1755, when its mode of payment was changed,
but the amount remained nearly the same. In the reign
of George III., however, a different policy was adopted,
and several consecutive laws (5th Geo. III. cap. 19, 13th
and 14th Geo. III. cap. 11, 19th and 20th Geo. Ill-
cap. 17) w'ere enacted, by which the bounties were great¬
ly enlarged. At last, in 1784, the statute 23d and 24th Bountyai\
Geo. III. cap. 19, was passed, by which a bounty of0^1?84,
3s. 4d. was granted on every barrel of wheat weighing
twenty stone exported when the home price was at or
under 27s.; of Is. 7d. on the barrel of barley, bear, and
big, weighing sixteen stone, w'hen at or under 13s. 6d.,
and of Is. 5d. on the barrel of oats, weighing fourteen
stone, w'hen at or under 10s. These high bounties, coupled
with the prohibitory duties imposed at the same time on
importation, amounting to 10s. the barrel on wheat w'hen
1 The late fall in the price of wool has had nothing to do with these measures, but has been wholly a consequence of the vast
and rapidly increasing importations from our Australian colonies. These have reduced the price of wool, not in this country only,
but generally throughout the commercial world.
CORN LAWS AND CORN TRADE. 385
listory ofthe home price was at or under 30s., on barley 10s. when
the Corn at or under 14s. 6d., and on oats 5s. when at or under 11s.,
Laws. gave an extraordinary stimulus to cultivation, and soon
caused a very great increase of tillage, and of the exports
of corn from Ireland.
Effects of it is extremely doubtful, however, notwithstanding the
lhe boujlt£ encomiums which have been lavished on the act of 1784
ict0 7 ‘by Mr Newenham and others, whether the increase of til¬
lage it occasioned has not been really prejudicial. If the
agriculture of Ireland had been improved, if more produce
had been obtained with less labour than formerly, and if
the cottage system, the bane of that kingdom, had been
losing ground, it might have been justly contended that
the immediate effects of the bounty had been beneficial;
but it has not had, and could not rationally be expected
to have, any such consequences. “ Perhaps,” says Mr
Wakefield, “ I shall be told that Ireland, under the pre¬
sent system, is improving, and that rents of late years have
considerably risen. Rents will rise by an extension, as well
as by an improvement of tillage ; they will rise from an in¬
crease in the price of produce; and it is well known that
they have risen in consequence of an enlargement of circu¬
lating medium. To these causes I ascribe the latter circum¬
stance, the truth of which I fully admit, though I abso¬
lutely deny the former. If any one will show me farming
buildings of a late erection, or point out a single plough of
a proper construction, in the hands of an Irish farmer,
whose only means of support is the cultivation of the soil,
1 will" allow that some improvement has taken place. Is
any competent judge prepared to say, that fewer acres in
proportion to the whole tillage land, are cultivated with the
spade, than there were twenty years ago ? Some, perhaps,
may consider this system as beneficial, by affording em¬
ployment to the people ; but it might be observed, on the
other hand, that to count the grains of wheat in every bar¬
rel would furnish them employment also. In every case of
this kind we ought to look to the result, for employment
is useful only as it becomes productive.” {Account of Ire¬
land, Statistical and Political, vol. i. p. 582.)
Mr Wakefield is quite correct. By suddenly raising
prices, the bounty certainly stimulated the cultivation of
the soil; but the want of capital, and the consequent diffi¬
culty of finding farmers capable of taking large farms,
coupled with the general predilection of the Irish people in
favour of small ones, conspired to cause a still more mi¬
nute division of property, and to give a factitious stimulus
to population. The fact of an increase having taken place
in the numbers of a people (and it is on this that Mr
Newenham principally relies when contending for the fa¬
vourable effects of the bounty), does not by itself authorise
the inference that it has been really beneficial. Were it pos¬
sible, and we trust it is not, to give the English and Scotch
peasants the same habits as those of Ireland, to render them
satisfied with potatoes, mud cottages, rags and wretchedness,
their numbers would rapidly increase ; but their situation
would, at the same time, be altered very much for the worse.
In the same way, if we could inspire the people of Ireland
with that taste for comforts, cleanliness, and good living,
which so honourably distinguishes the people of Eng¬
land, their numbers would perhaps be diminished, but their
social condition would be rendered far more enviable
than at present. More happiness, more enjoyment, more,
in short, of every thing that is either desirable or praise¬
worthy, will be found in a country occupied by a compa¬
ratively small number of well fed, well clothed, and well
educated inhabitants, than are to be found in a nation Principles,
peopled with myriads of human beings pressing against °^^^orn
the limits of subsistence, and sunk in sloth and poverty. . ^ ^
To endeavour to impress on the minds of the lower
classes the propriety of being contented with the simplest
and cheapest fare, is generally pernicious to the best
interests of mankind. Encomiums should not be be¬
stowed on those who are satisfied with mere necessaries.
On the contrary, such indifference ought to be considered
as disgraceful. A taste for the comforts, the enjoyments,
and the luxuries of life, should be as widely diffused as pos¬
sible, and, if possible, interwoven with the national cha¬
racter and prejudices. This, as it appears to us, is the
best mode of attempting to meliorate the condition of the
lower classes. Luxurious and even wasteful habits are
incomparably better than that sluggish apathy, which
would content itself with what can barely continue mere
animal existenee. “ In those countries,” Mr Ricardo judi¬
ciously observes, “ where the labouring classes have the
fewest wants, and are contented with the cheapest food,
the people are exposed to the greatest vicissitudes and
miseries. They have no place of refuge from calamity;
they cannot seek safety in a lower station ; they are
already so low that they can fall no lower. On any defi¬
ciency of the chief article of their subsistence, there are
few substitutes of which they can avail themselves, and
dearth to them is attended with almost all the evils of
famine.”
The corn law of 1804, the first framed subsequently to
the union, extended to Ireland; and the price at which
the bounty became payable on the exportation of wheat
from that country was raised to 29s. 4d. per barrel, and
of rye to 20s. 4d.; the price at which the bounty was given
on the exportation of oats remained the same, and very
little alteration was made in the amount of the bounties
themselves.
The shackles which an absurd policy had at different Act of
times (see 33d Geo. III. cap. 65, 42d Geo. III. cap. 35, 44th 1806, esta-
Geo. III. cap. 65, &c.) imposed on the transport of corn be-^'sain£ .
tween Great Britain and Ireland, were not removed by the m
act of 1804. They were, however, abolished very soon tra(je ]je.
after. The act of 1806 (46th Geo. III. cap. 97) estab- tween Bri-
lished a perfect freedom in the corn trade between the tain and
two great divisions of the empire; and contributed moreIre^ancfi
perhaps to the general advantage and prosperity, than
any other enactment framed in the reign of Geo. III.
The law of 1828, and the 9th Geo. IV. cap. 60, regulat¬
ing importation from abroad, and the subsequent acts hav¬
ing the same object in view, have all extended to Ireland.1
II. PRINCIPLES OF THE CORN LAWS.
Having completed this sketch of the history of the corn
laws, we shall now briefly examine the principles on which
they have been founded. And as there no longer exists
any difference of opinion as to the propriety of giving an
unbounded freedom of exportation, we shall confine our in¬
quiries, 1st, to the policy of encouraging this exportation by
means of a bounty; and, 2d, of laying restrictions on im¬
portation.
‘ That this subject may be properly understood, it is ne¬
cessary to premise that the average value of corn, like
that of every other commodity, is regulated, in every stage
of society, by the greater or less quantity of labour neces¬
sary to its production under the most unfavourable circum¬
stances^ A bushel of wheat may be obtained from the
1 Our readers will hnd a very ample and instructive discussion respecting the inland bounty on the importation of corn into Dub¬
lin, in the Appendix to Mr Voung’s Tour in Ireland.
an l T«aL«°mplete demonstration of this imP«rtant and fundamental principle, see Air Ricardo’s Principles of Political Economy
VOL. VII.
3 c
386 CORN LAWS AND CORN TRADE.
Principles rich soils of Essex, Kent, or the Carse of Gowrie, at a half
Laws01” °r a Part t^ie exPense necessary to produce it in
s less favoured situations, and might therefore be sold for a
Circum- or a third part of the price of the other. But if the
stances re- demand be such as requires the cultivation of inferior lands,
gulating the price of the produce of such lands is elevated so as
the ex to admit of the ordinary profits of stock being realised
valuetheir cultivators. For were it not raised thus high,
raw^nro- ^le cuhivation of inferior lands would be abandoned, and
duce. the necessary supplies of food would no longer be ob¬
tained.
In the earlier stages of society, and wherever the popu¬
lation is very limited, the best lands only are cultivated ;
and as they yield a large produce with comparatively little
labour, its value is proportionally low. But as society
advances, and the density of population increases, re¬
course must be had to inferior soils. A greater expen¬
diture of capital and labour is then required to produce
the same quantity of corn ; and, of course, its value, com¬
pared with other commodities, in the production of which
no additional quantity of labour has been required, is in¬
creased.
The raising of raw produce differs, therefore, from any
other species of industry. In manufactures, the worst
machinery is first set in motion, and every day its powers
are improved ; and it is rendered capable of yielding a
greater amount of produce with the same expense. The
discovery of a new machine, or of a more expeditious
and less expensive mode of manufacturing, very soon su¬
persedes the older and clumsier machinery previously in
use; while the consequent competition never fails to reduce
the price of commodities to the sum which the least ex¬
pensive method of production requires for their manufac¬
ture.
In agriculture, on the contrary, the best machines, that
is, the best soils, are first brought into use ; and recourse
is afterwards had to inferior soils, requiring a greater
outlay of capital and labour to produce the same sup¬
plies. Improvements in the construction of farming im¬
plements, and in agricultural management, reduce the
price of raw produce: and, operating like improvements
in manufacturing machinery, so far assimilate the two
species of industry. Any fall, however, which may take
place in the price of raw produce, as it enables every class
of society to procure a greater quantity of it than before,
in exchange for their commodities or their services, raises
the profits of stock, and leads, of course, to an increas¬
ed accumulation of capital. But “ this accumulation ne¬
cessarily leads to a greater demand for labour, to higher
wages, to an increased population, and consequently to
a further demand for raw produce, and to an increased
cultivation.” (Ricardo, Principles, &c., p. 79.) Agri¬
cultural improvements check, for a time, the necessity of
having recourse to inferior soils ; but the check is only
temporary. The stimulus which they at the same time
give to population, equalizes, in the end, the demand with
the supply, and, by a redaction of a different kind, raises
prices, and forces the cultivation of poor lands.
1 he value of raw produce, therefore (though improve¬
ments in agriculture, and other circumstances, occasion¬
ally reduce it), naturally tends to rise as society advances.
As it becomes more difficult to raise food, it necessarily
exchanges for a greater quantity of other products. Not
merely its nominal, but its real price is increased ; and no
person can have the same command over it as before, with¬
out making a proportionally greater sacrifice of labour, or
of some other equivalent.
Ibis circumstance, and not the accumulation of capital,
by raising wages, reduces the profits of stock, and checks,
or at least retards, the progress of all old settled and po¬
pulous countries. The cost or real value of a commodity Principles
not being regulated by the price at which the labour re-of,thetorr
quired for its production is paid, but by the quantity of Laws-
that labour, every increase in the wages of workmen ob-^™^^
viously lessens the share of the commodity they manufac¬
ture which belongs to the capitalist, or, which is the same
thing, it lessens the profits of stock.
Supposing the value of money to be invariable, and the
quantity of labour necessary to produce L.1000 worth of
gloves to remain the same, the gloves would continue to
sell for that sum, whether the wages of the labour neces¬
sary to their production amounted to L.600, to L.800, or
to L.900. The rise of wages, it must be remembered, is
supposed to be quite general ; and hence, if the L.1000
worth of gloves freely exchanged, before wages rose, for
a certain quantity of boots, stockings, coats, &c., they
would do the same afterwards, unless the labour expended
on the other commodities had increased or diminished ;
for it is evident that a rise of wages which equally affects
different commodities leaves their relative values un¬
altered.
If the rise of wages were not universal, and if the glove An in¬
manufacturer alone had to pay 10 per cent, additional on1?8380”1
the wages of his workmen, while the manufacturer of boots,
stockings, coats, &c., paid only the former rate of wages, aiwavs re.
he would either obtain a greater quantity of these arti-duces the
cles in exchange for gloves, or be forced to abandon his Profit of
trade. Hence there would in no long time be an influx8''08^
of labourers into the glove manufactory; and their increase
in that department of industry, and consequent diminution
in the rest would, in the end, adjust wages to the same
level. And when this adjustment is effected, the exchange¬
able values of commodities are precisely the same as be¬
fore a rise of wages. The glove manufacturer could not
then say to the stocking manufacturer that he must have
a greater quantity of stockings in exchange for gloves,
because he paid a higher rate of wages, for the other would
have it in his power to answer that the rise of wages affect¬
ed him to exactly the same extent. Commodities would,
therefore, continue to sell after the rise for the same price
as before, but that price would be differently divided. A
greater share would belong to the labourer, and a less to
the capitalist, or, which is the same thing, the profits of
stock would be diminished.
Fluctuations in the value of money obscure, but do not
in any degree affect, the relation of profits and wages. A
rise or a fall in the real wages of labour, the only one we
are here considering, results entirely from a greater or less
proportion of its produce going at one time to workmen,
and at another to capitalists. When a greater share is as¬
signed to the workmen, their wages are really augmented,
and when a smaller share, they are as really diminished,
whatever may be the state of money wages.
It has, indeed, been contended, that the price of labour Effect ofa
has no connection with the price of food, and that the for-high Pr*ce
mer, being regulated solely by the supply and demand, a0fPro”'
rise in the price of corn does not necessarily cause anyin‘wages.
crease in the wages of labour, nor consequently any re¬
duction in the profits of stock. But the cost of rearing
and maintaining labourers, independent of all other consi¬
derations, determines the lowest limit to which the price
of labour can permanently fall. In a manufacturing coun¬
try the rate of wages is, no doubt, exposed to great fluc¬
tuations, and a stagnation may take place in trade at the
same time that corn is rising, so that the labouring class
may at once experience an increase in the price of pro¬
visions and a fall of wages. But if the rise in the price of
corn be ofa permanent nature, and if the demand do not
occasion a corresponding rise in the price of labour, the
principle of increase will be affected, and the number of
CORN LAWS AND CORN TRADE.
387
,-inciples workmen will be gradually reduced, until wages be raised
theCornfo their proper level.
Laws. jt perhaps be objected, that in countries where la-
‘,'v‘~"Dour is w'ell rewarded, and where a third or two fifths of
the wages of workmen suffice for the purchase of corn, an
increase in the price of bread and meal would act rather
as an inducement to retrench from what was not essentially
necessary, than to diminish the rate of increase. Few,
however, of the countries of Europe are in this situation ;
and as labourers constitute by far the greater portion of
every society, no system of policy should be recommended
which has any tendency to diminish their comforts. The
experience of all ages has shown that a needy populace
lose a just sense of their dignity and rights as men, and
become depraved and riotous. It is in vain to expect in¬
dustry where it does not meet with a suitable reward ; men
will not submit to privations and labour, unless in the hope
of securing corresponding comforts.
If the number of labourers were suddenly increased
when wages rise, or suddenly reduced when they fall,
such fluctuations would have little influence over their
condition. But the number of labourers, though not fixed,
can, speaking generally, be increased or diminished only
by slow degrees. When wages rise, the condition of the
labourers is improved; for the stimulus given to population
by such rise cannot have any sensible influence over the
supply of labour for more than twenty years, and during
this lengthened period the labourer has time to acquire
improved tastes and habits; the standard of his enjoy¬
ments is raised; and he hesitates about marrying unless
he supposes he can maintain his wife and children in the
improved condition to which he has attained. The oppo¬
site circumstances take place when wages fall. The la¬
bourers are in that case obliged to economize; to descend,
as it were, to a lower station, and to content themselves
with inferior accommodations ; so that when wages rise
after having been for a considerable time depressed, a
good deal of the influence of the rise, or perhaps the whole,
is exhausted in elevating the labourers to the point whence
they had been sunk by the fall.
Hence, in stating that money wages are determined by
variations in the price of food and other necessaries,
the proposition must be understood with its necessary li¬
mitations. There is in all cases a vis inertice to be over¬
come, that prevents any change of prices from having what
may be considered its proper effect on wages. When
the former rise, money wages do not immediately rise in
the same proportion, nor do they immediately fall when
prices fall. But they always vary in the same direction, and
depend mainly upon, and are materially influenced by, each
other.
If, therefore, speaking generally, a bounty on exporta^
tion, or a restriction on importation, raise the exchange¬
able value, or real price of corn, it will also raise the rate
of wages. But as the exchangeable value of manufactur¬
ed commodities is not enhanced by a rise in the price of
labour, it is evident that the profits of stock, and the power
of accumulating capital, must be diminished proportionally
to the fictitious increase in the price of corn.
■ffectsof By extending the market for corn, when a bounty is'
bounty first granted, the money price of raw produce is raised, and
ortation" aSr'cu^ural Pr°fits being elevated above the general level,
fraw there is an influx of capital from other departments, until
reduce. are again reduced. Thus far a bounty accomplishes
its object, and gives at least a temporary stimulus to cul¬
tivation. If the newly employed capital render the same
returns as the capital previously engaged in raising corn,
Us real price will not be increased. But, as we have al¬
ready observed, this is not likely to be the case for any
considerable period. Discoveries in agriculture may, for
a while, prevent recourse being had to poor soils; but the Principles
constant increase of population will in the end force their °f die Corn
cultivation. Now, the bounty has in this respect the same J>aws‘ ,
effect as an increase of population. Both increase the " v^
demand for corn; and as by this increase we are at length
forced to employ inferior machinery, or worse land, in
order to raise the additional supplies, their value must be
augmented.
Were the prices of corn in Britain and Spain, lor ex¬
ample, nearly on a level, no exportation would take place
from the one to the other. But if, when prices were in this
situation, a bounty of 10s. per quarter were granted by
our government, corn would be immediately poured from
England into Spain. Limits would, it is true, be soon set
to its exportation. The competition which takes place
among exporters, as among every other class of traders,
prevents their realizing more than the ordinary profits of
stock, so that grain would be exported from England to
Spain, not in the expectation of realizing the whole bounty
as profit, but in the view merely of securing the ordinary
rate of profit on the capital employed in its transfer. A
rise of prices, though not to the whole extent of the bounty,
would therefore immediately take place in this country,
and a corresponding fall in Spain. And this rise and fall
would not be temporary. Corn would be permanently
cheaper in Spain, because the unusual cheapness of the
foreign supplies would throw the poorest lands out of
tillage; and it would be permanently dearer in England,
because the increased demand would stimulate the bring¬
ing of them under cultivation. A bounty to the extent
we have supposed would perhaps depress prices 5s. per
quarter in Spain, and raise them as much in Britain. To
the Spaniards it would be advantageous, inasmuch as it
would enable them to obtain an indispensable necessary
for less than it would otherwise cost; in Britain, how¬
ever, its effects would be directly opposite. A few more
of our heaths and bogs might be cultivated, but every
class of persons, landlords only excepted, would find it
more difficult to procure food than before. The higher
price of corn (supposing it not to raise wages and diminish
profits, which it would certainly do) would obviously be of
no advantage, and could not enrich the public, since it
would in the end be proportioned to the greater difficulty
experienced in raising the additional quantity.
Every bounty is objectionable, as producing an unnatu¬
ral distribution of the national capital; but a bounty on a
manufactured commodity does not increase the quantity
of labour necessary for its production, and does not, of
course, raise its exchangeable value. In this respect, a
bounty on the raising of raw produce is the most impo¬
litic of any, inasmuch as it not only occasions a faulty dis¬
tribution of capital, but also raises the cost of production,
or real price of the article produced, and consequently
lowers the rate of profit.
It has, however, been contended, that although the first Bounties
effect of a bounty may be to raise prices, yet that, by at-have no
tracting an unusually great capital to land, it ultimately ten^enc.vto
causes a glut of the market, and a fall of price. That thisre(1jK‘e.tlie
statement may to a certain extent be consistent with fact,^Arn tT
and that a glut of the market, sufficient to cause a causing a
vary depression of prices, may be produced by a bounty, glut of the
we do not mean to deny; but such depression cannot last market,
for any lengthened period, unless the real price of corn,
that is, unless the labour necessary for its production, be
diminished.
When an unusual demand is experienced for corn, and
capital is in consequence moving from manufactures to
land, prices may subsequently be higher, lower, or the
same as before. Their rise or fall depends entirely on the
circumstance of equal quantities of this newly employed
388 CORN LAWS AND CORN TRADE.
Principles capital being less or more productive than the capital pre-
ot the Corn viousiy engaged in agriculture. The fresh capital cannot,
v ^'aws'^ however, be more productive, except from an improve-
" ment in the manner of working land, or from a saving of
labour, which it is evident might take place without any
bounty, and is not occasioned by it ; and if it be ex¬
pended unaccompanied by any such improvement, it will
either raise prices or be in a great measure lost to the
proprietors; for if the poorest soils in tillage do not yield
the ordinary rate of profit, their cultivation will be aban¬
doned.
In reference to a glut of the home market caused by
a bounty, it may be observed that that will seldom hap¬
pen, except in seasons when there is an extraordinarily
luxuriant crop, and of course very low prices, in the coun¬
try to which the grain exported by means of the bounty
is usually sent. Were Great Britain regularly in the ha¬
bit of exporting corn, either by a bounty or otherwise, to
Spain, the average prices of both kingdoms would become
nearly stationary, at a rate such, that the cost of a quar¬
ter of wheat in Spain would exceed that of a quarter in
England, by the cost of its transport from the one to the
other, including therein the profits of the capital em¬
ployed, insurance, &c. But though such would be the
case in ordinary years, it would be very different when
there was any great diversity in the crops in either coun¬
try. When prices suddenly fell in Spain, owing to a lux¬
uriant harvest, exportation from England would as sudden¬
ly cease, and would not be renewed until the fall in this
country, caused by the cessation of the foreign demand,
had been as great as in Spain. A nation which exports
com is liable to fluctuations of price, not merely from the
state of its own harvests, but also from those of its custom¬
ers ; and inasmuch as a bounty gives a factitious exten¬
sion to exportation, it must also tend to render prices less
steady.
Bounties - But supposing the accuracy of this statement to be ad-
increase mitted, it may still be contended, that a nation which ex-
tions^n thePorts ari extra quantity °f corn by means of a bounty, has
price of raw least a greater resource in years of scarcity than a na-
produce. ti011 m a different situation. This idea, however, though
plausible, and to a certain extent correct, is in the main
fallacious. If the deficiency of the crop did not exceed
the ordinary quantity of corn exported, there would not
certainly be any considerable rise of price; but if the de¬
ficiency exceeds that quantity, the situation of an export¬
ing country must evidently be a good deal worse than that
of a regularly importing one. In the latter, a slight rise
of prices would occasion a greater importation than ordi¬
nary ; but in an exporting country, prices must not only
be raised by the whole cost of the carriage from foreign
ports, but by an additional sum, sufficient to determine
importation into new channels.
Thus, a deficiency of the crop of Poland, not exceeding
the quantity of corn ordinarily exported from that country,
would not have any material effect over prices; but no im¬
portation to make up for a larger deficiency could take
place until prices had risen, not merely higher than ordi¬
nary, but decidedly higher than the prices of the countries
to which Poland is in the habit of exporting.
Again, in seasons when there is a luxuriant crop in a
country exporting by means of a bounty, it operates with
double effect, and very little of the surplus is stored up to
answer the home consumption in case of future exigen¬
cies. By forcing exportation, it hinders, as Dr Smith has
observed, the plenty of one year from relieving the dis¬
tresses of another, and therefore occasions, in years of
scarcity, a greater importation than would otherwise be
necessary.
Those who compare the prices in the subjoined tables from
1688 to 1766, during what may be called the period of Principles
the bounty, with the prices from 1766 to 1792, when the Corn
corn trade was comparatively free, will see that the foregoing Taws,
conclusions do not depend on theory only, but are consist-
ent with experience.
We have now said enough to show the tendency of aRegtric-
bounty. The following remarks shall therefore be directed tions occa-
solely to the consideration of restrictions on importation ; sion fluctu-
and as we have already shown that restrictions, wherever a!ions’an(l
they prevent access to the cheapest markets, and thereby ^ or. n°.
fictitiously keep up the price of corn, tend, as well as the obtaining”
bounty, to diminish the profits of capital and to force it an indepen-
abroad, we shall now advert, first, to the security which ent supply
the restrictive system is supposed to afford, of furnishing0* cern'
an independent and ample supply of provisions ; and,
second, to its influence in maintaining prices uniformly at
a high level.
I. Where one nation has been for a series of years in
the habit of importing corn from another, it must have
exported some more acceptable produce as an equivalent.
The farmers of the corn-growing country will, after this
commerce is established, reckon as much upon the de¬
mand of the importing country, as on that of their fellow-
subjects. They will cultivate an additional quantity of
land, raise larger crops, and consequently pay higher
rents, solely because they are assured of this vent for
their produce. The benefits of this intercourse are there¬
fore reciprocal, and the corn growers, as much as the
corn buyers, are interested in the continuance of the traf¬
fic, and would suffer as much by its cessation. “ When
we consider,” says Mr Ricardo, “ the value of even a few
weeks consumption of corn in England, no interruption
could be given to the export trade, if the Continent sup¬
plied us with any considerable quantity of corn, without
the most extensively ruinous commercial distress, dis¬
tress which no sovereign, or combination of sovereigns,
would be willing to inflict on their people; and, though
willing, it would be a measure to which probably no peo¬
ple would submit. It was the endeavour of Bonaparte to
prevent the exportation of the raw produce of Russia,
more than any other cause, which produced the astonish¬
ing efforts of the people of that country against the most
powerful force, perhaps, ever assembled to subjugate a
nation.” (Essay on the Profits of Stock, p. 19.)
But when a nation adopts a policy like that on which
we have till lately acted, and refuses to admit any foreign
corn, except when the home price reaches a height indi¬
cating scarcity, she must then, it is obvious, enter a mar¬
ket to which no corn has been brought, with a view to
her demand. The difficulties we have occasionally expe¬
rienced in importing have been greatly exaggerated ; but
they resulted more from the nature of our own policy re¬
specting it, than from anything peculiar to importation.
Perpetually fluctuating between bounties, restrictions, and
prohibitions, no foreign country could ever rely on our
continuing to import their corn. We might buy a mil¬
lion of quarters to-day, but we might buy no more for a
couple of twelvemonths. Had our demand been steady,
had we regularly imported, additional supplies would have
been raised for our markets ; rents would have been in¬
creased ; and foreign farmers, landlords, merchants, ship¬
owners, &c., would have been interested in procuring us
whatever quantity of corn we might require; but hither¬
to wTe have entered the foreign market as strangers
only. Our orders might be expected, but they could not
be reckoned on. Whatever supplies we might procure
were withdrawn from the ordinary stock; so that prices
abroad were unnaturally raised, exportation checked, and
the home price allowed to reach a comparatively great
height.
CORN LAWS AND CORN TRADE.
3S9
Principles When a merely temporary liberty is granted to import,
f the Corn or when the duties on importation vary with the prices,
Laws, operations and the enterprise of merchants are alike
cramped. They cannot safely order corn from distant
countries, lest the price should fall before it arrives, and
the ports be shut, or the duty have attained to a ruinous
height. They are compelled to have recourse to countries
in our immediate vicinity ; their orders must be given on
the spur of the moment, and all that consideration and
combination necessary to insure the success of every com¬
plex transaction are unavoidably excluded.
The regulations laid down in 1815, and those enacted
since, gave liberty to import and warehouse foreign grain
duty free, for re-exportation or for home consumption,
when the price reached the limit at which it was admis¬
sible; but this liberty was not of so much consequence
as might be supposed. Corn is at once a bulky and a per¬
ishable commodity; and capitalists seldom employ large
funds in importing it, unless there be at the time a strong
probability that prices will very soon attain the limit when
it may be sold. Corn will at all times be stored up for a
market like that of Amsterdam, because it may be disposed
of at the pleasure of the holder, and its sale is not depend¬
ent on any contingent circumstance. In this country the
case has been different. An unforeseen change of weather
often checked a rise of prices at the time that a further
rise was confidently expected ; and even the warehousing
of any considerable quantity of foreign grain had of itself
a similar though a less effect. By giving little freedom to
mercantile operations, and preventing the importer from
disposing of his commodity when he thought proper, this
system, in ordinary years, tended to suppress warehousing
altogether, and, consequently, tended to deprive the coun¬
try of one of its main securities against a sudden rise of
prices in deficient years.
It may be further observed, that the wider the surface
from which a country derives its supplies of food, the less
is it exposed to fluctuations of price arising from favour¬
able or unfavourable seasons. A general failure of the
crops of an extensive kingdom is a calamity that but sel¬
dom occurs. The weather that is unfavourable to vege¬
tation in one species of soil, is frequently favourable to
it in another. If moist clay lands suffer from a wet sum¬
mer, the crops are rendered more luxuriant in dry rocky
districts. The excess of produce in one province com¬
pensates for its deficiency in another ; and, except in ano¬
malous cases, the total supply is nearly the same. But if
this be generally true of a single nation, it is always true
of the world at large. No instance of universal scarcity
darkens the history of mankind. It is constantly found,
that when the crops of one country fail, plenty reigns in
some other quarter. A free trade, that is, a trade with¬
out any duty, or with one that is fixed and constant, is
alone wanted to guarantee a country like Britain, abound¬
ing in all the varied products of industry, in merchandise
suited to the wants of every society, from the evils of
scarcity. The nations of the earth are not condemned to
throw the dice to determine which of them shall submit to
be starved. There is always abundance of food in the
world. To enjoy a constant plenty, they have only to lay
aside their prohibitions and restrictions, and to cease to
counteract the benevolent wisdom of Providence.
The case of Holland strongly corroborates the truth of
this statement. In the days of her greatest prosperity
she chiefly depended upon imported corn, and the prices at
Amsterdam were extremely moderate, and, which is of
infinite consequence, were steadier than in any other mar¬
ket of Europe. Even during the convulsions of the late
war, and when her former commercial connections were
almost all dissolved, prices fluctuated very little.
II. But, independently altogether of the circumstances Principles
already alluded to, it is easy to see that oppressive restric-of ^^orn
tions on the importation of corn into a country like this, aWi>'_.
necessarily occasion ruinous fluctuations of price, raising to
it sometimes far above, and at other times sinking it as export es-
much below, the common level. sential to
The ability to export is indispensable to the equality 0feq.uahty of
prices in a country that grows nearly its own supply 0fPnces-
corn ; for, without such ability, all the increased produce sUch abili-
of an unusually luxuriant harvest being thrown upon the ty cannot
home market, prices sink to such an extent as to inflict exist in
a serious loss on the agriculturists. But the mere ab- dens^y
sence of any legal obstacle will not insure the power
of exportation. Phis may be about as effectually pve-^j,Qj-|g vvith
vented by the influence of restrictions on importation, restric-
as by a prohibition of export. Suppose that a country, tions on
either more densely peopled, or less abundantly supplied importa-
with fertile land, than her neighbours, lays a restrictiontlon*
on importation, and that, in consequence, her average
prices are raised 10s. or 15s. a quarter above those of the
surrounding states : This increase of price will give such
a stimulus to agriculture, that the corn produced at home
may, and most probably will, at no distant period, become
adequate to supply the consumption. But should such be
the case, it is plain that the first unusually productive har¬
vest will cause a glut of the home market ; and that it
will be impossible to set about relieving this glut by ex¬
porting to other countries, till prices fall to the foreign
level—that is, till they sink 10s. or 15s. a quarter more
than they would have done, but for the previous enhance¬
ment caused by the restriction on importation.
The practical operation of the principle thus hypothe¬
tically stated, has defeated the expectations, and baffled all
the efforts of the landholders of England to keep up prices
since 1815. Owing to the extraordinary encouragement
given by the high prices to agriculture during the latter
years of the war, we grew, in 1811, 1812, and 1818, a
sufficient supply for our own consumption, the imports in
these years being fully balanced by the exports to the
Peninsula on account of the British army. This showed
conclusively that the restrictive system had attained its
maximum degree of influence ; and any one who attend¬
ed to the circumstances might have foreseen that the
first particularly luxuriant crop would inevitably occasion
a heavy fall of prices. No one, however, seems to have
taken this view of the matter ; and, in consequence, the
agriculturists entertained the most unfounded expectations
of relief from the act of 1815. They imagined that the
exclusion of foreign corn till prices reached 80s. a quarter,
would make them immediately rise to that level, and pre¬
vent them from again sinking materially below it. Had
the home supply been decidedly under the consumption,
or had it been impossible to cultivate any considerable
portion of the lands under tillage in 1813 at so low a rate
as 80s., the anticipations of the agriculturists might have
been realized; but such was very far indeed from being
the case. The home production had become about equi¬
valent to the demand ; and experience proved that a price
considerably under 80s. was sufficient to enable the culture
of the greater part of the inferior lands, that had been
broken up during the war, to be carried on. It is no doubt
true, that a good deal of the fall of price in 1814 and
1815 was apparent rather than real, and resulted as much
from the rise that then took place in the value of the cur¬
rency, in consequence of the destruction of country bank
paper, as from an increased supply of corn. Still, how¬
ever, the fall in the value of corn, brought about by the
rise in the value of money, contributed equally with that
occasioned by increased production, to disappoint the agri¬
culturists. The exclusion of foreign corn till the home
390 CORN LAWS AND CORN TRADE.
Principles price reached 80s., rendered its price in ordinary years,
Laws°rn th0USh cons'^erahly under tliat limit, a good deal higher
v than in the surrounding European countries. But when,
as in 1816 and 1817, the crops were materially deficient,
the restriction operated with increased efficacy, and power¬
fully contributed, in the way already pointed out, to stint
importation, and consequently to increase the pressure of
the scarcity, and to raise prices. Unlooked for, however,
as it certainly was, this effect of the restriction proved in
the end quite as injurious to the agriculturists as to the
other classes; for by adding materially to that rise of
prices, which a scarcity must under any circumstances oc¬
casion, the stimulus it gives to agriculture is proportionally
augmented ; so that when a luxuriant crop again occurs,
the market is much more overloaded than it would have
been under a free system, and prices sink in a correspond¬
ing degree.
Owing partly to the deficient crop of 1816, but more to
the obstacles in the way of importation, the price of corn
in 1817 rose to 96s. lid., and in 1818 to 86s. 3d. Now
mark the effects of these high prices. They revived the
drooping spirits of the farmers, who imagined that the
corn laws were at length beginning to produce the effects
anticipated from them, and that the golden days of 1812,
when wheat sold for 126s. a quarter, were about to return!
This, however, was only a transient gleam. The increased
prices led to a fresh extension of tillage; improvements
were recommenced with new energy ; vast additional sums
were expended upon the land; and these circumstances
conspiring with luxuriant harvests, and the impossibility
ot exportation, sunk prices to such a degree, that they fell,
in October 1822, so low as 38s. Id., the average price of
that year being only 44s. 7d. !
It is nugatory, therefore, to attempt to obviate the re¬
currence of periods of low prices and agricultural distress
by imposing severe restrictions on importation. Freedom
is, speaking generally, the only effectual security against
injurious vicissitudes. Restrictions, uidess they be of the
most moderate description, and contrived with great care,
occasion the very evils they are said to remove or palliate.
If they prevent importation in ordinary years, and raise
average prices above the common level, they make expor¬
tation in favourable seasons impracticable, till prices have
sunk unnaturally low. This is a defect inherent in the
exclusive system, which nothing but the adoption of the
Dutch plan of destroying a portion of the produce of a
plentiful harvest will ever be able to get rid of! Pro¬
tection cannot be carried further than monopoly ; and
monopoly cannot sustain prices in abundant years in
countries where the supply and consumption are nearly
balanced, nor prevent the consequent destruction of agri¬
cultural capital, and the ruin of a large proportion of the
agriculturists.
We should mistake, however, if we supposed that the
injury resulting from a heavy fall of prices is confined to
the agriculturists. It is idle, indeed, to imagine that a
system ruinous to the producers can be otherwise to the
consumers. A glut of the market, occasioned by luxu¬
riant harvests, and the want of the power to export, can¬
not be of long continuance ; for, while it continues, it can
hardly fail, by distressing all classes of farmers, and ruin¬
ing many, to check every species of agricultural improve¬
ment, and to lessen the extent of land in tillage. When,
therefore, an unfavourable season recurs, the re-action is
lor the most part appalling. The supply, being lessened
not only by the badness of the season, but also by a dimi¬
nution of the quantity of land in crop, falls very far below
an average, and a severe scarcity generally ensues. Inju¬
dicious restrictions on importation turn what ought to be Principles
a blessing into a curse. They make an abundant cropof theCom
productive of injury to the farmer, and go far to ren- Laws,
der two or three such crops in succession sure forerunners
of scarcity, and perhaps of famine!
The principles now laid down are so obvious, and are
so completely corroborated by the history of the period
since 1814, that it is unnecessary perhaps to enlarge fur¬
ther on this part of our subject. But the following ex¬
tract from a speech of Mr Huskisson in 1825, exposes the
principal defects of the late system, in so forcible, and at
the same time so popular a manner, that we shall take the
liberty to lay it before the reader :
“ He had always understood that the great desidera-Mi-Frus¬
tum in this important question was to provide for steady kisson’s
prices, and to guard against excessive fluctuations from opinion of
the vicissitudes of trade. How did the present law pro- t^econi
vide for these ends? By limiting the markets from whichlavvs‘
we draw our supplies, by destroying the vent which we
should otherwise have for our produce whenever we are
blessed with a superabundant harvest, or by exposing us
to an alternate fluctuation of high and low prices. To
say of a system which affected the price of labour and the
comforts of the labourer, and which cramped the resources,
not only of the manufacturer, but of the farmer himself—
to say of such a system, that it “ worked well,”1 was so
completely refuted by the fact, that he was surprised that
any man should be bold enough to make it. What did
they think of its working well in 1822, when corn was as
low as 38s. a quarter ? Within two years and a-half the
price of corn had varied from 112s. to 38s. a quarter.
Such fluctuations deprived the farmer of all security, and
converted his business into mere gambling. The man
who engaged in a long lease could not at present be aware
of the conditions on which he was taking it, nor of the re¬
sults which it might produce upon his family arrange¬
ments. But this was not the only inconvenience of the
system. Look at the situation in which we were placed
when a bad harvest made it necessary for us to go to
foreign markets. The price of corn immediately advanced
then. The foreign government, seeing our demand for it,
laid a tax upon the article; this further increased the
price ; and the result was, that our exchanges were sud¬
denly altered, so that we obtained the required supply
under the greatest possible disadvantages. He had heard
it said, and by gentlemen who had reflected on the sub¬
ject, that if we had great fluctuations, there was in them,
notwithstanding, a fair average price ! He wondered what
this phrase meant when applied to the subsistence of the
people. He should like to know how any gentleman ac¬
customed to eat a good dinner every day would like to be
kept a week without food, and to be supplied the next
with twice as much as he wanted. Would he be satisfied
with being told that he had got a fair average quantity of
provisions for each day in the two weeks? He thought
that the gentleman would not be satisfied ; that he would
find such an average system was neither wholesome to his
constitution nor pleasant to his stomach.” {Debates, 28/7*
April 1825.)
The previous reasonings and statements have sufficiently
established, \st, That a prohibition of importation into
a country that would generally or occasionally import,
occasions an increased cultivation of bad land, and by so
doing tends to raise prices and to depress profits ; 2d, That
such prohibition tends in so far to throw a country on her
own resources, and lessens her ability to profit by the pro¬
vision made by Providence for equalizing the deficiencies
in the harvests of particular countries by a corresponding
1 Alluding to the statement of a preceding speaker.
CORN LAWS AND CORN TRADE. 391
Principles surplus in others ; 3c?, That the prohibition of importation
oftheCGrnjn ordinary years, by raising the average price of corn to
La^a comparatively high level, renders exportation in a pecu¬
liarly abundant year impossible, till prices sink so as to be
productive of great agricultural distress; and, kth, That
this distress, by defeating the plans of the cultivators, dis¬
couraging improvements, and lessening the quantity of land
sown, tends materially to diminish the home supply; and
when the produce of a year, diminished by these causes,
happens also to be diminished by a bad season, the com¬
bined influence of the two is most disastrous, and there is
both an enormous increase of price, and the severest pres¬
sure upon the industrious classes.
Such being the inevitable consequences of the restric¬
tions hitherto imposed on the corn trade, it was surely high
time that they should be abolished, and a return made to
a free system. But we must guard the reader against sup¬
posing that this or any other system will suffice to prevent
the public feeling the injurious effects of deficient harvests.
It will palliate their influence, but it will do nothing more.
Should the home supplies of corn under the new system
be in ordinary years nearly or about equal to our consump¬
tion, we may expect prices to be comparatively steady ;
for, under such circumstances, we shall have little difficulty
in procuring supplies from abroad to meet any deficiency
(unless it be of an extraordinary character, as in 1847) in
our home produce ; and we shall also be able, without any
very extraordinary sacrifice, to export the surplus of our
crops in unusually productive years. But if we should in
ordinary years import any very considerable portion of our
supplies, the result of the new system will be less favour¬
able. In that case an unusually luxuriant harvest, and still
more a cycle of such harvests, would, by occasioning a glut
of the market, and a heavy fall of price, be injurious at
once to the agriculturists, and to those depending on them
for employment; for, under such circumstances, they would
not be able to export till prices had fallen from 12s. or 14s.
to 15s. or 20s. a quarter below their usual level. And
hence, as this contingency is neither impossible nor impro¬
bable, the advantage (as will be afterwards more fully
shown) of imposing a moderate duty on importation, ac¬
companied with a corresponding drawback on exportation.
Reasons
why the
restric¬
tions on
importa¬
tion have
not latter
ly been
The restrictions imposed on the trade in corn during the
ten or fifteen years preceding the change effected in 1846,
were not nearly so injurious as they had previously been,
or as they might, on theoretical grounds, have been ex¬
pected to be. This modified action is wholly, or all but
wholly, attributable, 1st, to the extraordinary improve-
. . ment that has taken place in agriculture in Great Britain
rious 11^U"s'nce the peace of 1815; and, 2d, though in a very inferior
degree, to the increase in the imports of corn from Ireland,
hxtraor- J, It was for a while contended, that, owing to the fall of
proveiren Pr’ces’ agriculture declined materially after 1815, and in
of agricul"1 Part*cular ^ie years immediately subsequent to 1820.
ture in v'ew of the matter was strongly supported in the Re-
Great Bri-/50^ of the Agricultural Committee of 1833 ; and it is but
too certain that the fall in question involved very many
persons, landlords as well as farmers, in very great difficul¬
ties ; and in some districts, particularly in the southern
parts of the island, there may have been, for a while, a
pretty general decline. On the whole, however, there is
incontestible evidence to prove, speaking of Great Britain
generally, that the effects of the sudden and heavy fall of
prices in 1814 and 1815, though severe at the time, were
very soon overcome, and there has been an all but unpar¬
alleled improvement in agriculture since 1815 or 1820.
How else could the extraordinary increase of population
tain.
that has taken place in the interval have been provided Principles
for ? and how else could the rental of England and Wales of the Corn
in 1842-3 have exceeded by L.5,836,627 its rental in Laws.
1814-15 F1 There was no increase, or at least none worth
mentioning in a question of this sort, in the quantity of
foreign corn retained for home consumption during the
twenty years ending with 1840, as compared with the pre¬
vious twenty years; and yet the population of Great Bri¬
tain increased during that interval from 14,481,139 to
18,844,434! Now it is impossible that a result of this
sort could have taken place without either a very great in¬
crease of agricultural produce, or a signal and almost un¬
precedented falling off in the demand for corn ; but the
latter supposition is out of the question. Instead of there
being any decline in the consumption, there can be no
manner of doubt that, speaking generally, the bulk of the
population consume, at this moment, more corn, particu¬
larly wheat, than at any former period. In fact, wheaten
bread has now almost entirely superseded every other
sort of bread. The consumption of rye, barley, and oats
in the northern and south-western parts of England, and
in Wales, is reduced to a mere trifle. All classes subsist
mainly on wheaten bread ; and, during the last twenty years,
there has been a growing indisposition to use even the in¬
ferior sorts of such bread. In Scotland the change has
been still more decided than in England ; and we believe
we are quite within bounds, when we express our convic¬
tion that fully ten times more wheat is consumed in Scot¬
land at present (1848) than in 1790.
II. A part of the extraordinary increase in the home imports
supplies of corn since 1820 has been derived, as stated from Ire.
above, from Ireland; but this part is not so great as is lan£h
usually supposed. Previously to the recent failures of the
potatoe crop (in 1845 and 1846), the annual importa¬
tions of all sorts of corn from Ireland exceeded by about
1,500,000 quarters their amount in 1820. But between
1820 and 1845 we added about 5,400,000 individuals to
the population of Great Britain only; at the same time
that, at an average, the consumption of individuals has been
materially increased, and that there has been a large in¬
crease in the number of horses—the great consumers of
oats, the principal article of import from Ireland.
On the whole, therefore, it may be safely affirmed, that
the soil and agriculture of Great Britain furnished, in 1846,
food sufficient for the comfortable subsistence of at least
Jive millions of inhabitants more than in 1820. Little,
comparatively, of this wonderful result can be ascribed to
the bringing of wasteland into cultivation, or to the exten¬
sion of tillage. It is principally a consequence of improved
drainage, improved modes of management, and of the
adoption of improved manures, processes, and implements.
In proof of the extraordinary change that has taken place,
we may mention that, in the wolds of Lincolnshire, the
crops of turnips have become from jive ioten times heavier
within the last few years, from the application of bone
manure to their culture; at the same time that there has
been a proportional increase in the productiveness of other
crops ! Similar improvements, and in some instances quite
as great, have been made in other parts of the country.
It is gratifying, too, to know that the capacities of improve¬
ment are far from being anywhere exhausted. But what
has been effected shows what may be done, were the pro¬
ductive energies of the more backward districts better de¬
veloped by the extension of the improved practices of
Norfolk, Northumberland, Lincoln, &c., to other counties.
The granting of leases of a reasonable length, and the en¬
forcing of proper conditions as to management, would be
the most likely means to bring about so desirable a result.
1 Descriptive and Statistical Account of the British Empire, 3d Edit. i. 553.
392 CORN LAWS AND CORN TRADE.
Principles It is impossible, indeed, to say to what extent, under such
°* Laws0™ C^rCUmStanCCS’ “nProvement might be carried.
^ ^ . Immense, however, as are the capacities of improvement
Improve- 'n Great Britain, they are far exceeded by those of Ireland,
ment of The latter, indeed, owing to the humidity of the climate,
Ireland, is better suited for pasturage than for tillage. But any one
who has ever been in Ireland, or is aware of the wretch¬
ed state of its agriculture, and of the amazing fertility of its
soil, must be satisfied that were an improved system of
husbandry generally introduced, its exports could not fail to
be vastly increased. And this may, perhaps, be fairly ex¬
pected. The mendicant agitation by which Ireland has
been so long distracted and disgraced has received a checks
and it is to be hoped that such measures may be adopted
as may be effectual for the permanent abatement of the
nuisance. Till this be done, and till confidence be estab¬
lished, and a complete stop put to the subdivision of the
land, the resources of the country cannot be developed. So
long as the Catholics were treated as an inferior and degrad¬
ed caste, neither tranquillity nor improvement of any kind
could rationally be expected to grow up. Happily, how¬
ever, this vicious policy has been wholly abandoned ; and
were adequate provision made for the Catholic clergy,
every just ground of complaint on the part of the Irish
would be removed. What Ireland now wants is a firm and
consistent system of government, which, while it does
justice to all classes, without either flattering or irritating
popular prejudices, shall, with a strong hand, suppress all
attempts at agitation, enforce the empire of the law, and give
confidence to the capitalist, and to the landlord anxious to
improve his estate. We are not prepared to say whether
such a system of government can be established in Ireland
without the suspension of some of those political privileges
that may be safely entrusted to the people of England,
but if not, they should be suspended. Security of life and
property is the one thing needful in Ireland; and were it
fully established, she might yet, perhaps, assume a respect¬
able place among civilized nations, be distinguished for
her agriculture, and be a stay and support, instead of a bur¬
den upon and a disgrace, to England.
Popular Perhaps the most imposing of the arguments urged
arguments against an unrestricted corn trade proceeds on the assump-
;j;^nce tion, that ultimately every agricultural nation will manu-
laws C°rn facture f°r i^elf, and will cease purchasing from abroad.
But surely it is not meant to be insinuated that, in the
progress of society, there will be no interchange by differ¬
ent nations of manufactured commodities for raw produce.
It is evidently impossible that such a state of things can
exist unless the price of raw produce were everywhere
the same. America may, and it is most probable will,
at some future period, manufacture cotton goods for her
own consumption, but while the cost of raising wheat
is less or not more in that republic than in England, it
will be sent hither when our crops are deficient, in return
for some species of our produce. Nothing but the re¬
vival of the enactments of the thirteenth and fourteenth
centuries, and prohibiting exportation altogether, can pos¬
sibly prevent corn finding its way to those places where its
value is greatest.
But supposing it were otherwise, is a system injurious
to the community to be kept up for the sake of a particular
class? The rents of landlords are not to be maintained at
an artificial elevation by means that depress profits, and
occasion an incessant alternation of glut and scarcity. It
was not contended, when the steam-engine, or when Sir R.
Arkwright’s cotton-mill was introduced, that they should not
be employed, because the old clumsy machinery would in
consequence be superseded, and the capital vested in it lost.
No such ridiculous notion was ever entertained; but in what
respect would it have been more absurd than to persist, for
the sake of a trifling advantage to landlords, in raising pro- Principles
duce from inferior soils at home, if we may purchase sup- oftheCorn
plies at a cheaper rate elsewhere? Why should not the
best machinery be employed in raising corn as well as in
spinning cotton? If an expenditure of L.1000 suffice to
manufacture cottons or hardware at Glasgow or Birming¬
ham, that will exchange for 400 or 500 quarters of
Polish or American corn; and if the same sum, applied
directly to the raising of corn, will not in this country
yield more than 350 or 400 quarters, what folly can be
greater than to continue so disadvantageous a production,
and to refuse to buy corn from foreigners with manufac¬
tured goods? Were private interests in such cases not to
give way to the general good, society would at once come
to a stand, and mere routine take the place of genius and
invention.
The most popular defence of the corn laws, and the only
additional one we shall notice, rests on the ground that, as
exclusive advantages are granted to different manufactures,
agriculture ought in justice to be placed in the same fa¬
voured situation. But it was long ago demonstrated that
it cannot be for the interest of a state to manufacture at
home when it may purchase cheaper abroad. If, therefore,
any of our manufactures could not exist under a free sys¬
tem, it would be for the general advantage that they were
abandoned, and the capital vested in them employed in
some other way. We doubt, however, whether any of
them can be truly said to be in this predicament. The
duties on the importation of similar fabrics have been
all either repealed or very greatly reduced since 1825, and
none seem to have suffered by the change. On the con¬
trary, they have continued to prosper more than at any
former period. Even the linen and silk manufactures, the
existence of which was formerly supposed to depend on
prohibitive duties, have been vastly improved and extend¬
ed since these were repealed, and the importation of linens
and silks permitted under reasonable duties.
The expectations entertained by the manufacturers ofUnfound-
the advantages to be realised from the repeal or modi-etl pqx'C4
fication of the corn laws, appear to have been singu-
larly exaggerated. They believed that there would be“^sac"
a very large increase in the imports of corn, and a cor¬
responding increase of the foreign demand for our manu¬
factured goods. But no such increase of importation
could be fairly anticipated, unless the average prices of
corn in England had greatly exceeded those at which
foreign corn might be imported, which has not been the
case for some years past. And it is farther obvious, that
were any very large proportion of our supplies of corn de¬
rived in time to come from abroad, there would be a like
falling off in the supplies produced at home, and conse¬
quently, in the demand for manufactured goods by the
home growers. A result of this sort would, however, be
anything but advantageous to the manufacturers. Their
immediate neighbours have always been, and will neces¬
sarily continue to be, their best customers. And though
they might, perhaps, in the long run, be benefited by a
heavy fall in the price of the corn raised at home, the in¬
fluence that such fall would have in diminishing the home
demand for their products, in adding to the pressure of
the poor rates, and in reducing wages by the competition
of the parties thrown out of agriculture, would, for a
lengthened period, make the change most injurious to
them. It is not, therefore, by any sudden or considerable
fall of price, nor by the substitution of a foreign for a
home demand for their produce, that the manufacturing
classes will be benefited by the measures adopted in 1846 ;
but by the greater equality of prices that may be expected
to result from them, and the consequently diminished fre¬
quency and intensity of commercial revulsions.
CORN LAWS AND CORN TRADE.
393
Principles Our heavy taxation, provided it be equally imposed, and
if the Corn tjie comparatively high wages of labour in this country,
_ aWS furnish no apology for the restrictive system. Equal taxes
affect every part of the community, and do not fall hea¬
vier on the agriculturists than on any other class. It
is only in the event of taxation being unequal, or of
its pressing with greater severity on those engaged in a
particular business than on their neighbours, that it affords
an adequate ground for laying a duty on the importation
of the produce of the overtaxed class, though it can never
be a reason why it should be prohibited. Now it is con¬
tended that the agriculturists are in this predicament—
that is, that the burdens laid on them exceed those laid
on the manufacturing and commercial classes, and that
they are in consequence entitled to have duties laid on
foreign corn and other agricultural produce, when import¬
ed, sufficient to countervail the excess of taxes to which
they are subject. This, however, has been strenuously
denied ; and it must be admitted that the question is not
quite free from difficulty. But were this a proper place
for entering upon such inquiries, it might, we think, be
conclusively shown, that, owing to the various local and
other direct and indirect burdens laid on the land, those
occupying »t are really subjected to heavier taxes than any
other class. It is difficult, or rather, perhaps, impossible,
to estimate with any degree of precision, what the excess
of taxes laid on the agriculturist beyond those laid on ma¬
nufacturers and merchants may amount to; but we have
elsewhere shown that if we estimate it as making an addi¬
tion of from 5s. to 7s. to the quarter of wheat, we shall not
be far from the mark.1
When a duty is laid on the importation of foreign corn,
for the equitable purpose of countervailing the peculiar
duties laid on the corn raised at home, an equivalent draw¬
back should be allowed on its exportation. “ In allowing
this drawback, we are merely returning to the farmer a
tax which he has already paid, and which he must have,
to place him in a fair state of competition in the foreign
market, not only with the foreign producer, but with his
own countrymen who are producing other commodities.
It is essentially different from a bounty on exportations, in
the sense in which the word bounty is usually understood
(and as we have previously considered it); for by a bounty is
generally meant a tax levied on the people for the purpose
of rendering corn unnaturally cheap to the foreign consumer;
whereas what I propose is, to sell our corn at the price at
which we can really afford to produce it, and not to add to
its price a tax which shall induce the foreigner rather to
purchase it from some other country, and deprive us of a
trade which, under a system of free competition, we might
have selected.” — (Ricardo on Protection to Agriculture
p. 53.)
A duty accompanied with a drawback, as now stated,
would not only, under the circumstances supposed, have
been an equitable arrangement, but it would have been
highly for the advantage of the farmers, without being inju¬
rious to any one else. The radical defect, as already shown,
of the system followed from 1815 down to 1846, in so far
at least as respects agriculture, was, that it forced up prices
in years when the harvest was deficient, while it left the
market to be glutted when it was abundant. But while the
influence of a constant duty of 5s., 6s., or 7s. a quarter,
would have done nothing to stint the market in bad years, it
would, with the corresponding drawback, have assisted to
relieve it, and to maintain prices at a fair level in years when
the harvests were redundant.—(See Post.) It is surprising
the agriculturists did not take this view of the matter. If
they were entitled to a duty on foreign corn, on account Principles
of their being more heavily taxed than the other classes ofoftheCori1
their fellow-citizens (and they had no title to it on any k*1'''3,
other ground), they were also entitled to a corresponding
drawback. And it admits of demonstration, that their
interests, as well as those of the community, would have
been better promoted by such duty and drawback than
they ever could have been by any system of mere duties,
how high soever they might have been carried.
It is generally believed and alleged, that the landlords Interests
were deeply interested in the support of the former sys-of land-
tern of corn laws, and that they will be materially injured 1?rds k!en'
by its repeal. But though it is probable that many land-
lords are of this opinion, we look upon it as destitute rest 0pthe
of any good foundation. There is not at bottom anyCOmmu-
real opposition between the interests of the owners ofnity.
land and those of the other classes. To borrow the just
and forcible expressions of Sir Josiah Child,—“ Land
and trade are twins, and have always, and ever will, wax
and wane together. It cannot be ill with land but trade
will feel it, nor ill with trade but land will fall.” To those
only who take a superficial view of the question, their in¬
terests may seem to be opposed ; but those who look ever
so little below the surface, and reflect on the motives
which stimulate the different classes to industry and enter¬
prise, will be satisfied that they are really identical. What
is the genuine, and, indeed, only, effectual encouragement
to agriculture? What is it that stimulates the occupiers to
adoptthe best system of cultivation, and to make the ground
yield the largest crops? Does any one doubt that it is the
demand of the other classes for their peculiar products ?
Flourishing manufactures and commerce are indispensable
to a flourishing agriculture* To suppose that the latter
should exist without the former, is to suppose that men
may be industrious without a motive—that there may be
an effect without a cause. But we have seen that the
artificial enhancement of the price of corn lessens the rate
of profit, and the power to accumulate capital, at the same
time that it occasions its transfer to other countries. It
must, therefore, be exceedingly injurious to the buyers of
corn—that is, to those classes whose prosperity is essential to
the prosperity of the agriculturists. Hence it is obvious that
any advantage gained in the first instance by the landlords
irom a restriction on importation, can only be evanescent
and illusory. It may be compared to the influence of doses
of brandy or opium on the human body, which, while they
intoxicate and exhilarate, enfeeble and shatter the consti¬
tution, occasioning premature old age and death.
But apart from general considerations, and looking at No good
the question with reference merely to the immediate pecu-groiinds
niary interests of the landlords, we do not think they havefor 311P-
much, if anything, to apprehend from the measure ofJ)/)Sin^
1846. It cannot be injurious to them, unless it should peal
occasion such a reduction in the price of corn and other corn laws
raw products as may affect rents ; and if there be no good will be in¬
grounds on which to anticipate such a reduction, the mea-jurious to
sure will not be, even in this narrow point of view, ad-.the land'
verse to the landlords. lords or to
Now, though this be a matter in regard to which there ture^1
must necessarily be much uncertainty, we are entitled
to say, that no reasons have hitherto been alleged for
thinking that wheat of the average quality of that of Eng¬
land will be imported even in abundant years, under the
new system, at less than from 42s. or 45s. to 48s. a
quarter.^ In years of extraordinary abundance the case may
be different, but they are usually of rare occurrence,
and, except wnen they follow for two or three years in
J McCulloch’s Treatise on Taxation, p. 191.
2 For proof's of this, see Post, and the article Corn Laws and Corn Trade, in Commercial Dictionary.
Vol. v u. *
3 D
CORN LAWS AND CORN TRADE.
394
Principles succession, have little influence over average prices. The
ot theCorn expenses of importing wheat into this country, and dispos-
Laws. > jng 0p jj. j.0 j.|ie mi]]erSj may be moderately estimated at
from 10s. to 12s. and 14s. a quarter; so that, supposing
its cost in the great shipping ports to be from 34s. to 35s.
a quarter, it could not be imported and sold under the
price specified above. But wheat of the same quality as
English wheat is seldom so low as this, either at Dantzic
or any other corn shipping port within a reasonable dis¬
tance ; and it is never so low when there is any consider¬
able exportation. It is, no doubt, impossible to say what
changes may take place in prices in the course of a few
years. But looking at the rapid increase of wealth and
population in the countries in the north of Europe, in those
round the Black Sea, and in the United States, the presump¬
tion is not that prices will fall, but that they will rise.1 But
supposing that, under the new system, they are pretty con¬
stant at from 42s. or 45s. to 48s., it is quite clear its intro¬
duction can have no very serious influence over agricul¬
ture. The average prices of corn in England and Wales
during the five years ending with 1835, were 52s. 8d.,
and during the five years ending with 1845, they were
54s. 9d. a quarter, being only from 6s. to 12s. a quarter
above their future probable average range under a per¬
fectly free system. Prices, indeed, were decidedly lower
in 1834, 1835, and 1836, years of great agricultural im¬
provement, than there is much probability of their being
after the new system has been carried into full effect.
But suppose that prices should fall 10s. or 12s. a quar¬
ter, it is the greatest error to suppose that this fall would
be productive of any material injury to agriculture. Prices,
after allowing for the depreciation of the currency, were,
during the five years ending with 1810, 83s. 3d. a quarter ;
they have since fallen so, that during the five years end¬
ing with 1845 they were only 54s. 9d. a quarter, being a
fall of no less than 28s. 6d. a quarter in the interval. And
yet, as already seen, there has been in the teeth of this
immense fall, and coincident with it, an extraordinary
improvement of agriculture, accompanied with a vast in¬
crease of production, and a very great rise of rent. And
such being the case, despite a fall of 28s. 6d. a quarter, it
would be contradictory to suppose that agriculture should
sustain any very serious or, indeed, sensible injury from a
farther fall of 8s. or 10s. or even of 12s. a quarter.
A <lut> on same time, we are ready to admit that we should
hnporta- have preferred seeing this question settled, by imposing a
tion, with low fixed duty of 5s., 6s., or 7s. a quarter on wheat and
an equal 0t]lt;r grain in proportion, accompanied with a correspond-
wmi'ld have 'n^ ^ravv^ack- We make this statement on general grounds,
lessened an(^ w>th()ut any reference to the peculiar burdens that af-
the risk feet the agriculturists, though these should neither be for-
attending gotten nor overlooked.2 In scarce years a duty of this de-
ihe repeal scription would fall wholly on the foreigner without affecting
laws^md™ Pr'ces’ or narrowing importation; for in such years the
been pro- Piaces °f corn are wholly determined by the demand and
due live of suPPb7’ without reference to the cost of the corn, including
various ad- therein any reasonable duty with which it may be charged,
vantages. 1 he latter is then, in truth, deducted from the profits of the
foreign grower or merchant, and its repeal would not sen¬
sibly affect prices. But, while in scarce years, when
importation is necessary, the influence of a low duty is
thus innocuous, it lessens or prevents importation in un¬
usually abundant years, when the home supply is sufficient.
1 he drawback by which it is supposed to be accompanied
would then also come into play and facilitate exportation,
so that their conjoined effect would be to hinder the over¬
loading of the market, and consequently to prevent prices Principles
falling so low as to be injurious to the agriculturists and0*theCorn
those dependent on them. And it must be borne in mind *'avvs-
that the distress of the agriculturists never fails to react
on the other classes. When the former are involved in diffi¬
culties, their demands for the products of the loom and of
our colonial possessions are proportionally diminished, so
that the market is glutted with manufactured goods, sugar,
&c., as well as with corn. It is, indeed, uniformly found
that the injury that is thus occasioned to the manufactur¬
ing and trading part of the community, very much exceeds
all that they gain by the temporary fall in the price of
raw produce. It is plainly therefore a capital mistake to
suppose that the duty and drawback now referred to, w ould
be advantageous only to the agriculturists. They would
redound quite as much to the advantage of the other
classes. And though this were less certain than it appears
to be, still, in a matter of such importance as the weltare
of agriculture, and of those dependent thereon, a wise go¬
vernment should be extremely cautious about taking any
step, of the consequences of which it is not fully assured.
But even if our limits permitted, it would be to little pur¬
pose to insist on these or any similar considerations. The
pertinacity with which the agriculturists opposed every ap¬
proach to a more liberal system, roused a spirit which
would not be satisfied with anything short of a complete
abandonment of all restrictions. The time for compro¬
mise and arrangement having been allowed to go by, go¬
vernment had to deal with an irritated and an unreasoning
populace. Cum ventre humano tibi negotium est nec
rationem patitur, nec cequilate mitigatur, nec ulla prece
jiectitur populus. (Seneca de Brev. Vitce c. 18.) Un¬
der such circumstances, it was better, perhaps, to make
an end of the matter, than by attempting to introduce
any intermediate system, however well devised, to pro¬
long, as it would have done, a sense of insecurity and
the pernicious trade of agitation. The agriculturists need
not, however, despond ; they have little to fear from the
downfal of the protective system. There is not, in as far as
can at present be seen, any real room or ground for thinking
that it will occasion such a fall of average prices as will do
them any material injury; and should there be at any time so
very abundant a season or cycle of seasons in this country and
in the north of Europe as to threaten such a fall of prices
as might give a serious shock to agricultural industry, the
crisis may be averted by some temporary expedient, It is
seldom, indeed, that a law enacted under the influence of
popular excitement and enthusiasm can be advantageously
maintained as a rule of national policy. The practical merits
and defects of the arrangement made in 1846 will be
gradually disclosed ; and it will be the business of Parlia¬
ment to adopt such measures as may be required to secure
the former, and, in as far as practicable, to obviate the latter.
And though we should not wish to speak confidently re¬
specting any measure, the working of w hich must neces¬
sarily depend on so many contingencies, our impression is
that the imposition of a reasonable fixed duty on corn,
accompanied w ith an equivalent drawback, whll be found to
be possessed of the double advantage of yielding a consi¬
derable revenue, raised in the least burdensome manner,
and of giving, at the same time, increased steadiness to
prices and security to industry.
But without farther indulging in speculations, the cor¬
rectness of which it must be left to time to decide, it ap¬
pears at present to be abundantly certain that the notions
current among us respecting the extreme cheapness of corn
1 The population of Prussia, which amounted to 10,169,899 in 1816, had increased in 1846 to 16,112,948. The increase of popu¬
lation in the Russian provinces round the Black Sea, during the same period, has, we believe, been about as great.
2 See Treatise on Taxation, by the author of this article, p. 190.
CORN LAWS AND CORN TRADE. 395
British in foreign ports, have no very solid foundation. Though
Corn generally sound in principle, and, most likely also, bene-
Tradc. ficia] jn jts operation, there seem to be good reasons for
v-~thinking that the late measure will disappoint alike the
fears of the one party and the expectations of the other.
Indeed the chances are that, the agriculturists will gain
by the change, for it will teach them to depend for suc¬
cess on practical skill, science, and industry, and to cease
to rely on custom-house regulations and parliamentary
majorities; and it will give them increased security by
identifying their interests in opinion as well as in fact with
those of the public.
HI. PRESENT STATE OF THE BRITISH CORN TRADE.
Estimated Popu- Average Con-
lation of England . sumption of
and Wales. each person.
3,750,000 consumers of wheat 1 qr. each,
730,(MlO ditto of barley 1| ditto .
880,000 ditto of rye ditto
623,000 ditto of oats ditto .
Consumed
by Man.
Quarters.
,3,750 000
1,010,125
British
Corn
Trade.
. 909,000 MrCharles
1,791,225 Smith’s
 estimate.
Consumed by man 7,556,350
In addition to this Air Smith estimated the wheat dis¬
tilled, made into starch, &c  90,000
Barley used in malting, &c 3,417,600
Rye for hogs, &c  31,000
Oats for horses, &c ...2,461,500
Total of home consumption 13,555,850
Add excess of exports over imports  398,624
Quantity Jt has sometimes been attempted to estimate the quan-
ot C()rn tity of corn raised in a country, from calculations founded
and com on t'ie num^er acres in tillage, and the average pre¬
sumed in duce Per acre- But no accurate account can be obtained
great Bri- of the extent of land under cultivation. It is perpetually
tain and changing from year to year ; and the amount of produce
Ireland, varies, not only with the differences in the seasons, but
with every improvement of agriculture. This method,
therefore, has been very generally abandoned, and statis¬
ticians are now in the habit of estimating the growth of
corn by its consumption. But although this is certainly
the preferable mode, still the conclusions to which it leads
are necessarily very loose. The consumption varies con¬
siderably from one year to another, according as the abi¬
lity of the consumers to purchase happens to be greater
or less. And supposing this to remain the same, the ave¬
rage quantity and species of corn consumed by each per¬
son can only be ascertained by approximation. Mr Charles
Smith gave a great deal of attention to this important in¬
vestigation (Tracts on the Corn Trade), and his estimate
of our aggregate produce deserves particular attention,
from its having been corroborated, in its more important
particulars, by subsequent researches both at home and
abroad, and from its forming the groundwork of almost all
the estimates that have been more recently framed. Hav¬
ing taken the population of England and Wales in 1765
at 6,000,000, Mr Smith reckoned the consumers of each
kind of grain, the quantity consumed by each individual,
and hence the whole consumed by man, as follows:—
13,954,474
Add seed, one tenth  1,395,447
Total growth of all kinds of grain in England and | ., nol
Wales in 1765 j
This estimate, it will be observed, does not include
either Scotland or Ireland, and later inquiries have ren¬
dered it probable that Mr Smith underrated the population
of England and Wales by nearly a million. The allow¬
ance for seed is also too small.
Mr Chalmers, availing himself of the information re- chal-
specting the numbers of the people, furnished under the mers’ esti
population act of 1800, estimated the total consumption mate,
of the different kinds of grain in Great Britain at that
epoch at 27,185,300 quarters, whereof wheat constituted
7,676,100 quarters. The crops of 1800 ana of 1801
being unusually deficient, the importation in these years
was proportionally great; but excluding these scarcities,
the total average excess of all sorts of grain imported from
Ireland and foreign countries into Great Britain over the
exports, had previously amounted to about a million of quar¬
ters, which, deducted from 27,185,300, leaves 26,185,300,
to which, if we add one seventh as seed, we shall have
29,925,057 quarters as the average growth of Great Bri¬
tain in 1800.
According to Dr Colquhoun, the consumption of corn
in the united kingdom in 1814 amounted to about
35,000,000 quarters. We subjoin Colquhoun’s esti¬
mate :—
Dr Col¬
quhoun’s
estimate.
Species of Grain.
Wheat 
Barley 
Oats 
Rye 
Beans and Peas.
Estimated average
of the Population | Each Person
of Great Britain I averaged,
and Ireland.
9,000,000
1,500,000
4,500,000
500,000
500,000
Quarters.
1
H
H
i
Totals 1 16,000,000
Consumed
by Man.
Quarters.
9,000,000
1,875,000
6,750,000
625,000
500,000
18,750,000
Consumed
by Animals.
Quarters.
210,000
10,200,000
59,000
1,360,000
Used in Beer
and Spirits.
Quarters.
4,250,000
11,829,000 4,250,000
Used in
various
Manufac¬
tures.
Quarters.
170,000
1,000
Total of
Quarters.
9,170,000
6,335.000
16,950,000
685,000
1,860,000
171,000
35,000,000
But though this estimate be compiled with greater care,
and be entitled to more confidence than most of those put
forth by its author, it is in some respects grossly inaccurate.
4 here can, for example, be no manner of doubt that the
consumption of oats is underrated by at least 2.250,000
quarters, or by ^ quarter in the quantity assigned to each
of the 4,500,000 individuals Dr Colquhoun supposed were
fed on them. And besides underrating the consumption
of oats, the learned Dr has made no allowance for seed,
though it be unnecessary to say that the expenditure of
corn as seed is as indispensable, and its consumption as
effectual, as if it were employed in the feeding of men or
of horses. Adding, therefore, to the 37,250,000 quarters
which Colquhoun’s estimate should have amounted to, ^th
for seed, we have, on his data, 43,458,000 quarters for the
total consumption of corn in the united kingdom in 1814.
But instead of a population of 16,000,000, which is as¬
sumed as the basis of the above estimate, the United King¬
dom had, in 1852, a population of above 27,500,000. If,
therefore, the estimate of Dr Colquhoun were accurate, and
the consumption, as compared with the population, were
about the same as in 1814, it should now amount to nearly
75,000,000 quarters. But during the last thirty years the
proportion of wheat used as food has been materially in-
CORN LAWS AND CORN TRADE.
creased; and at present the consumers of barley certainly
amount to nothing like 1,500,000 individuals,—probably
to not more than 250,000. The consumption of oats has
also increased very materially, partly and principally from
the great increase in the number of horses and their better
keep, and partly, also, from the increase of population in
Ireland; but it is abundantly certain that the expenditure
of corn on the lower animals, and in breweries, distilleries,
&c., does not now amount to anything like twice the quan¬
tity at which it was estimated by Colquhoun.
On the whole, we are inclined to think that the consump¬
tion of the various kinds of corn in the United Kingdom, ex¬
clusive of seed, might, in 1852-53, have been estimated as
follows:—
Qxs. Total Qrs.
I. Consumed by man:—
Wheat 15,500,000
Oats, rye, and maslin (a mixture of rye
and wheat) 10,650,000
Barley for malting, food, &c  6,000,000
Beans and peas as meal  700,000
  32,850,000
Consumed by the lower animals:—
Corn (principally oats) used in the
feeding of horses and other animals,
in distillation, manufactories, &c...., 16,370,000
II.
Total consumed by man and the lower
animals, &c   49,220,000
But it appears from No. V. of the subjoined tables, that
at an average of the seven years ending with 1852, the an¬
nual entries of foreign corn for consumption were, wheat
and wheat flour 4,231,185 quarters, barley 870,786 do.,
oats and oatmeal 1,162,546 do., rye 99,510 do., peas 172,393
do., and beans 393,366 do.; making an aggregate importa¬
tion of 6,930,798 quarters a-year. And, therefore, if from
the annual consumption by man and the lower animals—
amounting to 49,220,000 quarters—we deduct the above
42,300,000 quarters, for the portion of such consumption
supplied by the native corn of the United Kingdom; and
adding to the latter a reasonable allowance for seed, we
have about 50,000,000 quarters for the total average annual
growth of all sorts of corn in the United Kingdom.
The total entries of foreign corn in 1849 amounted to
9,538,705 quarters, being the largest quantity ever entered
in any single year. Now as this quantity amounts to little
more than £th part of the entire corn raised at home, it
would seem as if the greatest importation could have but a
very slight influence over prices. But it has been already
shown that a very large proportion of the corn produced in
the empire is never brought to market, being partly con¬
sumed by the agriculturists, and partly used as seed and in
the feeding of farm horses, &c. And allowing for this, an
importation of 7,000,000 quarters may be supposed to be
equal to about £d part of the corn brought to market in
ordinary years, and could not therefore fail to have a very
powerful influence in alleviating the pressure of scarcity,
and in reducing prices. It is also to be observed, that
these importations are exclusive of a very large and almost
wholly unprecedented importation of Indian corn and meal.
Through the all but total failure of the potato crop in Ireland
and its partial failure in Great Britain in 1846, and the efforts
of government to supply the deficit, the imports of 1847,
including those of Indian corn, afford no fair criterion of
their probable amount in ordinary years. But the average
aggregate imports during each of the last seven years, given
in table No. V., may perhaps represent with tolerable ac¬
curacy their amount for some years to come. On the
whole, however, the probability seems to be that they will
be increased rather than diminished.
We give below an estimate, on which we have bestowed
a good deal of pains, of the extent of land under the dif¬
ferent descriptions of crops in the different divisions of the
United Kingdom ; of the average produce per acre of such
crops, with their total produce, value, &c.
average annual importation, we have 42,289,202, or about
Account of the Extent of Land in the United Kingdom under the principal Descriptions of Crops in 1852—53 • the
average Rate of Produce per Acre; the total Produce; the Amount of Seed; the Produce under deduction of
Seed ; and the total Value of such Produce.
Crops.
Acres in Crop.
Produce,
per Acre.
Total Produce.
Seed l-7tli of
Produce.
Produce under Deduc¬
tion of Seed.
Price per
Quarter,
Total Value.
(Wheat 
Barley  
Oats and rye 
Beans and peas 
Potatoes, turnips,
and rape 
Clover  
Fallow  
Hops 
Gardens 
8,000,000
1,000,000
2,000,000
500,000
2,500,0001
1,300,000/
800,000
50,000
250,000
11,400,000
/Wheat 
f Barley 
Oats 
Beans and peas..
>j ' Fallow ...
^ 1 Potatoes..
o I Turnips ..
” Clover 
I Flax 
'Gardens
310,000
450,000
1,200,000
50,000
100,000
200,0001
450,000 1
450,000 J
5,000
35,000
3,290,000
f Wheat-
Barley.
Oats ....
£ I Potatoes..
# I Fallow....
-< Flax 
\ Gardens..
400,000
320,000
2,200,000
1,400,000
300,000
140,000
25,000
Totals..
4,785,000
19,475,000
Quarters.
3|
44
44
£7 per acre.
£15 per acre,
£15 per acre,
Quarters.
f
5
3
£7 per acre.
£15 per acre.
£15 per acre.
Quarters.
3
34
5
£8 per acre.
£15 per acre.
£12 per acre.
Quarters.
11,250,000
5,400.000
9,000,000
1,875,000
   27,525,000
1,137,500
1,800,000
6,000 000
150,000
9,087,500
1,200,000
1,120,000
11,000,000
■ 13,320,000
Quarters.
1,607,143
771,428
1,285,714
267,857
Seed l-6th,
189,583
300.000
1,000,000
25,000
Seed l-6th.
200,000
186,666
1,833,333
9,642,857
4,628,572
7,714,286
1,607,143
■ 23,592,858
45s.
27s.
20s.
28s.
947,917
1,500,000
5,000,000
125,000
7,572,917
43s.
26s.
20s.
28s.
1,000,000
933,334
9,166,667
• 11,100,001
40s.
24s.
20s.
49,932,500 7,666,724
42,265,776
L. s.
20,696,428 5
6,248,572 4
7,714,286 0
2,250,000 4
L. s. d.
26,000,000 0 0
780,000 0 0
3,750,000 0 0
67,439,286 13 0
2,038,021 11 0
1,950,000 0 0
5,000,000 0 0
175,000 0 0
7,700,000 0 0
75,000 0 0
525,000 0 0
17,463,021 11 0
2,000,000 0 0
1,119.999 12 0
9,166,667 0 0
11,200,000 0 0
2,100,000 0 0
300,000 0 0
25,886,666 12 0
110,788,974 16 0
British
Corn
Trade.
  ^
CORN LAWS AND CORN TRADE.
397
British
Corn
Trade.
Tables showing the Prices of the different Sorts of Grain in Great Britain, the Quantities imported and exported, fyc.
!•—Account of the Prices of Middling or Mealing Wheat per Quarter at Windsor Market, as ascertained by the
Audit-Books of Eton College.
British
Corn
Trade.
Years.
Prices of Wheat
at Windsor,
9 Gallons to the
Bushel.
Prices of Wheat
reduced to the
Winchester Bushel
of 8 Gallons.
Average of Ten Years
according to the Win¬
chester Bushel of 8
Gallons.
Years.
Prices of Wheat
at Windsor,
9 Gallons to the
Bushel.
Prices of Wheat
reduced to the
Winchester Bushel
of 8 Gallons.
Average of Ten Years
according to the Win-
cheslei Bushel of 8
Gallons.
1646
1647
1648
1649
1650
1651
1652
1653
1654
1655
1656
1657
1658
1659
1660
1661
1662
1663
1664
1665
1666
1667
1668
1669
1670
1671
1672
1673
1674
1675
1676
1677
1678
1679
1680
1681
1682
1683
1684
1685
1686
1687
1688
1689
1690
1691
1692
1693
1694
1695
1696
1697
1698
1699
1700
1701
1702
1703
1704
1705
1706
1707
1708
1709
1710
1711
1712
1713
1714
L. s. d.
2 8 0
3 13 8
4 5 0
4 0 0
3 16 8
3 13 4
2 9 6
1 15 6
1 6 0
1 13 4
2 3 0
2 6 8
3 5 0
3 6 0
2 16 6
3 10 0
3 14 0
2 17 0
2 0 6
2 9 4
1 15 0
1 16 0
2 0 0
4 4
1 8
2 0
8 8
4 8
2
2
2
2
2
3
3
1 18 0
2 2 0
2 19 0
3 0 0
5 0
6 8
4 0
0 0
4 0
6 8
1 14 0
1 5 2
2 6
1 10 0
1 14 8
1 14 0
2 6 8
3 7 8
3 4 0
2 13 0
3 110
3 0 0
3 8 4
3 4 0
2 0 0
1 17 8
1 9 6
1 16 0
2 6 6
1 10 0
1 6 0
1 8 6
2 1 6
3 18 6
3 18 0
2 14 0
2 6 4
2 11 0
2 10 4
0
3 15
3 11
1 11
3
9
18
1
17
2 18
2 10
3 2
3 5
2 10
1 16
1 12
1 15
1 19
1 17
1 17
2 17
1 13
1 17
2 12
1 19
1 15
l 10
1 2
1 10
2 1
2 13
3 0
2 16
1 15
13
6
1 12
1 16
3 9
d.
8
5f
6|
H
If
n
0
6|
n
74-
2f
5f
n
8
2f
2f
n
8
0
10J
0
0
6|
5
04
4
H
5f
04
5f
H
4
H
4
0
5f
H
fif
H
of
2f
44
I0f
8
Of
2f
H
10|
9
I0f
Of
Of
2f
0
4
8
u
4
10|
n
4
0
2f
4
9
L. s.
2 11 7f
2 10 5f
2 0 Ilf
2 l 4£
1 19 6|
2 11
1715
1716
1717
1718
1719
1720
1721
1722
1723
1724
1725
1726
1727
1728
1729
1730
1731
1732
1733
1734
1735
1736
1737
1738
1739
1740
1741
1742
1743
1744
1745
1746
1747
1748
1749
1750
1751
1752
1753
1754
1755
1756
1757
1758
1759
1760
1761
1762
1763
1764
1765
1766
1767
1768
1769
1770
1771
1772
1773
1774
1775
1776
1777
1778
1779
1780
1781
1782
1783
L.
s. d.
3 0
8 0
5 8
18 10
15 0
2
2
1
1
1 17
1 17
1 16
1 14
1 17
8
6
2
14
6 10
1 16 6
1 12 10
6 8
8 4
18 10
3 0
0
18
1 15
1 14
1 4
1 4
1 7
1 19
1 14 10
0
1 17
1 17
1 10
4 8
8
14
1 13 10
2 5 2
3 0
2 10
1 19
1 16
1 10
1 19
0 14
2 8
L. s.
1 18
1 14
1 11
l 12
1 13
1 12
1 10
1 12
1 17
2 8
2 1
1 12
1 14
1 18
1 14
2 5
2 1
1 10
1 2
1 14
1 14
1 17
1 19
1 10
1 12
1 6
1 14
1 16
2
2
2
2
2
2
2
2
2
2
2
2
2
2
2
1 16
2 3
d.
2f
8
7i
Of
H
103
4
0
10|
103
H
103
4
Of
74
of
2f
84
2f
Of
23
104
Of
Of
23
14
Of
23
1
1
Of
8
114
loa
103
103
2f
2f
84
93
1
If
4
Of
3
Of
Of
8
If
Of
0
Q
4
Of
7
Of
8
8
If
H
H
8
10|
0
if
'f
Of
Of
23
L. s. d.
2 4 24
1 15
4f
1 15
1 12 1
2|
1 19 34
2 11 3|
398
CORN LAWS AND CORN TRADE.
British
Corn
Trade.
1784
1785
1786
1787
1788
1789
1790
1791
1792
1793
1794
1795
1796
1797
1798
1799
1800
1801
1802
1803
1804
1805
Prices of Wheat
at Windsor,
9 Oallons to the
Bushel.
Prices of Wheat
reduced to the
Winchester Bushel
ot 8 Gallons.
Average of Ten Years
according to the Win¬
chester Bushel of 8
Gallons.
Years.
Prices of Wheat I Average of Ten Years
reduced to the I according to the Win-
Winchester Bushel chesier Bushel of 8
ot 8 Gallons. Gallons.
L. s. d.
3 0 6
2 14 0
2 7
2 11
2 15
3 3
3 3
2 15
L- s d.
2 13 9£
2 8 0
2 2 2f
2 5 9f
2 9 4
2 16 If
2 16 If
2 9 4
2 13 0
2 15 8
2 14 0
4 1 6
4 0 2
3 2 0
2 14 0
3 15 8
6 7 0
6 8 6
3 7 2
3 0 0
3 9 6
4 8 0
L. s. d.
2 7 8|
2 14 3f
4 1 24
1806
1807
1808
1809
1810
1811
1812
1813
1814
1815
1816
1817
1818
1819
1820
1821
1822
1823
1824
1825
1826
Z. *.
4 3
3 18
3 19
5 6
5 12
5 8
3 16
4 2
5 16
4 18
3 18
3 16
3 11
2 13
2 17
3 12
4 4
3 13
Z. s. d.
4 17
3 18 84
British
Corn
Trade.
From this year inclusive the account at Eton College has been kept according to the bushel of eight gallons, under the provision of the act
31 Geo. III. cap. 30, sect. 82.
II.—Account of the Average Prices of British Corn per Imperial Quarter, in England and Wales, since 1771, as
ascertained by the Receiver of Corn Returns.
CORN LAWS AND CORN TRADE.
S99
British
Corn
Trade.
Years.
1811
1812
1813
1814
1815
1816
1817
1818
1819
1820
1821
1822
1823
1824
1825
1823
1827
1828
1829
1830
1831
1832
1833
1834
1835
1836
1837
1838
1839
1840
1841
1842
1843
1844
1845
1846
1847
1848
1849
1850
1851
1852
Wheat.
L.
4
6
5
3
3
3
4
4
3
3
2
2
2
3
3
2
2
3
3
3
3
2
2
2
1
2
2
3
3
3
3
2
2
2
2
2
3
2
2
2
1
2
3
6
9
4
7
6
16 11
6 3
14
7
16
4
13
3
8
18
18
0
6
4
6
18
12 11
6 2
19 4
8 6
15 10
4 7
6
10
1
7
4
11
6
8
6
5
3
3
4
8
10 10
14 8
Barley.
d.
3
9
6
4
3
13 11
9 4
13 10
5 9
13 10
6 0
10
6
4
0
4
7
12 10
12 6
12
18
13
7
9
9
7
0
1
6
0
11
12 10
10 4
11 5
19 6
16 5
12 10
7 6
9
13
11
12
4
11
7
3
4
8
Oats.
L. s. d.
17 7
2 4 6
1 18 6
1 5
1 3
1 7
1 12
1 12
1 8
1 4
0 19 6
0 18 1
1 2 11
4 10
5 8
6 8
8 2
6
9
5
4
5
0 18 5
1 0 11
2 0
3 1
3 1
2 5
5 11
5 8
2
0 19
0 18
1
1
1
1
1
0 17
0 16
0 18
0 19
8 8
0 6
6
5
7
1
Rye.
s. d.
8 4
18 7
11 11
4 8
0 10
11 10
1 5
14 10
15 10
0 0
14 7
12 11
12 9
10
13
14
15
2
17
16
13
10
13 11
12 6
15 0
9 0
15 8
13 3
15 6
1 9 10
Beans.
L.
2
3
3
2
1
1
2
3
2
2
1
1
1
2
2
2
2
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
2
2
d.
4
7
4
2
2
4
7
7
1
3
10 11
4 5
13
0
2
4
9
18
16
16
19 10
15 4
13 2
15 3
16 11
19
18
16
1
3
1 19 10
12 5
9 2
14 5
18 11
19 0
10 6
1 10 2
1 6 10
18 7
1 12 3
Peas.
L.
2
3
4
2
1
1
2
3
2
2
1
1
1
2
2
2
2
2
1
1
2
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
2
2
2
1
1
1
1
1
2
s. d.
13 11
16 10
1 11
11 10
19 4
19 10
13 4
9
1
10
8
4
14 11
7
4
7
0
6
8
2
11
0
5
4
6
4
6
2
2
2 5
0 4
12 11
11 1
13
18
19
11
1 11 2
17 4
17 2
1 10 7
K R The Imperial bushel contains 2218-192 cubic inches, the Winchester bushel 2150-42 do., the former being about one-thirty-secondth part larger than
^ the latter.—See Weights and Measures.
Ill —Account of the Quantities of Wheat and Wheat Flour (stated as Quarters of Wheat) imported into the United Kingdom
’ during each of the Ten Years ending with 1852, exhibiting the quantities brought from each country, and the Annual
Average Imports of the said Ten Years.   _______
1843.
Russia 
Sweden and Norway....
Denmark 
Prussia    
Germany, vi/.., Hanse¬
atic Towns, Olden¬
burg, Hanover, and
Mecklenburg..  
Holland  
Belgium 
Prance   
Spain.. 
Italy  
Malta  
Greece 
Turkey, includ. Syria,
Egypt, Wallachia.
and Moldavia
Cape of Good Hope
British East Indies
Australian Settlements...
British N. Am. Colonies
U. States of America ....
All other parts 
ria, 1
iia, l
Total.
Qrs.
33,668
678
69,864
659,503
126,521
858
332
3,131
1
5,206
3,155
14,899
3,624
1.292
113,446
26,090
2,674
1,064,942
1844.
Qrs.
104,526
10,782
94,499
551,015
108,922
11,772
1,101
44,875
11
80,280
6,163
44,790
83
2,303
4,210
228,069
85,853
8
1845.
Qrs.
33,781
679
74,170
424,539
154,271
1,614
983
35,809
4,016
57,403
4,120
3,240
7,030
2
1,204
14,035
229.349
93,622
2,090
1846.
Qrs.
204,850
218
61,563
360,881
126,572
473
3,064
73,774
74,041
194,256
11,099
11,595
41,557
87
361
20,346
327,105
808,178
24,122
1,379,2621,141,957 2,344,142 4,464,757
1847.
1848.
Qrs.
850,587
8,647
73,568
492,928
154,839
11,800
27,469
179,259
24,700
64.850
46,251
266,779
2
203
13,690
398,793
1,834,142
16,250
Qrs.
523,138
5,346
191,787'
528,156
532,591
163,978
178,398
320,010
917
83,170
8,576
4,129
40,340
2,755
5,559
186,254
296,102
11,023
3,082,231
1849.
Qrs.
599,556
6,494
243,213
618,690
498,984
308,482
366,099
742,023
498
281,530
9,049
61,136
295,542
1
2,028
15,699
142,295
617,131
26,830
1850.
Qrs.
638,613
356
162,207
835,650
380,944
293,465
201,922
1,145,146
2,186
117,323
10,596
6,292
382,793
690
14.584
80,394
537.030
19,812
4,835,280 4,830,263 5,330,412
1851.
Qrs.
699,684
6
168,768
696,175
264,721
66,414
69,046
1,193,433
115
241.852
10,585
165
873,130
1
22
104
129,680
911,855
4,656
1852.
Qrs.
733,734
546
218,834
452,292
179,631
124,963
25.961
459,418
6.321
65,103
17,106
533,524
110,033
1,231.894
5,272
Annual
Average for
Ten Years.
Qrs.
442,216
3,375
135,847
561,983
252,80(
98,382
87,437
419,688
11.281
119,097
12,670
8,656
250,038
18
1,319
8,95
194,542
644,190
11,274
4,164,602 3,263,781
400
CORN LAWS AND CORN TRADE.
IY.—Arcount of the Quantities of the different Varieties of Corn and Grain, Flour and Meal, imported into the
United Kingdom in 1852, specifying the Countries whence the same were brought, and the Quantities brought
from each, in Imperial Quarters.
Countries from which Imported.
Russia—Northern Ports ....
Russia—Ports within the
Black Sea  
Sweden and Norway 
Denmark 
Denmark—Iceland 
Prussia 
Mecklenburg Schwerin
Hanover  
Oldenburg and Kniphausen
Hanseatic Towns   
Holland   
Belgium  
Channel Islands (Foreign
Produce)   
France 
Portugal Proper 
Portugal—Azores   
Portugal - Madeira  
Spain and the Balearic Islands
Spain—Canary Islands 
Gibraltar 
Italy and the Italian Islands
viz.:
Sardinian Territories 
Tuscany   
Papal Territories   
Naples and Sicily 
Austrian Territories 
Malta and Gozo 
Ionian Islands. 
Turkish Dominions, exclu-'j
sive of Wallachia, Molda- !
via, Syria, Palestine, and |
Kgypt J
Wallachia and Moldavia  
Syria and Palestine  
Egypt 
Algeria  
Morocco 
Africa, West Coast, not par- 1
ticularly designated  J
Mauritius  
Aden   
British Territories in the 1
East Indies J
China ;  
British Settlements in Aus¬
tralia  
British North America 
British West India Islands,
and British Guiana 
Foreign West Indies, viz.:
Cuba 
St Thomas   
United States of America.
Brazil  
Peru 
Southern Whale Fishery
Wheat and
Wheat Jblour.
Total.
Qrs.
27,112
706,622
516
218,834
452,292
120,544
9,158
442
49,487
124,963
25,961
1,640
459,418
1
6,321
7
57
11,696
22,732
26,635
3,983
17,106
1,431
40,341
86,140
12,375
394,668
163
34
3
12
110,033
621
1,353
1,231,894
1
1
3
Barley and
Barley-Meal.
4,164,602
Qrs.
5,997
14,070
759
254,870
54,207
15,580
833
37,083
1,001
10,190
99
100,292
2
8,441
2,306
41,389
16,103
55
3,664
54,248
3,746
569
90
Oats and
Oat-Meal.
625,602
Qrs.
304,448
1,290
56,272
247,104
24,693
2,239
133,131
39,865
41,386
79,176
1
56,458
1,928
1,454
133
Rye and
Rye-Meal.
989,578
Qrs.
6,085
829
301
66
35
357
1,261
968
17
72
Indian Corn
and Meal.
9,991
Qrs.
233,816
92,116
9,646
6,144
1,186
674
1,351
106,005
3,408
9,512
138,314
626,714
338
71,590
518
1,014
400
167,663
1,074
Other Grain
and Meal.
Qrs.
306
1,250
93
49,087
23,510
7,344
6,222
4,377
39,835
16,384
9,556
4
36,520
12,693
3,914
1,616
1,471,490
257,222
2
18
14,660
788
All Sorts.
485,405
Qrs.
343,948
957,877
57,640
770,196
554,702
145,707
149,344
44,684
167,857
221,559
45,708
1,743
745,161
9,647
6,146
15,952
7
731
15,353
22,732
41,256
113,902
63,519
10,943
196,019
713,877
16,377
777,745
3,746
571
518
163
56
3
12
126,240
2
1,635
1,753
1,400,558
1,075
1
3
7,746,668
CORN LAWS AND CORN TRADE.
V.—Account showing the Quantities of the different Varieties of Foreign and Colonial Grain entered for Consumption in the United
Kingdom in each of the 18 Years ending with 1852, with the Total Quantities so entered, and the Annual Entries at an Average of
the above Period; with a similar Account for Indian Corn and Meal for the 10 and 7 Years ending with 1852.—(Compiled from va¬
rious Parliamentary Papers.)
401
Years.
1835
1836
1837
1838
1839
1840
1841
1842
1843
1844
1845
1846
1847
1848
1849
1850
1851
1852
Totals  
Average annual con¬
sumption for the 18
years ended 1852...
Average annual con¬
sumption fbr the 7
years ended 1852...
Wheat and
Flour.
Qrs.
28,554
30,107
244,272
1,848,475
2,711,723
2,401,436
2,647,808
2,989,645
990,523
988.515
315^615
2,962,928
4,612,110
2,193,755
6,592,594
4,845,854
5,275,677
4,135,376
44,814,968
2,489,720
4,231,185
Barley.
Qrs.
136,853
110,021
47,475
8,192
594,301
619,801
222,837
49,969
223,543
1,020,766
299,430
404,644
782,686
888,925
1,544,888
1,023,907
826,390
624,062
9,428,690
523,816
870,786
Oats and
Oat-Meal.
Qrs.
176,142
97,197
334,024
11,072
862,789
517,052
27,918
295,437
45,254
258,235
587,434
779,442
1,788,057
872,553
1,375,585
1,153,279
1,193,566
982,278
11,354,376
630,798
1,162,546
Rye and
Rye-Meal.
Qrs.
3
18
19.576
2,517
152,182
1,857
518
28,516
2,724
28,779
23
1,710
253,510
55,481
259,936
93,431
23,002
9,576
933,284
51,849
99,510
Peas and
Peas-Meal.
Qrs.
25,184
80,928
87,615
11,618
170,270
159,457
132,857
80,450
45,383
106,375
81,735
181,801
193,078
164,771
283,092
179,738
98,602
105,517
2,188,628
121,590
172,393
Beans and
Bean-Meal.
Qrs.
69,824
87,796
109,076
54,240
123,597
129,517
267,697
43,279
45.702
225,680
197,919
209,874
476,253
448,704
482.612
444.612
318,506
372,975
4,107,889
228,216
393,366
Total
entered.
Qrs.
436,560
406,067
842,038
1,936,114
4,615,262
3,829,120
3,299,635
3,487,296
1,353,129
2,628,350
1,492,156
4,540,399
8,105,694
4,624,189
9,538,705
7,740,821
7,735,823
6,229,784
72,841,315
4,046,739
6,930,798
Indian Corn
and Meal.
10,225
38,711
42.295
757,609
4,023.918
1,637,419
2,255,961
1,276,958
1,808,748
1,471,097
13,321,942
1,332,194
1,890,101
VI.—Account of the Quantities of Grain, Flour, Meal, and Malt, of Irish Growth, annually imported into Great Britain from Ireland,
from 1809 to 1851, both inclusive.
Years.
1809
1810
1811
1812
1813
1814
1815
1816
1817
1818
1819
1820
1821
1822
1823
1824
1825
1826
1827
1828
1829
1830
1831
1832
1833
1834
1835
1836
1837
1838
1839
1840
1841
1842
1843
1844
1845
1846
1847
1848
1849
1850
1851
Wheat and
Wheat Flour.
Qrs.
66,944
126,388
147,245
158,352
217,154
225,478
189,544
121,631
55,481
105,179
153.850
403,407
569,700
463,004
400,068
356,384
396,018
314.851
405,255
652,584
519,017
529,717
557,498
790,293
844,211
779,505
661,776
598,757
534.465
542,583
258,331
174,439
218,708
201,998
413.466
440,152
779,113
393,462
184,024
304,873
234,680
176,566
95,116
Barley,
including
Bear or Bigg.
Qrs.
16,619
8,321
2,713
43,138
63,560
16.779
27,108
62,254
26,766
25,387
20,311
87,095
82.884
22,532
19,274
44,699
154,256
64.885
67,791
84,204
97,140
189,745
185,409
123,639
101,767
217,855
156,242
184,156
187,473
156,467
61,676
95,954
75,568
50,297
110,449
90,656
93,095
92,854
47,527
79.885
46,400
40.779
44,479
Oats and Oat-Meal.
845,783
492,741
275,757'
390,629
691,498
564,010
597,537
683,714
611,117
1,069,385
789,613
916,251
1,162,249
569,237
1.102,487
1,225,085
1,629,856
1,303,734
1,343,267
2,075,631
1,673,628
1,471,252
1,655,701
2,051,867
1,762,520
1,769,503
1,822,767
2,132,138
2,274,675
2,742,807
1,904,933
2,037,835
2,539,380
2,261,435
2,648,032
2,242,308
2,353,985
1,311,592
703,468
1,546,568
1,123,469
1,075,388
1,141,976
Rye.
Qrs.
425
20
21
178
420
4
207
43
4
2
134
550
353
198
112
220
77
256
1424
568
414
515
294
166
983
614
483
1016
628
2331
122
172
76
371
264
165
1498
15
414
360
38
216
50
51
77
460
425
239
12
10
439
2474
728
586
756
1431
1452
1282
4826
4435
2520
4142
1915
2645
2176
3447
2920
60
5232
1484
1403
855
1551
1192
1091
1644
2227
4659
2572
3369
4360
3781
VOL. VII.
Qrs.
2,669
3,541
4,081
5,008
4,455
5,731
6,371
5,984
2,275
4,768
3,904
8,396
4,959
7,235
5.540
5,791
11,355
7,190
10,037
7,038
10,445
19,053
15,029
14,530
19,114
18,771
24,235
17,604
25,630
21,584
11,535
14,573
15,907
19,831
24,329
18,580
12,745
14,668
22,361
12,314
22,450
21,551
25,002
Malt.
Qrs.
Total.
1.173
10,826
1,203
572
853
2,011
2,820
10,888
8,229
7,017
3,865
10,357
22,214
4.174
5,001
2,861
3,456
4,935
3,046
8,643
8,153
11,144
11,329
5,956
6,365
5,181
8,425
6,431
Qrs.
932,478
631,227
429,867
597,356
977,164-
812,462
821,192
873,865
695,651
1,204,733
967,680
1,415,722
1,822,816
1,063,089
1,528,153
1,634,000
2.203.962
1,693,392
1,828,460
2,826,590
2,307,244
2,215,521
2,429,182
2,990,767
2,737,441
2,792,658
2,679,438
2,958,272
3,030,293
3,474,302
2,243,151
2,327,782
2,855,525
2,538,234
3,206,482
2,801.204
3,251,901
1,826,132
969,490
1,952,592
1.435.963
1,327,429
1,316,785
3 E
402 CORN LAWS AND CORN TRADE.
Foreign
Corn
Trade.
IV. FOREIGN CORN TRADE.
1. Polish Corn Trade. Dantzic is the port whence we
have hitherto always derived the largest portion of our
supplies in deficient seasons ; and as it is most probable
that our principal importations will continue to be drawn
from the same source, it becomes peculiarly important to
ascertain the cost of wheat in Dantzic, and the expense of
its importation into this country.
According to the data collected by Mr Jacob in his
reports on the agriculture and corn trade of the north of
Europe, the ordinary price of wheat at Dantzic, free on
board, would amount to about 40s. a quarter, made up as
follows:—
Cost of wheat at Warsaw, . . . 28s. Od. per quarter.
Conveyance to t he boats, and charges for load-
ing and stowing, and securing it with mats, 0 6
Freight to Dantzic, . ..50
Loss on the passage by pilfering, rain, &c., 3 0
Expenses at Dantzic in turning, drying,
screening, warehousing, and loss of mea¬
sure,  2 0
Profit or commission, as the case may be, to
the merchant in Dantzic, . . .16
Cost at Dantzic, exclusive of shipping charges,
which amount to about lOd. a quarter, 40 0
Now, if to this we add 10s. or 12s. a quarter for the ex¬
pense of importing the wheat into England, and delivering
it to the miller, including the profit of the importer, it is
plain that it could not, supposing Mr Jacob’s estimate of
the cost to be nearly accurate, be sold in London, free of
duty, for less than 50s. or 52s. a quarter.
It has, no doubt, been alleged that the cost of wheat in
D.mtzic is overrated in the above estimate; and in seasons
when there is little or no demand for corn from abroad, this
allegation may be well founded. But this estimate is
not meant to apply to such years, but to those when there
is some considerable foreign demand ; and whenever this is
the case, it will be found, that though some of the items
which go to make up the cost may vary, the result is nearly
correct; and that there are really no good grounds for sup¬
posing that corn could, in the seasons in question, be ship¬
ped from Dantzic for less than about 40s. a quarter.
In further corroboration of this statement we may
mention, that owing to the deficient harvest of 1845, the
average price of wheat in January 1846, in Warsaw, ex¬
ceeded 40s. a quarter, and it is stated in a despatch from
the consul in that city, that at an average of the twenty years
ending with 1845, prices had been as follows, viz.: wheat
from 26s. 6d. to 30s. per imp. quarter ; barley, 17s. lOd. to
20s. 6d. per do.; and oats 8s. 6d. to 10s. per do. It is plain,
therefore, that Mr Jacob’s estimate of the cost of wheat at
M arsaw is not in any degree overstated ; and we are well
assured that this also is the case with his estimate of the
expense of conveying it down the Vistula to Dantzic.
We subjoin a statement by Mr Grade of Dantzic, of the
average price from ten to ten years, from 1770 to 1820,
of the different species of corn, free on board, per quarter,
in sterling money at Dantzic.
It appears from this table, that, at an average of the 20 Foreign
years ending with 1819, the price of corn in Dantzic was forn
no less than 57s. 8d. a quarter! But it is to be observed , '^_rac'e-
that these prices were powerfully influenced by the scar-
city and high price in this country in 1800 and 1801, and
by the obstructions which the war threw in the way of
agriculture, and of the conveyance of corn to Dantzic.
But the prices of wheat at this great emporium have not
latterly been subject to any such disturbing influences.
The countries whence Dantzic draws her supplies of corn
have enjoyed uninterrupted tranquillity during the last 20
years, and though during some of these years we have made
large importations, we have hardly, in a still greater num¬
ber, brought away a single bushel of corn; so that the
average prices of this period may be taken as pretty cor¬
rectly representing the prices of corn in Dantzic in seasons
when the export is rather under a medium.
Account exhibiting the Lowest, the Highest, and the
Average Prices of Wheat in Dantzic, in Sterling Money,
per Imperial Quarter, in each of the 11 Years, from
1831 to 1841, both inclusive, with the Averages for the
whole Period.
1831
1832
1833
1834
1835
1836
1837
1838
183.9
1840
1841
Average of 11 years from 1
1831 to 1841 /
Lowest
Prices
per Quarter.
S. d
41 1
32 5
28 5
25 1
21 01
22 3
24 9
26 64
31 9
39 0
45 9
30 8|
Highest
Prices
per Quarter.
s. d.
51 6
43 7
32 9
29 11
26 34
35 7
34 84
61 9
61 1
62 9
57 0
Average
Prices
per Quarter.
45 2
s d.
46 34
38 0
30 7
27 6
23 8
28 11
29 8f
44 If
46 5
50 104
51 44
37 11
It appears from this table that the average price of wheat
in Dantzic during the 11 years ending with 1841 was 37s.
lid. a quarter ; making, with the addition of lOd. a quarter
for shipping charges, its average price free on board, 38s.
9d. a quarter. Now, if to this last sum we add 12s. or 13s.
for the expense of its importation and delivery to the mil¬
lers in London, it is plain, judging from the experience of
these 11 years, that the average cost of Dantzic wheat in
England, independent of duty, may be estimated, in round
numbers, at from 51s. to 52s. a quarter.
It is material, however, to bear in mind that no very
large quantity could be shipped at the above prices. They
represent only average years: and whenever there is any
unusual demand for corn, or when from 200,000 to 300,000
quarters are wanted for this country, the price immediately
rises, as seen above, to from 45s. to 50s. a quarter and up¬
wards. During the course of 1847 the average price of
the wheat shipped at Dantzic exceeded 55s. a quarter.
Quality of Dantzic wheat. The price of wheat in Dant¬
zic is usually about 7s. a quarter above its average price in
Hamburg, and about 2s. above the average of Amsterdam.
I his difference is entirely owing to the superior quality of
the Dantzic wheat. I hough small grained, and not so
heavy as several other sorts, it is remarkably thin-skinned,
and yields the finest flour. Some of the best white, or as
it is technically termed, “ high mixed” Dantzic wheat, is
superior to the very best English ; but the quantity of this
sort is but limited, and the average quality of all that is
exported from Dantzic is believed to approach very nearly
CORN LAWS AND CORN TRADE. 403
Foreign to the average quality of English wheat. Allowing for its
Corn superior quality, it will be found that wheat is, speaking
Trade, generally, always cheaper in Dantzic than in any of the
' Continental ports nearer to London. There are but few
seasons, indeed, in which Dantzic wheat is not largely im¬
ported into Amsterdam ; and it frequently, also, finds its
way into Hamburg. But it is quite impossible that such
should be the case, unless, taking quality and other modi¬
fying circumstances into account, it were really cheaper
than the native and other wheats met with in these mar¬
kets. When there is any considerable importation into
England, it is of every day occurrence for merchants to
order Dantzic wheat in preference to that of Holstein, or
of the Lower Elbe, though the latter might frequently be
put into warehouses here for 20s. a quarter less than the
former ! It is, therefore, quite indispensable, in attempt¬
ing to draw any inferences in regard to the comparative
prices of corn in different countries, to make the requisite
allowances for differences of quality. Unless this be done,
whatever conclusions may be come to can hardly fail of
being false and misleading ; and when they happen to be
right, they can only be so through the merest accident.
Dantzic being by far the greatest port for the exporta¬
tion of corn in the north'of Europe, its price may be as¬
sumed as the general measure of the price in other shipping
ports. At all events, it is certain that when Dantzic is
exporting, wheat cannot be shipped, taking quality into ac¬
count, at a cheaper rate from any other place. The im¬
porter invariably resorts, to what he believes to be, all things
considered, the cheapest market; and it is a contradiction
and an absurdity to suppose that he should burden himself
with a comparatively high freight, and other charges for
wheat in Dantzic, provided he could buy an equally good
article in so convenient a port as Hamburg at the same or
a lower price.
If, therefore, we are right in estimating the lowest price
at which wheat could be imported from Dantzic free of
duty in ordinary years at about 50s., we may be assured
that this is the lowest importation price. The greater
cheapness of the imports from other places is apparent
only, and is uniformly countervailed by a corresponding
inferiority of quality.
2. Com Trade of the Elbe, §c. Next to Dantzic, Hamburg
is, perhaps, the greatest corn market in the north of Europe,
being a depot for large quantities of Baltic corn, and for
the produce of the extensive countries traversed by the
Elbe. The exports of wheat from Hamburg amounted, at
an average of the eleven years ending with 1841, to 210,871
quarters a year. The price of wheat, as already stated,
is frequently less in Hamburg than in Dantzic; but this
lowness of price is altogether ascribable to the inferiority
of the Holstein and Hanover wheats, which are generally
met with in great abundance in Hamburg. Wheat from
the Upper Elbe is oi‘ a better quality. Bohemian wheat
is occasionally forwarded by the river to Hamburg; but
the charges attending its conveyance from Prague amount
to full 15s. a quarter, and prevent its being sent down, ex¬
cept when the price is comparatively high. In 1841 the
shipments of wheat from Hamburg amounted to 507,400
quarters, of which 460,900 were for England. Perhaps
we might be able, did our prices average about 50s., to im¬
port in ordinary years from 300,000 to 400,000 quarters of
wheat from Denmark and the countries intersected by the
Weser and the Elbe.
3. French Corn Trade. It appears from the accounts
given by the Marquis Gamier, in the last edition of his
translation of the Wealth of Nations, that the price of the
hectolitre of wheat at the market of Paris amounted, at an
average of the nineteen years beginning with 1801 and
ending with 1819, to 20 fr. 53 cents, which is equal to 30 fr.
80 cents the septier; or, taking the exchange at 25 fr. to Foreign
45s. 6d. the quarter. Count Chaptal, in his valuable work Corn
Sur V Industrie Francoise, tom. i. p. 226, published in Irade.
1819,estimates the ordinary average price of wheat through-
out France at 18 fr. the hectolitre, or 42s. lOd. the quar¬
ter. The various expenses attending the importation of a
quarter of French wheat into London may be taken at a
medium at about 6s. a quarter. France, however, has
very little surplus produce to dispose of; so that it would
be impossible for us to import any considerable quantity
of French corn without occasioning a great advance of
price ; and in point of fact our imports from France have
been at all times quite inconsiderable.
The mean of the different estimates framed by Vauban,
Quesnay, Expilly, Lavoisier, and Arthur Young, gives
61,519,672 septiers, or 32,810,000 quarters, as the total
average growth of the different kinds of grain in France.
(Peuchet Statistique Elementaire, p. 290.) We, however,
took occasion in a former article on this subject to ob¬
serve, that there could not be a doubt that this estimate
was a great deal too low; and the more careful investi¬
gations of late French statisticians fully confirm this re¬
mark. The annual produce of the harvest of France was
lately (1843) estimated, from returns obtained under offi¬
cial authority, at 69,558,000 hectolitres of wheat, and
112,958,000 ditto of other sorts of grain; making in all
182,517,000 hectolitres, or 62,740,000 imperial quarters.
Of this quantity it is supposed that about 16 per cent, is
consumed as seed, 19 per cent, in the feeding of different
species of animals, and 2 per cent, in distilleries and
breweries.
The foreign corn trade of France was regulated, till
within these few years, by a law which forbade exportation,
except when the home prices were below certain limits,
and which restrained and absolutely forbade importation,
except when they were above certain other limits. The
prices regulating importation and exportation differed in
the different districts into which the kingdom was divided.
Latterly, however, importation has been at all times allow¬
ed under graduated duties, which, like those recently ex¬
isting in this country, become prohibitory when the prices
sink to a certain level. The frontier departments are
divided into four separate districts, the prices in each dis¬
trict governing the duties on importation into it, so that
it sometimes happens that corn warehoused in a particular
port, where it is not admissible except under a high duty,
has been carried to another port in another district, and
admitted at a low duty. An official announcement is issued
on the last day of each month, of what the duties are to
be in each district during the succeeding month.
4. Spanish Corn Trade. The exportation of corn from
Spain was formerly prohibited under the severest penal¬
ties. But in 1820 grain and flour were both allowed to be
freely exported, and in 1823 this privilege was extended
to all productions (frutos) the growth of the soil. There
is now in fact no obstacle whatever, except the expense
of carriage, to the conveyance of corn to the sea-ports,
and thence to the foreigner. Owing, however, to the corn¬
growing provinces being principally situated in the interior,
and to the extreme badness of the roads, which renders
carriage to the coast botji expensive and difficult, the exports
are comparatively trifling; this difficulty of carriage fre¬
quently gives rise to very great differences of prices at places
in all parts of the country only a few leagues distant.
5. Corn Trade of Odessa. Odessa, on the Black Sea, is
the only port in southern Europe from which any consi¬
derable quantity of grain is exported. We believe, indeed,
that the fertility of the soil in its vicinity has been much
exaggerated ; but the wheat shipped at Odessa is princi¬
pally brought from Volhynia and the Polish provinces to
404 ' CORN LAWS AND CORN TRADE.
Foreign the south of Cracow, the supplies from which are suscep-
Trade tl^)^e an indefinite increase. Owing to the cataracts in
‘ the Dnieper, and the Dniester having a great number of
shallows, most part of the corn brought to Odessa comes
by land carriage. The expense of this mode of convey¬
ance is not, however, nearly so great as might be sup¬
posed. The carts with corn are often in parties of 150'
the oxen are pastured during the night, and they take ad¬
vantage of the period when the peasantry are not occu¬
pied with the harvest, so that the charge on account of
conveyance is comparatively trifling.
Both soft and hard wheat are exported from Odessa ;
but the former, which is by far the most abundant, is only
brought to England. Supposing British wheat to sell at
about 60s., Odessa wheat in good order would not be
worth more than 52s. in the London market; but it is a
curious fact, that in the Mediterranean the estimation in
which they are held is quite the reverse; at Malta, Mar¬
seilles, Leghorn, &c., Odessa wheat fetches a decidedly
higher price than British wheat.
The hard wheat brought from the Black Sea comes
principally from Taganrog. It is a very fine species of
grain; it is full ten per cent, heavier than British wheat,
and has less than half the bran. It is used in Italy for
making macaroni, vermicelli, and things of that sort.
Very little of it has found its way to England.
The voyage from Odessa to Britain is of uncertain du¬
ration, but generally very long. It is essential to the im¬
portation of wheat in a good condition, that it should be
made during the winter months. When the voyage is
made in summer, unless the wheat be very superior, and
be shipped in exceedingly good order, it is almost sure to
heat, and has sometimes indeed been injured to such a
degree as to require to be dug from the hold with pick-
axes. Unless, therefore, means be devised for lessening
the risk of damage during the voyage, there is little reason
to think that Odessa wheat will ever be very largely im¬
ported into Britain.
The entire expense of importing a quarter of wheat from
Odessa to London may be estimated at from 16s. to 18s.
The exports of wheat from Odessa, and other ports on the
Black Sea, to Constantinople, the Levant, Italy, the south
of France, &c., have latterly been very large indeed. In
1846 the exports from Odessa only amounted to 1,279,502
quarters, and in 1847 to 2,016,692 ditto; the latter being,
we believe, the largest exportation that ever took place in
a single year from any single port. Owing to the scarcity
in this country, above 400,000 quarters of the above
quantity were shipped for England, but the speculation
entailed a heavy loss on the importers. The price free on
board at Odessa considerably exceeded 40s. a quarter.
6. American Corn Trade. The prices of wheat at New
York and Philadelphia may be taken at an average at
from 37s. to 40s. a quarter; and as the cost of importing
a quarter of wheat from the United States to England
amounts to from 8s. to 12s., it is seen that no consider¬
able supply could be obtained from that quarter were our
prices under 50s. or 52s. It ought also to be remarked,
that prices in America are usually higher than in the Bal¬
tic ; so that but little can be brought from the former, ex¬
cept when the demand is sufficient previously to take off
the cheaper wheats of the northern ports. The usual price
of wheat in Canada, when there is a demand for the Eng¬
lish market, is about 40s. a quarter; but taking it as low
as 35s., if we add to this 10s. a quarter as the expenses of
carriage, it will make its cost price in Liverpool 45s.; and
being spring wheat, it is not so valuable, by about 6s. a
quarter, as English wheat.
Owing to the failure of the potato crop in Ireland, Bel¬
gium, and other parts of Europe, the exports of flour and
of Indian corn and meal from America in 1846 and 1847 Foreign
were extremely large. Those sent to this country were, ^orn
however, completely overdone, and occasioned a heavy loss.
—We subjoin
An Account of the Exports of Flour and Wheat, Indian
Corn and Indian Corn Meal, Rye, Ship-bread, &c.. from
the United States, during the Year ending 30th June
1847, specifying the Countries to which the same were
sent, and the Quantities sent to each.
TO AMERICA.
British
N, American
Colonies.
The
West Indies
generally.
South America
generally.
North America
generally.
bbls.
bush.
. bbls.
Flour, 
Wheat 
Indian corn
Corn meal „
Rye meal -
Rye, oats, and other |
small grain and >
pulse ——value J
Ship bread   bbls.
272,299
919,053
119.615
39,936
27,401
D.24,312
20,506
220
483,571
15,105
593,029
176,418
3,480
D. 113,355
54,788
13,267
328,937
3^964
2,750
101
D.2,291
1,711
7,437
66,993
200
23,925
10,354
180
21,218
673
TO EUROPE.
Articles,
! Great Britain.
Ireland.
France.
Spain and Other parts
Portugal. of Europe.
■ bbls.
bush.
■ bbls.
Flour  
Wheat 
Indian corn
Corn meal „
Rye meal „
Rye, oats, and other 4
small grain and t
pulse value j
Ship bread —.,...bbls.
2,144,581
2,078,652
7,527,586
426,070
4,030
D.565,322
34,736
6,647
342,495
464,911
7,998,939
287,013
2,362
D.66,580
11,994
556
612,641
749,242
7,248
4,401
3,006
D.50,697
3,771
16
4,892
113,429
170,421
22.203
605
8,332
D.752,081
1,728
548
TO OTHER COUNTRIES.
[ Asia Africa
generally, generally.
South Seas Total
and Pacific i quantity
Ocean. I to all parts.
Total
value of
exports,
. bbls.
Flour   
Wheat 
Indian corn
Corn meal
Rye meal— —
Rye, oats, and other l
small grain and >
pulse —~—value )
Ship bread bbls.
Total value 
4,382,496
4,399,951
16,326,050
948,060
48,092
160,9807
31,082 j
D.26,
6,'
14,
4
133,811
049,350
395,212
301,334
225,502
1,600,962
556,266
ID.53,262,437
Inferences from the above Review of Prices. We may,
we think, satisfactorily conclude, from this review of the
state of the foreign corn trade, that, after 1849, when the
new system is carried into full effect by the abolition of all
i*estrictions on importation, the price of foreign wheat of
about the same quality as average English wheat will, in
ordinary years, be but little below 50s. a quarter. But sup¬
posing it were to fall to 45s. or even 40s., the latter is a
price at which agricultural improvements may be success¬
fully carried on. A most extraordinary improvement has
taken place in agriculture since 1820, notwithstanding the
heavy fall of prices in the interval. And such being the
case, it would be unreasonable to suppose that such a fur¬
ther fall as should reduce our average prices from 54s. or
55s, to 45s., or even less, should have any disastrous in¬
fluence over agriculture? Improvements of all sorts have
seldom been more vigorously prosecuted than in 1834,
1835, and 1836, and yet the average price of corn in those
years did not exceed 44s. 8d.; that is, it did not exceed its
probable future price with open ports and no duty.
These details with respect to the foreign corn trade have
been extracted from the article Corn Trade and Corn Laws
in the last edition of Mr M‘Culloch’s Commercial Diction¬
ary. In it the reader will find accounts specifying the
different items of charge on the importation of corn from
Dantzic, Odessa, the United States, &c.; and to it he is
referred for further particulars. (j. R. m.)
C 0 a COR 405
Cornage CORNAGE, an ancient tenure of lands, which obliged
|| the tenant to give notice of invasion by blowing a horn.
Corneille, ’j'hig tenure was very frequent in the northern counties of
England, near the Pictish wall; but by the statute 12th
Car. II. all tenures are converted into free and common
soccage. An old rental calls cornage newt-geldt, or
neat-geldt. Lord Coke says that in old books it is called
horngeld.
CORNARISTS, in Ecclesiastical History, the disciples
of Theodore Cornhert, secretary of the states of Holland,
an enthusiast who wrote against the Catholics, Lutherans,
and Calvinists simultaneously. He maintained that every
religious communion needed reformation ; but he added,
that no person had a right to engage in accomplishing
it without a mission supported by miracles. He also main¬
tained that a person might be a good Christian without be¬
ing a member of any visible church.
CORNARIUS, or Hagenbut, Joannes, a celebrated phy¬
sician, born at Zwickau, Saxony, in 1500. He was pro¬
fessor of medicine at Marburg, and subsequently at Jena,
where he died in 1558. He spent the greater part of his
life in translating the works of the Greek physicians, whose
systems he wished to inculcate in preference to those of
the Arabians. With this view he translated the works of
Hippocrates, JUtius, Paulus JEgineta, Dioscorides, and
several of those of Galen. He translated also some of the
works of the Greek fathers, and wrote Unicer see rei medicce
epigraphe. Gornarius was at one time engaged in a violent
controversy with Fuchs the distinguished botanist.
CORNARO, Luigi (1466-1566), a Venetian nobleman,
famous for his treatises on a sober life. From some dis¬
honesty on the part of his relations he was deprived of his
rank, and induced to retire to Padua, where he acquired
the experience in regard to food and regimen which he has
detailed in his works. In his youth he was of a delicate
constitution, and had nearly fallen a victim to his intempe¬
rance, when by the advice of his physicians he subjected
himself to a severe regimen. He restricted himself to a
daily allowance of twelve ounces of solid and fourteen ounces
of liquid food ; and so much habituated did he become to this
simple diet, that when he was above seventy years of age
the addition by way of experiment of two ounces a-day
had nearly proved fatal. At the age of eighty-three he wrote
his treatise on the The sure and certain methods of attain¬
ing a long and healthful life ; and this was followed by
three others on the same subject, composed at the ages of
eighty-six, ninety-one, and ninety-five, respectively. They
are written, says Addison {Spectator, No. 195), “ with such
a spirit of cheerfulness, religion, and good sense, as are the
natural concomitants of temperance and sobriety.” An
English translation of Cornaro’s work reached its thirty-ninth
edition in 1845.
CORNBRASH, the local name for a member of the
Oolitic formation—a rubbly limestone which forms a soil
extensively used in Wiltshire for the cultivation of corn.
CORNEA. See Anatomy, vol. iii. p. 43.
CORNEILLE, Pierre, the celebrated dramatic author,
was born at Rouen in 1606. He was educated for the
bar, but soon abandoned law for pursuits more congenial to
his taste. A little amorous adventure first developed his
poetical talent, the incidents of which are said to have formed
the groundwork of Melite, his first comedy. This play
contains some ingenious comic combinations, and met with
extraordinary success. Melite was succeeded by several
other pieces which seemed to indicate no great power; but
the genius of Corneille suddenly took a loftier flight, and
produced the tragedy of Medee. His fame, however, was
not completely established till the appearance of the Cid
in 1637, which at once placed him in the first rank of dra¬
matic writers, and drew down the envy and persecution of
Richelieu, who was as despotic in the realm of criticism as
in that of state policy. But the cardinal found taste to be Corneille,
more stubborn than politics; and the man who swayed
kingdoms could not crush the fame of a poet. The Cid
was so universally admired, that it became proverbial to say
of anything beautiful, Cela est beau comme le Cid. This
excellent tragedy was followed by the Horace, Cinna,
Pompee, Polieucle, the comedy of Le Menteur, and nume¬
rous other dramatic pieces. Corneille, who is said to have
been of a devout and melancholy cast, wrote a translation
in verse of Kempis’ Imitation of Jesus Christ, and some
smaller poems. He was dean of the trench Academy at
the time of his death, which took place in 1684, in the
seventy-ninth year of his age.
From the appearance of the Cid the literary age of
Louis XIV. dates its commencement; and to Corneille
is generally assigned the honourable title of the father
of dramatic art in France, which was afterwards so success¬
fully cultivated by Racine, Moliere, and Voltaire. His
best works displays forcible conception and delineation of
character. He raises sentiment into true poetical pathos
and sublimity, and exhibits the contending passions, affec¬
tions, and interests of human nature in all their turbulence
and impotency, with great vigour of thought and expres¬
sion. Many of his descriptive passages are marked with
singular beauty: his dialogues are skilfully conducted,
giving rise to bold declamation, replete with rich imagery,
and glowing with fervour and energy. The vividness with
which some of the replies are made is one of the most
striking characteristics of his dramas. The celebrated
exclamation of the elder Horace, quil mourut, is a well-
known illustration of this peculiar quality in the colloquial
power of Corneille. His style is occasionally rather formal
and pompous, and his sentiments forced and even wire¬
drawn. But in general he is true to nature, and few writers
have been more successful in re-animating and reproducing
on the stage the heroes of antiquity. The tragedies of
Corneille contain some of the best specimens of chaste dic¬
tion, and varied and harmonious versification, which are to
be found in the French language. The dramatic works of
Corneille, with commentaries by Voltaire, were published
at Geneva in 1764, in 12 vols. 8vo. This edition has been
several times reprinted. An edition of his whole works,
with observations by Palissot, was published at Paris in
1802, in ten large octavo volumes. See Drama, (a. h.)
Corneille, Thomas, brother of the preceding, was born
at Rouen in 1625. He gave early indications of his po¬
etical talent; and his plays, when first produced on the
stage, attained the very highest popularity. They are re¬
markable for the purity of their style; but from the
haste and carelessness of their composition, they have long
since been forgotten. He was elected a member of the
Ph-encli Academy ; and on the death of his brother he
contributed to the Dictionnaire. He also wrote A Trans¬
lation of Ovid's Metamorphoses, and some of Ovid’s Epistles,
Paris, 1669; Remarks on “ Vaugelas on the French. Lan¬
guage f Paris, 1687, 2 vols. 12mo; A Dictionary of Arts
and Sciences, 2 vols. fob, Paris, 1694-1732; A Univer¬
sal Geographical and Historical Dictionary, 3 vols. fbh,
Paris, 1708 ; and some other works. Thomas Corneille
died at Andelys in 1709, having lost the use of his sight
during the latter years of his life.
Corneille, Michael (1642-1708), a celebrated painter,
was born at Paris, where his father was a painter of consi¬
derable merit. Having gained a prize at the academy,
young Corneille was rewarded with a pension from Louis
XIV. and sent to Rome, where that prince had founded a
school for young artists of genius. After studying there
for some time, he gave up his pension, and applied with
great industry to the study of the antique. He is said to
have equalled the Caracci in drawing, but in colouring he was
deficient. Upon his return from Rome he was made a
406 COR
Cornelia professor in tlie academy of Paris, and was employed in all
Cornwall ^le 8reat wor^s in progress at Versailles and the Tria-
^   ‘t non, where some specimens of his genius are still to be seen.
” CORNELIA, a celebrated Roman lady, the younger
daughter of Scipio Africanus the elder, and mother of the
two tribunes Tiberius and Caius Gracchus. On the death of
her husband she was left with twelve children, and refused
even the solicitations of Ptolemy to make her his queen.
The rest of her children dying in infancy, she became the
more devoted to her only daughter Cornelia (afterwards
the wife of Scipio Africanus the younger), and to her two
sons. She is said to have presented these sons to a Campanian
lady, who displayed her ornaments and asked a sight of her
jewels in return, “ as the only jewels of which she could
boast.” After the murder of Caius she retired to Misenum,
where she devoted herself to literature and domestic pur¬
suits. After her death a statue was erected to her memory,
bearing this inscription—“ Cornelia, mother of the Gracchi.”
CORNET, in Music, a small horn. A wind instrument
anciently used in war. The pistoned cornet is of recent
invention.
Cornet (Ital. cornetta, a small flag), in modern military
economy, an officer of cavalry who bears the standard or
colours of a troop.
Some derive the term from cornu, because the cornet is
placed on the wings, which form the points or horns of an
army. See Commission.
CORNICULARIUS, in Antiquity, an officer in the
Roman army who led the wing of a small division of troops ;
or, according to some, an adjutant of a centurion, tribune,
&c. The term is derived from corniculum, a little horn,
with which the cornicularius was presented on promotion.
Salmasius, however, derives it from a horn-shaped crest worn
on the helmet as a reward of valour.
In the civil service, the term cornicularius was used for
a secretary or assistant; in which sense the word is sup¬
posed to come from corniculum, a little horn to contain ink.
CORNU. See Horn.
Cornu Ammonis, a shell shaped like a ram’s horn; a
name sometimes applied to the fossil shells called ammo¬
nites.
CORNUCOPIA {Cornu Copice), among the ancient
poets, is the emblem of fruitfulness and plenty, and was
represented under the form of a horn out of which pro¬
ceeded fruits, flowers, and abundance of all things. This,
according to the fable, was one of the horns of the goat
Amalthaea,by which Jupiter was suckled. (See Amaltelea.)
The interpretation of the fable (according to Diodorus, iii.
68) is, that in Libya there was a small but exceedingly fer¬
tile territory, shaped not unlike a bull’s horn ; and this was
bestowed by King Ammon on his bride Amalthaea, who
nursed the infant Jupiter with the milk of a goat.
The cornucopia is frequently represented in works of
art. On medals, as observed by Joubert, the cornucopia is
given to all deities.
First Ceres, in her chariot seated high,
By harness’d dragons drawn along the sky;
A cornucopia fills her weaker hand,
Charged with the various offspring of the land,
Fruit, flowers, and corn.
Hughes—The Triumph of Peace.
CORNUS, a genus of Caprifoliacece, including many
ornamental shrubby plants and trees. The cornel or C.
mascula, C. sanguinea, C. seriaca, are of this number.
CORNWALL is the most westerly county in England,
and also stretches farthest to the south. It is bounded on
all sides by the sea, except on the east, where it meets
Devonshire in a few places, and is separated from it for
the most part by the river Tamar. From this last boun¬
dary its breadth diminishes till it terminates on the west
at the Land’s End, in west longitude 5. 41. 31., and on the
south at the Lizard Point, in north latitude 49. 57. 30.,
COR
assuming somewhat of the form of a cornucopia ; its boun- Cornwall,
daries, the Bristol Channel on the north, and the English ^ - v
Channel on the south, meeting in a point at the promon¬
tory on the west. It is situated in the diocese of Exeter,
belongs to the western circuit, covers an area of 854,770
acres or about 1136 square miles, contains nine hundreds,
201 parishes, twenty-eight market towns, and, in 1851,
355,558 inhabitants, being over 396 to the square mile.
The population of the county has increased 54,242 since
1831. Since 1801 the increase has been 84 per cent.
1 he waste lands are about one-fifth of the whole. The
surface is very irregular, exhibiting a rapid succession of
ascents and descents. The interior is high and generally
barren, consisting for the most part of rugged heaths and
moors ; yet Brown Willy, the highest hill, is only 1368
feet above the level of the sea at low water. Some beau¬
tifully picturesque valleys intervene, richly diversified with
corn, wood, coppices, orchards, rivulets, and verdant mea¬
dows. The stupendous rocks which form the great bar¬
riers against the ocean, particularly about the Land’s End
and the Lizard, are calculated to impress powerfully the
imagination of the beholder ; whilst the remains of an early
age, military, civil, and religious, dispersed over the county,
present, in striking contrast, the small scale on which the
works of man are conducted, and the instability of human
affairs. Throughout the higher lands the soil is a light
black earth, intermixed with gravel, the detritus of the
granite, or growan, as it is here called ; but a light loam,
mixed with slaty matter, is most prevalent on the gen¬
tle declivities and lower grounds. Clay of various qua¬
lities is found in different places, and is made into
bricks for furnaces, or into moulds for casting metals.
For nine months in the year the wind blows from points
between the west and south, bringing with it from the
Atlantic vast bodies of clouds, which, being broken by
the narrow ridge-like hills of the county, descend in fre¬
quent showers. Storms are more frequent and violent
than in the inland parts of England, particularly from the
north-west; but from this quarter the wind is generally
dry, and brings fair weather. The climate is healthy, and the
instances of longevity are numerous. Snow seldom lies for
more than a few days. The myrtle, the balm of Gilead, and
many other tender plants and shrubs, thrive in the open
air ; yet the most hardy trees on the sea coast sustain much
injury from the violence of the westerly wind, and the sea
spray, which it drives with great force before it. The only
shrub which seems to bear the sea air is the tamarisk
{Tamarix anglica), a native plant with a bitter astringent
bark, which grows to the height of ten or twelve feet in
seven years in situations most exposed to the sea, forming
an admirable shelter, and which, as it bears cutting, might be
useful also as a fence ; yet it is destroyed by severe frosts. It
is easily propagated by cutting. Plantations of the pinas¬
ter {Pinus Pinaster) have been raised within the present
century as a protection to more tender trees. The sea air
will ever present an insuperable barrier to the wooding of
this county. The principal rivers are the Tamar, the
Lynher, the Looe, the Fawy, the Camel or Alan, and the
Fal. The Tamar is the most considerable. It rises on
the summit of a moor in the parish of Morvinstow, the most
northern in the county, and, taking a southerly direction,
falls along with several tributary streams into the spacious
basin called the Hamoaze. Issuing thence between Mount
Edgecumbe and the Devil’s Point, it unites with the waters
of the Plym ; and the conflux of these rivers with the sea
forms the noble roadstead named Plymouth Sound.
The landed property of Cornwall is very much divided,
few estates producing a rent of more than L.3000, exclu¬
sive of the revenues from mines, which are continually
fluctuating. What are called the Duchy lands are far more
extensive. The income derived from them, and from the
CORNWALL. 407
Cornwall, duty on the “ coinage” of tin, is the only part unalienated
7 of the immense hereditary revenues which formerly con¬
stituted an independent provision for the heir-apparent to
the crown. This provision was originally made by Edward
III. for his eldest son, Edward the Black Prince, whom he
created Duke of Cornwall, with special limitation to the
first begotten sons of him and his sons, kings of England
for ever. The occupiers of these estates are lessees under
the Duke of Cornwall, and generally purchase an interest
in the land during three lives, the consideration being a fine
paid at the time of the grant, and also a reserved rent during
the lease. A lease for three lives is common on church lands,
and formerly was not unfrequent also on private estates.
Leases at rack-rent seldom exceed fourteen years. The
farms are in general very small, and, in the western and
mining districts, they are chiefly cottage holdings. Agri¬
culture, being but a subordinate concern here, is not gene¬
rally pursued with much spirit or success ; and the fines
paid for their long leases, deprive the farmers of that capital
which should be invested in the improvement of the soil
from year to year. Their best cattle are of the North
Devon breed, and are much employed in labour. The oxen
are generally put into harness at three years old, and con¬
tinue until they attain the age of seven or eight, when they
are fed for the market. Owing to the roughness of some of
the roads it is necessary to have them shod. Four or six
oxen are frequently put into a plough. The breed, which is
said to be a cross between the Alderney and old Cornish, is
light and active, and possessed of considerable powers of en¬
durance. The native sheep of the county, now nearly extinct,
belonged to one of the worst breeds in Britain. A great many
different breeds have been introduced from other districts.
The backs of horses or mules are used more frequently than
carts or waggons as the means of transport. Barley, oats,
and potatoes are grown in greater quantities than are ne¬
cessary for the wants of the county ; but a large quantity of
wheat or flour is imported for the mining districts. In the
neighbourhood of Penzance two crops of potatoes are com¬
monly obtained every year. Sea-sand, sea-weed, and da¬
maged pilchards, are used to a considerable extent as manure.
With this manure the soil generally yields 70 to 80 bushels
of barley, or from 300 to 600 bushels of potatoes to the acre.
Minerals. Cornwall has long been distinguished by its mineral
treasures, of which the most valuable are tin and copper.
The strata in which these metals are found extend from the
Land’s End, in a direction from west to east, to the Dart¬
moor Hills, in Devonshire, and consist chiefly of granite and
a variety of the grauwacke, here called killas. The chief
seat of the mines now lies in the neighbourhood and to the
westward of St Austel, from which place to the Land’s End
the principal mines are to be found, extending along the
northern coast, and keeping a breadth of about seven miles.
These metals are commonly found in veins or fissures called
lodes, of which the sides or walls do not always consist of
the same substance, nor are they equally hard ; for, though
one side of the fissure may be a dense stone, the other is
sometimes as soft as clay. Many lesser veins branch from
the great lodes like the boughs of a tree, and at last termi¬
nate in threads. The indications of a vein of metal are
various, such as scattered fragments of ore, called shades,
the metallic taste of springs, and the lustre of pebbles in
the beds of streams. Many rich lodes have been discovered
by working drifts across the county, in the directions of
north and south. From the course of the metals being from
west to east, the lode will thus be cut at right angles. The
use of the divining rod, now become obsolete, is said
to have been introduced by the Phoenicians, who worked
the tin mines long before the Christian era. See Mining.
Tin is found collected and fixed, and also in a loose and
dispersed form. In the former state, it is either in a lode,
or & floor which is a horizontal layer of the ore ; or inter¬
spersed in grains and small masses in the natural rock. The
same lode that has continued perpendicular for several Cornwall,
fathoms is sometimes found to extend suddenly into a floor. '
In its dispersed form it is met with either in a pulverized
state, in separate stones called shades, or in a continued
course of stones called a stream. These streams are of dif¬
ferent breadths, seldom less than a fathom, and often scat¬
tered, though in different quantities, over the whole tract in
which they are found. When several streams meet they
frequently make a very rich floor. The principal stream
work is at Carnon, between Truro and Penryn.
The most common state in which tin ore is found in this
county is the calciform, or glass-like; and its most prevalent
matrix is either an argillaceous or a siliceous substance, or
a stone composed of both, called by the miners caple. None
of the calcareous kinds ever appear contiguous to the ore,
except the fluors. The oxides of iron and arsenic are those
with which the tin is most frequently blended. When
raised from the mine it is divided into as many shares or
doles as there are lords and adventurers. Every mine pos¬
sesses the privilege of having the ore distributed on the ad¬
jacent fields. It is generally pounded or stamped on the
spot; and when it is small enough to pass through the holes
of an iron grate fixed in one end of the box where the lifters
work, it is carried by a small stream into pits, from which it
is transferred into a large vat, washed, and rendered suffi¬
ciently clear for the smelting-house. The tin, when wrought
into metal, is cast into blocks weighing from 2f to 3f cwt.
each, which are not saleable till assayed by the proper offi¬
cers, and stamped with the duchy seal. This is termed coin¬
ing the tin. Since the reign of Henry VIII. the coinages
have been held regularly four times annually, at Lady Day,
Midsummer, Michaelmas, and Christmas, at the stannary
towns of Launceston, Lostwithiel, Truro, and Helston, to
which Penzance was added by Charles II. The annual
produce of the tin mines is about 500 tons. The value of
the metal is at present L.70 per ton.
Copper ores are found in great abundance and variety.
Veins are frequently discovered in cliff's that are laid bare
by the sea. The most encouraging indication of a rich ore
is an earthy iron ochre, called gossan, which is of a brown¬
ish colour, and crumbles in the atmosphere. The ore
does not lie at any particular depth; but it is a general
rule, that, when copper is discovered in any fissure, the lode
should be sunk upon, as it commonly proves best at some
distance below the surface. When the metal has been pro¬
perly refined, it is poured into oblong iron moulds, each
containing about 150 lb. weight. The annual produce of
copper is about 10,000 tons, valued at about L.95 per ton.
Copper mines were not worked in Cornwall before 1700.
Many other minerals have been found in this county, and
much capital and labour have been employed in working
some of them, without their yielding any adequate return ;
yet the success has been in a few instances so great, that
new mines are opened as fast as the old ones are abandoned.
We can only mention some of the more important. Lead
mines are not numerous; and the kind of ore most fre¬
quently found is galena, or sulphuret of lead, which is
met with both crystallized and in masses. The principal
mines are Huel Pool and Huel Rose, near Helston. Gold
has been discovered, but until lately not in such quantity as
to warrant operations to procure it. Within a short time
it has been found diffused in the gossan in minute particles
that promise a remunerative return. Silver is reported to
have been obtained here in so large a quantity, in the reigns
of Edward I. and Edward III., as materially to aid the war¬
like enterprises of these monarchs ; but recent searches have
not been so successful, /rorc ores, sulphuret of iron, of various
colours, often intermixed with the copper lodes, bismuth,
zinc, antimony, cobalt, arsenic, manganese, wolfram, tita¬
nium, and molybdena or sulphuret of molybdenum, are all
found here, most of them in considerable abundance. Ac¬
cording to Phillips’ map of the mines in 1800, there were
408 COR
Cornwall, wrought at that time forty-five of copper, twenty-eight of
tin, eighteen of copper and tin, two of lead, one of silver,
one of lead and silver, one of copper and silver, one of copper
and cobalt, one of tin and cobalt, and one of antimony.
Among the other mineral substances of this county, those
that deserve to be mentioned for their value are slate, of
which there is an excellent quarry wrought near Tintagel,
in the northern part of the county; 2i freestone, resembling
the Portland and Bath stone, in the parishes of Carantoc and
the lower St Colomb ; and the celebrated soap-rock steatite,
between the Lizard and Mullion,used in the manufacture of
porcelain, and rented by the proprietors of an earthen-ware
establishment in Worcester. But the most important of
these substances is what is called the China-stone, found
in the parish of St Stephen, near St Austel, which forms a
principal ingredient in all the Staffordshire pottery. It is
a decomposed granite, the felspar of which has lost the pro¬
perty of fusibility. At Truro it has been manufactured into
retorts and crucibles. To these may be added the Cornish
diamonds, supposed to be the finest in England, consisting
of beautifully transparent quartz, crystallized in six-sided
prisms ; and a curious production called the swimming
stone, found in a copper mine near Redruth, the cellular
structure of which renders it lighter than water.
Fisheries. Of the fish which frequent the Cornish coast, the pilchard
is the most common and valuable. In size and form it
differs but little from the common herring. Immense shoals
appear during the summer and autumn, the first generally
arriving at the Land’s End in the middle of July. The
principal fisheries on the southern coast are in Mount’s Bay,
and thence eastward to Devonshire; and, on the northern
side, at St Ives. The pilchards are caught in nets called
seines, each of which is managed by three boats, containing
from seventeen to twenty-four men. The largest of these
netsis two hundred and twenty fathoms long, sixteen fathoms
deep in the middle, and fourteen at each end. When brought
on shore the fish are carried to storehouses, or cellars as they
are termed, where the small and broken fisb are picked out.
They are then disposed in layers on the pavement of the
cellar, salt being strewed between every layer. In this state
they remain for about six weeks, after which they are taken
up, washed, and placed in hogsheads, in which, by means of a
powerful lever, they are pressed so closely as when turned
out to appear in a compact state. By this process the oil
is extracted, which runs out of the casks through holes made
for the purpose. Forty-eight hogsheads generally yield a
tun of two hundred and fifty-two gallons. The annual take
of pilchards averages about 21,000 hogsheads. The bloiver
or fin fish, the grampus, the porpesse or sea-hog, the blue
shark, and the sea-fox, visit the coasts of this county. Among
the Squalidm is the Squatina angelus, named the monk or
angel-fish. The turbot, the sea-pike, and the singular fish
called the sun-fish, are often taken. Mackerel is caught in
great plenty on the southern coast; as also the red mullet,
and the John Dory ; and conger eels of an extremely large
size, weighing from sixty to a hundred and twenty pounds,
are met with near the shores. Oysters are also found in
great abundance.
Antiqui- Tf*6 name of Cornwall is supposed by some to be corn-
ties. pounded of Cam, signifying “a rock” in the British lan¬
guage, and Gauls or Waals, the name which the Saxons
gave to the Britons. Others, however, think it is derived
from the Latin cornu, or the British kern, “ a horn on ac¬
count of its running out into the sea somewhat in the form
of a horn. Hither the ancient Britons, as in Wales, re¬
tired on the intrusion of the Saxons, and opposed their
further conquests. In this part of the island they formed
a kingdom (a.d. 446) which existed for many years after¬
wards under different princes, amongst whom were Am-
brosius Aurelius, and the justly celebrated Arthur; nor
were they subdued till the middle of the seventh century;
COR
from which time Cornwall was considered as subject to the Cornwallis
West Saxon kings, who began their sovereignty in 519, and ' y-*-''
continued it till 828, under eighteen sovereigns, the last of
whom was the great Egbert, who subdued all the others,
and, by uniting them, formed the kingdom of England. On
that occasion this county was included in the county of Devon,
then the ninth division. In 1337 Edward III. erected it into
a dukedom, and invested with it Edward the Black Prince.
But this privilege, according to the express words of the
grant, is limited to the first-born son and heir; on which
account Richard II. was created Duke of Cornwall by char¬
ter. So was Henry V. by his father Henry IV. Henry
VI. delivered the duchy to his son Prince Edward, and
Edward IV. created his son Edward V. Duke of Cornwall,
as did Henry VII. his son, afterwards Henry VIII. upon
the death of his elder brother Arthur. James I created his
son Henry Duke of Cornwall, which title on his decease
came to his brother Charles. The eldest sons of succeed¬
ing kings have enjoyed this title by inheritance. These
not only appoint the sheriff, but all writs, deeds, &c. are
made out in their name, and not in that of the king.
The Cornish language is a dialect of that which, till the Language,
Saxons came in, was common to all Britain, and more an¬
ciently to Ireland and part of Gaul; but the inhabitants of this
island being dispersed before those conquests, and driven
into Wales and Cornwall, and thence into Bretagne, the
same language, for want of frequent intercourse, became
differently pronounced and written, and in different degrees
mixed with other languages. Hence arose the Welsh, the
Cornish, and the Armoric dialects, the roots of which are
so much alike that they are known and admitted by the in¬
habitants of either country; but the grammar is so varied
that they cannot converse. The Cornish is reckoned the
most pleasing of the three. It was spoken so generally here
down to the reign of Henry VIII. that Dr John Moreman,
vicar of Mynhinet, is said to have been the first who taught
his parishioners the Lord’s prayer, the creed, and ten com¬
mandments, in English ; and at the Reformation the natives
desired to have the service in English.
Among the old churches in the county may be men¬
tioned St Neot’s at Truro, with its celebrated stained win¬
dows ; Duloe with its curious sculptures in slate ; and the
cathedrals of St Germains and Bodmin.
Cornwall returns four members to parliament for the
county, and ten for the burghs.
CORNWALLIS, Charles, the first Marquis, second
Earl, and sixth Baron Cornwallis, was born Dec. 31, 1738,
of an ancient and honourable family, which had been settled
during many centuries in the county of Suffolk. He was
educated at Eton School, and afterwards entered of St
John’s College, Cambridge, by the name and title of Lord
Brome. Having exhibited an early partiality for the mili¬
tary profession, he entered the army when about 17 or 18
years of age, and in 1758 attained the rank of captain in
Colonel Crawlbrd’s light infantry. Three years afterwards
he accompanied the Marquis of Granby to the Continent,
in the capacity of aide-de-camp, and with the rank of major;
and in consequence of his good conduct he was soon after¬
wards promoted to be lieutenant-colonel of the twelfth re¬
giment of foot. At this period he had also a seat in the
House of Commons, as the representative of his patrimonial
borough of Eye. Upon the demise of his father in 1762,
he became a peer of Great Britain, under the title of Earl
Cornwallis. In 1765 he was nominated one of the lords of
the bed-chamber; and about the same time he was ap¬
pointed aide-de-camp to his Majesty George III., which
gave him the rank of colonel in the line. The favours con¬
ferred on him by the court, however, had not the effect of
corrupting the natural integrity of his mind. He carefully
distinguished between his duties as a senator and as a sol¬
dier ; and in his capacity of peer of parliament, he displayed
CORNWALLIS.
Cornwallis, the independence of his character in several important ques-
tions, by voting against the measures of the administration.
From the very beginning, he showed himself inimical to
those steps which led to the contest with the American
colonies ; and was one of four peers who joined Earl Cam¬
den in opposing the bill for extending the legislative power
of Great Britain to our Transatlantic provinces. He also
protested against the proceedings of ministers in the case
of Mr Wilkes. In 1766 he was promoted to the command
of the 33d regiment of foot; and two years afterwards he
married Jemima, daughter of James Jones, Esq.
But although Lord Cornwallis had uniformly and de¬
cidedly opposed those coercive measures which produced
the contest with America, he did not hesitate to repair
thither, in the service of his country, when his professional
exertions were required. Accordingly, when his regiment
was ordered lor embarkation, although special leave of ab¬
sence had been obtained for him from the king, he resolved
to share the fatigues and dangers of foreign service, and
took leave of his wdfe, who was so much affected by the se¬
paration that she sunk under the weight of her grief into a
premature grave.
Having proceeded to his destination, Cornwallis took
an active part in the subsequent campaigns. Soon after
his arrival in America, he served, with the rank of major-
general, under Sir William Howe, and distinguished himself
as an able and enterprising partizan ; in the month of No¬
vember 1776, he landed on the New Jersey shore; and
finding Fort Lee evacuated, he immediately penetrated into
the country, and took possession of the province. His lord-
ship, however, soon discovered that this was a contest in
which the triumphs of skill, valour, and discipline, were not
attended with the usual consequences of victory ; and that
the nature of the country, and the mode of warfare adopted
by the provincial generals, opposed many obstacles to a
speedy and successful termination of hostilities. At the
end of the campaign he repaired to New York, with the
view of embarking for England, in order that he might have
an opportunity of explaining to the British ministry the real
situation of affairs; but having received information of the
disasters at Trenton, he deferred his voyage, and returned
to the Jerseys.
The first enterprise of Lord Cornw'allis, in the campaign
of 1777, was an attempt to surprise an American post in
his neighbourhood, in which he partly succeeded. Soon
afterwards he received orders from General Howe to aban¬
don the Jerseys ; and in the month of July he embarked
with the English commander-in-chief on the expedition to
the Chesapeak. In several of the subsequent events of this
campaign Cornwallis was actively engaged. At the pas¬
sage of the Brandywine river he commanded a considerable
body of troops ; and after driving the enemy before him, he
entered and took possession of Philadelphia on the 24th of
September 1777. From that period he seems to have had
little opportunity of signalizing himself until the campaign
of 1779-1780, when he embarked as lieutenant-general,
with Sir Henry Clinton, on the expedition to South Caro¬
lina. At the siege of Charlestown, Lord Cornwallis per¬
formed eminent services, having attacked and dispersed a
body of militia which was hastening to the relief of the place.
On the surrender of the town, the command of the province
of South Carolina, with about 4000 troops, devolved upon
him. He was opposed by General Gates, who had pre¬
viously distinguished himself in the actions with Burgoyne,
and who was now appointed to the chief command of the
provincial forces in South Carolina. Gates, having received
intelligence of the situation of the royal troops, advanced
rapidly towards Cambden, with the design of making an
attack on the British lines. Lord Cornwallis, however, hav-
ing determined not to await the approach of the Americans,
left his position, and marched against them with a greatly
vol. vir. J
409
inferior force. The two armies met on the I6th of August, Cornwallis,
in a narrow place, where the colonial troops could not avail
themselves of their superior numbers. The British general,
perceiving the advantage which the ground afforded him,
commenced the assault, and the action soon became gene¬
ral. The determined gallantry of the British troops, who
charged with the bayonet, at length compelled the enemy
to give way, and they were pursued nearly twenty miles from
the field. Many of the colonial troops fell in this engage¬
ment ; 1000 men were taken prisoners ; and seven pieces of
cannon, together with the greater part of the ammunition
and stores of the provincial army, remained in possession of
the British. But this success, brilliant as it was, produced
no permanent advantage to the cause of the royalists, and
was more than compensated by the misfortunes which en¬
sued. In 1781, Lord Cornwallis, having withdrawn with
the force under his command into York Town, was sur¬
rounded by a numerous American army commanded by
Washington ; and finding all attempts to repel the besiegers,
or to escape through their lines, ineffectual, he was under
the necessity of submitting to a capitulation, by which his
whole army became prisoners of war.
Lord Cornwallis now returned to his native country.
During the political contests which took place in 1782 and
1783, his lordship was deprived of his situation as constable
of the Tower, which, however, was restored to him in 1784.
For some years following, his talents were not called into
exercise by any conspicuous public employment. But when
the affairs of India began to assume a very critical aspect,
he was selected as the person best qualified to fill the im¬
portant situation of governor-general; and he was at the
same time invested with the Order of the Garter. Soon after
his arrival in India^the Company were involved in a war
with the formidable sovereign of the Mysore, Tippoo Sultan,
son of the famous Hyder Ali. The conduct of hostilities
was at first intrusted to the Madras government; but to¬
wards the end of the year 1790 the governor-general as¬
sumed the command of the grand army, and took the field
in person. As the events of this war will be detailed in
another part of this work, it is unnecessary for us to recapi¬
tulate the narrative here. It is sufficient to observe that,
by a combination of vigour and prudence, the contest was
brought to a successful termination in the course of two
campaigns. Tippoo, beaten in the field, and forced to con¬
fine his efforts to the defence of his capital, was at length
compelled by necessity to submit to such terms as the British
commander choose to dictate, and to purchase peace by the
sacrifice of half his dominions, and a large portion of trea¬
sure. The power of the sultans of Mysore, the most for¬
midable enemies of the British government in India, was
thus effectually undermined, and the train laid for its subse¬
quent annihilation.
At the conclusion of the war in India, Lord Cornwallis
returned to England. He was now (1 792) created a mar¬
quis ; admitted a member of the privy-council; and, in
addition to his other appointments, he was nominated to the
lucrative office of master-general of the ordnance, which
gave him a seat in the cabinet. A few years afterwards his
talents were again required for the public service. Ireland
being in a state of ferment, harassed with insurrection, and
menaced with foreign invasion, the Marquis of Cornwallis
was invested with the viceregal powers, and assumed the
government in 1798. His administration was short but
successful: an invading army was made captive; some of
the abuses which prevailed in the internal government of
the kingdom were reformed, and tranquillity was restored.
On the union of Ireland with great Britain, he resigned the
government of the country, and returned to England. In
1801 he was appointed plenipotentiary to the congress as¬
sembled for the purpose of negotiating a general peace,
which terminated in the definitive treatv of Amiens.
3 F
410 COR CO R
Coro Having been thus from his early years actively, and al¬
ii most uninterruptedly, engaged in the service of his country,
or^an' it might have been supposed that his lordship, who had now
v ^ ~ L , attained an advanced age, would have been permitted to
pass the remainder of his life in the enjoyment of domestic
repose. But the new and extensive acquisitions of the East
India Company had brought their affairs into a state of em¬
barrassment ; and the talents and experience of the Marquis
of Cornwallis pointed him out as the individual most likely
to restore order and tranquillity to our territorial possessions
in Asia. He accordingly repaired thither a second time in
1805, as governor-general and commander-in-chief of the
forces.
On his arrival at Calcutta, he found the finances of the
country in a most deplorable state; whilst several of the
most powerful of the native princes were still in arms, or
preparing anew for hostilities. His first object, therefore,
was to adopt a variety of arrangements for the purpose of
introducing order and economy into the civil department;
and he then resolved to place himself at the head of the
army. But at this critical moment our eastern empire was
unfortunately deprived of his services. Bodily fatigue,
mental exertion, and the vicissitudes of climate, had under¬
mined his constitution; and his health was now so much
impaired, that he was obliged to perform his journey by slow
and easy stages. Nature at length became completely ex¬
hausted ; and he died Oct. 5, 1805, at Ghazepore, in the
province of Benares, in the sixty-sixth year of his age. He
was buried with great pomp; and every mark of respect
was paid to his merit. The inhabitants of Calcutta voted a
mausoleum, and those of Bombay a statue, to his memory.
His lordship was only once married, and left two children,
a son and a daughter.
Marquis Cornwallis was endowed in no small degree with
those qualities which lead to distinction both in the cabinet
and in the field, and rendered important services to his coun¬
try as a statesman and a general. In council, he displayed
moderation and coolness; in conduct, firmness, resohition,
and vigour. In public life, he was distinguished by inde¬
pendence of character and inflexible integrity; in private,
he was respected and esteemed for his humanity and bene¬
volence. (j. c.)
CORO, a maritime town of Venezuela, and at one time
its capital, but now the capital of a province of its own name.
The town is meanly built, with few public edifices ; and its
trade with the West Indies, formerly considerable, has greatly
declined. Pop. probably about 8000. Lat. 11. 23. N.;
Long. 69. 48. W.
COROLLA (Lat. eo/Wfo, a little crown), in Botany, the
most conspicuous part of a flower, surrounding the organs of
reproduction, and composed of one or more flower-leaves
called petals. According as there may be one, two, or
three petals, the corolla is said to be monopetalous, dipeta-
lous, tripetalous, &c.
COROLLARY (Lat. corollarium, a gift or donation
over and above what is due), a conclusion or consequence
drawn from something already advanced or demonstrated.
Thus, it being demonstrated that a triangle which has two
equal sides has also two angles equal, it follows as a corol¬
lary, that a triangle which has three sides equal has also its
three angles equal.
COROLLET, or Corollule, in Botany, a term denot¬
ing the little partial flowers which make up a compound
one.
COROMANDEL. This coast extends along the west¬
ern side of the Bay of Bengal, from Point Calymere in
Lat. 10. 17. to the mouths of the Krishna river, and is
about 350 miles in length. By license, however, the
term “ Coast of Coromandel” is usually extended so as to in¬
clude the coast northward as far as Point Palmyras in Lat.
20. 45., a further distance of 550 miles. Along the whole
extent of this coast there is not a good harbour, though Coron
there are several flourishing towns ; and, with the exception ||
of the Bay of Coringa, there is an extreme difficulty in land- Cor<®a.
ing, on account of the surf except where proper boats are “v-*-
provided. The northerly winds generally begin to blow on
the coast of Coromandel and in the Bay of Bengal about the
middle of October; and for the first three months with such
violence that it is very unsafe to approach. This is the
north-east monsoon. About the middle of April the south¬
erly winds commence, and continue till October, during
which period vessels may approach the coast in perfect se¬
curity. The north-east monsoon is accompanied at its
commencement with violent thunder and tempests; and
these storms continue from October to December, and
sometimes even to January. During summer, from April
to October, when the north-east monsoon commences, a hot
wind blows during the day over the land, and parches up
everything ; so that the country resembles a barren wilder¬
ness, nothing appearing green except the trees. At night
the heat is relieved by refreshing breezes from the sea.
These hot winds, however oppressive and adverse to vege¬
tation, are supposed to purify the air ; and it is accordingly
observed by all Europeans, that the longer they con¬
tinue, the ensuing months are more healthy. During the
season of the periodical rains vegetation is hastened, the
plants revive, and a beautiful verdure is spread over the
country. (e. t.)
CORON, or Koron, a seaport of Messenia, in the Mo-
rea, on the Gulf of Kalamata, representing the ancient Co-
lonides. The town is small, but it has a strong citadel.
The harbour is open to the south, and the shores are oozy.
CORONA, or Halo, in Optics, a luminous circle sur¬
rounding the sun, the moon, the planets, or fixed stars.
Sometimes these circles are white, and sometimes coloured
like the rainbow ; sometimes one only is visible, and some¬
times several concentric coronas make their appearance at
the same time. Those which have been seen about Sirius
and Jupiter were never more than three, four, or five de¬
grees in diameter; those which surround the moon are
also sometimes no more than three or five degrees; but
these, as well as those which surround the sun, are of very
different magnitudes, viz., ofT2° O', 22° 35', 30° O', 38° O', 41°
2', 45° O', 46° 24', 47° O', and 90°, or even larger than this.
Their diameters also sometimes vary during the time of
observation, and the breadths both of the coloured and
white circles are very different, viz. of two, four or seven
degrees.
The colours of these coronas are more diluted than those
of the rainbow; and they are in a different order, accord¬
ing to their size. In those which Newton observed in
1692, they were in the following order, reckoned from the
inside: In the innermost were blue, white, and red; in
the middle were purple, blue, green, yellow, and pale red;
in the outermost, pale blue and pale red. Huygens ob¬
served red next the sun, and a pale blue outwards. Some¬
times they are red on the inside and white on the outside.
Weidler observed one that was yellow on the inside and
white on the outside. In France one was observed in 1683,
the middle of which was white; after which followed a
border of red; next to it was blue, then green, and the
outermost circle was a bright red. In 1728 one was seen
of a pale red outwardly, then followed yellow, and then
green, terminated by a white.
These coronas are very frequent. In Holland, says Mus-
chenbroeck, fifty may be seen in the day-time, almost every
year; but they are difficult to be observed, unless the eye
be so situated that not the body of the sun, but only the
neighbouring parts of the heavens, can be seen. Middle-
ton remarks, that this phenomenon is very frequent in North
America, there being generally one or two about the sun
every week, and as many about the moon every month.
CORONA.
411
Corona. Halos round the sun are very frequent in Russia. yEpinus
^  ) relates, that from the 23d of April to the 20th of September
1758, he himself had observed no less than twenty-six,
and that he has sometimes seen twice as many in the same
space of time.
Coronas may be artificially produced by placing a lighted
candle in the midst of steam in cold weather ; also, if glass
windows be breathed upon, and the flame of a candle be
placed some feet from it, while the spectator is also at the
distance of some feet from another part of a window, the
flame will be surrounded with a coloured halo; and if a
candle be placed behind a glass receiver, when air is ad¬
mitted into the vacuum within it, at a certain degree of
density, the vapour with which it is loaded will form a
coloured halo round the flame. This was observed by Otto
Guericke. In December 1756 Muschenbroeck observed,
that when the glass windows of his room were covered with
a thin plate of ice on the inside, the moon appearing through
it was surrounded with a large and variously coloured halo;
and on opening the window, he found that it arose entirely
from that thin plate of ice, for none was seen except
through it.
Similar in some respects to the halo was the remarkable
appearance which Bouguer describes, as observed by him¬
self and his companions on the top of Pichincha, in the
Cordilleras. When the sun was just rising behind them,
so as to appear wdiite, each saw his own shadow projected
in the air, and'no other. The distance was such, that all the
parts of the shadow were easily distinguishable, as the arms,
the legs, and the head; but what wras most surprising was,
that the head was adorned with a kind of glory, consisting
of three or four small concentric crowns, of a very lively
colour, each exhibiting all the varieties of the primary rain¬
bow, and having the circle of red upon the outside. The
intervals between these circles continued equal, though the
diameters of them all were constantly changing. The last
was very faint; and at a considerable distance was another
great wdiite circle which surrounded the whole. As nearly
as Bouguer could compute, the diameter of the first of
these circles was about 5§ degrees, that of the second 11,
that of the third 17, and so on; but the diameter of the
white circle was about 76 degrees. This phenomenon never
appeared but in a cloud consisting of frozen particles, and
never in drops of rain like the rainbow. When the sun was
not in the horizon, only part of the white circle was visible,
as frequently observed afterwards by Bouguer.
Similar also to this curious appearance was one observed
in Scotland. The observer saw a rainbow round his shadow
in the mist, when he stood upon an eminence above it. In
this situation the whole country seemed, as it were, buried
under a vast ocean, nothing but the tops of distant hills ap¬
pearing here and there rising above the flood. In those
upper regions the air was at that time very pure and agree¬
able to breathe. At another time the same individual ob¬
served a double range of colours round his shadow in these
circumstances. The colours of the outermost range were
broad and very distinct, and everywhere about two feet dis¬
tant from the shadow. Then there was a darkish interval,
and after that another narrower range of colours, closely
surrounding the shadow, which was very much contracted.
He was of opinion that these ranges of colours are caused
by the inflection of the rays of light, the same that occa¬
sioned the ring of light which surrounds the shadows of all
bodies, observed by Maraldi and others. But the prodigious
variety in which these appearances are exhibited seems to
show that many of them do not result from the general
laws of reflection, refraction, or inflection, belonging to
transparent substances of a large mass; but depend upon
the alternate reflection and transmission of the different
kinds of rays, peculiar to substances reduced to the form
of thin plates, or consisting of separate and very minute
parts. But where the dimensions of the coronas are pretty Corona,
constant, as in the usual and larger halo, which is about v>—v—■
half the diameter of the rainbow, they may perhaps be ex¬
plained on the general principles of refraction only.
Sir Isaac Newton does not appear to have given any par¬
ticular attention to the subject of halos, but he has hinted
at his sentiments concerning them occasionally; by which
we perceive that he considered the larger and less variable
appearances of this kind as produced according to the com¬
mon laws of refraction, but that the less and more variable
appearances depend upon the same cause with the colours
of thin plates.
He concludes his explication of the rainbow with the fol¬
lowing observations on halos and parhelia:—“ The light
which comes through drops of rain by two refractions, with¬
out any reflection, ought to appear the strongest at the dis¬
tance of about twenty degrees from the sun, and to decay
gradually both ways as the distance from him increases;
and the same is to be understood of light transmitted through
spherical hailstones; and if the hail be a little flatted, as it
often is, the transmitted light may be so strong, at a little
less distance than that of twenty-six degrees, as to form a
halo about the sun or moon; which halo, as often as the
hailstones are duly figured, may be coloured, and then it
must be red within by the least refrangible rays, and blue
w ithout by the most refrangible ones ; especially if the hail¬
stones have opaque globules of snow in their centres to in¬
tercept the light within the halo (as Mr Huygens has ob¬
served), and make the inside of it more distinctly defined
than it would otherwise be; lor such hailstones, though
spherical, by terminating the light by the snow, may make
a halo red within and colourless without, and darker within
the red than without, as halos are used to be. For of those
rays which pass close by the snow, the red-making ones
will be the least refracted, and so come to the eye in the
straightest lines.”
Some further thoughts of Newton on the subject of
halos are subjoined to the account of his experiments on
the colours of thick plates of glass, which he conceived to
be similar to those which are exhibited by thin ones. “ As
light reflected by a lens quicksilvered on the back side makes
the rings of the colours above described, so,” he says, “ it
ought to make the like rings in passing through a drop of
water. At the first reflection of the rays within the drop,
some colours ought to be transmitted, as in the case of a
lens, and others to be reflected back to the eye. For in¬
stance, if the diameter of a small drop or globule of water
be about the 500th part of an inch, so that a red-making
ray, in passing through the middle of this globule, has 250
fits of easy transmission within the globule, and all the red-
making rays which are at a certain distance from this middle
ray round about it have 249 fits within the globule, and all
the like rays at a certain further distance round about it
have 248 fits, and all those at a certain further distance 247
fits, and so on ; these concentric circles of rays, after their
transmission, falling on a white paper, will make concentric
rings of red upon the paper, supposing the light which passes
through one single globule strong enough to be sensible;
and in like manner the rays of other colours will make rings
of other colours. Suppose now that in a fair day the sun
should shine through a thin cloud of such globules of water
or hail, and that the globules are all of the same size, the
sun seen through this cloud ought to appear surrounded
with the like concentric rings of colours, and the diame¬
ter of the first ring of red should be 75°, that of the
second 10|°, that of the third 12° 33', and according as the
globules of water are bigger or less, the ring should be less
or bigger.”
This curious theory, Newton informs us, was confirmed
by an observation which he made in the year 1692. He saw
by reflection, in a vessel of stagnating water, three halos,
412
Corona
II
Coronach.
COR
crowns, or rings of colours about the sun, like three little
rainbows concentric to its body. The colours of the first
or innermost crown were blue next the sun, red without,
and white in the middle, between the blue and red. Those of
the second crown were purple and blue within, and pale red
without, and green in the middle ; and those of the third were
pale blue within, and pale red without. These crowns in¬
closed one another immediately, so that their colours pro¬
ceeded in this continual order from the sun outward ; blue,
white, red; purple, blue, green, pale yellow, and red ; pale
blue, pale red. The diameter of the second crown, measured
from the middle of the yellow and red on one side of the sun
to the middle of the same colour on the other side, was 9^ de¬
grees or thereabouts. The diameters of the first and third he
had not time to measure, but that of the first seemed to be
about five or six degrees, and that of the second about twelve.
The like crowns appear sometimes about the moon. In the
beginning of the year 1664, on February 19th, at night, he
saw two such crowns about her. The diameter of the first
or innermost was about three degrees, and that of the second
about five degrees and a half. Next about the moon was
a circle of white; and next about that the inner crown,
which was of a bluish-green within, next the white, and of
a yellowish and red without; and next about these colours
were blue and green on the inside of the outer crown, and
red on the outside of it.
At the same time there appeared a halo at the distance
of about 22° 35' from the centre of the moon. It was ellip¬
tical, and its long diameter was perpendicular to the hori¬
zon, verging below farthest from the moon. He was told
that the moon had sometimes three or more concentric
crowns of colours encompassing one another next about her
body. The more equal the globules of water or ice are to
one another, the more crowns of colours will appear, and the
more lively the colours will be. The halo, at the distance
of 22^ degrees from the moon, is of another sort. By its
being oval and more remote from the moon below than
above, he concludes that it was made by refraction in some
kind of hail or snow floating in the air in a horizontal pos¬
ture, the refracting angle being about 50 or 60 degrees. Dr
Smith, however, makes it sufficiently evident that the reason
why this halo appeared oval and more remote from the moon
towards the horizon, is a deception of sight, and the same
with that which makes the moon appear larger in the hori¬
zon. See Chromatics.
Corona, in Botany, the circumference or margin of a
radiated compound flower. It corresponds to the radius of
Linnaeus.
Corona Australis, or Meridionalis, the Southern Crown,
a constellation of the southern hemisphere, the stars of which
in Ptolemy’s catalogue are thirteen, and in the British cata¬
logue twelve.
Corona Borealis, the Northern Crown, or Garland, in
Astronomy, a constellation of the northern hemisphere, the
stars of which in Ptolemy’s catalogue are eight, in Tycho’s
as many, and in Flamsteed’s twenty-one.
Corona, in Roman Antiquity. See Crown.
CORONACH, among the Scotch and Irish, the custom
of singing at funerals, anciently prevalent in Scotland and
Ireland, and still practised in various parts of these countries.
Of this custom the following account is given by Pennant:—
“I had not the fortune to be present at any in North Britain,
but formerly assisted at one in the south of Ireland, where it
was performed in the fulness of horror. The cries are called
by the Irish the ulogohne and hullulu, two words very ex¬
pressive of the sound uttered on these occasions ; and being
of Celtic stock, etymologists would swear to be the origin
of the oXoXvyrj of the Greeks, and ululatus of the Latins.
Virgil is very fond of using the last whenever any of his
females are distressed; as are others of the Roman poets,
and generally on occasions similar to this. It wtis my for-
C O R
tune to arrive at a certain town in Kerry at the time that Coronation
a person of some distinction departed this life. My curio- ||
sity led me to the house, where the funeral seemed con- Coroner.
ducted in the purest classical form.
Quocunque aspicerem, luctus gemitusque sonabant,
Formaque non taciti funeris intus erat.
In short, the conclamatio was set up by the friends in the
same manner as Virgil describes that consequential of
Dido’s death ;
Lamentis gemituque et fcemineo ululatu
Tecta fremunt.-
Immediately after this followed another ceremony, full
described by Camden in his account of the manners of the
ancient Irish ; the earnest expostulations and reproaches
given to the deceased for quitting this world, where she
enjoyed so many blessings, so good a husband, such fine
children. This custom is also of great antiquity; for Eurya-
lus’ mother makes the same pathetic address to her dead son.
• Tune, ilia senectse
Sera mese requies, potuisti linquere solam,
Crudelis ?
But when the time approached for carrying out the corpse,
the cry was redoubled,
Tremulis ululatibus aethera complent;
a numerous band of females waiting in the outer court to
attend the hearse, and to pay (in chorus) the last tribute of
their voices. The habit of this sorrowing train, and the
neglect of their persons, were admirably suited to the oc¬
casion : their robes were black and flowing, resembling the
ancient palla; their feet naked, their hair long and dishevel¬
led : I might truly say,
Vidi egomet nigra succinctam vadere palla
Canidiam; pedibus midis, passoque capillo,
Cum Sagana majore ululantem.
The corpse was carried slowly along the verge of a most
beautiful lake, the ululatus was continued, and the whole
procession ended among the venerable ruins of an old
abbey.”—{Tour in Scotland, vol. i., p. 113.)
CORONATION, the ceremony of investing with a
crown, particularly applied to the crowning of kings, upon
their accession to the sovereignty.
Coronation Oath, the oath taken by a sovereign at his
coronation.
CORONELLI, Vincenzio, a well-known geographer,
was born at Venice. Having by his skill in the mathe¬
matics become known to the Count d’Estrees, Coronelli
was employed by the count to make globes for Louis XIV.
With this view Coronelli spent some time at Paris, and
left a great number of globes there, which were much es¬
teemed. In 1685 he was appointed cosmographer to the
republic of Venice, and four years afterwards public pro¬
fessor of geography. He founded an academy of cosmo¬
graphy at Venice, and died in that city in 1718. He
published about 400 geographical charts, an abridgment
of cosmography, several books on geography, and other
works.
CORONER {coronator), ancient officer in England.
He is so called because he hath principally to do with pleas of
the crown, or such wherein the sovereign is more imme¬
diately concerned. And in this light the lord chief justice of
the Queen’s Bench is the principal coroner in the kingdom,
and may, if he pleases, exercise the jurisdiction of a coroner
in any part of the realm. But there are also particular co¬
roners for every county of England ; usually four, but
sometimes six, and sometimes fewer. This officer is of
equal antiquity with the sheriff, and was ordained with him
to keep the peace, when the earls gave up the wardship of
the county. He is still chosen by all the freeholders in the
county.”—(Blackstone’s Commentaries^)
Before the statute of Magna Charta, coroners held pleas
COR
COR
413
Coronet of the crown, but by that statute, cap. 17, their power is taken
|| away. By the statute of Westminster it was enacted that
:orporal none but lawful and discreet knights should be chosen ; and
there is an instance in the 5th Edw. III. of a man being
removed from his office because he was merely a merchant;
but now it seems sufficient that a man have land enough to
be made a knight; that is, of the value of L.20 per annum.
Blackstone complains that in his time this office had been suf¬
fered to fall into disrepute, and that coroners only desired
to be chosen for the sake of the perquisites or fees allowed
for attendance by tbe statute 3d Henry VII., cap. 1. In this,
however, a great improvement has taken place, the persons
generally elected to the office being either attorneys or medi¬
cal men. The fees are regulated by the 25th Geo. II., cap.
29, and 7th Will. IV., and 1st Viet., cap. 68.
The coroner is chosen for life, but may be removed either
by being made sheriff, which is an office incompatible with
the other ; or by the writ de coronatore exonerando, for a
cause to be therein assigned, as that he is engaged in other
business, is incapacitated by age or sickness, "has no suffi¬
cient estate in the county, or lives in an inconvenient part
of it; or for extortion, neglect, or misbehaviour (25th Geo.
II., cap. 29).
The office and power of a coroner are, like those of the
sheriff, either judicial or ministerial, but principally judicial.
This is in a great measure ascertained by statute 4th Edw.
I. De officio Coronatoris ; and his duty consists principally
in inquiring, when any person is killed or dies suddenly, or
in prison, concerning the manner of his death. This inquest
must be held super visum corporis ; forif thebody benotfbund
the coroner cannot sit. He was formerly obliged to sit at
the very place where the death happened; but by the 6th
and 7th Viet, cap. 12, the coroner within whose jurisdiction
the body shall be lying dead is to hold the inquest, though
the cause of death may not have arisen within his jurisdic¬
tion ; and in cases of the body being found dead in the sea,
or any creek, river, or navigable canal within the flowing of
the sea, where there is no deputy coroner for the admiralty,
the inquest shall be held by the coroner having jurisdiction
at the place where the body was first brought to land. The
inquisition must be found with the concurrence of at least
twelve of the jury, and it cannot be quashed for certain
technical defects enumerated in the 6th and 7th Viet., cap.
83, as was formerly the case. If any by this inquest be found
guilty of murder, the coroner is to commit the accused to
prison for further trial, and is also to inquire concerning their
lands, goods, and chattels, which are thereby forfeited. For¬
merly the coroner also inquired whether any deodand accrued
to the king or the lord of the franchise by the death, and
certified the inquisition to the Court of Queen’s Bench,
or the next assizes ; but by the 9th and 10th Viet., cap. 62,
all forfeiture of any chattel by a death was abolished. Another
branch of the coroner’s office is to inquire concerning ship¬
wrecks, and to certify whether a wreck has taken place or
not, and who is in possession of the goods. In the matter of
treasure-trove, his duty is to inquire concerning the finders,
where the treasure is, and whether any one be suspected
of having found and concealed a treasure.
The ministerial office of the coroner is only as the she¬
riff’s substitute; for when just exception can be taken to
the sheriff on suspicion of partiality, as that he is interested
m the suit, or of kindred to either plaintiff or defendant, the
process must then be awarded to the coroner instead of the
sheriff, for execution of the king’s writs.
The office of coroner was formerly known in Scotland.
(Hume’s Comment, ii. 24.) (r. m—m.)
CORONET, an inferior kind of crown worn by princes
aud noblemen, as distinctive badges of their several de¬
grees. I hese are described under Heraldry.
CORPORAL (Ital. caporale, from Eat. caput), the low¬
est officer in a company of infantry, next below a Serjeant.
He has charge over one of the divisions of the company, Corporate
places and relieves sentinels, &c. In the ranks he does duty ||
as a private, but his pay is rather more. Corpora-
Lance-Corporal, originally denoted a cavalry soldier tl0n'
disabled by the loss of his lance or his horse during action,
and retained for the time as a volunteer in the infantry ; but
the term is now applied to a private who, without superior
pay, does the duty of a corporal, previous to his promotion
to that grade.
Corporal of a Ship of War, an officer under the master
at arms, employed to teach the officers the exercise of
small arms, to attend at the gangway on entering ports, and
to see that no spirituous liquors are brought into the ship,
except by permission ; to extinguish all lights at a certain
hour, &c.
CORPORATE, in the Romish and Greek Churches, is
the fine linen cloth in which the eucharist is deposited. It
is an object of great veneration. It is also called KaAuya-
paTLov, Pa/la, Sindon, and Antimensia. The expression
corporal oath is derived from the ancient usage of touch¬
ing the corporale to add solemnity to an oath.
CORPORATION is the term applied in Britain to a
body of men by special law endowed w ith the power and
means of acting collectively, w ith the distinctness and indi¬
viduality of one man pursuing the dictates of his own will,
while their existence is kept up by a perpetual succession,
so that the collective body acts like an individual man with
a perpetuated vitality. Though the corporation might be
deemed, from the admiration bestowed on it by professional
writers, to be the peculiar creation of English genius, there
is little doubt that the system was derived from the muni-
cipia, universitates, and collegia of the Romans ; and there
is even reason to believe that there are corporations which
date their history back to the institutions of the Western
empire. (See Municipal Corporations.) The adage, in¬
deed, expressed by a Roman jurisprudent, that it required
three to make a college—tres facere collegium (50 Dieg. 16,
85)—shows a practical consciousness of the most effective
means of strengthening the action of a small corporation, in
an adjustment, by which equal numbers with the chances
of balanced divisions are to be avoided, and that number is
selected which alw'ays affords a majority of two to one.
Corporation law has been a favourite field for the indul¬
gence of the English legal propensity for creating fictions.
The commentators have exhausted their ingenuity in ana¬
logies between the individual human being and the body
corporate or collective which acts like one man; and Sir
Edward Coke is happy in discovering, that the reason why
corporations cannot be excommunicated, is because they
have no souls, being in the eye of the law mere bodies.
In its love of fictions the English law has applied to cer¬
tain holders of office the expression “ corporation sole so
that after having exercised its ingenuity in endowing groups
of men with the characteristics of individuality, w here this
individuality is real, the law reverses the process and be¬
stows on it the collective qualities of an aggregate body.
“ Corporations sole,” says Blackstone, “ consist of one per¬
son only, and his successors in some particular station, who
are incorporated by law, in order to give them some legal
capacities and advantages, particularly that of perpetuity,
which in their natural persons they could not have had.
In this sense the king is a sole corporation; so is a bishop;
so are some deans and prebendaries, distinct from their
several chapters; and so is every parson and vicar.” He
gives reasons for this fiction, in the possibility that without
it the public property held by the parson might become
feudally vested in his heir. “ The law therefore has wisely
ordained that the parson, quatenus parson shall never die
any more than the king, by making him and his successors
a corporation, by which means all the original rights of the
parsonage are preserved entire to the successor,” &c. (B. i.
414 COR
Corpora- ch. 18). In England, however, as in other countries, the
ti°n' nature of a systematic succession to office, and the separa-
tion of public from private property, could be effectually
understood without recourse to a supposition which only
tends to throw confusion on the notions of a real corporation.
It is another fiction of the law of England, but one which
has tended beneficially to define the power of incorporation
in later times, that corporations can have no other foundation
than royal authority. In reality, though some of the corporate
bodies have risen silently along with the monarchical and
other institutions of the country, yet the law treats them as
having sprung directly from the prerogative of the crown;
“ such as the city of London and many others, which have
existed as corporations, time whereof the memory of man
runneth not to the contrary, and therefore are looked upon
in law to be well created. For though the members there¬
of can show no legal charter of incorporation, yet in cases
of such high antiquity, the law presumes there once was
one; and that, by the variety of accidents which a length
of time may produce, the charter is lost or destroyed.” (Ib.)
Both the spontaneous rise of such great corporations, and
the power of the crown to create them, have now virtually
departed, and all great corporate powers arising in later
times have been created by statute.
Blackstone and other commentators give many divisions
of corporations, as into lay and ecclesiastical, civil and elee¬
mosynary. There is a division, however, not known in law,
but more important in practice than any of the technical
divisions. It exists between those corporations which, like
banking or trading companies, are created for the profit of
the members, and those which, like municipal institutions,
are created for the benefit of the public through the per¬
formance of public duties. There are corporations in which
the two functions are in some measure mixed together in a
modified shape; such as associations of literary men and
artists, by whom a public service is done by the promotion
of intellectual education, while the members to some extent
hold personal privileges, and act to the extent of their
powers for their own advantage. It is worthy of observa¬
tion, that this kind of body, containing a moderate amount
of the characteristics of both the main classes of coporations,
is the only kind now virtually incorporated by the crown. It
has ceased to incorporate municipal bodies with governing
powers, as these can only now be satisfactorily communi¬
cated by act of parliament. The power to confer monopo¬
lies or other commercial privileges, long viewed with jeal¬
ousy, scarcely survived the Patents Act in the reignof James
I.; and any privileges now granted by charter to commer¬
cial bodies merely involve the right to transact their busi¬
ness, hold their property, and conduct litigations in a corpo¬
rate name without the intervention or involvement of indi¬
vidual members of the corporation.
The phraseology of the English law of corporations has
migrated to Scotland, and brought with it in some measure
the corresponding practice. But it is probable, that if a
sufficient inquiry were made into the origin and nature of
collective bodies associated for common action in Scotland,
they would be found to be very different in their funda¬
mental constitution from an English corporation. It is cer¬
tain that there exist in Scotland many such bodies, which
neither in reality, nor by admitted fiction of law, were created
by the crown ; and some of the burgal corporations have,
from time to time, by “ seals of cause,” as they were termed,
exercised the power of creating distinct corporate bodies
with specific internal powers. Though it has been the prac¬
tice to append the great seal to Scottish charters of incor¬
poration, it has been doubted whether this be necessary. In
England nothing was more clearly established than the law,
that the members ofa corporation are not under any personal
responsibility for its debts or other obligations. This arises
from the method in which its fictitious individuality is repre-
C O R
sented by the common seal. “ For a corporation,” says Corporeity
Blackstone, “ being an invisible body, cannot manifest its ||
intention by any visible act or oral discourse ; it therefore Corpu-
acts and speaks only by its common seal. For though the lence’
particular members may express their private assents to any
act by words, or signing their names, yet this does not bind
the corporati n ; it is the fixing of the seal, and that only,
w'hich unites the several assents, who compose the com¬
munity, to make one joint assent of the whole.” The seal
is often adopted in Scotland in imitation of English prac¬
tice, but it is not admitted to have the same mysterious
capacity of representing the ideal individuality, nor is it a
fixed point that the members of a trading body can be ex¬
empt, in Scotland, from their liability as partners by mere
incorporation, or by any other authority than a special sta¬
tutory limitation. In 1825, on the understanding that the
act of incorporation by the crown is an absolute exclusion
of personal responsibility, an act was passed for enabling
the crown to grant charters of incorporation, containing pro¬
visions for the liability of the members for the debts of the
corporation. By an act of 1836, amended in 1837 (7th
Will. IV., and 1 Viet., cap.73), arrangements were made for
enabling the mere commercial privileges of a corporation, in¬
cluding representation by office-bearers, and partial or total
exemption from personal responsibility, to be conferred by
the crown in a more simple manner than incorporation by
letters patent. The objects of a large portion of the old
corporation laws are now superseded by the mass of legis¬
lation relating to banking, railway, and other joint-stock pub¬
lic companies. See Joint Stock. (j. h. b.)
CORPOREITY, the state of having a body, or of being
embodied ; materiality. The corporeity of God was the
capital error of the Anthropomorphites. Some authors have
charged Tertullian with maintaining the corporeity of the
Deity ; but in the works of that author the term bod//seems
to be synonymous with substance. The Mohammedans re¬
proach the Samaritans at this day with a belief in the cor¬
poreity of God.
CORPULENCE (from corpus), sm obese state cf body,
or the condition of a person overloaded with flesh or fat.
Among the Lacedaemonians a kind of infamy attached to
corpulency. In some eastern countries on the contrary, at
the present day, the perfection of female beauty is supposed
to consist in a state of obesity that incapacitates its victim
for using her feet. The following instances of obesity are
selected as being among the most remarkable on record:—
A man and a woman are mentioned by Sennertus,an eminent
German physician of the 17th century, whose respective
weights w ere 600 and 450 pounds. Bright, of Malden in
Essex, a respectable tallow-chandler and grocer, who died
in 1750, aged twenty-eight, weighed 616 pounds. It has
been said that the capacity of his waistcoat was such that it
could inclose seven persons of ordinary size, and that his
stocking would easily admit a child of four years of age.
Daniel Lambert, who died in 1809, in his fortieth year,
supposed to have been the heaviest man that ever lived, was
of the enormous weight of 52 st. 121b., or 740 pounds. It
is related of Ciapino Vitelli, Marquis of Cortona, a noted
general under the Duke of Alba, that by drinking vinegar
he so reduced his body from a state of enormous obesity,
that he could fold his skin about him like a garment. What¬
ever degree of credit may be accorded to the effects pro¬
duced upon the marquis, it is well known that vinegar is a
favourite remedy for corpulence among the ignorant, and
that many have had occasion to deplore their temerity by
experience of its baneful effects upon the system.
The most approved remedy for excessive corpulence
(provided it be not engendered or accompanied by other
disease) is liquor potassce. Dr Chambers, in his excellent
little treatise “On Corpulence" observes of this remedy,
that “ if given in milk-and-water, we may safely commence
Corpus
Christi
I! .
jrrection.
COE
COE
415
with half a drachm, and raise the dose to a drachm, and a
drachm and a half, three times a-day.” He also illustrates
its use in a variety of cases, including that of a lady who
was upwards of 28 stones in weight, and unable to walk, but
who derived so much benefit from its use that, in no long
time she was able to walk several miles a-day with comfort.
It may be necessary, however, to caution the inexperienced
against the indiscreet employment of this powerful alkaline
remedy, which should in no instance be resorted to without
the sanction of a competent medical adviser.
COUP US Christi (i. e. body of Christ), a festival of the
Church of Rome, observed on the first Thursday after
Trinity Sunday, in honour of the eucharist. It was insti¬
tuted by Pope Urban IV., a.d. 1264. Corpus Christi is also
the name of one of the colleges of Oxford.
CORPUSCLE, in Physics, a minute particle, or physi¬
cal atom, such as those of which a natural body is composed.
This term is not applied to the elementary principles of
matter, but to such particles, whether simple or compound,
as are not dissolved or dissipated by ordinary degrees of
heat.
CORPUSCULAR Philosophy, a system of physics
which accounts for the various phenomena of nature by the
physical properties and arrangement of the corpuscles or
atoms supposed to be the constituent materials of all natural
bodies; such as their motion, figure, rest, position, attrac¬
tion, or repulsion. This system is of great antiquity. It
was taught in Greece by Leucippus and Democritus; and
the noble poem of Lucretius, De Rerum Natura, is devoted
to its explanation. It is otherwise called the Atomic Phi¬
losophy. This ancient system, divested by Newton and
others of numerous absurdities, has now become the basis
of mechanical and experimental philosophy. (See the article
Epicurkan Philosophy.)
CORRADI, Domenico, (1449-93), a Florentine painter
and artist in mosaic, commonly called Ghirlandaio from
the trade of his father. He may be considered as the in¬
structor of M. Angelo in painting; but it is said that, dread¬
ing the competition of his illustrious pupil, he directed his
attention to sculpture. His outline as a painter was dry,
but he possessed a fertile invention, combined with rare
facility and diligence. He is said by Lanzi to have been
the first of the Florentines who, by attention to perspective,
gave a good disposition and depth to his compositions.
Some of his remaining pictures are executed on a gold
ground, especially those in Florence. Many of his pictures
are in the Vatican and other galleries of Rome, at Rimini,
Pisa, and Volterra.
CORRADINI di Sezza, Pietro Marcellino, a learned
antiquary, was born at Sezza in 1658. He acquired the
esteem and confidence of Clement XL, and afterwards of
Innocent XIII., by whom he wras made a cardinal. The
works by which he is chiefly remembered are his Vetm
Latium, profanum et sacrum, 2 vols. folio ; and his History
of Sezza, in 4to. He died at Rome in 1743.
CORRADO, Sebastian, at Italian grammarian of the
sixteenth century. He taught the Greek and Latin tongues
at Reggio, where he formed an academy of polite literature ;
and afterwards removed to Bologna, in the university of
which town he professed the languages of ancient Greece
and Rome. He wrote several works, the most esteemed of
which is Questura in qua Ciceronis vita refertur, Venice,
1537, 8vo. He died in 1556.
CORRECTION, in Printing, the act of noting the
errors and defects in a printed sheet, with a view to their
amendment by the compositor; which is done in the first
instance by the printer’s reader, previous to transmitting
the proof-sheet to the author or editor for such further al¬
terations as may be requisite. The corrections are placed
on the margin of each page, opposite the line where the
faults occur; as in the following example:—
(It is to be observed, that the figures on the mai’gin are not used in Correction,
correcting, except where, by the corrections being very numerous, v ^ ^
the printer might be led to mistake one alteration for another.
The figures are here only used for the sake of explanation.)
la
29
3 L. Capa,
55 «:/
Though a variety of opinions exists as to the indi¬
vidual by wgomthe art of printingwas first discovered;
yet all authorities concur in admitting Peter Schoeffer
to be the person who invented cast metal types, having
learned the art of — cutting the letters from the Gut-
temijnbergs/ he is also supposed to have been the first
whoengraved on copperplates. The following testi- 7 jz 8/-/
* A A
mony is preseved in the family of Jo. Fred. Faustus 9r
of Aschefienburg: |] “Peter Schoeffer of Gernsheim, 10ljy.p. ms.cap.
perceiving his master Fausts design, and being him- 12 ’/
o  A A
self desirous [ardently to improve the art, found out 13 tr.
(by the good providence of God) the methodjof cutting m |
(:nciiden'?f.) the characters in a matrix, that the letters
might easily be singly cast, instead of bieng cut. He
—^ivately cut matrices for the whole alphabet: + Faust 17 + sei uu*.
19^wa® 80 please<l with the contrivance, that he promised
"'jjhjter his only daughter Christina in marriage, a pro- is.*/.
mise which he soon after performed.;
   ^ 20 No break.
/But there wereAmany difficulties at first with these 21 <**
letters, as there had been before with wooden ones, the 22 Rom. 13 itai.
metal being too soft to sup port the force of the im- 2* w
pression ; but this defect was soon remedied, by mix-
 3  2 1 
ing a substance with the metal which sufficiently har¬
dened it/”
+ and when he shewed his master the letters cast from these matrices.
IS Slit.
16 ei
25 tr.
26©
When corrected according to these Maries, the above will
read thus:—
Though a variety of opinions exists as to the individual by
whom the art of printing was first discovered ; yet all autho¬
rities concur in admitting PETER SCHOEFFER to be the
person who invented cast metal types, having learned the art
of cutting the letters from the Guttembergs: he is also sup¬
posed to have been the first who engraved on copper-plates.
The following testimony is preserved in the family of Jo. Fred.
Faustus of Ascheffenburg:
“ Peter Schoeffer of Gernsheim, perceiving his master
Faust’s design, and being himself ardently desirous to improve
the art, found out (by the good providence of God) the method
of cutting (incidendi) the characters in a matrix, that the let¬
ters might be easily singly cast, instead of being cut. He pri¬
vately cut matrices for the whole alphabet: and when he
showed his master the letters cast from these matrices, Faust
was so pleased with the contrivance, that he promised Peter
his only daughter Christina in marriage, a promise which he
soon after performed. But there were as many difficulties at
first with these letters, as there had been before with wooden
ones, the metal being too soft to support the force of the impres¬
sion ; but this defect was soon remedied, by mixing the metal
with a substance which sufficiently hardened it.”
EXPLANATION OF THE CORRECTIONS.
A wrong letter in a word is noticed by drawing a perpendicular
line through it, and marking the proper letter on the margin, op¬
posite the faulty letter. See No. 1.
A turned letter is noticed by making a dash under it, and by the
mark No. 2 on the margin.
If letters or words are to be altered from one character to another,
a parallel line or lines should be marked underneath the word or
letter, viz. for large CAPITALS, three lines ; small capitals, two
lines ; and italics, one line : and on the margin opposite should be
written L. Caps, S. Caps, or Ital. See Nos. 3, 11, 22, 23.
When letters or words are set double, or are required to be taken
416
COR
COR
Correction out, a line is drawn through the superfluous letter or word, and the
||^ mark Nos. 4 and 5 placed on the margin.
Correze. Where the punctuation requires to be altered, the semicolon, colon,
^ should be marked on the margin with a score behind them, as
shown by No. 6; but the period should be encircled, as represented
. by No. 26.
When a space is wanting between two words or letters, which are
to be separated, a caret should be made where the separation ought
to be, and the sign No. 7 placed opposite on the margin.
No. 8 describes the manner in which the hyphen and ellipsis line
are marked.
Should a letter or word have been omitted, a caret is put at the
place, and the letter or word is marked on the margin, as Nos. 9
and 21.
Where a new paragraph is required, a parallel line or lines should
be made, and the same mark placed on the margin, with the letters
N. P. or W. L. See No. 10.
No. 12 shows the way in which the apostrophe, inverted comma, aste¬
risk, and other references and superior letters and figures, are marked.
Where two or more words or letters are transposed, they should
be marked with a line above and below, and tr. marked opposite,
as done in No. 13, or as shown in Nos. 16 and 25.
Where a space sticks up between two words, a perpendicular line
is put on the margin. No. 14.
Where words have been struck out that have afterwards been ap¬
proved of, dots should be marked under such words, and in the mar¬
gin should be written Stet. No. 15.
Where several lines or words are added, they should be written
at the top or bottom of the page, with a reference mark, a corre¬
sponding reference being made at the place where the insertion be¬
gins (See No. 17); or if the addition be on a separate sheet, then
the words See paper apart should be written on the margin.
When a smaller or larger letter than that in which the work is
printed is improperly introduced into the page, it is noticed by a
perpendicular line being drawn through it, and the mark wf (wrong
fount) written on the margin. No. 18.
W here letters or lines stand crooked, they are noticed by drawing
lines above and below them. No. 19.
partments of Haute-Vienne and Creuse, E. by Puy-de-
Dome and Cantal, S. by Lot., and W. by Dordogne. Area
2276 square miles. The surface of the country is gene¬
rally mountainous ; but in the southern and western parts
are some districts of low land. The soil is for the most
part poor and thin ; the high lands being covered with
heath, and the low lands but moderately fertile. The
climate is in general cold and damp, as the summits of some
of the higher mountains are covered with snow for several
months in the year; but in the valleys the heat in summer
is excessive. The principal productions are wheat, barley,
oats, rye, maize, hemp, and flax. Cattle, sheep, and goats’
are reared in considerable numbers. Chestnuts are very
plentiful, and constitute the staple of the food of the people,
who by boiling and drying them preserve them throughout
the year. The principal rivers are the Dordogne and the
Vezere, with its affluent the Correze, from which the de¬
partment takes its name. The department is rich in mine¬
rals, as iron, copper, coal, lead, marble, alabaster, porphyry,
&c. There are a few small mines of iron and copper, as
well as of coal; but the want of facilities for transport render
these ol little advantage. The chief articles of manufac¬
ture are fire-arms, glass, bricks, leather, coarse woollens, wax
candles, and nut oil. The department is divided into three
arrondissements, which, with their subdivisions and popu¬
lations, are as follows :—
Arrondissements. Cantons. Communes. Pop. in 1851.
Tulle  12 118 138,111
Brives   10 101 116,640
Ussel  7 74 66,113
Total  29 293 320,864
If a paragraph be improperly made, a line should be drawn from
the one sentence to the other, and the words No break written on
the margin, as in No. 20.
Where words or letters that should join are separated, the mark
No. 24 must be placed under the separation, and the junction sig¬
nified by the same on the margin.
In all cases, but particularly in those where the author has it not
in his power to see the proof sheets, accuracy and distinctness of
copy are particularly desirable. If attention be paid to right spell¬
ing of proper names of persons, places, technical terms, &c., the
finishing of sentences marked by the period, that the author’s ideas
may not be misunderstood, and the handwriting tolerably legible,
much time and a very considerable expense will be saved, and the
great object of accuracy gained, by those who communicate their
sentiments to the public through the medium of the press.
When a proof is returned, finally corrected, for press, the word
Press should be written on the first page ; or the word Revise, if
another proof be wanted.
Correction, House of, a place where vagrants and per¬
sons guilty of minor offences are confined, and punished by
being obliged to labour for a certain period, according to
the nature of the offence. The benefits arising to society,
and the reformation of offenders, from this mode of punish¬
ment, have been variously estimated by different writers,
according to the views which they have taken of the effects
and consequences of the confinement and restraint to which
the criminal is subjected. See Punishments.
CORREGIDOR, the title of the chief magistrate of a
town in Spain, and in countries subject to the Spanish
government.
CORREGIO, a town of Italy, duchy of Modena, and
delegation of Reggio, 10 miles N.W. from Modena. It is
chiefly remarkable as the birth-place of Antonio Allegri,
better known as Corregio.
Corregio. See Allegri.
CORRELA riVE, that which is opposed to something
else in a certain relation. 1 hus father and son are correla¬
tives ; while light and darkness, motion and rest, are cor¬
relative and opposite terms.
GORREZE, an inland department of France, part of
the old province of Limousin, is bounded N. by the de¬
The capital is Tulle, containing 10,748 inhabitants.
CORRIB Lough. See Galway.
CORRIDOR (Ital. corridore), 'm Architecture, a gallery
or long passage in a building, into which several chambers
open. In fortification the term is applied to the covered
way that surrounds the whole compass of the fortifications
of a place.
CORROSION, the action of eating or wearing away by
degrees, as by the action of acids on metals, &c.
CORRUISK, or Corriskin, a small lake in the isle of
Skye, near its south coast, celebrated for the wild and ma¬
jestic scenery by which it is surrounded. It is about two
miles in length from north to south, half a mile in breadth,
and contains several small islets.
Corriskin is frequently mentioned in Scott’s poems. The
opinion of that great author as to the unrivalled majesty of
the scenery of the lake may be inferred from the following
lines in the introduction to the fourth canto of The Lord of
the Isles:—
Such feelings rouse them by dim Rannoch’s lakes,
In dark Glencoe such gloomy raptures rise,
Or further where beneath the northern skies
Chides wild Loch Eribol his caverns hoar;
But, be the minstrel judge, they yield the prize
Of desert dignity to that dread shore
That sees grim Coolin rise, and hears Corriskin roar.
CORRUPTICOL7E, a name given to a sect of the Mo-
nophysites, who sprung up in Egypt about the beginning ot
the sixth century. They held the corruptibility of Christ’s
body; and from them sprung up the Agnoetae, who denied
the omniscience ot Christ’s human nature. They were also
called Creaticolce, Phthartolatrce, and also Severiani from
the name of their founder.
CORRUPTION of Blood, in Law. See Attainder.
CORSAIR (Ital. corsare, from cor so, a course or career;
Eat. cursus, from curro, to run;) a pirate, one who scours
the seas in an armed vessel without commission from any
prince or power, in order to plunder merchant ships. This
name was particularly given to the piratical cruisers of Bar-
Corrib
„ II
Corsair
COR
Corselet bary under the two Barbarossas,-about the beginning of the
|| sixteenth century. See Barbarossa, and Bucaneer.
Corsica. CORSELET, or Corseet (Ital. corsaletto, Lat. corpus,
a body), a small cuirass, or a piece of armour to protect the
whole body; anciently worn by pikemen, who were placed
in the front and flanks to resist the enemy’s assaults, and
to guard the soldiers behind them.
CORSEUL, a town of France, department of C6tes-du-
Nord, arrondissement of Dinan, and six miles W.N.W. of
that town. Pop. 4236. There are here numerous remains
of an ancient town, supposed to be the Roman Fanum
Martis.
CORSHAM, a decayed market-town of Wiltshire, 97
miles from London. It. is well built, in a healthy situa¬
tion, and consists of one long street, near the centre of
which is a handsome market-house. Some broad cloths are
still made at Corsham, but the manufactures of the town
have greatly declined of late years. Pop. of parish (1851)
3172.
CORSICA (in Greek Kfpvos, in Latin Corsus and
Cobsica, in French Corse), a large island in the Mediter¬
ranean's miles distant from Italy, and about 180 from
France, lies between N. Lat. 41.20. and 43..; and E. Long.
8. 30. and 9.30. At its southern extremity it is separated
from the island of Sardinia by the Fossa or Strait of Boni¬
facio. The extreme length of the island is 116 miles, its
greatest breadth 52 miles. The greater part of the surface
of Corsica is occupied by ranges of lofty and rugged moun¬
tains, diverging in all directions from the central ridge, the
Mons Aureus or Golden Mount of the ancients, the Monte
Rotondo of modern times. On the western and southern
sides of the island these spurs either terminate abruptly on
the shore, or run out to a great distance into the sea, forming
bays and gulfs, some of which afford excellent harbours. On
the eastern side, there intervenes between the mountains
and the sea a considerable tract of low country, which in
certain seasons of the year is extremely unhealthy from the
presence of malaria. The central ridge of the Mons Aureus,
which is the highest elevation in the island, attains a height
of 9068 feet, and is covered with snow during the greater
part of the year. In this mountain the two largest rivers
of the island have their source,— the Rhotanus, now called
the Tavignano, and the Tavola or Taiola, the modern Golo.
These rivers have both an easterly course ; and fall into the
sea, the former near the ruins of the ancient Aleria, and the
latter near those of Mariana. The other rivers of the island
are comparatively unimportant. Of these the chief are the
Liamone (the ancient Circidius), the Talava, Gravone,
Prunelli and Valinco, which all flow into the sea on the
western side of the island. From the rugged and indented
outline of the coast there is an unusually great number of
bays and harbours, which afford admirable facilities for
commerce, but are rendered almost useless from the diffi¬
culty of communication with the interior. Of the former
the most important on the western side of the island are
Porto, Sagone, Ajaccio, and Propriano: of the latter, St
Florent, He Rousse, Calvi, and Ajaccio. On the eastern
side, which is much less rugged and broken, the only har¬
bours worth mentioning are Bastia and Porto Vecchio (the
Portus Syracusanus of the ancients), and the only gulf that
of Santa Manza. Near the northern extremity of the island
is the large inlet of Bigugli. At the extreme south are the
harbour and town of Bonifacio, giving name to the strait
which separates Corsica from Sardinia.
Of the internal resources of the island, the most impor¬
tant consist of those vast forests that cover the summits of
the hills, and which furnished timber for the navies of an-
tiquity. Partly, however, from the indolence of the inha¬
bitants and partly from the difficulties of land carriage, this
source of wealth is comparatively neglected. The moun¬
tain pastures are, however, made available for the rearing
VOL. VII.
COR 417
of cattle, horses, asses, and mules. Sheep of a peculiar black Corsica
breed with four and sometimes six horns, as well as goats
and pigs, abound in the island. Wild animals, birds, and
reptiles infest the uncultivated districts, which are generally
overgrown with a thick tangled underwood, consisting of
arbutus, myrtle, thorn, laurel, broom, and other shrubs, and
called by the natives maquis. This jungle is easily cleared
off by burning, and the vegetable matter furnishes an ex¬
cellent manure. Throughout the island the growth of the
cereal crops is generally abandoned for the easier cultiva¬
tion of the olive and vine. Chestnuts constitute an impor¬
tant article of food, but wheat, maize, and barley are also
cultivated. The backward state of agriculture is caused
principally by the minute subdivision of the land, a system
which perpetuates the social evils of hereditary feuds and
jealousies, by which Corsica has long been distracted. A
large proportion of the exports of the island consists of
honey and wax, which are procured from the forests.. The
former of these has a somewhat bitter flavour, from the
yew and box trees on which the bees feed. The mineral
wealth of Corsica is considerable, but altogether undeve¬
loped. Iron, lead, marble, and abundance of granite of
various hues, may be procured. Beyond the making of oil,
soap, bricks, and coarse glass, the Corsicans are entirely
destitute of manufacturing industry, and theircommerce con¬
sists for the most part of the spontaneous produce of the
island. The fisheries of tunny, pilchard, and anchovy are
extensively prosecuted for the supply of the Italian markets;
but comparatively few of the native Corsicans are engaged
in this department of industry. Corsica is divided into five
arrondissements, which are subdivided and peopled as fol¬
lows :—
Arrondissemsnts. Cantons. Communes. Population (1851.)
1. Ajaccio...   12 72 55,008
2. Sartene..  8 46 29,735
3. Bastia  20 93 70,288
4. Calvi   6 34 24,390
5. Corte    15 110 56,830
Total  61 355 236,251
It is not clearly known who the original inhabitants of
Corsica were. The ancients believed them to have sprung
from some Ligurian traders who had sailed down to the
coast in quest of wood or water, and who, finding the soil
fertile and the climate agreeable, established themselves on
the island. At an early period they seem to have had com¬
mercial transactions with the Spaniards, whose dress they
adopted, and whose manners and customs they introduced
into Corsica. From this circumstance it has been conjec¬
tured, though on insufficient grounds, that the original set¬
tlers were in part at least of Spanish extraction. The Pho-
caeans of Ionia were the first civilized people that established
settlements in Corsica. About the year 560 B.c. they
landed for the first time on the island, and founded the city
of Aleria, which after a short occupation they were com¬
pelled to abandon. After an interval of a few years they
again returned, rebuilt Aleria, which they fortified, and en¬
deavoured to maintain their ground against the natives.
After a struggle of some years they were again compelled
to leave the island. The next foreign occupants of Cor¬
sica were the Tuscans, who founded the city of Nicma, and
reduced to subjection the natives of the adjoining country.
They in their turn were compelled to give way before the
growing maritime power of the Carthaginians, whose juris¬
diction in the island was unquestioned till the beginning of
the first Punic war. On that occasion the Romans sent
out a fleet, drove the Carthaginians from the island, and
exacted at least a nominal homage from the native popula¬
tion. They did not, however, fully establish their power
in the island till about thirty years later, and even then re-
3 G
418 . COR
Corsned beiiions ancj revolts were of yearly occurrence. The first
cJrt step made towards the real subjugation of the island was
v 'j the establishment of the two colonies on its eastern coast—
that of Aleria by Sulla, and that of Mariana by Marius. Had
the Roman conquest been systematically prosecuted, there
can be no doubt that the whole island would ultimately have
owned their dominion. But in the time of the emperors
the island had fallen into disrepute among the Romans, by
whom it was used chiefly as a place of banishment for poli¬
tical offenders. One of the most distinguished of these
sufferers was the younger Seneca, who spent eight years of
his life in exile on the island, and was only recalled at
length (a.d. 49) through the influence of Agrippina, who
had at that date just married her uncle the Emperor
Claudius.
On the downfall of the Roman empire in the West,
Corsica passed into the hands of the Vandals. These bar¬
barians were driven out by Belisarius, but after the death
of that illustrious general, a.d. 565, the resistless hordes of
Totila once more regained possession of the island. Since
that period it has successively owned the dominion of the
Goths, the Saracens, the Pisans, and the Genoese. It was
ceded by the Genoese to the French in 1768 ; and for a few
years after the French Revolution of 1793 it was placed
under the protection of Britain. Since 1814, however, it
has been in undisturbed possession of the French; and
under Napoleon III. a vigorous system of internal govern¬
ment has been introduced into the island. Corsica is famous
as the birth-place of Pascal Paoli and Napoleon.
CORSNED, or Morsel of Execration (Sax. corsncede,
compounded of corse, curse, and snced, a mouthful or piece),
a kind of trial or purgation practised in ancient times in
England. A piece of bread consecrated with a form of
exorcism was to be swallowed by a suspected person, as a
trial of his innocence. If guilty, it was supposed that the
bread would produce convulsions and paleness, and find no
passage; but if innocent, it was believed that it would turn
to wholesome nourishment. At the same time also the per¬
son received the holy sacrament, if indeed the corsned was
not, as some have suspected, the sacramental bread itself.
In our ancient historians it is related, that Godwin earl of
Kent, in the reign of Edward the Confessor, after abjuring
the death of the king’s brother,- at last appealed to his
corsned, per buccellam deglutiendam abjuravit, which stuck
in his throat and caused his death. A remnant of this su¬
perstition subsists still in certain phrases of abjuration re¬
tained among the common people: as, “ I will take the
sacrament upon it!” “ May this morsel be my last!” and
the like.—(Blackstone’s Commentaries, iv. 345.)
CORSTORPHINE, a village and parish in Mid-Lo¬
thian, three miles west of Edinburgh, near the line of the
Edinburgh and Glasgow railway. The parish church of
Corstorphine, which has been recently restored, is one of the
most ancient ecclesiastical buildings in Scotland. A little to
the south of the village are the ruins of an old castle, formerly
the seat of the Forresters, barons of Corstorphine. Pop.
of parish (1851) 1499, of village 380.
CORT, Cornelius, a celebrated engraver, born at Hoorn
in Holland, in 1536. Having learned the first principles of
drawing and engraving, he went to Italy, and visited all the
places famous for the works of the great masters. At Venice
he enjoyed the friendship of Titian. He afterwards settled
at Rome, and there died in 1578. According to Basan, he
was “ the best engraver with the burin or graver only that
Holland ever produced. We find in his prints,” he adds,
“ correctness of drawing, and exquisite taste.” It is no small
honour to this artist, that Agostino Caracci was his scholar,
and imitated his style of engraving rather than that of any
other master. Cort engraved several prints from Titian,
Coreggio, Michel Angelo, and Raffaello. His industry, when
we consider the shortness of his life, will appear great, since
COR
he produced 151 works, many of them of large size and Corte
first-rate excellence. ||
CORTE, the capital of a cognominal arrondissement in Cortes-
the island of Corsica, with (1851) 4313 inhabitants. It
stands near the confluence of the Orta and Tavignano, and
is defended by a strong castle.
CORTES oj Spain, a term purely Spanish, literally sig¬
nifying the courts, and applied to the States, or assembly of
the States, of the kingdom. See Spain.
CORTES, Hernan, conqueror of Mexico, was born at
Medellin, a small town of Estremadura, in 1485. He was
descended from a noble family of decayed fortune, who
destined him for the bar, and sent him at an early age to
the university of Salamanca. But being soon disgusted
with a species of study ill suited to his ardent genius, he
embraced the military profession, in hopes of signalizing
himself, under the celebrated Gonsalvo de Cordova. A
dangerous malady, however, having prevented his em¬
barking for Naples, his hopes were baffled; but when
his health was re-established he turned his attention to¬
wards the West Indies, which were then a source of riches
and glory to the Spaniards. In 1504 Cortes set out for
St Domingo, where he was kindly received by Ovando,
the governor. He was then only nineteen, and remark¬
able for a graceful physiognomy and amiable manners, as
well as for skill and address in all military exercises. He
remained in St Domingo, where Ovando had successively
conferred upon him several lucrative and honourable em¬
ployments, until 1511, when he accompanied Diego Ve¬
lasquez in his expedition to the island of Cuba, where he
became alcalde of St lago, and displayed great talents on
several trying occasions. To the fire and impetuosity of
youth had now succeeded an indefatigable activity, united
with the coolness and self-command which are so neces¬
sary for the execution of great designs. Grijalva, lieute¬
nant of Velasquez, had just discovered Mexico, but with¬
out attempting to effect a settlement. This displeased
the governor of Cuba, who superseded Grijalva, and in¬
trusted the conquest of the newly-discovered country to
Cortes. The latter hastened his preparations, and, on the
18th of November 1518, he set out from St lago, with ten
vessels, six or seven hundred Spaniards, eighteen horse¬
men, and some pieces of cannon. Scarcely had he set sail,
however, when Velasquez, repenting his choice, and ap¬
prehensive that his lieutenant would carry off all the glory
as well as profit of the enterprise, recalled the commission
which he had granted to Cortes, and even ordered him to
be put under arrest; but the attachment of the troops, by
whom he was greatly beloved, enabled him to disconcert
all the designs of the governor; and on the 4th of March
1519 he landed on the coast of Mexico. Advancing along
the gulfj sometimes caressing the natives, and sometimes
spreading terror by his arms, he took possession of the
town of Tabasco. The noise of the artillery, the appear¬
ance of the floating fortresses which had transported the
Spaniards over the ocean, and the horses on which they
fought, all new objects to the natives, inspired them with
astonishment mingled with terror and admiration; they
regarded the Spaniards as gods, and sent them ambassa¬
dors with presents. Cortes here learned that the native
sovereign was called Montezuma; that he reigned over
an extensive empire, which had lasted for three centuries;
that thirty vassals, called caciques, obeyed him; that his
riches were immense and his power absolute. No more
was necessary to inflame the ambition of Cortes, who he¬
sitated not to undertake the conquest of this great empire,
which could only be effected by combining stratagem and
address with force and courage. He laid the foundation
of the town of Vera Cruz, caused himself to be elected
captain-general of the new colony, and, like Agathocles,
burned his vessels, to cut off the possibility of retreat, and
C 0 E T E S.
419
Cortes show his soldiers that they must either conquer or perish,
-o-v-'—'' He then penetrated into the interior of the country, drew
to his camp several caciques hostile to Montezuma, and
induced these native princes to facilitate his progress.
The republic of Tlascala alone opposed him ; but he rout¬
ed its army, which had resisted all the forces of the Mexi¬
can empire, dictated peace on moderate terms, converted
the people into powerful auxiliaries, and, surmounting all
obstacles, arrived, with six thousand natives and a hand¬
ful of Spaniards, in sight of the immense lake on which
was built the city of Mexico, the capital of the empire.
Montezuma received him with great pomp, and his sub¬
jects, believing Cortes to be a descendant of the sun,
prostrated themselves before him. The first care of Cortes
was to fortify himself in one of the beautiful palaces of
the prince; and he was only thinking how to get hold
of the riches of so opulent an empire, when intelligence
reached him that a general of the emperor, who had re¬
ceived secret orders, had just attacked the garrison of
Vera Cruz and killed several of his soldiers. This event
undeceived the Mexicans, who had hitherto believed the
Spaniards to be immortal, and overturned the whole poli¬
cy of Cortes. Struck with the greatness of the danger, sur¬
rounded by enemies, and having only a handful of soldiers,
he conceived and instantly executed a most daring project.
Having repaired with his officers to the palace of the em¬
peror, he announced to Montezuma that he must either
accompany him or perish. Being thus master of the per¬
son of the monarch, he then demanded that the Mexican
general and his officers who had attacked the Spaniards
should be delivered into his hands; and when this had
been done he caused these unfortunate men, who had
only obeyed the orders of their sovereign, to be burned
alive before the gates of the imperial palace. During this
cruel execution Cortes entered the apartment of Monte¬
zuma, and caused him to be loaded with irons, in order to
force him to acknowledge himself a vassal of Charles V.
The unhappy prince yielded, and was restored to a sem¬
blance of liberty on presenting the fierce conqueror with
six hundred thousand marks of pure gold, and a prodigi¬
ous quantity of precious stones. Scarcely had he reaped
the fruits of his audacity, however, when he was informed
of the landing of a Spanish army, under Narvaez, which
had been sent by Velasquez to compel him to renounce
his command. In this emergency Cortes acted with his
usual decision and courage. Leaving two hundred men
at Mexico, under the orders of his lieutenant, he marched
against Narvaez, whom he defeated and made prisoner,
and then enlisted under his standard the Spanish soldiers
who had been sent to attack him. On his return to the
capital, however, he found that the Mexicans had revolt¬
ed against the emperor and the Spaniards, and that dan¬
gers thickened around him. Montezuma perished in at¬
tempting to address his revolted subjects ; upon which the
latter, having chosen a new emperor, attacked the head¬
quarters of Cortes with the utmost fury, and, in spite of
the advantage of fire-arms, forced the Spaniards to retire,
which alone saved them from destruction. Their rear¬
guard, however, was cut in pieces, and they suffered se¬
verely during the retreat, which was continued during six
days. Elated with their success, the Mexicans offered
battle in the plain of Otumba. This was what Cortes de¬
sired, and it proved their destruction. Cortes gave the
signal for battle, and, on the 7th of July 1520, gained a
victory which decided the fate of Mexico. Immediately
afterwards, he proceeded to Tlascala, assembled an auxili¬
ary army of natives, subjected the neighbouring provinces,
and then marched a second time against Mexico, which,
after a gallant defence of several months, was retaken on
the 13th of August 1521. These successes were entirely
owing to the genius, valour, and profound but unscrupu- Cortes,
lous policy of Cortes; and the account of them, which he '-'-v-w
transmitted to Spain, excited the admiration of his coun¬
trymen. The extent of his conquests, and the ability he
had displayed, effaced the censure which he had incurred
by the irregularity of his operations; and public opinion
having declared in his favour, Charles V., disregarding
the pretensions of Velasquez, appointed him governor and
captain-general of Mexico, at the same time conferring
on him the valley of Guaxaca, which was erected into a
marquisate, with a considerable revenue. But although
his power was thus confirmed by royal authority, and al¬
though he exerted himself to consolidate Spanish domina¬
tion throughout all Mexico, the means he employed were
such that the natives, reduced to despair, took arms against
the Spaniards. This revolt, however, was speedily sub¬
dued, and the Mexicans were everywhere forced to yield
to the ascendency of European discipline and valour.
Guatimozin, who had been recognised as emperor, and a
great number of caciques, accused of having conspired
against the conquerors, were publicly executed, with cir¬
cumstances of great cruelty, by order of Cortes. Mean¬
while the court of Madrid, dreading the ambition and po¬
pularity of the victorious chief, sent commissioners to
watch his conduct and thwart his proceedings; and whilst
he was completing the conquest of New Spain, his goods
were seized by the fiscal of the Council of the Indies, and
his retainers imprisoned and put into irons. Indignant at
the ingratitude of his sovereign, Cortes returned in person
to Spain, to appeal to the justice of the emperor, and ap¬
peared there with great splendour. The emperor receiv¬
ed him with every mark of distinction, and decorated him
with the order of St lago. Cortes returned to Mexico
with new titles but diminished authority, a viceroy having
been intrusted with the administration of civil affairs,
whilst the military department, with permission to push
his conquests, was all that remained to Cortes. This di¬
vision of powers became a source of continual dissension,
and caused the failure of the last enterprises in which he
engaged. Nevertheless, in 1536, he discovered the penin¬
sula of California, and surveyed a part of the gulf which
separates it from Mexico. At length, tired of struggling
with adversaries unworthy of him, whom the court took
care to multiply, he returned to Europe, hoping to con¬
found his enemies. But Charles V. received him coldly.
Cortes dissembled, redoubled the assiduity of his attend¬
ance on the emperor; accompanied him in the disastrous
expedition to Algiers in 1541, served as a volunteer, and
had a horse killed under him. This was his last appear¬
ance in the field, and if his advice had been followed, the
Spanish arms would have been saved from disgrace, and
Europe delivered nearly three centuries earlier from the
scourge of organised piracy. Soon afterwards he fell into
neglect, and could scarcely obtain an audience. One day,
however, having forced his way through the crowd which
surrounded the emperor’s carriage, and mounted on the
door-step, Charles, astonished at an act of such audaci¬
ty, demanded to know who he was. “ I am a man,” re¬
plied the conqueror of Mexico, proudly, “ who has given
you more provinces than your ancestors left you cities.”
This haughty declaration of important services ill-requited
could scarcely fail to offend a monarch on whom fortune
had lavished her choicest favours ; and Cortes, overwhelm¬
ed with disgust, withdrew from court, passed the remain¬
der of his days in solitude, and died, near Seville, on the
2d of December 1554, being then in the sixty-third year of
his age. The only writings of Cortes are four letters, on
the subject of his conquests, which he addressed to Charles
V., and which have fortunately been given to the world.
The best edition of them is that of Don Francisco Anto-
420 COR
Cortese n;0 Lorenzana, archbishop of Mexico, entitled Hislona de
II Nueva-Espana escrita por su esclareeido conquistador,
^orun iim. jjernan (lorfes^ aumentada con otros documientos y notas
^ (Mexico, 1770, 4to); a work the noble simplicity ot which
attests the truth of the recital it contains. The conquests
of Cortes have been described with pompous elegance by
the historian Antonio de Solis, and with more truth and
simplicity by Bernardo Diaz del Castillo. (j. b e.)
CORTESE, Jacopo. See Borgognone.
CORTLAND, the chief town of a cognominal county in
the state of New York, North America. It has several
manufactures, and the vicinity is highly cultivated. Pop.
(1850) 7758.
CORTOMARCK, a market-town of Belgium, province
of W. Flanders and arrondissement of Dixmude, 15 miles
S.S.W. of Bruges. Pop. (1851) 4358, principally engaged
in the manufacture of woollens.
CORTONA, the Corythus of Virgil, one of the oldest
and most powerful cities of the Etrurian Dodecapolis, was
situated on the top of a lofty hill about half-way between
the Tiber and its tributary the Clanis. From its position
it was regarded as impregnable by the successive conquerors
of Italy who passed through the rich territory which surrounds
it; and to this fact may be attributed the comparative rarity
with which the name of Cortona is found in the ancient
classics. The origin of the city is due to the Umbrians,
from whose hands it passed into those of the Pelasgi, when
that people began to extend its conquests in Etruria. To¬
wards the close of the fourth century b.c., Cortona was still
one of the most important cities in that part of Italy, both in
political influence and in population. When it received the
Roman yoke is not known, but it was probably before the
invasion of Hannibal, who laid waste the adjoining country
before the battle of Thrasymene. It was only once co¬
lonized from Rome, apparently about the end of the second
century B.c.; but as the colony was never renewed, the
city fell into decay, and is not mentioned among the other
colonies of the Roman empire either by Pliny or by Ptolemy.
In its subsequent history the most interesting fact is, that
it was one of the first bishoprics of the early Christian
church.
On the site of the ancient Cortona, a modern city of the
same name has been built, which is also the see of a bishop.
Its present population is about 5000. The town derives
its chief interest from the very valuable remains of antiquity
dug up from the ruins of the ancient city. The most
interesting of these are the fragments of the Cyclopean
walls, one portion of which, 120 feet in length and of
admirable workmanship, is in a high state of preservation.
Some bronzes of exquisite beauty have also been un¬
earthed ; among them the celebrated bronze lamp, which
is held by connoisseurs to be one of the finest specimens
of ancient Etruscan art that has ever been discovered.
(See Dennis’ Cities and Cemeteries of Etruria, p. 442.)
Cortona contains a number of handsome churches, some of
which are adorned with valuable paintings of the early
masters. Of these the finest is the cathedral, which
among other curiosities contains the great sarcophagus,
in which the local antiquaries, eager to identify everything
with Hannibal’s invasion, maintain (without any good
foundation) that the bones of the unfortunate consul Fla-
minius were deposited after the battle of the Thrasymene
Lake.
CORUNCANIUS, Tiberius, a distinguished Roman
jurist, is said by Cicero to have been a native of Tusculum.
He was appointed dictator b.c. 246, and was the first ple¬
beian who filled the office of pontifex maximus. A few
fragments of his legal treatises have been preserved by Pliny,
and his opinions are frequently quoted by Cicero.
CORUNDUM. Adamantine spar.—Korund and De¬
man tspath, Werner ; Telesie, Corindon, Ilaily.
COR
This mineral was long known in Europe under the name Corundum
of adamantine spar. It was imported from India, where it
was used in cutting and polishing gems; but its history
was wholly unknown until the late Right Honourable
Charles Greville, to whom the science of mineralogy is so
much indebted, obtained a clue by which he arrived at
one locality of this interesting mineral.
In the year 1767, Mr Berry, a very eminent seal-engra¬
ver in Edinburgh, received from Dr Anderson of Madras a
box of crystals of adamantine spar, with information that it
was with this substance all stones except diamond were cut
and polished in India. Mr Greville obtained from his
friend Colonel Cathcart some crystals, which that gentle¬
man had also got from Dr Anderson twenty years after¬
wards, and to which the native name of corundum was at¬
tached. By this means Mr Greville was enabled to put the
exertions of others in requisition ; and after various fruitless
attempts, through the assistance of Mr Edward Garrow,
then (1792) residing at Trichinopoly, he at length obtained
a minute account of the stone, as known in that part of
Hindustan. It seems that the searching for and working
with this substance is consigned, like most other branches of
trade, to one particular caste; hence all others are wholly
ignorant of it, and those who belong to it are communicative
or otherwise, just as they may consider their interest affected.
By dint of perseverance he at last discovered that the co¬
rundum was found in the neighbourhood of Condrasta, a
village about fourteen miles from Permetty, which, accord¬
ing to Rennell’s map, is situated on the south side of the
Cauvery, not far from Caranel. Hither Mr Garrow repaired;
and being, as he says, the first European whom the natives
had seen, was as great a curiosity among them as Landers
proved to the Ashantees. Condrasta he found to be a very
small hamlet, occupied by five families, whose race had ob¬
tained a prescriptive right as miners to work in the pits.
The implements by which their operations were carried on
were of a very rude nature ; a broad pointed heavy iron
crow with a wooden handle being the only one mentioned.
With this they formed their excavation in a soil composed
of gritty granite, masses of which, several pounds weight,
on being brought to the surface were crushed, and the
crystals collected.
The receipt of this collection afforded Mr Greville the
means of writing the interesting account of the corundum
stone which we find in the Transactions of the Royal So¬
ciety of London, read 7th June 1798, in which its identity
with the sapphire, previously pointed out by Pelletier and
De Lametherie in 1787, was finally confirmed. It is sin¬
gular, that during that year other philosophers were occu¬
pied with the investigation of this mineral, namely, Wer¬
ner in Germany, and Rome de Lisle in France; the for¬
mer having sent to the latter two wmoden models, which
he pronounced to be the shape of the oriental ruby, and simi¬
lar in form to the crystal of adamantine stone dissected by
Pelletier and his collaborateur,and confirming the hint origi¬
nally thrown out by Rome de Lisle, of a connection between
the adamantine stone and the gems distinguished by the ap¬
pellation of oriental.
Thus the name of corundum was given to the genus, and
was generally adopted by mineralogists.
Bournon, in his paper on this stone, read before the Royal
Society in 1802, divides it simply into perfect and imperfect;
and had he added a third sub-species, under the name of
granular or compact, his division would have been sufficiently
comprehensive.
Mohs has described this mineral as the third species of
his genus corundum, under the name of rhombohedral co¬
rundum, which comprehends the sapphire and ruby, with
the other different-coloured telesies of Haiiy, included in
Bournon’s perfect corundum. The brown and greenish-
gray coloured varieties, and the emery stone from Madras,
con
Corunna. Naxos, &c., are also comprehended under the same head
by Mohs.
The first of these, the perfect corundum, presents an
infinite variety of colours. Red and blue are the most
common; and the former, when perfect in transparency
and colour, and of Considerable size, vies with the diamond
itself in value; but'it is seldom known to exceed half an
inch in length, with a proportionate breadth. The very
perfect crystals of dark blue are next in value, and then
the yellow; but the resemblance of the last to topaz when
cut depreciates it considerably. These varieties are prin¬
cipally the produce of Pegu and Ceylon, but are found in
several other localities in Europe, especially in Auvergne
and St Gothard, but in small or foul stones.
Of the imperfect corundum we have abundance of the
greenish-gray colour from the Mysore and the Malabar
coast, whilst the Carnatic and China afford the brown co¬
loured variety in rude imperfect crystals. In the Mysore
it was originally found among the vegetable soil, evidently
derived from the decomposition of the granite on which
the soil rests, as noticed in the account by Mr Garrow.
The corundum occurs always imbedded in its matrix, not
in drusy cavities. It is very hard, and difficultly frangible ;
but the natural joints are so perfect in the specimens of the
greenish-gray coloured variety, that it is very easily cleav-
able into the primitive rhomb. In the granular variety
from Naxos the sapphire occurs in distinct concretions of
considerable size, and of a good colour. The compact va¬
riety is used by the natives of India for grinding and po¬
lishing all the different coloured gems, which is done by
friction in the simplest manner. Use soon indents grooves
on the surface of the stone ; and it is from these grooves
that the polished stones from India obtain such a constantly
similar form, convex, oval, or circular. Pounded corundum,
moistened with a little water, expedites the operation of
grinding and polishing, and is also used in cutting and
slicing stones, A bit of twisted wire stretched on a bow of
bamboo of about three feet long, forms, with the grinding-
stone, the whole necessary implements of an Indian lapi¬
dary. At Gellivara, in Sweden, this mineral occurs in
greenish-gray particles, dispersed in iron ore. For other
particulars, see Mineralogy,
CORUNNA (Spanish Coruna), a city and seaport of
Spain, capital of a province of the same name, in the an¬
cient province of Galicia, 43 miles N. of Santiago. Lat.
43. 23. 36. N.; Long. 8. 20. 13. W. Pop. (1845) 18,840.
It is divided into an upper and lower town, the former si¬
tuated on the east side of a small peninsula, and the latter
on the isthmus connecting the peninsula with the mainland.
The upper town is the more ancient, and is surrounded by
walls and bastions, and defended by a citadel. The lower
town, which is separated from the mainland by ramparts and
a ditch, is comparatively well built, and contains the theatre,
custom-house, palace of the captain-general, court-house,
arsenal, and barracks. The harbour is safe, and defended
on the E. by Fort San Diego, and on the W. by Fort San
Antonio. North of the city is the Tower of Hercules, 92
feet in height, a Roman structure now used as a lighthouse.
Coruna is well defended on the side of the sea, but its de¬
fences on the land side are commanded by a hill which over¬
looks the city. The inhabitants are chiefly occupied in the
herring and pilchard fisheries on the coast. The principal
manufactures are linens, hats, cordage, canvas, and cigars.
Shipbuilding is also carried on. Coruna is famous in his¬
tory for the repulse of a very superior French force by
the English under Sir John Moore on 16th January 1809,
in which that gallant general received his death-wound.
He was interred in his martial cloak on a bastion near the
sea. A monument raised by the British government now
marks his resting-place. The name Coruna is derived
from the Latin Columna. By British sailors it is called
COR
421
Corvus.
the Groyne—a corruption of the French name La Co- Corns
rogne.
CORUS, Omer, Homer, or Chomer, in Jewish Antiqui¬
ties, a measure containing 10 baths, or 75 gallons and 5 pints,
as a measure of liquids ; and 32 pecks and 1 pint as a dry
measure. The corits or omer was most commonly employed
as a dry measure, and was the largest in use among the
Jews. It contained, according to the rabbin, 10 ephahs
or 30 sata or seahs. Comes is the most usual term in the
historical writers, and omer or chomer among the prophets.
Cores is used by some of our old writers for 8 bushels,
or a quarter: thus, decern coros tritici, sive decern quarteria.
CORUSCATION, a glittering or sudden gleam of light,
as that produced by electricity in the higher regions of the
atmosphere during night, or by the aurora borealis. It is
also applied to any vivid glittering light, whether natural or
artificial.
CORVETTE, a sloop of war; an advice-boat with fewer
than twenty guns.
CORVO. See Azores.
CORVORANT, or Cormorant. See Ornithology.
CORVUS, the Raven or Crow kind. See index to
Ornithology.
Corvus {Raven), in Astronomy, a constellation of the
southern hemisphere, containing in Ptolemy’s catalogue
seven stars, in Tycho’s the same number, and in the British
catalogue nine.
Corvus, the name given to several kinds of military en¬
gines used by the ancients both in sieges and in naval en¬
gagements, and so called from their supposed resemblance
to the beak of a raven. Of the first kind was the corvus
demolitor, for pulling down walls piecemeal (Vitruvius, x.
19). Another was the terrible engine spoken of by Tacitus
{Hist. iv. 30), which appears to have been a kind of revolv¬
ing crane, set upon the wall of a fortified place, and so con¬
trived that its grappling-hooks could be made to descend
suddenly among the besiegers, carry a man up into the air,
and set him down within the walls. But the most famous
of these machines was the corvus invented by the Romans
for the purpose of enabling them to cope with the Cartha¬
ginian fleet, and by means of which they obtained a signal
victory off Mylae in Sicily, b.c. 260. A very minute but
obscure account of this machine is given by Polybius (i. 22).
Its construction and mode of application appear to have
been as follows:—Upon the prow of each vessel was erected
a round wooden pillar 24 feet in height, and about nine
inches in diameter, upon the top of which was fixed a block
or pulley. To this piece of timber was fitted a kind of
wooden stage or platform, four feet in breadth, and about
36 feet in length, which was well framed and cramped to¬
gether with iron. This platform was moveable about the
upright pillar, as on a spindle, and provided with cords by
which it could be hoisted up. On either side of the stage
lengthwise was a parapet about the height of the knee,
which was armed with a sharp iron spike having a ring
at the top; so that the whole machine bore some resem¬
blance to a baker’s kneading-mill. To this ring was attached
a rope, which, passing through the block, hoisted up the
corvus, and then allowed it to descend with violence upon
the deck of the enemy’s ship—sometimes upon the prow
and sometimes upon the stern, as occasion served. When
they had grappled the enemy with these iron spikes, if the
vessels happened to swing broadside to broadside they
entered from all parts ; but when they attacked them by the
bow, they entered two and two by means of this machine
as on a bridge, those who went first defending their front
with their shields, while those who followed planted their
shields upon the parapet, and thus defended the flanks.
Corvus, M. Valerius, one of the most illustrious generals
of the early Roman republic, was born b.c. 371. The era
during which he lived was one of the most memorable in
422 C O K
Corwen the annals of Roman history, and he himself played the
II most conspicuous part in it. He was twice dictator, six
Corygaum. jjmes COnsul, and occupied the curule chair twenty-one
times. In his various campaigns he defeated successively
the Gauls, the Volsci, the Samnites, the Etruscans, and the
Marsi. See Roman History.
CORWEN, a market-town of Merionethshire, North
Wales, 12 miles E.N.E. of Bala. It is a neatly built town,
standing on the south bank of the Dee, and sheltered by a
rock at the foot of the Berwyn mountains, which rise ab¬
ruptly behind it. It is a favourite resort of anglers. On the
opposite side of the river are remains of the ancient British
fort Caer Drewyn. Pop. of parish (1851) 2069.
CORYBANTES, in Antiquity, the priests of Rhea or
Cybele, who celebrated the worship of the great mother of the
gods by arraying themselves in full armour, and performing
orgiastic dances in the forests and on the mountains of
Phrygia, to the sound of flutes, horns, drums, and cymbals.
By Strabo they are associated with the Cabiri, the Idsean
Dactyli, the Telchines, and the Curetes. In the Atys of
Catullus there is a picturesque description of the Cory-
bantes, who are represented as transported to a pitch of the
most extravagant enthusiasm. Accordingly, it is observed
by Maximus Tyrius, that persons possessed with the Cory-
bantic spirit became demented whenever they heard the
sound of a flute ; and hence the word KopvjSavTidw, to cory-
bantize, was used in reference to a person’s being trans¬
ported, or possessed with a devil. The feminine epithets
applied to the Corybantes by Catullus indicate that these
priests were eunuchs.
Diodorus Siculus relates, that Corybas, the son of Jason
and Cybele, instituted the worship of the mother of the gods
in Phrygia, and gave his own name to the priests, as he
passed through that country with his uncle Dardanus. But
Strabo states it as the opinion of some, that the Corybantes
were children of Jupiter and Calliope, and the same with the
Cabiri. Others, however, think that the word had its ori¬
gin from the circumstance, that the Corybantes always went
along dancing, or tossing the head.
When the worship of Cybele was introduced at Rome
(b.c. 204), her priests were called Galli. The etymology
of this name is uncertain. Festus, Ovid, and others, would
derive it from the river Gallus (now Gatipo), in Phrygia,
regarding which it was fabled, that those who drank of its
waters became mad and emasculated themselves. (Ovid,
Fast, iv.) See Cabiri.
CORYBANTICA, a festival and mysteries celebrated
at Cnossus in Crete, in memory of the Corybantes, who edu¬
cated Jupiter and concealed him in that island from his
father Saturn.
CORYCOMACHIA, in Antiquity, a kind of exercise
in the gymnasium, in which a large leathern bag, filled with
sand, and suspended by a rope, was swung to and fro be¬
tween two or more players.
CORYGAUM, in Hindustan, a village within the limits
of the presidency of Bombay, situate 16 miles N.E. of the
city of Poona. The village, insignificant in itself, has been
rendered memorable from its gallant defence, on the 1st Ja¬
nuary 1818, by a British force under the command of Cap¬
tain Staunton, against a formidable detachment of the troops
of the Peishwa. The British force consisted of only 500
native infantry, 26 European artillerymen, and a small
number of auxiliary horse ; that of the Peishwa was com¬
posed of three divisions of infantry, amounting in the ag¬
gregate to 3000 men, while in the valley below the village,
the main army of the Mahrattas lay encamped, consisting of
20,000 horse and 8000 foot. The Peishwa ascended an
eminence in the vicinity to watch the result, and to en¬
courage his men by his presence. On both sides the loss
was terrible, but the event of the battle left the British in
possession of the place. A grant of L.500 per annum was
cos
conferred by the East India Company on Captain Staunton, Corym-
in testimony of their admiration of the gallantry displayed bium
by him upon the occasion. Lat. 18. 39. Long. 74. 8. (e. t.) II
CORYMBIUM, in Antiquity, a style of female head- ^osenza'
dress, in which the hair was arranged in the form of a co-
rymbus or knot resembling the clusters of ivy-berries.
CORYPHAEUS (from Kopv^, the top of the head), in
the ancient tragedy, was the chief or leader of the company
who composed the chorus. (See Drama.) Hence coryphaeus
passed into a general name for the chief or principal of any
company, corporation, or sect. Thus Eustatius of Antioch
is called the coryphaeus of the council of Nice; and Cicero
calls Zeno the coryphaeus of the Stoics.
CORYVRECKAN, Whirlpool of, a dangerous pas¬
sage, about a mile in breadth, off1 the west coast of Argyll¬
shire, lying between the south end of Scarba and the north
point of Jura. It is named from a young Danish prince who
perished there. Towards the Scarba side the sea is in al¬
most perpetual tumult, arising from the narrowness of the
passage through which the tide flows into and out of the
sound of Jura. The turbulence of the water is also in part
to be ascribed to the presence of a pyramidal rock rising
with a rapid acclivity from the bottom about 100 fathoms
down, to within 15 feet of the surface. By this interference
the current is forced to assume various intricate directions;
and, on the other hand, a counter current is produced,
chiefly on the Scarba side, and its return into the main
stream produces those gyrations, resembling the swells of
Swinna and Stroma, which have been magnified into a
whirlpool capable of engulfing ships. It is only when
high tides and violent winds prevail that the place assumes the
frightful character so opposed to the security of vessels. The
place is generally avoided, however, by boats and small craft.
CORYZA. See Catarrh.
COS, a small island in the Archipelago, near the coast
of Caria in Asia Minor, celebrated for the spirit of its inha¬
bitants in resisting the Persian monarchs, and as the birth¬
place of Hippocrates, of Apelles, and of Ptolemy Philadel-
phus. Its chief city, of the same name, stood opposite to
Halicarnassus, but was destroyed by an earthquake during
the Peloponnesian war. The island is fruitful and salu¬
brious, and celebrated for its wine, silks, and cotton of a
beautiful texture. Its modern name is Stanco or Stanchio.
Pop. about 8000.
COSCINOMANCY (koctkivov a sieve, and p.avT€ia divi¬
nation), the art or practice of divination by suspending a
sieve and taking it between two fingers, or by fixing it to
a pair of shears, then repeating a formula of words and nam¬
ing the persons suspected of some offence. If the sieve
trembled, shook, or turned when any name was repeated,
that person was deemed guilty of the evil in question.
This species of divination is mentioned in the third idyl
of Theocritus, and was in use within a recent period in some
parts of England.
COSECANT, in Geometry, the secant of an arc which
is the complement of another tc 90°.
CO SENZ A, a city of Naples, the seat of an archbishopric,
and the capital of the province of Calabria Citra, is situated
in a deep glen at the junction of the Busento with the Crati,
12 miles E. of the Mediterranean. It is intersected by the
Busento, which is here crossed by two bridges. The streets
are generally narrow and crooked, and the lower part of the
town is said to be unhealthy. The tribunale, or palace of
justice, one of the finest edifices in that kingdom, is on the
eastern bank; and an old castle, now used as a barrack,
crowns the summit of an eminence on the opposite side of
the river. It has also a diocesan seminary, royal college,
theatre, foundling hospital, academies of science and litera¬
ture ; manufactures of earthenware and cutlery ; and a con¬
siderable trade in silk, rice, wine, fruits, manna, flax, &c. Pop.
9000. It is a place of great antiquity, having, under the name
cos
Cosfeld of Consentia, been the chief city of the Bruttii. Alaric, king
|| of the Goths, died while besieging this city a.d. 410, and
Cosmology. was buried in the bed of the Busento, which was turned
from its course for that purpose.
COSFELD. See Kosfeld.
COSHERING, in the feudal customs, a kind of right of
the lords to lie and to feast themselves and their followers
at their tenants’ houses. The word may perhaps be derived
from the old English coshe, a cot or cottage.
COSINE, in Trigonometry, the sine of an arc which is
the complement of another to 90°.
COSLIN, a town of Prussia. See Koslin.
COSMAS, a distinguished saint and martyr of the early
Christian church, was a native of Arabia, where, along with
his brother Damianus, he practised medicine gratuitously.
The two brothers adopted this profession from the idea that
by means of it they might most efficiently benefit their fel¬
low-creatures. After a short but eminently useful career,
they both perished in the persecution organized by Diocle¬
tian against the Christians, a.d. 303-311.
Cosmas, bishop of Maiuma in Palestine during the first
half of the eighth century, was originally a monk of Jeru¬
salem, and gained a great reputation by the sacred hymns
which he composed for the service of the Greek church.
These hymns—some of which are acrostics—are still for
the most part in MS., though a few of them were at one
time issued from the Aldine press.
Cosmas, surnamed Indicopleustes from the fact of his
having sailed over the eastern seas, was a native of Egypt,
and lived during the first half of the sixth century of the
Christian era. In early life he travelled as a merchant
through the East as far as India, visiting Arabia and Persia,
and navigating the adjoining seas. In the course of his
wanderings he amassed much information concerning the
topography, history, and antiquities of the countries which
he visited, and the mode of life, manners, and customs of the
inhabitants. The result of his researches he embodied in
his Topographia Christiana, sive Christianorum opinio
de Mundo. Besides this work, Cosmas compiled a series
of astronomical tables, a universal cosmography, an exposi¬
tion of the Psalms, and a commentary on Canticles,—which
treatises have perished.
COSMETIC (Koagew, to adorn), any preparation to ren¬
der the skin soft and white, or to beautify and improve
the complexion. The word cosmetce among the Romans
was used to denote a class of slaves whose business it was
to dress and adorn their mistresses.
COSMICAL (koctp-os, order, the world), relating to the
world, or to the whole system of visible bodies, including the
earth and stars.
In the ancient astronomy a star is said to rise or to set
cosmically when it rises or sets at the same instant with the
sun. Cosmical is opposed to achronycal, which signifies that
a star rises at the instant the sun sets, or vice versa.
COSMOGONY, the generation, origin, or creation of
the world or universe.
COSMOGRAPHY, the science which treats of the con¬
struction, figure, disposition, and relation of all the parts of
the world. It consequently comprehends astronomy, geo¬
graphy, and geology.
COSMOLABE (from Koagos, world, and Xapfidvo), to
take), an ancient mathematical instrument for measuring
distances both in the heavens and on the earth. The cos-
nioldbe is in a great measure the same with the astrolabe.
It is also called pantacosm, or the universal instrument, bv
Morgard, in a treatise written expressly on this instrument,
and printed in 1612.
COSMOLOGY, the science of the world or universe.
This is called general or transcendental cosmology by Wol-
fius, who has written a treatise on the subject; in which he
endeavours to explain how the world arose from simple
COS 423
substances, and treats of the general principles of the modi- Cosmopo-
fications of material things, of the elements of bodies, of the lite
laws of motion, of the perfection of the world, and of the II
order and course of nature. Cossacks.
COSMOPOLITE, or Cosmopolitan, a person who has ' v ^
no fixed place of abode, or a man who is a stranger no¬
where ; a citizen of the w orld.
COSNE, a town of France, department of Nievre, capi¬
tal of an arrondissement of the same name, on the right
bank of the Loire, 35 miles N.N.W. of Nevers. Pop.
(1851) 6245. It has a tribunal of primary instance, a com¬
munal college, an agricultural society; and in the vicinity
are extensive forges for the making of anchors and other
heavy iron articles.
COSSACKS, certain Russian tribes who inhabit the
southern and eastern parts of the empire. They are a
species of military democracy, being independent of the
imperial government in their internal administration, and
paying no taxes into its treasury, but performing the duty of
soldiers instead, in which capacity they guard the frontiers
upon which they reside. Their religion, with few exceptions,
is that of the Graeco-Russian church. Both on account of
their descent and present condition, they have been divided
into two principal classes, the Cossacks of Little Russia
(Malo-Russia), and those of the Don. Both classes, but espe¬
cially the latter, have collateral branches. From those of
the Don, who are the most civilized, are descended the
Volgaic, the Terek, the Gresbeskoi, the Uralian, and the
Siberian Cossacks. To the other race belong the Zapo-
rogians or Haydamaks, who are the wildest and most bar¬
barous of all. As to the origin of the people or their name,
writers are by no means agreed. Some derive both races
from the province of Cosachia. In the Turkish language
cazak signifies a robber; but in the Tartar tongue it sim¬
ply means a soldier lightly armed for rapid motion. Their
origin is very probably Russian, and their language is fun¬
damentally so, although mixed with Turkish and Polish
words. The Cossacks of Little Russia first appear in his¬
tory in the fourteenth century, when the invasion of Russia
on the part of Poland forced numbers of the inhabitants to
migrate to the banks of the Dnieper, where they gradually
established themselves, and spread in the direction of the
Bog and Dniester. The Polish king, Stephen Bathori,
consolidated the constitution of these warlike tribes, and
formed them into regiments under a commander-in-chief,
entitled a Hetman or Headman. Some attempts to abridge
their liberties, and introduce the Catholic religion, drove
them in 1654 under the protection of Russia, from which
they revolted in 1708, a considerable body of them joining
the standard of Charles XIL under their hetman Mazeppa,
whom Lord Byron has immortalized. This act drew down
upon the whole people the vengeance of the Czar Peter I.,
who, after the battle of Pultowa, ordered them to be extir¬
pated. With this branch of Cossacks were formerly united
the Haydamaks, who, instead of propagating their race by
marriage, perpetuated themselves as a nation principally by
kidnapping children. They are still a rude uncivilized race.
The Cossacks of the Don have been in the service of
Russia since the sixteenth century. They occupy an ex¬
tensive territory on both sides of the Don, living in vil¬
lages, and supporting themselves while at home by fishing
and the breeding of cattle, in preference to agricultural
pursuits, for which they have little inclination. Their ca¬
pital, Tscherkask, is a sort of Tartar Venice. It is situated
on some islands in the Don : the houses are built on high
wooden piles, and connected with one another by small
bridges. It contains about 15,000 inhabitants ; and, be¬
sides numerous churches richly adorned with the precious
metals and gems, it possesses a regular theatre, and a school
where several languages and sciences are taught. As this
city is very unhealthy from the overflowing of the river,
424 COS
Cosse another called New Tscherkask was founded in 1805, about
II 14 miles north of the former, and it now contains about
Cossyah. 18)0oo inhabitants. For further particulars respecting the
Cossacks, see Russian Empire.
COSSE de Geniste, an order of knighthood instituted
in 1234, by Louis IX. (St Louis), on the occasion of his
marriage with Margaret of Provence. The motto on the
collar of this order was Exaltat humiles.
COSSIMBAZAR, a town of Hindustan, in the province
of Bengal, nearly adjoining the southern suburbs ol Moor-
shedabad, of which it may be considered as the port. It is
situated on the south-east bank of the Bhagarutty river, and
is one of the largest trading towns in Bengal. It was long
celebrated for its silk manufactures, and for the manufac¬
ture of stockings, which were all knitted by the women and
children in the vicinity, and were held in the highest re¬
pute, until supplanted by the irresistible competition of the
cheaper fabrics of Great Britain. The neighbourhood
abounds with mulberry trees, on which silkworms are fed ;
and the quantity of silk produced not only supplies all that
is consumed in the manufacture of carpets, satins, and other
stuffs, but also leaves a surplus for exportation. The pen¬
insula here formed by the windings of the Bhagarutty, at
one time insulated, and thence denominated the island of
Cossimbazar, is a perfectly flat bed of sand ; but the annual
overflow of the river leaves a rich deposit, and fertilizes this
otherwise unproductive tract. It abounds with all descrip¬
tions of game, from the tiger and the boar to the inferior
sorts, such as hare, deer, partridge, &c., and with all sorts of
aquatic birds. The Cossimbazar river is named the Bha¬
garutty or Bhagirathi, and is reckoned a sacred branch of
the Ganges. During the rainy season Cossimbazar has a
most extensive water communication, which affords great
facilities for its trade. The East India Company sta¬
tioned agents here at a very early period for the purchase
of goods, but their factory was not built till 1706. In 1 756
it was taken and plundered by the nabob of Bengal. The
latest census gives the number of houses at 1300, and that
of the inhabitants at 3538. Long. 88. 18. E.; Lat. 24.
10. N. ’ (e. t.)
COSSIPORE, in Hindustan, one of the suburbs of Cal¬
cutta, situate on the left bank of the Hooghly, five or six
miles north of Fort-William. This place contains the go¬
vernment foundry, established for the casting of brass ord¬
nance required for the military service of India. It was
erected many years since by Colonel Hutchinson of the
engineers, upon the best European model, and the esta¬
blishment is represented as one of the most complete and
perfect to be tbund in any part of the world. Specimens
of the ordnance cast at Cossipore were sent home during
the administration of Marquis Hastings, and being sub¬
mitted to the examination of a committee of royal artillery
officers at Woolwich, were pronounced superior in respect
of workmanship and finish to those of the royal arsenal,
the particular pattern of the gun being alone objected to.
Instruction in the casting of guns is here afforded to the
company’s artillery officers upon their first arrival at Calcutta.
Lat. 22. 38 ; Long. 88. 26. (e. t.)
COSSYAH Hills, in Hindustan, extend over the tract
of country lying between Assam on the north, and the dis¬
trict of Sylhet on the south, from Lat. 25. to 26. 27., and
from Long. 90. 52. to 92. 11. The area of the country em¬
braced within these limits is estimated at 2808 square miles,
of which a superficies of 729 square miles belongs to the
British, and the remainder to a number of protected native
chiefs. The British portion supports a population ofl 0,935 ;
that of the native chiefs maintains somewhat more than
30,000. The Cossyah tribes, though Pagans, are not
Hindus; they eat beef, and have neither idols nor tem¬
ples, but offer sacrifices to rocks, streams, and groves.
Huge monuments of stone with doorways (reminding the
COS
English traveller of Stonehenge), are scattered over the Costa Rica
hills, and are conjectured to have been constructed in v
memory of departed chiefs and warriors. Though the
people are wild, the general tranquillity of the country has
been secured by means of a liberal and conciliatory policy
on the part of the British government. (e. t.)
COSTA RICA, Republic of, the most southern, and
one of the smallest, of the five states of Central America,
lies chiefly between Lat. 8. and 11. N., and Long. 82. and 86.
W.; and is bounded on the north by Nicaragua, south by
New Granada, east by the Caribbean Sea, and west by the
Pacific Ocean. It has an estimated area of 16,300 square
miles, and a population of 215,000, of whom about 25,000
are Indians. The surface of the country is much diversified,
but is chiefly occupied with mountains, some of which are
volcanoes. Among these may be mentioned Irasu or Carthage,
Turrialva, Chirripo, Barba, Votes, Erradura, and Miravalles.
It contains two principal forests: that of Aguacate is re¬
markable for its rich gold mines, which were begun to be
worked about 1821, and have been the means of attracting
many colonists to settle there ; and that of Dota which is
of great extent, and through which passes the road from San
Jose to the towns of Terrava and Borruca, leading thence in¬
to the republic of New Granada. At a point called Alto-de-
Ochomogo, near Carthage, the streams which run through
the principal part of the state diverge and discharge them¬
selves respectively into the Pacific Ocean and the Carib¬
bean Sea ; so that Costa Rica may be considered as divided
into two parts, a north-eastern and a south-western. This
division is farther borne out by the different characters of the
two parts. The south-western slope is easily accessible, and
its climate, throughout nearly its whole extent, varies from
insupportable heat and aridity to a mild and genial temper¬
ature. On the north-eastern side the aspect is more rug¬
ged,—the number, complication, and height of the moun¬
tains, and the impetuous currents of the rivers, both large
and small, attract the attention of the traveller. Among the
rivers of Costa Rica are the Tempisque and Grande, falling
into the bayof Nicoya ; theUcusor Macho, which afterwards
takes the name of Reventason, and falls into the Caribbean
Sea; the Matina, formed by the rivers Chirripo and Bar-
billa; the Escudo de Veragua, dividing Central from South
America; the Banana, Tiribee and Culabra, all falling into
the Caribbean Sea; the Chrico Mola or Chrickam Aula,
falling into the bay of Cheriqui; the Costa Rica or San
Carlos, and the Sarapiqui, into the San Juan. The Baya
is a canal, believed by some to be natural, and by others to
have been cut by the aborigines, commencing at the port
of Moin or Salt Creek, and running parallel to the coast as
far as Pearl Kay Lagoon, a distance of 180 miles, being,
however, stopped up in a few places. It is crossed by the
river Matina and several others. Boats and canoes can
come up from the port of Moin to the Matina, and up that
river to the Chirripo and Barbilla, which are also navigable;
so that the valuable wood on the banks of these rivers can be
sent to Moin on rafts. The chief lakes are Locorra, at the
head of the brook; Reventado, which supplies the city of
Carthage with water; the twin lakes at Laguna, on the road
from San Jose to the Matina; Ermosa, near the road from
Barba to the Sarapiqui; and Surtidor, at the source of the
latter river.
Agricultural and pastoral pursuits constitute the principal
occupation of the inhabitants. Some parts of the state af¬
ford excellent pasturage, and great numbers of cattle, hogs,
goats, and sheep are reared. In the forests are the tapir,
mountain cow, wild goat, wild striped boar, zahino, &c.
Among its vegetable productions are coffee, sugar, maize, to¬
bacco, cocoa, indigo, peas, beans, &c. It is also rich in
various kinds of timber, as mahogany, beech, cedar, oak,
chestnut, and dyewoods. The climate varies much in the
different parts. In the principal inhabited places it is said
cos
Costal to be remarkably mild and salubrious, and to have no extreme
|| either of heat or cold, the thermometer varying between
Costard. 50° and 76° ; but including all places cultivated or in pasture
it ranges through every degree, from the freezing point to 100°,
according to the elevation of the land. Costa Rica is di¬
vided into six departments, San Jose, Cartago, Heredia,
Alajuela, Guanaceute, and Punta de Arenas. Its principal
towns are San Jose the capital, and Cartago or Carthage
the former capital. The government is vested in a presi¬
dent and vice-president, elected for 6 years, and a legisla¬
tive chamber composed of 12 deputies elected for 3 years.
The chief court of justice is the tribunal of San Jose, which
is presided over by 7 judges. The state has no debt; and
the revenue, derived from duties on tobacco and spirits
amounts to about 120,000 dollars. The militia consists of
5000 men, of whom 200 are called upon periodically for
active duty. The Roman Catholic is the established reli¬
gion, but complete toleration is established by law. After
the declaration of independence by the Spanish American
colonies in 1821, Costa Rica formed for a short time a pro¬
vince of Mexico. In 1823 it became one of the states of
the Central American Confederacy, but on the dissolution
of that short-lived union it became an independent republic.
It has, unlike the other states, been in the enjoyment of in¬
ternal and external peace for several years ; and the efforts
of its government have been exclusively directed to the de¬
velopment of its internal resources.
COSTAL (Lat. costa, a rib), pertaining to the side of
the body or the ribs ; as costal muscles, vertebrae, &c.
COSTANZO, Angelo di, Lord of Cantalupo, a cele¬
brated Italian historian and poet of the sixteenth century,
descended of a noble Neapolitan family, was born at Naples
about the year 1507. Connected by ties of friendship
with Sannazaro, and several other eminent men who then
lived in the capital, he was encouraged by them in the de¬
sign of writing a history of the kingdom of Naples, to re¬
medy the incompleteness and partiality of the work of Col-
lenuaccio. Having employed more than forty years in re¬
searches, he published the first part of his work at Naples
in 1572 ; but being dissatisfied with his performance, he
immediately after resolved to reconstruct it from the foun¬
dation. At length, in 1582, the work came forth in the
shape in which it now appears, under the title of Le Istorie
del Regno di Napoli dal 1250 fino al 1489, divise in xx.
libri, Aquila, folio, an edition which has now become very
scarce even in Italy. In it the author treats of the period
from the death of the Emperor Frederick II. to the war of
Milan under King Ferdinand I.; and though not immacu¬
late, his history of the kingdom of Naples is still regarded
as one of the best extant. It was reprinted at Naples, but
very incorrectly, in 1710, 4to; and again, but with more
care, in 1733, 4to. Lastly, it has been embodied in the
great Milan Collection of Classic Authors, 1805, 3 vols.
8vo. Costanzo also occupies a distinguished rank among
the poets of his age. His master in poetry was Berardino
Rota, whom he greatly surpassed ; and although he made
no change in the form of the sonnet, he gave it a turn which
the best poets have since taken as their model. His poetry
in general is distinguished for the union of gravity with
sensibility, which, in truth, constitutes its peculiar charac¬
teristic. His Rime, originally scattered throughout different
collections, appeared for the first time together at Bologna,
in 1709, 12mo. They have since been several times re¬
printed ; but of all the editions, the best are those of Co-
mino, Padua, 1723, 1728, and 1738, 8vo. Costanzo died
at Naples about 1591.
COSTARD, George, a learned divine of the Church of
England, and the author of several critical and historical works,
was born at Shrewsbury about 1710, and educated at Wad-
ham College, Oxford. In 1747 he published, in 8vo, some
observations tending to illustrate the Book of Job. In 1750 he
VOL. VII,
COT ♦ 425
published two dissertations; one on the meaning of the word Cosway
Kesita (Job xlii. 11); and another on the signification of II
the word Hermes. These were followed in 1752 by Dis- K ^
sertationes duce Critico-sacrce, quorum primd explicatur,
Ezell, xii. 18, altera vero 2 Reg. x. 22. In 1775 he wrote
a letter to Dr Birch, which is preserved in the British
Museum, respecting the meaning of the phrase sphcera bar-
barica. Some time after this he published a second edi¬
tion of Dr Hyde’s Historia Religionis veterum Persarum,
eorumque Magorum. In 1764, through the influence of
Lord Chancellor Northington, he obtained the vicarage of
Twickenham, which he continued to hold till his death.
In 1767 he published The History of Astronomy, with
its application to Geography, History, and Chronology
(1 vol. 4to). This work was chiefly intended for the use
of students, and contains a distinct view of the several im¬
provements made in geography and astronomy. The last
of his publications appeared in 1778, and consisted of A
Letter to Nathaniel Brassey Halhed, Esq., containing some
Remarks on his preface to the Code of Gentoo Laws. In
this work he criticises the current opinion in regard to the
great antiquity of the Gentoo laws; and adduces argu¬
ments in favour of the truth of the Hebrew chronology.
Costard died Jan. 10, 1782.
COSWAY, Richard (1740-1821), an eminent painter
of the last century, was born in Devonshire. He was
elected a Royal Academician in 1771, and gained consi¬
derable reputation by his pictures of “ Rinaldo and Ar-
mida,” “ Psyche,” “ Madonna and Child,” and “ St John ;”
but his forte lay in miniature painting, in which he was
very successful. His wife Maria, who was born at Leg¬
horn of English parents, also painted portraits and histo¬
rical subjects with great ability, as may be seen from the
prints after her by Bartolozzi and others. After her hus¬
band’s death she retired to Lodi.
COTA, Rodriguez, a Spanish poet, born at Toledo in
the fifteenth century, and surnamed El Tio, or the Uncle.
No details of his life are found in any of the biographies.
He is believed to have flourished under the reign of Don
Juan II., king of Castile ; and the celebrated tragi-comedy
of Calista y Melibea, as well as a satire against Juan and
his court, entitled Mingo Rebulgo, are attributed to him.
The tragi-comedia, which is also known under the name
of Celestina, had been several times printed before the dates
of the Seville and Madrid editions, which appeared respec¬
tively in 1539 and 1601. Celestina has been ascribed by
some to Juan de Mena; but the slightest attention to the
style of this poet, which is altogether different from that of
Cota, shows that there is not the least foundation for such
an opinion. The tragi-comedy, which was originally written
in prose, was rendered intn Castilian verse by Juan de Se-
deno, Salamanca, 1540, 4to. It has also been translated
into French, Paris, 1527, 1542, and Lyons, 1529, 8vo;
into Italian, Venice, 1519, 1533, 8vo ; and English, under
the title of The Spanish Rogue, but without a date.
COTANGENT, the tangent of an arc which is the
complement of another to 90°.
COTE d’Or, a department of France, formed of the
northern part of Burgundy, of which it includes the
countries of Montagne and Dijonnais, and the greater
part of Auxois. It is bounded N. by the department of
Aube, E. by those of Haute-Marne, Haute-Saone, and
Jura, S. by that of Saone-et-Loire, and W. by those of
Nievre and Yonne. Area 3345 square miles. The sur¬
face is mostly hilly. A chain of hills runs from N.E. to
S.W. through the centre of the department, separating the
basin of the Seine from that of the Saone, and forming the
connecting-link between the Cevennes and the Vosges
mountains. A part of this range gives name to the depart¬
ment, and is so called from the number and excellence of
its vineyards. The rivers are numerous but small, the only
426
COT
COT
Cote-St- one navigable being the Saone. The Burgundy canal, con-
Andre necting the rivers Saone and Yonne, traverses this departs
cdes ment from S.E. to N.W. The soil is generally good, pro-
. ' , ducing wheat, maize, rye, barley, oats, hemp, flax, See. The
most important production, however, is wine, of which it
yields several varieties. Honey is also produced in consider¬
able quantities. The forests of this department are very ex¬
tensive, and consist of oak, beech, elm, Sec. The mineral
productions are numerous and valuable, including iron, coal,
marble, limestone, gypsum, potter’s clay, Sec. There are
numerous iron works, breweries, distilleries, tanneries, pot¬
teries, &c. This department is divided into 4 arrondisse-
ments, as follows:—
Arrondissements, Cantons. Communes. Pop. in 1851,
Dijon  14 267 151,331
Beaune  10 202 124,206
Chatillon-sur-Seine  6 116 54,075
Semur    6 143 70,685
36 728 400,297
The capital is Dijon.
COTE-ST-ANDRE, La, a town of France, department
of Isere, arrondissement of and 21 miles E.S.E. from
Vienne. Pop. 3000. In its vicinity is produced the cele¬
brated liqueur to which it gives name.
COTELERIUS, John Baptist (1627-1686), fellow of
the Sorbonne, and regius professor of Greek, was born at
Nismes. He collected the works of the apostolic fathers,
and published them at Paris with a Latin translation and
notes. He also published a work entitled Monumenta Ec-
clesice Grcecce, in three vols., being a collection of Greek
tracts from the king’s and M. Colbert’s libraries, which had
never before been published ; and to these he added a Latin
translation and notes.
COTERELLUS and Cotarius, terms used, according
to Spelman and Du Fresne, to designate servile tenants ;
but in Doomsday-book and other ancient manuscripts they
seem to be distinguished as well in tenure and quality
as in name; for the cotarius had a free soccage tenure,
and paid a stated firm or rent in provisions or money, with
some occasional customary services ; whereas the coterellus
seems to have held in mere villenage, and his person, issue,
and goods, were disposable at the pleasure of the lord.
COTERIE (French), a company, society, or association
of people ; used in English to denote a little assembly or
meeting of friends for social enjoyment.
COTES, Roger, a celebrated English mathematician and
philosopher, born at Burbach, Leicestershire, of which place
his father was rector. Before his twelfth year he showed a
decided predilection for mathematical study ; and afterwards
made such rapid progress in that science, that when only
twenty-four years of age he was appointed Plumian professor
of astronomy and experimental philosophy. He took orders
in 1713 ; and that same year, at the request of Dr Bentley,
he published the second edition of Newton’s Principia
Mathematica, enriched with an original preface. This, with
an analytical memoir entitled Logometria, and a descrip¬
tion of the great meteor which appeared in England on the
6th March 1/16, inserted in the Philosophical Transactions,
is all that Cotes lived to publish. He died June 5, 1716, at
the age of thirty-three, and was buried in Trinity chapel,
where a monument was raised to his memory, bearing a Latin
inscription from the pen of Dr Bentley. He left unfinished
a series of elaborate researches on optics, in reference to
which Newton observed, “ If Mr Cotes had lived, we should
have known something.” With regard to the pure mathe¬
matics, the principal discovery of Cotes consists in a theo¬
rem, which still bears his name, and which furnishes the
means of integrating by logarithms and arcs of the circle
the rational fractions whose denominator is a binomial.
These expressions had already exercised the ingenuity of
Leibnitz, and of John Bernouilli, and by their labours, in con¬
junction with those of Euler, this branch of the integral cal¬
culus soon assumed a more convenient and simple form. His
papers were collected by his successor, Dr Robert Smith,
and published under the title of Harmonia Mensurarum,
sive Analysis et Synthesis per Rationam et Angularum
mensuras promotes ; accedunt alia Opuscula Mathematica.
Cambridge, 1722, 4to. Of this work, the “ Analyse des
Mesures, des Rapports, et des Angles, ou Reduction des
Integrations aux Logarithmes et aux Arcs de Cercle,”
published (Paris, 1747) by the English Benedictin Walms-
ley, is rather a paraphrase than a translation. Cotes left a
valuable treatise on hydrostatics and pneumatics, which
was also published by Smith, and afterwards appeared in a
French translation, under the title of “ Leqons de Physique
Experimentale sur 1’Equilibre des Liqueurs,” Paris, I740,4to.
C6tes-du-Nord, a maritime department in the N.W.
of France, containing part of the old province of Brittany.
It is bounded N. by the English Channel, W. by Finistere,
S. by Morbihan, and E. by Ule-et-Vilaine. Area 2595
square miles. A chain of granitic mountains, of which the
culminating point, Mount Menez, attains a height of about
1200 feet, runs through the department from E. to W.,
dividing it into two unequal parts, of which the southern is
the smaller. Towards its western extremity this chain sends
out two branches, the one extending westward and the
other south-westward to the department of Finistere. Va¬
rious smaller ramifications are sent off northward and south¬
ward from the main chain. The rivers are short and un¬
important, the principal being the Ranee, Arguenon, Guer,
Trieux, Gouessant, and Gouet. The coast is generally
steep and rocky. It is much indented by the mouths of nu¬
merous small rivers, and fringed, particularly towards its
west end, by many small islands. The soil is mostly stony,
primitive formations being everywhere found near the sur¬
face ; and the plains on both sides of the mountain chain
are often sandy and sterile. Agriculture is in a very back¬
ward state. Rye, oats, and wheat are the principal crops
grown. Cattle, goats, and sheep are reared, but they are
of inferior breeds. The draught horses, however, are much
esteemed. The fisheries employ a great portion of its
inhabitants, and constitute one of the most important re¬
sources of the department, which is thus an admirable nur¬
sery for the French navy. The forests are extensive, and
abound with wolves, foxes, badgers, roe-bucks, and wild
boars. Iron and lead-mines are worked, but otherwise this
department is not rich in minerals. The linen manufacture,
though still the staple of the department, has of late years
much declined.
C6tes-du-Nord is divided into 5 arrondissements, which
with their populations are as follows:—
C6tes-du-
.Nord
Cotillon.
Arrondissements. Cantons. Communes. Pop. in 1851.
St Brieuc  11 97 180,275
Dinan   10 91 118,328
Loudeac  9 55 92,590
Lannion   7 63 114,737
Guingamp   10 73 126,683
Total  47 379 632,613
COTESWOLD (Saxon cote, a cot, and wold, a hill),
several sheep-cotes, with sheep feeding on hills.
COTHEN, a town of Germany. See Kothen.
COTHURNUS, a kind of buskin, raised on soles of
cork, and w orn by actors in the ancient tragedy, in order to
increase their stature and thereby to give an appearance of
greater dignity to the character of the hero personated. It
covered the greater part of the leg, and was tied beneath
the knee. iEschylus is said to have invented the cothurnus.
See Buskin.
COTIGNAC, atown ofFrance, department of Var, arron¬
dissement of and 9 miles N.N.E. from Brignoles. Pop. 3400.
It has some trade in wine, silk, dried fruits, and confectionary.
COTILLON (French, a petticoat), a brisk dance, in
COT
Cotiote which eight persons take part. It has been superseded by
|| the more modern quadrille.
Cottage COTIOTE, a small district of Hindustan, province of
System. Malabar. See Malabar.
COTOPAXI, the most remarkable volcanic moun¬
tain of the Andes, in Ecuador, 35 miles S.S.E. of Quito.
It rises 18,878 feet above the level of the sea, and is
considered as the most lofty of the colossal volcanoes
of the Andes. Its eruptions have been numerous and
very destructive: those which took place in 1742, 1744,
1768, and 1803, are the most remarkable. With respect
to the explosion of 1803, Humboldt observes—“At the port
of Guayaquil, fifty-two leagues distant in a straight line
from the crater, we heard day and night the noise of this
volcano, like continued discharges of a battery ; and we dis¬
tinguished these tremendous sounds even on the Pacific
Ocean.” In 1744 the thunderings of the volcano were
heard at Honda, a town on the Rio Magdalena, at the dis¬
tance of 200 common leagues. In 1768 the quantity of
ashes ejected by its crater was so enormous, that in the towns
of Hambato and Tacunga day broke only at three o’clock in
the afternoon, and the inhabitants were obliged to use lanterns
in walking the streets. For twenty years before 1803, no
perceptible smoke or vapour had issued from the crater,
when in a single night its cone became so hot that its vast
snowy covering had disappeared, and the scorified rock,
naked, and of a dusky red, met the astonished eye in the
morning; while the sudden melting of the snow gave rise to
alarming torrents of water. The appearance of this volcano
is in the highest degree majestic and sublime. It is a
perfect cone, and, being covered with a thick layer of snow,
shines at sunset with dazzling splendour, standing forth in
bold relief upon the azure heavens. The upper 440 feet are
covered with snow, except the summit, which appears to be
surrounded by a circular wall, and which, owing probably
COTTAGE
Among the various schemes devised for checking the
progress of pauperism in England, and for augmenting the
comfort and happiness of the lower classes, few seem to
have obtained a greater degree of popularity, or to be more
generally patronised, than the cottage system ;—that
system which proposes, under certain restrictions, to fur¬
nish the industrious poor with cottages and small pieces
of land, to be used for the purpose of keeping kine, rais¬
ing potatoes, or for some other species of husbandry.
It is not our intention to detail the various peculiarities
of the plans of different authors by whom the efficacy of
the cottage system has been maintained. We shall con¬
tent ourselves with examining the fundamental principles
on which the whole scheme is founded; and, in so doing,
we shall endeavour to resolve the important question, whe¬
ther the more minute division of landed property, and the
letting of small farms and patches of ground, to any con¬
siderable portion of the lower classes, would tend to im¬
prove tl^eir condition and character, and to reduce the
sum total of human misery.
As the effects of the cottage or small farming system
on the condition of the poor must, in a great measure, de¬
pend on the fact of its tending to increase or diminish
the exchangeable value of raw produce, it will be neces¬
sary, first of all, to inquire into its probable operation in
this respect. If it should tend to reduce the price of
corn, cattle, &c. or to render their acquisition less diffi¬
cult, that would be a strong presumption in its favour.
But, on the other hand, if it should tend to raise the price
of these articles of provision, or to make them exchange
tor a greater quantity of labour, its introduction would
COT 427
to the heat, is never covered with snow. Humboldt found it Cotrone
difficult to ascend the mountain as far as the line of per- II
petual snow, and he pronounces it impossible ever to reach Cottage
the summit. v ys
COTRONE, a city of Italy. See Crotona. v-'—'
COTT, or Cot, a particular sort of bed-frame, suspended
from the beams of a ship, between decks, for the officers to
sleep in. It consists of a large piece of canvas sewed into
the form of a chest, about six feet long, one foot deep, and
three feet wide, and is extended by a square wooden frame
with a canvas bottom.
COTTA, C. Aurelius, a distinguished Roman general,
who, during his consulate in b.c. 252, defeated the united
forces of the Carthaginians and Sicilians in Sicily. He was
celebrated for the severity of his discipline, and on one oc¬
casion scourged and degraded into the ranks a near relative
of his own, through whose carelessness a part of the camp
had been set on fire. On his return to Rome he was hon¬
oured with a triumph for his victory over the Carthagini¬
ans. In b.c. 248, he was a second time appointed consul.
The time and manner of his death are unknown.
Many other members of this family held high offices in
the Roman republic ; the most remarkable of whom were C.
Aurelius, who held the consulship b.c. 75, and enjoyed a
high reputation as an orator; and his brother Lucius, who
in his praetorship, b.c. 70, carried the celebrated lex Aurelia
judiciaria, by which the senators were deprived of their ex¬
clusive right of acting as judices, and were only allowed to
exercise it along with the equites and the tribuni cerarii.
COTTAR US, in Grecian Antiquity, a kind of social
game, of Sicilian origin. It consisted in a display of dex¬
terity, by throwing a quantity of wine or other liquid into a
brazen basin without spilling it. This favourite diversion
was variously modified, as described by Athenaeus, Suidas,
and Julius Pollux.
SYSTEM.
obviously be prejudicial to the community, and especially
to the labouring classes.
We have already endeavoured to show that the price of Effects of
raw produce has a natural tendency to rise as society ad-a subdi-
vances, and as a country becomes more populous. vision of
ciples of the Corn Laws?) The best lands being first
brought under cultivation, recourse is afterwards had to [he price
those which are inferior, and require a greater quantity 0f raw pro-
of labour to make them yield the same produce. The ra^duce.
price of this produce, which is always regulated by the
quantity of labour necessary to its production, is therefore
increased ; and it exchanges for a greater portion of those
commodities the production of which has not also become
more difficult.
Had the inventive genius of man been limited in its
powers; had the ploughs, harrows, and other machines and
implements used in agriculture, at once attained their ut¬
most degree of perfection, and remained ever after in the
same state; the rise in the price of raw produce conse¬
quent to the increase of population would have been much
more obvious. When in such a state of things it became
necessary to resort to poorer soils in order to raise addi¬
tional quantities of food, a corresponding increase of ma¬
nual labour would have been required. On this hypothe¬
sis no improvement could have taken place in the powers
of the labourer himself. Having already reached the per¬
fection of his art, a greater degree of animal exertion
could alone have overcome fresh obstacles. More labour
would have been necessary to the production of a greater
quantity of food; and it would have been necessary in
the precise proportion according to which the quantity
428 COTTAGESYSTEM.
Cottage was increased. Thus, supposing the labour of ten men to
System. ]iave been required, during a given number of days, to
produce ten quarters of wheat, from land of a certain qua¬
lity,—when fifteen quarters were produced in the same
time and from the same \dcc\A, fifteen hands must have been
employed in its production. The effects of improved ma¬
chinery, and of a better system of manuring and crop¬
ping, are here supposed to be entirely out of the question.
Had the arts continued in this stationary state, the price
of raw produce must obviously have varied directly with
every variation in the quality of the soils successively
brought under cultivation.
But in an improving society, the circumstances which
regulate the real and exchangeable values of raw produce
are extremely different. Here, too, it has doubtless a con¬
stant tendency to rise ; for notwithstanding that every suc¬
cessive improvement in agriculture, and every new device
by which labour may be saved, and the energies and powers
of machinery augmented, operate to lower prices,—still the
rise of profits, and the consequent stimulus given to popu¬
lation, by every fall in the price of raw produce, increase
the demand, and again raise prices, by forcing the cul¬
tivation of poorer soils. But this rise is rendered much
less perceptible than it would be in a stationary state of
society. After inferior soils have been brought under cul¬
tivation, more labourers may be required to raise the same
quantities of food ; but as the powers of the labourers are
augmented, a smaller number is required, in proportion
to the work to be performed, than if no such improve¬
ment had taken place. It is in this way that the tenden¬
cy to an increase in the price of raw produce is counter¬
acted in the progress of society. The productive ener¬
gies of the earth itself gradually diminish, and we are
compelled to resort to soils of a constantly-decreasing de¬
gree of fertility; but the productive energy of the labour
employed to extract produce from these soils is as con¬
stantly improved. Two directly opposite and continually-
acting principles are thus set in motion. From the ope¬
ration of the causes to which we have alluded, the increas¬
ing sterility of the soil is sure, in the long run, to over¬
match the increasing power of machinery and the improve¬
ments of agriculture, so that prices experience a corre¬
sponding rise. Occasionally, however, meliorations in the
latter more than compensate, during lengthened periods,
for any deterioration in the quality of the former, and a
fall of prices is the consequence. Should an equilibrium
take place, and the opposite principles exactly counter¬
poise each other, prices would remain stationary.
Had the whole surface of the earth been originally of
the same degree of fertility, and had the same outlay of ca¬
pital and labour always continued to yield the same amount
of raw produce, the effects of improved machinery and
agriculture in reducing prices would have been quite ob¬
vious. If such had been the case, raw produce must have
invariably fallen in value as society advanced. There
would have been nothing to counteract the effects of im¬
provements. The quantity of labour required for the pro¬
duction of all sorts of commodities would, by reason of im¬
provements in machinery and the arts, have been almost
always diminishing; and of course their real price would
have been as constantly on the decline.
It results, as a consequence of these principles, that
any constitution of society, or any method of dividing
landed property, which should operate to counteract the
spirit of improvement, or which should prevent agricul¬
turists from adopting the most efficacious methods for
saving labour and expense in carrying on their business,
would be materially injurious.
The rate of profit, and consequently the power to accu¬
mulate capital and population, is ultimately regulated by
the price of farm produce. If its price be relatively low, Cottage
that is, if it be easily produced, a comparatively small Systen.
outlay of labour will suffice to obtain a large quantity of 'V'w
produce. If, in a country thus situated, property be pro¬
tected, and full scope be given to accumulation, wealth will
rapidly increase. Where labour is more than ordinarily
productive, the labourer receives a large share of the pro¬
duce of his exertions, at the same time that a large net
profit remains to his employer. In America, labour is
extremely well rewarded, but the profits of stock are, not¬
withstanding, much higher than in Europe. The choice
of immense tracts of fertile and unoccupied land relieves
the farmers of the United States from the necessity of cul¬
tivating any but the richest soils. The wants of the coun¬
try can be supplied without having recourse to lands of an
inferior quality; and although the wages of workmen are
comparatively high, yet, as their labour is proportionally
productive, capitalists realize a corresponding and ample
profit.
The difficulty of raising sufficient supplies of corn is the
principal cause why old-settled and densely-peopled coun¬
tries advance slowly in the accumulation of capital and
riches, and why the profits of stock in them are compa¬
ratively low. Were it not, however, for the improvements
which are constantly making in agriculture, this difficulty
would be greatly increased. These, by enabling the in¬
creasing sterility of the soil to be partially overcome, re¬
duce the cost of production, or the real price of food ; and
by this means the rate of profit, and consequently the
power to accumulate wealth and population, is prevented
from falling so low as it would do in a society where no
improvements were made.
Now this, we apprehend, must be the situation of every
country in which a minute division of landed property, or
an extended cottage system, has been introduced. The
produce of a small farm of five, ten, or even twenty acres,
may perhaps enable its occupier to preserve his family
from downright starvation, but it will never enable him
to accumulate stock to any extent. “ Where,” asks Mr
Young, “ is the little farmer to be found who will cover
his whole farm with marl at the rate of 100 or 150 tons
per acre ? who will drain all his land at the expense of
two or three pounds an acre ? who will pay a heavy price
for the manure of towns, and convey it thirty miles by land
carriage ? who will float his meadows at the expense of
L.5 per acre ? who, to improve the breed of his sheep,
will give 1000 guineas for the use of a single ram for
a single season ? who will send across the kingdom to
distant provinces for new implements, and for men to use
them ? who employ and pay men for residing in provin¬
ces where practices are found which they want to intro¬
duce into their farms ? At the very mention of such
exertions, common in England, what mind can be so per¬
versely framed as to imagine, for a single moment, that
such things are to be effected by little farmers? De¬
duct from agriculture all the practices that have made it
flourishing in this island, and you have precisely the ma¬
nagement of small farms'' ( Travels in France, 2d edition,
vol. i. p. 410.) Besides, though it were admitted that
small farmers might accumulate capital, they could not
apply it in the most efficient manner. “ The division of
labour which, in every pursuit of industry, gives skill and
dispatch, cannot take place on the greatest farms in the
degree in which it is found in manufactures; but upon
small farms it does not take place at all. The same man
by turns applies to every work of the farm ; upon the lar¬
ger occupation there are ploughmen, thrashers, hedgers,
shepherds, cow-herds, ox-herds, limeburners, drainers, &c.
This circumstance is of considerable importance, and de¬
cides that every work will be better performed on a large
COTTAGE SYSTEM.
429
Cottage
System.
Small
farms in¬
crease the
price of
raw pro¬
duce.
Effects of
a subdi¬
vision of
landed pro.
perty on
manufac¬
turing in¬
dustry.
than on a small farm. One of the greatest engines of good
farming, a sheep-fold, is either to be found on a large farm
only, or at an expense of labour which destroys the profit.”
( Travels in France, vol. I. p. 409.)
Neither could a small farmer use any but the simplest
machines, and he must, in a great measure, be prevented
from availing himself of the powers of the lower animals.
An Irish cottager cannot employ either a thrashing-ma¬
chine or a horse. Manual labour is his only engine for
extracting produce from the earth. He cannot avail him¬
self of natural agents, nor render them subservient to the
great work of production. Those improvements which, in
countries where capital is accumulating in masses, are
every day rendered more efficient, and tend materially to
reduce the price of raw produce, and to render the neces¬
saries of life attainable by less labour, are altogether in¬
compatible with a minute division of landed property. The
additional supplies of food required in a’kingdom divided
into small occupancies cannot be produced without a pro¬
portional increase of manual labour ; so that raw produce
rises in price with every increase of population, or as soon
as it becomes necessary to cultivate inferior soils. There
is, in this case, nothing left to counteract increasing steri¬
lity. It is neither checked by improved machinery, nor
by any expedients for saving labour. But, being allowed
to exert its full effect, society very soon becomes clogged
in its progress; and its future advancement is rendered
extremely problematical.
This, we conceive, constitutes a fundamental objection
to every attempt to introduce a plan for dividing landed
property into minute portions ; for surely nothing can be
more preposterously absurd than to think of relieving the
hardships and distresses of the poor by recommending the
adoption of a scheme which would infallibly tend to raise
the price of the principal necessaries of life.
But a minute division of landed property is not merely
disadvantageous from its having a tendency to raise the
price of raw produce, by preventing the most advantage¬
ous distribution of capital and labour; it must also exer¬
cise a powerful effect on manufactured commodities, and,
by increasing the cost of their production, contribute to
enhance their real price.
In a country like England, where an improved system
of husbandry is generally introduced, where farms are ex¬
tensive, and where improved machinery is employed in
agricultural operations, a comparatively small proportion
of the inhabitants are engaged in the cultivation of the soil.
The rest are employed in manufacturing, in carrying the
products of the different districts of the kingdom to where
they are in the greatest demand, and in exchanging them
for the products of other countries. Farmers do not spend
their time in clumsy attempts to manufacture their own
produce; and manufacturers cease to interest themselves
about the raising of corn and the fattening of cattle.
Every class bestows its undivided attention on some par¬
ticular department of industry. Labour is economized,
and it is also perseveringly and judiciously applied. Agri¬
culturists raise the largest crops, because they can rea¬
dily exchange them for other commodities conducive to
their comforts and enjoyments; whilst manufacturers and
merchants are stimulated to increase the quantity and to Cottage
improve the quality of their articles, that they may there- System,
by command a greater quantity of raw produce. As va-
luable or desirable objects are multiplied, greater efforts
are made to procure them. A spirit of industry, and a de¬
sire to rise in the world, are universally diffused, and the
apathy and languor which are natural to a stationary state
of society are scarcely known.
“ It is,” says Dr Smith, “ the great multiplication of
the productions of the different arts, in consequence of
the division of labour, which occasions, in a well-governed
society, that universal opulence which extends itself to
the lowest ranks of the people. Every workman has a
great quantity of his own work to dispose of, beyond what
he himself has occasion for; and every other workman
being exactly in the same situation, he is enabled to ex¬
change a great quantity of his own goods for a great quan¬
tity, or, what comes to the same thing, for the price of a
great quantity of theirs. He supplies them abundantly
with what they have occasion for; and they accommodate
him as amply with what he has occasion for, and a gene¬
ral plenty diffuses itself through all the different ranks of
society.”
But if a country were generally divided into small farms,
these effects could only take place in a very limited ex¬
tent. Where a great proportion of the inhabitants is di¬
rectly supported by the produce of the soil, it is obvious
that there must be less of it to support others. Small far-
mershave it not in their power to purchase any considerable
quantity of manufactured goods; nor, where these abound,
are manufacturers able to purchase a large share of the pro¬
duce of the soil. Neither capital nor labour can, in such
circumstances, be employed in the most advantageous man¬
ner; and that division of labour, to the influence of which the
greater part of the improvement of society may be justly
ascribed, can only be partially introduced. A consider¬
able portion of the coarser sorts of manufactured commo¬
dities would, in a country so occupied, be prepared at home,
though at a much greater expense; for the small sur¬
plus of agricultural produce that would remain, after satis¬
fying the wants of the cultivators, would be barely suffi¬
cient to procure such necessaries as could not be procured
by the rude efforts of agricultural labourers. Being obliged
to engage by turns in every different employment, work¬
men would be prevented from acquiring a proper degree
of dexterity in any.1 But as it is by the quantity of labour
expended on a commodity that its exchangeable value is
regulated, it is obvious that, where there is a minute divi¬
sion of landed property, not only the price of corn, but
also that of all sorts of manufactured commodities, would
be increased. Labour would become less powerful in pro¬
ducing or in procuring them ; and the situation of the great
body of the people, who have only labour to barter for
commodities, would be rendered comparatively wretched.
No one would have any, or but very little surplus produce
to dispose of; and instead of general opulence, we should
meet with nothing but universal poverty. “ The tendency
of such a system,” says an intelligent writer who had care¬
fully observed its effects, “ is to approximate man to the
state of the savage, where the insulated being is obliged to
1 “ In Ireland, the minute division of land, and the manner in which the inhabitants are scattered over the country, render it neces¬
sary for labour of various kinds to be combined in the same individual; and thus each family becomes the manufacturers of their
own clothing, and of every thing else which they use. Most of the raw materials being supplied either by their flocks, or the pro¬
duce of their land, they are better able to continue this system, and to dispense with the use of articles imported or made by regular
workmen. In arts carried on in this manner, improvement is impossible; and while the same system exists, no taste can be excited
for a superior mode of life, nor will much encouragement be given to the establishment of manufactories. Except in the cotton
branches, and in the curing of provisions, this pernicious system is everywhere observed ; it pervades all ranks, from the nobleman,
who makes his own candles, cultivates his own patch of flax, and has it spun by his servants, to the cotter, whose wife and daughter*
spin and manufacture the frieze and woollen stuffs which serve them as clothing.” (Wakefield’s Account of Ireland, vol. i. p. 760.)
430
COTTAGE SYSTEM.
supply himself by his own labour with every thing that his
situation may require''
It deserves to be mentioned, that a minute division of
landed property, by preventing the extension and improve¬
ment of manufacturing industry, renders the occupiers of
land almost entirely dependent on its proprietors. Those
farmers who incur the displeasure of their landlords are
unable to betake themselves to another employment, and
are obliged to submit to every species of indignity. The
state of society during the middle ages approached, in
some respects, very nearly to this; and it should be re¬
membered, that the division of labour, and the extension
of commerce and manufactures, has been even more be¬
neficial, from its having effected the abolition of villenage,
and removed the grinding oppression of feudal tyranny,
than from its having multiplied the comforts and conveni-
encies of life. Nor is it less certain that every discovery
of a new channel in which industry may be advantageous¬
ly employed, affords an additional guarantee for the en¬
joyment of personal freedom and independence. By en¬
larging the field of exertion, and adding to the means of
acquiring an independent livelihood, whilst it increases the
comforts of every individual, it also renders them less lia¬
ble to be affected by derangements in any particular branch
of business, or by the partialities and caprices of those in
authority.
It is impossible that the prizes in the lottery of human
life can be too much multiplied. The greater the variety
of ways by which men may rise to eminence, the more vigo¬
rous will be the efforts to rise. Where full scope is given
to the accumulation of property, all individuals, even those
in the humblest walks of life, are cheered with the idea
that, by industry and economy, they may better their situ¬
ation, emerge from obscurity, and acquire opulence. But
in an essentially agricultural society, where the greater
part of the population is directly engaged in the culture
of the soil, there is but little variety of condition. In
such countries capital cannot be accumulated; great cities
cannot exist; and the liberal arts and professions, which
chiefly depend on them for protection and support, and to
which they owe their birth, are neither patronised nor in¬
dulged in. It is not to be imagined that cultivators, en¬
grossed, as small farmers must constantly be, with the
thoughts of providing for their present wants, can pay any
attention to schemes of general or prospective improve¬
ment. Such men have no sufficient motive to stimulate
them to exertion; and a perpetual sameness, like that of
China, or at most a nearly imperceptible progress, is all
that can be expected amongst them, and it is all that ever
will take place. It is only in countries like America or
England that the energies of man, as well as the powers
of the soil, are developed to their full extent. There,
while the diversity of the objects of pursuit gives ample
room for gratifying the diversity of dispositions, the ap¬
plause consequent on any invention that either extends
the power of man over the physical world, or enlarges his
intellectual faculties, perpetuates the discoveries made and
the spirit which makes them.
Effects of Most of the misconceptions and erroneous opinions to
the cottage be met with respecting the cottage system appear to have
s^s em. originated in hasty and premature attempts at generaliza¬
tion, founded on a few limited observations of its local
effects. But first appearances are, in this case especially,
the most fallacious. The effects observed to result from
the partial granting of cottages, furnish no clue by which
to trace the ultimate consequences of the system. On
the contrary, they are eminently calculated to mislead.
eeousat" Were cotta£es’ with sma11 Pieces of ground attached to
first. each, let at a moderate rent to a few of the most industri-
' ous labourers in the best cultivated districts of Great
Cottage
System.
A subdi¬
vision of
landed
property
renders the
occupiers
dependent
on the
landlords.
Britain, there can be no doubt that the situation of those Cottage
individuals would, in the first instance, be ameliorated. System.
They would acquire these possessions with previously-
formed habits of industry and economy. When their
own little farm did not require their exertions, they would
be able to find employment in the more extensive farms
in their vicinity; and might in this way procure the
ploughs, harrows, and carts of their neighbours to assist
them in their operations. Such men would be employed
with nearly as much effect as they would have been had
they continued as farm servants on estates managed in
the first style. It is even probable that their exertions
would, in the first instance, be rather increased, inasmuch
as a part of the labour necessary for the cultivation of the
small farm would be executed at extra hours, after the
ordinary day’s labour was performed.
But the truth of this statement is nowise inconsistent
with the principles which we have been endeavouring to
establish. The ultimate and necessary consequences of a
minute division of landed property deserve to be as much
attended to as those which are immediate and transitory
only.
In the first place, it is extremely probable that theButulti.
small farmers would, at no distant period, become dis-1113^
gusted with the life of laborious exertion which they had '*
formerly led. It is natural to suppose, that, having become013"
comparatively independent, and not being under the ne¬
cessity of constantly employing themselves, occasional in¬
tervals of relaxation would take place. A cottager, how¬
ever small his possession, has some species of produce to
dispose of. This leads to a habit of going to market, where
much precious time is lost in the adjustment of trifling
bargains. “ Nothing,” as Mr Young has justly remarked,
“ can be more absurd than a strong hearty man walking
some miles, and losing a day’s work, in order to sell a
dozen of eggs or a chicken, the value of which would not
be equal to the labour of conveying it if he were proper¬
ly employed.” Such habits, too, are almost sure to lead
to dissipation. The small farmer must have his porter and
his gin as well as the extensive farmer. It is the want of
time and opportunity, still more than the want of money,
that prevents a hired labourer from apeing the conduct of
his employers. The circumstances, too, which distinguish
a farm-servant from a farmer, are much better defined,
and more easily appreciated, than those which distinguish
a small farmer from an extensive one. The latter are
both placed, if we may use the expression, in the same
caste ; and hence the extravagances of the small farmer,
though equally hurtful to himself and his family with those
of a labourer, are less an object of animadversion in the
neighbourhood. They clash less with popular prejudices
and received opinions ; and there is, therefore, a greater
probability of their being more indulged in.
If these consequences of the introduction of small farms
should not become obvious in the lifetime of the first
occupiers, they would certainly discover themselves in
that of their successors. Not having undergone the same
rigid training as their fathers, the views and habits of the
two races would be essentially different. And the charac¬
ter of the industrious labourer, which had predominated
in the first, would, in the second, give place to that of the
half-employed, petty farmer.
But, in the second place, it is obvious that the bene¬
ficial effects observed to follow the first introduction of
small farms depend almost entirely on their occupiers hav¬
ing it in their power to employ themselves at other work
when their labour is not required at home. Now, with a
generally extended cottage system, this could not be the
case. Where all farms are small, none would require
the labour of extra hands, nor would they afford their own
COTTAGE SYSTEM.
Cottage possessors constant employment, except, perhaps, during
System, seed-time and harvest. Nor is it to be imagined that the
leisure of a poor cottager has any thing in common with
that of an extensive farmer or capitalist. The cottager is
inactive, not because he has realized funds adequate for
his support, but because no exertions can better his con¬
dition, and because there is no demand for his labour.
No man, it should be recollected, loves exertion or in¬
dustry for its own sake. All have some end or object
in view, the accomplishment of which is to compensate
for the toils and privations to which they at present sub¬
mit. But a small farmer is almost entirely cut off from
the expectation of rising in society. No person possess¬
ed of capital would ever think of embarking in such a
hopeless concern ; and after supporting a family, no small
farmer, originally without capital, is ever able to accumu¬
late any. As it is impossible for him to escape from po¬
verty, the cottager naturally becomes indolent and care¬
less. His opinions of what is necessary to his comfortable
subsistence are degraded, and he ultimately sinks into a
state of sluggish or stupid indifference.
Effects of That this is a fair picture of the state of society in every
the cot- country in which landed property is divided into minute
tage sys- p0rtionSj jg abundantly certain. But we have no occasion
Ireland. to &° frorn home to seek for an exemplification of its ef¬
fects. We have only to turn to Ireland. There the cot¬
tage system has been submitted to the test of experiment,
and it is proper that the result should be generally known.
In our inquiry into the principles of the corn laws, we
endeavoured to show that the granting of high bounties
on the exportation of corn from Ireland, in 1780 and 1784,
contributed to the extension of tillage, and to the break¬
ing up of the pasture grounds in that kingdom. But the
want of capital, and the consequent impossibility of pro¬
curing tenants capable of taking large farms, obliged the
proprietors to divide their lands into small portions. Large
tracts of old grass land were ploughed up, and let in farms
of from ten to twenty acres ; and in this way the stimulus,
intended to act as an incitement to agricultural improve¬
ment, has had a much more powerful effect in causing the
subdivision of farms, and in increasing the agricultural
population of the country.
Mr Newenham’s authority is decisive as to this fact.
“ Large farms,” he informs us, “ of from 500 to 1500 and
2000 acres, once so common in Ireland, hold actually no
sort of proportion to farms of from ten to thirty or forty
acres. In the county of Down, Mr Dubordieu says that
farms run from twenty to forty, fifty, and in some instan¬
ces as far as a hundred acres. Such is the case in most
other parts of Ireland. For several years past the land¬
lords of that county have been much in the habit of letting
their lands in small divisions. Besides this, the cottier sys¬
tem, or the giving a certain quantity of land as an equiva¬
lent for wages, prevails throughout most parts of Ireland.
In fact, upwards of four fifths of the Irish people are sub¬
sisted chiefly on the produce of the land which they hold.”
{Inquiry into the Population of Ireland, p. 270.)
Every part of Mr Wakefield’s work on Ireland abounds
with interesting information respecting the effects of this
minute division of landed property. Our limits, how¬
ever, will only permit our extracting the following pas¬
sages.
When noticing the state of landed property in Kerry,
Mr Wakefield observes: “ Few persons here occupy such
a quantity of land as to oblige them to employ a labourer ;
it is not, therefore, customary for people to go from their
own homes to work, and, indeed, none but those who have
taken very dear farms, and experience the necessity of
procuring a little ready money, ever think of it. This sys¬
tem, considered in a public point of view, strikes me as
431
being exceedingly injurious. A country occupied by in- Cottage
habitants whose ambition is so limited that they have no System,
desire to push their industry beyond that indolent exer-
4ion which procures them the bare necessaries of life, must
remain without improvement. Such people cannot be said
to live, but to exist; to supply their animal wants is the
chief object of their labour, and if they can raise money
enough, by the sale of butter and pigs, to pay their rent,
all their care and anxiety is ended. The existence, how¬
ever, of these wretched beings depends entirely on the
season; for if their potato crop fails, they are in danger
of being starved. This mode of life, instead of elevating
the moral faculties in the slightest degree, tends only to
depress and degrade them. It becomes the parent of idle¬
ness, the worst evil that can afflict human nature; and
that habit, if it spreads or becomes general, must lead to
national poverty, and even want, with its concomitants,
vice and misery.” (Account of Ireland, vol. i. p. 262.)
“ In Fermanagh,” says he, “ whether it arises from ha¬
bit, or a natural propensity to indolence, the people do not
rise until a late hour in the morning, and the cows are not
milked till noon. There being but a poor market for the
produce of the earth, little encouragement is afforded to
industry; they therefore seldom think of turning their time
to the best advantage.” (Account of Ireland, vol. ii. p.
745.)
In his chapter on rural economy, Mr Wakefield makes
the following observations : “ The Irish cottier’s only anx¬
iety is, that the butter and the pig sold, and the labour
given to his landlord, may be equal in value to the pay¬
ment which he has to make. When satisfied on this head,
his mind is at rest; he has no further wants, and neither
he nor his family consider labour as of any importance to
their happiness. His potatoes are left in the ground till
the commencement of frost makes him apprehend that his
food may be locked up in the earth; and though very
great inconvenience has been occasioned by this negli¬
gence, the repeated experiment of the bad result arising
from it has not yet been able to induce the peasantry of
Ireland to adopt a better method. It is very common to
hear persons of higher rank observe, when a very early
frost takes place, that £ it is a fortunate event, as it will
oblige the poor to dig up their potatoes’ (for the poor
and the cultivator of the soil are here synonymous ex¬
pressions) ; and of course they will be saved before a se¬
verer one sets in.” (Account of Ireland, vol. i. p. 517 and
583.)
It is not necessary to quote authorities to prove the mi¬
serable state of the hovels in which the cottagers reside.
Notwithstanding his prejudices in their favour, Mr New-
enham admits “ that a bedstead is a luxury which a great
majority of the Irish labouring poor are strangers to. And
as for clocks, warming-pans, frying-pans, tea-kettles, cups
and saucers, &c. which we find in every cottage here, I
believe it is unnecessary to say that they never consti¬
tute a part of the poor Irishman’s furniture.” (Inquiry re¬
specting the Population of Ireland, p. 280.)
We shall close these statements with an extract from
Mr Curwen’s work on Ireland. That experienced agricul¬
turist travelled through the greater part of it in 1813, and,
after having carefully inquired into the condition of the
small farmers and cottagers, gave the result of his inves¬
tigation in the following terms: “ The size of farms, from
fifteen to thirty acres, would give an average of about
twenty-two or twenty-three acres to each. Portions of
these are again sublet to cottiers, whose rents are paid by
labour done for the tenants, from whom they sometimes
receive milk and some other necessaries. These running
accounts are an endless source of dissatisfaction, of dis¬
pute, and of contention, at the quarter-sessions. In some
432
COTTAGE SYSTEM.
Cottage of the more populous parts of Ireland there is supposed
System, to be an inhabitant for every acre, while the cultivation of
the soil, as now practised, does not afford employment for
a third of that population. In the north, where the linen
trade has been established, the lower classes are weavers,
which gives them a great superiority over the southern
districts. The labour on the highways and great roads,
for which such large assessments are made on the coun¬
ties, afford, for a portion of the year, a great source of em¬
ployment.
“ The minute subdivision of lands among these occu¬
pants is attended with many serious evils. The rents of
these sublet parcels become so high to the actual cultiva¬
tors as to preclude all profitable returns from their labour.
It affords too great a facility to marriage. The popula¬
tion becomes increased beyond the capital of the country
employed in husbandry; and the supernumerary indivi¬
duals are compelled to subsist on the produce of others’
labour, to which they have no power of contributing. The
aggregate number of horses is greater than would be re¬
quired if the estates were distributed into moderately
sized farms ; while the want of farming buildings, besides
other disadvantages, prevents the accumulation of manure.
“ The labourers, with few exceptions, are all married.
The farmers have no hired servants of either sex residing
in their dwellings; this is another serious evil arising out
of small farms. Ireland, which in extent is nearly equal
to one half of Great Britain, does not probably employ
one tenth of the agricultural servants.
“ The buildings on every farm being erected at the ex¬
pense of the tenant, are necessarily on the most limited
scale, seldom more than a cabin, and this insufficient for the
children of the family beyond their earliest days. As the
children grow up, they are compelled to seek another
establishment for themselves, and to hazard every conse¬
quence that may ensue. Alternative they have none.
The interests of all parties suffer, and it would be for the
advantage of the whole community to promote a radical
reform of the present disreputable system.”
Effects of
the divi¬
sion into
small free¬
hold pro¬
perties.
Such are the ruinous effects produced by the small
farming system. And such, too, with some few excep¬
tions, would be the effects of having a country parcelled
out into small freehold properties. A few words will
be sufficient to show the similarity of the cases.
First, It is obvious that the division of labour would be
quite as inapplicable in a country divided into small pro¬
perties as in one occupied by small farmers. The proprie¬
tor of ten, twenty, or fifty acres, can as little afford to keep
ploughmen, hedgers, thrashers, &c- as the person who
holds them on lease. But whatever may be the capital of
the occupier of a small farm, its size will not admit of its
being farmed so as to yield the largest quantity of produce
with the least possible expenditure of labour.
It may be supposed, perhaps, that, in countries occu¬
pied entirely by proprietors, raw produce may be sold at
a cheaper rate than in those occupied by farmers, who, in
addition to the expense of labour, are burdened with the
payment of rent. This, however, is really not the case. The
price of raw produce, as well as of manufactured commodi¬
ties, is determined by the quantity of labour necessary to
its production. Rent, it has been demonstrated, does not
enter into price. Corn is not high because rent is paid,
but rent is paid because corn is high; and no reduction
would take place in the price of corn although landlords
should relinquish the whole of their rent. Such a measure
would turn some farmers into landlords, and some land¬
lords into beggars; but it would not diminish the quan¬
tity of labour necessary to raise corn on the least produc¬
tive land in cultivation ; and it is this quantity which deter¬
mines its price, and consequently the price of the whole Cottage
crop. System.
Although, therefore, it cannot be doubted that the con-
dition of the greater part of the occupiers of land, in a
country held by small proprietors, must, upon the whole,
be preferable to their condition in a country held by small
farmers, the condition of every other class would be un¬
affected. The price of corn is the same whether it is rais¬
ed by a small farmer or a small proprietor. Neither of
them is able to bring his produce to market upon the same
reasonable terms as an extensive farmer. The profits of
stock would, therefore, be less than in countries where
agriculturists are in a situation to adopt every expedient
by which labour may be saved or rendered more efficient;
and the power of the society to accumulate wealth would
be proportionally diminished.
In the second place, small properties, as well as small
farms, have a strong tendency to increase the agricultural
population of a country in a ratio far exceeding the de¬
mand. A property of forty or fifty acres of good land
might support a single family in tolerably easy circum¬
stances; but what is to become of the children? No coun¬
try, it will be remembered, which is divided into small oc¬
cupancies, can ever furnish surplus produce sufficient, af¬
ter satisfying the w^ants of the cultivators, to feed a nume¬
rous body of merchants, handicraftsmen, &c.; nor would
small occupiers have any demand for the products or ser¬
vices of such persons. There could therefore be no de¬
mand for that surplus population which an agricultural
societ}' is always producing; and the division of the pa¬
ternal property would be the only way in which families
could be provided for. This, however, is only calculated to
make bad worse. Farms of forty or fifty acres are not inca¬
pable of pretty good cultivation; but those of twenty or twen¬
ty-five, and still more of ten or twelve acres, must be ill cul¬
tivated. But in essentially agricultural countries, such, for
example, as France, where the right of primogeniture is
almost unknown, and where property must be divided in
nearly equal portions amongst all the children of a family,
properties can hardly fail to be reduced even below ten
acres. They must, in fact, be perpetually lessening, until,
to use the words of Mr Young, when pointing out the
pernicious effects of this system in France, “ you arrive
at the limit beyond which the earth, cultivate it as you
please, will feed no more mouths; yet those simple man¬
ners, which instigate to marriage, still continue. What
then is the consequence, but the most dreadful imagina¬
ble. By persevering in this system, you soon would ex¬
ceed the populousness of China, where the putrid carcasses
of dogs, cats, rats, and every species of filth and vermin,
are sought with avidity, to sustain the life of wretches
who were born only to be starved. Small properties much
divided prove the greatest source of misery that can pos¬
sibly be conceived; and this has operated to such an ex¬
tent and degree in France, that a law undoubtedly ought
to be passed, to render all division, below a certain num¬
ber of arpents, illegal.” {Travels in France, vol. i. pp.
413, 414.)
The condition of the agricultural classes in France has
been materially ameliorated since Mr Young visited that
kingdom. The abolition of the feudal privileges of the
nobility and clergy, and of the gabelle, corvee, and other
grievously oppressive and partial burdens, would of it¬
self have sufficed to make the farmers and small pro¬
prietors more respectable and comfortable. A great part
too of the property of the church, and of the emigrants,
came into their hands at extremely low prices. By this
means small properties were augmented, and fresh energy
was given to the agriculturists. Still, however, the ex¬
treme division of landed property, which, in consequence
COTTAGE SYSTEM.
433
Cottage of the law of equal partition, is every day becoming more
System, minute, and the consequent excess of the rural popula-
tion, form the prime evils in the social condition of the
people of France. “ The population of that country,”
says Mr Birkbeck, “ seems to be arranged thus :—A town
depends for subsistence on the lands immediately around
it. The cultivators individually have not much to spare;
because, as their husbandry is a sort of gardening, it re¬
quires a large country population, and has, in proportion,
less superfluity of produce. Thus is formed a numerous
but poor population. The cultivator receives payment
of his surplus produce in sous, and he expends only sous.
The tradesman is on a par with the farmer; as they re¬
ceive so they expend; and thus 50,000 persons may in¬
habit a district, with a town of 10,000 inhabitants in the
centre of it, bartering the superfluity of the country for
the arts and manufactures of the town ; poor from genera¬
tion to generation, and growing continually poorer as they
increase in numbers, in the country by the division and
subdivision of property, in the town by the division and
subdivision of trades and professions. Such a people, in¬
stead of proceeding from the necessaries to the comforts of
life, and then to the luxuries, as is the order of things in
England, are rather retrograde than progressive. There
is no advancement in French society; no improvement,
nor hope of it.” ( Tour in France, 4th edit. p. 34.)1
Whether It has been said, that property in land is of all others
property the most active instigator to severe and incessant labour.
themost6 ^1's’ however’ 's a very doubtful proposition. It is true,
efficient ^iat ^ie exert‘ons °f a little proprietor are not paralyzed
instigator V ^le apprehension of being turned out of his farm before
to labour, he has reaped the reward of his labours. But, on the other
hand, his certainty of a resource, his dependence on a small
piece of ground from which he cannot be ejected, and which
will preserve him from absolute want, joined to the impos¬
sibility of his rising in the world, foster indolent habits.
A farmer can never calculate with certainty on getting a
renewal of his lease. Unless he has accumulated some
capital, he is always exposed to the risk of being thrown
destitute upon the world ; but it is not so with the small
proprietor. He relies for support, not upon capital, but
upon land. He is exempted from all chance of being turn¬
ed out of his possession ; and he has not therefore the same
powerful motive to save and accumulate as the other.
The small proprietors and farmers of France, Mr Birkbeck
informs us, “ having absolutely no means of improving their
situation, submit to necessity, and pass their lives content¬
edly.” The same is the case in Great Britain. “ Through¬
out England there is no comparison between the case of a
day-labourer and of a little farmer: we have no people
that work so hard and fare so ill as the latter.” (Young’s
Travels in France, vol. i. p. 415.) And those counties of
Scotland, Kinross for example, in which property is very
much divided, are uniformly behind in their agriculture,
and are farmed in a very inferior style to those where
estates are more extensive.
It is foreign to the object of this article to compare the
moral and political effects produced by the division of
landed property into large and small portions. We shall
merely observe, that a needy population, but scantily sup¬
plied with the necessaries, and enjoying very few of the
comforts of life, is not very likely to be imbued with a just
sense, either of the dignity of man or of his rights. An
agricultural population, spread over a wide extent of coun¬
try, has no point of re-union. Men only feel their conse¬
quence ; they only act in a collective capacity, and with
vigour and effect, after they have been condensed into
masses and collected in cities. It is comparatively easy
to animate the inhabitants of a large town with the same
spirit; there is a sympathy in their joys and in their suf¬
ferings; and the redress of an injury done to a single in¬
dividual becomes, in some measure, the business of the
whole. But with agriculturists the case is different; they
may be trampled down piecemeal; they cannot act col¬
lectively, and must, therefore, submit with less resistance
to the yoke of the oppressor. Of all the arguments in fa¬
vour of a minute division of landed property, that which
supposes it should powerfully contribute to keep alive a
feeling of manly independence, seems the most futile and
preposterous.
Cottage
System.-
As a plan for relieving the distresses of the poor, the Effects of
cottage system is perhaps the very worst that can be de-the cottage
vised. It should always be borne in mind, that except s-vs.ten.1 *or
in the case of maimed and impotent persons, there can‘ the^cbs”^
not, generally speaking, be any poor in a country, that de- tresseTof
serve to be relieved, unless the population be redundant, the poor.
As long as the supply of labour does not exceed the de¬
mand, the whole industrious part of the community may
be employed; none but the idle and profligate can be
without work, and the means of subsistence; and it will
not, we presume, be contended that cottages ought to be
built for their reception. In all cases, however, where the
poverty and distress of the people proceed from a redun¬
dancy of population,—and that is the case wherever in¬
dustrious persons are unable to procure wages sufficient
to purchase the ordinary necessaries and comforts of life
—it would surely be most absurd to attempt to improve
their condition by introducing a system, which, whatever
might be its immediate effects, would lead to a still greater
redundancy of population. Now, this would most unques¬
tionably be the consequence of the introduction of the
cottage system. A person who gets possession of a cot¬
tage and a small piece of ground, finds himself in a situa¬
tion to marry. Being no longer dependent for mere sub¬
sistence on the good will of his employers, but feeling,
if not an increase of wealth, at least an increase of secu-
rity against want, the cottager is naturally stimulated to
contract that engagement, into which men are otherwise
sufficiently prone to enter. A cottage could not indeed
be of any use to a single man. Either a wife or a female
servant would be required to superintend its domestic eco¬
nomy ; and as a cottager could not afford to pay wages,
it is easy to perceive which of the two he would prefer.
No person would think of attempting to relieve the dis¬
tress occasioned by a bad harvest, or by any sudden de¬
rangement of the affairs of the commercial world, by pro¬
posing the adoption of a cottage system. The plan of
granting cottages has only been recommended in cases
where a permanent difficulty has been experienced in pro¬
curing employment. But in every such case the cure is
worse than the disease. Where the population is redun¬
dant,—and an industrious man can never be long without
employment from any other cause,—it should be our object
not to accelerate, but to retard the rate of its increase—
not to increase, but to diminish the number of cottages.
Unluckily, we are not left to argue speculatively on Influence
these points, or to refer for illustrations to France andofthecot-
Ireland. England furnishes examples both of the advan- tage sys-
tage of throwing obstacles in the way of the erection ofpln ,in ,
cottages, and of the evils attending their too great multi- gand*
uAor.further information as to the effects of the present French law of succession, see the note on the “ Disposal of Property by
Will,” in the fourth volume of M‘Culloch’s edition of the Wealth of Nations.
VOL. VII. q T
434 COTTAGE SYSTEM.
Cottage plication. Some of the latter had manifested themselves
System, at a very early period; and in the 31st of Elizabeth an
act was passed “ for the avoiding of the great inconve¬
niences which are found by experience to grow, by the
erecting and building of great numbers and multitudes of
cottages, which are daily more and more increased in
many parts of this realm.” To counteract the evil, it was
enacted that in future no cottage should be built, to which
four acres of land were not attached. 1 his statute con¬
tributed to check the increase of cottages; but we are
clearly of opinion that the poor-laws have opposed by
far the most formidable obstacle to their multiplication,
and consequently to that of the agricultural population.
As soon as they were enacted, landlords and occupiers
saw, that if, by the erection of cottages, the splitting of
farms, or otherwise, the population upon their estates or
occupancies was unduly augmented, they would be bur¬
dened with the support of all who, from old age, sick¬
ness, want of employment, or any other cause, might
become at any future period unable to provide for them¬
selves. The wish to avoid incurring any such indefinite
responsibility not only rendered landlords and farmers
exceedingly cautious about admitting new settlers upon
their estates and farms, but stimulated them, whenever the
demand for labour was not pretty brisk and constant, to
take measures for diminishing the population, and for hin¬
dering its increase beyond its proper level, by pulling down
cottages, and preventing their being rebuilt. The influence
of this principle has been most powerful. In proof of this
we might refer to a host of authorities; but the following
extract from a work of Arthur Young, published in 1771,
will probably be deemed sufficient: “ One great inducement
to marriage is the finding without difficulty a comfortable
habitation; and another, nearly as material, when such re¬
quisite is found, to be able to exercise in it whatever busi¬
ness a man has been educated to, or brought up in. The
first of these points is no easy matter to be accomplished ;
for it is too much the interest of a parish, both landlords
and tenants, to decrease the cottages in it, and, above all, to
prevent their increase, so that, in process of time, habitations
are extremely difficult to be procured. There is no parish
but had much rather that its young labourers would con¬
tinue single ; in that case they are not in danger of becom¬
ing chargeable ; but, when married, the case alters : all ob¬
structions are, therefore, thrown in the way of their mar¬
rying ; and none more immediately than rendering it as
difficult as possible for the men, when married, to procure
a house to live in ; and this conduct is found so conducive
to easing the rates, that it universally gives rise to an
open war against cottages. How often do gentlemen who
have possessions in a parish, when cottages come to sale,
purchase them, and immediately raze them to the foun¬
dation, that they may never become the nests., as they
are called, of beggars' brats, by which means their tenants
are not so burdened in their rates, and their farms let bet¬
ter ; for the rates are considered as much by tenants as
the rent. In this manner cottages are the perpetual ob¬
jects ofjealousy, the young inhabitants are prevented from
marrying, and population is obstructed.” (Farmer s Let¬
ters, 3d edit. vol. i. pp. 300-302.)
We are inclined to think that the comparatively slow in¬
crease ot the agricultural population of England, down to
the beginning of last war, and the high wages received by
the labourers, are mainly attributable to the circumstances
now stated. But since the alteration of the poor-laws
in 1795, the obstacles to the increase of cottages have
been to a considerable extent removed, at least in some
considerable districts in the south, and the inconveniences
thence resulting have been most striking. In several in¬
stances the parochial overseers have agreed to pay the
rents of the cottages occupied by paupers; and as the Cottage
assessment for the poor is not imposed on houses, but on System,
the land according to its value, the owners of small patches
have, in many instances, been tempted to cover them with
cottages, to the great injury of the more extensive land-
owners of the parish, who are in fact obliged to pay their
rents. This system has had the most pernicious opera¬
tion. It has acted as an incentive to premature mar¬
riages, and, in many districts, has increased the supply
of labour much beyond the demand. Some very inte¬
resting evidence upon this subject was given before the
Committee of the House of Commons on Emigration in
1826. A most intelligent witness, Mr Hodges, M. P. for
Kent, expressed himself as follows ; “ I am quite satisfied
that the erection of cottages has been a most serious evil
throughout the country ; and I have been induced, acting
on that conviction, to concur with other cottage proprie¬
tors, who are going to take down from twenty-six to
thirty cottages as soon as the present occupants are out
of them, if they emigrate, as we think they will do ; for if
we leave the buildings standing, young persons of seventeen
and eighteen years of age, and even younger, would marry
immediately, and thus the evil would continue.” (Report,
p. 136.) And in another place, Mr Hodges says, “ Perhaps
I am taking a liberty in adverting to what I stated the
other day ; but without an attention to the fact then dis¬
closed, of the prodigious increase of cottages of late years,
all other regulations will be nugatory; and I cannot for¬
bear urging again, that this, or any similar measure, hav¬
ing for its object the relief of parishes from their over¬
population, must of necessity become perfectly useless,
unless the act contain some regulations with respect to
the erecting and maintaining of cottages.” (Report, p.
185.) The evidence of other witnesses is precisely
similar to this.
In Yorkshire, and all the north of England, where the per¬
nicious practice of mixing up poor-rates and wages has not
been introduced, cottages have not been unduly increased,
and the poor are comparatively prosperous. We do there¬
fore think that no time should be lost in bringing forward
some legislative measure, capable of checking the progress
of the evil pointed out by Mr Hodges; and this might be
done either by making the owners of all cottages respon¬
sible for their occupants, or by making the assessments to
the poor proportional to the population on the land as well
as to its value. It is not to be endured, that the proprie¬
tor of a few acres should be allowed, by covering them
with cottages, and letting them to occupants for whom
there is no demand, to reduce the whole labouring popu¬
lation of a parish to a state of pauperism, and to bring
a heavy burden on the owners of the land and other pro¬
perty, that he may put a few pounds into his pocket. The
longer we delay grappling with the evil, it will become the
more formidable, and the more difficult to put down. But
either of the measures nowT suggested would arrest its pro¬
gress ; and were they combined with a judiciously devised
system of emigration, the surplus labourers by which some
districts are now oppressed might be easily got rid of, and
the labouring population restored to its former sound and
healthy state.
Neither the circumstance of the cottage system increas¬
ing the price of food by preventing the accumulation of
capital and the improvement of machinery, nor its tenden¬
cy to diffuse idleness and dissipation, is half so injurious
to the labouring classes, as its influence in factitiously sti¬
mulating population. Although it were possible, and cer¬
tainly it is not, immediately to provide for all the paupers
in England, by granting them cottages and small pieces
of land at a moderate rent, in the course of a few years
COT COT 435
Cottapa- we should be in a much worse situation than at present,
tam What would become of the pauper families ? If the cot-
11 tage system be once fairly introduced, where shall it stop?
Cotton. jt wag pr0per t0 relieve the distresses of the sires in
this way, why not apply it to those of the sons ? The call
for relief in the latter case would be more pressing than
in the former, inasmuch as the population would be more
superabundant. It would then be impossible to retrace
our steps. A fresh allotment of cottages would become
necessary, and a fresh stimulus would be applied to popu¬
lation. In this way the cottage system would at length
overspread the whole country. “ The principle of gravi¬
tation,” to borrow the language of Mr Ricardo, “ is not
more certain than the tendency of such a system to change
wealth and power into misery and weakness; to call away
the exertion of labour from every object except that of
providing mere subsistence; to confound all intellectual
distinction; to busy the mind continually in supplying
the body’s wants ; until at last all classes should be in¬
fected with the plague of universal poverty.”
The fact that the cottage system tends to give a facti¬
tious stimulus to population, and hence to cause a reduc¬
tion of the real wages of labour, is of itself sufficient to sa¬
tisfy every unprejudiced inquirer of its pernicious influence
on the lower classes. But its bad effects would not stop
there. After landed property had been divided into minute
portions, and population had begun to press against the
limits of subsistence, cottagers, in order to preserve their
families from want, would resort to such crops as supply the
greatest quantity of food on the smallest extent of ground.
An extensive farmer cultivates those only which yield
the largest net profit. But the small farmer must look to
other considerations; the necessities of those depending
on him for support must first be provided for. He must
have food before he begins to think of profit. A cottager
with five, ten, or fifteen acres of land, could not support
himself and a family on wheaten bread and butcher-meat.
He would be forced to resort to some less expensive food,
—to relinquish first one enjoyment and then another; and,
descending step by step, according as the increase of po¬
pulation increased the competition for cottages, potatoes
would at length constitute his only fare.
Although the price of labour fluctuates with every fluc¬
tuation of the demand and supply, it is, like every other
thing, possessed of exchangeable value, ultimately regu¬
lated by the expense of production. Where labourers
consider neat cottages, comfortable clothes, bread, beef,
tea, and the like, necessary to their comfortable and decent
subsistence—and where, unless they have a prospect of be¬
ing able to command these enjoyments, they are less in¬
clined to marry—wages are necessarily high. But, under
the cottage system, wages would not merely experience a
temporary depression from an excessive supply, but would
be permanently reduced. It would supply workmen at a
comparatively small expense. And wages, being no longer
regulated by the price of wheat, beef, and other such ar¬
ticles, but by that of potatoes, a species of food raised at the Cotton,
least possible cost, they would sink to the very lowest point. V'—
From the fact of manufactured commodities generally
falling, and of raw produce generally rising (See Princi¬
ples of Corn Laws), in the progress of society, such a dis¬
proportion in their values is at length created, that, in those
countries where labourers are chiefly supported on corn,
beef, «fec., and where wages must of course be mainly re¬
gulated by their price, they are able, by sacrificing a
small portion of their food, to provide liberally for all their
other wants. But where the potato forms the ordinary
food of the lower classes, the operation of this principle is
scarcely perceptible. Potatoes, it is true, as well as corn,
rise in real value as society advances, or as it becomes
necessary to raise them on poorer soils; but, under any
circumstances, the labour required to produce as many
potatoes as will feed a workman, bears but a small pro¬
portion to that which is required to produce corn or but¬
cher-meat for the same purpose. In a comparative point
of view, therefore, very little additional command over
manufactured commodities would be gained by the la¬
bourer who diminished his consumption of potatoes ; and
hence the actual condition of a population chiefly depend¬
ent on that root is not only much worse than it would be
were they dependent on some more expensive food, but
their future prospects are rendered still more gloomy and
discouraging.
It would not be an easy task to enumerate all the evils
to which a country is exposed, where the real wages of
labour are reduced extremely low, or where they are re¬
gulated by the price of the cheapest species of food ; but
they are unquestionably of an appaling description. Where
wealth is accumulated, the more opulent and middle classes,
and even the lower orders, consume considerably more
than the mere necessaries of life. In a season of scarcity,
this consumption being diminished, has the same effect as
the importation of an additional supply of provisions from
abroad. But where the mass of the population is reduced
to a dependence on mere necessaries, they cannot dimi¬
nish their consumption. In a nation in this situation, con¬
sumption remains nearly the same, and a deficient crop
is sure to entail disease, famine, and death, on a consi¬
derable portion of the community. This is no very al¬
luring prospect held out by the cottage system, but it
would be fully realized. When a bad harvest happens
in a country abounding in capital and manufactures, these
are exported, and corn is brought home from every quar¬
ter of the world. But what superfluous produce would a
nation of cottagers, or rather, we should say, of paupers,
have to dispose of? Millions die in China and Hindustan
whenever there is any serious deficit in the rice crop.
The extremity of want is felt in Ireland when the potato
is not ordinarily productive ; and the sole reason why fa¬
mines are not so frequent as in China is, that the cottage
system is not yet universally introduced, and that some
capitalists are still to be found in that country, (j. R. m.)
COTTAPATAM, a town of Hindustan, on the sea-coast
of the Southern Carnatic, 65 miles south from Tanjore.
E. Long. 79. 15.; N. Lat. 9. 58.
COTTBUS, a town of Prussia. See Kottbus.
COTTIWAR, a town of India. See Kattywar.
COTTON (Gossypium) is a vegetable down of exqui¬
site softness, with beautifully fine fibres, and is an indi¬
genous product of all intertropical regions. Linnaeus sub¬
divided the cotton plant into live species :—1, Gossypium
herbaceum; 2, G. arboreum; 3, G. Jursutum; 4, G. reli-
giosum; 5, G. barbadense.
Other authorities have enumerated as manyas ten species,
but for all practical purposes the division into three classes
will be sufficiently minute. The varieties are exceedingly
numerous; yet of those most widely diffused, herbaceous
cotton, shrub cotton, and tree cotton, need only be especially
referred to. The most useful cotton is the herbaceous,
which is an annual plant chiefly cultivated in the United
States and in the East Indies. It grows from two to five
feet in height, is rich in foliage, and its fibrous fruit is pre¬
ceded by flowers, of white or pale yellow colour, like those
of the convolvulus. As the flowers fade, a pod, or capsule.
436 COTTON.
Cotton, is formed of the size of a small walnut, containing the fibres
of cotton, and as the pod ripens it expands, and the snow-
white fibres burst forth ready to be gathered.
In the United States the seed of the herbaceous cotton is
sown generally in the months of March and April, and its mar¬
ketable fruit is usually gathered in the period commencing
with August and terminating with the year. Boweds and
Orleans cottons constitute the great productions of the
United States, and are recognised in the English and Eu¬
ropean markets as “ American cotton.” These cottons are
chiefly cultivated in the great valley of the Mississippi, the
fields of its growth now extending to the Texas. The cxd-
tivation of cotton in the United States is most scientifically
and industriously pursued, and is attended with highly pro¬
fitable results, the value of the crop being little less than
thirty millions of pounds sterling. It is expected that in
1854 the entire crop will amount to three and a-half millions
of bags, of more than 400 lb. each. But the skill of the Ame¬
rican planter has been most conspicuous in the production of
fine sea islands cotton. The seed of this cotton, which is
also an annual and herbaceous plant, was obtained in 1786,
in the Bahama Islands, where it had been introduced from
the West Indies, and was first cultivated in Georgia. The
small islands which extend along the American coast from
Charleston to Savannah were found, from their sandy soil
and contiguity to the sea, to be admirably adapted to the
production of exquisitely fine, long, and strong stapled cot¬
ton. This cotton soon acquired great and deserved celebrity.
A great demand arose for it; but from the limited extent of
the islands upon which it can be grown, and the expense
attending its cultivation, it can only be supplied at a com¬
paratively high price. Hence the production of this cotton
was not susceptible of indefinite extension like the shorter
stapled cottons of the United States ; and from the begin¬
ning to the middle of the present century the total yearly
amount of the crop has not greatly varied, the annual yield
averaging about ten millions of pounds weight. From the
circumstance of the seed of this cotton having been first in¬
troduced into Georgia, it was consequently called Georgia
cotton, though its cultivation had only been successful upon
the sea-coast of that state. Its celebrity, however, caused
it to be planted upon the high lands of Georgia, where it was
found to degenerate ; but still the quality, though shortened
in staple, was found to be of a desirable class, and it acquired
the name of uplands, or bowed Georgia cotton, whilst the
same seed yielded the famed sea islands cotton. Here it
may be observed that a humid atmosphere and a sandy soil
seem most conducive to the production of good useful cot¬
ton ; but for the growth of very fine and long stapled cotton
an impregnation of salt both in the soil and in the air ap¬
pears to be indispensable.
Without the energy of the American planter, it is diffi¬
cult to conceive the possibility of the cotton trade of Eng¬
land and of the world attaining the extent and importance
which it now possesses. As the colonies of Great Britain—
the West Indies in particular—possessed all the natural
advantages of soil and climate for producing cotton to
an extent much beyond the probable consumption of the
United Kingdom, it might reasonably have been inferred
that the colonial interests alone would have stimulated the
cultivation and production of cotton to supply the certain
and increasing home demands of the constantly enlarging
manufactories. Whether the fatality of protection to the
English colonies, maladministration of colonial affairs, or
supineness on the part of the colonists themselves, produced
the indifference which caused an article of increasing im¬
portance like cotton to be neglected when remunerative
markets were opening for indefinite supplies of it—may be
wisely inquired into, not to remedy the past, but for the pur¬
pose of ascertaining how far a new and profitable direction
may be given for the future to colonial labours and efforts;
for the stigma will remain, that whilst arts and inventions Cotton,
were being developed at home which became the sources of
great national wealth, the cultivation of the material on which
to exercise the skill and labour of the mother country had
to be sought and obtained from a foreign source.
In the British East Indies the cultivation and the manu¬
facture of cotton have certainly existed longer than in any
other country. For five centuries before the Christian era,
cotton was largely used in the domestic manufactures of
India, and the clothing of the Hindus then consisted chiefly
of garments made from that vegetable product. Ear¬
liest in possession of the herbaceous cotton plant, the na¬
tives of India were enabled to manipulate its fibres, and
to establish a cotton-manufacturing industry which has re¬
mained almost unchanged to the present time. More than
two thousand years before Europe or England conceived
the idea of applying modern industry to the manufacture of
cotton, India had matured a system of hand-spinning, weav¬
ing, and dyeing, which during that vast period of time re¬
ceived no recorded improvement. With a plant indigenous
to the soil, and a people remarkable for intelligence, when
Europe was in a state of barbarism, it is wonderful that no
approximation was made to the mechanical manufacturing
operations of modern times, and still more strange that the
agricultural production of cotton should not within that
period have been improved and considerably enlarged.
The cotton of India during its known existence can only
be regarded as a material for manufacture greatly inferior
to the like productions of other countries. India unques¬
tionably possesses soil, climate, and all the requisite ele¬
ments from nature for the cultivation of cotton to an almost
boundless extent, and of a quality which might be most
useful and acceptable in the manufactures of Europe, and
even of America. During a series of years the weight of
cotton grown in the East Indies and consumed in Great
Britain may have been one-tenth of the whole, whilst the
value cannot be estimated at more than one-twentieth of
the total cost of home-consumed raw cotton. The British
West Indies supply only small portions of the cotton re¬
quired by the manufacturers of the United Kingdom, though
the quality of the cotton there produced is excellent; and
would be very largely bought and consumed if it were largely
supplied. For a considerable time the British colonies have
not supplied more than one-twentieth part of the British
consumption of cotton, and yet in the possession of Great
Britain there exists a greater extent of land suited to the
growth of cotton than in any other dominion. At Port Natal
cotton of excellent quality might be grown to any reasonable
extent; and in Australia, cotton equal to the finest of the
fine might be produced to an almost indefinite amount.
Brazil is an extensive cotton-growing country, and sends
steady supplies of it to the European markets. The quality
of its cotton is everywhere highly esteemed.
Persia, Spain, Italy, Malta, and the adjacent countries, are
all capable of producing excellent cotton; but in Africa
there are probably greater undeveloped resources for the
cultivation of cotton than can be found in any other portion
of the globe.
The example of Egypt is a great lesson for the gover¬
nors of those countries whose agricultural resources remain
undeveloped. In 1821 Mehemet Ali conceived the possi¬
bility of effectually cultivating cotton, and succeeded. From
that year to the present time large supplies of that useful
and now indispensable raw material have been obtained
from Egypt, to the great convenience of the British manu¬
facturer, who has found the quality second only to the sea
islands cotton of the United States.
The herbaceous cotton plant unquestionably exhibits
all the desirable qualities of cotton applicable to manufac¬
tures, as proved by the productions of the United States
and of the East Indies. The cottons produced in the W est
COTTON MANUFACTURE.
Cotton Indies, in Brazil, and in Egypt, are from the shrub ; and it is
Manufac- observed that the older the plant the coarser become the fibres.
ture. Tree cotton, as a marketable product, is almost unknown;
v—but in Borneo, and in many other tropical regions, the plant
on which it grows is found flourishing in a wild state. To
ensure economy of culture, and of gathering the cotton as it
opens and ripens, it is evident that the plant and the shrub
are most accessible, and that the tree cannot always be either
safely or conveniently climbed to obtain its downy fruit.
In modern times, no material on which the industry of
437
mankind is exerted can be compared with the vast impor- Cotton
tance of that beneficent gift of providence, cotton. Millions Manufac-
of our fellow-creatures depend upon its cultivation and mani- ture'
pulation for support. Capitalists embark in its production
and manufacture; as also in its trading and mercantile dis¬
tribution. National resources are enlarged and benefited
by it; and to Great Britain it has proved a fountain of
wealth, from which streams of prosperity have flowed from
the time of its first introduction as an agent of labour and
traffic to the present moment. (t. b—Y.)
COTTON MANUFACTURE.
The manufacture of cotton had its origin in the East, where
the cotton plant is indigenous, and where the climate renders
alight and absorbent fabric a suitable clothing for the people.
It has in consequence been long established over every part
of Asia, although it was only in India that the fabric was
manufactured extensively, with a view to foreign exchange.
Cotton Arrian mentions cotton cloth among the commodities
manufac- which the Romans brought from India; but the quantity
ture in imported by them was inconsiderable, arising from the pre-
India. ference which they gave to woollen clothing. Dr Robert¬
son remarks, that the difference between the cargoes import¬
ed from India in ancient and in modern times appears to
have arisen, not from any diversity in the nature of the
goods prepared for sale in that country, but from variety in
the tastes or in the wants of the nations with which they
have successively traded.
The implements used by the Indians in the ftifferent pro¬
cesses of the cotton manufacture, from the cleaning of the
wool to its conversion into the finest muslin, may be pur¬
chased for the value of a few shillings, and are of so rude
and simple a construction as to be evidently the invention
of a very early period. With the exception of the loom,
none of them deserves the name of a machine, or displays
the slightest mechanical ingenuity. They spin the yarn
upon the distaff; and yet, with all the advantages which we
in this country derive from machinery, we have only recently
been able to equal, either in fineness or quality, the yarn
which is produced by means of this primitive instrument.
The well managed use of the finger and thumb of the In¬
dian spinner, patiently and carefully applied in the formation
of the thread, and the moisture at the same time communi¬
cated to it, are found to have the effect of incorporating the
fibres of the cotton more perfectly than can be accomplished
by our most improved machines.
The loom is composed of a few sticks or reeds, which the
Indian carries about with him, and puts up in the fields
under the shade of a tree, or at the side of his cottage. He
digs a hole large enough to contain his legs and the lower
part of the “ geer,” and fastens the balances to some conve¬
nient branch over head. Two loops underneath the geer,
in which he inserts his great toes, serve as treadles; and he
employs the shuttle, formed like a large netting needle, but
of a length somewhat exceeding the breadth of the cloth,
as “ battoon,” using it alternately to draw through the weft
and strike it up. The reed is the only part of the weaving
apparatus which approaches, in the perfection of its con¬
struction, to the instruments we use. The loom has no
beam, and the warp is laid out upon the ground the whole
length of the piece of cloth. The weavers live entirely in
villages, as they could not, if shut up in towns, work in this
manner. Upon this rude machine, worked in the way we
have mentioned, the Indians produce those muslins which
have long been such objects of curiosity, from the exquisite
beauty and fineness of their texture.
It is probable that the whole of the implements which we
have just described existed as we now find them before the
people of India w^ere divided into castes. The transmission
of the same employment from father to son (which, although
not specially enjoined by the Hindu code, is the invariable
practice in India), while it has the effect of conveying unim¬
paired the knowledge acquired in any art, tends to check its
farther advancement. It is the opinion of Mr Rickards,
who so ably advocated the interests of the natives of India
in the discussion in parliament on the renewal of the Com¬
pany’s charter (1814), that latterly this form of society, with
all its dependencies, habits, and restraints, has been held to¬
gether chiefly by the oppression of the fiscal exactions, the
want of a free trade, and the consequent universal poverty
of the people. In support of this opinion, he refers to what
the Hindu population of Calcutta and Bombay have achieved
in the pursuits of commerce. We trust, however, that we
may now look forward to the speedy abolition of this sys¬
tem, so much opposed to all development of talent, and
which, by reducing man to the condition of a machine, has
paralyzed the exertions and arrested the improvement of
the people of India.
Such was the commercial and social condition of the Abolition
British territories in the East Indies till 1834, when the of the East
Company’s charter was renewed only as a governing power; India Com-
the trading monopoly previously possessed being then to- P^ny.®^om*
tally abolished. In that year a new era began for the East ‘ .
Indies. Thence may be dated a charter emancipating the
industry of that vast dependency, thereby securing indivi¬
dual exertion, and laying the foundation of social, as well as
of national progress. Free intercourse with the intelligent
classes of the Western World has begun to enlighten the
minds of the old Hindu population ; superstition is decreas¬
ing ; European arts and civilization are appreciated; the
great agents of national advancement, canals, roads, and
railways, are desired ; a knowledge of the English language
is increasing; and the constant discovery of new wants con-
tiuually incites to new exertions. Many wealthy natives of
India now visit Europe, and return to their homes w ith di¬
minished prejudices and increased stores of useful and prac¬
tical knowledge. The pure administration of justice, as
conducted in the courts of Great Britain, is warmly admired
and longed for; and all the indications of this enlarged in¬
tercourse point to the tendencies which are inherent in in¬
telligent man to adopt customs, manners, laws, and institu¬
tions which promote his welfare and happiness. India pos¬
sesses undeveloped resources of immeasurable magnitude.
Immense tracts of uncultivated ground, rich in jungle and
in wild produce, wait for approaches or roads, and for hu¬
man labour to convert useless vegetation into products of
home consumption or of export. Materials for dyeing may
be growm to the extent of any reasonable demand. Sugar,
tea, and coffee, may become never-failing sources of profit.
Cotton, so much required in Europe, may be so greatly im¬
proved in quality and enlarged in quantity, that, as an agent
of exchange for the manufactures of Great Britain, it may
increasingly minister to the comfort and convenience of the
cultivator and consumer. That the production of cotton
438 COTTONMANUFACTURE.
Cotton is slowly increasing there can be no doubt, and that its
Manufac- quality seems to be improving is a gratifying fact. But to
*uie- , render the East Indies a beneficially producing and con-
suming country, public works are indispensable. Rivers
must be made safely navigable, and bridges built over them.
The formation of roads in every direction must be com¬
menced. Canals for communication, and tanks, or great
reservoirs for water, to irrigate the land under cultivation,
must be constructed; and railways must be made, inter¬
secting and traversing the country, wherever industry shall
require them. Probably the solid advancement of the East
Indies during the last twenty years, with an open trade, ex¬
ceeds the progress made in the previous century. Dur¬
ing the commercial monopoly of the East India Company,
the exports from Great Britain never attained an average of
three millions sterling per annum, but in 1853 they ex¬
ceeded eight millions; still, with one hundred and fifty
millions of British subjects in India, even this value of ex¬
ports can only be regarded as insignificant.
To the same cause, however, which thus prevented im¬
provement in India, is to be attributed that dexterity in his
particular employment which the Indian artisan possesses.
From the earliest age he learns to spin and weave under the
direction of his father ; and having no hope or desire of ad¬
vancement in any other line, he gains, through constant prac¬
tice, that wonderful skill, which may thus be considered almost
as a family inheritance. To be able to manage his ill-con¬
structed loom, even in the production of ordinary fabrics, he
is obliged to acquire such a sleight of hand, that it is not sur¬
prising if, out of the multitude trained in this manner, a few
should be found capable of producing those muslins which
are said, when spread upon the grass, to appear like the gos¬
samer web. From the superiority of these goods, and from
their retaining the beauty of their appearance longer than
European muslins, it has been supposed that the cotton of
which they are made is of better quality than any known to
the European manufacturers. This, however, is a mistake ;
there is no cotton in India of a quality superior to the best
sea islands. The excellence which these muslins possess is
to be ascribed wholly to the skilful tact of the workman in
the processes of spinning and weaving.
But how dearly is this excellence of art purchased by the
sacrifice of the better faculties of man ! How different is
the effect produced by this branch of industry upon the
people and circumstances of India, from that produced by
it upon the people and circumstances of England! In the
East the cotton manufacture has probably been carried on
as extensively as at present for some thousand years ; yet
it has given birth to no inventions, to no increase of national
riches, to no improvement in the condition of the labouring
class. The scanty pittance which the poor artisan gains
from his labour is spent by him in his sustenance almost as
soon as it is received. In England, the same manufacture
has existed little more than a century, yet in that short time
it has given rise to some of the happiest efforts of ingenuity ;
it has been of incalculable use in promoting mechanical skill;
and the demand for additional power created by the exten¬
sion of its processes has led to the perfecting of the steam-
engine, the most successful attempt which man has ever
made to bend the properties of matter to his will. How-
many canals, bridges, and railroads have been formed for
the circulation of its products; how many new cities, and
what an increase of population, has it called into existence;
how many new agricultural markets has it been the cause
of establishing; and how mightily has it thus increased the
comforts and the means of enjoyment of the community !
In India, this manufacture has not only failed to improve
the condition of the people—it does not appear even to have
afforded to those engaged in it the means of accumulating
the capital necessary to carry it on ; for both the price of Cotton
the material and the wages of the workmen, in place of be- Manufac-
ing supplied by the master manufacturer, are advanced by ture'
the purchaser of the goods.
Thus, the East India Company, which until lately was in
the habit of making a great part of its remittances in manu¬
factures, actually advanced, through its resident, the funds
required to enable the workmen to produce the goods. To
assist this officer, the Company placed under him a num¬
ber of European servants, and an establishment of native
clerks and of persons termed Peons, whose duty it was to
watch and control the weavers. The resident, when he
had to provide an investment, entered into a contract for
the goods, either with the native merchants acting as brokers,
or with the master manufacturer or headsman, and these
parties made subsidiary agreements with the weavers. The
resident then advanced money for carrying on the work to
the chief contractors, who distributed it to the different
classes of workmen, and were responsible for the delivery
of the manufactured goods at the Company’s warehouse, in
the state stipulated in the contract. The commercial resi¬
dent never interfered with the arrangements or operations
of the contractors, except when complaints were made of
delay or fraud, arising from the interference of other brokers,
or contractors acting for other parties than the Company;
and then a host of Peons w-ere sent forth by him to intimi¬
date, and, if necessary to coerce the weaver. The resident,
when not engaged in providing goods for the Company’s
investment, was authorized to employ the weavers on his
own account. This greatly increased his influence over
those people, who having him constantly among them, as
head of the little colony, and being unable at any time to
move a step without his advances, felt themselves in a state
of entire dependence upon him. Thus, although the
brokers, who made contracts for the Portuguese and others,
were generally willing to give higher prices than those which
the resident arbitrarily fixed, the weavers, however they
might be disposed to elude his orders, or to outwit him in his
operations, never ventured openly to dispute his will. Various
laws and regulations were enacted to protect the workmen
in their transactions with the Company’s agents; butwhere the
sovereign was the chief trader, and a party in the cause, the
impartial administration of justice was not to be looked for.
For some years past, the East India Company has ceased
to remit so large a part of its revenue as formerly in manu¬
factured produce. So far, however, as it still does so, the
goods are provided in the manner we have pointed out; and
the same mode is followed by private merchants, trading on
their own account, for the purpose of obtaining goods for
export; but now British manufactured cottons are largely
imported into India.
Common muslins were made in every village throughout
the peninsula. Orme says, “ When not near the high road
or a principal town, it is difficult to find a village in which
every man, woman, and child, is not employed in making
a piece of cloth.”
The very fine muslins to which we have alluded, of such
exquisite texture as to have been poetically designated
“ webs of woven wind,” are made at Dacca. They were
intended chiefly for the use of the potentates of the country,
who kept agents to superintend the workmen employed in
the manufacture; but since the assumption by the Com¬
pany of the territories of these Indian princes, the demand
has fallen off, and a considerable part of the population have
betaken themselves to the cultivation of indigo. The cot¬
ton from which the muslins of Dacca are w-oven, grows in
a district of not more than 40 miles in length by 3 in breadth,
and in such limited quantity as never to have become an
article of commerce.1
1 Since this article was sent to the press, we have received a communication from Moorshedabad on the present state of the Dacca
COTTON MANUFACTURE.
439
Cotton The long cloths and fine pullicats are made chiefly within
Manufac- the presidency of Madras, the coarse piece goods and pulli-
turc. cats in Surat, the finest calicoes at Masulipatam, and table-
cloths of a superior quality at Patna. Each district varies
from the others in the nature of its productions, as may be
seen from the different denominations of cotton goods to be
found in every consignment coming from India.
An apprehension has sometimes been expressed that the
inhabitants of India, in possession of the raw material, may
obtain a knowledge of our machinery, and, by combining
with its peculiar advantages their cheaper labour and supe¬
rior manual dexterity, may be enabled to undersell us to
such a degree as to ruin and put an end to our manufacture ;
but in the state of the people of India there are circum¬
stances which render this impossible, without a change be¬
ing first produced upon their moral condition, their institu¬
tions, and their habits. The training which makes the
Indian, with such imperfect tools, able to perform his work
so well, disqualifies him from doing it in any other way, or
with any other implements than those to which he has been
familiarized from his infancy. The attempt to introduce
our machinery into India is, however, now being made. A
spinning mill has been built at Calcutta; and although the
private company which commenced the undertaking has
failed, the work continues to be carried on. There are at
present nearly 700 persons employed in the mill, engaged
at the rate of about seven shillings each per month ; hut
these people, it is found, cannot continue to work beyond a
few hours at a time, and a succession of hands to carry on
the operations through the day is required. To train them,
in such circumstances, to dexterity and skill, is impossible;
and, accordingly, the yarn spun is not only of inferior quality,
but, even with the low nominal wages, costs so much as to
disqualify it for competition with the yarn of this country.
An attempt is now being made to establish a cotton-spin¬
ning mill at Bombay.
The extensive introduction of machinery into Great Bri¬
tain has meanwhile, by reducing the price of our manufac¬
tures, enabled us to maintain a successful competition with
the Indian goods at home, by sending cotton manufactures
to a large amount to India itself. A complete revolution
has in consequence taken place in the nature of the exports
from that country to Europe, and indeed to all the markets
on this side of the Cape of Good Hope. When we first
got possession of India, our investments at home were prin¬
cipally (in point of value almost entirely) composed of ma¬
nufactured produce. They are now in a great measure
made up of the produce of the soil, indigo, cotton wool,
raw silk, saltpetre, &c. &c.
It might have been expected that this change would
have produced most distressing effects upon the crowded
population of a country such as India, which in all ages has
been a great manufacturing and exporting community; but
no materially unfavourable consequences have resulted from
it. In India every manufacturer is at the same time a hus¬
bandman. When not employed in making a web, he sup¬
ports his family by agricultural labour. It thus happened,
that in proportion as the demand for goods for export de¬
clined, the natives, without difficulty, and without that dis¬
tress which generally attends a change of employment in
other countries, were able to direct their attention more and
more to agriculture ; and the result has hitherto been rather
an improvement in their condition than otherwise.
The following tables show the difference of the cost of
cotton yarn produced in India and in Great Britain, and
indicates the changeless nature of unaided human labour in
the former, whilst by mechanical appliances in the latter,
cheapness and plenty result.
Comparative Statement of the Cost of English and Indian Cotton Yarn in the Years 1812 and 1830, furnished by
Mr Kennedy of Manchester to the Committee of Parliament on East India Affairs, and continued to 1854.
No.
40
60
80
100
120
150
200
250
English Cotton Yabn.
Hanks per day per
spindle.
1812.
2-
1-75
1-5
1-4
1-25
1-
•75
•05
1830.
2-75
2-5
2-
1-8
1-65
1-33
•9
•6
1854.
2-75
2-5
2-
1-8
1-65
1'33
•9
•6
Price of Cotton and
Waste per lb.
1812.
s. d.
2 10
3 4
4 0
1830.
s. d.
0 7
0 10
0 114
1854.
s. d
0 6
o 74
0 9
0 11
1 3
1 9
2 6
3 6
Labour per lb.
1812.
s. d.
1 0
1 6
2 2
2 10
3 6
6 6
16 8
31 0
1830.
S. d:
o 74
1 04
1 74
2 24
2 8
4 11
11 6
24 6
1854.
s. d.
0 5
0 8
1 3
1 8
2 0
3 6
6 0
18 0
Cost per lb.
1812.
s. d.
2 6
20 0
35 0
1830.
s. d.
1 24
1 104
2
3
4
6
14
28
1854.
s. d.
0 11
1
2
2
3
5
8
21
Indian Cotton Yarn.
Price of
Cotton and
Waste
per lb.
1812,
1830,
and 1854.
s. d.
0 3
0 34
0 44
0 5
0 8
Labour
per lb.
1812,
1830,
and 1854
s. d.
3 4
5 84
8 104
11 11
16 0
25 0
44 7
83 4
Cost
per lb.
1812,
1830,
and 1854
s. d.
3 7
6
9
12
16
25
45
84 0
Cotton The cotton manufacture of China is of immense amount,
manufac- and is carried on almost entirely for home consumption;
ture of but its origin is not of the same remote date as that of In-
dia. Indeed the lateness of its rise, and the slowness of
its progress, in a situation so favourable, appear extraordi¬
nary. In the accounts of the revenues and of the arts of
China during the period of the celebrated dynasty which
commenced about 1100 years before the Christian era,
and lasted for some centuries, no mention is made of the
cotton plant; nor indeed is there any notice of cotton in
these records until about 200 years before the Christian
era; from which period to the sixth century, the cotton
muslin manufecture, accompanied by a sample of the Dacca cotton wool, and some skeins of the yarn spun from it. The wool is equal
in fineness to the very best sea islands, of still stronger staple, but so short as to preclude the possibility of its being spun by our ma¬
chinery. The district in which the cotton is grown is stated to be periodically overflowed. The yarn is of different grists, the coarsest
greatly liner than the highest number spun in this country (No. 250), while the finest has been rated by an experienced spinner to whom we
have shown it, to be of a fineness not under 350. It is beyond our conception how this yarn can be spun by the distaff and spindle, or
woven afterwards by any machinery. Machine spun cotton yarn has, however, more recently been produced in Manchester which very
greatly exceeds in fineness any yarn ever known to have been produced by the hand labour of India.
COTTON MANUFACTURE.
440
Cotton cloth, which was either paid in tribute, or offered in pre-
Manufac- gents to the emperors, is always mentioned as a thing rare
v ture-^ t and precious.
The annals record as a singular circumstance that the
Emperor Ou-ti, who ascended the throne in 502, had a
robe of cotton. In the seventh century we find the cotton
plant mentioned, but its cultivation appears to have been
then confined to gardens 5 and the poems and romances of
that period are occupied in celebrating the beauty of its
flowers. From these circumstances we may venture to say
that there could have been no manufacture of the article
in the country at that time. It was in the eleventh cen¬
tury that the cotton plant was first removed from the gar¬
dens to the fields, and became an object of common cul¬
ture ; and it is not until this period that we can date the
commencement of the manufacture. So slow and back¬
ward sometimes are nations, far advanced in other respects,
in prosecuting objects afterwards considered by them as in-r
dispensable to their comforts. This is the more remark¬
able in the case of the Chinese, a people possessed of much
ingenuity, and alive to everything connected with self-
interest.
The cotton tree was introduced into China at the time
of the conquest of that country by the Mogul Tartars, in
the year 1280; after which period every encouragement
was given by government to the culture and manufacture
of cotton. But there were considerable difficulties to be
encountered, in the prejudices of the people, and in the
opposition of those engaged in the manufacture of woollen
and linen ; and it was not until the year 1368 that these
obstacles were altogether surmounted. After that date the
progress of the cotton manufacture was rapid, and now nine-
tenths of the population are clothed in its fabrics.
Almost the only cotton goods exported from China are
nankeens. Barrow states the production of all the fabrics
of the Chinese manufacture at the time he visited the
country (in 1792) to be stationary, attributing this to the
wrant of proper encouragement from the government, and
to the rigid adherence of the people to ancient usages.
To keep a manufacture in a progressive state there must
be a progressive demand for its products; and the Chinese
manufacturers having no means of disposing of any surplus
quantity must accommodate the supply to the wants of their
own consumption. It is said by travellers who have obtained
access to that country, that the people show a great desire
for articles of British manufacture, How valuable then to
both countries must be the establishment of a free inter¬
course, and how conducive probably to the increase of the
productions of both!
The Chinese, over and above the cotton wool which they
raise at home, import largely from British India, and from the
Burmese territories. This intercourse commenced towards
the close of the eighteenth century. A famine, which hap¬
pened in China about that period, induced the government to
direct, by an imperial edict, that a greater proportion of the
land should be thrown into the cultivation of grain. Since
then, the importation of cotton from India has been consi¬
derable, although constituting but a small part of what is
consumed in their manufacture. The amount of the im¬
portations is stated at 40,000 bales.
Introduc- The manufacture of cotton goods in Europe is said to
tion into haVe been first attempted by the commercial states of Italy,
urope. before the discovery of the passage to India by the Cape of
Good Hope. These enterprising communities were the
entrepots through which the cotton fabrics of India passed
to the different markets of the West; and being situated
in the neighbourhood of countries where the cotton wool
was grown, and familiar with manufacturing processes, it is
supposed that they were led to attempt the imitation of Cotton
articles so much valued, and bringing so high a price. An- Manufac-
other account assigns the introduction of the cotton ma- ture-
nufacture into Europe to a later date, and gives to the peo-
pie of the Low Countries the honour of having been the
first manufacturers of these articles, in imitation of the cot¬
ton fabrics which the Dutch, about the beginning of the
seventeenth century, began to import from India. But this
last account cannot be correct; for Guicciardini, in 1560,
in a very full list which he gives of the different articles an¬
nually imported into and exported from Antwerp,1 then the
greatest commercial mart in Europe, specifies fustians and
dimities of many fine sorts among the manufactured articles
imported from Milan, and mentions cottons generally among
those brought from Venice. But in the articles exported
from Antwerp, although we find linens sent to almost every
country, cotton cloth is not once mentioned. Italy, there¬
fore, at that time had a cotton manufacture, which, it is pro¬
bable, soon after made its way to the Netherlands; for we
know it was brought from the latter country to Britain by
Protestant refugees about the close of the sixteenth or early
in the seventeenth century.
That this manufacture was carried on in England at a introduc-
pretty early period of the seventeenth century, we know tion into
from good authority. Lewis Roberts, in his Treasure q/'England.
Traffic, published in the year 1641, says—“ The town of
Manchester buys linen yarn from the Irish in great quantity,
and weaving it, returns the same again in linen into Ireland
to sell. Neither does her industry rest here ; for they buy
cotton wool in London that comes from Cyprus and Smyrna,
and work the same into fustians, vermilions, and dimities,
which they return to London, where they are sold, and from
thence not seldom are sent into such foreign parts, where
the first material may be more easily had for that manufac¬
ture.” These goods were woven chiefly about Bolton, and
were purchased there at the weekly market by the Man¬
chester dealers, who afterwards finished them, and either
sent them to London for export, or sold them to their cus¬
tomers over the country.
At this period, and for a long time after, the weaver pro- Early state
vided his own warp, which was of linen yarn, and the cotton of the ma-
wool for his weft, buying them wherever he could best sup- nufacture
ply himself. But as the trouble of looking about for ^iese
materials was found to be an unprofitable application of his1
time, the Manchester purchasers established agents in the
different villages for the sale of those articles. In this way
of conducting the business, each weaver’s cottage formed a
separate and independent little factory. The yarn for his
warp was bought by him in a prepared state, the wool for
his weft was carded and spun by the female part of his
family, and the cloth was woven by himself and his sons.
This is the situation in which we generally find a manu¬
facture before the introduction of machinery, and particu¬
larly before it has been carried to such an extent as to allow
of a division of labour, and a separation of the different pro¬
cesses into distinct employments. At this stage, the work¬
man has usually his residence in the country, where he can
be accommodated with a little garden ground, and perhaps
with grass for a cow ; and there, in the bosom of his family,
aided by the industry of its different members, he prosecutes
his employment. How much more of the comforts of life
and of the means of natural enjoyment belong to this state
of the manufacture than to the more advanced one, in which
combined systems of machinery, and a more perfect division
of labour, collect the workmen into factories and towns!
It would be impossible to enumerate all the descriptions
of cotton goods which, in succession, were brought forward
from the commencement of the manufacture.2 The pat-
1 See Macpherson’s Annals of Commerce.
2 The fustians that were made at this early period of the manufacture were those denominated herring-bone, pillows for pockets and
COTTON MANUFACTURE.
441
Cotton tern cards of the principal houses in the trade, which were
Manufac- circulated from time to time through the kingdom and over
t111-6, the continents of Europe and America, exhibited specimens
of nearly two thousand kinds, comprehending in the assort¬
ment every variety of taste and fancy.
For the introduction and after improvement of many of
these articles, the country is indebted to the late Mr John
Wilson of Ainsworth. This gentleman was originally a
manufacturer of fustians at Manchester, but had early en¬
gaged in the manufacture of cotton velvets, which by per¬
severing efforts he succeeded in bringing to the utmost
degree of perfection. His improvement of the mode of
dressing, of finishing, and particularly of dyeing these goods,
acquired for them so high a character, that both in the
home and foreign market his articles sold in preference to
those of every other manufacturer. His plan for cleaning
off the loose and uneven fibres was by the use of razors.
He afterwards successively employed for this end, singeing
by spirits of wine and the application of a hot iron resem-v
bling a weaver’s drying iron, which last instrument had been
introduced for the same purpose in the manufacture carried
on in the Manchester house of correction by Mr Whitlow,
governor of that institution. At a later period Mr Wilson
effected his object by drawing the goods rapidly over a
cylinder of cast-iron heated to redness, by which they were
in a superior manner cleared of the down or pile which had
been raised upon them in the various operations of weaving,
washing, bleaching, or dyeing. These successive inventions
of Mr Wilson, for performing this process, give us some
idea of the manner in which improvements are introduced
into our manufactures, when fortunately the efforts of self-
interest are directed by intelligence and talent. Mr Wilson,
having a turn for chemical inquiries, investigated the dif¬
ferent known processes of dyeing; and, by the improve¬
ments he introduced in the application of them to his own
manufacture, materially advanced that art. Having suc¬
ceeded to his satisfaction in dyeing the other rich colours,
he procured from the Greeks of Smyrna the secret of dye¬
ing Turkey red. An account of this process was given by
him in two essays, read to the Philosophical and Literary
Society of Manchester, and which, on his retiring from
business, he printed and distributed among his friends.
The many valuable improvements introduced by Mr Wilson
into the different processes connected with the cotton manu¬
facture had the effect not only to establish it more firmly,
but rapidly to enlarge its extent.
A considerable share of the calico printing business was
transferred, about the year 1 760, from London to Lanca¬
shire, in consequence of the cheaper accommodation for
carrying on the work, and the lower wages of the work¬
men. A fall in prices thereupon took place, aud this cheap¬
ness produced an increased demand for calicoes. These
goods were at that time made of linen warp and cotton
weft, it having been found impracticable, before Sir Rich¬
ard Arkwright’s discovery, to spin cotton warp of sufficient
strength.
At this period the dealers from Manchester, in place of
buying fustians and calicoes from the weaver, as had been
the practice before, began to furnish him with materials
for the cloth, and to pay him a fixed price per piece for
the work when executed. Along with a portion of linen
warp, they gave him out a portion of cotton wool, which
he was obliged to get spun into the weft he was to use.
But so fast was the manufacture by this time outstripping
the process of spinning, that it frequently happened that
the sum which the master weaver was allowed by his em¬
ployer was less than what he found himself obliged to pay
to those whom he employed to spin it. He durst not, how- M^^c.
ever, complain, much less abate the spinner’s price, lest his 1
looms should be unemployed. In this state of things, the v. r j
further progress of the manufacture must have been stopped,
if a more productive mode of spinning had not been dis¬
covered.
It has been said that the yarn produced at this time
in England, by the one-thread wheel, the only spinning
machine known, did not exceed in quantity what 50,000
spindles of our present machinery can yield. To have
reared and trained hands sufficient to have doubled this
quantity, had it been possible, must have been the work
of a length of time, and the amount of the manufacture
would still have been insignificant. A change in the sys¬
tem, therefore, had become indispensable ; and we find that
different ingenious individuals had already begun to em¬
ploy themselves in contriving a better mode of spinning.
When we contrast the splendid inventions connected
with the qotton manufacture, which from this period burst
forth in rapid succession, with the passive acquiescence
in the use of imperfect machinery during the long period
which preceded, we are apt to ascribe these improvements
to the circumstance alone of a number of men of genius
having at that moment arisen, and to forget that the ulti¬
mate cause exists in the times which called their energies
into: action.
Already, about the year 1750, the fly-shuttle had been Fly-
invented by Kaye of Bury—-one of the most important steps shuttle,
in the progress of the art of weaving; and in the year 1760
improvements had begun to be made in the carding process.
James Hargreaves, a weaver at Stanhill, near Church, in
Lancashire, an illiterate man, possessed of no great me¬
chanical knowledge, had adapted the stock cards used in
the woollen manufacture to the carding of cotton, and had
besides greatly improved them. By his invention a per- Progress of
son was able to do double the work, and with more ease improye-
than by hand-carding. In the stock cards, one of the cards "^cVrrlin
is fixed, whilst the other, being suspended by a cord over in°
a pulley, is worked by the carder ; and in this way two or1
three cards can be applied to the same stock.
This contrivance was soon succeeded by the cylinder
cards, or carding engine. It is not ascertained who was
the inventor of this valuable machine, but it is known that
the father of the late Sir Robert Peel was among the per¬
sons who first used it; and that, so early as 1762, he, with
the assistance of Llargreaves, erected a carding engine
with cylinders at Blackburn. This machine did not differ
materially from that now in use, except that it had no con¬
trivance for detaching the cotton from the cards, an opera¬
tion which was performed by women with hand cards.
These successful advances show that the minds of the
manufacturing class had been awakened to discovery, and
must have encouraged and stimulated the efforts that were
then making to effect corresponding improvements in spin¬
ning.
There had been several unsuccessful attempts to improve James Har-
the mode of spinning before the year 1767, when James greaves in.
Hargreaves, whom we have already mentioned, invented ve?ts.the
the “ Spinning Jenny.” The idea of this machine is said
to have been suggested to him by seeing a common spin-
ning wheel which had been accidentally overturned, con¬
tinue its motion while it lay on the ground. If such was
the cause, it marks a mind of no common description which
from so casual an occurrence could elicit an invention of
so much importance.
After several unsuccessful attempts to carry into exe¬
cution the conception he had formed, he succeeded in pro¬
outside wear, strong cotton ribs and tarragon, broad-raced linen thickset and tufts, with whitened diaper, striped dimities, and jeans.
At some distance of time there were added to these, cotton thicksets, goods figured in the loom ; and at a still later date, cotton velvets,
velveteens, and strong and fancy cords. (Aitken’s History of Manchester.)
VOL. VII. 2 K
442
COTTON MANUFACTURE.
Cotton ducing a rudely constructed jewwy of eight spindles, turned
tur(flC' ^ bands from a horizontal wheel. In it the eight rovings
v a L / were passed between two pieces of wood laid horizontally
the breadth of the machine: and these being grasped in
tionCr1^" spinner>s hand, and drawn out by him, formed the rov¬
ings into threads. The structure of this “jenny” was soon
afterwards greatly improved, and it was at last brought to
work as many as eighty spindles. This machine, although
of limited powers when compared with the beautiful in¬
ventions which succeeded it, must be considered as the
first and leading step in that progress of discovery which
carried improvement into every branch of the manufacture
—which, as it proceeded, changed the nature and character
of the means of production, by substituting mechanical
operations for human labour—which caused the manufac¬
tured article to become more and more a product of capital.
The progress of invention after this was rapid ; for when it
was seen that, with the aid of the few mechanical combina¬
tions we have mentioned, the spinner had been enabled to
increase his power of production eighty-fold, the attention
of those engaged in other branches of manufacture was
awakened to the possibility of introducing changes equally
beneficial into their peculiar employments.
Hargreaves’ invention occasioned great alarm among
those who earned their subsistence by the old mode of
spinning, and even produced popular commotion. A mob
broke into his house and destroyed his machine ; and some
time after, when a better knowledge of the advantage of
his invention had begun to bring his “ spinning jenny”
into general use, the people rose a second time, and scour¬
ing the country, broke to pieces every carding and spin¬
ning machine they could find. Hargreaves himself had by
this time removed to Nottingham, where he was engaged
in erecting a small spinning work, about the same period
that Mr Arkwright came to settle there, who had also been
driven from Lancashire by the fear of similar violence.
The “jenny” in a short time put an end to the spinning
of cotton by the common wheel; and the whole wefts used
in the manufactui'e continued to be spun upon that ma¬
chine, until the invention of the “ mule jenny,” by which
it was in its turn superseded. Hargreaves died in great
poverty a few years after his removal to Nottingham.
Sir Rich- While Hargreaves was producing the common jenny,
ard Afk- Mr Arkwright (afterwards Sir Richard Arkwright) was
sDiifnint empl°yed in contriving that wonderful piece of mechanism,
frame.ng ^le spinning frame, called first the water-frame, and after¬
wards the throstle, which, when put into motion, performs
of itself the whole process of spinning, leaving to the work¬
man only the office of supplying the roving or prepared ma¬
terial, and of joining or piecing the thread when it hap¬
pens to break.
The extraordinary person to whom we owe this inven¬
tion was born in the year 1732, at Preston, in Lancashire,
of parents in poor circumstances, and was the youngest of
thirteen children. He was brought up to the humble occu¬
pation of a barber; and up to the time when he made his
discovery he continued to derive his subsistence from the
exercise of this employment. Living in a manufacturing
district, it is probable that his attention was drawn to the
mechanical contrivances around him ; and that hearing
from every one complaints of the deficient supply of cotton
yarn, he was stimulated to contrive a plan for increasing the
production, by changing the mode of spinning. Even after
he had matured the conception of what he proposed to exe¬
cute, he had great difficulty in giving his ideas a practical
form, from his total want of mechanical skill and experience;
and his discovery was likely to have been lost to the world,
from his not being able to find any person willing to embark
the capital that was necessary to give the undertaking a fair
trial. None but a person of his ardour and perseverance
could have overcome such obstacles.
It has already been mentioned that Mr Arkwright had Cotton
removed to Nottingham. Here he prevailed upon the Manufac-
Messrs Wrights, bankers, to advance him the sums of money ture.
necessary to enable him to go on with his experiments ; it
being understood that, if his plan succeeded, they were to
share in the profits. These gentlemen, however, finding
the amount of their advances swell to a larger sum than
they had expected, while there seemed to them little pro¬
spect of the discovery being brought into practical opera¬
tion, informed Mr Arkwright that the transaction being out
of the ordinary course of their business, they would be
glad if he could get some one else to take their place, and
repay them their money; and they mentioned Mr Need
of Nottingham as a person likely to do this, from his being
already engaged in other patent discoveries, and acquainted
with such undertakings. Mr Arkwright in consequence
applied to Mr Need, who told him he had no objection to
join in the scheme, if he could be satisfied that the dis¬
covery was such as he represented it, and desired him to
carry the model of his machine to Mr Strutt of Derby, his
partner in the stocking patent, by whose report he would
be guided. Mr Strutt, a man of great mechanical know¬
ledge, seeing at a glance the merit of the invention, and
how little was required to render it complete, told Mr
Need that he might with great safety close with Mr Ark¬
wright ; the only thing wanting to his model being an adap¬
tation of some of the wheels to each other, which, from
want of science, the inventor, with all his powers of contri¬
vance, had not been able to accomplish.
In the year 1769, Mr Arkwright obtained his patent for
spinning with rollers, and Mr Need and Mr Strutt became
his partners in the concerns to be carried on under it. He
erected a mill at Nottingham, which he worked by horse
power. But this mode of giving motion to the machinery
being expensive, he, in the year 1771, built another mill
at Cromford, in Derbyshire, to which motion was given by
water.
In 1772 his patent was contested, on the ground that he
was not the original inventor of the process for which it
was obtained ; but a verdict was given in his favour, and
his right to the exclusive use of the discovery remained
afterwards undisturbed.
Mr Arkwright, soon after his removal to Cromford, fol- Obtains a
lowed up his first'great discovery with other inventionssecon<i Pa"
and combinations of machinery for preparinsi the cotton for tent f°r
spinning, by which perfection was gradually given to the for prepar.
process through all its successive operations. For these ing cotton,
additional improvements he took out another patent in the
year 1775. But in 1781, his right to this second patent
was disputed, on the plea that he was not the inventor of
some of the mechanical contrivances comprehended under
it; and after different trials of the question before the
courts of King’s Bench and Common Pleas, judgment was
finally given against him in November 1785, and the pa¬
tent cancelled.
The originality of Mr Arkwright’s mind, as well as the
merit of his invention of the spinning frame, appear most
striking when we consider the little resemblance between
this machine and the common spinning wheel. His dis¬
covery did not consist in improving an instrument which
already existed, but in the invention of an entirely new
means for performing the same process in a better manner.
When this is kept in view, it seems extraordinary that such
a contrivance should have been the production of a person
in his circumstances. His subsequent inventions for preparing
the cotton, which are sometimes spoken of as the most won¬
derful parts of the process of cotton spinning, do not appear
to us so striking as this first effort of his genius. Besides
the advance in mechanical knowledge which he must have
made before the time when they were produced, these in¬
ventions, although only to have been conceived by an ori-
COTTON MANUFACTURE.
443
Cotton ginal and fertile mind, are still but improved arrangements
Manufac- 0f a machine previously in use, or applications of his own
turo. spinning machine altered and adapted to the accomplish-
v—v—^ ment of this object. But the power of his mind was per¬
haps marked by nothing more strongly than the judgment
with which, although new to business, he conducted the
great concerns to which his discovery gave rise, and the
systematic order and arrangement which he introduced into
every department of his extensive works. His plans of ma¬
nagement, which must have been entirely his own, as no
establishment of a similar nature then existed, were univer¬
sally adopted by others ; and after long experience, they
have not yet, in any material point, been altered or improved.
In 1786, Mr Arkwright, on presenting an address from
the county of Derby, of which he was then high sheriff,
had the honour of knighthood conferred upon him.
We shall now proceed to give an account of the different
machines used in cotton spinning, invented by Sir Richard
Arkwright, and of those afterwards invented by others, de¬
scribing them in the order in which they are employed. In
this manner we shall be able to exhibit a view of the present
state of the art. The instruments used in the preparation
and spinning of cotton wool are the following
The Opener; the Scutcher, and Spreading Machine ;
the Carding Engine; the Lap Machine; the Drawing
Frame; the Slabbing Fly Frame; the Intermediate Fly
Frame ; the Finishing Fly Frame ; the Throstle Frame for
coarse warps ; the Self-acting Jenny for numbers below 50 ;
and the Hand-mule Jenny for higher numbers. The first
three of these instruments are employed in the rude process
of cleansing the raw cotton, and separating its matted flocks.
In the Carding Machine it is carded and further purified ;
in the Lap Machine it is fashioned into flat folds ; and in the
Drawing Frame it is formed into a loose rope, the fibres of
which have a parallel arrangement. In the Slabbing Frame
it is slightly twisted ; and in the intermediate and Finishing
Frames it is still farther twisted, particularly in the higher
numbers ; but it is not yet yarn. The Throstle Frame is
chiefly used for coarse warps; whilst upon the Self-acting
and Hand Mule Jennies, both coarse and fine yarns are spun.
In the Opener the raw cotton is spread uniformly on a feeding
table, from which it is raised by a pair of rollers, and by them sub¬
jected to the action of a Beater. This beater consists of four pairs
of arms issuing from a strong axle, each alternate blade being fur¬
nished with stout pins or teeth. It is 18 inches in diameter over
the blades, by about 48 in width ; and when in motion, makes 1300
revolutions in a minute. By an ingenious contrivance a strong
draught of air is made to play through the newly-opened cotton,
thus carrying away the dust and other foreign particles which ad¬
here to it. This machine is capable of opening up about 20,000 lb.
of cotton in 72 hours.
The Scutcher resembles the Opener in many respects, and the
idea of the latter was obviously taken from it. It consists of two
pairs of fluted rollers; a beater with three blunt knives or blades,
10 inches or more in diameter, moving at the rate of 1500 revolu¬
tions in the minute ; and of two pairs of calender rollers, between
which the cotton passes, and is formed into bundles or laps.
The Spreading Machine is generally attached to the Scutcher,
and consists of an iron frame, a feed table, two pairs of feed roll¬
ers, a beater, a grating, a perforated air cylinder made of cast iron,
through which the loose cotton passes ; a fanner below the cylinder
for drawing off the dust, a pair of fluted rollers, and two pairs of
calender rollers, which form the cotton into laps, as in the Scut¬
cher.
Cards. The cotton wool, after it has been carefully picked, either by the
hand or by a machine, is carried to the carding engine. This ma¬
chine consists of two or more large cylinders covered with cards,
with teeth like those of hand cards, which revolve in opposite di¬
rections, and nearly in contact with each other. These cylinders
are either surmounted by other small ones, covered in like manner
with cards, by whose revolutions in opposite directions to those of
the larger cylinders, and with different velocities, the cotton is
carded, and put on the last or finishing cylinder; or, as is now
more generally practised, the first cylinder, that is, the one near¬
est the feeder, is surrounded by a fixed concave framing lined with
cards, which, coming nearly in contact with the cylinder cards, pro¬
duce the same effect in the process as the top cylinders, and in a Cotton
more simple manner. (See Plate CXC. figs. 1, 2, 3, 4.) Manufac-
This description of the carding machine is still (1854) ture"
applicable for numbers of yarn above 100, which are made —
from sea island cotton. For numbers above 50, a system
of twice carding is still employed. The engines are gene¬
rally 36 inches wide. The cotton is partially carded in the
breaker or first card; it is then re-formed into a lap; and
is lastly passed through the finisher or second card; for
the finest yarns, however, combing is substituted.
We have noticed, in speaking of the carding engine, which
Mr Peel erected in 1762, that at that time the cotton was
taken off the finishing cylinder by means of hand cards. But
by the time Mr Arkwright began his spinning, this opera¬
tion was performed by the application of a roller with tin
plates upon it like the floats of a water wheel, which, re¬
volving with a quick motion, scraped off the cotton from the
card. This wras a rude contrivance, and in its operation in¬
jured both the cotton and the cards. Mr Arkwright sub¬
stituted for it a plate of metal, toothed at the edge like a
comb, which, in place of being made to revolve like the
other, was moved rapidly in a perpendicular direction by a
crank, and, with slight but reiteraled strokes on the teeth of
the cards, detached the cotton from them in a uniform fleece.
He employed narrow fillet cards, wound round the doffing
cylinder in a spiral form, by which contrivance a continuity
of fleece was produced, which, as it left the card, was
gradually contracted in its size by being passed through a
kind of funnel, and then flattened or compressed between
two rollers; after which it was received into a tin can in
the state of a uniform continued carding.
The taking off the cotton from the cards in this manner
is one of the most beautiful and curious operations in the
process of cotton spinning ; and although the crank, which
forms a part of the apparatus, had perhaps been used in
some way or other prior to the date of Mr Arkwright’s
second patent (as was urged in the action for having it set
aside), the comb for taking off the fleece, and the spiral card
which produces its continuity, wTere inventions indisputably
his own.
The Lap Machine is only occasionally used, and that in the
case of double carding, where the object is to re-form the cotton into
a lap after it has passed through the breaker or first card. It con¬
sists of a frame, two pairs of calender rollers 4 inches in diameter,
and a lap-drawer 18 inches in diameter. It is supplied with cotton
from cans placed behind the machine; and what passes through the
first pair of rollers is consolidated into a uniform sheet, which is
afterwards rolled up into a lap or bundle. What is called a Doubler
is merely a pair of short rollers attached to one side of the machine,
through which two ends (or slivers, as they are technically called)
are made to pass rapidly from two cans behind to one in front.
This arrangement is useful when there is not room at the back of
the machine for a sufficient number of cans with single ends. From
this short description it will be seen that the lap machine is subsi¬
diary to the carding machine.
For the preparation of cotton to spin fine yarns there has been
recently introduced into the leading fine spinning concerns of Man¬
chester, a combing machine, the patented invention of Heilman,
formerly of G web wilier in France. This curious and beautiful
machine has the property of removing all the particles of dirt and
short fibres from fine long-stapled cottons, thereby leaving only the
cleanest and most perfect wool to be attenuated into the finest as
well as the most perfect cotton yarn which can be produced. So
beautifully clean, even, and perfect is the yarn made by the aid of
the comber, that fine muslin and laces can be manufactured of quali¬
ties so excellent that an increased consumption of these products of
elegant luxury may be reasonably anticipated.
The next step in the process after the carding or combing is Drawing
what is called drawing the cotton. The machine employed for frame. °
this purpose, called the drawing frame, depends simply on the
principle of elongation by rollers. To imitate the operation per¬
formed by the finger and thumb in hand spinning, two pairs of
rollers are employed; the first pair, slowly revolving in contact
with each other, are placed at a little distance from the second
pair, which revolve with greater velocity. The lower roller of
each pair is furrowed or fluted longitudinally, and the upper one
444
Cotton
Manufac¬
ture.
Roving
frame.
Fly frame.
Tube
frame.
Spinning
frame.
COTTON MANUFACTURE.
is neatly covered with leather, to give the two a proper hold
of the cotton. If we suppose a carding to be passed between the
first pair of rollers, it will be drawn forward as they move, but
without any change in its form and texture further than a slight
compression received from the incumbent roller. But if from
the first pair it be passed through the second, moving with twice
or thrice the velocity of the first, it will be drawn twice or thrice
smaller than it was when it entered the first rollers. In the suc¬
ceeding operation, two, three, or more of these drawings are
passed together through the rollers in the same manner, coalescing
as they pass, and forming a single new drawing. This doubling and
drawing is several times repeated, and has the effect of arranging
all the fibres of the cotton longitudinally in a uniform and parallel
direction, and does away with all inequalities of thickness. In
these operations the cotton receives no twist. (See Plate CXC.
figs. 5, 6.)
Roving the cotton, which is the next part of the process of pre¬
paration, is an operation similar to that employed for drawing it,
only that, to give the rove, in its now reduced thickness, such a
degree of tenacity as will make it hold together, a slight twist is
given to it, converting it into a soft and loose thread. This is
effected by passing it, as it leaves the rollers, into a conical can,
which, while receiving it, revolves with considerable velocity. (See
Plate CXC. figs. 7, 8, 9.) After this the rove is wound by the hand
upon a bobbin by the younger children of the mill, and carried to
the spinning frame. The roving frame, as here described, is never
used now (1854), having been entirely superseded by the fly frame ;
but the principle remains unchanged.
About the year 1817, the fly frame was introduced for preparing
rovings for the middle and coarser numbers of both warp and weft;
and this machine having received considerable improvements since,
has superseded the use of the roving frame. Instead of the revolv¬
ing cans of the roving frame, the fly frame has spindles placed at
equal distances from each other, with a fly on the top of each, one
of the legs of which is made in the form of a tube, for the purpose
of receiving the roving and conveying it to the bobbin. The rollers
deliver the roving to the top of the fly, where it passes through a
small hole immediately above the centre of the spindle, called the
eye of the fly, and from which it descends through the tube to the
bobbin, which is fitted loosely on the spindle. The fly revolves ra¬
pidly round the bobbin, and winds the roving on it as fast as it is
delivered by the rollers. (See Plate CXCII. figs. 1, 2.) The
motion of the rollers and spindles are equal and uniform at all
times ; hence the twist is equally diffused over all parts of the rov¬
ing. But to adapt the taking up of the roving to the uniform de¬
livery of the rollers, the speed of the bobbin must be variable and
unequal; for, while it increases in diameter, the velocity of its act¬
ing circumference will remain the same. The ratio of its acceler¬
ating motion, therefore, must be equal to the ratio of its increasing
diameter ; that is, supposing the bobbin to follow the fly ; but
sometimes the fly follows the bobbin, in which case the speed of the
bobbin must decrease in the same ratio as above. The matured bob¬
bin and fly frame is the most scientific piachine now used in cotton¬
spinning factories. It can be constructed to produce rovings for
either coarse or fine spinning, and which can be relied upon for
perfect accuracy, whether of one hank or of fifty hanks in the
pound.
An improvement in the process of preparation for cotton
spinning is the tube frame. It is employed as a finishing
frame for coarse numbers. The construction of this ma¬
chine differs from that of the roving frame in having, in¬
stead of cans, revolving horizontal cylinders, parallel with
the beam rollers, placed about twelve inches in front of the
beam. Its chief advantage lies in the great quantity of
roving it can produce in a given time, its excess of produc¬
tion to the fly frame being as 84 to 17; but the rove it pro¬
duces is inferior in quality, and, having no twist, is ex¬
tremely soft and tender, and causes a greater quantity of
waste than the roves prepared by the fly frame. This
frame has also fallen into disuse, in consequence of the
great improvements which have been made in the fly frame
of late years, which is now (1854) driven with much greater
speed than formerly, and produces rovings of a quality so
superior that, except for coarse yarns, or where the work is
very carelessly performed, the tube frame is never em¬
ployed.
The Spinning Frame or Throstle has the double set of rol¬
lers, which have been described in the account given of the draw¬
ing and roving frames, and which, operating in the same manner
as in those machines, extend the rove, and reduce it to a thread of
the required fineness. The twist is given to the thread by the ap- Cotton
plication of the spindle and the fly of the common flax wheel, Manufac
adopted in the machine for this purpose. (See Plate CXCI. fig. 10.) ture
The yarn produced by this mode of spinning is called water twist, ^ ;
from the circumstance of the machinery by which it is obtained "
having been, for a long time after its invention, put in motion by
water.
The only attempt to extend the principle comprehended in Sir Throstle.
Richard Arkwright’s first contrivance, the spinning frame, is to
be found in the machine called the Throstle, introduced about
the year 1810. In this machine the spinning apparatus is in every
respect the same as in Sir Richard Arkwright’s frame, but the
movement of the parts is different.
In place of four or six spindles being coupled together, forming
what is called a head, with a separate movement by a pulley and
drum, as is the case in the frame, the whole rollers and spindles on
both sides of the throstle are connected together, and turned by
bands from a tin cylinder lying horizontally under the machine.
The merit of the invention chiefly lies in the simplification of the
moving apparatus just mentioned. The movement is not only ren¬
dered lighter, but greater facility is afforded for increasing the
speed of the machine, and, consequently, when the nature of the
spinning admits it, for obtaining a larger production. The thros¬
tle can also, with more ease, and at less expense, be altered to spin
the different grists of yarn : only a few movements required to be
changed in it to produce this end, while in the spinning frame
there are a great many. (See Plate CXCI. fig. 11.)
An improvement on the throstle, which was thought to be very Mr Dan-
promising, was lately made by Mr Danforth, an American spinner, forth’s
His object was to obviate the vibration of the spindle (caused by throstle,
the flyer being placed on the top of it, with nothing to keep it
steady), whereby it is prevented from being driven with advantage
beyond a certain limited speed. To remedy this, Mr Danforth in¬
troduced into his throstle a stationary spindle, on the top of which
he fixed an inverted conical cup. In this improved throstle the
bobbin revolves on the spindle with great rapidity, and by a trans¬
verse motion is raised and lowered so as to be, when at the highest
point, entirely within the cup, and when at the lowest entirely
below it. The edge of the cup, passing thus along the whole length
of the bobbin, builds the yarn equally on every part while it is re¬
ceiving the necessary twist.
To secure to himself the benefit of this invention, Mr Danforth
took out patents in all the different European states. His im¬
provement gives a great increase of quantity, but is accompanied
by such an addition of waste as to form, in the opinion of many
spinners, an insuperable objection to its use.
The throstle frame is now (1854) almost the only machine
in use for the production of warps of low numbers, that is,
which do not go higher than 32. In the most approved
machines of this kind the spindles make 5000 revolutions
in the minute, each spindle producing 27 hanks per week
when spinning 32’s. The Danforth frame is now entirely
out of use.
Probably no inventive contribution, more valuable and Mr Cromp-
important to the cotton trade, has been offered to it than theton inv'entf
mule. Mr Samuel Crompton of Bolton, in 1775, com-!'Iieninu e
pleted his invention of the “ mule jenny,” in contrivingJenny'
which he had been engaged for several years. But this
machine, possessing great merit and advantages, did not
come into general use, nor was its value known, until after
the expiration of Arkwright’s patent; because till then the
spinner was confined to the rove prepared for common
jenny spinning, which was unsuitable to the mule jenny.
After the spinner was allowed to make use of Mr Ark¬
wright’s fine process of preparation, by his patent being
cancelled, the power of this machine became known ; and
its introduction forms another important era in the history
of the cotton manufacture. Being fitted to supply those
“grists” and qualities of yarn which the other machines
could not produce, the manufacturer was enabled to enter
upon fabrics which otherwise it would have been in vain to
attempt. Warps of the finest quality are spun upon the
mule; while on the throstle yarn of a finer grist than
No. 36 cannot be spun to advantage. The reason is, that
the fine thread has not strength to stand the pull of the
rollers when winding itself on the bobbin of the throstle;
a stress which is saved to it in the mule, where the
draught takes place only in a slight degree faster than
COTTON MANUFACTURE.
445
the rove is given out by the rollers. All wefts, from
the lowest to the highest numbers, are now spun upon
Crompton’s machine, the use of Hargreaves’ jenny having
been almost entirely superseded by it. It was some time,
indeed, after the mule came into use, before it was ascer¬
tained that the finest yarn required for the manufacture
could be produced from it. But in the year 1792, Mr
Jonathan Pollard of Manchester succeeded in spinning
yarn upon the mule of the fineness of 278 hanks to the
pound, from cotton wool grown by Mr Robley, in the island
of Tobago. This yarn was sold at twenty guineas per
pound to the muslin manufacturers of Glasgow.
The Mule, in its structure and operation, is a compound of the
tion of the spinning frame and of Hargreaves’ jenny; from which circumstance
mulejenny. it has probably received its name. It contains a system of rollers
like that belonging to the twist frame; but in place of having every
four or six of them in separate heads, as is the case in that machine,
the whole are coupled together ; and the rove being drawn through
them, is, in its conversion into thread, received on spindles revolving
like those of the jenny. The carriage on which these spindles are
placed is moveable, and is made to recede from the rollers a degree
faster than the thread is given out. After a certain quantity of the
roving has been thus delivered by the rollers, they are stopped;
but the carriage continues to recede somewhat farther; and the
spindles continuing also to revolve, the thread is drawn out to the
fineness required, and then receives its proper portion of twist. This
last operation resembles that performed by the common jenny, and
produces a similar effect. (See Plate CXCI. fig. 12.)
Descrip-
Mr Crompton took out no patent; but many years after
he had given this important invention to his country, he re¬
ceived from parliament a grant of L.5000.
Mr Kelly’s mule was originally worked by the spinner’s hands;
patent for but in 1792, Mr William Kelly of Glasgow, at that time
giving mo- manager of the Lanark Mills, obtained a patent for moving
tion to the jt machinery. Mr Kelly soon saw, however, that in the
nTchiner extended state of the cotton trade, the exclusive possession
mac inery. ^ jmp0rtant improvement was not likely to be quietly
acquiesced in ; and, unwilling to involve himself in the liti¬
gation which would have been necessary to defend his pri¬
vilege, although the undisputed inventor of the process, he
allowed every one freely to avail himself of its advantages.
Mr Kelly’s machinery was contrived so as to move every
part of the mule, even to the returning of the carriage into
its place, after the draught was finished. Had his inven¬
tion come into full operation, the employment of men as
spinners would have been thereby rendered unnecessary,
and children would have been able to do all the duty re¬
quired. But, after a short trial, it was discovered that a
greater amount of produce could be obtained, and at acheaper
rate, by using the machinery merely to draw out the carriage,
and employing the men to return it as formerly. In this
way one spinner could serve two mules, the one carriage
moving out during the time that he was engaged in return¬
ing the other.
Progress of Proceeding in this train of discovery, it was next found
improve- unnecessary to confine the mule to a hundred and forty-four
ment in Spindles, the largest number which it had till then contained;
nine.Spm" for’with the assistance of the above mechanical improvement,
the spinner was able to manage two mules of three or four
hundred spindles each, and thus to spin on six hundred or
even 1000, instead of on only a hundred and forty-four
spindles.
The process of mule spinning continued to be conducted
upon this plan, till several proprietors of large cotton works
restored the part of Mr Kelly’s machinery which returns
the carriage into its place after the draught is completed.
By thus lessening the fatigue to the spinner, they were en¬
abled to employ women in place of men. All that is to be
done by the spinner in this case is, with a slight touch of the
hand to shift the band, so as to allow the carriage to be moved
back into its resting position, and, as this takes place, to
manage the guide for building the cop, and regulate the
motion of the carriage as it recedes.
An extension of the size of the mule employed in spin¬
ning very fine numbers was accidentally suggested to a
spinner of Manchester in 1830, and enabled him to reduce
2^ per cent, the wages paid for spinning these numbers.
Being desirous to fill a garret-room of his mill with jennies
of five hundred spindles each, of the size of those worked
in the rooms below, he found, from the contraction of the
space, occasioned by the inclination of the roof, that there
was not room for a mule of five hundred spindles to stand
across the floor. It then occurred to him that, as in spin¬
ning those high numbers of yarn, the movement of the
carriage in drawing out so slender a thread was of necessity
very slow, it might be practicable to work a thousand spindles
in one mule, without increasing the breakage of threads;
and that, should this be the case, he would then be able to
fill his garret by placing these mules lengthwise. The ex¬
periment was tried, and the mule of a thousand spindles
found to work so well as to admit of the above reduction of
the wages of the spinner.
There was introduced in the year 1832 into different geif.acting
spinning works, a mule, the carriage of which, after having mule,
drawn out the thread, is returned by mechanical means,
without the aid of the spinner, or the guidance of his hand
to secure the uniform building of the cops. The apparatus
for accomplishing this can be affixed to the mules now in
use without any other alteration. Messrs Sharpe and Ro-
barts took a patent in 1829 for this invention; but the right
to the discovery having been disputed, its general adoption
was retarded till some time afterwards, when a verdict in
their favour was obtained. The machinery for effecting the
object being rather complicated, fears have been entertained
that it may be liable to get out of order, and cause frequent
stoppages of the work, besides occasioning a considerable
expense in keeping the machine in repair. The most judi¬
cious spinners, however, consider the discovery to be founded
upon correct principles; and when such is the case, we may
count upon mechanical science being able sooner or later to
simplify the movement, and admit of the improvement being
brought into general use. The mill proprietors in Lanca¬
shire have altered their mules to spin coarse yarns in this
manner; and they are able to dispense with the mule spin¬
ners, retaining merely the elder piecers to manage them,
and children to take up and join the broken ends,
The self-acting mule is now (1854) employed for spinning
all sizes of yarns below 50’s; and in the manufacture of
these low numbers a great saving is effected by its use.
Many patents for the improvement of this machine have
been taken out of late years, and more or less success has
attended these attempts. The hand-mule is still in use for
all numbers of yarn, and has undergone no improvement,
except in stability and constructive details.
In addition to the process of preparation already described The
as employed in frame and coarse mule spinning, the cotton stretcher
intended for fine mule spinning goes through a further ope- ?r fine rov*
ration. It was found that extending the roves at once to a in& frame-
fine thread, was a reduction of texture too rapid to admit of
the production of a good article, and that an intermediate
operation was necessary. This gave rise to the process of
stretching, which is performed on a mule fitted up for the
purpose which draws the rove another degree finer, without
communicating to it such an additional twist as might prevent
its being extended afterwards into a thread upon the spinning
mule ; but the stretcher is now in the course of being aban¬
doned, fine rovings of perfect quality, made upon fine bobbin
and fly frames, having been substituted for those previously
made upon stretchers.
We have now finished our account of the different ma¬
chines employed in cotton spinning, and have endeavoured
to describe the succession of improvements which have been
made on them up to this time, so as to give some idea of
the progress in their power of production. But it will not
Cotton
Manufac¬
ture.
446
COTTON MANUFACTURE.
Cotton be possible, from the nature of the subject, to exhibit in a
Manufac- similar manner the not less important advances made from
v ture‘ time to time in the construction of the minute parts of these
machines, and in the skill and management of the spinner
who works them. By these means a progressive acceleration
of their movement was rendered practicable, and even after
the machine had long been apparently in a very perfect state,
the quantity of produce was more than doubled.
About the year ] 790 the average product of the spinner
of yarn No. 40 was little more than a hank per spindle per
day; but by the year 1812, as appears by Mr Kennedy’s
table of the comparative cost oPthe cotton yarn of India and
of this country, it had advanced to two hanks per day, and
in 1830 to 2*75. The effect of this increase of production
upon the cost of the article was very great, as will be seen
by the following statement of the reduction of the wages of
spinning, and of the fall in the sale price of yarn which ra¬
pidly succeeded.
We have already noticed that, until the cancelling of Sir
Richard Arkwright’s patent, by which the mule spinner be¬
came at liberty to use his improved mode of preparation,
the few fine wefts required were spun on Hargreaves’jenny.
In the year 1786 this yarn was sold in Glasgow and Paisley
at 31s. per pound for No. 90; 7s. per pound being the price
of spinning it. The warp was spun upon the water or
throstle frame, and was sold at the same time at 47s. 6d. the
pound for No. 90.
We are informed by Mr Crompton, that immediately upon
his completing his invention of the mule, in the year 1775,
he obtained 14s, per pound for the spinning and preparation
of No. 40 ; that a short time after he got 2os. per pound for
the spinning and preparation of No. 60 ; and that he then
spun a small quantity of No. 80 to show that it was not im¬
possible to spin yarn of so fine a grist; and for the spinning
and preparation of this he got 42s. per pound. For some
little time after the mule came into general use, in the year
1786, it was the practice in many places for the spinner to
purchase the wool in a prepared state ; and separate con¬
cerns for preparing cotton were established and carried on.
At that time 1 Os. per pound were paid for spinning No. 100 ;
but soon afterwards the wages for this number wTere reduced,
first to 8s. and then to 6s. 8d. In 1790 the price of spinning
No. 100 was 4s. per pound. In 1792 it was brought to 3s.
Id., and in 1793 to 2s. 6d., at which price it continued till
1795; when the mule coming to be worked by machinery,
and an increase being made in the number of spindles, the
spinner was enabled so to extend the quantity of his pro¬
duce, as to admit of another considerable reduction in
wages. The price of spinning No. 100 was in the course
of a few years brought down to 8d. per pound, at which
price it continued until 1826, when it was further reduced
to 6^d. per pound. Notwithstanding this extraordinary
diminution of the price of spinning, such have been the
effects of the improvements in the plan and construction of
the machinery, in the selection and preparation of the wool,
and in the spinner’s skill and tact in the execution of his
work, that he is able to earn more money now than he did
when the wages were at the highest.
The sale prices of the yarn during this period were as
follows:—
In the year
1786, for lSTo. 100 ... 38s.
1788   35s.
1791   29s. 9d.
1793   15s. Id.
1795, spun from Bour¬
bon cotton wool— 19s.
' In the year
1797   19s.
1799   10s. lid.
1801  8s. 9d.
1803 • 8s. 4d.
! 1805  7s. lOd.
I 1807  6s. 9d.
Since 1807 the price of yarn, after various fluctuations, fell
in 1829 to 3s. 2d.,and in 1831 to 2s. lid., at which price it
remained in 1832. Since 1832 the fluctuations have not
been extreme, the price never rising above 5s. 6d., at which
it stood in 1836, nor falling below 2s. 9d., as in 1842. In
1846 it was 3s. 2d. In 1854, warp 100’s was 3s. 6d.; me¬
dium 100’s, 2s. 5d.; and weft 100’s only Is. 9d.
But the benefit of the improvements we have noticed has
not been confined to the reduction of the cost of the yarn.
Its quality has been rendered so much superior, that the
weaver is enabled, with the same hours of labour, to pro¬
duce a fourth more of cloth than he was able to do at the
beginning of the present century.
During the time that the machines for the different pro- \yatt
cesses of cotton spinning were advancing towards perfec- applies the
tion, Mr Watt had been employed in maturing and re-Powerof
ducing to practice his conceptions for extending the powersthe .steara-
of the steam-engine. His inventions for rendering these enSin®t0
available to the movements of manufacturing machinery ex- turingma-
hibit a beauty of contrivance peculiarly characteristic of his chinery.
genius, and, to a greater extent than any of the other disco¬
veries which mark this period, have influenced the circum¬
stances of this country and of mankind.
If we had no other means of giving motion to our ma¬
chinery than by placing it on a stream of water, or employ¬
ing the power of horses, how comparatively expensive must
our operations have been, and how limited their progress!
By means of Watt’s inventions wre are enabled to carry
the power at once to the situation where it can be most ad¬
vantageously used ; we can place it in the centre of a popu¬
lation trained to manufacturing habits, and thus bring to¬
gether the different branches of manufacture, with their
numerous subsidiary establishments, all dependent upon or
intimately connected with each other, thereby giving faci¬
lity and effect to their mutual operations.
Some account of the introduction of the steam-engine,
therefore, naturally forms a part of the history of the cot¬
ton manufacture. In perusing the following detail, obtained
from Mr Watt in 1818, the reader, aware of the present
extensive employment of this powerful auxiliary to industry,
will be surprised at the slowness with which it came into
general use.
Mr Watt had early turned his thoughts to the applica¬
tion of the steam-engine to rotatory motion, and in the year
1781 had devised the means for accomplishing this end.
But at the moment he was taking measures for legally
securing to himself the exclusive advantages of his inven¬
tion, a confidential workman betrayed a part of his plan to
other persons, who took a patent for it. In the following
year, having substituted a most ingenious contrivance to
supply the part of the process which had been stolen from
him, he obtained for Messrs Bolton and Watt a patent for
his mode of applying this power. They erected their first
rotative engine (for we are obliged to use that term to
avoid circumlocution) in the year 1782, at Bradley iron¬
works, and another in the same year at their own manu¬
factory. In 1783 they erected an engine for winding
ores out of a mine in Cornwall. In 1784 they erected
seven engines, one for an oil mill at Hull, one at Messrs
Goodwin and Company’s brewery in London ; one at Mr
Whitbread’s, with four others,—including the first engine
for that splendid establishment, the London Albion Mills.
Among those erected by them in 1785 was one for Messrs
Robinsons, at Papplewick, in Nottinghamshire, for spin¬
ning cotton,—the first instance of the application of steam
to this manufacture. In the following year they erected a
number of their engines for various purposes ; and in 1787
one for Messrs Peels, at Warrington, for cotton spinning,
and three others for the same purpose at Nottingham. No
rotative engine had yet been erected at Manchester ; and it
was seven years after Bolton and Watt had received their
patent that they constructed for Mr Drinkwater the first
engine used there for spinning cotton. This engine is
still (1854) working admirably. In 1790 they erected
one for spinning cotton at Nottingham for Sir Richard Ark-
Cotton
Manufac-
ture.
COTTON MANUFACTURE.
447
Cotton wright, and another at Darlington for spinning flax ; a cot-
Manufac- ton-spinning engine at Manchester for Mr Simpson, and a
ture- second at Papplewicke for Messrs Robinsons. Some time
before this Sir Richard Arkwright and others, from an ill-
judged economy in the first cost, had introduced into their
spinning factory atmospherical or Newcomen’s engines, with
rotative motions applied to them. But quickly perceiving
their error, they abandoned them ;—and Bolton and Watt’s
engines soon came to be universally used among cotton
spinners, and all other manufacturers.
Account of In an account of the means which contributed to that
the pro- fall in the price of spinning which we have mentioned, we
gress made must not omit the progressive improvement in the cultiva-
in the cult1 * * * *-tj°n 0p t}ie raw material, and in the application of its differ-
cotton ° ent t0 th6’1, most profitable uses. Previous to the
wool. year 1793, the cotton used in the coarser articles of the
manufacture, with the exception of a small quantity im¬
ported from India and from the Levant for the fustian
trade, was wholly the growth of our own and of the French
West India Islands. That for the better kind of goods
was raised in Demerara, Surinam, and Berbice. The wool
for fine goods was grown in the Brazils ; and that for the
few very fine muslins then manufactured, in the Isle of
Bourbon.
In 1787 the descriptions of cotton imported into Britain
appear to have been as follows :—
From the British West Indies   6,800,000 lbs.
From the French and Spanish colonies   6,000,000
From the Dutch   1,700,000
From the Portuguese  2,500,000
From the Isle of Bourbon, by Ostend  100,000
Smyrna and Turkey   5,700,000
32,800,000
Had we continued to derive our sole supply of cotton
from these countries, the progress of the manufacture would
have been greatly retarded, not only from the difficulty of
making the production of the raw material keep pace with
the increasing consumption, but from the impossibility of
obtaining the qualities of wool suited to the finer descriptions
of goods, which the improved machinery enabled us to un¬
dertake.
But fortunately, about the year 1770,1 the planters in the
southern states of the American Union began to turn their
attention to raising cotton wool; and, besides carrying the
cultivation of the article to a great extent, they produced
qualities of cotton before unknown. In 1792 the quantity
of cotton exported from the United States was only 138,328
lbs., no manufacture of cotton goods having been attempted
in America for many years after that period. In 1831 they
exported 619,000 bales to Great Britain, 127,000 to France,
and 27,000 to other parts. In 1845 the quantity grown in
the United States was 2,100,537 bales.
The American cotton wool first brought to this country
was very ill cleaned, and in consequence was indiscrimi¬
nately applied to the manufacture of the coarser species of
goods. It was soon, however, perceived that the cotton
raised upon the coast, termed sea islands cotton, had a finer
and longer staple than that grown farther back in the country,
and known by the name of upland cotton. But it was not
for several years, and after a succession of trials, that this
wool was ascertained to be of a quality in every respect
superior to the cotton of the Isle of Bourbon. Indeed, it
was only in the year 1796 that the finest description of it
was applied to the purposes for which Bourbon wool had till
then been used, and which it soon entirely supplanted. The
second quality of it about the same time supplanted the Bra¬
zil wool in many kinds of goods.
The upland cotton is a different species from the sea
island, and is separated with such difficulty from the seed,
that the expense of cleaning the wool must have put a stop
to its further cultivation, had not a machine, by which the
operation of cleaning is easily and successfully accom¬
plished, been invented. This machine was invented in
1795 by Mr Eli Whitney of Massachusetts. There are
two qualities of this cotton, the one termed Upland
Georgia, grown in the states of Georgia and South Caro¬
lina ; and the other, of superior quality, raised upon the
banks of the Mississippi, and distinguished in the market
by the name of New Orleans cotton. A strong prejudice
existed for some time against the upland wool, which was
thought to be of inferior quality, and not to take a good
colour in dyeing; but being found suitable to different
coarse fabrics, its cultivation was so rapidly extended, that
in 1807 55,018,448 lbs. of upland cotton were exported
from the United States.
The cotton of the finest quality ever brought to the
English market, or probably ever grown, was that formerly
mentioned as having been raised in the island of Tobago
between the years 1789 and 1792, upon the estate of Mr
Robley. That gentleman carried the cultivation of this
article to some extent; but the price of cotton falling very
low, and the cultivation of sugar becoming extremely pro¬
fitable in consequence of the destruction of the sugar planta¬
tions in the French islands, he was induced to convert his
cotton grounds into a sugar plantation. The production of
cotton of this very fine description has hardly ever been
attempted by any other person, although it is believed that
the price it would yield would amply repay its expense.
Until about the year 1815, it was thought that the cotton
wool of India, from the shortness of its staple, could not be
spun with advantage upon our machinery; and in conse¬
quence, the greater part of the Indian cotton brought to this
country was spun upon the common jenny, and used as weft
for the coarsest calicoes. It was discovered, however, that
by mixing it with the longer stapled wools of other countries,
it might be brought into a state fit for the mule and spin¬
ning frames.
It was expected that the opening of the trade in 1814
would have led to more care in the cultivation of the article,
and would have given rise to the production of cotton of
superior quality to any that had previously been obtained
from India. This, however, did not take place. It appears,
from the evidence before the parliamentary committees in
1830-31, that up to that period there had been no improve¬
ment in the quality of the cotton raised in India; that the
dependent state of the cultivator, and the constant fiscal in¬
terference to which he was subjected, are insurmountable
obstacles to the attainment of this object; and that until
European skill and capital come to be employed in the cul¬
tivation of the cotton, better qualities are not to be looked
for. The influence of the impolitic regulations imposed
under the Company’s monopoly to secure the revenue are
particularly felt in the presidency of Bombay. Up to a
late period, this was the only part of India in which any
considerable quantity of cotton was grown or exported. In
the district of Guzerat alone 100,000 heavy bales are an¬
nually produced.
The part of the crop which goes to the Company for the
rent of the land is delivered by the cultivator to the Com¬
pany’s collector, immediately after the cotton has been
1 The year 1770 has always been stated as the period at which the planters of the southern states began to turn their attention to the
raising of cotton wool. But we happen to know that in 1764, William Rathbone, an extensive American merchant in Liverpool, received
from one of his correspondents in the southern states a consignment of eight bags of cotton. This cotton, on its arrival at Liverpool, was
seized by the custom-house officers, on the allegation that it could not have been grown in the United States, and that it was liable to
seizure under the shipping act, as not being imported in a vessel belonging to the country of its growth. When afterwards released, it
lay for many months unsold, in consequence of the spinners doubting whether it could be profitably worked up.
44S
COTTON MANUFACTURE.
Cotton picked, but before it has been separated from the seed. This
Manufac- person fixes annually the rent which the cultivator is to pay,
v ure^_ j the amount of which is always imposed in a specified sum
of money, but payable in cotton, rated at a price named by
the collector. Its amount upon an average of years is about
one-half of the crop. In the payment of this rent the col¬
lector refuses to receive any but the best and cleanest part
of the cotton, and to this the farmers dare not object. What
remains is purchased principally by the Company’s commer¬
cial resident, who formerly fixed the price he was to pay for
it; but in the bargains now made by the officer, he gives
the average price received by the cultivators in the sur¬
rounding districts
If the culture of cotton in Guzerat has been able to
exist under this oppressive system, what might not be ex¬
pected were the rent of the lands (as is now the case in
the presidency of Bengal) fixed and paid in money, and
were the growers at liberty to sell the product to those who
would give the best price for it! The rapid increase of cul¬
tivation in Bengal since the introduction of this more en¬
lightened system of management, and the acquisition and
diffusion of wealth which have been the consequences, pre¬
sent a striking contrast to the impoverished and wretched
state of the cultivators in Bombay, and speak a language in
political science not to be misunderstood.
Since 1814 attempts have been made to introduce the
Bourbon seed into Guzerat. These attempts have failed,
but it would be wrong to be discouraged by the ill success
of an undertaking carried on under the management which
usually belongs to monopoly. A very different result may
be looked for when that system and its effects shall have
been more completely done away, and improvements come
to be conducted by those who are to reap the benefit of
them. Were this better system once established throughout
the peninsula, it appears not unreasonable to expect, in a
country so extensive and of such various soils, not only that
all the qualities of cotton wool known to our manufacturers
would be produced, but that new varieties might be obtained,
possibly of more useful application than any we yet possess.
Egyptian Egyptian cotton was introduced into this country for the
cotton wool first time in 1823. Among many schemas for calling into
and manu- action the capabilities of Egypt, all of which were selected
ac ure< with admirable sagacity, Mehemet Ali, the ruler of that
country, thought of cotton wool as a product suited to the
soil and climate, and the culture of which, from the great
and growing demand, was likely to prove a profitable spe¬
culation. His measures for prosecuting this object were
carried into execution with the energy which characterized
all his proceedings, and were upon a scale to enable him,
so early as 1823, to export 5623 bales to England.
The following table shows the amount exported annually
since that period.
Year.
1823
1824
1825
1826
1827
1828
1829
1830
1831
1832
1833
Bales.
5,623
38,022
110,000
136,000
130,000
50,000
75,000
120,000
100,000
41,183
3,893
Year.
1834
1835
1836
1837
1838
1839
1840
1841
1842
1843
7,277
4,372
34,953
41,193
29.700
33,500
3,800
40.700
19,600
48,800
Year.
1844
1845
1846
1847
1848
1849
1850
1851
1852
1853
66.700
82,000
59.600
20.700
29,000
72.600
79.700
67,400
189,900
105,400
The cotton-wool exported is all long-staple wool, but of
two sorts,-—one called in Egypt makko, and in England
common Egyptian ; the other the produce of sea islands seed,
called in Egypt Senaar, and in England sea islands Egyptian,
Besides these two descriptions of cotton, Egypt raises from
] 5,000 to 20,000 bales of short-staple cotton, similar in
quality to that of Smyrna, and chiefly consumed in the Cotton
country itself. Manufac-
The cotton received from Egypt is found to be among ture-
the most useful that is grown,and that raised from seaislands v''-“\rw
seed ranks in quality next to American sea islands.
Having succeeded in the production of cotton, the pasha Cotton ma-
thought he might advance another step, and have it spun nufacture
into yarn and woven into cloth. He accordingly formedof ^^ypt.
establishments for spinning and weaving in Cairo, Bosaco,
Rosetta, and other places; and so early as 1826 he had
at work sixty-one mills moved by the power of buffaloes.
The machinery was supplied from France and England,
orders in council having been obtained in the latter country
to authorize its export. Power-looms were also sent out,
but did not succeed.
A few years later the pasha shipped a thousand bales of
yarn to Calcutta for sale ; but it was not of a quality to enter
into competition with the English yarn, and it was found to be
unsaleable, except at a most disadvantageous price. He
ordered it therefore to be woven into cloth in Calcutta on
his own account, and to be re-shipped to Egypt in a manu¬
factured state.
Clapperton and Landers, on their expeditions to trace interior of
the course of the Niger, found the inhabitants everywhere Africa,
clothed in cotton. They mention that cotton wool is pro¬
duced in the different districts in the interior, and is spun
into cloth on the spot. There exists, therefore, in the heart
of Africa an extensive manufacture of cotton cloth. It is to
be regretted that they give no information of the way in
which the yarn is spun, and no description of the loom em¬
ployed to weave it. It would be interesting to know the
nature of the instruments used by the natives in these pro¬
cesses, as such knowledge might enable us to trace wdience
the Africans derive their acquaintance with the art of weav¬
ing, and thus perhaps throw some light on African history.
It appears that the people of Eboe, and of the countries
near the coast, are chiefly clothed in Manchester cotton
goods; a circumstance which would lead us to expect,
should we succeed in obtaining a commercial intercourse
with the interior of Africa, that a valuable market for our
manufactures may be found in that country.
Within the last twenty years (1854), the American set¬
tlers of Liberia have established a communication across the
country to Timbuctoo, and have found there a considerable
market for cotton cloths.
We shall now resume our account of the progress of the
manufacture in Great Britain.
From Sir Richard Arkwright having commenced his Stocking
operations at Nottingham, the seat of the stocking manu-yarn*
facture, and from his connection with Mr Need, who was
largely engaged in it, the whole produce of his spinning was
at first devoted to that trade. The cotton yarn for this
manufacture requires to be particularly smooth and equal;
and to secure these qualities, it is spun by a process differing
a little from that employed for ordinary twist. Being from
two roves in place of one, it is called double spun twist. The stocking
introduction of this article produced a great change upon trade,
the stocking manufacture. Hand-spun cotton was entirely
laid aside; and stockings made of twist were of so superior
a quality, that in a short time they wholly supplanted thread
stockings.
The manufacture of cotton stockings in Nottinghamshire,
Derbyshire, and Leicestershire, is now of great extent.
About the year 1773, Mr Need and Mr Strutt made the Cotton
important discovery, that the yarn produced by the spinning warp spun
frame had sufficient strength to fit it for warp, although its
firmness and hardness rendered it less suitable for weft.
The weft, therefore, continued to be spun by Hargreaves’
jenny; and from this time the calicoes, and other articles
in imitation of India goods, which had hitherto been manu¬
factured with linen warp, came to be made wholly of cotton ;
c
OTTON MANUFACTURE.
449
Calicoes
made en¬
tirely of
cotton.
The first ■
attempts
to manu¬
facture
muslins in
Britain.
Tambour¬
ing ma¬
chine.
and the progressive increase of these manufactures, particu¬
larly of calicoes, after this time, was unexampled.
After having made a considerable quantity of those goods,
Mr Need and Mr Strutt discovered, that, when printed,
they were subject to double the duty charged upon calicoes
woven with linen warp, and that their sale was even pro¬
hibited in the home market. After a long and expensive
application to the legislature, they succeeded in procuring
the repeal of those impolitic laws. Nearly about the same
period, calicoes entirely of cotton were begun to be made
at Blackburn, and also at Preston ; which places soon be¬
came the seat of their manufacture, and for a long time the
great market to which the printers from all parts of the
kingdom resorted for their supplies. This branch went on
increasing for many years in a most extraordinary degree.
About the year 1805, it was calculated that the number of
pieces sold annually in the Blackburn market was not less
than a million ; and by that time the manufacture of this ar¬
ticle was not confined to the country around Blackburn, but
had spread into the north-west district of Yorkshire, princi¬
pally about Colne and Bradford, from which part of the
country 20,000 pieces weekly are said to have been sent to
Manchester.
The first attempts to make muslins in this country com¬
menced simultaneously in Lancashire and at Glasgow about
the year 1780, but without success. There was no yarn
fitted for the weft of these goods, except that spun upon
Hargreaves’ jenny; and when made of this, it was found
they were not of a marketable quality. Recourse was then
had to wefts brought from India; and although a better
article than the former was by this means produced, it was
still not of a quality to compete successfully with Indian
muslin. As soon, however, as the invention of the mule
jenny enabled the spinner to produce yarns suited to such
fabrics, the manufacture of the finest cotton articles became
an important branch of trade in this country. That ma¬
chine, as has been mentioned, came into use at the end of
the year 1785, upon Sir Richard Arkwright’s patent being
cancelled; and it is from that period we ought to date the
commencement of this part of the manufacture. So rapid
was its progress, that in 1787 it was computed that 500,000
pieces of muslin were in that year manufactured in Great
Britain.
Muslin began to be made nearly at the same time at Bol¬
ton, at Glasgow and at Paisley, each place adopting the
peculiar description of fabric which resembled most those
goods it had been accustomed to manufacture ; and in con¬
sequence of this judicious distribution at first, each place has
continued to maintain a superiority in the production of its
own article.
Jaconets both coarse and fine, but of a stout fabric,
checked and striped muslins, and other articles of the heavier
description of this branch, are manufactured in Bolton and
in its neighbourhood.
Book, mull, and lino muslins, and jaconets of a lighter
fabric than those made in Lancashire, are manufactured in
Glasgow. Sewred and tamboured muslins are almost exclu¬
sively made there and in Paisley. A machine of fnost in¬
genious contrivance for performing the operation of tam¬
bouring was in the year 1807 invented by Mr John Duncan
of Glasgow, and a patent taken out for the discovery. Each
machine contains about forty tambouring needles, and is su¬
perintended by a girl, who pieces the thread when it breaks.
This beautiful, and, at first, promising piece of mechanism
has never come into general use. At present there are only
three or four machines kept at work by the Messrs Mitchells
of Glasgow, who at an early period became proprietors of
the patent.
What are called fancy goods, woven in the loom, were
first made at Paisley, which had been the chief seat of the
silk gauze manufacture of this country. In the silk trade,
Vol. vn.
which was then beginning to fall into decay, a body of most Cotton
ingenious workmen had been bred. By employing them, Manufac-
the taste and invention which had produced the varieties tur<3,
displayed in that beautiful article were immediately trans-
ferred to the production of similar fabrics of muslin. From
this circumstance Paisley for a long time retained the ex¬
clusive possession of this branch ; but being only seven miles
distant from Glasgow, the general seat of the cotton manu¬
facture of Scotland, and the mart to which most purchasers
of muslin resort, many of its principal manufacturers have
been induced to move their establishments to that city, al¬
though the weaving of these muslins continues to be exe¬
cuted in Paisley and its neighbourhood.
There is a curious circumstance to be noticed with regard
to the manufacture of the very fine fabrics of muslin in
Scotland,—that a great part of the yarn used for them is
brought from Manchester, in consequence of the Scotch
spinners not having yet been able to produce the very fine
numbers of yarn of the best quality. This inferiority does
not proceed from a less perfect construction of the machin¬
ery employed in Scotland, the mechanics and the machine-
makers of Glasgow being admitted to be excellent workmen;
neither does it arise from the want of skill in those who
conduct the business, or from any difference in the processes
employed in the two countries ; but it is to be attributed to
the same cause which produces the superior yarn of India,
namely, an adroitness and mechanical sleight of hand in the
operative spinners of Manchester, acquired by a few out of
the great multitude bred there.
The manufacture of the thicker cotton fabrics was at the
same time rapidly rising in importance. The manufacture
of dimities has been exclusively confined to the north of
England, all attempts to make them in Scotland having
proved unsuccessful.
Balason handkerchiefs were first manufactured about
Preston and Chorley, where they still continue to be made.
The manufacture of ginghams was fora long time confined
to Lancashire, but for many years it has been extensively
introduced at Glasgow, although Lancashire continues to be
the chief seat of this branch.
Pullicat handkerchiefs were first made about the year
1785 at Glasgow, where the manufacture of them has been
carried on to a great extent. They were not made in Lanca¬
shire till some time afterwards, and the manufacture of them
there has never been to the same amount; Glasgow, there¬
fore, continues to be the principal mart for this article.
Blue and white checks and stripes for exportation were
at first of a linen fabric, but were afterwards woven with
linen warp and cotton weft; and when Sir Richard Ark¬
wright’s discovery enabled the spinner to produce cotton
yarn of sufficient strength to be used for warps, a great pro¬
portion of these goods came to be made wholly of cotton.
This manufacture is carried on in Lancashire and in the
county of Fife, and to a small extent at Aberdeen; its chief
seat, however, is Carlisle.
The manufacture of cotton cambric was begun about the
same period, and was separated into two branches; into
cambric to be used as garments in a white or printed state ;
and into cambric made in imitation of French linen cambric,
to be used for the same purposes as that article. The first
is made nearly altogether in Lancashire, where the manu¬
facture of it is carried on to a great extent; and the second,
of much less amount, wholly at Glasgow. The Scotch ma¬
nufacturers have never been able to rival the Lancashire in
the first, nor the Lancashire manufacturers to rival the
Scotch in the last.
Bandana handkerchiefs, and Bandana cloths for garments,
were first made by Mr Henry Monteith, at Glasgow, about
the year 1802, and are now manufactured there to a consi¬
derable amount. The cloth is dyed a bright Turkey red,
and the colour is discharged from those parts which form
3 L
COTTON MANUFACTURE.
450
Cotton the pattern or figure, by passing a chemical mixture through
Manufac- them. Glasgow still continues to be the chief seat of this
tur^ manufacture, and there are in that city several large works
for carrying it on. The demand for Bandanas, however,
has latterly fallen off, while, in consequence of the repeal of
the impolitic duty on printed cloths, the consumption of these
has greatly increased; and most of the proprietors ot the
Turkey-red dyeing establishments have therefore been in¬
duced to add calico-printing to their former business.
From the circumstance of Glasgow being the seat of a
fine manufacture, it was found difficult, as long as hand-weav-
ing continued, to introduce there the weaving of calicoes.
The article was made to a limited amount at Perth, but the
Scotch calico-printers were obliged to look for the principal
part of their supply of cloth to Lancashire. So long as this
was the case, it is evident that the Scotch were not on an
equal footing with the English printers; and as a great deal
of capital had been embarked in the trade by the former, a
considerable anxiety was felt by them that this defect in
Wea ving their situation should be remedied. The object was at length
by power, attained by the introduction into Scotland, in 1801, of the
art of weaving by the power of water or of steam ; the ma¬
chinery and subsidiary processes for which had about that
time been so improved, that cloth woven in this way was
found to be as cheap, if not cheaper, than if produced by
manual labour.
Weaving by power, fifteen years before its introduction
into Scotland, had been attempted by the Rev. E. Cart¬
wright of Hollander House, Kent, who invented a loom to
be worked by mechanical means. The circumstances of
this discovery, which will be found fully detailed in the
following letter from Mr Cartwright, are curious, and,
in the history of inventions, we think interesting. Mr
C.says—
“ Happening to be at Matlock in the summer of 1784, I
fell in company with some gentlemen of Manchester, when
the conversation turned on Arkwright’s spinning machinery.
One of the company observed, that as soon as Arkwright’s
patent expired, so many mills would be erected, and so much
cotton spun, that hands never could be found to weave it.
To this observation I replied, that Arkwright must then set
his wits to work and invent a weaving mill. This brought
on a conversation on the subject, in which the Manchester
gentlemen unanimously agreed that the thing was imprac¬
ticable ; and, in defence of their opinion, they adduced ar¬
guments which I certainly was incompetent to answer, or
even to comprehend, being totally ignorant of the subject,
having never at that time seen a person weave. I contro¬
verted, however, the impracticability of the thing, by re¬
marking, that there had lately been exhibited in London
an automaton figure which played at chess. Now, you will
not assert, gentlemen, said I, that it is more difficult to con¬
struct a machine that shall weave than one which shall
make all the variety of moves which are required in that
difficult game.1
“ Some little time afterwards, a particular circumstance
recalling this conversation to my mind, it struck me that,
as in plain weaving, according to the conception I then had
of the business, there could only be three movements, which
were to follow each other in succession, there would be
little difficulty in producing and repeating them. Full of
these ideas, I immediately employed a carpenter and smith
to carry them into effect. As soon as the machine was
finished, I got a weaver to put in the warp, which was of
such materials as sail-cloth is usually made of. To my
great delight, a piece of cloth, such as it was, was the pro¬
duce. As I had never before turned my thoughts to any¬
thing mechanical, either in theory or practice, nor had ever
seen a loom at work, or knew anything of its construction, Cotton
you will readily suppose that my first loom must have been Manufac-
a most rude piece of machinery. The warp was placed per- v tu^e•
pendicularly, the reed fell with a force of at least half a hun-
dredweight, and the springs which threw the shuttle were
strong enough to have thrown a Congreve rocket. In short,
it required the strength of two powerful men to work the
machine at a slow x-ate, and only for a short time. Con¬
ceiving in my great simplicity that I had accomplished all
that was required, I then secured what I thought a most
valuable property by a patent, 4th April 1785. This being
done, I then condescended to see how other people wove;
and you will guess my astonishment when I compared their
easy mode of operation with mine. Availing myself, how¬
ever, of what I then saw, I made a loom, in its general
principles nearly as they are now made; but it was not till
the year 1787 that I completed my invention, when I took
out my last weaving patent, August 1st of that year.”
But the idea of weaving by machinery was not new.
About the close of the preceding century, a drawing and a
description of a similar loom (a circumstance unknown to
Mr Cartwright) had been presented to the Royal Society
of London. The movements, too, in both are the same
with those of the inch-loom, a machine which had long
been in use.
Mr Cartwright, after obtaining his second patent, erected
a weaving factory at Doncaster, which he filled with looms.
This concern was unsuccessful, and was at last abandoned.
But still the invention was considered so important to the
country, that some years after, upon an application from a
number of manufacturers at Manchester, parliament granted
Mr Cartwright a sum of money as a remuneration for his
ingenuity and trouble.
About the year 1790, Mr Grimshaw of Manchester, un¬
der a license from Mr Cartwright, erected a weaving factory,
which was to have contained five hundred looms, for weaving
coarse sacking cloth. He intended also to attempt the
weaving of fustians. But after a small part of the machin¬
ery had been set agoing, the work was destroyed by fire;
and as the concern during the short trial that had been
made did not promise to be successful, the mill was not
rebuilt.
About the year 1794, Mr Bell of Glasgow invented an¬
other loom, for which also a patent was taken; and a fac¬
tory of these looms was erected at Milton near Dumbarton.
But this concern, although carried on for many years, was
not more successful than those which had preceded it.
In 1801 Mr John Monteith of Glasgow erected, in the
village of Pollokshaws, a weaving factory, containing two
hundred looms. This concern also at first promised ill, but
is understood to have afterwards succeeded ; and the num¬
ber of looms was increased to three hundred.
In 1805 a large weaving factory was erected at Catrine
in Ayrshire, by Messrs James Finlay and Company, to be
carried on in conjunction with their extensive spinning-work
at that place ; and in 1808 they built another weaving fac¬
tory at Doune, connected with the spinning-works there, the
two containing 462 looms. The quantity of cloth produced
in these establishments, in proportion to the number of hands
employed in them, is understood to have been greater than
had been obtained before in other works, and the under¬
taking is said to have done well from the outset.
After this period new weaving factories were erected in
Glasgow or in its neighbourhood almost every year.
In 1817 there were in Glasgow or belonging to it fifteen
weaving factories, containing 2275 looms. There were in
1832 sixty-three factories, containing 14,127 looms. Mr Rad-
Weaving by power, however, could never have succeeded cliffe’s
machine.
1 It has already been noticed, under the heads Androides and Automaton, on how slender a foundation the celebrity of this chess¬
playing automaton rests.—Ed.
COTTON MANUFACTURE.
451
Cotton
Manufac¬
ture.
Mr Mars-
land’s im¬
provement
on the
steam-
loom.
but for the discovery of a process for dressing the web be¬
fore it is put into the loom; which happily was effected by
Mr Radcliffe of Stockport. The stoppage of the work from
time to time for dressing the web made it impossible to do
more than attend to one loom; but by the acquisition of
this process, one person can attend to two looms.
The contrivances for “ dressing” are very ingenious, the
machinery employed in it deriving its movement from the
power which gives motion to the looms. The yarn is first
wound from the cop upon bobbins by a winding machine, in
which operation it is passed through water, to increase its
tenacity. The bobbins are then put upon the warping mill,
and the web is warped from them upon a beam belonging to
the dressing-frame. From the beam, now placed in the
dressing-frame, the warp is wound upon the weaving-beam,
but, in its progress to it, passes through a strong dressing
of starch. It is then compressed between two rollers, to
free it from the moisture it had imbibed with the dressing,
and drawn over a succession of tin cylinders heated by
steam, to dry it. During the whole of this last part of its
progress it is lightly brushed as it moves along, and fanned
by rapidly revolving fanners.
Mr Peter Marsland of Stockport, who for many years
had a large factory for weaving cotton cloth of a superior
quality, was the inventor of an improvement upon the power-
loom, by means of the double crank, for which, about the
year 1807, he obtained a patent. The operation of the
crank is to make the lathe give a quick blow to the cloth
on coming in contact with it, and by that means render it
more stout and even.
The weaving of calicoes by power did not succeed in
Lancashire so early as it did in Scotland. In 1817, the
number of power-looms in Lancashire was estimated to be
about two thousand, of which only about one thousand were
said to be then in employment. The cause of this was, that
the price paid at the time we refer to for weaving by the
hand had been forced down to the very lowest degree by
the depressed state of trade, and the pressure of an over¬
grown population bearing upon the means of employment.
Wages had fallen below the rate at which the goods could
be produced by machinery^ This struggle for existence
between the two processes terminated, however, as might
have been expected. The hand-weavers, finding it impos¬
sible to go on with the reduced wages, gradually gave way.
Their numbers ceased to increase; and the extraordinary
addition to the amount of the manufacture since that time
has been the product of the power-loom. Goods of very
low and fine qualities are still woven by the hand.
In 1832 there were 80,000 power-looms in Lancashire.
The weekly produce of two power-looms, managed by a girl,
is from 10 to 11 pieces of cloth, four-fourths wide and twenty-
five yards long, woven in ll00 reed; and for this she is paid
eightpence per piece.
The following table, from Dr Cleland’s Statistics of Glas¬
gow, gives the numbers, the age, and sex of the persons em¬
ployed in twenty of the weaving mills belonging to Glas¬
gow, with the maximum and minimum amount of the
weekly wages earned in 1832 by the different sexes, at the
different ages.
Age.
9 to 10
10 ... 12
14
16
18
21
21 upwards
Males.
1
31
38
60
36
56
760
Weekly Wages.
s. d. s. d.
1 6
1 9 to 4 6
3 0 ... 6 6
3 0 ... 10 0
6 8 ... 12 0
7 0 ... 25 0
16 0 ... 24 0
Females.
9
66
220
447
538
826
1235
Weekly Wages.
s. d.
2 6
2 6
3 0
4 10
6 14
7 0
7 0
to
s. d.
3 6
io oj
io 24
9 94
Dr Strang, in his Report on the Social Statistics of
Glasgow for 1851, gives the following statement of fac¬
tories and wages:—
Cotton Factories in Lanarkshire}
Cotton
Manufac¬
ture.
Description.
No
Factories.
Spinning.
Weaving ....
Spinning &
Weaving..
31
37
17
85
No. of
Spindles.
No. of
Power-
Looms.
585,230
278,858
12,254
6,557
864,088 18,811
Total
Numbers employed.
Males.
2,093
1,398
1,522
Females.
5,295
6,345
5,810
5,013 ! 17,450
M & F.
7,388
7,743
7,332
22,463
The factory wages were as follows :—Power-loom wea¬
vers averaged 7s. in 1841, and 7s. 3d. in 1851 ; spinners
21s. in 1841, and the same in 1851. Both worked 69 hours
in 1841, and only 60 in 1851. The increase of wages
arises principally from increased product through improve¬
ments in machinery.
The total in Scotland are as follows—Cotton factories
168; spindles 1,683,093; power-looms 23,564; moving
power steam 71,005 ; water 2842 ; persons employed,
males 8797, females 27,528, total 36,325.
There is a branch of the cotton manufacture yet to be Lace ma-
noticed; a branch not derived from the East, like muslin, nufacture.
but one that has had its origin in this country,—namely,
the bobbinet, or Nottingham lace manufacture, which
now furnishes employment to a large amount of labour and
capital.
That the stocking-frame should have been transferred
into a machine for weaving point-lace, a fabric so different
in character, was not to have been expected. About the
year 1768, however, a frame-work knitter of Nottingham,
looking at the lace on his wife’s cap, thought he could fabri¬
cate a similar article by means of his stocking-frame. He
tried, and was, on the first attempt, to a certain degree suc¬
cessful. In 1782 some advance was made in carrying his
invention farther; but the design was not finally matured
till 1809, when Mr Heathcoat of Loughborough, but after¬
wards of Tiverton, succeeded in bringing the machine to a
perfect state, and took a patent for the discovery. In 1815
steam power began to be applied to the movement of the
machine, but did not come into extensive use until 1820.
In 1823, on the expiry of Mr Heathcoat’s patent, the manu¬
facture increased with extraordinary rapidity. The demand
for the goods became immense; and the Nottingham lace-
frame was found, in the fabrication of plain nets, to rival the
most finished productions of France and the Netherlands.
It is proper however to observe, that without the previous
possession of the mule jenny, we could not have made the
acquisition of the cotton-lace manufacture. Had Mr Cromp¬
ton not given us the means of obtaining very fine yarn, of
the quality required for the delicate texture of lace or bob¬
binet, fabrics of such beauty must have rested with their
conception, for want of a material of sufficient fineness.
Mr Heathcoat’s frame, on its introduction, at once took
the place of the whole body of pillow-lace workers. After
his patent expired, and the trade was thrown open, the
eagerness to partake of the great profits produced a most
active competition, and new and improved machines were
brought forward in rapid succession, each in its turn render¬
ing less profitable, and by degrees displacing, the one which
had preceded it.
Again, when latterly the supply of the article came to
overtake the demand, and prices were greatly reduced, the
frames moved by power began to press hard upon those
worked by the hand ; and the value of the hand-machines,
which when they were first started was as high as L.1200,
1 It may be assumed that the persons employed therein are altogether dependent on Glasgow.
452
COTTON MANUFACTURE.
Cotton
Manufac¬
ture.
sank to L.60. There are now (1854) in the course of being
introduced into the manufacture machines possessing such
. power of production as must supersede the older ones.
The number of lace frames in September 1831 was 4501.
Of these, 3501 were hand-machines; and seven hundred of
them were held by workmen, who bore the twofold charac¬
ter of manufacturer and weaver, and to whom every fall in
the price of the goods resolved itself into a fall of wages,
leading to a reduction of the wages paid in the trade gene¬
rally.
These machines worked up annually 1,600,000 pounds of
sea island cotton, which were spun into 1,000,000 pounds
of yarn, of the value of L.500,000, and gave employment
to fifty-five spinning factories at Manchester, containing
860,000 spindles. The lace trade has, however, introduced
another important branch of business in doubling the fine
single yarn spun upon the mule, as lace or bobbinet re¬
quires a twofold thread for its production, and lace thread
has therefore become an article of great consumption, not
only in the manufacture of lace, but also as a mixture with
wool and silk. It is calculated that 208,000 persons re¬
ceive wages for the labour performed in the different pro¬
cesses of this manufacture—in spinning the yarn at Man¬
chester, weaving the goods in Nottinghamshire and Leices¬
tershire, and in the embroidery of them, executed in differ¬
ent parts of the kingdom. The product is estimated at
23,400,000 yards, and the value as it comes from the frame
at L.1,891,875. Of this whole production, about four-
eighths are exported in an unembroidered state to the Con¬
tinent ; about three-eighths are sold unembroidered for home
consumption ; and the remaining eighth is embroidered in
this country. The total value of the goods, and of the work
performed upon them in this country, has been estimated
at L.3,417,700.
Having now given a sketch of the progress of the cotton
manufacture of this country, from its first introduction to
the present time, we shall endeavour to give some idea of
its progressive increase, by tabular exhibitions of the quan¬
tity of cotton wool imported into Britain at different pe¬
riods ; and which will indicate the increase in mills and
machinery in the whole cotton trade of the United King¬
dom.
From the year 1716 to 1720, the average annual impor¬
tation of cotton was 2,173,287 lbs. We have not been
able to obtain any account of the cotton imported from that
period to the year 1771; but the increase had not been Cotton
great; for the average annual importation from 1771 to 1775, Manufac-
which commences two years after Hargreaves’ and Ark- ture-
wright’s discoveries, and comprehends two years of the time
after which calicoes began to be made wholly of cotton, was
only 4,764,589 lbs. The importation from 1776 to 1780
was 6,766,613 lbs.; from 1781 to 1785, 10,941,934 lbs.
from 1786 to 1790, 25,443,270 lbs; from 1791 to 1795,
26,000,000 lbs.; and from 1796 to 1800, 37,364,077 lbs.
The quantity of cotton imported from 1771 to 1775 was
4,764,589 lbs., which gives an average for each of the four
years ot 1,191,147 lbs. The following table will show in
pounds weight the quantity imported from 1781 to 1801,
without discriminating the countries whence it was obtained;
but it may be understood to have been supplied, in the ear¬
lier periods, chiefly by the West Indies, the first importation
of American cotton of any consequence having taken place
in 1793. (See ante, p. 447, note.)
Lbs.
1781  5,198,778
1783  9,735,663
1785 18,400,384
1787 23,250,268
1789 32,576,023
1791 28,706,675
Lbs.
1793 19,040,929
1795 26,401,340
1797 23,354,371
1799 43,379,278
1801 56,004,305
The following Table gives the quantity of Cotton of different
descriptions imported into Great Britain from 1820 to
1853. The quantity is stated in packages, each package
containing three hundred pounds. •
Years.
1820
1830
1840
1845
1846
1847
1848
1849
1850
1851
1852
1853
American.
302,395
618,527
1,237,500
1,499,600
932,000
874,100
1,375,400
1.477.700
1,184,200
1.393.700
1,789,100
1,532,000
Brazil.
180,086
191,468
85,300
110,200
84,000
110,200
100,200
163.800
171.800
108,700
144,200
132,400
East India.Egyptian.
57,923
35,019
216,400
155,100
49,500
222,800
227.500
182,200
307,900
328,800
221.500
485,300
14,750
38,000
82,000
59.600
20.700
29,000
72.600
79.700
67,400
189,900
105,400
West
India, &c,
31,247
11,721
22,300
8,800
9,000
4.900
7.900
9,100
5,700
4.900
12,600
9,100
Packages,
Total.
571,651
871,487
1.599.500
1.855.700
1,134,100
1.232.700
1,740,000
1,905,400
1.749.300
1.903.500
2.357.300
2,264,200
The following Table gives the extreme prices of Cotton Wool at Liverpool on the Z\st December, from 1818 to 1853,
shovjing the progressive reduction of the raw material during that time
453
COTTON MANUFACTURE.
Manufac- 6 riuan iiy °f Cotton \arn spun, and the quantities exported and worked up at home. Cotton
ture> from the year 1818 to 1853. , Manufac
—     ture.
Years.
1818
1819
1820
1821
1822
1823
1824
1825
1826
1827
1828
1829
1830
1831
1832
1833
1834
1835
Yarn produced.
Lbs.
98,911,800
98,566,200
108,238,500
116,126,100
130.943.700
138,731,400
148.656.600
150,147,900
135.191.700
177,480,000
196,074,000
197,280,000
222,840,000
236,430,000
246,935,124
251.757.600
270,186,876
281,435,222
Exported.
Lbs.
14,743,675
18,085,410
23,032,325
21,526,369
26.595.468
27,378,986
33,605,510
32,641,604
42.179,521
43,346,632
43,242,882
60,562,189
63,678,116
61,561,154
75,667,150
70,626,161
76.478.468
83,214,198
Consumed at
home.
Lbs.
84,168,125
80,480,790
85,206,175
95,599,731
104,348,232
111,352,414
115,051,090
117,506,296
93,012,179
134,133,368
152,831,118
136,717,811
159,161,884
174,868,846
171,267,974
181,131,439
193,708,408
198,221,024
Years.
1836
1837
1838
1839
1840
1841
1842
1843
1844
1845
1846
1847
1848
1849
1850
1851
1852
1853
Yarn produced.
Lbs.
293,064,496
324,031,851
379,486,510
342,826,571
406,864,913
370,768,077
372,754,144
437,589,441
445,577,480
494,766,487
552,870,000
397,260,000
518,840,000
566,910,000
529,380,000
593,010,000
665,190,000
685,440,000
Exported.
Lbs.
88,191,046
103,455,138
114,596,602
105,686,442
118,470,223
123,226,510
137,466.892
140,321,176
138,540,079
135,766,487
160,554,673
119,489,554
131,500,141
148,275,885
124,241,100
131,587,577
129,385,924
129,190,507
Consumed at
home.
Lbs.
204,873,450
220,576,713
264,889,898
237,140,129
288,394,690
247,541,567
235,277,252
297,268,265
307,037,401
359,621,622
392,315,327
277,770,446
387,439,859
418,634,115
405,138,900
461,422,423
535,804,076
556,249,495
The following Table gives the Markets to which the Cotton Yarn spun from 1818 to 1853 was exported:—
1818
1819
1820
1821
1822
1823
1824
1825
1826
1827
1828
1829
1830
1831
1832
1833
1834
1835
1836
1837
1838
1839
1840
1841
1842
1843
1844
1845
1846
1847
1848
1849
1850
1851
1852
1853
Russia and
Ports in the
Baltic.
Lbs.
5,913,691
3,779,544
9,060,052
4,815,114
4,948,619
7,148,497
12,304,373
9,369,333
12,380,188
11,481,650
14,838,515
17,564,062
17,855,541
14,352,638
20,276,467
20,928,831
17,971,001
22,545,249
19,852,028
24,858,382
19,928,127
19,963,004
19,563,024
19,058,777
24,229,404
26,918,476
27,248,334
21,052,973
19,195,932
16,104,094
16,207,198
11,666,761
6,694,493
6,381,505
5,313,886
5,978,007
Germany,
Belgium, and
Holland.1
Lbs.
7,937,234
13,124,637
11,859,802
14,819,820
18,764,070
16,694,715
16,497,594
19,721,419
22,160,331
23,225,400
18,169,935
31.262,142
29,718,184
28,023,322
40,674,870
37,154,396
39,234,784
45,729,349
47,313,075
55,561,403
64,605,444
60,061,809
61,876,626
61.425.243
74,004,879
75.650.199
59,192,277
71,347,963
82,735,136
58,883,022
58.791.200
74,703,743
71,828,257
62,882,777
59.852.243
63,186,988
France and j Africa and
Ports in the | North & South
Mediterranean.2 America.
Lbs.
876,957
1,157,593
2,089,451
1,863,340
2,838,828
3,383,204
4,652,063
3,264,078
6,671,463
5,675,140
5,826,280
8,203,385
11,485,195
10,792,384
5,787,081
5,025,231
12,619,805
7,201,674
7,654,537
12,173,355
15,960,898
9,167,476
11,520,018
16,866.468
19,364,670
25,450,623
20,484,850
20,926,780
27,719,193
20,610.398
32,063,348
33,036,017
23,111,116
28,687,983
31,894,538
28,931,959
Lbs.
13,932
22,665
22,009
21,674
20,673
29,035
45,616
51,408
47,732
170,797
222,872
636,274
327,483
1,689,155
1,306,771
1,128,622
1,164,475
1,472,012
853,548
2,971,921
1,496,967
776,002
947,017
1,360,840
534,303
833,586
1,108,376
1,174,511
919,852
1,409,656
2,549,851
2,844,980
1,676,635
1,966,759
2,056,542
2,681,334
India and
China.
Lbs.
1,861
971
1,011
6,421
23,278
123,535
105,864
235,366
919,807
2,793,645
4,185,280
2,896,325
4,291,713
6,703,655
3,409,810
2,973,462
4,071,796
5,305,212
9,006,052
9,013,319
10,969,816
8,486,915
12,806,830
15,639,562
17,706,211
19,531,056
20,020,175
16,518,987
24,502,908
22,482,384
21,888,544
26,024,384
20,930,601
31,668,553
30,295,795
28,952,219
Spain, I British and
Portugal, and Foreign West
Madeira. Indies.
Lbs.
93,601
70,414
3,089,741
274,505
340,621
316,464
741,162
549,762
438,632
861,287
618,599
644,920
887,605
808,540
965,764
Lbs.
11,016
11,091
5,932
3,450
17,580
149,365
80,831
33,240
54,598
37,275
9,100
66,160
247,905
91,633
52,689
Mauritius,
Batavia, New
Holland.
Lbs.
110,889
155,733
6,486
241,786
80,488
10,016
36,665
5,416
199,509
5,934
990
111,428
16,857
43,222
17,262
Totals.
Lbs.
14,743,675
18,085,410
23,032,325
21,526,369
26,595,468
27,378,986
33,605,510
32,641,604
42,179,521
43,346,632
43,242,882
60,562,189
63,678,116
61,561,154
71,670,495
100,447,780
77,964,017
82,773,231
85,118,929
105,054,225
113,817,910
99,037,624
107,386,254
115,282,386
136,468,156
149,206,448
129,206,379
131,964,609
156,108,736
119,489,554
131,500,141
148,275,885
124,241,102
131,587,577
129,385,924
129,190,507
The value of the present annual production of the cotton
manufacture of Great Britain is estimated at L.54,000,000
sterling, of which nearly L.33,000,000 is the value of goods
and yarn made for exportation. The capital invested in build¬
ings and machinery may be calculated at nearly the same as
the annual amount of the manufacture, and more than double
what it was thirty years ago, while the quantity of goods an¬
nually produced is much more than triple; yet, from the im¬
provement of the processes, and consequent diminution of
the expense of production, with the reduction which has
taken place at the same time in the price of the raw mate¬
rial, this more than tripled quantity of the manufactured ar-
1 This column includes Trieste and the Austrian ports from 1832.
2 This column includes Turkey, Egypt, and the Levant from 1832.
454
COTTON MANUFACTURE.
Cotton tide does not represent more capital than was represented
Manufac- an(| reqUired for bringing to market, the lesser amount
^uie‘ during the preceding period. In the year 1812, when Mr
Crompton applied to parliament for a remuneration for his
invention, he found by as accurate an investigation as he
could make, that the number of mule spindles in this coun¬
try was between four and five millions; and Mr Kennedy,
in his memoir of Mr Crompton, has stated that the number
in 1829 had increased to seven millions. In 18175he esti¬
mated the number of persons employed in the spinning of
cotton in Great Britain at 110,763, and the number of
spindles in motion at 6,645,833, and the quantity of yarn
produced at 99,687,500 lbs. The quantity of cotton yarn
spun in 1832 was 222,000,000 lbs., of which 132,000,000
lbs. have been manufactured into cloth, giving employ¬
ment to 203,373 looms ; but in 1853 the yarn spun was
685,440,000 lbs.
No exact estimate of the capital invested in the cotton
trade can be given. What is offered above is a mere ap¬
proximation. The following details, however, possess much
interest, and may be relied upon.
In 1838, the total number of cotton factories in Great Bri¬
tain and Ireland was 1815 ; thus apportioned:—
England and Wales 1599
Scotland  192
Ireland,  24
Total...  1815
The total number of hands employed in these factories
was 206,061, of whom 114,129 were males, and 145,934 fe¬
males, thus apportioned:—
Males. Females.
England and Wales 101,412 ... 118,451
Scotland  10,950 ... 24,626
Ireland  1,765 ... 2,857
Total  114,127 ... 145,934
There is no return of the number of factories at work in
1846, but the number of persons employed in them is thus
given by Mr Burns in his Statistics of the Cotton Trade,
from which the above particulars are taken :—
Males. Females.
England and Wales 123,320 ... 153,708
Scotland  9,221 ... 25,895
Ireland  1,550 ... 2,633
Total 134,091 ... 182,236
Total employed in the United Kingdom, 316,327
Effects of
the cotton
manufac¬
ture on the:
condition
of the
country.
According to the census of 1851, the cotton manufac¬
ture of Great Britain employs 149,214 men, 143,268women,
73,398 boys, and 104,437 girls—in all 470,317 persons;
besides as cotton and calico printers 13,263 men, dyers
3,024 men, and youths and girls in large numbers.
As the successive mechanical inventions which we have
described came to be applied to the manufacture, they
changed the principle of production, and made what till
then had been nearly wholly a product of labour become
almost entirely a product of capital Important results
flowed from this change. It enabled Great Britain, the
principal holder of these machines, to become the furnisher
of a commodity which up to that time had been brought at
a great expense from India. It further enabled her to re¬
duce its cost, and render what till then had been accessible
only to the rich, and of limited sale, an article of general
wear. During the long struggle which took place between
machinery and hand labour, this country continued to be
the nearly exclusive possessor of the machines by which the
reduction of cost was effected. Having in consequence, in
a great measure, a monopoly of the supply, she was enabled
to reap that harvest of prosperity which so unusual a com¬
bination of circumstances was calculated to produce. An
improvement in the condition of every class of the com¬
munity followed the advance of the manufacture. The pro¬
gressive extension of the use of machinery, in place of les- Cotton
sening the demand for labour, as was at first dreaded, had the Manufac-
effect of increasing it to an extraordinary degree. There tore,
was a constantly growing want of hands to be employed V/-w'
in aid of the new machinery, and in the new branches of
manufacture to which it gave birth. The wages of labour
in consequence rose, at first moderately, but afterwards
extensively ; and the rise having pervaded every descrip¬
tion of employment, not only gave the whole labouring
class in this country a command of the comforts of life, but
brought within their reach many little luxuries to which
they were formerly unaccustomed. The condition of the
higher classes of the community experienced a correspond¬
ing advance, the population rapidly increased, and an en¬
larged consumption of the products of the soil took place,
in consequence of the improved circumstances, as well as of
the augmented numbers of the people. More grain, more
butcher-meat, were used; and an additional quantity of
corn was required for the horses employed in the transport
of commodities, in the conveyance of passengers, and in the
operations of husbandry. All these causes gave a stimulus
to agriculture, and produced a change on that important
branch of industry, not less remarkable than that which
was simultaneously taking place in manufactures.
Previous to the year 1766, the industry, population, and
consumption of the country had been for a considerable
time stationary. We had, from the want of demand at home,
been enabled during the whole of the preceding part of
the century to export grain annually to a large amount.
From 1766, however, we ceased to be exporters of grain.
The improvement in the circumstances of the country had
enlarged its power of consumption, which from that time
has been so steadily progressive, and so great, that notwith¬
standing our having, by our improved agriculture, augment¬
ed our products threefold, we not only have never been able
to bring our home supply to meet our demand, but have
been obliged to import largely every year from other coun¬
tries.
There can be no such satisfactory evidence of the im¬
proving condition of a people as a continued increase in
their power of consumption ; and the facts we have stated
afford proofs of a degree of comfort diffused for a length
of time over a great population, which we believe to be un¬
exampled, while the influence of the cotton manufactures
on the commercial prosperity of the country has been scarcely
less striking.
To preserve this pre-eminence in manufacture against
the competition of rival states, we have still to look to our
economy, our capital, our machinery, and our superior skill
in providing a variety of undefinable subsidiary aids to
the manufacturing processes. From the European states
we have little to fear; and the advantages which Ame¬
rica possesses as a cotton-producing country is greatly
neutralized by the other drawbacks to which it is subject.
The Southern States of the Union, in which the cotton
wool is raised, from their local defects, and the character of
the lower classes, never can become a manufacturing country.
To the Northern States, and to ourselves, the difference of
cost of raw material cannot be great, particularly if the
East Indies and South America be open for our supply.
The high price of labour also renders the cost of produc¬
tion much dearer than in Britain, and operates as a serious bar
to the extension of the cotton manufacture in the Northern
States. The consequence is, that, notwithstanding the great
efforts which have been made to naturalize that branch of
industry in these provinces, and notwithstanding the well-
known energy and intelligence of the people ol North
America, it has made but slow progress during the last
twenty years, compared with the vast expansion which it
has undergone in this country, as will be seen from the fol¬
lowing table:—
Cotton
Manufac¬
ture.
Remarks
on the ex¬
clusive sys¬
tem.
COTTON MANUFACTURE.
455
Growth and Consumption of the United States
of America.
Growth in
bales.
Consumption,
in bales.
1829
1830
1831
1832
1833
1834
1835
1836
1837
1838
1839
1840
1841
1842
1843
1844
1845
1846
1847
1848 -
1849
1850
1851 -
1852
1830
1831
1832
1833
1834
1835
1836
1837
1838
1839
1840
1841
1842
1843
1844
1845
1846
1847
1848
- 1849
- 1850
- 1851
- 1852
1853
970,845
1,038,848
987,477
1,070,438
1,205,394
1,254,328
1,360,725
1,422,930
1,801,497
1,360,532
2,177,835
1,634,945
1,683,574
2,378,875
2,030,409
2,394,503
2,100,537
1,778,651
2,347,634
2,728,596
2,096,706
2,355,257
3,015,029
3,262,882
126,512
182,142
173.800
194.412
196.413
216,888
236,733
222,540
246,063
276,018
291,279
297,288
267,850
325,129
346,744
389,006
422,597
430,000
530,000
520,000
487.800
404,100
603,000
671,000
It is obvious, from this table, that the home consumption
in the United States has always borne a most dispropor-
tioned ratio to the entire growth, and that even in the four
last years, when it had attained to the highest point which
it has yet reached, the quantity reserved for domestic use
never exceeded a seventh part of the whole, and generally
fell considerably below it. It is deserving of notice, how¬
ever, that in the period of time which this table compre¬
hends, the interna] consumption of the United States has
been trebled; but large as this increase may seem in the
eyes of a native economist, the conclusions from it will not
be satisfactory if the collateral circumstances are not con¬
sidered ; and the chief of these is, that it is an increase upon
small quantities, and indicates no more than the gradual
growth of an infant trade, which the cotton manufacture
was in North America in 1829.
We believe that in this manufacture we have little to feai-
in the meantime from competition ; but we are not equally
confident that its prosperity may not be exposed to risk from
our ill-judged anxiety to secure a monopoly of its advan¬
tages. Our practice of excluding from our markets the
manufactures of other countries is not only contrary to sound
political principle, but gives rise to a spirit of hostility un¬
favourable to our interests, and places us in such a state
that, when other nations in retaliation exclude our manufac¬
tures from their markets, we have no right to complain.
That we may not decide this question rashly, let us ex¬
amine what is the danger to which we should be exposed if
we were to take the opposite system, and open our ports to
the manufactures of other countries.
If we can now export annually to the value of about
L.32,000,000 sterling of cotton goods, which, burdened with
freight, charges, and the exporter’s profit, we are able to
sell in competition with foreign manufacture, can we have
anything to fear from a competition with that manufacture
in our home market, where the circumstances of the com¬
peting parties would be reversed ? So far from the intro¬
duction of foreign manufacture into our market being an
evil, we are inclined to think that it would be advantageous
to our interests; and that, in the interchange of various
fabrics which would be the result, the sale of our own
manufactures would be increased. Commerce being alto¬
gether a matter of barter, it is necessary for every country
to purchase in order that she may sell; and, fortunately,
even in the same branch of manufacture, there is always room
for such exchanges. There are shades of difference in the Cotton
fabric of every article, upon which taste, or fashion, or caprice, -Manufac-
never fails to fix an arbitrary value, thereby constituting ture-
them into separate commodities capable of being exchanged.
But the view we are taking of' this important question
does not rest altogether upon theory. Happily we have ex¬
perience in support of it. No one disputes the advantage re¬
sulting from the interchange of commodities between Lan¬
cashire and Lanarkshire, or alleges that it would be for the
benefit of either to have the manufacture of the other ex¬
cluded from its market. Yet these two districts have their
dependence upon manufactures which in their general fea¬
tures are the same.
It is well known regarding the commercial treaty with
France, in which some approach was made to a free trade
between the two countries, that while it lasted the sale
warehouses of London and Manchester were resorted to
by purchasers from the different towns of France, with the
same freedom, and in nearly an equal proportion of num¬
bers, as from the towns in England. And although in those
warehouses French and English commodities of a similar
description were to be found, and our shopkeepers were at
the same time daily resorting to Fi'ance to make purchases,
in no period were our manufactures in a state of greater
progressive prosperity than during the eight years (from
1786 to 1793) that this treaty existed.
There is no one, we believe, who has taken the trouble
to investigate the matter, that will not say that both M ere
benefited by this treaty, and probably exactly in the de¬
gree that the exclusive system in both had been departed
from.
In addition to this, it may be proper to notice, that Swit¬
zerland and Saxony have always been open to the reception
of cotton goods free of duty : and that in no other coun¬
tries on the Continent is the cotton manufacture in a more
thriving state. Might it not, therefore, be a wise mea¬
sure to withdraw our restrictions against the importation
of foreign manufactures, since the interference of these with
our own products in the home market, supposing no inter¬
change of the two to take place, never could counterbalance
the amount of the sale we may be deprived of by following
the opposite policy, and thus inducing the exclusion of our
own goods from the foreign market ?
Fears have been expressed that the lower wages for which
the labourers of other countries that compete with us in the
manufacture can work, and upon which, from the cheapness
of their provisions, they can afford to live, may ultimately
enable them to take the manufacture out of our hands. In
reply to this, it may perhaps be sufficient to recal to our
readers the small part of the cost of the commodity which
now belongs to the labour of the hand, and the daily dimi¬
nution which is taking place even of that part, by the intro¬
duction of new mechanical substitutes. Thus, for example,
in 1767 each spindle required a person to work it; but now
one man, with the aid of a few piecers to take up and join
his broken ends, can work a thousand spindles. In Lanca¬
shire in 1818 there were not more than 2000 power-looms,
and of these not a half in employment; while in 1832, so
extensive had been the change from hand-weaving to weav¬
ing by power, the number had increased to 80,000.
According to the subjoined table, the cotton industry of
Great Britain and Ireland yielded last year about fifty-four
millions sterling, and which may be regarded as half the cot¬
ton industry of the whole M’orld ; but foreign countries, be¬
sides taking half of the raw cotton sent to market, receive
large supplies of cotton yarns from Great Britain ; and in
Asia and Africa cotton is still largely spun by hand; hence
the world’s cotton industry may be valued at 120 millions,
which would afford to every man, woman, and child on the
face of the earth 2s. 9|d. worth of cotton manufactures, or
about fourteen yards per head per annum of excellent calico.
I
COTTON MANUFACTURE.
Declared Value of British and Irish Cotton Manufactures and Twist and Yarn exported to the undermentioned
Countries in the Year 1853.
67,000,000
3,000,000
2,864,831
1,050,132
2.900,000
15,726,820
20,000
2,003,200
241,000
384,000
2,000
2,444,550
3,533,538
143,126
36,897,152
4,530,000
271,416
90,000
14,357,210
200,000
17,024
4,890,000
1,275,000
2,500,000
7,500,000
7,835,000
120,000
208,100
1,000,000
26,100,000
100,000
2,000,000
15,000,000
10,000,000
101,469
40,000
13,750,000
150,000,000
5,000,000
2,500,000
360,000,000
20,000
25,000
2,695,000
600,000
2,456,046
944,800
14,600
600,000
461,200
120,839
135,000
31,000
8,000
236,000
860,000
27,000,000
8,000,000
28,000
1,267,692
500,000
6,000,000
860,000
100,000
1,600,000
1,500,000
2.000,000
' 12,000
20,000
Value per head of
Exports to each
Country.
7 19 7
825,690,745
27,512,687
0 17
0 1
0 0
0 0
0 3
0 0
0 6
23 14
0 1
0 0
0 0
1 3
0 8
0 2
11-50
8- 25
6- 75
1
0
7- 75
0
1- 25
6
2- 75
3
9- 25
3- 25
11-50
10-46
6
3
2
0 1 10-50
0 0 1
0 1 2-75
1 5 7-25
0 0 3
0 0 9
0 1 9-50
0 2 9
... -75
13 18 7-50
0 7 8-50
0 0 0 75
0 6 1-25
0 8 4-25
3 17 10 50
0 12 9-75
0 0 2-50
0 7 8-75
36 19 3-25
0 0 1
0 1 9-25
0 3 1
0 1 10-50
10 9 9-50
0 2 6
0 0 9-25
0 5 11-50
0 6 1-75
2 11 1-75
0 7 4-75
0 6 6-75
0 0 4
Declared Value.
Countries to which Exported.
Cotton Manufactures Hosiery, Lace, Cotton Twist and
I entered by the Yard, and Small Wares. Yarn.
Russia—Northern Ports 
Ports within the Black Sea 
Sweden 
Norway   
Denmark (including Iceland) 
Prussia  
Mecklenburg-Schwerin 
Hanover 
Oldenburg and Kniphausen 
Hanseatic Towns 
Heligoland 
Holland 
Belgium 
Channel Islands 
Prance 
Portugal Proper 
Azores 
Madeira   
Spain—Continental, and the Balearic Islands 
Canary Islands 
Gibraltar 
Italy, &c.—viz. Sardinian Territories 
Duchy of Tuscany 
Papal Territories 
Naples and Sicily 
Austrian Territories 
Malta and Gozo 
Ionian Islands 
Kingdom of Greece   
Turkish Dominions, exclusive of Wallachia, Moldavia,
Syria, and Egypt,   
Wallachia and Moldavia 
Syria and Palestine   
Egypt—Ports on the Mediterranean 
Tunis 
Algeria  
Morocco, &c 
Western Coast of Africa, ,...
British Possessions in South Africa .
Eastern Coast of Africa 
African Ports on the Red Sea 
Cape Verde Islands 
Ascension and St Helena 
Mauritius   
Aden  
0 15 5
Persia 
Continental India, with the contiguous Islands :—viz.
British Territories 
The Birman Empire 
Islands of the Indian Seas :—Java... 
Philippine Islands 
China   
Hong Kong 
Japanese Islands       
British Settlements in Australia   ...
South Sea Islands     
British North America       
British West India Islands and British Guiana.
Honduras (British Settlements) 
Foreign West India Islands:—Cuba......... 
Porto Rico..., 
Guadaloupe 
Martinique 
Curaeoa 
St Croix 
St Thomas 
French Guiana 
Dutch Guiana   
Hayti     
United States of America 
California 
Mexico 
Central America    
New Grenada 
Venezuela 
Ecuador 
Brazil  
Oriental Republic of the Uruguay.... 
Buenos Ayres, or Argentine Republic 
Chili 
Bolivia 
Peru 
Falkland Islands 
Greenland and Davis’ Straits.
£34,333
9,462
7,166
27,303
34,989
537
612
785,395
473,700
62,170
46,565
65,552
611,195
47,609
16,945
73,283
61,839
374,289
242,213
236,676
80,423
148,621
200,304
108,445
67,026
95,590
1,510,622
77,460
242,639
318,143
63,532
384,719
207,785
1,580
”2,737
979
124,257
535
4,447,413
4i2,194
333,160
1,028,074
177,921
806,715
18,704
665,635
370,016
52,400
341,294
4,773
11,316
275,046
"’l,010
73,441
3,524,629
82,979
473,216
116,787
280,994
152,456
18,922
1,727,537
253,072
238,431
543,413
623,054
108
£8,592
102
2,176
1,728
2,027
200
13
202,268
2
81,435
57,390
1,253
46,574
10,858
803
721
6,897
3,035
21,926
17,795
26,695
613
13,272
6,052
2,099
623
307
13,529
538
651
7,601
218
1,167
12,714
486
5,732
64,392
"5,727
8,855
329
3,621
225,588
176
60,161
24,828
3,114
43,092
144
662
16,379
21
2,953
648,601
6,914
47,720
6,801
12,489
6,385
622
60,009
10,988
17,164
45,599
33,780
100
Total £ £23,901,940
£1,915,309
Estimated consumption of Cotton Manufactures in Great Britain and Ireland
853,203,432 I 0 1 3172 The amount of British Cotton Manufactures supplied for the whole World ...
£137,324
4,186
45,295
25,399
64,142
26,508
60
146,795
2,076,717
1,692,043
179,676
474
43,584
42,310
1,140
18
5,953
401
7,455
46,775
104,742
78,740
199,630
135,113
30,447
18,411
12,161
158,368
75,332
33,430
27,795
60
617
541
1,168,264
30,344
2,140
101,396
97,089
"8,218
23,456
182
1,351
78
4,283
80
9,671
670
11,719
7,741
248
82
25
820
382
213
4,073
" 1,481
2
£6,895,653
Declared Value.
£180,249
13,750
54,637
54,430
101,158
27,245
60
147,420
3,064,380
2
2,247,178
299,236
48,292
155,710
664,363
49,552
17,684
86,133
65,275
403,670
306,783
368,113
159,776
361,523
341,469
140,991
86,060
108,058
1,682,519
153,330
276,720
353,539
63,810
386,503
221,040
1,580
"2,737
1,465
129,992
535
5,680,069
448,265
344,155
1,129,799
278,634
1,040,521
18,880
749,252
395,026
56,865
384,464
4,917
11,978
295,708
"i,031
76,474
4.182,901
' 90,563
532,655
131,329
293,731
158,923
19,569
1,788,366
264,442
255,808
593,085
658,315
210
£32,712,902
21,224,494
53,937,396
Cotton
Manufac
ture.
COTTON MANUFACTURE.
Cotton Steam navigation has brought out the full benefit of our
Manufac- insular position. It has brought Bristol, Liverpool, Dublin,
tiire. Belfast, and Glasgow, into constant and intimate relation ;
'v—and the celerity and certainty belonging to the conveyance
render this means of transport for our finer commodities
invaluable. Suppose that a person in Glasgow receives an
order for goods to be shipped by the first vessel for New
York, and there is no vessel to sail immediately from the
Clyde, but he knows that one of the packet ships from Liver¬
pool will sail for New York in four days from that time ; he
puts his goods into the steam-boat from Glasgow to Liver¬
pool, and they are on board of the packet for New York in
three days after receipt of the order.
The railway, again, between Manchester and Liverpool,
with its steam conveyances, has not only reduced the cost
of carriage between these places, but has had the effect
of bringing together these two immense manufacturing
and trading communities, overleaping, as it were, space and
time, in the rapidity of the communication. A manufac¬
turer in Manchester can leave his house in the morning,
purchase a supply of cotton at Liverpool, and have it deli¬
vered at his work in Manchester the same day.
Effects of The more perfect division of labour and separation of
the exten- employment which takes place as the use of machinery ad-
machTner^ vances> anc^ ^ie consequent limitation of the worker’s atten-
"2- ti°n t0 a single object, check the expansion of the faculties,
dition of and prevent that growth of intelligence in this class which
the people, under a more general employment of their powers might
be expected. Another evil of a similar nature, but attended
perhaps with more serious consequences, is produced by
manufactures when they have arrived at this state, namely,
the employment of children in factories, by which these
young creatures are withdrawn from their parents and homes
before they have received the elements of education, or can
have acquired domestic or moral habits.
In noticing these evils, however, we must recollect that
the state of manufacture which gives birth to them is not
an optional one, not the production of regulation or institu¬
tion, but has grown up in the progress of the arts of indus¬
try, prosecuted by an intelligent people. Although, there¬
fore, it is our duty, in as far as we can, to correct their
effects, we must lay our account with being exposed to
them, so long as men are allowed to pursue their individual
interest by whatever fair means they conceive likely to ac¬
complish their object.
To remedy in as far as possible the interruption to edu¬
cation, schools have been established in many of the facto¬
ries, in which the children are instructed gratis in reading
and writing. An institution of this kind we consider it to
be the interest of the proprietor of every work to provide.
The expense cannot be great, and will be amply repaid in
the superior description of workers it will be the means of
rearing. In the meantime, something is done to supply the
deficiency of this provision by Sunday Schools, which have
been generally established in most of the manufacturing
towns. In these, the children are not only taught to read,
but are also instructed in the principles of religion, and in a
knowledge of their moral duties.
In the year 1800, a course of lectures was given for the
first time in Glasgow, in the Andersonian Institution, to the
mechanics and working classes, with the view of affording
them instruction in the science of their different employ¬
ments. In the supplement to a former edition of this
work, we thought it important to give an account of these
lectures, in order to call public attention generally to the
benefit which had been derived from them ; but this account
we think it unnecessary to repeat, as the “ Mechanics’ In¬
stitutions,” which began soon after to be formed in Glasgow
and in Edinburgh, Liverpool, Manchester, and Leeds, on
the principles of this course, have since spread into every
quarter of the kingdom. These establishments are calcu-
VOL. VII.
457
lated to counteract in a great degree the effects which we Cotton
have noticed as arising from the minute division of employ- Manufac-
ment, and confinement of attention to one object, in great tu^e•
manufactories.
So important does this species of instruction appear to us
in the circumstances of this country, where so much de¬
pends on our being able to keep the lead which we have
got in mechanical invention and discovery, that we think
it worthy of consideration in a national point of view, whe¬
ther, in the appointment of our parochial schoolmasters, it
might not be declared indispensable that they should be
qualified to teach the first principles of mechanics and
chemistry.
W ith the stores of the raw material of machinery which
we possess, might we not, with a proper training of our
people, become machine-makers for all the nations who are
less favourably circumstanced? The advantage of being
able to occupy such ground would be incalculable.
In Ireland some attempts to introduce the manufacture Cotton
of cotton goods were made so early as 1770, but the manu- manufac-
facture continued on a very limited scale until the year 1790.ture in
After this period the progress was considerable, although Irelan(1*
far short of what took place during the same time in this
country; indeed, its products have never been such as to
enter into competition with those of Britain, or to become
articles of general foreign sale. This probably arises from
the high price of fuel, rendering the concentration of the
processes by means of the power of steam, and the conse¬
quent saving in labour, in many situations impossible.
The chief seat of this manufacture in Ireland is Belfast,
and the district of country situated within twenty miles of
that town. But there are a good many calicoes, fustians,
and cotton checks made in Dublin, Balbriggan, Bandon,
and Cork. All these goods are consigned to factors in
Dublin for sale; except a part of the calicoes, which the
manufacturers are sometimes enabled to dispose of to printers
on the spot.
Some of the spinners weave the whole of their yarn, while
others do not weave any; but in either case, the weaving is
carried on by capitalists, who give out the yarn to be woven,
and pay the weaver wages for his work. The greater part
of this business is carried on in the same district with the
linen manufacture, in which the weaver is the sole manufac¬
turer, buying the yarn for his web, and selling the cloth
when he has finished it. Perhaps the difference in the
manner in which these manufacturing processes are con¬
ducted, may proceed from the different way in which the
yarns made use of in the two branches are produced. The
yarn for the linen manufacture is spun by individuals scat¬
tered over the country. This, in the infancy of the business,
and while little capital had been accumulated, may have led
to the manufacturing process being carried on in a like de¬
tached manner ; the weaver purchasing the yarn from his
neighbour the spinner, and, after converting it into cloth,
selling the web at the nearest market to the merchant. The
cotton manufacture in Ireland did not grow up thus from
small beginnings, but was introduced into that country at
once from England, and with spinning establishments upon
comparatively a large scale. It was in consequence neces¬
sary that the weaving should from the first take off the pro¬
duce of those establishments; and there being no way of
effecting this with certainty, but by employing the weavers
upon wages to work up the yarn, the manufacture was be¬
gun, and has been prosecuted upon this plan ever since;
while the linen manufacture, carried on in the same district,
continues to be conducted upon the opposite system.
Large quantities of cotton yarn are sent from Britain to
Ireland to be woven by the hand-weavers in that country;
and several Glasgow houses have agents at Belfast for giv¬
ing out their yarns, to be woven in that neighbourhood, and
3 m
458 COTTON MA
Cotton returned to them in cloth. The manufacture furnishes in
Manufac- case employment to English capital and Irish labour.
v ture' t The cotton trade of Ireland, which is centred almost
wholly in Belfast and its neighbourhood, has of late years
exhibited a tendency to improve. It now gives employ¬
ment to nearly 5000 persons.
United The government of the United States has evinced great
States. anxiety to promote the establishment of the cotton manu¬
facture in the northern part of the union, but without con¬
sidering that manufactures are only valuable to a country
in so far as by their means the people can be supplied with
the article cheaper than they are able to procure it else¬
where. When a manufacturer requires the support of
bounties, or of laws prohibiting the importation of similar ar¬
ticles, apart of the national wealth is consumed in fostering
a branch of industry incapable of maintaining itself. There
is no greater error in policy than this; and yet we see it
every day committed by young nations, when they endea¬
vour to force manufactures before the circumstances of
the country admit of such undertakings ; and by old na¬
tions, when they persist in the manufacture of articles which,
from natural disadvantages, they cannot produce at so low a
price as that at which they might purchase them from others.
A manufacture, to attain a permanently profitable esta¬
blishment in a country, must grow up in it naturally. It
must be to a certain degree indigenous, or there must ex¬
ist circumstances affording special advantages and facili¬
ties for carrying it on. Manufactures may indeed be
forced, in the same manner that grain may be made to
grow on soils not congenial to its culture ; but in both cases
the application of capital will be unprofitable. Where in¬
dustry is left to follow its natural course, every country will
betake itself to the production of those articles which cir¬
cumstances enable it most advantageously to supply; and
the consumers, in consequence, will be furnished with the
articles they require at the lowest possible cost. Every
man’s means of consumption will, to the degree in which
the cost is reduced, be enlarged, and his command of the
comforts and enjoyments oflife be extended.
The favourite system of a country supplying everything
within itself, is alike adverse to individual advantage and
to the increase of national riches. A division of employ¬
ment among nations, founded upon existing local or acci¬
dental circumstances, is as much in unison with the princi¬
ples of sound political science, and as much calculated to
promote the general benefit, as is the division of labour and
of employments among individuals. It is not by manufac¬
turing everything it consumes that a nation becomes rich,
but by its people being profitably employed.
If these principles be just, it must be a misapplication of
American capital and industry, to withdraw them from the
cultivation of the soil and the circulation of its products,—
undertakings found to be highly profitable, and of boundless
extent,-—and to force them into manufactures supported by
monopolies and bounties.
There cannot be a doubt, that sooner or later the Ame¬
rican legislators will be compelled to relinquish the system
they are pursuing. Even were they to continue to shut
their eyes to its injurious opei’ation, they would find it im¬
practicable, in a community composed of federated states,
with different local interests, to prosecute branches of in¬
dustry which require to be protected against foreign com¬
petition. A federal compact, like a mercantile copartnery
of individuals, presumes a perfect equality and community
of interests among all the parties concerned ; and, as in the
case of a mercantile company, if any attempt were made
to render the interests of certain of the partners subservient
to those of the others, the concern would be immediately
broken up, we may presume that, under like circumstances,
the result will be similar with the federal compact of the
United States. It would not be in the ordinary course of
NUFACTURE.
human affairs were the people of the southern states to Cotton
continue to purchase articles required for their consumption Manufac-
at an advanced price, merely for the purpose of enablino- ture.
the people of the northern states to manufacture thern.
Free trade then, we conceive, must accompany federated
communities, wherever they are established ; and we hail
with satisfaction the prospect now opening of the attain¬
ment of this object in the western world, in every quarter
of which the people appear to be resolving themselves into
federal governments. The benefits of unrestricted inter¬
course between man and man, and between nation and
nation, likely to be exhibited by these countries on so
extended a scale, will open men’s eyes everywhere to its
advantages; and the period, we think, is not distant, when
we shall look back with astonishment upon the wars we
have carried on, the blood and treasure we have wasted,
and the heavy burdens with which we have saddled ourselves,
to acquire or retain colonial or commercial monopolies.
In the account we are to give of the rise of the American
cotton manufacture, we shall chiefly refer to the public docu¬
ments, in which its growth is studiously detailed, and the
difficulties it has had to struggle with anxiously dwelt upon.
Before the year 1791, America possessed no manufacture
except for domestic production and family use. But in that
year a cotton mill was erected in the state of Rhode Island,
as appears from a report of the secretary to the American
treasury, drawn up in 1810.
This report further informs us, that another mill was
erected in the same state in 1795, and two more in the
state of Massachusetts in 1803 and 1804; that during the
three succeeding years ten more were erected in Rhode
Island, and one in Connecticut, making together fifteen mills,
working about 8000 spindles, and producing about 300,000
pounds of yarn a-year; that by a return which was made
at the date of the report, eighty-seven additional mills had
been erected in the end of the year 1809, sixty-two of
which (forty-eight water and fourteen house mills) were
then in operation, and worked 31,000 spindles; and that
the other twenty-five mills were expected to be in opera¬
tion in the course of the year 18IO, and, together with the
former ones (all of which are increasing their machinery),
would, by the estimate received, work more than 80,000
spindles at the commencement of the year 1811.
I he capital required to carry on the manufacture on the
best terms is estimated at the rate of a hundred dollars per
spindle ; but it is believed that not more than at the rate of
sixty dollars is generally employed. Each spindle produces
annually about thirty-six pounds of yarn from forty-five
pounds of cotton, and the value of the yarn may be averaged
as worth one dollar twelve and a-half cents per pound.
Eight hundred spindles employ forty persons, viz. five men
and thirty-five women and children.
We learn the farther progress of this manufacture from a
report of the house of representatives, presented in the spring
session of 1816. The report states—
“ That the quantity of cotton manufactured in the year
1815 was 90,000 bales, a quantity nearly equal to that used
in the cotton manufacture of France :—That the quantity
used in 1810 was 10,000 bales; in 1805, 1000 bales; and
in 1800, 500 bales.” This statement the committee say
they have no reason to doubt, nor have they any to ques¬
tion the truth of the following succinct statement of the
capital which is employed, of the labour which it commands,
and of the products of that labour.
Capital employed   40,000,000 dollars.
Males employed from the age of seventeen
and upwards   10,000
Women and female children  66,000
Boys under seventeen years of age   24,000
Cotton manufactured, 90,000 bales  27,000,000 lbs.
Cotton cloth of various kinds manufactured 81,000,000 yards.
Cost  24,000,000 dollars.
OTTON MANUFACTURE. 459
Cotton The report proceeds to say, “ that the manufacturers of
Manufac- cotton, in making application to the national government
ture. for encouragement, have been induced to do so for many
^ reasons. They know that their establishments are new,
and in their infancy ; and that they have to encounter
competition with foreign establishments that have arrived
at maturity, which are supported by a large capital, and
have from the government every protection that can be re¬
quired.”
At the date of this report the duty upon cotton goods
imported into the United States was 15 per cent.; but be¬
fore charging it, 10 per cent, was added to the invoice, and
the duty thus raised to 16^ per cent. Upon the recom¬
mendation of the committee, 10 per cent, more was imposed ;
and the whole being charged upon L.110 for every L.100
of net value, brought it up to per cent.
Besides this, all cotton goods below 13^d. per yard, were
ordered to be rated at 13|d., and the difference added to
the amount of the invoice before calculating the duty.
New tariff acts were successively passed in 1824, 1828,
1832, and 1854, in each of w hich the duty upon cotton goods
imported was declared to be 25 percent, ad valorem, rating
the coarser fabrics in the same manner as in 1816.
The manufacture, under this protection against foreign
competition, rapidly increased. Power-loom works were
erected ; the most approved processes both in spinning and
weaving were adopted ; and the business was generally suc¬
cessful. The manufacture, however, is still almost wholly
confined to the states of New York, Rhode Island, and to
the New England states. In the former of these it is very
extensive; and in the neighbourhood of the city of New
York nine new mills have been erected in the course of the
last twelve months. Within the same period, 500,000
spindles are supposed to have been added to the cotton
manufacture of the States. In both the spinning and weav¬
ing departments, the processes are conducted on the most
approved principles, and there seems only to be wanting
that skill and sleight of hand in the execution of the opera¬
tions, which are indispensable to securing either excellence
of quality in the article, or largeness of quantity in the pro¬
duct. These are not to be obtained until the manufacturer
acquires such a command of labourers as will enable him
to enforce the early and attentive training of the workers.
The following returns, based partly on the official cen¬
sus, show the number of mills and spindles in each of the
New England states using cotton wholly, leaving out all of
those engaged in the manufacture of warps for satinets,
merino shirts, mousseline-de-laines, and shawls of mixed
materials, of which it forms a component part:
Mills, Spindles, and Looms in New England.
Mills. Looms. Spindles.
1850. 1840.
Maine   15 3,439 113,900 29,736
New Hampshire  40 12,462 440,401 195,173
Massachusetts...  165 32,655 1,288,091 665,095
Vermont  12 345 31,/36 7,254
Rhode Island  166 28,233 624,138 518,817
Connecticut  109 6,506 252,812 181,319
Total  507 82,640 2,754,078 1,597,394
If the protecting duties can be maintained, the prosperity
of the American cotton manufacture will continue until its
product exceeds the demand for the home consumption. If
the surplus cannot then be disposed of in foreign markets,
the manufacturers must experience similar distress to that
of the cotton manufacturers of Trance from the year 1827
to 1832. The circumstances, however, giving rise to this
state of things in the two countries are different. In
America they are of a temporary character, and will quickly
pass away. Possessed of the natural advantages for a suc¬
cessful prosecution of this description of employment, the
northern states of the union only require population to be- Cotton
come the seat of extensive manufactures. They have coal Manufac-
and iron, the want of the first of which in I ranee, and the
consequent high price of their iron, must prove an obstacle
to the successful prosecution in that country of every branch
of industry in which machinery is largely used.
Much has been spoken and written by alarmists of the
danger to which the cotton-manufacturing interests of this
country are exposed from the competition of America and
the continental states of Europe. These fears we believe to
be in the meantime utterly without any real foundation.
So overwhelming is the superiority of this country in ma¬
chinery and manufacturing skill, and so completely does
Britain command the market, that in 1850 the cotton ex¬
ports of America, the most formidable of these. rivals,
only amounted to about L.1,000,000 sterling, of which it is
believed that more than a half must stand for the value of
raw material exported.
The sole superiority which America at this moment posr
sesses over England is the greater facility and cheapness
with which she can provide herself with the raw material,
and even this advantage is almost counterbalanced by the
higher rate of w'ages for which alone Americans can be
found to work. Still less than America can the central
states of Europe withstand the competition of British capi¬
talists. They are obliged to obtain their supplies of the cot¬
ton-wool from some of the great seaports of northern and
southern Europe, such as Hamburg, Genoa, or Marseilles;
and even with the present improved means of communica¬
tion, a bale of cotton can be conveyed more cheaply from
South Carolina to England than from any of the seaports
in question to Switzerland, Saxony, or central Europe.
Another great disadvantage under which these inland states
labour, is the want of coal, which necessitates the employ¬
ment of water as a moving power. As every available
stream in these countries is said to be now occupied, their
manufactures may be considered as having already attained
their acme. In France alone is the cotton manufactuie
progressing in a satisfactory or healthy way. It was found
that in the interval which elapsed from 1812 to 1826, the
French cotton manufactures had advanced at a ratio of 310
per cent.; while during the same period those of our own
country had only increased 270 per cent. This, however,
was easily to be accounted for. Previous to the first of
these dates, it had been almost impossible for French capi¬
talists to introduce the raw material into their country.
When peace was proclaimed, however, and government fos¬
tered French at the expense of foreign manufactures, it was
natural that factories should multiply so as nearly to supply
the immediate demand. After the supply, however, came
nearly to equal the demand, the extent of the manufactures
began considerably to diminish. The ratio of progress is
still very satisfactory, though now quite inferior to what it
was in the years already mentioned, as also to the present
ratio of British progress. The only department of this
branch of industry in which we are outstripped by the con¬
tinental states is that of dyeing; but even in the orienta.
markets, where brilliancy of colour is especially looked for,
the sober-coloured cotton goods of Britain are, from their
cheapness, gradually supplanting the brighter colours of
other states.
These and other considerations lead us to think that
England, diftering in this from the central states of Europe,
has" not yet by any means reached the full development of
the resources laid open to her by her cotton manufactures.
Great as her progress within the last twenty years has been,
it is in reality greater than appears from the foregoing state¬
ments ; inasmuch as her capitalists are now to a greater ex¬
tent than before directing their efforts to the production of
a finer and more valuable class of goods, leaving the trade
in inferior wares to her competition.
COT
COT
The subjoined Table contains Comparative Estimate of the quantities of Raw Cotton consumed in the chief
Manufacturing Countries during 1836 to 1853 inclusive {in millions of pounds weight).
Great Britain, 
Russia, Germany, Holland, l
and Belgium J
France 
Spain 
Countries bordering on the \
Adriatic /
United States of N. America.
Sundries, Mediterranean,&c
Total.
1838.
1842.
1844.
597
96
158
38
158
1047
1847.
1068
1849.
1850.
584
133
142
29
45
188
3132
1175
1852.
1481
1853.
Spindles required in 1850 to pro¬
duce the quantities into
do’s Mule Yarn.
17,975,384
4,092,308
4,369,230
892,308
338,461
1.384.615
5.784.615
34,836,921 Total Spindles.
Cotytto
II
Coulomb.
(d. b.) (t. b-y.)
COTTON, Charles, a celebrated writer of burlesque
verses in the reigns of Charles II. and James II. His most
noted piece is a travesty of the first and fourth books of the
iEneid, entitled Scarronides, which is generally regarded
as excelling Scarron’s famous production. He also exe¬
cuted a burlesque translation of several of Lucian’s dialogues
under the title of The Scoffer Scoff’d, and wrote a more
serious poem entitled The Wonders of the Peak. The exact
period of Cotton’s birth and death is nowhere recorded, but
it is probable that he died about the time of the Revolu¬
tion. He seems to have been in opulent circumstances,
although on account of inserting a humorous description of
his grandmother’s ruff in the travesty of Virgil, he lost an
estate worth L.400 a-year which the old lady had previously
designed to bequeath to him.
Cotton, Sir Robert Bruce, an eminent English anti¬
quary, descended from an ancient family, and born at Den¬
ton, Huntingdonshire, in 1570. His antiquarian tastes were
early displayed in the collection of ancient records, charters,
and other manuscripts, which had been dispersed from the
monastic libraries in the reign of Henry VIII. With regard
to these, Camden, Selden, Speed, and others, have confessed
their obligations to him. He held a distinguished place in
the society of antiquaries during the reign of Elizabeth ; and
at the first creation of baronets he was appointed to that
honour by James I. To both of these sovereigns he ren¬
dered essential service by the zeal with which at their sug¬
gestion he investigated difficult questions of constitutional
law and state policy; and his opinions recorded for their
guidance are still preserved among the MSS. of the Cot¬
tonian Library. During the reign of Charles L, Sir Robert
espoused the cause of the people; andhavingbeenrepresented
as the author of a tract in favour of Tyranny, which was
written by Sir Robert Dudley in 1615, and had escaped from
his library, he was thrown into the Tower, and his collection
was arrested. After his release he was still denied access to
his library—a circumstance which affected him so much that
he died soon after, May 6, 1631. His library, which re¬
ceived numerous additions from his son and grandson, after
having been partly destroyed by fire in 1731, was transferred
to the British Museum in 1757. A catalogue of its contents
was published by Dr Thomas Smith in 1696, and another
has since been made and published by Joseph Planta, Esq.
CO TULA, or Cotvla, a liquid measure in use among
the Greeks and Romans. Fannius says the cotyla was the
same as the hemina, which was half a sextary: it contained
nearly half a pint English.
At cotylas, quas, si placeat, dixisse licebit
Heminas recepit geminas sextarius unus.
Chorier remarks, that the cotyla was used as a dry mea¬
sure as well as a liquid one; and this is confirmed by the
authority of Thucydides, who in one place mentions two
cotylse of wine, and in another two cotylaj of bread.
COTYLEDON. See Botany, vol. v., p. 141.
COTYS, a name common to several kings of Thrace, of
Cappadocia, and of the Cimmerian Bosphorus. The most
ancient of these was Cotys, king of Thrace, who about the
year b.c. 600 permitted Alyattes, king of Lydia, to transport
to that country a colony of Mysians. The kings of this
family regarded themselves as descendants of Eumolpus; and
hence always preserved an intimate connection with the
Athenians. Several of them enjoyed the title of citizens of
that state. Cotys I. who was the son of Pentheus, became
king of a portion of Thrace about b.c. 380, and was assas¬
sinated in 356. Of Cotys II. little or nothing is known.
Cotys III. was the son of Sadales, and reigned over the Odry-
ses about b.c. 57. Two other princes bore the same name,
and also a king of Lesser Armenia, who was son of Cotys V.
COTYTTO, or Cotys, the goddess of lewdness. Her
worship was originally introduced into Greece from Thrace,
and was celebrated at Athens, at Corinth, and in various
other cities. Her festivals, called Cotyttia, are said by
Strabo to have resembled those of the Cabiri and the
Phrygian Cybele. They took place at night, and were no¬
torious for the licentiousness and gross debauchery that pre¬
vailed on the occasion. Those who celebrated the Cotyttia
were called Baptce, in allusion to the purifications originally
connected with the solemnity;—a term that has usually, but
erronously, been supposed to denote the priests of Cotytto.
Cotyttia were also celebrated in Sicily, where the votaries
of the goddess carried about boughs hung with cakes and
fruit, which it was lawful for any one to pluck off.
COUCH, in Painting, denotes a lay or impression of
colour, in oil or water, with which the canvass, wall, wains¬
cot, or other matter to be painted is covered. It also de¬
notes any lay or impression used to make a thing firm and
consistent, or to screen it from the weather. In gilding
leather a couch of water and the albumen of eggs is laid on
the leather previous to the application of the gold or silver
leaf. Gold-wire drawers apply the term to the gold or silver
leaf with which they cover the mass to be gilded or silvered
before they draw it through the iron which gives it its pro¬
per thickness. Among gilders it denotes the quantity of
gold or silver leaf applied on the metals in gilding or silvering.
Couch, in Surgery. See Cataract.
COUCH ANT, in Heraldry, a term applied to a lion or
other beast when lying down, but with the head raised,
which distinguishes the posture of couchant from that of
dormant, or sleeping.
COUCHE. See Heraldry.
CO ULAN. See Quilon.
COULOMB, Charles Augustin, a profound and in¬
genious theoretical mechanic and natural philosopher, de¬
scended from a distinguished family of Montpellier, was
born at Angouleme, on the 14th of June 1736. At an early
period of his life he felt a strong preference for mathe¬
matical studies, and would gladly have devoted his whole
attention to the pursuit of science; but he found it more
convenient to enter the military profession as an engineer.
This department, however, afforded him ample scope for
C O U L O M B.
Coulomb the exercise of his powers of observation and calculation ;
v—-v—' and after having been ordered on service to America, and
remaining abroad nine years, with some injury to his
health, he presented to the Academy of Sciences, in 1773,
a memoir on cohesion, and on the resistance of various
works of masonry, which, for the accuracy and originality
of the views it exhibits, for the clearness and neatness
of the demonstrations, and for the practical utility of the
results, is fully equal to any of his later productions, and
shows a mind still in the vigour of youth, and yet matur¬
ed by the approach of middle age. The academy paid him
the compliment of making him one of its correspondents ;
and in 1 / /9 he had the satisfaction of sharing, with the
laborious Van Swinden, the prize proposed for improve¬
ments in the construction of compasses. He resided for
some time at Rochefort, where he had abundant opportu-
nity of prosecuting, in the naval arsenal, his experimental
researches on friction, which obtained him in 1781 the
double prize for the theory of the effects of simple ma¬
chines. In the same year he had the good fortune to be
stationed permanently at Paris, and becoming a member
of the academy, he devoted himself entirely to the investi¬
gation of the laws of electricity and magnetism, and of the
force of frictions and resistances of various kinds. He is
generally supposed to have been the first who proved, by
direct experiments, the law of the decrease of electrical
and magnetic forces in the proportion of the squares of
the distances; but it must not be forgotten that the late
Lord Stanhope had published an experiment five years
before the date of M. Coulomb’s researches, which suffi¬
ciently established this law with respect to electricity ; al¬
though the extension of the same law to the operation of
magnetism appears to belong exclusively to M. Coulomb.
He continued to occupy himself in these researches till
the time of the revolution, when he was expelled from
Paris by the decree which banished all the nobility; having
before given up the appointment of intendant-general of
fountains, and having otherwise very materially suffered
in his property. He retired with his friend Borda to a
small estate which he possessed at Blois; and during his
residence there, made some observations on vegetable phy-
siology, which he afterwards presented to the Institute.
He was recalled to Paris in order to take part in the
new determination of weights and measures, which had
been decreed by the revolutionary government. He re¬
turned, soon afterwards, into the country, wishing to devote
himself to the care of his family, and of the remains of his
little fortune. But upon the establishment of the National
Institute, he again became an inhabitant of the metropolis.
He had, however, occasion to undertake a tour of consi¬
derable extent, in discharging the duty of an inspector of
public instruction ; and he was remarked, in his examina¬
tions of the young students, for the singular good nature
and paternal tenderness of his manners. He still continu¬
ed his application to his favourite pursuits, and in particu¬
lar to the investigation of the magnitude of forces of vari¬
ous kinds, by means of the principles of torsion. And his
last study was an inquiry respecting the universal diffu¬
sion of the magnetic power through nature, which he at
first supposed to be almost unlimited; although he after¬
wards found reason to conclude, that its general cause
was the presence of a minute quantity of iron. A short
summary of his numerous and elaborate memoirs will best
illustrate the extent and accuracy of his researches.
1. Statical Problems relating to Architecture. Mem. Sav.
.r. vii. 1773, p. 343. The fluxional modes of ascertain-
mg maxima and minima are applied, in this admirable
memoir, to the determination of the strength of blocks of
stone, and of pillars of masonry, and to that of the resist¬
ance of semifluids, and the thrust of earth. The author’s
461
manner of considering the subject was at that time new ; Coulomb,
it has been still further extended by some subsequent''—'V'"-'
researches in this country (Hutton’s Mathematical Dictio¬
nary, article Pressure) ; and many of the calculations con¬
tained in the articles Bridge and Carpentry of this work
are principally founded on the same basis. M. Coulomb
very properly objects to Musschenbroeck’s mode of repre¬
senting columns as exerting their passive strength like
bars resisting flexure ; and it is surprising that M. La¬
grange did not profit by his remarks, in abridging his la¬
borious investigations of their elastic force. M. Coulomb
appreciates the friction of soft materials by the angle at
which they will stand unsupported ; an angle which has
been termed in this country the angle of repose, by an
author who perhaps imagined there was more novelty in
the idea, than he would have done if this memoir had
been fresh in his mind. For the thickness of the walls of
an embankment, one seventh of the height is recommend¬
ed as a good proportion in common cases, with an increase
of one sixth towards the bottom ; but the calculation is
left in some measure incomplete, although it may be suf¬
ficiently accurate for the cases which most commonly oc¬
cur in practice. In the last place, the proper direction of
the joints of flat arches is determined; and the point of
easiest fracture of arches in general is investigated, by an
approximative method, applied successively to each joint.
2. On the improvement of the construction of the Compass
Mem. Sav. Etr. ix. p. 165. This memoir contains a labo¬
rious and accurate investigation, both of the operation of
the force of magnetism, and of the resistances exhibited
to the motion of a needle by friction or by other causes.
I he author lays down, as a fundamental principle, the
equality of the accelerative force acting on a given needle,
in all positions, when referred to the direction of the me¬
ridian ; so that the properties of its vibrations become
precisely similar to those of a pendulum actuated by the
force of gravity. From the existence of an attractive and
a repulsive force at the same time in each particle of the
body, with respect to the opposite magnetical poles of the
earth, he concludes the total impossibility of explaining
the effects by means of any ethereal currents or vortices^
which had been admitted by some of the best mathemati¬
cians of the century, then still surviving. He examines
the comparative force of needles of different dimensions,
and proves the extreme delicacy of the suspension afford¬
ed by a long fibre, whether of hair or silk ; and he describes
a compass in which the reading is performed by means of a
microscope fixed to a graduated arm, serving as a vernier.
In order to find the true direction of the magnetic action
of a needle, he turns it upside down, and takes the mean
of the observations. He ascertains the magnitude of the
friction of steel on glass by measuring the angle of repose ;
and he finds that it is equal to T2Tths of the pressure.
He then proceeds to calculate the friction of a pivot, sup¬
posing it to be compressed most at the centre ; but con¬
cludes, from a hasty experiment, that the magnitude of
the surface is not much changed by a change of pressure.
He infers, however, that a light needle has an advantage*
over a heavy one. A perforation in the middle of a needle
appears to interfere but little with its magnetic force. He
proposes to ascertain the position of the dipping needle,
by measuring the frequency of the horizontal vibrations,
and the force required to keep it level; and he concludes
his memoir with an account of the diurnal variations of
the needle, and a conjecture respecting the operation of
the sun and his atmosphere, which he compares to a large
aurora borealis ; referring the secular change of the varia¬
tion to the slow motion of the sun’s apogee.
3. Pecherches sur les moyens d executer sans l ean toutes
sortes de Travaux Hydrauliques. 8. Par. 1779. Rozier xiv.
462
COULOMB.
Coulomb. Par. 393. Addition. Rozier xvii. Par. 301. Ed. 2. 8. Par.
'—''■v"'-''' 1797. The academy of Rouen had proposed a prize for
an essay on the best mode of lowering a rock in the Seine,
at Quillebeuf, which was about a foot below w’ater-mark.
This essay was originally written for the prize, but it was
published without waiting for the competition, at the re¬
quest of some engineers, who wished to have it made
known without loss of time. The method recommended^
consists in employing a floating air-chest in the manner of
a diving bell, forcing out the water from its lower part by
means of bellows, after shutting up the workmen in the
upper part. In the additional paper, printed in the Jout-
nal de Physique, a stronger pneumatic apparatus is de¬
scribed, somewhat resembling the air vessel of a fire en¬
gine, which discharges its air into the chest, and is then
filled again by letting out the water; it is also proposed
to employ mercury, in a similar manner, in the construc¬
tion of an air-pump. The proposed apparatus does not
appear to have been tried ; but there can be no doubt that
it might often be of advantage, when the inequalities of
the rock, or any other causes, prevented the construction
of a cofferdam.
4. Theory of Simple Machines, comprehending the effects
of friction and of the. stiffness of ropes. Mem. Sav. Etr.
x. p. 161. This essay gained the double prize proposed
by the academy for 1781 ; the difficulty of performing ex¬
periments on a large scale having probably prevented the
presentation of any memoir sufficiently comprehensive the
preceding year, when the subject was first proposed. The
author’s principal merit consists in the determination of
the different magnitude of the initial adhesion, according
to the time that the substances had continued in contact
with each other, and had been pressed together, and of
the effect of the magnitude of the surface of contact of
particular substances, as well as of the causes of the occa¬
sional difference of friction, with different velocities, espe¬
cially when the unctuous substances employed are render¬
ed too soft by the heat which is produced by the motion.
He compared the effect of the mutual contact of a great
variety of substances; and, for the purpose of launching
ships, he recommends the use of oak, sliding on elm, pre¬
viously well rubbed with hard tallow; but in some other
cases he found tallow, if not frequently renewed, rather
injurious than serviceable. He observed, that the rigidity
of ropes increased more rapidly than their diameter, but
somewhat less rapidly than their strength ; and that in
order to overcome this rigidity, besides a constant force, an
additional force was required, proportional to the weight
employed. With every allowance for resistance of all
kinds, he calculates, that a well-constructed machine, for
instance a simple capstan, raising a large weight, will pro¬
duce an effect equivalent to nine tenths of the force em¬
ployed. But, in many of the simple machines in common use,
for instance in ships’ blocks of the ordinary construction,
it appears, from the reports of other authors, that the loss
frequently amounts to more than half of the power.
5. Observations on the force of Windmills, and on the
form of their sails. Mem. Ac. Par. 1781, p. 65. The in¬
clination of the sails found to succeed best in practice
varied from sixty to eighty degrees in their different parts.
The force was estimated by the weight of the stampers
raised in the process of extracting rape oil, and it appear¬
ed that only about one seventh of the power of the wind
was lost. On an average, the wind was observed to blow
eight hours a day, with the velocity of fifteen English
miles an hour : and the work of the mill was generally so
arranged that the velocity of the sails was in a certain
proportion to that of the wind, experience having shown
that the effect thus obtained was the greatest possible.
M. Coulomb attempted to become a tenant of one of the
mills for a few months, in order to make experiments on Coulomb,
it with the greater convenience; but the proprietors sus-
pected that he wished to discover some of their secrets,
and refused to comply with his proposal.
6. Theoretical and experimental researches on the force of
Torsion. Mem. Ac. Par. 1784, p. 229. The force of tor¬
sion is here very accurately and elegantly determined for
substances of different diameters : and it may be inferred
from M. Coulomb’s experiments, that the resistance of a
steel wire, to a force tending to twist it, is always equal
to that of a fixed axis, supposed to be Tl(j5Q as great in
diameter, having the same wire coiled round it, or rather
simply attached to a point of its circumference. For brass
wire the proportion must be ; and, according to Mr Ca¬
vendish’s experiments, it must be y1^ for copper. The re¬
action of brass, notwithstanding its greater flexibility, is
more perfect and durable than that of steel, and it is there¬
fore preferred for the construction of balances for the mea¬
surement of minute forces by the effect of torsion, several
varieties of which are here described. And as an instance of
their utility, the author has ascertained, that the resistance
of liquids depends almost entirely on two forces, the one
varying as the velocity, the other as its square, the con¬
stant portion of the resistance being scarcely perceptible
in any case. He proves, that tempering a bar or wire of
any metal has no effect in the immediate force of its re¬
sistance at a given flexure, although it very materially
modifies the extent of its action. Continued twisting of a
soft wire seems to produce a very equable degree of hard¬
ness, which enables it to retain nine times as much mag¬
netic power as in its original state ; and on account of this
increase of hardness only, a soft wire appears to exhibit a
greater extent of elastic recoil when it is twisted round
several times, than when only once or twice
7. Description of a Compass. Mem. Ac. Par. 1785, p.
560. The needle is suspended by a number of single
threads of silk, made to adhere by dipping them in hot
water, or by means of a little gum, each thread being
capable of bearing a weight of about fifty grains. I he
needle is to be so suspended that the thread may have
no tendency to cause it to deviate from the magnetic me¬
ridian ; and this is to be ascertained by substituting a cop¬
per wire in its place. Cassini was in the habit of employ¬
ing a compass of this construction, for making accurate
observations on the diurnal variation.
8. Three Memoirs on Electricity and Magnetism. Mem.
Ac. Par. 1785, p. 569, 578, 612. The first memoir is de¬
voted to the description of an electrical balance, founded
on the force of torsion, and to the demonstration of the
law according to which small bodies similarly electrified
repel each other with a force decreasing as the squares of
the distances increase. One of the instruments employed
was so delicate that each degree of the circle of torsion
expressed a force of only one-hundred-thousandth of an
English grain ; another, suspended by a single fibre of silk
four inches long, made a complete revolution wuth a force
of one-seventy-thousandth of a grain, and turned to the
extent of a right angle when a stick of sealing wax which
had been rubbed was presented to it at the distance of a
yard. The second memoir relates to the laws of electric
attraction, and of the magnetic forces, wdiich are all found
to vary in the same proportion as the electric repulsion.
The direct experiments on the attraction of balls contrarily
electrified presented some difficulties, and the vibration of
a small needle, at different distances from an electrified
body, was employed for a collateral experiment. Ihe
poles in which the magnetic forces appear to be concen¬
trated are at some little distance from the respective end»
of a magnetic bar, and not exactly at the extremities. In^
the third memoir, M. Coulomb investigates the laws of
COULOMB.
Coulomb, the gradual loss of the electricity of an insulated body,
s^v-'w' which seems to be always proportional to the intensity of
the charge, and independent both of the form and of the
conducting power, except in the case of sharp points or
edges; it appears also to vary nearly as the cube of the
quantity of water contained in the air, though probably
somewhat diminished by an increase of temperature. It
is however remarkable, that changes of moisture, indicat¬
ed by the hygrometer, are not discoverable in the con¬
ducting power for a considerable time afterwards. The
quantity of electrity carried off by the air being ascertain¬
ed, that which is lost by the imperfection of the insulat¬
ing support remained to be determined ; and it was found
that a certain length of a fibre of silk, varying as the
square of the intensity, produced complete insulation with
respect to all weaker charges.
9. Fourth Memoir on Electricity. Mem. Ac. Par. 1786,
p. 67. It is here shown that the capacity for receiving
electricity is totally independent of any chemical attrac¬
tion of the body for the supposed fluid ; since balls of
copper and of pith, or plates of iron and of paper, when
brought into contact with each other, divide the electri¬
city in equal proportions. It is also experimentally prov¬
ed, by boring cylindrical holes in a large piece of wood,
and touching the bottom of the holes with a small circle
of gilt paper, that the interior parts of an electrified body
remain in a state of indifference.
10. Fifth Memoir on Electricity. Mem. Ac. Par. 1787,
p. 421. When a large globe touches a smaller, the smaller
receives a charge, which is stronger than that of the lar¬
ger, but never twice as strong. It is proved by measur¬
ing the intensity of the electricity of a varnished wire or
cylinder, that bodies are not surrounded by an electric
atmosphere, but receive the charge within their sub¬
stance ; for the varnish, which is impermeable to the fluid,
does not sensibly affect the capacity of the cylinder.
11. Sixth Memoir on Electricity. Mem. Ac. Par. 1788,
p. 617. This interesting investigation relates to the dis¬
tribution of electricity between a number of equal globes ;
in the different parts of a long cylinder; between a large
globe and a number of small ones; and between a globe
and a cylinder. In showing the agreement of the theory
with experiments, M. Coulomb’s industry and ingenuity
are very successfully exerted in order to overcome the
difficulties of the approximative calculation, although it
might perhaps have been not much more laborious, and
yet far more satisfactory, to have proceeded to a more
correct and conclusive analysis. In a series of twenty-
four globes, the charge of the first was to that of the
second as three to two, and to that of the twelfth as seven
to four; in a cylinder fifteen diameters long, the intensity
at the end was to the intensity at the middle as twenty-
three to ten. Of twenty-four small globes in contact with
a larger, the last exhibited an intensity about four times
as great as the first. The experiments on globes and cy¬
linders combined are still more interesting, as affording an
immediate application to the effects of conductors in car¬
rying off electricity. At the remote end of a long cylin¬
der equal in diameter to one twelfth of that of the globe,
the intensity was nearly twenty times as great as that of
the globe ; and it increased almost in the same proportion
as the diameter of the cylinder or wire was diminished ;
but a short wire received a much weaker charge. From
the formulae founded on these experiments, M. Coulomb
calculates that a cloud, a thousand feet in diameter, will
cause a wire a line in diameter, raised by a kite, to receive
an electricity at the lower end more than sixty thousand
times as great as its own. He also observes, that a point
projecting but little from a large surface discharges elec¬
tricity but slowly; a plane touching a globe received an
463
electricity equally intense with that of the globe, on both Coulomb,
its surfaces. M. Coulomb considers the hypothesis of the
existence of two electric fluids as less objectionable than the
theory of Franklin, iEpinus, and Cavendish, though he does
not attempt to give any direct proof that he can decide
the question ; but he finds it difficult to believe that mat¬
ter can repel matter, and attract the electric fluid, with
forces precisely equal, at the same time that matter is
known to attract matter with a force of gravitation vary¬
ing according to the same law, but incomparably less ac¬
tive. It does not, however, appear that this difficulty is
by any means a very important one, since we may avoid
it altogether, by supposing that matter only repels mat¬
ter, and that it attracts the electric fluid, with which
matter is commonly saturated, with a force somewhat
greater, so that the difference of these forces constitutes
gravitation ; which thus, like the recently-discovered che¬
mical attractions depending on electricity, may be redu¬
ced to a modification of the power of this wonderfully
universal agent; an agent which appears almost to com¬
bine the subtilty of spirit with the energetic qualities of
matter. It must, however, be remembered, that we have
no evidence of the separate existence of electricity inde¬
pendently of matter; it does not pass, like light and heat,
through the vacuum of the barometer; nor, in all proba¬
bility, through the empty spaces interposed between the
different parts of the solar system ; although the accelera¬
tive force depending on it is not confined by these or by
any other limits ; and it will probably long remain a ques¬
tion, whether electricity may not rather be a modification
of matter or motion in the bodies concerned, than a semi¬
material substance pervading them; especially among
those who even doubt of the materiality of light and heat
as separate substances.
12. Seventh Memoir, relating to Magnetism. Mem. Ac.
Par. 1789, p. 455. In order to check the irregular oscil¬
lations of needles very delicately suspended, M. Coulomb
finds it convenient to attach to them a horizontal plate,
immersed in a vessel of water. The directive power of a
needle of given thickness appears to be nearly propor¬
tional to its length, the quantity of magnetism accumu¬
lated near the ends being constant, except that it extends
to the distance of about twenty-five diameters ; and if the
needle is too short to allow space for this accumulation,
the directive power decreases as the square of the length.
The directive forces of similar needles, composed of pieces
of the same twisted wire, are nearly as their weights.
M. Coulomb observes the difficulty of accounting for the
well-known fact, that neither half of a needle, when it has
been divided, appears to be attracted either northwards
or southwards ; and he thinks, that whether we admit the
existence of one magnetic fluid or of two, it will still be
necessary to consider every magnet as made up of mi¬
nute parts, each possessing a north and a south pole, of
intensities varying according to their situation; and he
remarks, that the high charges of electricity, supported by
very thin plates, afford an analogy favourable to the exist¬
ence of this kind of partial charge of magnetism. He might
also have added, after the happy combinations of Volta, that
the electro-chemical battery exhibits an arrangement al¬
most identical with that which he attributes to a magnet.
With respect to the forms of needles, the rhomboid ap¬
peared to have some advantage over the rectangle; the
temper required to be neither very hard nor very soft,
and it was found best to anneal the needles to a dark red,
or to employ plates of a spring temper when they re¬
quired to be larger. A number of needles combined into
a mass lost more than half their strength, so that it is of
advantage to attach several parallel needles, at a dis¬
tance from each other, to the card of a compass. M. Cou-
464 C O U L
Coulomb, lomb’s mode of communicating magnetism is to lay the
ends of the bar on those of two strong magnets, placed
opposite to each other, and to draw two other magnets
repeatedly along it, in an inclined position, from the mid¬
dle to the respective ends, in opposite directions, at the
same time. His large battery consisted of a number of
plates surrounding two pairs of pieces of soft iron, which
formed the ends of each compound magnet, while the
middle was left hollow ; the whole weighed thirty or forty
pounds, and would lift eighty or a hundred, and it com¬
municated to common needles as much magnetism as they
were capable of retaining when their ends were merely
placed on it without any further operation.
13. Examination of the Friction of Pivots. Mem. Ac.
Par. 1790, p. 448. M. Coulomb tacitly acknowledges, in
this paper, a slight inaccuracy in his former experiments
on the friction of pivots, the result of which seemed to
indicate that the rotatory resistance of the friction was
simply as the pressure, independently of any change of
the magnitude of the minute surface of contact. He now
finds that this is only true of smaller weights, when the
pivot has already supported a larger, and its surface has
probably been a little flattened ; otherwise the observation
agrees more nearly with the theory, and perfectly so on
the supposition of a conical point affording a resistance
proportional to the displacement of the surface. The fric¬
tion of steel on garnet is a little less than half as much as
on steel, on agate a little more than half, and on glass
four fifths. Light needles, with a pivot tapering in an
angle of about 20°, seem to be the most advantageous for
common purposes ; but if the needle is heavy, the point
must be more obtuse. The conoidal caps, commonly used
for suspending needles, had always an irregularity at the
centre, which made the friction many times greater than
that of a well-finished surface uniformly concave.
14. Experiments on the Circulation of Sap. Mem. Inst.
Sc. ii. p. 246. M. Coulomb seems to have sufficiently
ascertained that the sap appears to rise, in the poplar,
near the centre of the tree, mixed with a considerably
larger portion of air, which is extricated with a hissing
noise when the tree is cut or bored; it is not, however,
certain that this air is in an elastic state while the vessels
remain closed. The phenomenon was first observed in
April, and continued throughout the summer, being most
distinct in the hottest sunshine.
15. Observations on the Daily Labour of Men. Mem.
Inst. Sc. ii. p. 380. This memoir was read to the Aca¬
demy of Sciences in 1775, but was not then published.
M. Coulomb’s general conclusion is in favour of the em¬
ployment of strength in ascending stairs ; but he observes,
that former authors have very frequently exaggerated the
whole amount of a man’s daily labour. In fact, the day’s
work which he assigns to a man of ordinary strength
thus employed, is less than half of that which Desaguliers
attributes to a labourer turning a winch; and Professor
Robison has recorded more than one instance of a much
larger result of the labour of a man ascending an inclined
plane, even besides the force lost in the machinery em¬
ployed; so that we must suppose the labourers in France
to be commonly less vigorous than in Great Britain;
almost in the same proportion as M. Coulomb has observ¬
ed the work of the same man in Martinique to be less
than in France.
16. Comparison of the Magnetic Powers of Different
Needles. Mem Inst. Sc. iii. p. 176. A number of accu¬
rate experiments are here adduced, in confirmation of the
theoretical conclusion, that needles of a similar form, and
composed of portions of the same wire, possess directive
powers which are very nearly proportional to their weights.
17. On the Cohesion of Fluids, and their Resistance to
O M B.
Slow Motions. Mem. Inst. Sc. iii. p. 246. The interest- Coulomb,
ing experiments here related demonstrate that the con-
stantpart of the resistance of fluids is insensible; that the
portion varying simply as the velocity is more than seven¬
teen times as great in oil as in water, while the portion
which varies as the square of the velocity is nearly equal
in both these fluids. The resistance did not increase with
the depth of immersion ; on the contrary, it was a little
greater when the body was partly above the surface. It
was observed that very slow oscillations were somewhat
accelerated even by the motion of a carriage passing along
the street. Greasing the surface of the solid did not sen¬
sibly lessen the resistance to its motion, nor was it mate¬
rially increased by sprinkling sand on the grease; so that
the particles of the liquid seemed to slide rather on each
other than on the solid. But it is probable that these dif¬
ferences would have been more perceptible in greater ve¬
locities ; for it seems reasonable to expect that the fric¬
tion between a fluid and a solid should partake, in a slight
degree, of the nature of the friction between two solids,
so as to increase less rapidly with an increase of velocity,
than the friction of the particles of fluids among them¬
selves.
18. A new method of determining the Position of the
Dipping Needle. Mem. Inst. Sc. iv. p. 565. The method
suggested in a former memoir is compared, in this short
essay, with the mean of four observations made in the
common way, the magnetism of the needle being reversed
during the experiment; and it appears that the error of
either, method is not likely to exceed ten or twelve mi¬
nutes.
19. On Universal Magnetism. Bullet. Soc. Philom.
N. 61. 63 ; Journ. Phys. liv. p. 240, 267, 454 ; Journ. R.
Inst. i. p. 134. The experiments mentioned in the first of
these papers were immediately repeated in this country,
M'ith results less satisfactory than those which M. Cou¬
lomb had obtained ; and he soon found reason, upon a fur¬
ther examination, to change the opinion which he had at
first inferred from them, observing that a grain of iron was
sufficient to communicate sensible magnetism to twenty
pound weight of another substance. There still remain,
however, some difficulties respecting the magnetism of
brass, which have not yet been sufficiently explained.
M. Coulomb’s moral character is said to have been as
correct as his mathematical investigations. At an early
period of his life he gained the grateful acknowledgments
of the inhabitants of Brittany for his disinterested exer¬
tions in preventing the execution of some public works
which threatened to be ruinous to the province. His
manners were serious but gentle, and sometimes diversi¬
fied by a mild gaiety, which made him very amiable in
society. His disposition was generous and benevolent;
but, notwithstanding all his modesty, he could exhibit
sufficient spirit when he was called upon to repel an un¬
just attack. Such occurrences were, however, far from
being frequent, for his merits and his success were uni¬
versally acknowledged, and he was extremely popular,
without having ever excited envy. In the particular de¬
partment of science which he cultivated, he may fairly be
ranked in the same class with Franklin, iEpinus, and Ca¬
vendish. He was less original than Franklin, but much
more profound. He gave to the speculations of Alpinus
both a more defined application and a more satisfactory
demonstration ; and he was equally accurate with Caven¬
dish, but much more persevering with respect to the more
limited objects of his researches; and his improvements
in the theory of electricity may be considered as having
immediately prepared the way for the elegant inventions
of Volta, and the still more marvellous discoveries of
Davy. In short, among all the men of science who have
c o u
Coulom- done honour to France, it would be difficult to point out
miers a single individual who, with regard to the cultivation of
II terrestrial physics, could at all be put in competition with
Counsel. ^ ^ Coulomb. His health had long been extremely feeble,
and, in addition to his more chronic complaints, he was at
last attacked by a slow fever, to which he fell a victim on
the 23d of August 1806. He had been a lieutenant-colo¬
nel of engineers, a chevalier of the order of St Louis, and
a member of the legion of honour ; but he had acquired
little property, and he left to his two sons scarcely any
other patrimony than the public gratitude and esteem for
his merits and his virtues. Delambre, Mem. Inst. Sc.
ii. Hist. p. 206. (t. y.)
COULOMMIERS, a town of France, department of
Seine-et-Marne, and capital of a cognominal arrondissement,
on the right bank of the Grand Morin, 14 miles S.E. of
Meaux. It has an active trade in corn, flour, cattle, and
the famous Brie cheeses. Pop. 4151.
COUNCIL (Lat. concilium), in a general sense, an
assembly of persons summoned or convened for consulta¬
tion, deliberation, or advice.
In Britain the history of parliamentary government is in
a great measure that of the amalgamation of an advising
council to the monarch, a meeting of chiefs or representa¬
tives, and an assemblage of feudal vassals. The council of
the monarch became subsequently a separate body in the
privy council, when at a later period it came to be the prac¬
tice to select a smaller administrative body called the ca¬
binet. See Cabinet, Parliament, Privy Council, &c.
Council of War, an assembly of tbe principal officers of
an army or fleet, called by the general or admiral who com¬
mands, to concert measures for their conduct.
Council, in Church History, an assembly of prelates,
convened for the purpose of regulating affairs relative to
the doctrine and discipline of the church. The exact num¬
ber of these it is impossible to ascertain. Sir Harris Nico¬
las estimates them at 1604. The \!\t\e of Oecumenical or: ge¬
neral, is given to those which are regarded as representing
the universal church. Of these the adherents of the Church
of Rome generally acknowledge eighteen as regular and in¬
fallible, but differ materially among themselves in regard to
the individual councils which are to be included in the list.
The Italians, and immediate dependents of the Pope, ac¬
cept three, viz., those of Lyons, Florence, and the fifth La-
teran, which the French deny, and replace by the Councils
of Pisa, Constance, and Basle. These rival councils swell
the list to twenty-one, which convened as follows:—-
Place. Business. Date.
1. Nice (1.),  Heresy of Arias,  a.d. 325
2. Constantinople (1.), Do. Apollinarius,  381
3. Ephesus,  Do. Nestorius,   431
4. Chalcedon,   Do. Eutyches and Dioscorus,.. 451
5. Constantinople (2.), Do, Origen and Theodoret, .,. 553
6. Constantinople (3.), Do. Monothelites,     680-1
7. Nice (2.),  Regulation of image worship,—..... 787
8. Constantinople(4.),Heresy of Photius,   869
9. Lateran (1.), Right of investiture  1123
10. Lateran (2.),  Temporalities of ecclesiastics,   1139
11. Lateran (3.), The decrees of the antipopes, and 1
suppression of the Vaudois,  J
12. Lateran (4,), Albigenses and Crusades,  1215
13. Lyons (1.),  Excommunication of Frederick II., 1245
14. Lyons (2.),  Procession of the Holy Spirit,  1274
15. Vienna,  Suppression of Knights Templars,... 1311
16. Pisa,   . .Deposition of Benedict NHL,  1409
17. Constance, Condemnation of Wyclilfe,Huss, and 1
Jerome,  J
18. Basle, Reformation of the Clergy,  1431
19. Florence, Schism of the Greeks and Latins,... 1439
20. Lateran (5.),  Pragmatic sanction ; Turkish war,.. 1512
21. Trent,  Condemnation of the Reformers, .... 1545
COUNSEL, in a general sense, signifies advice or in¬
struction how to act in any difficult matter.
Counsel, or Advocates, in English courts of law, are of
two degrees : barristers and serjeants.
VOL. VII.
C O U 465
“From both these degrees,” observes Mr Justice Black- Counsellor
stone, “ some are usually selected to be her Majesty’s coun- II
sel, learned in the law ; the two principal of whom are called Count*
her attorney and solicitor-general. The first king’s coun-
sel, under the degree of serjeant, was Sir Francis Bacon,
who was made so honoris causa, without either patent or
fee ; so that the first of the modern order (who are now the
sworn servants of the crown, with a fixed salary) seems to
have been Sir Francis North, afterwards lord keeper of the
great seal to Charles II. These king’s counsel answer in
some measure to the advocates of the revenue, advocati Jisci,
among the Romans ; for they must not be employed in any
cause against the crown without special license, in which re¬
striction they agree with the advocates of the fisc. But in
the imperial law the prohibition was carried still further,
and perhaps was more for the dignity of the sovereign ; for,
excepting some peculiar causes, the fiscal advocates were
not permitted to be at all concerned in private suits between
subject and subject. A custom has of late years prevailed, of
granting letters patent of precedence to such barristers as
the crown thinks proper to honour with that mark of dis¬
tinction, whereby they are entitled to such rank and pre¬
audience as are assigned in their respective patents: some¬
times next after the king’s attorney-general, but usually
next after his Majesty’s counsel then being. These, as well
as the queen-consort’s attorney and solicitor-general, rank
promiscuously with the queen’s counsel, and, together with
them, sit within the bar of the respective courts ; but re¬
ceive no salaries, and are not sworn, and therefore are at
liberty to be retained in causes against the crown. And all
other serjeants and barristers indiscriminately may take upon
them the protection and defence of any suitors, whether
plaintiff or defendant, who are therefore called their clients,
like the dependents upon the ancient Roman orators. Those
indeed, practised gratis, for honour merely, or at most for
the sake of gaining influence ; and so likewise it is esta¬
blished with us, that a counsel can maintain no action for
his fees, which are given, not as locatio vel conductio, but as
quiddam honorarium, not as a salary or hire, but as a mere
gratuity, which a counsellor cannot demand without doing
wrong to his reputation ; as is also laid down with regard to
advocates in the civil law, whose honorarium was directed
by a decree of the senate not to exceed in any case 10,000
sesterces, or about L.80 English money. And in order to
encourage due freedom of speech in the lawful defence of
their clients, and at the same time to give a check to the
unseemly licentiousness of prostitute and illiberal men (a
few of whom may sometimes insinuate themselves even in¬
to the most honourable professions), it hath been holden
that a counsel is not answerable for any matter by him
spoken relative to the cause in hand, and suggested in his
client’s instructions, although it should reflect upon the re¬
putation of another, and even prove absolutely groundless;
but if he mention an untruth of his own invention, or even
upon instructions, if it be impertinent to the cause in hand,
he is then liable to an action from the party injured.” Before
the 9th and 10th Viet., cap. 54, with the exception of appeals
from the revising barristers under the 6th and 7th Viet., cap.
18 and 61, serjeants had exclusive audience at the sittings
in banco of the Court of Common Pleas. See Barrister.
COUNSELLOR, in general, a person who advises an¬
other. Thus we say, a counsellor at law, a privy counsel¬
lor, and the like.
Privy Counsellor. See Privy Council.
COUNT (in Lat. comes), a nobleman who possesses a
domain erected into a county. English and Scottish counts
have the title of earls ; foreign ones still retain their pro¬
per designation. The dignity of count is intermediate be¬
tween that of duke and baron. According to modern usage,
most plenipotentiaries and ambassadors assume the title
of counts though they have no county. Under Charle-
2 N
466 C O U
Count, magne all generals, counsellors, judges, and secretaries of
cities, were called counts ; the distinguishing character of a
duke and a count being this, that the latter had but one
town under him, whereas the former had several.
Counts were originally lords of the court, or of the em¬
peror’s retinue, and had their name of comites either a co-
mitando or a commeando ; and hence those who were al¬
ways in the palace, or at the emperor’s side, were called
counts palatine, or comites a latere.
In the times of the commonwealth, comites among the
Romans was a general name for all those who accompanied
the proconsuls and propraetors into the provinces, there to
serve the commonwealth ; as the tribunes, prefects, scribes,
and others.
Under the emperors, comites were the officers of the pa¬
lace. The origin of what we now call counts seems to date
from the time of Augustus, who took several senators as his
comites, that is, to accompany him in his voyages and tra¬
vels, and to assist him in the hearing of causes, which were
thus judged with the same authority as in full senate. But
Gallienus seems to have abolished this council, by forbid¬
ding the senators to appear in the armies ; and none of his
successors re-established it.
These counsellors of the emperor were really comites, or
companions of the prince ; and they sometimes took the
title accordingly, but always with the addition of the name
of the emperor whom they accompanied ; so that it was
rather a mark of their office than a title of dignity. Con¬
stantine was the first who converted it into a dignity, and
under him the name was first given absolutely. But the title
being once established, it was in a little time indifferently
conferred, not only on those who followed the court, and
accompanied the emperor, but also on most kinds of officers
—a long list of whom is given by Du Cange.
Eusebius tells us that Constantine divided the comites
into three classes : the first bore the title of illustres ; the
second that of clarissimi, and afterwards spectabiles ; whilst
the third were called perfectissimi. Of the first two classes
the senate was composed; those of the third had no place
in the senate, but enjoyed several other of the privileges of
senators.
There were comztes who served on land, and others at
sea; some in a civil, some in a religious, and some in a
legal capacity; as comes cerarii, comes sacrarum largitionum,
comes sacri consistorii, comes curice, comes capellce, comes
archiatrorum, comes commerciorum, comes vestiarius, comes
horreorum, comes opsoniorum vel annonce, comes domestico-
rum, comes equorum regiorum vel comes stabuli, comes do-
morum, comes excubitorum, comes notariorum, comes legum
vel professor in jure, comes limitum vel marcarum, comes
portus Romce, comes patrimonii, fyc., he.
The Franks, Germans, and other nations, on passing into
Gaul and Germany, did not abolish the form of the Ro¬
man government; and as the governors of cities and pro¬
vinces were called counts, comites, and dukes, duces, they
continued to be so designated. They commanded during
war, and in time of peace they administered justice. Thus,
under Charlemagne, counts were the ordinary judges and
governors of the cities.
These counts of cities ranked below the dukes and counts
who presided over provinces. The counts of provinces
were in nothing inferior to dukes, who themselves were
only governors of provinces. Under the last of the second
race of French kings, their dignity was rendered heredi¬
tary, and they even usurped the sovereignty. When Hugh
Capet came to the crown, his authority was not sufficient
to oppose their encroachments; and hence it is that they
date the privilege of wearing coronets in their arms. They
assumed it then, as enjoying the rights of sovereigns in
their particular districts or counties; but by degrees most
of the counties became reunited to the crown.
c o u
The dignity of count has now become very different from Counter,
what it was anciently, being simply a title which a king
grants upon erecting a territory into a county, with a re¬
serve of jurisdiction and sovereignty to himself. At first
there was no clause in the patent of erection intimating the
reversion of the county to the crown in default of heirs
male; but Charles IX., to prevent their being too nume¬
rous, ordained that duchies and counties, in default of heirs
male, should revert to the crown.
The point of precedence between counts and marquises
was formerly much controverted ; and the reason was, that
there were counts who were peers of France, but no mar¬
quises. The point, however, was given up, and marquises
took precedence ; although anciently, when counts were
governors of provinces, they were on a level even with dukes.
William the Conqueror, as is observed by Camden, gave
the dignity of counts in fee to his nobles, annexing it to
this or that county or province, and allotting for their mainte¬
nance a certain proportion of money arising from the prince’s
profits in the pleadings and forfeitures of the provinces.
The Germans call a count graaf or graff, which properly
signifiesjozcZye, and is derived from gravio orgrajfio, formed
from ypdcfxo, I write. They have several kinds of counts or
graffs, as land-graves, march-graves, burg-graves, and pals¬
graves, or counts palatine. These last are of two kinds;
the one of the number of princes, with the investiture of a
palatinate, while the others have only the title of count pala¬
tine, without the investiture of any palatinate. Some assert
that, by publicly professing the imperial laws for twenty
years, a person acquires the title of count palatine ; and there
are instances of professors in law who have assumed the
title accordingly; but this right has been much disputed.
COUNTER (French, contre; Lat. contra), a term
which enters into the composition of various words of our
language, and generally implies contrariety or opposition.
When applied to deeds it means an exact copy kept by the
contrary party, and sometimes signed by both parties.
Counter, of a horse, that part of a horse’s forehand which
lies between the shoulder and the neck.
Counter, in Heraldry, is a term of frequent use ; as
shown in the following examples :—
Counter-Changed, the intermixture or opposition of a
metal with a colour
Counter-Flory, is said of a tressure the fleurs-de-lis of
which are opposite to others.
Counter-Ermine, the contrary of ermine, being a black
field with white spots.
Counter-Paled, when the escutcheon is divided into
twelve pales parted per fesse ; the two colours being counter-
changed, so that the upper and lower are of different colours.
CouNTER-Passant, when two animals in a coat of arms
are represented as proceeding in contrary directions.
Counter-Pointed, when two chevrons in one escutcheon
meet in the points.
Counter-Quartered {contre-ecartele) denotes that the
escutcheon, after being Quartered, has each quarter again
divided into two.
Counter-Salient is when two beasts are borne in a coat
leaping from each other directly contrariwise.
Counter-Guard, in Fortification, a small rampart or
work formed usually before a bastion, consisting of two
faces making a salient angle, and parallel to the faces of the
bastion. Counter-guards are sometimes constructed before
the ravelins.
Counter-March, a marching back; a returning. Also,
a change of the wings or face of a battalion, so as to bring
the right to the left or the front into the rear.
Counter-Mine, in War, a well and gallery sunk in the
earth and running under ground, in search of the enemy’s
mine, in order to meet it, and so defeat its effect.
Counter-Point, in Music. See Music.
c o u
Counter CoUNTER-Proof in rolling-press printing, a print taken off
|| from another fresh printed, which by being passed through
County t])e press gives the figure of the former, but inverted.
Rate. -p0 Counter-prove is to take off a design in black lead or
—red chalk, by passing it through a roller press with another
piece of paper, both being previously moistened with a
sponge.
Counterscarp, in Fortification, the exterior talus or
slope of the ditch on the further side of the place, and
facing it; but it is often applied to the covered way and
the glacis ; as when it is said, the enemy have lodged them¬
selves in the counterscarp.
Countersign, to sign, as secretary or other subordinate
officer, a writing signed by a principal or superior, in attes¬
tation of its authenticity. Thus charters signed by a king
are countersigned by a secretary.
COUNTORS, Countours, or Counters, has been
used for serjeants at law retained to defend a cause, or to
speak for their client in any course of law.
It is of these Chaucer speaks:—
A sheriff had he been, and a countour,
Was nowhere such a worthy vavasour.
They were anciently called serjeant countours.
COUNTY, in British Geography, originally signified
the territory of a count or earl, but is now used in the same
sense with shire; the one word coming from the French,
the other from the Saxon. The territory of England and
Wales is divided into fifty-two counties, Scotland into thirty-
three, and Ireland into thirty-two.
The origin of the division of England into counties or
shires is not known. It is among the many other arrange¬
ments popularly attributed to the administrative genius of
Alfred. Several of the English counties are identical, or
nearly so, with ancient Saxon kingdoms. Others seem to
have gradually formed themselves on the model of these old
organizations. The county, as a Scottish territorial division,
is of comparatively late application, yet nothing particular is
known of its origin. In Ireland the division was adopted on
the model of England, and it has only recently been popu¬
larly recognized.
For the execution of the laws in the several counties of
England, excepting Cumberland, Westmoreland, and Dur¬
ham, officers are appointed every Michaelmas term under
the denomination of sheriffs. The other officers of the
several counties are—lord-lieutenant, who has the command
of the militia of the county, custodes rotulorum, justices of
peace, bailiffs, high constable, and coroner.
The system of county courts has created a new class of
judicial officers for administering local justice in a manner
deemed by some to be a restoration of the old county ad¬
ministration.
Of the fifty-two English counties, there are three which,
from their peculiar origin, are termed counties palatine, viz.,
Lancaster, Chester, and Durham.
County Rate, a local tax collected in England for pur¬
poses of local administration. It is of unknown origin, and
came into force by custom and prescriptive usage. Ori¬
ginally consisting of several rates applicable to the different
purposes, these were consolidated by statute in 1739. In a
report on The Local Taxes of the United Kingdom, pre¬
pared by the Poor-Law Commissioners of England in 1846,
there are enumerated seventeen different purposes to which
the county rate is applicable. They may be grouped under
the administration of justice, internal transit, and protective
police ; and practically they include the support of prisons,
the removal of prisoners, the prosecution of vagrants and
other classes of offenders, allowances to constables, the
custody of the insane, the holding of coroners’ inquests,
the support of bridges, with many miscellaneous ex¬
penses connected with such musters as the militia, the
census, the salaries of public officers, and the like. In
C O U 467
1844 (7th and 8th Viet., cap. 33) the old machinery for County
collecting the rate was abolished, and that which had II
been established ten years earlier under the English Poor- Court*
Law Act was substituted for it. The property liable to be
assessed for county rate is the same as that which is liable
for the relief of the poor. In Scotland, the tax most nearly
resembling the county rate is called the rogue money.
County edifices are generally supported under local acts,
and there is a separate tax under distinct administration for
the support of prisons. In Ireland, the county rate of Eng¬
land is more exactly represented by the grand jury cess.
County, Representation of. See Parliament'.
COURANT, a French term synonymous with current,
and properly signifying running. See Current.
Courant, or Couranto, a piece of music in triple time,
which served as an accompaniment to the dance of the
same name. The courant was long the most common of
all the dances practised in England. It consisted essentially
of a time, a step, a balance, and a coupee, but admitted also
of other motions.
CO UR AYER, Pierre Francois, a Roman Catholic
clergyman, distinguished for his charity, moderation, and
learning, was born at Vernon, in Normandy, in 1681.
While canon regular and librarian of the abbey of St Ge¬
nevieve at Paris, he conducted a correspondence with Arch¬
bishop Wake on the subject of episcopal succession in Eng¬
land, which supplied him with valuable material for his
Defence of English Ordinations, published in Holland in
1 727. His opinions, however, having exposed him to a
prosecution in his native country, he took refuge in Eng¬
land, where he was presented by the university of Oxford
with a doctor’s degree. In 1736 he published a French
translation of Father Paul’s History of the Council of Trent,
in 2 vols. folio, and dedicated it to Queen Caroline, from
whom he received a pension of L.200 a-year. Besides
this he translated Sleidan’s History of the Reformation,
and wrote several theological works. Courayer died in
1776, after two days’ illness, and was buried in the cloister
of Westminster Abbey. In his will, dated two years before
his death, he declared himself still a member of the Catholic
Church, although dissenting from many of the opinions
and superstitions which prevailed in the Church of Rome.
COURIER (French courir, to run), a messenger sent
post or express with despatches.
The couriers employed by the ancients were of two
kinds; first, those who ran on foot, called by the Greeks
hemerodromi, or day-runners, regarding whom Pliny, Cor¬
nelius Nepos, and Caesar mention that some of them would
run twenty, thirty, thirty-six, and in the circus even forty
leagues a-day; second, riding couriers (cursores equitantes),
who changed horses as modern couriers do,
Xenophon attributes the first couriers to Cyrus. Hero¬
dotus says they were very common among the Persians,
and that there was nothing in the world more swift than
such messengers. That prince, says Xenophon, proved
how far a horse could run in a day, and built stables at
corresponding distances ; and at each station a courier was
always ready with a fresh horse to forward the packet to the
next stage, and so on throughout the empire.
But it does not appear that either the Greeks or Romans
had any regular system of couriers till the time of Augustus,
Under that prince they travelled in cars, though it would
appear that they afterwards went on horseback. Under
the Western Empire they were called viatores; and under
that of Constantinople cursores.
COURLAND. See Kourland
COURT (Saxon curt, Eat. curia, a senate-house;) a
place inclosed by walls and open above, adjoining a house
or habitation. It also denotes the palace or place where a
king or sovereign prince resides ; and is hence applied like¬
wise to the retinue or council of a sovereign.
468 C 0 U
Court Court, in a legal sense, is defined as a place in which jus-
Courthe ^CG ^ juc^c‘a% administered. And as by our constitution
0zon ie" S0^e executiv'e power of the laws is vested in the person
v  , of the king, it follows that all courts of justice, which are
the medium by which he administers the laws, are derived
from the power of the crown. For whether created by act
of parliament or by letters patent, or subsisting by prescrip¬
tion (the only methods by which any court of judicature
can exist), the king’s consent in the two former is given ex¬
pressly, and'in the latter by implication. In all these courts
the king is supposed, in contemplation of law, to be always
present; but as that is in fact impossible, he is there repre¬
sented by his judges, whose power is only an emanation of
the royal prerogative.
For the more speedy, universal, and impartial adminis¬
tration of justice between subject and subject, the law has
appointed a variety of courts, some with a more limited,
others with a more extensive jurisdiction ; some constituted
to inquire only, others to hear and determine; some to de¬
termine in the first instance, others upon appeal and by
way of review
Court of Arches {Curia de Arculms), the chief and most
ancient consistory court belonging to the archiepiscopal see
of Canterbury, for the debating of spiritual causes. It is so
called from the church of St Mary le Bow {de arcubus),
where it was formerly held. The judge of this court, styled
the Dean of the Arches, or the Official of the Arches Court,
has jurisdiction in all ecclesiastical causes except such as
belong to the prerogative court; and all manner of appeals
from bishops or their chancellors or commissaries, deans and
chapters, archdeacons, and others, are directed thereto. The
dean of the arches has also a peculiar jurisdiction over
thirteen parishes in London, called a deanery, which are
exempt from the authority of the Bishop of London, and of
which the parish of Bow {de arcubus) is the principal. The
persons concerned in this court are, the judge, advocates,
registrars, proctors, &c. An appeal formerly lay from this
court to the king in chancery, but it now lies to the judi¬
cial committee of the privy council, as regulated by the act
of 1843, 6th and 7th Viet., cap. 38.
Court-Baron (a baron’s court, a court incident to a
manor). A baron whose land had been erected by the king
in liberam baroniam, had a jurisdiction both civil and cri¬
minal, which he might exercise either in his own person or
by his bailie. But this jurisdiction was, by the Heritable
Jurisdiction Act, 20th Geo. II. cap. 43, reduced to the right
of recovering from his vassals and tenants the feu-duties and
rents of the land, and compelling them to perform the
services which they may be bound to render, and to the
right of deciding in civil questions where the debt or damage
does not exceed forty shillings, beyond which his civil juris¬
diction cannot be prorogated. The criminal jurisdiction is,
by the same statute, limited to assaults, batteries, and smaller
offences, which may be punished by a fine not exceeding
twenty shillings, recoverable by poinding, or, in default of
goods, commutable into one month’s imprisonment at the
utmost. But this jurisdiction has been subjected to so
many regulations and restrictions, that it is seldom or never
exercised by the baron,.
CouRT-Martial, a tribunal occasionally instituted for the
punishment of offences in officers, soldiers, and sailors. The
powers of courts-martial in this country are regulated by
the Mutiny Act.
Other courts, of various kinds, are noticed under their
appropriate denominations.
Court-Plaster, black silk varnished over ten or twelve
times with a solution of isinglass, and usually perfumed with
benzoin. To prevent its cracking, a small quantity of Chian
turpentine is added.
COUR1 HEZOlSi, a small town of France, department of
Vaucluse, arrondissement and II miles N.N.E. of Avignon,
COY
on a branch of the Ouveze. Pop. 2500. About a mile S.W. Courtrai
of the town is a small salt lake. n
COURTRAI, in Flemish Kortryk, a manufacturing and c°velong.
fortified town of Belgium, province of West Flanders, 26
miles S.W. of Ghent. It is a neat well-built town, situated
on both sides of the Lys, and connected by railways with
most of the principal places in Belgium. Among its re¬
markable public buildings are the Hotel de Ville, a Gothic
edifice, built in J526, and containing two singularly carved
chimney pieces, representing the virtues and vices, and
events in tl]e early history of the town ; and the church of
Notre Dame, a Gothic structure founded in 1238, by Bald¬
win, Count of Flanders, and Emperor of Constantinople, but,
except a small portion on one side, modernized and lined
with marble. This church contains Vandyck’s celebrated
painting of the Raising of the Cross. In St Martin’s church
is a beautiful tabernacle of carved stonework in the richest
Gothic style, dating probably about the end of the fifteenth
century. Courtrai has also an exchange, college, academy of
design, two orphan asylums, and a public library. A great
part of its inhabitants are employed in the spinning of flax,
and the weaving of plain and damask linens; besides which,
cotton and woollen goods, lace, paper, sugar, tobacco, leather,
soap, &c., are manufactured. The vicinity is highly culti¬
vated, producing large quantities of the finest flax for sup¬
plying the manufactories of the town and for exportation.
Courtrai existed in the time of the Romans, under the name
of Cortoriacum, which was afterwards changed to Curtri-
cum. In the seventh century it was a municipal city; and
in 1302 was fought under its walls the famous battle of
the Spurs, in which 20,000 Flemings, chiefly weavers from
Ghent and Bruges, routed and put to flight a French army
of 7000 knights and noblemen, and 40,000 infantry. About
700 gilt spurs were gathered on the field of battle, and hung
up as a trophy in the church of the convent of Groenangen,
now destroyed. The town was taken by the French in
1793, and made the capital of the department of Lys.
Pop. (1851) 21,089.
COUSIN, a term of relation between the children of
brothers and sisters, who in the first generation are called
cousins-german, in the second generation second cousins,
and so on. The word is commonly derived from consan-
guineus; though Menage deduces it from congenius or con-
geneus q. d. ex eodem genere.
COUTANCES, a town of France, department of La
Manche, and capital of an arrondissement of the same name,
is situated on a hill at the confluence of the Soulle and
Bulzard, 16 miles west by south of St L6. It is the seat of
a bishop, and has a fine old Gothic cathedral, and two other
handsome churches, a communal college, public library,
theatre, &c. Its chief manufactures are woollen and cotton
goods, tape, lace, parchments, and hardware; and it has an
active trade in horses, cattle, grain, flax, hemp, and butter.
Pop. (1851) 7295.
COUTH-UTLAUGH (Saxon couth, knowing, and
utlaugh, outlaw), he who wittingly receives tin outlaw and
conceals him; for which offence he was in ancient times
liable to the same punishment as the outlaw himself
COUVIN, a town of Belgium, province of Namur, and 35
miles S.S.W. of the town of that name. 11 is celebrated for its
ironworks; and in the vicinity are rich iron mines. Pop. 2190.
COVE, the harbour and port of Cork. See Queenstown.
COVELONG, a town and fortress of Hindustan, in the
south of India, on the coast of the Carnatic, 25 miles south
of Madras. It was built by Anwar ud Deen Khan, within a
musket-shot of the sea, near the ruins of another fort formerly
belonging to the Imperial East India Company of Ostend,
wffiose principal factory was established at this place. In
1750 it was taken possession of by the French; and it was
again taken by the English in 1752, when its fortifications
were demolished. Long. 80. 18.; Lat. 12. 47.
C 0 V
COY
469
Covenant COVENANT, in Eccelesiastical History, denotes the
|| contract or convention agreed to by the Scotch in the year
Coventry. 153^ for maintaining their religion against innovation.
In 1581 the General Assembly of Scotland drew up a con¬
fession of faith, or national covenant, condemning episcopal
government, under the name of hierarchy. This covenant
was signed by James I. and enjoined on all his subjects. It
was again subscribed in 1590 and 1596. The subscription
was renewed in 1638, and the subscribers engaged by oath
to maintain religion in the same state in which it existed in
1580, and to reject all innovations introduced since that
time. This oath annexed to the confession of faith received
the name of the Covenant; as those who subscribed it were
called Covenanters.
Solemn League and Covenant was established in the
year 1643, and formed a bond of union between Scotland
and England for the united preservation of the reformed
religion in the Church of Scotland, and the extirpation of
popery and prelacy. It was sworn and subscribed by many
in both nations, approved by the parliament and assembly
at Westminster, and ratified by the General Assembly of
Scotland in 1645. King Charles I. disapproved of it wdiea
, he surrendered himself to the Scottish army in 1646; but
in 1650 Charles II. by a solemn oath declared his appro¬
bation both of this and of the national covenant; and in
August the same year he made a further declaration at
Dunfermline to the same purpose, which was also renewed
on the occasion of his coronation at Scone in 1651. In the
same year also the covenant was ratified by parliament, and
subscription to it required from every member; it being
declared that without such subscription the constitution of
the parliament was null and void. It was afterwards re¬
nounced by Charles, and declared illegal, 14th Car. II.
cap. 4.
Covenant, in Theology, is used analogically to designate
the gracious engagement on the part of God to communi¬
cate certain unmerited favours to men in connection with
a particular constitution or system through means of which
these favours are to be enjoyed. Thus the Covenant of
Grace indicates God’s engagement to confer salvation on
all who truly believe, and the Covenant of Works his en¬
gagement to bestow eternal happiness on all who perfectly
obey. The Covenant of Redemption has reference to the
engagement between the Father and the Son, whereby the
Father secured a certain number of redeemed, and the Son
engaged to be their surety.
COVENANTERS. See Britain, vol. v., p. A2'S,etseq.
COVENTRY, an ancient city and municipal and par¬
liamentary borough of England, county of Warwick, 18
miles E.S.E. of Birmingham. By charter of Henry VI.
it was with certain adjacent villages constituted a separate
county; but an act of parliament in 1842 incorporated it
with the county of Warwick. It takes its name (Conventre,
i.e. convent towm) from a priory founded there in 1044 by
Earl Leofric and his wife Lady Godiva. The city stands
on a gentle eminence, and is watered by the Sherbourne
and the brook Radford, which unite within the town. The
old streets are generally narrow and darkened by high
houses on either side, but the modern parts of the town and
suburbs are better planned. The principal buildings are
the churches, the spires of which from a distance have a
most imposing effect. The chief of these is St Michael’s
church, one of the finest specimens of lighter Gothic in
England, with a beautiful steeple 303 feet in height. The
Holy Trinity church is a cruciform structure in the later
English style, with a steeple 237 feet high, and containing
the tomb of P. Holland, the translator of Camden’s Bri¬
tannia and other works. St John’s church is a plain cruci¬
form edifice founded in the reign of Edward III.; and
attached to Christ church is the spire of an ancient mo¬
nastery. St Mary’s hall is a venerable building of the fif¬
teenth century, the principal room of which is 63 feet by 30, Coverdale.
with a grotesquely carved roof, and a great painted window
facing the street. It is ornamented with portraits, inscrip¬
tions, coats of arms, and a curious piece of tapestry made in
1450, and measuring 30 feet by 10. A fine market cross
57 feet in height, with eighteen niches filled with statues,
erected in 1554, was taken down in 1771. Among the
other buildings may be mentioned the county hall, “ mayor
parlour,” drapers’ hall, jail, cavalry barracks. There are
also a theatre, dispensary, mechanics’ institute, public li¬
brary, savings-bank, free grammar-school with five exhibi¬
tions three fellowships and one scholarship, several other
schools, hospital?, and charities. Pop. (1851) 36,812. It
returns two members to parliament, and is governed by a
mayor, twelve aldermen, and thirty-six councillors. Regis¬
tered electors (1851-2) 4502. Coventry was early cele¬
brated for its manufactures. About the commencement of
the fifteenth century woollen cloths, caps, and bonnets were
considerable articles of trade, and woollens, broad cloths,
and caps were its staple manufactures till the destruction of
the Turkey trade near the close of the seventeenth century.
In the early part of the sixteenth century it became famous
for the manufacture of blue thread, called “ Coventry true
blue;” and during a part of the last century the manufac¬
ture of tammies, camlets, shalloons, and calimancoes was
flourishing, but it now no longer exists. Its staple manu¬
factures at present are silk, ribbons, and watches. Accord¬
ing to the census of 1851, 9761 males were twenty years
of age and upwards, and of these 1104 were watchmakers,
1233 in the silk, and 1895 in the ribbon manufacture. Co¬
ventry was in former times defended by walls and towers,
but these were destroyed by Charles II. on account of the
active part taken by the citizens in the parliamentary cause.
Three gates and part of the walls still remain. The pro¬
cession of Lady Godiva, who is said to have obtained im¬
portant privileges to the city from her husband, Earl Leofric,
by riding naked through the town, still takes place annually
on Trinity Friday. “ Peeping Tom” is said to have been
an inquisitive tailor who was struck blind for looking out at
her ladyship as she passed; and his effigy is still to be seen
protruded from an upper window in High Street. The
phrase “ to send to Coventry” seems to have originated
with military men who at one time were kept at a distance
by the inhabitants.
COVERDALE, Miles, the celebrated translator of the
Bible, was born in Yorkshire in 1487. He was educated
at Cambridge in the House of the Augustine Friars, and
after having been admitted into that order, was ordained
priest at Norwich in 1514. On the promulgation of the re¬
formed opinions at Cambridge, Coverdale was amongst the
first to abandon his allegiance to the Church of Rome; and
probably finding it unsafe to remain in England, he went
abroad, and assisted Tyndale in translating the Bible. In
1535 he published his own translation, with a dedication to
Henry VIII., who had now come to an irreparable breach
with the Pope. This was the earliest translation of the
whole Bible in the English language, and the Psalms in it
are those which are now used in the Book of Common
Prayer. (See Bible, vol. iv. 702.) With the sanction of
the king, Coverdale went to Paris to superintend the publi¬
cation of a new edition; but a decree of the inquisition
broke up the printing-establishment, and consigned the vo¬
lumes already finished to the flames. A few copies, how¬
ever, having been sold as waste-paper, were preserved; and
the presses, which were transported to England, were used
in printing Cranmer’s, or the Great Bible, under the super¬
intendence of Coverdale. In 1551, Coverdale was appointed
to the see of Exeter; and in consideration of his poverty
the customary payment of first fruits was remitted to him.
On the accession of Mary he was thrown into prison, and
released only on condition of leaving his native country.
470
C 0 W
C O W
Coveri-
pauk
Cowell.
Invited by his kinsman, the king’s chaplain, he repaired for
a time to the court of Denmark, but afterwards retired to
Geneva, where he was associated with other English exiles
in executing the Geneva translation. On his return to
England after the death of Mary, he was not reinstated in
his bishopric; and in 1563 he declined the see of Llandaff.
He held for some time the rectory of St Magnus, London
Bridge, but resigned it in 1566. The rest of his life was
spent in translating from the works of the Continental re¬
formers, and in the publication of tracts for the spread of
the Reformation. The date of Coverdale’s death is uncer¬
tain, but he was buried in the chancel of the church of St
Bartholomew, Feb. 19, 1568. The third centenary of the
publication of Coverdale’s Bible was held Oct. 4, 1*835.
COVER IP AUK, a town in the south of India, in the
Carnatic, nine miles east of Arcot. At this place a victory
was gained by the British over the French and their allies in
1752. E. Long. 79. 33.; N. Lat. 12. 54.
COVERT, in Law. Femme Covert or Couverte de¬
notes a woman married, and so under the coverture or pro¬
tection of her husband.
Covert War/, in Fortification, a space of five or six fa¬
thoms on the outer edge of the ditch, level with the adja¬
cent country, and protected by a rising ground which has a
gentle slope outwards, called the glacis. It is sometimes
called the corridor.
COVERTURE, in Laic. See Covert.
COVIN, a collusive or deceitful agreement between two
or more to deceive or prejudice a third person. Thus, if
a tenant for life conspire with another, that this other shall
recover the land which the tenant holds in prejudice of him
in reversion, this is covin. The word is probably derived
from the Norman French covyne, a secret place or meeting.
COVING, in Building, a term applied to an arch or
arched projecture, as when houses are built so as to project
over the ground-plot, and the turned projection is arched
with timber, lathed and plastered.
The covings of a fire-place are the vertical sides which
connect the jambs with the breast.
COVINUS, a war-chariot used by the ancient Britons
and Belgse, the spokes of which were armed with scythes.
The Romans borrowed the word to designate a kind of
close travelling carriage.
COW. See Mammalia ; Agriculture.
COW-POX. See Vaccination.
COW-TREE {Galactodendron utile), a singular plant of
the nat. ord. of Urticacece, particularly described by Hum¬
boldt (who however saw neither its flowers nor its seeds), as
indigenous to the mountainous region skirting the coast of
Caraccas. It is a handsome tree; and from its stem, when
punctured, there issues a large quantity of milky juice,
which has an agreeable flavour, and is very nutritious. It
is considered as a valuable article of food in those countries
where it abounds, and is known by the name of Palo de
l aca. It yields to analysis a considerable quantity of vege¬
table caseine, with oil and resinous matter. Humboldt and
Bonpland considered the tree as allied to the genus Bro-
simum.
COWARD, in Heraldry, a term applied to a lion borne
in an escutcheon with his tail doubled, or turned in between
his legs.
COM BRIDGE (Welsh Pontfaen), a small borough and
market-town of M’ales, county of Glamorgan, 12 miles
west of Cardiff. It consists chiefly of one long street di¬
vided by the Ddaw, over which is a good bridge. It con¬
tains a handsome church, town-hall, and a grammar-school
with 2 fellowships, 2 scholarships, and an exhibition at Jesus
College, Oxford. Market-day, Tuesday. It unites with
Cardiff" and Llantrissaint in sending a member to parlia¬
ment. Pop. (1851) 1066.
COWELL, Dr John, a learned jurist, was born at
Ernsborough, Devonshire, in 1554. He was educated at Cowes
King’s College, Cambridge, and ultimately became professor II
of civil law in that university and master of Trinity Hall. Cowley.
In 1607 he compiled a law dictionary; and for the opinions
expressed in this work in regard to the king’s prerogative
he was prosecuted before the House of Commons by Sir
Edward Coke, and saved from imprisonment only by the
interposition of James I. Cowell also wrote a work entitled
Institutiones Juris Anglicani. He died under the opera¬
tion for the stone in 1611.
COWES, West, a seaport-town of the Isle of Wight,
at the mouth of the Medina, 4 miles N. of Newport, and
78 miles from London. It occupies a rising ground on the
W. bank of the river, presenting a striking appearance from
the sea. The streets are narrow and irregular ; but many of
the modern buildings are handsome, and in the vicinity are
numerous elegant villas. It is much resorted to for sea¬
bathing, and has numerous hotels and lodging-houses for
the accommodation of visitors. The harbour is safe and
convenient, and its entrance is defended by a battery. It
forms the rendezvous of the Royal Yacht Club, who hold
their annual regatta here. It has a very considerable coast¬
ing trade. Exports, chiefly agricultural produce and malt;
imports, coal, colonial produce, manufactured goods, &c.
Ship-building is extensively carried on. On the opposite
side of the river, which is here about half-a-mile broad, is
East Cowes, where is the custom-house of the port, and
near which is Osborne House the marine residence of Her
Majesty. Pop. (1851) 4786.
COWHAGE or Cowitcii (Hindustanee, kiwach), the
short brittle hairs or spiculse found on the pods of several spe¬
cies of Dolichos or Mucuna, indigenous both to India and
America. The plants belong to the natural order of Legumi-
nosce. The species affording the cowhage are chiefly M. pru-
riens, M. urens, and M. monosperma. The hairs when applied
to the human skin produce intense itching and inflammation;
yet when mixed with syrup they are administered in the
Eastern and in the Western World with advantage as a ver¬
mifuge, both to adults and to children.
COWL, or Coul (Saxon cugle; Lat. cucullus); a sort
of hood or habit worn by the Bernardines and Benedic¬
tines. They are of two kinds; the one white, and very
large, worn in ceremony ; the other black, worn on ordinary
occasions.
Mabillon maintains that originally the cowl was the same
as the scapular. The author of the apology of the Emperor
Henry IV. distinguishes two forms of cowl; the one a long
gown with sleeves and a capuchin, used in ceremonies; the
other a kind of hood to work in, called also a scapular, be¬
cause it only covered the head and shoulders.
COWLEY, Abraham, the last and most distinguished
of the metaphysical school of English poets, was born at
London in 1618. His father, who was a grocer in Fleet
Street, died before his son was born, but his mother sent
him at an early age to Westminster school, from which he
removed, in the ordinary course, to Trinity College, Cam¬
bridge. In the tenth year of his age he composed a poem
entitled The Tragical History of Pyramus and Thisbe;
which, however, did not appear till the author had com¬
pleted his fifteenth year. At that date it was published,
along with others of Cowley’s youthful productions, in a
volume called Poetic Blossoms. He was first tempted
to exert his poetic faculties by pemsing the works of Spen¬
ser, which he says “ were wont to lye in his mother’s par¬
lour.” The reputation which he had gained for himself at
school he increased at college, by the care with which he was
accustomed to elaborate his exercises, and the success which
attended his Davideis, an epic, in four books, illustrative
of the history and character of the Psalmist of Israel. In
the civil war, which broke out at this time in England,
Cowley espoused the royalist cause, and was ejected from
c o w
Cowper. the university in 1643, shortly after graduation. Hereupon
he retired to Oxford, the great focus of royalism, and was
selected for the confidential office of deciphering the corre¬
spondence of the king and queen. In 1646 he went to the
Continent; and on his return, after a residence there of ten
years, he was seized as a spy by the Puritans, and compelled
to give heavy security for his future conduct. The same
year he published an edition of his poems ; and in the fol¬
lowing year, having obtained the degree of M.D. from Ox¬
ford, he gave to the world, as the result of his medical
studies, a Latin poem on plants, in six books. In 1659
he went to Paris ; and on the Restoration he returned to
England, and claimed the mastership of the Savoy—an
office which had been promised to him by Charles I. and
his successor. His claim was passed over; but a compen¬
sation for this injustice was made to him in 1665, by his
being selected to farm the queen’s lands at Chertsey at a
nominal rent. He died in 1667, in the forty-ninth year of
his age, and was buried in Westminster Abbey, between
Chaucer and Spenser, the authors who had at first awak¬
ened in him a love of poetry. Dr Johnson’s criticism of
Cowley’s poetical merits is in most respects the justest that
has as yet appeared. He says, “ Cowley brought to his
poetic labours a mind replete with learning, and his pages
are embellished with all the ornaments which books could
supply. He was the first who imparted to English num¬
bers the enthusiasm of the greater ode and the gaiety of
the less ; he was qualified for sprightly sallies and for lofty
flights ; he was among those who freed translation from ser¬
vility, and instead of following his author from a distance,
walked by his side; and if he left versification yet improv¬
able, he left likewise, from time to time, such specimens of
excellence as enabled succeeding poets to improve it.”
Johnson’s estimate of his classical diction is equally high.
By that critic he is ranked even above Milton as a Latin¬
ist. But Johnson had perused so much of the bad Latinity
of the middle ages that he had corrupted to a certain extent
his own naturally fine taste, and we must take this dictum
ofhis cum grano. The faults of Cowley’s style are the weari¬
some conceits by which it is characterized; the needless
exaggerations and far-fetched analogies that exist in every
page ; and the useless display of learning and classical allu¬
sion, that often obscures instead of elucidating the sense.
Besides the works already mentioned, Cowley composed
when at college a satire called The Puritan and the Papist,
and after leaving the university a comedy called The Guar¬
dian, which was subsequently reprinted under the title of
The Cutter of Coleman Street. His poems, published on
his return from France, appeared in four different parts;
1. Miscellanies; 2. The Mistress, or several copies of
Love Verses; 3. Pindaric Odes, written in imitation of
the style and manner of Pindar ; 4. The Davideis, already
mentioned. Of all his poems his amatory effusions are the
worst; and the reason of this, as alleged by himself, is quite
satisfactory—namely, that he never loved but once, and on
that occasion could not summon sufficient boldness to de¬
clare his passion.
COWPER, William, the best of English letter-writers
and the most distinguished poet of his day, was born on the
26th of November 1731, at Great Berkhamstead, Hertford¬
shire. His father, who held the living of the parish, was
chaplain to George II. He married Ann, daughter of
Roger Donne, Esq., of Ludham Hall in Norfolk. This
lady, after giving birth to several children who died in in¬
fancy, expired in childbed in 1737, leaving two sons—
M illiam (the poet) and John. Cowper, who retained the
most affectionate remembrance of his mother, embalmed
her memory in one of the most affecting tributes that ever
came from the heart of a son.
At the age of six years Cowper was placed at Dr Pit¬
man’s school, in Market Street, Bedfordshire. His health
C O W 471
was delicate, and he was in consequence exposed to the Cowper.
laughter and ridicule of his rude companions. One boy ^
seems especially to have been the object of his terror. “ His
savage treatment of me,” he says, “ impressed such a dread
of liis figure on my mind, that I well remember being afraid to
lift my eyes upon him higher than his knees, and that I knew
him better by his shoe-buckle than by any other part ofhis
dress.” The cruelty of this boy’s conduct was such, that
on its being discovered he was expelled the school, and
Cowper was removed. The mental anguish he endured at
this time aggravated, no doubt, the constitutional tendency
to despondency which throws such a peculiar interest over
much of his after-life. At the period of his removal from
Dr Pitman’s school he was afflicted with inflammation in
the eyes ; specks appeared in both of them, and it was feared
that blindness would ensue. He was in consequence placed
at the house of an eminent oculist, where he remained two
years, deriving little benefit from his residence there, his
cure being slow and imperfect.
At ten years of age Cowper was placed at Westminster
school. In after-life he lamented that his learning at this
time consisted entirely of Latin and Greek, to the exclusion
of the more important matter of religion. Surrounded by
strangers, and unable from his unconquerable shyness to
mingle with them on easy terms, his fits of depression grew
darker and more frequent; and those unhappy views of his
spiritual condition, which afterwards produced such deplor¬
able results, began to oppress his mind. In his memoir he
relates some of his religious experiences. Crossing St Mar¬
garet’s churchyard late in the evening, his curiosity was ex¬
cited by a glimmering light, and he went to see whence it
proceeded. A gravedigger was at work with a lantern ; and
just as Cowper came to the spot a skull was thrown up
which struck him on the leg. This circumstance gave an
alarm to his conscience, and he afterwards considered it one
of the most valuable religious impressions he received at
Westminster. His mental excitement was followed by the
notion that he was exempted from the penalty of death,
which in its turn was displaced by lowness of spirits and
intimations of a consumptive tendency. At thirteen he was
seized with smallpox, which completely restored his eye¬
sight. Although threatened by consumption he seems to
have excelled at cricket and football, and to have distin¬
guished himself in his studies. It is curious to know that
Warren Hastings, Churchill, Lloyd, and Colman, were his
fellow-students in Westminster.
Cowper was taken from Westminster at eighteen years
of age; and, after spending a few months at home, was
articled to Mr Chapman, an attorney in London. He seems
to have most poetically disliked his new position and duties.
Thurlow, afterwards lord chancellor, was engaged in the
same office; and Cowper describes their leisure as being
spent in “ giggling and making giggle, instead of studying
the law.” The following is related of his intimacy with
Thurlow a few years later:—One evening, in the presence
of ladies, Cowper playfully said, “ Thurlow, I am nobody,
and shall always be nobody, and you will be chancellor.
You shall provide for me when you are.” Thurlow replied
with a smile, “ I surely will.” “ These ladies,” rejoined
Cowper, “ are our witnesses.” “ Let them be so,” answered
the future chancellor, still smiling, “ for I will certainly do
it.” After completing his three years articles with Mr
Chapman, he removed to the Middle Temple in 1752. The
solitariness of his life at this time was productive of the
most pernicious results. In his melancholy memoir he de¬
scribes the dejection and unrest, the horror and despair, he
underwent during these miserable months. At length relief
came. Sitting with a few friends by the sea near Southamp¬
ton, the cloud of misery, which had overshadowed his spirit
so long, rolled away, and so happy did he feel that he could
have wept for transport had he been alone. Returning to
C O W P E R.
472
Cowper. London, and actuated by what he afterwards considered the
instigation of Satan, he burned his prayers, and plunged in¬
to pleasure and gaiety. In 1754 he was called to the bar,
but, instead of following his profession, he seems to have
yielded himself up to the charms of literature and social
intercourse. About this time his father died, leaving him
a small patrimony. In 1759 he removed to Inner Temple,
where law was still deserted for literature. He devoted
much of his time to the study of Homer, and, in conjunc¬
tion with his brother, translated some of the books of the
Henriade. This appears to have been the gayest part
of Cowper’s life. He had formed literary acquaintances,
amongst whom were many of his old schoolfellows; he be¬
came a member of the Nonsense Club; and occasionally
contributed prose and verse to the periodicals of the day.
While in Mr Chapman’s office, Cowper was a frequent
visitor at the house of his uncle, Mr Ashley Cowper, in
Southampton Row,—the attraction being his fair cousin.
Miss Theodora Jane Cowper was the younger of two daugh¬
ters (the elder of whom, afterwards Lady Hesketh, is well
known as the poet’s constant correspondent for many years),
and by her brilliant beauty and fascinating manners won
the heart of her shy relative. Excited by her presence and
sparkling spirits,Cowper became cheerful and even gay, his
bashfulness began to wear off; he mixed in company, and
occasionally attempted to shine in conversation. He became
fastidious in his attire, a critic in ruffles, a haunter of look¬
ing glasses. Seeing how matters were tending, Mr Cowper
opposed their contemplated union on prudential considera¬
tions. His daughter pooh-poohed his fears. He asked what
she would do if she married her cousin ? “ Do, sir,” an¬
swered the high-spirited girl, “ Wash all day, and ride out
on the great dog at night.” Mr Cowper afterwards changed
his position, and objected to their marriage on the score of
nearness of connexion. The lovers pled, but he was inex¬
orable. Miss Cowper thought it her duty to obey her father.
They parted and never met again,
During this courtship, Cowper addressed several poems
to his cousin, which exhibit all the gentleness and tender¬
ness of his nature. They are unlike the love-poems of
every other poet. They have no fervour, no emotion, no
fire. Perhaps Cowper’s nature was incapable of strong and
devouring passion. The memory of his love and his dis¬
appointment seems to have been soon and painlessly effaced.
With the lady it was different; she could not so easily for¬
get. The little poems which, in his brief dream of passion,
he had addressed to her, she carefully treasured up. Un¬
known to him, her hand was unwearied in its kind and deli¬
cate attentions. She never forgot him, and although sur¬
viving his death many years, died unmarried.
Cowper’s pecuniary resources being at this time slender,
he became naturally anxious to obtain suitable employment.
An influential kinsman presented him with the lucrative
office of clerk to the committees of the House of Lords.
Some difficulty, however, being raised as to his relative’s
right of appointment, an examination at the bar of the house
was demanded to test Cowper’s fitness for the perfor mance
of his duties. Although the prospect of such a public ap¬
pearance must have been exceedingly painful to him, he
resolved to prepare for the ordeal. He attended regularly
at the office, and thus describes the result:—“ The journal
books were thrown open to me—a thing which could not be
refused, and from which, perhaps, a man in health and with
a head turned to business might have gained all the infor¬
mation he wanted ; but it was not so with me ; I read with¬
out perception, and was so distressed that had every clerk
in the office been my friend it could have availed me little,
for I was not in a condition to receive instruction, much
less to elicit it out of manuscripts without direction.” The
dreadful trial that awaited him filled his days, and re-ap¬
peared in dreams. He found no rest. At a'tavern he met
some miserable men, and suicide became the subject of con- Cowper.
versation. The idea was new to him, and held him with a
horrid fascination from which he could not escape. He was
pursued and goaded by imaginary voices, until at last in a
paroxysm of madness he attempted self-destruction. The
garter by which he was suspended broke, and he fell hea¬
vily to the ground. His laundress hearing the fall, and
thinking him in a fit, ran to his assistance ; but by the time
she reached him he had crept into bed. His mind now be¬
came a prey to the keenest remorse. The wrath of God
seemed hanging over him on account of his sin. In these
circumstances, every thought of his official employment was,
of course, abandoned: measures were adopted for his se¬
curity, and in 1763 he was placed under the care of Dr
Cotton of St Albans.
After remaining two years at St Albans he removed to
Huntingdon. Here he first met the Unwins, and so
charmed was he with their society, that in a short time
he became the inmate of their home. On the death of
Mr Unwin in 1767 the family removed to Olney ; and on
the recommendation of the Rev. Mr Newton the curate of
the parish, Cowper accompanied them. About this time
his brother died ; and in the winter of 1773 his malady re¬
turned. Through his long illness he was attended by Mrs
Unwin with the most affectionate care. To beguile the
tedium of recovery, he occupied himself with carpentry, gar¬
dening, and in domesticating his famous hares. Up till
this time he had only written a few hymns : he now, at Mrs
Unwin’s suggestion, commenced a poem on the Progress of
Error. Composition, once begun, was so ardently prose¬
cuted that in a few months his first volume, consisting, with
the poem already mentioned, of Table Talk, Conversation,
Truth, Expostulation, Hope, Charity, and Retirement, was
ready for the press. It attracted little attention. One
critic declared that “ Mr Cowper wras certainly a good pious
man, but without one spark of poetic fire.” In 1781 he met
Lady Austen, and the casual acquaintance soon ripened
into the warmest intimacy. Her lively spirits chased from
his mind the demon of melancholy. He wrrote songs which
she set to music and sang to the harpsichord. It is said
that observing him one evening in a fit of depression, she
related the story of John Gilpin, with which he was so de¬
lighted that after retiring to rest he turned it into verse
and repeated it with great glee when they met next morn¬
ing at the breakfast-table. The Task, undertaken at the
suggestion of his new friend, was begun in the winter ofT783
and published in 1785. Its success was complete, and his re¬
putation was at once established. Never, perhaps, in Eng¬
land had poetry been at so low an ebb as at this time. The
brilliant point and antithesis of Pope had degenerated into
the inflated diction of Darwin and the feeble sentimen¬
talities of Hayley. Cowper’s hearty and natural verse ex¬
tinguished these weaklings for ever. Although Cowper
cannot be placed in the first rank of English poets, yet few
are attended with such retinues of love and blessing. His
verse is a transparent medium through which you look into
a gentle and most loveable human spirit, and you come to
know him as thoroughly as if you had lived in the same
house with him for years. His muse does not sit apart in
sublime seclusion—she comes down into the ways of men,
mingles in their every-day concerns, and is interested in
crops and rural affairs. You see by the slight tan on her
cheek that she has been much in the harvest fields. Cowper
rather talks than sings. His blank verse makes no preten¬
sions to majesty; it is colloquial sometimes in its bareness,
yet in its artless flow is ever delightful as the conversation
of a beloved and gifted companion.
Cowper brought back nature to poetry, and his influence
has been extensive and lasting. He is, to a certain extent,
the prototype of Wordsworth. Indeed many passages in the
Excursion read like extracts from the Task. It is curious
cox
Cowries also to observe in Cowper’s verse that subjectivity which is
|| supposed to be the characteristic of more recent times. His
Cox. ailings, his walks, his musings, his tamed hares, his friends,
•^r~' his indignation at slavery, his peculiar views of religion, are
the things he delights to portray—the Task is a poem en¬
tirely about himself.
On Lady Austen leaving Olney, her piace was filled by
the Throgmortons, whose acquaintance Cowper had made
on the occasion of a fate which they gave to the surround¬
ing gentry. He was delighted with his new friends and
spent much time in their society. During this period he
was not idle; he had commenced his translation of Homer,
and in the winter of 1785 had advanced as far as the 20th
book of the Iliad. Owing to the rigorous care be bestowed
upon his work it did not advance so rapidly as he at first
anticipated, and was not published till 1791.' Cowper was
now in the zenith of his reputation. Rumours of his fame
were wafted to the quiet residence of Olney from that world
which he had so long forsaken, he wTas hailed the first poet
of the day, and his old friend I hurlow (whose greatness he
had foreseen) opened a correspondence with him and
thanked him for his translation. To the mild spirit of
Cowper the last circumstance must have been peculiarly
grateful. While engaged upon Homer, his dreaded malady
returned, but was happily driven away by the charms of
society and constant literary occupation. He well knew
that if he remained inactive the dark spirit would regain his
throne ; and no sooner was Homer given to the world than
we find him engaged on an edition of Milton. But the la¬
bour was too much; his brain sunk beneath the incessant
demands made on its energies, and so great was his distress
that he was obliged to relinquish the undertaking. The
clouds w7ere now closing dark and heavy over the evening
of Cowper’s life. Mrs Unwin was an invalid ; he wTas ever
by her bedside, and nursed her with a tenderness if possible
deeper than her own. Beneath the tension of sorrow the
cord snapped. His malady returned, which was never des¬
tined in this life to be rolled away, Mrs Unwin died on the
17th of December 1796. Cowper, with wandering brain
and feeble as a child, was led into the room ; the presence
of the dead drew from him one wild passionate exclamation,
he then relapsed into silence, and it is said never more ut¬
tered her name. The deepest dejection, alternating with
fits of spiritual despair, hung over him to the end. Dropsy
appeared in his limbs; and after being reduced to the last
stage of feebleness, he died peacefully on the 25th April
1800. (a. s—H.)
COWRIES, small shells employed in Africa and the
East Indies as a substitute for money. The principal of
this sort is Cyprcea moneta, a native of the Maidive Isles,
whence they are exported to Bengal, &c., for the purposes
of commerce. The best are white, shining, from f to 1 inch
in length, with a distinct transverse ridge. A century ago
their value in Bengal was 2500 for a rupee ; but now they
are sold at 3200 for the same coin.
COX, Richard, a learned English prelate, born at
Whaddon, Buckinghamshire, in 1499, He was educated
at Eton, and afterwards at King’s College, Cambridge, of
which he became a fellow in 1519, He was invited to
Oxford by Cardinal Wolsey; but having imbibed the re¬
formed opinions, he was stripped of his preferment, and
thrown into prison. On his release, however, he was chosen
master of Eton school, and in 1541 he was appointed pre¬
bendary of Ely cathedral. Through the influence of Cran-
mer he was chosen tutor to Prince Edward; and on the
accession of that prince he was sworn of the privy-council,
and made king’s almoner. On the accession of Mary he
was again stripped of his preferments, and committed to the
Marshalsea. He escaped however to Strasburg, where he
resided with Peter Martyr. Under Elizabeth he was ele¬
vated to the see of Ely, and died July 22, 1581. Cox was
VOL. vii.
C It A 473
a man of considerable learning, but equally violent in the Coxe
measures which he recommended for the extirpation of I!
popery and dissent. He wrote Tivo Latin Orations on Crabbe'
the Dispute between Dr Tresham and Peter Martyr, Lond.
1549, 4to. Translation of the Four Gospels, the Acts of
the Apostles, and the Epistle to the Romans, in the Bishops,
Bible. Resolutions of some Questions concerning the Sa¬
crament, in the Collection of Records at the end of Burnet’s
History of the Reformation; and had also a considerable
share in compiling and revising the liturgy.
COXE, William, Archdeacon of Wilts, a distinguished
historical and biographical writer, was born at London in
1747. He was elected fellow of King’s College, Cambridge,
in 1768, and afterwards went abroad on a visit to the dif¬
ferent Continental states, where he prosecuted the researches
which were afterwards incorporated into his historical works.
On his final return to England he was appointed to the
rectory of Bemerton, and in 1808 was preferred to the
archdeaconry of Wilts. Towards the close of his life his
vision became seriously impaired, and for nearly seven years
before his death he laboured under total blindness. He
died at Bemerton in 1828. Of his numerous works the
most important are, Travels in Switzerland, 3 vols. 8vo,
1789; Travels into Poland, Russia, Sweden, and Den¬
mark, 5 vols. 8vo, 1784; History of the House of Austria,
fyc., 3 vols. 4to, 1807; History of the Kings of Spain of
the House of Bourbon, 3 vols. 4to, 1813; Memoirs of John,
Duke of Marlborough, 3 vols. 4to, 1817—19; Memoirs of
Sir Robert Walpole, 3 vols. 4to, 1798; and the Literary
Life and Relict Works of Benjamin Stillingfleet, 3 vols.
8vo. The Memoirs of the Administration of the Right
Hon. Henry Pelham, 2 vols. 4to, were published posthu¬
mously in 1829,
COYPEL, Noel, (1628-1707), a Frencn painter, who
was appointed by Colbert director of the French academy
at Rome. His son Anthony (1661—1722) was employed
in painting the gallery of the royal palace at Paris, and was
afterwards made first painter to the French king, and en¬
nobled on account of his merit.
COZENING, tricking, defrauding. In law it denotes
an offence where anything is done deceitfully, either with
regard to contracts or otherwise, and which cannot properly
be defined by any special name. In the civil law it is called
stellionatus.
CRAB. See Crustacea.
CRABBE, George, was born at Aldborough, in Suffolk,
Dec. 24, 1754, and was the son of an officer of the customs.
He appears to have been designed by his father first for an
employment similar to his own, and afterwards for the me¬
dical profession. He was apprenticed to an apothecary,
and received an education merely sufficient to qualify him
for such an occupation, and by no means to advance him
in that literary career in which he became eventually dis¬
tinguished. His poetical taste was first elicited by the
casual perusal of some verses in the Philosophical Maga¬
zine, which his father, who was a mathematician, and averse
to poetry, had separated from the scientific portions of that
periodical, and thrown aside as unworthy. The spark thus
kindled burnt steadily ; and even while a schoolboy he ver¬
sified much, and made sundry ambitious attempts in the
highest walks of composition. The attainment of a prize
offered by the editor of the Lady’s Magazine for a poem
on Hope, although a humble species of success, sufficed to
encourage him to renewed exertions; and in 1778 he quit¬
ted the profession of medicine, which he had always dis¬
liked, and repaired to London, determined to apply himself
to literature. His early efforts in his new career were at¬
tended with disheartening circumstances. The first poem
he offered for publication could find no publisher. From
the first that was printed he obtained no profit, in conse-
sequence of the publisher’s bankruptcy. It was entitled
a0
474 C R A
Crabbe. The Candidate, a Poetical Epistle to the Authors of the
Monthly Pevieiv, and appeared anonymously in 1 780. ooon
afterwards he became acquainted with Mr Burke, an ac¬
quaintance from which may be dated the dawn of his liter¬
ary rise. Without an introduction, and impelled by distress,
he applied to Mr Burke, who kindly took him by the hand,
afforded him the advantage of his criticism and advice, le-
commended him to Dodsley the publisher, invited him to
his house, and made him known to many distinguished men
of that time, among whom were Reynolds, Johnson, and
Fox. Crabbe’s first published poems, after the commence-
ment of his acquaintance with Burke, were, 1 he Library,
and The Village, both of which received the benefit of
Burke’s observations, and the second of which was in a
great measure composed at Beaconsfield. In 1781 Crabbe,
who by the recommendation of Burke had been qualifying
himself for holy orders, was ordained a deacon, and took
priest’s orders the following year. After serving a short
time as curate at Aldborough, through the influence of this
generous and distinguished friend he was introduced to
the Duke of Rutland and became his domestic chaplain.
Nor did Burke’s kindness stop here; for he obtained for
him from Lord Thurlow, in 1783, a presentation to the
rectory of Frome St Quentin, in Dorsetshire, which he held
for six years. About this time he married, and resided for
some time at Swelling, county of Suffolk, officiating as
curate to the minister of Great Yarmouth. About 1789
he was presented, through the instrumentality of the
Duchess of Rutland, to the rectories of Muston in Leices¬
tershire and West Allington in Lincolnshire. In 1813 he
was preferred to the rectory of Trowbridge, county of Wilts,
which, together with the smaller living of Croxton Kerryel,
in Leicestershire, he held to the time of his death. After
The Village, published in 1783, which had received the
corrections and commendations of Dr Johnson, Crabbe next
produced The Newspaper, published in 1785. After this
time his poetical labours were long suspended, owing pro¬
bably to the dedication of his time to domestic affairs
and the duties of his profession, or, as he himself ascribes
it, to the loss of those early and distinguished friends who
had given him the benefit of their criticism. He had, how¬
ever, the satisfaction of seeing his next work, The Parish
Register, published in 1809, read and approved by Fox.
The success obtained by these poems, which far exceeded
that which had attended his earlier efforts, encouraged him
to write again ; and in 1810 he published one of his best
poems, The Borough, and in 1812 Tales in Verse. His
last publication was entitled Tales of the Hall, and appeared
in 1819. The latter years of his life he spent in the tran¬
quil and amiable exercise of his domestic and clerical duties,
at his rectory of Trow'bridge, esteemed and admired by his
parishioners, among whom he died, after a short illness, on
the 8th February 1832, aged 77. He was buried in the
chancel of Trowbridge church. Crabbe’s only prose publi¬
cations were, a Funeral Sermon on Charles Duke of Rut¬
land, preached at Beloni, and an Essay on the Natural
History of the Yale of Beloni, written for Nichols’s History
of Leicestershire, in which it is thankfully acknowledged.
His fame rests solely on his poems, of which The Parish
Register and The Borough are destined to a reputation, if
not as brilliant, yet probably as enduring, as that of any
other contemporary productions.
Crabbe is one of the most original of our poets ; and his
originality is of that best kind, which displays itself not in
tumid exaggeration or flighty extravagance—not in a wide
departure from the sober standard of truth—but in a more
rigid and uncompromising adherence to it than inferior
writers venture to attempt. He is pre-eminently the poet
of reality in humble life; and to its representation he has
applied himself with a rigorous fidelity which startled the
timid fastidiousness of many readers. He discarded the
C R A
aid of those pleasing illusions with which humble life had Cracow,
previously been enveloped; condemned as fictitious the
prevalent representations, and in their stead fearlessly ex¬
hibited the stern, harsh, naked truth, and determined to
rely for popularity on the fidelity and vigour of his delinea¬
tions. His chief characteristics are force and accuracy;
and through these, and the originality of his style, he com¬
pels us to bestow our attention on objects that are usually
neglected. His poetry, unlike that of others, directs our
sympathy where it is well for the cause of humanity that it
should be directed, but whence the squalidness of misery
and want too frequently repels it. Much of his success
arises from his graphic delineation of external objects, but
more from his knowledge of the human heart, and his power¬
ful treatment of the passions. Both the milder and the
more violent emotions are portrayed with ability, but in
the latter he is most strikingly successful. Despair and
remorse are’exhibited with a tragic strength that has been
rarely equalled ; and madness has been seldom drawn with
a more powerful hand than in his poem of Sir Eustace
Grey. He has been called the satirist of the poor ; but we
must be careful lest w'e attach to this expression too harsh
an acceptation. It is true he discountenances those roman¬
tic day-dreams which associate virtue inseparably with po¬
verty, and an Arcadian innocence with rural life. He
shows that demoralization is the attendant of distress, and
that villagers maybe equally dissipated and more dishonest
than the profligates of a wealthier class ; but he shows this
in a spirit rather of pity than of anger ; and whilst he de¬
nounces and exposes crime, he makes us interested, not so
much in its punishment, as, what is still better, in its pre¬
vention. He spares not the vices of the poorer classes;
but at the same time he does more justice to their virtues,
and renders them more important objects of consideration,
than perhaps any other imaginative writer.
With many sterling merits as a poet, Crabbe has nume¬
rous defects. His descriptions are forcible and exact, but
they are too detailed. They have too much of the minute¬
ness of a Dutch picture; and it is a minuteness exhibited
in the representation of disgusting objects. He never
shrinks from the irksome task of threading the details of
vice and misery. Abject depravity is a too favourite sub¬
ject of his pen ; and he does not seem sufficiently aware
that there is a species of wickedness which counteracts our
sympathy with suffering, and a degree of insignificance
which extinguishes our interest in guilt. His skill in dis¬
playing the morbid anatomy of our moral nature has ren¬
dered him too prone to that unpleasing exercise of his
talents ; and his habit of tracing the deformities of charac¬
ter have given to his expositions too much the appearance
of invective. His taste is very inferior to his other powers.
Even with subjects naturally pleasing he is apt to blend
disagreeable images. His descriptions of natural scenery,
graphic as they are, have little in them of elevation. There
is no genial glow about them, as if the contemplation of
nature had warmed and inspired him. His deficiency ot
taste displays itself also sometimes in his humour, which is
apt to verge upon buffoonery. His style is little to be com¬
mended. It is too often clumsy and ungraceful; diffuse
without freedom, homely without being easy, and antithe¬
tical without being pointed. His diction is frequently
harsh and quaint, and compels us to feel that the merit of
his works resides rather in their ideas than in the dress in
which he clothes them. His lines are deficient in refine¬
ment and polish, and frequently offend the ear by something
uncouth and prosaic in the sound, and the absence of mu¬
sical rhythm. Such are the defects which have conduced
to deprive him of that popularity which his merits would
otherwise have obtained for him. (t. h. l.)
CRACOW, lately a republic bordering on the Prussian,
Austrian, and Russian dominions, at the point where they
C R A
C R A
475
Cracow, meet. It stretches along the left bank of the Vistula,
^ where the Rudowa falls into that stream. The territory is
about 33 miles in length, and its extent is about 490 square
miles, or 313,600 English acres. The land is fertile and
well cultivated ; and contains mines of iron, zinc, and coal.
The inhabitants amounted in 1832 to 123,157, including
the city. The form of government was democratic, with a
president elected by the inhabitants, who must have been
at least 35 years of age, must have been educated at a Po¬
lish university, and possess land paying a tax amounting
to seventy-five shillings a-year. It was also necessary
that be should have previously filled some public office.
He exercised his power in common with a senate of twelve
members, eight of whom were chosen by the chamber of
representatives, two by the clergy of the cathedral, and
two by the university.
The capital is fortified, and contains about 43,000 inha¬
bitants, of whom about 11,000 are Jews. The cathedral
is an ancient and still magnificent building, containing
many antiquities of an historical nature belonging to the
kingdom of Poland, whose monarchs were crowned in this
edifice. In one of the crypts are the coffins of John Sobieski,
of Poniatowski, and of Kosciusko. Near the city an enor¬
mous conical mound has been raised in honour of the latter.
Cracow possesses some trade, for which great facilities are
afforded by the Vistula. E. Long. 19. 50.; N. Lat. 50. 3.
In 1846, this last vestige of the kingdom of Poland was
blotted from the map of Europe. The political outrage and
perfidy employed by the partitioning powers in the previous
dismemberments of this unhappy country were again re¬
sorted to in their seizure of this last little fragment.
In the partition of 1795, Austria took possession of this
portion of Poland. Napoleon, in the campaign of 1809,
wrested it from that power, and incorporated it with the
duchy of Warsaw, which was placed under the rule of
Saxony. In the campaign of 1812, the Emperor Alexander
made himself master of this and the other territory which
formed the duchy of Warsaw.
At the general settlement of the affairs of Europe in 1815,
whether at the recommendation of the other powders, or as
an adjustment between Austria (which had the right of the
first captor), and Russia(which then held it as last conqueror),
or whether in deference to strongly expressed public opi¬
nion, it was agreed that Cracow and the adjoining territory
should be formed into a free state; and, by the General
Treaty of Congress, signed by the plenipotentiaries of the
seven chief states of Europe at Vienna in 1815 (Article VI.),
“ The town of Cracow, with its territory, is declared to be
for ever a free, independent, and strictly neutral city, under
the protection of Russia, Austria, and Prussia.”
It was not to be expected that the inhabitants of Cracow
would forget the past wrongs inflicted on their native coun¬
try, or prove indifferent to the tyranny and cruelty daily
perpetrated on their brethren in the dismembered districts.
In February 1846, an insurrection broke out in Cracow,
apparently a ramification of a widely-spread conspiracy
which the revolutionists expected would have broken out
at Posen and other places at the same time, but which was
suppressed by the energetic measures of the Prussian autho¬
rities. The senate and the other authorities of Cracow were
unable to subdue the rebels or to maintain order, and, at
their request, the city was occupied by a corps of Austrian
troops for the protection of the inhabitants.
The three powers, Russia, Austria, and Prussia, made
this a pretext for extinguishing this independent state. They
alleged, that even before the insurrection of Poland in 1830,
symptoms of fermentation existed in the state of Cracow;
that, when the insurrection broke out, the intelligence was
received by the inhabitants with the most marked enthu¬
siasm ; that it w7as necessary, after the destruetion of the
Polish revolutionary army, to occupy Cracow with a division
of the Russian army ; that Poles who were compromised Cradling
in the revolution found an asylum within its bounds ; that 11
in 1836, when the territory was taken possession of by the CragU8*
combined troops of the three powers, nearly 2000 political Vs"~v'~/
refugees were found settled there. In fine, they alleged
that “ the free city of Cracow and the whole of its territory
had, from the year 1830 to the year 1846, been in a state
of permanent conspiracy against the courts who had called
that state into existence.” Was it to be wondered at, that,
after having been galled for 16 years by the military occu¬
pation, the tyranny, oppression, and exactions of the powers
calling themselves their protectors,—that the inhabitants of
this city, mocked with the name of free, should have risen
against their oppressors ? It cannot, however, be denied,
that the outbreak was rash and reckless, and that its career
was stained with violence and outrage, which served as a
pretext to the three powers whose dominions were menaced
by it to suppress it by force of arms.
In the month of August the plenipotentiaries of the
Three Powers met at Berlin, to consult on the course which
they should adopt. At the same time, Lord Palmerston
wrote to the British ambassador that he expected nothing
would be done in regard to the state of Cracow at variance
with the stipulations of the Treaty of Vienna ; and he was
assured by the Prussian minister, Baron Schleinitz, that
there was no intention to pursue an opposite line of conduct.
The three courts, having established a conference at
Vienna—after due deliberation, contrary to all the assu¬
rances previously given, and in opposition to the expressed
views of the British and French governments—came to the
resolution to extinguish the state of Cracow, and to incor¬
porate it with the dominions of Austria; and on the 6th of
November Prince Metternich wrote to Lord Palmerston that
this was un fait irrevocablement fixe. Against this resolu¬
tion Lord Palmerston sent a lengthened remonstrance, and
concluded with these words—that this decision, if put in
force, “ would be a measure justified by no adequate neces¬
sity, and would involve a violation of positive stipulations
contained in the General Treaty of Vienna;” and M.
Guizot, in his official despatch, complains of the duplicity of
the Three Courts, in giving the French Government an as¬
surance in the months of February and March that the oc¬
cupation of Cracow by the troops of the Three Powers was
merely a temporary measure, and that it should cease with
the necessity of the times. In strongly remonstrating against
this violation of treaty, he uses these words“ Le Gouverne-
ment du Roi ne fait done qu’ user d’un droit evident, et
en meme temps il accomplit un devoir imperieux en protes-
tant solennellement centre la suppression de la Republique
de Cracovie, acte positivement contraire a la lettre comme au
sens du Traite de Vienne du 9 Juin 1815.”
The Three Powers, calculating on the reluctance of the
French or British governments to make this a casus belli,
and trusting that the perpetration of this violation of treaty
and oppression of the weak would pass with impunity, con¬
summated their criminal purpose ; but, as if by a providen¬
tial retribution, within two years the capitals of Austria and
Prussia were visited with the same insurrectionary troubles
for which they had doomed Cracow to extinction.
CRADLING, in Carpentry, light timber-work intro¬
duced under floors to give support to coved ceilings.
CRAGG, a term applied by English geologists to the
superior member of the tertiary formations of England. It
is a calcareous rock, very rich in coralline remains, or a
sandy deposit containing shells, water-worn pebbles, and
occasionally bones of mammals. The formation is included
in the pleiocene deposits of Lyell.
CRAG US, in Ancient Geography,2. vaowvAxivn, or rather
a mountain range of Lycia, on the southern coast of Asia
Minor. The range consists of two parts, Cragus and Anti-
cragus. Of these the latter stretches inland in a rortherly
476 CRAIG.
Craig, direction, and forms the western boundary of the river
—■‘v-"-' Xanthus; the former abuts into the sea with seven or eight
bold headlands. The highest peak of Mount Cragus is
about 6600 feet above the level of the sea, and is covered
half way to the top with dense forests of valuable timber.
Cragus is mentioned by Horace as a favourite retreat of
Diana (Hor. Carm. i. 2\). At the foot of Mount Cragus
was a city of the same name, whose site has not yet been
discovered or determined by modern geographers.
CRAIG, James Gibson, Bart., who bore a great part
in the political history of Scotland, and a part even more
influential than was conspicuous, was born in St John
Street, Edinburgh, on the 11th October 1765. He was the
second son of William Gibson, Esq., by Mary Cecilia,
daughter of James Balfour, Esq. of Pilrig, and grandson
of John Gibson, Esq. of Durie, by Helen Carmichael, sis¬
ter of John, fourth Earl of Hyndford. His ancestor Sir
Alexander Gibson of Durie, one of the senators of the
College of Justice, under the title of Lord Durie, having
married in 1595 Margaret, eldest daughter of Sir Thomas
Craig of Riccarton (see Craig, Sir T.), in 1822 he suc¬
ceeded under entail to the estate of Riccarton, in Mid-Lo¬
thian, with which he took the name of Craig. He entered
on business for himself as a law agent in Edinburgh before
he was twenty-one ; and almost simultaneously began to
take a part in the politics of the day. Of his professional
career it is not fitting to say more here than that it was
eminently successful ; and that during the sixty-four
years of its continuance he gained professionally the con¬
fidence of many of the chief of those with whom other¬
wise he was at war. As a politician, the qualities of cou¬
rage, capacity, energy, and disinterestedness, were all ne¬
cessarily inferred in the side and the share he took. In the
political state of Scotland at that time, there was nothing to
be gained, but much to be risked, by the profession or even
suspicion of Whiggery ; and nothing could be accomplished
save by great labour and hardihood. In illustration of this,
reference may be made to the case mentioned by Sir James
himself, in a published letter, written in 1849, of an at¬
tempt made by him and others to celebrate, by a dinner,
in Edinburgh, the fall of the Bastile in 1 789; when only
twenty-four persons (several of whom subsequently rose to
high eminence in various departments) could be got to¬
gether, whose names were taken down by the police as they
entered, while the sheriff of the county and another official
person were subsequently discovered, in an adjoining apart¬
ment, noting down as much of the proceedings as could be
overheard through the partition. In 1794 the trials and
severe sentences of Muir, Gerrald, and other persons en¬
gaged in the same object as Sir James, though in a
different combination, only confirmed him in his course.
Holding steadily on his way, and working energetically,
he was by common assent assigned from the first a leader¬
ship, which he held until the last ; it being his remark¬
able fortune to be the father and preceptor of the modern
Whig party of Scotland, and to outlive almost all his po¬
litical children and pupils. It was a chief characteristic
of his public career, that while ready for every danger,
he rather shunned tclal, speaking little, but working in¬
domitably. For forty years, uncheered by success, he lent
himself unsparingly in time, strength, and purse, inspiriting
the timid, sheltering the weak, and (to an extent unsuspected
at the time even by those with whom he was in closest alli¬
ance) aiding and recompensing the martyred. He had passed
sixty-five years of age before the work in which he had
been so resolute a labourer fructified in the “ Reform” era
of 1830-2. During all that critical period, when the coun¬
try seemed day after day on the brink of revolutionary tu¬
mult, Sir James Gibson-Craig was in Scotland the centre-
figure of the mass of the population, as he had been for
more than forty years previous of the small band maintain¬
ing the doctrines which had at last sprung into such fierce Craig,
popularity. His work now was to restrain the many, instead
as heretofore to incite and convince a few; and he was known
to spend almost an entire night on the streets of Edinburgh,
going about from group to group, enjoining order and pa¬
tience with as much energy and authority as he had been
wont among his small party to urge courage and advance.
To his influence, hard won and energetically exercised,
is ascribed in a large measure the result of Scotland having
got through that crisis without either wavering or outbreak.
At this time he received the only honour or reward he
could ever be prevailed upon to accept for himself or his
family, and was made a baronet of the United Kingdom in
1831. The Reform struggle over, he wras content to
let much of the work, now become easy and gainful, fall
into other hands. But he never lost either his zeal or
his influence, and on several occasions during the next
twenty years he re-appeared in his place as a leader
with all his wonted vigour. These occasions arose out of
what he thought dangers to the cause of religious liberty,
of which, like most of his school, he had a thorough com¬
prehension and strong love. Some of those related to ques¬
tions merely local in their incidents, though not in their
principle—such as an attempt to exclude an eminent citi¬
zen of Edinburgh from the chief magistracy on the ground
of his being a dissenter; but one requires mention as
more important and memorable. In the latter part of what
is known as the “ non-intrusion controversy,” which re¬
sulted in the disruption of the Established Church of Scot¬
land, Sir James thought it his duty to take part against the
Non-intrusion party, not iipparently on the ground of the ori¬
ginal question, but on the ground that there was encroach¬
ment and danger in the claim of the church courts to a power
of interpreting the statutes co-ordinately with the courts of
law. Sir James was mainly instrumental in getting up a
great public meeting in Edinburgh on this subject, the aim
of which is indicated by a sentence in the speech of the
chairman (Lord Dunfermline, a contemporary and life-long
political ally of Sir James) :—“ The question is, whether the
state is to control the church in what it is fit and proper the
church should be by law controlled in ; or whether the
church is to control the state by asserting her supremacy in
all matters which she thinks fit to declare come under her
jurisdiction.” The course then taken by Sir James was
counter to that adopted by the law-officers and other lead¬
ing members of the Scottish Whig party, and indeed may
be said to mark a distinction between the old and the new
sections of that party. The older Whigs having, as in the
case of the Roman Catholics, stood up against the intrusion
of the state into things religious, were equally jealous of
the intrusion of the church upon the state.
Passing on to the more strictly personal or private qualities
of Sir James Gibson-Craig, it would be a great mistake to
assume, from the boldness and sternness of his political career,
that he was of obtrusive temperament or habit. On the con¬
trary, he was essentially modest—manly, it is true, and with
a somewhat fierce impatience of everything like meanness and
dissimulation ; but, while firmly adhering to his own position,
never forgetful of what was due to others, thus doing much to
conciliate those opponents, especially of the higher class, with
whom he happened to come into personal contact. In the
whole circle of domestic relations he was in a remarkable
degree gentle and faithful; he met his duties in public, but
sought his delights at home. “ Seeing Sir James Craig,”
says Lord Cockburn (Life of Jeffrey), “ in his fields and
among his villagers, or by his fireside, was one of the sights
that show how, in right natures, the kind affections can sur¬
vive public contentions.” His personal habits, as might be
inferred, were active, and, to the utmost extent consistent
with the diversified nature of his labours, methodical. Till up¬
wards of eighty, he was an early riser, going through a con-
C R A
Craig, siderable amount of business before breakfast; and he was
^ all his life attached to athletic sports and rural pursuits. He
died March 6, 1850, in the eighty-fifth year of his age,
with his mind still active and undimmed. His last public
act was attendance at a meeting regarding a monument to
his personal and political friend Lord Jeffrey, at which he
caught the cold that initiated his fatal illness. Opinions, of
course, do and will differ as to the policy and measures of
which Sir James Gibson-Craig was a champion, but not as
to his having done much public work from pure motives;
and his services are not the less worthy of record that his
part was not that of orator or parliamentary leader, and that
he was content to do what he thought his duty, careless
alike of display, dissuasion, and reward. ' (a. r.)
Craig, John, a Scottish mathematician of the age of
Newton, and one of the earliest w'riters on the fluxionary
or differential calculus in this country. Newton no doubt
had long been in possession of the principles of this calcu¬
lus before his modesty allowed him to give his discoveries
to the world, and he even revised1 one of Craig’s trea¬
tises previously to publication in 1685, the year after Leib¬
nitz had announced his discovery in the Leipsic Transac¬
tions. During his residence at Cambridge, similarity of
pursuit had made Craig acquainted with that truly great
man ; and on his return to Scotland he enjoyed the intimate
friendship of the accomplished Dr Pitcairn, and of David
Gregory,2 professor of mathematics in the University of
Edinburgh, and afterwards Savilian professor of astronomy
at Oxford. His investigations, however, with the new cal¬
culus, subjected him to the severe strictures of the dis¬
tinguished John Bernouilli, but obtained for him the sup¬
port of Leibnitz, whose approbation may be considered as
exempt at least from that national partiality with which
he himself charges Craig.3 But whatever praise may be
due to Craig for his mathematical inquiries, it must be
allowed that his Principia of the Christian religion, by a
misapplication of the doctrine of probability to human tes¬
timony, rest on premises which lead to conclusions alike
dangerous and absurd. Having assumed the position that
human testimony can only amount to probability, and that
this probability diminishes as the distance of time from the
event increases ; he readily obtains the startling and falla¬
cious, though calculated, result of a period when faith would
become evanescent, and disappear from the earth. If,
however, it may be allowed to form an opinion of Craig’s
character from a letter to Dr Cheyne,4 * there may perhaps
be some justice in attributing the erroneous principles of
this work rather to theoretical mistake than to wrong inten¬
tion. He seems ultimately to have been a Fellow of the
Royal Society, and vicar of Gillingham, Dorsetshire,6 but
for some years he resided in London, where he died in 1731.
Besides communications to the Leipsic Acta Erudito-
rum, his contributions to the London Philosophical Trans¬
actions from 1697 to 1712 embrace essays on quadratures,
length of curve lines, logarithmic curve and construction
of logarithms, solutions of the problems of the solid of least
resistance and of the line of swiftest descent, as well as of
the problem of John Bernouilli. His separately published
writings, now chiefly interesting with reference to the pro¬
gress of mathematical science, are, 1. Methodus figurarum
lineis rectis et curds quadraturas determinandi, London,
1658, 4to. 2. Tractatus Mathematicus de Jigurarum cur-
C R A 477
vilinearum quadraturis et locis geometricis, London, 1693, Craig.
4to. 3. Theologies Christiance Principia Mathematica, 's'—
London, 1699 (reprinted, with a refutation, at Leipsic,
1755). 4. De Calculo Fluentium Libri duo, quibus sub-
juguntur libri duo de Optica Analytica, 1718. (t. a.)
Craig, Sir Thomas,of Hiccarton, one of the ablest lawyers
whom his country has produced, appears to have been the
eldest son of William Craig of Craigfintray, afterwards called
Craigston, in the county of Aberdeen, The period of his
birth is uncertain ; but as he was sent to the university of
St Andrews in 1552, we may suppose him to have been
born about the year 1538. He was entered at St Leo¬
nard’s College, and took the degree of A.B. in 1555 ; but
as his name does not occur in the list of masters, he is sup¬
posed to have left the university before he had completed
the ordinary course of study. For those destined for the
legal profession, it was then the usual practice to finish their
education in some of the French universities, which about
that period attained to the highest eminence as schools of
the civil and canon law. A similar practice prevailed al¬
most universally till the earlier part of the last century ;
and a writer in the reign of Charles the First thought it not
a little “ strange to see ane man admitted to teach the
lawes, who was never out of the countrie studieing and
learning the lawes.”6 The law of Scotland is to a great
extent founded on the principles of the civil law; and as at
an early period, when the students of law were very few
in number, the professors were without a sufficient excite¬
ment to exertion, the Scottish youth were compelled to seek
for able preceptors in other countries.7 The reputation of
Cujacius, Donellus, Govea, Balduinus, Contius, Hotman,
and many other great names, elevated the French schools
of law beyond all competition. Their celebrity, however,
was at length eclipsed by the more modern universities of
Holland; and our countrymen then resorted to Leyden
and Utrecht, instead of Bourges and Toulouse. Craig, as
we are informed, completed his academical studies in France,
and he has himself made more than one allusion to his con¬
nexion with the university of Paris. But at Paris the civil
law was not then publicly taught; and it is scarcely to be
doubted that he repaired to some other university, in order
to acquire this branch of knowledge. His skill in the civil
and the canon law was united with great proficiency in clas¬
sical learning, for which we may conjecture that he was in no
small degree indebted to the discipline of Paris, where philolo¬
gical studies were then cultivated with very eminent success.
Craig, having attained manhood, was admitted an advo¬
cate in the month of February 1563. In 1564 he was
appointed the deputy of the justice-general, Archibald Earl
of Argyle. It belonged to his office to try the highest of¬
fences ; and his name very frequently occurs in the criminal
records of that period, which have now been rendered
more accessible by the labours of Mr Pitcairn. This dis¬
tinguished lawyer appears to have steered a prudent course
in the midst of those disorders which prevailed in Scotland
during a great part of his life ; he appears to have devoted
himself with great assiduity to the studies and duties of his
profession; and, shunning the dangerous path of political
ambition, to have sought a more pleasing solace of the
mind in his recreations with the Muses. He published
several Latin poems, which were afterwards inserted in the
Delicice Poetarum Scotorum, and which are allowed to evince
1 Quo tempore (1685) Cantabrigias commoratus D. Newtonum rogavi, ut eadem, priusquam praelo committerentur perlegere dignare-
tur, quodque ille pro summa sua humanitate fecit. (Praef. ad Lect. De Calculo Fluent.)
3 In patriam postea redsunti magna mihi intercedebat familiaritas eruditissimo medico D. Pitcairnio et B. D. Gregorio. (Praef. De
Calculo Fluent.)
3 Si Dominus Craigius librum Cheynaei laudat, non miror; laudatus ab ipso et Scotus loquens de Scoto. (Com. Phil. Ep. 157.)
4 Phil. Transact., 1703. 8 phil. Transact., 1712.
6 Spalding's History of the Troubles in Scotland, vol. i., p. 179. Edinb., 1828-9, 2 vols. 4to. The individual to whom he alludes is
James Sandilands, professor of the canon, and afterwards of the civil law, in King’s College, Aberdeen.
“ Ea enim aetate sapere, nisi Romano jure, homines non videbantur.” (Gadendam, Hist. Juris Cimbrici, p. 54. Hamb. 1770, 8vo.)
478
C E A I G.
Craig, no mean portion of poetical spirit.1 His earliest publica-
tion bears the title of “ Henrici illustrissirni Ducis Albanise,
Comitis Rossiae, &c. et Mariae serenissimae Scotorum Re-
ginae Epithalamium.” Impressum Edinburgi per Robertum
Lekprevik, 1565, 8vo. This poem, relating to a very in¬
auspicious subject, is not inserted in the collection. Here
we find another poem, entitled “Jacobi serenissimi Scoto¬
rum Principis, Ducis Rothesaiae, Genethliacum,” which
must likewise have been printed, although we have not
been able to trace it, in a separate form.
A tew years after he was called to the bar, he married
Helen, the daughter of Heriot of Trabroun in the county of
Haddington. His wife was probably the cousin of Buchanan,
whose mother, Agnes Heriot, belonged to the same family.
At the age of 34, his eldest son, Sir Lewis Craig, was
raised to the bench in February 1604 by the title of Lord
Wrightslands.2 It was then customary for the judges to
wear their hats on the bench; but whenever Craig had
occasion to plead before his son, the latter sat uncovered,
and listened to him with filial reverence. We may rea¬
sonably suppose that the same interest which had raised
the son, might as easily have raised the father to the bench ;
but the modesty of his disposition perhaps led him to prefer
a less elevated station ;3 4 nor is it improbable that the salary
of a judge would not have exceeded the emoluments of his
extensive practice, added to those of his different appoint¬
ments. He is not mentioned as the deputy of the justice-
general after the close of the year 1573 ; and in the course
of the following year he appears as sheriff of Edinburgh, so
that he probably resigned the one office on being nominated
to the other. At a much later period, namely in 1606, he
is described as advocate of the church. This seems to
complete the catalogue of his regular preferments, but we
likewise find his name inserted in occasional commissions
of importance.
The greatest of his literary labours was his treatise on the feudal
law. Such an undertaking was at that period attended with many
difficulties. The municipal law had not received any considerable
degree of cultivation ; of systematic treatises it possessed few or
none; written authorities of every kind were scanty and inacces¬
sible ; and the collecting of materials must therefore have been not
a little tedious and laborious. The feudal law, in its general prin¬
ciples, was taught in the foreign universities as a necessary branch
of jurisprudence, and the foreign lawyers, particularly those of
Italy and France, had published a great variety of works on the
subject; but it was Craig’s special object to illustrate the principles
of that law as they had been applied and modified in his native
country, and in this department he was without a model and with¬
out a precursor. It is not therefore surprising, though it may justly
be regretted, that he was unable to amass such a stock of materials
as prepared him for throwing a clear and steady light on the pro¬
gress of feudal rights and tenures from the earliest times. The
character of his work is likewise affected by his patriotic zeal to
facilitate the union of the two kingdoms, by assimilating their na¬
tional laws and customs. “ Sir Thomas Craig,” says another able
jurist, “ who is always instructive when he describes the feudal
customs of his own times, is seldom so when he goes back into his¬
tory/’ This remark of Dr Stuart may perhaps appear sufficiently
just and discriminating. The value and importance of Craig’s Jus
Feudale is admitted by every competent judge, nor has it been su¬
perseded by any subsequent treatise : with the exception of Bruce’s
compendium, no professed work on the same subject has since made
its appearance.5 The author was evidently a man of superior ta¬
lents, as well as of extensive learning; and it may perhaps be af¬
firmed, without much hazard of refutation, that no other Scottish
lawyer can so safely be brought into comparison with Lord Stair.
Craig did not himself commit his elaborate work to the press;
and indeed the printing of any treatise on the law of Scotland seems
then to have been considered as almost entirely out of the question.
Nearly half a century after the author’s death, it was published by
Robert Burnet, who had married his grand-daughter; “Jus Feu¬
dale, tribus libris comprehensum,” &c., Edinb. 1655, fol. Some
copies bear the imprint of London. The editor has prefixed a pre¬
face, in which he speaks with learning and judgment of the author
and his work. After a long interval appeared another edition,
“ cum prsefatione Luderi Menckenii, JCti,” Lipsiac, 1716, 4to.
This was speedily followed by the latest and best edition ; “ editio
tertia, prioribus multo emendatior, opera et studio Jacobi Baillie,
Advocati.” Edinb. 1732, fol. Prefixed is an excellent portrait of
the author, together with a short account of his life; and the typo¬
graphy of the edition is greatly superior to that of the other two.
Of this work there are two manuscript copies in the Advocates’
Library, and likewise two copies of “ A Compend or Breviarie of the
most substantial! Poynts relating to the Law : extracted forth of the
bookes of that learned jurisconsult D. T. C. treating upon the
Feudall Law.”
Another ample and elaborate work, undertaken about the same
period, is his treatise entitled “De Jure Successionis Ilegni Anglise
libri duo, adversus Sophismata cujusdam personati Dolomanni.”
Under the assumed name of Dolman, Robert Parsons had in the year
1594 published “ A Conference about the next Succession to the
Crown ofEngland;” in which he chiefly aimed at superseding the
claims of a Protestant successor to Queen Elizabeth. Although he
did not proceed on the same philosophical principles, he arrived at
a similar conclusion with Buchanan ; namely, that all political
power is derived from the people, and that the consent of the go¬
verned is an essential ingredient in all legitimate governments.
The right of resisting kings was boldly taught by other Jesuits, and
particularly by Mariana, well known as the historian of Spain,6 but
all their better speculations are mingled with Jesuitical notions of
priestly power. Craig, adhering to the prevalent doctrines respect¬
ing the divine right of kings and the passive obedience of subjects,
has at great length discussed the subject of regal succession and au¬
thority. Such a production cannot now be regarded as of much im¬
portance ; but of so able a man, intimately acquainted with history,
and with jurisprudence in all its branches, the labour could not be
entirely fruitless. Parsons was likewise refuted by PeterWentworth,
Sir John Hayward, and other English writers.
King James succeeded very quietly to the throne of England,
and the original of Craig’s treatise De Jure Succession™ it was not
thought necessary to publish. Various manuscripts of it have how¬
ever been preserved : one belongs to the Advocates’ Library, an¬
other to the University Library, and a third to the writer of this
notice. The second of these Gatherer describes as the original
manuscript. The author’s doctrines were afterwards found very
palatable by the Jacobites; and the design of printing the work
was formed by Dr Monro, who was principal of the university of
Edinburgh at the period of the Revolution, lie lost his preferments
in the church and university, and being otherwise involved in the
troubles of his party, he did not live to carry this design into exe¬
cution. From the transcript which he had procured, a translation
was however made and published (Lond. 1703, fol.) by his friend
James Gatherer, who before the Revolution had been parson of
Kilmaurs in Ayrshire, and who, having at length become a bishop
among the non-jurors, died in the month of February 1733.7 One
biographer has been too liberal in conferring upon him, and upon
divers other divines, the degree of doctor.
Of a similar denomination is Craig’s work entitled “ De Unione
Regnorum Britannise Tractatus which relates to a subject of
great interest to his contemporaries, and which is written with the
author’s usual learning and ability. “ In point of matter and style,
says Mr Tytler, “ in the importance of the subject to which it re¬
lates, the variety of historical illustrations, the sagacity of the po-
1 “ Thomas Craigius Scotus, dum epicis regnatricem domum prosequitur, mortalitati se subducit.” (Borrichii Dissertationes Academicte
de Poetis, p. 151. Francof. 1683, 4to.) Of his literary attainments Dempster speaks in the most favourable terms : “ Nobili utriusque
lingum cognitione imbutus, magna lectionis varietate, judicio summo, comitate mirabili, ut uno verbo dicam, eruditissimis criticis aut
jurisconsultis in Europa conferendus.”
2 Brunton and Haig’s Historical Account of the Senators of the College of Justice, p. 244. Edinb. 1832, 8vo.
“ Ipse vero, says Dempster, “ ut alter Maecenas, cum summa posset capessere, mediocribus fuit contentus, et advocationis munus
quam sustinuit feliciter, quam meruit submisse.” (Historia Ecclesiastica Gentis Scotorum, p. 197. Bononiae, 1627, 4to.)
4 Stuart’s Observations concerning the Public Law, and the Constitutional History of Scotland, p. 163. Edinb. 1779, Svo.
6 Principia Juris Feudalis, auctore Alexandro Brussio, JCto. Edinb., 1713, Svo.
6 Joannis Marian® Hispani, e Soc. lesu, de Rege et Regis Institutione libri III. ad Philippum III. Hispaniae Regem Catholicum.
Toleti, 1599, 4to. The zeal of Mariana, as the reader may easily conjecture, is only directed against heretical kings.
7 See Dr Russell’s edition of Keith’s Historical Catalogue of the Scottish Bishops, p. 531. Edinb. 1824, Svo.
C R A
C R A
479
litical remarks, and the insight into the mutual interests of the
two countries which it exhibits, it perhaps deserves to rank the
highest of all his works.”1 This treatise has never been printed ;
but a manuscript, extending to 264 pages in folio, is preserved in
the Advocates’ Library. On the same subject two Latin disquisi¬
tions were published by Robert Pont, D.D., who was at once an
officiating clergyman and a judge in the supreme court; and by
David Hume of Godscroft, who is well known for his other writ¬
ings in prose and verse. Craig performed another patriotic task
by preparing a work which bears the following title : “ De Ho-
minio Disputatio adversus eos qui Scotium Feudum Ligium Angliae
Regemque Scotorum eo nomine Hominium Anglo debere asserunt.”
This work is likewise preserved in manuscript in the same library ;
but long after the death of the author, a translation of it was pub¬
lished under the title of “ Scotland’s Sovereignty asserted, by
George Ridpath.” Lond. 1695, 8vo. Craig had vindicated the
independence of the Scottish monarchy against the imputations of
English historians, particularly Holinshed, or his coadjutor Har¬
rison ; and the more recent attempt of Rymer is allowed to have
been sufficiently repelled by Ridpath, who has shown that the sup¬
posed form of ancient homage bears several unequivocal marks of
forgery. His publication was however followed by “Atwood’s Su¬
periority and direct Dominion of the Crown cf England over the
Crown and Kingdom of Scotland, asserted against Sir Thomas
Craig.” Lond. 1704, 8vo. This book was refuted by Anderson in
1705 ; and the superiority of the crown of England was re-asserted
by Atwood in the course of the same year.
Archbishop Nicolson mentions an historical production of the
same learned author. “ I have likewise seen an abstract of a book
on the same subject, by Mr Thomas Craig, the great civilian, entitled
De Scotorum Origins ; but where the book itself may be found, I
know not.”2 And here we complete the enumeration of his writ¬
ings in prose.
Towards the close of his life, he again indulged his poetical
vein. He wrote some commendatory verses, which are prefixed to
Thomas Jack’s “ Onomasticon Poeticum.” Edinb. 1592, 4to. And
seven years later, he wrote a short elegy on the death of Rollock,
which, with many similar contributions, is subjoined to George
Robertson’s Vitae et Mortis D. Robert! Rolloci Scoti Narratio.”
Edinb. 1599, 8vo. During one and the same year, he published
three different poems. “ Ad sereniss. et potentiss. Principem Ja-
cobum Sextum, e sua Scotia decedentem, Paraeneticon.” Excude-
bat Robertas Waldegrave, 1603, 4to. “ Ad serenissimum Britan-
niarum Principem Henricum, e Scotia decedentem, Propempti-
con.” Edinburgi excudebat Robertus Charteris, 1603, 4to. “ Ser-
enissimi et invictissimi Principis, Jacobi Britanniarum et Galli-
arumRegis,2<rsip«Vi5?0£/a.” Excudebat Robertus Charteris, 1603,4to.
In the year 1604, Craig was nominated among the Scot¬
tish commissioners empowered to treat respecting the pro¬
jected union of the two kingdoms. One of his associates
was Sir John Skene, who had likewise contributed to illus¬
trate the jurisprudence of his native country. The Scot¬
tish and the English commissioners met at Westminster, but
their deliberations were not attended with any important
consequences. This visit afforded him an opportunity of
cultivating an acquaintance with Camden, and other learned
men; and James determined to elevate him to the rank of
knighthood; but Craig secretly withdrew himself, in order
to avoid the intended ceremony. The king, however, com¬
manded that he should be styled and reputed a knight; and
accordingly his name is generally accompanied with a title
which he himself had no wish to assume.
Sir Thomas Craig died Feb. 26, 1608. His death was
bewailed in Latin verse by his learned countryman Demp¬
ster, who, like himself, was a poet as well as a lawyer. He
left behind him an estimable character and a fair estate. He
was celebrated for his liberal style of hospitality, and for his
zealous adherence to the Protestant faith. He had four
sons and three daughters. Sir Lewis Craig, wdiom we have
already mentioned as his eldest son, died in the year 1622. Grail
The second, James Craig, of Castle-Craig and Craigston I!
in the kingdom of Ireland, was killed during the insurrec- Cramon^'
tion of 1641 ; and dying without issue, he bequeathed his ' ” v-*-’
estates to his next brother, John Craig, an eminent physi¬
cian. Gassendi informs us that in the year 1592 Craig, a
Scottish physician, published a tract against Tycho Brahe,
under the title of Capnuranice Restinctio, seu. Cometarum
in /Ethera Sublimationis Refutatio ; and that an answrer
to it was written by Christianus Longomontanus.3 The
Danish astronomer himself published a Responsio Apolo-
gelica ad quendam Scotum,, Aristotelicum Philosophum, et
Medicum Galenicum. This is supposed to have been the
third son, Dr Craig, who was successively physician in or¬
dinary to King James, and first physician to King Charles.
The youngest son was Robert Craig, whose son acquired by
marriage the estate of Ramorgnie in Fifeshire. Margaret,
the eldest daughter of Sir Thomas, became the wife of Sir
Alexander Gibson of Durie; and from this marriage is de¬
scended the late possessor of the estate of Riccarton, Sir
James Gibson Craig, Bart. Elizabeth, his second daugh¬
ter, married James Johnston of Warriston ; and their son
Sir Archibald Johnston acted a conspicuous part in the pro¬
ceedings of his own unhappy times : their daughter Rachel
was married to Robert Burnet of Crimond, a judge in the
Court of Session, and the father of Gilbert Burnet, the cele¬
brated Bishop of Salisbury. Craig’s third daughter, Janet,
was married to John Belches of Tofts, and their son Sir
Alex. Belches was likewise raised to the bench. ' (d. i.)
CRAIL, a royal and parliamentary burgh and seaport of
Scotland, in the county of Fife, nine miles S.E. of St An¬
drews. It is said to have been a town of some note as early
as the ninth century. David I. had a palace here, of which
the only part now extant is a fragment of a wall. It re¬
ceived from Robert Bruce the charter which constituted it
a royal burgh. It was anciently the seat of a priory, the
ruins of which are still to be seen below' the east end of the
tow n. Many of the houses of Crail are of that massive and
antique description which indicate past splendour. The
church is of great antiquity. The principal street is spa¬
cious and regular. With considerable capabilities as a port,
the harbour is small and incommodious, and Crail at present
possesses little or no trade. Along with St Andrews it
sends one member to parliament. Pop. (1851) 1247.
CRAMOND, a small village of Scotland, situated on the
south side of the Frith of Forth, and distant about five
miles from Edinburgh, at the conflux of the Forth and Al¬
mond. It is only worthy of notice from having been a
Roman station ; and on the opposite bank of the creek of the
Almond, on a craggy eminence, this people had a fortifica¬
tion. The iron-works of Cramond constitute the chief sup¬
port of the place. The bridge of Cramond is famous in
the traditionary history of Scotland as the place where James
IV., when wandering in disguise over his dominions under
the title of the “ Gudeman of Ballengeich,” was attacked
by three robbers, and only saved perhaps from death by
the intervention of a farm-servant who was thrashing corn
in an adjoining barn. Hearing the noise of a scuffle, he
rushed out ; and seeing one man attacked by three, he
joined the weaker side, and with his flail assisted the king
in putting his assailants to flight. The king rewarded his
deliverer by presenting him with the lands on which he had
1 Tytler’s Account of the Life and Writings of Sir Thomas Craig, p. 294. Edinb. 1823, 12mo.
8 Nicolson’s Scottish Historical Library, p. 15. Lond. 1702, 8vo. This learned prelate, who was successively bishop of Carlisle and
Derry, and archbishop of Cashel, has frequently mentioned Craig in terms of high commendation. “ I do still profess my self,” he else¬
where remarks, “ to have an extraordinary veneration and esteem for the memory of that excellent writer, and can therefore very readily
allow Mr Atwood to call him a favourite author. Such, I do acknowledge, he is w’ith me; and ’tis not impossible hut I may, in the
warmth of my affection, have express’d a more kind opinion of his performances than my nicer adversary thinks he deserves.” {Leges
Mardriarum, or Border Laws, pref. Lond. 1705, 8vo.)
3 Gassandi Vita Tychonis Brahei, p. 154, 183. Paris, 1654, 4to. See likewise Dr Ward’s Lives of the Professors of Gresham College,
P- 120. Lond. 1740, fol.
480 C R A
Cramponee formerly wrought as a labourer, on condition that whenever
II a member of the royal family passed that way he should
v ran ‘ ) bring him a basin of water for him to wash his hands.
” When George IV. visited Scotland in 1822, the descendant
of the farm-servant in question awaited His Majesty at Cra-
mond Bridge as he passed that way, and held up a silver
basin in which the royal visitor performed his ablutions.
CRAMPONEE, 'mHeraldry, is applied to across which
has at each end a cramp or square piece coming from it.
CRANBERRY, called also moss-berry and moor-berry,
is the fruit of a species of Vaccinium, as V. Oxycoccus.
These berries are much used in confectionary, but until
baked their flavour is harsh and disagreeable, They are
imported largely into this country from Russia and North
America.
CRANBORNE, a market-town of Dorsetshire, 12 miles
S.S.W. of Salisbury, and 93 miles from London. Pop. of
parish (1851) 2737, chiefly engaged in agriculture. The
town is pleasantly situated, and the surrounding district is
fertile, The parish church is a fine old structure, sur¬
mounted by an elegant tower. On Castle Hill, S. of the
town, is a round double-ditched camp of six acres. Bishop
Stillingfleet was a native of this place.
CRANBROOK, a market-town of Kent, in the lathe of
Scray, 48 miles S.E. of London. Pop. (1851) 1652. It
consists of a main street, with a smaller one diverging from
it. The parish church is a handsome and commodious
Gothic edifice. The free grammar-school was endowed by
Queen Elizabeth. Cranbrook was one of the earliest seats
of the woollen trade in England.
CRANE. See index to Ornithology.
Crane, a machine for raising great weights. See Me¬
chanics, § Description of Machines.
CRANGANORE, a town and seaport of India, on the
coast of Malabar, the capital of a small district of the same
name, It stands about three miles up a river, five leagues
to the north of Cochin, and is only accessible for small ves¬
sels. It is an ancient place, and the Jews assert that they
were in possession of it as early as the year 490, when the
descendants of those who had escaped the final destruction
of Jerusalem obtained permission from the local sovereign
to form a settlement on the western coast of India. ^It
was seized by the Portuguese in 1505, and retained by
them till the year 1663, when it fell to the Dutch, who forti¬
fied it. But as they were unable to defend it against
Tippoq, they sold it to the rajah of Travancore—a proceed¬
ing which occasioned a war between these two potentates.
On the 8th May 1790, the troops of the sultan took possession
of Cranganore; but the English, regarding this attack on
an ally as an act of hostility against the British government,
commenced military operations, and retook the place in
1791. At the general pacification in the ensuing year,
which closed the war provoked by the sultan’s attack, Cran¬
ganore was ceded to the British, in whose possession it still
continues. ^ Lat. 10. 14. Long. 76. 16. (e. t.)
CRANK, literally a bend or turn, is used in mechanics
particularly to denote a contrivance for converting a rota-
toiy into a reciprocating motion, and vice versa, either by
means of a simple rectangular bend at the extremity of an
axis, or by a double bend in any other part of its rectilinear
ength, thus U . As the axis revolves, the crank
describes the circumference of a circle, and gives the rod
attached to it a reciprocating motion. There are various
modifications of this useful contrivance. See Mechanics,
and Steam-Engine.
Crank, in sea language, is applied to a vessel when, from
too much top weight, or the want of sufficient ballast or
cargo, or from any other cause, she cannot bear much sail
without danger of oversetting. It also denotes an iron brace
for supporting the lanthorns on the poop-quarters of a ship.
C R A
CRANMER, Thomas, the first Protestant archbishop Cranmef
of Canterbury, was descended of an ancient family, and
was born on the 2d of July 1489, at Aslacton in the
county of Nottingham, being the second son of Thomas
Cranmer and of his wife Agnes Hatfield. He received
what was then considered as a suitable education for a
gentleman; nor did he neglect the recreations of hunting
and hawking, and the use of the bow. After his father’s
death, and when he himself was only fourteen vears of
age, he was sent to Jesus College, Cambridge, and about
the year 1510 he was elected to a fellowship. Erasmus,
one of the great restorers of solid and elegant learning,,
had already contributed his powerful aid in rescuing this
university from scholastic jargon and monkish barbarism.
1 he rectitude of Cranmer’s understanding enabled him to
give a beneficial tendency to his academical studies: not
satisfied with the antiquated course, he likewise devoted a
portion of his time to the acquisition of the Greek and
Hebrew languages ; and if he never became celebrated
for the purity or elegance of Latinity, it must be recol¬
lected that his chief attention was devoted to higher ob¬
jects. Before he had reached the twenty-third year of
his age, he vacated his fellowship by marriage. His wife,
who in reality appears to have been the daughter of a gen¬
tleman, some Catholic writers of his own time have indus¬
triously represented as a woman of low condition ; and
were we even to admit the accuracy of their representa¬
tions, it is not easy to perceive that he would thus be cur¬
tailed of any portion of his moral dignity. He was now
employed as a reader or lecturer in Magdalen, or, as it
was then called, Buckingham College; and, says John
Fox, “ for that he would with more diligence apply that
his office of reading, placed his said wife in an inn called
the Dolphin, the wife of the house being of affinity to her.
By reason whereof, and of his open resort unto his wife at
that inn, he was much marked of some Popish merchants;
whereupon rose the slanderous noise and report against
him after he was preferred to the archbishopric of Can¬
terbury, raised up by the malicious disdain of certain ma¬
lignant adversaries to Christ and his truth, bruiting abroad
everywhere, that he was but a hostler, and therefore with¬
out all good learning.” His wife died about twelve months
after their marriage; and it is an obvious proof of the es¬
timation in which he was held, that he was immediately
restored to the fellowship which he had vacated. He
pursued his studies with renewed ardour; and adhering
to the plan of reading with a pen in his hand, he now pre¬
pared a stock of materials which he found of no small
value in his future controversies.
In the year 1524 he declined the offer of a fellowship
in the college which Wolsey had founded at Oxford.
About the same period he took the degree of D-D., and
was appointed to the lectureship in that faculty by his
own college. In 1526 he was nominated one of the pub¬
lic examiners in divinity; and in this situation he appears
to have been instrumental in scattering the seeds of refor-,
mation. He had been entrusted with the education of the
two sons of a gentleman named Cressy, who resided in
the parish of Waltham-Abbey and county of Essex, and
whose w ife was related to Cranmer. Being driven from
Cambridge by an epidemic distemper, the preceptor and
his pupils retired to Cressy’s house; nor does it clearly
appear that he afterwards resided in the university. The
king had made an excursion to the neighbourhood; and
two of his attendants, Dr Gardiner, afterwards bishop of
Winchester, and Dr Fox, afterwards bishop of Hereford,
having met Cranmer at Waltham, began to discuss with
him the momentous question of the king’s divorce from
Catherine of Aragon. This princess had been married
to Arthur, the elder brother of Henry, but, according to
C R A N M E R.
481
Cranmer. her own solemn averment, their nuptials had never been of regaining a sound and healthful state; and, in this Cranmer.
consummated. For the second marriage, a papal dispen- article of belief, the progress of Luther and his followers 's—
sation had been obtained in due form; nor does the king was only from one absurdity to another; by rejecting
appear to have been accessible to any compunctious visit- transubstantiation, and adopting consubstantiation, they in-
ings, till he found this marriage an impediment to his union troduced a change of scholastic and unscriptural terms,
with Anne Boleyn. He then exerted all his influence with leaving their ideas involved in the ancient maze of Popish
the pope to procure a sentence, declaring the nullity of errors.
a marriage contracted with his brother’s widow; but al- Archbishop Warham, the patron of Erasmus, died in
though his holiness might otherwise have been disposed to the month of August 1532, and Dr Cranmer was imme-
lend a willing ear to such a suitor, he was restrained by diately recalled from Germany to fill the vacant see of
the consideration that Catherine was the aunt of the em- Canterbury. This sudden and high preferment he is said
peror Charles the Fifth. Many intrigues had been em- to have accepted with no small reluctance; and one of
ployed, and much delay had intervened, when this casual the difficulties which presented themselves, is supposed
discussion took place at Waltham, and when Dr Cranmer to have been connected with the peculiarity of his situa-
suggested the expediency of “ trying the question out of tion as a married priest. During the preceding reign, it
the wrord of God, and thereupon to proceed to a final sen- had been decided by the courts of law that the marriage
tence.” He strongly urged the propriety of continuing of a priest was voidable, but not void; and consequently
the appeal to canonists and divines, for the faculties of that his issue, born in wedlock, was entitled to inherit,
various universities had already been solicited to deliver a But such a marriage was not reconcilable with the prin-
formal opinion ; but it is clear that the peculiar merit of ciples of the canon law, and much was to be apprehended
his advice must be resolved into a hint, more or less from the capricious ferocity of the king. His wife was
direct, respecting the necessity of deciding the question never publicly acknowledged ; and, after the promulgation
without the authority of the pope. This controversy, ori- of the six articles in 1539, he found it expedient to send
ginating, not in the king’s scruples of conscience, but in her to her native country. When he was afterwards
feelings of a very different nature, contributed in no small charged with having thus entered into the state of matri-
degree to the elevation of Cranmer, and to the downfall mony, he admitted the fact, but at the same time affirmed
of the church. When Fox, who w^as then the royal almo- “ that it was better for him to have his own, than do like
ner, communicated this plan of effecting a divorce, Henry other priests, holding and keeping other men’s wives.”
“ swore by the Mother of God, that man hath the right Before he took the oath of episcopal obedience to the
sow by the ear.” His attendance at court was imme- pope, he adopted the expedient of making a formal pro-
diately required; and at their first interview, the king test, that he only took it in such a sense as was consistent
enjoined him to lay aside all other avocations, and to bend with the laws of God, with the rights of the king and his
his faculties to the furtherance of this important device, realm, and with the liberty of declaring his own senti-
In the mean time he commended him to the hospitality of ments in matters of religion, even when they might be in
the earl of Wiltshire, father to Anne Boleyn. It is evi- opposition to the authority of the pope himself. ^How far
dent that Dr Lingard has very erroneously described him this protest was privately interposed or publicly divulged,
as “ a dependant on the family of the king’s mistress;” has been much and eagerly disputed between Protestants
for this appears to have been the true origin of his con- and Catholics, but it appears to be a question of very
nexion with the family, and his real dependence was first little importance. While we are ready to admit that his
on the hopes, and afterwards on the gratitude, of the king
himself. Henry appointed him archdeacon of Taunton,
and one of his chaplains; he likewise bestowed upon him
some parochial benefice, of which the name is not ascer¬
tained.
Unwilling to hazard an open rupture with the visible
head of the church, the king again had recourse to nego¬
tiation, and Cranmer was conjoined in a mission to the
court of Rome, where he saw “ many things contrary to
God’s honour.” During the following year, 1531, he was
commissioned as sole ambassador to the emperor. He re¬
sided for several months in Germany; and there, about the
latest biographer has refuted various allegations of the
Popish historians, we still retain a strong conviction that
the character of Cranmer is not materially benefited by
his zealous defence. To entitle the archbishop elect to
receive the bulls from the pope, it was necessary for him
to take a prescribed bath: the authority which imposed
this oath manifestly left no room for private interpreta¬
tion ; nor can we regard such an expedient in any other
light than that of a mere subterfuge. “ It was,” says Mr
Todd, “ the pleasure of his sovereign, but his own aver¬
sion, we have seen, that these forms should yet be fol¬
lowed. But instead of engaging himself to the oath, he
beginning of the year 1532, be married Anne, a niece of declared to the king, that without the liberty of opposing
the wife of Osiander, an eminent pastor of Niirnberg. At it he would decline the honour that was proffered. Of
the period of his first marriage he w^as a layman; but as this conduct he never afterwards repented.”1 But is not
he was now in priest’s orders, he plainly disregarded the this a most lame and impotent conclusion ? When swear-
authority of the church. His residence in this country is, ing is not a mere act of profanity, it is in its very essence
wjth great probability, supposed to have had the effect the act of a man engaging himself by his oath ; and if
of bringing him much nearer to the sentiments of the Cranmer thus reserved to himself the liberty of opposing
Protestants: here he must have enjoyed many oppor- an oath, which he yet consented to take, he was openly
tunities of becoming acquainted with their views and feel- swearing to perform what he secretly considered as un-
mgs; nor could his soundness of understanding and ho¬
nesty of purpose be unprofitably exercised, in a situation
so well calculated to second the impulse which his mind
had already received. From the gross error of the real
presence he only extricated himself by slow degrees. The
human understanding had for many centuries been so stul
lawful. What his biographer subjoins is not more satis¬
factory. “ Thus much for the notoriety of the protest. It
has been wished that he had taken the papal oath, as his
predecessor Warham had taken it, without reserve or ex¬
planation, and then proceeded quietly in opposition to the
pontiff, as that prelate is believed to have done by sub-
tified by this portentous doctrine, that it seemed incapable mitting, not long before, to the regal supremacy, and thus
VOL. VII.
1 Todd’s Life of Archbishop Cranmer, vol. i. p. G8. Lond. 1831, 2 vols. 8vo.
3 p
t
\\
482
C R A N M E R.
Cranmer. advancing a decisive step towards a reformation. Ihe
clamour against Cranmer, as to disingenuousness, might
then, it has been thought, have been comparatively little,
or none. But Cranmer was sincere, and Warham the
reverse.” Casuists may suggest divers expedients and
salvos, but an honest man has only one method of taking
an oath.
That Cranmer’s elevation is chiefly to be referred to
the aptitude which he had discovered for promoting the
dissolution of the royal marriage, is a fact which cannot
well be doubted. Soon after his consecration he addressed
to the king a letter, in which he zealously urged the ne¬
cessity of bringing this important question to a determina¬
tion ; and as the pious monarch had already been declared
the head of the church of England, he had no hesitation
in returning an answer, which, says the biographer, “ was
in perfect accordance with the primate’s suggestion ; in
which he forgot not to maintain ihe supremacy he had
lately recovered." Of the origin and progress of the ano¬
malous, and, we will venture to add, very absurd maxim,
that the king is the head of the church, this may be con¬
sidered as rather a curious account; for in what sense
could Henry the Eighth be said to recover a right or pre¬
rogative which had never been possessed by him or any of
his predecessors P1 The queen of England was cited to
appear before the archbishop at Dunstable, within a few
miles of Ampthill, the place of her residence ; and on the
8th of May 1533, he opened his new court, assisted by the
bishop of Lincoln as his assessor. Catherine having failed
to make her appearance before this irregular tribunal, was,
after the expiration of fifteen days, declared contuma¬
cious ; and the marriage was adjudged to be null and void
from the beginning, as having been contracted in defiance
of the divine prohibition. In the month of January, Henry
had privately married Anne Boleyn, after having coha¬
bited with her for several years; but it seems to have
been asserted without foundation that Cranmer was pre¬
sent at their scandalous nuptials. It is well known that
she did not long retain the king’s affections. Ardent love,
in so ferocious a breast, was easily converted into deadly
hatred; and Anne, when supplanted by a new favourite,
was accused of various acts of infidelity, of which it is not
certain that she was guilty.2 The archbishop was again
required to exercise his divorcing faculty. “ The trial
and condemnation of the queen,” says Mr Todd, “ almost
immediately followed. Not content with this result, the
king resolved on further vengeance; and after two days
more, the afflicted archbishop was judicially to de¬
clare her marriage invalid, and her offspring illegitimate.”
But how was the archbishop obliged to perform an act
which is tacitly admitted to have been wrong ? The reader
must bear in mind that this sentence could have no refer¬
ence to the queen’s alleged adultery; for, according to
the canon law, marriage, which is one of the seven sacra¬
ments, cannot be dissolved by any course of judicial pro¬
cedure ; and we may here remark, in passing, that al¬
though the modern law of England does not professedly
adhere to this notion of a sacrament, it is not completely
disentangled from the ancient superstition : the ecclesias¬
tical courts may declare a marriage to have been invalid Cranmer.
from the beginning, but they cannot dissolve the sacred
bond of matrimony. Cranmer was now obliged to declare
invalid from the beginning a marriage, which he had for¬
merly pronounced good and valid; and there is too much
justice in the remark of Dr Lingard, “ never perhaps was
there a more solemn mockery of the forms of justice, than
in the pretended trial of this extraordinary cause.” Nor
is this the last case of divorce to be mentioned. After
the death of Jane Seymour, the king married Anne of
Cleves ; and as he did not find her person agreeable to
his taste, he again had recourse to the agency of the duti¬
ful archbishop, and the sentence of invalidity was con¬
firmed by the seal of Cranmer. The next consort of this
atrocious tyrant, whom Cranmer has described as “ a
most godly prince of famous memory,” was Catharine
Howard, who was beheaded without being divorced.3
In these transactions, the archbishop of Canterbury
appears to little advantage; nor is it easy to believe that
he did not act against the clearest conviction of his own
conscience. All or most that can be urged in palliation
of his conduct is, that he had fallen on evil days, and
that to resist the commands of such a master was certain
death. In other respects, he was too much tainted
with the errors of the time ; but, if he was not exempted
from the spirit of persecution, he was subject to an error
which, however hideous it may appear to us, extended
to nearly all his contemporaries. The execution of Serve-
tus for his theological opinions was formally approved by
Melanchthon,4 who is universally regarded as one of the
mildest of the early reformers. Soon after his elevation
to the primacy, Cranmer acted as one of the inquisitors
who condemned John Frith for denying the doctrine of
transubstantiation. “ His said opinion is of such nature,”
he states in a private letter, “ that he thought it not
necessary to be believed as an article of our faith, that
there is the very corporal presence of Christ within the
host and sacrament of the altar, and holdeth of this
point most after the opinion of Oecolampadius. And
surely I myself sent for him iij. or iiij. times to persuade
him to leave that his imagination ; but for all that we
could do therein, he would not apply to any counsel, not¬
withstanding now he is at a final end with all examinations;
for my Lord of London hath given sentence, and delivered
him to the secular powers, where he looketh every day to
go unto the fire. And there is also condemned with him one
Andrew, a tailor of London, for the said self-same opinion.
And thus fare you well. From my manor of Croydon.” Is
not this a cool contemplation of such an inhuman act as the
burning of his fellow-creatures ? It was Andrew Hewet
who, honouring Frith, and adhering to his doctrines, was
thus condemned to the same cruel death ; and, after the
lapse of a few years, Cranmer, following the dictates of
common sense, adopted the very opinion for which his
brethren had been doomed “ to go unto the fire.” These
holy butcheries were followed by many others. The per¬
secutions which commenced in the reign of the unrelent¬
ing father, were not discontinued in that of the milder
son ; but the case of Joan Bocher, commonly called Joan
1 Dr Martin, when counsel against the archbishop, reduced him to the necessity of admitting that, according to his principles,
Nero was the head of the Christian church at Home, and the Turk at Constantinople. “ Then,” rejoined the civilian, “ he that
beheaded the heads of the church, and crucified the apostles, was head of Christ’s church; and he that was never member of the
church, is head of the church, by your new-found understanding of God’s word.”
2 See Dr Lingard’s Hist, of England, vol. iv. p. 239, and Mr Turner’s Hist, of the Heign of Henry the Eighth, vol. ii. p. 453.
3 Her crime was incontinency before her marriage. A modern civilian has laboriously discussed the question, “ Utrum quis mu-
lierem pro Yirgine ductam possit repudiare, si postea comperiat, earn jam antea ab alio fuisse devirginatam ?” (J. F. W. Pagenste-
cheri Jurisprudentia Polemica, p. 59. Hardervici, 1730, 4to.) He maintains the affirmative, for this among other reasons : “ quoniam
error circa virginitatem continet errorem circa substantiam, cum personae, turn matrimonii.”
4 Calvini Epistolarum et Hesponsorum editio secunda, p. 306. Lausannae, 1576, 8vo.
C R A N M E R.
483
framner. of Kent, deserves a more particular notice. The charge
against her was to this effect: “ That you believe that
the Word was made flesh in the Virgin’s belly; but that
Christ took flesh of the Virgin you believe not, because
the flesh of the Virgin being the outward man, was sin¬
fully gotten and born in sin ; but the Word, by the con¬
sent of the inward man of the Virgin, was made flesh.”1
For persisting in her refusal to recant this unhappy jar¬
gon, the poor creature was committed to the flames.
When Cranmer excommunicated her as a heretic, and, in
the true inquisitorial style, ordered her to be delivered to
the secular arm, she exclaimed, “ It was not long ago
that you burned Anne Askew for a piece of bread, and
yet came yourself soon after to believe and profess the
same doctrine for which you burned her.” The young
king was extremely reluctant to imbrue his hands in the
blood of such a victim, and a year elapsed before she was
ordered for execution. It is plainly stated by the mar-
tyrologist that his scruples were at length overcome, or
his resolution shaken, by the urgency of the archbishop.
About the same period, George Van Paris, a Dutch sur¬
geon residing in London, was burnt for denying the divi¬
nity of Christ; nor does it appear that, in any of the va¬
rious cases which have been recorded, the archbishop felt,
or professed to feel, the slightest doubt or misgiving as to
the perfect propriety of committing such atrocious mur¬
ders under the sanction of law and religion.
Another unequivocal proof of his having deeply imbibed
the spirit of persecution, is to be found in the book entitled
Reformatio Legum Ecclesiasticarum. The plan of this book
had originated in the reign of Henry; and in that of his
son, Cranmer was placed at the head of eight commission¬
ers, who were enjoined to prepare it for the inspection of
a much larger committee, and afterwards for that of the
privy council. It is supposed to have been translated into
Latin by Sir John Cheke, the king’s preceptor, and by Dr
Haddon, master of Trinity Hall at Cambridge, both of
whom were eminent for their classical learning, but the
latter was a greater master of Latinity. It is not to be
regretted that this code of ecclesiastical law never ob¬
tained any public sanction. Much of the responsibility
evidently belongs to Cranmer ; and his biographer assures
us that an abler canonist was not easily to be found with¬
in the realm. The title respecting the mode of proceed¬
ing in cases of heresy, contains a chapter on obstinate he¬
retics, which adjudges them, after all other remedies have
been attempted, to be delivered over to the civil magis¬
trate in order to be punished. “ Consumptis omnibus aliis
remediis, ad extremum ad civiles magistratus ablegetur
puniendus.”2 What is the language of the canonists when
they deliver to the secular arm those unfortunate beings
whom they describe as heretics ? Lancelottus expresses
himself in the following terms : “ Saecularis relinquentur
arbitrio potestatis, animadversione debita puniendi.”3 Ca-
nisius thus delivers the same doctrine: “ Relinquantur
judici saeculari debita animadversione puniendi.”4 And
Gravina, a more recent writer, conveys the same meaning
in these words : “ Saecularis judicis punitioni traduntur.”5
To these three examples of such phraseology it would not
be difficult to add ninety-seven more; and the direful im- Cranmer.
port of such expressions in the mouth of a canonist, can
only be doubtful to those who are unacquainted with the
history of the inquisition. In point of form, the hands of
churchmen must not be stained with blood; but the sen¬
tence of the ecclesiastical judge, when it awards a cruel
and ignominious death, or any inferior degree of corporal
punishment, must be inflicted under the sanction of the
civil power. Mr Hallam has remarked, that “ infamy and
civil disability seem to be the only punishments intended
to be kept up, except in case of the denial of the Christian
religion ; for if a heretic were, as a matter of course, to be
burned, it seems needless to provide, as in this chapter,
that he should be incapable of being a witness, or of mak¬
ing a will.” But the Spanish inquisition did not punish
with fire and fagot every offence against the Catholic
faith; and when, in a subsequent chapter, Cranmer and
his associates contemplate the possibility of a heretic avoid¬
ing extreme punishment, they do not necessarily disown
the fellowship of their brother inquisitors. It is scarcely
to be considered as a sufficient vindication of the arch¬
bishop, that in a manuscript copy of the work, formerly in
his possession, the punishment of perpetual banishment
or perpetual imprisonment is specifically mentioned. This
correction is not in the hand-writing of Cranmer, but is
supposed to be in that of Martyr ;6 so that we are by no
means persuaded that the question of capital punishment
is completely set at rest. Of the Reformatio Legum Ec¬
clesiasticarum, the first edition was published by John
Fox, in the year 1571, from a copy which had been tran¬
scribed by the archbishop’s secretary, and corrected by
himself as well as by Martyr. It is not therefore difficult
to perceive where we must expect to find the text as it
was finally adjusted. This bloody text seems to admit of
another mode of illustration equally legitimate. The prac¬
tice of the archbishop was in perfect conformity with the
principles which we have here explained. In the reign of
Henry, he was accessory to the death of several individuals
who denied the Catholic doctrine of transubstantiation ;
and in the reign of Edward, he was accessory to the death
of others who denied articles of the creed to which he
then adhered. What meaning he himself attached to the
expression of delivering a heretic to the civil magistrate,
we have already ascertained in the case of Frith; in re¬
ference to whom he states, “ my Lord of London hath
given sentence, and delivered him to the secular powers,
where he looketh every day to go unto the fire?
Such errors as these are too glaring to be easily con¬
cealed ; but it is equally certain that his character was
adorned by many private virtues, and that the great body
of his countrymen cannot fail to regard him in the light of
a public benefactor. Under his influence, books of reli¬
gious instruction were circulated among the people,7 and,
what was of inestimable benefit, the Bible was opened to
every man capable of reading his mother tongue. It was
in a great measure owing to his exertions that the refor¬
mation of the church of England was nearly advanced to
that point where it still rests. That this reformation
should then have been left so incomplete, is less surpris-
1 Strype's Memorials of Thomas Cranmer, Archbishop of Canterbury, p. 181. Lond. 1694, fol.
3 Reformatio Legum Ecclesiasticarum, p. 23. edit. Lond. 1640, 4to.
3 Lancelotti Institutiones Juris Canonici, lib. iv. tit. iv. § 3.
* Canisii Summa Juris Canonici, lib. iii. tit. xv. § 3. Opera quae de Jure Canonico reliquit, p. 997- Lovanii, 1649, 4to.
‘ Gravinae Institutiones Canonicae, p. 218. August. Taurin. 1742, 8vo.
6 Todd’s Life of Archbishop Cranmer, vol. ii. p. 334.
’ Of the book which passes under the name of Cranmer’s Catechism, an edition, begun by Bishop Lloyd, was recently published
by Dr Burton. “ A short Instruction into Christian Religion ; being a Catechism set forth by Archbishop Cranmer in m.d.xlviii. s
together with the same in Latin, translated from the German by Justus Jonas in m.d.xxxix.” Oxford, 1829, 8vo. The archbishop
did not himself translate this catechism, but, as Wharton states, he “ added a large discourse of his own to the exposition of the
second commandment, and inserted some few sentences elsewhere.”
C R A N M E R.
484
Cra/imer. ing than that it should scarcely have been resumed for
two hundred and fifty years.
By the testament of King Henry, who died in the month
of January 1547, the archbishop was placed at the head
of a regency, consisting of sixteen individuals, of whom
the greater part were favourably disposed to the reformed
doctrines. Edward, who was of a tender age, was anxious
to promote the same cause ; and the seeds which had
been sown during the late reign, now became much more
vigorous in their growth. The chief instrument of the re¬
formation was undoubtedly Cranmer, who promoted it by
his talents and learning, as well as by the influence neces¬
sarily connected with his high station. He was one of the
compilers of the service-book, and the author of at least
three of the homilies, those on salvation, faith, and good
works. He was likewise the sole or principal author of
the first Articles of Religion, forty-two in number, which
were slightly altered in the reign of Elizabeth, and redu¬
ced to the number of thirty-nine.
Edward died at a premature age in the year 1553, after
having, at the instigation of the duke of Northumberland,
nominated as his successor Lady Jane Grey, who had
married the duke’s fourth son, and who was the daughter
of the duke of Suffolk, and grand-daughter of Mary, sister
to Henry VIII. The king’s two sisters, Mary and Eliza¬
beth, were superseded on the ground of their illegitimate
birth. To this scheme the archbishop acceded with no
small reluctance. Jane was proclaimed queen, but, after
a reign of a few days, was committed to the Tower, and
soon died by the hand of the executioner. On the acces¬
sion of Queen Mary, many of the Protestants were sub¬
jected to the extreme tortures which they had felt too
little compunction in applying to others. Cranmer, Rid¬
ley, and Latimer, were first committed to the Tower, and
were afterwards removed to Oxford, where they were con¬
fined in the common prison called Bocardo, and were at
length condemned as obstinate heretics. A long interval
elapsed before their execution. Ridley, who had been
bishop of London, and Latimer of Worcester, suffered with
that noble resolution which became martyrs of the truth,
but the mind of Cranmer recoiled under so great a trial of
human fortitude; the vain and delusive hope of life im¬
pelling him to deny his faith, and to sign no fewer than
six recantations. The tender mercies of the wicked are
cruel: his offences were not to be pardoned by such a
sovereign under the influence of such counsellors ; and on
the 21st of May 1556, this learned, venerable, and aged
man was committed to the flames. Rejecting his unfor¬
tunate recantations, he died in the pious profession of the
Protestant faith, and suffered the cruel torture of the fire
with an undaunted resolution, which his recent conduct
had not encouraged his friends to expect. It is not for us,
who are placed beyond the reach of such fiery trials, to
condemn the weakness for which he made this atonement.
In the history of Cranmer’s persecution, we find no
mention of his wife, or any of his near relations. He
however left a widow and two children, Thomas and Mar¬
garet. Another daughter, named Anne, had died before
him. The surviving children were restored in blood by
an act of parliament, passed in the year 1563, but it does
not appear that they were reinstated in their property. It
is asseited by Ames, who however quotes no authority,
that the widow married Edwrard Whitchurch, an eminent
printer, wdio had been a merchant, and had been well
xnown to her first husband. The archbishop’s younger
brother, Edmund Cranmer, was archdeacon of Canterbury,
but in the reign of Mary was deprived of his preferment, Cranmer
on the ground of his being a married priest. His elder
brother John was still in possession of the hereditary ma¬
nors of Aslacton and Whatton ; and four sisters, all mar¬
ried to persons of distinction, likewise survived to bewail
the cruel doom of their illustrious kinsman.
His principal works relate to the portentous doctrine
of transubstantiation. The first is entitled “ A Defence
of the trve and catholike Doctrine of the Sacrament of the
Body and Bloud of our Sauiour Christ, with a Confutation
of sundry Errors concernyng thesame, grounded and sta-
blished vpon Godes holy woorde, and approued by the con¬
sent of the moste auncient doctors of the Churche.” Lond.
1550, 4to.I 2 Phis publication was speedily followed by
“ An Answer vnto a crafty and sophisticall Cauillation
deuised by Stephen Gardiner, Doctour of Law, late By¬
shop of Winchester, agaynst the trewe and godly Doctrine
of the moste holy Sacrament of the Body and Bloud of
our Sauiour lesv Christe : wherein is also, as occasion
serueth, answered such places of the booke of D. Rich.
Smyth as may seeme any thyng woorthy of the aunsweryng.
Item ye shall fynde here also the true copye of the booke
written, and in open courte delyvered, by D. Stephen
Gardiner, not one woorde added or diminished, but fayth-
fully in all poyntes agreeyng with the oryginall.” Lond.
1551, fol. Both these works were printed by Reynold
Wolfe. Of the Defence, a Latin version appeared soon
after the death of the author. It bears the title of “ De-
fensio verae et catholicae Doctrinae de Sacramento Cor¬
poris et Sanguinis Christi Servatoris nostri, &c. ab autore
in vinculis recognita et aucta.” 1557, 8vo. The place of
printing is not mentioned. Prefixed is a preface of thir¬
teen pages, omitted in the subsequent edition, in which
likewise the title is somewhat altered. “ Assertio verae et
catholicae Doctrinae,” &c. Lichae, 1601, 8vo.
Cranmer was a person of a vigorous understanding, im¬
proved by extensive learning. His travels and studies had
rendered him as familiar with the French, Italian, and
German, as with the Latin, Greek, and Hebrew languages.
In theology and the canon law he appears to have been
deeply skilled; and, possessing an acute intellect and a
clear head, he was capable of applying his various stores
of knowledge to the most useful and practical purposes.
His works afford a very favourable specimen of the Eng¬
lish style of that period ; and we are glad that they are now
easily accessible, as a complete edition of them has issued
from Oxford university press. With his intellectual endow¬
ments he united many of the amiable virtues of private life:
hip natural disposition was mild and conciliating, and he was
distinguished by the engaging affability of his manners.
He was however capable of being roused to fierce indig¬
nation ; for we learn from unquestionable authority, that,
on a certain occasion, he offered single combat to the
duke of Northumberland. He was a zealous encourager
of learning, and eminently practised the virtues of charity
and hospitality. But his character, as we have already
seen, was not without glaring defects. His compliances
with the unhallowed wishes of the king, are partly to be
ascribed to his want of that invincible firmness which
could alone have sustained him under the frowns of so
unrelenting a tyrant; and much influence must doubtless
be ascribed to the prevailing notion of the time, that the
will of a sovereign prince is not to be resisted by any of
his subjects. Compliance in almost every possible case
seems to have been regarded as an act of duty; nor is it
easy, on any other hypothesis, to account for the long and
I Ames> Typographical Antiquities, p. 205. Lond. 1749, 4to.
, An edltlon of Cranmer’s Defence, with the orthography modernized, has been published by Mr Todd. Lond. 1825, 8vo.
C R A
C R A
485
Cranny abject submission of the English nobility and gentry to
|| the tyranny and caprice of the house of Tudor. Although
Crashaw. ^{g consideration does not increase our respect for the
v—' archbishop’s character, it is nevertheless obvious that the
pliancy of his disposition, by enabling him to retain the
favour of the king, enabled him to become a more power¬
ful instrument in promoting the cause of learning and re¬
ligion. For his deep participation in the bloody persecu¬
tions of two successive reigns, we must likewise endea¬
vour to find some apology in the current maxims of the
age to which he belonged. His own nature was far from
being ungentle; but his intellect was bewildered by the
doctrines, and his heart hardened by the practices, of the
church in which he had been educated. (d. i.)
CRANNY, in glass-making, an iron instrument with
which the necks of glasses are formed.
CRANTARA, the fiery cross of the Scottish High¬
landers, was a kind of military signal for collecting the dis¬
tant and scattered clansmen to the standard of their chief.
The ancient crantara was a fire-brand or stick burnt at the
end, and dipped in the blood of a goat; and this symbol
was sent to the nearest hamlet by a fleet messenger, who
delivered it without uttering a word but the name of the
place of rendezvous. The crantara, which was understood
to denounce destruction by fire and sword to all who re¬
fused to obey the summons, was passed with great rapidity
from place to place, so that in a little time the chief found
himself surrounded by all his faithful adherents, ready to
obey his commands. The crantara in Gaelic was called
Crean Tarigh, which literally denotes “the cross of shame”—
because disobedience to what the symbol implied inferred
infamy.
This mode of collecting a scattered people together on
any emergency is of great antiquity. It is described by
Olaus Magnus as a custom of the ancient Scandinavians;
and from them the Highlanders appear to have borrowed it.
[Gent. Sept. Hist. Breviarium, v. 3.)
The last time that the crean tarigh was circulated in
Scotland was during the Rebellion of 1745 ; and on one
occasion it passed through the district of Breadalbane, a
distance of 32 miles, in the short space of three hours.
Scott, in the Lady of the Lake, canto iii., has introduced
the use of the crantara with much effect.
GRANTOR, a Greek philosopher, born at Soli in Cilicia.
He was a fellow-pupil of Polemo in the school of Xeno-
crates at Athens; and his commentaries on Plato’s works
made him to be regarded, at least at Rome (Hor. 2, Ep. ii., 4),
as one of the most distinguished supporters of the doctrines
of the Old Academy. His poems, which are said to have
been deposited in the temple of Athena at Soli, have entirely
perished, but of his celebrated work On Grief numerous
extracts have been preserved in the treatises of Plutarch
and Cicero On Consolation.
CRAON, a town of France, department of Mayenne, on
the left bank of the Oudon, 12 miles W. by N. of Chateau-
Gontier. It has a fine castle, and some trade in grain,
cattle, flax, and thread. Pop. 3000. Volney the traveller,
and author of Ruins of Empires, w as born here in 1755.
CRAONNE, a town of France, department of Aisne,
13 miles S.S.E. of Laon. Pop. about 1000. It is cele¬
brated for a great battle fought hereon 7th March 1814
between the French and the Prussians under Bliicher, in
which the latter were defeated.
CRAPE, a transparent textile fabric somewhat like
gauze, made of raw silk, woven without crossing, and
stiffened with gum-water. Crape is usually black or w'hite.
CRASHAW, Richard, an English poet, the son of a
clergyman, was born at London, and educated at the Char¬
ter-house, London. He was sent to Pembroke-hall, Cam¬
bridge, and in 1637 became fellow of Peter-house. In
both colleges he was distinguished for his Latin and English
poetry. Having been deprived of his fellowship during the Crasis
civil wars, he was converted, or rather,' as Pope says of li
him, outwitted to the Roman Catholic faith, and went to Crates.
Paris, where he lived for some time in great poverty.
Cowley, however, hearing of his situation, sought him out
and recommended him to Henrietta Maria, queen of Eng¬
land. From her he received letters of recommendation
which enabled him to obtain employment at Rome as
secretary to a cardinal, and afterwards procured him a
canonry in the church of Loretto, where he died about
1650. Crashaw wrote two volumes of poems, entitled Steps
to the Temple, and The Delight of the Muses. He also com¬
posed a hymn entitled Carmen Deo Nostro, and other
sacred poems. His works were first collected and published
in 1785.
CRASIS (from Kepdwvfu, to mix or temper), the temper
of the blood peculiar to every constitution.
Crasis, in Grammar, a figure by which two different
letters are contracted into one long letter or into a diph¬
thong, as aX.r]6rj for aXrjOea; ret^oDs for rei^eos, &C. It is
sometimes improperly confounded with synseresis.
CRASSUS, M. Licinius, the triumvir, surnamed the
Rich on account of his opulence, which he acquired at first
by educating slaves and selling them at a high price. The
cruelties of Cinna obliged him to retire to Spain ; but after
Cinna’s death he passed into Africa, and thence to Italy,
where he ingratiated himself with Sylla. Having been sent
against Spartacus, he gained a decisive victory in which
12,000 of the rebels were killed, and was honoured with an
ovation at his return. Soon afterwards he was made con¬
sul with Pompey b.c. 72, and in this high office he dis¬
played his opulence by entertaining the populace at 10,000
tables. He was afterwards censor, and with Pompey and
Caesar formed the first Hiumvirate. As his love of riches
was greater than his love of glory, Crassus never imitated
the ambitious conduct of his colleagues, but was satisfied
with the province of Syria, which seemed to promise an in¬
exhaustible source of wealth. In hopes of enlarging his
possessions he set off from Rome, although the omens
proved unfavourable, and everything seemed to prognosti¬
cate his ruin. Flaving crossed the Euphrates he hastened
to make himself master of Parthia ; but being betrayed in
his march by the delay of Artavasdes, king of Armenia, and
the perfidy of Ariamnes, he was defeated by Surena, the
Parthian general, with the loss of 20,000 men. The dark¬
ness of the night favoured the escape of the rest; but
Crassus, trusting to the clemency or avarice of the enemy,
was taken prisoner. He was soon after put to death by
having molten gold poured down his throat. His head was
then cut off and sent to Orodes. See Roman History,
and Parthia.
Crassus, Lucius Licinius (b.c. 140-91), a celebrated
Roman orator, of whose history we know little previous to
his prosecution of Carbo (b.c. 131). He was consul b.c.
95, and after the expiration of his magistracy was proconsul
in Gaul. Crassus is styled by Cicero eloquentium juris
peritissimus.
CRATE (Lat. crates, wicker-work), a large case or
hamper of wicker-work for the transportation of goods, as
glass, china, eggs, &c.
CRATER (Kpaipp, a bowl), the mouth of a volcano.
See Geology.
Crater (cup), in Astronomy, a constellation of the
southern hemisphere, the stars of which in Ptolemy’s cata¬
logue are 7; in Tycho’s, 8; in Hevelius’s, 10; in the
Britannic catalogue, 31.
CRATES, of Thebes, a celebrated Cynic philosopher,
and pupil of Diogenes, flourished about b.c. 328. He is
said to have renounced his fortune for a life of philosophic
poverty, and to have placed his wealth in the hands of
bankers for the benefit of his children if they should be
486 C R A
Cratinus simpletons, and incapable of appreciating the benefits accru-
II ing from their father’s choice. He was the author of seve-
Crawford. raj philosophical epistles and tragedies, but these, along with
his biography by Plutarch, are now lost.
CRATINUS, an Athenian comic poet, who was born
about the end of the 6th century B.C. He is said to have
exhibited 21 plays, and gained nine prizes. Along with
Eupolis and Aristophanes, he may be regarded as one of
the great masters of the old comedy—a species of poetry to
which his writings gave a new character and energy. Only
the titles of his plays are extant.
CRATIPPUS, a celebrated Peripatetic philosopher,
born at Mytilene. After teaching philosophy in his native
city, he removed to Athens, where Brutus and the son of
Cicero became his disciples. He was the companion of
Pompey in his flight from Pharsalia, and endeavoured to
comfort him by arguments drawn from philosophy. From
a passage in Tertullian, De Anima, we may conclude that
Cratippus was the author of a book on dreams, but no other
work has been attributed to him.
CRAWFORD, Adair, a physician distinguished by his
researches in chemical physiology, was born in Ireland about
the year 1748. His father, the Rev. Thomas Crawford,
was the Presbyterian minister of Crumlin, near Belfast, in
the county of Antrim. The family were originally from
Scotland ; a remote ancestor, who was a clergyman, having
fled from that country to Ireland during the reign of Charles
II., in order to escape the fury of religious persecution di¬
rected against all who like himself had refused to conform.
The zeal which had stood so severe a test appears to have
been cherished and perpetuated as an honourable inherit¬
ance in the family, which exhibited for six generations the
clerical profession descending from father to son. Adair
Crawford was, from his early youth, remarkable for the
sweetness of his temper, the excellence of his heart, and
the strength of his understanding. He received his classical
education from his father; and at the age of 14 was sent
to Glasgow for the prosecution of his studies. Flis parents
intended him for the vocation of Presbyterian clergyman,
but he afterwards relinquished that plan on account of the
weakness of his voice. It was then proposed to him to
pursue the profession of the law. He accordingly turned
his attention to this new course of study, which he pursued
under the guidance of the celebrated Dr Millar of Glasgow.
At this period his younger brother, a student of medicine
in the college of Edinburgh, persuaded him once more to
change his views; and whilst they were together at their
father’s house he one day left him, on setting out on a jour¬
ney, a human skull and a few other bones, together with
Monro’s book on Osteology. On his return he found, as he
had expected, that Adair had already outstripped his young
preceptor in accurate knowledge of the subject. It was
then decided that he should return to Glasgow in the en¬
suing winter, for the purpose of attending the medical classes.
Next winter he went to Edinburgh, still pursuing the same
objects of study at that university. His views of the theory
of animal heat were favourably received by the professors,
and were long taught by Dr Monro in his anatomical lec¬
tures. In the ensuing spring, 1779, he went to London,
where he then published the first edition of the work by
which he gained so much celebrity. In the beginning of
the same winter, a degree, probably an honorary one, of
Doctor of Physic, was conferred upon him by the univer¬
sity of Glasgow. He was held in high estimation by the
professors of that university, who from his long residence
among them had ample opportunities of becoming ac¬
quainted with his worth and talents. It was observed by
the celebrated Dr Reid, on his quitting that body, that
he had left no man behind him better qualified for the
professorships of Greek and of Natural Philosophy than
Adair Crawford. The facility with which he acquired
C R A
knowledge of every kind was, indeed, extraordinary, and Crawford
appeared to be the result of the singular faculty he possessed
of concentrating the whole force of his mind upon any sub¬
ject to which he chose to direct his attention. He now
determined upon settling in London, and soon after offered
himself as candidate for one of the dispensaries, to which,
after a severe contest, he succeeded in being elected phy¬
sician. His talents speedily brought him forward in the
philosophical world, as well as in his own profession. He
was elected a member of the Royal Society, and shortly
afterwards he obtained the appointment of physician to St
Thomas’s Hospital. In the year 1788 he published a se¬
cond edition of his work, greatly corrected and improved,
under the title of Experiments and Observations on Animal
Heat, and the Inflammation of Combustible Bodies, being
an attempt to resolve these Phenomena into a general Law
of Nature. His reputation as a philosopher was now esta¬
blished, and procured him the notice of all the most distin¬
guished men of science in the kingdom, and the appoint¬
ment of lecturer on chemistry to the academy of Woolwich.
Being led from speculation to suppose that barytes might
prove an efficacious article of the materia medica, he made
several experiments on the effects of the muriated solution
upon himself, principally with a view of determining the
dose that might be taken with safety. He then applied the
remedy to some bad cases of scrofula at St Thomas’s Hos¬
pital, with a degree of success that raised in his mind the
most sanguine expectations of its proving a specific for the
cure of that intractable disease ; expectations which, as has
happened to so many new remedies, subsequent experience
has far from realized.
Dr Crawford was now rising into great eminence as a
medical practitioner; but his incessant application to the
laborious duties of his profession, as well as to his philoso¬
phical pursuits, was beginning to undermine a constitution
naturally weak. He was invited by the first Marquis of
Lansdowne to his seat of Hardwell Cliff, near Lymington,
in hopes that the change of air might have a beneficial
effect upon his health. But the foundations of his disorder
were too deeply laid: he gradually declined, and shortly
after died at Lymington, on the 29th of July 1795.
In 1785 Dr Crawford married Miss Stone, a Devonshire lady, by
whom he had four children, two sons and two daughters. His eldest
son became a clergyman, the other a physician. The daughters,
who were infants at his death, were principally educated under
the immediate superintendence of the celebrated Miss Elizabeth
Hamilton, who was first cousin to their father, and who adopted
them as her heirs.
His eldest brother, the Rev. William Crawford, and the father
of Dr Stewart Crawford of Bath, was a man of considerable literary
attainments: he published Remarks on Lord Chesterfield’s Letters,
which met with success, and also Translations from Turretine,
and a short History of Ireland. His second brother John was for
many years a surgeon in the service of the East India Company,
and published a pamphlet, showing, from a number of cases, the
efficacy of calomel, conjoined with other purgatives, in the treat¬
ment of those morbid affections of the liver to which the inhabit¬
ants of India are so prone; a work which probably laid the first
foundation of the practice which has since been so generally adopted.
His brother Alexander was a physician at Lisburn in Ireland, and
obligingly furnished the materials of the present notice.
The published works of Dr Crawford, besides that on Animal
Heat, above noticed, were, a paper in the Philosophical Transac¬
tions, On the 'power inherent in the Human Constitution of resisting
high degrees of Temperature ; and another On the effect of Muriate of
Barytes in the Cure of certain Diseases. A posthumous work of his,
On the effect of Tonics on the Animal Fibre, was edited by his brother,
Dr Alexander Crawford.
He had a taste for poetry, which, however, he indulged but
sparingly. An elegy which he wrote On the death of Lady Sarah
Stewart, the mother of Lord Castlereagh, afterwards Marquis of
Londonderry, was supposed to have considerable merit, but he could
never be prevailed on to publish it. (p. M. it.)
GRAYER, Caspar de (1585-1669), an eminent painter,
born at Antwerp, was a disciple of Raphael Coxis, the son
of the same Coxis who had studied under RafFaelle. He
C Ft E
Crayon soon gave such proofs of genius and an elevated capacity
II that he far surpassed his master. Of all his contemporaries,
'rebillon. jie was accounted to approach nearest to Vandyck, not only
—in history but in portrait. He principally painted religious
subjects, and was continually at work. Although he lived
to a great age, yet by temperance and constant regularity
he preserved unimpaired the full use of all his faculties; and
to the last month of his life his pencil retained the same
force and freedom which it possessed in his youth. His
principal works are at Brussels and Ghent.
CRAYON (French craie, chalk), a general name for all
coloured earths or other substances used in designing in pas¬
tel or paste, whether these be used in their natural consis¬
tence, or have been reduced to paste and formed into pencils.
CRAYFORD,a village, formerly a market-town of Eng¬
land, county of Kent, on the Cray, 11 miles E. by S. of
London. In the vicinity are extensive silk and calico-print¬
ing establishments, and flour mills. In 457 Vortigern was
defeated here by Hengist. Pop. of parish (1851) 2935.
CREAM (Lat. cremor, thick juice, pap, &c.),in a general
sense, any part of a liquor that separates from the rest, and
collects on the surface. It is chiefly applied to the oily part
of milk, which being specifically lighter than the rest of the
fluid rises to the surface in the form of a scum.
Cream of Tartar, purified argol. See Argol.
CREASOTE (/cpeas flesh, o-w£<x> to save), a fluid com¬
pound of carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen, obtained by Reich-
enbach by the distillation of wood-tar. It has a caustic and
burning taste, and the flavour of peat smoke or smoked meat.
It preserves animal matter from putrefaction, and is em¬
ployed in medicine as an antiseptic, and to allay vomiting.
See Chemistry.
GREAT (French), in the manege, an usher to a riding
master.
CREATION, in its primary import, signifies the bring¬
ing into being something which did not before exist. The
term is therefore generally applied to the original produc¬
tion of the materials out of which the visible world was com¬
posed. It is also used, in a secondary or subordinate sense,
to denote those subsequent operations of the Deity upon
the matter so produced, by which the whole system of na¬
ture, and all the primitive orders of things, received their
form, qualities, and laws.
For the alleged discrepancies between the results of geo¬
logy and the account of the creation in Genesis, see Theo¬
logy and Geology.
CREBILLON, Prosper Jolyot he, a French writer
of tragedy, usually ranked after Corneille and Racine, was
born at Dijon, Feb. 15, 1674. He was originally destined
for the profession of the law, and went to Paris with that
view; but the impetuosity of his passions rendering him
unfit for business, he was urged by some friends, who dis¬
covered his natural turn, to attempt dramatic composition.
It was not without some reluctance that he at length com¬
plied with their desire ; and after a time he produced a
tragedy, which met with great success. He continued to
advance in the career he had commenced till his marriage,
which provoked his father to disinherit him. Although re¬
established in his rights before his father’s death, the poet
had already squandered his patrimony by anticipation ; and
still continued in poverty. His miseries were increased by
the death of his wife in 1711 ; but having soon after ob¬
tained the somewhat uncongenial employment of censor of
the police, he continued in prosperous circumstances till his
death in 1762. He was of an extremely robust tempera¬
ment, ate prodigiously, and slept little; and was al¬
ways surrounded with about thirty dogs and cats, and
smoked large quantities of tobacco in order to neutralize
the exhalations from these animals. When ill he made a
jest of physic and physicians, and treated his case in what¬
ever way his fancy suggested. The principal pieces of Cre-
CRE 487
billon are Ictomenee, Rodogune, Atree, Electre, Rhada- Crecy
vniste, Semiram,is, Catalina, and Le Triumvirat. The Pe- ||
lopides is considered as a failure. After the brilliant sue- Credit,
cess of his Catalina, Louis XV. caused the CEuvres de
Crthillon to be printed at the royal press of the Louvre, in 2
vols. 4to, 1750, the profits of which were given to the author.
His son Claude (1707-1777) obtained great popularity
by the powerful delineations in his various very licentious
novels. See Romance.
CRECY, or Cressy, a town of France, department of
Somme, on the Maye, 12 miles N. by E. of Abbeville, with
about 1600 inhabitants. It is famous in history for the
great victory gained here in 1346 by the English forces
under Edward III. over the French under Philip of Valois.
Cannon are said to have been first used by the English in
this battle.
CREDENTIALS,lettersof recommendation and power,
especially such as are given by a government to an am¬
bassador or envoy, by which he obtains credence or credit
at a foreign court.
CREDIBILITY is applied to a species of evidence less
than certainty, and greater than mere possibility. It is
nearly allied to probability, and may be regarded as a mean
between possibility and certainty.
CREDIT, in the sense in which we are now to treat of
it, is the trust which is given to a person when he obtains
a loan of mone}', or purchases any article, the payment of
which is to be made at an after period. Every sum of
credit, therefore, must be founded on a transfer of a cor¬
responding sum of capital; and the whole amount of cre¬
dit existing at any time can never exceed that of the lent
capital. Credit is, in reference to the person who gives
it, the power of lending, and to him who receives it, the
power of borrowing. The basis of credit is confidence,
and this is found to exist extensively only where good faith
and punctuality have been allowed to grow into habit, and
where laws afford to creditors the easy and certain means
of recovering their debts.
In young countries, before dealings have become mul¬
tiplied, we find people inattentive to their money engage¬
ments, when there is no want of property with the debtor,
and even when the payment of the debt has been fixed
by document to a positive term. But as transactions in¬
crease, and population presses more closely together, a
knowledge of the circumstances of individuals is rendered
difficult, and a necessity for punctuality arises, to prevent
doubts being entertained of the ability to pay. And this
apprehension of discredit entertained by the debtor, and
of its consequences to his future transactions, has more
effect to establish and maintain good faith and exactness
than the operation of the laws is able to produce.
When capital is abundant, relatively to the means of
employing it, the competition of capitalists produces a fa¬
cility of obtaining credit; and parties become enabled to
borrow and purchase upon credit who could not do so be¬
fore. Credit is then said to be high, but it is the value
of the capital which, from the overstock, has become low.
The capitalist, in these circumstances, grows less scrupu¬
lous about his security, that he may bring within the range
of his dealings a greater body of borrowers or purchasers,
and thereby be enabled to keep up his price.
When the supply of capital continues in this state for
any length of time, it gives rise to an imprudence of con¬
duct which lays the foundation of much after evil. Sales
and loans are made at credits far beyond the ordinary pe¬
riods ; and those into whose hands the extra capital by
this means passes, considering it as a fund with which
they may trade, go on also extending their dealings and
credits, until the whole system is put upon the stretch.
In this situation any interruption to the sale of commodi¬
ties occasions instant confusion and distress. The con-
488 C R E
Credit, fidence which had prevailed gives place to alarm and dis-
trust, and the same effect is produced for the time by the
retardment of the circulation that would have been expe¬
rienced had the capital itself been withdrawn.
By the operation of credit, not only is the circulation
of capital facilitated, and its employment increased; but
by its means alone certain descriptions of capital can be
brought into action.
When an article is sold upon credit, the seller places,
for the time, a portion of his capital at the command of a
party who may have no capital of his own. "Ihis person,
nevertheless, by another operation of credit, is enabled to
sell upon credit also, and still keep his engagement with
the party from whom he bought. This he accomplishes
by calling in the assistance of the money capitalist, the
banker, who advances to him the amount of the sale upon
his and his purchaser’s joint security, and receives in con¬
sideration a rent for the sum advanced. By this process
facility and extension are given to circulation, beyond
what could take place if the commodity could be exchang¬
ed only for immediate value; whilst an opportunity is, at
the same time, afforded of employing a branch of capital
which would otherwise remain inactive and without use.
It is almost unnecessary to remark, that it is by the
operation of credit that a return is got from the capital
of persons who are incapable of employing it themselves,
and which can be put into a state of useful activity only
by lending it to others.
Even the fixed capital, when leased to a tenant, may
be said to be put into circulation by credit. For when a
landholder lets a farm, suppose of the value of L. 10,000,
at the rent of L.400 a year, he lends the tenant L.10,000
of capital, as much as if he lent him the money, and ena¬
bled him to acquire for the time the property upon which
he is to operate.
In Scotland, after the disposition to commercial pur¬
suits began to manifest itself, the progress was retarded,
by the total want of commercial capital in the country.
To get the better of this difficulty, and draw to these em¬
ployments any little capital that otherwise existed, it be¬
came the practice, when a commercial undertaking was
to be entered upon, to associate in the adventure some
persons of known substance, and, upon the joint credit of
the parties forming the company, to borrow the capital
necessary for carrying it on. The credit which was thus
established is called company credit, and is effectual to
its proposed end of borrowing or purchasing with advan-
4 tage, according to the supposed responsibility of the par¬
ties of whom the company is composed.
Up to the year 1793 a considerable proportion of the
manufacturing and mercantile concerns of Scotland were
carried on upon this plan; and to give strength to their
credit, and encourage those who had money to lend to
place it with them, a rule was established, and confirmed
by decisions of the courts of law, that, in case of bank-
ruptcy, a creditor of a company should be entitled to
claim upon each of the partners’ separate estates, in com¬
petition with the party’s individual creditors, for the ba¬
lance of his debt unpaid from the companjfs effects.
When a party purchasing or borrowing capital gives a
written obligation for the amount, payable to the order of
his creditor at a certain fixed period, he embodies a sum
of credit capable of being exchanged again for capital;
and the transference of these documents to new parties,
who replace to the former creditor the capital he had lent
upon them, is what is called a circulation of credit. In¬
deed, without the use of bills, or of some instrument of
similar powers, credit must have been confined to a single
operation between first contracting parties, and the cir¬
culation of capital limited to what could have been effect-
D I T.
ed in this way. But a transferable document of the sum Credit,
to be received becomes itself a negotiable or marketable ''■'"Y's.
article; and the collective credit of the parties through
whose hands it may successively pass continuing to be
engrafted upon it, a new facility is gained to circulation
by every movement which it makes.
The whole of the credit embodied by bills, however, is
not brought into circulation ; a part only of the sellers or
lenders requiring to have their capital replaced to them
by anticipation. But it is according to the expected fa¬
cility with which payments may be thus anticipated, that
credit is at first freely and readily given; and whenever
any thing occurs to impede the circulation of credit, there
is an immediate disposition in the merchant to withhold
or limit it.
Every transfer of capital made upon a buyer or borrow¬
er’s own obligation of payment creates a new sum of
transferable credit; and this is the case, although it should
be the same capital that is again and again transferred.
But a sale of goods, or an advance of money upon the ob¬
ligation of a third party, indorsed to the seller or lender,
forms no addition to the sum of circulating credit, the
transaction being the circulation, not the creation, of a
sum of credit. Neither does a succession of purchases or
borrowings, effected by means of the same document in¬
dorsed from the one party to the other, add to the sum of
credit in circulation. For although each of these trans¬
actions is the ground of a separate obligation between the
parties contracting, there is with the whole but one abso¬
lute creditor, the holder of the bill, and one absolute debt¬
or, the acceptor of the bill, the others being merely con¬
tingent debtors to the one, and contingent creditors of the
other.
Circulated credit is to be classed into that circulated by
loan, and that which is circulated by means of sale. The
first is the circulation of the credit founded upon the ob¬
ligation of individuals or private companies, and called pri¬
vate credit; the second, of that founded upon the obliga¬
tions of the state, or the transfers of the stock of corporate
bodies, and called public credit.
The documents of these two descriptions of credit pos¬
sess different and distinct qualities, and are differently ne¬
gotiable. It may be proper, therefore, to examine how
they are employed as means of borrowing or purchasing,
what are their separate powers, and what is the probable
extent of the circulation of each.
We shall begin with those belonging to private credit,
which are as follows :
First, Obligations payable to the bearer on demand,
and which, being passed without recourse, are employed
as money.
Secondly, Transferable obligations payable at an after
date, as notes of hand and bills of exchange, which, being
negotiated with recourse upon the preceding obligants,
are taken as guaranteed pledges of a sum to be received
when they become due.
The circulation of obligations, payable to the bearer on
demand, or notes employed as money, is the circulation of
a credit borrowed by the issuer of the note from the pub¬
lic ; the holder of the note at the time is the creditor; and
the property he gave in exchange for it is a loan from him
to the banker.
As it is in the power of the party giving this credit at
any time to put an end to it by calling for his money,
these notes circulate upon the credit of the issuer alone.
No assurance of payment is required from the person from
whom they are received, as is the case with bills; the
payment of which being at a future date, it is thought ne¬
cessary to reserve recourse against the parties through
whose hands they have passed. The circulation of notes
CREDIT.
489
Credit, payable on demand is therefore a circulation of what may sued at first, and the loss to be sustained from taking it
—y—*- be termed single credit, and bills a circulation of collec- back again at par, render it an expensive means of bor-
tive credit. rowing.
When bank-notes are issued by a banker in discount of With regard to obligations payable at a future date,
a bill, it may be supposed that a twofold credit is put into which constitutes the second branch of private credit, and
circulation; a credit to the party to whom the bill has which we are next to consider, the credit founded on them
been discounted, and a counter credit from him to the is- is circulated, either in the transfers of the ordinary capi-
suer of the notes. Butin this stage of the transaction, no tal in sales, as when the credit of indorsed bills is em-
circulation of credit has taken place. Credit is circulated ployed to purchase goods, or in the transfers.of the bank-
only when exchanged for capital, and in this case it has ing capital in loans, as when the credit of indorsed hills
been but the exchange of one credit for another. The is employed to borrow money; the transfer under the lat-
banker, indeed, in giving his notes paj'able on demand in ter, when the bill is exchanged for money, being often a
exchange for a hill payable at a future date, gives what is further circulation of a credit previously circulated under
of a quality different from that which he receives; for the former, when the bill was exchanged for goods,
what he gives is immediately exchangeable for capital, A fictitious bill, that is, an acceptance given without
and to the person receiving it is the same as capital. But value, vests in the person in whose favour it is drawn a
still it is only credit he has parted with, which will not be sum of transferable credit not less than would have been
in a state of circulation until it comes to be exchanged the case if it had been the document of a sale, or loan of
for capital. In as far as relates to circulation, the trans- property. Mr Thornton, in his treatise on Paper Credit,
action is the same with that of a person lending his ere- established the doctrine, till then disputed, that the cre¬
dit to another, by accepting a bill to him without value, dit of a bill does not rest upon the nature of the transac-
A sum of credit is thereby created, hut is not circulated tion in which it has originated, hut upon the conceived
until the bill comes to be exchanged for value. ability of the obligants to discharge the debt.
The credit that is in circulation from the exchange of The being able to embody in bills every sum of credit,
bank-notes for a bill, is a credit from the party who at has furnished the means of employing, with incalculable
the time has given capital or value for the notes. When advantage to commerce, a portion of the capital of the
the banker “ cashes” them, he becomes the creditor, but country, which otherwise, it is probable, would have re¬
while they remain in circulation the public is the ere- mained inactive.
ditor. The security they afford for the repayment at a stipu-
The amount of credit from the circulation of cash lated period of the sums lent upon them, furnishes the
notes never can be pushed beyond what would have been means of an interim employment of money held for after
the value of the specie that would have been in circula- occasions, which the party wmuld not otherwise venture
tion had the currency been of the precious metals, which to lend out; of money which formerly lay idle in the
the notes only serve to represent. Should the notes cease hands of parties unacquainted with any safe means of
to be convertible into specie, their amount, indeed, may using it; and of the money which traders are daily re-
be augmented at the pleasure of the issuer; but their ceiving in the course of their business, but which they do
value, and the credit in circulation from them, will still be not immediately require. These different sums collected
regulated by this limit. The increased sum w'ill represent in the hands of a hanker, form what is called the banking
the value which the smaller did before, and each note will capital of the country ; and which, lent out upon such se-
be reduced in its value, in the proportion of the increase curities, produces not only a profit to him, but interest to
that may have taken place of the wdiole. the parties who have placed them at his disposal. The
This description of circulating credit is of a quality dif- importance of this intermediary fund in the transactions
ferent from the others. From supplying the place of ca- of the country is such, that when, from distrust, at any
pital, in its character of currency, it is lent out as capital; time, these deposits are withheld or withdrawn from the
but loans from this fund are precarious, its amount de- bankers, the mercantile body is convulsed throughout,
pending upon the state of public confidence, and being lia- We now come to the second division of credit, that
hie to be diminished by every call upon the banks to replace circulated by sale ; the documents of the first branch of
the notes with specie. which are, the negotiable obligations of government, as
Circulating notes, not convertible into specie, issued exchequer bills, navy bills, &c., and the whole of the pub-
under the authority of the state, have been called a fabric he funds, constituting what is termed the credit of the
of unreal credit. But this currency, however unsuitable state.
to its proper ends, affords a circulation of real credit. It When capital is to be competed for, this credit has an
is indeed exposed to constant fluctuation of value, accord- advantage in the market over the former. Its price rises
ing to the amount of it in the circle ; and the party taking according to the demand; and by that means it is enabled
it is obliged, for his own safety, to include in the price of to secure whatever share it may require of the supply,
what he gives for it, sufficient to cover the difference be-. This is not the case with the credit circulated by trans¬
tween it and specie, and the risk of further depreciation fers of capital upon loan, the price or stipulated rent of
while it may remain in his hands. Still, however, an which cannot, whatever may be the demand, rise beyond
amount of credit, to the value of what has been given for a prescribed limit. It has the effect, in these circum-
the notes, in the first instance, is put into circulation, stances, to force the capital applicable to this part of the
and an amount continued in circulation, to the value al- circulation to seek the employment of the other; so that
ways of what they are exchangeable for at the time ; the inconvenience produced by an interruption of circula-
the holders of them always remaining creditors of the is- tion from a diminution of the general capital, falls entirely
suer, to the extent of the whole sum which the notes pro- upon the circulation of hill credit, the supply for the cir-
fess to pay. culation of the credit transferable by sale being kept full,
A currency of this description, however, is inapplicable at the expense of that applicable to the circulation of cre-
as a measure of value, and therefore unfit to be employed dit transferable by loan.
as a circulating medium. And as to the other object, Hence all additions made to the national debt have
intended by its issuers to supply an amount of funds an effect to operate against the circulation of the credit
to the state ; the depreciation with which it must be is- founded upon bills; for every new loan not only takes a
VOL. VII. 3 q
Credit.
490 CUE
Credition large sum permanently from the fund of circulation, but
li adds a proportion of the newly-contracted debt to the
v reec'1- sum to be circulated; the consequence of which is a fall
■■ V jn t]le market value of these securities, according to the
change which has taken place upon the two funds. But
this diminution of the means of circulation does not in¬
terrupt the circulation of government obligations, which
continue to command a supply of capital, by accommo¬
dating their price to the state of the market under every
pressure of circumstances. But when they happen to be
in this state, their circulation enters into competition with
government itself, in its biddings for the capital of new
loans. For the price they bear at the time fixes the terms
upon which the minister is enabled to make his bargain
with the money-lenders.
When government goes on for a length of time in a
course of borrowing, there is a progressive depreciation of
the value of these securities, in the exact degree in which
the loans take from the amount of the circulating capital,
and add to the sum of credit to be circulated. This was
strongly evinced in the fall of the price of stock in the
early period of the war of 1793, notwithstanding the influ¬
ence at the time of an unprecedented accession of new
capital, proceeding from the greatest flow of commercial
prosperity which the country had ever experienced.
The transferable shares of public stock companies, from
being occasionally a means of temporary investment of
capital, have by some been considered as forming a part
of the circulating credit of the country. But this is not
the case. The stocks of these companies form a part of
the ordinary circulating capital; and of consequence, the
transfers of their shares are not operations of credit, but
exchanges of capital between the buying and selling par¬
ties. The transfers of the premiums, however, paid in
the purchase of this description of stock, which, although
no part of the capital, form an immediate part of the price,
may be fairly considered as a circulation of credit, to be
added to the amount of the circulating credit of the
country. The mode of circulating this credit being the
same with that of the public funds, and its market value
rising or falling with the general abundance or scarcity of
capital, its circulation, when capital is scarce, immediate¬
ly interferes with the circulation of credit by simple bor¬
rowing. (d. b—E.)
CREDITON, a market-town of England, county of
Devon, on the Greedy, near its junction with the Exe, 8
miles N.W. of Exeter. Pop. (1851) 3934. It is situated
in a narrow vale, between two steep hills, and is divided
into two parts, the east or old town, and the west or new
town. The church, formerly collegiate, is a noble edifice,
in the later pointed style, with a fine tower 100 feet in
height springing from the centre. There are places of
worship for Baptists, Independents, Methodists, and Uni¬
tarians, a free grammar-school with three exhibitions to
either university, blue-coat, national, and infant schools, a
mechanics’ institution, public library, and news-room. There
were formerly extensive woollen and serge manufactories
here, but the inhabitants are now chiefly engaged in agricul¬
ture. It returned two members to the parliament at Carlisle
in the reign of Edward I., and previous to 1049 was the
seat of a bishopric, which was afterwards removed to Exeter.
CREDITOR, a person to whom any sum of money is
due, either by obligation, promise, or otherwise.
CREDULITY, easiness of belief; a disposition to yield
assent to propositions or to facts on slight evidence, or no
evidence at all.
CREECH, Ihomas (1659-1701), well known for his
translations of the ancient classics, was born near Sherborne,
Dorsetshire. He received the elements of his education
under Mr Curganven of Sherborne, to whom he afterwards
dedicated a translation of one of the Idylls of Theocritus ;
CEE
and in 1675 he was entered as a commoner of Wadhaui orec(i
College, Oxford. Wood states that his father, Thomas |j
Creech, was a gentleman; but Giles Jacob, in his Lives and Crema.
Characters of English Poets, says that the circumstances of
his parents not being sufficient to afford him a liberal educa¬
tion, his disposition and capacity for learning raised him up
a patron in Colonel Strangeways, whose generosity supplied
that deficiency. In 1683 Creech took the degree of master
of arts, and not long afterwards was elected probationer fel¬
low of All Souls College; to which, Jacob observes, the
great reputation acquired by his translation of Lucretius re¬
commended him. Wood mentions that upon this occasion
he gave singular proofs of his classical learning and philo¬
sophical attainments. He also took the degree of B.D. in
1696. In 1699, having taken holy orders, he was pre¬
sented by his college to the living of Welwynn, Hertford¬
shire ; but he had not long enjoyed his preferment when he
put an end to his own life. The motives which urged him
to the deed have been variously represented, as springing
from slighted affection or from his own morose temper; but
from an original letter of Arthur Charlett, preserved in the
Bodleian Library, it seems to have been caused by the re¬
fusal of an intimate friend to grant him a sum of money,
which his narrow circumstances constrained him to borrow.
Creech’s principal works are, A translation of Lucretius ;
A translation of Horace, in which, however, he has omit¬
ted some few odes ; The Idylls of Theocritus, with Rapin’s
Discourse of Pastorals ; A translation of Manilius’s Astro-
nomicon ; besides translations of several parts of Virgil,
Ovid, and Plutarch, printed in different collections.
CREED, a brief summary of the articles of Christian
faith. See Confession.
CREETOWN, a maritime village and burgh of barony
in Scotland, stewartry of Kirkcudbright, ‘beautifully situ¬
ated at the mouth of the Cree, in Wigton Bay. It has
some coasting trade, and in the neighbourhood is an exten¬
sive granite quarry employing upwards of 300 persons. Dr
Thomas Brown was born here in 1780. Pop. (1851) 1303.
CREFELD, or Krefeld, a town of Prussia, capital of
a circle of the same name, in the province of Diisseldorf,
10 miles N.W. of the town of that name. This town is
one of the finest in Rhenish Prussia, being well and regu¬
larly built, while the surrounding fertile district is almost
entirely laid out in gardens. It is the most important seat
of the silk and velvet manufactures in the kingdom, afford¬
ing employment to about 13,000 persons in the town and
neighbourhood. Among its other manufactures are linen,
cotton and woollen stuffs, earthenware, leather, spirits, to¬
bacco, and soap. The manufactures to which Crefeld
principally owes its present prosperity were introduced by
religious refugees from the neighbouring duchy of Juliers,
about the close of the 17th century. Pop. (1849) 36,134.
CRELLIUS, John, a famous Socinian, born in 1590, at
a village near Nuremberg. In 1612 he went into Poland,
and became lecturer on divinity and Unitarian minister at
Cracow, where he died in 1632. Crellius wrote, 1. Ethica
Aristotelica, ad Sacrarum Literarum normam emendata,
1650, 4to; 2. De Deo et attributis ejus, Cracow, 1630;
3. De uno Deo patre, libri duo, in quibus multa etiam de
Filii et Sjriritus Sancti naturd, 1631, 8vo; 4. Declaratio
sententice de causis mortis Christi, 1637, 8vo; 5. Vindicice
pro Religionis libertate, 1637, 8vo; 6. De Spiritu Sancto
qui fidelibus datur, 1650, 8vo; 7. Catechesis ecclesiarum
Polonicarum reformata et redacta primum per Faustum
Socinum et alios, nunc a J. Crellio, etc. recognita, Ireno-
poli, 1665, 1680, 1684, 8vo; and other works, including a
German translation of the New Testament, and Commen¬
taries on some of the Epistles.
CREMA, a town of Venetian Lombardy, province of
Lodi and Crema, on the right bank of the Serio, here crossed
by a bridge, 25 miles E.S.E. of Milan. Pop. about 8600.
C R E
Cremation It is well built, is inclosed by a ditch and old fortifications,
|| and has a castle, a cathedral, and numerous other churches,
Creodiba. several palaces, hospital, asylums, &c. It has manufactures
of lace, hats, thread, and silk ; and the vicinity produces ex¬
cellent flax.
CREMATION (Lat. cremare, to burn), a burning; par¬
ticularly applied to the ancient custom of burning the dead.
See Burning of the Dead.
CREMNITZ, a town of Hungary. See Kremnitz.
CREME RA, in Ancient Geography, a small river of
Etruria, falling into the Tiber not far from Rome. On
the banks of this river the 300 Fabii established themselves
when they set out from Rome on their expedition against
the Vejentes, and kept the enemy in constant alarm, till
they were surprised in one of their sallies, and cut off to a
man, b.c. 477. This disaster occurred on the 16th of July,
on which day many years later the Romans sustained the
terrible defeat of the Allia. Some modern geographers have
identified the Cremera with the Fosso di Valca; others,
on apparently better grounds, with the Aqua Traversa,
which falls into the Tiber about three miles from Rome.
CREMONA, a province of Austrian Lombardy, lying
north of the Po, which separates it from Parma and forms
its boundary on the south : on the north it has the province
of Brescia, east that of Mantua, and west that of Milan. It
is about 45 miles in extreme length, and 15 in breadth;
containing 523 square miles, and (1851) 204,558 inhabit¬
ants. The surface is level, and the soil very fertile, pro¬
ducing abundant crops of wheat, rice, maize, and flax. Horses
and black cattle are numerous, and silk is an extensive pro¬
duction, but the sheep are few. There are no important
manufactures carried on except the spinning of silk.
Cremona, the capital of the above province and the seat
of a bishop, is situated on the north bank of the Po, crossed
here by a bridge, 46 miles S.E. of Milan. It is well built,
of an oval shape, about six miles in circumference, and sur¬
rounded by walls flanked with towers and wet ditches. It
possesses many good buildings, principally churches, richly
adorned with frescoes and paintings by native artists. The
cathedral is an ancient structure, in various styles of archi¬
tecture. The interior is composed of a nave, with two
aisles, divided by eight immense pillars, and is gorgeously
coloured and gilded. Near the cathedral is the great tower,
founded in 1283, the highest in northern Italy, being 396
feet in height. In the third story is an enormous astrono¬
mical or astrological clock. Cremona has also civil, crimi¬
nal, and commercial tribunals; a lyceum, gymnasium,
theatre, public library, hospitals, asylums, and other chari¬
table institutions; and numerous well-conducted schools.
Its manufactures include silks, cottons, porcelain, earthen¬
ware, and chemical products. It has a considerable trade
in agricultural produce, and the surrounding district is noted
for its superior flax. It was formerly celebrated for its violins
and other musical instruments, but the manufacture of these
has now declined. Violins of Cremona have been known to
sell at TOO and 200 guineas each. Pop. about 30,000.
CRENATE, or Crenated (Lat. crena, a notch), in
Botany, is applied to a leaf which has its edges serrated or
scalloped. The diminutive crenulate is used by Linnaeus
in the same sense. It is also applied to the fine saw-like
edges of shells, as exemplified in the cockle.
CRENELLATED, in Architecture, embattled, notched,
or indented, as in the mouldings of Norman buildings.
Crenelles are the openings in an embattled parapet.
CRENELLE, or Imbattled, in Heraldru, is applied to
any honourable ordinary that is drawn like the battlements
on a wall.
CRENOPHYLAX, in Antiquity, a public officer at
Athens for superintending the wells and fountains.
CREODIBA, in the middle ages, signified a robbery
and murder committed in a wood, with the burning of the
C R E 491
body in order to prevent discovery of the crime. The word, Creole
says Wendelinus, is compounded of cruy and diven, that is, ||
wood-robbers. Crepida.
CREOLE (Spanish, criollo), a name originally given to
the descendants of the first Spanish settlers in America and
the West Indies by native women. It was afterwards ap¬
plied to the descendants of other Europeans, who were ac¬
cordingly distinguished as French creoles, Dutch creoles,
&c. In the Spanish colonies creoles were excluded from
civil, military, and ecclesiastical offices, until Charles III.,
in 1776, granted them these privileges. The term is now
commonly used to denote one born in America or the West
Indies of European parents.
CREON, in Greek Antiquity, ViVnytiAcdX king of Corinth,
was the son of Lycaethus. It was during his reign that
Jason returned to Greece, bringing with him his Colchian
bride, the renowned sorceress Medea. In his visits to the
Corinthian court, Jason saw Glauce or Creusa, the only
daughter of the king, and became enamoured of her. Creon
promised to give her to him in marriage on condition that
he divorced Medea, by whom he already had two children.
Jason consented, and Creon ordered Medea to quit his do¬
minions. She begged to be allowed to remain for a single
day ; and when this request was granted, she prepared during
the interval a poisoned robe which she sent as a present to
her rival. Glauce, unsuspicious, put it on and soon expired;
and Creon, who had kissed her while in the agony of death,
was seized with the contagion and likewise perished. This
story forms the plot of Euripides’ tragedy of Medea.
Creon, son of Menoeceus, ascended the throne of Thebes
at the death of Laius, who had married his daughter Jocasta.
Alarmed by the ravages of the Sphynx, Creon offered his
crown and his daughter in marriage to any who could solve
the enigma propounded by the monster. CEdipus having
accomplished the task, accordingly ascended the throne of
Ihebes, and married Jocasta, unconscious that she was his
mother. By her he had two sons, Eteocles and Polynices,
who mutually agreed, after their father’s death, to reign in
alternate years. Eteocles first ascended the throne by right
of seniority; but having refused to resign at the appointed
time, his brother attacked him at the head of an army of
Argives. The war was decided by a single combat between
the two brothers, who killed each other, and Creon governed
during the nonage of Leodamus, the son of Eteocles. In
this capacity he ordained that the Argives, and more parti¬
cularly Polynices, who was the cause of all the bloodshed,
should remain unburied; and that any who infringed this
decree should be buried alive. Antigone, the sister of
Polynices, disobeyed the edict by sprinkling dust upon her
brother’s body, and was punished accordingly. On this,
Hsemon, the son of Creon, who was passionately fond of
Antigone, killed himself on her grave; and Creon was after¬
wards killed by Theseus, who made war against him to
avenge his inhumanity towards the Argives.
CREPANCE (Lat. crepo, to clatter, to crack), a chop or
cratch in a horse’s leg, caused by the shoe of one hind foot
crossing and striking the other hind foot. It sometimes
degenerates into an ulcer.
CREPIDA (kp^ttis), in Antiquity, a slipper used by the
Romans, in imitation of the Greeks, and worn with the pal¬
lium, not with the toga—the calceus being the shoe used
in walking. I he proverb Ne sutor ultra crepidam is fami¬
liar to every one. It is said to have originated from an in¬
cident in the career of the celebrated painter Apelles. That
artist used to expose his finished pictures in a public place,
and take up his station behind the canvas to hear the re¬
marks of the passers-by. On one occasion a cobbler criti¬
cized the defects in the shoes of a figure that was thus ex¬
posed. Apelles took the picture home, corrected the fault,
and on the following day set up the painting as usual for
public view. I he cobbler finding the defect amended
492
CEE
CEE
Crepundia which he had discovered in the slices was proceeding to
criticize the leg, when Apelles, rushing out from behind the
canvas, exclaimed, 11 Ne sutor ultra crepidam.”
CREPUNDIA, in Roman Antiquity,-a. child’s rattle;
and hence used to express such things as were found along
with children who were exposed, as tokens by which they
might be recognized.
CREPUSCULUM {Latin), in the Old Astronomy,
twilight; the time from the setting of the sun till dark;
what is known in Scotland as the gloaming. 1 he correla¬
tive term is piluculum, which signifies the dawning of the
day; day-break.
CRESCENT (Lat. crescens, growing, increasing), the
new moon ; which, as it recedes from the sun, shows a curv¬
ing rim of light, terminating in points or horns, which in¬
crease till it becomes full and round. The term is also
applied to the moon in its wane or decrease, but less properly.
Crescent, in Heraldry, a bearing in the form of a half
moon. The Ottomans bear sinople, a crescent montant,
argent.
The crescent is frequently used as a difference in coat
armour, to distinguish it as that of a second brother or junior
family.
The figure of the crescent is the Turkish symbol; or
rather it is that of the city of Byzantium, which bore this
device from all antiquity, as appears from medals struck in
honour of Augustus, Trajan, and others.
The crescent is sometimes montant, that is, its points
look towards the top of the chief, which is its most ordi¬
nary representation ; and hence some contend that the
crescent, absolutely so called, implies that situation ; though
other authors blazon it montant when the horns are towards
the dexter side of the escutcheon, in which position others
call it incroissant.
Crescents are said to be adossed, when their backs or
thickest parts are turned towards each other, and their
points look towards the sides of the shield. Crescent in¬
verted, is that whose points look towards the bottom; but
turned crescents are placed like those adossed, the difference
being, that all their points look to the dexter side of the
shield: conturned crescents, on the contrary, look to the
sinister side ; and affronted or appointed crescents are con¬
trary to the adossed, the points looking towards each other.
Crescent has also been applied to three orders of knight¬
hood ; the first of which was instituted by Charles I., king
of Naples and Sicily, in 1268; the second in 1448 by
Rene of Anjou ; and the third by the Sultan Selim in 1801,
two years after the battle of Aboukir.
CRESCENTINO, a town of Piedmont, kingdom of Sar¬
dinia, province of Vercelli, and 18 miles W.S.W. of the
town of that name, at the junction of the Dora Baltea with
the Po. It is supposed to have been a Roman station, from
the remains found here. Pop. 4500.
CRESCIMBENI, Gioyanni Mario de’, an Italian poet,
and literary historian, born in 1663 at Macerata, in the
march of Ancona. His father, who was a jurist, designed
him for the profession of law; but a residence in Rome
having developed his poetical talents, he addressed himself
to the task of effecting a reformation in the prevailing school
of Italian poetry. With this view he projected the esta¬
blishment of a new academy, under the name of Arcadia ;
the members of which used to meet in the open air, at a
place which they were accustomed to call the Bosco Par-
rasio. They called themselves the shepherds of Arcadia,
and each took the name of some shepherd and some place
in that ancient kingdom. Of this society Crescimbeni was
appointed chief director in 1690, and was re-elected at
every Olympiad till his death, which took place in 1728.
In Ificeron a list is given of his works, the principal of which
are, Istoria della volgar Poesia, Rome, 1698, 4to; I Commentary in-
torno alia delta Istoria, 5 vols, 4to; Le Vile d& piu celcbri poeti
Provenzali tradotte dal Francese, e accresciuti di moltissimi poeti,
Rome, 1772, 4to; Trattato della bellezza della volgar Poesia, Itome,
1700, 4to ; Istoria d' Arcadia, Rome, 1709, 4to ; Istoria della Basi¬
lica di S. Maria in Cosmedin col ristretto di molte altre chiese di
Pcoma, Rome, 1715, 1719, 4to; Istoria della chicsa di S. Giovanni a
porta Latina, Rome, 1716, 4to; Istoria della Basilica di S. Anas¬
tasia, Rome, 1722, 4to; Stato della sacrosanta chiesa papale Later-
anese, Rome, 1724, 4to; Omelie e Orazioni di papa Clemente XI.,
volgarizzate, Florence, 1704, 4to, Venice, 1714, 8vo; Vita de Mon¬
signore Gio. Maria Lancisi, medico di Papa Clemente XI., Rome,
1721, 4to ; Vita di Monsignore Gabriello Fiiipucci, liome, 1724, 4to ;
Atti della coronazione del Cavalier Perfetti, fatta in Campidoglio,
Rome, 1725, 4to; L’Elvio, favola pastorale, Rome, 1695, 8vo; Rime
del Crescimbeni, Rome, 1695, 12mo; Gli Apologhi di Berardino
Baldi tradotti in versi, Rome, 1702, 12mo ; Compendia della vita
della beatissima Vergine, Rome, 1724, 16mo; besides a number of
works edited by him.
CRESPI, Giuseppe Maria, a Bolognese painter, born
in 1665, was an artist of undoubted genius and great indus¬
try. He successfully imitated, at different periods, the Ca-
racci, the Venetian school, and Baroccio, in endeavouring
to strike out a novel • style of art. In this he succeeded ;
but he is considered by Mengs as having tended to corrupt
the school of Bologna by capriciously introducing in his his¬
torical, and even into his religious compositions, a species
of caricature. His earlier pictures are painted in a firm and
commendable tone of colouring; but many of his later
pieces are negligently pencilled, and his colours, from care¬
lessness in their preparation and haste in laying them on,
are raw, and have utterly faded in their tints; while in his
shadows and draperies, from his attempts at novelty, he has
degenerated into mannerism. He was much employed by
the nobility, and also by the pope, who conferred on him
the title of Cavaliere. Crespi was considered in Italy as the
first painter of his age. He died in 1747. Lanzi, Star. Pitt.
CRESSET, a great light set on a beacon, lighthouse, or
watch-tower. It also signifies a lamp or torch ; a large light
or lantern fixed on a pole. Minshen derives the word from
the Dutch keerse, candela ; but it is more probably from
the French croisset, a little cross—that symbol having been
usually placed upon beacons.
CRESSY. See Crecy.
CREST (hat. crista; It. cresta ;) in armoury, the plume
or other ornament on the top of the casque or helmet.
In ancient times warriors wore crests composed of the
spoils of animals they had killed, in order to strike terror
into their enemies; or to render their mien the more for¬
midable, by making them appear taller and fiercer.
At jousts and tournaments, the cavaliers wore plumes of
feathers for their crests, especially those of the ostrich and
the heron. These tufts were called plumarts, and were
placed in tubes on the tops of their bonnets. Some had
crests of leather; others of parchment, pasteboard, &c.,
painted or varnished ; others of steel, wood, &c., on which
was sometimes represented a member or ordinary of the
coat, as an eagle, fleur-de-lis, &c.; but never any of those
called honourable ordinaries, as pale, fesse, &c. The crests
were changeable at pleasure; being reputed merely an ar¬
bitrary device or ornament.
Herodotus attributes the origin of crests to the Carians,
who first bore feathers on their casques, and painted figures
on their bucklers ; whence the Persians called them cocks.
The crest is esteemed a greater criterion of gentility than
the armour itself, as being borne at tournaments, to which
none were admitted until they had given proof of their no¬
bility. Sometimes it serves to distinguish the several
branches of a family. It has also been employed, on occa¬
sion, as the distinguishing badge of factions. Sometimes
the crest is taken from the device; but more usually it is
formed of some piece of the arms.
In Heraldry, it denotes a figure placed upon a wreath,
coronet, or cap of maintenance, above both helmet and
shield,—being the highest part of the ornaments of a coat-
of-arms. See Heraldry.
Crespi
II
Crest.
Vr— s
CUE
Cretaceous CRETACEOUS, pertaining to chalk, in Latin creta ;
II chalky.
Crete. CRETE, one of the largest islands in the Mediterra-
nean, situated between the 35th and 36th degrees of
east longitude, and between the 22d and 27th degrees of
north latitude. The Cretan mythologists, quoted by Dio¬
dorus Siculus, relate that the first inhabitants of the island
were the Dactyli Idaei, who dwelt around Mount Ida, and
were regarded as magicians, because they possessed a va¬
riety of knowledge, and were particularly skilled in reli¬
gious mysteries. Orpheus, who distinguished himself so
highly in poetry and music, was their disciple. They dis¬
covered the use of fire, iron, and brass, and invented the
art of working these metals in Berecynthius, a mountain
near Aptera. Those invaluable discoveries procured them
divine honours. One of them, named Hercules, rendered
himself famous by his courage and exploits, and instituted
the Olympic games; though posterity, by a mistake, have
ascribed that institution to the son of Alcmena, who, in¬
deed, trode in the footsteps of his predecessor, and also
‘ raised himself to immortality.
The Dactyli Idaei were the ancestors of the Curetes.
The latter originally inhabited the forests and caves of the
mountains ; but they afterwards entered into domestic life,
and by their institutions contributed to the civilization of
mankind. They taught men to collect flocks of sheep, to
tame wild animals for domestic purposes, and to entice bees
into hives, that they might rifle them of the fruit of their
labours ; they first prompted men to the chase, and taught
the use of the bow ; and they were the inventors of swords
and of military dances. The noise which they made, by
dancing in armour, prevented Saturn from hearing the cries
of Jupiter, whose education Rhea had intrusted to them,
and whom, with the assistance of the nymphs, they brought
up in a cave in Mount Ida, feeding him with the milk of
the goat Amalthea, and with honey.
To this period mythology assigns the origin of the Ti¬
tans ; their abode near Gnossus, where stood the palace
of Rhea; their travels over the whole earth ; their war
against Ammon, and his defence by Bacchus; the nup¬
tials of Jupiter and Juno, celebrated near the river The-
renus in Crete ; and the gods, goddesses, and heroes who
descended from them.
Of these heroes the most illustrious were Minos and
Rhadamanthus. They are said to have been the sons of
Jupiter and of Europa, who had been conveyed into the
island on a bull. Minos having become king, built several
cities; the most considerable of which were Gnossus, on
that side of the island which faces Asia, Phcestus on the
southern shore, and Cydon on the western side facing the
Peloponnesus. He gave to his subjects a code of admir¬
able laws, which he pretended to have received from his
father Jupiter in the grotto of Mount Ida.
Rhadamanthus distinguished himself by the impartia¬
lity of his judgments, and by the inflexible severity with
which he inflicted punishment on the impious and the
wicked. His empire extended over the chief isles of the
Archipelago; and the inhabitants of the adjacent coasts
of Asia submitted to him on account of his high reputa¬
tion for probity and justice. Mythologists have consti¬
tuted him judge in the regions below, to determine the
future state of the righteous and the wicked: they have
conferred on him the same honours which were bestowed
on Minos, the justest of kings.
Thus far have been followed the Cretan traditions as
these are related by Diodorus ; but historians differ as to
the degree of truth or probability which they involve.
There are a variety of opinions concerning the original
inhabitants of Crete. Strabo, who has discussed the sub¬
ject with great erudition, says, “ I am not fond of fables;
C R E 493
yet I have detailed these at some length, because they Crete,
are connected with theology. Every discourse concerning
the gods should examine the religious opinions of antiqui¬
ty, and distinguish them from fable. The ancients were
pleased to conceal their knowledge of nature under a veil.
It is now impossible to unfold the meaning of their enig¬
mas. But by exposing to light the numerous allegories
which they have left us, and examining attentively their
mutual relations and differences, genius may perhaps be
able to unfold the truths which are couched under them.”
But leaving mythology for the more certain records and
monuments of history, we find that Crete received its name
from Cres, the first of its monarchs, and the author of se¬
veral useful inventions, which contributed to the happiness
of his subjects. Prompted by gratitude, they endeavoured
to perpetuate the memory of his favours, and to immortal¬
ize his name, by naming the island after him. In order
to distinguish the true Cretans from strangers, they were
named Eteocretes. A number of colonies, from different
parts of Greece, settled in the island; the salubrity of the
climate, and the fertility of the soil, having induced them
to fix their habitation there. The Lacedaemonians, Ar-
gives, and Athenians, were the principal people who sent
colonies into Crete. “ Crete,” says Homer, “ is an ex¬
tensive island in the midst of the stormy main. The soil
is rich and fertile. It contains an immense number of in¬
habitants. It is adorned with a hundred cities. Its inha¬
bitants speak in various languages. We find there Achaeans,
valiant Eteocretes, Cydonians, Dorians, and godlike Pelas-
gians.” The Eteocretes inhabited the southern division
of the island, where they built the city of Proesus, and
erected a temple to the Dictaean Jove.
Cres was not the only monarch who reigned in the island
of Crete. He had a series of successors ; but history affords
little information concerning them. The names of a few
of them only are preserved, and a small number of events
which happened under the reign of others are related,
but the latter are disfigured with an intermixture of fable.
Among these monarchs we find two of the name of Jupi¬
ter, and two of that of Minos. However, most writers con¬
found them, and ascribe to one the transactions and ex¬
ploits which should be shared between both.
This remark chiefly regards Minos, who was esteemed
the wisest legislator of antiquity. The office assigned him
in the regions below is a certain proof of his having gained
an exalted reputation by his justice upon earth. Greece,
says Plato, has with great propriety adopted the laws of
Crete; for they are founded upon the solid basis of rea¬
son and equity, and have a natural tendency to render the
people who live in subjection to them opulent and happy.
One of these laws forbade the Cretans ever to carry their
festivity so far as to intoxicate themselves with wine. An¬
other contained the following eminently conservative pro¬
vision : “ Let young people not canvass the laws with an
indiscreet curiosity; let them not examine whether the
lawgiver has done right or wrong in promulgating them
but let them join unanimously in declaring them good,
since they proceed from the gods. If any of the old men
perceive something in them meriting amendment, let him
mention it to the magistrate, or discuss it with his equals,
but never in the presence of the young people.” The Cre¬
tan code was engraven on tablets of brass ; and Talos, chief
minister to Minos, visited all the towns and cities in the
island three times a year, to observe in what manner the
laws were executed and obeyed. The king of Crete, aware
that an infusion of the marvellous is usef ul in commanding
the belief and enforcing the obedience of the multitude,
pretended that he had received those laws from his father
Jupiter, in the grotto of Mount Ida. In the same manner,
Lycurgus, before promulgating his laws, repaired to Del-
CRETE,
494
Crete, phi, and gave out that they had received the sanction of
Apollo. A like reason induced Numa to pretend to an in¬
timacy with the nymph Egeria, and Mahommed to asciibe
his doctrines and institutions to the revelation of the angel
Gabriel.
In contradiction of this account, however, others or the
ancients describe Minos as a prince abandoned to the fury
of his passions, and a barbarous conqueror. Having fallen
furiously in love with the nymph Dictynna, who refused
to gratify his wishes, he pursued her to the bi ink of the
shore, and forced her to plunge into the sea, where she
was saved by some fishermen, who received her in then
nets. He was the first of the Greeks who appeared in the
Mediterranean at the head of a naval armament. He. con¬
quered the Cyclades, expelled the Carians, established
Cretan colonies in those islands, and committed the go¬
vernment of them to his son.
Being informed, while he was at Paros, that his son An-
drogeus was slain at Athens, he declared war against Egeus,
and imposed on him a disgraceful as well as cruel tribute,
from the payment of which Theseus delivered his country.
He took arms against Nisus, king of Megara; made him
prisoner by the treachery of his daughter Scylla; and put
him to death, together with Megarus, the son of Hippo-
manes, who had brought some forces to his assistance.
Daedalus, who had by some means incurred his displeasure,
despairing of pardon from so severe and inflexible a prince,
employed the resources of his inventive genius in order to
escape from his power. He fled to Sicily, gained the pro¬
tection of King Cocalus, and obtained an asylum in his
court. Valerius Flaccus has described his flight in a very
lively and picturesque manner. “ Thus Daedalus, with
the wings of a bird, ascended from Mount Ida. Beside
him soared the comrade of his flight, with shorter wings.
They appeared like a cloud rising in the air. Minos, seeing
his vengeance thus eluded, glowed with impotent rage. In
vain he followed with his eyes the secure flight of his ene¬
mies through the wide expanse of heaven. His guards
returned to Gortynia with their quivers filled with arrows.”
The Cretan monarch did not, however, give up his prey.
He equipped a fleet, pursued the fugitive to Sicily, and
fell before the walls of Camicum.
It is plain that these actions are unsuitable to the cha¬
racter of that just monarch, whose merits raised him to
the office of determining, in the regions below, the un¬
alterable fate of the righteous and the wicked. We may
therefore reasonably conclude that Minos the legislator
was a different person from Minos the conqueror; that it
was the former who gained a lasting reputation by his wis¬
dom and justice ; that it was the latter who subdued most
of the islands of the Archipelago, but, being enslaved by
his passions, tarnished his glory by cruelty and a merciless
thirst for vengeance.
The last king of Crete was Idomeneus. This prince,
accompanied by Merion, conducted twenty-four ships to
the assistance of Agamemnon. Homer informs us of the
illustrious exploits by which he signalized himself before
the walls of Troy. At his departure he committed the
government of his kingdom to D.?ycus, his adopted son,
promising him the hand of his daughter Clisithera if he
governed wisely in his absence. But that ambitious young
man forgot the favours which had been so lavishly bestow¬
ed on him ; and having gained a number of partisans, he
in a short time aspired to the immediate possession of the
crown. His impatience would not wait till he should ob¬
tain it lawfully by marriage. Flattering himself, from the
long absence of the king, that he had perhaps fallen before
Troy, he determined to mount the throne. Mida, wife of
Idomeneus, and the princess Clisithera, were however ob¬
stacles to the gratification of his wishes. But ambition
knows no restraint, and tramples under foot the most sacred Crete,
obligations. This base wretch having seduced the people
from their allegiance, and captivated the affections of the
nobles, sacrificed these unfortunate victims in the temple.
When Idomeneus, crowned with laurels, landed on the
coast of Crete, Leucus, who had now firmly established
his power, attacked him with an armed force, and obliged
him to reimbark. But a different account is given of the
banishment of Idomeneus. Servius says that he had vowed,
in a storm, to sacrifice to the gods the first person whom
his eyes should behold on the Cretan shore; that his son
having met him first after his arrival, he fulfilled his vow
by sacrificing him ; and that the island, being soon after¬
wards depopulated by pestilence, the inhabitants looked
upon that affliction as the effect of divine vengeance, and
expelled the murderer, who, having retired to Italy, found¬
ed Salentum, on the Messapian coast. But this opinion
appears to be entirely groundless. History mentions no
son of Idomeneus. If he had had a son of his own blood,
why did he adopt Leucus ? Why did he trust to the lat¬
ter the government of the island, when he promised him
his daughter in marriage ? The more probable opinion is,
that the plague was introduced into the island by his ships,
when he returned from the siege of Troy; and that Leu¬
cus artfully made use of that pretext to expel his lawTul
sovereign. This is the statement of Herodotus. But it
appears that the usurper did not long enjoy the fruit of his
crimes. Soon after the departure of Idomeneus, monarchy
was abolished, and the government of Crete became re¬
publican.
The Cretan government, soon after the expulsion of
Idomeneus, became aristocratical. The power was divid¬
ed between the nobles and the people; yet as the chief
employments were occupied by the nobles, they directed
the administration of affairs. Ten magistrates were an¬
nually elected, by a majority of voices, in the national
assembly. They were named cosmoi, and their public
office and character were nearly the same with those of
the ephori at Sparta. They were the generals of the re¬
public in time of war, and directed all affairs of impor¬
tance. They had the right of choosing certain old men
as counsellors. The latter, to the number of twenty-eight,
composed the Cretan senate. They were chosen from
among those who had discharged the office of cosmoi, or
had distinguished themselves by extraordinary merit and
blameless probity; and they continued in office during
life, possessed a weighty influence, and were consulted
in every affair of importance. This body formed a barrier
which the wisdom of the legislator had opposed against the
ambition of the ten chief rulers. Another restraint was
imposed on their power, by limiting the period of their ad¬
ministration to one year ; and as the suffrages of the people
might be obtained by bribery or personal influence, and
of consequence their choice might sometimes fall on a
man unworthy of so honourable an office, it was provided
that he who had been undeservedly advanced to the dig¬
nity of cosmos should be degraded, either in a national
assembly, or simply by the voices of his colleagues. This,
no doubt, is what Plato alludes to when he says, “ Neither
the commonwealth, which approaches too near to a mo¬
narchical constitution, nor that which affects a licentious
liberty, is founded on the solid basis of a just medium be¬
tween anarchy and despotism. The Cretans and Lace¬
daemonians, by establishing theirs on firmer foundations,
avoided those fatal extremes.”
Such were the distribution of power and the adminis¬
tration of public affairs in the Cretan government. Its
simplicity was admirable. A people who were blessed
with the sacred enjoyment of liberty, but who possessed
not sufficient knowledge and discernment to direct them-
C R E T E.
495
Crete, selves, elected magistrates, to whom they delegated their
authority. These magistrates, thus clothed with sovereign
authority, chose senators to assist and direct their delibe¬
rations. But these counsellors could neither enact nor de¬
cide of themselves ; they held their office for life, and that
circumstance contributed to strengthen their influence and
to increase their experience. The magistrates were ani¬
mated by the most powerful motives to distinguish them¬
selves, when in office, by unwearied activity in the public
service. On one side they were restrained by the fear
of degradation ; and on the other, actuated by the hope of
becoming one day members of the national council.
All the Cretans were subjected to the power of the
magistrates, and divided into two classes, the adults and
the youth. Men arrived at maturity were admitted into
the first class. The second consisted of all the young
men who were not below the age of seventeen. The so¬
ciety of adults ate together in public halls. There rulers,
magistrates, poor and rich, seated together, partook, with¬
out distinction, of the same simple fare. A large bowl,
filled with wine and water, which went round the com¬
pany from one to another, was the only drink which they
were allowed. None but the old men had a right to call for
more wine. A woman was appointed to preside at each
table; a circumstance which of itself indicates a great ad¬
vance in civilization ; and in this capacity she openly dis¬
tributed the most exquisite meats to those who had dis¬
tinguished themselves by their valour or wisdom. This
preference was so far from exciting envy or jealousy,
that it only prompted every person to deserve it by brave
and prudent conduct. Near where the citizens sat, two
tables were laid, which they named Hospitable, and where
all strangers and travellers were entertained; and there
was also a particular house set apart by the public, in
which they might spend the night.
To supply the public expenses, every citizen was ob¬
liged to bring a tenth part of his annual income into the
treasury; and it was the duty of the chief magistrates to
take care that every person contributed his proportion.
In Crete, says Aristotle, one part of the fruits of the earth,
of the produce of the flocks, of the revenues of the state,
and of the taxes and customs, is sacred to the gods, and
the other is distributed among the members of the com¬
munity ; so that men, women, and children, all subsist at
the public expense.
After dinner, the magistrates and senators usually spent
some time in deliberating on the affairs of the state; they
next recounted the noble deeds which had been done in
war, celebrated the courage of their most distinguished
warriors, and animated the youth to heroic valour. These
assemblies were the first school of the j'outh. At the age
of seven, the boy was permitted to handle the bow ; and
from that time he was admitted into the society of the
adults, where he continued till the age of seventeen. There,
sitting on the ground, and clothed in a plain and coarse
dress, he served the old men, and listened, with respect¬
ful silence, to their admonitions. His young heart was
inflamed by the recital of noble deeds in arms, and glowed
with ardour to imitate them ; he acquired habits of so¬
briety and temperance; and being constantly witness of
illustrious examples of moderation, wisdom, and patriotism,
the seeds of virtue were thus sown and fostered in his
heart before he attained the full use of reason.
He was early accustomed to arms and to fatigue, that he
might learn to endure excessive heat or cold, to clamber
and leap among hills and precipices, and to bear manfully
the blows and wounds which he might receive amid the
gymnastic exercises or in battle. But his education was not
confined to the gymnastic exercises; he was also taught
to sing the laws, which were written in verse, with a cer¬
tain species of melody, in order that the charms of music Crete,
might dispose him to learn them with more pleasure, and
might impress them more deeply on his heart, and that, if
he should ever transgress them, he might not have the
excuse of ignorance to offer. He next learned hymns in
honour of the gods, and poems composed in praise of he¬
roes. When he reached his seventeenth year, he retired
from the society of the adults, and became a member of
that of the young men.
But here his education was still carried on. He exer¬
cised himself in hunting, wrestling, and fighting with his
companions. Martial music was played on the lyre; and
he learned to follow exactly the sounds and measure of
the musician. Those sports and exercises were attended
with danger, because arms of steel were sometimes used
in them. One dance, in which the youth aspired most
ardently to excel, was the Pyrrhic, originally invented in
Crete. The performers in that dance were arrayed in
complete armour ; they wore a light short coat, which did
not fall below the knee, and was bound with a girdle round
the waist; on their feet and legs were buskins; in their
hands they bore their arms, and performed various military
evolutions to the sound of musical instruments. “ The
Lacedaemonians and Cretans,” says Libanius, “cultivated
dancing with amazing ardour ; they considered that their
laws had directed them to practise it for the most import¬
ant purposes; and it was scarcely less dishonourable for
a Lacedaemonian or Cretan to neglect the military dance,
than to desert his post in battle.”
Those Cretans who were opulent and high born were
permitted to form societies of young men of their own
age; and they often strove with emulation who should
form the most numerous ones. The father of the young
jnan who formed one of those societies usually presided
in it; and he had a right to educate the warlike youth, to
exercise them in running and in hunting, and to confer
rewards and inflict punishments.
Friendship was held in high estimation among the Cre¬
tans ; but according to Strabo, the manner in which they
conducted the intercourse of friendship was somewhat ex¬
traordinary. Instead of mild persuasion, they made use of
violence to gain the objects of their affections. He who con¬
ceived an affection for a young man of his own age, and
wished to attach him to himself by indissoluble bonds,
formed a scheme for carrying him off by violence. Three
days before putting it into execution he communicated it
to his comrades. They could not then interfere to pre¬
vent it, because if they had, they would have appeared to
think the young man unworthy of such an excessive at¬
tachment. At the appointed day they assembled to pro¬
tect their companion. If the ravisher appeared to them
not unworthy of the object of his affection, they made
at firsl^a faint resistance in obedience to the law, but at
last joyfully favoured his enterprise ; if, on the other
hand, they thought him unworthy of the object of his
choice, they made such resistance as to prevent him from
executing his design. The feigned resistance continued
till the ravisher had conducted his friend into the hall of
that society to which he belonged. They did not regard
him who possessed superior beauty and gracefulness of
person as the most amiable, but him who had most distin¬
guished himself by his modesty and valour.
When the youth had finished their exercises, and at¬
tained the legal age, they became members of the class of
adults; being then considered as men, they were permit¬
ted to vote in the national assemblies, and were entitled
to stand candidates for any public office. They were
then obliged to marry, but did not take home their wives
till such time as they were capable of managing their
domestic concerns.
496 C £ E
Crete. “ The legislator,” sa3^s Strabo, “ had considered liberty
as the greatest blessing that cities can enjoy. Liberty
alone can secure tbe property of tbe citizens of any state.
Slavery either robs them of it, or renders it precarious.
The first care of nations should therefore be to preserve
their liberty. Concord strengthens and supports her em¬
pire ; she flourishes wherever the seeds of dissension are
extinguished. Almost all those hostilities which prevail
among nations or individuals spring either from an inordi¬
nate desire of wealth or the love of luxury. Introduce,
instead of those baneful principles, frugality, moderation,
and equality of conditions; you will thus banish envy,
hatred, injustice, and haughty disdain. I his was what
the Cretan lawgiver happily effected ; and the commu¬
nity which was regulated by his wise institutions rose to
glory, opulence, and power, and was honoured with the
panegyrics of the most celebrated philosophers of Greece ;
but the highest honour it ever obtained was that of serv¬
ing Lycurgus as a model for the admirable form of govern¬
ment which he established at Sparta.
Nations are effaced from the earth like the monuments
of their power, and after the revolution of ages we can
scarcely trace in their posterity any remains of their an¬
cient character. Some of them exist longer, others short¬
er ; but we may almost always calculate the period of their
duration by tbe excellence of their laws, and the fidelity
with which they support and obey them. The republic
of Crete, being established on a solid basis, knew no fo¬
reign master for a period of ten centuries, and bravely
repelled the attacks of those princes who attempted to
enslave it. At length the time arrived when the war¬
like and victorious Romans aspired to the empire of the
world, and would suffer none but subjects or slaves to
exist within the reach of their arms. Florus does not*
scruple to acknowledge that the Romans had no other
motive for invading Crete but the ambitious desire of
subduing the renowned native country of Jupiter. If any
person wished to know the reason which induced us to
attack Crete, says he, the true reason was our desire
to subdue so celebrated an island. The Cretans had ap¬
peared to favour Mithridates, and the Romans thought
proper to declare war against them on that pretext. Marc
Antony, father of the triumvir, attacked them with strong
hopes of success, but was severely punished for his pre¬
sumption and imprudence. The Cretans took a great
part of his fleet, hung up his soldiers and sailors on the
masts amid the sails and cordage, and returned in triumph
into their harbours. But their triumph was of short dura¬
tion, Quintus Metellus was sent against them with a power¬
ful armament, but met with an obstinate and vigorous re¬
sistance, which, however, he completely overcame in three
years. His first care was to abolish the laws of Minos, and
to substitute those of Numa.
The island of Crete, united with the small kingdom of
Cyrene, on the Libyan coast, formed a Roman province,
which was at first governed by a proconsol; but a questor
and an assistant were afterwards sent there, and at last, as
Suetonius informs us, it was put under the government of
a consul. This island was one of the first places in the world
which were favoured with the light of the gospel, St Paul
introduced the Christian faith into Crete; and his disciple
Titus, whom he left there to cherish and cultivate that
precious plant, became the.first bishop of the island. In
the reign of the emperor Leo it had twelve bishops, who
were all subject to the patriarch of Constantinople. Con¬
stantine separated Crete from Cyrene in the new division
which he made of his empire; and, in the distribution of
territory among his three sons, this island, together with
Africa and Illyria, fell to the share of Constans.
When Michael Balbus sat on the throne of Constan¬
tinople, the rebellion of Thomas, which lasted three years,
CEE
caused him to neglect the other parts of the empire. Crete Cretins.
soon passed into the hands of the Saracens, who retained it v  ^
for 127 years, at the end of which period it was recovered
by Nicephorus Phocas. Crete then remained under the
dominion of the Romans until the time when Baldwin
count of Flanders, being raised to the throne, liberally re¬
warded the service of Boniface, marquis of Montferrat,
by making him king of Thessalonica, and adding this island
to his dominions. But that lord, being more covetous of
gold than of glory, sold it in the year 1194 to the’Ve¬
netians, under whom it assumed the name of Candia. See
Candia.
CRETINS, the name applied to those persons in the
valleys of the Alps who are affected by congenital idiotism.
They almost all exhibit the goitre, a singular enlargement
of the thyroid gland, though all goitrous persons are not
Cretins. Cretinism is the term used to denote the state of
a Cretin. (See Saussure’s Votjages dans les Alpes, ii.)
The following accountof these unfortunate beings is taken
from Pinel’s Traite sur VAlienation Mentale:—“ Children
who are to become Cretins are generally born with a small
goitre or swelling of the throat, about the size of a nut.
Those who have not this peculiarity are nevertheless marked
by some other characteristics which foretell their degrada¬
tion and fatuity. They have an inflated tumid appearance,
especially about the head and hands. They are less sensible
than other infants to the impressions of the atmosphere.
They suck with difficulty, sleep a great deal, and have always
a dull sleepy look. When children of the same age begin to
pronounce words, they can only articulate the vowels, and
they make no farther progress in speech during the rest of
their lives. When other children begin to use their hands
in feeding themselves, the young Cretins are incapable of
it; and it is often necessary, after they are ten or twelve
years of age, to feed them with a spoon like infants. They
are equally slow in learning to walk: never cheerful: always
cross and sullen : nothing but maternal tenderness could
tolerate them. The head of a Cretin does not grow in pro¬
portion to the rest of his body; it is commonly small, and
flat on the top ; the temples are flattened also, with the
tuberosity of the occiput projecting in a slight degree. The
eyes are small, and sunk in the head, though sometimes on
the contrary very protuberant. The look of a Cretin is dull
and stupid; the chest broad and flat; the fingers long and
slender, with the articulations ill marked; the sole of the
foot broad, and sometimes bent, and the feet are generally
turned either outwards or inwards. The age of puberty is
later among the Cretins ; but the organs of generation are
large, and they are much disposed to sensual indulgences.
It is not till this period that the Cretin begins to walk, and
still his locomotion is very limited, only excited by the de¬
sire of food, or to bask by the fire-side, or in the rays of the
sun. His small sorry bed is another termination of his diffi¬
cult journeys, his step is unsteady, his body jolts on his legs,
and his arms are pendulous by his side, In walking he
goes straight forward, without avoiding any obstacles or
dangers; and he always takes the route that he has once
gone. When he has attained his greatest height of stature,
which is from four to five feet, his skin becomes brown ; his
sensibility continues to be obtuse; he regards neither cold,
nor heat, nor vermin, nor blows. He is commonly deaf and
dumb, and is scarcely affected by the most pungent odours.
The taste of Cretins is also very imperfect; and their or¬
gans of vision and of touch are probably impaired. Their
moral faculties appear almost obliterated. They are hardly
affectionate to their parents and friends, and betray neither
pleasure nor pain at all the necessary wants of life. Such
(says Fodere) is the physical and moral state of the Cretins
during a long course of years ; for, reduced thus to a sort
of vegetation and automatic existence, they live to a great
old age.”
ORE
C R I
497
Oreusa CREUSA, the daughter of Priam and Hecuba, and wife
|| of Aeneas. She was left behind by Arneas when lie fled
Crewe. from Troy, but appeared to him as a shade and foretold his
—high destiny.
CREUSE, a department of France, so called from the
river of lhat name by which it is watered, is bounded north
by the departments of Indre and Cher, west by that of
Haute-Vienne, south by that of Correze, and east by those
of Puy-de-D6me and Allier. Area 2150 square miles.
The Surface is mostly mountainous, with a general inclina¬
tion from south to north. Along its S. and S.E. boun¬
daries is a range of mountains sending off branches to
the interior of the department. The rivers are numerous,
but none of them are navigable. The largest is the Creuse,
which rises on the southern frontier, has a general north by
west direction through the department, dividing it into two
nearly equal parts, and falls into the Vienne alter a course
of about 150 miles. I he climate is cold and moist, and the
winter long and-rigorous. The soil, except in the valleys,
is sandy and of little fertility, so that the corn produced is
not sufficient for home consumption. The rearing of cattle
principally occupies the attention of the people. Among
the mineral productions are iron, lead, copper, manganese,
and antimony; coal mines are worked ; granite and build¬
ing stone are quarried; and potters’ clay of good quality is
raised. From 20,000 to 28,000 labourers annually emi¬
grate to other parts of the kingdom in search of employ¬
ment, during certain months of the year. The chief manu¬
facture is that of carpets.
The department is divided into four arrondissements,
as follows:—
Arrondissements. Cantons. Communes. Pop. in 1851.
Aubusson   10 104 106,619
Bourganeuf   4 41 42.673
Boussac  4 46 39'497
flaerot   7 75 98,286
25 266 287,075
The chief town of the department is Gueret.
CREUX (French), a term in sculpture. Creux origin-
ally signifies a hollow or cavity out of which something has
been scooped: hence en creux is applied to that kind of
sculpture where the lines and figures are formed by cutting
in upon the surface to be ornamented; and thus it stands
opposed to relievo.
CREVIER, Jean Baptiste Louis, a celebrated philo-
loger, was born in 1693 at Paris, where his father was a
printer. He studied under the celebrated Rollin, and held
the professorship of rhetoric in the college of Beauvais
for twenty years till his death in 1765. On the death of
Rollin in l741, he undertook to complete his Roman His¬
tory, and published the last eight volumes of the work. He
also published an excellent edition of Livy, with notes, in six
vols. 4to, 1748, and afterwards another in six vols. small 8vo ;
L Histoire des Empereurs des Romains, jusqu’a, Constan¬
tin, 1749, 12 vols. 12mo ; Histoire de V Universite de Paris,
7 vols. 12mo ; Rhetorique Franr-oise; Observations sur
VEsprit des Loix ; Remarques sur le Traite des etudes de
Rollin, Paris, 1780, 12mo.
CREWE, a town of Cheshire, and an important station
on the London and North-Western railway, to which it is al¬
together indebted for its present importance. It is the centre
of five lines of railway connecting it with Manchester, Ches¬
ter, Birmingham, and other large towns; and is 21 miles
east by south of Chester, and 54 miles N.W. of Birmingham.
It is inhabited principally by persons in the employment of
the railway companies, and is well laid out. The station is
elegant and commodious, and the workshops for the mak¬
ing and repairing of railway carriages and engines are very
extensive. It has also a fine hotel, church, mechanics’ in¬
stitute, library, baths, &c. Pop. (1851) 4491.
CREWKERNE, a market-town in the hundred of the
same name, county of Somerset, 10 miles S.S.W. of 11-
chester, in a fertile valley watered by the rivers Axe and
Parret. It has a fine Gothic church surmounted by an em¬
battled tower, and a free grammar-school, with four exhibi¬
tions at Oxford. Pop. (1851) 3303.
CRICHTON, James, commonly known by the appel¬
lation of the Admirable Crichton, was born on the 19th of
August 1560.1 His father was Robert Crichton, who, in
conjunction with John Spence, executed the office of lord
advocate; his mother wras Elizabeth, the only daughter
of Sir James Stewart of Beath, by Margaret, the eldest
daughter of Lord Lindsay of Byres. It appears highly
probable, if not certain, that by the father’s side he de¬
rived his lineage from Sir Robert Crichton of Sanquhar,
ancestor of the earl of Dumfries ; and his maternal grand¬
father, ancestor of the earl of Moray, was the son of Lord
Avandale, who was descended from Murdac duke of Al¬
bany, and through him from Robert II. It is indeed to
be recollected that the birth of the first Lord Avandale
was illegitimate; but it is likewise to be recollected that
he obtained letters of legitimation under the great seal.*
His grand-uncle Lord Methven was the third husband of
Margaret ludor, the relict of James IV. It is therefore
sufficiently obvious that he was entitled to speak of his
high descent; but his extraordinary endowments of mind
conferred upon him much higher distinction than he could
derive from any accidental circumstances of birth. The
place of his birth is somewhat doubtful. According to
one tradition, he was born in the castle of Cluny, situated
on a small lake bearing the same name ; but as the father
did not acquire his estate in Perthshire till two years
after the birth of James, his eldest son, this may be con¬
sidered as entitled to less attention than another tradition,
which represents him as having been born at Elliock in
Dumfriesshire, the more ancient seat of the family. The
estate of Cluny, which belonged to the bishopric of Dun-
keld, was conveyed to the king’s advocate by Robert
Crichton, the last popish bishop of that wealthy see.
In the year 1570, when he had only attained the age of
ten, he was sent to the university of St Andrews, where
he was entered at St Salvator’s College. According to
Aldus Manutius, his father placed him under the tuition
of Buchanan, Hepburn, Robertson, and Rutherford, who
are all mentioned as very eminent persons. John Ruther¬
ford, whose name is sufficiently known, was provost of the
college to which Crichton belonged. Buchanan, who was
principal of St Leonard’s College, resigned his office about
the time when he became a student; but, according to
the statement of his Italian friend, he was partly edu¬
cated along with the young king of Scotland ; and Bu¬
chanan was appointed to the office of preceptor to the
king when he quitted St Andrews, in the year 1570. On
the 20th of March 1573, or, according to our present
mode of computation, 1574, Crichton took the degree of
A.B. He proceeded A. M. in the year 1575, and thus
completed the legular course of study at the premature
age of fifteen. In the university of St Andrews, the can¬
didates for the higher degree were then distributed into
Crew-
kerne
II
Crichton,
ItaIia.n ^adside, printed at Venice in 1580, states that he had completed the twentieth year of his arre on the 19th of Amrust
«h“" S4r“fmSchwh r '!fly df r-e<1' •r* whic\aff;rds r* .KsSLuS f„d ir;e;
tte Admirable C«to"p 289? EZbTs'liuZ ’ °“7 “ t0 the 5eC°“d edUi0n °f Mr TJtler's Lifi °f
3 Wood’s Peerage of Scotland, vol. i. p. 158.
VOL. VII. 3e
498
CRICHTON.
Crichton, circles, according to the comparative proficiency displayed
in the course of their previous examinations. Each circle
was likewise formed on the same principle. Of the thirty-
six masters who took their degrees on this occasion, there
were three circles; and the third name in the first cir¬
cle is that of James Crichton. At the head of the list
appears David Monypenny. It is highly probable that
Crichton was the youngest of all those graduates ; and as
his proficiency was only exceeded by two out of thirty-
five, it is evident that he had already begun to distinguish
himself by his extraordinary aptitude in the acquisition of
knowledge.
As the king was six years younger than Crichton, they
could not well participate in the same studies, although
they could receive instructions from the same tutors.
Crichton must have continued to devote himself with in¬
tense ardour to the pursuits of science as well as litera¬
ture ; for to a knowledge of many languages he added a
familiar acquaintance with the philosophy and even the
theology of the age. The power of genius is shewn in
the use of the materials which are placed within its reach ;
but there is no royal road to learning, which, if acquired
to any extent, must be acquired by much labour and per¬
severance, although their particular degree must vary ac¬
cording to the quickness of apprehension and tenacity of
memory belonging to various individuals.
Crichton may for some time have enjoyed the benefit
of such able instruction; for he appears to have been still
residing in Scotland towards the close of the year 1577.
His subsequent movements are represented as being part¬
ly influenced by some domestic disagreements. As the
father embraced the reformed doctrines, while the son ad¬
hered to the ancient superstition, disputes and reproaches
could scarcely fail to intervene at a crisis of such high and
genei’al excitement. The young scholar repaired to France,
where he is said to have distinguished himself equally by
his skill in literature and in arms. Of a marvellous disputa¬
tion which he held in the university of Paris, there is an
account which passes very currently, although it is only
stamped with the authority of Sir Thomas Urquhart. Ac¬
cording to this account, he affixed a program in the most
public places of the city, inviting all men of learning to meet
him, after an interval of six weeks, at the College of Navarre,
where he should “ be ready to answer to what should be
propounded to him concerning any science, liberal art, dis¬
cipline, or faculty, practical or theoretick, not excluding
the theological nor jurisprudential habits, though ground¬
ed but upon the testimonies of God and man, and that in
any of these twelve languages, Hebrew, Syriack, Arabick,
Greek, Latin, Spanish, French, Italian, English, Dutch,
Flemish, and Sclavonian, in either verse or prose, at the
discretion of the disputant f’1 in the mean time, as we are
duly instructed, “ the admirable Scot (for so from thence
forth he was called) minding more his hawking, hunting,
tilting, vaulting, riding of well-managed horses, tossing of
the pike, handling of the musket, flourishing of colours, Crichton,
dancing, fencing, swimming, jumping, throwing of the bar, V'O
playing at the tennis, baloon, or long-catch, and sometimes
at the house-games of dice, cards, playing at the chess,
billiards, trou-madam, and other such like chamber-sports,
singing,playing on the lute, and other musical instruments.’'
But when the appointed hour arrived, he acquitted him¬
self with stupendous learning and ability, having for the
space of nine hours maintained his ground against the
most eminent antagonists in all the faculties. The rector
of the university concluded the ceremony by presenting
him with a diamond ring and a purse full of gold. It
would be a mere waste of criticism to enter into a minute
examination of the narrative to which we have now refer¬
red. The details are sufficiently circumstantial, but they
have much of the aspect of a downright romance; and
such details from the knight of Cromarty would have re¬
quired the strong confirmation of collateral evidence. It
might perhaps be admitted with some degree of safety
that Crichton was engaged in a public disputation at Paris,
and that he acquitted himself with consummate ability;
but as to his fluency in twelve languages, and his main¬
taining so long and powerful a contest, not merely with
grammarians, rhetoricians, and philosophers, but even
with theologians, canonists, and civilians, all these par¬
ticulars must be received with extreme hesitation; and
perhaps it may be considered as much more probable
that such a disputation never took place at Paris, but
was merely fabricated from another, which took place at
Venice.
The intellectual endowments of Crichton seem to have
been equalled by his personal accomplishments. He is
highly celebrated for his martial prowess, and as a com¬
plete master in the use of the sword and spear. Some
degree of military experience he must have acquired dur¬
ing his two years service in the civil wars of France: but
this term of service was apparently sufficient to gratify
his youthful inclination for the life of a soldier; and he
next directed his steps towards Italy, where he must have
arrived in the year 1580. According to Dr Mackenzie, he
proceeded to Rome, and there gave another demonstra¬
tion of his talents for public disputation ;2 but this account
is evidently destitute of all foundation, and the only au¬
thority alleged by its author is that of Boccalini, whose
meaning is either completely misrepresented or complete¬
ly misunderstood.3 Dempster has stated that he went to
Genoa, attracted by the offer of a considerable salary; but
in what capacity he appeared there, we are left to conjec¬
ture.4 Whatever might be his first place of residence in
Italy, it is at least ascertained that he arrived at Venice be¬
fore the close of the year 1580. He now addressed a Latin
poem to the younger Aldus Manutius, a name highly ce¬
lebrated in the annals of typography; and this laid the
foundation of a literary friendship, which was not without
considerable influence in perpetuating his fame.5 He
1 Urquhart’s Discovery of a most exquisite Jewel, p. 94. Lond. 1652, 8vo—This writer is pleased to inform us, that about a fort¬
night before the appointed day of meeting, some person, less acquainted with Crichton himself than with his reputation, subjoined the
loliowing sarcastic inscription to his program on the gate of the Sorbonne: “ If you would meet with this monster of perfection, to
make search for him either in the taverne or bawdy-house, is the readyest way to finde him.” The hint for this part of the story is
to all appearance borrowed from a work of mere fancy, in which Boccalini relates that a similar mordace facetia was practised upon
Crichton, not in Paris, but in Parnassus : “ E chi lo vuol vedere, vada all’ hosteria del Falcone, che li fara mostrato.” (Ragguagli
di Parnaso, tomi. p. 181.) v &
2 Mackenzie’s Lives of Scots Writers, vol. iii. p. 200—From the very loose and erroneous account of Crichton which occurs in
this work, was fabricated a separate tract published under the title of The Life of James Crichton of Clunie, commonly called the Admira-
Ue Crichton. Aberdeen, 1760, 8vo. It was printed, and probably edited, by Francis Douglas, who was a person of some taste for
literature. Dr Mackenzie’s account, thus disguised, was inserted in an appendix to Mr Pennant’s Tour in Scotland, vol. i. p. 315.
edit. Lond. 1790, 3 yols. 4to. & ^ 1
* Boccalini, Ragguagli di Parnaso, tom. i. p. 180. ed. Amst. 1669, 2 tom. 12mo.
* Dempster! Historia Ecclesiastica Gentis Scotorum, p. 188. Bononise, 1627, 4to.
* Jacobi Critonii in Appulsu ad celeberrimam Urbem Venetam Carmen ad Aldum Manutium. Venetiis, 1580, 4to. (Renouard,
Annales de ITmprimerie des Aides, tom. ii. p. 125.)—Gabriel Naude speaks of Crichton’s orations being printed: “ Tel negligera.
CRICHTON.
Crichton, likewise formed an intimate acquaintance with other men
of letters, particularly with Sperone Speroni, Lorenzo
Massa, and Giovanni Donati. An ode addressed to
Massa, and another to Donati, are preserved among his
literary reliques. But the friendship of Manutius was
distinguished by a more than ordinary degree of zeal: he
highly extolled Crichton when living, and deeply bewail¬
ed him when dead. To the notices which he has intro¬
duced into his edition of Cicero, we are in a great mea¬
sure indebted for our knowledge of the young scholar’s
proceedings in the territory of Venice. His edition of
the Paradoxa he inscribed “ Nobilissimo juveni Jacobo
Critonio Scotoand the dedication, dated on the first of
June 1581, contains a recital of some of those literary ex¬
ploits which astonished the Italians.1
An oration which Crichton pronounced before the Doge
and the nobility of Venice excited the admiration of his
audience, by the eloquence of the composition, as well as
by the gracefulness of the elocution, insomuch that the
young orator was regarded as a person of the most extra¬
ordinary endowments. He afterwards engaged in various
disputations on subjects of divinity, philosophy, and the
mathematical sciences; and such was the reputation
which he now acquired, that, during the remainder of his
short career, he seems to have been viewed as one of the
wonders of Italy. It has been thought a circumstance
worthy of being recorded in the life of Mazzoni, celebrat¬
ed among his countrymen for his powers of literary debate,
that he thrice encountered Crichton at Venice, and over¬
whelmed him by the astonishing copiousness and subtilty
of his arguments. If it was reckoned an honour fora man
of high reputation to sustain a contest with so youthful an
antagonist, we cannot fail to perceive the singular estima¬
tion in which that antagonist must have been held.
These intellectual exertions were succeeded by an in¬
firm state of health, which continued for upwards of four
months ; and before he had completely recovered, he made
an excursion to Padua, the seat of a flourishing university.
The professors in all the different faculties were invited to
meet him in the house of a person of rank; and there, in
the midst of a numerous assembly, he exhibited new and
striking proofs of the versatility of his genius. He com¬
menced his performances with the recitation of an ex¬
temporaneous poem in celebration of Padua; a subject
which was only then proposed to him, and which he treat¬
ed in a manner that is described as very elegant. With
much acuteness and learning, he afterwards discussed
various topics of science with the doctors who were there
assembled; and it is particularly mentioned that he ex¬
posed many of the errors of Aristotle and his commenta¬
tors. Having thus displayed his knowledge for the space of
six hours, the final theme proposed to him was the praise
of ignorance; and on this subject he pronounced an ora¬
tion, which still further excited the admiration of his learn¬
ed auditors. A similar exhibition was announced to be
held in the bishop’s palace, but, for some reason which is
not plainly stated, it did not take place. The popular ap-
499
plause which attended such demonstrations of intellectual Crichton,
superiority, had too natural a tendency to excite envy, and y-w'
to provoke detraction, nor did Crichton escape that lot
which has been common to so many others. On his re¬
turn to Venice, he was induced by the malignity of cer¬
tain individuals, whom he does not mention by name, to
publish a remarkable program, which has been preserved
by his friend Manutius. In order to expose the futility of
their cavils, he undertook to refute innumerable errors of
Aristotle, and of all the Latin philosophers, that is, all the
schoolmen, both in their expositions of his doctrines, and
in their disquisitions on subjects of theology, together
with the errors of certain professors of mathematics, and
to answer such objections as might be urged against him.
He further gave his antagonists the option of selecting
their topics of disputation from any other branch of sci¬
ence, whether publicly taught in the schools, or privately
investigated by the most profound philosophers; and he
undertook to return his answers, as the proponents should
themselves determine, either according to the usual figures
of logic, according to the secret doctrine of numbers, or
mathematical figures, or in any one out of a hundred differ¬
ent species of verse. The challenge may appear suffi¬
ciently bold, if not arrogant; but unless it came from a
person who was conscious of possessing very extraordi¬
nary powers of intellect, and who had repeatedly applied
to them a severe and unequivocal test, it could scarcely
be viewed in any other light than as an indication of
insanity. He appealed to a community which included
many competent judges of such pretensions, and therefore
could not hope to impose upon an unlearned multitude.
The appointed place of meeting was the church of St
John and St Paul; and there, for the space of three days,
this young man sustained the arduous trial in a manner
which fully justified his confidence in his own intellectual
resources. His friend Aldus Manutius was a spectator
of his triumphs upon this occasion ; and though some
allowances must doubtless be made for the warmth of
friendship, and for an Italian taste in writing, it is still to
be remembered that when he published his account, the
event to which it referred was altogether recent, and he
necessarily appealed to a cloud of living witnesses, who
would have treated his panegyric with derision, if Crich¬
ton had obviously failed in supporting his own lofty pre¬
tensions.
After his departure from Venice, he betook himself to
Mantua; and there, according to Urquhart’s romantic nar¬
rative, he rendered himself very conspicuous by his valiant
encounter with a fierce Italian gentleman, who had re¬
cently slain three antagonists. Crichton is said to have
challenged this redoubtable champion, and, after many
efforts of mutual skill, to have brought the matter to this
conclusion : “ His right foot did beat the cadence of the
blow that pierced the belly of this Italian; whose heart
and throat being hit with the two former stroaks, these
three franch bouts given in upon the back of other: besides
that, if lines were imagined drawn from the hand that liver-
Ll'TS6’168 0/‘™S de J\cr(lues Cnton, parce qu’elles ne se trouvent qu’imprimees separdment, qui aura dans sa bibliotheque
de Raymond, Gallutius, Nigromus, Bencius, Perpinian, et de beaucoup d’autres autheurs, non pas qu’elles soient meilleures
volnml’wf*!6- eslo(iue]ntes (lue cellf>sld,e cf docte Escossois, mais parce qu’elles se trouvent reserrees et continues dans de certains
CrX i dviSc Pu0Ur dreSSfr un^ Elbll0the(l1Je’ P- 76- edit. Paris, 1644, 8vo.) Naudd apparently confounds him with George
nnHkl a 0C ,° law’who was yo3’a Professor of Greek in the university of Paris, and the author of various orations
puDiisned in a detached form. He married a daughter of his countryman Adam Blackwood. (Niceron, Memoires des Hommes
byUOkusdRS lauRePUbXrUe desEettres’ t0„m- xxxvii- P- 346.) The poems of the two Crichtons are mentioned in the following terms
tam X ,1 °mf1US : : XC,0b° Lntt0nl° .SJcoto1no.n ignotum fuisse Pegaseium melos docent heroica, quibus suum in urbem Vene-
M5CP FrancofSi683 4to)US tamen Cal°nS CU tUSqUe in epids GeorSii Crittonii.” (Dissertationes Academic® de Poetis,
^roo ^ranutri“S’ t0gethe*wit.h th.e four Latin P°ems of Crichton, are reprinted in Gnevius’s edition of Cicero
to Mr TvVw’s rA?St; ^l688; «vo- 7, TJe/may hkewise befound in the BlograpMa Britannica, vol. iv. p. 452, and in the appendix
occur in A4™rfle Crrxhton, p. 292. Only two of the poems, the hexameters on Venice and the ode to Manutius,
occur in the Dehace Poetarum Scotorum, tom. i. p. 268. ’
500
CRICHTON.
Crichton, ed them, to the places which were marked by them, they
v'—-y'w/ would represent a perfect isosceles triangle, with a per¬
pendicular from the top-angle, cutting the basis in the
middle.”1 The learned knight had studied mathematics,
and he seems to have been fully resolved that his know¬
ledge should be turned to some account. This combat he
has described in a very circumstantial manner ; but, view¬
ing his unsupported authority with no small degree of sus¬
picion, we feel no inclination to repeat his martial details,
which however are not a little curious in themselves. But
it is a fact confirmed by other evidence that Crichton was
invited or attracted to the court of Mantua, and that the
duke appointed him tutor to his son Vincenzo Gonzaga.
Here, according to the knight of Cromarty, he displayed
his dramatic talents as conspicuously as he had formerly
displayed his learning and his prowess. In the space of
five hours, he is said to have represented fifteen different
characters, and to have supported each of them with mar¬
vellous effect. But his brilliant career was speedily to
close. When he was one evening walking in the streets
of Mantua with his lute in his hand, he was unexpectedly
assailed by three individuals ; and drawing his sword, he
pressed upon them with so much skill and resolution, that
the principal aggressor was impelled by his fears to discover
himself as young Gonzaga. Crichton fell upon his knees,
and entreated forgiveness for an act which evidently in¬
ferred no guilt, when the prince instantly pierced him
through the body, and terminated the mortal existence of
one of the most remarkable persons of the era to which he
belonged.2 This act of base ferocity was perpetrated on
the third of July 1583, when Crichton had nearly com¬
pleted the twenty-third year of his age.
The elegance of his person had procured him the admi¬
ration of those who were unable to estimate the powers
of his mind. His countenance is described as beautiful;
but his right eye was marked, if not somewhat disfigured,
by a red spot, or, as Manutius describes it, a red rose by
which it was surrounded. His reputation as a scholar did
not render him indifferent to the more superficial accom¬
plishments of a gentleman : his address wras courteous, and
he was a proficient in dancing, as well as in the gymnastic
and martial exercises to which youths of his condition
were then addicted.
The unrivalled fame of this young scholar is certainly
allied to romance; but, on the other hand, it is very dif¬
ficult to imagine that it was not originally founded on
some qualities which eminently distinguished him from
other forward and aspiring youths, who at that period
were sufficiently numerous in the more learned countries
of Europe. A reputation so splendid, and so uniformly
maintained, cannot reasonably be ascribed to a mere con¬
currence of accidental circumstances. The specimens of
his Latin poetry which have been preserved do not indeed
contain any thing very remarkable; but they are few in Crichton,
number, and were not published by himself; nor does his v—
reputation depend upon one species of excellence. He is
celebrated for the wonderful facility with which he com¬
posed verses, for his knowledge of ten or twelve different
languages, for his acquaintance with the writings of the
fathers, for his uncommon powers of memory, and for his
promptitude and acuteness in public disputation. We
must not therefore hastily conclude that he “ was in Italy
considered as one of those literary mountebanks who were
numerous in that age ;” or that his reputation chiefly de¬
pends on the romantic flights of Sir Thomas Urquhart,
who wrote about seventy years after his death. Joseph
Scaliger, who flourished at the same period with himself,
who professes to have obtained his information in Italy,
and who besides was not too prone to admiration, men¬
tions Crichton as a prodigious genius, and indeed enu¬
merates all the most essential qualifications that are com¬
monly ascribed to him.3 His testimony, which is entire¬
ly overlooked by the late Dr Black,4 is certainly of consi¬
derable weight and importance. Crichton is likewise ex¬
tolled in terms of the highest admiration, in a work pub¬
lished so early as the year 1609 by Dr Abernethy, a na¬
tive of Edinburgh, and a member of the university of
Montpellier.5 The longer of the two poems which he
wrote in celebration of his young countryman, commences
with these verses:
O fcelix animijuvenis Chrichtone ! vigore
Ingenii volitante supra qui vectus in astra
Humanam sortem, et mortalis culmen honoris,
Seu plaeuit Musas colere, aut glomeramine campum
Tundere cornipedis, pictisve ardescere in armis;
Grandia sublimis nuper miracu a mentis
Monstrasti attonito, et rapuisti protinus orbi.6
To the early testimonies which we have already produ¬
ced, many others, somewhat more recent, might easily be
added ; and we are fully prepared to acquiesce in the opi¬
nion of Dr Johnson, that of Crichton’s history, “ whatever
we may suppress as surpassing credibility, yet we shall, upon
incontestible authority, relate enough to rank him among
prodigies.”7 Dr Kippis, who has written a copious ac¬
count of this renowned youth, has legitimately applied the
test of criticism to several of the early notices ; and many
of his strictures, particularly those on Urquhart and Mac¬
kenzie, every person of a sober judgment must admit to be
too well founded. We have however placed no reliance on
such authorities, but have derived all our materials from
better sources. “ He appears,” says this biographer, “ to
have had a fine person, to have been adroit in his bodily ex¬
ercises, to have possessed a peculiar facility in learning lan¬
guages, to have enjoyed a remarkably quick and retentive
memory, and to have excelled in a power of declamation, a
fluency of speech, and a readiness of reply. His know-
1 Urquhart’s Discovery of a most exquisite Jewel, p. 90.
>c * ^mPeria^s Musseum Historicum, p. 242. Venetiis, 1640, 4to—In mentioning their first encounter, he uses the expression,
consulto an casu, incertum nor are we in possession of any more specific information. With regard to the date, there is some
egree or uncertainty. In the month of November 1583, Manutius bewailed his young friend as already dead, and pointedly referred
to the fatal third of July. Imperiali likewise states that he died on the third of July 1583. On the other hand, Serassi, in his Vita
th v sPea^s a Poem written by James Crichton on the death of Cardinal Borromeo, which did not take place till
ft, ^ °i v)vember 1584. But for such a fact as this, the authority of Manutius cannot well be called in question ; and we must
ra a the poem was written by another James Crichton, or by some person who thought proper to adopt his name.
Yf f °fU7 P.ar er (^. un Critton Lscossois en Italie, qui n’avoit que 21 ans, quand il a estd tue par le commandement du due de
Mantoue; et qui sqayoit 12 langues, avoit leu les peres, poetes, disputoit de omni scibili, et respondoit en vers. C’estoit ingenium
prodigiosum, admiratione magis quam amore dignum. II estoit un peu fat. Ei judicium non tantum adfuit. Principes sclent ilia
rana^p n°n Ver° bene (ioctos- Manutius praefatione ad Paradoxa, quam dicat Crittonio, meminit illius ingenii.” (Scalige-
4 Black s Life of lasso, vol. ii. p. 413. Edinb. 1810, 2 vols. 4to.
s Adam Abeinethy took the degree of A. M. at Edinburgh on the 7th of August 1594. He afterwards took that of M. D. proba-
k «111 some,orei£n university. He is described as “ Monspeliensis academiae moderator.”
Musa Campestris, &c. authore Adamo Abrenetheo ex Scoto-Britannia, Edinburgeno. Monspelii, 1609, 8vo.
7 Adventurer, No. 81. > & e j >
\
C R I
C R I
501
Cricket, ledge, likewise, was probably very uncommon for his years;
and this, in conjunction with his other qualities, enabled
him to shine in public disputation. But whether his know¬
ledge and learning w'ere accurate or profound, may justly
be questioned ; and it may equally be doubted whether he
would have arisen to any extraordinary degree of eminence
in the literary world. It will always be reflected upon with
regret, that his early and untimely death prevented this
matter from being brought to the test of experiment.”1 In
all controversies, it is of the first importance to ascertain
the real state of the question. In a youth of twenty-three,
whatever superiority of intellect he may possess, we do
not expect to find the erudition of Scaliger or Salmasius.
Those who extol Crichton as a very extraordinary person
do not necessarily suppose that his attainments exceeded
the limits of human genius ; but they may reasonably be¬
lieve that in various departments of science and literature
he arrived at a degree of proficiency wonderfully prema¬
ture ; that he evinced great energy of application, with
unusual powers of memory; and that of the knowledge
which he so rapidly acquired, he possessed so ready a com¬
mand, together with so much promptitude and acuteness of
mental exertion, that he appeared as a prodigy among men
of the ordinary standard of intellectual excellence.2 (d. i.j
CRICKET. See index to Entomology.
Cricket, a well-known game with bats and ball. This
favourite English pastime appears to be as old as the
thirteenth century. It was not played at that early date
in its present form, nor was the game then known under
the name it now bears, but traces of its existence are
found in various old English works. The game of single¬
wicket is known, from a MS. in the Bodleian Library, to
have been played at least as early as 1344 ; and a kind of
cricket called handyn and handoute, is mentioned in the
statutes of Edward IV. as unlawful in consequence of
the gambling to which it led. The double-wicket game,
under the title of “ Cat and Dog,” was a popular recreation
in certain counties of Scotland, at the beginning of the
eighteenth century. The name of Cricket, however, which
is derived from Creag, the Saxon word for a crooked stick,
is not found in any English author till the year 1685, when
it occurs in the Mysteries of Love and Eloquence, by Ed¬
ward Phillips, the nephew of Milton. About the beginning
of the eighteenth century, repeated allusions to the game
under its present denomination are found in the writings of
Tom D’Urfey, Pope, Duncome, and Soame Jenyns.
The south and south-eastern counties of England appear
to have been the cradle of the game of cricket; Surrey,
Sussex, Kent, and Hampshire, were the counties in which
it was first systematically and successfully practised. Farn-
ham in Surrey was the parish which produced the largest
number of good players at the time when the game wras
slowly establishing itself throughout England as a national
pastime towards the close of the last century. At this time
the formation of the Hambledon Club contributed greatly
to extend the game and elevate the standard of play. New
clubs were formed in the centre and west of England, and
the spirit of emulation, fostered and encouraged by the trials
of skill to which these clubs challenged each other from
time to time, gave rise to an astonishingly high standard of
excellence. Of late years the propaganda of the metropo¬
litan clubs has diffused throughout the whole of England,
and the southern districts of Scotland, a taste for this manly
pastime, which, however, has not yet become naturalized in
any other country in the world.
There are two games of cricket, double-wicket and single¬
wicket. In both that side is victorious which obtains the
greatest number of runs in two innings.
Double-wicket requires twenty-two players, eleven on
each side. The two sides toss up for the first innings; and
two players, belonging to the side that wins the toss go in,
one at each wicket. The out-party place themselves in
various situations on the field to catch or stop the ball when
struck by the batsman. One of the bowlers begins bowling
a round or “ over” of six bowls, his object being to strike
down the wicket; if he succeed, the batsman retires from
the game, and another of his party takes the bat. If how¬
ever the ball is struck by the batsman, he and his partner
run, exchanging wickets till the ball is thrown up to the
bowler. One notch is scored towards their game every
time they change wickets. Should their bails be knocked
off, however, either by the bowler or the wicket-keeper be¬
fore they recover their ground, they are “ out;” or, if the ball
be caught by any of the fielders before it touches the ground,
the batsman who struck it is out. After the bowler has
bowled four or six times (as may have been agreed upon)
the umpire calls out “ over,” and the fielders reverse their
position, crossing over the field so as to assume proper posi¬
tions for the new bowling which now begins from the other
wicket. At the end of every four or six bowls this change
in the position of the field takes place: and so on alter¬
nately. When all the players on the one side have been
put out, their antagonists go in and play till their innings
is over. When each side has had two innings, the notches
are counted, and that party is victorious which has scored
the highest number.
Single-wicket may be played by any number of persons,
but four or six players a side is as large a number as can
conveniently play. The distance of the wickets, and the
object of batsmen nd bowlers are the same as in double¬
wicket.
LAWS OF CRICKET, AS REVISED BY THE MARYLEBONE
CLUB IN THE YEAR 1844.
L The ball must weigh not less than five ounces and a half, nor
more than five ounces and three quarters. It must measure not
less than nine inches, nor more than nine inches and one quarter
in circumference. At the beginning of each innings either party
may call for a new ball.
II. The bat must not exceed four inches and one quarter in the
widest part; it must not be more than thirty-eight inches in length.
III. The stumps must be three in number, twenty-seven inches
out of the ground; the bails eight inches in length, the stumps of
equal, and of sufficient thickness to prevent the ball from passing
through.
IV. The bowling crease must be in a line with the stumps ; six
feet eight inches in length; the stumps in the centre, with a return
crease at each end towards the bowler at right angles,
V. The popping crease must be four feet from the wicket, and
parallel to it; unlimited in length, but not shorter than the bowl¬
ing crease.
VI. The wickets must be pitched opposite to each other, by the
umpires, at the distance of twenty-two yards.
VII. It shall not be lawful for either party during a match,,
without the consent of the other, to alter the ground by rolling,,
watering, covering, mowing, or beating. This rule is not meant
to prevent the striker from beating the ground with his bat, near
to the spot where he stands during the innings, nor to prevent the-
bowler from filling up holes with saw-dust, &c., when the ground
shall be wet.
VIII. After rain the wickets may be changed with the consent
of both parties.
IX. The bowler shall deliver the ball with one foot on the ground
behind the bowling crease, and within the return crease, and shall
bowl four balls before he changes wickets, which he shall be per¬
mitted to do once only in the same innings.
1 Biographia Britannica, vol. iv. p. 455.
tnm 06 S’’STu?7le> “ 1,un des P1118 extraordinaires prodiges d’esprit qu’on ait jamais vus.” (Dictionnaire Historique et Critiqut
wm. j. p. 941.) This is scarcely exceeded by the panegyric of Imperiali: “ Hie est Oritonius ille Scotus, transact! duodum saeculi mon
adh, ’ Pk- 1-S1^S0-n«Urae.0pificis C0°atU e.ditUm’ qu? Parnassi sPacia stupendo et inusitato spectaculo illustrarentur. Hie est totiu
spTnni^^ 18 1C1° ingem°rum> menkis igniculis summi potius datoris referens majestatem. quam mortalem a<
aemulandum lacessens industriam.” (Musaeum Historicum, p. 241.)
Cricket.
502
CRICKET.
Cricket. X. The ball must be bowled; if it be thrown or jerked, or if
the hand be above the shoulder in the delivery, the umpire must
call “ No ball.”
XI. He may require the striker at the wicket from which he is
bowling to stand on that side of it which he may direct.
XII. If the bowler toss the ball over the striker’s head, or bowl
it so wide that it shall be out of distance to be played at, the um¬
pire (even although he attempt to hit it) shall adjudge one run to
the parties receiving the innings, either with or without an appeal
from them; which shall be put down to the score of wide balls;
and such ball shall not be reckoned as any of the four balls.
XIII. If the bowler deliver a “ no ball” or a “ wide ball,” the
striker shall be allowed as many runs as he can get, and he shall
not be out except by running out. In the event of no run being
obtained by any other means, then one shall be added to the score
of “ no balls” or “ wide balls,” as the case may be. All runs ob¬
tained by “ wide balls” to be scored to “ wide balls.” The names
of the bowlers who bowl “ wide balls” or “ no ball” in future to
be placed on the score, to show the parties by whom either score
is made.
XIV. At the beginning of each innings the umpire shall call
“ Play.” From that time to the end of each innings no trial ball
shall be allowed to any bowler.
XV. The striker is out if either of the bails be bowled off, or
if a stump be bowled out of the ground.
XVI. Or if the ball from the stroke of the bat, or hand, but not
the wrist, be held before it touch the ground, although it be hugged
to the body of the catcher.
XVII. Or if, in striking, or at any other time while the ball shall
be in play, both his feet shall be over the popping crease, and his
wicket put down, except his bat be grounded within it.
XVIII. Or if, in striking at the ball, he hit down his wicket.
XIX. Or if, under pretence of running or otherwise, either of
the strikers prevent a ball from being caught, the striker of the
ball is out.
XX. Or if the ball be struck, and he wilfully strike it again.
XXI. Or if, in running, the wicket be struck down by a throw,
or by the hand or arm (with ball in hand) before his bat (in hand)
or some part of his person be grounded over the popping crease.
But if both the bails be off, a stump must be struck out of the
ground.
XXII. Or if any part of the striker’s dress knock down the
wicket.
XXIII. Or if the striker touch or take up the ball while in play,
unless at the request of the opposite party.
XXIV. Or if with any part of his person he stop the ball, which,
in the opinion of the umpire at the bowler’s wicket, shall have been
pitched in a straight line from it to the striker’s wicket, and would
have hit it.
XXV. If the players have crossed each other, he that runs for
the wicket which is put down is out.
XXVI. A ball being caught, no run shall be reckoned.
XXVII. A striker being run out, that run which he and his part¬
ner were attempting shall not be reckoned.
XXVIII. If a “ lost ball” be called, the striker shall be allowed
six runs; but if more than six shall have been run before “ lost
ball” shall have been called, then the striker shall have all which
have been run.
XXIX. After the ball shall have been finally settled in the wicket¬
keeper’s or bowler’s hand, it shall be considered dead; but when the
bowler is about to deliver the ball, if the striker at his wicket go
outside the popping crease before such actual delivery, the said
bowler may put him out, unless (with reference to Law XXI.) his
bat in hand, or some part of his person, be within the popping crease.
XXX. If the striker be hurt, he may retire from his wicket, and
return to it any time during that innings.
XXXI. If the striker be hurt, some other person may stand out
for him, but not go in.
XXXII. No substitute in the field shall be allowed to bowl, keep
wicket, stand at the point, cover the point, or stop behind in any
case.
XXXIII. If any fieldsman stop the ball with his hat, the ball
shall be considered dead, and the opposite party shall add five runs
to their score; if any be run, they shall have five in all.
XXXIV. The ball having been hit, the striker may guard his
wicket with his bat, or with any part of his body except his hands;
that Law XXIII. may not be disobeyed.
XXXV. The wicket-keeper shall not take the ball for the pur¬
pose of stumping until it have passed the wicket; he shall not move
till the ball be out of the bowler’s hand ; he shall not by any noise
incommode the striker; and if any part of his person be over or be¬
fore the wicket, although the ball hit it, the striker shall not be out.
XXXVI. The umpires are sole judges of fair or unfair play, and
all disputes shall be determined by them, each at his own wicket;
but in case of catch, which the umpire at the wicket bowled from Cricket
cannot see sufficiently to decide upon, he may apply to the other ^
umpire, whose opinion shall be conclusive.
XXXVII. The umpires in all matches shall pitch fair wickets,
and the parties shall toss up for the choice of innings.
XXXVIII. They shall allow two minutes for each striker to come
in, and ten minutes between each innings. When the umpires shall
call “ Play,” the party refusing to play shall lose the match.
XXXIX. They are not to order a striker out unless appealed to
by the adversaries.
XL. But if one of the bowler’s feet be not on the ground behind
the bowling crease, and within the return crease when he shall de¬
liver the ball, the umpire of the wicket unasked shall call “No ball.”
XLI. If either of the strikers run a short run, the umpire must
call one short.
XLII. No umpire shall be allowed to bet.
XLIII. No umpire is to change during a match, unless with the
consent of both parties, except in case of violation of Law XLII.;
then either party may dismiss the transgressor.
XLIV. After the delivery of four balls, the umpire must call
“ Overbut not until the ball be finally settled in the wicket¬
keeper’s or bowler’s hand ; the ball shall then be considered dead ;
nevertheless, if an idea be entertained that either of the strikers is
out, a question may be put previously to, but not after the delivery
of the next ball.
XLV. The umpire must take especial care to call “ No ball” in-
stantly upon delivery ; “ Wide ball” as soon as ever it shall pass the
striker.
XLVI. The players who go in second shall follow their innings,
if they have obtained one hundred less runs than their antagonists.
XLVII. When one of the strikers shall have been put out, the
use of the bat shall not be allowed to any person until the next
striker shall come in.
LAWS FOR SINGLE-WICKET.
I. When there shall be less than five players on a side, bounds
shall be placed twenty-two yards each in a line from the off and
leg stump.
II. The ball must be hit before the bounds to entitle the striker
to a run, which run cannot be obtained unless he touch the bowling
stump, or crease, in a line with his bat, or some part of his person,
or go beyond them, returning to the popping crease as at double¬
wicket, according to Law XXI.
III. When the striker shall hit the ball one of his feet must be
on the ground and behind the popping crease j otherwise the um¬
pire shall call “ No hit.”
IV. When there shall be less than five players on a side, neither
byes nor overthrows shall be allowed, nor shall the striker be caught
out behind the wicket, or stumped out.
V. The fieldsman must return the ball so that it shall cross the
play between the wicket and the bowling stump, or between the
bowling stump and the bounds; the striker may run till the ball
be so returned.
VI. After the striker shall have made one run, if he start again
he must touch the bowling stump, and turn, before the ball shall
cross the play, to entitle him to another.
VII. The striker shall be entitled to three runs for lost ball, and
the same number for ball stopped with hat; with reference to Laws
XXVIII. and XXXIII. of double-wicket.
VIII. When there shall be more than four players on a side,
there shall be no bounds. All lists, byes, and overthrows, shall then
be allowed.
IX. The bowler is subject to the same laws as at double-wicket.
X. Not more than one minute shall be allowed between each
ball.
ADDENDA.
XI. The ball must be bowled, not thrown or jerked, and the hand
must not be above the shoulder in delivery; and whenever the
bowler shall so closely infringe on this rule, in either of the above
particulars, as to make it difficult for the umpire at the bowler’s
wicket to judge whether the ball has been delivered within the
true intent and meaning of this rule, or not, the umpire shall call
“ No ball.”
XII. If the bowler shall toss the ball over the striker’s head, or
bowl it so wide, that, in the opinion of the umpire, it shall not
be fairly within the reach of the batsman, he shall adjudge one run
to the parties receiving the innings, either with or without an ap¬
peal, which shall be put down to the score of “ wide balls such
ball shall not be reckoned as one of the four balls; but if the bats¬
man shall by any means bring himself within reach of the ball,
the run shall not be adjudged.
XIII. The umpires in all matches shall pitch fair wickets, and
the parties shall toss up for the choice of innings. The umpires
shall change wickets after each party has had one innings.
C R X
rickhowel CRICKHO WEL, a market-town of South Wales, county
|| of Brecon, picturesquely situated on the Usk, 8 miles west
Crimea, nortl] 0f Abergavenny. It has remains of a castle, and
is much resorted to by tourists and invalids. Pop. of parish
(1851) 1403.
CRICKLADE, a parliamentary borough of England,
county of Wilts, consisting of the hundreds and divisions
of Highworth, Cricklade, Staple, Kingsbridge, and Malms-
bury (except such part of the hundred of Malmsbury as is
included within the borough of Malmsbury). Pop. (1851)
35,503. Cricklade returns two members to parliament.
Registered electors (1851-52) 1647. The old market-
town of this name consists of the parishes of St Mary and
St Sampson, having in 1851, 431 and 1475 inhabitants re¬
spectively. It is situated on the right bank of the Thames,
9 miles S.E. of Cirencester, and 84 miles from London. The
church of St Sampson is a spacious cruciform edifice, with
a lofty and highly ornamented tower. The market for¬
merly held on Saturday is now discontinued.
CRICOID (kpikos, a ring), in the form of a ring; annular.
CRIEFF, a burgh of barony of Perthshire, Scotland, on
the north bank of the Earn, a tributary of the Tay, 15 miles
west of Perth. It is the second town in the county, and
in 1851 had 3824 inhabitants. It stands near the foot of
the Grampians, at the entrance of one of the important
passes to the highlands, and the environs are noted for their
beauty. The greatest cattle-market in Scotland was held
here previous to 1770, when it was removed to Falkirk.
The principal manufacture is that of cottons ; but it has also
manufactures of linen, worsted, and woollen stuffs ; tan¬
neries, corn and oil mills, distilleries, and a considerable
trade in tambouring and flowering webs for Glasgow houses.
It has several handsome churches, a town-house, assembly
room, savings-bank, mechanics’ institute, reading-room, and
several libraries. An educational establishment called St
Margaret’s College, for young ladies of the Episcopal com¬
munion, has recently been organized here. There is a
handsome bridge of four arches across the Earn; and in the
middle of the central street is a curious old cross.
CRIMEA, a peninsula in the Black Sea, forming part of
the Russian government of Taurida, with the mainland of
which it is connected by the isthmus of Perekop. It is si¬
tuate between 44. and 46. N. Lat, and 32. and 37. E. Long.
It is of an irregular square, or rhomboid form, measuring
diagonally about 190 miles from east to west, and 123 from
north to south, and containing an area of about 8000 square
miles. Its south-eastern, western, and north-western coasts
are washed by the Black Sea, and the eastern by a shallow
lagoon called the Sivash, or Putrid Sea, which is connected
with the Sea of Azoff by a very narrow strait, and separated
from it by a tongue of land, consisting of sand and broken
shells, about 70 miles in length, and 1 to in breadth.
The eastern part of the Crimea forms a minor peninsula,
stretching eastward to the strait of Kertsh or Caffa, or Je-
nikaleh, the ancient Cimmerian Bosporus, which forms the
communication between the Black Sea and the Sea of AzofF,
but is not navigable by large or deeply-laden vessels.
The Crimea consists mostly of a continuation of the
ice steppes that occupy so large a portion of the southern go¬
vernments of Russia. From the isthmus of Perekop, south¬
wards to the neighbourhood of Kara-su-bazar, the country
is one continued flat; then it rises by an easy gradation to
the summit of a chain of hills that occupy the southern part
of the peninsula, extending along the shore of the Black
Sea from the vicinity of Kaffa to Sebastopol, to the south¬
ward of which they form the celebrated promontory called
by the Greeks Kriou Metopon, or the Ram’s Face, and now
by the Tatars Ai Burun, or the Holy Cape. These hills are
composed mostly of calcareous rocks, and no primary rocks
are to be found among them, nor in any other part of the
peninsula. They rise abruptly from the sea to a consider-
C R I 503
able elevation; and the highest, called by the ancient Greeks Crimea.
Trapezus, or the table-mountain, from the flatness of its v—
summit, and now called by the Tatars Tchatir-dagh, or the
Tent Mountain, is 790 toises = 5051 feet above the level
of the sea. The coast of this mountainous region is very
picturesque, and numerous vineyards have been formed
along its sunny slopes; but though they have the advantage
of a fine exposure and a favourable climate, they have not
been successful in the culture of the grape. The mountains
produce likewise timber for shipbuilding, and abound with
wild beasts. They are intersected by valleys of fine arable
land, and are said to be rich in mineral produce of various
kinds. From the northern foot of the mountains the country
sinks into a boundless level steppe, mostly smooth as a bowl¬
ing-green, with a soil of a dark coloured loam, with brackish
water gathered in its hollows, but without either springs or
rivers, though the beds of rivers that once existed may still
be traced. The soil is generally impregnated with salt; but
wherever it is capable of cultivation the surface is covered
with plants, whose gaudy blossoms fill the air with fragrance.
The most valuable product of this part of the country is
salt, which is mostly derived, and in very large quantities,
from lakes near Perekop, Kozlov, Kaffa, and Kertsh.
The only rivers worth mentioning are the Salghir and Rivers,
the Kara-su or Blackwater. The former, which rises from
a cavern near Simferopol, at the northern foot of the Tchatir-
dagh, falls straight into the plain below, and then runs north¬
eastward into the Putrid Sea, watering in its course the
central part of the peninsula. The Blackwater rises from
the mountains a little farther east, and falls into the Salghir
in the lower part of its course. Neither of them is navigable.
The Alma is a small stream a little north of Sebastopol,
with steep southern banks, celebrated for the defeat of the
Russian army, September 20, 1854, by the allied forces of
France and Britain.
The climate from March to May is said to be most sa- Climate,
lubrious and delightful, the heat being moderate and refresh¬
ing, and the nights cool and serene. The summers are
irregular and very hot, the thermometer rising to 100° in
the steppe. Long droughts then frequently prevail, parch¬
ing up the verdure; while thunderstorms, accompanied with
hail and heavy rains, are frequent and destructive. The
autumn is unhealthy, fevers and agues being then very pre¬
valent and often fatal. In winter the mountains are covered
with snow, which continues on the higher ones till June;
and even in the plains the weather is sometimes extremely
severe. Throughout the year the winds are very variable.
They bring rain from the west, mild air and mists from the
south, clear dry weather from the east, and cold from the
north. Of late years the climate is believed to have changed
materially for the worse; and fevers have become so preva¬
lent in every part of the peninsula, that it is considered
scarcely possible for a stranger to escape them.
In ancient times the Crimea, then called the Tauric penin- Vegetable
sula, produced a great quantity of corn, which was exported produc-
to Athens and other parts of Greece; and, with proper in- tions.
dustry, it is believed to be still capable of maintaining its
ancient productiveness. But the Tatars, who form the bulk
of its present inhabitants, prefer the pastoral to the agricul¬
tural life; and so much do they neglect the cultivation of
the soil, that even in the best years a large quantity of corn
has to be imported. The sunny slopes of the mountains
being supposed to be favourable to the cultivation of the
vine, the Russian government has endeavoured to introduce
it, and a large extent of the hill sides near Prince Woron-
zoff’s palace of Marsanda has been covered with vineyards;
but the produce has not been sufficient to remunerate the
labour of the cultivators. The wine is not remarkable for
either flavour or strength. The same part of the country
likewise produces excellent garden fruits, particularly apples,
which are so highly esteemed as to form an article of com-
504
CRIMEA.
Crimea.
Animals.
Commer¬
cial pro¬
ductions
and ex¬
ports.
Ancient
Inhabit¬
ants.
History.
merce as far as Moscow. Trees, if planted in the steppe,
perish altogether, after a brief existence of a year to two.
According to Pallas, the most prevalent trees and shrubs
that naturally occur are mountain-pine, juniper, yew, and
some other evergreens, oak, beech, elm, several kinds of
poplar, linden, maple, and ash. Wild sage and thyme are
the prevalent plants of the mountains, and many parts of
the steppe yield a rich and luxuriant pasturage. Of culti¬
vated plants, wheat, barley, rye, oats, maize, millet, peas,
flax, and tobacco, are grown in the fields; and in the gar¬
dens, melons, water-melons, gourds, and cucumbers. The
other principal fruits produced, besides apples, are quinces,
plums, peaches, apricots, cherries, mulberries, walnuts, hazel¬
nuts, and chestnuts.
The wild animals consist of wolves, foxes, badgers, weasels,
hares, and jerboas; the tame, or domesticated double¬
humped camels, buffaloes, and beeves; three kinds of sheep,
one of which is distinguished from those of any other country
by short curly wool of a bluish-gray colour; goats, dogs,
and deer. The Tatars possess large herds and flocks of
sheep, oxen, camels, and buffaloes, with small wiry horses
more remarkable for activity and intelligence than for
beauty. The variety of birds is not great, consisting mostly
of crows, owls, thrushes, blackbirds, partridges, quails, king¬
fishers, pigeons and poultry, geese, swans, ducks, teal, and
gulls of various species. Serpents, lizards, and frogs are
abundant; and the 'Rana variabilis—a most disgusting like
animal, swarms in the Sivash. Scorpions, tarantula-spiders,
and scolopendras, are found in the dwellings of the Tatars,
and are dangerous. Caterpillars and locusts are often very
destructive. Bees are abundant, and produce excellent
honey and a great deal of wax. The rivers are not prolific
in fish ; but great abundance and variety haunt the sea-
coasts, among which are two kinds of sturgeon, mullet, her¬
ring, mackerel, oysters, and a variety of other shell-fish.
The most valuable commercial production is salt, which,
as already mentioned, is obtained in very large quantities
from tuzlas, or salt lakes, near Perekop, Kozlov, Kaffa, and
Kertsh. It is a government monopoly, and yields a consi¬
derable revenue. The other principal articles of commerce
and export are wine, honey, wax, leather, hides, wool, and
lambskins ; of the last of which, called shumski, great quan¬
tities are exported yearly to Poland and other neighbour¬
ing countries. The only manufacture worth notice is what
is called morocco leather, which is produced of good quality.
The mountains contain masses of red and white marbles,
full of cracks and fissures, which make them well adapted
for quarrying, if there were a demand.
The oldest known inhabitants of the Crimea were the
Cimmerians; but these were driven out by Scythians, only
leaving a remnant in the mountains, where they acquired
the name of Tauri. That these were a very savage peo¬
ple appears from the fact that every stranger that landed
on their coast was sacrificed to a goddess whom the Greeks,
from some supposed similarity of attribute, identified with
the Artemis of their own mythology, distinguishing her
however, as the Tauric Artemis. From these Tauri likewise
were derived the name of Tauric Peninsula, bestowed
upon the country by the ancient Greeks, and the modern
Russian name of Taurida.
About the year 550 b.c., the southern and eastern parts
of the peninsula were colonized by Greeks. On the western
side of the Bosporus the Milesians founded the city of
Panticapceum, called also Bosporos, now represented by
Kertsh. Being favourably situate for trade, it soon became
a place of importance, and the capital of a kingdom which
eventually included the whole of the peninsula. The last
of its kings, being hard pressed by the Scythians, voluntarily
ceded his dominions to Mithridates the Great, king of Pon-
tus, on the opposite side of the Euxine. After his down¬
fall his son Pharnaces was allowed to retain the kingdom of
Bosporos; and a series of kings continued to rule it till a Crimea
late period under the protection of the Roman empire. It
was afterwards invaded and overrun successively by the
Alans, the Goths and the Huns, and other barbarians, till
about the year 1237, when it fell into the hands of the
Mongols, under Genghis Khan, and became a province of
their empire and peopled by their roaming tribes. Soon
afterwards the Venetians established several commercial
stations on the coasts, and carried on a lucrative trade till
they were supplanted by the Genoese. These were allowed
by the Mongols to take possession of Kaffa, which they re¬
built and fortified, and made the centre of an extensive
trade, carried on overland, with Persia, India, and even
China. In 1441, the Crimea came into the possession of a
race of khans of the family of Genghis; but these were soon
afterwards subjected by the Ottoman Turks, who ruined
the foreign trade of the Crimea, and closed the navigation of
the Black Sea to the western Europeans. So matters con¬
tinued with unimportant changes till 1774, when, through
the intervention of the Czarina, Catherine II. of Russia, the
khans of the Crimea nominally recovered their indepen¬
dence, which continued how'ever only for ten years more,
when they were supplanted entirely, and the Crimea was an¬
nexed to the Russian empire. It now forms the southern or
peninsular portion of the Russian government of Taurida.
The population consists mostly of Tatars, but there are People,
also considerable numbers of Russians, Greeks, Germans,
Jews, Armenians, and Gypsies, The Tatars consist of
Nogays, who live in villages, and pique themselves on the
purity of their lineage, as being the unmixed descen¬
dants of those who settled in the Crimea in the time of
the Mongols ; and of Tatars of the steppe, who are of less
pure descent, but still consider themselves superior to the
Tatars of the southern coast, who are a mixed race, largely
alloyed with Greek, Italian, and Ottoman blood, and de¬
spised on that account by the two former races. The Tatars
are all Mohammedans, and Simferopol is the seat of one
of the two muftis of the Russian empire. They are classed
into mirzas or nobles, mollahs or priests, and peasants. The
noble families are now few in number, but there is a mollah
for every parish or small district. The Tatars are simple
in their manners and dress, and live principally on the pro¬
duce of their flocks and herds, not being much disposed to
the regular industry required for the cultivation of the soil.
Their character has been highly eulogized for sobriety, chas¬
tity, cleanliness, and hospitality; but this will apply prin¬
cipally to those that live in the country, while those who
live in towns are. probably not unlike the towmspeople of
other countries similarly circumstanced. The houses in
the towns, as well as in the villages, are built mostly of
square timbers, having the interstices filled up with brick¬
work or turf, and the chinks and crannies made tight with
clay, and then plastered both within and without, the roof
consisting of bricks or turfs. Only the medscheds or mosques
and the baths are of stone. The other inhabitants, Russian,
German, Armenian, and Gypsy, are in no way distinguish¬
able ; but the Jews are all of the Karaite sect, and remark¬
ably and honourably distinguished from their brethren
in other countries by their probity, for which, according to
Mr Oliphant, “ the Karaite merchant enjoys everywhere so
high a reputation, that throughout the Crimea his word is
considered equal to his bond.”
According to Pallas the population of the Crimea, before Popula-
its annexation to Russia, amounted to half a million of souls; tion.
but it was subsequently much reduced, chiefly through emi¬
gration. The population of the government of Taurida, of
which the Crimea forms the principal part, is stated to
amount to 543,000.
The towns are mostly situate on the coasts, or in the val- Cities an
ley of the Salghir. Simferopol, the provincial capital, towns,
situate on the banks of the Salghir, is a modern Russian
CRIMEA. 505
Crimea, town, with wide streets and very white tall houses, and all
> the public establishments requisite to conduct the affairs of
an extensive province. It has been built close by the old
Tatar town of Ak-metchet (Whitechurch), which is still
occupied by about 5000 Tatars. About 20 miles south¬
west of Simferopol is Bagtchi-Serai (Garden-palace), the
old residence of the former Khans of the Crimea, still in
good preservation, situate in a narrow and rocky but ro¬
mantic valley. Adjoining, there is a large town, exclu¬
sively occupied by Tatars, who allow no Russians to settle
in this valley. Near the town is Jufeid, or Tchoufut or
Tchaiphut Kaleh (Rogue’s or Infidel’s Castle), on a high
rock, possessed by, and forming the headquarters and place
of refuge of, the Karaite Jews, few of whom, however,
live here, on account of its being so disadvantageously
situated for trade. The streets are now silent, but the
adjoining valley of Jehoshaphat is “fully garnished with
tombstones ; all the devout Karaites, when increasing infir¬
mities warn them of approaching dissolution, being brought
hither to die.” lenikale, pronounced Yenekaivleh (New
Castle), built by the 1 urks to command the entrance of
the Bosporus from the sea of Azoff, looks, says Oliphant,
H like some dilapidated town on the Red Sea.” It is inha¬
bited by a few hundred Greeks and Tatars. Kertsh, on the
west side of the Bosporus, on the site of the ancient Pan-
tieapcBum, is almost the only town in Russia that is built
entirely of stone. The houses look handsome and sub¬
stantial ; and the population amounts to about 10,000 souls.
For some Russian reason, incomprehensible to common
sense, says Mr Oliphant, the tribune of commerce was trans¬
ferred from Theodosia, a town advantageously situate at
the head of a deep capacious harbour, which is never fro¬
zen, to the shores of these straits, which are closed for
four months of the year, where the anchorage is dangerous,
and the water shallow. Here every ship must remain, and
perform a four days’ quarantine. The larger ones wait un¬
til their cargoes arrive from Taganrog, or Rostof, in lighters,
while those drawing less water cross the bar and proceed
to load at Taganrog. Independently of the supply of ship¬
ping, the only trade of the town consists in exporting salt.
Theodosia, or Kaffa, situate on a fine well-sheltered bay
of the Black Sea, 45 miles west of the strait, was formerly a
flourishing place of trade, but is now a decayed town with
about 5000 inhabitants. lalla, Jalta, or Yalta, 70 miles
S.W. of Kaffa, is a small town with well-built houses,
streets prettily laid out, and an air of commercial bustle,
with a secure harbour. It is the commercial centre of the
wine country, and a favourite watering-place for summer
visitors. Kozlov, on the site of the ancient Eupatoria,
founded by Mithridates Eupator, king of Pontus, on the
west coast, is a considerable town, with a lazaretto, custom¬
house, several fine mosques, and a Tatar college. The
great mosque of Kozlov, several centuries old, is the finest
building in the Crimea, and much admired for its elegance,
extent, and solidity. Although the bay is open and ex¬
posed, and the surrounding country only a series of steppes
and marshes, Kozlov is considered the most thriving port in
the Crimea. It ow7es its prosperity to the great number of
Karaite Jews who have settled there. They form now the
greater part of the population, and the handsomest syna¬
gogue of which the sect can boast in Russia adorns this town.
Not far from Kozlov are the salt lake of Guilan, which pro¬
duces a large quantity of salt, and the mud-baths of Sack,
in which, during summer, invalids sit for hours up to
the chin in mud. Karasubazar (Black-water-market),
on a branch of the Salghir, to the N.E. of Simferopol,
is one of the largest and most characteristic of the Cri¬
mean towns. It contains about 15,000 inhabitants, con¬
sisting of Tatars, Jews, and Armenians, who carry on ex¬
tensive manufactures of Morocco leather, soap, candles,
&c. The Kara-su runs past the town, through a fertile
VOL. VII.
valley, which produces large quantities of grain and tobacco* Crimea.
But the most important place in the Crimea is Sebastopol,
or Sevastopol, the Tatar Akhtiar, situated on the S.W.
coast, about five miles east of Cape Chersonesus. The
harbour consists of a fine bay of the Black Sea, about three
miles and a half long, and from one to three quarters of a
mile wide. The town stands on the south side of the bay,
between two smaller bays, which extend southward, the
eastern of these being the station of the imperial fleet, ar¬
senal, and dockyard, and the other being the quarantine bay.
The bay is so capacious, and the anchoring ground is so
good, that the fleets of Europe might ride in it secure from
every storm, and such is the depth of water that the largest
ships may lie within a cable’s length of the shore, and in
the inner harbour, even close to the wharfs. It is the
station of the Black Sea fleet, and no labour or expense
has been spared to make the place impregnable by sea.
The shores of the bay bristle with casemated batteries ; and
so many as 1200 guns, it is said, can be made to bear at
once upon a vessel attempting to enter the harbour. It is,
not, however, so well fortified on the land side, and posses¬
sion of the adjoining heights would, it is believed, ensure
the capture of the town and the destruction of the fleet.
The fortifications were designed and executed by an English
civil-engineer named Upton, who had been employed as a
road-surveyor in Britain. The population of about 40,000
souls are mostly all naval or military, or in the employ¬
ment of the government. The town is in fact an immense
garrison, and looks imposing from so many of the build¬
ings being barracks or government offices. Millions of
money have been lavished on the object of making this
place a fitting receptacle of the Russian navy, and the secure
centre of Russian domination in and around the shores
of the Black Sea. Westward of Sebastopol is the site of
the ancient city of Ghersonesus, founded by a colony from
Heraclea Pontica, but now only to be traced by its ruins;
and several miles to the southward, on the south coast, is
the monastery of St George, which is believed by Pallas
to occupy the site of the ancient Parthenium, and of the
temple of the Tauric Artemis. Balaklava, ten miles S.E.
of Sebastopol, is a small town deriving its name {Bella
Chiave) from its fine harbour, which enters from the Black
Sea by a strait only 30 yards wide, but then expands
into a spacious basin, where large vessels may ride in safety
during the severest storms. The bay is like a highland
tarn, is about half a mile in length from the sea, and varies
from 250 to 120 yards in breadth. The shores are so
steep and precipitous that they shut out as it were the ex¬
panse of the harbour, and make it appear much smaller
than it really is. Towards the sea, the cliffs close up and
completely overlap the narrow channel which leads to the
haven, so that it is quite invisible.. On the S.E. of the
poor village which struggles for existence between the
base of the rocky hills and the margin of the sea, there are
extensive ruins of a Genoese fort, built some 200 feet above
the level of the sea. It must have once been a large and
important position ; and though its curtains, bastions, towers,
and walls are all destroyed and crumbling in decay, they
evince the spirit and enterprise of the hardy seamen who
penetrated these classic recesses so long ago. There may
be doubts whether the Genoese built it, but there can be
none that it is very old, and superior in workmanship to the
edifices of the Turks or Tatars. The town of Balaklava is
approached in this direction through a narrow defile, leading
from the more open country about Traktir. It is a formid¬
able pass, and a few resolute men posted here might occasion
great trouble even to a large army. The town is a poor fishing
station, inhabited by a Greek colony. There are, however,
one or two good houses of the usual character in the neigh¬
bourhood. All the hills around the town are barren rock;
towards the land they become more fertile, and for a mile
3 s
506 C R I C R O
Crimes towards Sebastopol and Simferopol they are studded with
^ Jl pleasant-looking white villas and farm-houses, principally
Criticism, inhabited by Russian officials from Sebastopol. About ten
miles east of Sebastopol is Mangoup kaleh, one of the most
remarkable objects to be found in any country. It is a castle
situated on an inaccessibly precipitous mountain, perfectly
isolated, and surmounted with extensive fortifications. The
rock, moreover, has been cut into a variety of chambers and
watch-towers, affording a secure retreat for a garrison of
several thousand men. It was the work of the ancient
Greeks and later Genoese, but is now deserted.
Isthmus. The isthmus of Perekop, which joins the peninsula to
the mainland, is, at its narrowest part, less than five miles
across ; and at that place it was formerly fortified by a wall
and ditch, besides the small fort of Perekop; but all these
seem to have been latterly neglected.
CRIMES and Punishments. See the articles Juris¬
prudence and PUNISHMENT.
CRISPIN, and Crispianus, two legendary saints whose
festival, as marked in the calendar, is on the 25th of Oc¬
tober. According to the legend, they were brethren, born
at Rome, whence they travelled to Soissons, in France,
about the year 303, to propagate the Christian religion ;
and that they might not be chargeable to others for their
maintenance, they exercised the trade of shoemakers. But
when it was known that they were Christians, the governor
of tile town ordered them to be beheaded. From that time
they were regarded as the tutelary saints of shoemakers.
CRISSA, or Crisa, in Ancient Geography, one of the
oldest cities of Greece, was situate in Phocis at the foot
of one of the spurs of Mount Parnassus. Its name oc¬
curs both in the Iliad and in the Homeric hymns, where it
is described as a powerful place, in the midst of a rich and
fertile territory, reaching to the sea, and including within
its limits the sanctuary of Pytho. In course of time the
town of Delphi sprang up around the shrine, and Crissa be¬
gan to decline in importance. Its decay was still further
accelerated by the rise of its seaport, Cirrha, on the Cris-
sean gulf. By the ancients themselves the name of Cirrha
was so often substituted for that of Crissa, that it soon be¬
came doubtful whether these names indicated the same city
or two different cities. The question has only recently been
settled by the investigations of Ulrichs, who has eliminated
with much care the history of the towns. From its posi¬
tion, Cirrha commanded the approach to Delphi, and its
inhabitants soon became obnoxious to the Greeks from the
heavy tolls which they exacted from the devotees who
thronged to the shrine. The Amphictyonic council de¬
clared war against the Cirrheans in 595 b.c., and having
taken the town, razed it to the ground, and consecrated its
rich territory to the service of the temple at Delphi. The
plunder of the town was sold to defray the expenses of the
Pythian games. In 339 the people of Amphissa began to
rebuild the city, and cultivate the adjoining plain. This
act brought on the second sacred war, the conduct of which
was intrusted by the Amphictyons to Philip of Macedon,
who took Amphissa in the following year. Cirrha was after¬
wards rebuilt, but never regained its former importance.
CRI1HOMANCY {KpiOrj, barley, and yavrua, divina¬
tion), in Antiquity, a kind of divination by means of the
dough of cakes offered in sacrifice, and the meal strewed
over the victims.
CRITIAS, one of the thirty tyrants set over Athens by
the Spartans, b.c. 404, conspicuous for cruelty and rapacity
above all his colleagues. He had been among the disciples
of Socrates, and was distinguished as an orator. He also
wrote poems, dramas, &c., and some fragments of his elegies
are still extant. See Attica, vol. iv., p. 209.
CRI1ICISM (Kpivo), to judge), the art or act of judging
with propriety of the beauties and faults of a literary perfor¬
mance, or of any production in the fine arts. Also the act
°f juc%ingon ^ie merit of any performance; critical obser- Criticism
vation, &c. ||
Criticism, Biblical. See Scripture, and Bible. Crocodile.
CRITO, an Athenian philosopher, who attended Soc-
rates in prison, and closed the eyes of the dying sage. He
is principally known on account of these acts of friendship
to his master,—his seventeen dialogues on philosophy
having long since perished. Their titles are preserved in
Diogenes Laertius.
CRIfOLAUS, a celebrated Achaean demagogue, who
roused his countrymen to resist the aggression of the Ro¬
mans. He headed the Achaean army, and having been de¬
feated by Metellus near the town of Scarphaea in Locris
(b.c. 146), he either poisoned himself or perished in the
marshes of the coast.
CROATIA. See Hungary.
CROCUS, a genus of plants of the natural order Irida-
ceai. The best known are C. vernus, or common crocus ;
and C. sativus, the flowers of which afford saffron. See
Botany, vol. v., p. 211.
CROCKET. See glossary to Architecture.
CROCODILE, a formidable reptile, giving name to
the family of the Crocodilidae, and which from its size and
strength is usually assigned the first place in the saurian
order. The Crocodilidae are indigenous to all quarters of
the world except Europe ; and the members of the family
are associated by many and well-defined characteristics, of
which the following are the most marked. They all attain
a great size ; sometimes, though not very frequently, they
are found 30 feet in length. Their tail is compressed
laterally. Their fore-feet have five toes ; their hind-feet
four, which are united by membranes more or less strongly
marked. Each jaw is furnished with a single row of teeth.
The tongue is flat, and attached nearly the whole length of
its margin. The back and tail are protected by great scales
which are strong enough to resist a leaden musket ball.
The nostrils open at the end of the snout by two small
apertures, which shut with valves. The lower jaw reaches
behind the cranium, which gives the animal the appearance
of being able to move its upper as well as its under jaw.
The external ears shut at will by two fleshy lips. The eye
has three eye-lids, two of them horizontal, like those of the
human being, and the third a membrana nictitans. Of all
the saurians the Crocodilidae are the only family that are
destitute of clavicles. The gullet of the crocodile is ex¬
tremely wide. That variety of the animal which abounds
in the Nile is, next to the gavial, the most active on land,
and of all the species the one that most readily frequents
the open sea. The organs of excretion are small, and their
digestion is accordingly found to possess an immense biliary
apparatus. They are oviparous, and bury their eggs in the
sand ; and the female remains in the vicinity to dig them
out on the day that the young ones break the shell. The
invulnerability of the crocodiles may be imagined from the
following incident. One being brought well bound to the
bazaar of Cawnpore on the Ganges, it was purchased by
British officers on the spot and carried further inland for
the purpose of being baited. Accordingly, the ligatures,
except those which secured the muzzle, being cut asunder,
the monster, though it had been many hours exposed to
the heat, and was almost suffocated with dust, fought its way
through an immense crowd of assailants, soldiers and natives,
armed with staves, lances, swords, and stones, and worried by
numerous terriers, hounds, and curs. It overturned all in
its way, till, scenting the water at a distance of two miles, it
reached the river in spite of the most strenuous opposition.
Of all the animals deemed sacred by the Egyptians,
none were held in higher veneration than the crocodile.
Proof of this is to be found not only in the accounts we
have of the temples and priests consecrated to its worship,
but even in the floating traditions of the country. In Brown’s
507
C K (E
Crcesus. Travels we find the following story :—“ The people of Isna
—in Upper Egypt have a tradition concerning crocodiles simi¬
lar to that entertained in the West Indies, They say there
is a king of them, who resides near Isna, who has ears but
no tail; and he possesses an uncommon regal quality, that
of doing no harm. Some are bold enough to assert that
they have seen him.” It is upon this tradition that Southey
has founded his humorous pathetic ballad of the “ King of
the Crocodiles.” See index to Reptilia.
CRCESUS, the last king of Lydia, was remarkable for
his riches and conquests, his temporary prosperity, and sad
reverse of fortune. He subdued the Phrygians, Mysians,
Paphlagonians, Thracians, and Carians, amassed immense
treasures, and became one of the most powerful and magni¬
ficent of princes. He invited the learned to his court, and
took great pleasure in conversing with them. Thales of
Miletus, Pittacus of Mitylene, Bias of Priene, Cleobulus of
Hindus, and other sages who lived in that age, as well as
iEsop the fabulist, and the most elegant Greek poets of the
time, were welcomed at the court of Crcesus. There is
still on record a memorable conversation which took place
between that prince and Solon, which seemed to predict
the subsequent events of his reign, and which had a late
but important influence on the character and fortune of
the Lydian king. Crcesus having entertained his Athe¬
nian guest for several days, ostentatiously showed him the
magnificence of his palace, and the riches of his treasury.
After all had been displayed, the king complimented So¬
lon on his curiosity and love of knowledge ; and asked him,
as a man who had visited many countries, and reflected
deeply on what he had seen, whom of all men he accounted
most happy. From the particular occasion, as well as the
air with which the question was proposed, it was evident
that the king expected a flattering rather than an honest
answer. But Solon’s character had not been enervated by
the vices of a court, and he replied with a manly freedom—
Tellus the Athenian. Crcesus, who had scarcely learned
to distinguish, even in imagination, between wealth and
happiness, inquired, with a tone of surprise, why this pre¬
ference was given to Tellus. Tellus, rejoined Solon, was
not conspicuous for his riches or his grandeur, being only
a simple citizen of Athens; but he was descended from
parents who had deserved the first honours of the republic.
He was equally fortunate in his children, who had ob¬
tained universal esteem by their probity, patriotism, and
every useful quality of mind and body ; and as to him¬
self, he died fighting gallantly in the service of his coun¬
try, which his valour rendered victorious in a doubtful
combat; on which account the Athenians buried him on
the spot where he fell, and distinguished his memory by
every honour which public gratitude can confer on illustri¬
ous merit. After this answer, Crcesus had but little en¬
couragement to ask Solon, in the second place, whom, next
to Tell us, he considered as most happy. Such, however,
is the illusion of vanity, that he yet ventured to put this
question, no doubt entertaining hopes of being favourably
answered. But Solon replied with the same freedom as
before—the brothers Cleobis and Biton, two youths of Ar¬
gos, whose strength and address were crowned with re¬
peated victory at the Otympic games; who deserved the
affection of their parents, the gratitude of their country,
and the admiration of Greece ; and who, having ended their
lives with peculiar honour, were commemorated by the
most signal monuments of immortal fame. “ And is the
happiness of a king, then,” said Crcesus, “ so little regard¬
ed, that you, Grecian stranger, prefer to it the mean con¬
dition of an Athenian or Argive citizen?” The reply of
Solon justified his reputation for wisdom. “ The life of
man,” said he, “ consists of seventy years, which make
25,550 days ; an immense number, yet, in the longest life,
C R CE
the events of any one day will not be found exactly alike Crcesus.
to those of another. The affairs of men are liable to per-
petual vicissitudes; the divinity who presides over our
fate is envious of too much prosperity ; and all human life,
if not condemned to calamity, is at least liable to accident.
Whoever has uninterruptedly enjoyed a prosperous tide
of success may justly be caWed fortunate; but he cannot
before his death be entitled to the epithet of happy."
The events which soon followed this conversation prove
how little satisfaction is derived from the possession of a
throne. Victorious in war, unrivalled in wealth, supreme
in power, Crcesus felt and acknowledged that he was un-
happy. The warmest affections of his soul centred in his
son Atys, a youth of the most promising hopes, who had
often fought and conquered by his side. The strength of
his attachment was accompanied with an excess of pater¬
nal care, and the anxiety of his waking hours disturbed
the tranquillity of his rest. He dreamed that his beloved
son had been slain by a dart; and the solicitude with
which the father watched over his safety having prevent¬
ed the youth from indulging in his usual occupations and
amusements, and thereby rendered him too eager to enjoy
them, most probably exposed him to the very misfortune
which his parent had dreaded the most. Having reluc¬
tantly permitted him to engage in a hunting party, the
juvenile ardour of Atys, increased by the impatience of
long restraint, made him neglect the precautions neces¬
sary in that manlyamusement; and he was slain by a dart
aimed at a wild boar of monstrous size, which had long
spread terror over the whole country of the Mysians. The
fatal weapon proceeded from the hand of Adrastus, a Phry¬
gian prince and fugitive, whom Crcesus had purified from
the involuntary guilt of a brother’s blood, and had long
distinguished by peculiar marks of bounty. To the grate¬
ful protection of this Phrygian Croesus had recommend¬
ed, at parting, the safety of his beloved son. A mournful
procession of Lydians brought the dead body of Atys to
Sardis, and the ill-fated slayer followed behind. When
they approached the royal presence, Adrastus stepped
forward and entreated Crcesus to put him to death ; think¬
ing life no longer to be endured, after killing, first his own
brother, and then the son of his benefactor. But the Ly¬
dian king, notwithstanding the excess of his affliction, ac¬
knowledged the innocence of Adrastus, and the power of
fate. “ Stranger,” said he, “ your action is blameless,
being committed without design. I know that my son was
destined to a premature death.” But Adrastus, though
pardoned by Croesus, could not pardon himself. When
the mourners were removed, he privately returned, and
perished by his own hand upon the tomb of Atys.
During two years Crcesus remained disconsolate for the
loss of his son; and might have continued to indulge his
unavailing affliction during the remainder of life, had not
the growing greatness of Persia, which threatened the
safety of his dominions, roused him from his dream of
misery. He marched against Cyrus with a great army,
but was defeated ; and retreating to his capital, Sardis, was
there besieged. The city was taken by assault; and as a
Persian soldier was about to kill Crcesus, that prince’s only
surviving son, who had hitherto been dumb, terrified at
his father’s danger, cried, “ Stop, soldier, and touch not
Crcesus.” But though delivered by this extraordinary
accident from the blind rage of the soldier, he seemed to
be reserved for a harder fate. Dragged into the presence
of his conqueror, he was loaded with irons; and the stern,
unrelenting Cyrus, of whom so flattering a picture is drawn
in the philosophical romance of Xenophon, ordered him,
with his Lydian attendants, to be committed to the flames.
An immense pile of wood and other combustibles was
accordingly erected in the most spacious part of the city;
508
C R O
C R 0
Croft
Croisers.
and the miserable victims, bound hand and foot, were
placed on the top of the pyre. Cyrus, surrounded with
his generals, witnessed the dreadful spectacle, having,
either from an abominable superstition, or from a motive
of curiosity equally detestable, bound himself by a vow to
sacrifice Croesus as the first fruits of his Lydian victory.
Meanwhile the unfortunate Lydian, oppressed by the in¬
tolerable weight of his present calamity, compared with the
security and splendour of his former state, recollected the
memorable conversation he had held with the Athenian
sage, and uttered with a deep groan the name of Solon.
Cyrus asked by an interpreter whose name he invoked.
“ His,” replied Croesus, “ whose words ought ever to speak
to the hearts of kings.”
The words of a dying man are fitted to make a strong
impression ; and those of Croesus deeply affected the mind
of Cyrus. Considering the speech of Solon as addressed
to himself, the Persian repented of his intended cruelty
towards the unfortunate prince, who had formerly enjoyed
all the pomp of prosperity; and dreading the vengeance
which might lurk concealed in the bosom of fate, gave or¬
ders that the pyre should be extinguished. This event,
which saved the life of Croesus, recommended him to the
favour of his conqueror; and Cyrus gave orders that he
should be henceforth seated by his side, and treated as
a king. But the mind of Croesus had undergone a still
more important revolution; for, tutored in the useful
school of adversity, he had learned to think with patience
and to act with prudence, to govern his passions by the
dictates of reason, and to repay by wholesome advice the
generous behaviour of his Persian master. This fallen
monarch survived his conqueror; but the circumstances of
his death are not known.
CROFT, William, doctor of music, was born in 1677,
at Nether Eatington, in Warwickshire. He received his
musical education in the Chapel Royal, under Dr Blow.
He early obtained the place of organist of St Anne’s, West¬
minster ; and in 1700 was admitted a gentleman extraor¬
dinary of the Chapel Royal. In 1707 he was appointed
joint organist with Dr Blow; upon whose death, in 1708,
Croft became sole organist, and also master of the children
and composer of the Chapel Royal, besides being made
organist of Westminster Abbey. In 1715 he obtained his
degree of doctor of music in the university of Oxford. In
1124 he published an edition of his choral music, in 2 vols.
folio, under the name of “ Musica Sacra,” or “ Select An¬
thems in score, for two, three, four, five, six, seven, and
eight voices, to which is added the Burial Service, as it is
occasionally performed in Westminster Abbey.” John
Page, in his Harmonia Sacra, published in 1800, in 3 vols.
folio, gives seven of Dr Croft’s anthems. This handsome
work was the first of the kind executed on pewter plates
and in score. Of instrumental music, Dr Croft published
six sets of airs for two violins and a bass, six sonatas for
two flutes, six solos for a flute and bass. These works are
?2!Lmenj0ned by Pr Burney. Dr Croft died in August
imJ’ a i WaS buried in the north aisle of Westminster
Abbey, where a monument was erected to his memory by
lus friend and admirer Humphrey Wyrley Birch, Esq.
Dr Charles Burney, in his History of Music, devotes several
pages of his third volume (pp. 603-612) to Dr Croft’s life,
and criticisms upon some of his anthems. He speaks highly
o r ro t s amiable character and dignified professional
conduct. fc f c f
CROISERS, a religious order founded in honour of the
invention or discovery of the cross by the Empress Helena
at Jerusalem. They were dispersed in several parts of
Europe particularly m the Low Countries, France, Bohe¬
mia, and Italy, and followed the rule of St Augustin. In
England they were called crouched or crutched, i. e. crossed
See Cross, Invention of the.
friars.
CROISES, or Croizes, in English antiquity, pilgrims Croises
bound for the Holy Land, or such as had been there; so II
called from a badge they wore in imitation of a cross. The Cromlccl1'
knights of St John of Jerusalem, created for the defence
and protection of pilgrims, were particularly called Croises.
CROMARTY County. See Ross and Cromarty.
Cromarty, a parliamentary burgh in the united counties
of Ross and Cromarty, situated on a low promontory pro¬
jecting into the narrow strait which communicates between
the Moray and Cromarty Firths. It is about 16 miles N.E.
from Dingwall, the county town, and 185 miles N.N.E.
from Edinburgh. Cromarty continued to be a royal burgh
till 1672, when it was disfranchised. It is now a con tribu¬
tary burgh to Wick, Dingwall, Dornoch, and Tain, and its
municipal government is vested in a provost and six coun¬
cillors. The principal buildings are the town-house and
churches, which latter belong to the Establishment, the
Free Church, and the United Presbyterians, respectively.
The principal manufacture is that of hempen bagging; but
there is also an establishment for some branches of woollen
manufacture. Brewing and ship-building are also carried on.
The staple trade of the place, however, is connected with
the herring and white fisheries. The harbour, formed by
a pier, is safe and capacious, admitting vessels of 400 tons
burden. There are in the parish remains of several ancient
chapels and camps believed to be Danish. Pop. of burgh
(1851) 1988.
CROMER, a small seaport-town and parish of England,
county of Norfolk, 21 miles N. of Norwich. It stands on
the top of the cliffs, and many of the houses are ill-built;
but havinp lately become a favourite resort for sea-bathing,
it has undergone considerable improvements. It has several
good inns, a public library, news-room, baths, &c. There
are some remains of an ancient abbey and of the walls
which formerly surrounded the town. About three-fourths
of a mile east of the town is Foulness lighthouse, with a
revolving light 274 feet above high water. The sea is here
continually gaining upon the land, and in the winter of
1825 some cliffs, 250 feet in height, contiguous to the
lighthouse, were precipitated into the sea. The bay is very
dangerous, and has hence obtained from sailors the name
of the “ Devil’s Throat; ” yet it has some trade in coals,
timber, tiles, oil-cake, &c. From the want of a proper
landing-place, vessels have to load and unload on the open
beach. Pop. of parish (1851) 1366.
CROMFORD, a market-town of Derbyshire, 15 miles
north of Derby, in the picturesque valley of Matlockdale,
situated chiefly on the right bank of the Derwent, and sur¬
rounded on the N., S., and W. by lofty limestone rocks.
Pop. (1851) 1190, chiefly employed in the cotton factories
of the Messrs Arkwright. The celebrated Sir R. Ark¬
wright established two large cotton mills here, the first in
1771, and the other a few years subsequently. Lead mines
are worked in the vicinity. The Cromford Canal extends
from the Erewash Canal at Langley Bridge to this town,
and the Cromfbrd and High Peak railway joins the canal
at a short distance south of the town.
CROMLECH, or Cromleh, in Antiquity, a rude kind
of monument consisting of a large flat stone raised upon
other stones set upright for the purpose. These monu¬
ments are spoken of by Rowland, by Borlase, and by Wor-
mius, under the appellation of' Arcs, or altars. It is gene¬
rally supposed that they may have served a double purpose ;
namely that they were originally tombs, upon which, in
after times, sacrifices were performed to the heroes depo¬
sited within. An account of King Harold having been in¬
terred beneath a tomb of this kind in Denmark is still pre¬
served : and a skeleton deposited under a cromlech was
discovered in Ireland. The very great similarity of the
monuments throughout the north evinces that the same
religion had with some slight variations been spread in
C R 0
Cromwell, every part. Many of these monuments are both British
and Danish, for they are found in Britain in places where
the Danes never penetrated.
The cromlech, or cromleh, differs from the kist-vaen, in
not being closed up at the end and sides, that is, in not
partaking so much of the chest-like figure; it is also ge¬
nerally of larger dimensions, and sometimes consists of a
greater number of stones. The terms cromlech and hisi-
vaen have been, however, indiscriminately used for the
same monument. The word cromlech is by some derived
from the Armoric crum, crooked or bowing, and leh, stone ;
alluding to the reverence which persons paid to them by
bowing. Rowland derives it from the Hebrew words
carem-luach, signifying a devoted or consecrated stone.
They are called by the vulgar coetne Arthor, or Arthur's
quoits, it being a custom in Wales as well as in Cornwall
to ascribe all great or wonderful objects to Prince Arthur,
the hero of those countries.—(See Worsae’s Scandinavian
Antiquities?)
CROMWELL, Oliver, Lord Protector of the English
Commonwealth, was born at Huntingdon on the 25th of
April 1599. His father, Robert Cromwell, was the second
son of Sir Henry Cromwell of Hinchinbrook, surnamed,
for his munificence, The Golden Knight. His mother,1
Elizabeth Steward, was the daughter of a gentleman of
some property in the city of Ely. The connection of the
Cromwell family with that of the celebrated Thomas Crom¬
well, Earl of Essex, and of the Stewards with the royal line
of Scotland, are facts which, though in reality unimportant,
are not altogether without interest.2 The stories of Crom¬
well’s youthful visions and adventures, his tyranny and vio¬
lence, his distaste for learning, and his love of coarse and
vicious amusements, resting as they do chiefly on the disre¬
putable testimony of Heath, are little worthy of serious no¬
tice. The authentic facts of his early history seem to be
confined to these :—that he was educated at Huntingdon
grammar-school, under a rigid and pious instructor, by name
Dr Thomas Beard; that on the 22d April 1616 he was ad¬
mitted a fellow-commoner of Sidney Sussex College, Cam¬
bridge ; that on his father’s death in June 1617, he left the
University (returning no more), carrying away at least as
much Latin as enabled him in after years to speak that
language with ease; and that soon after he proceeded to
London to gain some knowledge of law. There is no proof
that he ever attended any of the inns of Court; and regard¬
ing his life in London, and the limits of his residence there,
we are equally destitute of information. The accounts of
his extreme profligacy during this period have come to
us on the most questionable authority. If founded in any
measure on the fact that Cromwell afterwards, looking back
on these youthful days, reproached himself as one who “hated
the light,” and was (i the chief of sinners,” we may leave
them to rest much on the same footing with the similar
and even more fearful self-accusations of the pure-hearted
Bunyan. On the 22d August 1620, Cromwell, then 21
years of age, was married at St Giles’s church, Cripplegate,
C R O 509
to Elizabeth, daughter of Sir James Bourchier, of Felsted, Cromwell,
in Essex, a woman of very amiable and prudent character, v—'
whose gentle virtues sweetened his domestic life to its close,
amid all outward vicissitudes of trouble or glory.3 He now
returned to Huntingdon, and assumed the management of
his patrimonial estate ; and in the quiet routine of a farmer’s
life, fulfilled for nearly ten years, without any incident
chronicled in history, the ordinary duties of a country
gentleman. We are left to imagine, so far as we can, the
silent and unnoticed growth of a great soul, limited as yet
in its outgoings to the cares of a farm,—the thoughts that
struggled and sank to rest in the stillness of home,—the
powerful religious convictions, the “ splenetic fancies,” the
deep fits of melancholy, that ultimately resulted in an open
profession of Christianity, and a steady adherence thence¬
forward to that strict and earnest form of it which had re¬
ceived from its enemies the derisive name of Puritanism.
The house of Oliver Cromwell became from this time a re¬
sort of “ godly men and in their prayers and preachings,
their interests and their grievances, he took a zealous and
active part. On the 17th March 1628, he took his seat in
the House of Commons as member for Huntingdon. The
increasing influence of Puritanism, reacting against the ar¬
bitrary and ceremonious tendencies of the king, was power¬
fully exhibited in the transactions of this brief but memor¬
able parliament. On the 11th February 1629, a few weeks
before the close of its second session, Cromwell made his
first recorded speech ; calling the attention of the House to
the scandalous fact “ that Dr Alablaster had preached flat
popery at Paul’s Cross,” and even been encouraged therein
by his diocesan ; while “ Mainwaring, so justly censured by
this House for his sermons, was, by the same bishop’s means
preferred to a rich living.” “ If these,” he said, “ are the
steps to church preferment, what are we to expect ?” “ It
is amusing,” remarks Mr Hume, “ to observe the first words
of this fanatical hypocrite corresponding so exactly to his
character.” The correspondence is remarkable enough ;
but those who have formed a different estimate of Crom¬
well from that of the sceptical historian, may find instruc¬
tion rather than amusement in this first sound of “ the im¬
perial voice,” which in after days “ arrested the sails of the
Libyan pirates, and the persecuting fires of Rome.”4
A bout two years after this, Cromwell sold his lands in Hun¬
tingdon, stocked a grazing farm at St Ives, and there resided
for five years. In 1636 he removed to Ely, where he had suc¬
ceeded to the property of his uncle, Sir Thomas Steward.
Events meantime were tending to a great crisis. His first
cousin, John Hampden, had on the 11th January in this year
refused to pay his “ ship-moneyin the streets of London,
in the midst of pale crowds, good men were being mutilated,
branded, and pilloried ; Scotland had risen in a flame against
a forced episcopacy, and the patience of England was draw¬
ing near exhaustion. In April 1638 sentence was delivered
against Hampden. The spirit of resistance rose with each
new check. In his own district Cromwell had now some
opportunity for its exercise, and that victoriously. The great
1 The character of Cromwell, in some of its noblest aspects, seems, as in the case of many great men, to have been inherited from his
mother. She died at Whitehall, November 16, 1654, at the age of 94. Her affection for her son is touchingly expressed in her last
words. “ A little before her death,” says Thurloe, “ she gave my lord her blessing in these words : ‘ The Lord cause his face to shine
upon you, and comfort you in all your adversities, and enable you to do great things for the glory of your Most High God, and to be a
relief unto His people. My dear son, I leave my heart with thee. A good night!’ ”
2 See the proofs adduced in Forster’s British Statesmen, vi., 2; Carlyle’fe Letters and Speeches of Cromwell, I. 40.
3 She died in the house of her son-in-law Claypole, October 8, 1672. The following letter to her from her husband, penned the day
after the great battle of Dunbar, may be taken as an interesting specimen of his private correspondence: “ For my beloved wife, Eliza¬
beth Cromwell, at the Cockpit; these. Dunbar, 4th September 1650. My Dearest,—I have not leisure to write much. But I could
chide thee that in many of thy letters thou writest to me, That I should not be unmindful of thee and thy little ones. Truly, if I love
you not too well, I think I err not on the other hand much. Thou art dearer to me than any creature; let that suffice. The Lord
hath showed us an exceeding mercy ; who can tell how great it is ? My weak faith hath been marvellously upheld. I have been in my
inward man marvellously supported; though, I assure thee, I grow an old man, and feel infirmities of age stealing upon me. Would
my corruptions did as fast decrease ! The particulars of our late success Harry Vane or Gilbert Pickering will impart to thee. My
love to all dear friends. I rest thine, Oliver Cromwell.” (Letters and Speeches, iii., 67.)
4 Macaulay, Essay on Hallam’s Constitutional History.
510 C R, O M
Cromwell, work of draining the fens and completing the Bedford
Level had proceeded successfully till the interference of
royal commissioners excited a general outcry of dissatisfac¬
tion. Cromwell took an active part in the opposition ; and
his successful zeal in the business procured him the popular
title of “ Lord of the Fens.” On the 13th April 1640, a
new parliament met, in which he took his seat as member
for Cambridge. In three weeks it was dissolved. Another
was summoned for the 3d November, which became ever
memorable in history as the I^ong Parliament. Cromwell
again sat for Cambridge. Of his share in its proceedings for
about two years there is little record. That he was an active
member there can be no question. One interesting glimpse
we obtain from the graphic narrative of Sir Philip Warwick.
It brings before us a Monday morning, early in November
1640, when the writer, then “a courtly young gentleman,”
came into the house, “ well clad,” and found a remarkable
figure in possession of the house, “ a gentleman whom I
knew not, very ordinarily apparelled,” his linen “ plain and
not very clean,” his stature “of a good size, his sword stuck
close to his side, his countenance swoln and reddish, his
voice sharp and untuneable, and his eloquence full of fer¬
vour.” This personage was pleading, amid considerable
attention, on behalf of a troublesome young man of the
name of Lilburn, amanuensis to Mr Prynne, “ who had
disperst libels against the queen for her dancing and such
like innocent and courtly sports.” The impression made
on the gay young courtier was anything but favourable.
“ I sincerely profess,” he says, “ it lessened much my reve¬
rence unto that great council, for this gentleman was very
much hearkened unto.”
The inevitable rupture at length took place, and the king
and parliament made their appeal to the sword. On the 12th
January 1642, Charles left Whitehall, to return no more till
the day of his execution. Military preparations on both sides
began; “ voting henceforth by pike and bullet.” And now,
at the mature age of forty-three, already well beyond the
“ mid-way of life’s journey,” Oliver Cromwell girded on his
armour, and, with his eldest son Oliver1 by his side, left his
quiet home and farm to fight for England’s liberty. With no
knowledge of the art of war, but much of himself, of men,
and of the Bible, less even a politician than a man of prayer,
this stout English squire had made up his mind, in no hasty
or factious spirit, to draw the sword against his king, and ven¬
ture his life for what he believed with his whole heart and
soul to be the cause of “ freedom and the truth in Christ.”
Out of his moderate fortune he subscribed L.500 “ for the
service of the commonwealth L.100 more he expended
on arms; and during the summer he was actively engaged
in raising volunteers. His first exploit, while as yet with¬
out a regular commission, was to seize the magazine in the
castle at Cambridge, and prevent the carrying away of the
university plate to help the royal exchequer. In September
he received his commission as captain of a troop of horse.
In the first campaign the royal troops generally had the
advantage. Cromwell already knew in his own person
wherein lay the strength of Puritanism, and the secret of
its success. He spoke on the subject to his cousin Hamp-
W E L L.
den. “ Old decayed serving men and tapsters,” and such Cromwell,
“ base mean fellows,” he said, “ could never encounter
gentlemen and persons of quality.” To match “ men of
honour,” they must have “ men who had the fear of God
before them,” and would “ make some conscience of what
they did.” “ A few honest men,” he elsewhere said, “ are
better than numbers.” Mr Hampden thought his cousin
“ talked a good notion, but an impracticable one.” To turn
“ good notions” into facts, however, was the characteristic
work of Cromwell; impracticable being a word with which
we may suppose him to have had as little tolerance as
Napoleon. On this principle of selection accordingly he
gradually enlisted around him a regiment of a thousand
men, whose title of Ironsides has become famous in his¬
tory. “ They never were beaten.” “ Had his history,”
says Mr Forster, “ closed with the raising and disci¬
plining of these men, it would have left a sufficient warrant
of his greatness to posterity.”
During the winter, associations for mutual defence were
formed among the counties. Of these the “ Eastern As¬
sociation” alone, through the prompt and indefatigable
activity of Cromwell, proved really efficient. During the
spring of 1643, having now attained the rank of a colonel,
he employed himself in quelling all royalist attempts
throughout the association, giving them the final blow by
the capture of Lowestoff, with a considerable body of influ¬
ential royalists, and a large supply of warlike stores. His
services were next devoted to Lincolnshire, and with similar
success. Towards the end of July the Marquis of New¬
castle, after his victory at Atherton Moor, advanced with a
large army against Gainsborough, which was garrisoned by
a small parliamentary force under Lord Willoughby. Crom¬
well threw himself between the town and the enemy’s van,
under General Cavendish ; forced his way up a sandy emi¬
nence, in the face of a body three times superior in number
to his own, and drove them in total rout down the other
side. Their commander, an accomplished young noble¬
man, was killed on the spot. u This victory,” says White-
locke, “ was the beginning of Cromwell’s great fortunes, and
now he began to appear in the world.” The other parlia¬
mentary leaders, meantime, had met with a series of humi¬
liating reverses, and at the close of the summer the popular
cause seemed in imminent peril. In August, the Earl of
Manchester took the command of the Eastern Association,
with Cromwell as one of his colonels. On the 9th Octo¬
ber they effected a junction with Fairfax at Boston, and on
the 11th, Cromwell and Fairfax encountered the royal force
under Sir John Henderson on the field of Winceby, near
Horncastle. Cromwell led the van, which advanced to
the battle singing psalms. His horse was killed in the
first charge, and fell upon him. As he rose he was
again struck down, but recovering himself he mounted a
“ sorry horse ” belonging to a trooper, and mingled in
the fight. The enemy gave way at the first onset, and
were pursued with terrible slaughter for many miles.
During the remainder of this season Cromwell was occu¬
pied in attending to the security of the Eastern Associa¬
tion, in raising funds, and settling public affairs in Ely, of
1 We may here subjoin a brief notice of Cromwell’s family, gathered from a note by Mr Carlyle. Oliver (born in 1623) entered as a
cornet in the same division of cavalry with his father, who seems to have regarded him with deep affection and hope. He was killed
shortly before the battle of Marston Moor (according to the author of the Squire Papers). “ The Protector, on his death-bed, alludes to this
Oliver s death : ‘ It went to my heart like a dagger, indeed it did.’ Richard was born in 1626, and died in 1712, a man of mild and in¬
dolent character, unfit for any office requiring strong powers of mind. Henry, born in 1628, died in 1674. He entered the army at
sixteen, and greatly distinguished himself by his courage, prudence, and resolution. He accompanied his father to Ireland in 1649, and
in 1657 was appointed Lord Deputy there. He governed with great ability. “ He is a governor,” said Cromwell, “ of whom I myself
might learn. Of the daughters, the eldest, Bridget, horn 1624, died 1681, was married first to Ireton, afterwards to Fleetwood.
Llizabeth, born 1629, died 1658, was married to Mr Claypole, who became Master of the Horse to the Protector. Mr Carlyle calls her
“ a graceful, brave, and amiable women,” adding that “ the lamentation about Dr Hewit and ‘bloodshed’ (in Clarendon and others) is
fudge. Mary, born 1637, died 1712, was married to Lord Fauconberg. Dean Swift called her “handsome and like her father.”
Frances, horn 1638, died 1721, was married first to Mr Rich, again to Sir John Russel. Charles II. at one time entertained the idea of
allying himself with Cromwell by marrying her.
CROMWELL.
511
Cromwell, which he had some months previously been appointed go-
vernor.
On the 10th April 1644, the Scotch Covenanted army of
21,000 men under Lesley, Earl of Leven, united with Fair¬
fax at Wetherby, and proceeded to invest York. They
were presently joined by Manchester and Cromwell, now
lieutenant-general and second in command. On hearing of
this, Prince Rupert hurried from Lancashire at the head of
20,000 men, and relieved York. The parliamentary army
raised the siege, drew out to meet the enemy on Marston
Moor, and on the evening of the 2d July, gave a death-blow
to the royal cause in the north of England. To Cromwell
belonged the chief glory of the victory. While the right
wing under Fairfax was overpowered by the furious onset
of Prince Rupert, Cromwell carried all before him on the
left, and suddenly wheeling round, charged the victorious
cavalry of Rupert with such overwhelming force that they
were “ swept off the field,”—“ God made them as stubble
to our swords.” In the west on the other hand, Essex and
Waller succeeded only in losing their armies. The parlia¬
ment, still confiding in these generals, granted them fresh
forces, and summoned Manchester and Cromwell to join
them. On the 27th October they met the king at New¬
bury, and a sanguinary conflict ensued, with dubious suc¬
cess. During the night the king effected a safe retreat.
Cromwell urged Manchester to pursue him, but in vain.
Twelve days after the king and Prince Rupert returned,
revictualled Bennington Castle, and carried off' their artil¬
lery. Cromwell again pressed Manchester to attack them,
but the timid earl was immovable. The fruit of these dis¬
agreements was a rupture, ending in important results. On
the 25th November Cromwell, having been called upon to
give an account of the affair at Newbury, charged Man¬
chester in the House of Commons with neglect of the par¬
liamentary interests; and on the 9th December openly
urged the necessity of remodelling the army. The “ self-
denying ordinance,” discharging members of parliament
from military offices, and permitting enlistment without the
signing of the covenant, was finally passed on the 3d April.
Meantime Fairfax had been nominated general, the “ new
model” was passed, and the raising of troops, and remodel¬
ling of the old army, proceeded with activity.
The wisdom of these changes was proved by the triumphant
result of the next campaign. Cromwell’s services were by
this time felt to be indispensable. He accordingly received
a dispensation from the self-denying ordinance, and was
hastily despatched (April 23d) to intercept a force of 2000
men sent by Rupert to convoy the king from Oxford to
Worcester. On the second day he attacked and routed them
at Islip Bridge, took Bletchington House on the same day,
and on the 26th gained another victory at Radcot Bridge.
On the 31st of May the king suddenly stormed Leicester;
the southward movement of his army exposed the eastern
counties to imminent danger ; Fairfax, appealed to for help,
immediately solicited the appointment of Cromwell as his
lieutenant-general; the request was granted ; and Cromwell,
collecting 6000 chosen horse, joined the camp at North¬
ampton without the loss of an hour, amid the acclamations
of the whole army. Decisive action attended his presence ;
on the very day following, June 14, 1645, the royal arrny
was beaten to pieces on the field of Naseby, and the first
civil war virtually brought to an end. Cromwell and his
Ironsides decided as usual the fate of the day. Proceeding
victoriously south-westward, the parliamentary army en¬
countered the Clubmen, a new and somewhat formidable
party in the royal interest. At Shaftesbury Cromwell dis¬
persed a large body of them, after which they appeared no
more. On the 11th September Bristol was stormed; and
again turning southward the army took every town and
stronghold in its way. Cromwell particularly distinguished
himself by his sieges. Basing House, the residence of the
Marquis of Winchester, had for four years defied all be- Cromwell,
siegers, and was regarded by the royalists as impregnable,
On the 14th October Cromwell wrote to the speaker—“ I
thank God I can give you a good account of Basing.” He
had stormed it that morning at 6 o’clock, having, says Hugh
Peters, “spent much time with God in prayer the night
before.” A few more such successes ended the campaign
and the war. On the 22d April 1646 Cromwell returned
to his place in parliament, and was received with the most
distinguished honours.
During the next two years he resided for the most part
in London, taking a due share in the negotiations with the
king, and in the important contest between the Presbyterians
and Independents, represented respectively by the city and
army, which ended in the triumph of the latter. On the
one side the support of the army was felt to be now an un¬
necessary burden, while the fact that so many of the soldiers
had never taken the covenant was displeasing to the strict
Presbyterians, especially to those who had held commands
in the old army. On the other side it was regarded as a
most hazardous policy to disband the army without any
surer guarantee for the nation’s peace than the promises of
the king. The formal claims of the soldiers however were
43 weeks’ arrears of pay, indemnity for acts done in the war,
and discharge according to contract. After much unsatis¬
factory negotiation, the celebrated rendezvous or army con¬
vocation took place (June 10, 1647) on Triploe Heath near
Cambridge. The parliamentary commissioners were saluted
in every regiment with the cry “Justice! Justice!” On
the same day a letter signed by the general (Fairfax) and
chief officers was despatched to the mayor and corporation of
London. It expressed in moderate language their desires,
containing at the same time the significant intimation that
“ for the obtaining of these things we are drawing near your
city.” The events that followed can here be merely indi¬
cated—the accusation of the 11 members by the army—
their withdrawal—the advance and retreat of the army as
the parliament resisted or yielded—the apprentice riot of
July 26, forced repeal of the militia ordinance, and recall of
theexpelled eleven—the withdrawal of alarge body from both
houses of parliament with the two speakers to the camp at
Hounslow—and finally, the entry of the army into London,
August 6, after having received full satisfaction of all its
demands. On the 12th November the king escaped from
Hampton Court, leaving the parliamentary leaders con¬
vinced, after months of fruitless negotiation, of the hopeless¬
ness of further treating with him. On the 3d January
1648, it was decided that there should be no more addresses
to his Majesty. In March news came from Scotland that a
royalist army under the Duke of Hamilton was preparing to
invade England. The smouldering elements of insurrection
now broke out. In London an alarming riot was only crushed
by “ a desperate charge of cavalry.” Similar risings in Nor¬
wich, Canterbury, Exeter, &c., were put down by Fairfax.
A more formidable revolt took place in Wales, and thither
Cromwell was ordered to hasten. On the 11th May he
took the town of Chepstow, and leaving Colonel Ewer to
besiege the castle, advanced towards Pembroke. The
castle was held by Colonel Poyer, a renegade officer of the
parliament; who surrendered, after a protracted siege, on
the 11th July. Having settled Wales, Cromwell now has¬
tened northward and joined Lambert in Yorkshire. Ha¬
milton, with 17,000 Scots, and Sir Marmaduke Langdale
with 4000 Yorkshiremen, were advancing in loose combina¬
tion into Lancashire. Cromwell, marching westward at
the head of 8600 men, attacked them at Preston on the
17th August. The rout and chase extended over three
days, at the end of which Hamilton’s army was a total
wreck. 2000 men were slain, and 10,000 (the duke himself
in the number) made prisoners. So rapid and unexpected
had been the movement of Cromwell, that Hamilton did not
512 C R 0 M
Cromwell, know till the close of the first day with what enemy he had
been engaged. Following up this amazing success Cromwell
proceeded northward, by Durham and Berwick across the
border. On the 4th October he entered Edinburgh, where
he was welcomed with enthusiasm. During two days he
lodged in “ the Earl of Murrie’s house, in the Cannigate,”
receiving visits from persons of distinction ; and on the
day of his departure was entertained to a sumptuous banquet
in the castle. Having received satisfactory guarantees of
future amity, he took his departure on the 7th October,
leaving Scotland “ in a thriving posture,” and “ like to be
a better neighbour than when the great pretenders to the
covenant, and religion, and treaties, had the power in their
hands,” Returning by Carlisle, which was delivered up
according to agreement with the Scots, he laid siege to
Pontefract Castle. It held out stubbornly. On the
6th December, the day of Pride’s Purge,” having left
Lambert to conduct the siege, Cromwell arrived in London,
and on the morrow received the thanks of the house for his
services. During the following month he sat assiduously
in the High Court of Justice for trying the king; and after
the execution was nominated to the new council of state.
The critical state of Ireland now demanded the most
vigorous measures ; the whole country, with the exception
of Dublin and Derry, having, through the exertions of
Ormonde, been roused into open war against the Common¬
wealth. On the loth March Cromwell was nominated
lord-lieutenant for Ireland. Some work, however, still re¬
mained to be done at home. The wild doctrines of the
Levellers—propagated mainly through the restless activity
of John Lilburne—had made dangerous way in the army.
The flame of discontent soon broke out into open mutiny
at the various headquarters. By prompt activity, and a just
exercise of “ vigour and clemency,” Cromwell and Fairfax
succeeded in quelling this alarming insurrection ; the ring¬
leaders were shot, the rest were admonished and submitted.
On the 10th July Cromwell left London in great state, and
after some weeks spent in preparations at Bristol, embarked
at Milford Haven, Aug. 13,—“followed,” as Milton tells
us, “ by the well-wishes of the people, and the prayers of
all good men.” He landed in Dublin on the 18th, and was
received with the most lively demonstrations of joy. On
the 3d Sept, he appeared before Tredah (Drogheda), which
Ormonde had garrisoned with 3000 of his best troops. On
the 10th Cromwell’s batteries began to play, and the governor
received a summons to surrender. It was rejected, and the
bombardment proceeded. Next day a breach was made,
and the storming party entered, but met with a vigorous
repulse. Cromwell, witnessing this from the batteries, hastily
headed a second assault, drove in the enemy, and, “ being
in the heat of the action,” put the whole garrison without
mercy to the sword. In this terrible severity, Cromwell doubt¬
less believed he was at once executing just judgment on ob¬
stinate rebels, and taking the surest method to hasten the
termination of what threatened to be a long and bloody
struggle. “ I am persuaded,” he wrote in his despatch,
“ that this is a righteous judgment of God upon these bar¬
barous wretches, who have imbrued their hands in so much
innocent blood ; and that it will tend to prevent the effusion
of blood in the future. Which are the satisfactory grounds
to such actions, which otherwise cannot but work regret
and remorse. His anticipations were correct. “ The exe¬
crable policy of that regicide,” says Carte, “ had the effect
he proposed.” Towns and garrisons were yielded up in
i apid succession ; and, with the exception of Wexford, where
a similar slaughter took place (Oct. 11), Cromwell “ intend¬
ing better to the place than so great a ruin,” the subsequent
effusion of blood in Ireland was comparatively small. The
arm of resistance had been paralysed. On the 2d Dec.
Cromwell letired to winter quarters. Before resuming the
campaign, he issued, in answer to a manifesto from an as-
W ELL.
sembly of the Popish hierarchy at Clonmacnoise, a “ Decla- Cromwell,
ration for the Undeceiving of Deluded and Seduced People.”
In this remarkable document (“ probably,” says Mr Carlyle,
“ the remarkablest state paper ever published in Ireland
since Strongbow, or even since St Patrick, first appeared
there”) Cromwell, with rude but masterly hand, tears up
the sounding pretences of the hierarchy, points to the true
causes of Ireland’s miseries, rebuts the charges of “ mas¬
sacre” and “ extirpation,” and invites the inhabitants of Ire¬
land to submit peaceably to the Commonwealth, with as¬
surance of inviolate protection in their just rights and liber¬
ties. These promises were no empty words ; the results of
Cromwell’s conquest and government in Ireland were a
general peace and prosperity, admitted, even by his bitterest
enemies, to be without example in the previous history of
that misgoverned country. On the 29th Jan. 1650 he
again took the field. Success everywhere attended him
and his lieutenants. At Clonmel 2000 men of Ulster made
a last desperate effort in the royal cause. After a fierce and
gallant resistance the place was stormed, and surrendered
on the 9th of May. Cromwell had some time previously
received orders to return to England; and having thus,
within the brief space of nine months, reduced a hostile
kingdom to comparative obedience, he sailed for England,
leaving Ireton as his deputy, and entered London in triumph
on the 31st of May.
The threatening aspect of affairs in Scotland had hastened
his recall. Charles, willing “ to sign anything,” had taken
the covenant, and forces were being raised against the Com¬
monwealth. The command of the northern expedition was
offered to Fairfax, but he declined to act against the Pres¬
byterians ; and on the 26th June Cromwell was nominated
captain-general of all the forces of the Commonwealth. He
made his preparations with his usual promptitude, and on
the 29th marched from London; Lambert, Fleetwood,
Whalley, Monk, Pride, and Overton, commanding under
him. On the 23d July he crossed the border at Berwick.
The inhabitants everywhere fled at his approach, the clergy
having represented the English invaders as “ sectaries and
blasphemers,” “ monsters of the world,” who would ^ put
all the men to the sword, and thrust hot irons through the
women’s breasts.” By dint, however, of encouraging pro¬
clamations, combined with the extreme discipline preserved
in the army, the confidence of the people was gradually
restored. On the 28th July, Cromwell encamped at Mus¬
selburgh. The Scotch army, commanded by David Lesley,
as superior to the English in numbers as it was inferior in
discipline, lay strongly fortified between Edinburgh and
Leith. On the second day after the arrival of Cromwell,
the enemy made a vigorous sally, but were repulsed with
loss. “ This,” wrote Cromwell to the president of the coun¬
cil, “ is a sweet beginning of your business, or rather the
Lord’s.” Lesley, however, was not to be drawn into an
open encounter. Fabius himself was not more skilful in
wearing out by cautious manoeuvring the patience of an
enemy. During a whole month Cromwell marched and
countermarched round Edinburgh, in vain attempting to
provoke a battle, his supplies failing, the season advan¬
cing, and sickness reducing his men “ beyond imagination.”
Declarations and responses, with no satisfaction on either
side, had meanwhile passed between him and the Scotch
commissioners. On the 31st August he left Mussel¬
burgh, and fell back upon Dunbar, where his ships lay.
Lesley immediately hastened to cut off his retreat, and
pressing closely in the rear, took possession of the heights
above Dunbar, and the only pass that left a southward
opening to the enemy. Thus hemmed in, the sea behind,
the enemy encircling him on the hills, 23,000 strong, his
own men reduced by sickness from 14,000 to 11,000, Crom¬
well’s good fortune seemed, on the 2d of September 1650,
to have at length forsaken him. “ Before the figlit,” he
f
C R O M W E L L.
513
Cromwell, afterwards wrote to Ireton, “ our condition was made very
sad, the enemy greatly insulted and menaced us.” Not
even then, however, did his strong trust in God and in
himself for a moment desert him. “ He was a strong man,”
said one who knew him, “ in the dark perils of war” in the
high places of the field, hope shone in him like a pillar of
fire, when it had gone out in all the others.” “ In the
mount the Lord would be seen; He would find out a way
of deliverance and salvation.”1 On the afternoon of that
gloomy day, Cromwell, reconnoitring the enemy’s position,
saw that Lesley was moving his forces to the right, and
“ sh°gging down his right wing to more open ground.
At once recognising the advantage this offered for “attempt¬
ing upon the enemy,” he decided, after consulting his officers,
to begin the attack on the morrow before dawn. The battle,
however, did not begin till six. The “ dispute” was hot on
the right for about an hour, when Cromwell's “ own regi¬
ment” came to the charge, and “ at the push of pike” drove
in “ the stoutest regiment” of the enemy. At that mo¬
ment the sun s beams broke out through the morning mist,
over the hills and the sea, and the flashing lines of steel.
Then was Oliver heard to say, in the words of the Psalmist,
“ Let God arise, let his enemies be scattered!” Horse and
foot now charged resistlessly on every side ; the Scottish
ranks fell back in wild confusion, wrecked and scattered in
tumultuous flight. Before nine o’clock 3000 of them were
slain, and 10,000 prisoners, with all their baggage, train,
and artillery, were in the hands of the English, who “ lost
not thirty men,” “ a mercy,” Cromwell might well say, “ far
above all praise.”
He now took possession of Edinburgh, where he spent
the most of the winter and spring. The city clergy had
shut themselves up in the castle, and refused on his in¬
vitation to return to their flocks. Some correspondence
ensued, in the course of which the general showed himself
rather more than a match for the theologians even on their
own ground. In February a deputation from Oxford came
to inform him of his election as chancellor of the university.
Shortly after, we find him pleading in behalf of a “ pious
and laudable scheme” for establishing a college at Durham.
About this time he was seized with a dangerous illness,
brought on by exposure to wet and cold, which, after a tem¬
porary convalescence, broke out in several severe relapses.
The council of state expressed their consideration by sending
two physicians from London to attend him. In the interval,
he spent ten days in Glasgow, where he held a friendly con¬
ference with some of the leading Presbyterian ministers.
Ihe Scotch army meantime lay entrenched at Torwood,
near Stirling. Towards the end of June, Cromwell, having
recovered from his illness, moved westward. Finding the
enemy too strong to be dislodged, he sent a portion of his
army under Lambert across the Firth. At Inverkeithing they
defeated a large body of the enemy, killing about 2000 men.
Inchgarvie and Burntisland soon after surrendered to Monk;
and Cromwell, crossing with his army to Fife, marched
upon Perth, which surrendered on the second day. Charles,
finding his supplies thus cut off, determined on a bold stroke,
and, breaking up his camp, marched into England. Crom¬
well, leaving Monk behind him, and sending Lambert and
Harrison with his light horse in advance, followed at some
distance. The tidings of the royal movement excited great
alarm in London, and it was even suspected that the general
had betrayed the Commonwealth. Cromwell, not unaware
that such fears would arise, wrote to the Parliament simply
relating the facts, and expressing full confidence of success.
The militia flocked to his standard all along his march ; and
by the time he reached Worcester, he found himself at the
head of upwards of 30,000 men. There, on the 3d of Sep- Cromwell,
tember 1654, the anniversary of Dunbar, after a fierce and v'-—
unequal contest, the Scotch army was shivered into ruin,
and the last hope of royalism buried. “ The dimensions
of this mercy,” said Cromwell in his despatch, “ are above
my thoughts. It is, for aught I know, a crowning mercy.”
Such indeed it proved. On the 12th September the vic¬
torious general entered London amid the joyous congratula¬
tions of all persons, high and low.
At this point Cromwell’s career as a general ends, and
the events of his subsequent life become identified with the
history of Britain. To give completeness to this sketch,
however, it will be necessary briefly to notice the chief
points in his history as a ruler. After the battle of Wor¬
cester, the management of Scotland, where his deputy
Monk had been completely successful in crushing royalism,
naturally fell under the chief direction of Cromwell. That
country was now united to the Commonwealth by act of
parliament, a small army distributed in garrisons preserved
the peace of the country, justice was strictly administered,
the affairs of the church were committed to a commission
ot pious and judicious ministers ; and during the whole
period of Cromwell’s government, Scotland prospered under
a strict but beneficent rule. During the interval between
the battle of Worcester and the dismissal of the “Rump”
Parliament, Cromwell took no prominent part in public
affairs. I he general opinion among historians seems to be,
that during these nineteen months the ambitious general
was busily occupied in that course of profound “ dissimula¬
tion” and “intrigue” which had marked his whole career,and
that as the premeditated result of the selfish scheme of
usurpation, which had lurked darkly in his bosom even on
the banks of the Ouse, he entered the House of Commons
on the 20th April 1653, expelled the parliament, and as¬
sumed the reins of power. Without occupying time in
the discussion of this view, it is sufficient here to remark
that the great assembly that had moulded the Common¬
wealth had now, at the end of twelve years, exhausted
its vitality, and dwindled into a mere mockery of represen¬
tative government. It had become in fact an oligarchy,
which had absorbed to itself not merely the whole adminis¬
tration of public affairs, but the control of many private in¬
terests. Their “ only serious occupation to maintain them¬
selves in pow'er and defend themselves against their ene¬
mies these men wasted months in debating questions of
mere technicality, and prolonged time after time the duration
of their power, after the voice of the nation, so far as it was
capable of being interpreted, had pronounced it intolerable.
After months of discussion and delay, they had completed
their measure for electing a new parliament, professedly
with the view of laying down their power into the hands of
their successors, when it was found that by this act the mem¬
bers of the existing parliament w7ere to be de jure members
of the new, and to constitute a committee for deciding on
the admission of their successors ! On the morning of the
20th April, Cromwell, informed that this shameless mea¬
sure was being hurried through the House, entered
with his troopers and dissolved the parliament. By that
daring act he became the sole head of power in the nation,
and nothing was left him but to use it as wisely and firmly
as he could. The consequences of that act left him thence¬
forth no honourable retreat had he desired it. One strong
hand was needed to give consistency and unity to the
action of the state, alike in its internal and its foreign re¬
lations ; and, from the hour that Cromwell seized the helm,
the ship of the Commonwealth rode the waves, if not with¬
out straining or accident, yet with a proud and steady
. Outers and Speeches, iii., 56. It is impossible here to omit reference to Mr Carlyle’s chapter on “ Dunbar ”
piece never was painted.
Guizot, History of Cromwell and the English Commonwealth.
VOL. VII.
Another such battle-
3 T
514
CROMWELL.
Cromwell, march. F ew tears were shed for the departed statesmen ;
-v—> the nation quietly submitted, if it did not positively ap¬
prove ; the business of the state went on without inter¬
ruption ; the leaders of the army and navy, many of them
ardent republicans, continued at their posts, sinking then-
private opinions in their concern for the country s g°o •
As soon as possible, summonses were issued in Cromwell s
name to 140 “persons of approved fidelity and honesty,
selected from the nation by himself and his council to act
as a parliament in the existing emergency. I his extra¬
ordinary assembly met on the 4th of July. The old and
vulgar charge against them, as a herd of mean and con¬
temptible fanatics, is of a piece with the general run of his¬
toric portraitures of Cromwell himself, and has been suffi¬
ciently answered even by writers who have little favour foi
him. They were indeed a body of most sincere and earnest
men, only too eager and comprehensive in their efforts to
accomplish a national reformation. They attempted too
much ; they aroused a storm of hostility from the classes
whose interests they threatened; they bowed before it;
internal dissensions and intrigue hastened their fall, and on
the 12th December they resigned their power into the
hands of Cromwell, who now found himself in the solemn
position of being the uncontrolled arbiter of the peace and
safety of Britain. Earnestly desirous, as he throughout
evinced himself, of giving his country a stable and consti¬
tutional government, he was willing now, rather than that
England should sink into the abyss of anarchy, to brave
the dangers and the odium that attach to the name of a
usurper. Called, as he might well believe himself, “ by a
good right from God and men” to the great task of settling
a distracted state, and carrying into full effect the earnest
beliefs for which the nation had shed its blood and sacri¬
ficed its king, we give a poor judgment on all that is highest
in human motive if we attribute to any mean and selfish am¬
bition the act that now put visibly into the hand that alone
was fit to wield it the sceptre of the British realms. F our days
after the resignation of the “ Little Parliament” itwas openly
proclaimed that Oliver Cromwell had been invested with the
office of supreme governor of the British Commonwealth
under the title of Lord Protector ; and on the 16th De¬
cember 1653 he was solemnly installed in Westminster Hall.
All the chief courts of Europe sent their congratulations to
the new sovereign, and soon they were made to feel and
bow to his power. A parliament was summoned for the 3d
of September 1654; and in the meantime, Oliver and his
council proceeded with vigour in the settlement of domestic
and foreign affairs. “In less than nine months,” says M.
Guizot, “ eighty-two ordinances, bearing upon almost every
part of the social organization of the country, bore witness to
the intelligent activity and to the character, at once conser¬
vative and reformatory, of the government.” Of these it is
sufficient to mention the partial reform of the court of chan¬
cery, and the settlement of ecclesiastical affairs by the commis¬
sion of Triers, a body of able and pious men who, by the im¬
partial testimony of Baxter, “ did abundance of good to the
church.” A plot, the first of many, to assassinate the Pro¬
tector, was discovered in the month of July. The principal
conspirators, Gerard and Vowel, were executed ; and on the
same day, as a terrible example to Europe of English justice,
Don Pantaleon Sa, brother to the Portuguese ambassador,
was publicly beheaded for his share in the murder of an Eng¬
lish citizen. On the 3d September the parliament met. The
Protector had already concluded peace with the Netherlands,
Sweden, Denmark, and Portugal; and a treaty with France
was proceeding hopefully towards settlement. The parlia¬
ment began business by deliberating whether they should ap¬
prove the newly established frame of government—in other
words, by calling in question the authority which had called
them together. Oliver at once hastened to set them right.
“ I told you,” he said, “ that you were a ‘ free parliament/
but I thought it was understood withal that I was the Pro- Cromwell,
tector, and the authority that called you!” He concluded an ^
earnest and powerful address by requiring of them to sign a
document pledging themselves to acknowledge the existing
government. One hundred and fifty of the republican mem¬
bers refused to sign, and withdrew. The rest resumed their
sitting; but their subsequent proceedings were scarcely
more satisfactory than their inauspicious commencement.
Instead of accepting cordially as a fact the power of the
Protector, and aiding him in the work of government, their
sole business was to interpose as many checks as they could
to his influence. Deeply grieved at the failure of each
successive attempt to govern by constitutional means, Crom¬
well was not therefore discouraged. If parliaments would
not help him, he was determined to govern without them. His
scheme of .J/q/or-g'eftera/s followed; “ alittle poor invention,”
as he called it, for preserving order in the country, and crush¬
ing the now imminent attempt at a combination between the
Royalists and the Levellers. Though arbitrary, and in many
instances oppressive, this scheme accomplished the great end
of its establishment—the pi*eservation of the country’s peace.
But while the enemies of peace and order at home were
made to feel the invincible power of his government, it
was in his relations with foreign states that the command¬
ing genius of Oliver was most conspicuously displayed.
No monarch ever so sustained in the eyes of Europe the
majesty of the British power. The grand object of his
foreign policy was to unite the Protestant states, with Bri¬
tain at their head, in a defensive league against Popery,
then as now the enemy of civil and religious liberty.
Spain, “the great underpropper of the Roman Babylon,” the
“ natural enemy of the honest interest,” he determined to
humble, and in due time he did. With France, less sub¬
ject to the yoke of Rome, he allied himself, making such
terms as he pleased, extorting from the crafty Mazarin (who
was said to “ fear Oliver more than the devil,” and to change
colour at the mention of his name), a cardinal and prince
of the Church of Rome, protection for Rome’s enemies, and
full pardon for offences committed against her in the heart
of France itself! In the summer of 1655 the persecution
of the Protestants in the valleys of Piedmont afforded an
occasion for displaying in the noblest light the greatness
of the Protector and of the nation which he represented.
The tidings of these cruel oppressions affected the stern
conqueror to tears. The treaty with France was ready to
be signed that day. He refused to put his name to it until
he received assurance of protection for the persecuted Pied¬
montese ; and immediately wrote, not only to the Duke of
Savoy himself, but to Louis XIV., to Cardinal Mazarin,
the Kings of Sweden and Denmark, the States-General, the
Swiss Cantons, and even to Rakozy, Prince of Transyl¬
vania, pleading for their interposition. Had his remon¬
strances proved unsuccessful, he had fully prepared to exact
compliance at the point of the sword. A Protector not of
England only, but of the Protestantism of Europe, tins
Usurper might claim, without any fiction, the royal title
“ Defender of the Faith.” Meantime the supremacy of
England on the seas was upheld by Blake, whose guns
thundered along the shores of the Mediterranean, exact¬
ing justice and submission from every hostile power.
The Duke of Tuscany, the Pope, the Deys of I unis,
Tripoli, and Algiers, each in succession, were forced to
make reparation for injuries to English commerce and
liberty. The Mediterranean was cleared of pirates, and
the confidence of peaceful merchants was restored. “ By
such means as these,” said Cromwell, “ we shall make the
name of Englishman as great as that of Roman was in Rome s
most palmy days.”
After a lapse of nearly two years, Oliver, still clinging
to the wish of restoring the ancient constitution, now
made another experiment at governing with a parlia-
CROMWELL.
Cromwell, ment. It met on the 17th September 1656. About a
^ hundred of the inveterate republicans were excluded, and
the house, now tolerably in harmony with the Protector's
views, proceeded to a settlement of the nation. The major-
generals were abolished early in spring 5 the form of a new
constitution, with two houses of parliament, and one govern¬
ing person, with the title of king, was proposed; and dur¬
ing three months the subject was discussed amidst the in¬
tense expectation of the whole people. I hat Cromwell was
willing and even desirous to add this element of stability to
his government there can be no doubt; but seeing that the
dangers that threatened to accompany the assumption of the
title were likely to overbalance its advantages, he finally de¬
clined to accept it. The remaining points of the constitution,
however, were agreed on, and on the 26th June 1657, he was
again, with additional solemnity, invested with the protec¬
torate. The new parliament assembled on the 20th Janu¬
ary 1658. The Commons refused to acknowledge the Pro¬
tector s House of Peers, and on the 4th of February he
dissolved them, concluding his last speech with the solemn
words “ God be judge between me and you !” The whole
weight of government again rested on his shoulders, and
with unabated energy he went on with his work, crushing
the designs of domestic enemies, and maintaining abroad
the full prestige of his power. His struggles were now
drawing to an end. “ He being compelled,” says Maid¬
stone,1 “ to wrestle with the difficulties of his place, so well
as he could, without parliamentary assistance, in it met
with so great a burthen as (I doubt not to say) it drank up
his spirits, of which his natural constitution yielded a vast
stock, and brought him to his grave ; his interment being
the seed-time of his glory, and England’s calamity.” On the
6th August, his favourite daughter, Elizabeth, died after a
lingering illness, during which the Protector had watched
unremittingly by her side. His health, already declining,
now visibly gave way. No space remains here to describe
that solemn deathbed, where the lowly penitence of a sin¬
ner was heard to express itself in earnest confession, and
the thoughts of a great ruler for the good of his people
found their last utterance in a prayer. On Friday, the 3d
of September 1658, the anniversary of his Fortunate Day,
the spirit of Cromwell was released from its earthly toils;
Nature herself seeming to prophesy, in the voice of the tem¬
pest, that a great power was passing away.
“ It has often been affirmed,” says Mr Macaulay, “ but
apparently with little reason, that Oliver died at a time for¬
tunate for his renown, and that, if his life had been prolonged,
it would probably have closed amidst disgraces and disasters.
It is certain that he was to the last honoured by his sol¬
diers, obeyed by the whole population of the British Islands,
and dreaded by all foreign powers, that he was laid among
the ancient sovereigns of England with funeral pomp, such
as London had never before seen, and that he was succeeded
by his son Richard as quietly as any king had ever been
succeeded by any prince of Wales.”2
Historians, till within a comparatively recent period, have
been nearly unanimous in their judgment on the character
of Cromwell. That he was a man of extraordinary abilities
515
was a necessary and universal admission, but served for the Cromwell,
most part only “ to point the moral” as an aggravation of v—>
his crimes. The only question concerning so terrible a
prodigy seemed to be, how far a selfish and unscrupulous
ambition may have been modified in him by a blind fanati¬
cism, how far in deceiving others he may gradually have
fallen into deception of himself. That his history should
have been so interpreted admits of easy explanation. The
recoil of sentiment that followed the death of Cromwell, and
with him of Puritanism, as a visible power, was great in
proportion to the intensity of the previous strain; and a
man who attempted to realize Christianity as a practical
element in the government of nations, and addressed armies
and parliaments in the language of the Bible, was not likely
to be looked upon with sympathy in the age of Bolingbroke
and Hume. Had Cromwell been less of a Christian and
more of a Pagan, historians might have accorded to him
some of that leniency with which they have spoken of the
vices of a Caesar or a Peter the Great. But the same office
which cowardly hands had done for his bones, servility, ig¬
norance, and prejudice, did for his memory; and during
most part of two centuries, the name of the greatest man of
his own age, and one of the noblest of any age, has been
associated with all the infamy that belongs to a life-long
career of unmitigated hypocrisy and insatiable ambition.
Truth, however, at length begins to prevail; and Crom¬
well’s own prophetic hope is attaining fulfilment—“ I know
God has been above all ill reports, and will in his own time
vindicate me. The most eloquent of English historians
has defended, in pages read by all the world, both the Puri¬
tans and their king; and another historian, with still deeper
love and admiration, has paid his “ tribute to the memory
of a hero,” in a work which will henceforth enable posterity
to know what kind of man Oliver Cromwell really was.3
We shall not here attempt any defence of Cromwell. “ In
speaking, said Milton, “ ot such a man, who has merited
so well of his country, I should do nothing if I only excul¬
pated him from crimes; since it so nearly concerns the
country and myself, who am so closely implicated in the
same disgrace, to evince to all nations, and, as far as I
can, to all ages, the excellence of his character, and the
splendour of his renown.” After Milton, and Macaulay,
and Carlyle, it becomes a difficult task to speak on the
subject. Let us, however, as briefly as possible, review
the life of Cromwell. In its first obscure period, includ¬
ing two-thirds of his life, he is a plain English farmer, dis¬
tinguished only by his homely English virtues, his strong
common sense and independence, his earnest piety, his
forwardness in all good works. At home he is strict yet
tender, full of soft sympathies and playful kindness. Fie
enters the British parliament recommended by little po¬
litical skill or influence, still less by any oratorical attain¬
ments ; but by his thorough practical force and earnestness
he approves himself as a man “ to sit well to the mark.” In
the next stage of his life he is an extempore soldier, who,
having learned to govern himself, proves his fitness to be a
leader to others. He inspires his men with his own spirit,
fights with the enthusiasm of one who believes, and passes
Laur to Wvnthrop, governor of Connecticut. From the same source we must subjoin another interesting extract, descriptive of the
Protector s character and personal appearance. “ His body was well-built, compact, and strong, his stature under six feet (1 believe about
two inches) his head so shaped as you might see in it a storehouse and shop both of a vast treasury of natural parts.” Vphrenolmrist,
ave specially noticed this point.) “ His temper exceeding fiery, as I have known, but the flame of it kept down for the most part or
soon allayed with those moral endowments he had. He was naturally compassionate towards objects in distress even to an effeminate
measure ; though God had made him a heart wherein was left little room for any fear, but what was due to Himself of which there was
a large proportion, yet did he exceed in tenderness towards sufferers. A larger soul I think hath seldom dwelt in a’house of clay than
ms was. I do believe if his story were impartially transmitted, and the unprejudiced world well possessed with it she would add him
3 ‘‘TWoTt eS’ fn umHake Up that rrber a,decemviri,” 2 History of England, vol. L, p 139
the collection of all his speeches, letters, and sermons,” says Mr Hume, “ would make a great curiosity, and with a few exceptions
nSlfoa °)'°ne ^ 2 T-St n0nTmal b0°m in the, WOrld-” • HoW the “ LeUerS and Speeches °f 0liver Cromwell, with Elucidations by
service*waT^ver ^ n hl™arkable ;erdlct> read<f must judge for themselves. It may be enough here to say that no such nobfe
semice was ever rendered to the memory of a great man by a single hand. For an able biography in which a very opposite view is taken
of the character of Cromwell, the reader is referred to Mr Forster’s Statesmen of the British Commonwealth, vols vi. vii {Cab Cyclopced )
516 C R 0
Cromwell, on from victory to victory. When justice requires it he
v~—can be inexorable as death, but he has an affectionate pity
for distress, and a patient tolerance for honest doubt or mis¬
guided sincerity. As his sphere widens his powers are de¬
veloped ; he displays a faculty equal to the greatest affairs
and the darkest emergencies, till all men come to rely on
the strength of his arm and the wisdom of bis counsel. With
a soul-pervading belief in things unseen, ever alike in pub¬
lic and in private, in the shock of battle and the heat of de¬
bate, speaking and feeling as a man under the eye of God
and an instrument in His hands, he unites a clear and prompt
intelligence that finds difficult vent in words, but cuts de¬
cisively through the subtlest entanglements, and a vigour
of will that takes up the most appalling difficulties with an
iron grasp, scatters doubt and opposition to the winds, and
establishes order on the basis of fact. He has no theories
about government, but he knows in all circumstances what
suits the time, and he dares to realize it. A king governs
ill, and obstructs the growth of England’s true life ; he helps
to dethrone him, and set up a republic. The republic proves
itself unfit for the national requirements, and its leaders talk
when they ought to act; he takes the work into his own
hands, trampling upon law, resolute only that England shall
in some true sense accomplish her destiny. And now he
is visibly, as he had long been virtually, the head of the
nation. He has disappointed every party, not by deceiving
them, but by being more wise to recognise the true state
of things, and the true conditions of national well-being. He
has converted into enemies many sincere and able men, who
cannot see with his eyes, and think their duty consists not
in aiding but in opposing him. He has alienated the affec¬
tions of old comrades, who cling to their loved theories,
while he is striving only to put whatever was good in
these theories into practice. His superior mind, ever grow¬
ing, has opened into a wider circle of thoughts, out of the
mist and storm of revolution. Experience has taught him
many things which are hard to communicate in words, but
which he struggles to convert into facts. Elevated into
supremacy, regal save only in name, he still preserves the
plain simplicity of his. former life. Armed with more than
regal power, he limits himself within the strict bounds of
necessity. He is not elated by powder, for it is not strange
to him. At home upon a throne, he cares little for the
outward shows of royalty, except so far as they involve the
nation’s honour, or conduce to its security. Too great to be
jealous or vindictive for himself, he is swift and stern in
crushing the enemies of public tranquillity. He is truly a
terror to evil-doers, a praise and protection to them that
do well. He fosters learning, though himself not learned,
and a companion of men to whom learning is profanity.
“ If there was a man in England who excelled in any fa¬
culty or science, the Protector would find him out, and re¬
ward him according to his merit.” The head of Puritanism,
of a cause now triumphant, he is so little of a “ fanatic,”
that he tolerates all sects, so long as they meddle not to
disturb the state—he can tolerate everything but wilful
wrong-doing. His large and healthy spirit is bound by no
party sympathies—his heart yearns towards all good men,
of whatever name. At an era when toleration is still looked
upon as foolish in politics and criminal in religion, he stands
out in glorious prominence as the earnest advocate of the
rights of conscience, and proclaims all men answerable to
God alone for their faith. Popery and prelacy he pro¬
scribes, on grounds political rather than religious: to the
adherents of both he shows private lenience; under his rule
men no more suffer at the stake or the pillory. So far do
his thoughts reach beyond his age, that he desires, and ear¬
nestly attempts, to extend the rights of citizenship to the
outcast and persecuted Jews. Himself the greatest. “ the
most English of Englishmen”—he is determined that Eng¬
land shall be the greatest of states. He encourages trade,
C R 0
he plants colonies, he makes wise peace with whom he will, Cromwell
or wages just and successful war. All Europe trembles at )!
his voice, and the flagof England now and henceforth waves c'ronia>
triumphant over every sea. In fine, considering the com-
parative position of Britain in the times that preceded and
followed him, the circumstances of his life, and the difficul¬
ties with which he had to contend, making all allowance for
his errors and his failings, he is a man for all ages to ad¬
mire, for all Britons to honour in proud and loving re¬
membrance. No royal name at least since Alfred’s is more
worthy of our veneration than that of the “ Usurper,” Oliver
Cromwell. (a. n.)
Cromwell, Richard, the eldest surviving son of the Pro¬
tector, was born at Huntingdon, October 4, 1626. In his
youth he is said to have been favourable to royalism; but on
the elevation of his father he accepted a place in parliament,
and was appointed first lord of trade and navigation. He
was afterwards made privy-councillor, a colonel in the army,
and leader in the House of Lords. On the death of his
father he received the sceptre of the Commonwealth ; but,
surrounded on all sides by the machinations of factions which
he had not sufficient intrepidity to quell, he resigned his
power (April 22, 1659) and retired into private life. Op¬
pressed with debt, principally contracted to cover the ex¬
penses of his father’s funeral, of which parliament only par¬
tially relieved him, he was obliged to retire to the Continent,
In 1680 he ventured to return, and under the assumed name
of Clarke he settled in Cheshunt, Hertfordshire, where he
died in 1712, aged eighty-six.
Cromwell, Thomas, Earl of Essex, was the son of a
blacksmith at Putney, and born there in 1498. He received
the greater part of his education abroad, and was for some
time clerk to an English factory at Antwerp. From thence
he removed to Rome, where he familiarized himself with
the Latin classics, and is said to have learned Erasmus’
New Testament by heart. On his return to England, he
entered the service of Cardinal Wolsey, and defended his
patron when impeached before the House of Commons,
His boldness on this occasion seems to have recommended
him to the favour of Henry, who, after the fall of the car¬
dinal, made him his confidential favourite and prime minis¬
ter. From the moment Cromwell acquired any authority
in the cabinet, he exerted it in favour of the Reformation,
and signalized himself by the zeal with which he forwarded
the demolition of images, the dissolution of monasteries,
and the religious education of the people. He also insti¬
tuted parish-registers, and introduced numerous other social
improvements. His devotedness to the cause of the Refor¬
mation led him to take an active part in promoting the
marriage of Henry with Anne of Cleves, who was a zealous
Lutheran ; and the indignation with which the king after-
afterwards regarded his bride fell with double fury on the
head of the minister. To the people generally he was al¬
ready obnoxious on account of the subsidies which he had
exacted, and by the nobility he w^as despised as a plebeian
intruder into their order, while with the Roman Catholics
he shared the fate of every reformer. The charms of Ca¬
tharine Howard were quickly made available to widen the
breach between the king and Cromwell; and after a sudden
arrest and a hasty impeachment, in which charges of heresy
and treason, bribery and extortion, were made against him,
without the liberty of reply, he was condemned and exe-
cutedon Tower Hill, July 28,1540. Of Cromwell’s character
various opinions are given by the adherents of the Reforma¬
tion and its opponents. His last speech is in keeping with the
religious ambiguity of the period ; and though his whole life
was spent in promoting the interests of the Reformed Church,
it is certain that ambition had greater influence in shaping
his policy than conscientious conviction. See England.
CRONIA, in Grecian Antiquity, a festival celebrated
more particularly at Athens in honour of Cronos (Saturn)
C R 0
Cronstadt. on the 12th of the month Hecatombaeon, which was the first
month of the Attic year, and corresponded nearly to our
July. The more ancient name of this month was Cronius.
The Grecian Cronia corresponded to the Roman Saturnalia;
and hence by Greek writers the name Cronia is applied to
that festival.
CRONSTADT, or Kronstadt, a strongly fortified sea¬
port town of Russia, and the great naval station of the Rus¬
sian fleet in the northern seas is situated on the island of Kot-
line (frequently also called Cronstadt, from the town), at the
head of the Gulf of Finland, 20 miles west of St Petersburg,
in N, Lat. 59. 59. 26.; E. Long. 29. 46. 30. The popu¬
lation in 1849 was 25,120; but it varies considerably at dif¬
ferent times of the year, and in summer generally amounts to
about 50,000. The island of Kotline is in general outline an
acute triangle, 7 miles in length by about 1 in breadth, with
its base towards St Petersburg, and its apex extending ob¬
liquely seawards. The eastern or broad end is occupied by
the town of Cronstadt; and miles from the western point
of the island is the lighthouse of Tolboochin or Tolbeacon.
The streets are regular, and in general well paved ; but the
houses, with the exception of those belonging to govern¬
ment, are chiefly of one story. The town was originally
built of wood, and wooden structures are still numerous;
but such buildings are now forbidden by law, and the ma¬
jority of the houses are now built of brick and plastered.
Cronstadt is divided into two parts—the Morskaia chast,
sea district, and the Koopacheskaia chast or commercial
district—and into four subdivisions. Of the two canals
which traverse the town, that of St Peter, constructed of
granite, is 2160 feet long by about 30 yards wide. It com¬
mences between the Merchant and Middle Harbours, and is
in the form of a cross, of which one arm communicates
with a dock where ten ships of the line can be repaired at
once. The Catherine canal, 1880 fathoms in length, com¬
municates with the Merchant Harbour, and thus enables
vessels to take their stores, munitions, &c. directly from the
store-houses. Between the two canals stood the old Italian
palace of Prince Menschikoff, the site of which is now oc¬
cupied by a large building used as a school for pilots, and
educating above 300 pupils. Among the other public
buildings may be mentioned the extensive naval hospital,
the civic hospital, arsenal, admiralty, cannon and ball foun¬
dry, custom-house, barracks, the exchange (a square range of
shops), and the club-house; containing also a seminary in
which soldiers’ and sailors’ sons are educated at the expense
of government. The house of Peter the Great is still stand¬
ing, and serves as a country residence for the military gover¬
nor; and the garden still contains a few of the trees planted
by his royal hand. On the south side of the town there are
three harbours, formed artificially by means of piles sup¬
porting a superstructure partly of timber and partly of
granite, and mounted with guns. The Western or Mer¬
chant harbour is capable of containing 600 vessels. Its
western flank is formed by a mole running for a distance of
1000 yards in a direction nearly at right angles to the ap¬
proach, and joining the land fortifications, which here tra¬
verse the breadth of the island. Opposite the fort of Cron-
slott this mole takes a new direction, running for nearly a
mile almost parallel to the north side of the island, and se¬
parating the Merchant and Middle Harbours from the Little
Roads. It has three bastions, on the first of which stands
Fort Menschikoff, mounting forty-four 8 and 10 inch guns,
in four tiers of casemates. The flank towards Cronslott is
pierced with loop-holes for musketry on each of the three
lower tiers. The Middle Harbour is used chiefly for the
fitting out and repairing of vessels, the hulls being gene¬
rally built at St Petersburg and brought here for equip¬
ment ; and attached to it there are excellent docks, with
pitch and tar works, powder-magazine, &c. The War Har¬
bour, at the end of the Middle Harbour, is of a rectangular
C R 0 517
form, about 900 yards in length by 350 in breath. It has Cronstadt.
two bastions at the extreme end, and two on either flank;
those on the west having their salient angles truncated, and
an opening left in them for the passage of ships. On the
northern side of the island the passage is impracticable, ex¬
cept for very small craft, being obstructed by rows of piles
and large masses of stone extending from the island to Lisi
Noss on the mainland. The southern channel is the only
practicable passage from the Gulf of Finland to St Peters¬
burg, and it is strongly defended on both sides by forts
and batteries. The principal of these are Forts Alexander,
Risbank, Peter, Cronslott, and that of Menschikoff already
mentioned. The Great Road is commanded by Forts Alex¬
ander and Risbank, about 1600 yards apart. The former,
on the left side of the passage, consists of a front with 4
tiers of embrasures, and two flanks of 3 tiers each, and a
rear-wall mounted with guns en barbette. It is built of
blocks of granite on a foundation of piles in 18 feet of water,
and commands the road by one hundred and sixteen 8 and
10 inch guns, all in casemates. Fort Risbank, which was
not finished last year (1853), on the opposite side, is also of
granite, resting on a foundation of piles in 16 feet of water,
and is armed with tiers of guns of the heaviest calibre.
Farther eastward, on the left, is Fort Peter, or Citadel
Fort, with three towers or bastions joined by two curtains;
the first commanding the approach to the rear of Fort Alex¬
ander, while the second and third sweep the main channel.
These bastions have twenty-eight guns in casemates, and
twenty-eight guns above en barbette: the curtains have no
casemates, but mount twenty guns en barbette. To the
right of the Little Road is Cronslott, an irregular pentagon,
originally built by Peter the Great. It presents to the sea
a low line of timber casemates, forming a battery of forty
guns placed a Jieur cCeau, and disposed in the half of each
of two bastions with a connecting curtain. All this work,
however, has been destroyed, and last year (1853) the piles
had been driven on which a granite fort was to be built, which
by this time (Oct, 1854) is probably complete. The mole
forming the western flank of the Merchant Harbour mounts
seventy guns, besides twelve mortars; and the channel, be¬
tween Cronslott and the mole, is only 250 yards wide. Al¬
most all vessels bound for St Petersburg touch at Cronstadt,
and those drawing more than 7 feet of water load and un¬
load here; the goods being conveyed to and from the city in
lighters. Vessels of 10 feet draught have, however, been
known to go up with high water. The port is ice-bound
during the winter months, from November to April. Cron¬
stadt was founded by Peter the Great in 1703.
Cronstadt, a town situated near the S. E. extre¬
mity of Transylvania, and capital of a cognominal district,
which also bears the name of Burzenland, from the Burze,
a tributary of the Alt, which waters the province. From
the branches of the Carpathians which intersect it, the sur¬
face of the district reaches a high elevation, and the climate
is intensely cold. It is, however, a rich agricultural and
pastoral country, and is inhabited by an industrious popu¬
lation, composed of Hungarians, Wallacks, Armenians,
Greeks, and Szeklers. The town of Cronstadt is built in a
narrow valley hemmed in by mountains, and is commanded
by an isolated hill, on which is a fortress of considerable
strength. It consists of an inner town, which is defended
by walls and towers, and three suburbs on the N., E., and S.
The suburb of Blumenau is inhabited chiefly by Szeklers;
the suburb of Bulgarey (which communicates with the in¬
ner town by a large esplanade), and that of Ulstadt, are the
residence chiefly of the Wallack population. The principal
buildings in Cronstadt are the Protestant church, with a
tower 140 feet high, the Lutheran church and college, the
gymnasium, and the market-house erected in 1545. Be¬
sides the churches already mentioned, there are others be¬
longing to the Roman Catholics, Greeks, and Calvinists.
518 C R 0
Crosier The transit tiaife of Cronstadt carried on between \ ienna
II and the principalities was once very extensive, but has re-
v Cross. ^ cently considerably declined. The principal manufactures
^J are those of cottons, woollens, linen goods, and paper. Cron¬
stadt was the first place in Transylvania at which a paper-mill
and printing-press were established. Fop. 36,000.
CROSIER, or Crozier (from croix, a cross, of which
it has an image on the top), the pastoral staff of a bishop,
symbolic of his dignity and office. This staff is of gold or
silver, with an ornamented head, which is curved to resemble
a shepherd’s crook. The custom of bearing a pastoral
staff before bishops is very ancient, as appears from the life
of St Caesarea, bishop of Arles, who lived about the year
500. In the Greek Church, the patriarch alone had a right
to the crozier. The prototype of this instrument appears to
have been nothing more than a simple wooden staff or
baton. Afterwards, it came to be highly ornamented; and
artists, such as Benvenuto Cellini and Giovanni da Bo¬
logna, were employed to design it. I he excess of splen¬
dour lavished upon crosiers in later times gave occasion to
the following satirical lines: —
Au temps passe du siecle d’or,
Crosse de bois, eveque d’or;
Et maintenant changent les lois,
Crosse d’or, eveque de bois.—Coquille.
It is carried in procession before bishops, abbots, and ab¬
besses. Some writers have asserted that the crosier is de¬
rived from the lituus or augural staff of the ancient Ro¬
mans.
CROSLET, in Heraldry, is applied to a cross that is
crossed again at a small distance from each of the ends.
CROSS (Eat crux ; Gk. crraupos), a gibbet formed of
two pieces of wood placed crosswise; and, metaphorically,
the punishment of the cross, as well as the pain it inflicts,
and in a general sense, any severe suffering or heavy trial.
Instead of crraupos the Greek ctkoAoi// is sometimes found as
equivalent to the Latin crux. Both are in frequent use
among the writers who transferred the events of Roman
history into the Greek tongue.
In its simplest form, consisting of two pieces of wood,
one standing erect, the other crossing it at right angles, the
cross was known at an early age in the history of the world.
Its use as an instrument of punishment was probably sug¬
gested by the shape so often taken by branches of trees,
which seem to have been the first crosses that were em¬
ployed. It was certainly customary to hang criminals on
trees—arbor infelix. Cicero {Pro Rabir. 3) appears to con¬
sider hanging on a tree and crucifixion as of the same im¬
port ; and Seneca (Ep. 101) names the cross infelix lignum,
which may with no undue liberty be rendered the “ accursed
tree.” Trees are known to have been used as crosses (Ter-
tull. Ap. viii. 16); and to every kind of hanging which bore
a resemblance to crucifixion, such as that of Frometheus,
Andromeda, &c., the name was commonly applied. Among
the Scythians, Persians, Carthaginians, Greeks, Romans,
and the ancient Germans, traces are found of the cross as an
instrument of punishment. The sign of the cross is found
as a holy symbol among several ancient nations. Among
the Indians and Egyptians it often appears in their ceremo¬
nies, sometimes in the shape of the letter T, at others in
this shape +. At Susa, Ker Porter saw a stone cut with
hieroglyphics and cuneiform inscriptions, on which in one
corner was a figure of a cross, thus The cross, he says,
is generally understood to be symbolical of the divinity or
eternal life, and certainly a cross was to be seen in the tem¬
ple of Serapis as the Egyptian emblem of the future life, as
may be learnt in Sozomen and Rufinus. In this case, it is
always the crux ansata, thus which is often held in
the hands of Egyptian deities. Porter also states that
the Egyptian priests urged its being found on the walls of
their temple of Serapis, as an argument with the victorious
CEO
army of Theodosius to save it from destruction. In an Cross,
obelisk recently discovered at Nineveh, there is a represen-
tation of a king, within an arched frame, having the Assy¬
rian symbols over the head, and a cross, like that of Malta,
on his breast. From the numerous writings on this subject
by La Croze, Jablonski, Zoega, Visconti, Pococke, Pluche,
Petit Radel, and others, the symbol of the cross appears to
have been most various in its significations. Sometimes it
is the Phallus, sometimes the planet Venus, the Nilometer,
an emblem of the four elements, or the seasons (Creuzer’s
Symbolik, pp. 168-9). It is not therefore surprising that
ancient and even modern Christian writers should on this
subject have indulged in some degree of refinement and
mysticism. Justin Martyr (Apol. i. § 72) says : “ The sign
of the cross is impressed upon the whole of nature. There
is hardly a handicraftsman but uses the figure of it among
the implements of his industry. It forms a part of man
himself, as may be seen when he raises his hands in prayer.”
According to Lipsius {De Grace, i. 5-9) and Gretser {De
Grace Christi, vol. i. c. I) there were in general two kinds of
crosses ;—1, crux simplex ; 2, crux composita or compacta.
The first consisted of a stake on which the criminal was fas¬
tened, or by which he was impaled. For the first kind of
punishment, a tree or a specially prepared stake was used,
on which the criminal was bound, and either left to perish,
or immediately put to death. For impaling (infixio) a long
and sharpened piece of wood {pale) was employed, on which
the criminal was put as on a spit. Seneca describes this kind
of execution {Consolat. ad Marc. c. 20): “ I behold these
crosses, not of one kind, but made differently by different
people. Some suspended the criminal with his head turned
towards the earth ; others drove a stake through his body.”
This cruel mode of execution was formerly very customary
in Russia, China, Turkey, and other countries, and is not yet
universally abolished by law.
Of the crux composita or compound cross there were
three sorts: 1, crux decussata; 2, crux commissa; 3, crux
immissa. The crux decussata is also called Andrew’s cross,
because tradition reports that on a cross of this kind the
Apostle Andrew suffered death. Jerome {Comment, on
Jerem. c. 31) describes this cross in the following terms:—
Decussare est per medium secare velut si duae regulae con-
currant ad speciem literae X quae figura est crucis. So Isi-
dorus Hisp. {Orig. I. i. 3) says that the letter X denotes a
cross and the number ten (in Roman numerals).
The crux commissa, Lipsius states, was formed by putting
a cross piece of wood on a perpendicular one, so that no
part of the latter may stand above the former. This form
is found in the figure T* crux immissa, or, as
others prefer to term it, crux capitata, the following is given
as the description:—“ a cross in which the longer piece of
wood or pale stands above the shorter piece which runs
across it near the top.” It is distinguished from the pre¬
ceding by the part of the longer beam which is above the
shorter or transverse, thus *!■. This form is found in paint¬
ings more frequently than any other. On a cross of this
kind our Saviour is believed to have suffered death ; at least
it is thus represented on ancient monuments and coins
Four ecclesiastical historians (Socrates, i. 13, Sozomen, ii.
1, Rufinus, i. 7, Theodoret, i. 18) concur in stating that the
Empress Helena, mother of Constantine the Great, in the
year of our Lord 326, when seventy-nine years of age, wras
induced by the warmth of her piety to visit the places which
the Saviour had rendered sacred by his presence and suffer¬
ings. The hatred of the heathen had led them to oblite¬
rate as much as possible all traces of the memorable events
which the life and death of our Saviour had hallowed ; and
to cover Mount Calvary with stones and earth, and raise
thereon a temple to the goddess Venus. A Jew, however,
had treasured up what traditions he could gather, and was
CROSS.
Cross, thus enabled to point out to Helena the spot where our
—v/-*^ Lord had been buried. On excavation, it is said that three
crosses were found, and the title which that of Jesus bore
was also found lying apart by itself. The question arose
how the cross of Christ was to be distinguished from the
other two. Macarius, bishop of Jerusalem, suggested that
their respective efficacy should be tried as to the working of
miracles. Sick persons were brought forward and touched
by each separately. One only wrought'the desired cures,
and was accordingly acknowledged to be the true cross. A
full view of all the authorities on this matter may be seen
in Tillemont {Mem. Eccles. chapter on Helena).
Having built a church over the sacred spot, Helena de¬
posited within it the chief part of the supposed real cross.
The remainder she conveyed to Constantinople, a part of
which Constantine inserted in the head of a statue of him¬
self, and the other part was sent to Rome, and placed in the
church of Sta. Croce in Gerusalemme, which was built ex¬
pressly to receive the precious relic. When subsequently a
festival to commemorate the discovery had been estab¬
lished, the Bishop of Jerusalem, on Easter Sunday, exhibited
to the grateful eyes of eager pilgrims the object to see which
they had travelled so far, and endured so much. Those who
were persons of substance were further gratified by obtain¬
ing, at their full price, small pieces of the cross set in gold
and gems ; and that wonder might not pass into incredulity,
the proper authorities gave the world an assurance that the
holy wood possessed the power of self-multiplication, and,
notwithstanding the innumerable pieces which had been
taken from it for the pleasure and service of the faithful,
remained intact and entire as at the first—ut detrimenta
non sentiret, et quasi intacta permaneret. (Paulinus, Ep.
xi. ad Sev.)
The capture of Jerusalem by the Persians, a.d. 614,
placed the remains of the cross in the hands of Chosroes
II., who mockingly conveyed them to his capital. Four¬
teen years afterwards, Heraclius recovered them, and had
them carried first to Constantinople, and then to Jerusalem,
in such pomp, that on his arrival before the latter city he
found the gate barred, and entrance forbidden. Instructed
as to the cause of this hindrance, the Emperor laid aside
the trappings of his greatness, and, barefooted, bore on his
own shoulders the sacred relic up to the gate, which the
monkish records assure us opened of itself, and allowed him
to enter, and thus place his charge beneath the dome of the
sepulchre.
From this time no more is heard of the true cross, which
may have been destroyed by the Saracens on their conquest
of Jerusalem, a.d. 637. The wooden title, however, is said
to be still preserved in Rome, not entire, indeed, for only
diminutive fragments remain of the Hebrew letters, so that
no one can say what in reality the characters are. The
Greek and Latin, excepting the letter Z, are both written
after the Eastern manner, from right to left. This is said
to have happened either because they were written by a
Jew, following a national custom, or from a desire on the
part of the writer, if a Roman, to accommodate himself to
what was usual among the Jews. Nicetus (Titulus Sanct.
Crucis) holds that it is not all the work of one hand, since
the Roman letters are firmly and distinctly cut, but the
Greek letters very badly. He thinks that a Jew cut the
Hebrew (or Aramaean) and Greek, and a Roman the Latin.
All that remains of the Greek is Na^apcvovs (3, of the Latin,
Nazarenus. It is somewhat extraordinary that there should
appear in the sole Greek word, what some have thought
two mistakes, namely, e for r), a short for a long e; and the
termination ovs for 09. The history of the discovery of this
title is worthy of a brief notice. When sent by Constantine
to Rome, it was deposited in a leaden chest, above the vaulted
roof of the Church Sta. Croce, in a little window, and then
bricked into the wall; its position being recorded in a mo-
519
saic inscription without. Time rendered the inscription Cross,
almost illegible ; and the window, owing to the carelessness ^
of workmen engaged in repairing the church, was acciden¬
tally broken open, when the holy relic was discovered. This
discovery, and the genuineness of the title, Alexander III.
authenticated by a bull. The letters found on the title, if
taken according to their numerical value, make 1532, a cir¬
cumstance which led Stifelius to fix that as the year for the
termination of the world.
Jortin has, in his own manner {Remarks, vol. iii.) dis¬
cussed the evidence which bears on the discovery and
genuineness of the cross, to which discussion those who de¬
sire satisfaction may refer. One or two remarks seem re¬
quired in this place. None of the authorities give a close
description of the three crosses said to have been found in
the rubbish under the temple of Venus, which is the less
surprising, since they were not eye-witnesses. The three
crosses, it appears, were very much alike, and nothing short
of miracles could distinguish that of the Saviour. That the
crosses were of wood, all declare, but no one states the pe¬
culiar kind of wood ; nor is any mention found in the four
historians of the tradition, which may be traced back to the
days of Chrysostom, that the true cross consisted of three
kinds, cypress, pine, and cedar, or of four kinds, cedar, cy¬
press, palm, and olive.
Quatuor ex lignis Domini crux dicitur esse ; —
Pes crucis est cedrus ; corpus tenet alta cupressus;
Palma manus retinet; titulo laetatur oliva.
Lipsius (De Cruce) supposes that the cross was made of
oak, since it is likely it would be constructed of such wood
as was most abundant, and therefore probably nearest at
hand, and oak grew plentifully in Judaea: the relics too are
said to resemble oak.
According to Ambrosius (Oratio de Obitu Theodor, p.
498), the piece which bore the title stood on the top of the
cross of our Lord (John xix. 19-22 ; comp. Matt, xxvii. 37;
Mark xv. 26; Luke xxiii. 38): the form would be some¬
what thus This fact would lead to the expectation of
more accurate information from those who are said to have
found the cross. The language of the scriptural writers
seems to imply that it was only on the cross of Jesus that a
title was placed; and it does not therefore appear to be a
case in which human sagacity could have been so wholly at
a loss as the accounts imply; yet Rufinus says, Hie jam
humance ambiguitatis incertum, divinum flagitat testimo¬
nium. Probably a divine testimony was required by other
considerations than such as arose from the essential ambi¬
guity of the case. But the conduct of Helena in dividing
the cross, setting aside one part for Jerusalem, another for
Constantinople, and another as a phylacterion for her son,
and the subdivisions thereof, which subsequently took place,
rendered it impossible to ascertain in any satisfactory man¬
ner, not only whether the alleged was the real cross, but
also of what wood and in what shape it had been made.
This only then as to the shape of the Saviour’s cross can
be determined, that the prevalent form was that of the crux
capitata, and that this form is generally found on coins and
in the so-called monogram (Munter’s Sinnbilder, I. iv.)
Much time and trouble have been wasted in disputing
as to whether three or four nails were used in fastening the
Lord to his cross. Nonnus affirms that three only were
used, in which he is followed by Gregory Nazianzen.' The
more general belief gives four nails, an opinion supported
at much length by Curtius, an Augustine friar, who wrote a
treatise He Claris Homimcis, in the beginning of the seven¬
teenth century. Others have carried the number of nails
so high as fourteen. Of the four original nails, the Empress
Helena is reported to have thrown one into the Adriatic,
when furiously raging, thereby producing an instant calm.
The second is said to have been put by Constantine into
520 C R 0
Cross, either his helmet or crown. This nail, however, was after-
wards to be found in a mutilated state in the church of Sta.
Croce. In the Duomo of Milan is a third nail, which Eu-
tropius affirms was driven through one of Jesus’ hands, and
which Constantine used as a bit, intending thereby to verify
the prophecy of Zechariah (xiv. 20): In that day shall be
upon the bells (margin, bridles) of the horses, Holiness ur^o
the Lord.” Treves possesses the fourth nail, which is al¬
leged to have been driven through the sufferer’s right foot.
Those who maintain the number of nails to have been more
than four have had no difficulty in finding as many nails as
their hypothesis in each case needed, and as many sacred
places for their safe keeping.
Crosses in former times were usually erected on the tops
of houses, by which tenants pretended to claim the privi¬
leges of the Templars hospitallers, to defend themselves
against their rightful lords. But this was condemned by
the statute Will. II., cap. 37. It was formerly the custom
also to set up crosses in places where the corpse of any of
the nobility rested as it was carried to be buried, that a
transeuntibus pro animo ejus deprecentur. It is worthy of
remark that crosses are forbidden, by 13th Eliz. cap. 2, to
be brought into England, on pain of a prcemunire.
Cross, Invention of the, an ancient feast solemnized on
the 3d of May, in memory of St Helena, the mother of
Constantine, finding the true cross of Christ deep in the
ground on Mount Calvary, where she erected a church for
the preservation of part of it. The remainder was brought
to Rome, and deposited in the church of Sta. Croce in Geru-
salemme. (Vide supra, under Cross.)
Cross, Exaltation of the, an ancient feast held on the 14th
of September, in memory of the restoration to Mount
Calvary, in 628, of the true cross, which had been carried
off 14 years before by Chosroes II., king of Persia. (Vide
supra, under Cross.)
The adoration of the cross appears to have been prac¬
tised in the ancient church; for the heathens, particularly
Julian, reproach the primitive Christians with this species
of idolatry, and we do not find that their apologists disclaim
the charge. Mornay indeed asserted that this had been
done by St Cyril, but could not support his allegation at
the conference of Fontainebleau. St Helena is said to have
reduced the adoration of the cross to its just principle, since
she worshipped in the wood not the wood itselfj but him
who had been nailed to this wood. With such modifications
some Protestants have been induced to admit the adoration
of the cross. John Huss allowed the phrase, provided it
were expressly added, that the adoration was relative solely
to the person of Christ. But, however Roman Catholics
may seem to triumph in virtue of such distinctions, it is
well known that these have no great place in their own
practice. Imbert, the good prior of Gascony, was severely
prosecuted in 1683 for telling the people that in the cere¬
mony of adoring the cross practised in that church on Good
Friday, they were not to adore the wood, but Christ who
was crucified on it. The curate of the parish, however, told
them the contrary, affirming that it was the wood, and the
wood only, they were to worship. Imbert replied, it was
Christ, not the wood; and for this he was cited before the
Archbishop of Bordeaux, suspended from his functions, and
threatened with chains and perpetual imprisonment. It
little availed him to cite the Bishop of Meaux’s distinction ;
it was answered that the church allowed it not.
Cnoss-Bearer (porte-croix, cruciger), in the Romish
Church, the chaplain of an archbishop or a primate, who
bears a cross before him on solemn occasions.
1 he pope has the cross borne before him on all public
occasions ; a patriarch anywhere out of Rome ; as have also
primates, metropolitans, and those who have a right to the
pallium, throughout their respective jurisdictions. Gregory
XL forbade all patriarchs and prelates to have it borne in
C H 0
presence of cardinals. A prelate bears a single cross, a
patriarch a double cross, and the pope a triple one on his
arms.
CROSS-Bearers also denote certain officers in the inquisi¬
tion, who make a vow before the inquisitors or their vicars
to defend the catholic faith, though with the loss of fortune
and life. Their business is to provide the inquisitors with
necessaries; and they were formerly of great use ; but in
process of time their constitutions were changed, and they
were called to undergo the penance of St Dominic.
Pectoral Cross, a cross of gold, silver, or other precious
material, often enriched with diamonds, worn at the neck
by bishops, archbishops, abbots, and regular abbesses.
Order of the Cross or Crusade, an order of ladies insti¬
tuted in 1668 by the Empress Eleonora de Gonzagua, wife
of the Emperor Leopold, in commemoration of the miracu¬
lous recovery of a little golden cross in which were inclosed
two pieces of the true cross, from the ashes of part of the
palace, which had been consumed. The sacred wood is
said to have resisted the action of the flames, which burnt
the case that inclosed it, and melted the crystal.
Cross, in Heraldry, an ordinary composed of fourfold
lines, of which two are perpendicular, and the other two
transverse. See Heraldry.
This bearing was first bestowed on such as had performed,
or at least undertaken, some service for Christ and the
Christian profession, such as an expedition to the Holy
Land. In those expeditions the Scots carried a St Andrew’s
cross; the French, a cross argent; the English, a cross or ;
the Germans, a cross sable; the Italians, a cross azure;
the Spaniards, a cross gules. The cross is held by some
writers to be the most honourable charge in all heraldry.
St George's Cross, or the red cross, in a field argent, is
now the standard of England ; that saint being the reputed
patron of this nation.
Not only in crosses is the variety very great; the same
is observable in many other bearings, and particularly in
lions, and in parts of lions, of which Columbiere notices no
less than 96 varieties. Leigh mentions 46 different crosses;
Sylvanus Morgan, 26; Upton, 30; Johannes de Bado
Aureo, 12 ; and so on.
CROSS-BOW. See Bow.
CROSS-TREES, in a ship, pieces of oak timber, sup¬
ported by the cheeks and trestle-trees, at the upper ends
of the lower and top masts, to sustain the frame of the tops
in the one, and to extend the top-gallant shrouds on the
Cross
other.
CROTALUM, an ancient instrument of the castanet kind,
and which, by some writers, has erroneously been supposed
to be the same with the sistrum. The crotalum consisted
of twro little plates of metal, and sometimes of two shells, or
was formed of a piece of reed split lengthwise; and these
were held in the hand and shaken so as to produce a rat¬
tling noise.
Female dancers who used the crotalum were termed crota-
listrice. Aristophanes uses the word crotalum metaphori¬
cally, to signify a great talker.
Clemens Alexandrinus attributes the invention to the
Silicians, and forbids the use of it among Christians, on ac¬
count of the indecent gestures with which it was accom¬
panied.
CROTALUS, the Rattlesnake. See Serpents.
CROTCH, William, Doctor of Music, was born at
Norwich, on 5th July 1775, and died suddenly at Taunton
on 29th December 1847, in the house of his son, the Rev.
W. R. Crotch. When only three years and a half old, he
was able to play tunes with their basses on the organ
with great correctness. Dr Charles Burney, the Eng¬
lish historian of music, gave an interesting account of the
infant Crotch in the Philosophical transactions of the
Royal Society, vol. lx., part i., for 1779. Crotch also exhi-
CEO
Crotchet bited in his infancy a talent for drawing, which he after-
|| wards cultivated so far as to become a very respectable ama-
Croton. teur painter of landscapes. At the early age of twenty-two
he was appointed professor of music in the university of Ox¬
ford, and there in 1799 took his degree of doctor in that
art. In 1800, and the four following years, he read lectures
on music at Oxford. Next he was appointed lecturer on
music to the Royal Institution ; and, subsequently, in 1823,
principal of the London Royal Academy of Music. He
published a number of vocal and instrumental compositions,
of which the best is his Oratorio of “ Palestine.” In 1831
appeared an 8vo volume containing the substance of his
lectures on music, delivered at Oxford and in London.
Previously, he had published three volumes of “ Specimens
of various styles of Music,” referred to in his lectures.
Among his didactic works is “ Elements of musical com¬
position and thorough-bass.” London, 1812. He arranged
for the pianoforte a number of Handel’s Oratorios and
Operas, besides symphonies and quartets of Haydn, Mo¬
zart, and Beethoven. The great expectations excited by
his infant precocity were not fulfilled; for he manifested
no extraordinary genius for musical composition. But he
was a hard student and a sound musician, and justly holds
a high place among English cultivators of his art. He per¬
formed all his public duties laboriously, zealously, and hon¬
ourably ; and in private life was much beloved and re¬
spected. (G. F. G.)
CROTCHET, in Music, a note or character equal in
time to half a minim, or two quavers.
Crotchets, in Printing, marks or characters serving to
inclose a word or sentence distinguished from the rest:
thus [ ].
CROTON or CROTONA (Cotrone), in Ancient
Geography, a celebrated city of Magna Graecia, at the
mouth of the small river dEsarus, in the country of the
Bruttii, on the western shore of the Ionian Sea. It was
founded in the year 710 b.c. by a colony of Achaeans under
the command of Myscellus, in accordance with a decree
of the oracle at Delphi.
The first w^ell established fact in the history of Crotona
is the friendship that subsisted between it and the rival city
of Sybaris. Till the arrival of the philosopher Pythagoras
these two cities continued advancing in material prosperity,
and cultivating the arts of war and peace with much suc¬
cess. The Crotoniats were renowned for their skill in all
athletic exercises; the Sybarites for that luxury and effe¬
minacy which has made their name proverbial. The go¬
vernment of Crotona, oligarchical in form, had hitherto been
confined to the council of one thousand, who traced their
descent from the Achman founders of the city. But Pytha¬
goras introduced great political changes, with the details of
which we are not acquainted. A secret society of 300 of
his disciples contrived to guide, and even overawe, the de¬
liberations of the supreme council. The people, who w'ere
carefully excluded from all share in the government, rose in
rebellion against the Pythagoreans, expelled them from the
city, and established a democracy. Confusion spread through
all the south of Italy, and was heightened by the overthrow
of Sybaris. Under the command of the celebrated athlete
Milo, the Crotoniats marched against that city, and though
opposed by an army three times their own in number, took
it and levelled it with the ground. This event took place
in 510 b.c. Before 30 years had elapsed, the Crotoniats
themselves sustained a still more disgraceful defeat from
the united forces of the Locrians and Rheggians, which
however, was not attended with such disastrous conse¬
quences to their city. This event is referred by the best
authorities to the year 480 b.c. During the Athenian in¬
vasion of Sicily, the people of Crotona refused to side with
either of the contending parties ; they supplied the Athe¬
nians with provisions, but refused to allow them a nassage
VOL. VII.
c R 0 521
through their territory. In 389 b.c. Crotona fell into the Croton Oil.
hands of the elder Dionysius, who retained possession of it
for twelve years ; but on his death at the end of that period
it recovered its independence. The prosperity of the city,
however, was greatly impaired by the intestine feuds which
raged within its walls, and the growing powder of external
foes. Being hard-pressed by the Bruttians, Crotona ap¬
plied to the Syracusans for assistance. Succours were sent
by that people, but the Crotoniats were obliged to conclude
a treaty with the Bruttii, as they were now in danger from
their own exiles. Menedemus, their general, defeated the
exiles, and established a tyrannis which lasted for some
time. In the beginning of the third century b.c., the city
fell into the hands of Agathocles, who retained it for some
years; and in the wars of the Romans with Pyrrhus it suffered
so severely, that whereas its walls had formerly inclosed a
space of 12 miles in circumference, not half of that extent
was now inhabited. In the absence of Pyrrhus in Sicily,
Crotona fell into the hands of the Roman consul, Cornelius
Rufinus, b.c. 277. During the latter years of the second
Punic war, Crotona wras the headquarters of Hannibal for
three successive winters. This completed the ruin of the
town, which a few years after was colonized from Rome.
From this time Crotona sank into total obscurity, and is not
mentioned again in Roman history till the wars of Narses
and Belisarius against the Goths. After that it remained
subject to the Byzantine emperors till it passed into the
hands of the Normans.
Crotona was celebrated in ancient times for the excel¬
lence of its situation, to which was attributed the beauty of
its women and the strength of its men. Milo, the most fa¬
mous athlete of antiquity, was a native of Crotona. The
medical school of Crotona was, in the days of Herodotus,
and long after, the most renowned in Greece. The most
celebrated physician of that school was Alcmaeon. It is
not known whether Crotona was remarkable in an archi¬
tectural point of view. But the temple of Lacinian Juno,
six miles from the city, was the most sacred and magnifi¬
cent work of that kind in the whole of Magna Graecia, and
contained, among other ornaments, one of the master¬
pieces of Zeuxis. Some fragments of this great edifice
are still visible.
About a mile from the site of the old Crotona stands the
modern town of Cotrone, an insignificant place. It is
gtrongly fortified, however, and contains a population of
about 6000 souls.
CROTON OIL is expressed from the seeds of an
euphorbiaceous shrub, the Croton tiglium, a native of Hin¬
dustan and of the warmer parts of Asia. The fruit is about
the size of a hazel nut, of an ovate triangular shape, and
containing three ovate seeds about the size of a pea. The
kernels of these yield, on pressure, about 50 per cent, of
oil, which is of a pale amber colour, and a thickish consist¬
ence like castor oil. It has no odour, but has a peculiar
acrid taste, which is felt most strongly in the back of the
palate and throat. Croton oil is a speedy, powerful, and
sure cathartic, in small doses of one to three drops ; and it
possesses two valuable properties, 1st, that however active
and powerful the purgative action may be, it soon ceases,
and leaves little or no debility; and, 2d, that it excites the
billiary secretion more powerfully than any known medicine.
In consequence of one or two drops being a dose, and its
action commencing very shortly after its administration, it
is invaluable in impending apoplexy, and in almost all
diseases in which torpor or paralysis exists. In hydroce¬
phalus, even when effusion ot water on the brain appears to
have taken place, the late Dr Abercrombie stated that it
would often bring about the recovery of the patient. It is
a medicine which deserves far more attention than it has
yet received. (j. s—k.)
CROUP, a specific inflammatory affection of the larynx
3 u
522
C R 0
C R 0
Crousaz. and trachea (windpipe), giving rise to a peculiar secretion
which concretes as soon as it is thrown out, and forms a
false membrane which blocks up the air tube, and produces
rapid death by suffocation. This disease is peculiar to
children from a few months old to the age of 12 years ; and
is most common in damp low-lying situations, in the
neighbourhood of the sea, of marshes, or of rivers. It
makes its appearance suddenly during the night. I he child
goes to bed apparently in perfect health. After he has been
asleep for a few hours he is heard to give an occasional
cough of a peculiar ringing character, as if he had coughed
through a brass trumpet. The cough rapidly becomes
more frequent, with an increasing difficulty of breath¬
ing, accompanied by a peculiar crowing and wheezing noise
at each inspiration; the voice becomes rough and hoarse,
the child restless and feverish, the face flushed, and with
an excited anxious expression ; he complains of uneasiness
in the throat, and says he is choking. The difficulty of
breathing rapidly increases, and great efforts are made by
the child to dilate the chest in order to get breath ; the air
is drawn into the lungs with extreme difficulty, as if by a
piston, and through a very narrow aperture, and the crow¬
ing sound is audible at a considerable distance. Some¬
times these symptoms, if not very severe, subside after
midnight, to return the next night; but if severe, unless the
child be promptly relieved, the disease will rapidly termi¬
nate fatally.
As soon as the disease is noticed, the child ought to be
put into a hot bath, and kept there for ten minutes, or
even until slight faintness is experienced. Simultaneously,
or while this bath is getting ready, an emetic ought to be
administered; and by far the best for this purpose is the sul¬
phate of copper, in doses of two or three grains, dissolved in
a little hot water. If this be not at hand, an emetic of
ipecacuan or of antimony may be substituted; and in any
case the emetic should be repeated at intervals of half-an-
hour or an hour, according to circumstances, till the child
is somewhat relieved. Immediately after the vomiting is
over, calomel in half-grain or one-grain doses should be
given every second hour till the symptoms yield, and the
breathing becomes free and natural. In very severe cases
it is useful to blister the throat; and by far the most effica¬
cious and speedy way of accomplishing this is to rub the ni¬
trate of silver over the whole course of the windpipe. Blood¬
letting, in all its forms, is a dangerous remedy (though very
generally recommended), as, unless it removes the disease at
the moment, which it very rarely does, it increases the ten¬
dency to the formation of the false membrane in the wind¬
pipe. (j. s—K.)
CROUSAZ, Jean Pierre de, an eminent mathemati¬
cian, was born at Lausanne April 13, 1663. He was a Pro¬
testant of noble extraction, and was destined by his father
for the profession of arms, but preferred the more tranquil
pursuit of letters. He applied himself particularly to the
study of the mathematics, and became a warm partizan of the
Cartesian philosophy. After some time spent in travelling,
he returned to his native place, where he was successively
appointed pastor, professor of philosophy, and rector of the
academy. In 1724, he was called to Groningen to teach
mathematics, and appointed governor to the young prince
Frederick of Hesse-Cassel. The king of Sweden also con¬
ferred upon him the title of counsellor of embassies. Crousaz
died March 22, 1 /50, at which time he was a member of
the Academy of Bordeaux, and foreign associate of the Aca¬
demy of Sciences at Paris.
His works are exceedingly voluminous, but seldom rise
above mediocrity. 1 he most important are Systems des
Reflexions qui peuvent contribuer d la nettete et d Vetude
de nos Connoissances, ou nouvel Essai de Logique, Am¬
sterdam, 1712, 2 vols. 8vo; Trade de Beau, oil Von
montre en quoi consists ce qui Von nomme ainsi, Amster¬
dam, 1715, 8vo ; De VEducation des Enfans, Hague,
1722, 2 vols. 12mo ; Examen du Traits de la Liberte de
Penser d?Antoine Collins, Brussels, 1715, Amsterdam,
1718, 8vo ; Geometric des Lignes et des Surfaces recti-
lignes et circulaires, Amsterdam, 1718,2 vols. 8vo ; Examen
du Pyrrhonisme ancien et moderne, Hague, 1733, fbl.;
CEuvres diverses, 1737, 2 vols. 8vo ; Traits de VEsprit
Humain, against Wolff and Leibnitz, 1741 ; Reflexions
sur la belle Wolflenne, Lausanne, 1743, 8vo.
CROW. See index to Ornithology.
Crow, in Mechanics, a bar of iron with a claw at one
end and pointed at the other, used as a lever for raising
great weights, &c.
Crow's-Bill, in Surgery, a kind of forceps for extracting
bullets, &c., from wounds.
Cnow’s-Feet, in the military art. See Caltrop.
CROWLAND, or Croulanh, an ancient town and
parish of Lincolnshire, situated in a low flat district, about
eight miles N.E. from Peterborough. It stands at the con¬
fluence of the Welland with two smaller streams; and at
their junction there is a curious triangular bridge, built in
the reign of Edward II., which is, however, passable only
on foot. There are also several interesting remains of a
famous mitred abbey, which was built about the end of the
eleventh century on the site of an ancient Anglo-Saxon
monastery, destroyed by the Danes. Among its abbots was
the historian Ingulphus. Pop. 2466.
CROWN (Ger. krone, Fr. couronne, Lat. corona),
an ornament worn on the head by kings and sovereign
princes, as a badge of their dignity.
Crowns are often mentioned in Scripture ; but the term
“ crown” appears to have been applied to other ornaments
for the head than those exclusively worn by royal per¬
sonages, and to which modern usage would give such dis¬
tinctive names as coronet, band, mitre, tiara, garland, &c.
For example, the mitre of the Jewish high priest—which
was a tiara with the addition of a golden fillet—is also called
a “ crown.” This circumstance serves to explain the use
of the term as applied to the ornament worn on the head by
the inferior priests, and even by private persons among the
Israelites, since the Jews and several Eastern nations were
accustomed to bind their hair with a ribbon or fillet, to pre¬
vent it falling over the face.
The regal crown originated in the diadem, which was a
simple fillet fastened round the head and tied behind, as we
still see it represented on ancient medals around the heads
of Jupiter, the Ptolemies, and the kings of Syria. Kings,
however, were generally distinguished by a fillet of a differ¬
ent colour from that usually worn,—as, for instance, by a
golden band. In this shape it sometimes forms the basis
of raised ornamental work, in which case it becomes what
would commonly be considered a crown; and, indeed,
the original diadem may be traced in most ancient
crowns.
The Roman emperors had four kinds of crowns, which
are still seen on medals ; namely, a crown of laurels, a radial
or radiating crown, a crown adorned with pearls and pre¬
cious stones, and a kind of bonnet or cap, somewhat like
the mortier.
The Romans had also various kinds of crowns which were
bestowed as the rewards of military achievements, and others
which were used in festive and funeral decorations, &c. Of
these, the most important were the following:—
Corona Obsidionalis, or Graminea, which conferred
the highest honour, was the reward of a general who had
delivered the Reman army from a blockade. It was com¬
posed of grass or weeds that grew on the spot; in allusion
to a very ancient custom, by which the vanquished party
in a contest of strength or agility acknowledged defeat by
presenting to the victor a handful of grass torn up from the
place where the contest took place.
Crow
II
Crowhi
C R 0
Crown Corona Civica, the second in honour, was a garland of
II oak leaves presented to him who had saved the life of a
Croydon. citizen in battle. This conferred on the possessor extraor-
dinary privileges, as noticed under the head Civic Crown.
Corona Navalis, or Rostrata, awarded to him who
first boarded the ship of an enemy, was a circle of gold
decorated with the rostra or beaks of ships, and sometimes
with representations of the entire prow. It would seem
that this reward, when bestowed for any extraordinary
achievement—as on a commander who had destroyed a
whole fleet or gained a very signal victory—was called
Corona Classica.
Corona Muralis, a circle of gold, indented and em¬
battled, or decorated with turrets, was bestowed on him who
first scaled the walls of a besieged place, and was regarded
as one of the highest of military honours.
Corona Vallaris, or Castremis, a crown of gold orna¬
mented with palisades, formed the reward of him who was
the first to force an entrenchment.
Corona Triumphalis, a mark of honour conferred, as
its name implies, on a victorious commander. Triumphal
crowns were of three kinds. The first in dignity, and hence
termed laurea insignis, was composed of laurel or of bay
leaves. T he second kind, made of massy gold, and frequently
enriched with jewels, was held over the head of the com¬
mander during his triumph. These crowns were presented
to the victorious general by the army. The third kind,
called auruni coronarium, was originally a golden crown of
great value, which was sent as a present from the provinces
to a commander to whom the honour of a triumph had been
decreed; but in time this came to be exacted as a tribute,
and eventually was commuted into a sum of money. See
Aurum Coronarium.
Corona Ovalis, composed of myrtle leaves, was bestowed
upon a commander who was entitled to the honours of a
lesser triumph, called ovatio.
Besides these, there were various other coronce, of which
the following may be mentioned: the corona aurea, often
bestowed on soldiers without any particular designation ;
athletic crowns, and crowns of laurel, bestowed on victors
at the public games, poets, orators, and others. Lastly
may be noticed the corona radiata, which was given to
gods and deified heroes, and assumed by some of the em¬
perors (as mentioned above) as a mark of their divinity.
This kind of crown may be seen impressed on some of
their coins.
The use of crowns as rewards among the Greeks, in the
early period of their history, was chiefly confined to those
given as prizes in the athletic contests ; but previous to the
time of Alexander the Great crowns had become so com¬
mon, and were so indiscriminately conferred, as to lose much
of their value as marks of honourable distinction.
Crown, in an ecclesiastical sense, is used to denote
the clerical tonsure of the Roman Catholics. This is a
little circle of hair shaved off from the crown of the head,
more or less broad, according to the quality of the orders
received; that of a mere clerk being the smallest, and that
of priests and monks the largest. The clerical crown was
anciently made in imitation of a fillet, by shaving off a por¬
tion of hair around the head. This may be seen in several
ancient statues and monuments. The orders of St Dominic
and St Francis still retain it. See Tonsure.
Crown, in Astronomy, a name given to two constella¬
tions, the southern and the northern.
Crown, in Geometry, a plane ring included between two
parallel or concentric peripheries of unequal circles.
Crown-Office. See Coroner.
CROYDON, a town and parish of England, in the
county of Surrey and hundred of Wallington, nine miles
south of London. It stands near the source of the river
Wandle, and is supposed to be the Norismagus of the
C R U 523
Antonine Itinerary, and the Croinedone of Domesday Crown
Book. In the neighbourhood there are distinct traces of ||
Roman occupation, and several gold coins bearing the stamp Cruden.
of the later emperors have been found. A cluster of twenty- s—
five tumuli between the town and Addington Park, and a
circular encampment with a double moat, form the most
interesting portion of the remains. The manor of Croydon,
originally presented to Archbishop Lanfranc, remained till
within a recent period the residence of the primates of Can¬
terbury ; but it is now converted into a factory, and the
grounds are used as a bleachfield. The new town of Croydon
consists principally of a well-built street stretching along the
road to Brighton. The principal buildings are the parish
church (containing several sumptuous tombs of the primates)
and the town-hall. There are places of worship for the various
bodies of dissenters, numerous schools, a literary institute,
and an ancient hospital founded by Whitgift. About a mile
distant is the East India Company’s military college at Ad-
discombe. Croydon is the seat of a county court, and of
the assizes alternately with Guildford. Its site is remarkable
for the number of springs which issue from the soil. One of
these, called the “ Bourne,” bursts forth a short way above
the town at irregular intervals of from one to ten years or
more ; and after running as a torrent for two or three months,
it as quickly vanishes. This phenomenon seems to arise
from extensive falls of rain over the chalk-hills of the dis¬
trict, which sink into the porous soil and reappear after a
considerable interval from crevices at lower levels, Croydon
was visited with a remarkably fatal fever in 1852. Pop.
10,260.
CROZOPHORA, a genus of rubiaceous plants, the
best known of which is C. tinctoria, a native of the south
of Europe, which affords the deep purple dye called at Mont¬
pellier tournesole. The plant is acrid, emetic, and purgative.
CRUCIBLE, a chemical vessel for containing substances
to be exposed to a high temperature. They are formed
either of an apyrous clay, or of a mixture of that with plum¬
bago, and sometimes of platina or other metals not easily
fusible. See Chemistry.
CRUCIFEILE. See index to Botany.
CRUCIFIX, a cross on which the body of Christ is
fastened in effigy, and which holds a conspicuous place in
the religion of the Roman Catholics.
CRUCIFIXION, a mode of inflicting the punishment
of death by affixing the criminal to a cross. This kind of
punishment was frequent among the ancients; but in re¬
cent times it has been confined chiefly to the Mohammedans.
On receiving sentence of condemnation, the criminal was
scourged, by way of prelude to the cruel death he was
doomed to die. He then carried his cross, or at least the
transverse beam, to the place of execution, where he was
stripped naked, and affixed to the cross by means of iron
nails driven through each hand and foot, or through the
wrists and ankles; and the arms and legs were sometimes
bound with cords. When the criminal, instead of being
nailed to the cross, was bound to it by cords, this was de¬
signed as a more cruel, because a more lingering, punish¬
ment. Crucifixion with the head downwards (the mode in
which St Peter is said to have chosen to suffer, as unworthy
of the same kind of death as his Master) may be considered
as a refinement on this barbarous species of punishment.
See Cross.
CRUDEN, Alexander, the well-known author of the
English Concordance, was born at Aberdeen in 1701. Hav¬
ing removed to London in 1728, he set up a bookseller’s
shop in the Royal Exchange, and supported himself by cor¬
recting the press. He was subject to occasional fits of de¬
rangement, and died in a lunatic asylum at Islington, Nov.
1,1770. In addition to the Concordance, Cruden compiled
an index to Milton, appended to Bishop Newton’s edition
of that poet.
524
CRUSADES,
Crusades. A name given to the military expeditions undertaken by
the Christians of Europe for the deliverance of the Holy
Land from the dominion of the Saracens and Turks.
About seventy years after the death of Christ, Jerusa¬
lem was taken and destroyed by Titus. But, sixty years
afterwards, the city was rebuilt by Hadrian, and the Chris¬
tians were permitted to return to it. Their establishment,
however, existing only by a precarious tolerance, was by
no means flourishing, till Constantine embraced the Chris¬
tian faith, and declared it the religion of the empire. This
auspicious change, as might have been expected, greatly
improved their condition ; and when the Empress Helena
visited Jerusalem, this princess, having ordered the places
which had been signalized by evangelical events to be
cleared of rubbish, caused the most hallowed spots to be
inclosed within the walls of a spacious church. But, in the
latter days of the empire, as knowledge declined, supersti¬
tion advanced, and the feelings of reverence originally in¬
spired by Christianity itself were transferred to the mate¬
rial and visible objects with which the principal events in
the life of its great founder were associated. Hence, among
zealous but ignorant Christians a strong desire was excit¬
ed to visit the scenes of our Saviour’s miracles and passion ;
and pilgrimages to Palestine accordingly became a frequent,
because they were considered as a meritorious practice,
throughout the whole of Christendom. In the year 637,
Jerusalem was taken by the Saracens ; but either from
indifference regarding observances which they despised,
or from motives of immediate interest, the resort of pil¬
grims to Jerusalem was not interdicted nor discountenan¬
ced by these conquerors. This toleration however ceased
when the Turks, in the year 1063, got possession of the holy
city. That wild, fierce, and fanatical horde, though superior
in force and military prowess, were yet immeasurably infe¬
rior in civilization, to the people whom they had expelled ;
and as they made no scruple to plunder and insult their Chris¬
tian visitors, the dangers of the pilgrimage, painted in the
darkest colours by those who had returned, began to threa¬
ten a discontinuance of what was then considered as a sa¬
cred duty. But a strong revulsion of feeling was ere long
produced. Terror yielded to the fiercest indignation, and
religious enthusiasm, blending itself with the martial spirit
ot the age, produced and stamped upon the general mind
that adventurous character which ultimately led to these
memorable expeditions. About this time, too, an opinion
prevailed in Europe, which tended much to inflame the
desire to visit the Holy Land. It was believed that the
thousand years mentioned in the twentieth chapter of the
Revelations were fulfilled; that Christ would soon make
his second appearance in Palestine to judge the world;
and that journeys to that country were consequently in
the highest degree meritorious, if not even absolutely ne¬
cessary. Accordingly, multitudes of pilgrims flocked to
Palestine ; and as these were systematically plundered and
maltreated by the rl urks, they on their return filled all Eu¬
rope with complaints against the infidels who had profaned
the holy city by their presence, and derided the sacred
mysteries of Christianity even in the place where they
were fulfilled. At this time Pope Gregory VII. had form¬
ed a design of uniting all the princes of Christendom against
the Mahommedans; but his exorbitant encroachments upon
the civil power of princes had created him so many ene¬
mies, and rendered his schemes so suspicious, that he was
unable to make any considerable progress in the under¬
taking. Ihe work was reserved fora meaner instrument.
These memorable expeditions commenced in the year Crusades.
1096. Peter, common])'- called the Hermit, a native of
Amiens, in Picardy, had made the pilgrimage to Jerusalem ;
and, being deeply affected with the dangers to which that
act of devotion exposed the pilgrims, as well as with the
oppression under which the eastern Christians groaned, he
formed the bold, and, to all appearance, impracticable de¬
sign of leading into Asia, from the farthest extremities of
the West, armies sufficient to subdue the warlike nations
by whom the Holy Land was now held in subjection. He
proposed his scheme to Urban II., who then filled the pa¬
pal chair; but this pope, though apparently sensible of the
advantages which would accrue to himself from such an
undertaking, resolved not to interpose his authority until
he saw a greater probability of success. He therefore
summoned at Placentia a council, consisting of four thou¬
sand ecclesiastics and thirty thousand laymen ; and as no
hall could be found large enough to contain so great a
multitude, the assembly was held on a plain. Here the
pope himself, as well as Peter, harangued the people, re¬
presenting the dismal situation of their brethren in the East,
and the indignity offered to the Christian name in allow¬
ing the holy city to remain in the hands of the infidels.
These speeches were so agreeable to those who heard
them, that the whole multitude suddenly and vehemently
declared for war, and solemnly devoted themselves to per¬
form this service, which they believed to be highly merito¬
rious in the sight of God.
But though Italy seemed to embrace the design with
ardour, yet the pontiff thought it necessary, in order to in¬
sure perfect success, to engage the greater and more war¬
like nations in the same enterprise. Having therefore
exhorted Peter to visit the chief cities and sovereigns of
Christendom, he summoned another council at Clermont,
in Auvergne. The fame of this mighty and pious design
being now universally diffused, the greatest prelates, nobles,
and princes attended; and when the pope and the her¬
mit renewed their pathetic exhortations, the whole as¬
sembly, as if impelled by an immediate inspiration, ex¬
claimed with one voice, “ It is the-will of God; it is the
will of God.” These words were deemed so memorable,
and considered so much the effect of a divine impulse, that
they were employed as the signal of rendezvous and battle
in all the future exploits of the crusaders. Men of every
rank now flew to arms with the utmost ardour; a cross
was affixed to the right shoulder by all who enlisted in the
holy enterprise ; and the projected expedition was denomi¬
nated a crusade.
At this time Europe was sunk in the most profound ig¬
norance and superstition. The ecclesiastics had gained a
complete ascendant over the human mind ; and the people,
who committed the most horrid crimes and disorders, knew
of no other expiation for their sins than the observances im¬
posed upon them by their spiritual pastors. But amidst the
abject superstition which then prevailed, the military spirit
had also universally diffused itself; and, though supported
neither by art nor by discipline, it had become the general
passion of the nations governed by the feudal law. All the
great lords possessed the right of peace and war. They
were engaged in almost continual hostilities;—the open
country had become a scene of outrage and disorder;—and
the cities, being still mean and poor, were neither guarded
by walls nor protected by privileges. Every man was
obliged to depend for safety upon his own force or his
private alliances; and valour was the only quality held in
CRUSADES.
Crusades, esteem, or which gave one man a pre-eminence above an-
1 v—^ other. W hen all the superstitions, therefore, were united
in one gieat object, the ardour for military adventure
took the same direction ; and the whole of Europe, as the
Princess Anna Comnena expresses herself, torn from its
foundations, seemed ready to precipitate itself in one united
body upon Asia.
As all orders of men now deemed the crusades the only
road to heaven, they became impatient to open the way with
their swords to the holy city. Nobles, artisans, peasants,
and even priests, inrolled their names ; and to decline this
service was to incui the reproach of impiety or cowardice,
probably of both. The nobles who enlisted themselves
were moved by the romantic spirit of the age to hope for
opulent establishments in the East, which was at that time
the chief seat of arts and commerce; and in pursuit of
these chimeiical projects, they sold at the lowest price
their ancient castles and inheritances, which indeed had
by this time lost all value in their eyes. The infirm and the
aged conti ibuted to the expedition by presents and money •
whilst many of them, not satisfied with this, attended it
m person, being determined, if possible, to breathe their
last in sight of that city where Jesus Christ had died for
the human race. Even women, having concealed their
sex under the disguise of armour, attended the camp;
■and, as is said, forgot their duty still more, by prostitut¬
ing themselves to the army. The greatest criminals were
forward in a service which they considered as an expiation
■of their crimes; and, during the course of these expedi¬
tions, the most enormous disorders were committed by men
inured to wickedness, encouraged by example, and impell¬
ed by necessity. The multitude of adventurers soon in¬
creased so greatly, that their more sagacious leaders became
apprehensive lest the vastness of the armament should
cause the ruin of the enterprise. For this reason they
permitted an undisciplined multitude, computed at three
hundred thousand men, to go before them under the com¬
mand of Peter the Hermit, and Gaultier or Walter, sur-
named the Moneyless, from his being a soldier of fortune.
Ihese took the road through Hungary and Bulgaria to¬
wards Constantinople; and trusting that heaven, by su¬
pernatural assistance, would supply all their necessities,
■they made no provision for subsistence on their march.
But they soon found themselves obliged to obtain by
plunder what they had vainly expected from miracles;
so that the enraged inhabitants of the countries through
which they passed attacked the disorderly multitude, and
slaughtered them almost without resistance. The more
disciplined armies followed after ; and, having passed the
strait of Constantinople, they were mustered in the plains of
Asia, to the amount of nearly seven hundred thousand men.
ihe first crusade, as already mentioned, occurred in the
year 1096 The princes engaged in it were Hugo, count of
Vermandois, brother of Philip I. king of France; Robert,
duke of Normandy; Robert, earl of Flanders; Raymond,
earl of Toulouse ; Godefroy of Bouillon, duke of Lorrain,
with his brothers Baldwin and Eustace; Stephen, earl of
Chartres and Blois ; Hugo, count of St Paul; with a great
number of other lords. The general rendezvous, as above
stated, was at Constantinople. Having besieged and taken
Nice, and defeated Solyman, in 1097, the crusaders under
Godefroy proceeded eastward, where Baldwin conquered
Edessa, and erected it into a principality. In the end of
1098 they took the town, but not the citadel, of Antioch,
and defeated an army of six hundred thousand Saracens
which had advanced to the relief of the latter. In 1099
they advanced to Jerusalem, with little more than a twen-
525
tieth part of their original number, and, after a siege Crusades,
of forty days, carried it by storm, putting all its inhabi-
tants, except the Christians, to the sword. The victori¬
ous Godefroy was now raised to the throne of Jerusalem,
and soon added security to his conquest by defeating the
soldan of Egypt with an innumerable army on the plains
of Askalon. But the heroic chief was deprived of the re¬
ward of his valour by a papal legate, who had been elect¬
ed patriarch, and who contrived to unite the temporal with
the spiritual power, leaving to Godefroy only the small prin¬
cipality of Jaffa, and some immunities in that of Jerusalem.
Ihe crusaders, seeing their object accomplished, now be¬
gan to return to Europe, and the few who remained in
the settlements of Jerusalem, Antioch, Edessa, and the
Syrian Tripoli, were obliged to depend for defence against
the Turks on the gradual accession of adventurers whom
the fame of their exploits had attracted from Christendom.
Thus terminated the first crusade.
The second crusade, preached by Bernard, tbe founder
of the monastic order of Bernardines, and undertaken in
the year 1146, was headed by the Emperor Conrad III.
and by Louis VII. king of France. Their united forces
amounted to about three hundred thousand ; but the em¬
peror was defeated by the Turks near Iconium, and with
difficulty escaped to Antioch ; and, a short time afterwards,
Louis suffered a similar reverse, having, through the dis¬
affection of the Christians of Syria, been forced to raise
the siege of Damascus, and compelled to witness the ruin
of his army. The disastrous issue of these attempts for
their relief only hastened the decline of the Christian prin¬
cipalities in Asia. Having defeated the army of Jerusa¬
lem at the battle of liberias, and made prisoner Guy of
Lusignan, who then wore the crown, the soldan of Egypt
entered the holy city as a conqueror in the year 1187.
The third crusade, undertaken in the year 1188, im¬
mediately followed the taking of Jerusalem by Saladin.1
The princes engaged in this expedition were, the Empe¬
ror Frederick Barbarossa, and Frederick, duke of Suabia,
his second son ; Leopold, duke of Austria; Berthold, duke
of Moravia; Herman, marquis of Baden; the Counts of
Nassau, Thuringia, Missen, and Holland, and above sixty
other princes of the empire ; together with the Bishops of
Besan^on, Cambray, Munster, Osnaburg, Missen, Passau,
Visburg, and several others. In this expedition the Em¬
peror Trederick defeated the sultan of Iconium; but his
son Frederick, having been joined by Guy of Lusignan, king
of Jerusalem, in vain endeavoured to reduce St Jean d’Acre
or Ptolemais. During these transactions Philip the Se¬
cond of France, and Richard the First of England, joined
the crusade, by which means the Christian army was raised
to three hundred thousand fighting men. With this enor¬
mous force Ptolemais was again besieged, and, in spite of
a very gallant resistance, taken ; but Philip, unable to
brook the real or affected superiority of his rival, quitted
t le Holy Land in disgust, and Richard had the undivided
honour of defeating the mighty Saladin. His victory, how¬
ever, was productive of nothing but glory. Reduced by the
casualties of war, enfeebled by the influence of climate,
and utterly paralysed by intestine broils, the army gradual¬
ly melted away, and Richard Cceur de Lion, like the pre¬
ceding leaders, returned to Europe, unaccompanied even
by a remnant of his once mighty host. But on his way
irough Austna he was arrested and detained in prison un-
til an immense ransom had been extracted from his sub¬
jects. Before his departure from Syria, however, he had
concluded a peace with Saladin, who soon afterwards died.
The fourth crusade was undertaken in the year 1195,
1 his is a corruption of Salah-Eddin, the true name of the soldar. or sultan.
526
CRUSADES.
Crusades by the Emperor Henry VI. after Saladin’s death. In this
expedition the Christians gained several battles over the
infidels, took many towns, and were in a fair way of suc¬
cess, when the death of the emperor obliged them to quit
the Holy Land, and return into Germany.
The fifth crusade was proclaimed by order of Pope In¬
nocent III. in 1198. But those engaged in it made fruit¬
less efforts for the recovery of the Holy Land; for, al¬
though John de Neule, who commanded the fleet equip¬
ped in Flanders, arrived at Ptolemais a little after Simon
of Montfort, Reynard of Dampierre, and others, yet the
plague having destroyed many of them, the rest either re¬
turned, or engaged in the petty quarrels of the Christian
princes. In 1202, Baldwin, count of Flanders, collected an
army to act against the Mahommedans, but commenced with
the Christians of Greece. Having arrived at Constanti¬
nople during a disputed succession, he tempted one claim¬
ant to assassinate his rival, then dispatched the other by
the hand of the executioner; and, having indulged his fol¬
lowers with the plunder of the city, seated himself on the
throne of the eastern empire. In this splendid conquest
the original object of the expedition was forgotten, and
only a few knights passed over into Asia.
The sixth crusade commenced in 1228. On this occasion
the Christians took the town of Damietta, but were after¬
wards forced to surrender it. The next year the Emperor
Frederick made peace with the soldan of Egypt, brother
of Saladin, for ten years, and obtained possession of Jeru¬
salem by treaty. But the holy city was soon wrested
from the Christians by a new enemy, namely, the Tartars,
who fled before the irruption of Genghis Khan, and, having
overrun all Judea, forced the crusaders to confine them¬
selves to the maritime towns on the coast of Syria. About
1240, Richard, earl of Cornwall, and brother of Henry III.
king of England, arrived in Palestine at the head of the
English crusade ; but finding it most advantageous to con¬
clude a peace, he re-embarked, and steered towards Italy.
The seventh crusade was headed by Louis IX. common¬
ly called St Louis, who in the year 1249 took the town of
Damietta. But sickness having broken out in the Chris¬
tian army, the king endeavoured to retreat. In this, how¬
ever, he was unsuccessful; for being closely pursued by
the Saracens, he was defeated and taken prisoner near Mas-
soura, in 1250, along with nearly all his nobility. A truce
was then agreed to for ten j'ears, and the king and his fol¬
lowers were set at liberty upon the payment of a ransom.
The eighth crusade, undertaken in 1270, was headed
by the same prince, who having embarked with an arma¬
ment from the southern ports of his kingdom, landed in
Africa, and encamped near the ruins of Carthage. But he
was immediately surrounded and besieged by the Moors;
a contagious distemper now attacked his troops, carrying
off great numbers ; and Louis, having himself caught it,
died in the fifty-fifth year of his age. The king of Sicily,
however, having arrived with a considerable fleet, and
joined Philip the Bold, son and successor of Louis, the
king of 1 unis, after several engagements in which he was
always worsted, sued for peace, which was granted upon
conditions advantageous to the Christians; and after this
both princes embarked for their own kingdoms. Prince
Edward of England, who arrived at Tunis at the time of
this treaty, sailed towards Ptolemais, where he landed with
a small body of three hundred English and French, and
prevented Bendokdar from laying siege to that place;
but being obliged to quit Palestine in order to take pos¬
session of the crown of England, this crusade ended with¬
out contributing in any degree to the recovery of the Holy
Land. In 1291, the town of Acre, or Ptolemais, was taken
and plundered by the soldan of Egypt, and the Christians
were driven entirely out of Syria.
After this time there was no crusade, though several Crusades,
popes attempted to stir up the Christians to such an under-
taking, particularly Nicholas IV. in 1292, and Clement V.
in 1311. Indeed, long before the age of St Louis the ap¬
petite for holy wars had been greatly blunted in Europe,
and, owing to the small number of recruits who arrived in
Palestine, the Christian settlers were gradually led to in¬
termarry with their Moslemin neighbours. The descend¬
ants of the crusaders consequently degenerated into a
mongrel race, half Christian half Mahommedan, who ere
long either forgot their pretensions to an European origin,
or became altogether indifferent about the subject. After
Tyre and Ptolemais had been wrested from them they soon
became blended with the Mahommedan population of Syria,
and not a vestige of the Christian conquest remained.
The foregoing sketch embraces but a faint and meagre
outline of these memorable expeditions ; but were the de¬
tails to be filled in so as to constitute an expanded nar¬
rative, several volumes would be insufficient to contain it.
What we have aimed at is merely to trace out in their
order the leading facts, to indicate the prominent chai’ac-
teristics, and to mark the immediate results of each suc¬
cessive enterprise undertaken for the conquest of the
Holy Land. Our object has been to direct the attention
of the reader, in the first instance, to the events them¬
selves, exclusively of all speculations either as to their ge¬
neral complexion, or the consequences, whether proximate
or remote, of which they are supposed to have been pro¬
ductive. What still remains, in order to complete the
design of the present article, is, first, to exhibit a general
sketch of the grand picture presented by the crusades;
and, secondly, to endeavour to estimate the influence
which they exerted, both at the time and afterwards, on
the state and condition of society.
I. The history of the middle ages presents no spectacle
half so imposing as that of the expeditions undertaken for
the recovery of the Holy Land from the Infidels. The
picture which these exhibit is that of the people of Eu¬
rope and Asia reciprocally armed against each other; that
of two religions in fierce conflict for the mastery. By a
sudden and extraordinary impulse, the West, formerly
menaced by the Moslemins, and indeed exposed to their
attacks, seemed to rise en masse in order to precipitate
itself on Asia. Forgetful of their individual interests,
sinking their mutual jealousies, and abandoning their an¬
cient feuds, the nations of Europe, uniting in a common
pursuit, fixed their eyes upon a single country as the only
one upon earth worthy the ambition of conquerors. It
might have been supposed indeed that the world contained
no city but Jerusalem, and no country fit to be inhabited
except that in which Jesus Christ had lived and taught,
suffered and died. Every road leading to Palestine was
drenched with blood, and along its dreary tract lay scat¬
tered at no distant intervals the skeletons and the wrecks of
nations. In this general commotion the most sublime
virtues were displayed in the midst of the most frightful
disorders. The soldiers of the cross, animated with a su¬
pernatural enthusiasm, braved hunger and thirst, fatigue
and disease, the influence of a deadly climate and the
fury of exasperated enemies; in the greatest dangers, and
amidst incessant disorders and excesses, nothing could
shake their perseverance, nothing exhaust their resigna¬
tion. After four years of toil, and misery, and victory,
Jerusalem was conquered by the crusaders; but as their
conquests were not the work of wisdom and prudence, but
the fruit of a blind enthusiasm and an ill-directed hero¬
ism, they laid the foundation of no permanent settlements,
and, in fact, soon melted away like frost-work in the sun.
When the banner of the cross had passed from the he-
CRUS
Crusades, roic hands of Godefroy of Bouillon into those of his feeble
and incompetent successors, Jerusalem, which had now
become Christian, was forced to implore fresh succours
from the West. At the call of St Bernard, the Christians
again took up arms, and, conducted by an emperor of Ger¬
many and a king of France, rushed to the defence of the
Holy Land. But they had no longer great captains to
command them, and no longer did they exhibit the mag¬
nanimity and heroic resignation which had distinguished
their predecessors. Asia beheld the new invaders with¬
out dismay; already it presented a different spectacle
from that which the first crusaders had witnessed. The
followers of Mahommed had recovered from their con¬
sternation ; they had even become possessed with a deli¬
rium similar to that which had impelled the crusaders
against them ; they opposed enthusiasm to enthusiasm,
and fanaticism to fanaticism ; and, in their turn, they
burned with a sanguinary z«al to shed blood in a religious
war. The spirit of discord, which had formerly proved
their ruin, was now confined to the Christians. The lux¬
ury, the manners, and the climate of the East had en¬
feebled the courage of the defenders of the cross, and
caused them to forget the objects for which the holy war
had been undertaken. Jerusalem, the conquest of which
had cost the crusaders so much blood, fell into the hands
of the Infidels, and became the prize of a wise and war¬
like prince, who had united under his banners the forces
of Syria and Egypt.
The genius and fortune of Saladin enabled him to in¬
flict a mortal blow on the ill-cemented power of the Chris¬
tians in the East. In vain did an emperor of the West,
and two kings renowned for their valour, put themselves
at the head of the forces of their respective states, and
march to deliver Palestine. These new armies of crusa¬
ders found everywhere insurmountable obstacles or in¬
vincible enemies; and efforts, which promised so much,
produced only splendid misfortunes. The kingdom of Jeru-
salem, the ruins of which were still disputed, had become
but the shadow of a name; and even the captivity and
misfortunes of the holy city soon ceased to draw tears
from the eyes of Christians, or to fill them with the trans¬
ports of a warlike piety. The crusaders who had armed
themselves for the deliverance of the heritage of Christ,
allowed themselves to be seduced by the riches of Greece,
and instead of rushing with fervid impetuosity on Pales¬
tine, stopped short to attempt the conquest of Constan¬
tinople. From this time the crusades began to assume a
new character, and appear to have had another object, as
well as another motive, than at the period of their com¬
mencement, Whilst a small number of Christians still
shed their blood for the deliverance of the holy sepulchre,
the greater part of the princes, leaders, and knights of the
cross listened only to the voice of ambition ; and the popes
completed the corruption of the original spirit by preach¬
ing crusades against Christian states and against their
personal enemies. Holy wars thus degenerated into civil
commotions, in the course of which religion and humanity
were equally outraged, while the rights of nations and the
liberties of mankind were trampled under foot.
This abuse of the crusades, and the fatal passions which
it called into play, had plunged Europe into disorder and
anarchy, when a pious monarch undertook once more to
arm the West against the Infidels, and to rekindle in the
bosoms of new crusaders the heroic ardour which had ani¬
mated the companions of Godefroy. But the two expe¬
ditions, directed by this sainted leader, proved the most
disastrous of all. In the first, the world had the specta¬
cle presented to it of an army in captivity, and a king in
fetters; in the second, that of a powerful monarch perishing
near the ruins of Carthage, of the same pestilence which
A D E S. 527
had desolated his ranks. In Egypt, the fortune of arms Crusades,
placed him at the mercy of the Infidels whom he went to r^-'
conquer; in Africa, the plague claimed him as its victim.
These misfortunes contributed powerfully to dispel the
illusion which had so long reigned supreme over the pub¬
lic mind; and from this time Jerusalem ceased to excite
the passions or to attract the regards of the children of the
West. But Europe, much as it had suffered, was, by the
compensatory law of Providence, destined to reap import¬
ant benefits in return. So many revolutions did not take
place, so many distant expeditions were not undertaken,
in vain. Some gleams of civilization penetrated athwart
the darkness of barbarism ; and the first effect of the light
which the crusades began to scatter abroad, was to weaken
the spirit of exaltation in which they had had their origin.
Attempts were afterwards made to rekindle the flame
which had at first overspread all Europe, and burned with
consuming fury in Asia; but these proved utterly abor¬
tive. The nations recovered from their pious delirium;
languor succeeded to enthusiasm, and lassitude passed
into indifference ; so that, when Germany found itself
menaced by the Moslemins, who were already masters of
Constantinople, the banner of the cross could scarcely
summon together a few thousand warriors; and Europe
which had risen almost en masse to attack the Infidels in
Asia, could oppose to them only a feeble resistance upon
its own territory.
II. Having thus endeavoured to explain the origin and
to illustrate the spirit and character of the crusades, it now
remains to show what influence they produced upon the
state and condition of society. On this subject different
opinions have been entertained at different times. In the
seventeenth century sentiment prevailed over reason ; the
heroic valour of the crusaders was admired, their reverses
were deplored ; and, without reference to the good or evil
produced by these distant expeditions, men respected the
pious motives which had induced the warriors of the West
to take up arms. In the eighteenth century, which had
imbibed the spirit of reform, an opposite tendency showed
itself; and these enterprises were represented as the joint
product of ignorance, fanaticism, and barbarism. In 1773
Voltaire published a history of the crusades; but the sub¬
ject was then so generally decried, and the author had
thrown so much ridicule on the events which he related,
that his book excited little curiosity, and found but few
readers. The same tone was afterwards assumed by the
writers of the Encyclopedic, who adopted the sarcasms and
greatly exaggerated the declamations of Voltaire ; and this
mode of judging the crusades became so general, that even
the panegyrists of St Louis could scarcely forgive that
pious monarch his exploits and misfortunes in Egypt and
at Tunis. But in due time philosophy, enlightened by
research and analysis, investigated the causes of events,
studied their effects, and, searching for the truth, aban¬
doned satire and declamation. In the introduction to his
History of Charles the Fifth, Robertson expressed his con¬
viction that the crusades had favoured the progress of free¬
dom and the advancement of the human mind; and the
conclusion of the historian, whether it flattered some of
the opinions of the time, or exercised on the public mind
the natural ascendency of truth, soon found many parti-
zans. From this time writers began to judge with less
severity of the oriental expeditions of the crusaders, and
to consider these as a subject of philosophical inquiry, ra¬
ther than as a theme for declamation or ridicule. Hence,
nearly forty years ago, the Institute of France, in a truly
liberal and enlightened spirit, proposed to the learned in
general, as a subject of competition, the advantages which
society had derived from the crusades ; and two memoirs,
one by M. Hercen, and another by M. de Choiseul d’Aille-
V
528
CRUSADES.
Crusades, court, obtained the prize offered by the Institute on this
occasion. The object of both these productions, which ai e
remarkable for the erudition and sound critical spirit which
they display, is to establish the principle that the holy
wars were, in their consequences, productive ot advan¬
tages to posterity which greatly overbalanced the calami¬
ties they inflicted on contemporary generations. It may
be added that these very able and learned memoirs form
as it were the basis of Michaud’s more ample and satis¬
factory work, entitled Histoire des Croisades, to which we
are happy in having an opportunity of expressing our ob i-
gations. Upon the whole, then, it appears that, in the
course of two centuries, opinions have several times
changed on the subject of the crusades; and that, long
as the period is which has elapsed since these memoiable
expeditions were undertaken, there is still great room for
the exercise of caution in endeavouring to estimate the
precise amount of the influence which they eventually ex¬
ercised on society.
It may be observed, indeed, that what the crusades want¬
ed in order to propitiate favourable judgments, was success.
Let us, however, suppose for a moment, that these distant
expeditions had succeeded to the fullest extent, and en¬
deavour to show what would, in that case, have been the
results. Egypt, Syria, and Greece would have become
Christian colonies; the nations of the East and of the
West would have advanced hand in hand in the career of
civilization ; the language of the Franks would have pene¬
trated to the extremities of Asia; the coasts of Barbary,
inhabited by pirates, would have received the manners
and the laws of Europe ; and the interior of Africa would
not long have remained a region impenetrable to the ac¬
tivity of commerce, or the researches of science and dis¬
covery. In order to judge what might have been gained
by this union of so many nations and races of men under
the same laws and the same religion, it is only necessary
to consider the state of the Roman world under the suc¬
cessors of Augustus, forming in some sort but one people,
living under the same laws, and speaking the same lan¬
guage. All the seas were free; the most distant pro¬
vinces communicated with one another by means of ad¬
mirable roads ; cities exchanged their arts, their industry,
and their varied productions; nations maintained a com¬
merce of knowledge, on principles of perfect reciprocity.
If the crusades had subjected the East to Christendom, it
is not unreasonable to believe that this magnificent spec¬
tacle, which the human race had only once seen, would
have been renewed in modern times; and then opinions
would not have been divided as to the advantage of the
holy wars. But, unhappily, the crusaders could neither ex¬
tend nor preserve their conquests ; they wanted the faculty
of improving victory, and they were unable to repair the
consequences of defeat. The results of the crusades,
therefore, are on this account more difficult to be deter¬
mined; whilst the good which is ascribed to them is im¬
measurably less obvious and striking. The evils which
they caused to humanity were great, though temporary;
as to the good which they produced, it was like a germ
which remained long hid in the earth, and at length de¬
veloped itself slowly and imperceptibly. Let us, however,
glance at the state and condition of the different powers
of Europe before, during, and after the crusades, noting
the principal changes that occurred, and the ameliorations
which were gradually effected.
1. At the commencement of the twelfth century, the
French monarchy had fallen into a state of weakness and
decay; but in the course of the succeeding ages, it re¬
vived and attained to great prosperity and splendour. Able
negotiations, successful wars, useful alliances, the decay
of the feudal system, and the progressive emancipation of
the commonalty, favoured the dynasty of the Capets in Crusades
the aggrandisement of their states and the increase of
their authority. Several centuries were employed in con¬
summating this great work of fortune or of policy; but
the revolution, thus slowly operated, was attended with ef¬
fects proportionally durable. The policy of the French
kings, however, was seconded by the great events of the
crusades; and it was natural that the nation which bad
taken the greatest share in these enterprises, should profit
the most by them, for the increase of its power and the
amelioration of its social condition. The royal authority
derived equal benefit from the exploits and the reverses of
the numerous warriors whom the crusades had hurried into
Asia. The removal, the death, or the ruin of the great
vassals of the crown, equally enabled the sovereign to-
disengage himself from the fetters of feudal anarchy, and
to establish order in the kingdom. More than a century
before the first crusade, the barons and the prelates had
ceased to meet in general assemblies, for the purpose of
regulating the forms of justice, and of giving to the acts
of the sovereign the support of their political influence.
But at the time of the second crusade, there were several
assemblies of the grandees of the kingdom, at which they
occupied themselves with preparations for the expedition,,
and with measures for maintaining public order and the
execution of the laws during the absence of Louis VII.;
and in these meetings the French beheld a faint image of
the assemblies, so celebrated under the former races of
kings, in which the monarch and his subjects deliberated
together as to the best means of insuring the safety of the
throne and the independence of the nation. Thus the
crusades aided the kings of France in recovering their le¬
gislative power, and enabled the more enlightened portion
of the nation to repossess themselves of those ancient pre¬
rogatives which they had exercised under the descendants
of Clovis and of Charlemagne. The great vassals who, in
the time of Hugues Capet, and for more than a century
afterwards, had been continually opposed to the crown,
from which they had separated their interests, became
animated with different sentiments when they saw the
French monarchs at the head of expeditions which fixed
the attention of Christendom, and in which the cause of
Jesus Christ himself and that of all Christian nations was
concerned. In a word, to understand how much the kings
of France were indebted to the crusades, and how much
they gained by the part they took in these expeditions, it
is only necessary to compare Philip I. shut up in his pa¬
lace during the council of Clermont, excommunicated by
Urban, condemned by the bishops, and abandoned by his
grandees, with Philip-Augustus, victorious over Saladin in
Syria, and over the enemies of his kingdom at Bouvines;
or w'ith Louis XI. surrounded in his reverses by a faithful
nobility, respected by the clergy and people, revered as
the firmest supporter of the church, and proclaimed by
his age the arbiter of Europe. The crusades, indeed, were
the signal of a new order of things in France, the founda¬
tions of which were laid with great solidity during the
wars in Palestine and in other countries of the East.
2. If royalty had sunk to a low ebb in France at the
period of the first crusade, in England it was lusty and
vigorous, and, together with the feudal system, pressed
upon the nation with all the weight of the tyranny esta¬
blished by William the Conqueror. But an authority
founded by victory and supported by violence, inspired a
feeling of opposition which time and circumstances after¬
wards developed. Military despotism had succeeded in
silencing opinion ; but it had failed to produce an entire
change in the manners of the English, or to eradicate their
attachment to their ancient customs. 1 he passions re¬
pressed by the sword found vent when the force of terror
CRUS
Crusades, was removed, and broke out with a vehemence proportioned
t0 the constraints to which they had previously been sub¬
jected. In England, therefore, the change which took
place was just the reverse of that which had been effected
in France. A monarchy formerly powerful began to de-^
cline, and liberty made progress at the expense of the
royal authority. The crusades, however, had probably
less influence on the civilization of England than on that
of several other states of Europe; but they may, never¬
theless, have concurred with other causes in accelerating
the changes which afterwards took place in the English
monarchy. Richard Cceur de Lion showed himself more
anxious to acquire the renown of a great captain than the
reputation of a great king; and in seeking glory in arms,
he neglected the cares of government. At his departure
for Palestine he sold the revenues, prerogatives, and do¬
mains of the crown, and would have sold the city of Lon¬
don itself if he had found a purchaser; but his reverses
and his captivity ruined his people, and his long absence
nourished the spirit of faction among the nobility, nay
even in the bosom of his own family. The English barons
several times indicated a determination to set out for the
East without the permission of the king; and the thought
of opposing a monarch whom they disliked heightened
their impatience to embark for Palestine. In fact, princes
sought to take advantage of the opinions of their time,
and engaged to join the crusades for the sole purpose of
obtaining subsidies, which they employed in other enter¬
prises ; conduct which brought contempt on their policy,
and increased the public distrust of all their proceedings.
But there was another cause which mainly contributed to
subvert the foundations of absolute monarchy in England ;
we mean the violent enterprises of the popes against the
sovereigns of that country, enterprises which were favour¬
ed by the spirit of the religious wars. In the league of
the barons against Henry III., the rebels bore the badge
or ensign of a cross, as in the wars beyond sea, and the
priests promised the crown of martyrdom to all who should
die in the cause of liberty. It is a remarkable circum¬
stance that the chief of the league formed for establish¬
ing the independence of the English nation was a French
gentleman, the son of the Count de Montfort, who had
acquired so great renown in the crusade against the Al-
bigenses. After long and persevering efforts, liberty at
length took root in that soil whence we trust it will never
be eradicated, and many fierce and painful struggles issued
in positive and durable results, of which succeeding ages
reaped the full benefit.
3. But whilst the monarchy of France was strengthened
at the expense of liberty, and liberty in England was con¬
quered from the monarchy, Germany presented a different
spectacle, and the empire, which had flourished till the
commencement of the eleventh century, exhibited symp¬
toms of a rapid decline during the period of the crusades.
In order to resist the great vassals, the emperors granted
several advantages to the clergy, and conferred privileges
on the towns. But the clergy employed these advantages
in favour of the popes, who attacked the imperial power;
and the towns profited by the concessions made to them
in order to establish their independence. In spite of all
the efforts of the emperors, the crown remained elective,
whilst the great fiefs had become hereditary; and thus the
heads of the empire depended for their election on the
nobility'and princes who had freed themselves from all
dependence. The succession was therefore a subject of
perpetual intrigue and contention, whilst, in the struggle,
ambition was often preferred to moderation and virtue.
Amongst the princes who ascended the imperial throne,
several were men of great character ; hut their active and
stirring genius hurrying them into disproportionate enter-
vou VII.
A D E &
prises, exhausted their means, and accelerated the decline
of the empire. The recollection of ancient Rome, and of
the power of the Caesars, was continually present to their
thoughts. They carried their arms into Italy, where a
war of extermination was declared against them by the
popes ; two families of emperors sunk under the thunders
of Rome ; and whilst they exhausted themselves in vain
efforts to establish their power in Italy, they completed
the ruin of their influence in Germany. The policy pur¬
sued by the kings of France was wiser and more fortunate.
They confined their efforts to the extension of their own
power; their conquests tended only to reunite the scat¬
tered branches of a great family ; and their authority be¬
came more popular, in proportion as they came to be consi¬
dered as the natural bond of connection between the French
of ail the provinces. But the glory which the emperors
of Germany acquired by their conquests was personal to
themselves, and possessed no attraction for the German
people. It had nothing in common with the nation of
which they were only the nominal heads; it was neither a
principle of union nor a source of support; it combined no
interests, it appealed to no national feelings; and each
sought his own safety or his own aggrandisement by his
individual means. Hence arose a state of things more
fatal to Germany than even the absolute power of the
emperors. From the ruins of imperial greatness there
sprung up a multitude of small states, opposed to one
another by difference of laws and by a spirit of rivalry;
and whilst the monarchical spirit predominated in these
principalities, secular as well as ecclesiastical,—whilst the
great towns were actuated by the love of liberty and in¬
dependence, and the nobility continued to urge the pre¬
tensions of the aristocracy,—it was vain to expect that,
having conflicting interests, they would pursue the same
policy, or direct their efforts towards any common and
salutary end. The popes continually interposed; great
disorders were produced; the sceptre of Charlemagne
was broken ; pretenders to the imperial dignity multi¬
plied, under the encouragement of Rome, in proportion as
the empire itself was falling to pieces ; and, in the midst
of this anarchy, Germany lost its political as it afterwards
did its religious unity. The enormous and inert mass of
the confederation could never be set in motion ; even the
presence of actual danger failed to awaken its energy, or
to induce it to adopt any vigorous decision for the safety
of Germany. In the meanwhile, the crusades afforded a
pretext, of which the popes availed themselves, for re¬
moving the emperors of Germany, and hurrying them into
disastrous expeditions, which accelerated the ruin of their
power; and thus the enthusiasm of the holy wars, which
contributed to unite other Christian nations, only served
to produce confusion and disorder in the bosom of the
empire. At the same time, it was under the influence
and auspices of the court of Rome, whilst seriously occu¬
pied with a crusade, that the family of Rodolph of Haps-
burg took its rise ; a family whose power restored to the
empire something of its ancient splendour, and saved
Europe from the invasion of the Turks. It was also dur¬
ing the epoch of the crusades that the cities of Dantzick,
Thorn, Elbing, Kdnigsberg, and others, sprung up in the
midst of deserts and of forests ; that Finland, Lithuania,
Pomerania, and Silesia, became flourishing provinces; and
that new states were formed, destined afterwards to oc¬
cupy a high rank among the powers of Europe.
4. If from Germany we turn to Italy, we shall there
find other forms of government, and revolutions of a dif¬
ferent character. When the last columns of the Roman
empire were overturned, Italy found itself covered with
ruins. The Huns, Franks, Vandals, Goths, Germans, and
Lombards, successively carried into that fine country the
3*
o _>
530
CRUSADES.
Crusades, scourge of their domination, and left there traces of their
manners, their legislation, and their character. But, in
the tenth century, when the emperors of Constantinople
could no longer extend their arms to Italy, other powers
arose, some by conquest, others by fortune, and otheis
again by means unknown to history. I he influence of
the popes sometimes defended Italy with success against
the invasions and the yoke of the emperors of Geimany,
but the struggle was protracted, whilst the various foi tune
of the contest served only to perpetuate confusion and
discord ; and, during several centuries, the factions of the
Guelphs and Gibelines desolated Italy without defending
it. That country, unfortunately, had no point of centra¬
lization around which to rally and unite its means of de¬
fence. On the contrary, divided into a multitude of petty
states, it reckoned within its natural boundaries several
nations, and twenty republics, each having its own laws,
its own interests, and its own history. Amongst a nume¬
rous population thus split into factions, there could scarce¬
ly prevail any community of feeling, because there exist¬
ed no identity of interest; whilst, on the other hand, all
the elements of disorder and contention were accumulated
in destructive abundance. Hence we find little else than
continual wars and strifes, not only between different
towns and different states, but even between the citizens
of the same town or the same republic; strangers were
called in to take part in their intestine feuds ; and the same
mutual distrust which hired and armed mercenary adven¬
turers to decide their disputes, destroyed the true senti¬
ment of patriotism, and almost effaced the remembrance of
the Italian name. The feudal system was abolished in
Italy sooner than in other countries ; but with this system
disappeared the ancient honour of thepreux chevaliers, and
all the virtues of chivalry. In republics defended by mer¬
cenaries bravery ceased to be respected, and the generous
sentiments which it inspires were forgotten. A loose rein
was given to the most violent passions ; excesses of hatred
and vengeance, which appear scarcely probable even in our
tragedies, were indulged in ; the finest country in Europe
seemed to be peopled with demons incarnate; and Dante
had only to look around him in order to find the model of
his Inferno. Society, always ready to fall in pieces, seemed
to have no other motive force than the fury of parties,
no other life than discord and civil war; against anarchy
there was no guarantee but tyranny, against tyranny none
but the despair of factions and the daggers of conspira¬
tors. As the power of the little states which covered Italy
was disproportioned to their ambition, their rulers were
consequently weak, and, wanting both courage and mode¬
ration, they sought their aggrandisement or their safety
by all the means which treachery or perfidy could suggest.
Any plot however infamous, any proceeding however scan¬
dalous, any crime however great, appeared good in their
eyes, provided it only served to support their quarrels or
to satisfy their ambition and their jealousy. Morality, in
short, disappeared ; and then was formed that school of po¬
litics, the maxims of which are embodied, for the purpose
probably of exposing them, in the Prince of Machiavelli.
At the period of the crusades, however, the cities of Lom¬
bardy, and the republics of Genoa, Pisa, and Venice, had
attained great prosperity. This arose from the commerce
of the East, which Italy had carried on before the epoch
of these expeditions, and which it continued with all the
additional advantages offered by the contest in Palestine.
But these mercantile republics, which had their attention
continually fixed on Syria, Egypt, and Greece, were bet¬
ter fitted to enrich Italy with the products of their com¬
mercial industry than to nurse among the Italians the
sentiment of true independence. At the same time, the
power of Venice was everywhere advanced by the arms
of the crusaders, and by the men of that age the queen of Crusades,
the Adriatic was regarded as the empress of the East. "v-'-'
Her decay commenced only at the period when the pro¬
gress of navigation, to which she had so greatly contri¬
buted, opened a new passage to the Indies, and led to the
discovery of a new world. The greater part of the other
republics had neither the same lustre nor the same dura¬
tion, but, towards the close of the crusades, disappeared
in the chaos and tumult of discord and civil war. As to
the kingdom of Naples and Sicily, it formed, as it were,
part of the high road by which the crusaders marched to
Greece and to Palestine ; and as its riches appeared to
have no protectors, a country which its inhabitants had
never been able to defend naturally tempted the cupidi¬
ty of the princes and knights proceeding to seek their
fortunes in Asia. For more than two centuries, accord¬
ingly, its history is blended with that of the crusades,
which often served as a pretext or occasion for conquering
it; whilst, as to the wars in which this kingdom engaged,
they exhibit monstrous crimes rather than glorious ex¬
ploits, revolts instead of battles, and consummate cowar¬
dice united with remorseless and unsparing cruelty.
5. During the course of the crusades Spain was chiefly
occupied in defending her own hearths against the same
Saracens whom the people of other nations of Europe went
to combat in the East. Accordingly, she did not take part
in these enterprises until the spirit in which they originat¬
ed had begun to decline in the rest of Europe. This coun¬
try, however, derived some advantages from the expedi¬
tions to the East. In almost all the enterprises of Chris¬
tendom against the Moslemins of Asia, a great number of
crusaders disembarked on the shores of Spain in order to
combat the Moors; and several crusades were published
in the West against the infidel masters of the Peninsula.
The celebrated victory gained over the Moors at Tolosa
was the fruit of a crusade preached in Europe, and parti¬
cularly in France, by order of the sovereign pontiff. The
expeditions beyond sea also aided the cause of the Spa¬
niards, by detaining in their own country the Saracens
of Egypt and Syria, who might otherwise have joined
those on the coasts of Africa, and proceeded to the assist¬
ance of their countrymen in Spain. The kingdom of Portu-
gal was moreover conquered and founded by the crusad¬
ers ; and their expeditions first suggested the idea of cer¬
tain orders of chivalry, which, in imitation of those of
Palestine, were formed in Spain, and mainly contributed
to enable the people of that country to triumph over the
Moors. We may add, that Spain is "the country where the
memory of the crusades was longest preserved. In the
course of last century there used to be published, every
year, in all the provinces, a bull called Crusada, which
solemn publication recalled to the Spanish nation the tri¬
umphs which their ancestors had gained over the Moorish
invaders of their country.
In thus surveying the condition of the principal coun¬
tries of Europe at the epoch of the crusades, it is impossi¬
ble not to be struck with the great diversity observable in
their manners, their institutions, and the destiny of their
inhabitants. But still it is no easy task to follow and to
mark the progress of civilization in so many monarchies
and republics, some emerging in splendour from the bo¬
som of barbarism, and others falling back into decay and
ruin. Nor is it less difficult to detect the influence exer¬
cised by the crusades amidst so many revolutions, which
had often the same origin, though their effects were differ¬
ent and sometimes opposite. Nevertheless, this influence
was in all cases considerable, and in a few strikingly great.
In France it favoured the growth of the monarchy at the
expense of a turbulent and powerful feudal aristocracy.
In England, it favoured the growth of liberty at the ex-
CRUS
Crusadps. pense of an absolute monarchy. In Germany, it accele-
rated the decline of an empire with an elective head, and
depressed the aristocracy, whilst it encouraged the indus¬
try and enterprise of the towns, enabling them at the same
time to secure a sort of independence. In Italy, if it failed
to mitigate the political evils with which that country was
unhappily cursed, it gave a new stimulus to commerce and
navigation; enriched those mercantile republics which then
monopolized the trade of the East; and gradually paved
the way for discoveries which have since produced the most
striking effects on the destinies of mankind. And, lastly,
in Spain, it powerfully contributed to the deliverance of
the Peninsula from the yoke of the Saracens, and gave
rise to the institution of the Cortes, the emancipation of
the commonalty, the enfranchisement of the towns, and
other measures which signalized the decline of the feudal
system and of the absolute authority of the sovereign in
that country. Such were the more immediate political
results of the crusades. Let us now for an instant inquire
what effects they produced on the authority of the church,
and on the institutions and manners of the middle ages.
III. The situation of the popes in the middle ages pre¬
sents a singular spectacle. As sovereigns of Home, they
had scarcely any authority, and were frequently exiled
from their own states ; as the heads of Christendom, they
exercised an absolute empire to the very extremities of the
world, and their name was revered wherever the gospel
was preached. Possessing this unlimited spiritual autho¬
rity, the popes obtained credit with some for originating
the crusades; but they who support such an opinion have
little knowledge of the general movement which then agi¬
tated the Christian world. No power on earth was capa¬
ble of producing so mighty and universal a commotion ; it
belonged only to Him who raises and stills the tempest at
his pleasure to inspire of a sudden into the hearts of men
that enthusiasm which absorbed all other passions, and
hurried on vast multitudes as if impelled by an invisible
force. It has also been said that the crusades greatly in¬
creased the authority of the popes ; and this is true, though
perhaps scarcely to the extent which some are willing to
believe. At first, indeed, the popes did not seem to be
aware of the advantages which they might derive from
these expeditions; and, accordingly, it was not until the
second crusade that they became sensible of the ascend¬
ency which the holy see might exercise by means of the
efforts made for the conquest of the Holy Land. Latterly,
however, the crusades furnished the popes with a pretext
for usurping, in all the states of Europe, the principal pre¬
rogatives of the sovereign power. In name of the holy war,
they assumed the right of raising armies and levying im¬
posts ; their legates exercised supreme authority in all
the countries of Christendom ; the presence of these haugh¬
ty envoys inspired respect and fear; wherever they went-
their wUl was law. Armed with the cross, they exacted
the most implicit obedience from the clergy; and as the
latter naturally possessed a very great ascendency over
the people, the empire of the popes knew neither limits nor
opposition. At the same time, the papal power received
but little increase in Asia during the holy wars; whilst
the quarrels and disorders which incessantly disturbed the
Christian colonies multiplied their embarrassments with¬
out adding to their power. Their voice was not always
listened to amidst the din of arms; and sometimes the
soldiers of the cross resisted the will and contemned the
counsels of the pontiffs. The legates of the holy see were
often at variance with the chiefs of the Christian armies,
and their character was not always respected in the midst
of camps; whilst, on the other hand, as the popes aspired
to direct the crusades, they were held in some sort respon¬
sible for misfortunes and disorders which they could not
A D E S. 53i
prevent; and this responsibility, exposing them to be judged Crusauts.
with rigour, impaired their reputation for ability and saga- -v-'w'
city. By a gross abuse of the crusading spirit, the popes
also engaged in wars where ambition was more concerned
than religion ; they thought of their temporal when they
should have attended only to the interests of their spirit¬
ual dominion ; and in seeking to advance the one they ne¬
glected the other. The crusade against the Albigenses
was productive of no solid advantage to the papal autho¬
rity. The intolerance which occasioned that war may no
doubt be regarded as an emanation of the fierce spirit of
the time; but the Inquisition, which then took its rise,
awakened more passions than it repressed. The enormous
tributes imposed on the clergy also served to weaken the
papal authority, by the universal discontent which these
exactions produced. Tenths were raised not only for a
crusade, but for every attempt at a crusade, and not only
for the expeditions to the East, but for every enterprise
undertaken against the enemies of the court of Rome ;
whilst the rigour with which the agents of the pontiffs col¬
lected the imposts, and the scandalous manner in which
they often misapplied the sums wrung from the faith¬
ful, excited the most lively indignation, and called forth
loud remonstrances. “ Rien ne fut plus funeste a 1’au-
torite pontificale (says Michaud) que ces plaintes qu’on
entendait de toutes parts, et dont s’arma enfin la redout-
able heresie de Luther.” In short, to quote the words
of the same author, “ la domination des papes alia tou-
jours s’accroissant pendant un siecle jusqua Innocent III.;
elle alia ensuite en declinant pendant un autre siecle, jus-
qu’a Boniface VIII., epoque ou finissait lescroisades d’ou-
tre-mer.”
2. Before the period of the crusades, the feudal system
had begun to exhibit some symptoms of decline. Found¬
ed on the basis of military colonization, the governments
of the middle ages may be compared to a victorious army
dispersed in a conquered country, having the territory
which it occupied parcelled out in certain definite propor¬
tions, and always ready at the signal of its officers or su¬
preme head to march against the common enemy, and to
defend its possessions. Hence, as long as discipline and
obedience subsisted in these colonies, public order was not
disturbed. But when the reciprocal relations of protection
and submission, services and duties, became enfeebled—
when discipline relaxed, and the rigour of military law had
been insensibly mitigated—society then presented the spec¬
tacle of an army abandoned to license, or freed in some
measure from the control of its chief or head; and every
successive abatement was so much withdrawn from the
strength and solidity of the fabric of feudalism, so much
added to the antagonist force which had already begun to
attack its foundations. Still, at the period of the crusades,
the, ties of fidelity produced by the feudal relations were
so powerful that the preachers of these expeditions some¬
times invoked these in their exhortations; they preached
the duties of feudalism in concurrence with the precepts
of the gospel; and, to excite the Christian warriors to as¬
sume the cross, they called them the vassals of Jesus Christ.
The crusades, however, unquestionably exercised a salu¬
tary influence upon the spirit and manners of feudalism;
they contributed to destroy, by exhausting, the ferocity
which that system had nurtured, as well as to eradicate
some of the grosser abuses which it had engendered; they
preserved, by stimulating and encouraging, the generous
sentiments which it had inspired; and they concurred in
developing whatever it contained that was favourable to
the progress of civilization. They opened a seasonable
and sufficient outlet for an overboiling spirit, which, if com¬
pressed, would have blown to pieces the whole fabric of
society; and, by their re-action, they favoured the growth
532 CRUS
Crusades, and expansion of interests which became identified with
the cause of general improvement and of public order.
The whole of man was not yet known, and the idea of vir¬
tue was still in a great measure merged in that of mere
duty or obedience. But the crusades created a desire, or
we should rather say produced a necessity, for acquiring
personal distinction, in addition to that conferred by meie
rank or possessions; every man above the common held
was compelled by ambition to illustrate his name with
some brilliant achievement; and even the meanest and
humblest individual became in some sort ennobled by the
performance of great actions. I his feeling belongs to a
risin°" civilization; it is the first indication of that spirit
which sooner or later issues in the intellectual, moral, and
political improvement of society.
3. The crusades were not altogether without fruits even
to that class which, in the first instance, suffered most by
them; we mean the nobility. Some acquired principalities
in the East; many of the cities of Greece and Syria were
erected into signories; and the military orders which were
then introduced afforded them some compensation for the
losses which they had sustained. A few, more fortunate
than the rest, ascended the thrones of David and of Con¬
stantine, and took their place among the great monarchs
of Christendom. All acquired distinction or renown ; and,
by means of sirnames and armorial bearings, which were
now introduced, their glory wras emblazoned and preserved
in the achievements of their escutcheons. The feudal
system declined apace, and the power of the great barons
was gradually but certainly yielding to the encroachments
of royalty on the one hand, and the inroads of public li¬
berty on the other. But the spirit of chivalry came in¬
stead of the colder and more repulsive principle of feudal¬
ism ; and if the nobility served the state in a new charac¬
ter, they still retained a predominant influence, and, in
fact, constituted the greater part of its defensive force.
4. The condition of the people w'as more slowly ame¬
liorated, and they long groaned under intolerable oppres¬
sions. The peasantry remained in a state of servitude or
villeinage, subject to the arbitrary jurisdiction of their
feudal lords, and without any law to protect them against
tyranny of the worst description. But the inhabitants of
the towns were more fortunate; and as the policy of princes
concurred with the advancement of their consequence,
they were early enabled to shake off1 the fetters which
long weighed so heavily on the serfs of the plains. The
cities of Lombardy, and of a great part of Italy, were the
first to throw off the feudal yoke ; in Germany the towns
also became free, though at a later period; in England
the manifestation of the spirit of liberty dates from the
era of the crusades, prior to which the towns, with the
exception of London, which had obtained some privileges,
seem never to have once dreamed of independence; and
in Spain, the war against the Moors not only favoured the
rise of the commons, but secured them the protection of
institutions which guaranteed the enjoyment of a large
measure of freedom. The towns of the south of France
soon followed the example of those of Italy and Spain,
and obtained franchises which in time became consecrat¬
ed by usage as well as by positive laws. The liberty of
the towns commenced with corporations; because expe¬
rience had taught their inhabitants that they were only
strong when united, and also because the conservation
ot their privileges and franchises would otherwise have
been impossible. This emancipation of the commons,
however, was attended with very different results to the
great vassals and to the crown. " It weakened the autho¬
rity of the barons and feudal lords, because the spirit of
liberty naturally turned against its more immediate and
dangerous enemies ; but it increased the royal authority,
A D E S.
because the cities which were either free, or expected to Crusades,
become so, naturally turned towards the monarch, the ''-'"v-w'
author of that boon, whose interest, in one important par¬
ticular, was identical with their own. Hence we find
kings and princes placing themselves, as it were, at the
head of the general movement of society, and seeking to
establish order and to promote improvement because they
knew that they would thereby extend their power and in¬
crease their authority. The serfs of the plains, however,
groaned in subjection to tyranny long after the towns had
become free. From the crusades they derived little or no
direct advantage. They could not unite, like the inhabit¬
ants of towns ; they were dispersed, and therefore feeble.
But a propitious impulse had been given, and the day of
deliverance at length arrived. Some cities in Germany
contributed to the freedom of the peasants of their terri¬
tory ; the same thing occurred in Italy and Spain ; and
although in England the yoke of villeinage was worn for
a longer period, yet it was at length removed, and with it
the last external badge of feudal servitude.
5. The crusades have been reproached with having first
given the idea and introduced the practice of taxation.
The notion, however, is too simple in itself to make it ne¬
cessary to search so far back for its origin. But it is not
improbable that the mode in which the tenths were levied
for the holy wars served as a model to those who after¬
wards established regular contributions. Further, when
the feudal regime, which cost nothing, had been overturn¬
ed, it became necessary to provide for the expenses of a
new system of administration; and when the state could
no longer calculate on the defenders with which the te¬
nure of military service had supplied it, it was obliged to
seek for others, and of course to pay them for their ser¬
vices. Hence arose the necessity for stipendiary armies
and regular and permanent imposts. Other means, in¬
deed, were at first employed. The coin of the realm was
debased; the Jews were persecuted ; violence was em¬
ployed; justice was sold. But all these resources, which
tended at once to corrupt the government and the nation,
were soon exhausted, and none other than that of taxa¬
tion remained. With regard to regular armies, again,
there can be no doubt whatever that the first idea of
these was suggested by the expeditions to Palestine and
other countries of the East. These distant and protract¬
ed enterprises changed the conditions of the feudal ser¬
vice, and accustomed men to see permanent armies, sup¬
ported and commanded by princes.
6. Chivalry was known in the West before the era of
the crusades. But these wars, which appeared to have
the same object as chivalry, namely, that of defending the
oppressed, serving the cause of God, and combating the
Infidels, imparted to this institution greater lustre and
consistence, and gave it a direction at once more exten¬
sive and more salutary. On this important branch of the
subject, however, it is only necessary here to refer to the
article Chivalry in this work, which contains a clear,
eloquent, and masterly exposition of the more prominent
features of that extraordinary institution, and, in particu¬
lar, explains the changes and modifications which it un¬
derwent in consequence of the memorable expeditions of
which we are treating. When the institution of chivalry-
fell by the abuse which had been made of it, and parti¬
cularly in consequence of the changes which had taken
place in the military system of Europe, there still remain¬
ed in the mind of society some of the sentiments which it
had inspired; in the same manner as there remains with
those/who have forgotten the religion in which they were
born, something of its precepts, and especially of the im¬
pressions which they had received in their infancy. In the
time of chivalry, the price of good actions was glory and
CRUS
Crusades, honour; and this coin, which is so useful to nations, yet
costs them nothing', did not fail to possess some curren¬
cy in the ages which followed. Such is the effect of a
glorious recollection, that the marks and distinctions of
chivalry still serve as the most appropriate and enviable
recompense of bravery and merit. Seeing, then, that the
crusades added some lustre and gave some ascendency to
an institution which formed, as it were, a barrier against
license and barbarism, it must be admitted that these ex¬
peditions, however wild in themselves, have, in this re¬
spect at least, conferred a real service on humanity.
IV. Having thus viewed the crusades in connection
with the effects which they are supposed to have produ¬
ced on the condition of different classes of society, and
having traced to the same source the origin of several of
our institutions, it now only remains to advert shortly to
the progress which was made, during the same period, in
navigation, commerce, industry, the sciences, arts, letters,
and useful knowledge.
1, Before the twelfth century, the seas of Europe and
Asia, with the exception of the Mediterranean, were scarce¬
ly frequented by the nations who occupied their shores.
At the commencement of the crusades, France had only
two or three ports on the coast of Normandy, and not one
either in the Atlantic or the Mediterranean, till the seventh
crusade, when Louis IX. caused that of Aigues-Mortes to
be constructed. England had not made greater advances ;
and the trifling navigation of that age was carried on by
some towns on the coasts of the Baltic, in Holland, Flan¬
ders, and Spain. But when the crusades commenced, the
spirit of devotion uniting with that of commerce, gave a
new and more extended scope as well as inftpulse to the
enterprises of navigators. The inhabitants of Denmark
appeared in the seas of Syria ; and the Norwegians, who
had arrived in ships, assisted at the capture of Sidon. At
the siege of Ptolemais were found citizens of Lubeck and
Bremen ; and from all the coasts of the West sailed vessels
and even fleets to transport pilgrims, provisions, and arms,
into the kingdom of Jerusalem and the other principalities
in Asia founded by the arms of the crusaders. Thus the
navigators of all countries were met in the seas of the
East; and, under the auspices of the cross, commercial
relations began to be established between the maritime
states of Europe. At the commencement of the twelfth
century, a fleet of Pisans, united with some other Italians,
assisted the Aragonese in conquering the Balearic Isles;
and the navigators of Italy thus extended their knowledge
of the shores of Spain, with which they had previously
been so little acquainted that they mistook the coasts of
Aragon for the country of the Moors. Having gained ex¬
perience in distant voyages, the navigators of Lubeck, Bre¬
men, and Denmark also explored the hitherto unknown
coasts of the Baltic ;—a communication was established be¬
tween the Baltic, the Mediterranean, the Spanish Ocean,
and the seas of the North ;—a spirit of emulation and
enterprise united different nations in pursuit of the same
advantages;—and nautical science received important ac¬
cessions in almost all its branches. The configuration
of coasts, and the position of capes, harbours, bays, islands,
and headlands was determined ; seas were explored to
their furthest extremities ; the direction of winds, of cur¬
rents, and of tides, was observed; and various points in
hydrography were likewise settled with tolerable precision.
Lastly, the discovery of the compass, which had been
made about this time, although it did not come into gene¬
ral use until a subsequent period, enabled those naviga¬
tors who had obtained possession of the secret, to embark
in more adventurous voyages, and to brave the terrors of
the ocean. Naval architecture was also improved during
the crusades. The construction of vessels was rendered
A D E S. 533
more solid, at the same time that their size was increased; Crusades,
and they were for the first time provided with several masts,
in order to multiply their sails, and enable them to shape
a course upon a wjnd. To guard the interests and pro¬
tect the freedom of navigation, a code of maritime law
was likewise framed, upon the model which had been fur¬
nished by the nautical sages of Barcelona about the be¬
ginning of the twelfth century. In an assembly held at
St Sophia, in 1255, the Venetians adopted the code en¬
titled Comulat de la Mer, which was afterwards recognis¬
ed by the Pisans and the Genoese, and became the com¬
mon law of the seas of the East; whilst another code, first
published by Eleonore de Guyenne, and afterwards by
Richard Cceur de Lion, under the title of Roles d’ Oleron,
obtained the assent of several maritime states, and was at
length accredited in all the seas of the West, Protected
by this legislation, navigators reaped the fruits of their
lengthened enterprises, and were soon enabled to dispute
the empire of the Mediterranean with the Infidels. Indeed,
if Italy and several countries of the West were not sub¬
jugated by the Saracens, they owed their safety more to
the superiority of their fleets than to that of their armies.
In short it is more than probable that, without the cru¬
sades, the genius of navigators would not, till a much later
period, have enabled them to traverse the immense space
which separates the Baltic from the Mediterranean and
the Indian Ocean, or to shoot across the mighty waste of
waters interposed between the Old and the New World.
2. Every climate has its peculiar productions; and this
diversity of wealth naturally leads to interchange or com¬
merce, which in time establishes communications between
the most distant regions. In the middle ages, the indolent
and effeminate Greeks neglected to import into the West
the merchandise of Asia; and the Saracens landed on the
coasts of Europe only to subject them to the scourge of
war. But the commercial enterprise of the West sought
out those products which had ceased to be imported; and
the frequent voyages to the East were altogether to the
advantage of the Occidentals. Before the period of the
crusades, the merchandise of Asia had arrived in Europe,
sometimes by the overland route, traversing the Greek
empire, Hungary, and Bulgaria; more frequently by way
of the Mediterranean, which may be said to abut, as it
were, on all the ports of Italy. Both these routes were
rendered easy by the holy wars ; and then commerce, pro¬
tected by the standard of the cross, advanced with rapid
strides. Most of the maritime towns of the West enriched
themselves by supplying Europe with the productions of
the East; and they also derived considerable advantages
from the transport of pilgrims and of the Christian armies.
Fleets hovered around the coasts where the crusaders
fought, supplying them with munitions of war and provi¬
sions ; and thus commerce brought back to Europe part
of the treasures which had been carried into Asia by the
princes and barons who had ruined themselves in order to
provide the necessary means for combating the infidels.
In fact, all the riches of the maritime towns of Syria, and
even of Greece, belonged to the merchants of the West,
They were masters of the greater part of the Christian
cities of Asia; they possessed all the islands of the Ar¬
chipelago; for a time, they ruled in Constantinople; and
the Greek empire was almost another Venice, with its
laws, its fleets, and its armies. I he Latins, however, were
not long masters of Constantinople, Jerusalem, and most
of the countries conquered by their arms. But commerce,
more fortunate than war, persevered in its conquests after
the crusades. I he city of 1 ana, built at the mouth of the
lanais, became to Venice a colony which opened useful
relations with Persia, Tartary, Tauris, Trebizond, Bagdad,
and Bassora; whilst the Genoese, established in the small
534
CRUSADES.
Crusades, town of Caffa, in the Crimea, explored the mines of the
Caucasus, and received the treasures of India by way of
Astracan. But several of the great kingdoms of Europe
had as yet but little share in this commerce, which still
continued in the hands of a few maritime towns. England
had nothing but her wool to give in exchange for the mex-
chandise of Asia, imported by Spanish and Italian niei-
chants. The towns of France, excepting Marseilles, had
little share in the trade of the East. Italy, from her posi¬
tion, which commands the Mediterranean, enjoyed almost
exclusively this advantage, and became the grand empo¬
rium of a traffic as extensive as it was profitable; sending
into all parts of Europe, not legions and proconsuls like
Rome in the days of its greatness, but caravans of mer¬
chants, who subjected the provinces they traversed to the
calculations and wants of commerce, and disposed, by their
industry, of all the money which then circulated in the
West. In a word, Europe has scarcely a great city where
the name of Lombard affixed to some street or quarter
does not to this day attest the long residence of the Ita¬
lian merchants.
3. It is not easy to separate the progress of industry, or
even of agriculture, from that of commerce. In order to
ascertain, however, what each gained by the relations with
the East, it is necessary to attend to the state of these two
sources of wealth among the Orientals at the period of the
crusades. Before this time the Saracens had manufac¬
tures of various stuffs, such as silk, woollen, and linen. At
Damascus and in the towns of Egypt they worked in me¬
tals with greater perfection than in the West. The Chris¬
tians of Palestine often went to Damascus to purchase
arms. At Tripoli in Syria, camlets were manufactured;
and, in the same town, as well as in several of the cities
of Greece, there were a great number of trades connected
with the preparation and manufacture of silk. All this
could not escape the observation of the merchants and pil¬
grims who visited the East. We find, in fact, that, about
the middle of the twelfth century, Roger II. king of Sicily,
caused several of these artisans to be brought over to
Palermo; that this was the result of an expedition to the
coasts of Greece ; that the mulberry tree throve in the fine
climate of Italy as well as in that of the Morea ; and that
the Sicilians soon surpassed the Greeks in this valuable
species of industry. Several useful inventions were also
derived from the East; among which wind-mills have
been mentioned. Tyre was then renowned for its glass
ware, which the fine sand in the neighbourhood enabled
its workmen to bring to a degree of perfection unknown
in other countries; and to this place the Venetians were
indebted for instruction in an art in which they afterwards
greatly excelled. It is probable, also, that the Greek fire
suggested the idea of gunpowder, and ultimately led to
the important invention which has immortalized the name
of Berthold Schwartz. During the fourth crusade, Boni¬
face of Montferrat sent maize and wheat from Turkey to
Italy; the plum of Damascus was imported by a duke of
Anjou, who had visited Jerusalem; our gardens owe to
the holy wars the ranunculus, so dear to the Orientals, and
the echallotes, which derive their name from Askalon ;
and the knowledge or rather the use of saffron, of alum,
and of indigo, is also due to the crusades. In the terri¬
tory of Tripoli in Syria, the crusaders beheld, for the first
time, the sugar cane, which was transported to Sicily about
the middle of the twelfth century, and thence passed into
other countries. It was transferred by the Spaniards to
Madeira, whence it is supposed to have been carried, at a
subsequent period, to the New World. Natural history,
which is connected with the progress of industry and agri¬
culture, was enriched with some useful discoveries during
the crusades. The productions of distant climates were
exchanged ; and Europe acquired a knowledge of several Crusades,
animals peculiar to Africa and Asia.
4. Architecture was also greatly improved. The sight
of the monuments and superb edifices of the East excited
wonder, and awakened a spirit of emulation. Nothing
could equal the astonishment of the crusaders when they
first beheld the city of Constantine. Foucher de Chartres
exclaimed in his enthusiasm, “ Oh, que Constantinople
est une belle et vaste citeand the French knights, on
viewing the magnificent towers and superb palaces of By¬
zantium, could scarcely persuade themselves, “ que si
riche ville pust etre en tout le monde.” These no doubt
were the feelings produced by novelty and surprise; but
they soon gave place to a desire to imitate the fabrics
which had excited so much admiration. Italy, in particu¬
lar, profited much by the classical masterpieces of Greece,
which served as models; whilst the wealth acquired by
commerce enabled the inhabitants to indulge their taste
for the embellishment of their cities. With the excep¬
tion of architecture, however, the fine arts owed little to
the frequent intercourse with the East, Painting was
despised by the Moslemins, who were forbidden by the
Koran to make any image of man or beast; and the La¬
tins, after the capture of Constantinople, destroyed the
greater part of the monuments erected by the genius of
sculpture, converting into coin some of the masterpieces
of Phidias and Praxiteles. The Orientals had no music,
and Greece had long lost the secret of those melodious
strains which, in the time of Linus and Orpheus, were
fabled to have tamed savage beasts, charmed Rhodope,
and led captive the woods of Maenalus. The history of
this art, therefore, has but little relation to the holy wars.
5. The science which derived most improvement from
these distant expeditions was unquestionably that of geo¬
graphy. Before the crusades, this science was altogether
unknown. Countries the least remote had no communica¬
tion with one another. Burgundy was scarcely known in
Paris, or Paris in Burgundy. The crusaders who follow¬
ed Peter the Hermit were ignorant of the names of the
towns which they passed through in Germany and Hun¬
gary. They experienced a defeat at Merseburg; but the
contemporary chroniclers, unacquainted with the name of
the place, content themselves with calling it Malleville, or
the city of misfortune. But if the Franks scarcely knew
their own country, what must have been their ignorance
of the countries of the East? It was so great indeed that
they were under the necessity of hiring guides among the
Greeks, whom they distrusted, and of committing the fate
of expeditions to conductors by whom they were often der
ceived and abandoned. Several armies, in fact, perished
from not knowing the places to which they were conduct¬
ed b}r victory. The greater part of the chroniclers were
as ignorant as the crusaders; and hence it is difficult to
follow their details respecting Asia Minor, Egypt, and
Syria. Of more than two hundred who speak of Egypt,
not one makes the least mention of the pyramids. James
of Vitry, who had sojourned long in Palestine, and who
appears to have possessed all the knowledge of his time,
repeats, in his description of the East, the fables of the
Amazons and the Phoenix. And Joinville, in his Memoires,
tells us gravely that the trees of the terrestrial paradise
produced cinnamon, ginger, and cloves, and that these
spices were fished out of the waters of the Nile, to which
they were carried by the winds. In a word, the crusaders,
continually occupied with fighting, had neither time nor
inclination to study the countries conquered by their arms.
But in their train religion and commerce, guided, the one
by a desire to spread the gospel, and the other by the hope
of amassing riches, opened some new routes, and collected
much useful information respecting the East. Mission-
CRUS
Crusades, aries sent out by the court of Rome also traversed the
most extensive regions of Asia; and the relations of Ru-
bruquis, Asselin, Carpin, and Marco Paolo contain observa¬
tions, the truth and accuracy of which have since been fully
confirmed. At the same time, the geographical charts of
this period exhibit neither the configuration of the globe,
nor the extent of countries, nor the position and boun¬
daries of states; they are limited merely to tracing, by
vague designations, what struck the majority of travellers,
as, for example, the curiosities of each country, animals,
edifices, and men differently dressed. Maps were equally
rude. They wanted the four cardinal points, whilst on
the four sides were sometimes inscribed the names of the
principal winds; Jerusalem was placed in the centre of
the three parts of the known world, and around it were
grouped the cities of Palestine, Syria, and Egypt, whilst
distances were marked without the least regard to accu¬
racy. In short, geography was still in its infancy; but,
from the impulse given by the crusades, it soon made con¬
siderable progress; and, in the fourteenth century, the
countries of the East were much better known.
If the crusaders had profited by the knowledge of the
Orientals, some of the sciences most useful to man, such
as medicine, might also have been improved. In medicine
particularly the Arabians had more positive knowledge
than the Latins. At the siege of Ptolemais, Saladin sent
his physicians to Richard ; but we do not learn that Richard
sent his to Saladin when the soldan fell sick. In the first
crusade of St Louis, the physicians who accompanied the
army understood nothing of the ravages which scurvy and
the ordinary epidemic diseases committed in the Christian
camp ; and their ignorance was not less fatal than the con¬
tagion. Nevertheless, the East furnished some processes
and remedies from which medicine long derived very great
advantage. Cassia and senna came from Asia, and were
known in the West at the epoch of the crusades. Treacle,
which had so distinguished a place assigned it in the me¬
dicine of the middle ages, was brought from Antioch to
Venice. And Robert of Normandy, returning from the
Holy Land after the capture of Jerusalem, obtained from
the school of Salerno a collection of those precepts of
health which have since become proverbs amongst all the
nations of Europe. Nevertheless, the discoveries and the
knowledge of the Orientals in the healing art served in no
material degree to enlighten the West; and it may with
truth be said that more new diseases than new reme¬
dies were imported from the East during the holy wars.
Amongst these may be mentioned numerous leprosies,
which, for a considerable time, committed great ravages,
and at length disappeared, without the aid of medicine.
6. The crusades contributed in several ways to advance
the cause of learning. They established relations, which
were never wholly interrupted, between the cities of Italy
and the empire of Byzantium ; and some sparks of the ge¬
nius of the Greeks irradiated Italy even before the taking of
Constantinople by the Turks. A college of young Greeks
was established at Paris during the reign of Philip Augus¬
tus ; and, in the thirteenth century, flourished the Univer¬
sities of Bologna, Paris, and Salamanca, where the Greek
tongue was taught, and latterly the Oriental languages,
conformably to a decree of the council of Vienna. When
the Turks became masters of Constantinople, the learned,
exiled from their own country, established themselves in
Italy, where the Greek were, so to speak, married to the
Latin muses. The venerable interpreters of antiquity
were everywhere cordially received, and the communica¬
tion of their knowledge repaid the attentions of a generous
hospitality. About the same time printing was discovered,
and employed to preserve the literary treasures derived
from the East against the accidents of time, the fury of
A D E S. 535
war, or the hand of barbarism. The Iliad and the Odj's- Crusades,
sey found readers in the scenes which had inspired the 'Y'w
iEneid ; the orations of Demosthenes were perused amidst
the ruins of the forum, where still lingered the echo of
the voice of Cicero; the genius of the Italians, inspired
by the great works of ancient Greek and Roman art, pro¬
duced new masterpieces; and Italy presented a pheno¬
menon which the world will never again perhaps behold,
—that of a nation which, in the space of a few centuries,
had twice obtained the palm of literature in two different
languages. It is to Constantinople that we are indebted
for the philosophy of Aristotle; but whether or not the
friends of real knowledge ought to felicitate themselves
on this boon seems exceedingly doubtful. Aristotle had
disciples, partisans, even martyrs ; and the authority of the
Bible itself could scarcely compete with that of the philo¬
sopher of Stagyra. Reason was studied, not in the mind
of man, but in the dogmas laid down in a book; and the
laws of the universe were not investigated by induction,
but sought for in Aristotle. The schools also exhibited a
species of intellectual fencing or gladiatorship. In an age
when every thing was decided by violence, the mind even
desired to indulge in a species of warfare; and as, in or¬
dinary affairs, victory constituted justice, so, in the schools,
it passed for reason. It may be supposed that this dispu¬
tatious philosophy was little favourable to the advance¬
ment of real knowledge ; but, on the other hand, whilst it
exercised the faculties of men, it contributed to their de¬
velopment ; and if it for a season misdirected the human
mind, it certainly did not retard its advancement. In the
early stages of society, it is not the misdirection of the
mind, but its inactivity, which tends to keep nations in
the darkness of barbarism.
7. Among the productions of the human mind, the first
place is due to those which have for their object to pre¬
serve the memory of past events. In all the epochs of
the middle ages, there appeared chronicles in which facts
of importance to history were recorded, with greater or less
fidelity. In several monasteries there were kept registers
or journals, in which every remarkable occurrence was in¬
scribed ; and the monks sometimes communicated these
registers at their general assemblies, in the view of ren¬
dering their chronicles more complete. The old chro¬
niclers were simple and pious men, who regarded the
slightest falsehood as a mortal sin, and sometimes scru¬
pled to tell the truth, even when they knew it, if a shadow
of doubt crossed their minds. The greater part would
have thought themselves wanting in their duties as histo¬
rians, if they had not ascended to the creation of the world,
or at least to the deluge. Amongst the events which they
relate, they never forget those which are calculated to
strike the vulgar, and which indeed made a strong im¬
pression upon themselves, such as revolutions of nature,
famines, and prodigies. But we are at the same time
sensibly touched by their simplicity, and interested by
their naivete; and when they speak of marvellous occur¬
rences, which were believed in their time, and of the rea¬
lity of which they themselves seem fully persuaded, they
only delineate their own character, and that of the age in
which they lived. Further, it would be a great error to
imagine that the Oriental chronicles of the same period
are in any degree superior to those which we have been
endeavouring to describe. On the contrary, they exhibit
the same spirit of superstition and credulity which appears
in the chronicles of the West, united with that belief in
fatalism which characterizes the Mahommedan religion,
and with a degree of negligence or caution which deprives
these productions of all individual interest. The chroni¬
cles of the middle ages, therefore, have nothing to envy
in those of the East. The greater part, it is true, are ex-
536 C R U
Crusca. tremely dry, and destitute alike of precision and method ;
but there are several which appear to be not altogether
unworthy of the attention of historians. Among these
may be mentioned William of Tyre, who may be styled the
Livy of the crusades ; Albert of Aix ; Baudry, archbishop
of Dol; Odon of Deuil; James of Vitry, whose lively and
animated descriptions are clothed in a style at once rapid
and flowery, and whose narrative is almost always elegant;
and, lastly, Ville-Hardouin and Joinville, who wrote in the
French language, and whose works constitute the earliest
monuments of French literature.
8. The muse of the troubadours celebrated chivalry, love,
and beauty ; that of the trouveurs, who inhabited the
banks of the Loire, and the provinces situated beyond
that river, delighted in graver strains. The trouveurs had
rivals both in England and in Germany. Those poets had
created for themselves a new and heroic world, which in¬
spired their lofty lays. They celebrated the high feats of
Arthur, Renaud, the knights of the round table, Charle¬
magne, Rolland, and the twelve peers of France; and to
these names they added those of Godefroy, Tancred, Rich¬
ard, and Saladin, whose names possessed a lively interest
for all the Christian nations of the middle ages. But these
chivalric strains soon gave place to wilder and bolder cre¬
ations, into which the marvellous entered as a predomi¬
nant ingredient. The traditioHS of the North were blend¬
ed with those of the South, and produced a semi-barbarous
mythology, which, in its composite form, had nothing in
common with the gay and gorgeous mythology of Greece.
But the labours, the perils, and the exploits of a religious
war, carried on at a great distance, like that of the cru¬
sades, gave a nobler direction to the imagination of poets,
and effectually guarded them against whatever was com¬
mon or extravagant in the romanesque conceptions of a
rude age. Hence arose a literature adapted to a new
state of society: and if this literature, which had impressed
upon it a strong character of national originality, had pro¬
duced such masterpieces as the Iliad and the Odyssey, the
muses would have entered upon a career unknown to the
ancients ; the language would have been enriched, improv¬
ed, and fixed ; and history would have spoken of the age of
the crusades as it now speaks of that of Pericles and Au¬
gustus. But the greater part of the poets and romancers
of this epoch, having no models upon which to form them¬
selves, and wanting the taste necessary to guide them,
could discover no other means of interesting their readers,
than by exaggerating the sentiments of chivalry. Imita¬
tion, pushed to the extreme, was mistaken for reality; and
there were knights, like the hero of Cervantes, who wished
to put in practice what they had read in poems and roman¬
ces. This was the origin of knight-errantry; a practical
caricature of chivalry, which, by bringing it into contempt,
exposed it to ridicule, and thus sealed the doom of an in¬
stitution which, with all its follies, absurdities, and vices,
has conferred essential benefits upon mankind. The ro¬
mances which were consecrated to chivalry and the cru¬
sades, underwent modifications conformable to those which
the manners and usages of society had received ; and lite¬
rature took its tone from the spirit of the time, and in its
C R U
turn re-acted upon the state of society which had originally Crusca,
imparted to it its peculiar direction and character.
Little more remains to be said as to the results of the
crusades. To appreciate the advantages which they pro¬
duced, it is only necessary to consider what would in all
probability have occurred if these expeditions had not
taken place. In the eleventh century several countries
of Europe were invaded, and others were menaced by the
Saracens. That remarkable race were then in the full
career of victory and conquest; while the Christian states,
distracted by discord, a prey to anarchy, and plunged in
barbarism, were destitute of all means of defence. Ifl then,
Christendom had not, as it were, gone out by all her gates
to attack this formidable enemy, and, at different times,
poured forth fresh multitudes of assailants, impelled b}' a
fierce enthusiasm, this enemy, profiting by the inaction of
the Christian nations, would have surprised them in the
midst of their divisions, and subjugated them one after
another to its sway. France, Germany, England, and
Italy, might have experienced the fate of Greece and of
Palestine, and the crescent might have been elevated in
triumph above the shivered fragments of the cross. The
crusades, as we have already remarked, presented the
spectacle of a fierce and sanguinary contest between two
religions contending for the empire of the world. But in
this formidable struggle, the real means of defence con¬
sisted in superiority of knowledge, civilization, and social
qualities. As long as ignorance and barbarism prevailed
among the nations of the West, as well as among those of
Asia, the victory remained uncertain; but when Europe
beheld the dawn of civilization, it then knew security, and
its enemies also began to know fear. The Mahommedan
religion, by its doctrine of fatalism, taught its disciples to
despise the calculations of prudence, and in the day of
calamity served to depress rather than to elevate the cou¬
rage of its warriors. The Christians, on the contrary, lost
none of their faculties in their reverses, which often served
to redouble their energy and their activity ; and the defeats
experienced by their armies in Asia excited, even more
than their victories, the enthusiasm of the warlike popula¬
tion of Europe. Thus Christianity, and the heroic virtues
with which it inspired its disciples in the middle ages, serv¬
ed as an impenetrable buckler to Europe, enabling it to
force back the invaders who had long threatened its inde¬
pendence, and to inflict a blow on their power, from which
it never afterwards recovered. “ On ne peut done nier,”
says Michaud, que les croisades n’aient puissament con-
tribue a sauver les societes Europeennes de I’invasion des
barbares, et ce fut la sans doute le premier et le plus grand
de tous les avantages qu’en ait retire rhumanite.”
Gibbon, History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman
Empire; Voltaire, Histoire Generate; Encyclopedicou Dic-
tionaire raisonne des Sciences, art. Croisades ; Hercen and
Choiseul d’Aillecourt, Memoires sur les Croisades ; Main-
bourg, Histoire des Croisades; Esprit des Croisades ; Mills,
History of Chivalry ; Helyot, Histoire des Ordres Monas-
tiques; Jacques de Vitry, Chroniquedes Croisades; Fievee,
Des Interets et des Opinions ; Memoirepour servir a nouvelle
Histoire de Louis XII. ; Michaud, Histoire des Croisades.
(j, B -E.)
CRUSCA, an Italian term signifying bran, was em¬
ployed to denote that celebrated academy called Della
Crusca, established at Florence in 1582 for purifying and
perfecting the Tuscan language. The academy took its
name from the end for which it was instituted, namely to
refine the language, and, as it were, to separate the chaff
from the wheat. Accordingly, its device is a sieve; and
its motto II piu belfior ne coylie, it gathers the finest
flour. In the hall of meeting, everything bore allusion to
the name and device ; the seats were in form of a baker’s
basket; their backs were like a shovel for corn; the
cushions were of gray satin, in the form of sacks or
wallets; and the branches where the lights were placed
resembled sacks. The vocabulary Della Crusca is an
Italian Dictionary composed by this academy, and consi¬
dered as the touchstone of pure Italian.
537
CBUSTACEA.
Crustacea. The subjects of the animal kingdom to which, in this
article, we propose to direct the attention of our readers,
were considered as related to Insects by the authors of
the most popular systems of zoology of recent times. In
common life they are confounded with animals of a very
different character, under the general denomination of
Shdl-Jish, and are familiarly known by particular names,
as crabs, lobsters, shrimps, and prawns.
The ancients, in their contemplation of shell-fish, deno¬
minated such as were furnished with true shells, Offroaxo-
or testacea, whilst such as were covered with a soft¬
er crust were termed ^aXajcocrgaxa, or Crustacea. The for¬
mer group comprehends those molluscous animals which
are usually described in our systems of conchology (see
the article Mollusca of this work), whilst the latter will
form the subject of the following remarks.
The Crustacea belong to that extensive division of An-
nulose animals which have been denominated Condylopoda,
on account of tbe regularly jointed structure of their limbs,
and which also includes spiders, insects, and millepeds.
They differ, however, in many respects from the three
last groups, especially in the greater perfection of their
circulating system, and by the adaptation of their respira¬
tory organs to water or damp air. The true character of
the differences will be rendered more obvious while we
unfold the physiology of the Crustacea, preparatory to a
few remarks on their systematical arrangement.
CHAPTER I.
PHYSIOLOGY OF THE CRUSTACEA.
Crustaceous animals exhibit various modifications of
head, body, and tail. The head bears the antennae, the
eyes, and the mouth, while the body and tail support the
organs of locomotion and respiration. The body, above,
is usually protected by a thorax or shield, marked with
grooves or eminences corresponding to the position inter¬
nally of the more important organs. These parts have
been denominated regions, with annexed terms indicative
of the organs which they cover. Thus the stomachal re¬
gion is situate in the middle of the shield, and immediate¬
ly behind the eyes, and is followed towards the centre of
the shield by the genital region, to which succeeds the
cardial region. Between the cardial region and the junc¬
tion of the shield with the tail is the posterior hepatic re¬
gion, the anterior hepatic region being situate on each side
of the stomachal one. The branchial regions extend on
each side from the genital and cardial regions to the mar¬
gins of the shield. These distinctions, which were sug¬
gested by the craniological speculations of Gall, are of
some value in the discrimination of nearly allied species,
and have been successfully employed by the industrious
Desmarest in illustrating the character of such as occur
in a fossil state, and which in general have their members
mutilated or bruised.
SECT. I. EXTERNAL COVERING.
The covering of crustaceous animals may be considered
as composed of a cuticle, a crust or scale containing much
earthy matter, and a thin membrane representing the true
skin of the vertebral animals. The cuticle in some cases
is extremely thin, while in others it is developed into pro-
VOL. VII.
minent hairs and other similar appendages. The crust Crustacea,
contains, besides the animal matter which forms its basis,
and which in the lobster constitutes about a fourth of the
whole, the carbonates and phosphates of lime, the former
occurring to the amount of sixty per cent, the latter to
fourteen per cent, in the animal referred to. The flexible
laminated matter of the crust remaining and retaining its
form after the earthy salts have been dissolved by acidu¬
lated water, has been shown by M. Odier to consist chiefly
of Chitine, a substance which constitutes the basis of
the elytra of insects, and which differs from gelatine and
coagulated albumen in its insolubility in boiling water or
caustic potash.
The crusts of crabs and lobsters, though they exhibit
various tints of colours when the animals are alive, or not
acted upon by heat, yet after death they are suddenly
changed to a red colour when subjected to the action of
boiling water. This change appears to take place in con¬
sequence of the decomposition of a substance, which leaves
in a free state a red coloured oil, which, though insoluble
in cold or boiling water, is soluble in cold alcohol and sul¬
phuric ether. Besides these singular ingredients in the
crust, M. Chevreul has detected the presence of iodine.
The moulting of the Crustacea, or the casting of their
skins, takes place at seasons of the year differing some¬
what according to the species. During this period of
their weakness, when their crusts are yet soft, and inca¬
pable of yielding tbe requisite protection which in a ma¬
ture state they afford, these animals become the prey of
their numerous foes. The evil is in part guarded against by
their retirement to places of shelter and concealment. In
their moulting state we have taken half a dozen of the
Lithodes maia from the stomach of a codfish, a place to
which they would not have been conveyed had their
crusts acquired their mature hardness.
SECT. II. ORGANS OF MOTION.
The residence to which the Crustacea are in a great
measure restricted, confines their motions to swimming,
walking, and leaping. For the purpose of executing the
first of these motions, the feet are constructed with flat¬
tened joints, which present a considerable surface of re¬
sistance to the surrounding medium ; and their expanse is
greatly enlarged by the fringe of stiff hairs by which they
are in general surrounded, as in Portunus puber, figured
in Plate CXCV. The gravity of their bodies being con¬
siderably greater than the surrounding medium, their sus¬
pension and motion in the water can only be effected by
the active use of their limbs, while their progress is usually
irregular. In walking, the Crustacea, in general, advance
sidewise, owing to the motions of the limbs being perpen¬
dicular to the mesial plane, instead of parallel to its di¬
rection, as in many other animals. Their progress, even
laterally, is irregular and constrained. Indeed they ap¬
pear better adapted to move over an uneven surface, by
a process resembling climbing, than by ordinary walking.
They mount with ease along the leaves of the sea-weeds,
and the stems of the zoophytes, in search of their prey.
When pursued by their foes, or even in the execution of
their ordinary purposes, many species are capable of leaping
with considerable facility. This kind of motion they effect
by suddenly unbending their tail or abdomen. In swim¬
ming they not unfrequently combine in their progress the
leap with the employment of the feet as oars. In some
3 Y
538 CRUSTACEA.
Crustacea, species the kind of progressive motion is confined to walking
or climbing, in others the motion is exclusively natatory.
The limbs of the Crustacea consist of the five following
parts: The hip is the medium of articulation between
the limb and the body, and is divided into two parts; the
coxa next the body, and the trochanter articulating with
the thigh. These two joints are usually short, and nearly
equal in size. The thigh ox femur is usually the longest
and the thickest of all the joints in the limb. The leg or
tibia, though shorter than the thigh, frequently exceeds
in dimensions, especially in length, the hip-joints. The
tarsus is in general as large as the leg, and supports the
last joint or claw. When the claw or unguis is placed on
the extremity, or as a continuation of the tarsus, a simple
leg is formed; but when placed laterally, so as to move
and act in opposition to the extremity of the tarsus, it
performs the function of a thumb, and the limb is said to
have pincers, or to be didactyle.
The facility with which the Crustacea can throw off their
limbs when they are injured or detained, has often at¬
tracted the notice of the curious. The suture at which
the parting takes place sustains but little loss by bleeding,
and is soon able to exercise its reproductive functions.
The new-formed limb, however, is smaller in all its dimen¬
sions, though consisting of the same number of parts, than
the one thrown off; and it is not till after several moult-
ings that the new limb acquires its mature size. The
repairing power can more easily renew a whole limb than
an individual joint, and is incapable of repairing a bruised
or mutilated one. When the annual moulting of the Crus¬
tacea is taken into consideration, this renewing process of
the limbs will excite less surprise, though it still displays
a striking feature in the economy of these animals, that in
order to save their bodies from capture by their foes, they
can cast off so readily the claws or legs which have been
seized.
SECT. III.—ORGANS OF SENSATION.
The nervous system in the Crustacea may be considered
as exhibiting three different modifications. The first of
these forms is displayed in the Podophthalma, or those
with moveable pedunculated eyes, in which the brain is
formed above into four lobes, the two middle giving rise
to the optic nerves. Below, four nerves take their rise,
and proceed to the antennas, detaching in their course
some filaments to the neighbouring parts. The posterior
portions of the brain give rise to the two cords, which, in
their course, supply the mandibles with filaments, and,
after encircling the alimentary canal, unite in forming a
medullary oval ring-like mass in the middle of the thorax,
many times larger than the anterior ganglion or brain.
From the circumference of this ring nerves proceed to the
jaws and feet, and, retrally, a single nerve is sent to the
tail. This arrangement prevails in the common crab. In
the cray fish, the cords which proceed from the brain are
shorter, and, after forming the collar, unite in an oblong
ganglion, and supply the jaws with nerves. Leaving this
ganglion, the two cords remain near each other, uniting at
intervals to form five ganglia for the supply of the corre¬
sponding pairs of feet, and afterwards proceed into the
tail, where they form six ganglia: the last of these masses
gives rise to four nerves, which are distributed as radii to
the scaly fins that terminate the tail. In the first condition
of the nervous system the ganglia are reduced to two in
number, by the union of all the ganglia behind the collar
into a single medullary ring, a form well suited to the
compact orbicular form of the body. In the last condition
the lengthened form of the body draws out, as it were,
the nervous cords, to form several ganglia, though these
cords preserve a tendency to approximate throughout their Crustacea,
whole extension.
The second form of the nervpus system in the Crustacea
is exhibited in the Edriophthalma, or such as have sessile
eyes. Among these animals the two cords of the nervous
system, as in Talitrus, in proceeding from the brain, do
not coalesce at any point, but form their ganglia sepa¬
rately, symmetrically, and in pairs. Though this modifi¬
cation of the nervous cords be so different from that which
prevails in the former group, in the tendency of these cords
to keep separate, there appears in Idotea and other genera
a tendency in each cord to become accumulated or con¬
densed towards the middle of its ordinary course, as in the
common crab.
In the third form of the nervous system, occurring in
the Entomostraca, the development is imperfect. In some
the brain is in the form of a nearly transparent globule,
the medullary cord double, with an enlargement at each
of the numerous articulations of the body. In others the
substomachal ganglion, though distinct, gives rise to fila¬
ments which, though representing the two cords, scarcely
swell into ganglia in their course.
The eyes of the Crustacea are either compound or simple.
The compound eyes are sessile in one group, and little
elevated above the common integuments. In another they
occupy the extremity of a moveable peduncle, differing
greatly in length according to the genera. In general the
eyes are two in number, in some cases four, and in a few
instances they seem to unite in one spot. The compound
and simple eyes occur in different animals, though in other
cases in the same individual both kinds of eyes exist.
The organs of hearing among the Crustacea generally may
be considered as in a great measure obliterated. Among
the decapodous podophthalma, however, distinct traces of
this sense may be observed in a perforated cavity, situate
at the base of each of the exterior tentacula, filled with
a watery fluid, and supplied with auditory nerves. The
sense of smell is inferred more from the habits of the spe¬
cies than from their structure, and a similar remark is appli¬
cable to the function of taste. The organs of touch, how¬
ever, are very fully developed. The number of tentacula
they possess, together with numerous other external or¬
gans, readily give information of the presence of objects,
and likewise of their shape. The eye and the touch are in¬
deed the two senses which occur in this class in the fullest
development. The taste and smell perhaps come next in
order.
SECT. IV.—ORGANS OF DIGESTION.
The organs exhibited by the Crustacea, which assist in
the capture of their prey, are of various kinds. The or¬
gans of motion are extremely well adapted for preserving
within the reach of the mouth the object which is to serve
as food, and the organs of the mouth exhibit a remark¬
able degree of complexity. In the decapodous Crustacea
an upper lip or labrum may be observed, covering a pair
of mandibles with their palpi. Underneath these may be
found the first pair of maxillte, similar in many respects
to those belonging to insects. The second pair of maxillae,
which follow, appear to occupy the place of the under lip or
labium of insects, within which is a tongue, but imperfectly
developed, and usually bifid. These organs of the mouth
are covered by three pair of auxiliary maxillae, which are
regarded as corresponding with the three pair of feet in
insects, an analogical inference which receives consider¬
able countenance from the circumstance that the number
of legs increase in certain genera, in proportion as the
auxiliary maxillae diminish in number, these undergoing
modifications fitting them for their new functions.
CRUSTACEA.
539
Crustacea. The ordinary food of the Crustacea appears to be either
1 ^""w/ trdriute zoophytes and molluscous animals, or dead animal
matter. In some species a preference appears to be given
to vegetable food; and one crab, the Birgus latro, is cele-
biated foi. climbing trees for the purpose of stealing or
rather eating cocoa nuts. To entice their prey, or conceal
their own approach, a few Crustacea, as the Inachi and Ma-
cropodiae, cut portions of fuci and corallines, which they
cement to their bodies, and in this grotesque style of dress
effectually hide their true forms. It is not improbable
that in this garb they can transport themselves more rea¬
dily fiom one place to another, it being practised chiefly
by those species which are bad swimmers. The dead
substances on which so many of the Crustacea feed are
probably discovered by the help of their organs of smell;
and so quickly do they detect substances suited to their
taste, that the lobster creels and crab pots, when suitably
baited, seldom fail to allure their victims.
The masticating organs are succeeded by a short gullet
opening into a stomach more or less complicated, with
cartilaginous bands, in many genera furnished with osse¬
ous teeth, to complete the reduction of the solid food
which the mouth had been unable to bruise. On each
side of the stomach a round flat calcareous stone is found
previous to the moulting, which serves as a store of earthy
matter for the renewal of the shell. These stones, vul-
gaily known by the name of crabs’ eyes, were long highly
esteemed for their medicinal virtues as absorbents. The
intestine, in the decapodous Crustacea, has a valvular en¬
largement with an attached caecum. In the other groups
the intestine is simple, proceeding directly to its terminal
opening under the tail.
SECT. V.—ORGANS OF ASSIMILATION.
The nutritive fluids derived from the contents of the
stomach and intestines, are conveyed, in the decapodous
Crustacea, to a pulmonic ventricle, situated dorsally and
retrally in reference to the stomach. From this vessel
one or two principal arteries have their origin, and trans¬
mit the blood by as many subdivisions as there are bran¬
chiae. After the process of aeration has been effected, the
blood is returned to a heart, placed ventrally or below the
intestine, forming in this manner a nearly complete double
circulation.
Among the Entomostraca the heart appears to be single,
and to approach in its character the dorsal vessel of insects.
The organs of respiration are of three kinds. Among
the decapoda they are plumose pyramids, situate at the
base of the feet, covered by the shell, and watered by a
current which enters by an aperture from behind the
feet, and escapes by an opening near the mouth. Two
pair belong to the auxiliary maxillae, and five pair to the
true feet, in the true crabs; while among the lobsters the
branchiae belong to the four anterior feet, and the first
auxiliary jaws have four in each group, making twenty-
two branchiae in all, on each side, instead of fourteen as in
the former group.
In another group of Crustacea the branchiae are not
concealed, as in those already noticed, but are external,
appearing under various forms, attached to or occupying
the place of natatory feet. In a third the branchiae are
reduced to vascular scales, differing greatly in the degree
of exposure or protection.
The liver occupies a prominent place, being very fully
developed. In the decapoda it is placed ventrally to the
stomach, large in its size, indeterminate in its form, and of
a yellow colour.
Among the peculiar secretions of the Crustacea, the sin¬
gular property of emitting light, which some species pos¬
sess, merits some notice. On the passage from Madeira Crustacea,
to Rio de Janeiro, the sea was observed by Sir Joseph
Banks to be unusually luminous, flashing in many parts
like lightning. He directed some of the water to be
hauled up, in which he discovered two kinds of animals
that occasioned the phenomenon; the one a crustaceous
animal, which he called Cancer fulgens. In form it bears
some resemblance to the common shrimp. It is however
considerably less, and the legs are furnished with nume¬
rous setae. The light of this animal, which is very bril¬
liant, appears to issue from every part of the body. The
light is otherwise distributed in another crustaceous ani¬
mal, observed by Captain Tuckey in the Gulf of Guinea.
The luminous property resided in the brain, which, when
the animal was at rest, resembled a most brilliant ame¬
thyst, about the size of a large pin head; and from this
there darted, when the animal moved, flashes of a bril¬
liant silvery light.
SECT. VI.—ORGANS OF REPRODUCTION.
With the exception of some entomostracous genera,
the sexes are distinct among the Crustacea in different
individuals. The males abound in some of the genera, in
others the females occur in apparent excess. In the deca¬
podous group the seminal organs are situate between the
stomach and heart, towards the centre of the body, and
send forth two vasa deferentia to the two external organs,
which may be observed behind the fifth pair of feet. The
ovaria also occupy a central position, and each sends out
a tortuous oviduct, opening in the corresponding third
sternal plates at the base of the third pair of feet. With
the edriophthalma, in general, the sexual organs are pla¬
ced under the tail. Among the Entomostraca these or¬
gans vary greatly in the different groups, and in some
genera the sexes appear to be united ; and among the
Daphniae a single intercourse with the male suffices to
render prolific seven or eight generations.
The evolution of the egg takes place in several of the
Entomostraca within the body of the mother, but in gene¬
ral the hatching is external. In the latter case the eggs,
often amounting to a great number, are attached by a
glutinous cement to certain filaments under the tail, or to
certain plates with which the branchiae are also connect¬
ed. In other cases, as Cyclops quadricornis, the uteri are
external sacs.
When newly hatched, the young of some of the Ento¬
mostraca nearly resemble the parent, while in others the
difference is so great as to have given rise to spurious ge¬
nera. In the more perfect groups, as among the edrioph¬
thalma, the young are deficient in the number of segments
of their body and corresponding number of feet, which
they acquire by degrees. Among the decapoda it was long
considered that they issued forth from the egg in a per¬
fect state. The interesting “ Zoological Researches” of
Mr Thompson have, however, unfolded more correct views,
and demonstrated the existence of a metamorphosis so
great, that in the first stages of their growth they hitve
been constituted into particular genera, of which zoea is
the type. In this condition the young are essentially na¬
tatory, with cleft members, which change into simple feet,
solely, adapted for crawling. Mr Thompson has traced
this change in many decapodous genera. In the genus
Mysis the change from the young to the adult state is ef¬
fected by a gradual and successive development of parts.
According to the observations of Rathke, the young craw¬
fish, when it bursts the egg, has the external organs form¬
ed, but in a soft state, and advances to maturity by gra¬
dual development.1
With the observations of Mr Thompson in view, con-
1 See Supplemental Remarks.
540
CRUSTACEA.
Crustacea, trasted with those of Rathke, it seems desirable that the
early life of the Crustacea were studied with care, and the
facts established subjected to the process of a cautious
generalization.
The duration of the Crustacea has not been investigated
with care. Among the Entomostraca the individuals seem
to perish with the close of the season in which they had
their birth, leaving behind them eggs, to be hatched in
the following spring, as preservatives ol the race.. In the
higher groups, especially the decapoda, life is maintained
during a succession of years. When moulting, they are an
easy prey to their foes ; and when their shell has acquired
its hardness, the seeds and eggs of a variety of parasitical
plants and animals adhere to it, locomotion is retarded,
and starvation follows.
In the distribution of the Crustacea, the greater number
of species live in the sea, a few in fresh-water lakes and
rivers, and fewer still on the land. These last, however,
visit the sea periodically to deposit their spawn, and at all
times can preserve their gills in a moist state, to enable
them to effect the process of aeration of the blood. Some
lodge in holes excavated in the mud, while others seek
protection in a deserted univalve shell, requiring such a
covering to their tender and soft posterior extremity.
The species which have become extinct are few in num¬
ber, and chiefly confined to the newer series of rocks, if
we except the anomalous group of Trilobites, afterwards to
be taken notice of. In the rocks of the saliferous epoch
few traces of crustaceous organisms occur. During the cre¬
taceous epoch, however, or at the period when the various
deposits of oolites, lias, and chalk were in the course of
formation, several crustaceous animals appear to have flou¬
rished, the remains of which now occur imbedded in these
rocks. The species chiefly belong to the Macrourous tribe,
approaching generally the shrimps in character. In the
strata of the penult epoch, or those which are interposed
between the chalk and the sedimentary masses of a com¬
parative^ modern date, the remains of crabs and lobsters
occur pretty generally distributed. In the rock well
known under the denomination London Clay, they have
been found imbedded in considerable numbers. The cause
of the extinction of these crustaceous species, at these
different periods, must be sought for in those physical al¬
terations which took place on the globe, by which the very
materials brought into the seas and lakes by rivers, to
form stratified matter, at these distinct eras, presented al¬
tered characters. Such changes rendered the seas unfit
to support one race of beings, while it became a suitable
abode for those which were destined to succeed.
The Crustacea are extensively employed for dietetical
purposes. They are eagerly sought after on many parts of
our rocky coast, and traps for their capture are in very ge¬
neral use. This kind of fishery, as being of a littoral kind,
is chiefly prosecuted by the more aged of our maritime
population, who have become unfit for employment where
greater vigour is required. These fishers make themselves
familiar with the haunts as well as the general economy
of their game, and the kind of garbage which constitutes
the most enticing bait. As food, the Crustacea are used
either plainly boiled, or dressed with various condiments,
sometimes also marinated with vinegar.
CHAPTER II.
SYSTEMATICAL ARRANGEMENT OF THE CRUSTACEA,
celebrated Swede introduced a number of sections or sub- Crustacea,
divisions which succeeding authors have raised to the'^—^v*-''
rank of orders or genera. Fabricius enlarged the number
of genera of crustaceous animals, assigning to them, at the
same time, more precise distinguishing characters. In this
field of improvement he was followed by Latreille, Lamark,
Dumeril, and Leach. The last-mentioned naturalist, by
great zeal and labour, has not only added many new spe¬
cies to the class, but has succeeded in unfolding many
new characters, and giving to the generic marks a degree
of precision which they did not previously possess.
The various groups into which different naturalists have
divided the Crustacea resemble one another more in their
composition than in the terms by which they have been
designated. If we assume the aerating organs as the basis of
arrangement, we shall find, correlative with these, certain
distinguishing features in the circulation and in the ner¬
vous system, as well as in the digestive and locomotive
organs. Such considerations appear to have induced La-
mark to distribute the Crustacea into two orders, which he
has termed Homobranchia and Heterobranchia, the for¬
mer having a solid shield concealing the branchiae, which
are placed on the sides at the base of the feet and auxili¬
ary jaws, while the aerating organs of the latter never occur
in the same position, but are variously placed in the dif¬
ferent subordinate groups. The organization of the first
order is extensively developed, and furnishes well-marked
features of discrimination, separating it from the second
division, which includes animals of more simple structure.
ORDER I. HOMOBRANCHIA.
The crustaceous animals of this order have the bodj
covered by a continuous shell, which contains the viscera,
and a tail which serves the threefold purpose of giving
passage to the extremity of the intestinal canal, of acting
as an organ of progressive motion, and of retaining the
eggs by means of its fringed appendages. The thorax and
abdomen, as well as the head, may be considered as unit¬
ed. The eyes are two in number, and compound, lodged
in cavities in the anteal margin of the shield, and are sup¬
ported on moveable peduncles, which vary greatly in their
length in the different groups. The peculiar footstalks of
the eye have given rise to the term Podophthalma, by
which in some systems they are denominated. The an¬
tennae are four in number, the intermediate pair being di¬
vided into filaments. The mouth occurs in this group in
its most complicated form, with three pair of auxiliary
jaws furnished with palpi. The legs are ten in number,
the first pair usually of a large size and formed into pin¬
cers, the rest terminating in simple claws. In some cases,
however, the second and third pairs are also formed into
pincers; and in some of the genera the posterior pair have
compressed joints as oars for swimming. The regularity
in the number of feet in this group has suggested the
term Decapoda, by which they are denominated by La¬
treille. In the structure of the tail the animals of this
division exhibit very remarkable differences. In one tribe
the tail consists of but few joints, the last one being sim¬
ple, the whole shorter than the body, and usually folded
up under the shield in a cavity for its reception. This
shortness of the tail has suggested the title Brachyura.
In the other tribe the tail is usually exposed, about the
length of the body, and furnished with plates at the ex¬
tremity. The second form of the tail has given rise to the
term Macroura, by which they are known.
The species known to Linnaeus were few in number, and Tribe Brachyura.
were distributed into the four genera, Cancer, Oniscus, In this division of crustaceous animals the body is usu-
Monoculus, and Phalangium. In the genus Cancer the ally of an orbicular or compact form, and this condition,
CRUSTACEA. 541
Crustacea, joined with the imperfect development of the tail, restricts
the progress of the species to crawling rather than swim¬
ming. 1 he animals here referred to are well known under
the familiar name crabs. The sexes are readily distinguish¬
ed by the form of the tail, which in the male is narrow
and short, while in the female it is proportionally of much
greater dimensions.
Among those animals of this tribe which exhibit the
more ordinary forms, there is one family characterized in
a particular manner by the structure of the feet being
adapted to swimming. In general with such the body is
broad, rather short, rounded anteriorly, and the margin spi¬
nous. With the exception of the pincers, which are fitted
for grasping, all the remainingfeet in some genera are form¬
ed for swimming, while in others the flattened form of the
joint is restricted to the hinder pair. The facility with
which these animals can transport themselves permits a
wider range of motion than the other species, which are
chiefly confined to the shore. In a foreign group, includ¬
ing the genera Podophthalma and Lupa, the peduncles of
the eyes are remarkably produced, and received into a
groove on each side. In the other genera the eyes have
short stalks lodged in oval cavities. The genus Portunus
contains many species which are common on our shores,
but seldom applied to any useful purpose.
A second family of crustaceous brachyuri, denominated
Arcuata, have the joints and claws of the feet rounded
and conical. The anterior margin of the shield is semi¬
circular and full, while the posterior is contracted and
truncated. Like the preceding family, the tail of the
males in general has only five joints. They chiefly inha¬
bit our rocky shores, and are eagerly sought after. It is in
this group that the cancer pagurus, or common crab, oc¬
cupies its place in the system generically characterized
by the large basilar joints of the exterior antennse, and
economically employed as an esteemed article of food.
The family Quadrilatera, as the name implies, have
a more or less quadrangular form, in some species approach¬
ing to heart-shaped, with the front inclined, forming a sort
of hood, and truncated. The tail in both sexes consists of
seven distinct fragments. Though in these points of re¬
semblance the genera of this family stand related to one
another, yet in their habits or physical distribution they
exhibit the most striking differences. Among those which
inhabit the sea, the Gonoplax angulata, a species not un¬
common on the southern and western coasts, lives in ex¬
cavations formed in the hardened mud, open at both ex¬
tremities ; the Pinnotheres, a genus containing several
species, take up their abode in living bivalve shells, such
as mussels, pennse, and oysters. By some of the ancients
these crabs were considered as acting as sentinels; by others,
as co-operating for interested purposes.
Thus fed by mutual aid, the friendly pair
Divide their gains, and all the plunder share.
A few of the species of this group, belonging to the
genus Thelphusa, are restricted to fresh water, from which
however they can withdraw themselves fora while to the
air. The Thelphusa fluviatiles, figured at Plate CXCV.,
found in Italy, the Levant, and Egypt, is esteemed as food,
and occupies a prominent figure on ancient Greek medals.
When the attention of the economists of this country shall
have been suitably fixed on the importance of peopling
our present watery wastes, including lakes and rivers, with
animals of ornament and use, it appears probable that this
species of crab will speedily be naturalized, its habits fur¬
nishing every facility for its transportation.
A third group in this family are capable of inhabiting
the land, burrowing in holes, and feeding on all sorts of
garbage. They are chiefly confined to the equatorial re¬
gions. As an example, see the Gecarcinus ruricola, figured Crustacea,
on Plate CXCV. ' y '
A fourth family, denominated Orfo'cf/Zato, exhibit around-
ed shell, usually solid and smooth, the peduncles of the
eyes short, the pincers of unequal length, according to the
sex, the region of the mouth contracted at its upper ex¬
tremity, with the third joint of the outer auxiliary feet in
the form of a lengthened triangle. The Corystes cassive-
lanus, figured Plate CXCV belongs to this group,—a
species which is very common in the sandy bays of the
country, and frequently cast ashore after storms.
The group which has been denominated Trigona is
more distinctly marked than some of the preceding fami¬
lies. The body is full and rounded behind, and produced
and pointed before, and in many species armed with strong
spines. The legs are usually long and slender, and hence
the name of sea spiders, by which they are familiarly
known. The region of the mouth is nearly square. To
some of the species, as Maia squinado, a susceptibility
to the charms of music and extraordinary sagacity have
been attributed. Another species, Ilyas araneus, is de¬
tested by the oyster fishers, as injurious to the young
spawn.
The two remaining groups of brachyuri, which may be
denominated Heteropoda, from the condition of their legs
being peculiar, are capable of division into two families.
The first, termed Cryptopoda, have the shield semicircular
or triangular. The feet, with the exception of the pincers,
are capable, when at rest, of withdrawing into a marginal
cavity of the shield. In the genus Calappa, the pincers
are elevated into a crest above, and folded in the anterior
margin so as to close in the front of the shield. The spe¬
cies are natives of equatorial seas.
The other group, termed Notopoda, is distinguished by
the last pair of feet having their origin above the general
margin of the shield. This gives to these organs a dorsal
rather than a ventral aspect. The species are few in
number, and in general strangers to the northern seas,
though one species of the genus Dromia has been recent¬
ly added to the British fauna.
2. Tribe Macroura.
The crustaceous animals belonging to this division, fa¬
miliarly known as lobsters or shrimps, have the body more
produced than in the preceding. The tail is as long, or
longer, than the body, exposed or simply recurved at the
extremity. It is composed of seven segments, with ap¬
pendages at the extremity, forming a fin. In their mo¬
tions they are more agile than those of the preceding
group, and as their organs are of a natatory character, the
species are restricted in a great measure to the waters.
In the first division of this tribe, including the species
of more perfect organization, the first pair of feet at least
are in the form of pincers, the remainder not bifid or na¬
tatory. The lateral appendages of the tail are so placed
as to form a fan-shaped fin.
In the first subdivision of these Crustacea, denominated
by Latreille Carides, the exterior antennae are placed more
ventrally than in the intermediate pair, and have their pe¬
duncles covered by a large scale or plate. The snout pro¬
jects, and is frequently spinous, while the body is usually
much incurved. There are five pairs of caudal feet. Some
of the species are eagerly sought after as food, as the
common shrimp, Crangon vulgaris, along with another
species, Palaemon serratus or prawn.
I he second subdivision, including those species having
the antennae placed on the same line, readily admit of dis¬
tribution into three families. The first, including the ge¬
nus Scyllarus, has the pincers imperfect, and the external
antennae destitute of a stalk, with the basilar joints dilated,
542 CRUSTACEA.
Crustacea, forming a horizontal crest on each side. It may be con-
sidered as an equatorial group.
The second family exhibits equally imperfect pincers,
but the external antennae are largely developed. The Pa-
linurus vulgaris, or thorny lobster, sometimes also termed
cray-fish, is a well-known example in the markets of Lon¬
don and Paris.
The third family, of which the common lobster may be
regarded as the type, has the first pair of legs in the form
of pincers, and in some of the other genera the second,
and even the third pairs, are didactyle. The group con¬
tains a few fresh-water species, among which the Astacus
jluviatilis or craw-fish may be mentioned, as inhabiting
many of the rivers of England, in the clayey banks of
which the individuals form their holes.
The second division of Macrouri exhibits certain ano¬
malous characters, which separate them from the more
perfect and regular group to which we have made refer¬
ence. The first subdivision comprehends the hermits or
soldier crabs. These are distinguished by the tail not
being in the form of a fin, and the diminished size of the
posterior legs. In one group all the upper parts are crus-
taceous and protected; but in another, a portion of the tho¬
rax and the tail being membranaceous, they are exposed to
greater danger. This is guarded against in a remarkable
manner. Many of the species inhabit deserted univalve
shells, introducing their short tail into the spiral cavity of
the shell, their thorax filling the last whorl. The pincers,
which are in some measure protected by the pillar of the
shell, are the least in size. These Crustacea move easily
from place to place in their assumed abode, and shift into
a shell of larger dimensions as their own bodies increase
in size. The Pagurus Bernhardus is common on all our
shores, and is figured at Plate CXCV.
Another species, the Pagurus Diogenes, common in Ja¬
maica, for example, may be viewed as a terrestrial species.
The second subdivision, denominated Fissipedes, are des¬
titute of pincers, while the feet have an appendage exter¬
nally, issuing near the base, giving them a natatory cha¬
racter. Instead of the eggs being carried by the false
feet under the tail, they adhere to the base of the tho¬
racic feet; a circumstance which has given rise to the
denomination opossum shrimps.
ORDER II. HETEROBRANCH I A.
The crustaceous animals of this order exhibit charac¬
ters more varied and anomalous than those of the preced¬
ing order. The branchiae are external when they consist
of imbricated plumes, or in the form of aerating pouches,
but never placed, as in the preceding order, under the
shield, but either on the under side of the belly or tail,
and unconnected with the auxiliary jaws. They are of
small size when compared with those already noticed.
The animals of this order maybe divided into two tribes,
in the first of which should be placed those which have
their mandibles bearing palpi, and into the second those
leaving mandibles destitute of such appendages.
Among the crustaceous animals of the first tribe with
mandibles furnished with palpi, the Stomapoda seem en¬
titled to hold the first rank. In the pedunculated form
of their eyes they resemble the animals of the order ho-
mobranchia. Ihe branchiae are exposed, and attached to
the five pair of appendages under the tail, which act as
natatory organs. The covering is usually soft, and even
transparent. In general the species of this family inhabit
the tropical seas. The Squilla mantis, however, is a native
of the Mediterranean ; and the Alima hyalina, from the
west coast of Africa, is figured in Plate CXCV.
With the second family of palpigerous Crustacea de¬
nominated Amphipoda, the group commences which has Crustacea,
been termed Edriophthalma, having sessile eyes, all those
groups previously referred to having their eyes seated on
a peduncle. The Amphipoda have the body usually com¬
pressed and incurved. The first pair of feet, correspond¬
ing to the second pair of auxiliary jaws in the decapodous
Crustacea, are attached to the first segment of the body.
The branchiae appear to be constituted by the hairs on
the divided natatory appendages under the tail. Some
of the species occur in rivers and streams, others attach
themselves to the sea shore. They swim on their side,
and many species leap with facility by the sudden un¬
bending of their body. They prey upon dead animal mat¬
ter, and constitute a favourite article of food for the birds
which frequent the shore.
In the Crustacea which follow, the mandibles are desti¬
tute of palpi. The family denominated Leemodipoda are
distinguished by the absence of the tail, the last pair of
legs being inserted near the extremity of the body. The
anterior pair of feet are attached to the head ; these, to¬
gether with the following pair, which are the largest, end
in pincers. The tentacula are four in number. At the base
of the third and fourth pairs of feet, in some cases also of
the second pair, are vesicular appendages. The third and
fourth pairs of feet are in some species greatly reduced in
their organization. The species of some of the genera
dwell among fuci and zoophytes, while some Cyami at¬
tach themselves to the bodies of cetaceous animals, and
are on that account known to sailors under the denomi¬
nation of whale lice. The Cyamus ceti is figured on Plate
CXCVI.
The Isopoda differ from the preceding group, in the
anterior feet not being attached to the head, but, like the
following pairs, connected with a distinct segment of the
body. Leaf-like appendages, or vesicles, occur under the
tail, usually inclosed or covered by lateral plates. The
habits of this group exhibit very remarkable differences.
The Epicarides, having neither eyes nor antennae, are para¬
sitical on the prawn.
Among the Cymothoada, the Limnoria terebrans, though
of small size, is well known as peculiarly destructive to
beams of timber employed in the construction of sea har¬
bours.
The peculiar character of this animal was first ascer¬
tained by that eminent engineer Mr Stevenson, during his
observations connected with the construction of the Bell
Rock light-house. It excavates its cylindrical hole for its
dwelling, and propagates so rapidly that in a few years
submerged timber is rendered useless. So destructive
indeed is this small animal, that Norway logs laid down
at the Bell Rock to support temporary railways in 1807,
were found, when lifted in 1811, to have been reduced by
its ravages from ten inches square to seven inches, or at
the rate of about an inch in the year. Mr Stevenson, in
order to observe more particularly the ravages of this de¬
structive animal, fixed down on the Bell Rock in 1814)
specimens of teak wood, oak, black birch, Memel and
Norway fir timber. The only specimen which remained
unperforate till 1820 was the teak wood; the rest were
almost entirely destroyed in the course of two or three
years. Sheathing with copper the beams thus employed
in marine architecture, seems to be the only preventive
of the injuries of this small but successful destroyer.
The Idoteadae have habits, as marine species, differing
little from the Amphipoda. One species, figured at Plate
CXCVL, has been denominated, from its locality, Asta-
cilla Bqjfini, a native of Baffin’s Bay. The genus to which
it belongs was instituted by the Rev. Charles Cordiner of
Banff in 1784, for the reception of a British species which
has been denominated Astacilla longicornis. The same
CKUSTACEA.
Crustacea, species was afterwards described in Sowerby’s British
Miscellany in 1805, as a new species, under the title
Oniscus longicornis. In 1825 it was produced by Dr
Johnston of Berwick, not only as a new species, but as
constituting a new genus, to which the name Leacia la-
certosa was assigned. The other species, Astacilla Baffini,
was collected by Captain Parry among the marine pro¬
ductions of the Arctic seas, and figured and described by
Captain Sabine, in the appendix to the First Voyage, as
Idotea Baffini. Overlooking the observations of our arc¬
tic voyagers, M. Latreille, in the fourth volume of the
Regne Animal of Cuvier, revived the arctic species under
the new title Arcturus tuberculatus.
In those denominated Assellota, the Asellus aquaticus
occupies a distinguished place. It is a fresh-water species.
The Oniscides terminate the group. They are terres¬
trial, requiring, however, damp air, to enable the branchi*
to exercise their functions. They are denominated in Eng¬
land wood-lice, in Scotland slaters.
The last crustaceous group of the Heterobranchia which
we have to notice have been denominated Entomostraca,
or Branchiopoda. Ihey have corneous integuments, with
a shield in one piece, or divided like a bivalve shell. Hence
the origin of the first of the epithets by which they have
been characterized. The branchiae are in the form of
haiis or feathers, forming a part of the feet. In general
these Crustacea are of small size, and may be denomi¬
nated microscopical. The fry of some of the decapodous
Crustacea have in this group appeared as distinct genera ;
while the fry of species belonging to the group have been
raised to the rank of genera.
The first great division of the Entomostraca includes
the animals of which the genus Monoculus of Linnseus
consists. They are distinguished by their simple nata¬
tory feet, the eyes united, the antennae generally four in
number, the mouth composed of alabrum, two mandibles,
a tongue, and one or two pair of jaws. The head is incor¬
porated with the thorax.
In one family, the Lophyropa, the feet do not exceed
ten, with joints more or less cylindrical. The Cyclops
quadricornis, to be found in almost every fresh-water pool,
is an interesting example of the group. When kept in a
phial, it multiplies with amazing rapidity, and forms a
pleasing object for the microscope. The females may be
readily distinguished by the bags on each side of the tail,
as represented in Plate CXC VI., containing the eggs. In
another family, in which the body is inclosed in a bivalve
shield, the individuals of many species are to be found in
ditches in vast numbers, and form very pleasing objects of
observation. Among these the peculiar markings of the
Cypris ornata, figured at Plate CXCVL, seldom fail to
arrest the attention.
In the second family, denominated by Latreille Phyl-
lopa, the number of feet exceed twenty, and their joints,
especially of the posterior ones, are flattened in the form
of ciliated leaves. The eyes are two in number, and in
some instances pedunculated. The Artemia salina occu¬
pies a prominent place in this group. It is commonly
known by the name of Lymington shrimp, or brine worm.
The Rev. Mr Rackett has furnished the followung inte¬
resting notice of this curious animal:—
“ Myriads of these animalcula are to be found in the
salterns at Lymington, in the open tanks or reservoirs,
where the brine is deposited previous to the boiling. It
attains the desired strength by evaporation, from exposure
to the sun and air, in about a fortnight. A pint contains
about a quarter of a pound of salt; and this concentrated
solution instantly destroys most other marine animals.
“ These tanks are called clearers, as the liquor becomes
clear in them; an effect which the workmen attribute in
543
some degree to the rapid and continual motion of the Crustacea.
brine-worm, or to the particles which cloud the liquor
serving for its food; but this is mere conjecture. So
strongly persuaded, however, are the workmen of this
fact, that they are accustomed to transport a few of the
worms from another saltern, if they do not appear at their
own. They increase astonishingly in the course of a few
days.
“ It is observable that the brine-worm is never found in
the sunpans, where the brine is made by the admission of
sea-water during the summer, and which are emptied
every fortnight; but only in the pits and reservoirs, where
it is deposited after it is taken out of the pans, and where
some of the liquor constantly remains. When it becomes
much diluted with rain-water, from October till May (dur¬
ing which time the manufacture is at a stand), a few only
of the worms are visible; but at the approach of summer
young ones appear in great numbers.”
Another species, the Branchipus stagnalis, figured in
Plate CXC\ l., greatly magnified, is found in ditches of
soft standing water, in which they swim constantly on their
backs, keeping themselves suspended by the vibrations
of their numerous fins, and moving forwards by giving
a sudden spring with their tails. They delight much in
the sunshine, during which they appear near the surface
of the water. On the least disturbance they start in the
manner of small fish, and endeavour to secrete themselves
by diving in the soft mud.
A third species of the group, the Lepidura prolongata,
greatly resembles the preceding, in being found in stag¬
nant marshes, usually in great numbers, making their ap¬
pearance in certain years in those places to which for a
time they had been strangers.
The second great division of the Entomostraca, deno¬
minated by Latreille Pcecilopoda, differ from the preced¬
ing in the ambulatory or prehensile character of the an¬
terior feet, and the branchial or natatory forms of the pos¬
terior ones. They are likewuse destitute of mandibles, and
even jaws, the mouth being suited for soft food. They live,
in general, as parasites on the bodies of fishes, feeding on
their substance. The Caligus curtus feeds on the gills
of the salmon; the Anthosoma Smithii. figured in Plate
CXCVL, adheres to the shark.
Besides these more ordinary groups of crustaceous ani¬
mals, to which a general reference has been made, there
are yet two others to which we shall merely allude. The
Trilobites occur only in a fossil state. They make a near
approach to the onisci. But even in the best preserved
specimens the existence of feet has not been satisfactorily
determined. By the labours of Brongniart, Desmarest,
and others, the permanency and difference of certain forms
have been ascertained, so as to justify the establishment
of several genera in the group, and enable geologists to
employ more definite language.
The Cirrhipides, including the shells which constituted
the Linnean genus Lepas, make a near approach to the
Crustacea in many respects, especially to the Entomos¬
traca. But in an article of this kind it would be unprofit¬
able to give the detailed view which would be requisite
for the purpose of establishing the relationship, by the ex¬
hibition of the analogies which exist.
The Crustacea are in general very easily preserved for
the cabinet. Their members readily relax after being
dried, and admit of being set according to any particular
attitude. The species which inhabit the sea require to be
steeped for several hours in fresh water before they are
dried. If this precaution be omitted, the salt water which
adheres to the several parts, especially the ligaments, keeps
them damp, and occasions mouldiness and decomposition.
In studying the Crustacea generally, the following
544
C R U
Crustume- works may be consulted with advantage: Latreille, His
rium toire Naturelle generate et particuliere des Crustaces, et des
„ II , Insectes; Lamarck, Histoire Naturelle des Ammaux sans
Vertebres; Cuvier, Begne Animal; Desmarest, Considera-
v tions generates sur la classe des Crustaces.
In the examination of the British species, use u ie p may
be obtained from the British Zoology of Pennant. The En¬
tomologist's Useful Compendium, by Samouelle, containing
a compilation of Leach’s views, will yield much assistance,
especially if Leach’s splendid work, Malacostraca Podoph-
thalma Brilannice, be accessible. (J- Fv
SUPPLEMENTAL REMARKS.
The history of the detection of metamorphoses in crusta¬
ceans is curious. The first discovery is undoubtedly due to
Slabber, who in 1778 published an interesting little book
in which he figures the animal (afterwards described by
Bose) as a new genus of crustacean, under the name of Zoea,
which he saw transformed into another form, of which he
also gives a figure, that evidently belongs to the animal
descnbed by Leach as a Megalopa. Both forms were proved
by Vaughan Thompson to be metamorphoses of the shore-
crab, Carcinus Mcenas. The discovery of the Dutch na¬
turalist was not recognised by any writer until the publica¬
tion of Thompson’s paper in the London Phil. Trans, for
1823. The conclusions of Thompson were called in ques¬
tion by Mr Westwood in a succeeding volume of the Trans¬
actions ; but have since been confirmed in the beautiful
C Tv Y
work of Heinrich Rathke’s, entitled Untersuchengen iiher Cryopho-
die Bildung und Entivickeberg des Flusskrebses, published rus-
in folio at Leipzig in 1829. In this work Rathke established
the metamorphosis of the river prawn, Astacus fiuviatilis.
It was proved also by Mr Brightwell in the common lobster,
Homarus vulgaris. Similar observations were made by Dr
Philipps and Captain Du Cane, in Ann. Hist. Nat. vol. vi.;
but above all, by the observations of Richard Q. Couch, in
the Memoirs of the Cornwall Polytechnic Society, where
he completely established metamorphosis in the genera
Cancer, Zantho, Portunus, Carcinus, Pilumnus, Polybius,
Maia, Galathea, Homarus, and Palinurus.
The subject has been ably illustrated in the Histoire Na¬
turelle des Crustacees, of Milne Edwards (Paris 1834), and
in Jones’s Outline of the Animal Kingdom.
From the ease of obtaining the animal, metamorphosis has
been more frequently observed in the Carcinus Mcmas than
in other Crustacea. When its young are first extruded from
the egg, they have the length of about half a line, are very
active swimming creatures, and have the singular form
which has been described as Zoea Taurus; in their second
stage of development, they resemble the genus Megalopa of
Leach; and, according to Couch, ere they attain the form
of the perfect crab, they undergo a sort of third stage of
development, in which the sessile eyes have become pe¬
dunculated, and the eight smaller feet and the two chelae are
visible, though the body has a different form from that of the
perfect animal, (T* s. t.)
CRUSTUMERIUM, or Crustumium, in Ancient Geo¬
graphy, a city which originally belonged to Sabinum, but
in later times was always regarded as belonging to Latium.
It was situated in the midst of a very rich and fertile plain,
from which large quantities of grain and fruit were sent to
Rome. Crustumerium was one of the cities which rose in
arms to avenge the rape of the Sabine women. The army
was defeated, however, and the city itself became a Roman
colony. It regained its independence, and was a second
time taken by the Romans under the first Tarquin, but it
did not finally acknowledge the supremacy of Rome till
499 b.c. Crustumerium was the place to which the Roman
army retired, when led by the Decemvirs against the Sa¬
bines b.c. 447. This event was subsequently known in
history as the Crustumerina secessio. After this date the
name of the city does not again occur in the annals of
Rome. No remains of the city or traces of its site have
been discovered.
CRUTH, in Welsh Crwth, a kind of musical instrument
formerly in use among the common people in Wales. It
was a stringed instrument, and somewhat resembled a violin ;
was twelve inches in length, and an inch and a half in
thickness. It had six strings, which were stretched over a
flat bridge placed obliquely to the sides of the instrument,
and was played on with a bow. The instrument is now
disused. Sir John Hawkins mentions, that in his time there
was but one person in the whole principality of North Wales
who could play upon the crwth.
CRUZADO, a gold coin of Portugal, struck under Al-
phonso V., about the year 1457, when Pope Calixtus III. sent
thither the bull for a crusade against the infidels. This coin
received its name from the cross impressed upon it. There
are current Portuguese coins of this name. See Money.
CRYOLITE, alumine fluatee alkaline, Haiiy; cryone,
halloide, Haidinger.
This rare mineral is of a snow-white colour. It was ori¬
ginally brought by a missionary from Greenland to Copen¬
hagen, where, from its resemblance to the common varieties
of the sulphate of barytes, it lay neglected for many years.
At length Abildgard, attracted by its peculiar ponderosity,
was induced to undertake its examination, in the course of
which fluoric acid, hitherto known only as a component of
fluor spar, presented itself along with alumine; but as a
considerable residue remained unaccounted for, Klaproth
repeated the investigation, and discovered the presence of
thirty-six per cent, of soda.
Of the geognostic relations of this interesting mineral
nothing was known till the late Sir Charles Giesecke visited
the locality, which he found situated on the west coast of
the peninsula, in a fiord or arm of the sea, denominated
Arksut, near a place called Ivikaet, where it occurs in two
contemporaneous beds disposed in gneiss, nearly parallel to
each other, and at no great distance.
Fragments of cryolite obtained by cleavage are too often
called crystals ; but nothing of the kind has hitherto been
observed. Its cleavage, however, is very distinct after being
well soaked in water : it is threefold, two of these forming
rectangular prisms with very smooth surfaces, while the
third is at right angles to these, and rougher. Its great fusi¬
bility, for it yields even to the flame of a candle, suggested
to Abildgard the name of cryolite, taken from k/tuos, ice,
and \l6o<s, a stone, which it has always retained. It con¬
tains, according to—
Klaproth, Vauquelin.
Soda  36     32
Alumine  23‘5   21
Fluoric acid and water 40,5   47
and possesses a specific gravity of 2’949.
CRYOPHORUS (Kpvos, frost, <fiopia), to bear), a name
given by Dr Wollaston to an instrument of his invention,
which serves to illustrate the theory of heat. The form of
this instrument may be readily conceived without a figure.
It is a glass tube, bent at each end, the bent parts termi¬
nating in hollow glass balls, D and E. The ball D is half
filled with water. A vacuum is produced in the tube and
ball E, by boiling the water in the ball D, whilst the capil¬
lary aperture in the ball E, through which the steam is is¬
suing, is held in the flame of a lamp till the steam becomes
Crypt
CRY
weak enough to allow the melted glass to collapse and seal
|| _ up the capillary aperture. The apparatus is now allowed to
Crystalh- coo]; when the ball D will be half full of water, and the ball E,
, zatl0n', and the rest of the apparatus, will contain transparent watery
vapour. If now the ball E be placed in a freezing mixture
of salt and snow, the water in the ball D will be speedily
frozen. Ihe cold of the freezing mixture produces this
effect by condensing the aqueous vapour in the ball E, and
thereby producing a vacuum in the part not occupied by the
water; thus taking off the pressure from the water in D, so as
to allow another portion of that water to assume the state of
vapour, a change of form attended with a reduction of heat,
or a production of cold. 1 hat sensible cold accompanies
the passage of a liquid to the state of vapour, may be seen
by swinging a thermometer at the end of a string, the bulb
having been previously wetted with sulphuric ether: the
rapid evaporation of the ether causes the mercury to con¬
tract to the volume which it has at the freezing of water, or
even lower.
The phenomenon exhibited by the cryophorus is of
the same nature as that produced on a great scale by
means of the air-pump in Professor Leslie’s experiment,
as described under Heat.
CRYP P (Lat. crypta, from upv-n-rw, to conceal), a subter¬
raneous cell or vault. 1 he word is particularly used to de¬
signate that part of ancient churches and abbeys appropriated
to the monuments of deceased persons. Ciampini, in de¬
scribing the outside of the Vatican, speaks of the cryptce
of St Andrew, St Paul, and others. Vitruvius applies the
term crypta to a part of a building answering nearly to our
cellar; and Juvenal applies it to a cloaca. Hence also
crypto-porticus, a subterraneous place arched or vaulted, as
an under-work or passage in old walls. The term is some¬
times used with less propriety for any passage or corridor.
Crypta is likewise used by some of our ancient writers
for a subterranean chapel or oratory.
CRYP TOGAMIA (/cpwrrds, concealed, and ydyos, mar-
riage), the twenty-fourth class in the Linnaean system, com¬
prehending those plants whose organs of fructification from
their minuteness are obscure or concealed within the fruit.
CRYPTOGRAPHY, the art of writing in secret cha-
C R Y
545
racters, or with sympathetic ink. Amongst the methods Crystal
which Ovid recommends to young women when they wish II
to write secretly to their lovers, is that of writing with new Crystalli-
milk, and of making the writing legible by sprinkling it with zatl0n•
coal dust or soot; from which it appears that the use of
sympathetic ink was not unknown to the ancients.
Tata quoque est, fallitque oculos, e lacte recent!
Litera : carbonis pulvere tange; leges.—Art. Amor. iii.
Ausonius proposes the same means to Paulinus in the two
following verses:
Lacte incide notas; arescens charta tenebit
Semper inaspicuas; prodentur scripta favillis.—xxiii.
Other glutinous juices besides milk may be employed for
the same purpose. Pliny (xxvi. 8) recommends the milky
juice of certain plants, and particularly that of lettuce.
It is well known that several metallic solutions may be
employed for this purpose ; and that letters written with
these, on being exposed to the action of certain vapours,
become visible. This effect was perhaps accidentally dis¬
covered ; but it does not appear to be of great antiquity.
In a book De Secrelis, compiled by Wecker from Porta,
Cardan, and some other old writers, and printed in 1592,
there is no mention of it; nor is it even noticed by Cane-
parius in his book De Atramentis, printed in 1619. The
first receipt given for the preparation of a sympathetic ink
is in a book by Peter Borrel, printed at Paris in 1653,
where it is called “ magnetic water which acts at a distance.”
See Ink, Sympathetic.
CRYSTAL, in its original import, signifies ice, from the
Greek Kpvos, frost. It was afterwards applied to rock-crys¬
tal, or crystallized siliceous earth; for the ancients, accord¬
ing to Pliny, regarded that body as water which had been
congealed by the action of cold.
CRYSTALLINE, composed of or resembling crystal;
clear, transparent.
Crystalline Heavens, in Ancient Astronomy, two ima¬
ginary spheres between the primum mobile and the firma¬
ment, in the Ptolemaic system, which supposed the heavens
to be solid, and only susceptible of a single motion. See
Astronomy.
Crystalline Lens. See Anatomy, vol. iii., p. 44. ]
CRYSTALLIZATION.
Definition. Crystallization is the symmetrical arrangement of
the particles of a body when it passes from the liquid to
the solid form. This arrangement is determined by the
mutual action of the small solids of which the body is com¬
posed ; and these solids are separated from the liquid by
their force of cohesion. Crystallization is one of the most
remarkable effects of cohesion. The qualities of a solid
in which the force of cohesion is more easily overcome in
one direction than another, its brittleness, elasticity, and
ductility, depend on this arrangement of its particles,
bodies Solid bodies are either found in irregular masses, or ex-
iiat crys- hibit certain determinate forms by the process of crystal-
austbe Those substances which are capable of assuming
HisceptibleJ'e&u^ar figures uniformly affect the same form; subject,
f solution fiowever, to certain deviations, from the operation of par-
>r fusion, ticular circumstances. Those bodies only can assume the
form of crystals which are susceptible of being reduced to
the fluid state. This is the usual method of crystallizing
saline substances. The substance to be crystallized is dis¬
solved in a sufficient quantity of water to retain it in solu¬
tion. This is slowly evaporated; and as the bulk of the
fluid is diminished, the particles are brought nearer to each
other, when they combine together by the force of co¬
hesion, and form crystals. Some saline bodies, which dis-
VOL. VII.
solve but in small proportion in cold water, are found to
be very soluble in hot water. But when this water cools,
it is no longer capable of holding them in solution. The
particles then gradually approach each other, and arrange
themselves in certain determinate forms; or, in other
words, they crystallize. Many of the saline bodies which
crystallize in this manner combine with a considerable
portion of water. This is called the water of crystalli¬
zation. Other saline substances are equally soluble in hot
and cold water. These substances do not crystallize by
cooling the fluid; they assume regular forms only by di¬
minishing its quantity. This is effected by means of eva¬
poration from the application of heat. In salts which are
crystallized in these circumstances, the proportion of wa¬
ter which enters into combination is small.
There are some classes of bodies which assume regular
foims, but are not soluble in any liquid. Such, for instance,
aie metallic substances, glass, and some other bodies.
Substances of this nature are crystallized by being pre¬
viously subjected to fusion; and thus having combined
with caloric, they are reduced to the liquid state, and the
particles being separated from each other, are left at liberty
to arrange themselves in regular forms, or to crystallize, as
the body cools.
3 z
CRYSTALLIZATION.
546
Introduc- But what is the cause which operates in determining
tion- the regular arrangement of the particles of bodies in these
circumstances ? or what is the cause of the same bodies
turesabout*n ^ie same circumstances assuming regular figures? The
the cause, ancient philosophers supposed that the elements of bodies
consisted of certain regular geometrical figures ; but it
does not appear that they applied this theory to explain
crystallization. The schoolmen ascribed the regular figure
of crystals to their substantial forms ; and others supposed
that it depended merely on the aggregation of the particles,
but without explaining to what this aggregation was owing,
or the reason of the regular figures thus produced. Ac-
Newton’s. cording to Sir Isaac Newton and Boscovich, the particles
of bodies held in solution in a fluid are arranged at regu¬
lar distances and in regular order; and when the force of
cohesion between the particles and the fluid is diminished,
it is increased between the particles themselves. Thus
they separate from the fluid, and combine together in
groups which are composed of the particles nearest to
each other. If we suppose that the particles composing
the same body have the same figure, the aggregation of
any determinate number of such particles will produce
Bergman’s.similar figures. Bergman is of opinion that the particles
of saline substances possess a double tendency: by the
one they arrange themselves in the form of spiculse ; and
by the other these spiculae arrange themselves at cer¬
tain angles of inclination, and according to the difference
of these angles, different forms of crystals are produced.
These effects are ascribed by the ingenious author to the
mutual attraction which exists between the particles, which,
according to the peculiar figures of the atoms, at one time
arranges them in the form of spiculae, and then combines
the spiculae thus formed under different angles of inclina¬
tion. But this arrangement of the particles, or tendency
to arrangement, assigned by Bergman as a cause, is only
explaining the phenomenon by itself; whilst the cause of
the tendency is yet unexplained. Nor will Newton’s hy¬
pothesis be found more satisfactory; for if the particles
of a body, after being equally diffused in a fluid, are
brought together by a general attraction, it will follow that
every saline body should crystallize in the same manner.
Ilaiiy’s. According to the ingenious theory proposed by Haviy,
the integrant particles always combine in the same body
in the same way; the same faces and the same edges are
always attracted towards each other. But these faces
and edges are different in different crystals; and hence
originates that variety of forms which different bodies
assuming regular figures by crystallization exhibit. But
why are the same edges and the same faces attracted
in the same way ? This still wants explanation. If it be
ascribed, as some have supposed, to a certain degree of
polarity existing among the particles, it might enable us
to account for the regular figures of bodies produced by
the process of crystallization. For by the effects of this
agent we might suppose that different parts of the particles
of bodies are endowed with different forces, one an attrac¬
tive, and another a repulsive force ; and by the action of
these two forces, the same arrangement of the particles
will uniformly take place ; for when one part of a particle
is attracted, the other will be invariably repelled, and
thus the same faces and edges will always be disposed in
the same way. But it ought to be observed that the ex¬
istence of this power, however satisfactorily it may ac¬
count for the phenomena, has by no means been proved ;
and even if its existence were completely established, the
difficulty still remains how this polarity is to be explained.
Without entering further into these speculations, we
propose, in the two following sections, to present our
readers with a comprehensive view of the formation and Pheno.
structure of crystallized bodies. In the first section we mena.
shall treat of the phenomena of crystallization, the means
of conducting this process to obtain the most perfect crys¬
tals, and the modifications of which each of the forms is
susceptible. In the second we shall give a short view of
the theorjr of the structure of crystals.
SECTION I.
OF THE PHENOMENA OF CRYSTALLIZATION, AND THE MO¬
DIFICATIONS TO WHICH IT IS SUBJECT.
The most complete set of observations which has yet
appeared on this branch of practical chemistry has been
made by M. Leblanc; and to his ingenious memoir1 we
must acknowledge ourselves indebted for much of what
we now lay before our readers on this interesting subject.
The art, he observes, of managing or conducting the
crystallization of salts, is in a great measure new; for it
has hitherto attracted but little attention. To insure Condition?,
success in obtaining perfect crystals, the process must be
conducted in flat-bottomed vessels; and vessels of glass
or porcelain are found preferable to those of any other
materials for this purpose. The salt employed should be
in a state of purity ; and to favour the increase and regular
form of the crystals, they should be placed at a distance
from each other in the vessels containing the solution. To
these necessary precautions, it may be added, that the
vessels in which the evaporation goes on should be at per¬
fect rest; and that it is requisite to observe the density,
or specific gravity at which the solution begins to yield
crystals.
The particles of any saline body cannot come into con¬
tact and form crystals, as long as the force of affinity be¬
tween these particles and the fluid in which they are held
in solution is greater than the mutual affinity of the par¬
ticles among themselves. A salt, for instance, which be- Prepara-
gins to crystallize at a certain specific gravity of its solu-tion of the
tion in water, will afford no crystals when that specific
gravity is diminished; for then the particles of the salt
are removed to a greater distance from each other; and
while, by this distance, the force of their mutual attrac¬
tion is diminished, the attraction between these particles
and the water in which they are dissolved is increased by
the increase of the quantity of the solvent. But, on the
other hand, if a solution which begins to crystallize at a
certain specific gravity is more concentrated, the crystals
which are thus obtained are greatly multiplied, but they
are heaped together in confused masses, exhibiting no
regular forms. Thus, a solution which has been scarcely
reduced to that degree of concentration at which it be¬
gins to crystallize, being poured while hot into the proper
vessel for carrying on the process, or left at rest in the
same vessel in which the solution is made, to cool slowly,
will yield a small number of crystals, which will have no
other defects than such as are occasioned by their contact
with the vessel. Even perfect crystals will sometimes be
found among the smaller ones. When the concentration
of the solution has not been carried too far, or not further
than what is effected by slow cooling, not only have the
embryo crystals less bulk, but the particles having come
into contact slowly and without confusion, they possess a
greater degree of transparency. After a certain period,
which varies according to the species of salt which is sub¬
jected to the operation, small crystals may be distinctly
observed. These are to be carefully detached from each
other, and placed in a different position. Being placed by
1 Journal de Physique, tome Iv. p. 300.
CRYSTALLIZATION.
547
Pheno- this management on a different side, the defects occasion-
e(l by their contact with the vessel are very soon repaired.
From the crystals treated in this way the finest and most
perfect are to be obtained. This operation of changing
the position of the crystal from one side to the other ought
to be repeated at least once every day, if we wish to ob¬
tain the completest crystals.
At the end of a certain period the small crystals are to be
removed, that the fluid may be more concentrated, either
by a new evaporation, or by dissolving a new portion of
the same salt. After the new solution has cooled, and the
crystals which have formed in it are separated, if it has
been too much concentrated, or too great a portion of salt
has been added, the crystals of the first solution are then
to be introduced and treated in the same way as formerly.
Manage. When the crystals have acquired a sufficient volume to
ment ot be handled, and to enable us to choose such as we wish
nysta s. should increase to the largest size, either as simple or com¬
plete crystals, or as exhibiting varieties from position or
particular circumstances, the individual crystals are then
to be separated, and solutions are to be prepared for them,
and brought to such a degree of concentration as to afford
crystals in a mass ; which latter being removed, the sin¬
gle crystals are introduced into these solutions, which
are now in a proper state to favour their increase. The
crystals may either be previously disposed in the vessel,
and then the solution may be poured on, or having first
introduced the latter, they may be afterwards distributed
on the bottom of the vessel. And thus by continuing the
same process, by taking care to change frequently the
position of the crystal from one side to the other, and by
keeping up the solution to a proper degree of strength,
we may obtain crystals of any bulk we choose.
When the quantity of particles, which in a certain state
of concentration continue to be mutually attracted, has di¬
minished in consequence of their accumulation on the crys¬
tals which are formed, at a certain stage of this diminu¬
tion the crystals cease to enlarge or increase in bulk; on
the contrary, if they are left in the fluid, it happens that
they begin to dissolve. It is usually on the corners and
angles that this decrease takes place; and in some salts
it seems to go on piecemeal, so as to present distinct lay¬
ers of the particles; for in this case lines parallel to the
sides may be observed, and these are disposed like steps
of stairs. Should the accident which is here alluded to
be allowed to go on too far, it may often require a long
time to»repair it; but it is in general easy to avoid this
inconvenience, by watching the progress of the operation
and the increase of the crystals. If their corners or angles
are observed to become less sharp, they must be removed
till the fluid is further concentrated, or they must be in¬
troduced into a new solution of the same salt of the proper
degree of strength. To prepare the new solution for the
increase of the crystals, a quantity of the same salt is to
be dissolved in a given portion of water, so that it shall be
fully saturated. It is then allowed to cool and crystallize.
The crystals being separated, the remaining solution is to
be employed in such quantity as may be judged necessary
to replace that in which the diminution of the crystals had
commenced.
Sometimes it happens, from want of necessary precau¬
tion, that the new solution in which the process is to be
conducted, either being too much saturated, or being dis¬
turbed by pouring from one vessel to another, exhibits
many other points of attraction besides the crystals whose
increase is proposed. In this case a great number of small
crystals make their appearance, and cover the surface of
the former with a kind of incrustation. The small crystals,
provided they are taken in time, may be removed without
injury to the others ; if not they will be unavoidably spoiled.
When the crystals have reached such a size as that Pheno-
they may be placed one by one without being in contact mena.
with each other, we must still continue frequently to,V^^'^,,,^
change their position. This may be done with a spatula, 3heirpoS1'
a glass rod, or indeed any instrument which will commu- be dlang-
nicate nothing to the fluid. In this way the sides of theed.
crystal which are alternately in contact with the bottom of
the vessel will increase in equal proportion, and it will al¬
ways remain complete.
It is chiefly in salts which furnish elongated prisms that
the influence of position may be most distinctly seen. If,
for instance, a crystal, before it has acquired much volume,
be found to rest on one of its bases as well as on one of its
sides, it will be observed to be compressed in the direc¬
tion from base to base; and it will appear to be only a re¬
gular segment of the crystal, which, having been placed on
one of its sides, has obtained a great bulk. If we take a
six-sided prism whose summits are obliquely truncated,
and if it be placed on one of its sides, it will enlarge in a
greater or less degree, but always in such a manner that
the distance from one base to the other shall never be less
than the distance between the sides. But if the position
be on one of its bases, then its principal increase will be
in the direction of the sides, and it will appear to be com¬
pressed between the bases. At first sight a crystal treated
in this way will seem different from the former. For the
corners form the summits of apparent pyramids which are
separated by four-sided prisms. This circumstance af¬
fords a sufficient explanation of one of the causes which
produce varieties in the appearance of a crystal with re¬
gard to its relative extent; it shows that there is no foun¬
dation for the opinion of a supposed balance between the
particles of the salt and that of the solvent; and it shows
also, that if the force of attraction be the efficient cause of
the saline particles coming into contact, the force of gra¬
vitation acts at the same time, and modifies in a greater or
less degree the effects of the first.
According to these observations, and the different states
in which crystallized substances are found, it has been
supposed that we might conclude that the force of adhe¬
sion between the particles of the salt and those of the sol¬
vent varies according to circumstances, which depend on
the degree of tendency to combination between the bodies,
and the relative weight or bulk of the parts of which
these bodies are composed. If a crystal in the incipient
stage of its increase be placed upon one of its bases, it en¬
larges in the direction of its sides; but if it be reversed
and placed upon one of its sides, it enlarges in the dimen¬
sions of an elongated prism.
An insulated crystal, placed on one of its sides on a
smooth surface, and left undisturbed to enlarge in size,
presents on this part a kind of hollow, which corresponds
exactly with the side which it replaces. Here the saline
particles which cannot reach this surface are distributed
on the neighbouring parts with which they come in con¬
tact ; with this additional circumstance, that the edges of
the surface on which the crystal rests increase in propor¬
tion, but without allowing the liquid to have access to this
surface.
The hollows which are formed at the surface of liquids
differ sometimes from each other even in the same salt.
If we suppose that a particle forms the incipient point of
the hollow, the latter will assume a configuration corre¬
sponding to the side of the particle presented to the sur¬
face of the liquid; but the part which it touches increases
also ; and if by any circumstance a change of position shall
happen, the hollow, thus necessarily formed according to
the arrangement of the part which corresponds exactly
to the surface of the liquid, will change its form, because
the new position of the side presented differs from the first.
548
CRYSTALLIZATION.
Pheno-
tion.
When a neutral salt, in a state of purity, and after be-
crystaIlized> ceases to produce any effect on vegetable
51Ues, it is not supposed that any of its constituent princi¬
ples is in excess. But if in this state it is found to com¬
bine with other bodies, in such a manner as to produce
solid and well-defined crystals, we must admit that there
exists an affinity between the salt and the body with which
it has combined.
Compound This subject, Leblanc observes of the supra-composition,
oombina- or compound combination as it might perhaps be called, of
which several salts are susceptible, has not hitherto occu¬
pied the attention of chemical philosophers. Some, in¬
deed, have been pointed out by Bergman and others ; but
it has been remarked that these affinities are probably
much more extensive than has commonly been supposed,
not only with regard to neutral salts with each other, but
also to neutral salts with other bodies. Of this kind of com¬
bination is not to be reckoned that of one of the constitu¬
ent parts of a salt being in excess, which frequently takes
place in some salts, and is found to be more or less perma¬
nent. This circumstance seems to prove that certain salts
have two different points in the combination of their con¬
stituent parts. Let us see what has been observed in this
respect of the sulphate of alumina, which will perhaps ex¬
plain the reason why this salt is almost always found in
nature in the acidulous state. It is known that the more
that alum approaches to the state of saturation by an ad¬
ditional portion of base, the less solid the new combination
becomes; and in all cases, after a certain time, which is
longer or shorter according to circumstances, the portion
which was added separates. It will perhaps appear in the
sequel, that this tendency to combination which is con¬
stantly in action, producing an immense multitude of dif¬
ferent individuals, resides not only among the properties
of the simple principles, but also in those which belong to
all the compounds.
Many of the sulphates are always found in the acidu¬
lous state ; and all of them seem to be susceptible of com¬
bination with a new quantity of the same base, till they
reach the point of saturation. For example, the sulphate
of copper, in the state in which it is usually found, crystal¬
lizes in eight-sided oblique prisms, terminated by sides ac¬
cording to the obliquity of the prism. But if another por¬
tion of base be added, the crystals assume the form of py¬
ramids of several faces, separated by four-sided prisms.
The acidulous sulphate of zinc gives crystals of six-sided
prisms, which are often very regular; but an addition of
base produces a great change, for then the crystals are in
the rhomboidal form, and very little different from the cube.
Alum, in its ordinary state of combination, crystallizes in
the form of a regular octahedron ; but in the intermediate
proportions between this state and that of saturation it
assumes the form of a cube.
Haiiy, as will be afterwards noticed, has demonstrated
that the form of the primitive molecules is the same in all
crystals of the same salt; and he has shown by calculation
that the variations arise from the laws of decrement in the
layers which surround the nucleus ; but that the order ac¬
cording to which the secondary forms are produced may
be interrupted whether this form be complete or not; and
the crystal may then, according to circumstances, return
to its primitive form, or to some of those which are de¬
rived from it. But from the experiments of Leblanc, he
thinks that these changes always depend on new condi¬
tions in the state of the fluid, as a different proportion of
the principles of which the salt is composed.
If a crystal of octahedral alum be placed in a solution
which forms cubic crystals of the same salt, the former
by the so- will assume the cubic form, by giving up a series of mole-
tution, culeg from the summits 0f the solid angles, so that the
Crystals
modified
layers will continue to decrease on the triangular faces till
the crystal has completed its new form. In this process,
the change may be stopped at any period, and crystals of
every modification of form may be obtained. From this
it follows that the centre of each of the faces of the oc¬
tahedron corresponds to a solid angle of the cube in which
it is inscribed. But if a cubical crystal be introduced
into the solution which yields the octahedron, its return to
this latter form proceeds in the same order by the sub¬
traction of a series of molecules from the solid angles of
the cube. It often happens, however, at the same time,
that the subtraction of the molecules extends to the cor¬
ners of the crystal; so that the layers of superposition
decrease all at once according to the order of the forma¬
tion of the octahedron, and the dodecahedron with rhom¬
boidal surfaces. This circumstance seems to suggest the
possibility of obtaining crystals of alum of this latter form ;
but it seems to depend on a particular proportion, which is
not easily determined.
Thus we learn from experiment that salts which exhibit
different forms of crystals can be made to assume each of
these at pleasure. This phenomenon, which has not been
much attended to, seems to merit particular investigation.
The transition from one form to another may be explained
according to the laws of diminution, by the successive and
regular subtraction of series of molecules; so that the form
being actually obtained, the restoration of the preceding
form is easily explicable on the principle of restitution
alone. It may be observed, that during this kind of meta¬
morphosis, both operations, namely, that by which the
crystal receives on the one hand a new form, and that by
which, on the other hand, it increases on all its sides, con¬
stantly take place.
The particles of a salt which are in solution in a fluid Crystals
are attracted by it, particle by particle, without any sepa-differently
ration or decomposition; but it is necessary that there ^.cte^al
should be a balance of the attracting forces between the,1 • ef^nt
salt and the solvent. This is demonstrated by the follow- the fj-A.
ing experiment: A vessel two feet in height and two
inches in diameter was filled with a solution of a proper
degree of concentration for the growth of crystals, which
were suspended at different heights from the bottom of the
vessel to the surface of the fluid ; and it was observed that
the increase of the crystal was in proportion to its depth
in the vessel, that which was nearest the bottom increasing
most rapidly. When the liquid was deprived of saline par¬
ticles by their accumulation on the crystals, by rlst, and
sometimes even by the influence of the atmosphere, the
crystals decreased by similar gradations to those of their
increase ; so that it at last reached that state when the crys¬
tals near the surface of the liquid were dissolved, whilst
those towards the bottom continued to increase ; and
sometimes it happened that the crystals at the bottom of
the vessel continued to increase on the surface which was
in contact with it, whilst the opposite upper surface was
in a state of dissolution.
All the experiments which were made on salts of differ¬
ent degrees of specific gravity accord with this observa¬
tion ; and the difference in the degrees of saturation of
the waters of the ocean, which depends on the difference
of depth, seems to be in favour of this opinion. It is con¬
firmed by the analysis of sea-water by Bergman and others,
which was taken up in different places and at different
depths. It receives still further confirmation from a prac¬
tice of the inhabitants of Salines, in Bearn, in estimating
the degree of strength of a salt spring. An egg is thrown
into the waters of the spring, and the whole water which
covers the surface of the egg is thrown away, as it is not
of a sufficient degree of concentration.
It is well known that a cold temperature is most con-
CRYSTALLIZATION.
549
venient for the crystallization of salts. But it is not at
the period when the salt begins to crystallize that it is
most convenient to carry on the process ; for then it some¬
times happens, from too great concentration of the fluid,
that the crystallization is too rapid and confused.
Two class- Hitherto saline substances, which are susceptible of re-
es of saline gu]ar crystallization, have been divided into two classes,
M.)S a c s. according to the peculiarities in the formation of their
crystals. Ihe one class comprehends those crystals which
are formed by cooling the fluid in which the solution is
made; the other class includes those which are pro-
duced only during the evaporation of the solution. This
distinction is no doubt well founded; but there are some
exceptions to it which are necessary to be attended to in
conducting the process of crystallization. If a saline solu¬
tion which is too much saturated be cooled, it furnishes a
mass of crystals which are confused and irregular, and
which present no determinate form except on those sides
which are in contact with the liquid. If in this state the
remaining liquid is poured off, it will yield another set of
crystals,^ but in very small number; and there are some
salts which continue to form crystals after being several
times successively treated in this way, the number of the
crystals still diminishing from the first degree of concentra¬
tion. It will be found too that this will take place whe¬
ther the process be carried on in the open air or in close
vessels. It follows from this that the increase or the forma¬
tion of crystals in this case depends solely on the mutual
attraction of the particles, or on the attraction between
the particles and the crystal; an attraction or affinity
which is not destroyed by the cooling of the fluid, but is
probably regulated by the distance of the particles, and
the degree of force or affinity which exists between the
particles and the solvent. In some saline solutions the
increase of the crystals goes on in this manner for a long
time. It is only in the interval between the cooling of
the liquid to the temperature of the atmosphere, and that
period when its degree of concentration is so diminished
that the increase of the crystals ceases, that the latter
proceeds with the degree of perfection of which it is sus¬
ceptible.
It is not a property peculiar to dry substances to absorb
moisture from the atmosphere. Liquids saturated with
certain salts seem also to possess this property; for in
some saline solutions the liquids assume a solvent power
which never fails to attack the crystals, and not only to
prevent their increase, but to diminish the bulk which
they had acquired. This accident can only be obviated
by regulating the state of the atmosphere in which the
evaporating vessels are placed, and preserving it free from
any excess of moisture. From causes which produce a
contrary effect, the evaporation becomes too rapid: this
circumstance also requires to be attended to and proper¬
ly regulated to insure the full success of the operation.
From the preceding observations it will appear that solu¬
tions of salts which are susceptible of crystallization have
certain degrees of concentration which are necessary for
the formation of crystals, and that they must be reduced
nearly to that degree in which they begin to yield crys¬
tals before it can be expected that they will afford proper
results. It is therefore necessary to attend particularly to
the degree of concentration which each salt requires for the
regular formation of its crystals, and to obtain them with
that degree of transparency of which they are susceptible.
We have seen that in the formation of crystals they may
be removed from one vessel to another, and from one so¬
lution to another; and that, in proportion to the slowness
of the process, they become more beautiful and more per¬
fect. These operations, it may be added, require much
patience and attention; but at the same time the observer
Some sa¬
line solu¬
tions at¬
tract moiS'
tore.
is fully compensated for his trouble by perceiving the pro- Pheno-
gress of the crystallization, and by the interest which is mena.
excited in all its stages. w.-y-w'
It is essential to know that neither the crystals formed
during the artificial evaporation, nor those which are pro¬
duced during the cooling of the solution, are proper to be
made choice of for being increased and brought forward
to the most perfect crystals. When a solution has become
cold, that is to say, when it has acquired the temperature
of the atmosphere, and is deprived of the excess of sa¬
line particles which it held in combination during its in¬
crease of temperature, it is still in a condition to yield
crystals, and, as long as the distances between the parti¬
cles are not too great, to allow of mutual attraction. A
solution saturated to excess affords on cooling a confused
mass of crystals; but after the fluid has been poured off',
it will still produce more crystals, though in smaller num¬
ber. The degree of concentration of the solution before
it yielded the last product may be considered as the term
of saturation most proper to be employed for the species
of salt which is thus treated. But by the repetition of
these operations, and the observation of their progress, it
will not be difficult to discover the proper proportions be
tween the salt and the solvent.
It seems to be a mistake to suppose with some that the
crystals which are placed in favourable circumstances for
becoming larger and more perfect are injured by coming in
contact with each other during their increase. It is un¬
doubtedly better that they should be kept separate; but
it does not appear that they are hurt by touching each
other, if the number in the vessel be not too great, and
they are not heaped or pressed together. In that crys¬
tallization which results from the cooling of a solution too
much saturated, the crystals are always confused and in¬
terlaced with each other; the molecules which are ar¬
ranged in this kind of disorder also experience a kind of
irregular distribution ; and it may be observed that in this
case the summits only of the crystals which are elevated
from the kind of cake which is formed on the surfaces of
the vessel containing the solution, present regular and de¬
terminate forms. The mass in which these crystals are
implanted is a confused heap.
No cavities have been observed on the faces of crystals Cavities aa
excepting those which are formed on the surface of fluids, crystals.
Those which are produced on that side of a crystal which
rests on the bottom of the vessel are more common in other
salts. This phenomenon seems to merit more attention
than has yet been bestowed upon it, as it explains easily the
introduction of extraneous bodies which are sometimes de¬
tected in the interior of crystals. For when a cavity of this
kind has acquired a certain depth, it is capable of receiv¬
ing part of any foreign substance, and of being filled up by
the change of position of the same crystal, retaining at
the same time the extraneous matter. By a little art and
dexterity these fortuitous circumstances may be favoured,
so that phenomena exhibited by such occurrences may be
traced and observed at the pleasure of the operator. Ex¬
periments have been made with the view of ascertaining
whether an extraneous substance could be substituted as
the nucleus of a crystal; but from the result of these ex¬
periments it does not appear that the particles of any salt
have a tendency to combine with any foreign matter, and
to form regular crystals. The portions of the salt which
were attached to the extraneous substance were always
separate and independent crystals.
There are some saline substances which retain in their
solution an excess of particles even after cooling, and
which being strongly agitated, instantly deposit so great a
number of small crystals as to render the solution tur¬
bid. The introduction of crystals of the same salt, it is
CRYSTALLIZATION.
550
Pheno- well known, as in the case of a solution of Glauber’s salt,
mena. promotes this sudden crystallization or separation of the
excess of the salt. If in this state of the solution crystals
are immersed with the view of having them large and re¬
gular, they are certain of being spoiled by the accumula¬
tion of a great number of small crystals on their surface,
unless, when this happens, the precaution of immediately
washing them with pure water is observed.
It may be remarked also, that when the solution is di¬
minished below a certain degree of saturation, the crystals
not only cease to increase, but are also again in some mea¬
sure dissolved—the corners and angles reduced and round¬
ed. And if the crystals in this state be introduced into
a solution of sufficient strength to promote their increase,
supernumerary faces and truncatures, as they are deno¬
minated in technical language, are formed on the rounded
corners and angles. But these faces always disappear as
the increase of the crystals proceeds, and are replaced by
corners and angles, which become at last sharp and dis¬
tinct.
By attention to preserve the solutions of salt in perfect
purity, we shall be more certain of obtaining the most
beautiful and transparent crystals. Some fluids, after a
certain time, are observed to deposit substances which
are foreign to the salt held in solution, and were dissolved
along with it. These substances sometimes appear in the
form of earthy matters, which precipitate to the bottom
of the vessel; in other cases they are diffused in the form
of flakes, and sometimes they rise and swim on the sur¬
face. In all these cases the crystals whose formation and
increase are going forward must be removed, and the li¬
quor must be filtrated before they are replaced.
Variations A saline substance which is capable of crystallization
in crystals, possesses, in the state of minute division in which it is in
solution, or in the condition of the molecules which com¬
pose it, a determinate property which is uniform and con¬
stant, and in which resides essentially the power of uniting
in a certain symmetrical manner, and thus constructing
regular solids. The results also are uniform and constant
when the process is carefully conducted; but it is neces¬
sary to distinguish with accuracy the circumstances which
accompany the operation, and may occasion a deviation
from this uniformity. The sulphate of iron, for instance,
usually crystallizes in the form of rhomboids; but some¬
times it has been found to assume that of an irregular octa¬
hedron. And although it may be true that an elongated
octahedron may be classed with prismatic crystals, it does
not on that account belong less to the octahedral form;
but it seems probable that these different varieties, in the
forms of crystals, depend on some changes which take place
in the solutions themselves. The iron in the present case
is constantly receiving new portions of oxygen from the
atmosphere, and in this new combination it is precipitated
in the fluid; this, therefore, occasions a change in the
constituents of the salt.
Several sulphates are found to combine readily with
each other: those of iron and copper are of this descrip¬
tion, and the result of the compound crystal is always a
rhomboid. It seems to be doubtful whether this should
be considered as a case of simple interposition of one salt
with the other.
When a liquid which holds saline bodies in solution is
evaporated to a certain degree, a crust forms on the sur¬
face, acquires a certain thickness, and when this is remo¬
ved it is renewed. The point at which the liquid exhi¬
bits this appearance is known in chemistry by the appel-
Formation lation of evaporation to a pellicle. When it has reached
of den- this point, the solution is in a state of complete satura-
drites. tjon . ant| smallest additional quantity of fluid cannot
be withdrawn without a corresponding quantity of salt
assuming the solid form. On this principle Robinet has Pheno-
attempted to account for the formation of dendrites, or the memu
arborescent appearance and efflorescence of some salts.
Almost all the different appearances of fucus or sea-weed,
he observes, are covered in drying with an efflorescence
of white matter. In some species this white matter was
observed to possess a saccharine quality. A number of
large roots of the fucus palmatus was hung up in the
shade, and ten days had elapsed without the appearance
of any thing on the surface. After that period it became
white, and it was soon covered with a light downy sub¬
stance, the filaments of which gradually increased to a
considerable length. When this downy matter was brushed
off with a feather, it was renewed till the plants were com¬
pletely dry. This substance, it appeared on examination,
was of a saccharine nature, mixed with a small portion of
common salt and a great quantity of mucilaginous mat¬
ter. By solution and crystallization, the sugar was sepa¬
rated from the other substances.
In comparing the circumstances of this efflorescence
with those of the formation of the pellicle, in the progress
of evaporation, the former seems to be a modification of
the latter. In a vessel which contains a liquid saturated
with a salt, the surface subjected to evaporation has no
sooner assumed a solid form, than the surface immediately
inferior is exposed to the action of the same causes, and
produces the same effect; and this effect continues till
the crust has become so thick or so compact, as to pre¬
vent the contact of air, and then the evaporation ceases.
But, on the contrary, in the fucus, the air acting only on
the surface of the plant, the liquid which it contains can¬
not undergo the process of evaporation without coming to
the surface. The attraction of the matter of the plant
tends to promote this motion; for as the liquid is equally
diffused throughout its whole mass, it rises constantly to
the surface, in proportion as this surface is dried by the sur¬
rounding air ; and it would appear that this is the process
in the dessication of all thick and massy bodies. Now,
the saline matter which, in the present case, is in the state
of efflorescence, having the same power of attraction on
the liquid, the rudiments of each filament constitute, at
the instant of their formation, part of the whole mass or
body of the plant. They participate, therefore, of the
same degree of moisture as that of the plant, and it is on
their surface that the evaporation and crystallization of
saline matter chiefly take place.
The mechanism of the dendritical or arborescent form
of saline bodies seems to be in this way capable of expla¬
nation. The whole saline mass, which extends to the
edges of the vessel, and even redescends externally, is
constantly in the humid state as long as any liquid remains
in the vessel. It may be supposed that the matter ot the
sides of the vessel determines, by its attraction, the exter¬
nal circle of the surface of the liquid to rise above the
surface; a phenomenon which is sufficiently obvious, espe¬
cially in narrow vessels. This portion of liquid, which
is more completely subjected to evaporation, gives origin
to a circle of saline matter, which appears thus raised
above the surface of the liquid, and which being the first
rudiments of the dendrites, contributes afterwards to its
increase in the way which has been already explained.
Thus the vegetation of salts bears a striking resemblance
to the process of efflorescence, or the formation of the
downy matter on the surface of the fucus.
There is yet another kind of crystallization which seems Effiore*-
to depend on the same cause. This is the saline efflores-cence'
cence which occurs in different places on the surface of
the globe, and is frequently in such quantity as to become
an important object of manufacture. Without extending
our observations to the efflorescence of soda on the surface
CRYSTALLIZATION.
551
Pheno- of the soil in Egypt, or that of nitre in Asiatic countries,
mena. we may refer to the production of muriate of soda, or com-
mon salt, in different parts of Europe, and in those places
which are covered with the waters of the ocean during
high tides. The waters of the sea, with which the sandy
shores aie twice periodically moistened in the course of a
month, are fai distant from the point of saturation which
determines crystallization. They rarely contain more than
three parts of salt in a hundred; and the sand, at the degree
of moisture in which it is left by the sea, is not impregnated
with a sufficient quantity of saline matter to be worthy the
labour of manufacturing ; but during the interval between
the tides these circumstances are greatly changed. The
dry air of summer, by evaporating the moisture on the
surface, allows the matter of the sand to attract towards
the surface a similar portion of water, which was in the
lower part of the soil, and which always tends to diffuse
itself equally through the whole mass. This liquid, carry¬
ing with it the salt, which it holds in solution, increases
the quantity of saline matter which exists on the surface;
and the process continues without interruption as long as
there is no fall of rain. It reaches at last a certain point,
at which the water subjected to evaporation is saturated
with the salt; and this process cannot proceed further
without the deposition of crystals of the salt, which dis¬
cover themselves by their shining appearance. After
some days the sand on the surface is collected, and about
six times the quantity of saline matter is found in the
same proportion of sand that it contained when it was first
moistened by the sea water.1
Crust on Another phenomenon which takes place during the pro-
the bottom cess of artificial evaporation should not pass unnoticed.
of vessels. This is the formation of a saline crust at the bottom of the
vessels in which the process is conducted. This seems to be
the immediate effect of ebullition ; for when the tempera¬
ture of the liquid is kept under the boiling point, no such
effect is produced. This crust is composed of all the sa¬
line substances which are held in solution in the liquid;
and even these substances are found combined in the same
proportion in which they actually exist in the solution.
Whatever be the attraction of these substances for water,
or whether they even possess a deliquescent property, they
are not the less disposed to enter into combination during
the formation of the solid crust on the bottom of vessels
in which the process of evaporation is conducted with a
temperature equal to the boiling point. A slight degree
of attention will satisfy us that the formation of this crust
depends on the particular circumstances of the evapora¬
tion in the case of ebullition. It must be obvious, that in
this case the stratum of liquid which is in immediate con¬
tact with the vessel receives the caloric which penetrates
its sides, is charged with it beyond its capacity, changes
its state, and assumes the gaseous form, and by this change
having entirely lost its solvent power, whatever saline
matter is held in solution must assume the solid state in
contact with the sides of the vessel, and consequently
adhere to it. Thus it happens, according to a very judi¬
cious observation, that in different saline solutions, the
results of which have been compared, these scales or
crusts are more abundant in proportion as the degree of Structure
saturation is diminished.2 of Crystals.
SECTION II.
OF THE THEORY OF THE STRUCTURE OF CRYSTALS.
In the former section we have given a view of the phe¬
nomena of crystallization. The regular forms which bodies
assume by means of this process, have occupied no small
share of the attention of naturalists and chemical philoso¬
phers. The researches and investigations of Bergman,
Rome de ITsle, and Haii}', have been particularly directed
this way. Bergman, in his twelfth Dissertation,3 treats of
the variety of the forms of crystals, of the various figures
derived from the spathaceous form, of the structure of the
most minute parts, and of the different modes in which
crystals are generated. Rome de ITsle has arranged
crystals into six species, derived from the varieties of
form ; 1. Tetrahedron; 2. Cube ; 3. Octahedron ; 4. Pa¬
rallelepiped ; 5. Rhomboidal octahedron ; 6. Dodecahe¬
dron. But the ingenious researches of Haiiy on this sub¬
ject have been followed by the completest and most suc¬
cessful investigation of the theory of the structure of crys¬
tals which has yet appeared. Of this theory, an account
of which the reader will find in the Annales de Chimie,
tome xvii. and in his Traite de Mineralogie, tome i. we now
propose to give a comprehensive view.
This theory, the author observes, cannot be fully un¬
derstood without the aid of analytical calculations ; for,
besides the convenience of analysis, including in the same
formula a great number of different problems, it is by
means of it alone that the theory can assume the charac¬
ter ot absolute certainty in arriving at the same results
which are obtained by observation. But notwithstanding
these considerations, it seemed to be better for those who
have not a competent knowledge of the science of calcula¬
tion to prefer the method of simple reasoning, but accom¬
panied with geometrical figures, which are so useful in
giving a distinct conception of the arrangement of the
small solids which combine together to form a crystal.
I his arrangement is denominated structure, in opposition
to the term organization, which expresses the more com¬
plicated mechanism of vegetables and animals. This me¬
thod may perhaps be less direct, and less precise and ex¬
peditious, and it may require attention to those details
which are passed over in the analytical method to reach its
object more speedily ; it has, however, this advantage, that
the mind by its means perceives better the connection
of the different parts under consideration, and can more
readily comprehend the facts with which it is furnished.
I. MECHANICAL BIVISION OF CRYSTALS.
The same mineral substance, it is known, is susceptible
of several different forms, well defined, some of which do
not appear, at first sight, to have any common point of
resemblance to indicate their relation. If, for instance,
we compare the regular hexahedral prism of calcareous
spar with the rhomboid of the same mineral,4 whose
' Comm°n salt is manufactured in this way on the sandy shores of the Solway Frith, in Annandale in Scotland. These flat shores
are covered with he waters of the ocean during spring tides ; and in the interval of these tides the evaporation by the heat of the sun
and trouble?! S1"d » 1™"*% °f -alt sufficient to defray the expense
2 Journal de Physique, Iviii. 124. s *>/ • / , „
4 The name of rWoid is given by the author to a parallelopiped a, e (fig. 4), terminated byTx equal anTslmilarThombuses. In
eaclwtf H mb-0ld’ ivi0 ° j'he.S0],ld ansles, such as a, e, opposed to each other, are formed by the junction of three equal plane angles ■
t ie six solid angles is iormed by a plane angle equal to each of the three preceding, and by two other aneles of a different
measure, but equal to each other. The points a, e, are the summits, the line ae is the als. In anyone of tKhombSses S df
compose the surface, the angle a, contiguous to the summit, is called the superior angle, the angle d the inferior angle, ’and
552 CRYSTALLIZATION.
Structure large angle is about 1011°, we should be led to believe
of Crystals, that each of these two forms is quite distinct from the
other. But this point of relation, which escapes notice
when we consider only the external form, becomes sen¬
sible when we attend to the intimate mechanism of the
structure. Here the author gives an historical view of the
progress of his researches, and traces the steps which led
him to the discovery of what became as it were the key
of his whole theory.
He had in his hand a hexahedral prism of calcareous
spar, similar to that mentioned above, and which had been
detached from a group of the same crystals, ihe frac¬
ture presented a very smooth surface, situated obliquely,
Plate like the trapezium psut (fig. 1), and which had an angle
CXCVII. of 135°, both with the remainder abcsph of the base, and
with the remainder tuef of the plane inef. Observing that
the cuneiform segment which this fracture separat¬
ed from the crystal, had for its vertex one of the edges of
the base, namely the edge in, he attempted to separate a
second segment in that part to which the contiguous edge
cn belonged. For this purpose he employed the blade of
a knife, directed with the same degree of obliquity as the
trapezium psut, and aided by the stroke of a hammer. This
attempt failed; but having tried the same operation to¬
wards the next edge be, a new trapezium similar to the
first came into view. The fourth edge ab resisted the in¬
strument, but the following, ah, readily yielded to mecha¬
nical division, and presented a third trapezium, having as
fine a polish as the other two. The sixth edge ih, it is
scarcely necessary to observe, could not be divided, any
more than the fourth and the second.
Proceeding then to the inferior base defghr, it was soon
found that the edges of this base, which admitted of divi¬
sions similar to the preceding, were not the edges ef, dr,
gk, which corresponded to those which could be divided
towards the upper part, but the intermediate edges de, vy,
gf The trapezium Iqyv shows the section made below
the edge hr. This section is obviously parallel to that of
the trapezium psut; and the four other sections are in
like manner parallel, two and two. Now, these different
sections being in the direction of the natural joints of the
laminae, it was easy to obtain others parallel to each of
them, but it was found impossible to divide the crystal in
any other direction. Following this mechanical division
according to the parallelism stated above, new sections
were obtained, always nearer to the axis of the prism;
and when the sections were carried so far as to make the
remainder of the two bases disappear, the prism was trans¬
formed into a solid OX (fig. 2), terminated by twelve pen¬
tagons, parallel two to two, of which those of the extre¬
mities, namely, SAOIR, GIODE, BAODC, on the one
side, and KNPQF, MNPXU, ZQPXY, on the other, were
the results of the mechanical division, and had their com¬
mon vertices O, P, situated in the centres of the bases of
the prism, fig. 1. The six lateral pentagons RSUXY,
ZYRIG, &c. (fig. 2), were the remainders of the planes
of the same prism.
In proportion as the sections were multiplied always
paiallel to the preceding, the lateral pentagons diminish¬
ed in height; and at a certain term the points R, G being
confounded with the points Y, Z, the points S, R with
the points U, Y, &c. there remained no more of these
pentagons, but the triangles YIZ, UXY, &c. (fig. 3.) Be¬
yond that term the sections coming to pass over the sur¬
face of these triangles diminished gradually in extent, till
at last the same triangles were lost, and then the solid Structure
obtained from the hexahedral prism appeared to be a°fCrystals,
rhomboid ae (fig. 4) exactly similar to that which is com-
monly denominated Iceland spar.
So unexpected a result led the ingenious author to the
examination of other calcareous crystals in a similar man¬
ner, all of which yielded to mechanical division in such
a way that when the external surfaces had disappeared,
the nucleus which remained was always a rhomboid, of
the same form as the first. All that was necessary was to
discover the direction of the sections which conducted to
the central rhomboid.
To extract, for instance, this rhomboid from the spar
which is usually denominated lenticular, and which is it¬
self a much more obtuse rhomboid, having its large plane
angle equal to 114° 18' 56", it was necessary to begin with
the two vertices, and to make the sections pass through
the small diagonals of the faces. But if it is wished, on
the contrary, to get at the nucleus of the rhomboidal spar
with acute vertices, the direction of the sections of the
planes must be parallel to the edges contiguous to the
summits, and in such a manner that each of them shall
be equally inclined to the faces which it cuts.
These results are the more worthy of attention, as it
would seem at first, that in the process of crystallization,
after the rhomboid has been once adopted with regard to
a determined species of mineral, it ought always to re¬
produce it with the same angles. But the paradox which
arises from this diversity of appearance is explained by
the double use of the rhomboidal form, which serves here
to disguise itself, and conceals fixed and constant charac¬
ters under a variable external appearance.
If we take a crystal of a different nature, such as a cube
of jluor spar, the nucleus will have a different form. This
will be, in the present case, an octahedron, which we shall
obtain by taking off the eight solid angles of the cube.
Heavy spar will produce for a nucleus a right prism with
rhomboidal bases ; feldspar, an oblique-angled parallele¬
piped, but not rhomboidal; apatite or beryl, a right six-
sided prism ; the adamantine spar a rhomboid, a little
acute; blende, a dodecahedron, with rhomboidal planes;
iron of the island of Elba, a cube, &c.: and each of these
forms will be constant in relation to the whole species, so
that its angles will undergo no variation which is appre¬
ciable ; and if we attempt to divide the crystal in any
other direction, we shall not be able to find any joint; we
shall only obtain indeterminate fragments; it will rather
be broken than divided.
These solids inscribed each in all the crystals of the
same species, ought to be regarded as the true primitive
forms on which all the other forms depend. All minerals,
it is true, are not susceptible of mechanical division, but
the number is greater than it appeared at first sight;
and with regard to those crystals in which the attempts
to discover the natural joints have failed, it has been
remarked that their surface striated in a certain direc¬
tion, or the relation of their different forms, among those
which belong to the same substance, frequently present¬
ed indications of their structure, and by reasoning from
their analogy with other divisible crystals, we may de¬
termine this structure, at least with a good deal of proba¬
bility.
All deviations from the primitive form are called by
Haiiy secondary forms. But the number of these forms
has certain limits, which can be determined by theory,
horiy-nnlnl Hina6 jatera^7^es’ H16 sides ah, of, are the superior edges, and the sides Id, df, the inferior edges: i/'is the
or acute." Thf cube is the lhnit°of the rhomboids. ^ rhomb°id iS °btUSe °r aCUte’ accordinS as the angles of the summits are obtuse
CRYSTALLIZATION.
Structure according to the laws which regulate the structure of
of Crystals, crystals.
' The solid of the primitive form, which is obtained by
means of the operation described above, may be further
subdivided in a direction parallel to its different faces.
All the surrounding matter is equally divisible by sections
parallel to the faces of the primitive form. Hence it fol¬
lows, that the parts detached by the aid of all these sec¬
tions are similar, and only differ in their volume, which
continually decreases in proportion to the extent of the
division. Those, however, must be excepted, which are
near to the faces of the secondary solid; for these faces
not being parallel to those of the primitive form, the frag¬
ments which have one of their facets taken in the same
faces, cannot exactly resemble those which are detached
towards the middle of the crystal. For instance, the
fragments of the hexahedral prism (fig. 1), whose exter¬
nal facets make part of the bases, or of the planes, have
not, in this respect, the same figure with those which are
situated nearer to the centre, all of whose facets are pa¬
rallel to the sections psut, Iqyv ; but the difficulty which
presents itself at first sight, in consequence of that diver¬
sity, is removed by the help of the theory, and the whole
are reduced to a unity of form.
But the division of the crystal into small similar solids
has a certain limit, beyond which we should arrive at par¬
ticles so small that they are no longer divisible, without
destroying the nature of the substance, or decomposing it.
At this term the investigation stops, and to the small so¬
lids, which we might insulate if our organs and instruments
were sufficiently delicate, Haiiy has given the name of in¬
tegrant or integral molecules. He thinks it probable that
these molecules are those which were suspended in the
fluid in which the crystallization took place. In general
it may be observed that, with the aid of these molecules,
the theory reduces to simple laws the different forms of
crystals, and arrives at results which exactly represent
those of nature.
When the nucleus is a parallelepiped, that is, a solid
having six parallel faces, two to two, like the cube, the
rhomboid, &c. and this solid admits of no other divisions
than those which are made in the direction of its faces, it
is obvious that the molecules which result from the sub¬
division, whether of the nucleus or of the surrounding mat¬
ter, are similar to this nucleus. In other cases, the form
of the molecules is different from that of the nucleus.
There are, besides, other crystals which afford, by means
of mechanical division, particles of different figures com¬
bined together through the whole extent of these crystals.
The ingenious author of the theory has thrown out some
conjectures on the manner of resolving the difficulty which
these kinds of mixed structures present; and at any rate,
he observes that it does not in any degree affect the sta¬
bility of the theory.
II. LAWS OF DECREMENT.
1. Decrements at the Edges.
The primitive form, and that of the integrant molecules,
being determined, after the dissection of the crystals, we
must investigate the laws according to which these mole¬
cules were combined, to produce around the primitive
form those kinds of coverings which terminated so regu¬
larly, and from which resulted polyhedra so different from
each other, although originally of the same substance.
Now, such is the mechanism of the structure subject to
these laws, that all the parts of the secondary crystal su-
peradded to the nucleus are formed of laminae, which de¬
crease regularly by subtractions of one or more ranges of
integral molecules, so that theory determines the number
VOL. VII.
553
of these rows, and by a necessary consequence the exact Structure
form of the secondary crystal. of Crystals.
To have a distinct idea of these laws, let us take a very
simple and elementary example. Conceive EP (fig. 5)
to represent a dodecahedron whose faces are equal and
similar rhombuses, and that this dodecahedron is a secon¬
dary form, having a cube for its nucleus or primitive form.
By the inspection of fig. 6, the position of this cube in
the crystal may be easily conceived. The small diagonals
DC, CG, GF, FD of the four faces of the dodecahedron,
being united round the same solid angle, form a square
CDFG. Now there are six solid angles, composed of the
four planes, namely, the angles L, O, E, N, R, P (fig. 5),
and consequently, if sections are made to pass through the
small diagonals of the faces which compose the solid an¬
gles, six squares will be successively uncovered. These
squares will be the faces of the primitive cube, of which
three are represented at fig. 6, namely, CDFG, ABCD,
BCGH.
This cube would evidently be an assemblage of cubic in¬
tegral molecules, and it would be necessary that each of
the pyramids, such as LDCGF (fig. 6), which rest on the
faces, should be itself composed of cubes equal to each
other, and to those which form the nucleus. To have a
more distinct conception of this arrangement, let us com¬
pose an artificial dodecahedron of a certain number of
small cubes, the arrangement of which will be an imitation
of the process of nature in disposing the molecules in the
formation of the dodecahedron.
Let ABGF (fig. 7) be a cube composed of 729 small
cubes equal to each other, in which case each face of the
whole cube will include eighty-one squares, that is, nine
on each side, which will be the external faces of as many
partial cubes representing the molecules. This cube will
be the nucleus of the dodecahedron which is to be con¬
structed. On one of the faces, as ABCD, of the cube,
apply a square lamina, composed of cubes equal to those
which form the nucleus, but having towards each a row of
cubes less than if it were on a level with the contiguous
faces BCGH, DCGF, &c. This lamina will be composed
of forty-nine cubes, that is, seven on each side, so that if
the inferior base be onfg (fig. 8), this base will fall ex¬
actly on the square marked with the same letters in fig.
7. Above this first lamina let a second be applied, com¬
posed of twenty-five cubes, five on each side, so that if
Impu (fig. 9) represent its inferior base, this base will
correspond exactly with the square marked with the same
letters in fig. 7. If in like manner a third lamina be ap¬
plied to the second, which is composed only of nine cubes,
that is, three on each side, so that vxyz (fig. 10), being the
inferior base, shall correspond with the square marked
with the same letters in fig. 7; and if on the middle
square r of the preceding lamina the small cube r (fig. 11)
be placed, this will represent the last lamina.
When this operation is completed, it will appear that
there is formed on the face ABCD (fig. 7) a four-sided
pyramid, of which this face is the base, and the cube r
(fig. 11) is the summit. And if the same operation be con¬
tinued on the other five sides of the cube, we shall have
six four-sided pyramids resting on the six faces of the
nucleus, which is enveloped with them on all sides. But
as the different rows of laminae composing these pyramids
project beyond each other for a certain way, as appears
on fig. 12, where the parts raised above the planes BCD,
BCG represent the two pyramids which rest on the faces
ABCD, BCGH (fig. 7), the faces of the pyramids will
not form continued planes; for they will be alternately
re-entering and salient, in some measure imitating a stair
with four sides.
Let us now suppose that the nucleus is composed of a
4 a
554 CRYSTAL]
Structure number of almost imperceptible cubes incomparably great-
ofCrystals.er? ancj tbat; t]ie l^inae applied on the different faces,
which maybe called the laminae of superposition, continue
to increase towards their four edges by subtractions of one
range of cubes equal to those of the nucleus, the number
of these laminae will be incomparably greater than in the
preceding hypothesis; and at the same time the cavities
or furrows which they form, as they alternately become
salient or re-entering, will be almost imperceptible; and
indeed it might be supposed that the cubes of which the
crystal is composed are so small as to become quite imper¬
ceptible to our senses, and the faces of the pyramids to be
perfectly smooth.
Now DCBE (fig. 12) being the pyramid which rests on
the face ABCD (fig. 7), and CBOG (fig. 12) the pyra¬
mid applied to the face BCGH (fig. 7), if we consider
that every thing is uniform from E to O (fig. 12) in the
manner in which the laminae of superposition mutually
project beyond each other, we may readily conceive that
the face CEB of the first pyramid ought to be exactly in
the same plane as the face COB of the contiguous pyra¬
mid, so that the union of these two faces should form a
rhombus ECOB. But we have, for the six pyramids,
twenty-four triangles similar to CEB, which consequently
will be reduced to twelve rhombuses, from which results
a dodecahedron similar to what is represented in fig. 5
and 6.
The cube, before it arrives at the form of the dodeca¬
hedron, passes through a multitude of intermediate mo¬
difications, of which one is shown at fig. 13. The squares
paeo, klqu, mnts, &c. correspond to the squares ABCD,
DCGF, CBHG, &c. (fig. 6), and form the superior basis
of as many pyramids, incomplete from the deficiency of
the laminae with which they ought to terminate. The
rhombuses EDLC, ECOB (fig. 5), by a necessary con¬
sequence, are reduced to simple hexagons aeC Ik D, eo B
nmC (fig. 13), and the surface of the secondary crystal is
composed of twelve of these hexagons and six squares.
This is the case with the boracic spar (the borate of mag¬
nesia and lime), with the exception of some facets which
surmount the solid angles, and which depend on a differ¬
ent law of decrement.
If the diminution of the laminae of superposition pro¬
ceeded in a more rapid ratio; for example, if each lamina
had had on its circumference two, three, or four rows of
cubes less than the inferior lamina, the pyramids produced
on the nucleus by this diminution being more depressed,
and their contiguous faces being no longer on a level, the
surface of the secondary solid would have been composed
of twenty-four isosceles triangles, all inclined to each
other. Decrement on the edges is that which takes place
parallel to the edges of the nucleus, and it ought to be
distinguished from another kind of decrease, to be after¬
wards mentioned.
2. Examples of Decrease on the Edges.
Iron Pyrites, or Dodecahedral Sulphuret of Iron.
Geometric Character.—Inclination of any one of the penta¬
gons, as DPRFS (fig. 19), to the pentagon CPRGL,
which has the same base PR, 126° 56' 8". Angles of
the pentagon CPRGL, L = 121° 35' 17"; C or G = 106°
35'57" 30"'; P or R = 102° 36'19".
Let us conceive again a cubic nucleus, whose different
edges are lines of departure to the same number of decre-
1 Here the face which corresponds to ABCD (fig. 7) has twenty-
ture of this pyramid may be imitated artificially, by regulating the
i I Z A T I 0 N.
ments which take place at the same time in two different Structure
ways; that is, by the subtraction of two rows parallel to°fCrystals,
the edges AB, CD (fig. 7), and of one row parallel to
the edges AB, BC. Let it be supposed also that each la¬
mina being only equal in thickness to a small cube of the
side AB and CD, is, on the contrary, equal to double the
thickness of the side AD and BC. Fig. 14 represents this
disposition with regard to the decrements which proceed
from the lines DC, BC (fig. 7). It is plain, that on ac¬
count of the more rapid decrease in proceeding from DC
or AB, than from BC or AD, the faces produced in the
first case will be more inclined to the plane ABCD, while
the faces produced in the second will remain as it were
behind, so that the pyramid will no longer be terminated
by a single cube E, as in fig. 12, which, on account of its
minuteness, seems to be only a point, but by the row of
cubes MNST (fig. 14), which, supposing these cubes to be
infinitely small, will present the appearance of a simple
ridge. By a necessary consequence, the pyramid will
have for its faces two trapeziums, such as DMNC, result¬
ing from the first decrement, and two isosceles triangles,
such as CNB, which will be the effect of the second de¬
crement.1
Let us suppose further, that with regard to the laminae
of superposition, which arise on the face BCGH (fig. 7),
the decrements follow the same laws, but in cross direc¬
tions ; in such a way that the more rapid of the two may
take place in proceeding from BC, or from GH, towards
the vertex of the pyramid, and the slower decrement in
proceeding from CG, or BH, towards the same vertex.
The pyramid which results from these decrements will be
placed in a direction opposite to that which rests on ABCD,
and will have the position represented at fig. 17, where
the edge KL, which terminates the pyramid, instead of
being parallel to CD, like the edge MN (fig. 14 and 15),
is, on the contrary, parallel to BC. We shall then conceive
what is to be done, that the pyramid which will rest on
DC, GF (fig. 7) may be turned as it is represented in
fig. 16, and may have its terminating edge PR parallel to
CG (fig. 7). The pyramids which will rest on three other
faces of the cube will stand like that which arises on the
opposite face.
But as the decrements which produce the triangle CNB
(fig. 15) make a continuity with those from which results
the trapezium CBKL (fig. 17), these two figures will be
in the same plane, and will form a pentagon CNBKL (fig.
18). For the same reason the triangle DPC (fig. 16) will
be on a level with the trapezium DMNC (fig. 15); and,
by applying the same reasoning to the other pyramids, it
will be conceived that the six pyramids having for their
whole faces twelve trapeziums and twelve triangles, the
surface of the secondary solid will be composed of twelve
pentagons, which will correspond to the twelve rhombuses
of fig. 5, but with this difference, that they will have other
inclinations. This solid is represented at fig. 19, and with
its cubic nucleus at fig. 20, where it may be seen how to
proceed in the extraction of this nucleus. If, for exam¬
ple, a section be made passing through the points D, C,
G, F, the pyramid which rests on the face DCGF of the
nucleus will be detached, and by this section the latter
will be uncovered.
Among the crystals belonging to the sulphuret of iron,
or the arseniate of cobalt, there is found a dodecahedron,
having the faces equal and similar pentagons, and having
for its nucleus a cube in the position above described.
■five squares on each side, as may be seen in fig. 14. The struc-
1 arrangement and number of the cubes represented in the same
CRYSTALLIZATION.
Structure jBut there are an infinite number of possible dodecahedra,
which may have for faces equal and similar pentagons,
and differ from each other by the respective inclinations
of their faces. Of all these dodecahedra, the one whose
structure would be subjected to these laws gives 126°
56' 8" as the angle formed by the inclination of any two
of its faces DPRFS, CPRGL (fig. 19) at the edge of
junction PR, as might be shown by calculation. Some
mineralogists, overlooking the use of geometry in the con¬
sideration of crystals, have confounded the dodecahedron
of pyrites with the same regular geometrical figure in
which all the sides and angles of each pentagon are equal;
but there is a striking difference between these two dode¬
cahedra. The regular dodecahedron gives only 116° 33'
54" as the inclination of its respective pentagons, making
a difference of nearly 11^° between it and the other. And
indeed the regular dodecahedron cannot be produced by
any law of decrement whatsoever, however compound it
may be supposed, in regard to a cubic nucleus, and, as
may be demonstrated generally, for a nucleus of any form.
There are then two kinds of dodecahedra, one whose
faces are rhombuses, and another whose faces are penta¬
gons, produced upon a cubical nucleus, in consequence of
two simple and regular laws of decrement, in a direction
parallel to the edges of the nucleus. By varying these
laws in different other ways, a multitude of new polyhe-
dra having the same nucleus may be constructed.
rn, nh, hx of the superior base of the primitive form. The
planes tmge, Imge (fig. 25) on one side, and bkzp, budp on<
the other, arise from a decrement by three rows on each
side of the edges, nv, xq (fig. 24), which decrement re¬
mains suspended at a certain term, and leaves four rect¬
angles trye, kryx, Ihci, uhcd (fig. 25), parallel to the planes
of the primitive form. The effect of this decrement is
shown at fig. 26, where the rhombus hnrx is the same as
fig. 24 ; and all the small rhombs by which it is subdivid¬
ed, or which are exterior to it, represent the bases of so
many molecules. The lines xd, xz, ni, ne, are directed
according to the law of decrement already explained, and
the lines cd, ci, yz, ye, correspond to the planes of the
prism, which are not subject to this law.
3. Decrement on the Angles.
Obtuse or Lenticular Calcareous Spar (fig. 22).
Geometric Character.—Inclination of the rhombus nad'b',
to the rhombus aif'd', 134° 25' 36". Angles of the
rhombus nad'b'; a or b' = 114° 18' 56" ; n ox d' — 65°
41'4 .
This variety arises from a decrement by a single row
on both sides of the edges ab, ag, af (fig. 23), and eo, ed,
ex, contiguous to the summits a, e, of the nucleus. An
idea may be formed of its structure by comparing it with
that of the dodecahedron whose planes form rhombuses
(fig. 5 and 12), originating from the cube (fig. 7); and
by supposing that the laminae, instead of decreasing at
the same time on all the edges, decrease only to those
contiguous, three by three, to the angle C and its oppo¬
site. The faces formed in that case will be reduced to
six, which, by prolonging themselves, according to the
law of continuity, so as to intersect each other, will com¬
pose the surface of a rhomboid analogous to the one which
we are now treating of, excepting that it will have other
angles, on account of the cubical form of its integral mo¬
lecule.
From this it may be conceived that the diagonals drawn
from a to b' (fig. 22), from a to g', from a tof, &c. on the
secondary rhomboid, will be confounded with the edges
ab, ag, q/(fig. 23) of the nucleus, which serve as lines of
departure for the decrements; and hence, to extract this
nucleus, the planes of the sections must pass along these
diagonals, as has been already remarked.
Common Topaz (fig. 25).
Geometric Character.—The inclination of the trapezoid
srtm to the adjacent plane rtey, 136° ; of the same plane
to kryz, 124° 26'; of the plane tmge to mlig, 93°.
The primitive form of the topaz is that of a right-an¬
gled, four-sided prism hy (fig. 24), the bases of which are
rhombuses, having the angle h or r =■ 124° 26'. Accord¬
ing to theory, in regard to the integrant molecule, the
height ry is to the side rn nearly in the ratio of three to
two. The pyramidal summit of the topaz results from a
decrement by two rows of small prisms on the edges xr,
This position of the rhomboidal nucleus inclosed in the
regular hexahedral prism of the calcareous spar being dis¬
covered, did not directly lead to the determination of the
laws of those decrements of secondary crystals. More
simple intermediate steps were necessary. To conceive
the method of investigating these new decrements, it may
be remarked that the same substances which exhibit the
dodecahedron with pentagonal planes originating from the
cubes (fig. 19 and 20), and which might assume the form
of the dodecahedron whose planes are rombuses (fig. 5
and 6), are found also under that of the regular octahe¬
dron. But if the laminae of superposition decrease only
on the edges of the two opposite faces of this cube, as on
those of the superior base ABCD (fig. 6), and of the in¬
ferior base, we shall in general have two pyramids applied
on these bases. And if we suppose the effect of the law
of decrements continued in the space situated between
the bases of the cube, we shall arrive at an octahedron,
whose angles will vary as there is a greater or smaller
number of rows subtracted. But no law, however com¬
plicated, can give equilateral triangles as the faces of this
octahedron.
On the other hand, by dividing a regular octahedron
originating from a cube, the cubic nucleus will appear to
be so situated in this octahedron that each of its six solid
angles corresponds to the centre of one of the faces of the
octahedron; but this could not be the case by supposing
a decrement on the edges. The law of decrement accom¬
plishes its ends, in such cases, by a different progress from
that which conducts to the forms already described.
Let ABCD (fig. 27) be the superior or inferior surface
of a lamina composed of small cubes, whose bases are
represented by the squares which subdivide the whole
square. The series of cubes to which the squares a, b, c,
d, e,f, g, h, i, belong, are on the diagonal drawn from A
to C; and they form one string (fig. 28), which will not
differ from the string of the cubes a, n, g, iJ, d, V, u', zl, ad
(fig. 27), lying in the direction of the edge AD, except¬
ing that in the former the cubes touch only by one of their
edges, and in the latter by one of their faces. There are
also, throughout the whole extent of the lamina, strings
of cubes parallel to the diagonal. The series of letters
v, k, u, x, y, z, shows one, and the letters n, t, l, m, p, o,
r, s, show another string.
The laminae of superposition, it may be conceived, pro¬
ject beyond each other one or more rows of cubes in a
diiection parallel to the diagonal. In like manner may
be constructed around the cubic nucleus, solids of differ¬
ent figures, by placing successively above the different
faces of this nucleus laminae which may arise in the form
of pyramids, and which will experience this kind of decre¬
ment. Ihe faces of these solids will be roughened by an
infinite number of salient angles formed by the exterior
555
Structure
556 CRYSTALI
Structure points of the composing cubes. This follows from the
of Crystals, angular figure which is continually presented by the edges
0f the laminae of superposition. But these points being
on a level, the cubes may be supposed to be so small that
the faces of the solid will appear smooth and continued
planes.
Around the cube ABGF (fig. 29), as a nucleus, let a
secondary solid be constructed, in which the lamina of
superposition shall decrease on all sides by a single row of
cubes, in a direction parallel to the diagonals; and let
ABCD (fig. 30), the superior base of the nucleus, be sub¬
divided in eighty-one small squares, representing the ex¬
terior faces of an equal number of molecules. Fig. 31 re¬
presents the superior surface of the first lamina, which
ought to be placed above ABCD (fig. 30) in such a man¬
ner that the point a' may correspond to the point a, the
point br to the point b, the point c’ to the point c, and the
point d' to the point d. By this disposition the squares
Aa, B6, Cc, (fig. 30) remain uncovered, which will
fulfil the above law of decrement; and the borders QV,
ON, IL, GF (fig. 31) project by one row beyond the bor¬
ders AB, AD, CD, BC (fig. 29), which is necessary, that
the nucleus may be enveloped towards these edges. For
if the edges of the lamina represented (fig. 31), as well as
the following, coincided with the lines ST, EZ, YX, MU,
on which supposition they would be on a level with AD,
AB, CD, BC (fig. 30), they would form re-entering an¬
gles towards the analogous parts of the crystal. Thus in
the laminae applied on ABCD (fig. 29), all the edges an¬
swering to CD would be on a level with CDFG, of which
they would form a prolongation; and in the laminae ap¬
plied on DCFG all the edges analogous to the same ridge
CD would be on a level with ABCD, from which neces¬
sarily results a re-entering angle opposite to the salient
angle formed by the two faces ABCD and CDFG. But
by the laws which determine the formation of simple crys¬
tals, re-entering angles appear to be excluded. The solid
will then increase in those parts to which the decrement
does not extend. But this decrement alone being suffi¬
cient to determine the form of the secondary crystal, all
the other variations which intervene only in a subsidiary
manner may be set aside, excepting in the construction
of artificial crystals, and in exhibiting the details relating
to the structure.
The superior face of the second lamina will be like
A'G'L'K' (fig. 32), and this lamina must be placed above
the preceding, in such a manner that the points a", b", c",
d", may correspond with the points a', U, d, d! (fig. 31),
which will leave uncovered the squares having their exte¬
rior angles situated in Q, S, E, O, V, T, M, G, &c., and
continuing to produce the decrement by one row. The
solid increases towards the analogous edges at AB, BC,
CD, AD (fig. 30), since between A! and L', for instance
(fig. 32), there are thirteen squares, but between QV and
El (fig. 31) there are only eleven.
The large faces of the laminae of superposition which
were hitherto octagons QVGF1LNO (fig. 31) having ar¬
rived at the figure of the square A'G'L'K' (fig. 32), will,
after passing that term, decrease on all sides at the same
time, and the following lamina will have for its superior
face the square B'M'FS' (fig. 33), less in every direction
by one row than the square A'G'L'K' (fig. 32). Let this
square be disposed above the preceding, so that the points
d, f, g', h' (fig. 33) may correspond with the points c, f
9’ ^ 32). Fig. 34, 35, 36, and 37 represent the four
laminae which ought to rise successively above the pre¬
ceding, the same letters being made to correspond. The
last lamina is reduced to one cube zf (fig. 39), which should
correspond with the same letter (fig. 37).
Thus it follows, that the laminae of superposition applied
i i z A T i o N.
on the base ABCD (fig. 29 and 30) produce, by the total Structure
of their decreasing edges, four faces, which in proceeding ^Crystals,
from the points A, B, C, D, incline one to another in the
form of a pyramidal summit. These edges, it may be re¬
marked, have lengths which begin by increasing as in fig.
30 and 32, and which then proceed decreasing. Thus the
faces produced by the same edges increase at first, and af¬
terwards decrease in breadth, so that they become quadri¬
laterals. One of these is represented at fig. 39, in which
the inferior angle C is confounded with the angle C (fig.
29) of the nucleus; and the diagonal LQ represents the
edge L'G' of the lamina A'G'L'K' (fig. 32), which is the
most extended in the direction of that edge. And the
number of laminae of superposition producing the triangle
LCQ (fig. 39) being less than that of the laminae produ¬
cing the triangle LZQ, since there is here only one lamina
preceding the lamina A'G'L'K' (fig. 32), while there are
six which follow it as far as the cube z (fig. 38) inclusive¬
ly, the triangle LZQ (fig. 39) composed of the sum of the
edges of these latter laminae, will have a much greater
height than the inferior triangle LCQ, as it is expressed
in the figure.
The surface of the secondary solid, then, will be formed
of twenty-four quadrilaterals, disposed three and three
around each solid angle of the nucleus. But decreasing
by one row, the three quadrilaterals belonging to each so¬
lid angle, such as C (fig. 29) will be in the same plane,
forming an equilateral triangle ZIN (fig. 40). The twenty-
four quadrilaterals, then, will produce eight equilateral tri¬
angles. One of these is represented at fig. 41, showing
the arrangement of the cubes that concur to form it; and
the secondary solid will be a regular octahedron. This
octahedron is represented at fig. 42, inclosing the cubic
nucleus, so that each of its solid angles corresponds to the
centre of one of the triangles IZN, IPN, PIS, SIZ, &c. of
the octahedron. To extract this nucleus, it would be
necessary to divide the octahedron in its eight solid angles,
by sections parallel to the opposite edges. This is the
structure of octahedral sulphuret of lead or galena.
Such then is an example of decrements on the angles
which take place in a direction parallel to the diagonals.
By this denomination may be expressed precisely the re¬
sult of each decrement, by denoting the angle which serves
it as a point of departure.
Acute Calcareous Spar (fig. 43).
Geometric Character.—Inclination of pzry to puoy, 78°
27' 47"; and to irzs, 101° 32' 13". Angles of the rhom¬
bus pzry, p or r — 75° 31' 20"; z or y — 104° 28' 40".
Inclination of the oblique diagonal drawn from p X.o r
with the edge pu, 71° 35' 54".
Geometric Properties.—The angles of the rhombus are
equal to the respective inclinations of the faces of the nu¬
cleus, and reciprocally. The angles of the principal quadri¬
lateral, or that which passes through two opposite oblique
diagonals pr, ui, and through the intermediate edges pu,
ir, are the same as on the nucleus.
To conceive the structure of this rhomboid, suppose that
abdf (fig. 44) represents the face of the nucleus marked
with the same letters (fig. 4), subdivided into a multi¬
tude of partial rhombuses, which are the exterior faces of
so many molecules. Suppose further that the laminae of
superposition, applied on this face, decrease by one row
towards the lateral angles abd, afd, in such a manner that
on the first the two rhombuses bhkl,fmin are uncovered;
that on the second the uncovered rhombuses are those tra¬
versed by the diagonals co, uy, on the third those travers¬
ed by the diagonals st, qz, &c.; in which case the decreas¬
ing edges will successively correspond with these diago-
CRYSTAL
Structure nals. By this law of decrement two faces will be produ-
ofCrystals. ce(]j whjch, proceeding from the angles bf, will rise in the
form of a roof above the rhombus abdf and will meet on
a common edge situated immediately above the diagonal
ad, and which will be parallel to it; and as there are six
rhombuses which undergo like decrements on the primi¬
tive form, the faces produced will be twelve in number.
But, by the law of decrement by one row, the two faces
which have the same angle b, f, g, &c. (fig. 4) for the
point of departure will be in the same plane ; thus redu¬
cing the twelve faces to six, and transforming the second¬
ary crystal into an acute rhomboid pi (fig. 43). In this
rhomboid the edges pz, py, pa, are situated each as the
oblique diagonals of the nucleus, or those which would be
drawn from a to d, from a to x, from a to c, &c. (fig. 4.)
Crystals of this variety are found near Lyons in France ;
and the freestone of Fontainebleau, commonly called crys¬
tallized freestone, which is nothing else than calcareous
spar mixed with particles of quartz, exhibits the same
form. The crystals of this stone yield to mechanical di¬
vision, and have their natural joinings, like those of pure
spar, situated in the planes parallel to the edges pz, py,
pu, &c. (fig. 43), and which would pass at an equal dis¬
tance from these edges.
lihomboidal Iron Ore (fig. 45).
Geometric Character.—Inclination of BCRP to BCOA or
OCRS, 146° 26' 33"; angles of the rhombus BCRP, C
or P = 117° 2' 0"; B or R = 62° 57' 51".
The laminae composing this rhomboid decrease by two
rows on the angles bcr, ocr, bco, &c. (fig. 46), which concur
with the formation of the two solid angles cn of a cubic
nucleus. The faces produced, instead of being on a level,
three and three, around these angles, as in the case of de¬
crement by a single row, incline one to the other, and ex¬
tend above the faces of the nucleus in such a manner that
their diagonals are parallel to the horizontal diagonals of
the same faces. The cube here answers the purpose of a
rhomboid, which should have its summits in c and n, in
which case there would be only one axis passing through
the summits. In the dodecahedron, on the other hand,
with pentagonal planes (fig. 19), the cube performs the
functions of a rectangular parallelopipedon, and then three
different axes may be conceived, each of which passes
through the middle of the two opposite faces. When the
cube begins to perform the one or the other in regard to
one species of mineral, it is observed to continue that func¬
tion in all the varieties of that species.
The crystals of rhomboidal iron are found among those
of the iron ore of the island of Elba. It is uncommon,
however, for the law of decrement to attain to its boun¬
dary, and for the rhomboid not to be modified by facets
parallel to the faces of the nucleus. If the decrement
which produces the rhomboid took place at the same time
on the eight solid angles of the cube, there would result a
polyhedron of twenty-four facets, of which nature are the
crystals found at the Calton-hill, Edinburgh, which have
been considered as zeolites.
4. Intermediate Decrements.
In some crystals the decrements on the angles do not
take place in lines parallel to the diagonals, but parallel to
lines situated between the diagonals and the edges. This
happens when the subtractions are made by double, triple,
&c. rows of molecules. In figure 55, which is an instance
of these subtractions, the molecules composing the row
represented by the figure are so arranged as if, of two, only
one was formed. To reduce this case under that of the
^IZATION. 557
common decrements on the angles, we have only to con- Structure
ceive the crystal composed of parallelepipeds, having their of Crystals,
bases equal to the small rectangles abed, edfg, hgil, &c.
The name of intermediate decrement is given to this kind
of diminution.
Syntactic Iron Ore (fig. 42).
Geometric Character.—Respective inclination of the tra¬
peziums bego, nqgo of the rising pyramids = 135°
34'31"; of the edges eg, gq, 129° 31' 16". Angles of
the trapezium bego, b av c — 103° 48' 35"; o or g —
76° 11' 25".
This variety of iron ore is found at Framont, in Les
Vosges. It commonly appears under the form of two op¬
posite pyramids, and some groups reflect from the surface
the prismatic colours. These crystals, classed by De
1’Isle among the modifications of the dodecahedron with
isosceles triangular planes, have for nucleus a cube per¬
forming the functions of the rhomboid. The two regular
hexagons by which they are terminated arise from a de¬
crement by a single row of cubic molecules on the angles
c, n (fig. 46) of the nucleus.
To comprehend the effect of this law, combined with the
preceding, and which produces the lateral trapeziums, let
it be supposed that cbpr (fig. 49) represents the same
square as fig. 46, subdivided into small squares, which are
the external faces of so many molecules. Taking these
molecules by pairs, so that they form rectangular parallel¬
epipeds, having for bases the oblong squares high, hgmG,
&c. and imagine that the subtractions are made by two
rows of these double molecules, the edges of the lamina?
of superposition will be successively ranged in lines, as
PG, TL, Rjo, Sjo, kz,yz, &c. and the sum of all these edges
will produce two faces, which departing from the angles
b, r, will converge, the one towards the other, and will
unite themselves on a common ridge, situated above the
diagonal cp, but inclined to that diagonal. The complete
result of this decrement, then, is twelve faces; and it is
shown by calculation, that the six superior faces being
prolonged to the point where they meet the six lower
faces, will form with them the surface of a dodecahedron,
composed of two right pyramids united at their bases. By
the effect of the first law, these pyramids are here incom¬
plete, which gives the hexagon abedru (fig. 48) and its op¬
posite.
5. Mixed Decrements.
The decrements in other crystals, either on the edges
or on the angles, vary according to laws, the proportion of
which can only be expressed by the fraction -| or It
may happen, for instance, that each lamina exceeds the
following by two rows parallel to the edges, and that it
may, at the same time, have an altitude triple that of a
simple molecule. A vertical geometrical section of one
of the kinds of pyramids resulting from this decrement is
represented at fig. 54. The effects of this decrement may
be readily conceived by considering that AB is a horizon¬
tal line taken on the upper base of the nucleus, bazr the
section of the first lamina of superposition, gfen that of the
second. These are called mixed decrements, which exhibit
this new kind of exception from the simplest laws. They,
as well as the intermediary ones, rarely exist anywhere
else, and they have been particularly discovered in certain
metallic substances. I he application of the ordinary laws,
Haiiy observes, to a variety of these substances, present¬
ed such errors in the value of the angles as led him to be¬
lieve that they were inconsistent with theory. But ex¬
tending his theory, he arrived at results so correct as re-
CRYSTALLIZATION.
558
Structure moved every doubt of the existence of the laws on which
ot Crystals, these results depended.
All the changes to which crystals are subjected depend
on the laws of structure which have been explained, and
others of a similar kind. The decrements sometimes take
place at the same time on all the edges, as in the dode“
cahedron having rhombuses for its planes, or on all the
angles, as in the octahedron originating from a cube.
Sometimes they take place only on certain edges of cer¬
tain angles. There is sometimes a uniformity between
them, so that it is one single law by one, two, three rows,
&c. which acts on the different edges or the different
angles. Sometimes the law varies from one edge to the
other, or from one angle to the other. This happens par¬
ticularly when the form of the nucleus is not symmetrical,
as, for instance, when it is a parallelepiped, whose faces
differ by their respective inclinations, or the measure of
their angles. In some cases there is a concurrence of the
decrements on the edges with those on the angles to pro¬
duce the same form, and sometimes the same edge or
the same angle is subjected to several laws of decrement
succeeding each other. The secondary crystal in some
cases has faces parallel to those of the primitive form, and
which combine with the faces produced by the decrements
to modify the figure of the crystal. Simple secondary
forms are those which arise from a single law of decre¬
ment, the effect of which entirely conceals the nucleus.
Compound secondary forms arise from several simultane¬
ous laws of decrement, or from one single law not having
attained to its extent; so that there remain faces parallel
to those of the nucleus, which concur with the faces pro¬
duced by the decrement to diversify the form of the crys¬
tal. If, amidst this diversity of laws, sometimes insulated,
sometimes united by more or less complicated combina¬
tions, the number of the rows subtracted were itself ex¬
tremely variable; if, for instance, these decrements were
by twelve, twenty, or thirty rows, or more, which is pos¬
sible, the number of forms which might exist in each kind
of mineral would be immense. But the power by which
the subtractions are effected seems to be very limited in
its action. Its extent rarely exceeds one or two rows of
molecules. Beyond four rows only one variety of calca¬
reous spar has been discovered. The structure of this va¬
riety depends on a decrement by six rows ; but this seems
to be a rare occurrence in nature. Yet although the laws
of crystallization are limited to two of- the simplest, that
is, those which produce subtractions by one or two rows,
calcareous spar is susceptible of 2044 different forms, a
number exceeding more than fifty times that of the forms
at present known ; and, admitting into the combination
decrements by three and four rows, calculation will give
8,388,604 possible forms of the same substance, and by
the operation of either mixed or intermediate decrements
this number will be greatly augmented.
4 he striae observed on the surface of many crystals is
another proof in favour of the theory; for they always
lave directions parallel to the projecting edges of the la-
mma? of superposition, which mutually go beyond each
otier, n the regularity of the process has not been dis¬
turbed. It must not however be supposed that the in¬
equalities arising from the decrements must be always
sensible if the form of the crystals be complete; for the
molecules being extremely minute, the surface will ap¬
pear finely polished, and no striae will be perceptible,
in some secondary crystals, therefore, they are not to be
seen, while they are quite distinct in others of the same
nature and form. In the latter case, the action of the
causes producing crystallization has not enjoyed all the
necessary conditions ; the operation has been interrupted ;
and the law of continuity not having been observed, there
have remained on the surface of the crystal perceptible Structure
vacancies. These deviations have this advantage, thatotCrystals,
they point out the direction according to which the striae
are arranged in lines, and thus contribute to discover the
real mechanism of the structure.
The small vacuities which the edges of the laminae of
superposition leave on the surface of even the most per¬
fect secondary crystals, by their re-entering and salient
angles, show that the fragments obtained by division, the
external facets of which form part of the faces of the se¬
condary crystal, are not like those drawn from the interior
part; for this apparent diversity arises from these facets
being composed of a multitude of small planes, really in¬
clined to each other, but which being very minute, pre¬
sent the appearance of one plane. And if the division
could reach its utmost bounds, these fragments would be
resolved into molecules similar to each other, and to those
situated towards the centre. It happens, too, that mole¬
cules of different figures arrange themselves in such a
manner as to produce similar polybedra in different kinds
of minerals. Thus the dodecahedron with rhombuses for
its planes, which is obtained by combining cubic mole¬
cules, exists in granite, with a structure composed of small
tetrahedra, having isosceles triangular faces. It exists also
in sparry fluor, where there is also an assemblage of te¬
trahedra, but regular, that is to say, the faces of which
are equilateral triangles.
We now proceed to give examples of compound second¬
ary forms.
Prismatic Calcareous Spar (fig. 1).
Ihe bases of this prism are produced in consequence of
a decrement, by a single row on the angles of the summits
baf> gafi bag, dex, dec, cex (fig 4), of the primitive form.
Ihe six planes result from a decrement by two rows on
the angles bdf,fxg, beg, dfx, dbc, cgx, opposite to the pre¬
ceding. Let abdf (fig. 50) be the same face of the nu¬
cleus as fig. 4. The decreasing edges situated towards
the angle of the summit a will successively correspond
with the lines hi, kl, &c. and those which look towards
the inferior angle d, will have the positions pointed out
by mn, op; but as the first decrement takes place by one
row, it is proved that the face which results from it is
perpendicular to the axis; and calculation shows, in like
manner, that the second decrement taking place by two
rows produces planes parallel to the axis, and thus the
secondary solid is a regular hexahedral prism.
To develope further the structure of this prism, it may
be remarked, that in the production of any one, abenih
(fig. 1), of the two bases, the effect of one only of the three
decrements which take place around the solid angle a (fig.
4) may be considered, for example, of that which takes
place on the angle baf, supposing that the lamince applied
on the twm other faces fagx, bage, do not decrease, but to
assist the result of the principal decrement which takes
place in regard to the angle baf. Here these auxiliary
decrements are quite similar to that whose effect they
are supposed to prolong.
Ihe case will be totally different, by applying the same
observation to the decrements which are affected by two
rows on the inferior angles dbf dfx,fxg, &c. and which
produce the six planes of the prism. If, for example, we
consider the effect of the decrement on the angle dfx, it
is necessary also that the laminae applied on the faces
afdb, afxg (fig. 4), should experience towards their la¬
teral angles afd, afx, adjacent to the angle dfx, variations
which second the effect of the generating decrement.
Here, however, these variations are intermediary decre¬
ments by rows of double molecules.
CRYSTALLIZATION.
Structure Amphitrigonous Iron Ore. Fig. 51 shows this crystal in
otcrystals. a horizontal projection, and fig. 52 in perspective.
559
the isosceles triangle PLR, L = 48a IF 20’', P or R Structure
— 65° 54' 20". of Crystals.
Geometric Character.—Respective inclination of the trian¬
gles gen, ged, &c. from the same summit, 146° 26' 33"-
of the lateral triangles hgu, hgq, to the adjacent penta¬
gons, such as gutmn, 154° 45' 39".
This is the common form of the iron ore of the island
of Elba. It lesults from a decrement by two rows on the
angles c, n (fig. 46), to the summits of a cubic nucleus,
which produces the isosceles triangles gen, ged, ned (fig.
51 and 52), and of a second decrement by three rows on
the lateral angles chq, crp, ers, &c. which produce the tri¬
angles mnr, rnk, ugh, ggb, &c. These two decrements
stop at a certain term, so that there remain faces paral¬
lel to those of the nucleus, viz. the pentagons gutmn, hdnhl,
&c. (fig. 50). The first decrement is similar to that which
produces the rhomboidal iron ore. The second has this
property, that if its effects were complete, it would give a
dodecahedron of isosceles triangles, or composed of two
right pyramids united at their bases. The triangles of the
summits are frequently furrowed by striae parallel to the
bases gw, dn, gd, of these triangles, and which point out
the direction of the decrement.
Analogical Calcareous Spar (Ha'uy), fig. 53.
Geometric Character.—Inclination of any one, imeh, of the
trapezoids of the summits to the corresponding vertical
trapezoid ecpg, 116° 33'54"; angles of the same trape¬
zoid i = 114° 18' 56"; e = 75° 3F 20"; m or h = 85°
4' 52". Angles of the trapezoid ehog, e = 90° ; o ~ 127°
25' 53"; g = 67° 47' 44"; h = 74° 46' 23"; of the tra¬
pezoid cegp, e = 60°; p = 98° 12' 46"; c or q = 100°
53' 37".
Geometric Properties.—1. In each vertical trapezoid, the
triangle ceg is equilateral. 2. The height ex of this triangle
is double the height px of the opposite triangle cpg. 3. In
the trapezoid ehog, and the other similarly situated, the
angle heg is a right angle. 4. If the diagonal gh be drawn,
the triangle heg will be similar to any one aof (fig. 4) of
those which would be produced by drawing in the primi¬
tive rhombus the two diagonals hf, ad. 5. If in the tra¬
pezoid emih, or any other situated at the summits, the
diagonals ei, mh be drawn, the height el of the inferior tri¬
angle meh will be double the height il of the superior tri¬
angle mih. 6. The triangle mih is similar to half of the
rhombus of every obtuse spar divided by the horizontal
diagonal, and the triangle meh is similar to half of the
rhombus of the acute spar divided in the same manner.
The numerous analogies connecting this variety with
different crystalline forms, whether considering certain
angles formed by planes, or certain triangles obtained by
drawing the diagonals of the trapezoids, led the author of
this theory to give it the name of analogical spar. It is
derived from three other varieties, viz. very obtuse spar,
by the trapezoids emih, fiht, &c.; metastatic spar, by the
trapezoids cmdc, ehog, ohtz, &c.; and the prismatic spar,
by the trapezoids back, cegp, &c. which are consequently
parallel to the axis. The trapezoids imeh, fiht, &c. are
often separated by an intermediary ridge from the verti¬
cal trapezoids cegp, gozr, &c. In that case the trapezoids
edme, geho, &c. are changed into pentagons.
Icosahedral Sulphuret of Iron (fig. 55).
Geometric Character.—Respective inclinations of the isos¬
celes triangles PER, PSR, 126° 52' 11"; of any one
PNL of the equilateral triangles to each adjacent isos¬
celes triangle, PLR, or LNK, 140° 46/ 17". Angles of
This variety is the result of a combination of the law
which produces the octahedron originating from a cube
(fig. 42), with that which takes place for the dodecahe¬
dron with pentagonal planes (fig. 19 and 20). The first
law produces the eight equilateral triangles which corre¬
spond with the solid angles of the nucleus ; and the second
produces twelve isosceles triangles, situated two and two
above the six faces of the same nucleus. If a dodecahe¬
dron similar to that of fig. 20 were converted geometri¬
cally into this icosahedron, it would be sufficient to make
the planes of eight sections pass through it in the follow¬
ing manner; viz. one through the angles P, N, L (fig.
19), another through the angles P, M, S, a third through
the angles L, R, U, &c. By comparing the figures 19 and
55, the relation between the polyhedra will be seen by the
correspondence of the letters; but this is merely an arti¬
ficial operation; for it may be observed, that the nucleus
of the icosahedra which would be obtained, would be
much smaller than that of the dodecahedron, since the
solid angles of the latter nucleus would be confounded
with the angles D, C, G, &c. (fig. 20), of the dodecahe¬
dron; but the other nucleus would have its solid angles
situated in the middle of the equilateral triangles MPS,
NPL, URL (fig. 55).
The icosahedron of the sulphuret of iron, which is not
very common, has been confounded with the regular geo¬
metrical icosahedron, which has all its angles equilateral.
Iheory shows that the existence of the latter icosahedron
is equally impossible in mineralogy as the geometrical do¬
decahedron. Among the five regular polyhedra of geo¬
metry, viz. the cube, the tetrahedron, the octahedron, the
dodecahedron, and the icosahedron, the three former can
only exist among minerals according to the laws of crys¬
tallization.
Polynomous Petunze (Hauy), fig. 56.
Geometric Character.—Respective inclination of the nar¬
row planes, onkm, cfhg, to the adjacent planes on each
side, 150°; of the planes c^F^, PomN to those contigu¬
ous to them by the edges *F, PN, 120°; of the hepta¬
gon pGcldez to the enneagon RzebnoVrs, 99° 41' 8"; of
the trapezium dafe, both to the plane nbafhilk, and to
the heptagon pGtcdez, 135° ; of the facet deab, or ABz»,
to the same pentagon, 124° 15' 15".
Hauy had not observed the petunze crystallized under
its primitive form. This form, such as it is given by the
mechanical division of secondary crystals, is that of an
oblique prism of four planes (fig. 58), two of which, such
as GOAD, RBHN, are perpendicular to the bases ADNH,
OGRB; the other two, viz. BOAH, RGDN, make with
the former, angles of 120° at the ridge OA, RN, and
angles of 60° towards the opposite ridges BH, GD. These
planes are inclined to the bases at that place of the ridges
GO, BR, 111° 29' 43", and at the opposite ridges 68° 30'
17". This form is at the same time that of the molecule.
By theory, the two parallelograms GOAD, OGRB, as well
as their parallels, are equal in extent; and the parallelo¬
gram BOAH, or its opposite, RGDN, is double each of
the preceding, d his may serve to explain the roughness
of the sections made in the direction BOAH, when com¬
pared with those in the directions of the small parallelo¬
grams, the latter being always smooth and brilliant. If,
however, the diagonal OR be drawn, it will be found per¬
pendicular to OA and RN; or it will be situated horizon¬
tally, by supposing that the ridges OA, BH have a ver¬
tical position.
This mineral exhibits the most complicated variety
560
CRYSTALLIZATION.
Structure which the author has observed among this kind of crys-
ofCrystals. tais> To comprehend its structure, suppose that bpyr
(fig- 57) represents a section of the nucleus AR (fig. 58),
made by a plane perpendicular to the parallelograms
GOAD, BO AH, and subdivided into a multitude of small
parallelograms, which are the analogous sections of so
many molecules. Here the side yr (fig. 57), which is
the same section of the cutting plane as GOAD, is greater
than it ought to be in regard to the side cr (fig. 57), which
is the same section as BOAH (fig. 58). But these di¬
mensions are suited to those of the secondary crystal, and
here occasion no difficulty, because it may be supposed
that the primitive form has been extended more in one
direction than in another; for this form is to be consider¬
ed only as a convenient datum for the explanation of the
structure, and the crystal consists merely in an assem¬
blage of similar molecules; so that it is the dimensions of
these molecules which remain invariable.
By comparing fig. 56 and 57 it will be found, 1. That
the plane fabnklih (fig. 56), and its opposite, which corre¬
spond to mn, dg (fig. 57), are parallel to two planes of
the nucleus, viz. GOAD, BRNH (fig. 58), and therefore
do not result from any law of decrement; 2. that the
plane PowN, and its opposite (fig. 56), which correspond
to ao, eg (fig. 57), are also parallel to two of the planes of
the nucleus, viz. BOAH, RGDN (fig. 58); 3. that the
plane onkm, and its opposite (fig. 56), which correspond
to on, eg (fig. 57), result from a decrement by two rows
parallel to the ridges AO, NR (fig. 58) ; 4. that the plane
cfgh, and its opposite (fig. 56), result from a decrement
by four rows parallel to the ridges GD, BH (fig. 58),
which decrement takes place on the other side of these
ridges. From this it may be seen that decrements differ¬
ent in their measure give rise to planes similarly situated,
such as onkm and cfgh (fig. 56), which is a consequence
of the particular figure of the molecules. With regard to
the faces of the summit, the heptagon pGtcdez (fig. 56) is
situated parallel to the base BRGO (fig. 58). The en-
neagon TSsrVonbez (fig. 56) is produced in consequence of
a decrement by one row on the angle OBR (fig. 58), or
parallel to the diagonal OR; which decrement does not
attain to its full extent, and leaves subsisting the neigh¬
bouring heptagon parallel to the base BRGO. It may be
conceived, from what has been said on the position of the
diagonal OR, why the line ez (fig. 56), which separates
the two large faces of the summit, is situated horizontally,
by supposing that the planes have a vertical position.
The trapeziums dafc, AjoGC, are the result of a decre¬
ment by one row on the ridges GO, BR (fig. 58). The
facet deba (fig. 56) arises from a decrement by two rows
parallel to the ridge BO (fig. 58). With regard to the
other facet ABz/>, which has the same position as the pre¬
ceding, in relation to the opposite part of the crystal, it
results from an intermediary law, by a row of double
molecules on the angle OBR (fig. 58). The rhombuses
bclh, klsu (fig. 59) represent the horizontal sections of
two of these double molecules taken in the same row, and
whose relation to the rest of the arrangement will become
sensible by comparing these rhombuses with those marked
with the same letters in fig. 57. This variety of crystals
is subject to a change of dimensions; the faces pGtcdez,
fabnklih, and their opposites, which are at right angles to
each other, are elongated in the direction of their breadth,
exhibiting the appearance of a quadrilateral, rectangular
prism, the summits of which would be formed by the faces
situated towards the ridges PN, FA Crystals of this va¬
riety, which are opaque, and of a whitish, yellowish, and
sometimes reddish colour, are found in granites; some are
in groups, and some, but more rarely, are met with in
single crystals.
in. number of primitive forms. Structure
of Crystals.
In the examples which have been given, the author of
the theory has chosen the parallelepiped for a nucleus, on
account of the simplicity of its form. He has hitherto
found that all the primitive forms may be reduced to six.
1. The parallelepiped in general, which comprehends the
cube, the rhomboid, and all the solids terminated by six
faces parallel two and two; 2. the regular tetrahedron;
3. the octahedron with triangular faces; 4. the hexago¬
nal prism ; 5. the dodecahedron with rhomboidal planes ;
6. the dodecahedron with isosceles triangular faces.
Among these forms there are some found as nucleus,
which have the measure of their angles the same in dif¬
ferent kinds of minerals. It is to be considered that these
nuclei are composed, in the first instance, of elementary
molecules, and that it is possible that the same form of nu¬
cleus may be produced in one species by elements of a
certain nature, and in another species by different ele¬
ments combined in a different manner, as we see integrant
molecules, some cubic and some tetrahedral, produce si¬
milar secondary forms by the operation of different laws
of decrement. But it may be observed that all the forms
which have hitherto occurred as nuclei on the different
species, are such as have a particular character of perfec¬
tion and regularity, as the cube, the regular octahedron,
and the dodecahedron with equal and similar rhombuses
for its faces.
IV. FORMS OF THE INTEGRAL MOLECULES.
The primitive form is that which is obtained by sec¬
tions made on all the similar parts of the secondary crys¬
tals ; and these sections, continued parallel to themselves,
conduct to a determination of the form of the integral
molecules, of which the whole crystal is the assemblage.
There is no crystal from which a nucleus in the form of a
parallelepiped may not be extracted, by making the limi¬
tation to six selections, parallel two and two. In a great
number of substances, this parallelepiped is the last term
of the mechanical division, and consequently the real nu¬
cleus ; but in some minerals this parallelepiped is divisible,
as well as the rest of the crystal, by further sections made
in the different directions of the faces, from which results
a new solid, which will be the nucleus, if all the parts of
the secondary crystal superadded to this nucleus are si¬
milarly situated. When the mechanical division conducts
to a parallelepiped, divisible only by sections parallel to
its six faces, the molecules are parallelepipeds similar to
the nucleus; but in all other cases their form differs from
that of the nucleus. This may be illustrated by an example.
Let achsno (fig. 60) be a cube, having two of its solid
angles a, s situated on the same vertical line; this line
will be the axis of the cube, and the points a and s will
be its summits. Let it be supposed that this cube is di¬
visible by sections, each of which, such as ahn, passes
through one of the summits a, and by two oblique diago¬
nals ah, an, contiguous to the summit. By this section
the solid angle i will be detached; and as there are six
solid angles, situated laterally, viz. i, h, c, r, o, n, the six
sections will produce an acute rhomboid, the summits of
which will be confounded with those of the cube. At fig.
61 this rhomboid is represented as existing in the cube in
such a manner that its six lateral solid angles b, d,f p, g, e,
correspond with the middle of the faces achi, ersh, him,
&c. of the cube; but each of the angles at the summits
bag, dsf psf, &c. of the acute rhomboid, are = 60°, from
which it follows that the lateral angles abf, agf &c. are
= 120°. Besides, it is proved by theory that the cube is
the result of a decrement which takes place by a single
CRYSTALLIZATION.
Structure row of small rhomboids, similar to the acute rhomboid on
of'Crystals. the six oblique ridges ab, ag, ae, sd, sf, sp. This decre-
ment produces two faces, one on each side of each of
these ridges, making in the whole twelve faces, but as
the two faces having the same line of ridge for their de¬
parture are on the same plane, by the nature of the de¬
crement the twelve faces will be reduced to six, which are
squares, so that the secondary solid is a cube.
Suppose that the cube (fig. 60) admits, in regard to its
summits a, s, two new divisions similar to the preceding
six, one of which passes through the points c, i, o, and the
other through the points h, n, r. The first will also pass
through the points b, g, e, and the second through the
points d,f,p (fig. 61 and 62) of the rhomboid ; from which
it follows that these two divisions will each detach a re¬
gular tetrahedron bage, or dsfp (fig. 62) ; so that the rhom¬
boid will be found converted into a regular octahedron e/-
(fig. 63), which will be the real nucleus of the cube; for
it is produced by divisions similarly made in relation to
the eight solid angles of the cube. If we suppose the same
cube to be divisible throughout its whole extent by ana¬
logous sections, it is clear that each of the small rhom¬
boids, of which it is the assemblage, will be found in like
manner subdivided into an octahedron, and two regular
tetrahedrons, applied on the two opposite faces of the oc¬
tahedron. By taking the octahedron for a nucleus, a cube
may be constructed round it, by regular subtractions of
small complete rhomboids. If, for example, we suppose
decrements, by a single row of these rhomboids, having b
for the point of their departure, and made in a direction
parallel to the inferior edges gf, eg, de, df, of the four tri¬
angles which unite to form the solid angle b, there will
result four faces, which will be found on a level, and, like
the octahedron with six solid angles, similar decrements
around the other five angles will produce twenty faces,
which taken four and four will be equally on a level, mak¬
ing in the whole six distinct faces, situated as those of
the cube (fig. 60). The result will be exactly the same
as in the case of the rhomboid, considered as nucleus.
In whatever way we proceed to subdivide, either the
cube, the rhombus, or the octahedron, we shall always
have solids of two forms, that is to say, octahedrons and
tetrahedrons, without being able to reduce the result of
the division to unity. But the molecules of a crystal
being similar, Haiiy thinks it probable that the structure
was as it were interspersed with a multitude of small va¬
cuities, occupied either with the water of crystallization,
or some other substance; so that, if it were possible to
carry the division to its limits, one of those two kinds of
solids would disappear, and the whole crystal would be
found composed only of molecules of the other form.
This view is the more admissible, as each octahedron
being enveloped with eight tetrahedrons, and each tetra¬
hedron being in like manner enveloped with four octahe¬
drons, whichever of these forms may be supposed to be
suppressed, the remaining solids will join exactly by their
edges ; so that in this respect there will be continuity and
uniformity throughout the whole extent of the mass. It
may be readily conceived how each octahedron is enve¬
loped with tetrahedrons. By attending to the division of
the cube only by the six sections which give the rhom¬
boid, we may depart at pleasure from any two, a, s ; o, h ;
c, n; i, r, of the eight solid angles, provided that these
two angles be opposite to each other. But by departing
from the angles a, s, the rhomboid will be in the position
shown at fig. 62. If, on the contrary, we depart from the
solid angles o, h, these angles will become the summits of
a new rhomboid (fig. 64), composed of the same octahe¬
dron as that of fig. 63, with two new tetrahedrons applied
on the faces bdf, egp (fig. 64), which were unoccupied on
VOL. VIL
561
the rhomboid of fig. 60. Fig. 65 represents the case in Structure
which the two tetrahedrons repose on the faces dbe,fgp of Crystals,
of the octahedron ; and fig. 56 represents the case in which
they would rest on the faces bfg, dep. Hence, whatever
may be the two solid angles of the cube assumed for the
points of departure, we shall always have the same octa¬
hedron, with two tetrahedrons contiguous by their sum¬
mits to these two solid angles ; and there being eight of
these solid angles, the central octahedron will be circum¬
scribed with eight tetrahedrons, which will rest upon its
faces. By continuing the division always parallel to the
first sections, the same effect will always take place.
Each face of the octahedron, however small it may be
supposed to be, adheres to a face of the tetrahedron, and
reciprocally; and each tetrahedron is enveloped with four
octahedrons.
The structure which is here explained is that of fluate
of lime, or fluor spar. By dividing a cube of this sub¬
stance, we may at pleasure extract rhomboids which have
the angles formed by their planes equal to 120°, or regu¬
lar octahedrons, or tetrahedrons equally regular. In some
other substances, as rock crystal, carbonate of lead, &c.
which being mechanically divided beyond the term at
which we should have a rhomboid or a parallelopiped,
parts of various different forms are obtained, and arranged
together even in a more complicated manner than in fluor
spar. In consequence of these mixed structures, there is
some uncertainty respecting the real figure of the integral
molecules which belong to these substances. It is ob¬
served, however, that the tetrahedron is always one of
those solids which concur in the formation of small rhom¬
boids or parallelepipeds that would be extracted from the
crystal by a first division. But, on the other hand, there
are substances which, being divided in every possible di¬
rection, resolve themselves only into tetrahedrons. Gar¬
net, blendes, and tourmaline, belong to this number.
Several minerals are divisible into right triangular prisms.
Such is the apatite, the primitive form of which is a regu¬
lar right hexahedral prism, divisible parallel to its bases
and its planes, from which necessarily result right prisms
with three planes. Fig. 67 represents one of the bases of
the hexahedral prism, divided into small equilateral tri¬
angles, which are the bases of so man}!' molecules, and
which being taken two and two, form quadrilateral prisms,
with rhombuses for their bases.
By adopting then the tetrahedron, in the doubtful cases
already mentioned, all the forms of integral molecules
may in general be reduced to three, which are remarkable
for their simplicity, viz. the parallelopiped, the simplest of
all the solids, having parallel faces two and two; the tri¬
angular prism, the simplest of all prisms; and the tetra¬
hedron, which is the simplest of pyramids. This simpli¬
city may furnish a reason for the preference given to the
tetrahedron in fluor spar, and the other substances which
have been mentioned as examples. But the ingenious
author of the theory cautiously declines to speak decisive¬
ly on the subject, as the want of direct and precise obser¬
vations, he observes, leaves to theory only conjectures and
probabilities.
But the essential object is, that the different forms to
which these mixed structures lead are arranged in such
a manner that their assemblage is equivalent to a sum of
small parallelopipeds, as has been seen to be the case in
regard to fluor spar ; and that the lamime of superposition
applied on the nucleus decrease by subtractions of one or
more rows of these parallelopipeds. The basis of the
theory exists, therefore, independently of the choice which
might be made of any of the forms obtained by the me¬
chanical division.
W ith the help of this result, the decrements to which
4 B
562
CRYSTALLIZATION.
Structure crystals are subject, whatever be their primitive forms,
ofCrystals. are found reducible to those which take place in sub-
stances where this form, as well as that of the molecules,
are indivisible parallelepipeds; and the theory has this
advantage of being able to generalise its object, by con¬
necting with one fact that multitude of tacts which, on^
account of their diversity, seem to be little susceptible of
being brought to one common point. But what has been
said will be still more illustrated by examples of the man¬
ner in which we may reduce to the theory of the paral¬
lelepiped, that of the forms which are different from that
solid.
Crystals whose Molecules are Tetrahedrons, with Isosceles
Triangular Faces.
GARNET.
1. Primitive Garnet (fig. 68).
Geometric Character.—Respective inclinations of any two
of the faces of the dodecahedron, 120°. Angles of the
rhombus CLGH, C or G = 109° 28' 16"; L or H = 78°
SB 44".
Notwithstanding the vitreous appearance in general ex¬
hibited on the fractures of garnets of the primitive form,
laminae may be perceived on them, situated parallel to the
rhombuses which compose their surface. Let us suppose
the dodecahedron divided in the direction of its laminae,
and, for the greater simplicity, let us suppose the sections
to pass through the centre. One of these sections, viz.
that which will be parallel to the two rhombuses DLFN,
BHOR, will concur with a hexagon, which would pass
through the points E, C, G, P, I, A, by making the tour
of the crystal. A second section parallel to the two rhom¬
buses GLPF, BEAR, will coincide with another hexagon
shown by the points D, C, H, O, I, N. And if the divi¬
sion be continued parallel to the other eight rhombuses,
taken two and two, it will be found that the planes of the
sections will be confounded with four new hexagons ana¬
logous to the preceding. But by resuming all these hexa¬
gons, it will appear that their sides correspond, some of
them with the small diagonals of the rhombuses of the
dodecahedron, viz. those which would be drawn from C
to G, from A to I, from C to B, &c. and others would cor¬
respond with the different ridges EC, GP, PI, EA, &c.
1. The planes then of the sections passing through the
sides and through the small diagonals of the twelve rhom¬
buses, will subdivide the whole surface into twenty-four
isosceles triangles, which will be the halves of these rhom¬
buses. 2. Since the planes of the sections pass also
through the centre of the crystal, they will detach twen¬
ty-four pyramids with three faces ; the bases of which, if
we choose, will be the external triangles that make part
of the surface of the dodecahedron, and of which the sum¬
mits will be united in the centre.
Besides, if we take, for example, the six tetrahedrons,
which have for external faces the halves of the three
rhombuses CEDE, CLGH, CEBH, these six tetrahedrons
will form a rhomboid, represented by fig. 77, and in which
the three inferior rhombuses DLGS, GFIBS, DEBS, re¬
sult from three divisions, which pass, one through the
hexagon DLGORA (fig. 68), the second through the
hexagon GHBANF, and the third through the hexagon
BEDbPO. Fig. 69 also represents the two tetrahedrons,
the bases of which make part of the rhombus CLGH.
One of these is marked with the letters L, C, G, S, and
the other with the letters H, C, G, S. And by apply¬
ing what has been said to the other nine rhombuses,
which are united, three and three, around the points F,
A, H (fig. 69), we shall have three new rhomboids ; from
which it follows, that the twenty-four tetrahedrons, con- Structure
sidered six and six, form four rhomboids ; so that the do-ofCrystals.
decahedron may be conceived as being itself immediately
composed of these four rhomboids, and in the last analysis
of twenty-four tetrahedrons.
It may be observed, that the dodecahedron having eight
solid angles, each formed with three planes, they might
have been considered as the assemblage of the four rhom¬
boids, which would have for exterior summits the four
angles G, B, D, A ; from which it follows, that any one of
the faces, such as CLGO, is common to two rhomboids,
one of which would have its summit in C, and the other
in G, and which would themselves have a common part in
the interior of the crystal.
We may remark further, that a line GS (fig. 69) drawn
from any one G (fig. 68) of the solid angles composed of
three planes, as far as the centre of the dodecahedron, is
at the same time the axis of the rhomboid, which would
have its summit in C (fig. 66 and 68). The composing
rhomboids then have this property, that their axis is equal
to the sides of the rhombus. From which, with a little
attention, we may conclude, that in each tetrahedron,
such as CLGS (fig. 69), all the faces are equal and similar
isosceles triangles.
If the division of the dodecahedron be continued by
sections passing between those which we have supposed
to be directed towards the centre, and which should be
parallel to them, we should obtain tetrahedrons always
smaller, and arranged in such a manner that, taking them
in groups of six, they would form rhomboids of a bulk pro¬
portioned to their own.
The tetrahedrons, which would be tbe term of the di¬
vision, were it possible to reach it, ought to be considered
as the real molecules of the garnet. But it will be seen,
that in the passage to the secondary forms, the laminae of
superposition which envelope the nucleus really decrease
by rows of small rhomboids, each of which is the assem¬
blage of these tetrahedrons.
The sulphuret of zinc, or blende, has the same struc¬
ture as the garnet. Haiiy informs us that he has divided
fragments of tl«s substance by very clean sections, in such
a manner as to obtain successively the dodecahedron, the
rhomboid, and the tetrahedron.
2. Trapezoidal Garnet (fig. 70).
Geometric Character.—Respective inclination of the trape¬
zoids, united three and three around the same solid
angle D, C, G, &c. 131° 48' 33"; of the trapezoids unit¬
ed four and four around the same solid angle u, x, r,
&c. 131° 48' 36". Angles of any one of the trapezoids
mbu L, L rz 78° 27' 46"; D =: 117° 2' 8"; m or u = 82°
15' 3". The value of the angle L is the same as that of
the acute angle of the nucleus of calcareous spar.
This variety is the result of a series of laminae, decreas¬
ing at the four edges, on all the faces of the primitive do¬
decahedron. For the more simplicity, let us first consider
the effect of this decrement in regard to the rhombus
CLGH (fig. 68). We have just seen that this rhombus
was supposed to belong in common to two rhomboids,
which should have for summits, one the point C, and the
other the point G. Let us suppose that the laminae ap¬
plied on this rhombus decrease towards their four edges
by subtractions of a single row of small rhomboids, in such
a manner that, in regard to the two edges CL, CH, cir¬
cumstances are the same as if the rhombus belonged to the
rhomboid which has its summit in C ; and that in regard
to the other two edges GL, GH, the effect is the same as
if the rhombus belonged to the rhomboid which has its
summit in G. This disposition is admissible here in con-
C R Y S T A L
Structure sequence of the particular structure of the dodecahedron,
on^u^h.h permits us to obtain small rhomboids, some of which
^ have their faces parallel to the faces of that with its sum¬
mit in C, and the rest to that having its summit in Gd
The Jesuits of the four decrements being thus quite
similar to each other, the laminae of superposition, applied
on the rhombus CLGH, and on each of the other rhom¬
buses of the dodecahedron, will form as many right quad-
rangulai pyramids, which will have for bases these same
rhombuses. Fig. 71 represents the pyramids which rest
on the three rhombuses CLDE, CEBH, CGHB (fig. 68),
and which have for summits the points m, e, s (fig. 68);
but on account of the decrement by a simple row, the
adjacent triangular faces, such as EmC, EsC of the two
pyramids that belong to the rhombuses CLDE, CEBH,
are on a level, and form a quadrilateral E;«Cs. But we
had twelve pyramids, and consequently forty-eight tri¬
angles. These divided by two give twenty-four quadri¬
laterals, which will compose the surface of the secondary
crystal. But because the rhomboidal bases of the two py¬
ramids extend more, in proceeding from L to E, or from
IT to E, than in proceeding from D to C, or from B to C,
the sides ?wE, Es of the quadrilateral will be longer than
the sides Cm, Cs. And besides, mE will be equal to Es,
and Cm equal to Cs. Ihus the quadrilaterals will be tra¬
pezoids which have their sides equal two and two. There
is no crystalline form in which the striag, when they do
exist, show in a more sensible manner the mechanism of
the stiucture than in this variety of garnet. ^Ve may here
see the series of decreasing rhombuses which form each
of the pyramids CEDE™, CEBHs, &c. (fig. 71), and some¬
times the furrows are so deep that they produce a kind of
stair, the steps of which have a more particular polish and
brilliancy than those of the facets, which are parallel to
the faces CEDE, CHBE of the nucleus.
If the decrements stop abruptly at a certain term, so
that the pyramids are not terminated, the twenty-four
trapezoids will be reduced to elongated hexagons, which
will intercept twelve rhombuses parallel to the faces of
the nucleus. To this variety Haiiy has given the name of
intermediary garnet.
In the sulphuret of zinc the regular octahedron is the
result of a decrement by a row around the eight solid
angles, composed of three planes, viz. C, B, O, G, F, D,
A, I (fig. 68). The same substance also assumes the form
of a regular tetrahedron, by the help of a decrement by
one low on four only of the eight solid angles before men¬
tioned, such as C, O, F, A. The structure of this tetra¬
hedron is remarkable, as it presents an assemblage of other
tetrahedrons with isosceles faces.
Crystals whose Molecules are Triangular Prisms.
Oriental.
Haiiy has thus denominated the gem which is known
under the different names of ruby, sapphire, oriental topaz,
according as the colour is red, blue, or yellow. The dif-
terent varieties of this gem have not been accurately de¬
scribed, and the nature of the particular angles of each
has not been precisely indicated, on account of the rare
occurrence of regularly formed crystals, or, when such
have been found, on account of their being defaced by
being water-worn, or otherwise injured. But from some
crystals which were sufficiently characterized, Haiiy ob¬
tained the following results:
LIZ ATI ON. 563
I. Primitive Oriental. Structure
This mineral crystallizes in the form of a regular hexa-°f Cryslals’
hedral prism, which is divisible parallel to its bases. Ac-
cording to theory, which points out other joinings parallel
to the planes, the molecule is an equilateral triangular
prism. The height of this prism, calculated by theory,
is a little less than three times the height of the triangle
of the base. "
2. Elongated Oriental (fig. 72).
Geometric C'/mmcifer.—Respective inclinations of the tri¬
angles IAS, IBS, 139° 54' Angles of the triangle IAS
A = 22° 54', I or S = 78° 47'.
This form is the result of a decrement by a simple row
of small quadrangular prisms on all the edges of the bases
° . t!1.e. llucleus. •^et Qd (fig- 6?) be the superior base,
subdivided into small triangles, which represent the ana¬
logous bases of so many molecules. The edges of the la¬
minae of superposition will correspond successively to the
hexagons hilmnr, ehuxyv, &c.; from which it follows that
the subtractions take place by rows of small parallelepi¬
peds of quadrangular prisms composed each of two trian¬
gular prisms.
3. Minor Oriental.
Geometric C%«rac7er.—Dodecahedron formed of two right
pyramids less elongated than those of the preceding
variety. The triangles corresponding to IAS, IBS are
inclined to each other 122° 36'. In each of these tri¬
angles the angle of the summit is 31°, and each of the
angles at the base is 74° 30'.
The law of which this variety is the result differs from
that which produces the preceding, as it determines a
mixed decrement by three rows in breadth and two rows
m height.
4. Enneagonal Oriental (fig. 73).
Geometric Character.—Inclination of each small triangle,
such as cqi, to the adjacent base aciplbged, 122° 18'.
This is the elongated oriental, whose summits are re¬
placed by two faces parallel to the bases of the nucleus,
with the addition of six small isosceles triangles cqi, Ihf,
vzm, &c. the three superior of which are alternate in po¬
sition with the three inferior. These triangles are the re¬
sult of a decrement, by three rows of small quadrangular
prisms on the three angles of the superior base of the nu¬
cleus, such &sb, d, g (fig. 67), and on the intermediate
angles of the inferior base. It may be readily conceived
that, in the decrement which takes place, for example,
on the angle g, the three rows which remain unoccupied
between that angle and the corresponding edge of the
first lamina of superposition are, 1. the small rhombus
goip, which alone forms the first row ; 2. the two rhombuses
osti, pzdi; 3. the three rhombuses situated on the same
line behind the two preceding.
Crystals of this gem are chiefly found in the kingdom
of Pegu. Some have been found in France, which have
received the name of sapphires of Puy. They have been
also found at a little distance from Velay, on the banks of
a rivulet near the village of Expailly, where they are
mixed with garnets and hyacinths. These have all the
characters of the stone which is denominated oriental
sapphire.
tat v,ew „ does „o, appear tha, this should he ,he caS, accordiu/," it Agu^’o'/thteS,1 ^1“
564 GTE
ctesias V. DIFFERENCE BETWEEN STRUCTURE AND INCREMENT.
Ctesiphon. In what has been said respecting the decrements to
which the laminae of superposition are subjected, the au¬
thor observes that it was his view only to unfold the laws
of structure; and he adds, that he is far from believing
that in the formation of a dodecahedral crystal, or one of
any other form, having a cube for a nucleus, the crystal¬
lization has originally produced that nucleus such as it is
extracted from the dodecahedron, by the successive ap¬
plication of all the laminae of superposition with which it
is covered. It seems proved, on the contrary, that from
the first moment the crystal is already a very small dode¬
cahedron, containing a cubical nucleus proportioned to its
small size, and that the crystal afterwards increases by de¬
grees without changing its form, by new layers which en¬
velope it on all sides, so that the nucleus increases also,
preserving always the same relation with the whole dode¬
cahedron.
An example taken from a plane figure will make this
more striking; and what is said respecting this figure may
be easily applied to a solid, since a plane figure may be
always conceived as a section of a solid. Let ERFN
(fig. 74) be an arrangement of small squares, in which
the square ABCD, composed of forty-nine partial squares,
represents a section of the nucleus, and the extreme
squares R, S, G, A, I, L, &c. that of the kind of stair
formed by the laminae of superposition. It maybe readi¬
ly conceived that the arrangement began with the square
ABCD, and that different files of small squares were after¬
wards applied on each of the sides of the central square;
for example, on the side AB, first the five squares com¬
prehended between I and M, next the three squares com¬
prehended between L and O, and then the square E. This
increment corresponds with that which would take place if
the dodecahedron began by being a cube proportioned to
its bulk, and which increased afterwards with the addition
of continually decreasing laminae.
CUB
But, on the other hand, the arrangement may be con- ctesiphon
ceived to be such as is represented in fig. 76, in which ||
the square abed is composed of only nine molecules, and Cuba,
bears upon each of its sides only one square e, n,f or r ;
and that afterwards, by means of the application of new
squares arranged round the former, the assortment has
become that of fig. 75, where the central square ar b'd d!
is formed of twenty-five small squares, and bears on each
side of its sides a file of three squares plus a terminating
square d nr f', or r'; and that, in short, ny a farther appli¬
cation, the assortment of fig. 75 is converted into that of
fig. 74. These different transitions will give some notion
of the manner in which secondary crystals may increase
in bulk, and yet retain their form ; and from this it will
appear that the structure is combined with that augmen¬
tation of bulk, so that the law according to which all the
laminae applied in the nucleus of the crystal, when arrived
at its greatest dimensions, successively decrease in depart¬
ing from this nucleus, existed already in the rising crys¬
tal.
Such is the ingenious theory of the structure of crys¬
tals, which, the author observes, is in this similar to other
theories, that it sets out from a principal fact, on which it
makes all facts of the same kind to depend, and which are
only as it were corollaries. This fact is the decrement of
the laminae superadded to the primitive form ; and it is by
bringing back this decrement to simple and regular laws,
susceptible of accurate calculation, that theory arrives at
results, the truth of which is proved by the mechanical
division of crystals, and by observation of their angles.
We have now laid before our readers a complete account
of the atomic crystallographic system of Haiiy. Since the
publication of the beautiful views of that great observer,
other systems have appeared, such as those of Weiss, Mohs,
Naumann, and Brookes, which have been adopted in
various systems of mineralogy, and are conceived by some
to facilitate the description of mineral species.
CTESIAS, a Greek physician and historian, who flou¬
rished in the fifth century B.c. He was born of an Asclepiad
family at Cnidus in Caria, and was in the early part of his
life private physician to Artaxerxes Mnemon. According
to Diodorus, he rose to this appointment after having been
taken prisoner at the battle of Cunaxa; but it is more pro¬
bable that he was attracted to Persia by the liberal en¬
couragement there given to professors of the medical art.
Ctesias was the author of several historical works, includ¬
ing a history of Persia and of India, a treatise on rivers,
another treatise on the Persian revenues, and probably also
of a work on medicine.
CTESIBIUS, an Alexandrian mathematician, who
flourished about 250 b.c. He is famous as the inventor of
several ingenious hydraulic machines, including a clepsydra,
a water-organ, and a particular kind of force-pump. He is
also said to have written several mathematical treatises,
which are however now lost. See Hydrodynamics.
CTESIPHON, in Ancient Geography, a. large city in
the south of Assyria, on the left bank of the Tigris, said to
have been founded by a Parthian, Varanes by name, but of
whose history nothing is now known. Ctesiphon first rose
into importance when the adjoining city of Seleucia began
to decay; and on account of its mild and agreeable climate
was selected by the Parthian kings as a winter residence,
while they spent their summers at Ecbatana. On the fall
of the Parthian empire, Ctesiphon began to decline, but on
the re-establishment of Persia, under the Sassanidee, it once
more rose into importance. At the time when it fell into the
hands of the Roman emperor Severus, its population must
have been very great, as from it alone 100,000 prisoners
were carried off. Under the Eastern empire Ctesiphon
was a strongly fortified place. The time and manner of its
destruction are unknown. Remains of the city have been
recently discovered at a place called by the Arabs Al
Maidan.
Ctesiphon, or more properly Chersiphron, a Cretan
artist who furnished designs for the great temple of Diana
at Ephesus, and invented a machine for transporting the
columns of that famous structure. He flourished about
560 B.c.
CUB, the young of certain quadrupeds, as of the bear and
the fox ; a whelp.
CUBA, the largest and richest of the West India islands,
and the most important colony of Spain, was discovered by
Columbus on 28th Oct. 1492, during his first voyage. It
was first called Juana in honour of Prince John, son of
Ferdinand and Isabella ; but after Ferdinand’s death it re¬
ceived the name of Fernandina. It was subsequently de¬
signated Santiago, from the patron saint of Spain ; and
still later Ave Maria, in honour of the Virgin. Its present
name is that by which it was known among the natives at
the time of its discovery. It was then divided into nine in¬
dependent principalities, under as many caciques. The abo¬
rigines are described as living in a state of happy tranquillity
among themselves, and possessing a religion devoid of rites
and ceremonies, but inculcating a belief in the existence of
a great and beneficent Being, and the immortality of the
Cuba. soul. Cuba was twice visited by Columbus after its dis- of the peninsula of Yucatan. Cuba lies between 74 and
^ ' covery—in April 1494 and again in 1502. In 1511 his son 85. W. Long.; and 19. and 23. N. Lat. Its length, fol’low-
Diego Columbus, for the purpose of colonizing the island, ing a curved line through its centre, is 790 miles and its
fitted out an expedition, consisting of above 300 men, under greatest breadth (from Cape Maternillos to Mota Cove) is
Diego Velasquez, who had accompanied his father on his 107 miles. The area is estimated at 31,468 square miles
second voyage. 1 heir first settlement was Baracoa, and in or, including the other small islands attached to it, 32,807
lol4 they founded Santiago and .Trinidad. In July 1515 square miles. The coast of Cuba is generally low and flat,
was planted a town called San Cristoval de la Havana, and is surrounded by numerous islands and reefs, which
which name was transferred in 1519 to the present capital, render the approach both difficult and dangerous to those
the first named place being now called Batabano. In 1538 not acquainted with the proper channels. The low nature
Havana was reduced to ashes by a French privateer ; and of the coast subjects it to frequent floods and inundations ;
to prevent a similai disaster in future the Castillo de la and especially on the north side of the island there are
l uerza, a fortress which still exists, was built by Hernando many large lagunes from which a considerable quantity of
de Soto, Governor of Cuba, and afterwards famous for his salt is obtained. No island, however, in proportion to its
explorations in the southern and western^ regions of the size, has a greater number of excellent harbours, many of
United States, as well as for the discovery of the Mississippi, them accessible even to ships of the line. A range of
In loo4 the french again attacked and destroyed Havana, mountains extends from one end of the island to the other,
Hie early settlers devoted themselves principally to the dividing it into two unequal portions, of w hich the northern
rearing of cattle ; but about 1580 the cultivation of tobacco is generally the narrower. The highest are those at the
and the sugar-cane was commenced, and this led to the in- S.E. extremity of the island, to the N.W. of Santiago de
troduction of the system of negro slavery. Previous to Cuba, and have, according to Humboldt, an elevation of
1600 two other fortresses, were built for the defence of 1200 toises, or 7673 English feet. This Cordillera is one
liavaha the Moro, and the Punta, which are still in exis- great calcareous mass, resting on a schistose formation. The
tence. For about a century and a half after this period summits are for the most part rocky and naked, occasionally
the island was kept in a state of almost perpetual fear of interrupted by more gentle undulations. The central and
invasion from the French, English, Dutch, or the pirates western parts of the island contain two formations of com-
infestmg these seas; and several ineffectual efforts were made pact limestone, one of clayey sandstone, and another of
to reduce it. About 1665 the walls of Havana were com- gypsum. The limestone formations abound in caverns. The
menced. In 1762 Havana was taken by an English fleet secondary formations, east of Havana, are pierced by syenitic
and army under Lotd Albemarle, the former consisting of and euphotide rocks united in groups. The syenite strata
more than 200 vessels of all classes, and the latter of 14,041 are intercolated with serpentine, and inclined to the N.W.
men, while the Spanish army numbered 27,610 men. Ihe In some places petroleum runs out of rents in the serpen-
defence was exceedingly obstinate : the English commenced tine ; and abundant springs of this fluid are also found in the
operations on the 6th of June; but it was not until the eastern part of the island. The rivers in general are neces-
30th of July that the Moro Castle surrendered; and on sarily short, and flow toward the north and south. The
the 14th August the city capitulated. The spoil divided largest is the Cauto, rising in the Sierra del Cobre and
among the captors amounted to L.736,185. The following falling into the bay of Buena Esperanza on the southern
year Cuba was restored to the Spaniards, and from that coast, after a course of 50 leagues, for 20 of which it is
time its progress has been rapid; indeed this restoration navigable, though at low water obstructed by bars. The
is regarded by native writers as the true era whence its Sagua le Grande rises in the Sierra del Escambray’ passes
importance and prosperity are to be dated. The admi- Santo Domingo, and falls into the sea in front of the Boca
mstration of Las Casas, who arrived as captain-general in de Maravillas, being navigable for five leagues. The prin-
1790, is represented by all Spanish writers as a brilliant cipal of the other rivers are the Sagua le Chica, the North
epoch in Cuban history. He promoted with indefatigable and South latibonica, the Cuyaguateje, Sasa, Agobama, and
perseverance a series of public works of the first utility ; the Hanabana. On some of the rivers are beautiful cascades,
introduced the culture of indigo ; extended the commercial while several of them flow during part of their courses un¬
importance of the island by removing as far as his authority der ground.
extended the trammels imposed upon it by the old system The climate of the western half of the island presents
of pmilege and lestriction. By his judicious administration many inequalities of temperature, arising from that portion
the tranquillity of the island was maintained uninterrupted of the island being situated along the northern limit of the
at the time of the revolution in St Domingo ; although, torrid zone, and from the proximity of the American con-
as is generally believed, a conspiracy was formed at the in- tinent. The seasons are divided into rainy and dry, but the
stigation of the French among the free people of colour in line of demarcation is not very clearly defined. The warmest
Cuba. In 1802 Jesu Maria, a populous suburb of Havana, months are July and August, when the mean temperature
was destroyed by a fire, which deprived 11,400 people of is from 82° to 84° Fahr.; the coldest are December and
their habitations. On the deposition of the royal family of January, when the mean temperature is about 78°. The
Spain by Napoleon (the news of which arrived in July mean annual temperature at Havana is about 73’5° Fahr.
1808), every member of the Cabildo took oath to preserve During the rainy season the heat would be insupportable
the island for the deposed sovereign, and declared war but for the regular alternation of the land and sea breezes
against Napoleon. Since that time the island has been Snow never falls in Cuba, but hail and hoar-frost are not
presided over by a succession of governor-generals from uncommon in the winter season ; and at an elevation of 300
Spain, some of whom have conducted themselves honour- or 400 feet above the level of the sea, ice is often seen seve-
ably, while the names of others are loaded with infamy. ral lines in thickness during the prevalence of north winds
The island of Cuba is long and narrow, somewhat in the Hurricanes are not so frequent here as in Flayti and the other
form of an irregular crescent with its convex side towards West Indian Islands, and seldom do much damao-e on shore
the north. It divides the entrance to the Gulf of Mexico They occur during the autumn from August hf October
mto two passages, that to the N.W. being 321 leagues wide The oniy peculiar quadruped known3 in the island* is
at the narrowest part, between the points of Hicacos in the jutia or hutia, an animal shaped like a rat, and from
Cuba and Tancha on the Florida coast; and the S.W. pas- 12 to 18 inches in length exclusive of the tail. ’ It is of a
sage 38 leagues wide between the Cabo de San Antonio of clear black colour, inhabits the hollows and clefts of trees
Cuba, and the Cabo de Catoche, the most salient extremity and feeds on leaves and fruits. Its flesh is insipid but is
sometimes eaten. A few deer are found about the swamps,
but they are supposed to have been introduced fiom toe
continent. The woods abound in wild dogs and cats, sprung
from these animals in a domestic state, and differing ft om
them only in habits and size. They are very destructive to
poultry and cattle. Of domestic animals, the ox, the hoise,
and the pig, are the most valuable, and form a large piopoi-
tion of the wealth of the island : the sheep, goats, and mules,
are less numerous. The manati frequents the shot es. rhe
domestic fowls include geese, turkeys, peacocks, and pigeons.
The indigenous birds are distinguished by the beauty of
their plumage, and are very numerous, including upwards
of 200 species. Birds of prey are few. The vulture and
turkey-buzzard are protected by law and custom, on ac¬
count of their services in the removal oi offal. 1 he livers,
bays, and inlets, are well supplied with fish. Oysters and
other shell-fish are numerous, but of inferior quality. The
reefs and shallows, and the sandy portion of the beach,
abound in turtle ; and the crocodile, cayman, and the
iguana, are common. Large numbers of land-crabs are
frequently seen crossing the island: they travel over the
land every spring, when the rains commence from the sea
on the north to the Caribbean Sea on the south. Snakes
are not numerous ; the maja—12 or 14 feet in length, and
18 or 20 inches in circumference—is the largest, but is
harmless ; the juba, which is about 6 feet long, is venom¬
ous. Among the insects may be specially noticed tbe bee
and phosphorescent fly. These flies are very numerous,
and much used among the poorer inhabitants. Fifteen or
twenty of them confined in a calabash pierced with holes are
frequently used during the night to serve as a sort of lantern.
The noxious insects are the niguaor jigger, a species of ant
called vivajagua, the family of mosquitoes, the sand-fly, the
scorpion (less poisonous than that of Europe), and spiders,
whose bite is malignant enough to produce fever.
The forests of Cuba are of vast extent, and so dense as
to be almost impenetrable. Mahogany and other hard woods
are indigenous, and several sorts are well adapted for ship¬
building. The palm is the queen of the Cuban forests, and
the most valuable tree on the island. The most common
species, the Palma reed {Oreodoxia regia), the cocoa
tree, and the African palm, are found in all parts. The fruits
of Cuba are those common to the tropics, of which the
pine-apple and orange are the most esteemed. Of the ali¬
mentary plants, the platano or plantain is by far the most
important. Next in order come the sweet and bitter yuca
or cassava ; the sweet root being eaten as a vegetable, and
the bitter converted into bread after its poisonous juice has
been extracted. The sweet potato, and other farinaceous
roots, are also common. Indian corn is indigenous, and rice
is extensively cultivated.
The mineral riches of the island have not yet been ex¬
plored to any considerable extent. Though gold and silver
have undoubtedly been found in the island, the quantity
has never been sufficient to repay the labour of search.
Gold was sent to Spain from this island by the early settlers,
but it was more probably the accumulated wealth of the
aborigines in previous centuries, wrested from them by
tyranny and rapine at the period of the conquest, than the
product of honest labour on the part of the colonists. Traces
of auriferous sand are found in the rivers Holguin, Escaw-
bray, &c. Some specimens of the finest gold have been
obtained in recent times from the workings of Agabama and
Sagua la Grande, but at an expense of time and labour that
could not remunerate the parties engaged in it. In 1827
silver and copper were discovered in the jurisdiction of Villa
Clara, and the first ores gave no less than 7 oz. of pure
silver to the quintal ( = 107§ lbs.) of ore ; but they have be¬
come less productive, probably from not being properly
worked. The copper mines near Santiago, in the eastern
part of the island, are of great extent, and very rich, em¬
ploying nearly 900 persons, and yielding an ordinary ave¬
rage of about 27 per cent, of pure metal. They were wrought
with some success during the seventeenth century, but had
been abandoned for more than 100 years. About the year
1830 Mr Hardy, a landed proprietor in the island, happened,
when on a visit to that part, to carry off some of the refuse
of the old workings in order to subject them to analysis, the
result of which was, that the metal was found so rich as
amply to repay the expense of sending it to England for
smelting. Several other mining companies have since been
established; and the amount of copper ore exported in
1850 was 552,288 quintals, or nearly 25,100 tons. Of the
35,683 tons of copper ore imported in 1851 into the United
Kingdom, 20,825 tons came from Cuba. Coal of a highly
bituminous character, affording a strong heat, and leaving
very little solid residue in the form of ashes or cinders, is
very abundant. In some places it degenerates into a form
resembling asphaltum, and near the coast it is often found
in a semi-liquid state like petroleum or naphtha. In the
quarries near Havana a thick slate is found, fit for floors and
pavements. Marbles and jaspers of various colours, and
susceptible of a high polish, are found in many parts of the
island, and particularly in the Isle of Pines. It is gener¬
ally believed that iron exists in various parts of Cuba, and
many parts of the great Cordillera undoubtedly contain
rocks of a ferruginous nature ; but from the difficulty of
access, the scarcity of fuel, and the want of capital, no ex¬
tensive mining operations have been engaged in. Native
loadstone, however, has been found in various parts, and
chalybeate springs are numerous.
The chief agricultural products of Cuba are sugar, coffee,
and tobacco. The cultivation of these has advanced with
great rapidity since 1809, when the ports of the island were
more freely opened to foreigners. The following are the
quantities of sugar exported in various quinquennial periods
in Spanish arrobas, an arroba being equivalent to 25-^g- lbs.
English. In 1785-90 = 5,452,192; 1795-1800= 11,466,776;
1820-25 = 24,526,581 ; 1830-35 = 39,467,878; 1835-
40 = 50,742,777; 1840-45-= 64,338,492; 1845-50 =
93,452,300. The cultivation of coffee advanced for a time
with equal or even greater rapidity than that of sugar; but^
latterly, from the low prices of coffee, the cultivation of
sugar has become the more profitable, and in a great mea¬
sure supplanted coffee. In 1840 the exportation of coffee
was 2,143,174 arrobas, and in 1851 only 468,124 arrobas.
Tobacco is indigenous in Cuba, and its excellent quality is
celebrated in all parts of the world. In 1850, 319,125
arrobas of leaf tobacco, and 1,063,200 arrobas of manufac¬
tured, were exported. Among the other productions are
Indian corn, rice, beans, plantains, cotton, cocoa, pine-apples,
lemons, oranges, limes, figs, melons, &c. Of the manufac¬
tures, the principal are the making of sugar, molasses, rum,
and cigars, and the preparation of coffee and wax.
The ports of the island licensed for foreign trade are Ha¬
vana, Santiago, Puerto Prince, Matanzas, Irinidad, Baiacoa,
Gibara, Cienfuegos, and Manzanilla. The average annual
amount of the exports and imports, from 1841 to 1845,
was respectively $22,472,355 and $24,099,646; and from
1846 to 1850, $27,150,754 and $28,828,988. The domes¬
tic products exported in 1850 amounted to $2o,043,154.
Of the imports into Cuba in 1850, those from Spain
amounted to 29-81 per cent.; from the United States 22-96;
from England 21-10; Germany 7‘27; France 6-03 ; Spanish
America 6-91. Exports, 11-98 per cent, to Spain; 32-61
to United States; 27"55 to England; r30 to Geimany;
7-27 to France; 2-26 to Spanish America.
Education is in a remarkably backward state in Cuba.
According to the latest and most favourable accounts, the
number of schools was only 222, and of pupils 9082: of
these 6025 were male, and 2417 female whites; and 460
coloured males, and 180 coloured females. The number of
c u
Cuba, free children between the ages of five and fifteen was 99,599.
No grants in aid of public instruction are given out of the
public treasury, and those who are unable to pay for edu¬
cation are left dependent upon private efforts. Of the above-
mentioned pupils, were receiving instruction gratui¬
tously—540 being educated by the Sociedad Economica,
2111 by local subscriptions ; while the remaining 1106 were
gratuitously instructed by the teachers. It was announced
in the Diario de la Marina of January 1852, that the go¬
vernment was about to establish nineteen primary free
schools in Havana, Matanzas, and Puerto Prince, and two
normal schools in Havana; but we are not aware that they
have yet been organized. The royal university of Havana
has medical and law schools. A six years’ study of medi¬
cine, and a classical education, are necessary for gradua¬
tion in these sciences. Among the other educational in¬
stitutions are the royal seminary of San Carlos y San
Ambrosio, founded in 1773; a girls’seminary, founded in
1691; a free school of sculpture and painting, founded by
the Sociedad Economica; a free mercantile school; and
private institutions. A museum of natural history was esta¬
blished at Havana in 1838, and a botanical garden outside
the walls in 1844. 1 he Sociedad Economica, formerly called
the Sociedad Patriotica, has for its object the advancement
of education, agriculture, commerce, and popular industry.
It publishes monthly a journal of its labours, and has a pub¬
lic library and branches in nine of the principal towns.
Ihe Homan Catholic is the only religion tolerated by
government. An effort was made a few years ago by Eng¬
land to obtain permission to erect a Protestant church at
Havana, but without success. None can hold property or
engage in any business in Cuba, without first acknowledg¬
ing in writing that he is an apostolical Roman Catholic ; but
those who have tender consciences leave out the word
“ Roman, and the omission is winked at. Religion and
morality, indeed, like education, are here at a very low ebb.
I he author of Cuba and the Cubans, himself a Catholic
and a Cuban, says—“ Nowhere is presented a more dark
and distressing picture of unbelief, corruption, and immo¬
rality.” At the present day a brief mass, irreverently hur¬
ried through, and witnessed by a very few, is all that attests
the Sabbath in Cuba, During service, all seem intent on
showing, by their undisguised disrespect, that they are neither
believers, nor ashamed of their unbelief. The very priests
themselves exhibit the same painful picture of an all-per¬
vading, all-demoralizing infidelity ; and the country curates
may, as a class, be set down as examples of all that is cor¬
rupt, all that is disgusting in low and brutal vice. In the
church itself there is no expounding, no reading even of
the Gospel ; no consolations are carried to the dying, as in
the charitable communities that abound in other countries,
whether Catholic or Protestant. At first there was but
one diocese, which included not only the whole island, but
also Louisiana and the two Floridas, all under one bishop.
In 1788 Cuba was divided into two dioceses, each embrac¬
ing half the island. The eastern diocese, or that of Santiago
de Cuba, was in 1804 erected into an archbishopric, while
that of Havana still remains under a bishop. The diocese
of Havana embraces 44 parochial churches, and 79 auxi¬
liary ones, and the archbishopric only 27 parochial churches
and auxiliaries. The revenues of the church are derived
from tithes on the products of the island (sugar estates
established since 1805 being alone exempted), the fees of
christenings, marriages, deaths, &c. The amount of tithes
collected in 1847 is estimated at #267,444; and adding to
this the estimated amount of the fees, the total revenue of
the church may be calculated at about #625,000.
The island is divided into several distinct jurisdictions,
as the civil, judicial, military, ecclesiastical, &c. The mili¬
tary is divided into two departments, a western and an east¬
ern, each embracing half the island. There was a third
B A. 567
department, the central; but that was suppressed in 1851, Cuba,
and it is said that the suppression also of the eastern de-
partment is in contemplation. Each department is under
a commander-general, and is divided into sections, each un¬
der a commander-of-arms ; the sections are subdivided into
partidos and cuartones, each of the former being under a
petty judge with the title of captain, and each of the latter
under a leader of patrol. Politically, Cuba is divided into
two provinces,—the western, or that of Havana,—and the
eastern, or that of Santiago. The judicial division contains
two jurisdictions—the royal pretorian audience of Havana,
and the royal audience of Puerto Prince. The maritime
division comprises five provinces, which are subdivided into
districts, each of the former having a commander, and each
of the latter an adjutant. The ecclesiastical divisions have
been already noticed. The captain-general is invested with
almost unlimited powers, and is responsible only to the
sovereign of Spain: he is the supreme head of the civil,
military, and ecclesiastical jurisdictions of the island; his
decisions are final, and his word is law. At Matanzas,
I rinidad, Puerto Prince, and Cienfuegos, there are officei's
with the title of governor, whose duties, however, are of a
judicial nature, extending to disputed points of every sort,
civil, ci’iminal, or militai’y; and suboi'dinate to them are eight
lieutenancies, called capitanias a guerra. In all the cities
and towns are municipal bodies, styled ayuntamientos per-
petuos, exercising judicial functions. There are also in the
x'ural districts jueces pedaneos, a sort of itinerant village
judges or justices of the peace appointed by the local go¬
vernors. All judges and other judicial functionaxaes are
paid by fees instead of salaries ; and the petty officers of the
government, dependent on their fees, prey like so many
wolves upon the unprotected within their jurisdiction.
I he crown revenues of the island are the rentas mari-
timas, including duties on imports, exports, and tonnage,
and the local or municipal duties levied at some of the cus¬
tom-houses ; the impuestas interiores, including the tax on
home manufactures, sale of papal bulls and stamped paper,
the profits derived from the lottery, and the impost on cock¬
fights ; deductions from the rentas ecclesiasticas, particu¬
larly those called the royal ninths and the consolidated
fund, the sinking fund, the media annata, and the annual
and monthly revenues of the clergy ; personal deductions,
such as from the pay of public functionaxaes, and the price
of exemption from military service ; miscellaneous receipts,
as the produce of the sale of royal lands, the rents of vacant
livings and of unclaimed estates, the produce of vendible
offices; and casual receipts, including deposits, confiscations,
donations, and the recovery of arrears. The total revenue
received from these sources in 1849 was #12,664,329;
and in 1850, #12,248,712.
The circulating medium of Cuba, like that of Spain, is
composed entirely of the precious metals ; paper money is
unknown. The coins in use are the Spanish doblon* or
onza de oro, which is a legal tender for 17 hard dollars, and
at the ordinary rate of exchange of 8^ per cent, is worth
L.3, 10s. lOd. sterling; and the subdivisions of the doblon,
the half, the quarter, the eighth, and the sixteenth—the last
being equivalent to a dollar and half a real. The Mexican,
Colombian, and other South American doblons are a legal
tender for 16 hard dollars, equal to L.3, 6s. 8d. sterling, and
are sornetimes in demand for exportation at a premium;
their divisions ai-e worth eight, foui’, two, and one dollar re¬
spectively. Of silver coins, the Spanish dollar and its divi¬
sions, and also Mexican, United States, and South Ameri¬
can dollars, are legal tenders at their nominal value.
The roads of Cuba are generally in a very wretched con¬
dition. Several railways have been established : the oldest,
opened in 1838, extends from Havana to Guines, a distance
of 45 xuiles, and has branches to Batabano, San Antonio,
and Los Palos. A railway fi-om Regia to the mines of
568
CUBA.
Cuba. Prosperidad has been abandoned. There are lines in opera-
tion from Matanzas to Sabanilla, Cardenas to Bamba, Jucaro
to beyond Altamisal, and Puerto Prince to Nueyitas. The
coast communication is kept up by steamers which ply re¬
gularly between the different ports. I he number of coast¬
ing vessels that entered the port of Havana in 1851 was
3523.
It is impossible, from the conflicting accounts of the dif¬
ferent writers upon the subject, to arrive at anything like
certainty as to the number of inhabitants on the island at
the time of its conquest; but it may be estimated at pro¬
bably from 300,000 to 400,000. There is little doubt, how¬
ever, that before 1560 the whole of this population had dis¬
appeared from the island. The first census of Cuba was
taken in 1775, when the population was 170,862. In 1791
it was 272,140. The following table gives the population
since that period :—
Year. Whites. Free Blacks. Slaves. Total.
1811   274,000 114,000 212,000 600,000
1817  290,021 115,691 225,268 630,980
1827   311,051 106,494 286,942 704,487
1841   418,291 152,838 436,495 1,007,624
1846  425,769 149,226 323,759 898,752
1849  457,133 164,410 323,897 945,440
Neither of the two last censuses include the garrison,
crews of vessels, or the floating population, so that by adding
for that omission 40,000 to the census of 1846 the popu¬
lation would be 938,752, and 54,560 to that of 1849 the
whole number of souls in the island would be 1,000,000.
The census of 1846 gives the population of the principal
towns as follows :—Havana 106,968, Puerto Prince 19,168,
Santiago de Cuba 24,005, Matanzas 16,986, Trinidad
13,222. The population of Havana in 1849 is given at
142,002, and in 1850 at 150,561.
The population of Cuba, according to the latest official
statements, is given in the subjoined table. The total fixed
population of the whole island according to this table was
in 1853, 1,900,060:—
WESTERN DEPARTMENT.
-r . Area in Free A , Pop. of
Jurisdictions. sq. leagues. ^ ^11^es* Coloured. Slaves. Total, chief towns.
Pinar del Rio   312 21,843 3,824 9,998 35,655 1,500
S. Cristolal  70 11,578 1,923 6,548 20,049 270
Bahia-honda  64 4,124 621 5,494 10,239 570
Mariel  48 15,921 2,849 19,422 38,192 1,296
San Antonio  13 12,284 1,721 10,188 24,193 2,890
Havana  75 87,916 32,594 26,850 147,360 125,905
Santiago  18 7,194 1,597 4,964 13,755 2,274
Bejucal  16 10,817 1,746 7,938 20,501 2,264
Guanabacoa  14 10,721 3,273 4,322 18,316 8,100
Rosario  26 11,764 2,841 5,428 20,033 450
Guines  95 18,214 2,442 16,918 37,574 3,542
Jaruco  43 10,218 1,875 8,136 20,229 611
Matanzas  72 34,721 4,948 40,728 81,397 26,000
Cardenas  106 27,521 3,824 55,016 86,361 6,173
Sagua  123 14,534 1,173 10,001 25,708 2,510
Cienfuegos  215 17,811 4,124 11,318 33,253 4,708
Santa Clara  113 25,592 8,528 5,301 39,421 6,604
Trinidad  73 15,208 7,324 9,318 31,850 14,119
Remedies  205 15,149 3,821 4,012 22,982 5.270
Sto. Espiritu  321 24,321 6,334 6,816 37,532 9,982
Total  2,028 397,451 98,442 268,717 764,610
EASTERN DIVISION.
Porto Prince  505 26,893 15,318 9,321 46,532 26,649
•Nuevitas  190 2,721 397 1,742 4,860 820
Tunas  229 3,818 1,821 722 6,361 2,004
Manzanilla  116 7,321 11,143 917 19,381 3,050
Holguin  212 19,427 3,271 3,827 26,525 3,754
Bayamo  110 10,721 11,217 2,724 24,662 5,875
Jiguani  59 6,721 4,318 683 11,723 950
Cuba  267 21,524 29,718 34,000 85,242 24,253
Guantanamo  134 1,574 2,281 5,928 9,783 863
Baracoa  123 3,817 3,721 1,842 9,381 2,400
Total  1,945 104,537 78,205 61,708 244,450
The inhabitants of Cuba are divided into 4 classes,—
the native Spaniards, who occupy nearly all the offices of
power and trust; the Creoles, who are mostly planters,
farmers, or lawyers, and are generally looked upon with
contempt by the Spaniards; the third class, composed of Cuba,
free mulattoes and free negroes in about equal parts, who v>—
are excluded by law from all civil offices; the slaves, con¬
stituting the fourth class, are divided into bozales, those re¬
cently brought from Africa—the ladinos, those imported
before the law of 1821 prohibiting the slave trade—and the
criollos, those born on the island. Cuba has long been no¬
torious for the extent to which the slave trade has been car¬
ried on there, and the ineffectual efforts made to suppress
it. The English government at length succeeded in 1853
in inducing the Spanish government to pledge itself to adopt
measures for its suppression; but as yet little effort has been
made to check it.
Under a better and more liberal system of government,
there can be no doubt that Cuba would speedily attain a
much higher state of prosperity and importance than it has
yet enjoyed. Great as is its productiveness at present, some
writers assert that under a good government it would be
increased five-fold; its mineral resources would then be
fully developed, and it would be able fully to take advan¬
tage of its admirable position to develop its trade. The con¬
tinuance of the present line of policy in reference to Cuba
must undoubtedly in time lead to a revolution which Spain
of itself will be unable to quell. Not to mention the heavy
taxes with which the natives are burdened, the old exclu¬
sive system is here still in full force ; offices of trust and
emolument are almost without exception bestowed upon
persons from Spain ; the governor-general is the sole me¬
dium of communication between the colonists and the
crown; his power is absolute, and from his decrees there is
no appeal; and indeed the island has been under martial law
since 1825. The governor-generalship is notoriously sought
after and bestowed as a means of acquiring or repairing a
fortune, and a five years’ tenure of office is considered suffi¬
cient to realize a fortune of half a million sterling. It is
said that in the event of a revolution in the island, Spain
relies upon the aid of England and France ; but even were
these powers to render assistance it would probably be only
of a pacific nature, and limited to an attempt to obtain for
the island a more liberal and congenial form of government.
Indeed we doubt not that any active measures taken by
other powers to aid Spain in quelling such a revolution
would gladly be seized upon by the United States as an
excuse for rendering assistance to the insurgents, and ob¬
taining for Cuba a place in the Union. The United States
have long been looking with an acquisitive eye upon this
island; and although they may not as a body sympathize
with such piratical expeditions as that of Lopez in 1850,
yet it cannot be denied that they would gladly possess this
island by less dishonest means. The opinion of their
government upon this subject may be gathered from a de¬
spatch of the late President Adams, in which he says that
Cuba has “ an importance in the sum of our national in¬
terests with which that of no other foreign territory can be
compared, and little inferior to that which binds the differ¬
ent members of this Union together;” and “that if an
apple severed by the tempest from its native tree could not
choose but fall to the ground, so Cuba forcibly disjoined
from its own unnatural connection with Spain, and incapa¬
ble of self support, could gravitate only towards the North
American Union; which by the same law of nature could
not cast her off from its bosom.” The hope of its one day
becoming a part of the Union no doubt influenced the
States’ government in rejecting the “ Tripartite Treaty”
proposed to it by France and England;—that neither of these
three governments should now or at any future time obtain
possession of Cuba, and that they bind themselves to dis¬
countenance all such attempts to that effect on the part of
any power or government whatever. Although from its posi¬
tion, being, as it is called, the “ key of the Gulf of Mexico,”
its occupation by any powerful state might materially affect
CUB
Cube their commercial intei ests in that partj yet in the same way
II its being in the possession of the States might materially
Cubit. aff'cct the interests of England and France,—they too are
—extensively engaged in the Gulf trade, and have also valu¬
able possessions in the neighbourhood of Cuba. Some years
ago an attempt was made by the States to enter into nego¬
tiations for the purchase of Cuba. They offered one hundred
million of dollars as the maximum price ^ but the answer
of the minister of state was, “that it was more than any
minister dare to entertain such proposition ; that he be¬
lieved such to be the feeling of the country that sooner
than see the island transferred to any power they would
prefer seeing it sunk in the ocean.” Negotiations are said
to have been lesumed recently by the States’ government
for its pm chase at the price of one "hundred and fifty million
of dollais, but it is not yet known with what success. We
ca.nnot refrain from here giving the opinion upon the subject
of one of the Americans themselves, a writer in Hunt’s
J\Iercha7its Magazine for 1853. “ That island is in no
sense ours because of its situation ; the claim that what¬
ever we deem important upon our boundaries, belongs
rightfully to us, or is to be acquired in defiance of the rights
and interests of others, needs no other refutation than simply
to trace it to its result—an assertion of universal proprietor¬
ship. In the second place let us remember that the matter
is environed with difficulties and dangers, and those most
formidable deeply affecting both our foreign relations and
our internal affairs—perhaps our very existence as a nation.
Finally, regarding the argument of interest, by itself, let us
strip it of all the fictitious colourings attached to it. The
plea of an interest amounting to a necessity is false. After
all, we have ground for but a very moderate interest in
Cuba. We can be safe and great without Cuba. Our Gulf
and Mississippi trade is likely, under the ability of self-pro¬
tection we have now attained, to have just as free passage,
inwardly and outwardly, if we do not acquire Cuba, as if
we do and might not be greatly disturbed, even were
England its proprietor. With fortifications at Key W7est
and other points on the Florida shore, and a fleet, if need
be, in the channel, our merchant vessels would be tolerably
secure of a way at all times—quite as much so probably as
if we owned Cuba. But if we could claim Cuba on this
ground of commercial necessity, ought we not to assent to
the propriety of the supposed design of Russia on the Dar¬
danelles ? Ought she not, too, to possess the island of
Zealand, at the mouth of the Baltic ? Should not England
also seize the northern coast of France, in order to secure
the passage of the English Channel ? Has not France an
equal right to the south coast of England ? And, finally,
as to Cuba itself, would not the claim of Mexico be just as
good as our own ?” It does not follow that because Cuba
throws off the yoke of Spain it necessarily puts on that of
the United States ; indeed the Cubans do not seem to have
exhibited any strong desire for a connection with that
government. In the event of its separation from Spain,
its only proper position seems to be that of a distinct and in¬
dependent state; and we believe that it has within itself
every material for self-government and self-defence.
CUBE (K-ufios, a solid square, a die), in Geometry, a
solid body bounded by six equal squares. In Arithmetic,
the cube of any number is the product obtained by multi¬
plying that number twice by itself: thus, the cube of 5 is
125, being 5 X o = 25 x o = 125. I he term cube root is
applied to the number so multiplied; hence in the foregoing
example, 5 is the cube root of 125.
CUBEBS, the aromatic pungent berries of Piper cubeba,
sometimes used in medicine as a stomachic, and in certain
forms of gonorrhoea. See Botany, vol. v., p. 207.
CUBIT, in Mensuration, the length of a man’s arm from
the elbow to the extremity of the middle finger. The an¬
cient cubit varied among different nations. Arbuthnot
VOL. VII.
CUD 5b-9
gives the Roman dibit at 17* inches; the cubit of theCaHcakrii
Scriptures at rather less than 22 inches; and the English II
cubit at 18 inches. Cuddapah.
CUBICULARII, See Chamberlain.
CUCKOO. See index to Ornithology.
CUCUMIS, a genus of cucurbitaceous plants, contain¬
ing the common cucumber, the melon, water melon, the
colocynth plant, &c. See Botany.
CUDBEAR, a purple or violet-coloured powder, used
in dyeing. It is prepared from a species of lichen. See
Dyeing.
CUDDALORE, a town of Hindustan, in the south of
India, situated on the western shore of the Bay of Beno-al,
at the estuary of the river Panar. The English East India
Company obtained a grant of it from the rajah of Gingee
in 1681. Here they constructed a factory, which, in con¬
sequence of the increasing trade, they wholly rebuilt and
fortified in 1702. The town was taken by the French in
1758; but two years later it was recaptured by Sir Evre
Coote. In 1782, after the destruction of Colonel Braith-
vvaites detachment by Tippoo, it was forced to surrender
to the combined forces of the French and Hyder; when the
uoiks were greatly strengthened, and a strong garrison sent
to defend them. In 1783 it was besieged by the British
who were repulsed with the loss of 942 killed and wounded’
in a desperate attempt to storm the works. A few days
later, the French general made a vigorous sortie from the
fort and attacked the English trenches, but not a single
point was carried, and the French sustained a heavy loss.
An incident connected with this attack is thus related bv
Colonel Wilks. “ Among the wounded prisoners was a
young French sergeant, who so particularly attracted the no¬
tice of Colonel Wangenheim, commandant of the Hanove¬
rian troops in the English service, by his interesting appear¬
ance and manners, that he ordered the young man to be
conveyed to his own tent, where he was treated with atten¬
tion and kindness until his recovery and release. Many
years afterwards, when the French army under Bernadette
entered Hanover, General Wangenheim, among others, at¬
tended the levee of the conqueror. i \ ou have served a
g1 eat deal, said Bernadette, on his being presented, ‘ and,
as I understand, in India.’ ‘ I have served there.’ ‘ At
Cuddalore?’ ‘ I was there.’ ‘ Have you any recollection
oi a wounded sergeant whom you took under your protec¬
tion in the course of that service?’ Fhe circumstance was
not immediately present to the general’s mind; but on re¬
collection he resumed:—‘ I do indeed remember the cir¬
cumstance, and a very fine young man he was. I have
entirely lost sight of him ever since; but it would give me
pleasure to hear of his welfare.’ ‘ That young sergeant,’
said Bernadette, ‘ was the person who has now the honour
to address you, who is happy in this public opportunity of
acknowledging the obligation, and will omit no means within
his power of testifying his gratitude to General Wangen¬
heim.’” The sergeant had become one of the most distin¬
guished generals of Fiance, and subsequently, as is well
known, ascended the throne of Sweden. Cuddalore is now
comprehended in the British collectorship of Arcot, and is
the principal civil station of the district. It is 102 miles
S.S.W. from Madras, and 15 S.S.W. from Pondicherry.
E. Long. 79. 52.; N. Eat. 11. 44. (E< x\
CUDDAPAH, in Hindustan, a British district within
the jurisdiction of the presidency of Madras ; bounded N.
by the British districts of Kurnool and Guntoor; E. bv
Nellore; S.E. by Arcot; S.W. by the native state of My¬
sore; and W. by Bellary, It lies between 14. and 17. N.
Eat.; and 78. and 80. E. Long. Area 12,970 square miles,
d he surface of the country lias a general slope from the
western frontier, where it attains an elevation of 1180 feet
aoove the level of the sea, to the eastern boundary of the
district, where the average elevation does not exceed 450
4 c
570 CUD
Cuddapah feet. All the streams which intersect the country are con-
11 sequently discharged into the Bay of Bengal. Of these the
Cud worth. prjncjpa] js t]ie Northern Pennar, which though a formi-
V ^ Y ^ dable torrent during the monsoon rains, w ith an aveiage
width of 300 feet, is almost wholly dried up in the
dry season. The mineral wealth comprised in the hilly
parts of the district consists of iron, lead, and copper ; while
various tracts are impregnated with carbonate of soda, salt¬
petre, and culinary salt. The population is by no means
dense; its amount, which has been officially returned at
1,451,921, furnishing little in excess of 100 to the square
mile. Cuddapah came into the possession of the British
government in 1800, under the provisions of a treaty con¬
cluded with the Nizam, or ruler of Hyderabad, subsequently
to the fall of Tippoo and the partition of his dominions.
Cuddapah, a town and fortress of the above district. It
is mentioned in history in the year 1687, as the residence
of a nabob under the kings of Golconda: and on the con¬
quest of that country by the Mohammedans, the same officer
was confirmed in his office by Aurungzebe. It is now the
residence of a British judge and collector of revenue.
Long. 78. 52.; Lat. 14. 28. (e. t.)
CUD WORTH, Ralph, the celebrated antagonist of
Hobbes, was born at Aller, Somersetshire, in 1617. When
only thirteen, he was entered at Emmanuel College, Cam¬
bridge, where he afterwards became a fellow and tutor.
Amongst his pupils he numbered the celebrated Sir Wil¬
liam Temple. In 1641 he was presented to the rectory
of North Cadbury, Somersetshire ; and in the year follow¬
ing he published a discourse concerning the true nature of
the Lord’s Supper, which was quoted with approbation by
Bochart, Spencer, Selden, and other learned writers. In
1644 he was appointed master of Clare Hall, and in the
following year was elected regius professor of Hebrew.
After a temporary absence from Cambridge, caused by pe¬
cuniary difficulties with which he seems to have been em¬
barrassed, he was elected master of Christ’s College in 1654 ;
and having devoted a large share of his attention to the
study of Hebrew literature and antiquities, he was one of
the persons named by a committee of parliament to be con¬
sulted in regard to the English translation of the Bible. In
1678 appeared his greatest work, the True Intellectual
System of the Universe, a treatise which aims at confuting
on a priori principles the system of intellectual atheism,
as distinguished from the schemes of immoral theism and
fatalistic morality. It was translated into Latin by Mo-
sheim, in 1733. The odium heaped upon Cudworth and all
the sect of the Latitude men, as they were called at Cam¬
bridge, seems to have deterred him from publishing the two
great appendices to the work, in which he discusses the
ethical and physical aspects of atheism. Of these one was
published by Bishop Chandler in 1731, under the title of
a Treatise on Eternal and Immutable Morality ; but the
other still remains in MS. in the British Museum.
Dr Cudworth died at Cambridge in 1688, and was buried
in Christ’s College. His daughter Damaris, who married Sir
Francis Masham, was a lady of considerable genius and
learning, and is known as the friend and nurse of Locke in
his last illness. Besides the works already mentioned, Cud¬
worth also published a treatise entitled Deus Justificatus,
or the Divine Goodness vindicated and cleared, against the
assertors of absolute and inconditionate Reprobation ; a
sermon on John ii. 3-4, preached before the House of Com¬
mons ; and a sermon preached at Lincoln’s Inn on 1 Cor.
xv. 57. The MSS. preserved in the British Museum com¬
prise treatises on the following subjects:—A Discourse of
Moral Good and Evil; another Book of Morality, in which
Hobbes’s philosophy is explained ; A Discourse of Liberty
and Necessity, in which the grounds of the atheistical phi¬
losophy are confuted, and morality vindicated and ex¬
plained; another book De Libero Arbitrio; Upon Da-
C U I
nieVs Prophecy of the Seventy Weeks, in which all the in- Cuen$a
terpretations of the Jeivs are considered and refuted, ivith |]
several of some learned Christians ; Of the Verity of the ^iriniss.
Christian Religion against the Jews ; A Discourse of the
Creation of the World and the Immortality of the Soul;
Hebrew Learning ; and An Explanation of Hobbes’s no¬
tion of God, and of the extension of Spirits. For an esti¬
mate of Cudworth’s merits, see Second Preliminary Dis¬
sertation, vol. i., p. 341.
CUENCA, a department of New Castile, Spain. It oc¬
cupies the eastern part of that ancient kingdom, and forms
the northern half of the great southern Castilian plain which
is watered by the Guadiana and Incar. The rocky district of
Cuenga includes the valley of the Incar and its tributary
streams ; but in the north it is principally watered by tribu¬
taries of the Tagus. The forests of the department are
proverbial, and rival those of Soria ; but, from the difficulty
of land carriage, timber is scarce and dear in the unwooded
districts. Excessive droughts prevail throughout the whole
department, and the heat of summer is relieved only by fre¬
quent storms of wind. The soil, where well watered, is
fertile, but little attention is paid to agriculture. The rear¬
ing of cattle, asses, mules, and sheep is the principal employ¬
ment of the natives. Olive-oil and wine are but sparingly
produced. Manufactures are limited to the coarsest stuffs.
Cuenca, the capital of the above department, stands
near the river Incar at its confluence with a small stream
called the Huecar, on a site 3400 feet above the level of
the sea, and is distant about nine miles from Madrid. It
was once a flourishing town, the focus of the provincial
wool-trade, but it has now a population of barely 8000. Its
cathedral was founded by Alonzo VIII. in 1177, and is one
of the most remarkable in Spain. A few woollen factories
and paper mills are all that now remain of its ancient industry.
Cuenca, an inland town of Ecuador, and capital of a
cognominal province. It stands on a plain at an elevation
of about 8600 feet, near the hill of Farqui, chosen by the
French astronomers as their meridian in 1742. It is a ca¬
thedral city, and contains several monasteries, besides a col¬
lege and other educational institutions. Cuenqa has an ex¬
tensive trade in cheese, confectionary, hats, grain and other
agricultural produce. Pop. 20,000 ; of whom a consi¬
derable portion are Indians.
CUFF, Henry, the unfortunate secretary of the unfor¬
tunate Earl of Essex, was born at Hinton St George, So¬
mersetshire, about 1560, and descended of a respectable
family, who were possessed of considerable estates in that
county. In 1576 he was entered of Trinity College, Ox¬
ford, where he soon acquired considerable reputation as a
Greek scholar and disputant. He also obtained a fellow¬
ship in Trinity ; but was subsequently expelled for speak¬
ing disrespectfully of the founder. He was, however, soon
afterwards admitted of Merton College, of which, in 1586,
he was elected probationer, and in 1588 fellow. Some time
afterwards he was elected professor of Greek, and in 1594
appointed proctor of the university. It is uncertain when
he left Oxford ; nor do we know the occasion of his intro¬
duction to the Earl of Essex. When that nobleman, how¬
ever, was made lord-lieutenant of Ireland, Cuff was ap¬
pointed his secretary, and is generally supposed to have
advised those violent measures which ended in their mu¬
tual destruction. Having been implicated by the confes¬
sions of his master, he was tried for high treason, convicted,
and executed at Tyburn March 30, 1601. Cuff was the
author of two books: the one entitled The Difference of
the Ages of Man’s Life; the other De Rebus Gestis in
Sancto Concilio Nicceno. The first was published after his
death, but the second is still in manuscript.
CUIRASS (French, cuirasse), armour for the breast or
back. It is commonly applied to a piece ot defensive ar¬
mour made of well-hammered iron plate, used to cover the
Cujas.
C U J
Cuirassiers whole body from the neck to the girdle. By some the word
is derived from the Latin cor, or Italian cuore, the heart,
because the cuirass defends that part; but it is more pro-
^ bably from the French cuir, or Latin corium, leather, be¬
cause defensive armour was originally made of leather, as
well as of quilted linen, twisted hempen cord, &c. The
cuirass of iron plate succeeded the hauberk, hacqueton, &c.
of mail, about the time of Edward III. A species of
cuirass was known under several forms among many an¬
cient nations, as the Egyptians, Persians, Greeks, and Ro¬
mans. See Breastplate.
CUIRASSIERS, a sort of heavy cavalry armed with
cuirasses. The cavalry of this description in the French
army, who fought at Waterloo, had, until that time, been
thought almost invincible ; and such was their reputation
for courage and daring, that “ brave comme un cuirassier”
had become a proverb in the French army. But notwith¬
standing their gallantry and musket-proof armour, they were
completely routed and destroyed by the superior weight and
dexterity of the British life-guards; a proof, as it should
seem, that the latter required no such protection. Yet, not¬
withstanding, the cuirass was introduced not long after into
the British service.
CUISSES, (French, cuisse, the thigh), a kind of plate-
armour, used to protect the front of the thighs, as greaves
were used to protect the legs.
CUJAS, in Latin Cujacius, Jacques, was born at Tou¬
louse in 1520. His father was a fuller, and his real name
Cujaus, but, by way of softening it, he afterwards abridged
it into Cujas. But if, when young and poor, he curtailed
his name, at a more advanced age, when fortune had be¬
come more propitious, he extended it, and then subscribed
himself Jacques de Cujas. His happy disposition enabled
him to surmount all the difficulties which the obscure con¬
dition in which he had been born seemed to throw in the
way of his advancement. By his own exertions, and without
the assistance of any master, he learned Greek and Latin ;
and he was instructed in the elements of law by Arnoul
Ferrier, then professor at Toulouse, a man who, when call¬
ed to higher employments, distinguished himself by great
talents united to great virtues. Cujas always cherished
the most affectionate regard for his master. The know¬
ledge which he had imbibed from Ferrier became, as it
were, the germ of that which he himself acquired by the
efforts of his own genius, and by his extreme ardour in
study. Cujas was employed as tutor to the children of
the president Dufaur, who afterwards became a distinguish¬
ed personage ; and for their instruction, as well as that
of some other young persons whose education he super¬
intended, he began, in the year 1547, to give lessons on
the Institutions of Justinian. Etienne Pasquier, who was
present at the first of these, says, that he then discovered
a clear and vigorous mind, which gave great promise of
future excellence; and Antoine Loisel, who attended the
lessons with the greatest assiduity, declares that Cujas pre¬
vented him from abandoning the science oflaw, with which
the other doctors had disgusted him by their barbarism.
His merit, however, would not seem to have been fully
appreciated in his native place. A chair of law having,
it is said, become vacant at Toulouse in 1554, Cujas not
only failed in obtaining it, but he had the mortification of
seeing the preference given to one Forcadel, a person of
very moderate abilities, and in all respects confessedly his
inferior. The city of Toulouse, however, conceiving its
honour to be interested in contesting a fact founded on a
well-accredited tradition, and of which the odium could
only attach to the individual protectors of ignorance and
intrigue, its chief magistrates, on the occasion of placing
the bust of Cujas in their gallery in the year 1674, affixed
to the inscription a solemn and indignant denial of the
C U J
imputation cast upon their predecessors. And it has also
been remarked, that Cujas makes no mention, in any of
his numerous writings, of the injustice which he is alleged
to have experienced at the hands of his townsmen ; but
little weight seems to be due to this observation, because
it is not improbable that Cujas might have avoided any al¬
lusion to a disagreeable subject. Besides, John Robert of
Orleans, with whom Cujas had some keen altercations,
meanly reproaches him with having been thrice rejected
at Toulouse in his applications for a professorship of law ;
and Cujas is evidently embarrassed in his reply to the in¬
sulting allegation. He says, “ that Robert lies at least in
regard to two of these alleged rejections, and probably
even in regard to the third; that, moreover, after he had
been called to Cahors, and then to Bourges, the inhabit¬
ants of Toulouse had used the most pressing entreaties to
induce him to return among them.” The town of Tou¬
louse, however, had the misfortune of not being ablq to
attach to its school a man whose merit, which had for seven
years been fully recognised, could not fail to add to the
lustre which it had already acquired. But that of Cahors
was more fortunate. A chair having become vacant there
by the retirement of Govea, in 1554, Cujas was appointed
to fill it; and he was followed by almost all his pupils.
But he only remained about a year at Cahors; patrons
worthy of him having stepped forward to withdraw him
from the obscure theatre where he had been content to
exert his great talents. Margaret of Valois, duchess of
Berri, inheriting the love which her father, Francis I., bore
to men of letters, had already given proofs of her discern¬
ment in choosing as her chancellor Michel de I’Hopital,
who afterwards, in the highest dignity of the state, ex¬
hibited a character so elevated and a patriotism so pure.
Wishing to render the school of Bourges, the chief place
of her apanage, the most celebrated of all those which
had as yet existed, Margaret intrusted L’Hopital with the
choice of professors ; and he was not slow in discerning the
merit of Cujas, whom he called to Bourges, where he had
already placed Baudouin and Duaren, the latter of whom
had taught there since the year 1538. Duaren at first re¬
ceived Cujas favourably; but, either from weakness or seni¬
lity, he soon became jealous of the young professor, and,
unable to endure the popularity which the latter almost
immediately acquired, he had recourse to every expedient
in order to rid himself of so formidable a rival. With this
view he stirred up the students against the new professor,
and such was the disorder produced in consequence at
Bourges, that Cujas was obliged to yield to the storm, and
to retire to Valence. But this persecution became useful
to him, by inspiring him with such a degree of emulation,
that he applied himself with greater vigour to the study
oflaw, which the levity natural to his age would otherwise
perhaps have induced him to abandon. Recalled to Bour¬
ges by order of the Duchess of Berri, he remained there
till 1567, when he returned to Valence, on the invitation
of Bertrand de Simiane, lieutenant-general of the king in
Dauphine, and reflected great lustre to the university of "that
city, to which young men flocked from all quarters in order
to study under him. In 1570 Cujas was elected professor
in the university of Avignon; but his first wife, who belong¬
ed to that city, having recently before this died, Cuias re¬
solved to remain at Valence. But Margaret of Valois,
who had now become Duchess of Savoy, persuaded him
to repair to Turin, where, however, he only remained a few
months. His scholars and friends at Bourges induced him to
return thither towards the end of 1575." But the troubles
which threatened that city forced him to seek a retreat
elsewhere, and his first intention was to proceed to An¬
gers, where the people were most desirous of having him;
but the orders of the king called him to Paris, where,
571
Cujns.
572 C U J
Cujas. on the requisition of the procureur-general, and the re-
s—port of M. Anjorrant, the parliament passed an arret, by
which Cujas, who is declared to be a person ot great and
singular learning and erudition, is permitted^ “ de faire
lecture et profession en droit civil en 1’universite de Paris ;
a species of instruction which was then interdicted in the
university, and in fact only established there under Louis
XIV. Terrasson has supposed that he himself was the first
to publish this arret; but it is found, together with some
other particulars respecting Cujas, in the remarks of Me¬
nage on the life of Pierre Ayrault. Cujas remained at Paris
only about a year, and returned to Bourges, which he
never afterwards quitted, in 1577. In 1584 Gregory XIII.
who was himself well skilled in the civil and canon law,
wished to draw Cujas to Bologna, thinking that something
would be wanting to the glory of that city if it did not
reckon among its professors a man of so distinguished
merit; and Cujas was on the point of yielding to the
pressing solicitations of the pontiff; but his attachment
for his pupils prevailed over every other consideration,
and retained him in France. At the commencement of his
works, in the edition of'Fabrot, are some very curious verses,
composed at Blois, for the purpose of dissuading him
from proceeding to Bologna. Who, then, it may be asked,
was this man, whom all the countries of Europe sought
after, and who, in an age which produced Du Moulin and
so many other celebrated jurisconsults, placed himself
foremost in the first rank, and eclipsed all his rivals by
the superiority of his knowledge and the lustre of his re*
nown ? In order to appreciate his works, we must remem¬
ber the period at which he appeared. The civilization of
Europe had barely commenced ; and jurisprudence was
regarded as the science most proper to accelerate its pro¬
gress, by diffusing correct notions of reason and justice.
But from want of erudition, and from ignorance of criticism,
the first interpreters of the Roman law had only a very im¬
perfect knowledge of the system which they professed to
expound ; and it is mainly to Cujas that the world is in¬
debted for the advancement which the study of this great
body of written wisdom has made since his time. The
old interpreters had only been able to deduce some gene¬
ral maxims, and some rules of private law, which they ap¬
plied to the manners, still rude, of the times in which they
lived. The minds of men were not as yet prepared for any
thing more perfect. They wanted that degree of matu¬
rity necessary to receive the light in all its purity. The
same thing is observable in the history of ancient Rome.
There is as great a distance between the law of the twelve
tables and that system which, in the first two or three
centuries of our era, the Papinians, the Ulpians, and other
geniuses of the first order, created, as between the man¬
ners of a semibarbarous people and those of a nation ar¬
rived at the highest degree of civilization. It may be said
of legislation, indeed, with still greater truth than even of
literature, that it is the reflected image of society. In pro¬
portion as the civilization of Europe improved, jurispru¬
dence advanced towards perfection ; and Cujas came, at
a seasonable moment, to lay open its true sources. He
had read the works of the old interpreters ; but he had de¬
rived nothing but disgust from the perusal. Repelled by
the barbarism of their language, as much as by the vicious
method which they had followed, Cujas resolved to apply
himself solely to the text of the Roman laws to illus¬
trate whatever was obscure in them, to restore passages
which had been altered by time or the ignorance of copy¬
ists, and to fix the true signification of the words which
were there employed. In prosecution of this design, the
knowledge which he possessed of the ancient languages,
and the vast erudition which he had acquired by"means
of them, were of admirable service to him. Not only did
A S.
he consult books ; he made a still greater use of manu- Cujas.
scripts, of which he had collected more than five hundred
in his own library. The corrections which he made, no?
only in books of law, but in a great number of ancient
Greek and Latin authors, are immense. He in part col¬
lected these, under the title of Observations and Correc¬
tions ; and this work is still a fertile mine, which philologers
continually explore with advantage. Nor did he confine
his researches to the books compiled by order of Justi¬
nian, but extended them to every thing which had the
smallest relation to the subject or which entered into the
jurisprudence of modern times. He recovered and gave
to the world a part of the Theodosian Code, with explana¬
tions ; and he procured the manuscript of the Basilica (a
species of abridgment in Greek, which the successors of
Justinian had made of his laws), from which manuscript
they were afterwards published by Fabrot. Besides, he
composed a learned commentary on the Consuetudines
Feudorum, and on some books of the Decretals. In fact,
Cujas was not only a learned man; he was what is far
better, a man of profound sagacity. It is by no means
uncommon to find writers who, in all sciences, have been
able to master some isolated parts; but to embrace the
whole in one comprehensive view, to ascend to the funda¬
mental principles from which all the others are derived,
and to condense in brief maxims the kernel of all the con¬
sequences which flow from them, is a power which has
only been given to a small number of privileged men of
genius, distinguished from the common herd, who are
wholly incapable of such a concentration. This was pre¬
eminently the talent of Cujas. In the Paratitla, or sum¬
maries which he made of the Digest, and particularly of
the Code of Justinian, he condensed into short axioms the
elementary principles of lawy and gave definitions remark¬
able for their admirable clearness and precision. Hotto-
man, a distinguished jurisconsult, the rival and the enemy
of Cujas, earnestly recommends to his son to take along
with him in his journeys theseor summaries, and
to study them with indefatigable assiduity. Instead of the
semibarbarous jurisprudence of the early interpreters, Cu¬
jas substituted that of the most polished ages of Rome ;
and those who succeeded him have been able to do little
more than to confirm his views. All the jurisconsults of
Europe indeed are agreed in considering him as the first
and greatest of the interpreters of lawr, one whom none
can equal, much less surpass, in the art of teaching and
expounding it. “ Cujas,” said D’Aguesseau, “ has spoken
the language of law better than any modern, and perhaps
as well as any ancient.” His lessons, which he never dic¬
tated, were continuous discourses, for which he made no
other preparation than that of profound meditation on
the subjects to be discussed. His scholars, particularly
the Germans, wrote dow n at the moment his discourses,
as wrell as the rapidity of utterance would permit; and
afterwards, by comparing their notes together, they suf¬
fered but little of what fell from him to escape them.
He was impatient of interruption, and upon the least
noise he would instantly quit the chair and retire. The
use of theses, which has been continued in the modern
schools, had already been introduced; but these exercises,
so common and so useless at present, entered not into
the ordinary plan of the lessons of Cujas. The honour
of supporting a thesis under him was the reward of the
highest merit, and it was but rarely conferred. Loisel has
preserved that which Pierre Pithou composed on quitting
the school of Cujas ; and it is certainly a very masterly
production of its kind. Cujas was strongly attached to
his pupils, and Scaliger affirms that he lost more than
four thousand livres by lending money to such of them as
were in want. During the thirty years he taught, their
C U J
Cujas. number was immense, for pupils flocked from all parts cf
—v'"—^ Europe to his school ; and many of them, like Scaliger
and the brothers Pithou, afterwards became his most in¬
timate friends. None of them who showed distinguished
talents escaped his observation ; and he advanced the for¬
tunes of several by making known their merits. From his
school there issued magistrates of the first rank, and able
ministers and negociators, whose talents proved highly
serviceable to their country; whilst others carried to the
bar and the bench the lights which they had there ac¬
quired, and contributed essentially to the great progress
which jurisprudence made in the century which followed.
Such were the fruits of a life entirely devoted to the pub¬
lic good, and of which no species of ambition ever dis¬
turbed the tranquil tenor. Indeed it appears that Cujas
never even solicited the honours which he enjoyed. In
1573, during his residence at Valence, Charles XL appoint¬
ed him honorary counsellor to the parliament of Grenoble ;
Henry III., by letters patent, dated at Lyons in 1574, also
conferred upon him a small pension, with the titular rever¬
sion of the first vacant office ; and, by other letters dated
the year following, Cujas was permitted to continue his in¬
structions at Valence, and to draw the emoluments of his
office of counsellor without discharging its duties. In the
year 1582, however, Cujas resigned his office in favour of
Charles de Dome, advocate to the parliament of Grenoble ;
but this court, annoyed at his quitting Valence, repeatedly
refused to accept his resignation, and only received it in
consequence of a positive order to that effect. Merit so
eminent as his could scarcely fail to excite envy; and he
had detractors, whom, however, he crushed by the weight
of his reputation. His sentiments and opinions were irre¬
proachable, and, in an age of civil discord, he never varied
nor changed. Cujas was sincerely attached to the religion
of his fathers ; but he steadily refused to take any part in
the theological controversies which so greatly agitated
the times in which he lived. Nihil hoc ad edictum prcc-
toris, “ this has nothing to do with the edict of the prae¬
tor," was his usual answer to those who spoke to him on
the subject. He was far, indeed, from participating in
the fury engendered by the league; and his fidelity to
Henry IV. remained unshaken, a circumstance which
frequently exposed him to danger at Bourges, where the
leaguers predominated. But vexation on account of the
evils which preyed upon France is supposed to have has¬
tened his death, which happened at Bourges the 4th of
October 1590. His library, which w^as of very consider¬
able extent, containing manuscripts as well as printed
books of all kinds, a great number of which were enrich¬
ed with remarks by his own hand, he ordered by his will
to be sold in detail, from an apprehension lest, if it fell
into the hands of a single individual, advantage might be
taken of his notes by persons who did not understand
them, to compose works injurious to his reputation. His
wishes weie complied with to an extent he had never
contemplated ; for the booksellers of Lyons, who purchased
his manuscripts, employed them to cover rudiments for
the schools. In his lifetime he published an edition of
his works, printed at Neville in 1577. It is beautiful and
exact, but now very scarce, and contains only a part of
his works. The same observation applies to the edition
of Colombet, published in 1634. Fabrot, however, col¬
lected the whole in the edition which he published at
Paris, 1658, in 10 vols. folio, and which was reprinted at
Naples, 1722, 1727', in 11 vols. folio, and thereafter at
Naples and at Venice, 1758, in 10 yols. folio, with an index
forming an eleventh volume. In the editions of Naples
and Venice there are some additions, not to be found in
that of Fabrot, particularly a general table, which will be
found very useful, and interpretations of all the Greek
C U L
573
Cullen.
words used by Cujas. (Terrasson, Histoire de la Jurispru- Culdees
deuce Romaine, and Melanges d’Histoire, de Litterature, H
et de Jurisprudence; Bernardi, Eloge de Cujas ; Hugo,
Civlistisches Magazin ; Berriat St Prit, Memoires de Cujas,
appended to his Histoire du Droit Domain; Biographic
Universelle, art. Cujas.) (j. b—e )
CULDEES, in Ecclesiastical History, monkish priests
who formerly inhabited Scotland, Ireland, and Wales. Being
remarkable for their religious exercises, they were called
cultores Dei, worshippers of God; and hence the word Cul-
dee appears to be derived. They made choice of one of
their own fraternity to be their spiritual head, who was af¬
terwards called the Scotch Bishop.
They disavowed the supremacy of the see of Rome, al¬
lowed the marriage of priests, denied the advantages of au¬
ricular confession, and gave instruction to youth in their
seminaries or colleges. In Scotland their principal seats
were Iona, Isle of St Serf in Loch Leven, Monymusk in
Aberdeenshire, Dunkeld, Abernethy in Fifeshire, and St
Andrews. They long maintained their independence, but at
length were brought under the Papal yoke.
CULEUS, in Roman Antiquity, the largest measure of
capacity for things liquid, containing 20 amphorae or 40
urnae ; equivalent to 115 gallons, P6 pints English. Culeus
also denoted a sack or bag. Parricides were punished at
Rome by being thrown into the Tiber in a sack, along
with a cock, an ape, and a viper.
CULLEN, an ancient seaport, parliamentary burgh, and
parish of Banffshire. It stands on an eminence overlooking
the sea, and is about 13 miles west from Banff. The pre”
sent town is of comparatively modern date, the only re¬
mains of the ancient burgh being a cluster of mean houses
called the Fish Town, near the shore. It contains two
churches belonging to the Establishment, and a Free
church. Most of the inhabitants are engaged in agricul¬
tural pursuits, distilling, &c., and about a third in the fish¬
eries. The harbour is good, and there are a few vessels
belonging to the port. The exports are chiefly fish and
agricultural produce : the imports are merely for local con¬
sumption. The burgh, which was first chartered by Robert
Bruce, is governed by a provost and nineteen council¬
lors. It unites with Banff, Peterhead, Inverury, and Kin-
tore, in returning one member to parliament. Pop. of par-
liametary burgh 1697 ; of royal burgh 3165.
CULLEN, Dr William, an eminent physician and me¬
dical teacher, was born in Lanarkshire, Scotland, on the
11th of December 1712. His parents were respectable
but not rich, and his father was for some time chief magis¬
trate of the town of Hamilton. Not being able to spare
a sufficient sum of money to educate his son at the univer¬
sity, he bound him as an apprentice to a surgeon-apothecary
in Glasgow. On the completion of his apprenticeship
young Cullen became surgeon to a merchant vessel which
traded between London and the West Indies. After
making several voyages, he settled as a country practi¬
tioner in the parish of Shotts, Lanarkshire, where, in a
way creditable to himself, he became acquainted with the
Duke of Argyll, who at that time bore the chief political
sway in Scotland. Cullen at this time seems to have de¬
voted much of his spare time to chemistry; and the Duke
of Argyll, who was at a friend s house in the neighbourhood,
and was fond of chemistry, being in want of some appara¬
tus which he could not otherwise procure, was introduced
to Cullen, who gained his good opinion, and was not for¬
gotten by the duke when it was in his power to serve him.
Shortly afterwards Cullen removed to Hamilton, where he
was admitted as a town-councillor in 1737, and served as
chief magistrate in the years 1739 and 1740.
While at Hamilton he entered into partnership with the
celebrated Dr \\ illiam Hunter, then a young man. The
574 C U L
Cullen, chief object of the connection was to enable each to pursue
and improve his medical education; and they accordingly
agreed that they should alternately study during the win¬
ter session at some medical school, while the other should
carry on the business for the common behoof. Cullen s
turn came first, and he passed the winter at the Edinburgh
University. Hunter, on the other hand, when his turn
came, chose London, where his assiduity and talents re¬
commended him to the notice of Dr Douglas, lecturer on
anatomy and midwifery, who appointed him his assistant.
Cullen, unwilling to throw any obstacle in the way of his
friend’s advancement, agreed to cancel the articles of partner¬
ship ; and he maintained ever alter a cordial correspond¬
ence with his friend.
While at Hamilton, Cullen married Miss Johnston, the
daughter of a clergyman in the neighbourhood, a beautiful
and accomplished lady of about his own age, who brought
him some money, a matter of no small importance to him
at that period ; bore him a large family, and, after a long
and happy life, died in the summer of 1786, four years be¬
fore the death of Cullen himself.
While practising at Hamilton, he was called in to pre¬
scribe for the Duke of Hamilton, who had been suddenly
taken ill; and so much pleased was the duke with young
Cullen’s ability, attention, and conversation, that from that
date he became his patron and friend.
Cullen graduated at the University of Glasgow in Sept.
1746. In the same year, through the influence of the Duke
of Hamilton, he was appointed lecturer on chemistry in
that university, and he delivered his first of a course of
lectures on that science in October. It was here he began
to exhibit that rare and precious talent of giving science an
attractive form, diffusing clearness over abstruse subjects,
generalizing facts, and making the most difficult points in¬
telligible to ordinary capacities. His lectures became ex¬
ceedingly attractive and popular, while, at the same time,
his character and practice as a physician daily increased.
In 1751, a vacancy having occurred in the professorship of
medicine, Dr Cullen, through the influence of the Duke of
Argyll, was appointed by the king to the vacant chair. Here
he so much further increased his reputation, that in 1756,
on the death of Dr Plummer, professor of chemistry in the
University of Edinburgh, the patrons (the magistrates and
town-council) unanimously offered the chair to Dr Cullen.
He accordingly resigned his appointments in Glasgow in
March 1756, and in the month of October of that year
commenced his duties in the University of Edinburgh.
At the same time he delivered clinical lectures in the
Royal Infirmary, which he continued to do till near the
close of his career. If Dr Cullen’s popularity was great in
Glasgow, it increased in Edinburgh ; so that when Dr Als¬
ton, professor of materia medica, died in February 1763,
and Dr Cullen was requested by the patrons to finish the
course of lectures which had been begun for that session,
his popularity was such that the class increased from ten to
upwards of one hundred students. He did not read his
predecessor’s lectures, but gave an entirely new course ; and
the arrangement and whole treatment of the subject was so
lucid and novel, and the generalizations so free and yet so
striking, that the publication of an imperfect copy of these
lectures, hastily prepared, possibly from students’ notes,
was hailed with pleasure by the whole medical profession.
I his publication, however, was so imperfect, that Dr Cul¬
len thought it necessary to publish a more correct edition,
which, however, did not make its appearance till 1789, the
year before his death.
On the death of Dr White, the professor of the insti¬
tutes of medicine, in 1766, the patrons offered the chair to
Dr Cullen, who accepted it, and resigned that of chemistry
in favour of Dr Black, whose talents in that department
were already known and appreciated. During the same
L E N.
year Dr Rutherford, professor of the practice of physic in Cullen,
the university, died, and Dr John Gregory having become
a candidate for the vacant chair along with Dr Cullen, was
appointed thereto by the patrons. It is usually stated that
a compromise was entered into between Dr Cullen and
Dr Gregory, by which they agreed to lecture every alter¬
nate year on the institutes and on the practice of medicine,
during their joint lives, reserving to the survivor the power
to hold either chair he should prefer. The fact is, that
Dr Cullen, on the death of Dr Rutherford, gave a course
of lectures on the practice of physic during that same win¬
ter (1766); but Dr Gregory, after his appointment to the
chair, lectured on the practice of physic during the three
successive sessions, 1767, 1768, and 1769, and it was not till
the conclusion of this, his third course, that the above ar¬
rangement was entered into between these eminent pro¬
fessors. Never, perhaps, was a literary engagement en¬
tered into which could have proved more beneficial to the
students than this. Both these men possessed great talents,
though of a kind extremely dissimilar. Each had certain
failings and defects, which the other knew, and endea¬
voured to counteract. They co-operated, therefore, in the
happiest manner to enlarge the understanding and to forward
the pursuits of their pupils. But unfortunately this arrange¬
ment was brought to a premature close by the sudden death
of Dr John Gregory, on the 9th of February 1773, in the
forty-ninth year of his age. After this period Dr Cullen
confined himself to the delivery of lectures on the practice
of physic. This branch of science he continued to teach
till a few months before his death, which took place on the
5th of February 1790, in the seventy-seventh year of his age.
As a lecturer Cullen was the greatest ornament to the
university of Edinburgh, at a time when its lustre shone
bright. His lectures were delivered viva voce, without
having been previously written out. The vigour of his
mind was such, that nothing more was necessary than
a few short notes to prevent him varying from the general
order which he had laid down for the course. This gave
to his discourses an ease, a vivacity, a variety and a force
which are rarely to be met with in academical discourses ;
while the particular illustrations were always new, and
adapted to the circumstances which attracted the general
attention of the day. Dr Cullen considered that the pro¬
per business of a preceptor was to put his pupils into a pro¬
per train of study, so as to enable them to prosecute those
studies at a future period. He did not therefore strive so
much to make his pupils versant with the details of any
particular subject, as to give them a general view of the
whole ; to show them what had been already ascertained
regarding it, and to point out what still remained to be dis¬
covered. In fact, he wished to put them in a train of study
which should enable them at a future period to investigate
the causes of those difficulties which obstructed the path
of medicine, and by their labours advance it to greater
perfection. He thus succeeded in stimulating the mental
faculties of his students ; and instead of labouring himself
to supply deficiencies which far exceeded the power of any
one man to accomplish, he set thousands to work to fulfil
the task, giving to their minds an impetus that sustained
them in their labours. His external appearance was striking
and pleasing, though not elegant. His countenance was
expressive, and his eye lively and penetrating. In person
he was tall and thin; but he stooped much, and when he
walked he had a contemplative look, and seemed to be in¬
sensible to what was passing around him.
Previous to the days of Cullen, and during his early life,
the medical philosophy or medical doctrines of Boerhaave
were universally taught in the schools. Boerhaave at¬
tempted to combine into one system the vital philosophy
of Hippocrates (the vis medicatrix naturae), the chemico-
humoral principle of Paracelsus, the mechanical doctrines
C U L
Cullera of Bellini, and a few of the other doctrines taught by for¬
mer medical philosophers. He attributed, however, more
Culna. t0 the chemical and mechanical forces than to the powers
of life, and of course embraced a large portion of the doc¬
trine of the humoral pathologists. Cullen, seeing that
many of the facts then known were irreconcileable with
Boerhaave s doctrines, became its warm opponent, espe¬
cially taking offence at those doctrines which attributed
almost every disease to a vitiation of the fluids of the body.
Indeed, he might almost be said to have adopted as his
motto the celebiated aphorism of Hoffman, 44 Universa
pathologia longe rectius atque facilius ex vitio motuum
microcosmicorum in solidis, quam ex variis affectionibus
vitiosorum humorum, deduci atque explicari possit, adeoque
omnis generis nervosi affectionibus sint referenda.” Liv¬
ing at the time he did, when the doctrines of the humoral
pathologists were carried to an extreme extent, and wit¬
nessing the ravages which disease made on the solid struc¬
tures of the body, it was not surprising that he should op¬
pose a doctrine which appeared to him to lead to a false
practice, and to fatal results, and adopt one which attri¬
buted more to the agency of the solids, and very little to
that of the fluids of the body. The Cullenian system was
certainly an immense improvement on those which pre¬
ceded it, and has served as a valuable stepping-stone for
the rational doctrines which now prevail. He was obliged
to introduce the doctrine of a spasm in the extreme vessels
in order to account, on his theory, for many of the pheno¬
mena of disease; still we cannot refuse to him the honour
of having been an able and successful improver in medical
science. His classification of diseases was remarkable for
its simplicity and clearness. He divided diseases into four
great classes—1st, Pyrexiae or febrile disease, as typhus fe¬
ver ; 2d, Neuroses, or nervous diseases, as epilepsy; 3d,
Cachexiae, or diseases resulting from bad habit of body,
as scurvy ; and, 4th, Locales, or local diseases, as cancer.
His nosological arrangement has served to a considerable
extent as the groundwork of modern nosologies, and was
a great improvement, both in simplicity and clearness, on
the involved productions of his predecessors. Cullen’s
chief works are, First Lines of the Practice of Physic,
Edin. 1774, 4 vols. 8vo ; and a second edition, published
during his life in 1788; Institutions of Medicine, Edin.
1770, 12mo; Synopsis Nosologice Methodicce, Edin. 1785,
2 vols. 8vo ; Treatise on the Materia Medica, Edin. 1789,
2 vols. 4to. (j. s—k.)
CULLERA, a seaport-town situated at the mouth of
the Xucar, Valencia, Spain. It stands on the outskirts of
a fine agricultural district, and carries on a considerable
coasting-trade with France and the Mediterranean. It also
contains extensive barracks for troops on their march from
the coast to the capital. Pop. 7000.
CULLODEN, a desolate tract of moorland, about five
miles S.E. from Inverness ; celebrated as the scene of the
battle (April 16, 1746) which extinguished the hopes of the
house of Stuart. See Britain, vol. v., p. 461.
CULM (Lat. culmus, a stalk), in Botany, the stalk or
stem of the grasses, usually jointed and hollow, and sup¬
porting the leaves, flower, and fruit. See Botany.
Culm (Welsh cwlm), a variety of coal. It is difficult of
ignition, but burns for a long time, without flame or smoke,
but emitting a disagreeable smell. It does not cake, and
it leaves but few ashes. Culm is the Bitumen oxygenatum
of Linnaeus, and the glanz kohle of Werner. It is otherwise
known as anthracite. See Colliery.
CULMINATION (Lat. culmen, the summit), in Astro¬
nomy, the transit of a celestial body over the meridian, or
the highest point of its diurnal circle.
CULNA, in Hindustan, a town in the British district
of Burdwan, presidency of Bengal, on the right bank of
the river Hooghly, on the route from Cutwa to the town
C U M 575
of Hooghly, 26 miles east of the city of Burdwan. It is Culpee
the port of the district, and has long been noted for its II
trade in rice, grain, silk, and cotton. Of late years the Cumae-
traffic of the place has greatly increased, in consequence of
its being found a convenient station for steamers plying
between Calcutta and the upper provinces. The bazaar
consists of 1000 shops, and the population of the town has
been returned at 60,000. The rajah of Burdwan has here a
splendid mansion. The town forms the station of the Free
Church mission, and has an English school containing 120
boys. Lat. 23. 14.; Long. 88. 20. (e. t.)
CULPEE, a town of Bengal, district of Hooghly, on
the eastern bank of the river Hooghly. It stands 33 miles
below Calcutta, at the mouth of a creek that gives shel¬
ter to boats from the impetuosity of the tide, which runs
there with great violence. Opposite the town is the place
of anchorage for large ships which cannot get higher up
the river. The shores here are a bed of mud, and the
banks of the river are covered with thick jungle. Culpee
is considered extremely unhealthy, on account of the
swamps and woods by which it is surrounded. E. Lone\
88.18.; N. Lat. 22. 6. (e. t.)
CULROSS, an ancient seaport, royal burgh, and pa¬
rish of Perthshire, about 22 miles N.N.W. from Edinburgh.
It received its charter from James VI. in 1588, and was
then prosperously engaged in the export of coal, and the
manufacture of patented iron “ girdles” and salt. It has
still a small pier, accessible however only to fishing-boats;
but its trade is now derived from the manufacture of linen
and cotton. At the east end of the town are the remains of
a chapel dedicated to St Mungo; and the parish church
forms part of the chapel of Culross Abbey founded in 1217.
Pop. 605.
CULVERIN (Fr. couleuvrine, from Lat. colubrinus,
serpent-like), a name given to a long and slender piece of
ordnance, at a time when it was the fashion to apply fan¬
ciful appellations to such things, of which falconet is another
example. A whole culverin was an 18-pounder, and a demi-
culverin a 9-pounder.
CULVERT is used generally to denote any arched chan¬
nel for the passage of water under ground, such as is com¬
mon in the embankments of railways.
CULVERTAJLED, among shipwrights, the same as
dovetailed in carpentry; culver being an old name for a
dove or pigeon.
CUMfE, or Cuma, in Ancient Geography, the oldest
and one of the most important of all the Greek colonies in
Italy, was situate on the shore of Campania between the
lakes Acherusia and Liternus, and about six miles north of
Baiae. The most generally received opinion is, that Cumae
was founded by a joint colony from the iEolian Cumae and
Chalcis in Euboea, who agreed that they should call the
city by the name of one of the parent states, while it
should take rank as a colony of the other. The exact date
of its foundation is unknown ; but it is certain that Cumae
had attained a high degree of prosperity vdffle Rome
was still struggling into existence. In the eighth cen¬
tury b.c. it had extended its power on every side into
Campania, and like Sybaris and Crotona had begun to
plant flourishing colonies, and establish itself besides as a
maritime power. Of its numerous colonies the most pros¬
perous was Neapolis. Evidences of its maritime power
were the splendid harbours of Dicaearchia and Misenum.
The first event which led to the decline of Cuma: was the
establishment of the Etruscan supremacy by sea. A se¬
verer blow still was the invasion of Campania by that peo¬
ple and their allies about the year 522 b.c. This attack
was repelled, though at a great loss to the Cumaeans, chiefly
by the ability of Aristodemus, who overthrew the existing
government, and established a tyranny, which endured for
20 years. At the end of that period he was driven out of
576 C U M
Cumana city by the nobles, who had once more become powerful.
II Twenty-two years after that date, the Cumaeans, unable any
Cumber ]ongerof themselves to resist the growingpower of the Tus-
yJT'Lj cans» called in the aid of Hiero of Syracuse- With his as_
^ v ^ sistance they defeated their opponents, and secured them¬
selves against attack for many years. In 520 b.c. the
Samnites, a more formidable foe than the Tuscans, made
themselves masters of Cumae, put the male citizens to the
sword, and established a colony of their own in the city.
In 338 b.c. Cumae was admitted to the Roman franchise,
and ever after continued faithful to her alliance with Rome.
In the second Punic w’ar Hannibal besieged the town in
vain, though it had greatly declined from its original size
and strength. In the later ages of the republic it attained
a kind of reflected prosperity from the neighbourhood of
Baiae, and other favourite retreats of the Roman nobility ;
but it is henceforth always talked of as “ Vacuae Cumae,”
“ Quieta Cuma,” in reference to its half-deserted air. In
the wars of the Goths and Romans, Cumae once more be¬
came for a short time important, as the last stronghold of
the Gothic kings in Italy. In 552 it surrendered to the
victorious arms of Narses. Some remains of Cumae are
still to be seen. Of these a ruinous amphitheatre, a brick
arch, supposed to be one of the old gates of the city, and
a small temple, are the principal. Bronze statues and vases
have at different times been dug up, rewarding the searches
of modern antiquaries. Not the least interesting spot in
the vicinity of Cumae, is the cave where the Sybil is said
to have had her residence. A great cavern in the 1’ock on
which the citadel stood was shown by the Cumaeans as the
place whence that prophetess propounded her enigmas.
This cavern existed unimpaired till the time of Narses, who
availed himself of it to undermine the walls of the town.
The walls fell, breaking down in their descent the roof of
the cave, the remains of which, however, are still pointed
out to the traveller. See Amalth^ea, and Roman His¬
tory.
CUMANA, a city of Venezuela and capital of a cogno-
minal province, stands on the gulf of Cariaco, at the
mouth of the Manzanares. It is the oldest European city
in South America, having been founded by Diego Castel-
lon in 1523. It was almost totally destroyed by the terrible
earthquake of 1766. The houses are generally low and flat,
and have a poor appearance ; but the style of building has
recently been much improved. Cumana possesses a capa¬
cious roadstead, and presents great facilities for obtaining
provisions. The principal exports consist of cattle, smoked
meat, and dried fish. Pop. 9000.
CUMBERLAND, a county of England, at its N.W. ex¬
tremity ; situated between 54. 6. and 55. 7^-. N. Eat., and
2. 13.and 3. 30. W. Long.; bounded on the N. by Scotland
and the Solway Firth ; on the E. by Northumberland and
Durham; on the S. by Westmoreland and Lancashire ;
and on the W., for about 67 miles, by the Irish Sea. It
is, at a medium, about 50 miles long and 30 broad, within
a bounding line of 215 miles, of which 75 are coast; and
contains 1565 square miles, or 1,001,273 acres, of which
the mountainous district comprises more than a third, the
old inclosures about a half, and the lakes and waters 8000
acres ; the remainder being either commons capable of im¬
provement, or lands recently inclosed. The principal divi¬
sions are called wards, a term synonymous with hundreds
in other counties. Of these there are five, namely, Cum¬
berland, Eskdale, Leath, Allerdale above Derwent, and
Allerdale below Derwent. The ward of Allerdale above
Derwent is in the diocese of Chester, and all the others are
in that of Carlisle. I he county contains the city of Carlisle,
17 market-towns, and 112 parishes. The population in
1851 amounted to 355,558, being an increase of 66 per
cent, in fifty years. The number of inhabitants to a square
mile is 125 ; to a house 5’3. The total number of houses
C U M
in 1851 was 38,547 ; 36,763 being inhabited, 1545 unin- Cumber-
habited, and 239 building. Cumberland presents every laid,
variety of surface. The south-western district is generally v'—
mountainous, rugged, and sterile, yet contains several rich
though narrow valleys, with many fine lakes, islands, rivers,
cascades, and woodlands, which, combined or contrasted in
the view with the gigantic rocky masses around them, ex¬
hibit many remarkable scenes of grandeur, desolation, and
beauty. Skiddaw, Saddleback, Helvellyn, rising to the
height of more than 3000 feet, belong to this quarter. The
highest part of that immense ridge which, commencing
in Derbyshire, extends in a continued chain into the Lo-
thians, forms the eastern boundary; in which Crossfell,
about 3400 feet high, surrounded with other lofty and bar¬
ren eminences, retains the snow upon its summit nearly
three-fourths of the year.
The northern part of the county, or what has been called
the Vale of Carlisle, is in general flat; and a tract of low
land, from two to four or five miles in breadth, extends along
the western shore. The climate necessarily corresponds
with this variety of surface : here, as in the other western
counties, the rains are frequent and copious, particularly in
summer, and often also in autumn. Black peat earth is
the most prevalent soil in the mountainous districts, and is
found too in the moors and commons of the low grounds.
About half the cultivated land consists of dry loams, ex¬
cellently adapted for the growth of turnips, herbage, and
all sorts of grain. Fertile clays occupy but a small portion,
but clay, wet and sterile, forms the subsoil in many parts.
The principal rivers are the Eden, the Derwent, the Cal-
dew, and the Esk. The Eden has its source in Westmore¬
land, near the borders of Yorkshire, and, pursuing a north¬
westerly course in its progress through Cumberland, passes
Kirkoswald and Carlisle, and falls into the Solway Firth
near Rockcliffe March, where it forms a fine estuary. The
vale land on its banks is for the most part very narrow ; and
in some places the high grounds approach to the water’s
edge. On this river there are several salmon-fisheries be¬
longing to different proprietors. The Derwent rises among
the picturesque crags at the head of Borrowdale, in the
south-west range of mountains, whence it dashes from rock
to rock till it reaches Derwent Lake, from which it flows on¬
ward through Bassenthwaite water, and, after being joined
bv the Cocker near Cockermouth, tails into the sea a little
from Workington. The scenery along the whole ol its
course is singularly varied and interesting. I he Caldew
issues from the south-east side of Skiddaw, and joins the
Eden near Carlisle, after a course of 24 miles, in which it
gives motion to a number of cotton and corn mills. 1 he
vale through which it flows is very beautiful, and its banks
are well wooded. The Esk enters Cumberland from Scot¬
land at a place called the Moat, and, flowing in a westerly
direction by Longtown, falls into the Solway Firth. 1 he
Liddel, another Scottish river, which in part of its course
separates Cumberland from Scotland, joins the Esk after it
has passed into England.
Landed property is much divided in this county, and the
small estates are commonly occupied by their owners.
Most of them are held under the lords of manors, by
what is called customary tenure; which subjects them to
the payment of fines and heriots on alienation, and on the
death of the lord or tenant, besides certain annual rents,
and the performance of a variety of degrading and vexa¬
tious services. According to the authors of the Agricul¬
tural Survey, printed in 1794, about two-thirds of the
county were held by this tenure, in parcels worth from L.15
to L.30 of yearly rent. On large estates, also, the farms
were in general rather small, few then reaching L.200
a-year, possessed on verbal contracts or very short leases, and
burdened, like the small estates, with payments or services,
over and above a money rent; but leases for fourteen or
CUMBERLAND.
Cumber
land.
Manufac¬
tures.
loal,
twenty-one years are now not uncommon. The live stock
consists of horses of rather a small size ; cattle of the lon^-
horned breed, with a few Galloways ; to which of late the
improved short-horns have been added by a few great pro¬
prietors; and sheep, chiefly of the black-faced heath va¬
riety. In the mountainous district, at the head of the Dud-
don andEsk rivers, there is a breed of sheep of a somewhat
peculiar character ; the ewes and wethers, and many of the
rams, being polled, their faces and legs speckled, and the
wool finer than that of the heath breed. They belong to
the proprietor of the lands, and have been farmed out with
them from time immemorial to herds at a yearly rent; and
from this circumstance, it is said, have obtained the name
of Herdwicks. There are a number of small dairies, at
which butter and skimmed-milk cheese are made. All the
common species of grain are cultivated, though in many in¬
stances with little attention to system, corn crops being often
raised on the same soil for several years in succession. Turnips
and clovers do not yet enter into the rotation in many parts
of the county. Potatoes are extensively cultivated. That
excellent variety of oats called the potato oat was first dis¬
covered in Cumberland in 1788, whence it has now spread
over every part of the United Kingdom. Among the farm
implements the single-horse cart deserves to be noticed, as
being almost exclusively employed, and with great advan¬
tage, as it is not only by far the most convenient and eco¬
nomical carriage for the farmer, but is much less injurious
to the public roads than the waggons and heavily-loaded
carts used in many other English counties.
The principal manufactures of Cumberland are calicoes,
corduroys, and other cotton fabrics, established at Dalston,
Carlisle, Warwick Bridge, and a few other places. Cotton¬
printing is carried on to some extent in Carlisle; the ma¬
nufacture of sail-cloth and cordage at Workington and
Whitehaven; and checks and coarse linens in several of
the market towns. In this, as in other thinly peopled and
mountainous districts, domestic manufactures, such as wool¬
len cloth, stockings, &c. supply a great part of the wants of
the peasantry. The Seaton iron-works, on the banks of
the Derwent above Workington, a manufactory of coarse
earthenware near Dearham, and paper mills in various
parts of the county, with breweries, and a soap-work at Car¬
lisle, comprise all the other manufacturing establishments
of any note in this county.
Cumberland abounds in minerals, from which a great part
of its wealth is drawn. The most valuable are coal, black
lead, lead, copper, iron, slate, and limestone.
Coal is found at different places in the eastern mountains,
and also near Brampton in the northern part of the county,
but in greatest abundance on the west side of the river Cal-
dew, and thence towards Maryport, Workington, and White¬
haven. A number of mines are constantly at work in this
district, particularly near Whitehaven and Workington.
The principal entrance to the coal-mines at Whitehaven is
by an opening at the bottom of a hill, through a long pas¬
sage hewn in the rock, which, by a steep descent, leads
down to the lowest vein of coal. The greater part of this
descent is through spacious galleries, intersecting each
other; all the coal being dug away, except large pillars,
which in deep parts of the mine are three yards high, and
twelve yards square at the base. The mines generally
are sunk to the depth of 130 fathoms ; and one of them,
the King Pit, with a depth of 160 fathoms, extends under
the sea to places where the water overhead is of sufficient
depth for ships of great burden. Four engines, when all
working together, discharge 1228 gallons of water every
Minute; while another raises 9225 hogsheads every twenty-
four hours. The seams all dip to the west about one yard
in ten. Mr Spedding, the engineer of these works, observ¬
ing that the fire-damp was not liable to be ignited by the
sparks produced by the collision of flint and steel, many
vol. vii, 17
years ago invented a machine, in which, while a steel wheel
was turned round with a very rapid motion, flints were ap¬
plied to it, and, by the abundance of sparks emitted, the 's—
miners were enabled to carry on their work, where the flame
of an ordinary lamp or candle would have occasioned explo¬
sions. But even this contrivance was found not to be an ef¬
fectual preservative; and the ingenious inventor himself
lost his life by one of those explosions which he had so se¬
dulously attempted to prevent. There are railways from
the pits to the quay, over which large flues or hurries are
placed, through which the contents of the waggons are
speedily discharged into the holds of the ships. The coals
are exported to Ireland and the west of Scotland. The
coal-pits at Workington are from forty to ninety fathoms
deep. The uppermost seam is generally three feet thick,
the second four, and the third or lowest that has been hi¬
therto worked from ten to twelve feet.
( The famous black-lead mines are situated at the head of
Borrowdale, in the south-west range of mountains. The
mineral is found in irregular masses, generally imbedded
in a slate rock, intersected by granite ; and it is only wrought
occasionally. At other times the mines are protected from
pdferers by a temporary wall within ; and the house of the
steward is built over the entrance.
As these mines or “ wad holes” cannot supply a sufficient
quantity of the genuine plumbago, a considerable quantity
is imported; and an imitation is manufactured which, for
the commoner sorts of pencils, is used by itself, but is
mixed with the mineral for drawing-pencils. The whole
that is taken from the Borrowdale mines is sent direct to
London, where it is sold to the manufacturers. Its price
averages about thirty shillings a pound.
The principal lead mines are in Aldstone Moor, on the
south-east borders of the county. The ore is found in
veins often nearly perpendicular, and not unfrequently con¬
tains a considerable proportion of silver. The most con¬
siderable copper mines are near Caldbeck, at Hesket New
Market, in Borrowdale, and at Newlands in the vicinity of
Keswick; but they are not now wrought to a great extent.
The ore is commonly a sulphuret, and usually contains
both iron and arsenic. In the parish of Egremont, at a
place called Crowgarth, is the most singular mine of iron
ore, it is supposed, in Britain. It lies at the depth of
twelve fathoms, and the thickness of the band of ore is
from twenty-four to twenty-five feet. In 1791 and 1792,
the annual exportation from it to the Carron foundry in
Scotland, and others, was upwards of 20,000 tons. Very
good slate is found in the south-western mountains, and
limestone in various parts of the county. Of the latter,
when calcined, the exportation to the west of Scotland
used to be very considerable. Among the mineral or fossil
productions may be mentioned marble, spar of various
colours and forms, gypsum, steatites, and kaolin or porce¬
lain clay.
Cumberland contains a number of towns, few of them
large or populous. Carlisle, Penrith, Wigton, Maryport,
Cockermouth, Workington, Whitehaven, Egremont, and
Keswick, are the most considerable. The exports, chiefly
from Whitehaven, Maryport, Workington, and Harrington,
are coals, lime, butter, bacon, cured cod for the Liverpool
market, and salmon and potted char for London. Since
the East India trade was thrown open, Whitehaven has
been among the first ports to embark in it; and it has long
possessed a share of the trade with America.
1 he lakes and mountains of Cumberland have long at- Laives
tracted the admirers of the wild and beautiful in natural
scenery. The lakes, including the tarns or smaller pieces
or water, are fifteen in number. The finest are Ullswater
and Derwentwater or Keswick Lake. Ullswater is partly
situated in Cumberland and partly in Westmoreland : it is
about nine miles in length, and from a quarter of a mile to
4 D
577
Cumber¬
land.
CUMBERLAND.
one mile in breadth. Winding round the base of vast rocky a chaos of dark mountains at a distance, with lakes seen Cumber-
mountains, it is seen only in successive portions; the scenery dimly at the feet of the nearest, and a vast expanse of cham- land,
on its margin presenting new and striking objects at every paign country, bounded by the Irish Channel, and traversed
stretch. The rocks in its vicinity are celebrated for rever- by silvery thread-1,ke streams ,n every direction. Lpon
’ ' the summits of the Cross-fell ridge there frequently hangs
berating sounds. The report of a cannon re-echoes six cr
seven times, with pauses between, in which the sound cf
the distant waterfall is for a moment heard. ”1 his lake con¬
tains various kinds of fish, particularly trout, peich, and eels ,
and also char and guiniad or skellies, the last in consider-
able numbers. Derwentwater or Keswick Lake is of an ir-
regular figure, approaching to an oval, about three miles
in length and one and a half in breadth. It is seen at one
view, expanding within an amphitheatre of mountains,
rocky but not vast; broken into manyfantastic shapes; open¬
ing by narrow valleys the view of rocks which rise imme¬
diately beyond, and which are again overlooked by others.
Masses of wood frequently appear among the cliffs, feather¬
ing them to their summits; and a white cottage sometimes
peeps from out their skirts, seated on the smooth knoll of
a piece of pasture projecting towards the lake. Its bosom
is spotted by small islands, of which those called Lord’s and
St Herbert’s are well wooded. The celebrated Fall of Low-
dore, on the southern side of the lake, consists of a series
of cascades, which rush over an enormous pile of protru¬
ding crags, from the height of nearly 200 feet. What is
called the floating island of Keswick, appears occasionally
on the side of the lake opposite to this fall, but only when
the water in the lake is high, and then scarcely a foot above
the surface. It is formed of matted weeds detached by
the rising waters. The size of the island seems, according
to different accounts, to vary; and its existence has not
been unfrequently denied altogether. The waters of this
lake are sometimes agitated in an extraordinary manner,
without any apparent cause; and in a perfectly calm day
they are seen to swell in high waves, whch have a progres¬
sive motion from west to east. This is ascribed to what
are called bottom winds. The swell sometimes continues
for an hour or two only, at other times almost a whole day.
The following table shows the extent of the lakes, and
their elevation above the sea level:—
Length. Breadth. Elevation.
Ullswater   9 miles. 1 mile. 380 feet.
Bassenthwaite  4 1 210
Derwentwater   3 222
Crummock Water  3 Of 240
Wastwater  3 OJ 160
Thirlemere  2f 0^ 473
Ennerdale Water   2£ 0£
Buttermere  If- 0J- 247
Loweswater..   1 0J
The heights of the waterfalls are as follows :—
Scale Force   ,  156 feet.
Barrow Fall  124
Lowdore Fall   ... 100
Airey Force  80
Birker Force  60
Stanley Gill       60
Sour-Milk Gill    60
Gilsland Spa, in the middle of a wild romantic valley,
called the Vale of Irthing, about eight miles S.E. of Bew-
castle, has long been a place of considerable resort; and,
independently of the medicinal qualities of its springs, pre¬
sents attractions to visitors, particularly the painter and
geologist, in the variety of its landscape and the disposition
of the strata exposed in the banks of the river in its vicinity.
From the tops of the mountains in Cumberland, the views
are alike extensive and varied. The summit of Skiddaw
brings under the eye the Irish Sea and the German Ocean;
a vast volume of clouds, reaching half way down towards
the base of the fells. At some distance from this helm, as
it is called, and opposite to it, another cloud, called the
helm-bar, is seen in continual agitation, whilst the helm it¬
self remains motionless. When the bar is dispersed, the
w ind rushes from the helm, often with great fury, and some¬
times on both sides of the mountains.
The early history of this county is involved in obscurity.
In the tenth century it appears to have been in the posses¬
sion of the Scots; but whether by a grant from the crown
of England or by conquest, has been matter of dispute. It
was long made the scene of plunder and bloodshed, by the
savage incursions of both kingdoms alternately. At a con¬
ference held at York, Henry III,, in full satisfaction of the
claims of the Scots, agreed to assign lands to them of the
yearly value of L.200, within the counties of Northumber¬
land and Cumberland, if lands of that value could be found
therein, without the limits of the towns where castles were
erected. But after this arrangement there still remained
a tract between the two kingdoms, called the debateable
ground, the resort of the worst characters of both, who con¬
tinued to disturb the borders down to the union of the two
crowns. Of the ancient British antiquities of Cumberland
the most remarkable is a circle of stones, about three miles
from Kirkoswald, called Long Meg and her Daughters ; and
there is a unique little circle of 48 stones, between Melkeld
and Keswick, scarcely two miles from the latter. The
stones are porphyritic greenstone. The Roman wall may
still be traced from the neighbourhood of Carlisle, both to
the east and west, for some miles. A great many coins,
altars, and other vestiges of antiquity, have been discovered
at the Roman stations on its line. In the mountainous
parts the manners of the people are somewhat peculiar; and
in some of the solitary dales they have perhaps undergone
little alteration for a very long period.
Cumberland sends nine members to parliament; four for
the county, two for Carlisle, two for Cockermouth, and one
for Whitehaven. It is governed by a lord-lieutenant, high
sheriff, 12 deputy-lieutenants, and about 85 magistrates. It
lies in the north circuit, and chiefly in the diocese of Carlisle.
Cumberland, the capital of Alleghany county, North
America, on the north bank of the river Potomac, 179
miles from Baltimore. It contains a court-house, county
prison, market-house, two banks, and several handsome
churches. In the immediate neighbourhood is a rich and
extensive coal region, which in 1851 yielded to Baltimore
alone a supply of 163,855 tons. Pop. (1850) 6076.
Cumberland River, a large river of North America, which
flows through Kentucky westward about 200 miles, and after
a meandering course of about 120 miles, again enters Ken¬
tucky, and falls into the Ohio. Its entire length is about
600 miles, and it is navigable for large steam-boats to
Nashville, 203 miles, and for boats of 15 tons 300 miles.
Cumberland, Richard, bishop of Peterborough, was
the son of a respectable citizen of London, and was born
in the parish of St Ann, near Aldersgate, in the year
1632. Having laid a proper foundation of classical learn¬
ing in St Paul’s school, he was removed to Magdalen Col¬
lege, Cambridge, where in due time he took his degrees in
arts, and obtained a fellowship. Fie took the degree of
A.B. in 1653; and having proceeded A.M. in 1656, he
was next year incorporated to the same degree in the
university of Oxford.1 For some time he applied himself
1 Biographia Britannica, vol. iv., p. 558.
CUMBERLAND.
Cumber- to the study of physic; and although he did not adhere to
land, this profession, he retained his knowledge of anatomy and
medicine. Mr Payne informs us that “ he distinguished
himself, whilst he was a fellow of the college, by the per¬
formance of his academical exercises. He went out bat-
chelor of divinity at a publick commencement; and tho’ it
w'as hardly known that the same person performed those
great exercises twice, yet such was the expectation he had
raised, that he was afterwards sollicited to keep the act at
another publick commencement for his doctor’s degree.”
He took the degree of B. D. in 1663, and that of D. D. in
1680.1 Two of his contemporaries and intimate friends
were Dr Hezekiah Burton, a worthy clergyman, “ who
was early lost to his family, his acquaintance, and the
world,” and Dr Hollings, who settled as a physician at
Shrewsbury, and was there held in universal esteem.
There were other members of the same college with whom
he likewise cultivated a particular acquaintance; and
among these were Sir Samuel Moreland, who was distin¬
guished by his knowledge of mathematics, Sir Orlando
Bridgeman, who became keeper of the great seal, and Mr
Pepys, who for many years was secretary to the admiralty,
and who is well known by his posthumous Memoirs.
To this academical connexion he appears to have been
in a great measure indebted for his subsequent advance¬
ment in the church. When Bridgeman was appointed
lord keeper, he nominated Cumberland and Burton as his
chaplains, nor did he afterwards neglect the interest of
either. Cumberland’s first preferment was the rectory of
Brampton in Northamptonshire, which was bestowed upon
him in 1658 by Sir John Norwich. He then quitted the
university, and went to reside on his benefice, where he
zealously devoted himself to the duties of his sacred office,
and to the prosecution of those abstruse studies to which
he had long been addicted. His chief relaxation con¬
sisted in occasional excursions to Cambridge, for the pur¬
pose of maintaining those lettered friendships which he
had formed in early life, and probably for the purpose of
consulting such books as his own library could not supply.
In 1661 he was appointed one of the twelve preachers of
the university. His character was very remote from that
of a preferment-hunter ; and in this unambitious retire¬
ment he might have spent the remainder of his life, if the
lord keeper, who obtained his office in 1667, had not in¬
vited him to London, and soon afterwards bestowed upon
him the rectory of Allhallows at Stamford. In this new
situation, he acquired new credit by the fidelity with which
he discharged his important functions. In addition to
his ordinary duties, he undertook the weekly lecture, and
thus was obliged to preach thrice every week in the same
church. This labour he constantly and assiduously per¬
formed, and in the mean time found sufficient leisure, as
well as inclination, to prosecute his scientific and philolo¬
gical studies.
579
At the mature age of forty, he published his earliest Cumber-
work, entitled “ De Legibus Naturae Disquisitio philoso- lan<b
phica, in qua earum Forma, summa Capita, Ordo, Promul- ''-''Y''—'
gatio, et Obligatio e llerum Natura investigantur; quin
etiam Elementa Philosophiae Hobbianae, cum moralis turn
civilis, considerantur et refutantur.” Lond. 1672, 4to.
It is dedicated to Sir Orlando Bridgeman, and is prefaced
by an “ Alloquium ad Lectorem,” contributed by the au¬
thor’s friend Dr Burton. Cumberland’s treatise is evi¬
dently the production of an acute and philosophical mind,
and entitles him to a very respectable place among wri¬
ters on the principles of natural law; but his speculations
are not entirely free from that indistinctness which is too
prevalent among those who have undertaken similar en¬
quiries. His arguments are chiefly directed against the
Epicurean laxity of Hobbes, whose writings on the ele¬
ments of morality and politics, though of a very debasing
tendency, made a strong impression on his contempora¬
ries. His system was now opposed by another, which com¬
prehends a more pleasing view of man in his moral and
social relations. “ The most universal love, or most diffu¬
sive benevolence, of all rational beings towards each other,
constitutes the happiest state they can be capable of; so
that their endeavour of the common good, by this benevo¬
lence, is the sum of all the laws of nature, and in which
they are all contained.”2
Cumberland’s treatise De Legibus Naturae appeared
during the same year with that of Pufendorf De Jure
Naturae et Gentium, which was printed at Lund, where the
author was then a professor. This work of the English
divine was highly commended in a subsequent publication
of the German lawyer;3 and his weighty suffrage must
have had the effect of making it known on the continent.
The book was reprinted at Lubeck in 1683, and again in
1694. It was likewise reprinted at Dublin. The style of
the learned author has no particular recommendations;
and as his work was printed in London wdiile he was resid¬
ing at Stamford, the first edition contains many typogra¬
phical errors ; nor are they removed in the subsequent edi¬
tions. Dr Bentley afterwards undertook to revise the
entire text, and, according to his grandson’s account, he
most effectually performed this task; but Barbeyrac, who
had the use of the corrected copy, and who was a more
competent judge of its value, entertained a less favourable
opinion. This copy is now in the library of Trinity Col¬
lege, Cambridge. The author’s family intended to publish
a splendid edition of the work, but their laudable design
was never executed.
Mr Tyrrell, who was the grandson of Archbishop Usher,
and is himself well known as a writer on history and poli¬
tics, digested Cumberland’s doctrines into a new form,
and published a considerable volume under the following
title : “ A brief Disquisition of the Law of Nature, accord¬
ing to the Principles and Method laid down in the Reve-
1 Cantabrigienses Graduati, p. 113. Cantab. 1800, 4to. 2 Tyrrell’s Disquisition of the Law of Nature, p, 7.
2 u Quantum tamen mihi constat,” says Pufendorf in allusion to Hobbes, “ ipsius hypothesin inter Anglos solidissime destruxit
Richardus Cumberlandus, libro erudito et ingenioso de Legibus Naturae; simulque adversam hypotbesin, quae ad Stoicorum placita
proxime accedit, firmissime adstruxit.” (Specimen Controversiarum circa Jus Naturale ipsi nuper motarum, cap. i. § 6.) This tract
is reprinted in the author’s Eris Scandica. Francof. 1686, 4to. And it may likewise be found in Mascou’s edition of his work De Jure
A’aturce et Gentium. Francof. et Lips. 1759, 2 tom. 4to.
Sir James Mackintosh, in his Dissertation on the Progress of Ethical Philosophy, p. 323, has inadvertently stated that Cumberland
was the only professed answerer of Hobbes. Some of this philosopher’s notions on the principles of natural law were discussed by
George Lawson, rector of More in the county of Salop, who published “ An Examination of the Political Part of Mr Hobbs his
Leviathan ” Lond. 1657, 8vo. His speculations were formally opposed by Roger Coke, in a volume which bears the following
title: “ Justice vindicated from the false fucus put upon it by Thomas White, Gent. Mr Thomas Hobbs, and Hugo Grotius: as
also Elements of Power and Subjection, wherein is demonstrated the Cause of all humane, Christian, and legal Society.” Lond.
1660, fob A Dutch clergyman, Gisbertus Cocquius, doctor of philosophy, soon afterwards published “Hobbes sive Vin-
dicise pro Lege, Imperio, et Religione, contra Tractatus Thomae Hobbesii, quibus tit. de Cive et Leviathan.” Ultrajecti, 1668, 12mo.
The same divine is likewise the author of a book entitled “ Yindiciae pro Religione in Regno Dei Naturali, contra Hobbes de Cive,
cap. 15. Leviathan, cap. 31.” Ultraj. 1668, 12mo.
580
Cumber-
land.
CUMBERLAND.
rend Dr Cumberland’s (now Lord Bishop of Peterbo¬
rough’s) Latin treatise on that subject; as also bis Confu¬
tations of Mr Hobbs’s Principles put into anotberjnethod :
with the Right Reverend Author’s approbation. Lond.
1692, 8vo. Another edition appeared in 1701. A com¬
plete English version of the original work was published
by John Maxwell, A. M. prebendary ot Connor, undei
the title of “ A Treatise of the Laws of Nature,” &c.
Lond. 1727, 4to. And at a more recent period, a French
translation was executed by the learned Barbeyrac, who
likewise enriched his native language by transfusing into
it the great works of Grotius and Pufendorf. “ Traite
philosophique des Loix Naturelles, &c. traduit du Latin,
par Monsieur Barbeyrac, Docteur en Droit, et Professeur
en la meme Faculte dans 1’Universite de Groningue : avec
des notes du traducteur, qui a joint celles de la traduc¬
tion Angloise.” Amsterdam, 1744, 4to. _
Having thus established a solid reputation, Dr Cumber¬
land next prepared a work on a very different^ subject;
“ An Essay towards the Recovery of the Jewish Mea¬
sures and Weights, comprehending their Monies ; by help
of ancient standards, compared with ours of England :
useful also to state many of those of the Greeks and Ro¬
mans, and the Eastern Nations.” Lond. 1686, 8vo. This
work, which is dedicated to his friend Mr Pepys, obtain¬
ed a copious notice from Le Clerc,1 and was translated
into French. Some of the author’s opinions were contro¬
verted without any mention of his name, in a work pub¬
lished two years afterwards by Dr Bernard, professor of
astronomy at Oxford, a man of extensive and various eru¬
dition.2 We are informed that he “ writ some sheets to
justify his calculations; but his averseness to any thing
like wrangling made him lay them by, and leave his book
to shift for it self.”
About this period, he was greatly depressed, like many
other good men, by apprehensions respecting the growth
of popery ; but his apprehensions were at length dispelled
by the Revolution, which likewise brought along with it
another material change in his circumstances. In the
course of the year 1691, he went, according to his custom
on a post-day, to read the newspaper at a coffee-house in
Stamford, and there, to his great surprise, he read that the
king had nominated Dr Cumberland to the bishopric of
Peterborough. This mode of bestowing high preferment
upon eminent and unobtrusive merit, must appear not a
little singular to those who are chiefly acquainted with
ecclesiastical proceedings in more recent times. The face
of the bishop elect was scarcely known at court, and he
had resorted to none of the usual methods of advancing
his temporal interest. It is stated by his biographer that
if the clergy had retained their ancient privilege of elect¬
ing their bishop, they would have made no other choice.
“ Being then sixty years old,” says his great-grandson,
“ he was with difficulty persuaded to accept the offer,
when it came to him from authority. The persuasion of
his friends, particularly Sir Orlando Bridgeman, at length
overcame his repugnance; and to that see, though very
moderately endowed, he for ever after devoted himself,
and resisted every offer of translation, though repeatedly
made and earnestly recommended. To such of his friends
as pressed an exchange upon him he was accustomed to
reply, that Peterborough was his first espoused, and should
be his only one ; and, in fact, according to his principles,
no church revenue could enrich him ; for I have heard my
father say, that, at the end of every year, whatever over¬
plus he found upon a minute inspection of his accounts v,“
was by him distributed to the poor, reserving only one
small deposit of twenty-five pounds in cash, found at his
death in his bureau, with directions to employ it for the dis¬
charge of his funeral expences; a sum, in his modest cal¬
culation, fully sufficient to commit his body to the earth.”3
To the duties of his new station he applied himself with
great assiduity. He was a person of studious and retiring
habits, nor did the natural calmness of his temper pecu¬
liarly fit him for the task of governing others; but if he
erred in practising too much lenity towards those who were
placed under his jurisdiction, he shewed no disposition to
consult his own ease in the discharge of his various func¬
tions. His charges to the clergy are described as plain
and unambitious, the earnest breathings of a pious mind.
His old age was fresh and vigorous, nor did he discontinue
his episcopal visitations till after he attained his eightieth
year. When Dr Wilkins published the New Testament
in Coptic, he presented a copy to the bishop, who began
to study the language after he had completed the age of
eighty-three. “ At this age,” says his chaplain, “ he
master’d the language, and went thro’ great part of this
version, and would often give me excellent hints and re¬
marks, as he proceeded in reading of it.” He died in
1718, in the eighty-seventh year of his age : he was found
sitting in his library, in the attitude of one asleep, and
with a book in his hand.
Bishop Cumberland was eminently distinguished by his
gentleness and humility. He was of a temper so cool and
sedate, that it could not be roused to anger; and through
the whole course of his life, his soul is represented as
having been in a constant state of calmness and serenity,
hardly ever ruffled by any passion. The theory which he
maintains in his principal work, is founded on benevolence,
and it naturally flowed from the habitual temperament of
the author’s mind. He was a man of a sound understand¬
ing, improved by extensive learning, and has left behind
him several monuments of his talents and industry.
The care of his posthumous publications devolved upon
his domestic chaplain Mr Payne, who soon after the bishop’s
death edited “ Sanchoniatho's Phoenician History, translat¬
ed from the first book of Eusebius De Prceparatione Evan-
gelica: with a Continuation of Sanchoniatho’s Plistory by
Eratosthenes Cyrenaeus’s Canon, which Dicaearchus con¬
nects with the first Olympiad. These authors are illus¬
trated with many historical and chronological remarks,
proving them to contain a Series of Phoenician and Egyp¬
tian Chronology, from the first man to the first Olympiad,
agreeable to the Scripture Accounts.” Lond. 1720, 8vo.
The preface contains an account of the life, character,
and writings of the author, which was likewise published
in a separate form, and exhibits a pleasing picture of his
happy old age. The work itself is learned and elaborate,
and the researches of such a man could not be entirely
fruitless; but there is a material defect in the general de¬
sign, inasmuch as it takes for granted the genuineness of
a book which has very frequently been considered as spu¬
rious. It was treated as a fabrication by several of Cum-
beidand’s contemporaries, and, among others, by Dodwell
and Van Dale ;4 nor is there much hazard in averring that
it might now be more difficult to find many individuals of
Cumber.
land.
1 Bibliotheque Universelle, tom. v. p. 149.
2 Edvardi Bernard! de Mensuriset Ponderibus Antiquis libri tres, editio altera. Oxoniae, 1988, 8vo.
3 Memoirs of Richard Cumberland, written by himself, p. 3. Lond. 1806, 4to.
4 A. van Dale Dissertatio super Sanchoniatbone, subjoined to his Dissertatio super Aristea de LXX. Interpretibus. Amst. 17
4to—The learned Huet, who is sufficiently sceptical when it suits his particular views, feels no hesitation in admitting the genuine¬
ness of the work ascribed to Sanchoniatho : “ Sanchoniathonem autem Trojanum belliun multis prce; essisse annis, et ad Mosis aevum
CUMBE
Cumber- critical learning inclined to adopt the bishop’s opinion,
land. The Phoenician History, of which some portion is pre-
served by Eusebius, was published in' Greek by Philo
Byblius as a version from the Phoenician tongue, and was
produced by Porphyry as a composition of great antiqui¬
ty. “ I cannot but think,” says Dodwell, that “ this au¬
thor counterfeited purposely with a design of confronting
the antiquity of the Scripture. But who was the impos¬
tor, whether Philo Byblius or Porphyry, that I confess I
cannot easily determine.”1 The book in which this pas¬
sage occurs was published many years before the death
of Cumberland, and was written by a person of much re¬
putation for his learning. It is therefore obvious that a
critical enquiry respecting the genuineness of the history
ought to have preceded an attempt to draw any argu¬
ments from its details. A German translation appeared
under the title of “ Cumberlands Phbnizische Historie
des Sanchoniathons, ubersetzt von Joh. Phil. Cassel.”
Magdeburg, 1755, 8vo.2 The sequel to this work of the
venerable bishop was likewise published by Mr Payne:
“ Origines Gentium antiquissimce; or, Attempts for dis¬
covering the Times of the first Planting of Nations: in
several Tracts.” Lond. 1724, 8vo.
The author left an only son, who bore the same name,
and belonged to the same profession: he was rector of
Peakirk, in the diocese of Peterborough, and archdeacon
of Northampton. One of the bishop’s daughters married
his faithful chaplain, S. Payne, A. M. rector of Barnack,
and afterwards an archdeacon. The bishop’s son, who in¬
herited an estate which descended from his grandfather,
had two sons and a daughter. The latter was mar¬
ried to Waring Ashby, Esq. of Quenby Hall in the county
of Leicester. Richard, the elder son, died unmarried at
the age of twenty-nine. The younger, named Denison
from his mother, married Joanna the daughter of Dr Bent¬
ley, and became successively bishop of Clonfert and Kil-
more. He was the father of the late Richard Cumber¬
land. (e>. i.)
Cumberland, Richard, a dramatic and miscellane¬
ous writer, was born at Cambridge on the 29th Febru¬
ary 1722. He was the great-grandson of the Bishop of
Peterborough, and he first saw the light under the roof
of his maternal grandfather, Dr Bentley, in the master’s
lodge, Trinity College. When he had completed his sixth
year, he was sent to the school at Bury St Edmunds, but
for some time he made little progress in his learning, and
it cost the master some trouble to awaken in him a proper
spirit of emulation. This, however, was at length accom¬
plished by publicly reproving him for his negligence; and,
being thus roused to exertion, he soon found his tasks a
pleasure rather than a burden. Whilst he remained at this
school his grandfather Bentley died, and he was thereby
deprived of the advantage which he might otherwise have
reaped from the guidance and direction of the ablest scho¬
lar of the age. In his school exercises young Cumberland
describes himself as aiming at something like fancy and
invention ; but this tendency seems to have betrayed him
into grammatical inaccuracies which did him little credit
with his master, and indeed exposed him to comments
which he felt most acutely. He was not, however, very
• greatly discouraged by these strictures ; for having made
an excursion with his family, during the summer holidays,
to visit a relation in Hampshire, he wrote a poem on the
R L A N D. 581
subject, in which he introduced a description of the docks Cumber-
at Portsmouth, and of the races at Winchester. This be- lad¬
ing his first regular attempt in English verse, he exhibited
it to his father, who received it with unreserved commen¬
dation, and persisted, with pardonable partiality, in recit¬
ing it to his friends long after the author had gained ex¬
perience enough to wish it consigned to oblivion. From
the school of Bury St Edmunds young Cumberland was
transferred to Westminster, where he remained about a
year and a half, and profited much, particularly in point of
composition. He was then sent to Cambridge, where he
was admitted of Trinity College when he was only in his
fourteenth year. At first he had two tutors, who paid little
attention to his studies ; but this inconvenience being soon
felt, the head master, Dr Smith, in the last year of his
under-graduate condition, recommended him to lose no
time in preparing for his degree, and to apply closely to
his studies during the remainder of the year. He did so,
and worked with such indefatigable perseverance, that,
though his health suffered severely in consequence, a high
station was adjudged him among the wranglers of his year,
and he obtained his bachelor’s degree. This was in the
year 1750. With the return of health he resumed his
studies, and, without neglecting those in which he had
recently been engaged, recurred to the authors who had
Jain untouched during his course of academical prepara¬
tion.
Cumberland had early accustomed himself to read upon
system, and now began to form collections on the various
subjects of his pursuits. With this view he got together
the different tracts relative to the celebrated controversy
between Boyle and Bentley respecting the epistles of Pha-
laris, omitting none of the authorities and passages refer¬
red to, and compressed the reasonings on both sides into a
sort of digest or report upon the question in dispute. But
he was perhaps more agreeably employed in reading the
Greek tragedians ; and when Mason published his Elfrida,
he planned and wrote, in imitation of that drama, a pro¬
duction of which Caractacus was the hero, with a chorus
consisting of bards and druids. About this time, his
health being still indifferent, he accompanied his family
in an excursion to York, where he passed half a year in
the society and amusements of the place; hunting in the
mornings, dancing in the evenings, and devoting but little
time to study. Having got hold of the Faery Queen, how¬
ever, he began at intervals to write stanzas in the Spen¬
serian measure ; and he also composed short elegies in
the same manner; but his mother having disapproved of
these occupations, he relinquished them, and prepared to
devote himself to more serious pursuits.
On his return to college young Cumberland was invited
to the master’s lodge by Dr Smith, who informed him of
a new arrangement which had been determined on for an¬
nulling as much of the existing statutes as restricted all
bachelors except those of the third year’s standing, from
becoming candidates for fellowships; and recommended
him to present himself for examination, as, at the next elec¬
tion, he would be in the second year of his degree. Grate¬
ful for this friendly advice, he was preparing to resume his
studies with increased alacrity, when he received an invi¬
tation from Lord Halifax to become private and confiden¬
tial secretary to that nobleman. He accordingly proceed¬
ed to town, where he remained some time, and afterwards
accessisse, constat ex certissimis Phoenicum annalibus.” (Demonstratio Evangelica, p. 158. Paris. 1679, fob) In a very recent pub¬
lication, it is stated with equal confidence that Sanchoniatho “ is considered to be the most ancient writer of the heathen world.”
See the preface to Mr Cory’s Ancient Fragments of the Phoenician, Chaldaean, Egyptian, Tyrian, Carthaginian, Indian, Persian,
and other Writers. Lond. 1832, 8vo.
1 Dodwell’s Discourse concerning Sanchoniathon’s Phoenician History, p. 62. Lond. 1681, 8vo.
2 Fabricii Bibliotheca Grteca, tom. i. p. 225. edit. Harles.
582
CUMBERLAND.
Cumber- returned to Cambridge, where, after a severe examination, ship of reports in the office of trade and plantations under Cumto-
land. ile was elected fellow, along with Mr Orde, afterwards Lord Hdlsboiough. i i u nr
a master in Chancery, to the exclusion of two candidates The success with which Bickerstaff had brought for-
of the vear above them. On his return to town he lived ward his operas of Love m a Village and The Maid of the
as retired as if he had been still resident in his college. Mill, induced Cumberland to attenipt a drama of the same
His first offering to the press, which appeared about this description under the title of The Summers Tale; but
time was a churchyard elegy in imitation of Gray’s, but, although the mus.c had been composed by Bach, Arne,
,Ut be expected, greatly inferior in poetical merit. Arnold, and Simpson, it was performed, with little ap-
>ems to have made almost no impression. “The pub- plause, only for nine or ten nights. Subsequently, how-
v..i -'-x the author cut it down to an afterpiece in two acts,
as mi
It seems .......  .
lie” he observes, “ were very little interested with it, and evei, . ,
Dodslev as little nrofited.” Whilst he was with Lord Hali- under the title of Amelia, in which form it met with toler-
fax he met with Mr Charles Townshend, then one of the able success. The drama was published in 1765 and the
lords of trade to whom he first recommended himself by afterpiece in 1768. His next production was the comedy
the solution of some enigma or puzzle, and afterwards by of The Brothers, which was brought out at Covent-Garden,
revising and writing remarks on a report drawn up by Mr well received by the audience, and published in 1 /69. He
Townshend which had been put into his hands for that now began to plan and compose The West Indian, which he
purpose About this time also he employed himself in completed before leaving Ireland; and on his return to Lon-
collecting materials for a poem in heroic verse on the don he entered into an engagement with Garrick to bring
subject of India ; but the design he afterwards abandon- it out at his theatre, but he at the same time availed himselt
ed as unsuitable; a circumstance which, judging from the of the manager’s suggestions, by adding a new scene, and
specimen preserved in his Memoirs, respecting the disco- introducing other improvements. This piece, which ap-
veries of the Portuguese, can excite but little regret. peared in 1771, proved eminently successful, although the
About this time he contracted an intimacy with Mr moral of the plot is far from being unexceptionable. Cum-
Bubb Dodington, and became a frequent guest at La berland next entered the lists of controversy, by pubhsh-
Trappe, the residence of that eccentric personage, whom ing a pamphlet containing animadversions upon a charac-
he also visited in London. This was perfectly agreeable ter of Dr Bentley, which had been drawn by Bishop Lowth,
to Lord Halifax, who not only lived upon intimate terms in a letter addressed to the author of the Divine Legation
with Mr Dodington, but was then forming some opposition
connections, having resigned his office as first lord of trade
and plantations, and detached himself from the Duke of
Newcastle’s administration. Cumberland also accompa¬
nied Mr Dodington to his seat of Eastbury, in Dorsetshire,
where he remained some time, and enjoyed ample oppor¬
tunities of observing the character of his host, of which he
has given a very interesting and graphic description in his
Memoirs. On his return from Dorsetshire, he offered him¬
self for a lay fellowship, then vacant, in Trinity College,
Cambridge, and succeeded in attaining the object of his
ambition; but he did not hold it long, owing to the con¬
dition of celibacy annexed to it. About this time he
of Moses demonstrated. This pamphlet passed through
two editions, but elicited no reply.
About the same time he was admitted into a literary
society, the members of which used to dine together upon
stated days at the British coffee-house ; and at one of these
meetings it was suggested to him to delineate the charac¬
ter of a North Briton, as he had already done those of an
Irishman and of a West Indian. He availed himself of the
hint, and in consequence drew the character of Colin Mac-
leod in his comedy of The Fashionable Lover; but the
attempt, as might have been expected, proved a total
failure, owing, no doubt, to the author’s entire ignorance
of the distinctive peculiarities of the people of whom Colin
produced his first legitimate drama, The Banishment of Macleod was intended to be the representative. Ihis co-
Cicero, a performance of some merit, but wholly unfit for niedy, though in point of composition superior to the West
representation. It was accordingly rejected by Garrick, Indian, did not meet with equal success ; and the author
and published by the author as a dramatic poem in 1761, resented the criticisms made upon it with that sensitive
4to. In the beginning of 1759, he married Elizabeth, the jealousy which latterly induced Garrick to call him the
only daughter of George Ridge, Esq. of Kilmiston, to whom man without a skin. I hroughout his whole life, indeed, he
he had paid his addresses on receiving through Lord Hali
fax an appointment as crown agent for Nova Scotia. On
the accession of George III. Cumberland addressed a
poem in blank verse to the young sovereign ; and when
Lord Halifax was appointed lord-lieutenant of Ireland, he
accompanied that nobleman as Ulster secretary, while his
father was made one of the vice-regal chaplains. This
brought him in contact with the celebrated William Ge¬
rard Hamilton, better known by the name of Single-speech
evinced a soreness to criticism, which necessarily exposed
him to the very infliction which he dreaded so much
and felt so acutely. His comedy of The Choleric Man
proved more successful, but exposed him to the charge of
venting illiberal and contemptuous sarcasms against his
contemporaries; a charge which he endeavoured to rebut
by prefixing to the play, when he published it, a “ dedi¬
cation to Detraction, directed chiefly against an Essay on
the Theatre,” in which a comparison was drawn between
Hamilton, who, having neither received his appointment laughing and sentimental comedy, and under the latter
from Lord Halifax, nor been in the first instance altogether description some severe observations were pointed against
acceptable to that nobleman, rendered Cumberland’s situa- The Fashionable Lover. Cumberland s next dramatic pio-
tion exceedingly unpleasant. But the latter, notwithstand- duction was limon oj Athens, altered from Shakspeaie,
ing, acquitted himself so well that, towards the close of in which the parts of Evanthe and Alcibiades were, the
the session, the lord-lieutenant expressed his satisfaction former nearly, and the latter altogether, new, and which,
with Cumberland’s services, and offered him a baronetcy, although it has now fallen into neglect, was favourably
which, however, he judiciously declined; a circumstance received at the time. The entertainment called The Note
which, he thinks, contributed to weaken his interest with of Hand, or Trip to Newmarket, was the last of his pieces
Lord Halifax. Why such an honour should have been of- produced by Garrick, before disposing of his propeity in
fered to a young man just commencing the career of pub- Drury-Lane. It is only remarkable as containing another
lie life, and wholly unprovided for, it is not easy to con- sketch of Hibernian character, though on a smaller scale
jecture. It appears, however, that when his patron after- than the former one. The tragedy entitled The Battle
wards became secretary of state, he applied in vain for the of Hastings was brought out under the direction of Mr
situation of under secretary, and only obtained the clerk- Sheridan, and published in 1778.
CUMBERLAND.
Cumber- Cumberland’s prospects now began to brighten. On
land. Lord George Germaine’s accession to office, he was ap-
pointed secretary to the board of trade, with an income
which could not but be acceptable to the father of six
children ; and he was particularly noticed by his lordship,
who continued his friend and patron till death. He after¬
wards resided at Tetworth, in Bedfordshire, in the vicinity
of Lady Frances Burgoyne, sister of Lord Halifax, and
during one of the summer recesses he passed there he wrote
his opera of Calypso^ which was brought out at Covent-
Garden with indifferent success. The Widow of Delphi,
which he wrote the following season, has never been print¬
ed, although the author considered it as one of his very
best productions. The Bondsman, a tragi-comedy, and
The Duke of Milan, altered, also remain in manuscript,
probably without any great detriment to literature.
In 1780, Cumberland was sent on a confidential mission
to the courts of Madrid and Lisbon ; but this appointment,
however honourable in itself, seems to have been the
source of all his future troubles, and to have embittered
the remainder of his long life. The direct object of his
mission was to induce the court of Spain to enter into a
separate treaty with this country; but, although his con¬
duct gave satisfaction to the Spanish court, and procured
him the confidence and favour of the Spanish king, yet,
owing to the disturbances which at this time broke out in
London, and other untoward circumstances, he failed in
accomplishing the object of his mission, and was recalled,
in 1781, after having contracted, in the public service, a
debt of nearly L.5000, which Lord North’s ministry mean¬
ly refused, or at least neglected to pay, and which ulti¬
mately absorbed the whole of his hereditary property.
It has been asserted indeed that he exceeded his powers,
and compromised the ministry which had employed him;
but of this no evidence whatever has been produced, and
the losses to which he was subjected certainly amounted
to a punishment much too severe for a mere error in judg¬
ment. It appears, in fact, that on his journey homewards
his bills were stopped, and his credit rendered so utterly
bankrupt, that he would have been thrown into prison at
Bayonne, had not a fellow traveller advanced him a sum
sufficient to enable him to pursue his journey through
France. Nor did his misfortunes end even here. Mr
Burke’s economical bill having annihilated the board of
trade, Mr Cumberland lost his situation, and was forced
to retire with a compensation allowance, which, as is usual
in such cases, was far from being adequate to the emolu¬
ments of the office of which he bad been deprived. Re¬
solved, however, to accommodate himself to circumstances
which he could not control, he now fixed his residence at
Tunbridge Wells, and made reductions in his establish¬
ment proportioned to his diminished income.
His first publication, after his return from Spain, was
Anecdotes of eminent Painters in Spain, a curious and in¬
teresting work, which he afterwards rendered more com¬
plete by the publication of a Catalogue of the King of
Spains Paintings. The Anecdotes were published in
1782, in two vols. 12mo ; the Catalogue appeared in 1787.
His comedy of The Walloons, which he had written be¬
fore settling at Tunbridge Wells, was brought out at Co¬
vent Garden Theatre, and followed by The Mysterious
Husband in 1783, as well as by a tragedy entitled The
Arab, which was acted once only, for the benefit of an
actor. In 1783 appeared his Letter to the Bishop of Llan-
daff, on his lordship’s proposal for equalizing the revenues
of the established church; and in 1785 were brought out
his tragedy of The Carmelite and his comedy of The Na¬
tural Son. The collection of essays under the title of
The Observer, were also first printed experimentally in
1785, in two vols. l2mo; but a new edition, considerably
583
augmented, appeared in five volumes the following year; Cumber,
and when this was exhausted he made another arrange- land*
ment of the essays, and, having incorporated therewith
his translation of The Clouds of Aristophanes, published
the whole in six volumes. These papers have since been
included in the collection of the British Essayists. His
other productions of this period are a Character of his pa¬
tron Lord Sackville, and a trashy pamphlet, published ano¬
nymously, entitled Curtius rescued from the Gulf, being
an attempt at defending some one against an attack made
on him by Dr Parr. His comedy of The Impostor, and
Arundel, a novel in two vols. 12mo, appeared in 1789; in
1792 he published Calvary, or the Death of Christ, a poem
in eight books, 4to; and, in 1795, he produced another
novel, in four volumes 12mo, under the title of Henry, a
production on which he bestowed more care and atten¬
tion than or Arundel, the hasty effusion of a few weeks
of leisure at Brighton. Cumberland is also the author of
some works of a serious cast, particularly a version of fifty
of the Psalms of David, A few plain Reasons why we
should believe in Christ, a considerable number of sermons,
numerous prayers, and metrical versions of passages select¬
ed from the Old Testament.
But the drama was the field which had the greatest
attraction for “ the Terence of England.” In 1793 he
brought out a comic opera in three acts, founded on the
story of Wat Tyler ; but the lord chamberlain having ob¬
jected to it, he was obliged to recast and produce it under
the title of The Armourer. His comedy of The Country
Attorney was produced in the same year, at the summer
theatre, when under the direction of the elder Colman;
and here also, in 1794, were brought out his Box Lobby
Challenge, and Don Pedro. At the opening of the new
theatre in Drury Lane was represented his comedy of
The Jew, which he wrote with great rapidity, but which
had for its object to disabuse the public mind of unjust
prejudices against the character of a people who have so
long been without a country, and who have either been
persecuted or reviled in almost every country where they
have sojourned. His celebrated comedy of The Wheel of
Fortune came out in the preceding season, and was closely
followed by another called First Love. In 1796, Days of
Yore, a drama, was produced at Covent Garden; and, in
1795, The Last of the Family, a comedy, was brought out
at Drury Lane. Five other comedies were also produced
successively by this prolific writer, namely, False Impres¬
sions, The Word of Nature, The Dependant, The Eccentric
Lover, and The Sailors Daughter; of which the first was
represented at Covent Garden, and the last at Drury-Lane.
In the year 1806 he brought out Hints for Husbands, a
comedy, which was performed at Covent Garden, but had
a run of five nights only; and in the same year he pub¬
lished Memoirs of his own Life, to which he afterwards
added a supplement. He was also concerned in The Ex-
odiad, an epic poem, now forgotten; John de Lancaster, a
novel, in 3 volumes ; and Joanna of Montfaucon, a dramatic
romance, neither of them productions of any merit. He
was likewise the conductor of The London Review, a cri¬
tical journal established on the French plan of affixing to
each article the name of the writer; but the attempt did
not succeed.
From the time when Mr Cumberland retired from pub¬
lic life and fixed his residence at Tunbridge Wells, he de¬
voted himself entirely to literary pursuits, and produced
the various works we have enumerated. Here also he lost
his wife, who had so long been the partner of his joys and
sorrows; but he bore the bereavement with the resigna¬
tion of a man of sense, convinced that patience is no mark
of insensibility, nor the parade of lamentation any evidence
of the sincerity or permanence of grief. During the alarm
584 C U M
Cumber- of invasion he caught the patriotic infection of the time,
land. an(j having headed two companies of volunteer infantry,
received the commission of major-commandant. His lat¬
ter days were spent chiefly in London, where, on the <th
of May 1811, he expired after a short illness, at the house
of a friend in Bedford Place, being then in the eighty-
ninth year of his age. The last act of his life was the
publication of a poem entitled Retrospection, embiacing
opinions of men and things which are much more fully and
satisfactorily treated in his Memoirs.
Of the personal character of Cumberland a pretty ac¬
curate judgment may be formed from his Memoirs. His
self-esteem was great, and his vanity overweening, but,
although extremely sensitive to criticism, and intoleiant of
censure, he had no real malignity in his composition, and,
like most excitable persons, seems to have been as placa¬
ble as he was irritable. His temperament was of a kind
which, if easily disturbed, as quickly recovered its balance ;
and there is every reason to believe that the predominant
tone of his feelings was alike generous and liberal. _ On
the only occasion of his life where his moral principles
were put to the test they appeared to the very greatest
advantage. His conduct respecting the bequest of Mr
Reynolds, who had devised to Mr Cumberland his estate,
to the exclusion of the natural heir, evinced the greatest
disinterestedness, and the highest sense of honour and pro¬
bity. It was his misfortune to have been bred a courtier,
and never to have taken his degrees in that school. He
evidently wanted the suppleness and versatility necessary
to ensure success in such a career. In a subordinate sta¬
tion, which merely required attention to formal and tech ¬
nical duties, he acquitted himself indifferently well; but,
in venturing to act as minister, he found himself wofully
deficient in those qualities without the possession of which
genius and talents are of little avail. At the same time,
having associated with most of the eminent men of his
time, the sketches and anecdotes which he has introduced
into his Memoirs are in the highest degree interesting;
whilst his habits of observing and discriminating character
give to his delineations an authority, and consequently a
value, which it is difficult to over-estimate. In society
his chief aim was to please; and, by the admission of his
contemporaries, few men appeared to more advantage in
conversation, or evinced a more perfect mastery, when he
chose to exercise it, of the art of pleasing. The great faults
of his character were a tendency to lavish hollow compli¬
ments on those who were present, and a propensity, with¬
out provocation or necessity, to indulge in bitter sarcasms
against individuals after they had taken their departure.
That this was the result of mere recklessness, or of a desire
to provoke or minister to mirth, may be readily believed;
but, by givingway to so unfortunate abias, he lost more than
he gained; and, although his address was studied, polite,
and courtly, his character for sincerity became depreciated
beyond all recovery. As a writer, he is more remarkable
for the number than for the excellence of his works; but
many of them, it should be remembered, were hastily pro¬
duced in order to better his income, and some of them are
marked by no ordinary degree of intellectual power. In
every variety of fortune the drama was his favourite pur¬
suit ; and if he has produced much that is perishable or
forgotten, he has also evolved creations which have been
enregistered as among the finest efforts of genius. The
character of Penruddock in The Wheel of Fortune, for ex¬
ample, is a masterpiece, which received a double conse¬
cration from the histrionic talents of John Kemble, by
whom it wras so often and so nobly personated. As a poet
he cannot by any means rank high; for, while he had a
play of imagination, which unfitted him for the concerns
of actual life and business, his warmest admirers can only
CUN
claim for him the praise of correct versification and ele- Cumbrae
gant sentiment, which, however, has secured for some of II.
his poetical works a considerable share of popularity. With Cu^ng'
regard to his Observer, now that he has acknowledged v '
how much he borrowed from the manuscripts of his grand-
father Bentley, we need scarcely say that it no longer sup¬
ports his pretensions as a Greek critic. His learning was
shallow, and, like his wit, it was often taken at second
hand. 0- b—e.)
CUMBRAE, Great and Little, two small islands in
the Firth of Clyde, belonging to Buteshire. See Bute¬
shire.
CUMNOCK, or Old Cumnock, a village of Ayrshire
in Scotland, on the Lugar Water, 12 miles east of Ayr,
It is noted for the manufacture of snuff-boxes, similar to
those of Laurencekirk, the peculiarity of which is the “ in¬
visible wooden hinge.” See article Snuff-Boxes in M‘Cul-
loch’s Commercial Dictionary.
CUMMIN SEEDS, the fruit or seeds of Cuminum cy-
minum, an umbelliferous plant found wild in Egypt and
Greece, and still extensively cultivated in the East, as in the
remotest times, for the sake of its aromatic seeds. These
have a strong and rather peculiar odour, with a correspond¬
ing aromatic taste; and like anise, dill, &c., possess well-
marked stimulant and carminative properties.
CUNEGO, Domenico (1727-1794), an Italian engra¬
ver, born at Verona. He practised his art chiefly at Rome;
and is best known to us by his 22 plates in Gavin Hamil¬
ton’s Schola Italiana, in a neat but rather heavy style;
and by his outline of The Last Judgment of the Sistine
Chapel.
CUNEIFORM (Lat. cuneus, a wedge), wedge-shaped.
Cuneiform Inscriptions, a term applied to certain
characters found inscribed on the bricks of Nineveh and
Babylon, as well as on the buildings of Persepolis, Hama-
dan, and other remains of the ancient Persian monarchy.
The researches of modern authors, especially of Colonel
Rawlinson, have shown that there are three alphabets of
the arrow-head character; the earliest and simplest, the
Assyrian ; the Persian consisting of 36 letters; the Median
comprising about 100. Considerable progress has been
made in deciphering the first, which promises to throw
much light on the obscurity that has hitherto veiled Assy¬
rian history, and seems to be the key to at least two distinct
languages.
CUNINA, in Roman Mythology, the goddess who pro¬
tects children in the ounce or cradle.
CUNITZ, Maria, the eldest daughter of Heinrich Cu-
nitz, a doctor of medicine in Silesia, was born about the
beginning of the seventeenth century. She learned lan¬
guages with amazing facility, and understood Polish, Ger¬
man, French, Italian, Latin, Greek, and Hebrew. She at¬
tained a knowledge of the sciences with equal ease, and
was skilled in history, physic, poetry, painting, and music:
yet these were only her amusements; for she applied her¬
self to the mathematics, and to astronomy, which she
made her principal study, and in which she made such rapid
and extensive progress that she was ranked amongst the
ablest astronomers of her time.
Her astronomical tables, which gained for her a great
reputation, were printed in Latin and German, and dedi¬
cated to the Emperor Ferdinand III. These tables, under
the name of Urania Propitia sive Tabulce Astronoimcce,
were first printed at Oels in 1650, and afterwards at Frank¬
fort in the following year. She married a Dutch physician
named Elias de Loewen, and died at Pitschen in 1664..
CUNNINGHAM, Alexander, a celebrated critic
and civilian, was the son of John Cunningham, minis¬
ter of Cumnock, in Ayrshire, and the owner of a small
estate named Block, in the same county. He was
t
CUNNINGHAM. ...
Cunning- serve(] heir to hiS father in the year 16771 TIip -i • OoO
his birth and the place of his education have not hitherto f^ ^ P°rfIon- Adam Newton> an Cunning-
been ascertained. The earliest employment in which wp Ipi 1 / ?PP01nted t0 the office ; but having ne- han"g
find him engaged was that of tutor to Lord Geore-e Dm. wnc t*° ob.tain the approbation of the magistrates, he
glas, who was a younger son of the first duke of Queens* hpUpr8™188^ 10 ye^r 1594' -He aftervvards procured
berry, and died in the year 1693.2 It was nrohahlv tt i b tte employment, and successively became tutor and
the influence of this Lble family that rlfaCbtfd In the Professorship he was
professor of the civil law in the university of Edffih ,rth v by UfdJianr Damnian of Bisterveld, who was
In 1698 the Scotish parliament S r/alfry of ^ r the "^ourhood of Ghent, and there was for
hundred and fifty pounds sterling to Alexander Cunnimr- tlTchah-V™1^^ ^ teachl1nS the classics :7 he retained
ham, as professor of the civil law, “ nominal and desionfd the f°r & ^^i yeaIiS, and WaS aftervvards resident of
to that profession.” The act was to conUnueTn force du U97 ^ the of Scotland. In the year
rmg the period of five years; and the same provision in snm L fte J118 resigaation, the interest of one third of the
his favour was, for the same period, renewed in 17043 bn °.imei y contributed was allotted for a professor of
On the 18th of October 1710, the magistrates of Edffi' enlc ^ thf .!nterest of the remainder for the main-
burgh, without recognizing any former appointment no- both exhl.bltl0I^elrs* Newton and Damman had
minated James Craig professor of the civil law.4 He'was on law Wltbout read‘ng any public lectures
a descendant of the famous Sir Thomas CnnV nnrl • i r” a • A|ter tbe more recent foundation of a law-pro-
to have filled hi, situation i„ a manner nT ^nworthv rf .“niT IP’ ^ ^ 0f Sc0tish stude"ts foreTgn
his ancestor.5 The city magistrates rpo-ard;™ h7 i f u.niversities became somewhat less frequent, but the prac-
as the proper patrons of the university,' havf always6 Jn* race of law^ entireI^ discontinued ; and of the present
tcrtained the greatest jealousy of any interference o^ the and GotSem’ ^ ^ Lejden’ Utrecht’
royal professorship, they wouldTtudhmsly dedine tefr^ his1^^^^17!^31116 CunninSham had completed
cognize his appointment. The payment of hi sZv must' ZT at Le}'den 0r Utrecht-9 He had
have ceased at the expiration of die second term of five and t 7 hls attentlon to the studies of philology
years, that is, in 1709 ;lnd it was inTe clrl of the en ,1 ^ ^ at that Period were not* very vi-
suing year that the magistrates established another chair • fixed hi ^ Vvated ,n "ft've country; and he at length
nor is it superfluous to mention that this new foundation' Drosernfed 10 o and’ where those studies were
took place after the death of the duke nf On^on i' P osecuted with uncommon ardour and success. A late
Who had acted as her ma es°}s com^tione® at the im’ The'" ha* err?n.fu*1J' described him as an advocafe n
portant crisis of the union. 7 comralsslone‘ « im- the records of the faculty for that period, we find no ad-
So early as the year 1590, the fudges, the magistrates Iwl u 1 ,e Same n7e' He ?°W settled at tbe Hague,
and the advocates and clerk to the Set IwS ed a nfhLw T?™ ‘0 ^ reSlded duri”S the retnaifder
fund of L.3000 for the endowment of'a p ofessorshin of Ire f 7^1 d'S-T1' n° evide“Ci! of lds '“''"g
.aw in the university of Edinburg each^^i^ sf
1 Inquisitionum Abbreviatio, vol. i. Ayr, 612.
■* Acts of the Parliaments of Scotland, vol. x. p. 176. vol. xi n 203 On tbA 1 orn c0?’8 Peer,aSe of Scotland, vol. ii. p 380.
Cunningham, “ for encouraging a design of illustrating the civih law ’’ had been remit °8’- a pe]ition from Alexander
kingdom. Yol. x. p. I45._About this period, several advocates began tc rld nri Jt.t t0 the c”mmittee f°r the securi^ of the
Alexander Drummond, who in the year 1609 inserted the followinSvertisemenUn L * C1Vil hw‘ °ne of these was
advertisement to all persons who are desirous to be instructed in The knowlptW TEd)1-1!b?-rffh ne'^sPaPer: “ These are to give
and the laws of this kingdom, or either of the two or both tbit lUr a 1 , i5 tx dl<? fnst1tutions and Pandects of the Civil Law
teach the same ; and by reasonof a sfugular method hc^S J “as‘-flfld- Ad™“‘c. priteto
of a middle capacity, more in a years time, then others have been bv being abroad and ’ t uadortakes to perfite and accomplish any
and advantageous this may tend to the kingdom in general he leaves it t geSrv nr ^ °U °f ^ C0Untr-y 3 ^ear3' How profitable
m the foot of Blackfrier Wind.” Another private lecturer on the rivd nnd " on.e.to Jljdge- He is to be spoke with at his lodging
ample was followed by John Cunningham, who published his inaluraT ecture underal T Tu T<,hn SP°tti3woode ; and their ex”
naugurahs, recitata Edinburgi cum primum Jus Civile docere coedt ” Edinb 4to Thf® °l Cuaingamii’ J-Cti. Oratio
bably appeared about the same period with “ A Discourse bv Mr lohn iw • 7 fa publication is without a date, but it pro¬
be Scots Law.” Edinb. 1705, 4to. He was the second sfn nf d°hn Cunrunghame, Advocate, at the Beginning of his Lessons on
(Douglas's Baronage of Scotland, p. 267.) °f SlF J°hn CunmnSham of Caprington, Bart, an eminent lawyer.
4 liegister of the Town Council, vol. xxxix. p. 948.
s |jtlervTAccount °f the Life and Writings of Sir Thomas Craig n 321 Edinb 1S91 19
Adam Newton was the son of a baker in Edinburgh ThmiJh f 1 ” iTu if2?’ 1fm0‘
when he resigned it; and during the latter year he wasweatedl baronm^Hp l f - deaaer7 °f Durham from 1606 to 1620,
VorBtius, and the first six books of Paolo Sarpi’s history of the council of’Trent tran*]ated iato Datin King James’s treatise against
(Birch s Life of Prince Henry, p. 14. 218. Lond. 1760 8vn 1 t‘. „lhe Dsttwo books were translated by Dr Bedell,
maximum locum occuparit, majorem mereri censeretur.” ’(Hist Ecclesiast Genti’s emPst®r’ “ ut moderatione summa cum
Sanderus de Gandavensibus Eruditionis Fama Claris p. 3 Antlern raJa If Tl.P' 503i,.
Eovan. 1643, 4to—According to these writers, Damman was invited tn sin’ Andieae Bibliotheca Belgica, p. 9. edit,
acquired an estate; for in his metaphrase of Du Bartas he describes himseffn ^ uchanan. In this country he appears to have
daughter of John Stewart, earl of Buchan, but she left lSr f\l nd>/pL ,^^ He married Alargfret, a grand!
ders mention some of his poems as having been printed on the continent • and t?6’ 268'') The llterar7 historians of Flan-
1 owing works. Schediasmata. Edinb. 1590, 4to. Bartasil qui de MundlwinnA8!'^-111611! ln Scot,1,and’ he publisher! the fo!-
Bartas Septmiana, poemate Francico, liberius tralati, et multis in lods auctl Fdfnb if Septeai’ue puilielmi Salustii Dn. de
by Waldegrave. The first of them contains one Greek and six I atin nnerr « aif f ‘ 1G^0, uV°' Pot l these volumes were printed
coronation of the queen. nd S1X -Latin Poems’ a11 relatmg to the royal nuptials, and the reception and
“ Crawford’s Hist, of the University of Edinburgh, p. 34. 49.
bu7eat’ Postquam ef hfclrbedi^essit^nullo laborlpot‘d iliqui^erf nfsfqiodlZkrf the foUowing passage: “ Cuningamius ubi
ceptum, non alicubi fixisse mansionem : unde tuas ad eum litp’raa Pi ares ejus dicant Germanicum iter ab eo
bechiuni £pist„te, torn. ii. p. ,03. Florent. ml, 2 t„m.Vv7 T,Z i'.Tflh, . “T <PrtUm °d Ant. Ma-lia!
novius, we suppose him to be the individual here mentioned 1 evidence of the civilian's acquaintance with Gro-
VOL. VII.
4 E
CUNNINGHAM.
586
Cunning- ported by the rent of his estate, and probably by an an-
ham. nuity from the noble family with which he had been con-
nected. From a notice which occurs in a work of Best,
published in the year 1707, it may perhaps be inferred
that he was then residing in that country;1 2 and a letter
of Cuper, dated on the 12th of November 1 /09, mentions
him as having been residing at the Hague.~
His edition of Horace made its appearance in the year
1721, but long before that period he enjoyed a very high
reputation as a classical scholar. His notes are brief, and
relate to the various readings; but he announced his in¬
tention of preparing another edition, illustrated with more
copious annotations; and at the same time he published a
separate volume, consisting of animadversions on the notes
and emendations of Bentley, whose edition of Horace had
been printed ten years before. To this volume, which
displays much learning and sagacity, and evinces the au¬
thor to have studied the art of criticism with uncommon
assiduity and success, he has prefixed an address to Dr
Bentley, whom he everywhere treats with much freedom,
and even severity. Bentley was a man of great vigour of
intellect, and of erudition not less accurate than exten¬
sive: of the Greek language he possessed a masterly know¬
ledge ; and he had studied the ancient metres with a de¬
gree of nicety unknown to former critics. His principal
defect seems to have been a want of taste; for when he
quits the mechanism and analogy of language, and the
mere structure of verse, he cannot be regarded as a very
safe guide in subjects of polite literature. His conjectural
emendations, particularly of the Greek poets, often dis¬
play singular felicity; but on some occasions they are
chiefly remarkable for their audacity. Many of his rash
conjectures on Horace are very successfully exposed by
Cunningham. One of the emendations on which he seems
to congratulate himself with most complacency, is the
substitution of ter natos in the subsequent verse of the
Art of Poetry:
Et male tormtos incudi reddere versus.
A reading more repugnant to every principle of taste
could not easily have been devised; and yet his learned
correspondent Graevius speaks of it in the following terms :
“ Earn qui videt et non probat, is in his litteris caecior est
quavis talpa. Quid enim torno cum incude?”3 Bentley
professes to be offended with the incongruity of Horace’s
metaphor, and he asks the same question with Graevius;
but he perceives no incongruity in an animal being pro¬
duced at three births, and being moreover hammered
upon an anvil. Cunningham, who was fully aware of this
absurdity, has unnecessarily adopted the ve&dLW.g formatos,
which appears somewhat flat. There is in reality no oc¬
casion for any change: when an artist has turned a piece
of iron without being able to give it the shape or polish
which he intended, he very naturally brings it back to the
anvil, and a second time prepares it for the lathe. The Cunning,
metaphor therefore which occurs in this passage, is at ham.
once consistent and expressive. The vanity and arrogance
with which Bentley exercised his critical functions,4 are
likewise exposed by this formidable antagonist. Cunning¬
ham appears to have been the friend of Le Gere, and on
that account he may have pointed his animadversions
with more keenness.
Cunningham’s animadversions excited no ordinary de¬
gree of attention, and he was acknowledged to be the most
able of Bentley’s critical antagonists. Jani, a recent edi¬
tor of the odes of Horace, speaks of him in the following
terms: “ Omnium doctissime in hoc castigando versatus
est Alexander Cuningamius, vir summus et doctissimus,
unus omnium qui in Horatium scripserunt criticorum prin-
ceps, ipsique Bentleio, si quid intelligo, anteferendus....
Emendationes autem ejus fatendum est omnium doctissi-
mas esse ac ingeniosissimas, saepe, si ad leges artis cri-
ticae excutiantur, pro unice veris lectionibus habendas.
Saepius tamen non minor in iis, quam in Bentleianis, auda-
cia est, sed illamelior profecto aliorum indocta modestia.”5 *
This estimate differs very widely from that of Wakefield,
who styles Cunningham “ ille criticus illaudabilis,”3 and
repeatedly honours him with some of the peculiar graces
of his elocution. Of his own character as a critic, the
greatest of living scholars has pronounced no very favour¬
able opinion.7 Klotz remarks that Sanadon has pilfered
much from both Bentley and Cunningham.8
The Scotish critic appears to have been intimately con¬
nected with most of the eminent scholars and civilians
who then flourished in Holland.9 In France he had se¬
veral learned correspondents; and from a passage in his
animadversions, it may be inferred that he was acquaint¬
ed with Addison.10 Duker and various other critics men¬
tion him in friendly terms.11 When Otto published his
great collection of tracts on the civil law, he professed to
have been chiefly indebted to Bynkershoek, Cunningham,
and Brenkman. “ Post virum ilium primarium, alios quo-
que recolere juvat, qui re et judicio suo hoc opus in-
struxerunt. Hos inter baud postremum locum obtinent
Alexander Cuninghamus, et Henricus Brenkmannus, viri
clarissimi, et optima fide de republica literaria pariter ac
jurisprudentia merentes, qui repetitis deliberationibus ad
delectum librorum institutis, adfuerunt, dignoscere cauti
quid solidum crepet.”12 The chief labour of Cunning¬
ham’s life was a critical edition of the Pandects, which
however he did not live to publish. Of this long-medi¬
tated edition great expectations were formed. In a let¬
ter addressed to Cuper in the year 1709, Leibnitz, having
mentioned his own project of remodelling the Pandects,
expresses a wish to have his labours associated with those
of Cunningham. “ Nempe cuique auctoris libro sua red-
dita sunt verba in Pandectas Justiniani relata. Tantum
jam reliquum est, ut edantur haec Redigesta, sed sine ali-
1 “ Sed et insuper,” says Best, “ ne quid dubites, idem mihi adseveravit vir doctissimus Cunninghamius, natione Scotus, qui prae-
clara ingenii monumenta, quibus jurisprudentiam arctissime sibi devinxit, non diutius, ut speramus, evudito orbi mvidebit, quum id
ipsum ssepius percontatus didicisset ab accuratissimo Jacobo Gronovio.” (Ratio Emendandi Leges, p. 17- Ultraj. 17^7, 8vo.) See
likewise the preface to Wieling’s Lectionum Juris Civilis libri duo, edit. Traj. ad Rhen. 1740, 8vo.
2 Lettres de Gisbert Cuper, p. 233. Amst. 1742, 4to. 3 Bentleii Epistolse, p. 137- Lend. 1807, 4to.
4 See the Bibliotheca Critica, vol. iii. part. ii. p. 123.
8 Jani de Horatii Editionibus, p. xxxviii. See likewise his preface to the second volume. Gebauer has remarked of Cunningham,
“ sobrise critices fuisse studiosissimum.” (Narratio de Henrico Brenkmanno, p. 10. Gottingse, 1704, 4to.)
6 Wakefield ad Lucretium, lib. v. v. 205.
T “ In quo viro,” says Hermann, “ quum quantum ingenii, tantum effrenatae temeritatis, Grsecse autem linguae baud accuratior
quam Latinse cognitio sit, debet ille aliquam sane, sed non earn auctoritatem habere, quam apud nostrates, nimis aequos exteroruxn
judices, consequutus est.” (Praef. in Euripidis Hecubam, p. iv. Lipsiae, 1800, 8vo.)
8 Klotzii Yindiciae Q.. Horatii Flacci, p. 206. Bremae, 1764, 8vo.
3 Some of his letters to J. P. d’Orville may be found in the appendix to the second edition of Dr Irving’s Memoirs of the Life
and Writings of George Buchanan, p. 417. Edinb. 1817, 6vo.
10 Cuningamii Animadversiones, p. 214. 11 Dukeri praef. in Florum. Lugd. Bat. 1722, 8vo.
1 2 Thesaurus Juris Romani, tom. i. praef.
CUNNINGHAM. 587
Cunning- quo cultu, itaque optandum foret emendationes ex Pan- on the 2d of February, he writes thus : “ I have gott two Cunning.
i—^ec^s ^^rent*n*s acce^ere 5 ®t cum intellexerim Cunning- volumes of Horace, with Cunningham’s marginal notes; ham.
'i hamum Scotum, doctrina et ingenio valentem, multum in but the hand is so bad, and the lines so closs on one ano-
constituendo textu laborasse, non video ubi melius emeu- ther, that I have difficulty to make sense of them, tho’
dationes vel collationes suas collocare posset.”1 I perceive no siglce, or secret marks, among them. How-
Cunningham died in the year 1730. The auction of ever, I design to give true pains, and you \till see proba-
his hbiaiy commenced on the 20th of November, and he bly the fruit of my labours when you return.”3
may be supposed to have died some months before that His speculations on the evidences of the Christian re-
peiiod. His collection of books was very curious and ligion are mentioned in a letter from T. Burnet to Locke,
valuable, pai Ocularly in the departments of philology and dated at London on the 17th of March 1699. “ I thought
juuspi udence 2 The printed catalogue describes it as a once of sending this packet with Mr Cunningham, who
most splendid library, and mentions that the greater part told me at my chambers some days ago he was to go out
of t le books were in gilt vellum or calf. His real and to you; but now, after waiting longer than his set time,
peisona pioperty descended to his nephew, the Rev. I was resolved to delay no longer. I wish you would in-
Geoige Logan, A. M., afterwards one of the ministers of dulge him, before he leaves you, to piece together his
L inbuigh. The estate of Block was at that time worth proofs of the Christian religion, that the world may enjoy
between hlty and sixty pounds a year, and may at pre- that light he hath so long promised.”4
sent be woi th five times as much. With respect to his What became of the papers mentioned by Pringle, we
papeis, we hud some information in a letter from Sir John have not been able to ascertain. In the Advocates Li-
Pringle to Forbes of Culloden. brary there are copies of Vinnius’s first edition of the In-
1 wiott to Mr Logan of Dunbar, as I told you I would stitutes, and Best’s Ratio Emendandi Leges, with manu-
o, hot i in your name and mine, about his uncle Mr Cun- script notes ascribed to Cunningham : they were present-
mngham s papers, and I have since had an evening’s con- ed in the year 1763 by David Clerk, M. D. the son of ano-
veisation with him; the sum of which was, that his uncle ther physician to be afterwards mentioned. The greater
las not left one single scrape of any thing ready for the part of the notes wras apparently written by some other
press, or even in any tolerable order. His notes on Horace person. We subjoin a list of the publications which bear
aie vvutten on the margin of six volumes, whereof three Cunningham’s name.
are the text of Horace as he published it, and the other 1. Alexandri Cuningamii Animadversiones in Richardi
thieeaie his animadversions on Bentley. Ihe use of these Bentleii Notas et Emendationes ad Q. Horatium Fiaccum.
l am promised again next week: the Lord have mercy on Hagae Comitum, apud Thomam Jonsonium, 1721, 8vo.
tie patients till I have done with them! His notes on 2. Q. Horatii Flacci Poemata: ex antiquis codd. et
f pi UiS 316 1^ew*se 01?^v 011 ^le rnarglns of two editions certis observationibus emendavit, variasque scriptorum et
o Piaedrus; but he thinks them fuller than the others, impressorum lectiones adjecit Alexander Cuningamius.
and is talking of giving them to Mr Ruddiman, if he will Hagae Comitum, apud Thomam Jonsonium, 1721, 8vo.
be at pains to putt them in order and publish them. He 3. P. Virgilii Maronis Bucolica, Georgica, et JEneis-
las maiginal notes upon several other authors, as Virgil, ex recensione Alexandri Cuningamii Scoti, cujus emenda-
btatius, Quintillian, Cicero; any of which he offers to tiones subjiciuntur. Edinburgi, apud G. Hamilton et J.
send me after I have done with Horace. His notes on Balfour, 1743, 8vo.
the Coipus are larger than any of the rest, and not writt 4. Phaedri August! Liberti Fabularum yEsopiarum libri
on the maigin, as the rest. His copy of the Corpus is quinque, ex emendatione Alexandri Cuningamii Scoti.
intei leaved with clean paper; so that there is a leaf of Accedunt Publii Syri, et aliorum veterum Sententiae. Edin-
written notes for every printed leaf. He told me the burgi, apud G. Hamilton et J. Balfcur, Academiae Typo-
Advocats Library has applied to him to have it, but he graphos, 1757, 8vo.
has given the curators no answer as yet, nor did he seem Of this posthumous edition of Virgilj the preface was
etei mined when he spoke to me.—What will surprise jmu written by John Clerk, M. D.5 who is described as a phy-
most is, that he has left nothing of his scheme of the sician of great learning and eminence, and of whom Dr
Clmstian religion. Mr Logan told me he had inquired at Cullen has left an interesting account.6 * He likewise pub*
nm about it when he was in his perfect senses, but that lished the edition of PhaedrusJ which contains a preface
he declared to him that he had never putt it in writing, by the editor, but is without annotations. Some of the
and that he would dictate it to him any day, for he had conjectural emendations are considered by Schwabe as
it all in his head, and that it could be contain’d in four or too bold, and others as unnecessary.8 It appears from one
hve sheets of paper ; however, every day that Logan press- of Drakenborch’s letters to La Croze, that Cunningham
ed him to do it, he found always some reason for shifting had formed the design of attacking Bentley’s edition of
it, till he was incapable of doing any thing.” This letter that poet, but finally abandoned it, lest he should interfere
is dated at Edinburgh on the 13th of January 1731; and with a similar design of his friend Burman.9 (d. i.)
1 Lettres de Gisbert Cuper, p. 233.
2 Bibliotheca Cuningamia, continens selectissimos rarissimosque omni in lingua Libros: hos omnes multo iudicio, vieilantia ac
Sto j>p 130 celebernmus ac eruditissimus vir D. Alexander Cuningamius, Jurisconsultus et Polyhistor eximius. Engd.^Bat. 1730,
3 Culloden Papers, p. 120-1. Lond. 1815, 4to.
4 See Lord King’s Life of John Locke, p. 403. Lond. 1829, 4to—The writer of the letter, who speaks of his chambers like a
lawyer, was perhaps Sir Phomas Burnet, a son of the bishop of Salisbury.
5 liuddimanni Bibliotheca Itomana, p. 10. Edinb. 1757, 8vo.
6 ^)r Thomson’s Account of the Life, Lectures, and Writings of William Cullen, M. D. vol. i. p. 525.
1768 8vo°°Ue °* Librar^ °* tlie leariied •b)r •,obn Clerk, Physician in Edinburgh, and of Dr David Clerk, his son, p. 72. Edinb.
! Litteraria de Phaedro, p. 104, prefixed to Schwabe’s second edition. Brunsvigse, 1806, 2 tom. 8vo,
8 Thesauri Ejiistolici Lacroziani tom. i. p. 124. Lipsiae, 1742-6, 3 tom. 4to.—One of the Cunninghams”is” mentioned in a letter
m June 1702. (Letters written by eminent Persons, vol. i. p. 133. Lond 1813,
Svok'ovnt1 T0hrinf-t,°n !ir C'har.lett’.7r:tte'1 vr- V—    ^   — * c-i suns, von i. p. ioo. r.ona who,
ois' vov -Ihe editor of Hoiace is said to have assisted in revising a French translation (Haye, 1725, 2 tom. 4to) of the first
CUNNINGHAM.
588
Cunning- Cunningham, Alexander, the historian, has frequently
ham. been identified with the professor of the civil law, but it has
at length been ascertained that they were different indivi¬
duals. The father of the historian was Alexander C un¬
ningham, minister of Ettrick, in Selkirkshire, and the
owner of a small estate, named Hyndhope, and situated
in the same county. The elder son, James, inherited this
property, and left descendants. Alexander was educated
at Selkirk school, and was originally destined for the
church. According to one account, he prosecuted his aca¬
demical studies in Holland: this account, which is suffi¬
ciently probable in itself, is contained in a communication
from the late earl of Buchan to Dr Thomson. From a
manuscript notice written by a descendant of his elder
brother, we learn that, in the capacity of a travelling tu¬
tor, “ he was employed both in the Argyle and Newcastle
families that he afterwards studied the law of England,
and was in great repute as a chamber-counsel, but never
pleaded at the bar. He visited his brother at Hyndhope
when Murray of Philiphaugh was sheriff of the county,
but did not long remain in Scotland.1 His connexion
with the Argyle family, as travelling tutor to Lord Lome,
was previously known from other sources of information.
It was stated by the late earl of Hyndford that Cunning¬
ham travelled with his uncle and his father, James, after¬
wards earl of Hyndford, and the Hon. William Car¬
michael, afterwards solicitor-general for Scotland; that
they passed two winters at Utrecht and Franeker, between
the years 1692 and 1695, and subsequently travelled to¬
gether for some time. “ I have heard,” says his lordship,
“ that the same Alexander Cunningham was afterwards
tutor to an English nobleman, whose name is unknown
to me.” If we may rely on the notice already quoted,
this young nobleman must have been connected with the
Newcastle family. A letter from Cunningham to Car-
stares, dated at Bruges on the 20th of October 1697, con¬
tains the subsequent gleanings of information. “ My Lord
Argyle has not yet written any thing concerning his son :
he was gone from this place to his regiment before I came
here, which I was glad of, for I know his 1. colonel will
take care of him.... As for the project, I know you will not
only use all your credit with Secretary Ogilvy, but will
also recommend the thing to all the Scots nobility and
gentry you shall meet with at London. I have bought in
this country a considerable number of books, in order to
the carrying of it on; and, so soon as I am free of my L.
Lome, I resolve to set seriously about it.”2 Lord Lome,
though only about seventeen years of age, was now colo¬
nel of a regiment in Flanders. In the course of the fol¬
lowing year, Dr Lister found Cunningham at Paris, and
he makes an allusion to his having recently visited Rome.
“ I had a visit,” he remarks, “ from Mr Cunningham,
tutor to my Lord Lome, a very learned and curious man
in books. I askt him (knowing him to have been lately
at Rome) very particularly about the papers of Monsieur Cunning.
d’Azout. He told me that he saw him not half a year ham-
before he died, and was very intimately acquainted with
him, and saw him for a twelvemonth very often. That he
told him that he had about 80 difficult passages in Vitru¬
vius, which he had commented and explained; and the
correction of a great number of errata in the text. Also
that upon Julius Frontinus (though that was a much less
task) he had much more to say than he had upon Vitru¬
vius.”3 From a passage in Cunningham’s history, Dr
Thomson had inferred that the author must have accom¬
panied Lord Lome to Rome; but from the context he
was led to suppose that this occurrence must have taken
place about the close of 1699 or the beginning of 1700.
In the year 1701, Cunningham was employed in a new
capacity. He was sent to France by the king’s autho¬
rity : the ostensible object of his mission was to conduct
a negociation respecting the trade between Scotland and
France, but he is supposed to have supplied the king with
important information of another kind.4 During the reign
of George I. he was appointed minister to the state of
Venice, and he retained his functions from 1715 to 1720.
How long he survived, we have not hitherto been able to
ascertain, but the earl of Hyndford is known to have
visited him in London in the year 1735. He was married,
and had four sons and a daughter. His eldest son, Ro¬
bert, a barrister, died unmarried. Thomas married, and
had a son and a daughter. Robert died in 1748, and
Thomas in 1749 : their uncle, James Cunningham of
Hyndhope, attended the funerals of both; and at that of
the latter he acted as chief mourner, the only son of the
deceased being then a child. Alexander, the third son,
was educated at Westminster school, and afterwards went
to Leyden, where he died. Jane, the historian’s only
daughter, was married to Mr Clayton, brother to the
mayor of Newcastle. It is sufficiently evident that the
historian was a different person from Alexander Cunning¬
ham, who died on the 15th of May 1737, and was buried
in the chancel of St Martin’s church. By his testament,
registered at Doctors Commons, the latter makes a provi¬
sion for nephews and nieces, without any mention of his
own descendants.
Long after the death of Cunningham, his Latin history
came into the possession of Dr Hollingbery, archdeacon
of Chichester, who describes the author as nearly con¬
nected with his family. The original has not been pub¬
lished ; but a spirited translation, executed by William
Thomson, LL. D. made its appearance, under the title of
“ The History of Great Britain, from the Revolution in
1688 to the Accession of George the First.” Lond. 1787,
2 vols. 4to. It is certainly a curious circumstance that,
at so barren a period of its literary annals, Scotland should
have produced two learned writers of the same name and
surname.5 The identity of their pursuits and accomplish-
volume of Bishop Burnet’s History of his own Time. See Journal des Sfavans, pour Vannee 1726, p. 669. His reputation as a
chess-player was not inferior to his reputation as a scholar. About the year 1760, Professor Wodrow played at chess “ with Mr
Alexander Cunningham of Bloak, his old acquaintance. Mr Cunningham, after playing a game with him, said he thought he was
able to give him a rook and a bishop of advantage, and his very outmost was queen, but he doubted that would be too much, which
was a high commendation from him who is reckoned the best chess-player in Europe.” (Wodrow’s Life of James Wodrow, A. M.
Professor of Divinity in the University of Glasgow, p. 174. Edinb. 1828, 12mo )
1 All these particulars we state on the authority of a notice written by a well-known individual, the late Mr Alexander Cunning-
ham, jeweller in Edinburgh, who was himself descended from the historian’s elder brother; and, in 1787, committed to writing,
“from his father’s information, the circumstances related by him as they now stand ; these he learnt when in London, from the
widow of his grand-uncle.” From the same source we derive our information respecting Cunningham’s children.
2 Carstares’s State-Papers and Letters, p. 360. Edinb. 1774, 4to.
3 Lister’s Journey to Paris in the year 1698, p. 99. 2d edit. Lond. 1699, 8vo.
4 Cunningham’s Hist, of Great Britain, vol. i. p. 238. Carstares’s State-Papers, p. 709-10. See likewise Dr Thomson’s Intro¬
duction, p. xiii.
3 About the^ same period, there was a third scholar of the name of Alexander Cunningham, who was professor of humanity in the
university of hdinburgh. His testament was confirmed by the commissary court on the 26th of March 1697- He is the writer of
a Latin poem, subjoined to a work entitled Grammalica Latina, authore Patricio Dykes Pcrthensi. Edinb. 1679, 8vo.
CUN
CUP 589
Cunning- ments is likewise remarkable : both of them were travel- their features are often strained and violent. The same
^am* ; ling tutors, and both lawyers ; both of them were great criticism is applicable to his novels, which are piles of glit-
proficients in Roman literature, and both were famous for tering description, and exaggerated and unnatural charac-
their skill at chess. When we consider all these coinci- ters, sufficient to furnish forth ornament for fifty fictions, and
dences, as well as the chronological agreement, it does wonder for whole generations of boyhood. His judgment
not appear surprising that they should frequently have did not control the fervour of his genius, or corroborate the
been supposed to be one and the same individual. It is slenderness of his knowledge in the delineation of character,
remarked by Dr Thomson, that if we duly examine Cun- and the architecture of scenic combination. His critical
ningham’s history, “ we shall find reason to pronounce it power in the fine arts is directed in a great measure by his
a just and legitimate composition, and perhaps to rank its poetic faculty, and his reader feels that though he peruses
author in the first class of our historians.” Most readers a pleasing writer, he is undirected by an authoritative
will at least be disposed to admit that he was a man of judge; nay, that his decision in the severer technicalities
learning and talents, and that he has made some import- of art and literature is the reflex of opinion derived from
ant additions to the common stock of materials for the external sources. The cast of Cunningham’s education
history of the eventful period to which his work relates, and business in life necessarily prevented his learning
His decided attachment to the principles of the Whigs, on the subjects on which he writes from being minute and
will further recommend him to those who prefer the in- comprehensive. Hence he is too much inclined to gene-
terest of the great body of the people to the interest of a ralize from isolated facts in history, and his conclusions are
particular family and particular classes. (d. i.) often felt to be wrought from too slender a thread of pre-
Cunningham, Allan, a. poet and miscellaneous writer, mises. But Cunningham is an eloquent and honest writer;
was born of comparatively humble parentage, at Blackwood, and in the diffuse and brilliant stream of his style the reader
Dumfriesshire, in 1784. Entering life as apprentice to a forgets defects which are inexcusable only in the highest
stone mason, he early displayed a promise of poetical talent, genius with the most unfettered opportunities,
and happening to be introduced to the engraver Cromek, CUNOCEPHALI, or Cynocephali (kiW, dog, and
the editor of the “ Remains of Nithsdale and Galloway Kefyakr), head), in Egyptian Mythology, a kind of baboons,
Song,” he undertook the collection of ballads for the work, or animals with heads like those of dogs, which were sup-
He sent to Cromek, as genuine remains, his own imita- posed to be wonderfully endowed, and were preserved with
tions of the ancient ballad literature. These form the great veneration by the Egyptians in many of their temples,
hulk of Cromek’s work. The cheat was long unsuspected, It is related that by their assistance the Egyptians found out
but the sagacity of Bishop Percy, James Hogg, Walter the particular periods of the sun and moon; that one-half
Scott, and especially Professor Wilson (see Blackwood’s of the animal wa_ often buried, whilst the other half sur-
Magazine, December 1819), ultimately demonstrated the vived; and that they could both read and write. This
imposition, much to the reputation of the real author. strange fable is supposed by Bryant to relate to the priests
Invited by Cromek to seek a higher sphere of fortune, Egypt, to the novices in their temples, and to the exa-
he went to London in 1810. After a short period of em- minations which they were obliged to undergo before they
ployment w ith the sculptor Bubb, he devoted himself to could be admitted to the priesthood. The death of one part
newspaper reporting. This confining labour affected his whilst the other survived, is understood to have denoted
health, and he was ultimately fortunate enough to obtain the regular succession of the Egyptian priesthood. Cyno-
an engagement in Chantrey’s studio. He became secre- cephali are also found in India and some other parts of the
tary or clerk of the works; and in this situation he conti- world. See Anubis.
nued till his death. Chantrey’s gratitude to Cunningham’s CUPAR-ANGUS, a burgh of barony of Scotland, partly
long and valuable services was displayed in his will. In in the county of Perth and partly in that of Forfar. It
this congenial position of comfort and independence, he stands on the Isla, a small tributary of the Tay, about 13
enjoyed opportunities for the employment of his active pen, miles N.E. from Perth, and 61 miles by railway from Edin-
and for intercourse with men of kindred genius. His warm burgh. The town is well-built, and, in addition to the
heart, his honest, energetic, upright, and earnest charac- parish church, contains chapels for the Free Church, United
ter, attracted the affectionate esteem and respect of all Presbyterians, Episcopalians, Original Seceders, and Inde-
who enjoyed his acquaintance. He died at London in pendents. Its trade consists in the weaving and bleaching
1842. of linen, and the tanning of leather. In ancient times it was
Cunningham’s poetry consists of songs, ballads, and kin- famous for a Cistercian abbey, founded on the site of a
dred short pieces; a species of Epic, in Spenserian stanzas, Roman camp by Malcolm IV. in 1164. This building,
“ The Maid of Elvar,” illustrative of Dumfriesshire scenery however, was destroyed at the Reformation, and only a few
and society a few centuries ago; and “Sir Marmaduke ruins now remain. Pop. (1851) 2004.
Maxwell,” a wild tumultuous collection of border super- CUPAR-FIFE, a royal and parliamentary burgh, and
stition. His prose works include three novels, “Paid the county-town of Fifeshire. It stands in the centre of the
Jones,” “ Sir Michael Scott,” and “ Lord Roldan “ Life Hovje of Fifeshire, about 6 miles from the sea, and by rail-
of Burns,” “ Traditional Tales,” “ Lives of eminent British way and ferry is about 32 miles distant from Edinburgh,
painters, sculptors, and architects,” in Murray’s Family Li- It consists principally of one long street, extending from
brary ; and he died in the act of finishing a “ Life of Sir east to west, and intersected by a cross street leading north
D. Wilkie.” A very genial work of Cunningham is his and south. The town and county halls are the principal
“ Songs of Scotland.” He left, says his son, “ some thirty public structures; and besides two Established churches
volumes of works, and ample materials for perhaps ten there are chapels belonging to the Free Church, the United
more.” Presbyterians, and the Episcopalians. There is also a
Cunningham’s smaller poems are airy, natural, and in- large academy formed by the incorporation of an old joint-
tensely Scotch; vigorous, and even splendid in their higher stock academy with a modern one on Dr Bell’s founda-
moods, affectingly pathetic in their softer strains. His poetic tion. The principal trade of the burgh is connected with
wing wras not formed, as the “ Maid of Elvar” proves, for a fts weekly corn-markets, and with the manufacture of coarse
long continued flight; the poem is weighed heavily down by linen goods, snuff, leather, candles, bricks, and earthenware,
its stanza and prolixity of description. Many of his “Tales” For such branches of industry its clay-fields and water-
are pleasing, with a strong border relish about them, but ower present considerable facilities. It is governed by a
Cunooe-
phali
Cupar-
Fife.
590 CUP
Cupel provost and 17 councillors; and unites with St Andrews,
II. Crail, Anstruther, Kilrenny, and Pittenweem, in sending
Cupid. one member to the imperial parliament. On a mount called
the Castlehill, at the east of the town, stood the fortress
of the Macduffs, the feudal earls or thanes of Fife. Ihe
estate of Sir David Lindsay of the Mount was within a
short distance of Cupar; and on a green esplanade in front
of Macduff Castle, still called the “Play-field,” the satirical
drama of the “ Three Estates” is said to have been per¬
formed. From the press of Mr Tullis in Cupar appeared
the editions of Virgil, Horace, &c., edited by Dr Hunter
of St Andrews. Pop. (1851) of royal burgh 4005 ; of par¬
liamentary burgh 5686.
CUPEL (Lat. cupe/la, a little tub or vessel), a small
earthen cup-shaped vessel used in the refining of metals.
It is usually made of phosphate of lime, or the residue of
burnt bones, rammed into a mould. In the process of
assaying the precious metals, the silver or gold is fused
upon a cupel with lead, when the lead becomes oxidated
and vitrified, and is absorbed by the substance of the cupel,
while the silver or gold remains in a state of purity. This
process is called cupellation. See Assaying, vol. iii., p. 770.
CUPID, the god of love, or love personified, called Eros
by the Greeks, and by the Romans Amor or Cupido.
There were three divinities, or rather three forms of the
same deity, with this appellation. The first Eros is described
by Hesiod as the fairest among the gods. The second, who
may be regarded as almost identical with the first, is
the Eros of the philosophers and mysteries, by whom,
as the uniting power of love, the discordant elements of
chaos were brought into harmonious order. The third is the
Eros of the epigrammatists and erotic poets. This deity is
represented as the youngest of all the gods, and gave rise
to that notion of the deity most familiar to the moderns.
Fie is called the son of Venus; and his father is either
Mars, Jupiter, or Mercury. Originally this god was repre¬
sented as a youth of beautiful aspect; and it was only pos¬
terior to the time of Alexander the Great that he came to
be depicted by the poets as a wanton and mischievous boy,
from whose pranks neither gods nor men were secure. In
this form he presided over love, as the symbol of reproduc¬
tion ; and in token of his power over every variety of ani¬
mated nature he is represented in the designs of classic art
as riding on the backs of lions and other wild beasts which
he has tamed, sporting with the monsters of the deep, steal¬
ing the arms of Hercules, and even breaking the thunder¬
bolts of the father of gods and men. One of the earliest
and most pleasing descriptions of Eros in the form under
which he is most familiar to the moderns is to be found in
the Ode to Cupid., attributed to Anacreon. Until about the
time when this ode was written, the intercourse of the sexes
had been characterized much more by passion than by sen¬
timent, and the writer of the Anacreontic Odes, whoever
he may have been, was one of the first to introduce those
little tendernesses which constitute the spiritual part of the
affection, and to give a new and higher conception of the
idea of Cupid. From the ode in question is borrowed the
popular notion of the appearance of the god, as a winged
child, sometimes blindfold, and bearing a bow and a quiver
filled with arrows. Praxiteles, however, one of the most
illustrious of all the Greek sculptors, designed as his beau
ideal of Cupid a full-grown youth of the most perfect
symmetry of form and faultless beauty of feature. For an
account of the beautiful legend of Cupid and Psyche, see
Psyche. Intimately associated with Eros was Anteros,
originally an antagonistic being to the god of love, but
afterwards the avenging deity of unrequited affection.
Cupid was worshipped with especial solemnity at Thes-
piae in Bceotia, at Samos, Sparta, Athens, and Megara; in
some of which cities his festivals, known as Erotia or Ero-
tidia, were celebrated every five years.
CUR
CUPOLA (Italian), a spherical or spheroidal vault, in Cupola
form of an inverted bowl, on the top of an edifice. See ||
glossary to Architecture. Curator.
CUPPING, in Surgery, the operation of applying the
cucurbita or cupping-glass. The flame of a spirit lamp
having been introduced momentarily into the glass in order
to expel the greater portion of the air by dilatation, the
glass is to be immediately applied to the skin; when, in
consequence of the partial vacuum produced by the cooling
and contraction of the included air, the part of the body
operated upon will be drawn up forcibly into the glass, and
on its removal will exhibit a red and swollen appearance in
consequence of the propulsion of blood into the small ves¬
sels. This operation is termed dry cupping. When it is
desired to extract blood, an instrument called a scarificator
is employed to make incisions in the part so operated upon ;
after which, when the glass is applied to the part as before,
a considerable quantity of blood may be drawn off at once.
The scarificator consists of ten or twelve lancets so adjusted
within a case, that, by means of a spring and trigger, the
whole are discharged and withdrawn with instantaneous
quickness through slits in the plane surface of the case, and
thus make a series of regular incisions in the part to which
the instrument is applied. Cupping, when skilfully per¬
formed, is not a very painful operation.
CUPREOUS (Lat. cuprum, copper), consisting of or
resembling copper, or partaking of its qualities.
CUPRESSUS, a genus of Coniferce, containing the dif¬
ferent species of cypress. See Botany.
CURA CO A, or Curasao, an island in the Caribbean
Sea, lying off the N. coast of Venezuela, in Lat. 12. N., Long.
69. W. It is 40 miles in length from N.W. to S.E., and
10 in average breadth. The island is hilly and deficient
in water, being wholly dependent upon the rains ; yet con¬
siderable quantities of sugar, indigo, tobacco, and maize are
raised. The shores, which are bold, are in some places
deeply indented and present several harbours, the chief of
which is Santa Anna, on the S.W. side of the island. The
entrance, which is narrow, is protected by Fort Amsterdam
and other batteries; but the harbour itself is large and
secure, and is the port of the chief town Curaqoa or Wil-
helmstadt Pop. (1847) 15,164, of whom 9728 were slaves.
The island was settled by the Spaniards about 1527, and
was captured by the Dutch in 1634. It was taken by the
English in 1798 and again in 1806; but was restored in
1814 to the Dutch, in whose possession it has since re¬
mained.
CURATE (from Lat. curare, to take care of), pro¬
perly, an incumbent who has a cure of souls; in which
general sense it is frequently used in the rubrics of the
English Prayer-book, and applied to any clergyman law¬
fully appointed to a parish, whether he be rector, vicar, or
perpetual curate. But the term is now almost exclusively
used to signify the spiritual assistant of a rector or a vicar
in his cure. Curates form the lowest order of the clergy,
and are divided into two classes—perpetual and stipendiary.
Perpetual curates are such as are appointed to the church
of a parish in which the tithes are impropriated, and no vi¬
carage is endowed. These are not removable, and the im¬
propriators are obliged to find them. In some cases a cer¬
tain portion of the tithes is settled on them. A stipendiary
curate, having no fixed estate in his curacy, may be re¬
moved at pleasure by the bishop or the incumbent.
CURATOR (Latin), in a general sense, one who su¬
perintends or takes charge of a thing; an overseer, a
keepei’.
Among the Romans it was used more particularly to de¬
note a guardian or a trustee, as of a minor, an imbecile,
an absent person, &c. In a cognate sense also it was ap¬
plied under the emperors to various public functionaries,
of whom the most important were the following:—
CUR
CUR
591
Curator CnnJtores Alvei Tiberis, those who had charge of the
|| navigation of the Tiber.
Curetes. Curator.es Annonce, those who regulated the price of
corn and oil, and distributed them among the poor.
Curatores Aquarum, those who had the superinten¬
dence of the aqueducts.
Curatores Kalendarii, those who had the charge of
the books in which the sums of money belonging to their
respective municipia, lent out at interest, were entered.
Curatores Ludorum, the superintendents of the public
games ; usually called in inscriptions curatores muneris gla-
diatorii, &c.
Curatores Operum Publicorum, the inspectors of the pub¬
lic buildings.
Curatores Regionum, those to whose care were com¬
mitted the fourteen districts of the city, for the prevention
of disorder and extortion.
Curatores Reipublicce, or Logistic, the administrators
of the landed property in their respective municipia.
Curatores Viarum., the superintendents of the public
w'ays; a title frequently assumed by the emperors them¬
selves.
Curator of a University, in the United Provinces, or
Holland, an officer elected to superintend the affairs of the
institution, the administration of its revenues, the conduct
of the professors, &c. In learned institutions generally, the
officer who has charge of libraries, museums, &c., is fre¬
quently styled curator.
CURB (Fr. courbe, from Lat. curvd), in a general sense,
restraint. Hence it is applied to a small iron chain attached
to a horse’s bridle, for the purpose of giving greater efficiency
to the bit.
It also denotes a tumour on the back part of the hock of
a horse, attended with stiffness, and sometimes pain and
lameness.
CURCAS, a name given in Egypt to an esculent root,
approaching in taste and virtues to the colocasia. This is
also a name given in Malabar to a small fruit of the shape
and size of a hazel nut. It is very probable that the cur-
cas of the East Indies may be the fruit called bell by Avi¬
cenna, and said to possess the same virtues. Gracias has
been led into an error by this similarity of names and vir¬
tues, and supposes the curcas of Egypt to be the same with
that of the East Indies.
CURCUMA, a genus of the natural order of scitami-
neous plants, to which zedoary, turmeric, and other useful
vegetables belong.
CURD, the coagulated or thickened part of milk, which
by pressure is converted into cheese. See Dairy.
CURES, in Ancient Geography, an old town of Sabi-
num, not far from the left bank of the Tiber, about 25
miles from Rome. It w’as renowned in early Roman his¬
tory as the birth-place of Tatius the colleague of Romulus,
and of Numa the second king of Rome. It was from the
name of this town also that the term Quirites, the distin¬
guishing epithet of the Roman people in later days, was be¬
lieved by the ancients themselves to be derived. If it be
true, as Strabo asserts, that Cures was at one time a large
and flourishing city, it very early fell into decay. About
100 years B.c. it was colonized by Sulla, and continued to
prosper till about the fourth century of the Christian era.
It was finally destroyed by the Lombards before the end of
the sixth century. Remains of the city and traces of its
site have been discovered at a place occupied by the mo¬
dern village of Correse, which word is evidently a corrup¬
tion of the ancient Cures.
CURETES, Koup-Jjre?, in Antiquity, priests or people of
the island of Crete, identified by some with the Corybantes.
The history of the Curetes is involved in very great obscurity.
They are said to have been originally inhabitants of Mount
Ida in Phrygia, and hence were also called Idcci Dactyli.
Lucian and Diodorus represent the Curetes as very expert Curfeu
in throwing the javelin, while other authors assign them no II
weapons except the pike and buckler ; but all are agreed Curia-
respecting their use of drums and cymbals, to the noise and
clashing of which instruments they exercised themselves in
dancing of the wildest and most extravagant description. It
is related that with this noise they prevented Saturn from
hearing the cries of the infant Jupiter, and thus preserved
the child’s life. Some authors, however, give a different
account of the Curetes. According to Pezron and others,
the Curetes were, in the times of Saturn, and in the coun¬
tries of Crete and Phrygia, what the Druids were after¬
wards among the Gauls and Britons; namely, priests who
had the care of all that related to religion and the worship
of the gods. Hence, as in those days it was supposed that
there was no communication with the gods but by means of
divinations, auguries, and the operations of magic, the Cu¬
retes passed for magicians and enchanters ; and to these
accomplishments they added the study of the stars, of na¬
ture, and of poetry. In short, they were philosophers, as¬
tronomers, and poets. Vossius (Z)e Idolati) distinguishes
three kinds of Curetes; those of iEtolia, those of Phrygia,
and those of Crete, who were originally derived from the
Phrygians. The first, he says, took their name from Kovpd,
tonsure, because from the time of a combat in which the
enemy had seized them by their long hair they always kept
it short. But those of Phrygia and Crete, he supposes,
were so called from Kovpos, young man, because they were
young, or because they had taken charge of the infant Jupi¬
ter. See Cabiri, Corybantes, Crete, Dactyli, &c.
CURFEU, Curfew, or Couvre-feu, a signal, as by toll¬
ing a bell, to warn the inhabitants of a town to extinguish
their fires and lights and retire to rest. This was a common
practice during the middle ages, especially in cities taken
in war. In the law Latin of those times it was termed
ignitegium, or pyritegium.
The curfew is commonly said to have been introduced
into England by William the Conqueror, who ordained, un¬
der severe penalties, that at the ringing of the curfew-bell
at eight o’clock in the evening all lights and fires should
be extinguished. It seems probable, however, that he
merely enforced an existing and very common police regu¬
lation to that effect. The curfew-bell was abolished by
Henry I. in 1100. The practice of tolling a bell at a fixed
hour in the evening, still extant in many places, is a rem¬
nant of the ancient curfew.
As a precaution against conflagrations, the curfew was a
most useful regulation, at a period when it was the custom
to place the fire in a hole in the middle of the floor, under
an opening in the roof to allow the escape of the smoke.
When a family retired to rest for the night, the fire was ex¬
tinguished by covering it up; and hence the term couvre-
feu, or curfeiv. But this salutary regulation served another
important end, since by obliging people to keep within doors,
nocturnal brawls in the streets were in a great measure pre¬
vented. The severity exhibited by William the Conqueror
in enforcing obedience to the curfew, appears to have been
more particularly designed to prevent the English from assem¬
bling in secret to plan schemes of rebellion against himself.
The ringing of the prayer-bell, as it is called, which is
still practised in some Protestant countries, originated in
that of the curfew-bell. Pope John XXXIII. dreading
that misfortunes were about to befall him, ordered every
person on hearing the ignitegium to repeat the Ave Maria
three times, with a view to avert them. When the appear¬
ance of a comet, and a dread of the Turks, alarmed all
Christendom, Pope Calixtus VIII. increased these periodi¬
cal times of prayer, by ordering the prayer-bell to be also
rung at the hour of noon.
CURIA, one of the thirty sections into which the Roman
people were distributed by Romulus. That legislator di-
Curmi
592 C U II
Curiatii vided the people into three tribes, and each tribe into
II ten curiae. Originally, a tribe consisted of 1000 men, each
v ur inQ'y curia including 100. The number of tribes was afterwards
increased by degrees to thirty-five, and they were divided
into country and city tribes; but the number of the curiae
always remained the same. This division of the people
into tribes and curiae was of great political importance
in early times, as none but real citizens were included; but
through time the curiae fell into disrepute in proportion as
the importance of the plebeians, and afterwards of the no¬
bilitas, arose, till at length even the religious observances
connected with them were suffered to fall into disuse. See
Roman History.
Curia was also used to denote the place in which a curia
assembled. Each curia possessed its own proper chapel
or temple for the performance of the offices of religion; and
each was under the superintendence of a chief, who acted
as a priest, assisted by another called flamen curialis. Each
curia elected its own chief; but over all there was a supe¬
rior called curio maximus, who was elected by the several
curias assembled in the comitia curiata.
The Romans also used the word curia to designate the
place in which the senate held its meetings, such as the
Curia Hostilia, Curia Julia, Curia Pompeiana, Curia Oe-
taviae; and hence the term came to be applied to the senate
itself in the Italian towns.
In modern usage, curia denotes a place of justice with
the judges therein assembled.
CURIATII. See Horatii, and Roman History.
CURIO, the chief and priest of a curia. See Curia.
CURIOSI, officers of the Roman empire during the
lower age, employed in the capacity of secret spies or po¬
lice, to prevent frauds or irregularities, and to give intelli¬
gence to the court of what passed in the provinces.
CURISCHES-HAFF. See Prussia.
CURLEW. See index to Ornithology.
CURLING (Teutonic krulleri), a favourite Scottish di¬
version practised on the ice, in which the contending parties
slide large stones (flattened for the purpose, and furnished
with handles) towards a tee or mark. It thus bears some
resemblance to bowling on a green.
Curling appears to have been first known in Scotland
about the commencement of the sixteenth century, and was
probably introduced by the immigrant Flemings. Of this
game Sir David Brewster has given the following account:—
“ The stones employed in it are of a spherical form, flat¬
tened above and below, so that their breadth may be nearly
equal to twice their thickness. The upper and under sur¬
faces are made parallel to one another, and the angles of
both are rounded off. The under surface, or sole as it is
called, is polished as nicely as possible, that the stone may
move easily along. The blocks from which they are made
are of whinstone or granite of a close texture, free from
cracks, and capable of taking a fine polish. Those whin-
stone nodules, called u Yolks,” on account of their tough¬
ness, and never breaking into large fragments, are reckoned
the best. I hey have bent iron or wooden handles, and are
from 30 to 60 lb. of avoirdupois weight, according to the
strength of the person who uses them.
I w- P^ace where the stones move is called the Rink,
the chief property of which is, that the ice be level, smooth,
and free from cracks, particularly such as are in a longitu¬
dinal or oblique direction. A mark or hole is then made at
each end, called a 1'ee, loesee, or Witter. Round this two
circles of different diameters are drawn, that the relative dis¬
tances of the stones from it may be calculated at sight; as
actual measurement is not permitted till the playing at each
end be finished. These circles, in the technical language
of the game, are called the Broughs. A score drawn across
the link at each end, distant from the tee about a sixth part
of the length of the rink, is called the Hogscore. The length
C U ft
of the rink, from tee to tee, varies from 30 to 50 yards. The
breadth is about 10 or 12 feet. When the ice is covered ||
with snow, it must be cleared to that extent, and also 10 or Cumn.
12 feet beyond the tee at each end, that the stones, when
impelled with too much force, may have room to get far
enough not to be of any use.
“ The number of players upon a rink is eight or sixteen ;
eight wEen the players use two stones each, and sixteen
when they use one stone each. There may be one or more
rinks, according to the number of curlers. The game may
also be conducted by one person against another, by tw o
against two, or three against three, each using one or more
stones, as it may be agreed upon.
“ He who is reckoned the best curler has generally the
power of arranging the order of the players; and whoever
is last in order gives directions to all the rest of his party.
He is called the Driver, and the first the Lead.
“ The game at first is remarkably simple. The lead en¬
deavours to lay his stone as near the tee as possible. If it
be a little short of it, upon the middle of the rink, it is
reckoned to be fully better laid than if it touched it. The
object of the next in order is nearly the same as that of the
lead. The next attempts to guard the stone of his partner,
if it be near the tee, or to strike off that of his antagonist,
if it be nearer. The one who follows, if a stone belonging
to his own party lie nearest the tee, tries to guard it; if one
of the opposite party, to strike it off; or if no stone be near
the tee, to draw a shot, that is, to make his stone rest as
near the tee as he can.
“ As the game advances, it becomes abvays the more in¬
tricate. Sometimes the stone nearest the tee, which is called
the winner, is so guarded, that there is no possibility of
getting at it directly. It then becomes necessary, in order
to get it removed, to strike another lying at the side in an
oblique direction. This is called Wicking, and is one of
the nicest parts of the game. But when the winner cannot
be reached even in this way, the last in order but one or
two must endeavour to remove the opposing stones by
striking them with great force. Sometimes the stones are
so situated, that the driver, to avoid the risk of losing any
shots which his party may have gained, throws away his
stone without attempting anything. When the stones on
both sides have been all played, the one nearest the tee
counts one; and if the second, third, fourth, &c. belong
to the same side, all these count so many shots, thirty-
one of which for each side is the number usually played for.”
CURMI (kovp/ju), in Antiquity, a sort of malt liquor or
ale made of barley, and which, according to Dioscorides,
was used by many nations instead of wine. That writer
also relates that in the western part of Iberia, and in Bri¬
tain, a similar beverage was in his time prepared from
wheat.
CURRAH, a district of Hindustan, province of Allaha¬
bad. It has a fertile soil, which, when well watered, yields
all kinds of grain, also sugar-cane, cotton, tobacco, and a
species of earth impregnated with alkali, which is used as
soap. The capital, of the same name, is situated on the
S.W. bank of the Ganges, and extends above a mile along
the bank of the river, and about half-a-mile inland. On
the banks of the Ganges, and in the middle of the towm,
stands an old fort, in the vicinity of which there are several
Hindu temples. The governor of the province formerly
resided at Currah ; but on his removal by the Emperor
Acbar, the town fell into decay. Its decline was greatly
accelerated towards the close of the last century by the
vizier of Oudt^ who ordered several of the most elegant
buildings to be destroyed for the sake of the freestone
of which they were built, to furnish materials for his new
buildings at Lucknow. It is 45 miles N.W. from Allaha¬
bad. E. Long. 81. 28.; N. Eat. 25. 41. (e. t.)
CURRAN, John Philpot, a celebrated Irish barrister
. and orator, was born at Newmarket, near Cork, in 1750.
He received his education at Trinity College, Dublin, after
which he went to London, and studied atone of the inns of
court. In due time he was called to the bar ; and shortly
afterwards married Miss O’Dell, an Irish lady of a very re¬
spectable family. His talents soon rendered him conspi¬
cuous ; and during the Duke of Portland’s administration he
received the silk gown. In 1784 he was chosen a member
of the Irish House of Commons, where his abilities were
advantageously employed ; and he gradually rose to be the
most popular advocate of his time in Ireland. The dis¬
tracted state of Ireland towards the close of the last cen-
tury gave frequent opportunities for the display of Curran’s
forensic powers ; and he was often called upon to defend
persons accused of political offences. Mr Fitzgibbon, after¬
wards Loid Clare, at that period attorney-general, was his
opponent; and from being brought frequently into colli¬
sion with each other, their professional rivalry at last de¬
generated into personal animosity, which was finally consum¬
mated in a bloodless duel. On a change of ministry, dur¬
ing the vice-royalty of the Duke of Bedford, the patriotism
of Curran was rewarded with the situation of master of the
rolls. This situation he held till 1814, when he resigned
it, and obtained a compensation of L.3000 a-year. With
this he retired to England, and resided chiefly in the neigh¬
bourhood of London till his death, which took place at
Brompton, Nov. 13, 1817.
Curran’s talents were of a very high order. His wit,
drollery, and pathos were alike remarkable. If the expres¬
sion may be used, the character of his eloquence was pecu¬
liarly Irish. It was replete with bold and striking meta¬
phor, and went more to interest the feelings by its irresis¬
tible appeals, than to convince the judgment by its closely
reasoned deductions. It was the language of fearless and
impassioned genius. And this was just the kind of elo¬
quence that was wanted in the cases upon which he was
employed, and among the people before whom he pleaded.
If it be the test of supreme genius to produce strong emo¬
tions, some of Curran’s speeches may be placed amongst
the noblest efforts of forensic skill which modern times can
boast of. Even after the lapse of half a century, when the
circumstances which called them forth have begun to fade
into dimness and distance, they cannot be perused without
rousing the feelings to the highest pitch. Curran’s convi¬
vial powers were of the highest order, and his conversation
was often highly fascinating. In his domestic relations he
was very unfortunate; and it seems that he laid him¬
self open to censure. He does not appear to have com¬
mitted anything to press; but some poetical effusions pub¬
lished in his memoirs possess considerable merit. In 1805
there appeared an unauthorized collection of his forensic
speeches; and since that time several selections from these
have been published. Memoirs of his life have been pub¬
lished by his son, Mr Charles Phillips, and Mr O’Regan.
CURRANT (from Corinth), a small species of grape.
It is found in greatest perfection along the shores of the
Corinthian Gulf’ in Cephalonia, Ithaca, and in Zante, in
which island its cultivation engrosses nearly two-thirds of
the cultivated land. The plant is delicate, and takes six or
seven years to arrive at perfection. When the flower is out,
it gives a singular richness and beauty to the landscape. The
currant succeeds best on plains near the sea, or on the lower
slopes of mountains, in a dry and light soil; but the crop
is particularly liable to injury from rain in harvest. After
being dried in the sun, the currants are packed in large
butts for exportation, the greater proportion being sent to
the western parts of Europe, especially to Britain.
The quantity imported in 1853 amounted only to 267,282
cwts., owing to a failure in the crop ; whereas in 1850 it
amounted to 429,607 cwts., and in 1851 to 721,119 cwts.
Previous to 1834 the duty on currants was as high as
VOL. VII.
44s. 4d. a cwt. In that year it was reduced one-half, and
in 1844 it was further reduced to 15s. per cwt.
The name is also given to a small fruit, well known in
our gardens as the produce of two species of Ribes—R.
rubrum, and R. nigrum.
CURRENCY. See Money.
CURRENT (Lat. currem, from curro, to run, to flow),
literally signifies running, flowing, passing. Hence, pass¬
ing from person to person, or from hand to hand; circu¬
lating ; as current opinions, current coin. In commerce it
is applied in an analogous sense to the price of any com¬
modity ; as current value—that is, the ordinary or present
value. As applied to time it is equivalent to now present
or passing; as the current month or year.
CURRENTS, Ocean. See Physical Geography,
section vi.
CURRICLE (Lat. curriculum, a chariot), a carriage
with two wheels, drawn by two horses abreast, and sup¬
ported by a pole connected with a bar across the horses’
backs.
CURRICULUM, a Latin word signifying a race-ground,
a course, a chariot, in its modern acceptation denotes the
whole course of study in a school or university.
CURRIE, James, M.D., was born May 31, 1756, at
Kirkpatrick-Fleming, near Moffat, Dumfriesshire, where
his father was minister of the parish. He was the only son
in a family of seven children, and by his mother’s side was
descended from the ancient family of Kilmarnock.
Fie began his education at the parish school of Middle-
bie, to the living of which his father had been preferred ;
and was afterwards sent to a seminary at Dumfries, then
conducted by Dr Chapman, the author of a work on edu¬
cation.
During a visit to some friends in Glasgow, the spectacle
of its commercial activity captivated the adventurous spirit
of young Currie; and abandoning his original intention of
qualifying himself for the medical profession, he was in¬
duced, with the concurrence of his father, to engage in the
service of a company of merchants who were going out on
a speculation to Virginia. The hopes of the speculators
were disappointed by the breaking out of hostilities between
America and England ; and Currie, in addition to their
harsh and ungenerous treatment, had to struggle with a
long and dangerous illness which seized him soon after his
arrival. The death of his father, at the same time, added
to the complicated difficulties of his situation ; but his mis¬
fortunes did not prevent him from generously dividing
among his sisters the scanty inheritance which had fallen
to his share. Renouncing the pursuits of commerce, with
which he had been completely sickened, he turned his at¬
tention to the political topics which were then the univer¬
sal subject of interest in America ; and published a series
of letters in defence of the English government in an Ameri¬
can newspaper, under the signature of “An old Man.”
These juvenile essays procured him considerable reputa¬
tion among his friends ; but the hostility which they pro¬
voked from the adverse party led him to abandon the un¬
promising pursuit of literature and politics for the more
hopeful study of medicine.
To carry his resolution into effect he quitted America;
and as the war had by this time precluded all direct com¬
munication with England, he proceeded thither by way of
the West Indies. After a voyage of great hardship and dan¬
ger, he at length arrived at London in 1776. From thence he
immediately repaired to Edinburgh, and began his academic
studies, which he prosecuted with remarkable assiduity and
success till the spring of 1780. He soon became conspi¬
cuous among the students by the extent of his acquire¬
ments, and by the singular acuteness of his mind ; and, in
particular, he distinguished himself as a member of the
Medical Society. 1 he papers which, according to custom,
4 P
594 CUR
Currie, he contributed, bear the stamp of superior talent, and are
curious, as furnishing proofs that, even at this early period,
his attention had been actively directed to subjects which he
afterwards illustrated by important practical discoveries.
During the prosecution of his studies, however, he was
incessantly weighed down by a sense of his dependence on
his aunt and sisters, which prompted him to grasp at the
first opportunity of securing a comfortable maintenance.
With this view he was on the eve of accepting the humble
appointment of surgeon’s mate in the regiment of General
Sir William Erskine, when a more lucrative office presented
itself abroad in the service of the British army in Jamaica.
To qualify himself as a candidate for this latter appointment
he hastily graduated at Glasgow, but on arriving at London
he had the mortification to find it already bestowed on a
young Irish physician of considerable merit. Disappointed
in this quarter, Dr Currie still cherished the hope of pushing
his fortunes abroad, and had taken passage in a merchant
vessel bound for Jamaica, when, during the detention of
the ship at London, he was induced to abandon the project
and settle at Liverpool. Here, in a congenial sphere, he
quickly formed a large circle of acquaintance, was elected
one of the physicians to the infirmary, and rose to the
highest eminence in his profession. His domestic happi¬
ness was at the same time secured by his marriage in 1783
with Miss Lucy Wallace, a lineal descendant of the Scottish
patriot of that name, and daughter of a respectable merchant
in Liverpool. Nor amidst the harassing duties of his pro¬
fession did he allow his literary tastes to remain uncultivated.
Along with Roscoe and several other gentlemen he founded
a literary club, which long retained its reputation, and was
the precursor of those splendid establishments of a similar
kind in that town.
His career thus auspiciously begun was, however, greatly
retarded by ill health. His assiduous and anxious attend¬
ance on Dr Bell, an intimate friend of his who had settled
in Manchester, and who had been seized with a fatal dis¬
order, together with the frequent journeys which he was in
consequence under the necessity of taking, in the midst of
winter, frequently at night, in addition to his other profes¬
sional labours, and a violent peripneumony brought on by
the fatigues encountered in his assiduous attendance on Dr
Bell, placed his life for some time in imminent danger. This
was followed by a train of pulmonary symptoms, which at
length necessitated his removal to Bristol, where, shortly
after his arrival, he experienced the shock of witnessing the
death of one of his sisters from the same fatal disorder.
From Bristol he soon after removed to Matlock, Derby¬
shire ; and thence, in hopes of bidding adieu to his only sur¬
viving sister, who was hastening rapidly to the grave, he
set out for Scotland. On the journey his health began to
improve; and when he reached Dumfriesshire his strength
was so far recruited as to allow of his sitting on horseback
for an hour together. But the hope which had prompted his
revisiting his native land was cruelly disappointed; for, on
the day on which he reached the end of his journey, the
remains of his sister had been committed to the grave.
Under careful treatment the progress of his own disease
was arrested, and he was at length able to return on horse¬
back to Lancashire, by the lakes of Cumberland, arriving
at Liverpool Sept. 1 (1792), having rode the last day of
his journey 40 miles. An interesting narrative of his case,
and the means employed for his recovery, was drawn up by
himself, and is given by Dr Darwin in the second volume
of his Zoonomia.
On his return, his esteem for Dr Bell led him to under¬
take a translation of an inaugural dissertation “ J)e Phy-
siologia Plantarum” delivered by his friend before the
Literary and Philosophical Society of Manchester; to
which he added valuable notes, and prefixed a memoir of
the author’s life. These were published by the society
R I E.
in the second volume of their Transactions. The biogra- Currie,
pineal sketch which he has there given, and which was
the first acknowledged production of his pen, is executed
with a bold and masterly hand, and evinces a profound
knowledge of the human heart—the failings as well as the
merits of his friend being traced with a delicate yet faithful
pencil.
On being elected a member of the London Medical
Society in 1790, he communicated to it an essay on Tetanus
and Convulsive Disorders, which was published in the third
volume of its Transactions. In 1791 he presented to the
Royal Society a paper containing An account of the re¬
markable effects of a shipwreck on the mariners ; with ex¬
periments and observations on the influence of immersion
in fresh and salt water, hot and cold, on the powers of the
living body, which appeared in the Philosophical Transac¬
tions of the same year; and soon afterwards he was elected
a fellow of the Royal Society. The inquiries which form
the subject of this memoir were but a part of a long series
of investigations in which he had been engaged even when
a student at the university, and which he continued to pro¬
secute in the genuine spirit of the inductive philosophy.
The more mature results of his experience and reflections
were given to the world in 1797, under the title of Medical
Deports on the effects of water, cold and warm, as a re¬
medy in Fever and other Diseases, whether applied to the
surface of the body or used internally ; a work by which
his reputation as a physician was widely extended, and
which has effected a considerable revolution in the mode
of treating febrile disorders. The limits of the present
article will not admit of our entering into any exposition of
the contents of this valuable work, the fruit of so much ex¬
perience and profound reflection. It may be sufficient to
observe that the healing art is eminently indebted to Dr
Currie, for establishing on solid grounds the salutary agency
of cold applied to the surface of the body, under certain cir¬
cumstances, and in certain modes, both in fevers and in
many convulsive diseases. Although this mode of treat¬
ment had already been suggested, and even tried, by Dr
Wright, it was reserved for Dr Currie to determine the cir¬
cumstances which render its employment safe and salutary,
and to point out the nature of its operation, on clear and
rational principles.
We have already seen the interest he took in the party
discussions which agitated the public in America at the com¬
mencement of its alienation from England. He did not
again obtrude his sentiments on the public till the occur¬
rence of the “No Popery” riots in St George’s Fields, ex¬
cited by Lord George Gordon. On this occasion he wrote
three letters on the subject in the Public Advertiser, under
the signature of Caius; and these were afterwards repub¬
lished in a collection of political tracts. These, as well as
his writings in America, show that his earlier views of poli¬
tics were in favour of those Conservative principles to which
his education had given him an early bias. But in propor¬
tion as his judgment acquired strength and maturity, his
solicitude for preserving the authority of those intrusted
with power gave place to a deeper feeling of anxiety for the
interests of the community at large, on whom that power is
exercised; and which appeared to him, from the prejudices
and passions excited during the American war, to be ex¬
posed to much greater danger. These sentiments were
strongly expressed in his Letter, Commercial and Political,
addressed to the Right Honourable William Pitt, which he
published under the assumed name of Jasper Wilson. The
mass of important information contained in this pamphlet,
the enlarged and profound views of political economy which
it presented, and the nervous and manly strain of eloquence
in which they were enforced, attracted much attention ; it
was read with avidity, and quickly went through several
editions. Although unacknowledged by himselt, the name
CUR
Currier of its real author could not long remain concealed; and the
|| reputation which accrued to Dr Currie from this publication,
Currying. in a limited circle of enlightened men, was gained at the
expense of much odium, which it entailed upon him from
the opposite and more numerous party. But Dr Currie
bore all the violence and malignity of their attacks with per¬
fect evenness of temper, and abstained from gratifying his
enemies by engaging in a controversy which he knew could
add but little to the force of what he had already published.
During his excursion into Scotland in 1792 he had be¬
come personally acquainted with Robert Burns, and deeply
fascinated by the social powers of that brilliant and extra¬
ordinary genius. The family of the poet having been left
nearly destitute at his death, a subscription was set on foot
in Scotland for their relief, and Dr Currie was requested to
edit a complete edition of his works for their exclusive
benefit. Accordingly, in 1800, appeared, in four vols. 8vo,
his edition of The Works of Robert Burns, with an Ac¬
count of his Life, and Criticisms on his Writings; to which
are prefixed some Observations on the Character and Con¬
dition of the Scottish Peasantry. It is sufficient to say
that the preliminary observations from the pen of Dr Currie
are marked with his usual felicity of manner, and exhibit the
same sagacity of remark and liberality of sentiment which
pervade all his writings ; and that he had the satisfaction of
securing by his labours a comfortable provision for the
widow and children of the poet.
His constitution had never completely recovered from
the shock of the severe illness which he had suffered in
1784. He was seldom long free from threatenings of a re¬
lapse ; but it was not till the year 1804 that his health began
evidently to decline. In the autumn of that year he retired
from Liverpool, and spent the winter months alternately at
Clifton and Bath. After practising for a short time in Bath,
his returning illness compelled him to retire, as a last re¬
source, to Sidmouth, where, after much suffering, he ex¬
pired, Aug. 31, in the fiftieth year of his age. His disease
was ascertained to be an enlargement and flaccidity of the
heart, accompanied with a remarkable wasting of the left
lung, without either tubercle or ulceration. Few men have
possessed a more amiable or estimable character, or a more
enlarged and cultivated mind, than Dr Currie. Most of
the public institutions, literary and benevolent, of which
Liverpool can boast, were suggested, improved, or perfected
by his advice and assistance. His political views were
guided always by a pure, and latterly by an enlightened
patriotism. His professional labours and discoveries are
such as entitle him to an elevated rank among medical
philosophers; whilst the important improvement that has re¬
sulted from them in the healing art justifies us in enrolling
his name amongst the distinguished benefactors of mankind.
CURRIER (Lat. coriarius), one who dresses and colours
leather after it has been tanned. See Currying, and Tan¬
ning:.
CURRY-COMB, an iron instrument used for currying
or rubbing down and cleaning horses.
CURRYING, the method of dressing skins after they
have been tanned, to render them fit for the purposes of
the shoemaker, coach and harness maker, &c. I he skins,
after coming from the tanner’s yard, and having many fleshy
fibres on them, are soaked by the currier for some time in
water. He then stretches them on a smooth wooden horse,
and with a paring knife scrapes of! all superfluous matter.
He then soaks them again. He next puts them wet on a
hurdle, and treads or beats them with a mallet, in order to
render them soft and pliant. He then applies grease, such
as train or other oil; and afterwards spreads them on large
tables, and fastens them at the ends. Then, with the help
of an instrument called a pommel (which is a thick piece of
wopd, the under side of which is full of furrows crossing
each other), he folds, squares, and moves them forwards
CUR 595
and backwards several times, under the teeth of this instru- Cursitor
ment, which breaks their too great stiffness. This is what 11.
is properly called currying. The order and number of these /:ut tl^s'y
operations is varied by different curriers, but the material
part of them is always the same. After the skins are curried
there may be occasion to colour them. The colours are
black, white, red, yellow, and green: the other colours are
given by the skinners, who ditier from curriers in this, that
they apply their colours on the flesh side, whereas the cur¬
riers do so on the hair side. In order to whiten skins, they
are rubbed with lumps of chalk or white lead, and after¬
wards with pumice-stone. When a skin is to be made black,
the currier, after having oiled and dried it, passes over it a
brush dipped in a solution of sulphate of iron; and after
his first wetting, he gives it another in w ater prepared with
lamp-black, vinegar, and gum-arabic. These different dyes
gradually turn the skin black, and the operations are re¬
peated till it be of a shining black. The grain and wrinkles,
which contribute to the suppleness of calves’ and cows’
leather, are made by the reiterated folds given to the skin
in every direction, and by the care taken to scrape off all
hard particles. See Tanning.
CURSITOR, a clerk of the court of chancery, whose
business it is to *make out original writs. The cursitors are
twenty-four in number, and form a body corporate. They
are also styled clerici de cursu, or clerks of the course.
Cursitor Baron, an officer of the court of exchequer
who administers the oaths to all highisheriffs, under-sheriffs,
bailiffs, and to several officers of the revenue.
CURTAIN (Fr. courtine), in Fortification, that part
of the rampart which joins the flank of one bastion to that
of another.
CURTESY, or Courtesy, otherwise Curtiality, is, by
the law of Scotland, that right whereby the surviving hus¬
band of an heiress, if a living child which has been heard,
to cry have been born of the marriage, is entitled to the
liferent of the whole heritable estate in which his wife dies-
infeft as heiress of her predecessor—conquest being ex¬
cluded. The right depends exclusively upon the existence
of issue—not upon the duration of the marriage. The
wife’s sasine measures the extent of the courtesy, and no
service or renewing is required to complete the right of the
husband, as he has only to continue possession of the estate*
By marriage settlements, courtesy, like terce, is often ex¬
cluded, and a simple liferent annuity substituted and in
that case a special resignation is necessary. As the right
is conferred on the husband as father of the heir rather than
as widower of the heiress, where there is a child of a former
marriage, who is to succeed to the property of the mother,,
courtesy does not vest in the second husband during the
child’s lifetime. The husband, as his wife’s temporary re¬
presentative, is liable for not only all yearly real burdens,
but even for current interest of personal bonds so far as
lucratus.
The law of courtesy in England is substantially the same
with that of Scotland.
CURTIUS, Mettus or Metius, a Roman youth, who,
in b.c. 362, devoted himself to death for the safety of his
country. A wide chasm having suddenly opened in the
Forum, the oracle declared that it never would close until
Rome threw into it whatever she accounted her greatest
treasure. Curtins immediately perceived that an armed citi¬
zen was the sacrifice required; and having armed himself and
mounted his charger, he plunged into the abyss, on which
the earth instantly closed over his head.
Curtius, Rufus Quintus, the celebrated biographer of
Alexander the Great. Of his personal history nothing
whatever is known with certainty, some fixing his epoch in
the Augustan, others as far down as the mediaeval age. It
is, however, more probable tha* he flourished somewhere
during the first three centuries of the Christian era. Flis
596 C U S
Curva- work originally consisted of ten books, but the first two
ture of these are entirely lost, and the remaining eight present
II considerable gaps. The supplements of Freinsheim are
v usa" t the most valuable ; and the best modern editions of the text
   are those of Zumpt, Baumstark and Miitzell.
CURVATURE of a Line, is the peculiar manner of
its bending or flexure, by which it becomes a curve of
such and such form and properties. Thus the nature of
the curvature of a circle is such as that every point in the
periphery is equally distant from a point within called the
centre, and hence the curvature of the circle is everywhere
the same: but the curvature in all other curves is con¬
tinually varying.
CURVE, in Geometry, any line which is neither straight
nor composed of straight lines ; or, in other words, a line of
which no three consecutive points are in the same straight line.
Curve of Equable Approach. Leibnitz first proposed
to find a curve down which a body descending by the force
of gravity shall make equal approaches to the horizon in
equal portions of time. This curve, as it has been found
by Bernouilli and others, is the second cubical parabola
placed with its vertex uppermost, and which the descend¬
ing body must enter with a certain determinate velocity.
The question was rendered general by Varignon for any
law of gravity, by which a body may approach towards a
given point by equal spaces in equal times. Maupertuis
also resolved the problem in the case of a body descending
in a medium the resistance of which is as the square of the
velocity.
Curves, Algebraical or Geometrical, are those in which
the relation of the abscisses to the ordinates can be ex¬
pressed by a common algebraic equation.
Curves, Transcendental or Mechanical, are those which
cannot be defined or expressed by an algebraic equation.
CURULE Chair, Sella Curulis, in Roman antiquity,
the chair of state used by the chief magistrates. Those
who were entitled to this honour were the dictator, the
consuls, praetors, chief aediles, and censors; as were also
the flamen dialis, and those whom the dictator deputed to
act under himself, as for instance the magister equitum.
Under the empire, this mark of honour was extended also
to some others. The appellation of magistratus curules
distinguished those magistrates who were entitled to use
the sella curulis from all the rest, who were called non-
curules. When the curule magistrates proceeded to coun¬
cil, this chair was placed in a chariot {currus) ; from which
circumstance it received its name. It appears to have been
of various forms ; but that generally used was a stool or seat
without a back, covered with leather, and supported on four
curved legs, each pair of which crossed each other some¬
what in this manner K . It was likewise so constructed that it
might be folded like a camp-stool, for the convenience of car¬
riage. It appears that from the earliest times it was adorned
with ivory ; and hence Horace calls it curule ebur. Some¬
times we find the epithet alta applied to it, because it was
frequently placed on a tribunal, or as being the emblem of
dignity; and also that of regia, because it was first used by
the kings, who appear to have borrowed it, along with the
other insignia of royalty, from the Etruscans. In later times
it was overlaid with gold, and elaborately adorned.
CURZOLA (the ancient Corcyra Nigra}, an island in
the Adriatic, separated by a narrow strait from the penin¬
sula of Sabioncello, and forming part of the circle of Ragusa
in Dalmatia. It is about 25 miles in length from E. to W.,
with an average breadth of 4 miles. About three-fourths
of its surface are covered with wood. Pop. about 6000.
CUSA, Nicouo de, a learned cardinal, born in 1401, at
Cusa, where his father was a fisherman. He was created
cardinal in 1448; and having been appointed governor of
Rome by Pope Pius II. during the absence of that pontiff
at Mantua, Cusa became the chief author and manager of
c u s
the war against Mohammed II. He founded a church, and Cush
a noble library of Greek and Latin authors, at Cusa ; and ||
left many excellent works, which were collected and pub-^usPinian
lished in three vols. at Basle in 1565. In these he boldly
exposed the fabulous traditions and the sophistries of the
Roman Church.
CUSH, the eldest son of Ham, from whom seems to have
been derived the name of the land of Cush, which is com¬
monly rendered by the Septuagint and by the Vulgate
Ethiopia.
The locality of the land of Cush is a question upon which
eminent authorities have been divided ; for while Bochart
maintained that it was exclusively in Arabia, Gesenius held
with no less pertinacity that it is to be sought for nowhere
but in Africa. Others again, such as Michaelis and Rosen-
miiller have supposed that the name Cush was applied to
tracts of country both in Arabia and Africa—a circumstance
which would easily be accounted for on the very probable
supposition, that the descendants of the primitive Cushite
tribes, who had settled in the former country, emigrated
across the Red Sea to the latter region of the earth, carry¬
ing with them the name of Cush, their remote progenitor.
The existence of an African Cush cannot reasonably be
questioned, though the term is employed in Scripture with
great latitude, sometimes denoting an extensive but unde¬
fined country (Ethiopia), and at other times one particular
kingdom (Meroe). It is expressly described by Ezekiel as
lying to the south of Egypt beyond Syene. Hence we find
Mizraim and Cush (i. e. Egypt and Ethiopia) often classed
together by the prophets. The inhabitants are elsewhere
spoken of in connection with the Lubim and Sukkiim, sup¬
posed to be the Libyans and Ethiopic Troglodytes, and cer¬
tainly nations of Africa, for they belonged to the vast army
with which Shishak king of Egypt “ came out ” of that
country against Rehoboam king of Judah. In these, and, in¬
deed, in most other passages where “ Cush” occurs, Arabia is
not to be thought of; the Ethiopia of Africa is beyond all
doubt exclusively intended. Though there is a great lack
of evidence to show that the name of Cush was ever applied
to any part of Arabia, there seems no reason to doubt that
a portion of the Cushite race did early settle there. In the
fifth century of our era the Himaryites, in the south of
Arabia, were styled by Syrian writers Cushseans and Ethio¬
pians ; and Niebuhr found in Yemen a tribe called Beni
Chusi. The Book of Job speaks of the topaz of Cush, and
there was a Topaz Island in the Red Sea.
Some again have sought for another Cush in more nor¬
therly regions of Asia, as in the Persian province of Chu-
sistan or Susiana, in Cuthah, a district of Babylonia, &c.;
and as Nimrod, the youngest son of Cush, spread his con¬
quests in that direction, it is no doubt possible that his
father’s name might be preserved in the designation of some
part of the territory or people. The data, however, are very
unsatisfactory.
CUSHION, among engravers, a bag of leather filled with
sand, for supporting the plate to be engraved.
CUSP (Lat. cuspis, a spear-point). In astronomy, the
points or horns of the moon, or of any other luminary, are
termed cusps. In architecture, cusp is used to denote the
points of the small arcs or foliations terminating the in¬
ternal curves of trefoiled, cinquefoiled, &c. heads of Gothic
windows and panels. Cusp, in astrology, denotes the first
point of each of the twelve houses, in a figure or scheme of
the heavens.
CUSPINIAN, John, a German historical writer, whose
family name was Speishammer. He was born at Sweinfurt
in 1473, and died at Vienna in 1529. He was first physician
to the Emperor Maximilian L, and was employed by that
prince in several delicate negotiations. His works include
A History of the Homan emperors from Julius Ccesar to
the death of Maximilian I., 1519, fol.; A History of Aus-
Custom
Cutch.
CUT
tria, Basle, 1553, fol.; and a History of the origin of the
Turks, and of their cruelties towards Christians, Antwerp,
1541, 8vo. Gerard Vossius calls Cuspinian magnum suo
' cevo historice lumen.
CUSTOM (Fr. coutume, for coustume), in a legal sense,
is applied to such acts or practices as through time have
passed into established use, and thus obtained a legal
force. Custom is hence defined, both by lawyers and civi¬
lians, as lex non scripta, a law not written, established by
long usage and the common consent; in which sense it stands
opposed to the lex scripta, or written law.
CUSTOMS, the duties imposed by law upon merchan¬
dise imported and exported. See England, and Taxation.
Custom-House, an office established by law in maritime
cities or seaports, for the receipt and management of the
customs and duties imposed on goods imported or exported.
GUSTOS Brevium, the title of an officer both in the
Court of Queen’s Bench and in the Court of Common
Pleas, who had the custody of all the writs made returnable
in their respective courts, and filed warrants of attorney
and other documents connected with the business of the
courts. These offices were abolished by Act 1st Will. IV.,
cap. 58, and compensation was granted to the holders.
Gustos Rotulorum, the keeper of the rolls or records
of the sessions of the peace, is the first civil officer of a
county. He is always a justice of the peace, and quorum in
the county for which he is appointed. It has been an in¬
variable practice to appoint the lord-lieutenant of the county
to this office, though the two offices are otherwise quite
distinct.
CUTCH, or Terra-Japonica. See Catechu.
CU TCH, a native state in the south-western extremity
of Hindustan, situated between the 68th and 72d degrees of
east longitude, and the 22d and 25th of north latitude.
It is a peninsulated tract of land, inclosed towards the west
by the eastern branch of the Indus or the Koree; on the
south by the Indian Ocean and the Gulf of Cutch ; and on
the north and east, towards the interior, by the great
Northern Runn, an extensive salt morass or lake, which
from May to October is flooded with salt water, and com¬
municates in its greatest extent with the Gulf of Cutch on
the west, and the Gulf of Cambay on the east, these two
gulfs being united during the monsoon.
The interior of Cutch is studded with hills of consider¬
able elevation, and a range of mountains runs through it
from east to west, many of them of the most fantastic
shapes, with large insulated masses of rock scattered in all
directions. In the intervening valleys the country is not
deficient in fertility and verdure, and is sufficiently produc¬
tive in all cases where the nature of the government per¬
mits the cultivator to enjoy the fruits of his labour. But
this very seldom happens. Many of the hills are covered
with jungle, and with the strongholds and dens of petty
chiefs, who sometimes protect, but more frequently issue
forth to plunder the lower country. The general appear¬
ance of Cutch is barren and uninteresting. The greater
part is a rock destitute of soil, and presenting the wildest
aspect; the ground is cold, poor, and sterile ; the rains are
generally scanty, and often fail altogether; and the whole
face of the country bears marks of volcanic action. From
the violence of tyranny, and the rapine of a disorderly ban¬
ditti, by which this district has from time immemorial been
infested, as well as from shocks of earthquakes, the villages
have a ruinous and dilapidated appearance ; and, with the
exception of a few fields in their neighbourhood, the country
presents a rocky and sandy waste, with in many places
scarcely a show of vegetation. Water is scarce and brack¬
ish, and is chiefly found at the bottom of low ranges of hills,
which abound in some parts ; and the inhabitants of the
extensive sandy tracts suffer greatly from the want of it.
Mrs Elwood, who visited this country in her overland jour-
C U T
597
ney to India, observes, that “ she could imagine that Cutch Cutch.
had been originally a rocky island of volcanic production, v v 
thrown up at some great convulsion of nature, and that in
the course of ages soil had been washed down by the Indus,
the Bunnass, the Phurraun, and other streams, which now
lose themselves in the sand.” Owing to the uncertainty of
the periodical rains in Cutch, the country is liable to severe
famines, which, along with the internal broils by which it
has been harassed, have greatly obstructed cultivation, and
thinned the inhabitants, many of whom have been induced
to emigrate to Bombay and Gujerat; and, in addition to
all these evils, an uncommonly violent earthquake, which
occurred on the 16th of June 1819, nearly destroyed Bhooj,
the capital, and greatly injured the towns of Anjar, Man-
davie, and Moondria or Mundra. The soil of Cutch pro¬
duces grain, cotton, tobacco, ghee, &c.; and iron and coal
have been discovered, the latter near the surface of the
ground, on the banks of one of the rivers, seven miles north¬
east of Bhooj, but it is not in general used as fuel.
The Runn, which communicates with the Gulf of Cutch,
and sweeps round the northern side of that province, is a
very extensive salt morass, varying in breadth from five
to eighty miles across, and during the rains nearly impass¬
able for horsemen. The total area of this immense mo¬
rass may be estimated at about 8000 square miles, without
including any portion of the Gulf of Cutch, which is in
many parts so shallow as to resemble a marshy fen rather
than an arm of the sea. The Runn is said to be formed
by the overflow of the rivers Phurraun, Loone, Bunnass,
and others, during the monsoon; but in December it is
quite dry, and in most places hard. The wild ass is very
common on the borders of this lake, being seen in herds of
from sixty to seventy at a time.
The temperature of Cutch during the hot season is high,
the thermometer frequently rising to 100° or 105° ; and in
the months of April and May, clouds of dust and sand,
blown about by hurricanes, which are common in these
months, envelop the houses, and the glass windows scarcely
afford any protection. The hot wind in May is so scorch¬
ing that it has been compared to the feeling which would
be experienced on standing near a burning prairie. For
nine months of the year the climate is comparatively tem¬
perate and agreeable; but the approach of October is
equally dreaded both by the native and European popula¬
tion as extremely unhealthy, and at the close of the mon¬
soon the oppression of the atmosphere is described as be¬
ing intolerable. The influence of the monsoon is greatly
moderated before it reaches this country, and the rains
sometimes fail altogether; but although in this case the
necessary consequences are want and misery to the great
body of the people, yet these dry seasons are far more
favourable to the health of Europeans. In 1825, when
the monsoon rains were copious, the country was extremely
unhealthy; and, on the other hand, the years 1823 and
1824 were equally remarkable for salubrity and for drought.
The monsoon generally sets in with great violence from
the north-east before it settles in the south-west. The
prevailing wind is westerly, and it blows west by south and
west by north ten months in the year. The easterly winds,
which do not blow more than a month in the year, are al¬
ways unhealthy and unpleasant, and bring with them, if
they continue long, epidemics and locusts. Cutch is con¬
sidered unhealthy by the natives from other parts of the
country; and Dr Burnes, who was stationed there, and
gives an account of its medical topography, mentions that
he has known many persons from Bombay, especially ser¬
vants, who were perfectly useless from continued sickness
in Cutch, but who recovered their health the moment they
left it. He also adds, that he never was at any station
where recoveries from fever were so tedious and incom¬
plete. 1 he hospital returns do not, however, he adds, show
C IT T C H.
598
Catch, any extraordinary sickness. The cholera, that dreadful
scourge of Europe as well as of India, has made no progress
in Cutch. The most common diseases among the natives
are fever and rheumatism ; and fever is also the prevailing
disease among Europeans, the first attacks of which are al¬
ways the most dangerous,1 u These,” Dr Burnes men¬
tions, are generally in the form of bilious remittents, leav¬
ing a tendency behind them to intermittent fever, liable to
produce a paroxysm on any exciting cause;” and in eluci¬
dation of this, he mentions, that of five officers resident in
Cutch (of whom he was himself one) not one was exempt
from periodical attacks of this malady, and scarcely at any
time enjoyed six months’ uninterrupted health. These,
however, are not severe, and easily yield to the remedy of
sulphate of quinine without any serious injury to the con¬
stitution. There are some stations at Cutch particularly
noxious, such as Narrona, a village in a marsh twenty-four
miles north-east of Bhooj, near the Runn ; and Luckput
Bunder, remarkable for the badness of its water.
The principal towns are Bhooj, Anjar, Jharrah, Kunt-
cote, and Kuttaria. The principal seaports are Mandavie
and Mundra, The town best known to Europeans is Bhooj,
which is situated inland, and is surrounded by an amphi¬
theatre of hills, some of which approach within three or four
miles of the city. The hill of Bhoojeah, on which the fort
is situated, and under the S.W. angle of which is the can¬
tonment of the Cutch brigade, rises to the height of 500
feet in the middle of the plain, and is detached from other
high ground. The residency is four miles distant in a west¬
erly direction. There are many mountain streams, but no
navigable rivers. They scarcely contain any water except
in the rainy season, when they are very full and rapid, and
discharge themselves into the Runn, all along the coast of
which the wells and springs are more or less impregnated
with common salt, and other saline ingredients.
Various causes have contributed to thin the population
of this country. In 1812 it was ravaged by a famine and
pestilence, which destroyed a great proportion of its inhabi¬
tants ; according to some accounts, nearly one-half. This,
joined to the tyranny and violence of the government until
the year 1819, and more lately to a succession of unfavour¬
able seasons, has forced many of the cultivators to remove
to Scinde and other countries. At present the inhabitants
may be estimated at 500,536, of whom one-third are Mo¬
hammedans, and the remainder Hindus of various castes,
resembling in their habits and manners those of other parts
of India. The Jharejah Rajpoots form a particular class,
being the aristocracy of the country ; and all are more or less
connected with the family of the Rao or prince. There are in
Cutch about 200 of these Jharejah chiefs, who all claim their
descent from Sacko Goraro, a prince who reigned in Scinde
about a thousand years ago. From him also the reigning so¬
vereign is lineally descended, and he is the liege lord of whom
all the chiefs or nobles hold their lands in feu, for services
which they or their ancestors had performed, or in virtue of
their relationship to the family. They are all termed the
brotherhood of the Rao, and supposed to be his heredi¬
tary advisers, and their possessions are divided among their
male childrenand to prevent the breaking down of their
properties, the necessary consequence of this law of inheri¬
tance, there is no doubt that infanticide is common among
them, and that it extends to the male as well as the female
progeny. The British have exerted their influence to
check this inhuman practice ; and though it has been found
to be closely interwoven with the state of manners and the
succession of property, its complete suppression at no dis¬
tant period is anticipated. The Jharejahs consider it as
unlawful to marry any female of their own tribe, being all
descended from a common parent. They accordingly marry Cutch.
into the families of other Rajpoots ; and to this unfortunate
regulation may be chiefly ascribed the destruction of all the
female children, The Jharejahs have a tradition that when
they entered Cutch they were Mohammedans, but that they
afterwards adopted the customs and religion of the Hindus.
It is certain, indeed, that they still retain many Mohamme¬
dan customs. They take oaths equally on the Koran or
on the Shastras ; they employ Mussulman books ; they eat
from their hands; the Rao, when he appears in public, al¬
ternately worships God in a Hindu pagoda and a Moham¬
medan mosque; and he fits out annually at Mandavie a
ship for the conveyance of pilgrims to Mecca, who are
maintained during the voyage chiefly by the liberality of
the prince. The Mohammedans in Cutch are of the same
degenerate caste with those usually found in the western
parts of India. The Meeanahs form a particular class, who
claim the same descent as the Jharejahs, and boast of their
constancy to the Mohammedan creed, while the latter apos¬
tatized ; but they have now entirely degenerated, and are
little better than banditti, always ready to commit outrages,
and to sally out in disorderly bands to plunder the defence¬
less country. Such has been the weakness and tyranny of the
rulers of Cutch, that they have frequently had recourse to
these wretched auxiliaries in order to aid them in their in¬
ordinate exactions, while at other times they recruited the
army from the same race. They were nearly extirpated
under the rigorous rule of Futteh Mohammed, but of late
years they have returned in considerable numbers to their
villages among the hills. In the seasons of scarcity of 1823
and 1824, many of them emigrated to Scinde, where, join¬
ing with other adventurers, they formed disorderly bands,
who made forays into Cutch, several villages of which they
plundered and burned. The natives are in general of a
stronger and stouter make, and even handsomer, than those
of western India; and the women of the higher classes are
also handsome. The Ryots are described as intelligent,
and the workmen are justly celebrated for their ingenuity and
mechanical skill. The palace at Mandavie, and a tomb of
one of their princes at Bhooj, are fair specimens of their
architectural skill. In the manufacture of gold and silver
ornaments they display a taste and nicety far beyond any
Asiatic artists, except those of China; and there is scarcely
any piece of mechanism which, with some instruction, may
not be imitated by the goldsmiths and carpenters at Bhooj.
The natives of this country are in general peaceable and
obedient subjects, for robberies and murders are seldom
committed except by the Meeanahs. They are universally
addicted to the use of opium and the hookah. The quan¬
tity of opium which they take is enormous ; and its effects,
according to Dr Burnes, are less deleterious to their con¬
stitution than might be supposed; though he mentions,
that from being continually under its influence, they appear
to be of a dull and phlegmatic character.
The country of Cutch was invaded about the ninth cen¬
tury by a body of Mohammedans of the Summa tribe, who
under the guidance of five brothers emigrated from Scinde,
and who gradually subdued or expelled the original inha¬
bitants, consisting of three distinct races. The descend¬
ants of these five leaders assumed the name of Jharejah,
from a chief named Jharrah, who set an example of female
infanticide by putting to death his seven daughters in one
day. Cutch continued tranquil under their sway for many
years, until some family quarrel arose, in which the chief
of an elder branch of the tribe was murdered by a rival
brother. His son fled to Ahmedabad to seek the assistance
of the viceroy, who was married to his sister, and who rein¬
stated him in the sovereignty of Cutch, and Moorvee in
1 See Narrative of a Visit to the court of Scinde; also a Sketch of the History of Cutch, &c. By J. Burnes, Surgeon to the Presidency
at Bhooj. 1831.
CUT
Cutch. Kattiwar, with the title of Rao or Rawul, in the year
1519.
The succession continued in the same line from the time
of this prince until the year 1666, when a younger brother,
Pragjee, murdered his elder brother, and usurped the sove¬
reignty. This line of princes continued till the year 1760
without any remarkable event, when, in the reign of Rao
Gore, the country was invaded four times by the Scindians,
who wasted it with fire and sword. The reign of this
prince, as well as that of his son Rao Rahiden, by whom he
was succeeded in 1778, was marked by cruelty and blood.
The latter prince was dethroned, and, being in a state of
mental derangement, was during his lifetime confined by
Futteh Mohammed, a native of Scinde, who continued, with
a short interval (in which the party of the legal heirs, Bhyjee
Bawa, gained the ascendency), to rule the country until his
death in 1813. It was in the reign of Futteh Mohammed
that a communication first took place with the British go¬
vernment. During the contests for the sovereignty between
this usurper and the legal heir, the leader of the royal
party, Hunsraj, the governor of Mandavie, sought the aid
of the British. But no closer connection followed at that
time than an agreement for the suppression of piracy, or of
any inroads of troops to the eastward of the Runn, or Gulf
of Cutch ; and in return the company’s government agreed
to warn the rulers of Scinde against any attempt to invade
the neighbouring country of Cutch. But the Gulf of Cutch,
notwithstanding this agreement, continued to swarm with
pirates, who were openly encouraged or connived at by the
son of Hunsraj, who had succeeded his father ; as well as by
Futteh Mohammed, who also permitted bodies of banditti
to cross into Kattiwar, which they laid waste, and even pro¬
ceeded to lead a force across the Runn into Purkur, with
a view of extending his authority in that quarter. Futteh
Mohammed left several sons by different wives, who were
competitors for the vacant throne. Hussein Meyan suc¬
ceeded to a considerable portion of his father’s property and
power. Jugjevan, a Brahmin, the late minister of Futteh
Mohammed, also received a considerable share of influence;
and the hatred of these two factions was embittered by re¬
ligious animosities, the one being Hindu and the other Mo¬
hammedan. The late Rao had declared himself a Moham¬
medan, and his adherents were preparing to inter his body
in a magnificent tomb, when the Jharejahs and other Hin¬
dus seized the corpse and consigned it to the flames, ac¬
cording to the forms of their superstition. The two factions
declared, the one for Ladoba, the nephew of the late prince
Rao Rahiden ; the other for Maun Sing, his son by a slave
girl, who was elevated to the throne under the name of
Rao Bharra, or Bharmuljee.
The administration of affairs was nominally in the hands
of Hussein Meyan and his brother Ibrahim Meyan. Many
sanguinary broils now ensued, in the course of which Jug-
jevan, with several of his family, were murdered, and the
executive authority was much weakened by the usurpa¬
tions of the Arabs and other chiefs. In the meantime
Ibrahim Meyan was stabbed by an assassin ; and after va¬
rious other scenes of anarchy and blood, the Rao Bharmul¬
jee, by general consent, resumed his lawful power. But
his reign was one continued series of the grossest enormi¬
ties ; his hostility to the British was no longer concealed;
and his inroads into their territories were continued with
increased activity. There was no longer, therefore, any
room for hesitation ; and accordingly a force of 10,500 men
crossed the Runn in November 1815, and were within
five miles of Bhooj, the capital of the country, when a
treaty was concluded, by which the Rao Bharmuljee was
confirmed in his title to the throne, and agreed to pay for
the losses sustained by the chieftains of Kattiwar from
predatory incursions; to re-imburse the expenses of the
expedition, which, however, was not insisted on by the
CUT 599
British ; to make himself responsible for the good conduct Cutch
of his subjects; to disband the Arab mercenaries; and to Cundava
fix the Runn and the Gulf of Cutch as the eastern boun- (iut|iah
daries of his principality, and to cede in perpetuity to the v }
British Anjar and its dependencies. The Rao, however,
was far from fulfilling the terms of this treaty. He gave
himself up to intemperance and the grossest indulgences;
and being a tool in the hands of an unprincipled faction,
he gave orders for the murder of his cousin Ladoba, the
nephew of the late Rao; and on every occasion he dis¬
played his hostility to the British. On these grounds, it
was determined to depose him; and an army was assem¬
bled at Anjar under the command of Sir William Keir,
where it was joined by the five principal Jharejah chiefs.
The British force soon approached the capital, and having
taken the fort of Bhorjeah by assault, the Rao Bharmuljee
surrendered his person to the British, who made a provision
for his maintenance, and elevated his infant son to the
throne.
In 1822 the relations subsisting between the ruler of
Cutch and the British were modified by a new treaty, under
which the territorial cessions made by the Rao in 1816
were restored in consideration of an annual payment. The
sum fixed was subsequently thought too large, and in
1832 the arrears, amounting to a considerable sum, were
remitted, and all future payments on this account relin¬
quished. From that time the Rao has paid a subsidy of
L.20,000 per annum to the British for the maintenance of
the military force stationed within his dominions. Suttee
has been prohibited in Cutch; and, under the influence of
British counsel, various other measures of a salutary and
beneficent character have been adopted. (e. t.)
Cutch Gundaya, a district in the province of Beloo-
chistan, situated at the bottom of the mountains lying
south-east of Khelat, between Lat. 27. 40., and 29. 50., and
Long. 67. 20. and 69. 17. It is about 150 miles in length,
and measures nearly an equal distance in its greatest
breadth. The Hala range of mountains extends along its
western frontier, and forms the eastern wall or face of the
elevated table-land of central Beloochistan. Through
this range are two great passes; the cebrated Bolan Pass
in the north leading in a north-westerly direction, and the
Moola or Gundava Pass, which, more to the south, takes
an extensive circuit, the two extremes pointing towards
the north, and the convex towards the south. The soil is
rich, black, and loamy, and produces every species of grain,
as also cotton, indigo, madder, and other commodities. The
rains are heavy in June, July, and August; it rains also,
but not so heavily, in the spring months. The climate
during the summer is unhealthy, owing to the simoom or
pestilential wind which blows at that time, by which many
people lose their lives. Great quantities of grain are ex¬
ported from this district to the seaports of Kurachee and
Sonmeany. Cutch Gundava is the most populous part of
Beloochistan, and constitutes the most valuable portion of
the dominions of the khan of Khelat, who during winter
resides at the chief town. (e. t.)
CUTHAH, in Ancient Geography, a district in Asia,
whence Shalmaneser transplanted certain colonists into the
land of Israel, which he had desolated (2 Kings xvii. 24-30).
From the intermixture of these colonists with the remaining
natives sprung the Samaritans, who are called Cuthites in
the Chaldee and the Talmud; and for the same reason a
number of non-Semitic words which occur in the Samaritan
dialect are called Cutlfian. The situation of the Cuthah
from which these colonists came is altogether unknown.
Josephus places it in central Persia, and finds there a river
of the same name (Antiq. ix. 14. 3 ; x. 9, 7). Rosenmuller
and others incline to seek it in the Arabian Irak, where
Abulfeda and other Arabic and Persian writers place a town
of this name, in the tract near the Nahr-Malca, or royal
600 CUT
Cuticle canal, which connected the Euphrates and Tigris, south-
il ward of the present Baghdad. Winer seems to prefer the
^ Cutlery.^ c0njec(;ure 0f Stephen Morin and Le Clerc, which identifies
the Cuthites with the Cossaei in Susiana. All these con¬
jectures refer essentially to the same quarter, and any of
them is preferable to the one suggested by Michaelis,—that
the Cuthites were Phoenicians from the neighbourhood of
Sidon,—which he founds upon reasons which no one re¬
gards as satisfactory, and which it is therefore unnecessary
to reproduce.
CUTICLE (Lat. cuticula), the epidermis or scarf-skin ;
the exterior membranous covering of the body. See Ana¬
tomy, vol. ii., p. 834.
CUTLERY (Fr. coutellerie; Lat. culler, a knife),
generally speaking, includes all cutting tools made of steel.
Various countries and cities have at different periods ex¬
celled in the manufacture of some particular article, as
Damascus for a beautiful sword blade, which has hitherto
baffled all attempts at imitation. If this blade is made, as
is commonly supposed, by welding together extremely fine
wires of iron, steel, and gold, laid alternately on each other,
the dexterity required is such as must astonish the most
active and experienced workmen of other countries. The
peculiar wave, usually called the water, so universally ad¬
mired, is effected by the application of a weak acid to the
polished surface of iron and steel. At Damascus sulphate
of alumine is used; but any dilute acid seems to answer
the purpose. The cutlery of England is deservedly held
in high estimation in every part of the civilized world. The
finer articles, as razors, penknives, scissors, and surgical
instruments, are made of cast-steel, that is, steel purified
and equalized by fusion. Dexterity and nice attention on
the part of the workman to a variety of circumstances, as
the quality of the steel, nature of the fuel, accuracy in the
processes of hardening and tempering, and many other
minor considerations, are essential to the production of a
good cutting instrument. For table-knives, and all cutlery
of that description, shear-steel is generally used: the tang
and shoulder of the table knife and fork are iron, united
to the blade by welding. The celebrated Indian steel
called wootz is not used in the manufacture of British
cutlery.
The principal seat of the cutlery trade is at Sheffield,
where all kinds of table cutlery, razors, penknives, scis¬
sors, surgeons’ instruments, and every variety of cutting
instruments, are manufactured. There are also some small
manufactures of similar articles in London; but much the
greater proportion of the cutlery sold as London-made is
actually manufactured in Sheffield, although bearing the
name of London manufacturers. Describing the process
of making any one blade, a razor for instance, will suffice
for most other articles of cutlery. The workman being
furnished with a bar of cast-steel, forges the blade, using
a forge similar to that of a smith. The brow of his anvil
and his hammer being convex, he is enabled to give to the
blade a degree of concavity which greatly facilitates and
accelerates the subsequent work of grinding. The blade
is then fashioned more exactly with a file. It is again
heated to a cherry-red colour, and instantly quenched in a
cold fluid, commonly water. In this stage the blade is
extremely hard, and requires to be tempered; a process
usually performed by heating it over a fire free from flame
and smoke, until the surface, which has been previously
rubbed with pumice-stone, assumes a straw colour. It is
again quenched, and is then ready for grinding. As this
method of tempering is liable to many objections, a tem-
pering-bath, with thermometer, will be described—the su¬
perior advantages of which appear too obvious for comment.
It now remains to grind and polish the blade; and this is
so generally understood as hardly to need explanation. The
diameter of the stone is chosen according to the degree of
CUT
concavity required; and in polishing, care is necessary to
avoid heating the blade by friction, which would render it
useless. In London, the blade is generally the production
of one workman, who is accountable for the whole mani¬
pulation, and who, if the work is faulty, can transfer no
blame to another. At Sheffield, by division of labour, and
the local advantages of coal and water to carry on exten¬
sive machinery, more despatch is attained, and the manufac¬
ture is conducted at an expense considerably below that of
London. Numerous attempts have been made to preserve
from rust that beautiful polish given to the cutlery of
England. The most effectual method is to coat the surface
with ethereal solution of gold, or, what is still better, with
muriate of platina. The late Mr Stodart has given his
method of preparing and using these solutions in the
eleventh volume of Nicholson’s Journal. The process is
interesting, independently of its utility, as a chemical ex¬
periment, proving the almost infinite divisibility of gold.
It is worth mentioning, that the iron procured from
meteoric stones is less susceptible of oxidation than any
other. This is most probably owing to its being combined
with nickel. By artificially combining the two metals,
we might obtain an alloy valuable for making instruments
which are necessarily exposed to moisture. Having ob¬
jected to the common method of hardening and temper¬
ing steel, on which process the excellence of the instru¬
ments so much depends, we proceed to state some im¬
provements in that art. The method of tempering with a
thermometer was practised by Mr Stodart with perfect suc¬
cess. The following experiment is simple, and clearly ex¬
hibits and illustrates this manner of tempering. Let a plate
of steel finely polished be so laid as to float on the surface of
a bath of mercury, or of the fusible alloy of tin, lead, and
bismuth : into the bath plunge the bulb of a thermometer,
graduated up to 600° Fahrenheit. A good argand will heat
the bath. No change of colour will be visible on the steel
until the mercury has risen to 430°, and it will then be so
faint as only to be perceptible by comparison with a plate
that has not been heated. At 450° the colour will be a
fine pale straw, which, as the heat increases, will become
deeper; and successive changes will take place until it be
heated up to the boiling point of mercury.
The advantages of this mode of tempering will now ap¬
pear obvious and conclusive. If, for example, a straw co¬
lour indicates the best temper for a penknife, the blade,
or any number of blades, is suffered to remain in the bath
until the thermometer rises to the number corresponding
to that colour, when they are instantly removed from fur¬
ther increase of heat, and, consequently, are all of one tem¬
per. After the first experiment, it is unnecessary for the
bath to be metallic—oil will answer the purpose equally well.
The late Mr Nicolson, who devoted much attention to
the subject of steel, used, in hardening delicate articles, a
bath of lead; and a metallic bath may, perhaps, frequently
be advantageous in hardening as well as in tempering.
A very mgenious method of hardening steel work was com¬
municated to Mr Stodart by Dr Wollaston. The steel is
inclosed in a tube, surrounded by the well-known fusible
alloy of eight parts lead, two tin, and five bismuth. The
tube, with its contents, is heated in a furnace to redness,
and then plunged into a cooling fluid. It is afterwards
thrown into boiling water, by which the alloy is fused, and
the steel is left perfectly hardened, and unaltered by twist¬
ing, cracking, or in any way changing its shape. Several
experiments have been made to ascertain the best cooling
fluid, without any very satisfactory result. A large quan¬
tity of water cooled down to about 40° Fahrenheit seems
to answer as well as anything hitherto tried. Mr Stodart
quenched a scalpel in snow and muriate of lime, without
perceiving any advantage from the extreme cold.
Having mentioned the wootz of India, a brief account of
Cutlery.
CUTLERY.
Cutlery, this famous steel may be acceptable. For the introduction of
wootz into this country we are indebted to Sir Joseph Banks,
who submitted some of it to the experiments of intelligent
workmen in the year 1795. It was soon found to contain
valuable properties. From the cake (as the lump is called
in the state in which it is imported) a small penknife was
made. The forging was attended with considerable diffi¬
culty, partly owing to the unmanageable form of the cake,
but more especially to the inequality of the mass; the
steely principle being deficient in some parts, whilst others
were quite overcharged with it. The penknife, however,
proved excellent, and fully justified and encouraged further
trials. The inequality in the mass was evidently owing to
imperfect fusion ; a defect that will most likely remain until
the Indian steel-maker is acquainted with the formation
and management of a proper furnace. If he were likewise
instructed to pour the fluid metal into a mould instead of
allowing it to crystallize in the crucible, and afterwards to
form it into bars with a tilt-hammer, it might be imported
in the shape of English cast steel, and probably at a price
not greatly exceeding that article. The Indian account of
wootz-making is the following:—Pieces of forged iron are
inclosed in a crucible with wood, and heated together in a
furnace; the fire is urged by three or more bellows pecu¬
liar to the country; and thus the wood is charred, the iron
fused, and at the same time converted into steel. The
metal is suffered to crystallize in the crucible; and in this
state it is imported. This method of steel-making is neat
and ingenious, Its chief peculiarity consists in the wood
not being previously charred; its apparent defect, in the
fusion not being complete. When wootz is submitted to a
second and more perfect fusion, it improves sp much as
scarcely to be recognised. This advantageous change is
evidently owing to the whole mass being purified and equal¬
ized when in a state as thin as water. It is now fit for all
purposes of fine cutlery, and is in fact infinitely superior to
the best cast steel of England. Is this owing to the use of
uncharred wood, or is it not rather, as suspected by Mr
Stodart, owing to some particular property of the iron ore
of India highly favourable to steel-making? The present
state of chemical knowledge does not militate against the
supposition, that this steel may be alloyed with one or more
of the metals of the earth. We know that a very minute
quantity of one metal is capable of producing extraordinary
effects by combining with another. Sir Humphry Davy’s
discovery is a fine example of this, namely, that mercury
is rendered solid, and has its specific gravity diminished
from 13 to 3, by combination with T^otr °f ammonium.
Wootz requires from the workman every attention and care
in forging. If overheated it is useless. In hardening, it
should be quenched at a cherry-red colour, and in temper-i
ing be heated from thirty to forty degrees higher than our
best cast steel. Thus if a razor of cast steel should be rei
moved from the bath at 460°, one of wootz may remain to
500°, and even then it will be the harder of the two. NoU
withstanding its excellence, this steel has hitherto been little
used by cutlers.
We have already mentioned a branch of cutlery which,
from its importance, claims more particular notice. Knives
and other edge instruments for surgical operations, made
and finished in the very best manner, are indeed invaluable.
When fortunately the form and physical properties of the
instrument are exactly to the wish of the operator, he is
freed from many embarrassments inseparably connected
with a bad or indifferent instrument. This truly desir-r
able state of excellence is confessedly of difficult attain¬
ment. The choicest pieces of steel should be carefully se¬
lected, and the skill and undivided attention of the best
workman devoted to the whole manipulation of forging,
hardening, tempering, grinding, and polishing. By w'ant
of ability or diligence during these various processes, the
VOL. VII.
601
knife may be rendered totally unfit for the purposes for Cutlery,
which it was intended. Finishing the edge, technically ■
termed setting, is a work of much delicacy and skill. Very
few acquire this art in the highest degree of perfection.
The artist must be in a situation undisturbed by noise or
conversation, and his attention must be exclusively devoted
to the object on which he is engaged. This very nice and
delicate process is performed on a hone moistened with fine
oil. Hones are imported in large quantities; yet not many
of superior quality can be selected. The very finest of
these are still inadequate to give the last finish to the edge.
This is performed on a beautiful green stone, found in some
parts of the old pavement of London; the only known ma¬
terial capable of giving perfect smoothness to the points of
lancets and other delicate instruments. These points, when
made and finished in the very best manner, will perforate
a thin piece of leather, by which they are usually proved,
with such ease and facility, that no more resistance is sen¬
sibly felt, or noise made, than would be if the point were
dropped into a fluid, as wrater or oil. Nothing short of this
proof of excellence is satisfactory; mediocrity cannot, at
least ought not, to be admitted* These observations apply
generally to every description of knife used in surgery ; but
the nature of each particular operation should be considered,
in judging of the requisite degree of strength or delicacy of
edge. Next in importance to the knives are the saws used
in surgery. All of these must be of the best spring temper,
which, for the cast-steel blade, is about 570° of Fahrenheit,
and for one of Indian steel 600°, or quite the boiling point
of mercury. Of another class of instruments, namely, those
denominated blunt, it will be sufficient to observe, that what
is known by the name of shear steel is best adapted for the
purpose. Case-hardened iron has been most improperly
used, this hardening being very superficial. It is, in fact,
converting the surface only into steel, by heating it to red¬
ness, in a close vessel, in contact with animal charcoal, such
as charred bone, leather, or horn, and quenching it when
red-hot in a cold fluid. Iron thus treated will take a beau¬
tiful polish; but, except for ornamental purposes, it ought
never to be employed. Some instruments are necessarily
made of gold or silver ; as catheters, and other tubes and
probes. (See Bougie.) When for these ductility is re¬
quired, the metals should be unalloyed ; the extra expense
of which will be more than compensated by the conve¬
nience of giving to the instruments, in all cases, the desired
curve and form.
1 he handles of instruments, together with all ornamental
parts, must in a great measure depend on the taste and
choice of the purchaser. It would be well, however, to
avoid such materials as are known to produce chemical ac¬
tion when in contact with polished steel. Ivory, mother-
of-pearl, and ebony are much used; but the fine walnut-
tree, such as the London gunmakers employ, is perhaps
of all the woods the best for the purpose. Sandal-wood
answers very well, although it by no means deserves all
the credit which has been given to it as a preservative of
steel from rust. The instrument-maker who wishes to
excel will do well to avail himself of every opportunity of
witnessing the operative part of surgery; that he may ob¬
serve how far the instrument is mechanically and physi¬
cally adapted to its purpose, and, if necessary, be the better
able to make the requisite alteration.
Sheffield cutlery has deservedly obtained a high degree
of reputation in almost every part of the civilized world;
and it is of great importance to the commercial interests of
the country that this high character should be maintained.
But here it must not be omitted to be mentioned, that there
is also an extensive manufacture of an inferior description
of cutlery, principally consisting of table knives and forks,
scissors, and pocket-knives, which are professedly made
for export to the less civilized portions of the globe, but
4 G
602 CUT
Cuttack also retailed in large quantities in this country. It is ma¬
il nufactured by casting from a species of pig-iron. This
Cutter. -ron from tiie superabundance of its carbon, highly sus-
ceptible of liquidity, and readily casts into the required foim.
In this state the cast-iron cutlery is extremely hard, and as
brittle as glass; but it is reduced from this hardness by de¬
composition,—being subjected to a strong and long-con¬
tinued fire in close vessels, in contact with iron ore, oxide
of iron, or any substance containing oxygen, with which the
superabundant carbon combines, when kept at a high tem¬
perature, and flies off in the state of carbonic acid gas.
This cast-iron cutlery is, when finished, not always distin¬
guishable in appearance from that made at the forge, and
can, of course, be afforded at a much lower price. This
very fusible iron may be applied to many purposes. It is
hardly necessary to add, that it is quite unfit for any de¬
scription of edge instrument. (j. s—t.)
CUTTACK, an extensive district of Hindustan, pro¬
vince of Orissa, lying between the 20th and 22d degrees
of north latitude, and between the 86th and 88th de¬
grees of east longitude. It is bounded on tire north by
the British districts of Midnapore and Hidgellee; on the
north-west by the petty native state termed the Cuttack
Mehals ; on the west by the district of Ganjam, and on the
east and south-east by the Bay of Bengal. Cuttack
has an area of 7635 square miles. Its length is computed
at about 200 miles, and its average breadth at about 60.
The country varies in the quality of its soil: in the delta
of the Mahanuddy, which resembles the Sunderbunds at
the estuaries of the Ganges in its numerous sluggish wind¬
ing streams, it consists of a deep mud, the surface of which
is covered with coarse reedy grass and brushwood; west¬
ward of the delta extends the Mogulbandi, a dry tract with
a sandy soil, yet highly cultivated, and producing most of
the grains common in Bengal. Inland of this is the hill
country, in which the land fit for tillage bears a trifling
proportion to the extent of rocks and forests which occupy
this region. The district is well watered by the Maha¬
nuddy, the Brahmunnee, the Byturnee, and by some minor
streams which fall into the Chilka Lake. This shallow but
extensive piece of water is situate in the southern quarter
of the district, and measures upwards of forty miles in
length and sixteen in breadth. It communicates with the
sea by a narrow channel, and its waters are saline. The
chief towns are Cuttack, Juggernaut, Balasore, and Jage-
pore. The population is officially returned at 2,127,555 ;
an amount which, compared with the area, affords a relative
density of about 280 to the square mile. This district is
mentioned as early as the year 1212, under the title of
Jagepore, by the Mohammedan historians; and it was not
finally subdued till 1592, when it was conquered and an¬
nexed to Bengal. It was ceded in 1751 to the Mahrattas,
and came into the possession of the British in 1803, during
the administration of Marquis Wellesley, who subdivided it
into the southern, northern, and central districts of Bala¬
sore, Cuttack Proper, and Pooree or Juggernaut. By
its subjection the British acquired a political supremacy
over the group of native states known as the Cuttack
Mehals. (E. T j
Cuttack, the capital of the above district, was formerly
fortified, and contained a number of good houses and
bazaars; but during the period of its possession by the
Mahrattas it fell into decay. Its position is naturally strong,
being on a neck of land washed by the Mahanuddy and
Gunjoory rivers, and it is a place of some consequence.
The low country round the town is under water during the
rainy season for a circuit of ten miles, and the station is
considered unhealthy. In 1592 it withstood the Mogul
arms for nearly a month. Pop. of town estimated at
40,000. Lat. 20. 28. ; Long. 85. 55. (e. t.)
CUTTER, in naval affairs, a small vessel with one
CUV
mast, and rigged nearly as a sloop. Many of these vessels Cutter
are employed by government, either under the direction of II
the admiralty or that of the custom-house, for the preven- ^uvier-
tion of illicit traffic along the British coasts.
Cutter is also the name of a small boat used by ships
of war.
CUTTERAH, a village of British India, presidency
of Bengal, district and 30 miles S.E. of Bareilly. Here
was fought the decisive battle, in 1774, in which Sujah ud
Dowlah, with the aid of the British, defeated the Rohillahs,
who were nearly exterminated by the cruelty of the con¬
querors. See Hindustan.
CUTTLE-FISH, a name applied in English indiffer¬
ently to the Loligo vulgaris and the Sepia, animals belong¬
ing to the cephalopodous class of the Mollusca. The most
remarkable characteristic of the tribe of animals to which
the cuttle-fish belongs is the inky fluid which they emit
when hard pressed by any of the numerous foes by which
they are liable to be assailed. The organ in which this
fluid is secreted is spongy and glandular. In some species
it is contained in a recess of the liver, which has given rise
to the opinion that the fluid in question was bile. In other
species, however, this gland is detached from the liver and
situated either before or behind that organ, The excretory
canal of this gland opens in the rectum, so that the fluid
escapes through the funnel. It mixes readily with water,
and imparts to it its own peculiar colour. When dried it
is used as a pigment, and is considered as the basis of china
ink. It is obtained by digesting the ink with very dilute
nitric acid, until it become yellowish, washing it well and
separating it by the filter; it is then boiled frequently in
water, one of the washings being slightly alkalized, and
finally with distilled water. See Mollusca, class Cepha¬
lopoda.
CUTTS, John, Lord, a distinguished English officer,
son of Richard Cutts, Esq. of Matching, in Essex, where
the family were settled about the time of Henry VL, and
had a great estate. He entered early into the service of
the Duke of Monmouth, was aide-de-camp to the Duke
of Lorrain in Hungary, and first signalized himself at the
taking of Buda from the Turks in 1686. Addison, in a
Latin poem, alludes to Cutts’s distinguished bravery at that
siege. After the Revolution, he was created Baron of
Gowran in Ireland, and held various appointments at court.
In 1701, we find Steele, who was indebted to his interest
for a military commission, inscribing to him his first work.
The Christian Hero. On the accession of Queen Anne,
he was made a lieutenant-general of the forces in Holland,
commander-in-chief of the forces in Ireland under the
Duke of Ormond, and afterwards one of the lords justices
of that kingdom. Lord Cutts died at Dublin Jan. 26, 1707,
and was buried in the cathedral of Christ-Church. He was
the author of a poem on the death of Queen Mary, and
published, in 1687, Poetical Exercises, with a dedication
to her Royal Highness Mary princess of Orange.
CUVETTE, or Cunette, in Fortification, a ditch within
a ditch; that is, a trench about four fathoms broad filled
with water, and running along the middle of the great
dry ditch. It serves both as a defence against assault and
against mining.
C U VIE R, George - Leopold - Christian - Frederic-
D agobert, the most celebrated naturalist of modern times,
was a native of Montbeliard, now a French town, but for¬
merly the chief place of a principality in Switzerland, de¬
pendent on the Duke of Wurtemberg. He was born on
the 23d of August 1769. His family came originally
from a village on the Jura, which still bears the name of
Cuvier. His father was a retired officer, who had served
forty years in a Swiss regiment in the pay of France,
whence he derived a moderate allowance or pension ; and
latterly he held the command of the artillery at Montbe-
CUVIER.
Cuviei
V liard, where, under the superintendence of his mother,
^ young Cuvier was initiated in the elements of learnino-’.
He was brought up in the Protestant faith, which was that
of his family, and early gave indications of those mental
qualitiesforMdiich he afterwards became so greatly distin¬
guished. He was gifted with a memory of extraordinary
power, and likewise evinced an aptitude for drawing, his
taste for which was formed at the age of twelve, from the
works of BufFon. The study of the Latin and Greek lan¬
guages occasioned him but little difficulty; the German
he acquired with equal facility; and he also made himself
master of the different other modern languages in succes¬
sion. He had a passion for every kind of reading, parti-
culaily histoiy; and such was the tenacity of his memory,
that the driest details of nomenclature, and the most
lengthened lists of sovereigns, princes, statesmen, and
warriors, were remembered by him without effort, and so
forcibly impressed on his mind as never afterwards to be
effaced. At the age of fourteen, having acquired nearly
all the instruction which the school of Montbeliard could
supply, he was sent to Stuttgard, under the patronage of
Duke Charles of Wurtemberg, and had a place assigned
him, free from all expense, in the Caroline Academy,
where he was entered in the month of March 1784. He
i emained four years at this seminary, and his progress
corresponded with the advantages which he enjoyed; and
in every department of knowledge which formed the’sub¬
ject of instruction, he evinced that reach of comprehen¬
sion and soundness of judgment for which he was always
remarkable. Lessons vrere given in five different faculties,
one of which was exclusively devoted to the study of go¬
vernment; and, singular as it may appear, it was to this
that he attached himself the most. The principal subjects
taught were the elementary and practical departments of
law, and the more useful details connected with finance,
police, agriculture, and technology; and so sensible was
lie of the advantages of such a branch of instruction, that
he always lamented that a corresponding system had not
been established in France.1 Among the teachers com¬
posing the faculty which formed the object of Cuvier’s
predilection was M. Abel, professor of natural history,
who took a lively interest in the progress of the young
Frenchman, whose genius he had not failed to discover^;
contributed to supply him with the means of indulging
his inclination for the study of the natural sciences, to
which, amidst all his varied occupations, he continually
recurred; and engaged him, sometimes in reading and
meditating on the standard works in this department of
knowledge, and at other times in drawing insects or form¬
ing an herbarium. But this favourite occupation did not
prevent him from obtaining the most decided success in
the other studies prescribed by the rules of the academy;
and, at the termination of the course, be received, in ad¬
dition to the highest prizes, an order of merit conferred
only on five or six out of the four hundred pupils belong¬
ing to the establishment.
The term of his education being thus completed, circum¬
stances rendered it necessary for him to turn his thoughts
to the active business of life; and his first resource was
to engage himself as tutor to superintend the education
of one of the children of a Protestant family in Normandy.
This situation, how bumble soever it may appear, had
at least the recommendation of affording him sufficient
leisure for the prosecution of his scientific duties; from
being employed in the useful labour of instructing others
he derived the means of promoting his own improvement;
and he never afterwards shrunk from the recollection of
his entrance on a path which in process of time conducted
him to so much celebrity. It was in July 1788, when he
had scarcely completed his nineteenth year, that Cuvier
went to reside in Normandy, at a country-house situated
near the sea, in the middle of an almost insulated dis¬
trict. In this remote retreat he found a secure asylum
from the fury of the revolutionary tempest which deso¬
lated so many other parts of France ; and during the days
of dismal memory with which the history of that period
is darkened, he escaped the danger which threatened all
who were conspicuous for virtue and excellence. About
this time a fortunate accident procured him the acquaint¬
ance of Tessier, whom terror had driven to the neighbour¬
hood where Cuvier then resided ; and having quickly dis¬
cerned the talents of the young naturalist, this accom¬
plished person hastened to put him in communication
with many scientific men in Paris, particularly with La-
metherie, Olivier, Lacepede, Geoffrey, and Mellin de
Grandmaison. When the reign of terror had terminated,
these distinguished persons invited him to Paris, where
the re-establishment of literary and scientific institutions
was now becoming an object of attention. Cuvier accord¬
ingly repaired to the capital in the spring of 1795, and,
by the interest of Mellin and Tessier, he was almost im¬
mediately appointed a member of the Commission of Arts,
and shortly afterwards made professor to the Central
School of the Pantheon. It was for the use of this school
that he prepared his Tableau Elementaire de VHistoire
Naturelle des Animaux, the first work which the public
knew to be his, and which, notwithstanding its elementary
appearance, has served as the basis of all subsequent works
on zoological classification. But his principal object had
not yet been attained. He desired to enter the Museum of
Natural History, which alone could furnish him with the
means of prosecuting the scientific investigations which
were already matured in his mind; and this satisfaction
was not long denied him ; for the professor, Mertrud, who
had been appointed to the newly-established chair of com¬
parative anatomy, having attained an advanced age, which
unfitted him for teaching a science that was new to him,
yielded to the entreaties of his colleagues Jussieu, Geof-
froy, and Lacepede, and upon their recommendation ac¬
cepted Cuvier to supply his place.
Cuvier, having thus attained the object of his ambition,
laboured indefatigably to prove himself worthy of the con¬
fidence which had been placed in him, and formed, for
the use of comparative anatomy, that collection which is
now known throughout all Europe; whilst the lectures by
which he rendered it so useful soon attracted a numerous
concourse of students, who spread his fame to a distance
as-an eminent and successful teacher. These lectures have
since been published in five volumes 8vo, and their merit
is universally acknowledged. This was the grand epoch
60S
Cuvier.
. . a™n Pas9uier states, m his Eloge de Cuvier, that the latter had often been heard to express regret at the little assistance atf'ord-
u Qin rance.to those who were employed m acquiring a knowledge of the principles of government. The Laron’s words are
de^eernn-s'ptC<U1106 C eS ‘ T tnb.unailx ^application, est partout, disait-il, 1’ohjet d’dtudes pour lesquelles tons les genres
o et dyncouragemens sont prodiguds, d ou vient qu’on de'daigne, ou au moins qu’on neglige de fournir a la ieunesse les
-fns J acquenr methodiquement la connoissance de cette foule de dispositions, de reglemens qui influent si puissamment sur un
nombre infim d’mterets publics et privets ? d’oh vient qu’on ne s’occupe pas de lui apprendre de la meme maiiLeTs pTffidpes su^
■ 5Ue s ou devrait reposer cette legislation administrative? Je me plais a rapporter cette vue de INI. Cuvier parce qu’elle
SnU?ulTi>offerteqUdee ^ ^ ^ aU^Uel8 ^ ^ en ^Svrd avec tant de zele, touI S Ids q^ Poc
ui a ete offeite de prater a 1 administration pubbque le secours de ses talens et de ses lumieres.”
604 CUV
Cuvier, of Cuvier’s life. He had now attained a station which
'***~\~*-</ enabled him to give full scope to all his energies, and to
reach that height of scientific distinction where he main¬
tained an undisputed pre-eminence for the long period of
forty-seven years. Cuvier, in fact, may be regarded as
moving in three different spheres; namely, in that of li¬
terature, that of public instruction, and that of the admi¬
nistration : yet, in the midst of a multiplicity of occupa¬
tions, the minutest details, whether these related to public
instruction, the deliberations of the council of state, or the
committee of the interior, were never neglected by him;
and to his unrivalled fame as a naturalist he was enabled
to add the reputation of a most useful as well as a most
illustrious citizen.
The National Institute was established in the year 1796.
At this time Cuvier was professor of comparative anatomy
in the Museum of Natural History; and, in consequence
of the reputation which he had acquired by his course of
lectures, as well as by the publication of some memoirs,
he was soon invited to become a member. At first the
secretaries were only temporary, none of them holding
the office longer than two years. Cuvier was the third
in order; and, in 1800, when Bonaparte, after his return
from Egypt, and the revolution of the 18th Brumaire,
which made him first consul, had assumed the title of Pre¬
sident of the Institute, this great naturalist found himself
placed in intimate relationship with that extraordinary
man, then aspiring to every kind of glory, and having
his views already turned towards the possession of so¬
vereign power. During the same year M. Daubenton
died, and the professor of comparative anatomy wras ap¬
pointed to teach in his stead the philosophy of natural
history. In 1802, the first consul, wishing to remodel the
system of public instruction, nominated six inspectors to
establish lyceums in thirty French towns. Cuvier was one
of these, and his commission directed him to superintend
the establishment of the lyceums of Marseilles and Bor¬
deaux, which are now royal colleges. During his absence
from Paris the Institute was re-organized; perpetual se¬
cretaries were appointed, and Cuvier was elected to fill
that office in the class of the natural sciences. It was
in the latter capacity that, in 1808, he drew up his histo¬
rical report of the progress of the natural sciences. Na¬
poleon had asked merely for a report; but, under this
unassuming title, the skilful reporter contrived not merely
to show the road which had already been traversed, but to
indicate that which ought still to be pursued. This report
was read to the emperor in the council of state, and great¬
ly admired. In the course of the same year the Imperial
University was established, and Cuvier nominated one of
the councillors of that body for his life. In 1809 and 1811
he was occupied in instituting academies in those parts
of the Italian provinces which had been annexed to the em¬
pire ; in 1811 he undertook a similar mission to Holland
and the Hans Towns; and in 1813 he was sent to Rome, in
order to organize a university. These successive journeys
could not fail to be profitable to such an observer, whilst
the intimate connection which they afforded him opportu¬
nities ot forming with distinguished men of all countries,
enabled him to accumulate most valuable materials for all
the works in which he was then engaged. But his admi¬
nistrative talents had not escaped the penetration of Na¬
poleon, who knew well how to estimate men at their real
value, and he was soon called to act in a different sphere.
While at Rome he received the news of his being ap¬
pointed a master of requests; and, once a member of the
council of state, he was not long in raising himself to the
first rank. Nor did the events of the year 1814, which
overthrew the imperial power, retard his further advance¬
ment. He became a councillor of state in the month of
I E
September in that year; and soon afterwards he was re- Cuvier,
peatedly offered, but as often declined, the situation of
superintendent of the Jardin du Hoi, an office on which
Buffon had conferred so much celebrity. In the month of
February 1815 the university having been remodelled, a
place was assigned him, under the title of chancellor, in
the royal council of public instruction attached to that in¬
stitution. But the new convulsion occasioned by the re¬
turn of Napoleon from Elba prevented his continuing a
member of the council of state ; he was, however, retained
in the Imperial University, where the absence of his name
would have created too great a blank. About four months
afterwards, when it became necessary to re-establish what
the hurricane of the hundred days had overthrown, it was
found that neither the system of the Imperial Univer¬
sity, nor even that of the Royal University as it had been
organised in February, could be fully carried into effect-
A provisional arrangement was therefore judged neces¬
sary, and a commission appointed to exercise the powers
which had been previously vested in a grand master, a
council, a chancellor, and a treasurer. Of this commis¬
sion Cuvier was named a member, and from the first the
duties of chancellor devolved on him. He took an active
part in the labours of the commission, to which he ren¬
dered very important services; and he acted as president
on two occasions, each time for more than a year, but
always provisionally, his religion disqualifying him for
being regularly appointed to that office. In 1818 he vi¬
sited England, and, on his arrival in London, learned that
he had been elected a member of the French Academy;
an important addition no doubt to the gratification which
must then have been afforded him by the flattering recep¬
tion which he met with in the British metropolis, from
men who were certainly very competent judges of the
merit which they honoured with their notice and regard.
In 1819 he was appointed president of the section of the
interior in the council of state, and from the moment
when he entered on this office, the duties of which were
alike important and laborious, he never quitted it until
the period of his death. In 1824, when a minister of ec¬
clesiastical affairs was appointed, and the new porte-feuille
passed into the hands of a bishop who had previously been
grand master of the university, the duties of the latter
office, as far as they regarded Protestant theology, were
entrusted to Cuvier, by whom they continued to be per¬
formed during the remainder of his life. In 1827 the su¬
perintendence of that department of the administration
of the interior which related to the forms of worship not
Catholic was committed to him ; and, lastly, he was raised
to the peerage about the end of the year 1831. Rut the
brilliant career of this great naturalist was now fast draw¬
ing towards its close; and he expired on the 13th of May
1832, after four days’ suffering, from an attack of paralysis
in the throat, which soon reached his lungs, being then
only in the sixty-third year of his age. He died sur¬
rounded by nearly all that remained of his domestic circle ;
by his wife, his daughter-in-law, and his brother, who
united all their affection in consoling bis last moments.
In his family he had suffered severe afflictions, having lost
three sons in infancy, whilst his daughter, a model of
grace and virtue, was carried off on the eve of contracting
a marriage which had received her father’s entire appro¬
bation, and promised a long course of happiness. Ot four
children, also, which his wife had had by a former mar¬
riage, and which he had adopted, two were arrested by
death at an age when all risks appeared to have ceased,
and hope seemed to have become reality.
We have already mentioned the earliest work which
procured him distinction in the natural sciences. In
1811 he published his Recherches sur les Ossemens Fossiks
CUVIER.
Cuvier, de Quadrupedes. This work has gone through three edi-
tions, and the preliminary discourse has often been re¬
printed. In 1817 appeared his Memoires pour servir d
I’Histoire des Mollusques, which effected a total change in
one branch of zoological classification ; and also Le Regne
Animal distribue d'apres son Organization, in four vols.
8vo, which soon became the foundation of all zoological
studies, whilst, in most of the schools, the lectures, collec¬
tions, and works of research, were all more or less eluci¬
dated or illustrated by an appeal to this great work. Cu¬
vier was assisted by his friend Latreille in the part of the
work connected with the class of insects, a class which is
in itself more numerous than all the rest of the animal
kingdom, and which would require for its illustration the
whole life of a laborious man ; but he had persuaded this
skilful entomologist to deviate in some points from his
usual system, in order that his labours might the better
harmonize with the other parts of the work. During the
last years of his life he was occupied with a great work
on the natural history of fishes, in twenty volumes, of
which eight had already appeared, and the materials for
five others were prepared previously to. his death. The
preparation of the Regne Animal having showed Cuvier
how much the study of fishes had fallen behind that of
the other branches of zoology, and made him sensible of
the difficulties of prosecuting it, owing to the obscurity in
which the anatomy of these animals was involved, the im¬
possibility of knowing with precision the laws deducible
from the comparison of their organs, the want of good col¬
lections, and the somewhat artificial spirit which had hi¬
therto prevailed in the study of ichthyology, he exerted
himself to collect skeletons of fishes from all parts of the
world, anatomised a great number with unusual care, as¬
sociated with himself in the study of their details a man
of merit, M. Valenciennes, to assist him, and, in a period
comparatively short, became thus enabled to arrange the
elements of that history of fishes; and the work has been com¬
pleted under the superintendence of Valenciennes. Some
years before his death Cuvier also undertook a course of lec¬
tures pn the history of the natural sciences, which he delivered
from notes, and which, according to the testimony of all who
heard him, were remarkable for eloquence, precision, and
lucid arrangement. He was, besides, occupied with a new
edition of his lectures on comparative anatomy, and wished
to devote the remainder of his life to a great treatise on
the same science, for which, indeed, he had brought to¬
gether the immense collection of the Jardin du Roi, whilst
the greater number of the drawings necessary for the
work were already completed, a very considerable por¬
tion of them having been executed by his own hand.
“ This.,” said he, “ will be a work almost entirely new, be¬
cause our immense collections, and the works executed
by other anatomists, since the first publication, have fur¬
nished me with many new facts; but I see with pleasure
that the system requires little change, and that it con,-,
tinues preferable, at least in my opinion, to those which
have been adopted since by some learned men.” This
project, which was always present to his mind, and for
which he had in fact laboured nearly forty years, seemed
to him necessary for completing as it were the cycle of
his works; but the melancholy doubt which he oftener
than once expressed, that he should not live to complete
his design, was but too soon verified ; and he died leaving
the work in the state which we have already described.
Such indeed was the surprising fertility of genius for
which this great naturalist was distinguished, that he left
behind him unpublished works which, as De Candolle re¬
marks, might well be supposed to have absorbed the la¬
bour of a whole lifetime.
Cuvier was a man of an extremely active and enter¬
605
prising, yet sound and methodical mind. In him strong na- Cuvier,
tural sagacity and almost unerring good sense were unit-
ed with unwearied industry, an invincible love of labour,
a habit of hearing and investigating every thing with pa¬
tience, admirable correctness and precision in thinking,
and singular clearness in the explanation of doctrines and
systems, however complicated and refined these might be.
Nor was he less remarkable for the variety than for the
extent and completeness of his acquirements. In litera¬
ture, in the sciences, in practical education, and in civil ad¬
ministration, his abilities were displayed, if not with equal
brilliancy in all, at least with distinguished success. His
Eloges are all masterpieces of their kind, which, while
they enable us to form an idea of the extent of his knowlege
in the natural sciences, evince, at the same time, great lite¬
rary skill in the disposition and arrangement of his mate¬
rials, and consummate address in the selection of those pro¬
minent points which are best calculated to convey a distinct
general idea of the course or route which it was his object to
trace out. Of this kind of composition some beautiful ex¬
amples had previously appeared in France; and Fontenelle,
D’Alembert, Condorcet, and Vicq-d’Azir, were each greatly
distinguished, though often for very different qualities. But
Cuvier may with justice be considered as having excelled
all his predecessors in the art of analysing the principles
and describing the origin and progress of a science, with
such a degree of precision and perspicuity as to bring it
to the level of every capacity. Aiming less at effect than
Fontenelle, free from the disdainful and ill-disguised scep¬
ticism of D’Alembert and Condorcet, and possessed of
more profound and varied knowledge than Vicq-d’Azir, he
could intersperse, in the most attractive manner, his in¬
structive and able expositions of the labours and discover¬
ies of those whom he celebrated, with details of their his¬
tory and private life, which generally attested the humble
origin whence they had emerged to usefulness and cele¬
brity. It is no doubt easy to conceive a style more cor¬
rect and skilfully laboured than Cuvier’s, but it is difficult
to imagine one better adapted to his extensive erudition,
or more appropriate to the subject of which he is treating,
and the thought which, at the time, he requires to express.
His varied talents, however, are perhaps best proved by
the influence which he exerted on natural history. For,
independently altogether of his discoveries, and the bene¬
fits which he conferred upon the science by his works, he
may be said to have created, so much did he improve, the
cabinet of comparative anatomy attached to the Museum
of Natural History at Paris ; and when placed by the choice
of his colleagues at the head of this establishment, he con¬
tributed greatly to accelerate its progress, and carried into
its general details that activity and that perfection of me¬
thodical arrangement for which he was ever distinguished.
When called to co-operate in the direction of public in¬
struction, whether in the council of the university, in the
provinces, or in countries then dependent upon France, he
everywhere made himself remarkable for the same quali¬
ties, and evinced a desire not merely to improve the ge¬
neral system of education, but also to render it more easi¬
ly accessible. His remarks on the primary instruction of
Holland sufficiently evince his solicitude for the diffusion
of knowledge among the people ; and the effects of his ar¬
rangements in the higher studies have proved extensively
beneficial, not only by the correction of much that was
evil, but also by affording greater scope and a fairer field
for their advancement. In making the round of the ad¬
ministrative functions (with the exception of censor, which
he nobly refused when the government wished to bestow
it on him), he displayed the same superiority which dis¬
tinguished his career in the more congenial pursuits of
science, literature, and public instruction. He was in fact
606 C Y A
Ouxhaven so well acquainted with laws, regulations, and official acts
!! of all kinds, that his colleagues in the administration conti-
meter nua% deferred to him, and were every day more and more
x j surprised at the extent and accuracy of his information re¬
specting subjects which seemed the least likely to engage
the attention of a man so much devoted to the pursuits of
science. In a word, the range of his knowledge was sur¬
passingly great. He had all his life read much; he had
been a constant and attentive observer ; and he had never
forgotten anything which seemed worth remembering. A
powerful and retentive memory, sustained and directed by
sound judgment and singular sagacity, formed the princi¬
pal foundation of his immense works, and of the success
which more or less attended him in all his employments.
Nor in the midst of a life so occupied did he neglect the
graces and accomplishments of society. His conversation,
sometimes grave and solemn, sometimes piquant and lively,
at all times distinguished for its propriety and correct¬
ness, made him the ornament of the saloons, and the de¬
light of all those who had the honour of his acquaintance.
He was a warm, sincere, and faithful friend ; full of grati¬
tude to those who had contributed to his early advancement
in life; moderate in all his habits; and wholly unimpeach¬
able in the different relations of social life. He engaged
the minds and hearts of those who surrounded him; and
whilst he displayed great ability in directing the efforts of
others towards the accomplishment of his own views, he
was wholly free from that engrossing selfishness which
sometimes attends great mental superiority. In a word,
Cuvier was a good as well as great man, combining with
talents and accomplishments of the first order that high
personal worth which conciliates universal esteem, disarms
envy, and sheds fresh lustre even on the brightest and no¬
blest mental endowments. (j.b—e.)
CUXH A VEN, a seaport-town of Northern Germany,
at the mouth of the Elbe, on its left bank, 58 miles W.N. W.
of Hamburg, to which city it belongs. It has about 1000
inhabitants, chiefly pilots and fishermen, and the harbour is
good and secure. In summer it is a resort of sea-bathers.
CUZCO, or Casco, a large and handsome town of South
America, capital of a cognominal department in Peru, 375
miles E. of Lima. S. Lat. 13. 30. j W, Long, 72. 4. It is
situated in a valley at the foot of some hills, and is 11,380
feet above sea level. Pop. about 45,000. Cuzco was for¬
merly the capital of the empire of the Incas, and when taken
possession of by the Spaniards under Pizarro in 1534, was
a place of great splendour and magnificence. The famous
temple of the Sun, a splendid edifice, superbly adorned with
gold and silver figures, speedily fell a sacrifice to the cupidity
and fanatical zeal of the conquerors. Portions of its walls
are still to be seen, forming part of a magnificent Domini¬
can convent. Upon a hill north of the town are the ruins
of a very extensive fortress of the Incas, composed of poly¬
gonal-shaped stones of enormous size, some of them said to
exceed in weight 150 tons. They are fitted together with¬
out cement, but with such nicety that their interstices are
scarcely perceptible. In the plain to the south of the town
are extensive remains of ancient edifices in the same style.
re town is built in the form of a square, having in the
centre a large market-place, in which four wide and straight
streets converge. The houses are built of stone and covered
with red tiles, and many of them still consist of the walls of
the earlier structures. The cathedral and convent of St
Augustme are considered to be among the finest religious
edifices m the New World. The town has a university^col-
Jegiate schools, a mint, and several hospitals. The inhabit¬
ants are chiefly employed in the manufacture of woollen
and cotton stuffs, leather, embroidery, &c.
. CYANOMETER (kvcivos blue, fxerpov a measure), an
instrument contrived by Saussure, for measuring the vari¬
able intensity of the caemlean hue which the sky assumes
C Y B
in different climates and at different elevations, according Cyathus
to the season and the hour of day. This instrument is de- II
scribed under the head Meteorology, and Physical Geo- Cybele'
GRAPHY.
CYATHUS (KvaBos, a cup), in Antiquity, a common
measure among the Greeks and Romans. It was equal to
one-twelfth of the sextarius, or of a pint English, and was
used as a measure of things both of the liquid and dry kind.
The cyathus frequently occurs as the name of a drinking-
vessel used by the Romans ; in which case it was made with
a handle, like the modern ladle. With this vessel the drink¬
ing-cups at a banquet were supplied from the mixing-bowl
by a slave. The cyathus is referred to as the measure of
the quantity drank by a person on such occasions; and it
was a common practice at convivial meetings to make the
number of cyathi correspond to the number of the muses, or
to that of the letters in a patron’s name—a kind of compli¬
ment not very dissimilar to the modern practice of drinking
a person’s health. The word cyathus also denoted a cup¬
ping-glass ; and it was likewise used to signify the hollow of
the hand.
CYAXARES I., the son of Phraortes, and third king of
Media, reigned b.c. 634-594. See Media.
Cyaxares II., an ancient Persian king, mentioned by
Xenophon. Some identify him with Darius the Mede of
Scripture, others deny his existence altogether.
CYBEBE, another form of the name of the Phrygian
goddess Cybele.
CYBELE, in Pagan Mythology, the daughter of Coelus
and Terra, and wife of Saturn. She is supposed to be the
same as Ceres, Rhea, Ops, Vesta, Bona Mater, Magna
Mater, Berecynthia, Dindymene, &c. According to Dio¬
dorus, she was the daughter of a Lydian prince, and, imme¬
diately after her birth, was exposed on a mountain. But
she was preserved by sucking some of the wild beasts of
the forest, and received the name of Cybele from the moun¬
tain where her life had been preserved. When she returned
to her father’s court, she had an intrigue with Atys, a beau¬
tiful youth, whom her father mutilated. All the mytholo-
gists are unanimous in mentioning the amours of Atys and
Cybele. In Phrygia the festivals of Cybele were observed
with the greatest solemnity. Her priests, called Corybantes
and Galli, were not admitted into the service of the god¬
dess without undergoing a previous mutilation. In the
celebration of the festivals, they imitated the manners of
madmen, and filled the air with shrieks and bowlings mixed
with the confused noise of drums, tabrets, bucklers, and
spears. This was done in commemoration of the sorrow
of Cybele for the loss of her favourite Atys. Cybele was
generally represented as a robust woman far advanced in
pregnancy, to symbolize, it is said, the fecundity of the earth.
She held keys in her hand, and her head was crowned with
rising turrets, and sometimes with the leaves of an oak.
She is also represented as riding in a chariot drawn by two
t ime lions, while Atys follows by her side, carrying a ball
in his hand, and supporting himself upon a fir-tree, which
is sacred to the goddess. Sometimes she is represented
with a sceptre in her hand, and her head crowned with a
tower. She is also seen with many breasts, to show that the
earth gives aliment to all living creatures; and she gene¬
rally carries two lions under her arms. From Phrygia the
worship of Cybele passed into Greece, and was solemnly
established at Eleusis under the name of the Eleusinian
Mysteries of Ceres. The Romans, by order of the Sibyl¬
line books, brought the statue of the goddess from Pessinus
into Italy; and when the ship which carried it had run on
a shallow bank of the Tiber, the virtue and innocence of
Claudia were vindicated by her drawing it back into deep
water with her girdle. It is supposed that the mysteries
of Cybele were first known about 257 years before the
Trojan war, or 1451 years B.c.
Cyclops.
CYC
Cyceon CYC EON (from KVKcleiv, to mix or mingle), a name
given by the ancient poets and physicians to a mixture of
^ meal and water, and sometimes of other ingredients. The
coarser kind consisted of water and meal alone ; the richer
and more delicate was composed of wine, honey, flour, water
and-grated cheese. Homer, in the eleventh book’of the
Iliad, speaks of cyceon made of cheese and the meal of
barley mixed with wine, without mention either of honey
or water; and Ovid, describing the draught of cyceon given
by the old woman of Athens to Ceres, mentions only flour
and water. Dioscorides extols the simpler kind, pronoun¬
cing it, when prepared with water alone, to be highly re¬
freshing and nutritious.
CYCLADES, one of the two groups of islands in the
Aegean bea, the Sporades being the other. They were
originally twelve in number, and derived their name from
the fact of their lying in a circle round the sacred isle of
Delos, which was the smallest of the group. These twelve
were Andros, Ceos, Cythnos, Delos, Myconos, Naxos, Paros,
Kheneia, Seriphos, Siphnos, Syros, and Tenos. To these
three were afterwards added, Prepesinthos, Oliaros, and
Cyaros, making in all fifteen. The most important of
these islands will be found described under their respective
heads.
CYC LAS, in Roman Antiquity, a kind of state-robe
used by women, was of a circular form, and ornamented
with an embroidered border. Suetonius relates that Ca¬
ligula sometimes appeared in public in a robe of this de¬
scription.
I'E (kvkXos a circle), in Chronology, a period or se¬
ries of numbers, which regularly proceed from the first to
the last, and then return again to the first, and so circulate
perpetually : any periodical space of time.
Cycle of Indiction. See Calendar, vol. vi., p. 81 •
Chronology, vol. vi., p. 673. ’
G\cle of the Moon, called also the Golden Number, and
the Metomc Cycle. See Calendar, vol. vi., p. 81.
Cycle of the Sun, or Solar Cycle. See Calendar, vol
vi., p. 80. ’
Cl CLOID, a geometrical curve on which depends the
doctrine of pendulums. It was demonstrated by Huygens,
that from whatever point or height a heavy body oscillat¬
ing on a fixed centre begins to descend, while it continues
to move in a cycloid the time of its falls or oscillations will
be equal to each other. It is likewise demonstrable, that it
is the curve of quickest descent—that is, a body falling in
it from any given point above, to another not exactly under
it, will come to this point in a less time than in any other
curve passing through those two points.
The genesis of a cycloid may be illustrated thus: If a
wheel be made to roll along a right line till it has completed
one revolution, a point fixed in that part of its circumfer¬
ence which at the commencement of the motion touches
that right line, will have described a cycloid on a vertical
plane—or, in other words, in its course through the air.
CYCLOPAEDIA, or more properly Encyclopaedia
(eV kvkXm Tradeia, instruction in a circle), signifies the circle
or compass of the arts and sciences; a term used to denote
a dictionary of arts, sciences, and miscellaneous literature
See Encyclopaedia.
CYCLOPEAN (from Cyclops), a term applied to all the
gigantic structures of pre-historic antiquity.
CYC COPS (from kvkXos a circle, and on// the eye), three
famous Titans, distinguished by having one eye in the middle
of their forehead. They were fabled to have been the sons of
Uranus and^ Ge, and their names were Arges, Brontes, and
Steropes. They are said to have been thrown into Tar¬
tarus by Saturn; but having been released by Jupiter they
forged his thunderbolts, as well as the shield of Pluto and
the trident of Neptune. In Homer the Cyclops appear as
a band of gigantic Sicilian shepherds who indulged in can-
C Y N
nibalism and other atrocities. A later tradition represents
them as the assistants of Vulcan, and engaged in fabricating
armour in their workshops under Mount TEtna.
CYDER. See Cider.
C YDIAS, a celebrated artist, who painted a famous pic¬
ture of the Argonauts about b.c. 360. It was bought by the
orator Hortensius, and exhibited at Rome.
C YDNUS, in Ancient Geography, a small river of Cili¬
cia, in Asia Minor, noted for the clearness and coldness of
its waters. It rises in the range of Taurus, near the Pylae
of Cilicia ; and, after a short course in a southerly direction,
falls into the sea near the mouth of the Sarus. See Cilicia.
CA DONIA, in Ancient Geography, a very old and
famous city of Crete, at the north-western end of the island.
It is said to have been built by the Samians, who had esta¬
blished themselves in the island, but the traditions of Crete
all point to a much earlier origin of the city. In later times
the iEginetans colonized Cydonia, which on that account
experienced the full hostility of the Athenians during the
1 eloponnesian war. In the sacred war Cydonia was attacked
by Phalaecus, the Phocian general, who fell with the greater
fart of his army before the walls of the town. The first
battle which was fought in Crete by the Romans against
the natives took place close to Cydonia. Their army under
Metellus was victorious. For an account of the feuds which
prevailed between Cydonia and Cnossus, see Crete and
Cnossus.
Cydonia, the quince, so called from Cydonia the above-
mentioned city, the gardens in its neighbourhood abound¬
ing in this fruit.
CYGNUS, the swan. See index to Ornithology.
Cygnus, the Swan, in Astronomy, a constellation of the
northern hemisphere, between Lyra and Cepheus. In
Ptolemy’s catalogue it contains 19 stars, in Tycho’s 18, in
Hevelius’s 47, and in the British catalogue 81.
CYLINDER, in Geometry, a solid body supposed to be
generated by the rotation of a rectangular parallelogram
round one of its sides.
CYLINDROID, in Geometry, a solid body approaching
to the figure of a cylinder, but differing from it in some re¬
spects, such as having the bases elliptical, but parallel and
equal.
CYLLENE, in Ancient Geography, a mountain of the
Peloponnesus, in the N.W. corner of Arcadia, and close to
the confines of Argolis and Achaia. It is frequently alluded
to in the Greek and Roman classics as the birthplace of
Mercury, who from that circumstance is often called Cyllen-
nius. There was a famous temple of that deity on the top
of the mountain, which was believed by the ancients to be
so high as to be beyond the reach of winds and rain. The
modern name of Cyllene is Zyria; and its height, as deter¬
mined by the French survey, is 7788 feet above the sea. It is
thus inferior in height to Taygetus alone of all the moun¬
tains in the Morea.
Cyllene was also the name of a town in Elis. It was
the seaport of the city of Elis, from which it was distant
about 13 miles.
CYMA, or Cymatium. See glossary to Architecture.
CYMBAL (KvgftaXov), an ancient metallic instrument of
percussion, of the same kind as the modern cymbals used
in military bands; not a drum, as some authors pretend.
See Music, § Musical Instruments.
CANaEGIRUS, an Athenian soldier who distinguished
himself at the battle of Marathon. He was the son of Eu-
phorion, and brother of the poet iEschylus. In pursuing
the Persians to their ships, he is said to have seized one of
their vessels with his right hand, and when it was severed,
with his left, and when this too was lost he still maintained
his hold with his teeth.
CANANCHE (literally, a dog’s collar), a Greek word
used to denote a disease in which the throat inflames and
607
Cyder
II
Cynanche.
603
C Y N
Cynan- swells, so as to cause a difficulty of breathing ; as in quinsy,
chum croup, and malignant sore throat.
II CYNANCHUM, a genus of plants of the natural order
ynosura. 0f ^ sdcpiodcce, the best known of which is a European plant,
' C. Vincetoocicum, that has drastic purgative qualities, and is
considered by Orfila as a poison. Another species, C. Ar-
gel, has its leaves often mingled with those of the Egyptian
senna, probably from the negligence or ignorance ot the
native herbalists.
CYNARA, the artichoke. See Horticulture.
CYNICS (from kuW, a dog) a sect of ancient philoso¬
phers, deriving their name either from their snarling habits,
or from the Cynosarges, in which Antisthenes, the founder
of the school, used to lecture. It is not at all improbable
that even the name of the place was derived from the cha¬
racteristic mood of its occupants. The Cynics form one of
the three great branches of the Socratic philosophy, the
schools of Aristippus of Cyrene and Euclid of Megara be¬
ing the other two. Its founder was Antisthenes; its pror
digy, Diogenes; while, as secondary expounders of its
doctrines, or rather mimic patterns of its discipline, we have
Onesicritus, Monimus, and Crates. Perhaps no sect in
ancient times was more indebted to the peculiar idiosyncrasy
of its originators. Indeed, it originated entirely in their
own inverted ambition, and, like all professional ribaldry
and scoffing, it quickly changed its rude and caustic panto¬
mime for open indecency and licentiousness. Mistaking
the Socratic doctrine of man’s superiority to circumstances,
the Cynics not only gloried in the contempt of pleasure,
but in an utter disregard of social distirfctions, and a perfect
insensibility to the decencies and charities of life. In this
they seem to have imitated the discipline to the neglect of
the doctrine of Socrates; and the entire absence of dog¬
matic principles may fairly entitle us to challenge their
claim to the appellation of moral philosophers at all. Re¬
garding themselves as out of the pale of civilized society,
they aimed their taunts and sneers at all the minor moralities
of life, and in their caricature of what they regarded as fac¬
titious they systematically destroyed the external defences
of virtue. Their philosophy is of importance principally
as furnishing the historical antecedents of Stoicism, which,
while supplanting it, was deeply imbued with its misanthro¬
pical and unearthly morality. For the characteristic eccen^
tricities of the leading Cynics, see their biographies.
CYNOPHONTIS, in Grecian Antiquity, a festival at
Argos; so called from the killing of dogs on the occasion.
CYNOSARGES, a place in the suburbs of Athens, so
named from the mythological story of a white or swift dog
which snatched away part of the victim when Diomus was
sacrificing to Hercules. In it was a gymnasium consecrated
to Hercules, for the use of those who were not of pure Athe¬
nian blood; and also a court of judicature to try illegitimacy,
and to examine whether persons were of the pure or of the
half blood. Here the philosopher Antisthenes taught; and
his followers were called Cynics, either from the place, or
from the snarling disposition and coarse mode of life of that
sect. See Cynics.
CYNOSCEPHALtE, in Ancient Geography, a rugged
mountain range in Thessaly, running parallel with the course
of the Apidanus. The range is only remarkable as having
been the scene of two battles important in Greek history ;
in the first of which—fought between the Thebans and the
Pheraeans b.c. 364—Pelopidas the Theban general was
slain ; in the second, fought between the Greeks and Ro¬
mans b.c. 197, Philip the last king of Macedon was defeated
and taken prisoner by the consul Flamininus.
CYNOSURA, in Mythology, a nymph of Ida, in Crete,
and one of the nurses of Jupiter, who placed her among the
stars.
This was also the name of a promontory in Attica, to the
south of Marathon.
C Y P
CYNOSURE (Kvvoo-ovpa, dog’s tail), in Astronomy, the Cynosure
name given by the Greeks to Ursa Minor, the little bear. II,
This constellation is near the north pole, and consists of yPmn-
seven stars, four of which are disposed like the four wheels
of a chariot, and three lengthwise like the beam : hence it
is sometimes called the Chariot, or Charles’s Wain. ‘
As seamen are accustomed to steer by this constella¬
tion, cynosure is sometimes taken for that which directs or
attracts attention.
CYNTHIA and Cynthius, in Mythology, surnames re¬
spectively of Diana and Apollo ; derived from Mount Cyn-
thus, in the island of Delos, their birthplace.
CYNURIA, in Ancient Geography, a territory in thePe-
loponnese, lying partly in Argolis and partly in Laconia,
and inhabited by a tribe of half-barbarous marauders of
Pelasgic origin, who on the approach of an enemy retired to
their fastnesses on Mount Parnon. The Cynurians were first
subdued by the Argives,to whom they remained subject with
some small intermissions till the year 547 b.c., when they fell
under the dominion of Sparta. The city of Thyrea, with a
small tract of the surrounding country, is the only part of the
Cynuria that can now be identified. At the beginning of
the Peloponnesian war, it was assigned as a dwelling-place
by the Spartans to the people of iEgina, who had been dri¬
ven out of their island by the Athenians. In the eighth
year of that war, however, the Athenians landed on the
coast, took Thyrea, and carried away the inhabitants into
captivity. By Philip of Macedon the Thyreatis was re¬
restored to the Argives; but quarrels for the possession of
the district subsisted between that people and the Spartans
till the days of Pausanias.
CYPHONISMUS, in Grecian Antiquity, punishment
by the cyphon, a kind of pillory in which slaves or criminals
were fastened by the neck. The word cyphon (kw^cov),
fi’om which cyphonismus is derived, signifies strictly a
crooked piece of wood, or the bent yoke of a plough. Some
writers suppose that this is the punishment mentioned by
Jerome in his life of Paul the Hermit (chap, ii.), in which
the body was smeared with honey, and the person so be¬
daubed was exposed, with his hands bound, to the rays of the
sun, in order to invite the attacks of flies and other vermin.
CYPRESS. See Planting.
CYPRIAN, Thasius Ccecilius, a celebrated Christian
father, who suffered martyrdom during the persecution
under Valerian and Gallienus. The precise date of his
birth is uncertain, and little is known of his history until
the period of his conversion to Christianity, a.d. 246, by
Caecilius, an aged Carthaginian presbyter. It seems cer¬
tain that he was then nearly fifty years of age ; and the
statements of Jerome and Lactantius, that he had previous¬
ly reaped a considerable fortune as a Pagan rhetorician, is
quite borne out by the florid style of his Christian oratory.
At his conversion he is said to have sold his estate for the
benefit of the poor, and devoted himself wholly to a life of
asceticism and study; but at a later period of life w^e find
him again in possession of his original property. His liber¬
ality and previous renown, as well as his zeal and eloquence
in behalf of Christianity, seems to have paved the way for
his rapid advancement in the church. At his baptism he
had been ordained a presbyter; and two years had scarcely
elapsed when he was forcibly installed archbishop of Car¬
thage—the populace thronging the avenues to his house
and effectually preventing his escape. t In the third year of
his administration, the severe edicts of Decius fell like a
thunderbolt upon the Christians of Africa; and Cyprian
found himself surrounded by multitudes who, to use his
own expression, “ fell of their own accord before the vio¬
lence of persecution had struck them down,” and in the re¬
coil of their fickle enthusiasm now eagerly clamoured that
he should be thrown to the lions. Prudence suggested the
necessity of a retreat; and with this view he retired into an
C Y P
C Y P
Cyprian, obscure solitude, from whence he could maintain a con-
stant correspondence with the clergy and people of Car¬
thage. In justification of what his enemies branded as a
pusillanimous and criminal desertion of duty, Cyprian al¬
leged the authority of a heavenly vision, which with him too
often supplied the place of a second conscience. On his re¬
turn to Cai thage, internal dissension succeeded external
persecution; and the eagerness of the Lapsed to be read¬
mitted into the church, without the preliminary penance,
occasioned more trouble to the archbishop than his hasty re-
tieat fiom danger. ^Novatus and Felicissimus, the rival can¬
didates for the see of Carthage, headed the opposition ; but
Cyprian resisted the dangerous indulgence, while the schemes
of the dissentients to provoke a schism with Rome were
thwarted by the firmness of the primate Cornelius. The
death of Decius, however, soon put an end to the brief pe¬
riod of external peace. The suspicions of Gallus were
chiefly aroused against the hierarchy, and the martyrdom of
Lucius quickly following the banishment of Cornelius was
little calculated to soothe the minds of the African bishops.
The fury of the people was, however, mainly directed against
the Christian laity, who, in the midst of pestilence and the
fierceness of persecutors, not only refused to join in the pro¬
pitiatory Pagan sacrifices, but resolutely justified these ca¬
lamities as judgments on the state religion, and boldly prog¬
nosticated the dissolution of the world, A short but trou¬
bled interval of rest ensued upon the accession of Valerian.
Six years after, however, the latent spirit of persecution broke
out afresh, and Cyprian, summoned before tl\e proconsul Pa-
ternus, was presented with an imperial mandate requiring that
he should abjure the Christian religion. Cyprian boldly re¬
plying that he was a Christian and a bishop, devoted to
the worship of the true and only Deity, was immediately
condemned to banishment. He was conducted without de¬
lay to Curubis, a maritime city of Zeugitania, about forty
miles from Carthage. Here the exiled bishop enjoyed all
the conveniences of life, and his solitude was often cheered
by the letters, visits, and congratulations of the faithful.
On the arrival of a new proconsul in the province, the for¬
tunes of Cyprian began to wear a more favourable aspect.
He was recalled from banishment; and though not yet per¬
mitted to return to Carthage, his own gardens in the neigh¬
bourhood of the capital were assigned for his place of resi¬
dence. At length, exactly one year after his first appre¬
hension, the imperial warrant arrived for the summary
execution of the Christian teachers; and Cyprian, resisting
the temptations to flight, returned to his gardens to await
the ministers of death. On his apprehension he was con¬
veyed not to prison but to a private house, where at an ele¬
gant supper his friends were permitted for the last time to
enjoy the society of their spiritual father. In the morning
he was brought before the tribunal of the proconsul, and
commanded to offer sacrifices to the gods of Rome. His
refusal was firm and decisive, and the magistrate pronounced
with reluctance the sentence of death. Surrounded by his
faithful presbyters and deacons, who assisted him in doffing
his upper garment, and spread linen on the ground to catch
the precious relics of his blood, the martyr covered his face
with his hands, and at one blow his head was severed from
his body (a.d. 258). His corpse remained for some hours
exposed to the curiosity of the Pagans; but in the night it
was removed, and transported in a triumphal procession,
and with a splendid illumination, to the burial-place of
the Christians.
The works of Cyprian are numerous and valuable, and
some of them—as, for instance, the treatise On the Unity
of the Catholic Church—undoubtedly mark an epoch in the
history of the questions of which they treat. All his writings
bear evidence of having been written under strong emotion;
and the disputes which marked the commencement of his
ecclesiastical career imparted to his mind a tone of spiritual
VOL. VII.
dogmatism, of which we find traces even to the close of his
life. His tracts too not unflequently degenerate from piety
to enthusiasm, from righteous indignation to personal viru¬
lence and malice. Among his principal works his treatise De
Lapsis, i.e., concerning the treatment of those who, during
the persecutions, had lapsed into idolatry, is greatly dis^
figured by a profusion of miraculous stories, which are curious
as occurring in the works of a man too clear-headed to be
deceived, and whose biography stands in marked contrast to
the lives of the other Fathers in the prosaic and historical
character of its details. His treatise Be Unitate Eccle-
sicc Catholics is interesting as marking the transition from
the spiritual to the outward idea of church unity. Many
of its most decisive passages, however, are controverted ;
but from an undisputed passage in his epistle to Cornelius,
in which he styles “the chair of Peter the fountain of all
ecclesiastical authority,” it seems certain that he held the
opinions expressed in his treatise. His more practical
works, in regard to Martyrdom, Mortality, the Dress of
I irgins, the Duty of Almsgiving, &c., are characterized by
great firmness and earnestness, and are full of valuable in¬
cidental allusions to the manners and customs of his age.
Most of his works have been translated into English. The
great authority for his life is his biography by Pontius, a
Carthaginian deacon.
Cyprian, belonging to Cyprus ; hence used as an epithet
of Venus, who is frequently styled in poetry the Cvprian
Queen.
CYPRUS {Kyhris) an island in the N.E. corner of the
Levant, lying at about equal distances from the shores of
Cilicia and Phoenicia. Its extreme length from the pro¬
montory of Dinaretum to that of A camas is about 140
miles ; its extreme breadth, from the promontory of Crom-
myon to that of Curias, about /0 miles. The area is roughly
estimated at about 4o00 English square miles. The greater
part of the island is occupied by the central ridge and spurs
of the Stavro-Vuno and Santo Croce mountains (the an¬
cient Olympus). The loftiest peaks of this range attain a
height of from 8000 to 10,000 feet above the sea. Their
northern slopes are rocky and bare, but on the side of the
south they are well-wooded and highly picturesque, and
inclose in various parts of their course valleys of unri¬
valled fertility. The outline of these mountains is rugged
and highly imposing in general effect, but they are not re¬
markable in the legends or traditions of early history.
Santa Croce, however, is note-worthy, as on it stands a
church said to have been built by Helena, the mother of
Constantine; and another peak on the northern side of
the island still shows an old castle and a monastery com¬
manding a magnificent view. The whole island only con¬
tains two plains of any magnitude. The largest of these
begins at the city of Salamis, on the eastern side of the
island, and extends westward to the city of Tamasus; the
other, which also extends westward, begins at the town of
Citium, and stretches inland to the southern slopes of Mount
Olympus. The first of these plains, whose fertility has
always been remarkable, was called Messarma, and was wa¬
tered by the Pediaeus ; the other, which was no less fertile,
was watered by the Tretus. Except these two districts
and occasional valleys in the range of Olympus, the island
is for the most part beyond the reach of cultivation.
Considerable part of the wealth of ancient Cyprus arose
from its copper mines, the most important of which were
those of Tamasus in the centre of the island, Soli on the
north coast, and Amathus and Cyrium on the south coast.
In these mines gold and silver were also found. The pre¬
cious stones of Cyprus were also highly valued. The chief
of these were the emerald, agate, malachite, jasper, opal,
and the minerals asbestos and rock crystal.
1 he first settlers in Cyprus appear to have been of Phoe¬
nician origin, and as early as the days of Solomon acknow-
4 H
609
610
Cypselus.
C Y F
ledged the supremacy of the Syrians. To them the Greeks
succeeded. They in turn were reduced by the Egyptians
under Amasis, who kept the island until dispossessed by the
superior power of the Persian Cambyses. An attempt made
shortly after this by the Greek portion of the inhabitants
to throw off the Persian yoke was put down, and the island
remained subject to its oriental conquerors till the overthrow
of their naval power at Salamis. Afterwards Cyprus was
governed alternately by Greeks and Persians till the days
of Alexander the Great, when it declared for that monarch,
and sent a fleet to assist him in his eastern conquests.
Upon Alexander’s death Cyprus was incorporated with
Egypt, and fell to the lot of Ptolemy. It was wrested from
Ptolemy by Demetrius Poliorcetes, who retained it for
about ten years; at the end of which period it once more
fell into the hands of Ptolemy, by whose successors it was
carefully watched over, and to whose annual revenues it
contributed a very large proportion. It remained in the
family of the Ptolemies as a sort of storehouse for the jewels
and plate belonging to the Egyptian crown, till in B.c. 58
it became a province of the Roman empire, and in the po¬
litical distribution of the Roman conquests was annexed to
Cilicia, having, however, a quaestor and judicial courts of
its own. Under Augustus it became an imperial province,
and was governed by a proconsul with a staff of inferior
officers. Before the close of the first century of the Chris¬
tian era the Jewish population of the island had greatly in¬
creased, and in the reign of Hadrian is said to have risen
in rebellion and slain 200,000 of the other inhabitants.
In the seventh century Cyprus fell into the hands of the
Saracens; and in the ninth it owned the supremacy of the
“ good” Haroun A1 Raschid. At the close of the twelfth
century it was conquered by Richard Coeur de Lion, who
made it over first to the knights of the Temple, and ulti¬
mately to Guy of Lusignan, titular king of Jerusalem. For
three centuries the island remained in the family of Lusig¬
nan, till in 1473 it became an appanage of the Venetian
republic. Cyprus was retained by the Venetians till in
1571 it was overrun by an army of Turkish invaders, who
stormed Lefkosia and Famagosta, and made a general mas¬
sacre of the inhabitants. Since that date the island has re¬
mained in possession of the Turks, and now forms a pashalic
in the Eyalet of Djizairs. Under the Turkish rule the
material prosperity of Cyprus has greatly declined. In the
times of the Venetian supremacy the island maintained a
population of 1,000,000: its present population is only
about 150,000, of whom the great majority are Greeks.
Many parts of the island formerly healthy and fertile are
now, from malaria and other causes, barren and uninhabit¬
able. Its trade was at one time valuable and important;
now the value of its annual imports does not exceed
L.26,000 ; of its exports about L.60,000. Besides corn, of
which it produces about 120,000 quarters annually, Cyprus
yields in considerable quantities cotton, wine, various kinds
of fruit, opium, and madder ; while the mountain districts
furnish olives, pines, and many species of valuable timber.
On the island are found great quantities of the Ferula greeca,
which the Cypriote applies to a great variety of domestic
purposes. I his is the plant whose uses are feigned by the
poets to have been taught to mortals of old by Prometheus.
Knights of Cyprus, an order instituted by Guy of Lu¬
signan, titular king of Jerusalem, to whom Richard I. of
England, after conquering Cyprus, made over that island,
a.d. 1191.
CYPSELUS, a tyrant of Corinth, and father of the more
renowned Periander, flourished about the middle of the
seventh century b.c. It had been foretold by the Delphic
oracle that he would prove formidable to the reigning family,
who accordingly despatched officers to destroy the child as
soon as he should be born. His mother, however, con¬
cealed him in a chest, from the Greek word for which
C Y R
(cgpsele) the boy derived his name. This chest was ever Cyr
after preserved with peculiar care by the descendants of ||
Cypselus. A minute description of it is given in Pausa- Cyrenaics.
nias (v. 17). See Corinth.
CYR, St, a village of France, Seine-et-Oise, arrondisse-
ment of Versailles, and three miles W. of that town. It
is celebrated for an institution founded here by Louis
XIV., at the suggestion of Madame de Maintenon, for
the education of 250 young ladies of noble birth. Racine’s
tragedies of “Esther” and “ Athalie” were written for and
first acted by the pupils of this establishment. It was con¬
verted by Napoleon in 1806 into a training school for in¬
fantry officers, and is still used for that purpose.
CYRENAICA, or Pentapolis, in Ancient Geography,
a district of Africa, on the shores of the Mediterranean Sea,
lying exactly opposite to Greece in a southerly direction,
at the distance of about 250 miles. It received the name of
Cyrenaica from Cyrene, its chief city ; and that of Penta¬
polis from the fact of its containing five principal cities, Be¬
renice or Hesperus, Barce, Cyrene, Apollonia, and Arsinoe.
The district included that portion of the African continent
which stretched from the borders of Africa Propria, be¬
ginning at the town of Ara Philemon on the west, to the
frontier of Egypt on the east. The breadth of the dis¬
trict, measuring from the Mediterranean to the confines
of the great desert, is about 80 miles. On its southern
frontier Cyrenaica is protected from the scorching winds of
the Sahara by a range of lofty mountains which descend in
gradual slopes to the sea, producing thus within a small
compass a great variety of climate and temperature. From
this circumstance the vegetable products of Cyrenaica com¬
prise almost every species to be found both in the tropical
and temperate zones; and as its position was admirably
adapted for commerce, nothing was wanting but an enter¬
prising population to turn these advantages to account,
and make the country one of the most valuable in the
world. The people of Thera, under Battus a native of
that island, were the first to colonize Cyrenaica. After a
slight opposition from the native tribes, they established
themselves in the country, and founded Cyrene b.c. 631.
Other cities soon began to spring up in advantageous situ¬
ations, which acknowledged Cyrene as the capital of the
country, but were really quite independent of it, and at
length threw off its yoke altogether. After the invasion of
Cambyses the regal form of government was entirely abo¬
lished, and the republican substituted in its room. Under
the Ptolemaic dynasty of Egypt (with which country Cyre¬
naica was incorporated B.c. 321), Cyrenaica rose into
great importance from the extent and value of its com¬
merce. At the beginning of the first century b.c. it was
bequeathed by will to the Romans by Apion, the last
lineal representative of the Ptolemies. Soon afterwards it
became a Roman province, and along with the island of
Crete was governed by a Roman proconsul. The com¬
mercial prosperity of Cyrenaica, however, continued unim¬
paired till the revolt of the Jews in the province during the
reign of Trajan. This revolt was only quelled after the
most bloody atrocities had been perpetrated on both sides;
and the population was so much diminished in the contest,
that the native tribes recommenced their incursions, and
overran the province up to the walls of the principal cities.
In the middle of the seventh century of the Christian era the
whole country passed into the hands of the Saracens. From
that time till the present the country has been occupied by
tribes of wandering Arabs nominally subject to the pasha of
Tripoli. See Beechy’s Expedition; Pacho ; Barth, &c.
CYRENAICS, an ancient philosophical sect, so called
from Cyrene, the birthplace of Aristippus its founder. Like
the Cynic and Megarian schools, it emerged directly from the
Socratic philosophy; and while these schools afterwards com¬
bined to form the system of Stoicism, the Cyrenaic, after
Cyril.
C Y R
Cyrene receiving modifications from the hands of Hegesias, Anni-
ceris, and Theodorus, was ultimately merged in the kindred
philosophy of Epicurus.
With them the sunwiiim bonum was pleasure, and
that not merely as identical with a general tranquillity of
mind, but as composed of a great variety of individual plea¬
sant sensations. The choice, then, of what is individually
pleasurable, and the rejection of what is individually pain¬
ful, becomes the great practical rule of life and action; and
it is the intellectual faculty which strikes the balance and
determines the choice. In this way, the Cyrenaic philoso¬
phy was a one-sided development of the Socratic, being based
on the doctrine of that great sage in regard to the connection
of reason and intellect with virtue; while the Cynic school
confined its view almost exclusively to his rigid discipline.
C\ RENE (GhrennaK), the capital of Cyrenaica, was
situated on the northern slope of a lofty table-land nearly
2000 feet above the level of the sea, from which it was 10
miles distant. It was the first town of Cyrenaica founded
by Battus and his Therian followers (see Cyrenaica), and
very soon rose into great importance as a commercial mart.
The policy of Battus led him to conciliate the aboriginal
tribes of Libya, with whom his subjects began at an early
period to torm matrimonial alliances. In a short time the
intermixture of African blood was so general that the royal
family itself became affected by it. The natives, however,
as in all colonies formed on the principles of Spartan policy,
were scrupulously excluded from any participation in the
government of the state. For eight generations, as had
been foretold by the Delphic oracle, Cyrene continued to
be governed by the dynasty of Battus, whose kings ruled
under the names of Battus and Arcesilaus alternately. After
this family had occupied the throne for 200 years, the kingly
government was overthrown and a republic substituted.
Cyrenaica now became an appanage of the Egyptian crown ;
and the Ptolemies, carrying out their usual policy, foster¬
ed Apollonia, the port of Cyrene, to such an extent that the
latter city soon fell into decay. In later days, Cyrene was
known as a Roman province under the name of Flavia.
Cyrene was noted among the ancients for the intellectual
vitality of its inhabitants. Callimachus the poet, and Car-
nea.des the founder of the New Academy at Athens, were
natives of Cyrene, which at an early period was noted for
its medical school. Synesius, surnamed the Philosopher,
one of the most elegant of the ancient Christian writers, was
also a native of Cyrene. Aristippus, a pupil of Socrates,
founded a school of philosophy, which, from the birthplace
of the founder, was called the Cyrenaic School. The ruins
of the town, to which the Turks have given the name of
Ghrennah, are still distinctly visible. They cover a great
extent of ground, but have been sadly defaced by the va¬
rious races which have overrun the country.
CYRIL, St, bishop of Jerusalem, was born in that city
about a.d. 315. He was ordained priest by Maximus the
patriarch, under whom he held the office of catechist; and
chiefly through the influence of Acacius of Caesarea he was
chosen to fill the vacant see of his spiritual father (a.d. 351).
The opening of his episcopate was signalized by the ap¬
pearance, during the festival of Pentecost, of a luminous
cross in the heavens, stretching for two miles from Golgotha
to Olivet; but the prestige of the omen did not prevent the
immediate outbreak of a quarrel between him and the rival
metropolitan of Caesaraea. The subject of dispute was the
consubstantiality of the Son ; but the real origin of the dis¬
agreement may be traced to the firmness of Cyril in main¬
taining the independence of his see. After contesting their
claims with various success before the synod of the bishops
of Palestine, the emperor Constantins, and the synod of
Seleucia, Cyril was at length deposed by the council of
Constantinople. After a short period of retirement spent
at Tarsus, he returned to his see on the accession of Julian,
C Y R
611
but was a second time expelled by the Arian bishop of Con¬
stantinople. He was finally restored, under the Trinitarian
Theodosius, by the council of Constantinople (a.d. 381).
The principal works of Cyril are his Eighteen Catechetical
Discourses, consisting of brief expositions of Christian doc¬
trine to the catechumens of his diocese. The last five, en¬
titled Mystagogical Lectures, are devoted chiefly to an ex¬
position of the sacraments. Independently of the prodigy
of the radiant cross that marked the commencement, and
the prophecy of the miraculous interruption of Julian’s at¬
tempt to rebuild Jerusalem, that signalized the close of his
career, we have ample proof in his writings of the super¬
stitious caste of Cyril’s mind. He was particularly enthu¬
siastic in inculcating the adoration of the cross, and firmly
believed in the miraculous multiplication of its fragments.
Amongst other doctrines, we find great prominence given
to the perpetual virginity of Mary, and transubstantiation.
His writings are valuable as giving elaborate accounts of the
ritual of the church over which he presided.
Cyril, St, patriarch of Alexandria, was educated under
his uncle Theophilus, the bishop of that place, and spent a
considerable part of his youth in the adjacent monasteries of
Nitria. From this solitude, however, he was recalled by his
uncle, who installed him as preacher in the cathedral, and
instilled into his mind those lessons of zeal and dominion
which the unscrupulous antagonist of Chrysostom was so
well qualified to impart. On the death of Theophilus the
clergy were divided in their choice of a successor; but a
resistless multitude asserted the cause of their favourite arch¬
deacon, and the ambitious Cyril was duly installed in the
throne of Athanasius. Like Nestorius, the contemporary
bishop of Constantinople, he began his patriarchal reign
with a vigorous persecution of heretics ; and the first victims
were the Novatians, the most innocent of all the existing
sects. His next stroke was aimed at the Jews, whom he
attacked at the head of a seditious multitude, and levelled
their synagogues with the ground. Hypatia, the daughter
of Theon the mathematician, was the next to excite his
jealousy; and having been represented as alienating the
mind of the governor from the clergy, she was dragged to
the church and murdered by a band ‘of merciless fanatics.
(See Hypatia.) One step only remained to gratify his am¬
bition ; and the phraseology of Nestorius (acquired in the
Syrian school) in regard to the two natures of Christ, afforded
an admirable opportunity for the degradation of the Byzan¬
tine pontiff. After a short correspondence, the patriarch
of Alexandria denounced to the emperor the heresy of Nes¬
torius, and carried his plea to the Vatican. Pope Celestine,
ignorant of Greek, and therefore incapable of realizing the
defence of the accused, hastily assembled a council, which
condemned Nestorius and degraded him from his rank.
From Rome the contest travelled back to Ephesus, and
there the arrival of the Eastern bishops under John of An¬
tioch converted the ecclesiastical quarrel into a warlike feud.
I he intrigues of Cyril, however, triumphed over every ob¬
stacle ; and after an appeal to Theodosius the emperor, the
belligerents, partially reconciled, concurred in the condem¬
nation of Nestorius. On returning to Alexandria, Cyril
was engaged in a controversy with Theodoret, which lasted
till his death, a.d. 444. The principal works of Cyril are
his Glaphyra, or commentaries, and a variety of contro¬
versial treatises and epistles. The former are disfigured by
a constant rage for allegorizing; and the latter, besides the
obscurity arising from the abstruse nature of their subjects,
are involved in additional uncertainty bv the ruggedness
and obscurity of his style.
CYRUS, surnamed the Great, or the Elder, the
founder of the Persian empire, was the son of Cambyses
the Persian, by Mandane, the daughter of Astyages, king
of the Medes. 1 he two principal historians who have writ¬
ten the life of Cyrus are Herodotus and Xenophon; but
Cyril
II
Cyrus.
612 C Y R U S.
Cyrus, their accounts differ in this, that the latter represents his
father as a king of Persia, and the former as a man of
humble origin.
Herodotus relates that Astyages, king of the Medes,
having dreamed that a vine sprung from the womb of his
daughter Mandane, the branches of which overshadowed all
Asia, consulted the soothsayers, by whom he was told that
his dream portended the future power and greatness ot a
child which should be born of his daughter, and further,
that the same child would deprive him of his kingdom. In
order to prevent the accomplishment of this prediction,
Astyages, instead of marrying his daughter to some power¬
ful prince, gave her hand to Cambyses, a Persian of mean
condition, and one who had no great capacity for forming
any important design, or for supporting the ambition of his
son by his own riches and authority. But Astyages did not
stop) here. As soon as he understood that his daughter was
pregnant, he commanded one of his officers, named Harpa-
gus, to destroy the infant whenever it came into the world.
But Harpagus, dreading the resentment of Mandane, put
the child into the hands of one of the king’s shepherds, with
orders to expose him. The shepherd’s wife, however, was
so touched with the beauty of Cyrus, that she desired her
husband rather to expose her own son, who had been born
some time before, and to preserve the young prince. In
this manner Cyrus was saved from an early death, and
brought up among the king’s shepherds.
When Cyrus had grown up, Harpagus disclosed to him
the whole secret of his birth, together with the manner in
which he had delivered him from the cruel resolution of
his grandfather; encouraged him to go into Media, and
promised to furnish him with forces, in order to make him
master of the country, and to depose Astyages. Cyrus
agreed to these propositions, engaged the Persians to take
up arms against the Medes, marched at their head to
meet Astyages, defeated him, and possessed himself of
Media. He also carried on many other wars ; and at length
sat down before Babylon, which, after a long siege, surren¬
dered to his arms.
The relation given of the life of Cyrus by Xenophon,
in his philosophical romance, is, however, very different.
According to him, Astyages, king of Media, married his
daughter Mandane to Cambyses, king of Persia, son of
Achsemenes, king of the same nation. Cyrus was born at
his father’s court, and was educated with all the care which
his birth required. When he was about the age of twelve
years, his grandfather, Astyages, sent for him to Media, to¬
gether with his mother Mandane; and some time after¬
wards, the king of Assyria’s son having invaded Media,
Astyages, with his son Cyaxares and his grandson Cyrus,
marched against him. Cyrus distinguished himself in this
war, and defeated the Assyrians. Cambyses afterwards
recalled him, that he might have him near his own person.
On the death of Astyages, his son Cyaxares, uncle of Cyrus
by the mother’s side, succeeded to the kingdom of Media.
At the age of thirty Cyrus was appointed, by his father
Cambyses, general of the Persian troops, and sent at the
head of 30,000 men to the assistance of his uncle Cyaxares,
whom the king of Babylon—with his allies the Cappado¬
cians, Carians, Phrygians, Cilicians, and Paphlagonians—
was preparing to attack. But Cyaxares and Cyrus pre¬
vented them, by falling upon them and dispersing them.
Cyrus advanced as far as Babylon, and spread terror through¬
out the whole country. From this expedition he retired to¬
wards the frontiers of Armenia and Assyria, and was received
by Cyaxares in the tent of the Assyrian king whom he had
defeated. &
Afterwards Cyrus carried the war into the countries be¬
yond the river Halys, and having entered Cappadocia, en¬
tirely subdued that country. Thence he marched against
Croesus, king of Lydia, defeated him in battle, besieged him
in Sardis, his capital, and, after a siege of 14 days, obliged Cyrus,
him to surrender. (See Ckcesus.) After this, Cyrus hav-
ing reduced almost all Asia, repassed the Euphrates, and
made war upon the Assyrians. He marched directly to
Babylon, took it; and there prepared a palace for the recep¬
tion of his uncle Cyaxares. After all these expeditions,
Cyrus returned to his father and mother in Persia, where
they were still living; and having gone sometime after¬
wards into Media to visit his uncle Cyaxares, he married
his cousin, the only daughter and heiress of all Cyaxares’s
dominions, and went with her to Babylon, whence he sent
men of the first rank and quality to govern the various na¬
tions which he had conquered. He engaged again in seve¬
ral wars, and subdued all the countries situated between
Syria and the Red Sea. He died at the age of 70, after a
reign of 30 years; but authors differ very much concern¬
ing the manner of his death. Herodotus, Justin, and
Valerius Maximus state that he died in the war against the
Scythians; and that, having fallen into an ambush which
Tomyris, queen of the Scythians, had laid for him, by
her orders his head was cut off and cast into a vessel full of
blood, the queen saying, “ Thou hast always thirsted after
human blood, now glut thyself with it.” According to
Diodorus, he was taken in an engagement and hanged;
while Ctesias relates that he died of a wound which he
had received in his thigh ; but by Xenophon’s account he
died peaceably in bed, amidst his friends and his servants ;
and certain it is, that in Alexander’s time his monument was
shown at Pasargada, in Persia.
From all this it is easy to conclude, that we are but im¬
perfectly acquainted with the history of this mighty prince,
the founder of the Persian and the desti'oyer of the Chal¬
dean empire. We learn fewer particulars of it from Scrip¬
ture, but then these are more certain than any that we have
produced. Daniel, in the famous vision in which God
showed him the ruin of several great empires, which were
to precede the birth of the Messiah, represents Cyrus under
the idea of a ram which had two horns. The ram’s horns
signify the two emph-es which Cyrus united in his person,
namely, that of the Medes, and that of the Persians, which
was greater and more powerful than the empire of the
Medes; or otherwise, these horns signify the two branches
of Cyrus’s successors. His son Cambyses having died, the
empire was transferred to Darius the son of Hystaspes,
and was continued down to Darius Codomannus, who, as
Calmet thinks, is the great horn which the he-goat, denot¬
ing Alexander, run against. Daniel also compares Cyrus
to a bear, with the three ribs in its mouth, to which it
was said, “ Arise, devour much flesh.” Cyrus succeeded
his father Cambyses in the kingdom of Persia, and Darius
the Mede (by Xenophon called Cyaxares, and Astyages
in the apocryphal chapter of Daniel) in the kingdom of the
Medes and the empire of Babylon. He was monarch of all
the East, or, as it is said, “ of all the earth,” when he per¬
mitted the Jews to return to their own country, in the year
of the world 3466, and before Jesus Christ 538. The ene¬
mies of the Hebrews prevailed on him to put a stop to the
building of the temple at Jerusalem. The prophets fre¬
quently foretold the coming of Cyrus ; and Isaiah has been
so particular as to declare his name 200 years before he was
born. Josephus says, that the Jews of Babylon showed
this passage of the prophet to Cyrus ; and that the prince,
in the edict which he granted them for their return, ac¬
knowledged that he had received the empire of the world
from the God of Israel. On account of his services to the
Jews after their captivity, Cyrus is called in Scripture
the righteous servant of Jehovah, and the shepherd of
Israel. According to the best accounts he was born in
b.c. 594, and died b.c. 530.
Cyrus II. was the younger son of Darius Nothus and of
Parysatis, and the brother of Artaxerxes. He was sent by
C Y Z
liis father at the of sixteen to assist the LacecJsemonians
against the Athenians. Artaxerxes succeeded to the throne
at the death of ^othusj and Cyrus^ who deemed himself
according to the Persian law, his father’s legitimate succes¬
sor, attempted to dispossess him. His attempt was dis¬
covered, and he would have been punished with death, had
not his mother Parysatis saved him from the hands of the
executionei by her tears and entreaties. Xhis circumstance
did not in the least check the ambition of Cyrus. He was
appointed satiap of Lydia and of Asia Minor, where he
secretly fomented rebellion, and levied troops under various
pietences. At last he took the field with an army of
100,000 barbarians, and 13,000 Greeks, under the com¬
mand of Clearchus ; and Artaxerxes met him with 900,000
men near Cunaxa. Ihe battle was long and bloody, and
Cyius might perhaps have obtained the victory, had not his
rashness pioved his ruin. It is said that the two roval bro¬
thers met in person, and that their engagement ended in
the death of Cyrus, b.c. 401. Artaxerxes was so anxious
to have it universally reported that his brother had fallen
by his hand, that he put to death two of his subjects for
boasting that they had killed Cyrus. The Greeks who
wei e engaged in the expedition obtained much glory in the
battle, and after the death of Cyrus they remained victo¬
rious in the field without a commander. Though at the
distance of above 600 leagues from their country, and sur¬
rounded on every side by a powerful enemy, they were not
discouraged. Having united in the election of commanders,
they commenced their homeward march in face of the vastly
superior numbers of the enemy. This march is known in
history as the retreat of the Ten Thousand, and forms the
subject of Xenophon s most popular work, the Anabasis.
CYTHERA (now Cerigo), an island in the Mediter¬
ranean, off the southern coast of Laconia. Its greatest
length is about 19 miles from N. to S.; its greatest breadth
about 10 from E. to W. It is for the most part rocky and
barren, and is chiefly interesting from its association with
the early worship of Venus. That goddess, whose worship
was originally introduced into this island from Syria, was
fabled in the ancient mythology to have sprung from the
foam of the sea near Cythera. From this circumstance she
was called by the Greeks Aphrodite. Cythera originally
belonged to the Argives, from whom it passed to the Spar¬
tans. In the Peloponnesian war it was seized by the Athe¬
nians under Nicias. Before the close of the war it once
more reverted to Sparta, but in 393 b.c. the Athenians again
got possession of it. The chief towns of the island were
Scandeia and Cythera. See Ionian Islands.
CIS I (kvo-tis, a bladder), a bag or tunic inclosing mor¬
bid matter in animal bodies.
CYSTIC, pertaining to or contained in a cyst. For ex¬
planation of the terms cystic duct and cystic artery, see
Anatomy. ’
CYZICENA, among the ancient Greeks, magnificent
banqueting halls looking towards the north, and usually
opening upon gardens: so called from Cyzicus, a city fa¬
mous for the grandeur of its buildings.
CYZICUS, in Ancient Geography, a town of Mysia, in
Asia Minor, situated on the narrowest part of a consider¬
able peninsula which juts out into the Propontis on its
southern shore. This peninsula was at one time an island,
and was believed to have been joined to the mainland by
Alexander the Great with moles and bridges. During
the Peloponnesian war, Cyzicus was alternately subject to
the Athenians and Lacedaemonians, as the power of either
state predominated. At this period, however, it was a very
unimportant place. At the peace of Antalcidas, Cyzicus,
like the other Greek cities in Asia, was made over to
I ersia. The greatness and prosperity of the town did not
commence till about b.c. 74, when the Cyzicenes, under
circumstances of great difficulty, repelled Mithridates from
tneir walls, and kept the town till relieved bv Lucullus.
C Z E
613
For their bravery and devotion at this time they were re- Czar
warded with peculiar honours and privileges by the Romans ||
and presented with a large tract of the rich land adjoinim*- Czegled.
then city. Cyzicus was seriously injured by an earthquake
in the reign of Antoninus Pius, and from that period (gra¬
dually declined. The ruins of Cyzicus, which once boasted
a very large number of splendid temples and public build¬
ings, are still traceable among the orchards and vineyards
that have overgrown its site.
CZAR, a title assumed by the grand dukes, or, as they
are now styled, emperors of Russia.
The natives pronounce it tzar, tsar, or zaar; and this,
it has been supposed, by corruption from Ccesar. But this
etymology does not seem correct. When the Czar Peter
formerly required of the European courts an acknowledg¬
ment of his imperial titles, and that the appellation of Em¬
peror should never be omitted, there was great difficulty
made about it, especially at the court of Vienna; a circum¬
stance which led him to produce the famous letter, written
vr ,^rman’ fijorn Maximilian I. emperor of Germany to
Vassih Ivanovitch, confirming a treaty of alliance offensive
anc. defensive against Sigismund, king of Poland. In this
despatch, which is dated the 4th of August 1514, and is
ratified with the seal of the golden bull, Maximilian ad-
cesses Vassili by the titles Kayser and Herrscher aller
Jxussen, emperor and ruler of all the Russias. But inde¬
pendently of this document, there could be no doubt that
the foreign courts, in their intercourse with that of Moscow,
sty ed the sovereigns indiscriminately Great Duke, Czar,
and Emperor. With respect to England, in particular, it is
certain that, in Chancellor’s Account of Russia, published
as early as the middle of the sixteenth century, Ivan Vas-
silievitch II. is called Lord and Emperor of all Russia; and
in the English despatches, from the reign of Elizabeth to
that of Anne, he is generally addressed under the same ap¬
pellation. When the European powers, however, styled the
czar Emperor of Muscovy, they by no means intended to
give him a title similar to that which was peculiar to the
emperor of Germany; but they bestowed upon him that
appellation as upon an Asiatic sovereign, in the same man¬
ner as we now speak of the emperors of China and Japan.
When Peter, therefore, determined to assume the title of
emperor, he found no difficulty in proving that it had
been conferred upon his predecessors by most of the Eu¬
ropean powers; yet when he was desirous of affixing to
the term the European sense, it was considered as an in¬
novation, and was productive of more negotiations than
would have been requisite for the termination of the most
important state affair. At the same time it occasioned a
curious controversy among the learned concerning the
rise and progress of the titles by which the monarchs of the
country in question have been distinguished. From their
researches it appeared that the early sovereigns of Russia
were called great dukes; that Vassili Ivanovitch was pro¬
bably the first who styled himself tzar, an expression which
in the Sclavonian language signifies king; and that his
successors continued to bear, within their own dominions,
that title as the most honourable appellation, until Peter the
Great first assumed that of Povelitel, or emperor. After
many delays and objections, the principal courts of Europe
consented, about the year 1/22, to address the sovereign
of Russia by the title of Emperor, without prejudice, never¬
theless, to the other crowned heads of Europe.
CZASLAU, a town of Bohemia, situated near the left
bank of an affluent of the Elbe, 48 miles E.S.E. of Prague.
The church is surmounted by a lofty spire, and contains
the tomb of the celebrated Hussite leader Ziska, who died
in 1424. Here Frederick the Great defeated the Austrians,
May ] 7, 1742. Pop. about 4000.
CZEGLED, a large market-town of Hungary, 40 miles
S.E. of Pesth. Pop. about 30,000. Its chief products
are corn and wine.
*
614
D.
7) | A in the English alphabet, the fourth letter, and the
|| -*-'5 third consonant, is the medial of the order of dentals
Dacca. or palato-dentals. It is the fourth letter also in the Hebrew,
Chaldee, Samaritan, Syriac, Greek, and Latin alphabets.
The form of our D is the same with that of the Latins;
and the Latin D is no other than the Greek A, with the
ano-le on the right hand rounded off into a curve. The A
of the Greeks, again, is borrowed from the ancient character
of the Hebrew Daleth. . rm rrn t\
D is sometimes put for the aspirate Ik, as Iheos, JJeus;
sometimes it is converted into B, as Duellum, Helium, Duel-
lona, Bellona. It has also an affinity with T, as Quinti¬
lian has observed (lib. i. c. 4); and hence we meet with
Alexanter and Cassantra, for Alexander and Cassandra,
and, vice versa, quodannis and adque, for quotannis and
atque. In like manner, it is interchanged with R for the
sake of euphony, as in meridies for medidies. In praeno-
mens D stands for Decimus, and in the titles of emperors for
Dims. It is also a numeral letter, representing five hun¬
dred, This arises from the circumstance that the letter D
is analogous in form to 13, the half of CI3, which is the
t Roman numeral expression for a thousand. With a dash
placed on the top thus, D, its value is increased tenfold, or,
in other words, it stands for Jive thousand. Used as an ab¬
breviation, D has various significations, for which see the
article Abbreviations.
DACCA Jelalpore. See Fureedpore.
Dacca, an extensive and rich district in the eastern
quarter of the province of Bengal, situated between the
24th and 25th degrees of north latitude, and within the
91st degree of east longitude. It is bounded on the north
by Mymunsingh, on the south by Backergunge, on the
east by Tipperah, and on the west by Dacca Jelalpore,
or Fureedpore; and has an area of 1960 square miles.
Prior to the arrangement adopted in 1800, by which this
province was separated from the Backergunge jurisdiction,
it was one of the largest and most valuable in Bengal,
stretching as far south as the sea, and reaching north to
the Garrow Mountains. The country is divided into a great
number of valuable zemindaries or estates. It is intersected
by offsets from the Ganges and Brahmapootra, two of the
largest rivers in the world, which, with their branches cross¬
ing the country in all directions, form a complete inland
navigation, every town and village having its canal or river,
—the general mode of travelling or conveying goods being
• by water. By the confluence of these two great rivers
rushing impetuously to the sea, great changes are. often
made in the boundaries of estates, the river encroaching on
some parts and abandoning others. Hence it almost in¬
variably happens that as much is gained on one side as is
lost on the other by the operation of the current and the
opposing tides ; whilst repeated overflowings, with rich de¬
posits of mould washed down by the stream, give extraor¬
dinary fertility to the extensive inundated borders of the
river. In point of general fertility and productiveness the
district of Dacca ranks below the neighbouring zillahs of
Fureedpore and Mymunsingh. The principal articles of
cultivation are sugar, indigo, tobacco, cotton, betel-nut, and
hemp. The grain produced is not sufficient for the con¬
sumption of the inhabitants, and supplies are obtained from
Sylhet, Backergunge, Mymunsingh, and Tipperah. At¬
tempts have been made to introduce the American cotton,
but the climate appears to be unsuitable for the purpose.
This province is distinguished for its various fabrics of
cotton. It has manufactures of plain as well as flowered,
striped, or chequered muslins ; and the beautiful fabrics of
Dacca surpass in fineness the produce of any other coun- v
try. Dimities of various kinds and patterns, and cloths re¬
sembling diaper and damask linen, are also made. The ex¬
port of all these articles has, however, greatly decreased.
This country is entirely alluvial, and in the rainy sea¬
son is mostly overflowed, exhibiting the appearance of
an inland sea, with towns and villages rising out of the
water. The principal towns of this district are Dacca,
Narraingunge, and Islampoor. During the Mohammedan
government this district was ruled by a deputy of the na¬
bob, called the naib nazim. The last person who held the
office was Jessarut Khan, who having been ordered by Cos-
sim Ali Khan in the year 1763 to put all the English at
Dacca to death, very humanely sent them under the pro¬
tection of a trusty guard to Calcutta. Upon the acquisition
of the Dewanny in 1765 an adequate provision was made
for the Dacca Nawaub; and his successors continued sti¬
pendiaries of the British government until the year 1845,
wffien the title became extinct by the death of the last pos¬
sessor without heirs. The population ot the district is.
estimated at 600,000, which indicates a relative density ot
306 to the square mile. (e- t-)
Dacca, the capital of the above district, a large city, and
for eighty years the capital of Bengal, of which it is still
the third city in point of extent and population. It is si¬
tuated beyond the principal stream of the Ganges, on the
northern bank of a very large branch of that river, called
the Boor Gunga, or Old Ganges, at the distance of a hun¬
dred miles from the mouth of the Ganges. Its position is
admirably well adapted for inland trade, as the river which
flows past it communicates with all the other inland navi¬
gations by a direct course. The present town covers a great
deal of ground, extending four miles along the bank of the
river, though it is not of proportional breadth. The houses
of the wealthy are built of brick, but there are many
thatched houses, with very narrow and crooked streets ; the
bazaars are only tiled or thatched ; and as every vacant spot
is covered with trees, the town looks from a distance like a
grove. The ancient citadel was situated on the western
side of the town ; but it is now in ruins, great part of the
wall having been washed away by the river. An extensive
and magnificent palace, built by Azim Ushaun, Aurung-
zebe’s grandson, who resided here towards the end of the
seventeenth century, is also in ruins.
Owing to the irresistible effects of British competition,
the manufactures of Dacca are at this time scarcely desei v-
ing of notice ; but here were formerly manufactured the
most beautiful muslins, wdiich were exported to all quarters
of the world, and which had long been famed for their deli¬
cacy and beauty. The spinning of the thread was carried
on with wonderful nicety. The operation was performed
with the fingers on a fine steel spindle by young women,
who could only work during the early part ot the morning
while the dew was on the ground; for such was the ex¬
treme tenuity of the fibre that it would not bear manipu¬
lation after the sun had risen. Such was the skill of the
darners that they could remove an entire thread from a
piece of muslin, and replace it by one of a finer texture.
From their wonderful fineness these muslins were calle
Abrawan, or “ flowing water,” and Shabnam, “ evening
dew.” The same violent heats do not prevail here as in
Benares, Patna, and other places in Bahar. Ihis is owing
to the low lying situation of the surrounding country, which
is always covered with verdure, even during the dry months.
Dacca.
Dace
II
Dacier.
D A C
The unhealthy season is in autumn, from the 20th of August
to the 10th of October, when the rivers and inundation’are
^ subsiding. During the remainder of the year the city and
its vicinity are salubrious and pleasant, though the climate
is more relaxing than that of the northern provinces.
Dacca is comparatively a modern city, its name not beino-
mentioned in the Ayeen Acberry, nor by Ferishta. The
houses being formed of combustible materials, it* suffers
frequently by conflagrations. Dacca still continues very
populous. The number of its inhabitants has been estimated
at 66,989, of which number 31,429 were Brahminists,
35,238 Mussulmans, and 322 Armenians and others; the
whole residing in 16,279 houses. Distance from Calcutta,
N.E. 150 miles. Lat. 23. 43.; Long. 90. 25. (e. t.)
DACE. See Angling, and Ichthyology.
DACIA, in Ancient Geography, a large district of country
in Europe, bounded N. by the country of the Bastarnse, E.
by the river Tyras and the Euxine Sea, S. by the Danube,
and W. by the river Pathissus, or Tibiscus, the modern
Theiss. It comprehended the modern provinces of Transyl¬
vania and Wallachia, the Buckowina, the Banat of Temesvar,
and parts of Hungary, Galicia, and Moldavia.
1 he original inhabitants of Dacia were the Getas, a rude
and barbarous tribe of Thracian extraction. The earliest
notice that we have of them in history is the fact of their
attempting to obstruct the passage of Alexander the Great
across the Danube, when that prince was subduing the
hordes of northern barbarians who had risen against him in
rebellion shortly after his accession to the throne. About
forty years later Lysimachus, king of Thrace, who had be¬
gun a war of aggression against the Getae, and had pene¬
trated a considerable way into their territory, was defeated
and taken prisoner; but after a short detention, generously
set at liberty. \\ e next hear of the Getae as being at war
with the Gauls, by whom they were defeated, and many of
them sold as slaves to the Athenians and other Greeks.
In later days the Getae appear in history under the name
of Daci. Why or by whom their original name was changed
is not known ; but ancient and modern ethnographers all
agree in identifying the Daci with the Getae. In the days
of the Roman empire, the Dacians had attained to great
power, and their name had become a watchword of terror in
the Roman capital itself. Their reputation was heightened
by the submission which they exacted from the tyrant Do-
mitian, and the tribute with which that prince was obliged
to purchase immunity from their attacks. At the close of
the first century of the Christian era, however, Trajan, who
had succeeded to the purple, set out against them in per¬
son, and defeated them with great slaughter at a place which
is still called Prat de Trajan. In a.d. 104, he again in¬
vaded Dacia, routed Decebalus, who soon after committed
suicide, and reduced Dacia into a Roman province. It was
in honour of this campaign that the famous column of Tra¬
jan was erected at Rome. In order to secure his conquests
in this direction, Trajan built over the Danube his famous
bridge (which was one of the architectural wonders of the
world, and of which some small remains still exist), as well as
three great military roads. Dacia remained a Roman pro¬
vince till the time of Aurelian, when the colonists retired in
a body to the south bank of the Danube, and the Goths took
possession of the unoccupied territory. After this time
Dacia was overrun by the Huns, the Gepida;, the Lom¬
bards, and the Scythians, till in the tenth century the
Magyars conquered it, and occupy it till this day. Deep
traces of the Roman occupation of the province are to be
found in the language of its modern .inhabitants, the upper
classes of whom speak a Latin that is wonderfully pure,
while the common people use a dialect in which the Roman
vocables are still the predominating element.
DACIER, Andre, was the son of a Protestant advocate
at Castres, and was born in that town in 1651. His father
D A C
resolved to give him a classical education, and accordingly
sent him first to the academy of Puy Laurens, and after¬
wards to Saumur, where a distinguished scholar, Tanneguy
Lefevre, was at that time teaching Latin with great success.
Such rapid progress did the young scholar make, that when
Lefevre sent away all his other pupils, he kept Dacier and
taught him privately for an entire year. On the death of this
kind friend, he returned home, whence, after a short sojourn,
he betook himself to Paris to seek his fortune. By the Due
de Montausier, his name was put on the list of scholars who
were then engaged in preparing the Delphin edition of the
ancient classics. He was shortly after made warden of the
library of the Louvre. In 1695 he was admitted into the Aca¬
demy of Inscriptions ; and in the same year into the French
Academy. His marriage with the daughter of his old teacher
at Saumur had taken place in 1683. From the classical
pursuits of the contracting parties, this event was called by
Bosnage the marriage of Greek and Latin. The most im¬
portant of Dacier’s works were his editions of Pomponius
Festus and Valerius Flaccus, Paris, 4to; a translation of
Horace, with notes, 10 vols. 12mo ; a translation of Aris¬
totle’s Poetics ; of the Plectra and (Edipus of Sophocles ;
and of the entire works of Hippocrates. His last important
undertaking was a translation of Plutarch, 8 vols. 4to. Da¬
cier died Sept. 18, 1722.
Dacier, Anne Lefevre, the wife of the preceding, and
still more celebrated than himself for her knowledge of the
classical languages, was born at Saumur in 1651. The first
work which brought her into notice was her translation of the
Greek poet Callimachus. This established her reputation so
thoroughly, that she was soon requested to edit others of the
ancient classics for the use of the Dauphin. In this collec¬
tion she published successively Florus, Eutropius, Aurelius
Victor, and Dictys Cretensis. Her translations of the ancient
classics are very numerous. Among these may be mentioned
the Amphitryon, Rudens, and Epidicus of Plautus, the
whole of Terence, the Iliad and Odyssey of Homer’ the
Plutus and Clouds of Aristophanes, and the whole of’Sap-
pho and Anacreon. Madame Dacier died in 1 720, two years
before her husband.
DAC I \ L, the name given to a metrical foot in the
Greek and Latin poetry, consisting of a long and two short
syllables, as in the word carmind.
DACTYLI Id Air (j.e. the Fingers of Mount Lda), fa¬
bulous beings, regarding whom there are various accounts.
The Cretans rendered them divine worship as the persons
who had nursed and brought up the god Jupiter; and hence
they have been identified with the Corybantes and Curetes.
Strabo, however, relates, that the tradition in Phrygia was,
that the Curetes and Corybantes were descendants of the
Dactyli Idaei; that there were originally a hundred men in
the island who were called Dactyli Ldcei, from whom sprang
nine Curetes, and each of these nine produced ten men, as
many as the fingers of a man’s two hands; and that this
gave the name to the ancestors of the Dactyli Idmi. He
also mentions another opinion, namely, that there were but
five Dactyli Idaei, who, according to Sophocles, were the
inventors of iron ; that these five brothers had five sisters,
and that from this number they received the name of Fin-
gers of Mount Lda, because they were ten in number, and
worked at the foot of this mountain. Diodorus Siculus
however, represents the matter a little differently. He says
that the first inhabitants of the land of Crete were the Dac-
tyli Idaei, who had their residence on Mount Ida; that some
said they were a hundred, others only five in number, equal
to the fingers of a man’s hand, whence they had the name
of Dactyli; that they were magicians and addicted to mys¬
tical ceremonies; that Orpheus was their disciple, and car¬
ried their mysteries into Greece, &c. Other accounts are
given by other ancient authors. See Corybantes, &c.
DACTYLIOMANCY (Dactyliomantia, from Sa/c™-
615
Dacier
II
Dactylio-
niancy.
61G
Dactylo-
i°gy
II
Daedala.
D M D
Xtos, a ring, gavreta, divination'), a kind of divination by
means of a ring. It was performed by holding a ring, sus¬
pended by a fine thread, over a round table, on the edge
of which were made various marks with the twenty-four
letters of the alphabet. The ring, in vibrating over the
table, stopped over certain of the letters, which, being joined
together, composed the answer required. 1 he operation
was preceded and accompanied by several ceremonies ;
which are detailed at large by Marcellinus in his 29th book.
DACTYLOLOGY, the art of spelling or communicat¬
ing ideas with the fingers; the most useful application of
which is what has been called the Manual Alphabet for the
instruction of the deaf and dumb. It has also been em¬
ployed as the medium of communication between the deaf
and dumb and the blind. The invention of the one-handed
alphabet is attributed to Bonet, the Spanish instructor of
the deaf and dumb. The first English work on this sub¬
ject is the rare tract by Dalgarno, published in 1680, and
reprinted by the Maitland Club; in which the vowels are
represented by the extreme joints of the five fingers of the
left hand, the consonants by the other joints, taken in hori¬
zontal ranges ; T, V, W, and X, by the metacarpal bones of
the fore, middle, and little fingers, and thumb; and Z by the
space in a line with the metacarpus of the thumb. A very
perfect system for arithmetical computation is that in¬
vented by Mr O. Stansbury, superintendent of the deaf and
dumb institution of New York. It is now extensively em¬
ployed, both in this country and America, in such establish¬
ments. The fingers of the left hand are raised in succes¬
sion, so as to represent the units, and the closed fist repre¬
sents 0. To represent tens, the position of the hand is
changed from the vertical to the horizontal; hundreds by
pointing the hand downwards; thousands by placing the
left hand across the body towards the right shoulder ; and
millions by putting the same hand towards the left.
DADO. See glossary to Architecture.
DADUCHI (torch-bearers), in Antiquity, priests of
Ceres. When that goddess commenced her travels in
search of her daughter Proserpine, it was night; and in
order to pursue her journey through the dark she lighted a
torch. In commemoration of this circumstance, at the feasts
and sacrifices of the goddess, it was customary for her priests
to run about the temple with torches in their hands. One
of them took a lighted torch from off the altar, and ran with
it to another part of the temple, where he delivered it to a
second; the next proceeded in like manner and gave his
torch to a third, and so of the rest. From this ceremony
the priests were called SaSov^oi, torch-bearers.
DAD UR, in Beloochistan, a town of Cutch Gundava,
situate near the base of the Hala mountains, five miles east
of the Bolan Pass. It is described as a place of consider¬
able size, and contains a population of about 3000. The
heat is intense, and probably exceeds that of any other
place in the same parallel of latitude. The Rev. J. N.
Allen, who resided there in the month of February, thus
describes its state in this respect at that early season.
“ It is indeed a dreadful place, and seems from its situation
formed to be, as it really is, one of the hottest places in the
world. It receives the reflected heat of the sun from the
towering bank of bare rocky mountains under which it lies,
and which, surrounding it on three sides, casts down the rays
upon it as upon the focus of a reflecting mirror.” Here, in
November 1840, a British force was attacked by Nusseer,
the son of Mehrab Khan, who had fallen in the storm of his
capital, Kelat. Nusseer’s army, amounting to 4000 Beloo-
chees, was quickly routed; and in the pursuit, the headless
body of Lieutenant Loveday, who had been stationed at
Kelat as political agent to the British government, was found
fastened on a camel. Lat. 29. 26.; Long. 67. 41. (e. t.)
D7EDALA, the name of a mountain and city of Lycia,
where, according to Pliny, Daedalus was buried; and also
D iE M
of two festivals celebrated in Boeotia. One of these was
observed by the Plataeans at Alalcomene, in a great oak-
forest, where they exposed pieces of boiled flesh, and care¬
fully noticed whither the ravens which came to prey upon
them directed their flight. Those trees upon which any of
the birds alighted were immediately cut down, and out of
them were formed statues, called Dcedala, in honour of
Daedalus. The other festival was of a more solemn kind.
It was celebrated every sixty years throughout all the cities
“of Bceotia, as a compensation for the intermission of the
smaller festivals during that number of years, on account
of the exile of the Plataeans. Fourteen of the statues called
Dcedala were distributed by lot among the Plataeans, Le-
badaeans, Coroneans, Orchomenians, Thespians, Thebans,
Tanagraeans, and Chaeroneans; the smaller towns taking
one statue in common. The Boeotians assembled on the
banks of the Asopus, where a statue of Juno was adorned
and placed in a chariot; the procession being headed by a
young woman habited as a bride. This procession was at¬
tended to the top of Mount Cithaeron by many of the Boeo¬
tians, who had places assigned them by lot. Here an altar of
square pieces of wood cemented together like stones was
erected, and upon it were thrown large quantities of combus¬
tible materials. Afterwards a bull was sacrificed to Jupiter,
and an ox or heifer to Juno, by every one of the cities of
Bceotia, and by the most opulent individuals who attended.
The poorer citizens offered sheep ; and all these oblations,
together with the Daedala, were thrown into the common
heap, set on fire, and totally reduced to ashes. The origin of
the observance was this : When Juno, after a quarrel with
Jupiter, had retired to Euboea, and refused to return to his
bed, the god, anxious for her return, went to consult Ci¬
thaeron, king of Plataea, in order to find some effectual mea¬
sure for breaking her obstinacy. Cithaeron advised him to
dress a statue in woman’s apparel, carry it in a chariot, and
publicly report that it was Plataea, the daughter of Asopus,
whom he was going to marry. Juno, informed of her hus¬
band’s approaching marriage, repaired in haste to meet the
chariot, and was greatly pleased when she discovered the
artifice he had employed to effect a reconciliation.
DAEDALUS, a mythical personage, whose name is taken
as the symbol of artistic perfection. According to one ac¬
count he was the son, and according to another the grand¬
son, of Eupalamus, the son of Erechtheus. He was con¬
demned to death by the Areopagus on account of the mur¬
der of his nephew Talus or Perdix, whom he had instructed
in his art to a degree that roused his jealousy ; and fled to
Crete, where he was imprisoned by Minos for having con¬
structed the labyrinth. He was released from prison by
Pasiphae, and by the help of artificial wings escaped to
Sicily. His son Icarus was the companion of his flight, but
having flown too near the sun, the cement of his wings
melted, and he was precipitated into the sea. From Sicily
Daedalus passed to Sardinia; and at some period of his
career he is said to have executed a variety of works in
Egypt. He is principally renowned for the perfection of
his carpentry, and was the reputed inventor of the saw,
gimlet, plumb-line, and other tools. All the early works
seem to have been attributed to Daedalus ; and the story of
his having constructed automata seems to point to him as
the introducer of a lifelike style of statuary. His flight is
generally explained by regarding him as the inventor or
improver of sails.
D7EMON (Aat^wv), a name given by the ancients to
certain spirits or genii, which they say appeared to men,
either to do them service or to injure them-
The word Salgwv is derived according to Plato, from
Sar'j/JMv, knowing or intelligent; but according to others,
from Saiogai, to distribute. This is the derivation given
by the scholiast on Homer. Either of these deriva¬
tions agrees with the office ascribed to daemons by the
Daedalus
^ II
Daemon.
D iE M
Daemon, ancient heathens, as the spirit intrusted with the inspec-
tion and government of mankind. For, according to the
philosophers, daemons held a middle rank between the ce¬
lestial gods and men upon earth, and carried on all inter¬
course between them ; conveying the addresses of men to
the gods, and the divine benefits to men. It was the opi¬
nion of many, that the celestial divinities did not them¬
selves interpose in human affairs, but committed the en¬
tire administration of the government of this lower world
to these subaltern deities : Neque enim pro majeslate deum
ccelestium fuerit hcec curare} Cuncta ccelestium volantate,
numine, et auctoritate, sed dcemonum obsequio, et opera et
ministerio fieri arbitrandum estJ Hence they became the
objects of divine worship. “ If idols are nothing,” says
Celsus,1 * 3 4 “ what harm can there be to join in the public
festivals ? If they are daemons, then it is certain that they
are gods, in whom we ought to confide, and to whom we
should offer sacrifices andprayers to render them propitious.”
Several of the heathen philosophers held that there
were different kinds of daemons ; that some of them were
spiritual substances of a more noble origin than the hu¬
man race, and that others had once been men.
But those daemons who were the more immediate ob¬
jects of the established worship among the ancient nations
were human spirits, such as were believed to become dae¬
mons or deities after their departure from their bodies.
Plutarch teaches, “ that according to a divine nature and
justice, the souls of virtuous men are advanced to the rank
of daemons ; and that from daemons, if they are properly
purified, they are exalted into gods, not by any political
institution, but according to right reason.” The same au¬
thor says in another place,5 “ that Isis and Osiris were,
for their virtue, changed from good daemons into gods, as
were Hercules and Bacchus afterwards, receiving the unit¬
ed honours both of gods and daemons.” Hesiod and other
poets, who have recorded the ancient history or traditions
on which the public faith and worship were founded, as¬
sert, that the men of the golden age, who were supposed
to be very good, became daemons after death, and dis¬
pensers of good things to mankind.
Though dcemon is often used in a general sense as equi¬
valent to a deity, and is accordingly applied to fate or for¬
tune, or whatever else was regarded as a god, yet those
daemons who were the more immediate objects of divine
worship amongst the heathens were human spirits, as is
shown by Farmer in his Essay on Miracles.
The word dcemon is used indifferently in a good and in
a bad sense. In the former sense, it was very commonly
emploj'ed amongst the ancient heathens. “We must not,”
says Menander, “ think any daemon to be evil or hurtful to
a good life, but every god to be good.” Nevertheless, those
are certainly mistaken who affirm that dcemon was not
used to signify an evil being until after the times of Christ.
Pythagoras believed in daemons who afflicted with diseases
both men and cattle.6 Zaleucus, in his preface to his laws,7
supposes that an evil daemon might be present with a man,
to influence him to injustice. The daemons of Empedo¬
cles were evil spirits, and exiles from heaven ; and Plu¬
tarch, in his life of Dion, says that it was the opinion of the
ancients that evil and mischievous daemons, out of envy
and hatred to good men, oppose whatsoever they do.
Scarcely did any opinion more generally prevail in ancient
times than this, that as the departed souls of good men be¬
came good daemons, so the departed souls of bad men be¬
came evil daemons.
1 Apuleius De Deo Socratis, p. 677-
4 Id.p. 675.
* Apud Orig. contr. Celsum, lib. viii. p. 393.
4 Vit. Itomul. p. 36, ed. Paris.
VOL. VII.
D JE M 617
It has been generally thought, that by dcemons we are Daemoniac.
to understand devils, in the Septuagint version of the Old
Testament; but others think that the word in that version
is applied to the ghosts of such dead men as the heathens
deified. That dcemon often bears the same meaning in the
New Testament, is shown at large by Mr Joseph Mede,
in his works; and that the word is applied always to hu¬
man spirits in the New Testament, Mr Farmer has at¬
tempted to show in his Essay on Daemoniacs. As to the
meaning of the word dcemon in the writings of the fathers
of the Christian church, it is used by them in the same
sense as it was by the heathen philosophers, especially the
latter Platonists ; that is, sometimes for departed human
spirits, and at other times for such spirits as had never in¬
habited human bodies. In the fathers, indeed, the word
is more commonly employed in an evil sense, than in that
of the ancient philosophers. Besides the two kinds of dae¬
mons before mentioned, the fathers, as well as the ancient
philosophers, believed in a third, namely, such as sprang
from the congress of superior beings with the daughters of
men. In the theology of the fathers, these were the worst
kind of daemons.
Different orders of daemons had different stations and
employments assigned them by the ancients. Good de¬
mons were considered as the authors of good to mankind;
whereas evil daemons brought innumerable ills both upon
men and beasts. Amongst evil daemons there was a great
distinction with respect to the offices assigned them ; as
some compelled men to wickedness, and others stimulated
them to madness.
DiEMONIAC (from dcemon), a human being whose
volition and other mental faculties are overpowered and
restrained, and his body possessed and actuated by some
created spiritual being of superior power.
Such seems to be the determinate sense of the w'ord ;
but it is disputed whether any of mankind ever were in
this unfortunate condition. It is generally agreed, that
neither good nor evil spirits are known at present to exert
such authority over the human race; but in the ancient
heathen world, and amongst the Jews, particularly in the
days of our Saviour, evil spirits are thought by many to
have been much more troublesome.
The Greeks and Romans imagined that their deities, in
order to reveal future events, frequently entered into the
prophet or prophetess who was consulted, overpowered
their faculties, and uttered responses by their organs of
speech. Apollo was believed to enter into the Pythoness,
and to dictate the prophetic answers received by those
who consulted her. Other oracles besides that of Delphi
were supposed to unfold futurity by the same machinery.
And in various cases either malignant daemons or benevo¬
lent deities were thought to enter into and to actuate human
affairs. The Lymphatici, the Cerriti, and the Larvati of
the Romans, were all of this description ; and the Greeks,
by the use of the word haiy.ovt'Coiiim, show that they refer¬
red to this cause the origin of madness. Among the an¬
cient heathens, therefore, it appears to have been a gene¬
rally received opinion, that superior beings entered occa¬
sionally into men, overpowered the faculties of their minds,
and actuated their bodily organs. They might imagine that
this happened in instances in which the effects were owing
to the operation of different causes; but an opinion so ge¬
nerally prevalent had surely some plausible foundation.
The Jews, too, appear, both from the sacred writings and
from Josephus, to have believed in daemoniacal posses-
5 De Is. et Osir. p. 361.
* Diog. Laert. in Vit. Pythagor. p. 514, ed. AmsteL
’ Apud Stobseum, Serm. 42.
4 i
618
DEMONIAC.
Dsemoniac. slon. The case of Saul may be recollected as one among
many in which superior created beings were believed by
the Jews to exert in this manner their influence over hu¬
man life. The general tenor of their history and language,
and their doctrines concerning good and evil spirits, prove
that the opinion of daemoniacal possession had been well
known and generally received among them.
In the days of our Saviour, it would appear that daemo¬
niacal possession was very frequent amongst the Jews and
the neighbouring nations. Many were the evil spirits
whom Jesus is related in the gospels to have ejected from
patients who were brought unto him as possessed and tor¬
mented by these malevolent daemons. His apostles too, and
the first Christians, who were most active and successful
in the propagation of Christianity, appear to have frequent¬
ly exerted the miraculous powers with which they were
endowed on similar occasions. The daemons displayed a
degree of knowledge and malevolence which sufficiently
distinguished them from human beings; whilst the language
in which the daemoniacs are mentioned, and the actions
and sentiments ascribed to them in the New Testament,
show that our Saviour and his apostles did not consider
the idea of daemoniacal possession as being merely a vul¬
gar error concerning the origin of a disease or of diseases
produced by natural causes.
The more enlightened cannot always avoid the use of
metaphorical modes of expression ; which, though founded
upon error, have yet been so established in language by
the influence of custom, that they cannot be suddenly dis¬
missed. When we read in the book of Joshua that the sun
on a certain occasion stood still, in order to allow that hero
time to complete a victory, we easily find an excuse for
the conduct of the sacred historian, in accommodating his
narrative to the popular ideas of the Jews concerning the
relative motions of the heavenly bodies. In all similar
instances we do not complain much of the use of a single
phrase, originally introduced by the prevalence of some
groundless opinion, the falsity of which is well known to
the writer.
But in descriptions of characters, in the narration of
facts, and in laying down systems of doctrine, we require
very different rules to be observed. Should any person,
in compliance with popular opinions, talk in serious lan¬
guage of the existence, dispositions, declarations, and ac¬
tions of a race of beings whom he knew to be absolutely
fabulous, we surely could not praise him for candour or
integrity, but must suppose him to be either exulting in
irony over the credulity of those around him, or taking ad¬
vantage of their weakness, with the dishonest and the sel¬
fish views of an impostor. And if he himself should pre¬
tend to any connection with this imaginary system of beings,
and should claim, in consequence of his connection with
them, particular honours from his contemporaries, what¬
ever might be the dignity of his character in all other re¬
spects, nobody could hesitate for a moment to brand him
as an impostor.
Precisely in this light must we regard the conduct of
our Saviour and his apostles, if the ideas of daemoniacal
possession were to be considered merely as a vulgar error.
Ihey talked and acted as if they believed that evil spirits
had actually entered into those who were brought to
them as possessed with devils, and as if those spirits were
actually expelled by their authority out of the unhappy
persons whom they had possessed. They expected, they
demanded too, to have their profession and declarations
believed, in consequence of their performing such mighty
works, and to be honoured as having thus triumphed over
the powers of hell. The reality of dsemoniacal possession
stands upon the same evidence with the gospel system in
general.
Neither is there any thing absurd or unreasonable in Djemoniac.
this doctrine. It does not appear to contradict those ideas
which the general appearance of nature and the series of
events suggest concerning the benevolence and wisdom of
the Deity, and the councils by which he regulates the
affairs of the universe. We often fancy ourselves able to
comprehend things to which our understanding is wholly
inadequate; and we persuade ourselves, at times, that
the whole extent of the works of the Deity must be
well known to us, and that his designs must always be
such as we can fathom. We are then ready, whenever
any difficulty arises, in considering the conduct of Provi¬
dence, to model things according to our own ideas; to
deny that the Deity can possibly be the author of things
which we cannot reconcile; and to assert that he must
act on every occasion in a manner consistent with our nar¬
row views. This is the pride of reason ; and it seems to
have suggested the strongest objections that have been at
any time urged against the reality of daemoniacal posses¬
sion. But the Deity may surely connect one order of his
creatures with another. We perceive mutual relations and
a beautiful connection prevalent throughout all that part
of nature which falls within the sphere of our observation.
The inferior animals are connected with mankind, and
subjected to their authority, not only in instances in which
it is exerted for their advantage, but even where it is ty¬
rannically abused to their destruction. Amongst the evils
to which mankind have been subjected, why might not
their being liable to daemoniacal possession be one ? Whilst
the Supreme Being retains the sovereignty of the universe,
he may employ whatever agents he thinks proper in the
execution of his purposes; he may either commission an
angel or let loose a devil, as well as bend the human will,
or communicate any particular impulse to matter.
All that revelation makes known, all that human reason
can conjecture, concerning the existence of various orders
of spiritual beings, good and bad, is perfectly consistent
with, and even favourable to, the doctrine of daemoniacal
possession. It was generally believed throughout the an¬
cient heathen world; it was equally well known to the Jews,
and equally respected by them ; it is mentioned in the
New Testament in such language, and such narratives are
related concerning it, that the gospels cannot well be re¬
garded in any other light than as pieces of imposture, and
Jesus Christ must be considered as a man who dishonest¬
ly took advantage of the weakness and ignorance of his
contemporaries, if this doctrine be nothing but a vulgar
error. But it teaches nothing inconsistent with the general
conduct of Providence ; it is not the caution of philosophy,
but the pride of reason, which suggests objections against
this doctrine.
Those, again, who are unwilling to allow that angels or
devils have ever intermeddled so much with the concerns
of human life, urge a number of specious arguments in op¬
position to such a supposition. The Greeks and Romans
of old, say they, did believe in the reality of daemoniacal
possession. They supposed that spiritual beings did at
times enter into the sons or daughters of men, and dis¬
tinguish themselves in that situation by capricious freaks,
deeds of wanton mischief, or prophetic enunciations. But
in the instances in which they supposed this to happen, it
is evident that no such thing took place. Their accounts
of the state and conduct of those persons whom they be¬
lieved to be possessed in this supernatural manner, show
plainly that what they ascribed to the influence of daemons
were merely the effects of natural diseases. Whatever
they relate concerning the larvati, the cerriti, and the lym-
phatici, shows that these were merely people disordered
in mind, or in the same unfortunate situation with those
madmen and idiots and melancholy persons whom we have
D
JE
M
D A H 619
Deemoniac. among ourselves. Festus describes the larvati as being
furiosi et mente moti. Horace says,
Hellade percussa, Marius cum praecipitat se,
Cerritus fuit.
And Lucian describes daemoniacs as lunatic, and as star¬
ing with their eyes, foaming at the mouth, and speechless.
It appears still more evidently, that all the persons spo¬
ken of as possessed with devils in the New Testament,
were either mad or epileptic, and precisely in the same
condition with the madmen and epileptics of’modern times.
The Jews, amongst other reproaches which they threw out
against our Saviour, said, “ He hath a devil, and is mad:
why hear ye him ?’’ The expressions, he hath a devil, and
is mad, were certainly used on this occasion as synony¬
mous. With all their virulence, they would not surely
ascribe to him at once two things which were inconsistent
and contradictory. I hose who thought more favourably
of the character of Jesus, asserted concerning his dis¬
courses, and in reply to his adversaries, “ that these are not
the words of him that hath a daemon,” meaning, no doubt,
that he spoke in a more rational manner than a madman
could be expected to speak. The Jews appear to have
ascribed to the influence of daemons, not only that species
of madness in which the patient is raving andfurious, but
also melancholy madness. Of John, who secluded himself
from intercourse with the world, and was distinguished
for abstinence and acts of mortification, they said, “ He
hath a daemon.” The youth whose father applied to Je¬
sus to free him from an evil spirit, describing his unhappy
condition in these words, “ Have mercy on my son, for
he is lunatic and sore vexed with a daemon; for oft times
he falleth into the fire, and oft into the water,” was plain-
ly epileptic. Every thing indeed that is related in the
New Testament concerning daemoniacs, proves that they
were people affected with such natural diseases as are far
from being uncommon amongst mankind in the present age.
When the symptoms of the disorders cured by our Savi¬
our and his apostles as cases of daemoniacal possession,
correspond so exactly with those of diseases well known
as natural in the present age, it would be absurd to impute
them to a supernatural cause. It is much more consistent
with common sense and sound philosophy to suppose,
that our Saviour and his apostles-wisely, and with that
condescension to the weakness and prejudices of those with
whom they conversed, which so eminently distinguished
the character of the author of our holy religion, and must
always be a prominent feature in the character of the true
Christian, adopted the vulgar language in speaking of
those unfortunate persons who were groundlessly imagin¬
ed to be possessed with daemons, though they well knew
the notions which had given rise to such modes of ex¬
pression to be ill founded; than to imagine that diseases,
which arise at present from natural causes, were produced
in days of old by the intervention of daemons, or that evil
spirits still continue to enter into mankind in all cases of
madness, melancholy, or epilepsy.
Besides, it is by no means a sufficient reason for receiv¬
ing any doctrine as true, that it has been generally re¬
ceived throughout the world. Error, like an epidemical
disease, is communicated from one to another. In certain
circumstances, too, the influence of imagination predomi¬
nates, and restrains the exertions of reason. Many false
opinions have extended their influence throughout a very
wide circle, and maintained it long. On every such occa¬
sion as the present, therefore, it becomes us to inquire,
not so much how generally any opinion has been received,
or how long it has prevailed, as from what causes it has
originated, and on what evidence it rests.
When we contemplate the frame of nature, we behold
a grand and beautiful simplicity prevailing throughout the
whole. Notwithstanding its immense extent, and although Daghestan
it contains such numberless diversities of being, yet the I!
simplest machine constructed by human art does not dis- Dahoniey'
play greater simplicity, or a happier connection of parts.
We may therefore venture to draw an inference, by ana¬
logy, from what is observable of the order of nature in ge¬
neral to the present case. To permit evil spirits to inter¬
meddle with the concerns of human life, would be to
break through that order which the Deity appears to have
established throughout his works; it would be to introduce
a degree of confusion unworthy of the wisdom of Divine
Providence.
Such are the most rational arguments which have been
urged on both sides in this controversy. Perhaps the dae-
monists have the stronger probabilities on their side; but
the antidemoniacal theory does not detract from the divine
authority of the Saviour, the reality of his miracles, or the
integrity of the sacred historians.
Farmer’s Essay on the Dcemoniacs of the Neiv Testament;
Winer’s Biblisches Reahvorterbuch, article Bessessene;
Moses Stuart’s Sketches of Angelology in Bibliotheca Sa¬
cra, 1843.
DAGHESTAN, a country lying on the western shores
of the Caspian Sea, chiefly between N. Eat. 41. and 43. and
E. Long. 46. and 50. As its name implies, it is of a very
rugged and mountainous character, with the exception of a
narrow strip along the sea-coast. Though nominally be¬
longing to Russia, the inhabitants do not acknowledge the
supremacy of that power, but are governed by independent
chiefs. See Caucasus.
DAGO, an island in the Baltic near the entrance to the
Gulf of Finland, belonging to Russia, and. forming part of
the government of Esthonia. It is separated from the
island of Oesel on the south by a small channel called the
Selle-Sand. It is about 40 miles in length by 30 in breadth,
with about 10,000 inhabitants, employed in husbandry,
grazing, and fishing.
DAGON, the name of a national god of the Philistines
at Gaza and at Ashdod, or, as the Greeks called it, Azotus.
Some philologists derive the term from the Hebrew dagan,
corn, but it is more probably derived from the Hebrew dag,
fish, with the ending on (Ewald, Hebr. Gram. § 341). This
derivation is not only more in accordance with the principles
of formation, but it is most decisively established by the terms
employed in 1 Sam. v. 4. It is there said that Dagon fell to
the earth before the Ark, that his head and the palms of his
hands were broken oft', and that “ only Dagon was left on him.”
If Dagon is derived from dag, fish; and if the idol, as there
is every reason to believe, had the body of a fish with the
head and hands of a man; it is easy to understand why a
-part of the statue is there called Dagon in contradistinction
to the head and hands ; but not otherwise. That such was
the figure of the idol is admitted by most modern scholars.
It is also supported by the analogies of other fish deities
among the Syro-Arabians. The temple of Dagon at Ash¬
dod was destroyed by Jonathan the brother of Judas the
Maccabee, about the year b.c. 148. (1 Mac. x. 84.)
DAGUERREOTYPE. See Photography.
DAHL, Michael, a Swedish portrait-painter of con¬
siderable merit, who came to England, according to Wal¬
pole, in 1678. He afterwards travelled for improvement
in his art in France and Italy; but finally settled in Eng¬
land, where he died in 1743. The portrait of Charles XI.
of Sweden on horseback, at Windsor, and the portrait of
Lady Walpole, are among his best performances.
DAHLIA. See Horticulture, § Flower-Garden.
DAHOMEY, an extensive kingdom of Africa, lying in¬
land from the Guinea coast, extending from the banks of
the Niger to those of the Volta, and comprehending the
entire country from the coast between the mouths of these
620 D A H
Dahomey, rivers to the bases of the Kong mountains. It is difficult
to decide what is the actual extent of the kingdom, but it is
probably about 180 miles from east to west, and nearly 200
from the sea-coast to its most northern boundary. Ihe
very name of the Dahomans was scarcely known to Emo-
peans previous to the commencement of last century, but
they came prominently into notice after 1 /24, when Guadjo
Trudo or Trudo Audati, the king of Dahomey, overran the
kingdom of Ardrah, that lay between his capital and the
sea-coast. In this expedition Mr Bulfinch Lamb, agent of
the English African Company, was taken captive and car¬
ried to Abomey; but he was treated with great kindness,
and shortly after obtained his liberty. In two successive
expeditions Trudo again invaded the countries of the coast,
and destroyed the Dutch, English, French, and Portuguese
forts at the town of Jaquin. On his death in 1732 he was
succeeded by his son Bossa Ahadee. The recent struggles
between the'Dahomans and the neighbouring states were
attended with various success. For some time the Daho¬
mans were tributary to the Eyeos, but they have latterly
obtained the mastery over this people and various others,
and are now rapidly extending their dominions. Lieu¬
tenant Forbes, who was there in 1849, states that the
population of the kingdom, owing to its devastating wars,
did not at that time exceed 200,000; that the regular-
army amounts to 12,000, of whom 5000 are women, and
that when the king goes to war, he levies in all about
24,000 fighting men, and an equal number for the com¬
missariat.
The country of Dahomey is said to be very beautiful and
fertile. The soil is a deep rich clay of a reddish colour, with
a little sand on the surface; but there was not observed in
the whole country a stone as large as a walnut. Of farina¬
ceous vegetables, the country, when duly cultivated, yields
a plentiful supply; as maize, millet or Guinea corn ; a kind
of peas, or rather kidney beans, called callavances; and
also a species of vegetable called ground beans. The Da¬
homans also cultivate yams, potatoes, the plantain, and the
banana. Pine-apples, oranges, limes, guavas, and other
tropical fruits, abound in this fertile country ; nor is it
destitute of productions adapted for commerce, such as
indigo, cotton, the sugar cane, tobacco, palm oil, together
with a variety of spices, particularly a species of pepper
scarcely distinguishable from that raised in the East In¬
dies. The greatest injury to health in the climate of Da¬
homey arises from the periodical rains, which are accompa¬
nied by tornadoes. These, however, are the grand source
of fertility, and are immediately succeeded by the most
luxuriant vegetation. The Dahomans possess a consider¬
able knowledge of agriculture, but are extremely indolent,
and have not more than a tithe of the land in cultivation.
In the cultivated portions the land though rich is highly
manured ; corn and beans grow together ; and in the palm
plantations are also grown corn, yams, and ground nuts.
Indeed in this branch of industry they are said to rival the
Chinese. Industrial pursuits, however, are not encouraged,
as the advancement of these would tend to diminish the de¬
sire for warlike expeditions, on which the prosperity of the
state is supposed to depend. All the most arbitrary forms
of despotism seem to be mild and liberal when compared with
the tyranny established in this barbarous state. The despo¬
tism is not founded upon force and terror, nor is it connected
with any timid or effeminate character in its subjects, since
they are the most furious and desperate soldiers in Africa. It
rests on a blind and idolatrous veneration for the person of
the sovereign, as for that of a superior being. It is a crime
to suppose that the king of Dahomey can eat, drink, sleep,
or perform any of the functions of an ordinary mortal. Bossa
Ahadee, on his accession, caused all the persons of the name
of Bossa in his dominions to be put to death, conceiving it
to be an unpardonable presumption that any subject should
D A I
bear the same name as himself. The greatest lords are Daillg.
only allowed to approach the king lying flat on their faces, w*
and rolling their heads in the dust. The attempts thus
made to inspire the people with reverence for their monarch
seem completely successful. The Dahoman rushes to
battle with the same blind intrepidity in the cause of his
king as the Spartans formerly did for their nation and laws.
Norris having asked a Dahoman before battle if he did not
think the enemy too numerous, the man replied, “ I think
of my king, and then I dare engage five of the enemy my¬
self.” He declared his indifference whether he survived or
not; adding, “ It is not material; my head belongs to the
king, not to myself; if he pleases to send for it, I am ready
to resign it; or if it be shot through in battle, it is no differ¬
ence tome,—lam satisfied.” Human skulls form the favour¬
ite ornament in the decoration of the palaces and temples.
The king’s sleeping chamber has the floor paved with skulls,
and the roof ornamented with the jaw-bones of chiefs whom
he has overcome in battle. Every year a grand festival is
held, which lasts for several weeks, and during which the king
waters the graves of his ancestors with the blood of human
victims. The bodies of those unhappy men are not in¬
terred, but are suspended by the feet to the walls, and thus
left hanging till they putrefy. But the most extraordinary
exercise of despotism consists in the treatment of the female
sex, all of whom in Dahomey are considered as the property
of the king, and entirely at his disposal. After retaining
an immoderate number for his own use, he distributes the
rest, first among his chief men, and then among the com¬
mons. The distribution of wives takes place once a-year
at the grand festival, when each individual gives in such a
sum as he is able to spare for the purchase, and receives in
return such a wife as the king chooses to bestow. There
is no room for discussion or complaint; be she old, ugly, or
deformed, she must equally be accepted. He himself has
about three thousand wives, a large proportion of whom
exercise functions which do not in other countries devolve
upon the female sex. They are trained to arms, and com¬
pose a regiment of royal guards, divided into companies,
armed with muskets and bows, and provided with drums,
flags, and all the apparatus of war. At the death of the
king a horrid scene commences; the wives, after the most
extravagant demonstrations of grief, after breaking and
destroying everything that belongs to them, attack and
murder each other, till they are stopped by order of the new
sovereign. The throne descends rightfully to the eldest
son ; but as it is judged indispensable that this fierce nation
should be sw-ayed by a vigorous hand, where there appears
any deficiency in the eldest, the chiefs select one of the
younger brothers. This arrangement, however, often gives
rise to bloody contentions.
DAILLfi (Dallaeus) Jean, 1594-1670, one of the most
learned Protestant divines of the seventeenth century, was
born at Chatellerault, and received his education at Poi¬
tiers and Saumur. He was tutor to two of the grand¬
sons of the illustrious M. du Plessis Mornay, and accom¬
panied them in their tours through Italy, Switzerland, Ger¬
many, Flanders, Holland, and England. Having been or¬
dained to the ministry in 1623, he preached for some time
in the family of M. du Plessis Mornay ; and on the death of
his patron, he devoted himself to the grateful task of drawing
up his Memoirs. In 1625 Daille was appointed minister of
the church of Saumur, and in 1626 he removed to Paris.
Of his works, which are principally controversial, the most
important is the celebrated treatise On the Use of the fa¬
thers, originally published both in French and English. He
was greatly esteemed, even by his antagonists ; and his mild
and amiable disposition, united to his learning and genius,
led Balzac to exclaim, “ Cum tails sis, utinam noster esses.
In his famous Sermons on the Philippians and Colossians,
Daille has vindicated his claim to be ranked as one of
DAI
Daimiel the first of preachers, as well as one of the most able po-
II lemics. Daille’s life was written by his son Adrien, who
Dairy. retired to Zurich at the revocation of the edict of Nantes.
a town of Spain, New Castile, province of
Ciudad Real, and 20 miles E.N.E. of the town of that name.
This is one of the richest.and most flourishing towns in La
Mancha, and has extensive manufactories of woollen and
DAI 621
linen goods and fire-arms, besides brandy distilleries, brick- Dairi
works, limekilns, &c. In the vicinity are several salt marshes. II
Pop. (1845) 9128. Dairy.
DAIRI, or Dairo, the sovereign pontiff of the Japanese,
or, according to Kaempfer, the hereditary ecclesiastical go¬
vernor of Japan, and next in dignity to the emperor, who
bears the title of kubo.
D A
Milk, either in its natural state, or in the form of butter
and cheese, is an article of diet so wholesome and so pala¬
table, that the health and comfort of our people, especially
such of them as dwell in cities, depend much upon their
having a pure and plentiful supply of it at all seasons.
Dairy Management, which includes everything about the
pioduction and treatment of milk, is consequently a very
impoitant blanch of husbandry, and one in which every¬
body feels interested. The physical conditions of the dif-
feient countries of the world have determined in each case
the particular milk-yielding animal most suitable to be there
used for dairy purposes. The Laplander obtains his sup¬
plies of milk from his rein-deer, the roving Tartar from his
mares, and the Bedouin of the desert from his camels. In
the temperate regions of the earth many pastoral tribes
subsist mainly upon the milk of their sheep. In some rocky
legions the goat is invaluable for this purpose ; and the
buffalo is equally so amid the swamps and jungles of tropi¬
cal climates. I he milking of ewes was once a common
practice in Great Britain ; but it has fallen into disuse be¬
cause of its hurtful effects upon the flock. A few milch
asses and goats are here and there kept for the benefit of
infants or invalids; but with these exceptions the Cow is
the only animal now used for dairy purposes in this country.
Cows of every variety are used for the dairy; but there
are several of our native breeds of cattle which possess such
peculiar merit in this respect that they are called par ex¬
cellence u the dairy breeds.” As an account of these has
aheaxly been given in this work (see article Agriculture,
vol. ii., p. 342), it may here suffice to say, that for the pro¬
duction of butter or cheese from pasturage of medium
quality the Ayrshire cow is the best that can be found,
ror the city dairy, where an animal is wanted that in re¬
turn for very generous feeding will give a large quantity of
milk for a long time, and be easily fattened when the daily
yield at length falls below a remunerative measure, or in
districts where the business of the grazier is conjoined to
that of the dairyman, the short-horn breed is undoubtedly
the most profitable. Wherever, as in private families, the
quality of the dairy produce is more regarded than its
quantity, the preference is deservedly given to cows of the
Channel Island breed. But whatever the breed, the quality
is much influenced, 1st, by the age of the cow, and, 2d, by
the way in which she is fed. So clearly is it ascertained
that the milk of cows not exceeding four years of age yields
a larger proportion of curd and of a richer quality Than can
be obtained from the milk of the same animals when kept
beyond that age, that it is customary in those parts of Eng¬
land where cheese-making is chiefly carried on, to draft off
the cows to the grazier after they have borne two or at
most three calves each. Cows that show unusual excellence
for the dairy, or that are prized for their pedigree, are of
course kept for longer periods. Taking into account the
superior quality of the produce of three and four year-old
cows, and their higher value for grazing purposes at that
age, as compared with what it is at six years old and up¬
wards, the practice of drafting at the earlier age is well
worthy of being more generally adopted.
I R Y.
The influence which the food of the cow exerts upon the
amount and qualities of her milk has always been recog¬
nised. At one time, provided that a large yield of milk,
free from any unpleasant taste, was obtained, little re-
gaid was paid to its other qualities. It has accordingly
been the practice in new-milk dairies to feed the cows
chiefly with soft sloppy food, such as boiled turnips, brewers’
grains, and distillery wash. The milk produced from such
food contains an undue proportion of serum, and is deficient
in butter, caseine, sugar, and phosphates—the very elements
which give to milk its value as an article of food, and in
particular which fit it so peculiarly for building up the frame
of young animals. When these elements are wanting in
the food which is given to the cow, they are to a certain
extent imparted to her milk by being withdrawn from her
own system. And hence it is well known that cows which
give a very large quantity of milk generally lose the fat and
flesh which they had accumulated before calving. In order,
therefore, to maintain the condition of the cow, and enable
her to give milk of the best quality, it is necessary that her
food contain an adequate supply of these elements which
are required in good milk. Her food, in short, must be sub¬
stantially the same as that which is found to be most effica¬
cious in promoting the increase of flesh and fat in cattle
which are preparing for the butcher. It is now pretty well
ascertained that the fattening process is accomplished most
economically by giving a moderate allowance of linseed or
rape cake, and of the meal of beans and other grains in
addition to the pasturage, green forage, roots, and fodder,
which constitute the bulk of the food of such animals. The
following dietary for milch cows we have gleaned from an
anonymous contribution entitled “ Rape Cake for Feed¬
ing” in the Agricultural Gazette of 30th Sept, and 7th Oct.
1854, in which the topics now under discussion are handled
more satisfactorily than in any other work we have met
with. This writer states that the daily fare of his fattening
cattle consists of—
Chopped oat-straw, shells of oats and bean-straw  18
Rape cake 4 lbs., bran 2 lbs  Q
Swedish turnip (if mangold, 50 lbs.)  60
84
The rape-cake, bran, and 16 lbs. of the chopped straw,
after being intimately mixed, are cooked by steaming, and
so given to the cattle. The Swedes or mangold are given
raw, and the other 2 lbs. of the chopped straw are given as
dry fodder. On such rations he finds his cattle to make
good progress ; so much so, that heifers of from 7 to 9 cwt.
each increase at the rate of 14 lbs. per week, and larger
cattle at the rate of from 14 to 18 lbs. per week, over the
whole period of fattening, which (according to the condition
of the animals at starting) ranges from 16 to 24 weeks.
From October to May he gives his milch cows the same
cooked mess as has been described for the fattening of stock,
with 12 lbs. of meadow bay and 30 lbs. of roots. For the
first half of the period the roots consist of kohl-rabi, and of
mangold for the remainder of it. From May to October
the cows are turned out to pasture during the day, and are
622
Dairy.
DAISY.
New-milk
dairies.
housed at night. The same cooked mess continues to be
given daily in two equal portions at morning and evening;
but its quantity is somewhat diminished during the height
of summer, when the pasturage is at its best. 1 hey receive
also in the house a morning and evening feed of green forage.
On this fare the cows yield a very abundant flow of rich we
flavoured milk; and they besides maintain their condition
at the height of their milking, and gain flesh as it diminishes.
It is from a regard to the flavour of the milk, that roots are
given to them more sparingly than to fattening stock; and
that kohl-rabi and mangold are used in preference to turnips or
cabbages. Gorse, bruised and chopped, has been found to be
a peculiarly suitable kind of green winter forage for milch cows.
The best pasturage for cows is that obtained from good
old grass land, in sheltered inclosures of moderate size, and
in which there is a constant supply of pure water. To have
dairy produce of the best quality, the grass must never be
allowed to get too rank, and must therefore be so stocked
as to have it always fresh grown and sweet. This is most
easily secured by frequently changing the cow^s from one
field to another; and hence the advantage of having small
inclosures, one of which can be rested, while another is
keeping the stock of both. When soiling is resorted to,
Italian rye-grass is at once the cheapest and best forage that
can be used; but it can be varied, as circumstances dictate,
with clover, sainfoin, vetches, or green rape. When cows
are kept entirely at pasture during the summer, from l j
to 2 acres of grass land is required for each animal; and if
hay alone is given in winter (as is the practice in Glouces¬
tershire), the produce of another 1^ acre of meadour is re¬
quired to supply their winter keep. As 1 cwt. of green
forage is an ample daily allowance for a cow, and as two
cuttings of clover or Italian rye-grass, averaging 8 tons
each per acre, can with suitable manuring be easily ob¬
tained, it is obvious that by soiling in summer and feeding
on roots and cooked food in winter, half the extent of land
will suffice to maintain a cow on the latter system that is
found requisite on the former. The dung produced under
the soiling system is also richer, and can be more economi¬
cally used. And, above all, the produce in milk, besides
being of richer quality, is greater in quantity by fully one-
fourth. The average yield of milk per cow per annum in
Gloucestershire is estimated at 525 gallons. Under the
more generous house-feeding system an average of 680
gallons is obtained. All changes of diet must be made
with caution. The utmost vigilance must also be used in
order to insure regularity in the times of feeding and milk¬
ing, in seeing that the latter process is thoroughly performed,
and in guarding the cows from exposure to extremes of heat
or cold. Through inattention to these particulars the flow
of milk may easily be so diminished as altogether to neu¬
tralize the profit of a dairy.
Dairies are of three kinds, viz.:—
1. New-milk dairies.
2. Butter dairies.
3. Cheese dairies.
1. Neiv-Milk Dairies.—Dairies whose produce is sold as
new milk have hitherto existed only in or near to towns,
or amidst the dense population of mining and manufactur¬
ing districts. This branch of dairy business is to a large
extent in the hands of a class of frugal industrious persons,
possessing each from one to a dozen of cows, and who,
with the aid of their own families, overtake the whole man¬
agement of their cows, and the delivery of the milk to
their customers. But in our large towns there are now
also to be found gigantic establishments, in some of which
so many as a thousand cows may be seen at one time. In
these town dairies the cows are usually purchased when they
have newly calved, or at the point of calving. They are re¬
tained as long as they continue to give a remunerative quan¬
tity of milk daily. From the generous feeding which they
receive, they are usually by that time so well in flesh that they Dairy,
either go at once to the shambles or are fit for doing so in a
very short time after being put dry. The stalls thus vacated
are at once refilled by the purchase of cows that have newly
calved, and so the number of cows and the supply of milk is
kept up all the year round. This, at least, is the way in which
such dairymen would prefer to conduct their business; but
the prevalence for several years past of the dreaded epi-
zootical lung disease has altogether broken up many of the
lesser dairies, and has constrained the owners of the larger
ones to adopt to some extent a different mode of manage¬
ment. It being found that cow’s which recover from this
disease are afterwards exempt from its attacks, it becomes
an object of some importance to retain them as long in the
dairy as possible. Such cows are accordingly put to the
bull, and during the period of rest which they are allowed
before calving again are sent to country quarters, where
they are kept at less expense than in town, and whence
they are brought up as soon as they are again in milk. In
these dairies the cows are milked twice a-day. I he milk
is conveyed at once to the milk-room, where it is strained,^
measured, and delivered over to retailers, or to servants of
the establishment, by whom it is distributed to the cus¬
tomers. A portion, in some cases a half, of the new milk
is, however, retained in the dairy for twelve hours. It is
then skimmed, and the cream either retailed as cream or
made into butter ; and the milk being mixed with an equal
quantity of new milk, the whole is disposed of under that
character. This business requires the employment of a
large capital: it is attended with much risk, and calls for
much skill and vigilance in carrying out its various details.
When well managed, it is, however, a remunerative one to
those engaged in it, and has undoubtedly tended to improve
the quality of the milk supplied to the community, as well
as to make that supply more ample and regular.
Railways, which have revolutionized so many things, bid
fair to introduce important changes in this branch of dairy
business. Instead of keeping the cows in or near cities,
where housing, food, and litter are costly, it is becoming a
common practice to keep the cows on farms near railway
stations, and to forward the new milk in suitable vessels twice
a-day to parties who retail it to the citizens. . This plan has
many things to recommend it. It is much easier to carry the
milk only to the point of consumption, than first to convey
thither the cows and all the litter and food which they require,
and then to recarry to the country the manure which they
produce. It may also be fairly presumed that a rural re¬
sidence, with sweet pasturage and pure air, will be more con¬
ducive to the health of the cows and the wholesomeness of
their milk, than their being cooped up in city byres or cow¬
houses, and fed largely on the refuse of breweries and dis¬
tilleries.
2. Butter Dairies.—These are the most common form Batter
of the dairy, inasmuch as the making of butter admits of dames,
being combined with various uses of the milk. We have seen
that a portion of the cream in new-milk dairies is thus em¬
ployed, and the same thing occurs in the cheese-making
districts. Indeed, wherever cows are kept for any pur¬
pose, some portion of the milk is used for the production
of butter. There are, however, extensive districts both in
England and Scotland where such prominence is given to
this particular product that the dairies of these districts aie
with propriety spoken of as “ butter dairies.” In the midland
and western counties of England, where the breeding o
cattle is extensively carried on, the calves receive new
milk for the first two or three weeks only, and are after¬
wards fed upon skimmed milk and a gruel composed o
bruised linseed and oatmeal cooked together. This admits of
the greater part of the cream being converted into butter.
When the calves are all weaned, the skim milk is employed
in fattening pigs. In many parts of the country butter-milk
DAIRY.
Dairy, is much relished by the labouring classes. Whenever milk
can be disposed of readily in this form, dairy farmers direct
their attention chiefly to the production of butter.
New milk of average quality contains about four per
cent, of oily or fatty matter, which is suspended in minute
globules, inclosed in a membrane composed of a cheesv
substance. When the milk is allowed to settle, these
globules, being lighter than the general mass, gradually
rise to the surface in the form of cream. In the process
of churning, these globules are broken by the mechanical
agitation, aided by the action of the lactic acid which is
formed from the sugar of the milk. When the globules
are thus ruptured, the contents cohere in a mass and assume
the familiar form of butter. Until this acidity takes place,
butter cannot be formed by mere mechanical force. The
invariable practice, therefore, is to allow the cream, whether
separated from the milk or not, to stand until the formation
of this acid has at least begun ; for when once commenced
it is rapidly accelerated by the air, which is introduced in
the process of churning.
Butter is made either from cream only, or by churning
the whole milk and cream together. The best butter is
obtained from the cream which rises during the first twelve
hours after milking, and the next best by churning the
whole milk. In the former case the new milk, after being
carefully strained, is poured into shallow vessels of glazed
earthenware, glass, tinned iron, wood, lead, or zinc, of which
the three first-named sorts are the best. The wooden
vessels are objectionable from the difficulty of cleaning them
thoroughly ; and the two last from the noxious salt which
is produced by the action of the acid of the milk on the
metal. When it is intended to extract as nearly the whole
of the butter from the milk as is practicable, the first skim¬
ming takes place at the end of twenty-four hours, and is
followed up by one or more skimmings at further intervals.
The cream is stored in jars, which should be kept in a place
separate from the milk-room, that the milk in the coolers
may not be prematurely acidulated by the proximity of
the sour cream. The latter is either stirred repeatedly,
or poured from one vessel to another, to prevent the forma¬
tion of a tough coat upon it before enough is accumulated
for a churning. In large dairies it is usual to churn daily.
Three days is as long as the cream can ordinarily be kept
with safety to the quality of the butter. When a cow has
recently calved, her milk is comparatively rich in butter
and poor in curd; but by and by the relative proportions
of these constituents gradually change places, the cream
diminishing and the milk becoming thicker. A very
sensible change in the quality also usually takes place
when a cow again becomes pregnant. In not a few cases
the cream is so affected by this circumstance, that double
or treble the length of time is required to churn it that
sufficed before, and the butter is at the same time of in¬
ferior quality. If cows are flurried and heated, either bv
gadding in the pasture, or by being overdriven in bring¬
ing them home for milking, their milk becomes peculiarTy
liable to corrupt, the yield of butter is sensibly lessened,
and its quality is impaired. The success of the'process of
churning depends much on the temperature of the cream
being nicely regulated. A mean temperature of 60° Fah¬
renheit seems to be the best. The temperature of the
cream usually rises about 10° during the process of churn¬
ing. About 55° is therefore the desirable starting point.
Advantage is derived from rinsing the churn with cold
water in summer and with warm water in winter. The
addition to the cream of small quantities of cold or hot
water, as the case requires, is also found beneficial. Box or
barrel churns are preferred when the cream only is churned,
the former being best adapted for small dairies, and the
latter for large ones. When the whole milk and cream
are churned together, it is indispensable that acidity and
623
coagulation should first take place. The time required to Dairy,
pi oduce butter in this case is much longer than with cream ^ t— v —.
alone, three hours being an average period. The plunge
churn is most appreciated for this practice; and in large
dairies it is usually worked by steam, water, or horse-power.
Forty strokes of the piston per minute is found the best rate
of working.
In Devonshire a method of treating the milk has long Clouted
been in use by which what is called “ clouted cream” is creain.
produced. To effect this, the new milk is strained into
shallow earthenware pans, into each of which half a pint of
water has previously been placed to prevent the milk ad¬
hering to the pan in the subsequent process of scalding.
After standing twelve hours, these vessels are placed over
a charcoal fire, or on a hot plate, or are immersed in cold
water in a shallow boiler, which is then heated until the
temperature of the milk rises to 180°, after which they are
again replaced in the milk-room (great care being taken to
preserve the surface of cream unbroken), and allowed to
stand the usual time. The effect of this scaldino- is to
separate the vvhole of the cream from the milk, and greatly
to facilitate its conversion into butter. This is readily ac¬
complished by placing the cream in a small tub, and work¬
ing ff with the hand or a piece of flat wood. The thickened
or “clouted” cream is frequently eaten in this state of half-
formed butter, in which it is removed from the milk. It
has then a very rich appearance and agreeable flavour.
I he butter made from it is asserted by some persons to
keep better and to be altogether superior to that made
without scalding; whereas others assert, and with good
show of truth, that it contains an undue proportion of
cheesy matter, and that in consequence it is more liable to
rancidity than other butter.
A mode of procedure in use in some Lancashire dairies Lancashire
has been much commended. In milking the cows, the method.'
first drawn and larger portion of the milk is set aside, and
the cream in due time skimmed from it in the usual way.
The strippings or afterings, which are known to contain the
greater part of the butter obtained at anyone milking, are kept
separate, and mixed with the cream of the other portion at
the time of churning. The labour of churning is less in
this way than when the whole of the milk is subjected to
that process, aud at the same time a larger yield of butter
is said to be obtained than when only the cream is churned.
Although the process of churning, in a popular sense, com¬
pletely separates the butter from the other parts of the milk,
this is not done so thoroughly as to exclude the retention of
some oily matter in the whey, and, on the other hand, of a por¬
tion of caseous matter in the butter. Cheese, being a nitro¬
genous substance, is peculiarly susceptible of putrefaction,
and hence even the smallest portion of it when left in
butter is sure in a very short time to corrupt and to impart
to the whole mass a rancid flavour. Besides this liability
to taint, arising from an element inherent in itself, butter,
in common with other fatty substances, has a peculiar
affinity for smells of all kinds. If cream or butter be kept
in the same apartment with tainted meat, or other decaying
matter, or is stored in vessels that have previously contained
any lancid substance, or is exposed to unsavoury odours
from the proximity of dung-heaps, stables, &c., it is sure to
retain unmistakeable tokens of having been in such evil
neighbom hood. I he inherent tendency to rancidity is to
be combated by carefully washing the newlv-churned
buttei in repeated baths of pure cold water, and b*v working
a little salt into the mass while the washing is in progress.
By this means not only the whey, but the greater part of
the caseous matter above referred to, can be removed. If
the butter is to be used fresh, it is immediately made into
lolls or pats ; but if it is to be cured, fine salt, at the rate
of half an ounce to the pound, is thoroughly incorporated
with it, and the mass, after lying a day, again worked over,
Cheese
dairies.
DAIRY.
and then tightly packed into a perfectly clean air-tight
vessel. In domestic use the most convenient vessels are jars
of glazed earthenware. That intended for market is put into
casks called half-firkins, firkins, and tubs, containing respec¬
tively twenty-eight pounds, fifty-six pounds, and eight>-
four pounds. These should be of well-seasoned oak and
made perfectly tight, as otherwise the butter is sure to be
tainted. From the facilities which railways afford foi cheap
and rapid carriage, a very great proportion of our home¬
made butter is now sent to market in a fresh or slightly
P° Tim unpleasant flavour imparted to milk or butter when
cows are fed on turnips or cabbages can be removed or
avoided ; 1st, by cooking these esculents and giving them
in mixture with chopped straw, in quantities not exceeding
sixty pounds a-dav, given at two feeds; or, 2d, by adding
to each gallon of the new milk a table-spoonful of a satu¬
rated solution of nitre, or the same quantity of a solution
prepared by dissolving half an ounce of chloride of lime in
one gallon of water.
The average yearly product of butter per cow in the butter
dairies is usually estimated at 1 <0 to 200 pounds. 1 his is
in addition to the new milk used in rearing the heifer
calves required to keep up the stock, and to the butter con¬
sumed in the farmer’s family. With uniform good feeding
an average of 227 pounds per cow per annum has been
obtained^ a dairy of forty cows belonging to Mr David
Young, Lochtyside (near Kirkcaldy, Fife), of which a most
interesting account is given in Mortons Cyclopcudici, fiom
which we quote the following particulars. I he quantity
of milk yielded on an average by Mr Young’s cows is nine
quarts daily for ten months, or 680 gallons annually. The
average proportion of milk, cream, and butter, to each other,
is one gallon of cream to nine of milk, and three pounds
of butter to one gallon of cream, or one pound of butter to
three gallons of milk as it comes from the cow. The fol¬
lowing is a tabular view of the annual produce and cost of
each cow:—
Expense from May 1 to October 1.
2 acres of grass at 45s  L.4 10 0
Clover and tares   1 ^ ^
Draff in Summer  0 6 5£
From October 1 to May 1.
14 tons. 4 cwt. of turnips, at 7s. 6d  L.5 6 6
5 bushels of linseed, at 7s  1 15 0
Draff in Winter  12 1
Interest on L.14, at five per cent  0 14 0
Carriage of milk and tolls  0 15 0
Attendance, fuel, &c  0 10 0
Total  L.15 19 0£
Produce per Cow = 680 gals, of milk.
227 lbs. of butter, at lOJd  L-9 18 7£
600 gals, of skimmed milk, at 4^d  11 5 0
50 gals, of butter milk, at 2£d  0 9 4£
Calf at a week old    0 15 0
Total value of produce  L.22 8 0
Deduct expense of food, &c  15 19 0J
Net profit per cow,
L.6 8 11£
3. Cheese Dairies.—Cheese-making is by far the most
difficult department of dairy management. Although the
art is universally practised, and the raw material is every¬
where substantially the same, there is perhaps no equally
common product which varies so much in its quality and
market value, from mere diversity in the skill with which it
is made. The difficulty of producing really good cheese,
arises from the peculiar susceptibility in milk to be influ¬
enced by a great variety of external causes, and the extreme
facility with which its component parts enter into chemical
changes of the most decisive kind,
milk has been found to consist of—•
An average sample of
Dairy.
Caseine 
Butter 
Milk sugar 
Saline matter.
Water 
4-48
313
, 4-77
, 0-60
87-02
100-00
The caseine, which forms the chief ingredient of cheese, and
which is almost exactly of the same composition as animal
flesh, is held in solution in the milk by means of an alkali.
Any acid which removes this alkali converts the caseine into
an insoluble curd, which when dried forms cheese. W hen
milk is allowed to stand until it sours, coagulation takes
place from the action of the acid which is formed sponta¬
neously in itself. But there are various substances which
when added to new milk have the property of forming lactic
acid, and thus of causing it to coagulate speedily. The sub¬
stance which is invariably used for this purpose in Biitish
dairies is rennet, prepared for the most part from the stomachs
of sucking calves. To adapt them for this purpose, these
stomachs, usually called bags or veils, as soon as taken from
the animal are turned inside out, carefully freed fiom all
impurities, and salted. They are then packed one upon
another, with a layer of salt between each, into a deep
earthenware vessel, covered over with salt, and excluded from
the air by a close-fitting lid. In the best English dairies the
skins are invariably kept for a year before being used. About
a month before the rennet is needed, a sufficient number of
the skins are from time to time taken out of the jar, and
when the brine has drained from them, they are spread out
upon a table, powdered on both sides with fine salt ioiled
with a paste roller, distended with a splint of wood, and
hung up to dry. The rennet, provincially called steep or
yearning, is an infusion of these cured stomachs. A por¬
tion of the dried bag, at the rate of a square inch to 10 gal¬
lons of milk, is put the day before it is needed into a cup
containing half a pint of lukewarm water and a tea-spoonful
of salt; and it is by mixing this infusion with the milk that
coagulation is obtained. It would appear that the power of
producing this effect is due to a certain degree of decay
having begun in the skin. If this has gone too far, the milk
is not merely curdled, but an unpleasant taste is impaited
to it, and the cheese so made corrupts prematurely, and is
unwholesome. The careful cleaning and salting legulates
this principle; and when skilfully managed, a sweet anc
wholesome curd is obtained. In some dairies, as much of
this rennet is infused at one time as serves for several weeks,
or even months; but the practice of the best dailies is ’n
favour of its daily, or at most weekly, preparation, lo
produce cheese of the best quality, it is indispensable that
the rennet be sweet and good; that only so much of it, and
no more, be added to the milk, as w-ill suffice to pio uce
perfect coagulation ; and that this take place at the piopei
temperature. Too much rennet makes a tough curd and a
poor ill-flavoured cheese. From 80° to 85“ appears to be
the proper temperature of the milk when the rennet is mixe
with it, and from an hour to an hour and a quarter the time
which it should take to coagulate. ..
A cheese-dairy farm must be provided with suitable build¬
ings, apparatus, and utensils. The buildings required are
byres for the whole of the cows, a calf-house, yards for tlie
heifers, and piggeries. The byres should not be less t lan
17 feet in width, distributed as follows:
Passage in front of stalls  3J feet.
Manger  ^
Stalls  6
Urine grip 
Passage behind  4
17
Dairy^ It is usual to rear one heifer calf for each three cows, and to
/ have the heifers to calve for the first time at 3 years old •
so that the young stock of all ages are equal in number to
the cows. As many p,gs are kept as suffice to consume the
whey; the proportion, in summer, being one pig to two
cows. The dairy comprises a milk-room, working-room
salting and drying room, and cheese-room. The workii ™-
room is provided with two boilers ; a smaller one for belt¬
ing water, and a larger one for heating whey. There are
also ead tanks for containing the fresh wheyq and a cistern
in which, after being scalded, it is stored for the pigs The
cheese-tub is of wood or brass—the latter beingPbest as it
admits of being thoroughly washed and burnished; where!
a wooden vessel, being porous, is exceedingly ap to retain
minute particles of milk or whey, which, souring in the wold
become a source of mischief to the future contents The
other utensds are lever presses ; cheese vats of elm, turned
out of the solid and hooped with wood; pans of tinned iron
or brass for heating milk by immersion in hot water; cheese^
kdder; curd-breaker; curd mill, thermometer, &c.
Thc whXws Tn1'^ 5mce a'day; at 5 a-m- and 5 p.m.
e whole available hands are engaged at this work that
it may be accomplished speedily. Usually, each person has
seven or eight cows to his or her share, and occuETboS
ten minutes in the milking of each of them. The mdk is
carried to the dairy as fast as it is drawn from the cows and
is there consigned to the care of the dairy-maid, who’pro-
cee s in her treatment of it according to the variety of cheese
which it is designed to produce. The kinds o/cheese in
best estimation and of greatest market value are Stilton
Cheddar Cheshire, and Gloucester. The first variety is
“ade;? Leicestershire, and contains the cream of one milk-
rf? ?ded f the new milk of the next. The Cheddar and
eshu-e cheeses are made from new milk, or rather from
milk m which all its own cream is retained. Gloucester cheese
is usually deprived of a small portion of its cream. Double
Z Gl0UCfter differ on,y in the former being twice
the thickness and weight of the latter, and consequently
taking longer to ripen. The Scotch variety called Dunlop
and the Gouda of Holland, are full-milk cheeses, but aTe
much inferior m quality, and sell for a much smaller price
than the same class of English cheeses. As there are good
giounds for supposing that this inferiority is entire^ or
chiefly due to unskilfulness in the manufacture, the Ayr-
Jire A?r,c.ultural Association in the summer of 1854 sent a
stt to Zint0 ^^fG^ucester, Wilts,and Somer-
pracrised Thof ? * °f cheese-™aking there
practised. 7 he following is an extract from their report •—
ductLe LreMdC?Ted,t0 Mr Titley’ cheese factor, Bath, for an iniro-
HW n rS HardinS> Marksbury, and her nephew Mr Josenh
Harding Compton Dando, who make first-rate Cheddar cheese
visiSwtwS Xrlr* ‘he, °lher wMcT“e
peon™1111"88 °f th,’lr resPective kinds, to^lso* in Reeling with
people who were ready to give clear exnlnnative c g T th
proces,,,, and reaL, for” hat g“ w.” ™,°"'
Of makTng Che2raerrce °f ^ and simPlicity about the method
In the dairies of Mr ^ Practised in Somersetshire.
InwoH . i ^ar(^lnS an^ his aunt a regular system is fnl
dock iraenf those undeviating guides, the thefmomS and the'
cess^ ai,efrequen% referred to in the different stages of the pro-
• Ihe more that a regular system is introduced into
tender™ °f CheCS,*-™bj“.‘ *» ".odificatio J^
-there „ the greater probability of obt^iningS?,
fa f P0.111*8 of excellence aimed at in these dairies are the
«h Lof ‘he„ber <iuaii*j’ °f ch“s< “ «■«
Znt! the smallest amount of labour. In their atterr,nf=7 d
P In S,Mr and MrS HardinS have been highly successful aCC°m'
In addition to the girls who do the work of thTT-
dairy.
placed over the inside end of the pipe, so that a double precaution
is used against impurities entering with the milk
Immediately after the morning milking, the evening and morning
milk are put together into the tub. The temperature of the whole
Cut M t°80 degrees hy heating a small quantity of the evening
^n teU^he g’-Wl? haS had ^ experienced cheese-mak?
ing, can tell the precise temperature within two or three degrees
by merely passing her hand through the milk. Her grand-niece
Csuaiwln v6;63 er f Tl °f the dUty °f -Perintendence, can
usualiy tell very nearly; but even with individuals whose senses
are acute there is a liability to deception, from the varying heat
of the hand when it is put into the milk, in different states of the
weather. The thermometer, therefore, is found to be the surest
guide, and it is regularly used.
In spring and towards winter a small quantity of anatto is used
to improve the colour of the cheese. It i] put ind the milk adg
with the rennet at seven o’clock. After the rennet is -irMo,! ng
tianrv1broklUiSidf0u COagUlati°n- At eight o’clock the curd is par-
servants are never intrusted with this dutv Wlion ku a •
completely broken, as much of thdeat^ wLy 11
nefwa! adr ^ temI-a^e at which tt re"
dr?‘ Nothi?S more is done to it for an hour,
ittle after nine o clock the work is resumed. A few pailfuls
heated wLy S th?mZ.’ DuTg^tte ^“"ngT^'''1'? of
the stieving with the break.,, „ Stive'/ZM,
x the whole regularly, and not to allow any portion of the curd
to become overheated. The temperature at this tid i radd to
100 degrees, as ascertained by the thermometer fr •
,8 contmued a considerable time until the minntel, bZen pTece!
di h 1fCqULre a 0ertain deSree of consistency. The curd isdhen
left half an hour to subside. At the expiry of the hei/u u
curd has settled at the bottom of the tub P Wing off e h" 0
the next operation, and the ease with which it is performed wuld
astonish an Ayrshire dairy manager Thp
the whey is lifted in a large tin bowl, and pefured throlg^ Thafo
to be vd! pureJ°Thfndtr8, hAS it,I'UnS ^ the leads * aPPears
renU J7 P • h the whe7 “hove the mass of curd is thus
emoved, a spigot is turned at the bottom of the tub, and the re
mainder is allowed to drain off, which it does very rapidly without
the tnhe-SUreA ln^eqUired- T° facilitate this part of foe work
the tub is made with a convex bottom, and the curd is cut from foe
sides of the tub and placed on the elevated centre. It is carefully
SZ th“ Uft preir S
After this interval it is cut across in large slices turned nvey.
once on the centre of the tub, and left in a heap as before for half
runs offat theeSD?™tdriPb t°'Va''d tl,e “f th» “lb. ml
.o col lly ™;.v„“di;° ■;rure bd"g a®iied- >*
After undergoing these simple and easy manipulations andlving
up ouebed during the intervals ,b« have^beeu inHoZi th, S
j. ^ P. the application of pressure. But great care is taken not
+h Ppt ^ ,mto,the vat t0 be Pressed at too high a temperature If
the heat be above 60 degrees, and it usually is highe/at this time
the curd is broken a little by the hand and thrown upon a S
cooler until it is brought down to the desired temperature.”
When curd has by such means as these been brought to
a somewhat firm consistency, it is enveloped in coarse linen
cloths and put into perforated wooden vats, which are placed
in a lever press and subjected to gradually increased pres¬
sure until the whey is expelled, and the cheese has acquired
sufficient consistency to retain its shape when turned out
to the shelves of the drying room, /ery rich cheest are
usually supported for some weeks after leavino-the press bv
bemg rightly bound round with a fillet of stoutTnen c,„ft
During the first days pressing, the incipient cheese is fre-
quently taken out of the vat, has its edges pared, receives ,
fm^ 01! S’ fondrfo re7.ersed.in the vat to keep its sides uni-
th ' i V 16 Lhcshue dairies iron skewers are thrust into
the curd through the perforations of the vat, and thenwith-
diawn to form drams for the readier emission of the whey
Salt is applied sometimes by crumbling down the curd after
4 k
625
Dairy,
626 DAL
Dais its first hour in the press, and mixing fine salt with it at
II the rate of 1 lb. of salt to 42 lbs. of curd, and then returning
Dalgarno. it t0 the vat< This crumbling is effected by passing it
through a simple curd mill, which tears it into minute fiag-
ments. In other cases the salt is merely rubbed into the
cheese externally at each changing of the cloths win e it is
in the press, and for some days after its removal to the (hy¬
ing room. As soon as its degree of dryness and firmness
admits, it is placed in the cheese-room, and is then wiped
with a cloth and turned at first daily, and afterwards twice
weekly until it is ready for market. The cheese-room is kept
at a temperature of 60°, and has light and currents of an ex-
cludedfrom it. The darkness is a protection fiom flies, and a
still and moderately warm atmosphere promotes its ripening.
When the process of making new-milk cheese is skilfully
conducted, it consists not only of the caseine, but includes
nearly all the butter of the milk. A portion of the latter
DAL
is, however, carried off in the whey, from which it is re- Dalkeith
covered by a simple process. The whey is heated in a ||
boiler to 180°, at which point a small quantity of sour but- Dalmatia,
termilk is stirred into it, which has the instantaneous effect
of causing all the buttery matter to rise to the surface,
from which it is skimmed off and put into a jar. As soon
as the buttermilk is put in, the fire is withdrawn to prevent
the whey from reaching the boiling point. The whey thus
deprived of its cream is run into a cistern, whence it is dealt
out to the pigs. The whey-cream is kept for three or four
days until it thickens, and is then churned like ordinary
cream. About half a pound of this whey butter is obtained
weekly from each cow. It is worth about three-fourths of
the value of cream butter.
A gallon of good milk produces 1 lb. of cheese. The
average produce per cow per annum is from 3 to 5 cwts.,
exclusive of the milk used in rearing calves. (j. w—N.)
DAIS (French d’ais), a platform or raised floor at the
upper end of ancient dining halls, where the principal per¬
sons sat at table. It was also used to signify a seat with
a high back, and sometimes surmounted by a canopy, for
those who sat at the high table.
DALECARLIA or Dalarne, an old province of Swe¬
den, now forming the laen of Falun, and celebrated for its
valuable mines. The Dalecarlians were the first and most
faithful adherents of Gustavus Vasa. See Sweden.
DALECHAMPS, Jacques (1513-1588), a French phy¬
sician and botanist, was born at Caen, in Normandy. He
was distinguished for his industry and erudition, both in
science and in literature. He edited Pliny, Athenseus,
Paulus JEgineta, Caelius Aurelianus, and the two Senecas.
To the Dioscorides of Iluellius he added thirty plates of rare
plants ; and in his Historia generalis Plantarum in libros
xviii. per certas classes artijiciose digesta, Lugd. 1587,2
vols. fbh, he aimed at including all the botanical discoveries
previous to his own time, as well as those which he himself
had made in the vicinity of Lyons and the Alps. Dale-
champs was also the author of a work on surgery, and an¬
other on the Plague, in three books. During the last six
years of his life he practised as a physician at Lyons.
D’ALEMBERT. See Alembert.
DALGARNO, George, an ingenious, but now almost
forgotten writer, born at Old Aberdeen about 1626. He
appears to have studied at Marischal College; and in 1657
he went to Oxford, where, according to Wood, “ he taught
a private grammar-school with good success for about 30
years.” {Athen. Oxen. vol. ii., p. 506-7.) He died of a
fever Aug. 28, 1687, and was buried “in the north body
of the Church of St Mary Magdalen.” In his work entitled
Didascalocophus or the Deaf and Dumb Maris Tutor,
printed at Oxford in 1680, he has the merit of anticipating
some of the most scientific conclusions of the present age
on the education of the deaf and dumb. “ In prosecution
of his general idea,” says an eminent philosopher, who has
done much to rescue the name of Dalgarno from oblivion,
“ he has treated, in one short chapter, of a Deaf Maris
Dictionary ; and, in another, of a Grammar for Deaf
Persons; both of them containing a variety of precious
hints, from which useful practical lights might be derived
by all who have any concern in the tuition of children dur¬
ing the first stage of their education.” (Dugald Stewart’s
Account of a Boy born Blind and Deaf, in Transactions
of the Royal Society of Edinb., vol. vii.) Twenty years
before the publication of his Didascalocophus, Dalgarno
had given to the world a very ingenious piece entitled Ars
Signorum, from which, says Mr Stewart, it appears indis¬
putably that he was the precursor of Bishop Wilkins in his
speculations concerning “ a real character and a philoso¬
phical language.” According to the testimony of Wood,
Dalgarno communicated this piece to Wilkins before it was
published, and it was from it that the latter took the hint
of his celebrated work. It is highly discreditable to Wil¬
kins that he takes no notice whatever of the name of Dal¬
garno ; and Dr Wallis must share the same censure.
That notice which the English professors, who borrowed
from them, ungenerously withheld from the writings of the
Scottish schoolmaster, was liberally bestowed upon them by
Leibnitz, who has, on various occasions, alluded to the Ars
Signorum in commendatory terms. The works of Dal¬
garno, which had become exceedingly rare, have been lately
reprinted by the Maitland Club.
DALKEITH, a burgh of barony and market-town of
Edinburghshire, situated on a narrow strip of land between
the North and South Esk, 6| miles S.E. of Edinburgh. It
is a place of considerable antiquity, having gradually risen
into existence from the proximity of a castle long known as
one of the chief baronial strongholds south of the Forth.
The town has lately undergone considerable improvements,
and is now for the most part clean and well-built. The town
church, an old Gothic edifice partly in ruins, was originally
the chapel of the castle : in 1406 it was raised to the dignity
of a collegiate church, and after the Reformation it became
the parish kirk. A splendid new church in the early Eng¬
lish style, with a steeple 167 feet high, was built by the
Duke of Buccleuch in 1840; and there is an elegant Epis¬
copal chapel within the grounds of Dalkeith palace. Dal¬
keith is the largest country town in the county, and is the
seat of one of the largest corn-markets in Scotland, held
every Thursday. There are extensive corn-mills, brew¬
eries, iron-foundries, tanneries, two market-houses, gram¬
mar-school, subscription library, &c. In the vicinity is
Dalkeith palace, the principal seat of the Duke of Buc¬
cleuch, surrounded by an extensive park, through which
the two Esks flow and unite their streams a short way be¬
low the palace. It was the temporary residence of Charles
I. in 1633, of George IV. in 1822, and of her present Ma¬
jesty in 1842. Pop. (1851) 5086.
DALMATIA, an ancient Roman province on the N.E.
shore of the Hadriatic, forming part of the country known as
Illyricum. It was bounded N. by Liburnia, E. by the Savus
(the Save\ a southern tributary of the Danube, S. by the
Montes Baebii and the Hadx'iatic, and VV. by the Hadriatic.
The limits of Dalmatia varied in ancient times. Originally
they comprehended only the country lying berween the
rivers Tilurus and Naron, though they were afterwards
widely extended. When the country had thus attained its
maximum of superficial area, it was erected by the inhabit¬
ants into a republic, a form of government that lasted till
the country was subdued and made a Roman province by
DAL
Dalmatia. Tiberius. The interior of the country is for the most part
rugged and hilly, in some places even mountainous. Along
the sea-shore the coast is flat and swampy, and almost unin¬
habitable. The soil of Dalmatia, though not the best, is far
from being bad; but as the original inhabitants were rude
and predatory, and utterly neglected agriculture, it never
reared sufficient corn to maintain its own population. The
vine and olive throve everywhere, especially on the northern
slopes of the hills. The mineral resources of the coun¬
try, which were afterwards so successfully worked by the
Romans, were unknown to the original inhabitants. It was
in the year 180 b. c. that the Dalmatians, separating them¬
selves from the other Illyrians, abolished the regal form of
government, established a republic, and selected Dalminium
as their capital. From this town they took the name by
which they are known in history. In 156 b.c. Dalmatia was
for the first time attacked by the Romans. Within the next
hundred years it was invaded by that people three times,
sometimes successfully, sometimes with loss and disgrace to
the assailants. The country was not made a Roman province
till in a.d. 9 it was overrun and completely subdued by Ti¬
berius. Under the empire Dalmatia was renowned as the
native country of Diocletian. It was to Salona, the new
capital of Dalmatia, that that emperor retired after resign¬
ing the purple. When Arcadius and Honorius divided the
empire of Rome between them, Dalmatia fell to the lot of
Arcadius. After a time it fell into the hands of Odoacer,
from whom it was taken by Theodoric. At the beginning
of the next century we find it in the possession of Justi¬
nian. Not long afterwards the Ostrogoths made them¬
selves masters of it, and were in turn expelled by Bclisarius.
In the seventh century the Serbs were driven out by the
Sclaves. By this latter people Dalmatia was retained as a
separate and independent kingdom, till in 1005 it was over¬
run by Ladislaus, and the Magyars annexed to Hungary the
whole country except the maritime towns. One portion of
the country became so identified with Hungary, that it lost
its own name altogether, as did also another part, which was
incorporated with Turkey. By the treaty of Campo Formio,
the Austrians got possession of that part of Dalmatia which
had belonged to the Venetian republic. In 1805 it was
seized by Bonaparte, who remained master of it till his
downfall in 1814. Since that date the Austrian supremacy
in Dalmatia has never been questioned.
Dalmatia, as it now exists, is the most southerly depen¬
dency of the Austrian crown. Its area, exclusive of the
islands off the coast which belong to it, is about 6000 square
miles. Its present population is about 394,000. It is di¬
vided into Old and New Dalmatia; the former of which,
for political and governmental purposes, is subdivided into
the circles of Zara and Spalatro, and the latter into those of
Ragusa and Cattaro. The mountain ranges which inter¬
sect Dalmatia are, with a single exception, spurs of the
Dinaric Alps. Dinara, the loftiest of these summits, is
nearly 6000 feet high ; and Biokovo, the next in height, is
upwards of 5500 feet. Of the rivers in the province the
most important is the Narenta (Naro), the Cettina (Nestus
or Tilurus), the Kerka (Titius), noted for its waterfalls and
the wild magnificence of its scenery, and the Zermanaya
(Tedanius) i all which streams, with others of minor im¬
portance, flow into the Hadriatic from east to west.
The general character of the Dalmatian soil in modern
as in ancient times is not very favourable to agriculture.
The summer heat is too great, and the want of water too
general; yet both climate and soil are well adapted for the
olive and the vine. Large quantities of olive oil are con¬
sumed by the natives, yet there is annually a surplus of
about 20,000 barrels, which is exported. About 8,000,000
gallons of wine of good quality are annually made, of which
one-eighth is reserved for home consumption, while the
remainder is exported. The fruits of the country consti-
DAL 627
tute one of its most valuable productions. Of these the Dairy
most important are figs, of which a million of pounds arc II
annually exported, besides large quantities of almonds, ^aIrymPle’
raisins, dates, oranges, &c. Of corn only enough is grown
to serve the inhabitants for six or eight months of the year ;
the deficiency being supplied from Flungary and Turkey.
The sardine and tunny fisheries give employment to
nearly 10,000 persons. The rearing of cattle is as back¬
ward as the husbandry} the breeds found in the country
being both small in size and few in number.
The manufactures of Dalmatia are conducted on so small
a scale as to be scarcely worth mentioning. The most im¬
portant of these is the distillation of spirits and liqueurs, of
which Maraschino is the most famous and the best. (See
Austria.) The total annual value of exports is estimated
at about half a million of pounds sterling, and of imports
about four-fifths of that sum.
The chief towns of Dalmatia are Spalatro, Ragusa, Lara
Cattaro, and Curzala, the most important of which will be
found described under their respective heads.
When Dalmatia was subject to Napoleon at the begin¬
ning of the present century, it gave the title of duke to
Marshal Soult, while the adjoining republic of Ragusa gave
a similar title to Marshal Marmont.
DALRY, a thriving village of Ayrshire, situated on an
eminence, and nearly surrounded by the waters of the
Garnock, Rye, and Caaf, 18 miles north of Ayr. Pop.
(1851) 2071, chiefly engaged in coal and iron works, and
in weaving.
DALRYMPLE, James, Viscount of Stair, who bears
the greatest name in the annals of Scottish jurisprudence,
was the son of James Dalrymple of Stair, by his wife Ja¬
net, the daughter of Fergus Kennedy of Knockdaw, and
was born in the month of May 1619, at Dunmorchie in
the parish of Barr and county of Ayr. The family from
which he descended was at an early period distinguished
by its love of religious liberty : Dalrymple of Stair is men¬
tioned among the Lollards of Kyle. Before he had attain¬
ed the fifth year of his age, he lost his father, and the care
of his education devolved upon his mother, who is de¬
scribed as a woman of an excellent spirit, and who sur¬
vived her husband for nearly forty years. The first ele¬
ments of learning he acquired at Mauchline school, and
at the age of fourteen was sent to the university of Glas¬
gow, where he took the degree of A. M. in 1637. He
repaired to Edinburgh in the course of the ensuing year,
and obtained a commission in the earl of Glencairn’s re¬
giment, but he did not long adhere to the military profes¬
sion. In 1641 he was encouraged to offer himself as a
candidate for a vacant professorship of philosophy at Glas¬
gow. In those old-fashioned times, the comparative me¬
rit of candidates was a circumstance not entirely disre¬
garded : their comparative merit was ascertained by a
fair and open competition ; on this occasion, Captain Dal¬
rymple presented himself in buff' and scarlet, and was with
great applause declared to be the successful competitor.
He retained his commission for some time after he be¬
came professor of philosophy. He was admitted on the
12th of March, and became bound by an oath to resign
his professorship in case of marriage. As a preparation
for such a step, he accordingly resigned it on the 4th of
September 1643, and was immediately re-elected. On
the 21st of the same month, he married Margaret, the
eldest daughter of James Ross of Balneil in the county
of Wigton, with whom he acquired a large estate. They
are said to have lived together in great happiness; but,
according to the statement of one of his descendants,
Lord Hailes, his happiness must have been in bis own
mind, for “ he could not have much happiness from the
complacency of his wife.”
After his return to Glasgow, he appears to have applied
DALRYMPLE.
f>28
Dalrymple. his vigorous faculties to the discharge of his particular
functions, and to the enlargement of his stock of general
learning. His lectures were attended by many young
men of rank and fortune,1 and he thus had an opportuni¬
ty of forming connexions which he afterwards found to be
of considerable advantage. Not satisfied with his present
acquisitions, he devoted much attention to the study of
the Greek and Latin languages, with the history and an¬
tiquities of Greece and Rome; and to all his other pur¬
suits he added the study of the civil law, in which he
must have been his own preceptor. His colleagues had
easily discovered his talents for business, and he frequent¬
ly had occasion to visit the seat of government in the pro¬
secution of some of the university suits : he was thus ren¬
dered familiar with the forms of judicial procedure, and
became acquainted with the most eminent men on the
bench and at the bar. Having adopted the resolution of
betaking himself to the profession of the law, he resigned
his chair in the year 1647, and was admitted an advocate
on the 17th of February 1648, being then in the twenty-
ninth year of his age. He soon rose to professional emi¬
nence. After the execution of the king, the committee
of estates dispatched certain commissioners to his son at
Breda, for the purpose of inviting him to Scotland: Dal¬
rymple was appointed to act as their secretary, and he
appears to have acquitted himself to the satisfaction of
both parties in this weighty negociation. In Holland he
visited several learned men, and particularly Salmasius,
who held an honorary professorship in the university of
Leyden. He returned home in the course of the ensuing
year, 1650; but during his absence, he had been nomi¬
nated by the estates one of the commissioners for revising
the old books of law, the acts of parliament, and the prac¬
tice of the different judicatures. On the 29th of May he
was sent to the north, along with Arthur Erskine of Scots-
craig, with instructions to attend the king’s landing.2 He
experienced a favourable reception, and appears to have
engaged very zealously in the royal cause ; but it is well
known that the efforts of the Scottish royalists to place
Charles on the English throne were unavailing to him,
and pernicious to themselves.
Dalrymple continued his practice at the bar till the im¬
position of what was called the Tender, when several other
eminent lawyers likewise retired. He however resumed
his place when Cromwell’s government either dispensed
with the oath, or connived at its omission. In the year
1656, he was included in a deputation of four advocates
who were sent to remonstrate with the commissioners for
the administration of justice, on the expediency of restor¬
ing the ancient practice of the outer-house, which these
republican judges had suppressed. This remonstrance
was attended with the desired effect. On the 26th of
June 1657, Sir James Learmonth of Balcomy, one of the
judges, expired on the bench ; and on the very same day,
a commission, appointing Dalrymple in his place, was
signed by General Monk in the name of the protector’s
council in Scotland. In a letter written three days be¬
fore, the general had recommended him to Cromwell as
“ a person fit to be a judge, being a very honest man, a
good lawier, and one of a considerable estate;” and now,
describing him as a person of eminent abilities, he craved
his highness s approbation of the choice which the coun¬
cil had been induced to make.3 The annual salary of the Dalrymple.
judges was then three hundred pounds sterling. This was
a preferment which he had not solicited, and of which he
did not accept without considerable reluctance. What¬
ever might be his views or feelings as to Cromwell’s go¬
vernment, it is probable that his practice at the bar may
have been more lucrative. He was admitted on the 1st
of July, and his appointment was confirmed by the pro¬
tector on the 25th of the same month. In this situation,
his interest was beneficially exerted in procuring for the
gentlemen connected with the counties where his estates
were situated, a redress of grievances from the council or
the English officers; and by thus enlarging the sphere of
his utility, he encreased his connexions, and strengthened
his personal influence. He obtained so considerable a
share of Monk’s confidence, that the day before he began
that march which decided the fate of three kingdoms, he
held a private conference with Dalrymple, and requested
him to deliver his unreserved opinion as to the best method
of restoring tranquillity and regular government. The
learned judge readily answered that “ the wisest and
fairest way was to procure a meeting of a full and free
parliament.” This sound advice was ultimately adopted,
at least to a certain extent; and of Monk, “ who was de¬
termined to make his own fortune, without regard to any
party,”4 * it must at least be admitted that he acquitted him¬
self with sufficient dexterity.
Soon after the Restoration, Dalrymple accompanied the
earl of Cassillis to London, in order to pay his respects
to the king. On this occasion he received the honour
of knighthood; and his name was inserted in the first
commission to the judges of the court of session, dated
on the 13th of February 1661. During the absence of
the lord president, it was customary to appoint a vice-
president ; and, except in one instance, when he was
himself absent at the same time, the choice uniformly
fell upon Sir James Dalrymple. After an interval of
two years, he was exposed to some degree of uneasiness
by the operation of the statutes which required the oath
of allegiance to be accompanied with a declaration against
the national covenant adopted in 1638, and the solemn
league and covenant adopted in 1643, as being contrary
to the fundamental laws and liberties of the kingdom.
Dalrymple was in the country attending the funeral of
his mother when this ill-timed declaration was tendered
to his colleagues, and when all who were in town sub¬
scribed it, with the solitary exception of Sir James Dun-
das of Arniston. The earl of Glencairn, lord chancellor,
communicated to him the king’s order to the privy coun¬
cil to declare vacant the places of such judges as refused
to subscribe; and in his answer, dated at Ayr on the 15th
of January 1664, he stated that he had already resigned
his commission into the king’s hands.6 After the lapse of
a few months, he was invited to court, and was favoured
with an audience of his majesty, who graciously received
his explanations, and was pleased to inform him that he
would not accept his resignation. The conscientious
judge stated that he was willing to “ declare against no
more than what was opposite to his majesty’s just right
and prerogative.” A letter from the king, dated on 21st
of April, restored him to his seat on the bench, and his
declaration was afterwards received with this qualifica-
1 In the Advocates Library there is an octavo MS. which bears the following title: “ Compendium Logicm sub viro no
parum erudito Magistro Jacobo Dalrymple, anno Domini 1643.” It contains notes of the professor’s lectures on logic, taken by
student named Robert Law. s> •> j
2 Balfour’s Annales of Scotland, vol. iv. p. 18.
3 Thurloe’s State-Papers, vol. vi. p. 367. 372.
4 Brodie’s Hist, of the British Empire, vol. iv. p. 484.
., Jds letter to the earl of Glencairn, the original is in the possession of Thomas Thomson, Esq. to whose kindness we ar
likewise indebted tor the use of various other documents connected with the personal history of Lord Stair.
DALRYMPLE.
Dalrymple. tion. During the interval, he had made an excursion to
Fiance : he left London on the 22d, and reached Paris on
the 29th of April.1 On the 2d of June ensuing, he was
created a baronet. While at the bar, he had refused all
employment in criminal cases, and under the protectorate
he had declined to act in the criminal court. After the
Restoration, he was offered the place of king’s advocate,
or that of a judge in the court of justiciary: but, says For¬
bes, he excus d himself, alledging for his reason the
danger of acquitting the guilty, or wounding the innocent
in such offices; and no doubt the gentleness of his nature,
as well as tne hazard he foresaw in deciding concerning
state-crimes, had influence on that resolution.”2 The va-
lious legulations which altered and improved the practice
or the court from the period of the Restoration to the
year 1669, are in a great measure imputed to his influ¬
ence. He was one of the commissioners appointed under
the great seal for regulating judicatures; and the regula¬
tions which they recommended were embodied and con-
hrmed by acts of parliament passed in 1669 and 1672.
He opposed the distinction which was then projected be-
tween lawyers who practised in the inner and those who
piactised in the outer-house; and he equally opposed
the scheme of tendering to the advocates an oath that
they would not accept higher fees than were fixed by the
authoiity of the court, for his conduct in resisting these
unpalatable measures he received the thanks of the facul¬
ty . but in the midst of the arbitrary proceedings which
were so prevalent at that period, it was difficult to escape
the general odium ; and in 1674, during the great schism
which took place between the bench and the bar, on the
subject of appeals from the court of session to the parlia¬
ment, he felt the force of that envy which his merit and his
good fortune had frequently provoked. In his Apology
he has expressly declared that he had no personal concern
in the violent measure of banishing the advocates from
Edinburgh.
The project of a union between the two kingdoms had
been revived in the year 1670, and Sir James Dalrymple
was then appointed one of the Scottish commissioners. By
his wit and address upon this occasion, he strongly recom¬
mended himself to the good graces of Lauderdale.3 He
was soon afterwards nominated a member of the privy
council, which at that period was invested with very un¬
defined and arbitrary powers. The office of president of
the court of session having become vacant by the resigna¬
tion of Sir John Gilmour of Craigmillar, he was appointed
to succeed him on the 13th of January 1671; and his
place as an ordinary judge was supplied by his kinsman
Sir Thomas Wallace of Craigie. On the 15th of Decem¬
ber 1676, the common council of Edinburgh, having taken
into consideration the many great and signal services done
to the city by the lord president, resolved that his house-
rent should be paid from the funds of the corporation, and
that the same benefit should be extended to his successors
in office. This municipal act continued in force till the
year 1741, when the lord president Forbes declined to
avail himself of the privilege which it conferred.4
Dalrymple’s connexion with so corrupt an administra-
629
tion necessarily exposed him to suspicion and obloquy. Dalrymple
Having afterwards been charged with subserviency to the
duke of Lauderdale, a name devoted to infamy, he replied
that the accusation was “ general and calumnious, without
an instance given ;” and he then proceeded to state that
his influence had always been applied to the most bene¬
ficial purposes. The duke, he remarks, “ came to Scot¬
land in the year 1677; and upon representations made by
me and others, he concurr’d in making several acts of
council, correctory of the abuses that then run; as parti¬
cularly, that persons were cited for church-disorders, with¬
out special circumstances of time or place, but generally
in one or other of the days of all the months for several
years; and were put to their oaths upon the whole libel,
whereby many had been holden as confest, and thereupon
fined, imprisoned, and transported like slaves to forraign
plantations: whereupon the then arch-bishop of St An¬
drews did represent to the bishops in England, and to the
court, that he was overturning the settlement of this na¬
tion ; and he likewise said that in one moneth after he
came hither, he had put the king’s interest further back
than could be retrived in seven years. To make up
which, he was instigated to bring in the Highland host
upon the west of Scotland, who treated them as enemies,
not only by free quarter, but by all insolencies and op¬
pressions ; and to obtain an order of council to enjoin a
bond to be taken by all in publick trust, and others in that
countrey, to delate, apprehend, and bring to judgment all
the presbyterian ministers that came ever in their power,
that had keeped any conventicles: against both which I
did with all freedom and faithfulness disswade him and
dissent; and I do not remember of any one person in
council or session that could never be induced to sub¬
scribe that bond, or to approve that road, but my self.
And when in the year 1679 several complaints were made
to K. Charles against Lauderdale and his brother, which
were published in print,5 and whereupon K. Charles gave
a publick audience, though I was there present, there was
not the least insinuation against me.”6 What he here
states in reference to that pillar of the apostolical church
Dr Sharp, is sufficiently characteristic. Any departure
from the most violent and oppressive measures, was to be
construed as hostile to church and state. In a private let¬
ter addressed to Lord Melville on the 1st of January 1690,
he thus expresses himself, in homely language, but with
no undignified sentiment: “ I ador God’s providence in
pei mitting so much dust against me, thogh the matter,
separat from the railing, imports nothing bot my em¬
bracing first and last the statione God hath called me to,
and the malitious ly of my being author, actor, or approver
of the cruelties in the former reigns, which your Lordship
and all unbyassed and enformed men know to be fals as
hell could make it; bot I thank God I have the peace of
my conscience, and I am confident your Lordship will
bear witnes for me to his Majestie.”
In the year 1679, the duke of York came to reside at
Holyroodhouse, and the judges and other members of the
College of Justice made him a visit of ceremony. The
lord president addressed him in a congratulatory speech,
ty. But the king’s letter, restoring him to his office, was dated on the S l’st of Anril ,UP°n„hls. ma.)es*
“ Forbes’s Journal of the Session, p. xxxiii. Edinb. 1714, fol.n Ap ’ andheleft London for Paris on the following day.
3 Mackenzie’s Memoirs of the Affairs of Scotland, p. 214. Edinb 1821 4to
< B run ton & Haig’s Historical Account of the Senators of the College of Justice, p. 367. Edinb. 1832 8vo
He apparently alludes to a weJl-known publication, without date or place of nrintins' “ An Acrnnint nf a n ■
reason of the D. of Lauderdales Ministrie, humbly tendred to his Sacred MaiesPtv ’’ 4gto T ! Pt °/fSc“tlands Grievances by
ten b, James Stuart, who was afterwards knightedfand bicame M XSate!" y' P1'°SKl t0 l,a''e bee“ Dartlv
* Apology for Sir James Ualrymple.
630 D A L R Y M P L E.
Dalrymple. which contained the following uncourtly sentiment: “ ’Tis
matter of great joy to this nation to see one of the royal
family among them, after being for so many years de¬
prived of that honour ; and the nation being entirely pro-
testant, it is the fittest place your Royal Highness could
have made your recess to at this time.” He took other
opportunities of endeavouring to impress the duke with a
conviction, that it was not for his own advantage to at¬
tempt any measure which might have the least tendency
to injure the protestant establishment. In the parliament
of 1681, in which the duke acted as his majesty’s commis¬
sioner, Sir James Dalrymple sat as a member for the
county of Wigton, and was nominated one of the lords of
the articles. When the test was under the consideration
of the house, he proposed and carried a clause, that all
persons holding public offices should swear that they sin¬
cerely professed the protestant religion as contained in
the Confession of Faith approved by parliament in 1567.
According fo the statement of one historian, he drew up
such an oath as was neither consistent with itself, nor with
his own principles, nor such as could be taken without the
guilt of perjury.1 He was dissatisfied with a test which
described the presbyterians as fanatics; and as he could
not prevent its being adopted, he seems to have devised
the expedient of introducing one clause in order to nullify
another. As soon as the act was passed, the duke of
York declared that the president had ruined all honest
men, that is, all papists, by introducing that Confession.
For subscribing this test with a particular explanation, the
earl of Argyle was subjected to a prosecution, which
formed one of the most flagrant acts of that disgraceful
era of our national history. Dalrymple himself declined
to subscribe it; and in the month of October he proceeded
to London, for the purpose of explaining his conduct to
the king, and perhaps of recommending his eldest son as
his successor ;2 but before his arrival, a new commission,
appointing Sir George Gordon president, and superseding
Sir Thomas Murray of Glendoick, and Sir John Baird of
Newbyth, had been issued under the great seal. As he
had quitted Scotland without obtaining leave from the
commissioner, the king refused him an audience, and
Murray, the secretary of state, commanded him to leave
England. “ That quarrel,” he remarks in his Apology,
“ with my freedom to the then duke, at his first coming
to Scotland, against attempting to weaken the protestant-
interest, in a publick speech I had at his entry, made me
to be the first person laid aside that ever was looked after.
I was cited before the criminal judges, before the council,
before the parliament, and hundreds of examinations and
re-examinations were taken against me, even of my most in¬
timate domestick servants, and my sisters in law, not in the
regular way of probation, but by way of inquisition to found
a process upon any special matter, which was never done,
because nothing was found against law. Can any judge in
Christendom show such a trial of integrity, who did so long
a time serve in such an eminent station ? No man was
found to witness the least malversation or baseness, by
indirect interest in any cause, by taking any bribe or re¬
ward, by partiality or insolency, though nothing would
have been more acceptable to the court, than by one blow
against my fortune and fame, to have ruined me upon mal¬
versation in my trust as a judge.” The only offence that
could be traced amounted to a suspicion that some pres¬
byterians, who had been at the battle of Bothwell-Bridge,
ived upon his estates, or lurked about his house in the
countiy, when he was occupied with his public duties in
town. This was considered as an adequate ground forDairymple
proceeding against him for “ harbour and reset of rebels
a charge sufficiently indefinite to leave ample room for
the operation of laws arbitrary in themselves, and admi¬
nistered with little regard to substantial justice. Dal¬
rymple had previously found it expedient to quit the
kingdom. His tenants were harassed in the various modes
devised by the instruments of oppression, his rents were
arrested, and on applying to the king’s advocate, Sir
George Mackenzie, he found that he himself incurred the
danger of being committed to prison : he therefore sought
a place of refuge in Holland, where he arrived towards
the close of the year 1682. He chiefly resided at Ley¬
den, the seat of a very famous university.
While he was exposed to these persecutions, he pre¬
pared for the press those works which have chiefly recom¬
mended him to the notice of posterity. His first and
greatest work was printed before he went into exile. “ The
Institutions of the Law of Scotland, deduced from its ori¬
ginals, and collated with the Civil, Canon, and Feudal
Laws, and with the customs of neighbouring nations.”3
Edinb. 1681, fol. This volume includes a “ Modus Liti-
gandi, or Form of Process observed before the Lords of
Council and Session.” After a considerable interval, his
Institutions appeared in a “ second edition, much en¬
larged.” Edinb. 1693, fol. A much longer period elapsed
before the appearance of “ the third edition, corrected
and enlarged, with notes.” Edinb. 1759, fol. This edi¬
tion was begun by John Gordon, who only conducted it
to the eighty-fifth page, and the undertaking was com¬
pleted by William Johnstone, afterwards more conspicu¬
ously known by the name of Sir William Pulteney. But
the labours of these editors appear very insignificant,
when compared with those which are exhibited in “ the
fourth edition, with commentaries and a supplement, by
George Brodie, Esq. Advocate.” Edinb. 1826-31, 2 vols.
fol. It is a proof of the estimation in which the author
continues to be held, that another elaborate edition has
since been given to the public, “ with notes and illustra¬
tions by John S. More, Esq. Advocate.” Edinb. 1832,
2 vols. 4to. Of the Institutions of Lord Stair there are
no fewer than ten manuscript copies in the Advocates
Library, and many others are to be found in private col¬
lections. It must apparently have been considered as a
useful exercise for apprentices in the law to make a com¬
plete transcript of a book which was sufficiently accessible
in print. During his exile, he published a work which,
although requiring less genius and learning in its author,
was at that time of great practical utility. “ The Deci¬
sions of the Lords of Council and Session, in the most im¬
portant Cases debated before them : with the Acts of
Sederunt.” Edinb. 1683—7, 2 parts, fol. This work com¬
prehends a report of cases decided from the re-establish¬
ment of the court to the month of August 1681.
His next publication was of a very different nature. It
bears the following ample and descriptive title : “ Physio-
logia nova Experimentalis, in qua generales Notiones Aris-
totelis, Epicuri, et Cartesii supplentur, Errores deteguntur
et emendantur, atque clarae, distinctae, et speciales causae
praecipuorum experimentorum, aliorumque phcenomenwn
naturalium aperiuntur, ex evidentibus principiis quae nemo
antehae perspexit et prosecutus est: authore D. de Stair,
Carolo II. Britanniarum Regi a Consiliis Juris et Status.
Nuper Latinitate donata.” Lugduni Batavorum, 1686,
4to. The expression “ nuper Latinitate donata,” would
seem to indicate that the book had first appeared in an-
1 Cunningham’s Hist, of Great Britain, vol. i. p 50
" Wodrow’s Hist, of the Sufferings of the Church of Scotland, vol. ii. p. 197.
es, w 10 le in the } ear 1754, wrote Annotations on hard Stair's Institutions of the Law of Scotland. Edinb. 1824, 4to.
DALRYMPL E.
631
lalrympie. other language : we cannot discover that this was actually
the case, but he may have employed some person to trans¬
late his manuscript into Latin.1 The learned author had
at an early period of his life been accustomed to read lec¬
tures in that language, and could himself have performed
such a task. This publication received a very favourable
notice from Bayle.2
In the mean time, Dalrymple and his family were not
exempted from persecution. On the charge of absenting
herself from church and frequenting conventicles, his lady
was cited before the privy council in the year 1683 ;3 and
their eldest son Sir John Dalrymple was harassed by many
vexatious proceedings. On the complaint of Graham of
Claverhouse, he was in the course of the same year com¬
pelled by the council to pay L.500 sterling, on the pre¬
text that, as heritable bailie of Glenluce, he had inter¬
fered with the jurisdiction of the sheriff, and exacted too
small fines from his own and his father's tenants for fre¬
quenting conventicles. Although he had taken no share
in the political measures of the time, he was in Septem¬
ber 1684 seized during the night in his own house at
Newliston, and, without any colour of law or justice, was
next day committed to prison like a common malefactor.
After having been detained for three months, he was
released on giving security to the amount of L.5000 ster¬
ling.4 By his talents and dexterity, he not only prevented
the escheat of his father’s estate, but speedily raised him¬
self to power and influence. The father having been im¬
plicated in the Ryehouse plot, was prosecuted for treason,
and sentence of outlawry was pronounced against him on
the 17th of March 1685 ;5 but his son, who was appointed
lord advocate towards the close of the ensuing year, had
sufficient interest and address to procure a pardon, not only
to him, but likewise “ to his mother, his brethren and sis¬
ters, and particularly for their reset and converse with
traitors, and to his little son, who had accidentally shot
his brother,”6 *
His own experience had rendered him too familiar with
the miseries inseparably connected with arbitrary govern¬
ment, and he was therefore sufficiently prepared to engage
in an attempt to rid the kingdom of an incorrigible ty¬
rant. When the prince of Orange was on the eve of
embarking for his memorable expedition, Dalrymple en¬
quired into the real object of his enterprise; and when
the prince declared that he designed the glory of God,
and the security of the protestant religion, the venerable
exile pulled off his wig, and pointing to his head, ex¬
claimed, “ Though I be now in the seventieth year of my
age, I am willing to venture that, my own, and my chil¬
dren’s fortunes in such an undertaking.” It is stated by
Forbes, that “ the kindness and tender affection express’d
by his Royal Highness upon that occasion to my Lord Stair,
exposed him to the envy of several persons; which after¬
wards broke out in pamphlets stuff’d with personal reflec-Dalrymple.
tions, and other injurious writings against restoring him
to his rightful office of president of the session, and as¬
persing his administration thereof. This good old man,
with all imaginable cheerfulness, came over in that glo¬
rious expedition, to preserve our constitution, when reli¬
gion, liberty, and property, the dearest concerns of man¬
kind, seem’d to be at stake. The prince, upon his land¬
ing at Torbay, sent to inquire concerning my Lord Stair’s
health ; and perceiving that his horses were not come up,
ordered a Neapolitan horse belonging to himself to be
sent to the Lord Stair for his accommodation.” When
he arrived in Scotland, his influence was very usefully
exerted in providing that the election in boroughs should
be conducted by a general poll of freemen, and thus
securing a majority of Whigs and presbyterians in the
convention of estates.
Sir George Lockhart, president of the court of session,
fell by the hand of an assassin on the 31st of March 1689,
and on the 28th of October Sir James Dalrymple was re¬
instated in his former office. This appointment, so equit¬
able and judicious in itself, excited a considerable degree
of popular clamour, on the alleged ground, that when the
court was entirely dissolved by this change in the govern¬
ment of the kingdom, it was not competent for the crown
to restore it without the authority of parliament. The
lord president was very fiercely attacked in an anonymous
pamphlet ascribed to Robert Ferguson, a restless and un¬
scrupulous individual, who was known by the descriptive
appellation of the Plotter, and who was “ remarkable for
serving his party, and saving himself in all plots.”? This
publication produced “ An Apology for Sir James Dal¬
rymple of Stair, President of the Session, by himself.”
Edinb. 1690, 4to.8 He appears to us to have defended
his character and conduct in a manner at once able and
satisfactory. In the course of the same year, on the 21st
of April, he was elevated to the peerage, by the title of
Viscount of Stair, Lord Glenluce and Stranraer, with limi¬
tations to the heirs male of his body. He had now ac¬
quired great influence in the management of affairs in
Scotland; and this influence derived no inconsiderable
support from his son, who was conspicuous for the ele¬
gance of his person, and the power of his eloquence. The
last publication of the distinguished author was worthy of
his declining years, and of his former reputation. It bears
the title of “ A Vindication of the Divine Perfections,
illustrating the Glory of God in them, by Reason and Re¬
velation : methodically digested into several Meditations.
By a Person of Honour.” Lond. 1695, 8vo. A preface,
written by Dr Bates and Mr Howe, two eminent indivi¬
duals among the English non-conformists, contains a very
high commendation of the author and his performance.
“ The clearness and vigor of his spirit,” they remark, “ are
1 A curious document, in the form of a ratification, under the privy seal, of a contract between Sir James Dalrymple and his
printer, enumerates among other works a “ Treatise containing four Inquiries concerning Humane Knowledge, Natural Theologie,
Moralitie, and Phisiologie.” (Dallas’s System of Stiles, p. 152. Edinb. 1697, fob) The ratification is dated on the 11th of April
1681. This Inquiry concerning Phisiologie was probably the first sketch of the work afterwards published in Latin. What related to
natural theology he perhaps incorporated in his Vindication of the Divine Perfections. In his Apology he mentions another work
which was never published, namely, a treatise on the rights of kings and subjects.
2 Nouvelles de la llepublique des Lettres, Decemb. 1685, p. 1336 Bayle gives the date of 1685. The Physiologia must have
been published at the end of that year, and dated on the following.
3 Fountainhall’s Decisions of the Lords of Council and Session, vol. i. p. 224. Edinb. 1759, 2 vols. fob
4 Fountainhall, vol. i. p. 191. 201. 217. 220. 303. 386. 5 Fountainhall, vol. i. p. 353. Wodrow, vol. ii. p. 492.
6 Fountainhall, vol. i. p. 447- See likewise Wodrow, vol. ii. p. 586.
’ Dalrymple’s Memoirs of Great Britain and Ireland, vol. i. p. 20 The pamphlet bears the following title : “ The late Proceed¬
ings and Votes of the Parliament of Scotland, contained in an Address delivered to the King, signed by the Plurality of the Members
thereof, stated and vindicated.” Glasgow, 1689, 8vo. This title is not to be found in Ferguson’s list of “ all the pieces he ever
wrote before the present August 1712.” See Original Letters, fob Adv. Libr.
8 This pamphlet, which consists of four leaves, has a colophon, but no title-page. It has lately been reprinted for the Bannatyne
Club. Edinb. 1825, 4to.
632 D A L R Y M P L E.
Balrjmple.illustriously visible in managing a subject so deep and
difficult. And as in the blessed God there is a union of
all glorious and amiable excellencies as are perfective of
our minds, and attractive of our wills; so in our author’s
unfolding them, there is joined with the strength of argu¬
ment, that beauty of perswasion as may enlighten and en¬
gage all understanding readers to be happy in the entire
choice of God for their everlasting portion.” He must
apparently have been indebted to some of his English
friends for purifying his style from provincial idioms,
which are sufficiently numerous in his other works. But
his long and eventful life had nearly reached its close : he
died on the 25th of November 1695, after having attained
the seventy-seventh year of his age, and his remains were
interred in St Giles’s church.
He left behind him a numerous and prosperous family.1
Lady Stair had died in the year 1692. John, his eldest
son, who became a judge, and secretary of state, was cre¬
ated earl of Stair: he was equally distinguished by his
talents, but possessed less consistency of character; and
his concern in the massacre of Glenco has affixed an inde¬
lible stain upon his memory.2 The second earl acted a
very conspicuous part in the wars and diplomacies of his
own age. Sir James Dalrymple, Bart, the second son of
the lord president, was one of the principal clerks of ses¬
sion ; and, as an antiquary, he is favourably known by his
“ Collections concerning the Scottish History.” Edinb.
1705, 8vo. Sir Hugh Dalrymple, Bart, the third son,
succeeded his father as president of the court of session.
The fourth son was Thomas Dalrymple, M. D. physician
in ordinary to the king in Scotland. The youngest son,
Sir David Dalrymple, Bart, was, like many other mem¬
bers of the same family, bred to the legal profession, and
was successively solicitor general, lord advocate, and au¬
ditor of theScottish exchequer. He was the grandfather
of the late Lord Hailes. The president had four daugh¬
ters, all of whom were married, two of them into the
noble families of Cathcart and Dumfries.
Lord Stair, like every other individual who has render¬
ed himself highly conspicuous in times of great public
excitement, is mentioned by different writers with a very
different measure of praise or censure. According to Bi¬
shop Burnet, he was “ a man of great temper and of a very
mild deportment, but a false and cunning man, and a great
perverter of justice; in which he had a particular dexte¬
rity of giving some plausible colours to the greatest in¬
justice.’ I his general and heavy charge of perverting
justice we have not found supported by any particular in¬
stances. I he fountains of justice were at that unhappy
period very extensively polluted, but we are disposed to
class him among the most unexceptionable judges who
had then sat upon theScottish bench. We must not how¬
ever conceal the fact, that, when he resumed his seat af-Dalrymple.
ter the Revolution, his conduct as a judge was a frequent
and angiy topic ot discussion nor can we venture to de-
teimine how far this circumstance is to be imputed to the
foice ot political animosity. It was his misfortune to live
in most flagitious times, and by his public station to be
necessarily connected with a government which evinced
a total disregard of the first principles of justice and hu¬
manity. The arbitrary proceedings of Lauderdale be
seems to have icsisted, with consummate prudence indeed,
but still with decent firmness; and of the integrity of his
chaiacter he exhibited repeated proofs, by preferring the
loss of office and emolument to a compliance with the
iniquity of the times. At a period when the nobility and
gentry of Scotland furnished so many and such flagrant
examples of cool and deliberate villany, Lord Stair acted
with a very unusual degree of moderation and consistency;
noi would it perhaps be easy to mention any person of rank
in the profligate reign of Charles II. whose character could
so well end me a severe scrutiny. He was a man of the
most gentle depoitment,4 joined with a prudence which
seemed to be constitutional; and as extreme prudence not
infrequently lingers on the verge of meanness or artifice,
it may in some cases be difficult to trace the line where vir¬
tue ends and vice begins. The force of his talents and
the i espectability of his character rendered him an acqui¬
sition to any party in the state. He was importuned to
accept of a seat on the bench under the government to
which, as an advocate, he had declined to take the oath
of allegiance; and when he was admitted, it only appears
that he took an oath to discharge his office with fidelity.
A similai line of conduct was pursued in another kingdom
by Sir Matthew Hale, whose name can never be mention¬
ed but with high respect. When Stair became a member
of tbe privy council, he was indeed associated with men
whose breath was contamination; but even in this diffi¬
cult situation he seems to have maintained his integrity,
and to have resisted to the utmost of his power the per¬
nicious and profligate measures which then disgraced the
nation. An individual of a more bold and decided cha¬
racter might have signalized his opposition by more pro¬
minent acts; but, in the midst of such associates, it must
have proved less beneficial to the community, and more
i uinous to himself.5 In all the relations of private life,
his enemies have not denied him the praise of being mild
and amiable. He was zealously attached to the protest-
ant faith, and exhibited an edifying example of domestic
piety.6
His character as a lawyer is too well known to require
any illustiation in a work of this nature. He was evident¬
ly a man of a great capacity, and of various learning; he
was not only skilled in ancient literature and in jurispru-
s Carstares’s^t °n ^co^an(^ 1°^ 11- P' 522, 2 See Laing’s History of Scotland, vol. iv. p. 238.
4 ™‘aies s State-Papers and Letters, p. 154. 167- 257- Edinb. 1774, 4to. ° ^ P
universal Si^turmos^LnsffiembTe fm- f lowinS character : Stair was a gentleman of excellent parts, of an equal wit, and
crisv in him. Thfs meeknp^fiit alf- b / b? g S? free fro™ Passions> that most men thought this equality of spirit a mere hypo-
he was capable to hear6withoutdisordpr eXtrel?e1/ t0 bf a pres.dent; for he thereby receiv’d calmly all men’s informations, and by it
in ten years intimacy I never hem-l °r. confusi°n’ ^at the advocates represented. But that which I admir’d most in him was, that
p. 214.) he d hlm speak unfnendly of those who had injur’d him.” (Memoirs of the Affairs of Scotland,
cil, he*1 recommended^he'measnre15,'f ^i-We charac^eristi? instance of his smooth and skilful management. In the privy coun-
the opposition of some of the me n ^ Lng out the militia during the year 1G91 ; and the mode in which he endeavoured to remove
« «He knew not P Tmber^1S here <1etailed b-v the earl of Crawfurd, one of their number,
tween the duties ofreltion anlT1- ^0,rbes’“ what ^ w.as to be idle, and took a strict account of his time; dividing himself be-
temperate and mighty reeular r ,uc ies 0 n® profession, which he minded more than the raising of a great fortune. He was sober,
and performed the like divine servi -p* Pra-yec always and read a chapter of the Bible to his family before they sat down to dinner,
soever. He had a great spirit and^p & fr suPPer j winch he would not interrupt upon any consideration of business, how important
was serious or profifable he knew how ti ^u” 11 c harshest PassaSes of his life : by the constant bent of his thoughts to what
resent ffiTuries done to him when 1 them fr°m an-V uneasy ^Pression of sorrow. He was apt to forget, at least not to
resent injuries done to him, when it was in his power to requite them.” (Journal of the Session, p. xxxix.)
Dalrymple. dence, but likewise in philosophy, and even in theology
He was the first writer who reduced the law of Scotland
to the form of a system, and confessedly the ablest writer
who ever made such an attempt.* Sir Thomas Craig,
who preceded him by nearly a century, found it a rude
and undigested mass, and in arranging and methodizino-
one extensive and important branch, he exerted no mean
talents or learning. Lord Stair adopted a more general
design, and, with great sagacity extracting order out of
confusion, combined his loose and heterogeneous materials
into a compact and lucid form ; nor would it perhaps be
easy to mention an instance of another individual havin-
effected so signal an improvement in the jurisprudence of
any modern nation. (T> i )
Dalrymple, Sir David, a Scottish lawyer and judge,
Zai ZnoJo ETdTinburgh on the 28th of October, new
style, 17262 His father was Sir James Dalrymple of
Hades, in the county of Haddington, Bart., auditor-gene-
ral of the exchequer in Scotland, and his mother Lady
Christian Hamilton, a daughter of Thomas, sixth earl of
Haddington. His grandfather Sir David Dalrymple, lord
advocate from 1709 to 1720, was the youngest son of James,
first Viscount Stair, president of the Court of Session, and
author of the Institutions of the Law of Scotland ; and he
is said to have been the ablest of a family of whom several,
in their different capacities, civil, military, and judicial,
were so eminently distinguished for ability. Sir David
Dalrymple received his classical education at Eton, where
he was remarkable for his proficiency in classical learning
and for exemplary conduct, and where he acquired a
marked predilection for English manners and customs,
which adhered to him through life. From thence he went
to Holland, and studied civil law at the university of
Utrecht, being intended for the Scottish bar. On his return
to his native country, after passing the ordinary trials, he
was admitted advocate on the 24th of February 1748.
Although possessing an ample fortune (his father having
died on the 24th of February 1751), and attached to the
pursuits of elegant literature, he was not seduced from
close application to the study of a dry profession. As a
barrister, however, his success was not equal to the expec¬
tations which had been formed of him; and as he did not
attain any high distinction or very extensive practice in
us piofession, he was still enabled to pursue his favourite
literary and antiquarian researches. This want of success
at the bar was, it is said, chiefly owing to the circum¬
stance of his being unfitted to shine as a public speaker,
by an ill-toned voice, an ungraceful elocution, and a dry¬
ness of manner too much in contrast with the eloquence
and fluency of some of his more popular brethren. The
character, however, which he had secured for sound know¬
ledge, acuteness, unwearied application, and strict probity
JD A L R Y M P L E.
633
in his profession, made up for the want of more imposing Dalrymple
attractions, and eminently fitted him for filling a judicial ^ '
situation. He was elevated to the bench, and took his
seat as one of the senators of the college of justice on the
i arC1 1'66 5 and ten years later> on the 3d May
17/6, he was also appointed a lord of justiciary, having on
the former occasion, according to the usage of the court
assumed the title of Lord Hailes, the name by which he
is generally known among the learned of Europe.
As a judge of the supreme civil and criminal courts, it is
nere sufficient to observe, that he merited and obtained high
confidence and approbation ; and he is particularly remem-
oeied for the solemnity of his demeanour when it fell to
him to pass sentence upon criminals. We shall therefore
proceed to consider his literary character and pursuits, in
winch, although not ambitious of mere literary fame, he
had early m life attained considerable eminence. This led
to an extensive and friendly intercourse with many persons
of learning and genius in England, and in the number of
Ins correspondents were such men as Bishop Warburton,
Lord Hardwicke, Dr Percy, afterwards bishop of Dro-
more, T. Warton, Dr Birch, Dr Kippis, Bishop Hurd, and
Horace Walpole.3 It may also be noticed, that the hono-
rary distinction of doctor of laws was conferred on Sir
Dav!/! Dalrymple by the university of Edinburgh on the
oth of December 1760.4 With what assiduity he must
have devoted his leisure hours to literary and antiquarian
pursuits will appear from the list which is subjoined of
his various publications.5 From this list it will be evident
. t ,e °bjects of his investigation may almost exclu¬
sively be referred to two distinct classes; the one con¬
nected with the history and literary antiquities of his own
country, and the other with the earlier state of the Chris¬
tian church ; and a few remarks may be made in reference
to the most important of his works in each of these classes.
His inquiries regarding Scottish history and antiquities
were at first more particularly directed to objects connect¬
ed with the ancient ecclesiastical and statute laws of the
country. In regard to the latter of these subjects, he never
carried his intentions into full effect, having left only
partial “ Specimens,” to evince what were his intentions.
Dis “ Canons of the Church of Scotland,” and “ Historical
• co,(lcern*n§ Provincial Councils of the Scot¬
tish Clergy,” are tracts of great importance. But so little
attention did they excite at the time, that of the first he
thought proper to state, “ for the benefit of those who may
be inclined to publish any tracts concerning the Antiqui-
tieA» Scotland, Mat twenty-five copies of the Canons were
sold. In the disputed case of succession to the Suther¬
land peerage, Lord Hailes, as one of the guardians of
Lady Elizabeth, the infant daughter of the last earl (and
subsequently Duchess of Sutherland), in their name pre-
“Load
chiefly consist of decisions of the court of session ; which with him are all of eoual authnritv tl, i P10 ession of law, Ins Institutes
cidations of the Common and Statute Law ot; Sc-ot'land, preT EdT„ri777 8vo ) ,UthoritJ'' lhoi«h concordant.” (Elu.
brother? “,e eUeSt ^ °f SiXte<!n Childre,■• the eminfn, biographer, who died in 1808, was hi, jounger
3 From a letter addressed to Mr John Pinkerton by Mr Malcolm T -lino- bistnrlon T,,i,ro icon i
Lord Hailes’ correspondence was unfortunately destroyed. “ I am desifed (he says) to ask you by IVHThnn 116 g,reater Part of
ther you have any letters of the late Lord Hailes that could mniviKut t c • i ' ^ f , Thomson, an advocate, whe-,
stupidity of his administrators. Lord Hai^lmLiJw^Ts^ed I believe “a? hTsTath and 1 some
respondents, there are no materials for his life which Mr Thomsnn hue it r I ’,and’ unless in the hands of his cor-
his works. ’He left the firs, volume of his 7'!' * *««« *
“To m' “ "■il‘ bf- re“ril1 gre,t •W***"-” (Pinkerton's Corre,f£Z, 'v„ 11 p “mT •“"* to
preserved’which pre~ *** ** •» -
the bcajitles oftIhe)cornpositiond^the^tmcienft^he<enter^twUhrtaste,0d)0ri'Se*ee^’ '"1 “I1 scholastic nature. He teU
peculiar vein of delicate' and ingenious ^ f ^ ««
left us of his own composition in that style, evince the head of a master ” n 15 ’ and a ^ew specimens which he has
VOL. VII.
4 L
634
dalrymple.
Dairympie. pared, in 1770, for the House of Lords, the very elaborate
memorial entitled “ The Additional Case of Elizabeth,
claiming the title and dignity of Countess of Sutherland.
In this volume, to which is affixed the names ol two ot
her ladyship’s counsel (Alexander Wedderburn, after¬
wards the Lord Chancellor, Earl of Rosslyn, and Sir Adam
Fergusson), Lord Hailes has displayed the greatest accu¬
racy of research in regard to the family history ol the
Scottish nobility, and the rules of descent in this coun¬
try; while he managed the question at issue with sue i
dexterity of argument, as not only clearly to establish the
right of his pupil, but also to form a precedent at the
same time for the decision of all such questions of suc¬
cession in future. About the same time Lord Hai es
published, anonymously, selections from George Eanna-
tyne’s manuscript collection of early Scottish poetry; a vo¬
lume which displays great judgment and good taste on the
part of the editor, and which is accompanied with illus¬
trative notes not less valuable than interesting.^ He is
somewhat severe upon Allan Ramsay, who, in 1/24, had
published several of the same poems, for liberties taken
with the text. Ramsay’s mode of publication was not
such as accords with our ideas of editing early remains, as
he felt no scruple in omitting or altering what he disliked
or did not understand, in improving, as he thought, what
tiality, and his scrupulous attachment to truth, excited the Dalrymple.
admiration of the great English moralist, to whom he had
sent the sheets for revisal, and whose opinion of the work
is worthy of quotation. “ It is in our language, I think,”
says Dr Johnson, “ a new mode of history which tells all
that is wanted, and, I suppose, all that is known, without
laboured splendour of language or affected subtilty of con¬
jecture. The exactness of his [Lord Hailes’] dates raises
my wonder. He seems to have the closeness of Henault
without his restraint.” This opinion he takes a pleasure in
repeating in a subsequent letter to Mr Boswell. “ Be so
kind,” he says, “ as to return Lord Hailes my most respect¬
ful thanks for his first volume; his accuracy strikes me
with wonder; his narrative is far superior to that of He¬
nault, as I have formerly mentioned.” Again, he says,
“ Lord Hailes’ Annals of Scotland have not that painted
form which is the taste of this age ; but it is a book which
will always sell, it has such a stability of dates, such a cer¬
tainty of facts, and such a punctuality of citation. I never
before read Scotch history with certainty” On the appear¬
ance of the second volume in 1779, he says, it “ lies by my
bed-side ; a book surely of great labour, and, to every just
thinker, of great delight.” Johnson, however, was not blind
to its cardinal defect, namely, the dispassionate and dry
statement of facts; but this he hints with a delicacy,
required improvement. Still we do&not see why, as one of arising no doubt from the high regard he entertained tor
the first persons to call public attention to the works of the authors private character. Lord Hailes Annals of
the older and neglected Scottish poets, his attempts at Scotland, he says, in a subsequent letter to Mr Boswell,
emendation should be visited with more severe censure “ are very exact; but they contain mere dry particulars.
- - " " nr” ' 1 j —-i —— You know such
you please,
are sure he
marks on'the History of Scotland,” consisting of nineteen does not know the people whom he paints; so you cannot
chapters, each of them treating of subjects calculated (in
the words of Lord Elibank in his “ Letter” to the author)
“ to revive that spirit of inquiry into the antiquities of this
country, which, to our shame, was almost totally extin¬
guished ; and which, if it was possible to abolish, would at
once destroy the most powerful incitement to private vir¬
tue and public spirit.” The j Remarks” might be con¬
sidered as gleanings of the historical research which he
was making at that time, and discovered his lordship s
turn for minute and accurate inquiry “ into knotty points
of history. This publication, whilst it displayed the can¬
dour and liberality of his judgment, prepared the public
for the favourable reception of the “ Annals of Scotland,
the first volume of which appeared in 1776. This is a
work so well known, and its value is so justly appreciated,
that it would be unnecessary to enlarge upon its merits.
The chronological plan adopted was somewhat novel in
English history, but was not calculated for a popular work.
It was, however, quite suited to the author’s peculiar
turn of mind ; his great object being that of clearing away
the fables, unsupported theories, and partial statements,
of former historians. Several general histories of the coun¬
try had recently been published, such as Maitland and
Grainger’s, and Guthrie’s, whilst public attention had been
in a more especial manner directed towards the subject by
the writings of Robertson and Hume. The period which
Lord Hailes intended to treat of began with the acces¬
sion of Malcolm Canmore, in 1057, “ because the History
of Scotland, previous to that period, is involved in obscu¬
rity and fable;” and because he was enabled to ascertain
and establish its subsequent details by the authority either
of contemporary writers, or by references to public records
and other original documents which had been preserved.
Although the “ Annals” presented no attractions of style,
being devoid of all the graces and amenities of writing,
yet the author’s patient elaboration of minute facts and
dates, his acuteness in detecting error, his strict impar-
suppose a likeness. Characters should never be given by
a historian, unless he knew the people whom he describes,
or copies from those who knew them.”
Lord Hailes’ Annals terminate with the accession of the
house of Stuart, in the person of Robert III. in 1370. He
intended to have carried them on to the restoration of
James I. in 1424; but for “ various and invincible reasons,”
which are not stated, he left this portion to be resumed by
some future historian. We have seen it mentioned, that
when urged by Dr Carlyle to write the history of the house
of Stuart, by continuing the Annals to the period of the
union between Scotland and England, he declined such a
project, alleging “ he had not temper to write the annals
of such men.” At a later period of life he turned his
thoughts to the literary history of his country, and pub¬
lished several sketches of lives as specimens of a JBiogra-
phia Scotica ; a work, he thought, which, if executed “ on
a large and liberal plan, would deserve approbationand
he engaged, if others would co-operate, “ to assist in the
general design.” The only person, we believe, who came
forward on the occasion was the Earl of Buchan, but,
with all his zeal and patriotism, his lordship’s habit of mind
presented a striking contrast when compared with the ex¬
tent and accuracy of Lord Hailes’ literary and biographi¬
cal knowledge, in which he probably excelled all his con¬
temporaries : the scheme accordingly was abandoned.
We may now turn to the other class of Lord Hailes’
publications, which consists of those relating to the his¬
tory and antiquities of the Christian church. His atten¬
tion must have been led to this subject previously to the
appearance of the obnoxious chapters in Gibbon’s History
of the Roman Empire; for no allusion to that woi'k is
contained in the notes to his account of the Martyrs of
Smyrna, published in the same year, 1776. He may there¬
fore have been the more deeply impressed with a sense
of the mistakes and partialities of that splendid writer;
and he certainly, in no subsequent work, loses an oppor-
DALRYMPLE.
Dairymple. tunity to expose his unfair statements in tracing the pro-
gress and establishment of Christianity during the earlier
persecutions of the church. In all these publications
Lord Hailes was evidently actuated by a fervent and en¬
lightened zeal; and, by the light which he throws upon
difficult passages of ancient writers, he vindicates such
sentiments and conduct as are conformable to the word
of God, against the insinuations of the historian of the
Homan empire in its decline, and directly supports the
cause of our most holy faith. His continued investiga¬
tions of the subject at length, in 1786, led to the publi¬
cation, in a substantive form, of his most elaborate work,
entitled “ An Inquiry into the secondary Causes which
Mr Gibbon has assigned for the rapid Progress of Chris¬
tianity.” This work has too much the character of a col¬
lection of detached critical remarks; but, besides the ex¬
tent of learning which it displays in common with his
minor publications, it is both solid and acute in argument,
and most satisfactorily establishes “ that the things which
Mr Gibbon considered as secondary or human causes, effi¬
caciously promoting the Christian religion, either tended to
retard its progress, or were the manifest operations of the
wisdom and power of God.”
His lordship’s constitution had been long in an enfee¬
bled state, and being predisposed to corpulence, his habits
of studious application, and the want of regular exercise,
were unfavourable for the prolongation of life ; yet he at¬
tended his duty on the bench till within three days of his
death, when he was attacked with symptoms of apoplexy
on his way from the Court of Session, and was carried off
by a second attack on the 29th of November 1792, in the
sixty-sixth year of his age. Lord Hailes was twice mar¬
ried. By his first wife, Anne, daughter of the Honourable
George Brown, Lord Coalston, he left one daughter, who
still inherits the family estate. By his marriage with Helen,
daughter of the Honourable Sir James Fergusson, Baronet,
Lord Kilkerran, who survived him, he had another daugh¬
ter, afterwards married to her cousin, the grandson&of
Lord Kilkerran. As Lord Hailes left no male issue, the
title of baronet descended to his nephew John, eldest son
of his brother John Dalrymple, formerly Lord Provost of
Edinburgh.
A list of the several works of Lord Hailes, as nearly as
possible in the order of publication, is here subjoined.
Many of them are anonymous, and those marked f were
printed merely for private distribution.
1. Sacred Poems, or a collection of translations and
paraphrases from the Holy Scriptures. Edin. 1751,12mo.
2. f Proposals for carrying on a certain Public Work
in the City of Edinburgh, 8vo. No date. [1752.] This
jeu-d!esprit, dedicated to “ the Patron and Pattern of all
Castle-builders,” was a parody on the “ Proposals for car¬
rying certain Public Works,” &c. written by Sir Gilbert
Elliot of Minto, and circulated under the patronage of the
Convention of the Royal Burghs in August 1752, which
contained the first proposals for extending and improving
the city of Edinburgh, which was still confined within its
ancient and narrow limits.
3. The Wisdom of Solomon, Wisdom of Jesus the son
of Sirach, or Ecclesiasticus. Edin. 1755, 18vo.
4. Three papers in The World; No. 140, Sept. 4, 1755 •
No. 147, Oct. 23, 1755; No. 204, Nov. 25, 1756.
5. A Discourse of the unnatural and vile Conspiracye
attempted by John Earl of Gowrye, and his brother,
against his Majestie’s Person, at Saint Johnstoun, upon
the 5th of August 1600. No date [1755], 12mo. This
tract is the narrative published in 1600 as King James’s
account of the Earl of Gowrye’s Conspiracy, reprinted
with explanatory notes, intended to serve as a specimen
of historical collections illustrative of that still mysterious
635
point of Scottish history. This reprint has no date, andDalrymple.
is usually assigned to the year 1757; but it is mentioned
in the list of new books, in the Scots Magazine for Decem¬
ber 1755. There is another edition of the tract reprinted
about the same time, but without notes. Sir David Dal¬
rymple afterwards communicated such papers as he had
collected, and explained his sentiments regarding the
“ Conspiracy” to Dr Robertson, which enabled him, in his
History of Scotland, “ to place that transaction in a light
which dispels much of the darkness and confusion in which
it has been hitherto involved.”
6. f British Songs, sacred to Love and Virtue. Edin.
1756, 12mo.
7. Select Discourses by John Smith, late fellow of
Queen’s College, Cambridge. Edin. 1756, 12mo.
8. j- A Sermon which might have been preached in
East Lothian, on the 25th of October 1761. Edin. 1761,
12mo. Occasioned by the country people pillaging the
wreck of two vessels cast away on the coast of East Lo¬
thian, between Dunbar and North Berwick. This “ Ser¬
mon” is mentioned in the Scots Magazine, Nov. 1761,
p. 614, where the author is styled “ a gentleman distin¬
guished no less for humanity and religion, than for polite¬
ness and learning.” His object in composing this dis¬
course was the restitution of the stolen goods. It was
‘£ printed on his own charges, and caused be distributed
in that country, not permitting a single copy to be sold ;”
and we are told it produced the designed effect. It was
reprinted, Edin. 1794, 8vo.
9. Memorials and Letters relating to the History of
Britain in the reign of James the First, published from
the originals. Glasgow, 1762, 12mo. There is an en¬
larged edition of this volume, Glasgow, 1766, 8vo.
10. The Works of the ever memorable Mr John Hales
of Eaton, now first collected together. Glasgow, 1765,
3 vols. 12mo. Lord Hailes, in this edition, modernised
the language, which Dr Johnson blamed, and blamed
justly; for, says he, “ An author’s language is a charac-
teristical part of his composition, and is also characteristi-
cal of the age in which he writes. Besides, sir, when the
language is changed, we are not sure that the sense is
the same.”
11. A specimen of a book intituled Ane compendious
Booke of Godly and Spiritual Sangs, &c. Edinburgh,
printed by Andrew Hart [1621]. Edin. 1765, 8vo.
12. Memorials and Letters relating to the History of
Britain in the Reign of Charles I. published from the ori¬
ginals. Glasgow, 1766, 8vo.
13. An Account of the Preservation of Charles II. after
the Battle of Worcester; drawn up by himself: to which
are added, his Letters to several Persons. Glasgow,
1766, 8vo. Some copies of the volume have a reprinted
title-page, dated Edinburgh, 1801.
14. The Secret Correspondence between Sir Robert
Cecil and James VI. Edin. 1766, 12mo.
15. A Catalogue of the Lords of Session from the In¬
stitution of the College of Justice in the Year 1532, with
Historical Notes. Edin. 1767, 4to. Reprinted with ad¬
ditional notes by an anonymous editor. Edin. 1794, 4to.
More recently it has served as the basis of a work entitled
“ An Historical Account of the Senators of the College of
Justice, by George Brunton and David Flaig.” Edin.
1832, 8vo. The 1 /94 edition of the Catalogue of the
Lords ot Session is occasionally to be met with in a volume,
along with Nos. 18, 19, 20, and 21 of this list, having a
separate title-page: “ Tracts relating to the History and
Antiquities of Scotland.” Edin. 1800.
16. f A Specimen of Notes on the Statute Law of Scot¬
land. Lord Hailes, in the Scots Magazine, May 1768,
announced that for some time past he had been engaged
636 D A L R Y M P L E.
Dalrymple. in drawing up Notes on the Statute Law of Scotland,^
from the First Parliament of James I. to the Accession of
James VI.” requesting “ the aid of the learned, and of the
lovers of antiquity,” and inserted a specimen of the notes.
This request being complied with by only one gentleman,
he reprinted the “ Specimen of Notes” in an enlarged
form, without date, but probably in 1768, 8vo, pp. 37, and
circulated copies, addressed to such persons as were likely
to afford the information and assistance which he wished.
17. -f A Specimen of similar Notes on the Statute Law
of Scotland during the Reign of Mary Queen of Scots.
No date, 8vo, pp. 69, probably not printed till some time
after No. 16. Lord Hailes appears to have contemplated
some publication of the kind, even at a late period of his
life. In a letter to Pinkerton, dated Sept. 28, 1790, after
observing that he had no view of beginning where he had
left off in the History of Scotland, he says, “ Any thing
that I have [collected] as to the five James’s and Queen
Mary, will come in properly among my notes on their acts
ofparliament; a work which has been long under my hands,
and which I am unwilling to lose sight of.”
18. The Private Correspondence of Dr Francis Atter-
bury, Bishop of Rochester, and his Friends, in 1725, never
before published. [Edin,] 1768, 4to.
19. An Examination of some of the Arguments for the
high Antiquity of Regiam Majestatem; and an Inquiry
into the Authenticity of the Leges Malcolmi. Edin. 1769,
4to.
20. Canons of the Church of Scotland, drawn up in the
Provincial Councils held at Perth A. d 1242 and a. d.
1269. Edin. 1769, 4to.
21. Historical Memoirs concerning the Provincial Coun¬
cils of the Scottish Clergy, from the earliest accounts to
the era of the Reformation. Edin. 1769, 4to.
22. Ancient Scottish Poems, published from the MS.
of George Bannatyne, 1568. Edin. 1770, 12mo.
23. Specimen of a “ Glossary” of the Scottish Lan¬
guage. No date, 8vo.
24. The Additional Case of Elizabeth, claiming the
title and dignity of Countess of Sutherland. By her
Guardians. No date [Nov. 1770], 4to.
25. Remarks on the History of Scotland. Edin. 1773,
12mo. The same year there appeared a “ Letter to Lord
Hailes on his Remarks on the History of Scotland,” Edin.
1773, 12mo. In reply to this tract, which was written by
Patrick Lord Elibank, the author communicated in MS. to
his lordship, some observations, which were first printed in
the third edition of his Annals, vol. iii. p. 155, Edin. 1819.
26. Hubert! Langueti Epistolae ad Philippum Sydneium
Equitem Anglum. Edin. 1776, 8vo.
27. Annals of Scotland, from the Accession of Malcolm
III. sirnamed Canmore, to the Accession of Robert I.
Edin. 1776, 4to. This volume, along with an appendix
containing eight dissertations, has tables shewing the suc¬
cession of the kings of Scotland during the period em¬
braced in the Annals.
28. Account of the Martyrs of Smyrna and Lyons in
the Second Century. Edin. 1776, 12mo. This forms the
first volume of the Remains of Christian Antiquity.
29. L. C. F. Lactantii Divinarum Institutionum liber
quintus, sive de Justitia. Edin. 1777, 12mo.
30. Remains of Christian Antiquity [Vol. II.], contain¬
ing the Trials of Justin Martyr, Cyprian, &c. Edin. 1778,
12mo.
31. Eight Papers in the “ Mirror,” communicated be¬
tween April 1779 and April 1780, being Nos. 21, 46, 56,
62, 75, 86, 97, and 98.
32. Sermons of that eminent divine Jacobus a Vora-
gine, Archbishop of Genoa, translated from the originals.
Edin. 1779, 12mo.
33. Annals of Scotland [Vol. II.], from the AccessionDalrympk.
of Robert 1. surnamed Bruce, to the Accession of the
House of Stuart. Edin. 1779, 4to. The appendix to this
volume has nine dissertations. An edition of the Annals,
with tracts relating to the history and antiquities of Scot¬
land, was printed Edin. 1797, 3 vols. 8vo. A still more
complete edition, comprising Lord Hailes’ historical and
biographical tracts, was published Edin. 1819, 3 vols. 8vo.
It includes Nos. 5, 19, 20, 21, 25, and 40 to 44, of the
present list.
34. Remains of Christian Antiquity [Vol. III.], con¬
taining the History of the Martyrs of Palestine in the
third century, translated from Eusebius. Edin. 1780,
12mo.
35. Octavius, a Dialogue by Marcus Minucius Felix.
Edin. 1781, 12mo.
36. Of the Manner in which the Persecutors died, a
treatise by L. C. F. Lactantius. Edin. 1782, 12mo.
37. Disquisitions concerning the Antiquities of the Chris¬
tian Church. Glasgow, 1783, 12mo.
38. Miscellaneous Remarks on The Enquiry into the
Evidence against Mary Queen of Scots. Lond. 1784, 8vo.
This “ Enquiry” is Mr W. Tytler of Woodhouselee's well-
known Vindication of Queen Mary. Lord Hailes’ tract is
anonymous, and was sent to Dr Kippis at London for pub¬
lication, as the author was evidently not anxious to have
it ascribed to him.
39. An Inquiry into the Secondary Causes which Mr
Gibbon has assigned for the rapid growth of Christianity.
Edin. 1786, 4to. A translation of this work into Dutch
was published at Utrecht, 1793, 8vo. The original work
was reprinted at Edinburgh, 1808, 12mo, and again in
1810, accompanied with a “ Brief Memoir of the Life and
Writings of the Author;” by the late Dr Charles Stuart
of Dunearn, but whose name is not prefixed to either of
these editions.
40. Sketch of the Life of John Barclay, author of Ar-
genis. No date [1786], 4to.
41. Sketch of the Life of John Hamilton, a secular
priest. No date [1787], 4to.
42. Sketch of the Life of Sir James Ramsay, a general
officer in the armies of Gustavus Adolphus, King of Swe¬
den. No date [1787], 4to.
43. Life of George Lesley [of Monymusk, a Capuchin
friar.] No date [1787], 4to.
44. Sketch of the Life of Mark Alexander Boyd. No
date [1787], 4to.
45. '[ Davidis Humei, Scoti, summi apud suos philoso-
phi, de vita sua acta, liber singularis; nunc primum La-
tine redditus. [Edin.] 1787, 4to.
46. -f Adami Smithi, LL.D. ad Gulielmum Strahanum
armigerum, de rebus novissimis Davidis Humei, Epistola,
nunc primum Latine reddita. [Edin.] 1788, 4to. This
is a translation into Latin verse of Dr Adam Smith’s let¬
ter to Strachan, giving an account of the behaviour of
David Hume during his last illness, which letter is also
reprinted in this tract.
47. The Opinions of Sarah Duchess Dowager of Marl¬
borough, published from her original MSS. Edin. 1788,
12mo.
48. The Address of Q. Sept. Tertullian to Scapula Ter-
tullus, proconsul of Africa, translated. Edin. 1790, 12mo.
49. Miscellaneous Communications to Magazines. These
being anonymous, cannot be well ascertained ; but there
are papers by Lord Hailes in the Scots Magazine, the
Edinburgh Magazine and Review, the Edinburgh Maga¬
zine and Literary Miscellany, the Gentleman’s Magazine,
and in various other periodical works. In the Gentleman’s
Magazine, vol. lx. 1790, are a series of remarks on the
late edition of the Tatler, with notes, in six volumes; also,
DAL
Dalton, in yol. Ixi. two letters on the famous miniature, said to be
0<' Milton, in the possession of Sir Joshua Reynolds. The
Edinburgh Magazine and Review for February 1774 con¬
tains some remarks on the Latin Poems of Dr Pitcairne,
by Lord Hailes. {Life of Karnes, vol. i. p. 6, note.) He
was also a contributor to Kippis’s edition of the Biogra-
phia Britannica.
In addition to these, Lord Plailes printed several minor
tiacts without titles, some of them being specimen sheets
of his published works. “ The Little Freeholder,” a dra¬
matic entertainment, London, 1790, 12mo, has been usually
attributed to him, but, we have heard it asserted, on in¬
sufficient grounds.
Some of his letters have been printed in Pinkerton’s
Literary Correspondence, in Nichols’ Illustrations, and in
other works.
After this copious list of the publications by Lord Hailes,
it is unnecessary to add any thing to what has been al-
icady stated in regard to his literary character, which
united acuteness of mind and soundness of judgment with
extensive learning and assiduous research. Every true
lover of his country must rejoice that such a man should
have devoted himself so zealously to literary pursuits, while
they must revere his memory for his successful attempts
to subject to the ordeal of rational criticism so many dis¬
puted points of historical research, and more particularly
for having illustrated three centuries of our national his¬
tory with a degree of accuracy and information which it
is much easier to admire than to emulate. But as in his
wikings his attention was uniformly directed to promote
the interests of religion and virtue, so in his conduct he
was actuated by the purest principles of benevolence and
fervent piety; and in the private relations of life he was
all that was praiseworthy and honourable. “ In a word,”
says the late Lord W oodhouselee, “ he was an honour to
the station which he filled, and to the age in which he
lived.” “ That such a man,” to use the words of an intel¬
ligent wiiter, should not yet have found a biographer
worthy of his merits, cannot be ascribed either to the ob¬
scurity of his character and station, or to the incapacity of
his contemporaries. But Lord Hailes was a man of piety
of the old stamp, and a strenuous advocate for revealed
religion, and therefore did not share, as he would not have
been ambitious to share, the celebrity that has been con¬
ferred on some of his countrymen of a very opposite cha¬
racter. 1 i.)
DAL I ON, John, LL.D., the illustrious author of the
Atomic Theory of Chemistry and of the Constitution of
Mixed Gases, was born September 5, 1 766, at Eaglefield,
in the vicinity of Cockermouth in Cumberland. Like
his parents, he was a member of the religious sect of
the Society of Friends, and for a long period supported
himself by the humble office of usher to a school at Ken¬
dal until 1793 ; when, through the recommendation of Mr
Gough the blind philosopher of that town, he obtained the
appointment of professor of mathematics and natural phi¬
losophy in a college or seminary established at Manches¬
ter, which was removed to York in 1799. From the com¬
mencement of the present century, Dalton fixed his resi¬
dence in Manchester, although he sometimes publicly ex¬
plained the doctrine of chemical philosophy in a few other
places. Some have confounded this great philosopher with
another Dalton, an ingenious self-taught individual, who for
many years was well known in England as an itinerant lec¬
turer on experimental science. It is painful to reflect that
John Dalton, one of the most acute and original philoso¬
phers that have adorned our age, should have been for
D A L
many years compelled to earn his subsistence by the irk¬
some task of conveying the elements of instruction to the
minds of both sexes. But Dalton was of too independent
a spirit to be beholden to others for what he could obtain by
his own exertions; was of a contented disposition, and lived
amid a select society of tried friends, who admired his ta¬
lents, and esteemed him as a man; continuing to employ
his leisure hours in those interesting philosophical investi¬
gations which have given him a lasting reputation. He
was successively the secretary, vice-president, and presi¬
dent of the Philosophical Manchester Society; and among
its highly interesting memoirs, the papers of Dalton, both
for their number and their value, occupy a most important
place.
His earliest papers consisted of contributions to that
remarkable and able periodical termed The Lady’s Diary.
In after years he enriched the Memoirs of the Manchester
Society, Nicholson’s Journal, the Philosophical Magazine,
and the Transactions of the Royal Society, with numerous
contributions.
In 1793 appeared his earliest separate publication, Meteor¬
ological Essays, a favourite subject, on which he continued
to collect and record observations to the period of his death.
In the following year he gave an account of a singular defect
in his own vision which rendered him incapable of dis¬
tinguishing certain colours, as green and scarlet. In con¬
versation with the writer of this notice, he stated how he first
became aware of this peculiarity of his vision. When a boy
he had gone to see a review of troops, and being surprised
to hear those around expatiating on the gorgeous effect of
the military costume, he asked, “ In what a soldier’s coat
differed from the colour of the grass on which he trod ?”
The derisive laugh and exclamations of his companions now
first led him to suspect that he did not see like other people.
(See Colour Blindness.)
His daily employment as a teacher of youth no doubt
drew his attention to the want then subsisting of a suitable
English grammar, and led to his publication in 1801 of
Elements of English Grammar—a subject very foreign to
those on which his powerful mind was usually exerted ; yet
it shows marks of that precision and comprehensive grasp
with which he could handle everything which he investi¬
gated.
In the Manchester Memoirs for 1802, we find six disser¬
tations by Dalton ; and in these he unfolded his beautiful
theory of the constitution of mixed gases; of which the cha¬
racteristic feature is the proof that gases which do not form
new chemical compounds act on each other as a vacuum,
diffusing themselves among each other by their own elas¬
ticity. This philosophical view, for some time strenu¬
ously opposed by different chemists, is now universally re¬
ceived. Another subject discussed by him was very im¬
portant—“ On the force of Vapour of Water and other
Fluids at different Temperatures in the Torricellian Va¬
cuum, and under Atmospheric Pressure,” which included
the “ Theory of Evaporation and the Expansion of Gases
by Heat.” The simple experiments by which Dalton illus¬
trated those subjects, and the profound reasoning by which
his views were supported, established the philosophical
reputation of our author, and have been of infinite service
to the progress of pneumatic chemistry, especially in the
refined modern investigations on the specific gravity of
gases.
But the high reputation of Dalton mainly reposes on the
Atomic Chemical Theory, which he began to develop in
1803, and illustrated by numerous observations in succeed¬
ing years. Yet from the inherent difficulties of the subject,
637
Dalton.
iterary ^isceDany^Warch gf "SrT.f 229‘ See alS° Life °f L°rd Hailes’ in the Edinburgh Magazine and
^ \ ,, c 1 1 ^ buef memoir by Dr Charles Stuart, prefixed to the second and third editions of the Renlv to
ibbon ; and the “ Sermon on the Death of Lord Hailes,” preached at Inv^esk, by Alexander Carlyle, D D.Edin 1792, 8vo. ^
638
DAM
DAM
Dam
Damag-
and, perhaps, from some want of perspicuity in his explana¬
tions, it was not at once adopted by philosophers ; and we
are in this country chiefly indebted for luminous views of
this grand theory to the labours of the late Professor Thom¬
son of Glasgow, of the late Dr Henry of Manchester, and its
early adoption by Dr Wollaston; while the masterly ana¬
lysis of Berzelius placed the doctrine of Dalton on a stable
foundation. The atomic theory is a consequence of the in¬
vestigations of Ritter which that laborious experimentalist
did not perceive, and was obscurely indicated in a paper of
Dr Higgins; but it is now acknowledged that we owe to Dal¬
ton the first development of its general principles, and the
important consequences of its application to the explanation
of chemical and natural phenomena. It is not too much to
assert that we are indebted to the atomic theory for much
of the recent progress in many branches of physical science.
This theory was fully propounded by Dalton in his New
System of Chemistry, of which the first volume appeared
in 1807, the second in 1810, and these were followed by a
third in 1827. These important volumes contained the ele¬
ments of the mathematical principles of the science.
In his other papers on subjects connected with meteor-
ology, he has left us valuable remarks on evaporation, rain,
the aurora borealis, winds, and dew. His observations on
the latter contain the principles of Dr Wells’s beautiful
Theory of Dew, and of Daniell’s Hygrometer.
In 1822 he visited France, where he was received with
that distinction which was due to so eminent a philosopher,
tie was afterwards elected a corresponding member, and
finally a foreign associate of the French Institute. He
was also a foreign member of the Royal Academies of Ber¬
lin and Munich, and of the Natural History Society of Mos¬
cow. In 1834 the university of Edinburgh did itself hon¬
our by conferring on him the degree of LL.D. In the
reign of William IV. he received from the government a
pension of L.150, which was subsquently increased to L.200
a-year.
In person Dr Dalton was of middle stature, and vigor¬
ous, though not robustly formed. His powerful intellect
was disciplined by patient observation and composure ; and
he had a happy facility in seizing the relations of physical
subjects. His early habits as a member of the Society of
Friends had given him a quiet, grave demeanour, but with¬
out austerity; and he possessed a manly independence of
character, without superciliousness. His high moral worth
will live in the remembrance of all who had the pleasure of
knowing him, as well as the kindness with which he always
accommodated his conversation to the comprehension of
those who sought his acquaintance.
This eminent man had long enjoyed excellent health ;
but he had two attacks of paralysis in 1837, and a third at¬
tack carried him off on the 27th July 1844.
His principal contributions to physical science will be
noticed under Atmosphere, vol. iv.; Aurora Borealis, vol.
iv.; Atomic I heory and chemical researches, under Che¬
mistry. See also articles Evaporation, Heat, Mercurial
Chronometers, Repulsive Power of the Particles of Air,
Magnetism, and Elasticity and Density of Steam. For fur-
thercletails of Dalton’s life, see the excellent biography by
Dr Charles Henry. s. T.)
D AM {Vw dame ; Lat. domino), a female parent; used
particularly of beasts.
Dam (Germ, dammen, to stop), a construction of earth,
wood, stone, or other material, to confine or shut in water;
more particularly to obstruct the current of a stream and to
raise it, for the purpose of driving mill-wheels, &c.
D AMAGRAM, a province of Central Africa, forming the
noith-western frontier of Bornu, and extending from about
13. 20. to 14. N. Lat., and from 4. 30. to 10. 50. E. Long.
It has belonged alternately to Houssa and Bornu, and is at
present subject to the latter. Damagram is a country of great
fertility, but “not a 10,000th part of the soil is cultivated,” the Damar
inhabitants deriving their chief subsistence from rapine and ||
the proceeds of man-stealing. Most of the productions of Su- ^>amascus*
dan seem to be found in Damagram. Mr Richardson, on his
route through the province, saw the ghussub cultivated to
some extent; and in some localities wheat, cotton, indigo, to¬
bacco, onions, pepper, date-trees (bearing twice a-year), cas¬
tor-oil tree, henna, potatoes (dankali), a species of palm bear¬
ing a large fruit (gonda) like the mealy melon, gourds, nogs,
and gwarya, which last are two species of potatoes. The do¬
mesticated cattle are horses, asses, oxen, sheep, and goats, and
a few camels. The wuld animals are chiefly lions, wild
boars and oxen, hyaenas, jackals, and vultures and lizards in
great numbers. Iron is found in the rocks of Sudan.
The former capital was a town of the same name, but Zin-
der, which sometimes gives name to the province, is now
the chief town. (See Petermann’s Account of the Expedi¬
tion to Central Africa, 1854.)
DAMAR, an extensive open town of Arabia, in the
country of Yemen, and the capital of a district, 56 miles
north of Sana. It has a large castle, an extensive univer¬
sity, and about 5000 houses.
Damar, the name given to a kind of indurated pitch or
turpentine which exudes spontaneously from various trees
indigenous to most of the Indian islands. It is greatly used
in Bengal and China for paying the bottom of ships, and for
other purposes.
DAMASCENUS, Joannes, a voluminous ecclesiastical
writer who flourished in the first half of the eighth century
a.d. He derived the surname of Damascenus from the
place of his birth, but wras also styled Chrysorrhoas from his
eloquence. His father, Sergius, was a councillor at the
court of the khaliph, and transmitted both his office and for¬
tune to his son. While on an embassy to Jerusalem, how¬
ever, Damascenus entered the service of the church, and
retired to the monastery of St Saba, where he passed the
remainder of his days. He died sometime about the middle
of the eighth century, and has been canonized both by the
Greek and Latin Churches. In his works he has treated
a great variety of speculative questions, relating to the
Manichaean, Nestorian, and Eutychian heresies. His Accu¬
rate Exposition of the Orthodox Faith still maintains its
reputation in the Greek Church; but his keen defence of
image-worship, against the iconoclasm of Leo the Isaurian,
shows him to have been deeply tinctured with the supersti¬
tion of the age. The best edition of his works is that of
Le Quien, Paris, 1712.
Damascenus, Nicolaus, a Greek historian and philoso¬
pher, who flourished in the Augustan age, and was the in¬
timate friend of Herod, tetrarch of Judea. Some fragments
only of his works remain.
DAMASCIUS, a celebrated Neo-platonic philosopher,
who was born at Damascus about the middle of the fifth
century, a.d. He studied at Alexandria, and thence re¬
moved to Athens, where he taught philosophy till the close
of the heathen schools during the reign of Justinian. Of
his works, which consisted chiefly of commentaries on Plato
and Aristotle, some fragments exist in the writings of Pho-
tius, who combats his indirect attacks on Christianity. His
work entitled Difficulties and Solutions of the First Prin¬
ciples has been published by J. Kopp., Francof. 1828.
DAMASCUS (called by the natives Es Sham), the capi¬
tal of Syria, as well as of a pashalic of the same name, is a
large and opulent city, situated in a plain at the eastern foot
of the Anti-Libanus, about 180 miles S. by W. of Aleppo.
N. Lat. 33. 27.; E. Long. 36. 25. It lies on the Barrada,
by which and its branches it is abundantly watered. No¬
thing can exceed the beauty of its position, whether ap¬
proached from the side of Mount Lebanon, from the desert
to the east, or by the high road from the north. For many
miles the city is girdled by fertile fields (or gardens, as they
DAMASCUS.
639
amascus. are called); which, being abundantly watered by rivers and
sparkling streams, give to the vegetation, consisting princi¬
pally of olive trees, a remarkable freshness and beauty.
The view of Damascus, when the traveller emerges from
Anti-Libanus, is of the most enchanting kind. “ One of
the most magnificent prospects in the world,” says Addison
{Damascus and Palmyra, vol. ii., p. 92), “ burst upon my
sight: like the first view of Constantinople, it is unique. We
were looking down from an elevation of a thousand feet upon
a vast plain, bordered in the distance by blue mountains,
and occupied by a rich luxuriant forest of the walnut, the
fig, the pomegranate, the plum, the apricot, the citron, the
locust, the pear, and the apple, forming a waving grove of
more than fifty miles in circuit; possessing a vast variety of
tint, a peculiar density and luxuriance of foliage, and a
wildly-picturesque form, from the branches of the loftier
trees throwing themselves up above a rich underwood of
pomegranates, citrons, and oranges, with their yellow, green,
and brown leaves ; and then conceive our sensations, to see
grandly rising in the distance, above this vast superficies of
rich luxuriant foliage, the swelling leaden domes, the gilded
crescents, and the marble minarets of Damascus; while in
the centre of all, winding towards the city, ran the main
stream of the river Barrada. As we descended, here and
there the openings in the trees displayed little patches of
green verdure, or a glimpse of richly-cultivated gardens:
the whole of the rich tract was surrounded by a mud-wall,
beyond which all was arid and desert.”
The interior of the city, howrever, does not correspond with
the exquisite beauty of its environs. It was formerly sur¬
rounded by walls defended by towers, which have now fallen
into a ruinous state ; and the buildings also have so increased
that the number of houses without the walls is double that of
those within. The streets are in general narrow compared
with those in European cities; but the narrowest streets of
Damascus are wider than most of the streets of Cairo, and
conveniently admit two foot passengers to move with safety
on each side of a loaded camel. The greater number of the
streets would allow two loaded camels to pass without incom¬
moding those on foot, and many of them are so wide as to al¬
low six or eight camels or horses to move abreast. They are
all well paved, and have elevated foot-paths on each side.
The houses in the suburbs are surmounted with cupolas; and
these, viewed from a distance, present an appearance of an
encampment of conical tents ten or twelve feet high. The
houses in this quarter of the town are built of bricks baked
in the sun, which, were they not protected by the cupolas,
would be wasted away by the rains. The buildings in the
interior are generally about two stories high, with flat roofs;
whilst the principal edifices ai*e painted in the gayest colours,
and. the aspect is light and airy in the extreme. The town,
however, in the interior has a dull and monotonous ap¬
pearance. The houses present a great superficies of dead
wall; yet Damascus is one of the most splendid cities in the
East, and contains about 500 houses, which are entitled to
the name of palaces: all their splendour is, however, con¬
fined to the interior, which contains a number of spacious
and gorgeous apartments, courts, terraces, and galleries,
adorned with marble pavements of various colours inge¬
niously and fancifully arranged, mosaic work of the same
materials, friezes painted and gilded, while the ceilings are so
many broad canopies of gold and brilliant colours, with rich
additions of sculpture and enamel. These houses are sump¬
tuously furnished with sofas richly embroidered, Persian car¬
pets, mirrors, and other valuable articles. Into many of the
apartments beautiful fountains are introduced. One of the
finest streets in the city is formed by the palaces of the agas of
Damascus, who are the nobility of the land. The fronts of
these palaces, however, towards the street, are like long
prison or hospital walls—mere gray mud walls, with few or
no windows, whilst at intervals is a great gate opening on a
court. But the interior is magnificent. The ornaments Damascus.
alone of many of their saloons cost upwards of L.1000 ster-
ling.
The mosques and chapels throughout the city are exceed¬
ing numerous. Of these, the Great Mosque is the most
remarkable. The architecture is of the Corinthian order
throughout every part of the edifice. Its form is an oblong
composed of three aisles running parallel to each other, and
divided by rows of fine Corinthian columns. It has two
minarets at each end, and is crowned by a large stone cu¬
pola, supported by four enormous pillars. The interior pro¬
duces a most imposing effect from its dimensions ; and the
square court in front is also magnificent from its extent. It
has on three of its sides a colonnade of Syrian granite pil¬
lars, mostly of a fine grain and reddish colour; and on the
outside is a superb fountain. Another, with a grove of trees
on each side, stands in a spacious court within. The gal¬
leries are supported by numerous columns; and on the walls
are still seen the remains of the mosaic work with which they
wTere once adorned. A hospital for the indigent sick is
attached to this edifice. This mosque is said to have been
originally built by the emperor Heraclius, and to have been
dedicated to Zachariah; by others it has been considered
to have been the work of the bishops of this see, and by
them dedicated to St John of Damascus; whilst the Turks
call it the Mosque of St John the Baptist, and think it was
built by the khalif Valid in the 86th year of the Hegira
(a.d. 692). The mosque of the dervishes (where these
fanatics dance until they are excited almost to frenzy) is
a large, regular, and handsome edifice, and has two of
the loftiest and finest minarets to be seen in Damascus.
Besides the principal dome, which is very large, a line of
smaller ones is carried round three sides of the open court
in front of the building, after the same manner as those
in the great mosque of Mecca, of which it appears to be a
close imitation. In the court adjoining this' mosque is
a hospital or charitable institution, constructed by the sul¬
tan Selim, for the manufacture of silk. There are other
mosques, distinguished for their beautiful and ancient archi¬
tecture. One is adorned with all kinds of fine marble like
mosaic pavement; and another is remarkable for its minaret,
which is entirely cased with pantiles.
The bazaars are very striking. The great bazaar is about half
a league long. They are long streets covered in with high
wood-work, and lined with shops, stalls, magazines, and cafes.
The shops are narrow, and go only a short way back. The
merchant himself sits in front, with his legs doubled up below
him, and his pipe in his mouth. The magazines are stored
with merchandise of all sorts, and particularly with Indian
manufactures, which are brought in great quantities by the
caravans from Baghdad.
The castle is situated towards the S.W. part of the city,
and is about three quarters of a mile in circuit. It is a large
and fine edifice, with three square towers in front and five
on each side, and is si rrounded with a broad and deep ditch
lined with undressed stone. Within it resembles a smalltown.
It is supposed to have been built in the middle ages, either by
the Greeks, or by the first Mohammedan conquerors of Syria.
It appears to be a w ork of great antiquity, and to have un¬
dergone many additions, alterations, and repairs at different
periods. In the oldest parts of it, near the foundation, the
stones are of an extraordinary size, and indicate extreme an¬
tiquity. It is said by Buckingham to present in the interior a
confused heap, in which are mingled together strong works of
defence, ruined palaces retaining marks of ancient splendour,
and rich ornaments of the most florid arabesque, with re¬
mains of fountains, aqueducts, and gardens attached, besides
dark passages, gloomy dungeons, secret stairs, and a laby¬
rinth of other objects which could not be penetrated with¬
out a guide acquainted with the localities. Some of the
finest buildings in Damascus are the khans or caravanserais
640
DAMASCUS.
Damascus, appropriated to the reception of goods brought in caravans
from various quarters by wholesale merchants. The great
khan is said to be the finest in the east. It consists ot a
spacious court, with a superb gateway in the form of a
pointed arch, vaulted and highly ornamented with sculpture.
The court is finely paved, and in the centre a large foun¬
tain sends forth cooling and agreeable streams; the whole
being crowned with a cluster of lofty domes. The masonry
is in the ancient Saracenic and Turkish style, with alternate
layers of black and white marble; and the ornaments are
profusely rich. The coffee-houses in Damascus are exceed¬
ingly spacious: they have benches on each side of the street,
extending fifty yards in length, and contain rooms of the same
extent, in which passengers smoke and drink coffee. There
are many houses also at which sherbet and other sweet drinks
are prepared, cooled with the ice and snow brought down
to the city from a snowy mountain to the S.W. of the town.
Skins of iced water, sweetened and perfumed, are retailed
through the streets.
The suburb of Salheyah, which lies at the foot of the
mountains that bound the city on the W. and N.W., is a
great resort on the last day of every week, and to it all the
inhabitants of Damascus of every age and condition repair
in their holiday dress to enjoy the free air and pleasures of
the country. Here are to be seen parties by the way-side,
some smoking, others engaged in loud and merry conversa¬
tion, and others amusing themselves and their children; the
women enveloped in snow-white muslin robes, with veils of
a dark gauze, their usual dress; the men of the city mounted
on horses richly caparisoned, or on fine mules and asses;
others sauntering on foot, or reposing on the banks that
skirt the road, either smoking, playing at chess, or touching
the Arnaout guitar to their songs.
Damascus is the seat of an extensive trade both with In¬
dia and with Europe. The productions of India, consisting
chiefly of spices, cotton manufactures, coarse and fine mus¬
lins, and gold stuffs, are in great demand, and bring high
prices. They are brought from India by the Persian Gulf,
Bussora, Baghdad, and Aleppo. The manufactures of Eng¬
land are much sought after, and held in very high esteem,
particularly light woollen cloths of gay colours, printed cot¬
tons and chintzes, and silk and cotton shawls made in imi¬
tation of those of Cashmere; also needles, pins, knives,
scissors, and fine hardware, as well as china and earthen¬
ware, whether English or Indian. These goods being ge¬
nerally imported through Saida, Beirut, and Tripoli, are
sold at very high prices. Iron, lead, tin, cochineal, sugar,
and other European articles, are also imported through the
same channel. Wearing apparel for fashionable persons of
both sexes at Damascus, and clothes that have been worn,
are brought from Constantinople ; and being distributed all
over the country, are frequently the means of spreading the
contagion of the plague. Amongst the various manufactures
to be found in the bazaars are superb caparisons for horses,
of which the Turks, as well as all the other Eastern nations,
are extremely fond. These are made in European Turkey;
and a number of fine bridles, martingales, and silver and
embossed breastpieces, come also from Persia. The fire¬
arms are chiefly of French and German manufacture, being
prepared in an ornamented style expressly for this market.
I he sabre blades are almost all of the old Persian or Da¬
mascus manufacture. I he art of making them, however, is no
longer known or practised in this city; so that they grow daily
more valuable, as no modern sword can compare with them
in temper and in quality. I he silk seen in the bazaars of
Damascus is piincipally of Chinese and Indian manufac¬
ture ; the furs come from Russia, Georgia, Circassia, and
Armenia; the velvet from Italy; copper from Asia Minor;
the manufactures of Britain through Smyrna; and various
other articles of an inferior kind from Germany and France.
There are few manufactures in Damascus; and these con¬
sist chiefly of silk stuffs, plain, coloured, and embroidered Damascus,
with gold ; fabrics of plain cotton, and cotton and silk mixed,
all for home consumption, and mostly of broad striped or
wavy patterns for the caftans of the Turkish dress.
Commerce, as in all other places in the East, is carried on
by means of caravans, of which the principal is that w hich
goes with the annual pilgrimage to Mecca. It is conducted
by the pasha, who receives the standard of the prophet from
the governor of the castle, and gives a solemn pledge for its
restoration. This expedition unites commercial with reli¬
gious objects. A caravan accompanied by a numerous
train of armed men goes thrice a-year to Baghdad, the jour¬
ney occupying thirty days ; that to Aleppo travels twice or
thrice a-month. Besides these, many other caravans go to
different ports of Syria, Damascus being a great rendezvous
and emporium of trade. Provisions and fruit of all kinds
are abundant; also ice and snow, which may always be ob¬
tained from the neighbouring mountains. Damascus is
generally regarded as the oldest city in the world, its history
remounting beyond the time of Abraham, whose steward
Eliezer was a native of this place. L. Muller {Ad Orig.
Reg. Damns?) has undertaken to show that it was even then
governed by its own rulers. How long it may have re¬
tained its independence cannot be determined ; but it ap¬
pears (2 Sam. viii. 5, 6 ; 1 Chron. xix. 4) that its monarch
having unadvisedly attacked the victorious David, the He¬
brew sovereign defeated the Syrians, making a great
slaughter of them, and subdued Damascus, and exacted
tribute from its inhabitants. This subjection was not
of long duration, for under his successor one Rezon, a ser¬
vant of Hadadezer, king of Zobah, made himself master of
Damascus, and, ruling over Syria, “was an adversary to
Israel all the days of Solomon.” After Rezon, Hezion oc¬
cupied the throne. He was succeeded by his son Tabrimon,
who was in alliance with Asa, king of Judah. Preserving
the same direct line, the crown then fell to Benhadad, under
whose son Damascus was the head of a very powerful em¬
pire, since it appears (1 Kings xx. 1) that “thirty and two
kings” (doubtless petty princes or pashas, governors of pro¬
vinces) accompanied him in a campaign which he undertook
against Samaria. After a series of contests with the kings
of Israel, Damascus fell into the hands of Jeroboam II.;
and an expedition undertaken by the united powers of Da¬
mascus and Syria against Ahaz, king of Judah, was avenged
by the Assyrian Tiglath-Pileser, who added the Damas¬
cene territory to his own kingdom. Damascus after this
fell under the power of the Babylonians and Persians, from
whom it was taken by Alexander the Great. Then it made
a part of the kingdom of the Seleucidae, from whom it passed
into the hands of the, Romans. In the time of the apostle
Paul it belonged to the dependent kingdom of the Arabian
prince Aretas. At a later period it was reckoned among
the cities of Decapolis ; then it was added to the province
of Phcenice; and at last made a part of the province of Phoe¬
nicia Libanesia. From the time of Hadrian it bore the
honorary title of Metropolis, without enjoying the rights of
a metropolis. Under the Greek emperors of Constantinople
Damascus was the most celebrated city of the East, re¬
markable for its wealth, luxury, magnificence, and its nume¬
rous Christian population. A great era in its history is its
conquest by the Saracens, of which an account may be
found in the Arabic historian Alwakidi (Ockley’s Hist, of
the Saracens). The war was begun about a.d. 633, by the
celebrated Abubeker, the successor of Mohammed; and
ended in the capture of the city, and the substitution of Is-
lamism for Christianity. It then became the capital of the
whole Mussulman world, till the khaliphate was removed to
Baghdad. The city continued under the sway of the khaliphs
of Baghdad till it came into the hands of the Turks, and
was held and rendered famous by Noureddin and Saladin.
In 1401 Timour the Tartar captured the city and barba-
\
D A M
Damask rously treated its inhabitants. It afterwards fell into the
II hands of the Mamelukes, who retained possession of it till
Dam ergo, it was taken by the Turks under Sultan Selim I.
In 1832 it was taken by the Egyptian army under Ibrahim
Pasha, but was restored to the Turks in 1840. The popu¬
lation of Damascus is estimated at 150,000.
DAMASK (from Damascus, whence first brought), a va¬
riegated textile fabric of silk, richly ornamented with raised
patterns representing flowers, fruits, &c., woven in the loom.
It is also fabricated in woollen stuffs.
Damask likewise denotes a kind of wrought linen, used
chiefly for table-cloths and napkins, and so called because
its patterns resemble those of real damask. It was first
made in b landers, but it is now wrought extensively in
Britain, particularly at Dunfermline in Scotland, and also
at Lisburn and Ardoyne in Ireland. An inferior descrip¬
tion has latterly been made of cotton.
Damask is also applied to a very fine steel, prepared in
some parts of the Levant, but particularly in former times
at Damascus, whence its name. It is used for sword and
cutlass blades, and is very finely tempered.
DAMASKEENING, or Damasking, the art of orna¬
menting iron or steel, by making incisions on its surface,
and filling them up with some other metal, generally gold
or silver. It is chiefly used for enriching sword-blades,
guards, locks of pistols, &c.
There are two ways of damasking ; the one, which is the
finest, is when the metal is cut deep with proper instru¬
ments, and inlaid with gold and silver wire ; the other is su¬
perficial only. This art is of great antiquity, and its inven¬
tion is attributed by Herodotus (i. 25) to Glaucus of Chios,
who lived b.c. 490. It would appear to have flourished
at some period in Damascus, whence the name is generally
derived.
DAMAUN, a seaport of Hindustan, situate on the west¬
ern coast, and within the limits of the presidency of Bom¬
bay. It is a considerable place, though its commerce has
now greatly fallen off; and it makes a conspicuous figure
from the sea, the churches and houses being all white. The
Parsees have a temple here, in which they maintain that the
sacred fire brought with them from Persia nearly twelve
hundred years ago is still burning. Ship-building to a con¬
siderable extent is here carried on, the teak forests being at
no great distance. The harbour is convenient for small
vessels, there being nearly seventeen feet of water at the
bar. Damaun was taken by the Portuguese in 1531, and
still remains in their possession. The Portuguese dis¬
trict, of which the town is the principal place, is about ten
miles in length and five in breadth. Distance of town from
city of Bombay, 101 miles north. Lat. 20. 24.; Long. 72.
(e. t.)
Damaun, or the Border, a strip of territory in Hindu¬
stan, so called because it stretches between the Suliman
Mountains and the river Indus. The tract formerly con¬
stituted a portion of Runjeet Singh’s kingdom of Lahore,
and is now annexed to the British province of the Punjaub!
Among the principal towns are those of Dera Ismael Khan
Dera Fati Khan, and Dera Ghazee Khan. The Damaun
is 300 miles in length from the Salt Range on the north to
the borders of Scinde on the south, and its average breadth is
about sixty miles. Lat. 28. 40. to 33. 20.; Long. 69. 30. to
71-20. (e. t.)
DAME (French, from Lat. domina, a mistress), was for¬
merly a title of honour, and is still used in law to denote
the wife of a knight or baronet.
D AMELOPRE, a kind of bilander or hoy, used in Hol¬
land for conveying merchandise from one canal to another.
DAMERGU, a frontier country of Bornu, in Africa;
under the sway of the Tuaricks, greatly intermixed with
people of Bornu and Houssa. It is the granary of Air, and
is, in fact, chiefly peopled by slaves of the Kelowis. Ola-
t VOL. VII.
D A M 641
loal, the capital, lies in about N. Lat. 14. 30. Besides this Damianus
city there are said to be 200 or 300 towns and villages in I1
the country. (See Petermann’sHmm?^ of the Expedition to Dammo°-
Central Africa, 1854.) dah-
DAMIANUS, a saint and martyr of the early Christian
church. See Cosmas.
D AMIENS, Robert Fran^ois, an assassin, who wounded
Louis XV. of France in 1757. He was born in a village of
Artois in 1715, and early enlisted in the army. After his
discharge from service he became a menial in the College
of the Jesuits in Paris, and was dismissed from this as well
as from other employments for misconduct. During the
disputes of Clement XL with the parliament of Paris, the
mind of Damiens seems to have been excited by the eccle¬
siastical disorganization which followed the refusal of the
clergy to grant the sacraments to the Jansenists and Convul-
sionaires ; and he seems to have thought that peace would
be restored by the death of the king. It is probable, how¬
ever, that he designed no more than the infliction of a
slight wound. Having been condemned as a regicide, he
was torn in pieces by horses in the Place de Greve, March
28, 1757. Before being put to death, he was barbarously
tortured for an hour and a half with red hot pincers, molten
wax, lead, and boiling oil—all which he endured with un¬
flinching fortitude.
DAMIETTA, a town of Lower Egypt, on the great
eastein branch of the Nile, about 6 miles from its mouth
(the ancient Phatniticum ostium), and nearly 100 miles from
Cairo. After the metropolis and Alexandria, Damietta is
the largest town in Egypt, and contains a population of
about 27,000, consisting for the most part of Egyptians,
with a few Greeks and Syrians. The town, as a whole, is
ill-built and straggling, and is only redeemed from being a
congregation of miserable mud-hovels by the presence of
some handsome mosques, bazaars, and public baths. The
houses of the better classes are brick edifices situated
on the water-edge, and furnished with terraces, on which
the inmates enjoy the cool river-breezes of the evening.
The general trade of Damietta was at one time consider¬
able, but has of late been absorbed in great part by Alex¬
andria. It has still, however, a considerable coasting trade
with Syria and the Levant. The country surrounding Da¬
mietta is extremely w'ell watered and fertile, and the rice
grown there is the best in Egypt. Mehemet Ali established
a military school in the town with accommodation for 400
pupils; as also a cotton factory and an extensive rice-mill.
The lake Menzaleh yields large supplies of fish, which are
dried and salted, and furnish an important article of export
trade. Coffee, dates, and flax are the other articles most
largely exported.
Damietta is a corruption of the word Thamiatis. The
original town was 4 miles nearer the sea than the modern
city, and first rose into importance on the decay of Pelu-
sium. When it passed into the hands of the Saracens it
became a place of great wealth and commerce, and was
therefore frequently attacked by the old crusaders. The
most remarkable of these sieges was conducted in person
by Louis IX. of France, who, however, was soon after taken
prisoner and compelled to purchase his freedom by restoring
the city to its Saracen owners. The Egyptian sultans, to
obviate these attacks, blocked up the Phatnitic mouth of
the Nile, razed old Damietta to the ground, and transferred
the inhabitants to the site of the modern town. From this
circumstance large ships cannot now sail up the Nile, and
are obliged to discharge their cargoes outside the bar.
DAMM, Christian Tobias (1699-1778), a distinguished
German scholar, was a native of Gesthayn, near Leipzig.
He rendered very important services to Greek literature
by his admirable Lexicon of Homer and Pindar,—a w ork
which is hardly yet antiquated.
DAMMOODAH, a river of Hindustan, rising in the
4 M
642 DAM
Damnii British district of Ramgurh, presidency of Bengal, and tak-
II ing a south-easterly direction through the districts of Pachete,
Dampier. ganc00ra, Burdwan, and Hooghly. It falls into the river
Hooghly in Lat. 22. 13., Long. 88. 7., after a total course
of 350 miles. The valley of the Dammoodah abounds m
mineral wealth; but as the river is navigable only during the
periodical rains of autumn, when, moreover, it is subject to
sudden rises and inundations, considerable difficulty is ex¬
perienced in providing means of transport for the coal and
iron of Bancoora and its vicinities. The defect is about to
be remedied by the construction of a branch railway quit¬
ting the Calcutta Trunk line, near Burdwan, and running
in a westerly direction to the rich collieries of Raneegunge.
The most severe inundation experienced on the Dam¬
moodah occurred in 1823, when the destruction of life and
of property was incalculable- A similar visitation took place
in 1834; and in 1840 the rise of the river was so great as to
overtop the embankments, which sustained considerable
damage from the flood. (e. t.)
DAMNII, or Damnoxii, in Ancient Geography, a tribe
in the south of Scotland, whose exact locale it is extremely
difficult to fix. They seem to have inhabited the country
now represented (as nearly as can be determined) by the
shires of Renfrew, Dumbarton, Lanark, Linlithgow, Stir¬
ling, and Edinburgh.
DAM NO Nil, in Ancient Geography, a tribe in the ex¬
treme south of England, who inhabited a tract of country
corresponding as nearly as possible with the modern county
of Cornwall.
DAMOCLES, a noted parasite at the court of Dionysius,
the tyrant of Sicily. To enable him to realize the true na¬
ture of royal happiness, Dionysius is said to have placed him
at a sumptuous banquet, with a drawn sword suspended over
his head by a single hair. Seeing his danger, Damocles
begged to be relieved from the perilous situation.
DAMON, a Pythagorean philosopher, celebrated for his
disinterested affection for Pythias, a member of the same
philosophic fraternity. Having been condemned to death
by Dionysius I. of Syracuse, Pythias requested permission
to depart for the purpose of arranging his domestic affairs,
and Damon pledged his life for the return of his friend.
The punctual arrival of Pythias before the appointed day of
execution so astonished the tyrant that he released both,
and begged to be admitted into their friendship.
DAMPER, an iron plate made to slide across a flue or
chimney, so as to contract or enlarge the passage at will,
in order to regulate the draught of the fire.
DAMPIER, William, an English navigator, was born
at East Coker, Somersetshire, about 1652. Having early
become an orphan, he was removed from the Latin school,
and placed with the master of a ship at Weymouth. In this
ship he made a voyage to Newfoundland ; but, disgusted at
the cold of that northern climate, on his return he engaged
himself as a common sailor in a voyage to the East Indies.
He next served in the Dutch war under Sir Edward Sprague,
and was present at two engagements; but the declining
state of his health induced him to come on shore, and re¬
move to the country, where he remained some time. In the
year following he became an under-manager of a Jamaica
estate; but only continued a short time in this situation.
He afterwards engaged in the coasting trade, and thus ac¬
quired an accurate knowledge of all the ports and bays of
that island. Having entered on board a vessel bound
for the bay of Campeachy, and returning a second time
to the same coast, he remained with the logwood-cut¬
ters, and engaged himself as a common workman. During
his stay in that country he collected the materials for the
minute and interesting account which he has given of the
laborious life of these people, as well as of the geographical
description and the natural history of the country.
Satisfied with the knowledge which he had obtained of the
D A M
nature of the trade and country, he returned to Jamaica, Bampier,
and thence proceeded to England, where he arrived in 1678.
About the beginning of the year following he went out to
Jamaica as a passenger, with the intention of revisiting the
bay of Campeachy ; but he was persuaded to associate him¬
self with a promiscuous band of English, Dutch, and French
privateers, who carried on a predatory warfare on the com¬
merce and settlements of the Spaniards. In this expedition
Dampier crossed the isthmus of Darien with his associates,
spent the year 1680 on the Peruvian coast, and was occa¬
sionally successful in plundering the towns. In consequence
of a dissension which arose among them, Dampier, and the
minority which he had joined, recrossed the isthmus,
and engaged with another fleet of privateers, which was
then stationed on the Spanish Main; and having spent
another year amongst the West India islands, he, with some
others, proceeded to Virginia in a single ship, in order to
dispose of their prize goods. Here he remained for a year;
and afterwards engaged with a captain named Cook, who
with about seventy men undertook an expedition against
the Spaniards in the South Seas. They sailed in the month
of August 1683, touched at the coast of Guinea, and then
proceeded round Cape Horn into the Pacific Ocean. Hav¬
ing fallen in with a ship from London, which had sailed on
a similar expedition, they joined company; and, touching
at the island of Juan Fernandez, they made the coast of
South America, cruising along Chili and Peru. They took
some prizes; and with these they proceeded to the Mexican
coast, which they fell in with near Cape Blanco. While
they lay here Captain Cook died, and the command de¬
volved on Captain Davis. Having separated from the
London ship, they were joined by another commanded by
Captain Swan. An attempt to plunder the town of Guaya¬
quil was unsuccessful, but at the mouth of the river they
took some vessels which had about 1000 slaves on board.
With these negroes Dampier proposed to work the gold
mines in the neighbourhood of Santa Maria, on the isthmus
of Darien, from which the Spaniards had been driven away
by some privateers. But this plan was not attempted.
The next object of plunder was the Spanish fleet which
was laden with the treasure of the Peruvian mines; but the
English being ill supported by some French ships which had
joined them, the fleet, after a running fight, got safe into
Panama.
The English ships, afterwards cruising along the coast
of Mexico, landed, took the town of Puebla Nova, and
burnt two others. Dampier, leaving Davis, went on board
of Swan’s ship, and proceeded with him along the northern
parts of Mexico, as far as the southern part of California.
During this expedition they frequently landed for the pur¬
pose of plunder; but the loss of 50 of the party during one
of these incursions so discouraged them that they relin¬
quished all further attempts on these coasts. Swan then
proposed to run across the Pacific Ocean, and return by
the East Indies ; and, in hopes of a successful cruise off the
Manillas, the crew were persuaded, with a very slender stock
of provisions, to risk this long passage. On the last day of
March 1686, they took their departure from Cape Corri-
entes, and on the fifty-second day reached Guam, one of
the Ladrone Islands. About this time the crew talked of
killing and eating Swan and the other officers, in case their
stock of provisions should be exhausted before it could be
supplied. From Guam they proceeded to Mindanao, where
a mutiny arose among the crew, and the majority carried
off the ship, leaving Swan and some of his people on the
island. Among the number of those that sailed away was
Dampier, although it is said that he had no concern in the
mutiny. After cruising some time off Manilla, and having
careened their vessel at Pulo Condore, in 1687, they were
driven to the Chinese coast, made the circuit of Luzonia
and Mindanao, passed through the group of Spice Islands,
DAM
Dampier. and reached the coast of New Holland in the beginning of
^ 1688- In March they cruised along the west coast of Su¬
matra, and touched at the Nicobar Islands, where Dampier,
at his own request, and two other Englishmen, a Portu¬
guese, and some Malays, were set on shore. Dampier’s
object was to establish a trade in ambergris. Attempting
to navigate a canoe to Acheen in Sumatra, they were over¬
taken by a severe storm, in which they experienced great
hardships. They at last reached Sumatra ; but the fatigues
and distress of the voyage proved fatal to several of them,
who were carried off by a fever; while Dampier himself
had scarcely recovered at the end of a twelvemonth. After
making several voyages to different places of the East In¬
dies, he acted for some time as gunner to the English fort
of Bencoolen. In 1691, wishing to revisit his native coun¬
try, he embarked on board a ship bound for England, where
he arrived in September. At this time he brought with
him a native of Meangis, one of the Spice Islands, who was
supposed to be the son of a chief, and who, after being exhi¬
bited as a curiosity, died of the smallpox at Oxford.
It appears that afterwards Dampier was engaged in the
king’s service. He had the command of the Roebuck, a sloop
of 12 guns and 50 men. This vessel was believed to have
been fitted out for some voyage of discovery, for she had 20
months’ provisions on board. He sailed from Britain in
1699, touched at the coast of Brazil, and then ran across to
the coast of New Holland, and arrived there on 1st Aug.,
somewhere about Eat. 26. Proceeding northwards along
the coast, he explored the country in different places where
he landed. To procure refreshments he found it necessary to
direct his course towards Timor ; and from thence he sailed
to the coast of New Guinea, where he arrived Dec. 3. By
sailing along to its easternmost extremity he discovered that
it was terminated by an island, which he circumnavigated,
and named New Britain.
Here it would appear from his own journal that he en¬
countered considerable difficulties from the small number
of his men, and their eager desire to hasten home. On
account of these difficulties he was prevented from prose¬
cuting his discoveries. In May he returned to Timor, and
thence proceeded homeward by Batavia and the Cape of
Good Hope. In February 1701 he arrived off the island
of Ascension, when the vessel sprung a leak and foundered ;
and it was with much difficulty that the crew reached the
island. They remained at Ascension till they were taken
away by an East Indiaman and conveyed to England.
This closes the account of Dampier’s life and adventures
as it is detailed by himself. It appears, however, from the
preface to the third volume, that he was preparing in 1703
for another voyage. It is mentioned also in Woodes
Rogers’ Voyage round the World, that Dampier had the
command of a ship in the South Seas about the year 1705,
along with Captain Stradling, whose vessel foundered at
sea. Dampier accompanied Woodes Rogers in his voyage
round the world in the years 1708, 1709, 1710, and 1711,
but only in the capacity of pilot, which is supposed to be
a circumstance due to some remissness in his conduct.
During this expedition Guayaquil was taken, and Dampier
had the command of the artillery. Nothing further is
known of the life of Dampier; and we are equally ignorant
of the place and time of his death.
The works of Dampier are well known, and have been
often reprinted. They consist of, A Voyage round the
World, 3 vols. 8vo ; A Supplement to it, describing the
countries of Tonquin, Malacca, fyc.; Two Voyages to
Campeachy; A Discourse of Trade-winds, Seasons, Tides,
fyc. in the Torrid Zone ; and A Voyage to New Holland.
His observations are curious and important, and conveyed
_1 The nature of the fire-damp was first accurately examined by Dr
xix., in the year 1806.
D A M 643
in a plain manly style. His nautical remarks discover a Damps,
great deal of professional knowledge. His knowledge of
natural history is not scientific; but it appears to be accu¬
rate and reliable.
DAMPS, in Mining, certain noxious exhalations or
gases issuing from some parts of the earth, and which prove
almost instantly fatal to those who breathe them.
These damps occur chiefly in mines and coal-pits, though
vapours of the same kind often issue from old lavas of burn¬
ing mountains; and, in those countries where volcanoes
are common, it is said that they fill the houses, and destroy
people suddenly without the least warning of their approach.
In mines and coal-pits they are chiefly of two kinds, called
by miners and colliers the choke-damp scad fire-damp. The
choke-damp, known in modern chemistry by the name of
fixed air, or carbonic acid gas, usually infests those places
which have been formerly worked, but long neglected, and
are known among miners as wastes. No place, however,
can be reckoned safe from this kind of damp, except where
there is a due circulation of air; and the procuring of this
is the only proper means of preventing accidents from
damps of all kinds. I he choke-damp being heavy descends
towards the lowest parts of the workings, and thus is dan¬
gerous to the miners, who can scarcely avoid breathing it.
The fire-damp, which is carburetted hydrogen, rises to
the roof of the workings, as it is specifically lighter than
common atmospheric air; and hence, though it'will suffo¬
cate like the other, it seldoms proves so dangerous in this
way as by its inflammable property; for when exposed to
the flame of the miners’ candle it explodes with extreme
violence.
In the Philosophical Transactions (No. 119), there is
an account of some explosions by damps of this kind, on
which the following observations have been made:—1st,
Those who are in the place where the vapour is fired find
themselves suddenly surrounded with flames, but hear little
or no noise; while those who are in places adjacent, or
above ground, hear a very great one. 2d, Those who are
surrounded by the inflamed vapour feel themselves scorched
or burnt, but are not moved out of their places; though
such as unhappily stand in the way of it are commonly
killed by the violence of the shock, and are sometimes
ejected from the mouth of the pit. Nor are the heaviest
machines able to resist the impetuosity of the blast. 3d,
No smell is perceived before the fire, but a very strong one
of brimstone is afterwards perceptible. 4th, The vapour
lies towards the roof, and is not perceived when the candles
are held low; but when held higher, the damp descends
like a black mist, and catches hold of the flame, increasing
it to two or three handlengths; and this appearance ceases
when the candles are held nearer the ground. 5th, The
flame continues in the vault for several minutes after the
report. 6th, Its colour is blue, something inclining to green,
and very bright. 7th, On the explosion of the vapour, a
dark smoke like that proceeding from fired gunpowder is
perceived. 8th, Damps are generally observed to come
about the latter end of May, and to continue during the
heat of summer. They return several times during the
summer season, but observe no certain rule.1
Besides these damps other kinds are described in the
Philosophical Transactions by Mr Jessop, who derived his
information from the miners in Derbyshire. After describino-
the common damp, he says, “ They call the second sort the
peas-bloom damp, because, as they say, it smells like peas-
bloom. I hey tell me it always comes in the summer time ;
and those grooves are not free which are never troubled
with any other sort of damps. I never heard that it was
mortal the scent, perhaps, freeing them from the danger
Henry of Manchester, in a paper published in Nicholson’s Journal,
644 DAN
Damsel 0f a surprise; but by reason of it many good grooves lie
II. idle at the best and most profitable time of the year, when
anai es^ subterraneous waters are the lowest. They fancy it
proceeds from the multitude of red-trefoil flowers, by them
called honeysuckles, with which the limestone meadows in
the Peake do much abound. The third is the strangest
and most pestilential of any, if all be true which is said con¬
cerning it. Those who pretend to have seen it, for it is
visible, describe it thus : In the highest part of the roof of
those passages which branch out from the main groove, they
often see a round thing hanging, about the bigness of a
foot-ball, covered with a skin of the thickness and colour
of a cobweb. This, they say, if it be broke by any acci¬
dent, as the splinter of a stone, or the like, disperses itself
immediately, and suffocates all the company. Therefore,
to prevent casualties, as soon as they have espied it, they
have a way, by the help of a stick and long rope, of break¬
ing it at a distance ; which done, they purify the place well
with fire before they dare enter it again. I dare not avouch
the truth of this story in all its circumstances, because the
proof of it seems impossible, since they say it kills all that
are likely to bear witness to the particulars ; neither do I
deny but such a thing may have been seen hanging on
the roof, since I have heard many affirm it.” See Lamp,
Safety.
DAMSEL (Fr. damoiselle; Norm, demicelle; Ital.
damigella, donzelld), according to Skinner, denotes a
woman of noble rank, but without a title, a gentlewoman,
q.d. dominicella or parva domina. In more recent times
it was applied to any young unmarried woman, especially
to such as were in the intermediate condition between that
of ladies and the lower class. In ancient times this appel¬
lation was bestowed on all young persons of either sex who
were of noble or gentle blood, as the sons and daughters of
princes, knights, and barons. Thus we read of Damsel
Pepin, Damsel Louis le Gros, Damsel Richard Prince of
Wales. From the sons of kings this appellation first passed
to those of great lords and barons, and at length was con¬
ferred on young gentlemen following the profession of arms
but not yet knighted. Damoiseau in French, and dami-
yello and donzello in Italian, are the masculine correlatives
respectively of damoiselle, damigella, and donzella.
DAN, in Ancient Geography, a town of Judaea, originally
under the protection of the Sidonians, and by them named
Laish. It became the chief seat of Jeroboam’s idolatry ;
and after the conquests of the Syrians, it became proverbial
as the southern boundary of the Promised Land. Its site,
a little to the north of Paneas, is supposed by Burckhardt to
be marked by the ruins of a few habitations.
DANACE, an ancient Persian coin, in value rather more
than an obolus. The same name was also applied by the
Greeks to the obolus or small coin which used to be put into
the mouth of the dead as Charon’s fee. See Charon.
DANAE, the fabled daughter of Acrisius, king of Argos,
and Eurydice. To frustrate the declaration of the oracle
that he would be put to death by his daughter’s son, Acri¬
sius is said to have confined her in a brazen tower; but
Jupiter, descending in a shower of gold, gained access to
her prison, and she gave birth to Perseus. (See Perseus.)
Along with her child she was exposed in a chest on the
sea, and carried to Seriphus, where she became the slave,
or, according to some, the wife of Polydectes the king of
the island. According to another account, the chest was
stranded on the coast of Italy, and Danae was then married
to Pilumnus the founder of Ardea.
DANAIDES, the fifty daughters of Danaus, king of
Argos. They were betrothed to the fifty sons of Aegyptus,
and promised to their father to kill their husbands on the
bridal night. All are said to have fulfilled their promise with
the exception of Hypermnestra, who spared the life of
her husband, Lynceus. Having been purified from their
DAN
crime, they were afterwards married to the victors in games Danaus
instituted for the purpose. According to another account, 11
the crime was avenged by Lynceus, who put them to death ; Dance.
and in the popular mythology they were doomed in Hades
to the endless task of filling with water a vessel full of holes.
DANAUS, the son of Belus and Anchinoe, who reigned
over Libya, while his brother Aegyptus filled the throne of
Arabia. Having been driven from his kingdom by the
plots of Aegyptus, he set sail with his fifty daughters in
quest of a settlement. After touching at Rhodes, where he
set up a statue to Minerva, he landed in Argos ; and availing
himself of the disaffection of the people towards their lawful
sovereign, he succeeded in establishing himself on the throne.
The sons of Aegyptus, following the track of their uncle,
arrived in Argos, and met their death at the hands of their
cousins. (See Danaides.) Danaus died at Argos, or more
properly was killed by Lynceus ; and his tomb in the Agora
was pointed out in the time of Pausanias. He is said also
to have built the Acropolis of that city.
DANCE, or Dancing (Fr. danser ; Teut. dantzen). as at
present practised, may be defined to be a graceful move¬
ment of the body, adjusted by art to the measures or tones
of instruments, or of the voice. But according to what some
reckon more agreeable to the true genius of the art, dancing
is the art of expressing the sentiments of the mind, or the
passions, by measured steps or bounds made in cadence,
by regulated motions of the figure and by graceful ges¬
tures; all performed to the sound of musical instruments or
of the voice.
There is no account of the origin of the practice of dan¬
cing amongst mankind. It is found to exist amongst all
nations whatever, even the most rude and barbarous; and,
indeed, however much the assistance of art may be neces¬
sary to make any one perfect in the practice, the foun¬
dation must certainly lie in the human constitution it¬
self.
As barbarous people are observed to have the strongest
passions, so they are also observed to be the most easily af¬
fected by sounds, and the most habitually addicted to dan¬
cing. Sounds to us the most disagreeable, the drumming
of sticks upon an empty cask, or the noise made by blowing
into reeds incapable of yielding one musical note tolerable
to us, is agreeable music to them. Much more are they
affected by the sound of instruments which have anything
agreeable in them. M. Gallini informs us that “ the
spirit of dancing prevails almost beyond imagination among
both men and women in most parts of Africa. It is even
more than instinct, it is a rage, in some countries of that
part of the globe. Upon the Gold Coast especially, the
inhabitants are so passionately fond of it, that in the midst
of their hardest labour, if they hear a person sing, or any
musical instrument played, they cannot refrain from dan¬
cing. There are even well attested stories of some negroes
flinging themselves at the feet of an European playing on a
fiddle, entreating him to desist, unless he had a mind to
tire them to death; it being impossible for them to cease
dancing while he continued playing.”
The same thing is found to take place in America;
though, as the inhabitants of that continent are found to be
of a more fierce and barbarous nature than the African na¬
tions, their dances are still more uncouth and barbarous than
those of the negroes. “In Mexico,” says Gallini, “they have
also their dances and music, but in the most uncouth and
barbarous style. For their symphony they have wooden
drums, something in form of a kettledrum, with a kind of
pipe or flageolet made of a hollow cane or reed, but very
grating to an European ear. It is observed they love
everything that makes a noise, how disagreeable soever the
sound is. They will also hum over something like a tune
when they dance thirty or forty in a circle, stretching out
their hands, and laying them on each other’s shoulders.
DANCE.
Dance.
They stamp and jump, and use the most antic gestures for
several hours, till they are heartily weary. And one or
two of the company sometimes step out of the rings to make
sport for the rest, by showing feats of activity, throwing
then lances up into the air, catching them again, bending
backwards and springing forwards with great agility.”
The origin of dancing amongst the Greeks was most cer¬
tainly the same as amongst all other nations; but as they
pioceeded a certain length in civilization, their dances were
by consequence more regular and agreeable than those of
the more barbarous nations. 1 hey reduced dancing into
a kind of regular system ; and had dances proper for excit-
hy means of the sympathy above mentioned, any pas¬
sion whatsoever in the minds' of the beholders. In this
way they are said to have produced effects to us abso¬
lutely incredible. At Athens it is stated that the dance of
the Eumenides or furies in the theatre had so expressive
a chaiacter as to strike the spectators with irresistible ter¬
ror. Men grown old in the profession of arms trembled ;
the multitude ran out; women with child miscarried; peo¬
ple imagined they saw in earnest those terrible deities com¬
missioned with the vengeance of heaven to pursue and pun¬
ish crimes upon earth.
The Greeks had martial dances, which they reckoned
useful for keeping up and cherishing the warlike spirit of
their youth ; but the Romans, though equally warlike with
the Greeks, never had anything of the kind. This may
probably be owing to the want of that romantic spirit for
which the Greeks were so remarkable. Hence there was
less excitement, and much more cool deliberate valour, dis¬
played by the Romans. The passions of pride, resentment,
obstinacy, and the like, were excited in them, not by the
mechanical means of music and dancing, but by the idea,
early instilled, that their greatest glory was to fight for the
republic. It does not, however, appear that the Romans
were at all less capable of being affected in this mechanical
manner than the Greeks. When dancing was once intro¬
duced, it produced the very same effects at Rome as at
Athens.
Amongst the Jews, dancing seems to have formed apart
of the religious worship on some occasions, as we learn
from some passages in the Psalms, though we do not find
either saltation or singing positively enjoined by a divine
precept. In the Christian churches mentioned in the New
Testament, there is no account of dancing being introduced
as an act of worship, though it is certain that it was used
as such in after-ages. Gallini tells us, that “at Limoges,
not long ago, the people used to dance the round in^the
choir of the church which is under the invocation of their
patron saint; and at the end of each psalm, instead of the
Gloria Patri, they sung St Marcel, pray for us, and we
shall dance in honour of youl" Though dancing would
now be looked upon as the highest degree of profanation in
a religious assembly, yet it is certain that dancing, consi¬
dered as an expression of joy, is no more a profanation than
singing, or than simple speaking; nor can it be thought in
the least degree more absurd that a Christian should dance
for joy that Jesus Christ is risen from the dead, than that
David danced before the ark when it was restored to him
after a long absence.
Plato reduces the dances of the ancients to three classes :
first, the military dances, which tended to make the body
robust, active, and well disposed for all the exercises
of war ; secondly, the domestic dances, which had for
their object an agreeable and innocent relaxation and
amusement; thirdly, the mediatorial dances, which were
in use in expiations and sacrifices. Of military dances
there were two sorts ; the gymnopedic dance, or the dance
of children ; and the enoplian, or armed dance. The Spar¬
tans had invented the first as an early excitation of the
courage of their children, and in order to lead them on in-
645
sensibly to the exercise of the armed dance. This children’s
dance used to be executed in the public place. It was com¬
posed of two choirs, the one of grown men, the other of
children ; whence, being chiefly designed for the latter, it
took its name. Both classes of performers were in a state
of nudity. The choir of the children regulated their mo¬
tions by those of the men, and all danced at the same time,
singing the poems of Thales, Alcmaeon, and Dionysodotus!
The enoplian or Pyrrhic was danced by young men armed
cap-d-pie, who executed to the sound of the flute all the
proper movements either for attack or for defence. It was
composed of four parts. The first, called the podism or
footing, consisted in a quick shifting motion of the feet,
such as was necessary for overtaking a flying enemy, or for
getting away from him when an overmatch ; the second,
the xiphism, a kind of mock fight, in which the dancers
imitated all the motions of combatants, aiming a stroke,
darting a javelin, or dexterously parrying or avoiding a
blow or thrust ; the third part, called the homos, con¬
sisted in very high leaps or vaultings, which the dancers
frequently repeated for the better accustoming themselves
occasionally to leap over a ditch, or spring over a wall; the
tetracomos, or the fourth and last part, was a square figure,
executed by slow and majestic movements, but it is uncer¬
tain whether this was everywhere executed in the same
manner.
Of the Greeks, the Spartans were those who most cul¬
tivated the Pyrrhic dance. Athenaeus relates, that they had
a law by which they were obliged to exercise their children
in it from the age of five years. This warlike people con¬
stantly retained the custom of accompanying their dances
with hymns and songs. The following was sung for the
dance called trichoria, said to be instituted by Lycurgus,
and which had its name from its being composed of three
choirs, one of children, another of young men, and the third
of old. The old men opened the dance, saying, “ In time
past we were valiant.” The young men answered, “ We
are so at present.” “We shall be still more so when our
time comes,” replied the chorus of children. The Spartans
never danced except with real arms. In process of time,
however, other nations came to use only weapons of wood
on such occasions. Nay, it was only so late as the days of
Athenaeus, who lived in the second century, that the dancers
of the Pyrrhic, instead of arms, carried only flasks, and ivy-
bound wands (thyrsi) or reeds. But even in Aristotle’s
days they used thyrsi instead of pikes, and lighted torches
instead of javelins and swords. With these torches they
executed a dance called the conflagration of the world.
Of the dances for amusement and recreation, some were
simply gambols, or sportive exercises, which had no charac¬
ter of imitation, and of which the greater part exist to this
day. The others were more complex, agreeable, figured,
and were always accompanied with singing. Amongst the
first or simples ones was the ascoliasmus, which consisted
in jumping with one foot only, on bladders filled with air
or wine, and rubbed on the outside with oil. The dypo-
dium was jumped with both feet close. The hybeslesis was
what is called in this country the somerset. Of the second
kind were that called the wine-press, of which there is a
description in Longinus, and the Ionian dances. These
last expressed originally nothing but what was decent and
modest; but in time their movements came to be so de¬
praved, as to be employed in expressing voluptuousness and
obscenity.
Amongst the ancients there were no festivals nor religi¬
ous assemblies which were not accompanied with songs and
dances. It was not held possible to celebrate any mystery,
or to be initiated, without the intervention of these two
arts. In short, they were looked upon as so essential in
these kind of ceremonies, that to express the crime of such
as were guilty of revealing the sacred mysteries, they em-
Dance.
646
D A N
DAN
Dancing
Girls
Danct.
ployed the word kheista;, signifying to be out of the dance.
The most ancient of these religious dances is the Bacchic,
which was not only consecrated to Bacchus, but to all the
deities whose festival was celebrated with a kind of en¬
thusiasm. The most grave and majestic was the hypor-
chematic, which was executed to the lyre, and accompanied
with the voice. On his return from Crete, Theseus insti¬
tuted a dance, at which he himself assisted at the head of
a numerous and splendid band of youths, round the altar
of Apollo. The dance was composed of three parts ; the
strophe, antistrophe, and the stationary. In the strophe,
the movements were from the right to the left; in the an¬
tistrophe, from the left to the right; and in the stationary,
they danced before the altar ; so that the stationary did not
mean an absolute pause or rest, but only a more slow or
grave movement. Plutarch is persuaded that in this dance
there is a profound mystery. He thinks, that by the strophe
is indicated the motion of the world from east to west; by
the antistrophe, the motion of the planets from the west to
the east; and by the stationary, the stability of the earth.
To this dance Theseus gave the name of geranos, or the
crane, because the figures which characterized it bore a re¬
semblance to those described by cranes in their flight.
Stage-Dances are treated of under the head Ballet.
Country-Dance, commonly so written, and hence seem¬
ing to imply a rustic way of dancing borrowed from country
people or peasants, is, however, merely a corruption of the
French Contre-danse, where a number of persons placed
opposite each other begin a figure.
Bope-DANCER (schcenobates). See Acrobates.
Dancing-Girls are commonly met with all over the
East. Such are the Alme of Egypt, and the Bayaderes of
India. See Alme.
DANCETTE, a term applied to the indented or zigzag
moulding peculiar to Norman architecture.
DANDELION, Leontodon Taraxacum. See Botany,
vcl. v., p. 197.
DANDINI, the name of a family of Florentine painters :
Cesare (1595-1658); Vincenzio (1607-1675); and Pietro
(1646-1712). Of these the last was a successful imitator of
Titian, Tintoretto, and Paul Veronese. His principal works
are at Florence.
DANDOLO, Enrico, a celebrated doge of Venice,
elected to that office in 1192, in his old age; yet in 1201,
though nearly blind, Dandolo joined in the crusade under¬
taken to restore Alexius to the imperial throne. With his
own hands the aged hero planted the standard of St Mark
on the ramparts in the first assault of Constantinople in
1203 ; and was present at the storming of the city in the fol¬
lowing year. He had the glory of refusing the imperial
crown, which was offered to him by the Latins, although he
afterwards accepted the sovereignty of Roumelia. He died
at Constantinople in 1205, and was buried in the church of
St Sophia.
DANEGELT {Dane and gelt, money), an annual tax
(originally of one shilling, and afterwards of two) imposed
on the Anglo-Saxons for every hide of land throughout the
English realm, church-lands excepted, to maintain forces
to oppose the Danes, or to furnish tribute to procure peace.
Danegelt was first imposed as a standing yearly tax
under King Ethelred, a.d. 991. Edward the Confessor re¬
mitted this tax, but William I. and II. resumed it occasion¬
ally. In the reign of Plenry I. it was accounted among the
king’s standing revenues; but Stephen, on his coronation-
day, abrogated it for ever. Church-lands were exempted
from the danegelt because, as is set forth in an ancient
Saxon law, the people of England placed more confidence
in the prayers of the church than in any military defence.
DANET, Peter, editor of the Delphin Phsedrus, was
abbot of St Nicholas, Verdun, in 1674, and died at Paris in
1709. He published also a Latin and French dictionary.
DANIEL (i. e. judge of God), a celebrated prophet in the Daniel.
Chaldaean and Persian period. He was descended from one
of the highest families in Judah, if not even of royal blood,
and Jerusalem was probably his birth-place.
We find him at the age of twelve or sixteen years al¬
ready in Babylon, whither he had been carried together
with three other Hebrew youths of rank, Ananiah, Mishael,
and Azariah, at the first deportation of the people of Judah
in the fourth year of Jehoiakim. Along with his compan¬
ions he was obliged to enter the service of the Babylonian
court, on which occasion he received the Chaldean name of
Belteshazzar. In his new career, Daniel, besides his educa¬
tion in oriental etiquette, was especially instructed “ in the
writing and speaking Chaldaean” (Dan. i. 4); and at an early
period acquired renown for high wisdom, piety, and strict
observance of the Mosaic law. More especially his refusal
to partake of unclean food, and to participate in the idola¬
trous ceremonies attendant on the heathen banquets, was
crowned with the Divine blessing, and had the most splen¬
did results.
After the lapse of three years, Daniel was attached to
the court of Nebuchadnezzar, where, by the Divine aid
having interpreted a dream of that prince, he rose into high
favour with the king, and was entrusted with two important
offices—the governorship of the province of Babylon, and
the head-inspectorship of the sacerdotal caste.
Considerably later in the reign of Nebuchadnezzar we
find Daniel interpreting another dream of the king’s, to the
effect that, in punishment of his pride, he was to lose, for a
time, his throne, but to be again restored to it after his hu¬
miliation had been completed (Dan. iv.) Here he displays
not only the most touching anxiety, love, loyalty, and con¬
cern for his princely benefactor, but also the energy and
solemnity becoming his position, pointing out with vigour
and power the only course left for the monarch to pursue
for his peace and welfare.
Under the successors of Nebuchadnezzar, Daniel was re¬
moved from his high posts, and speedily forgotten in some
insignificant situation.
We thus lose sight of him until the first and third year
of king Belshazzar, generally understood to have been Ne-
bonnedus the last king of Babylon, but who was, more pro¬
bably, the son and successor of Nebuchadnezzar, usually
called Evil-Merodach, though passing in Daniel by his
Chaldaean title and rank. After a reign of two years, this
monarch was assassinated by his brother-in-law Neriglissar.
Shortly before this event Daniel was again restored to the
royal favour, in consequence of being able to read and solve
the meaning of a sentence miraculously written on the
walls of his banquet-room. During his reign, Daniel was
comforted by two remarkable visions, which disclosed to
him the ultimate fate of the most powerful empires of the
world, with their relations to the kingdom of God, and its
great consummation.
After the conquest of Babylon by the united powers of
Media and Persia, Daniel busied himself under the short
reign (two years) of Darius the Mede or Cyaxares II., with
the affairs of his people and their possible return from exile,
the term of which was fast approaching, according to the
prophecies of Jeremiah. Occupying, as he did, one of the
highest posts of honour in the state, the strictness with which
he fulfilled his official duties roused the envy and jealousy
of his colleagues, who induced the king to issue a decree
abolishing for a time the usual hours of prayer. For his
disobedience the prophet was thrown into a den of lions,
but was miraculously delivered, and raised to the highest
posts of honour under Darius and Cyrus (Dan. vi.)
He had at last the happiness to behold his people restored
to their own land; but his advanced age would not allow
him to be among those who returned to Palestine.
In the third year of Cyrus, he had a series of visions de-
DAN
Daniel tailing the future history and sufferings of his nation, to the
|| crucifixion of Christ. Of the manner of his death we have
Dannecker. no reliable accounts.
Daniel, Gabriel, a learned French historian, born at
Rouen in 1649. He early entered the order of the Jesuits,
and at his death in 1728 he was superior of the house of
that order in Paris. He is best known by his Histoire de
France depuis VEtablissement de la Monarchic Frangoise ;
and his Entretiens de Ch'anthe et dEudoxe sur les Lettres
Provinciates, ii**Rich he attempted an elaborate reply to
the brilliant sallies of Pascal. His Histoire de la Milice
Francoise contains an account of the French military es-
ablishment till the time of Louis XIV.
Daniel, John Frederick, was born in London in 1790,
and was bred to be a sugar-refiner. But having become a
pupil of Mr Brande very early in life, he imbibed a strong
relish for scientific investigations; and in 1814 became a
member of the Royal Society. In 1817 he married the
daughter of Sir William Rule, surveyor of the navy ; and he
now- dedicated himself to science. In 1820 he published
the description of his very elegant hygrometer, founded on
the principle of ascertaining the dew-point by a delicate
thermometer, in a very portable apparatus. Three years
after this he gave to the world his valuable Meteorological
Essays, a work that has gone through three large editions.
In 1824 appeared his Essay on Artificial Climate, espe¬
cially as it affects vegetation, a work rewarded by the Horti¬
cultural Society. In 1821 he became professor of chemis¬
try in King’s College, London, and now devoted himself
assiduously to the study of voltaic electricity, its connec¬
tion with chemical phenomena, and the improvement of
voltaic apparatus. His Introduction to Chemical Philo¬
sophy appeared in 1839, and a second edition in 1841 ; in
which year the University of Oxford conferred on him the
honorary degree of D.C.L. In this work the doctrine of mole¬
cular forces is very ably treated. He was for several years
foreign secretary to the Royal Society. This ingenious phi¬
losopher died in his lecture-room, March 13,1845. (t.s.t.)
Daniel, Samuel, a.\\ English poet and historian, was born
near Taunton, Somersetshire, in 1562, and educated at
Oxford ; but leaving that university without a degree, he
applied himself to literary pursuits. He resided for some
time with the family of the Earl of Pembroke, and was after¬
wards tutor to Lady Anne Clifford. On the death of Spen¬
ser, he was created poet-laureate to Queen Elizabeth. During
the reign of James he was appointed gentleman extraordi¬
nary, and afterwards one of the grooms of the privy cham¬
ber to the queen consort, who took great delight in his
conversation and writings. Daniel died in October 1619.
His works, which are numerous, consist mostly of drama¬
tic pieces and poems. Of these the principal is a series of
poems from the wars of the Roses. Though soft and pleas¬
ing in details, they are generally verbose and languid. His lan¬
guage is pure, and his reflections are just; but the thoughts
are too abstract, and lack power to move the imagination or
the heart.
DANKALI, certain tribes of Abyssinia. See Adal.
DANNECKER, Johann Heinrich, a celebrated mo¬
dern sculptor, was born at Stuttgart, October 15, 1758, of
parents in humble circumstances. While still an infant, he
exhibited a love for imitative art in delineations of men and
flowers, traced on a scrap of paper, or on a smooth stone.
In 1771, he was by the duke entered as a pupil in the school
at Ludwigsburg, for the children of the retainers of the
court of Wiirtemburg, where his talents were speedily de¬
veloped ; and he gained the prize for a model of Milo de¬
stroyed by the Lion, which led the way to his appointment
as sculptor to the duke, with a salary of 800 florins. In
1781 he was sent to Paris, and studied in the school of
Pajone for four years. Fie then accompanied Scheffaeuer to
Rome, M’here he enjoyed the friendship of Canova, Flerder,
DAN 647
and Gothe. He remained at Rome until the troubles of Dante.
Italy in 1790, and there executed his first works in marble. -v——'
These chiefly consist of busts, in which he has been ex¬
celled by none of his contemporaries: but his Bacchus and
Ceres, now at Stuttgart, his Ariadne reclining on a leopard,
and several of his other groups and statues, proclaim him a
master in the highest walks of sculpture. His colossal bust
of Schiller, the busts of Lavater and of Gluck, as well as of
several princes of the family of Wiirtemburg, are considered
among his finest works. He was appointed, soon after his
return home, professor of sculpture in the academy of Wiir-
temburg; where he died December 8, 1841. (t.s.t.)
DANTE ALIGHIERI, the most illustrious of the Ita¬
lian poets, was born at Florence in May 1265, and was de¬
scended of an ancient and honourable family. The name
he received at his birth was Durante, which was abbre¬
viated into Dante, in which form it has descended to
posterity. Boccacio, who lived at the same period, has left
a very curious and entertaining treatise on the life, studies,
and manners of this extraordinary poet, whom he regarded
as his master, and for whose memory he cherished the high¬
est veneration. This biographer relates, that Dante, before
he was nine years old, conceived a passion for the lady
whom he has immortalized in his singular poem. Her a^e
was nearly the same as his own, and her name was Bea¬
trice, the daughter of Folco Portinari, a noble citizen of
Florence. The passion of Dante, however, like that of his
successor Petrarch, seems to have been of the Platonic
kind, if we may judge from the account he has given of
it in one of his early productions in prose, entitled Vita
Nuova, in which he mentions both the origin of his affec¬
tion and the death of his mistress, who, according to Boc¬
cacio, died at the age of twenty-four. The same author
asserts that Dante, in consequence of this event, fell into
a deep melancholy, from which his friends endeavoured to
rouse him, by persuading him to marry. After some time
he followed their advice, and repented it; for he unfortu¬
nately made choice of a lady named Gemma, of the house
of Donati, who bore a considerable resemblance to Xan-
tippe; and the poet, not possessing the patience of So¬
crates, separated himself from her with such vehement
expressions of dislike, that he never afterwards admitted
her to his presence, though she had borne him several
children. In the early part of his life he acquired some
credit in a military character, having distinguished himself
by his bravery in an action where the Florentines obtained
a signal victory over the citizens of Arezzo. But he be¬
came still more eminent by the acquisition of civil ho¬
nours; and at the age of twenty-five he rose to be one of
the chief magistrates of Florence, when that dignity was
conferred by the suffrages of the people. From this exal¬
tation, however, the poet himself dated his principal mis¬
fortunes, as appears by the fragment of a letter quoted by
Leonardo Bruni, one of his early biographers, in which
Dante speaks of his political failure with that liberal frank¬
ness which integrity inspires. Italy was at that time dis¬
tracted by the contending factions of the Gibelines and
the Guelfs; and the latter, with whom Dante took an
active part, were again divided into the Blacks and the
Whites. Dante, as Gravina informs us, exerted all his
influence to unite these inferior parties; but his efforts
proved ineffectual, and he had the misfortune to be un¬
justly persecuted by those of his own faction. A power¬
ful citizen of Florence, named Corso Donati, had taken
measures to terminate these intestine broils, by intro¬
ducing Charles of Valois, brother of Philip the Fair, king
of France. But Dante, with great vehemence, opposed
this disgraceful project, and obtained the banishment of
Donati and his partizans. The exiles, however, applied to
the pope, Boniface VIII. and by his assistance succeeded
in their design. Charles of Valois entered Florence in
DANTE.
648
Dante, triumph, and those who had opposed his admission weie
banished in their turn. Dante had been dispatched to
Rome as the ambassador of his party, and was upon his
return when he received intelligence of the revolution in
his native city. His enemies, availing themselves of his
absence, had procured an iniquitous sentence against him,
by which he was condemned to banishment, and his pos¬
sessions were confiscated. His two enthusiastic biogra¬
phers, Boccacio and Manetti, express the warmest indig¬
nation against the injustice of his country. Dante, on
receiving this intelligence, took refuge in Sienna, and af¬
terwards in Arezzo, where many of his paity had assem¬
bled. An attempt was then made to surprise the city of
Florence by a small army which Dante is supposed to
have attended; but the design miscarried, and the poet
is conjectured to have wandered throughout various parts
of Italy, until he found a patron in Candella Scala, prince
of Verona, whom he has celebrated in his poem. The high
spirit of Dante was ill suited to courtly dependence, and
he is said to have lost the favour of his Veronese patron
by the rough frankness of his manner and bearing. From
Verona, according to Manetti, he retired to France; and
Boccacio affirms that he disputed in the theological
schools of Paris with great reputation. Bayle questions
his visiting Paris at this period of his life, and thinks it
improbable, that a man who had been one of the chief
magistrates of Florence should have condescended to en¬
gage in the public disputations of the Parisian theologists.
But the spirit both of Dante and the times in which he
lived sufficiently accounts for this exercise of his talents;
and his residence in France at the period in question is
confirmed by Boccacio, in his life of the poet, which Bayle
seems to have had no opportunity of consulting.
The election of Henry count of Luxemburg to the
empire in November 1308, afforded Dante a prospect of
being restored to his native city, as he had attached himself
to the interest of the new emperor, in whose service he is
supposed to have written his Latin treatise De Monarchia,
in which he asserted the rights of the empire against the
encroachments of the papacy. In the year 1311 he insti¬
gated Henry to lay siege to Florence, an enterprise in
which he did not appear in person, from motives of respect
towards his native city. But the emperor was repulsed by
the Florentines; and his death, which happened in the
following year, deprived Dante of all hopes of ever being
re-established in Florence. After this disappointment, he is
supposed to have passed some years in roving about Italy
in a state of poverty and distress, until he found an honour¬
able establishment at Ravenna, under the protection of
Guido Novello da Polenta, lord of that city, who received
the illustrious exile with the most endearing liberality,
continued to protect him during the few remaining years
of his life, and extended his munificence even to the ashes
of the poet.
Eloquence was one of the many talents which Dante
possessed in an eminent degree. On this account he is
said to have been employed, in the course of his life, on
fourteen different embassies, and to have succeeded in
most of them. His patron Guido having occasion to try
his abilities in a service of this nature, dispatched him as
his ambassador to negociate a peace with the Venetians,
who were preparing for hostilities against Ravenna. But
Manetti asserts that he was unable to procure a public au¬
dience at Venice, and returned to Ravenna by land, from
apprehension of the Venetian fleet; when the fatigue of
his journey, and the mortification of having failed in his
attempt to preserve his generous patron from the impend¬
ing danger, threw him into a fever, which terminated in
death on the 14th of September 1321. He died, however,
in the palace of his friend; and the generous Guido paid
the most tender regard to his memory. This munificent Dante,
patron commanded the body to be adorned with poetical
ornaments, and, after being carried on a bier through the
streets of Ravenna by the most illustrious citizens, to be
deposited in a marble sarcophagus. He himself pro¬
nounced the funeral oration, and expressed his design of
erecting a splendid monument in honour of the deceased ;
a design which his subsequent misfortunes rendered him
unable to accomplish. At his request many epitaphs were
written on the poet, the best of which were by Giovanni
del Virgilio of Bologna, a celebrated author of that time,
and the intimate friend of Dante. Boccacio then cites a
few Latin verses, not worth transcribing, six of which are
quoted by Bayle, on the authority of Paul Jovius, as the
composition of Dante himself. In 1483 Bernardo Bembo,
the father of the celebrated cardinal, raised a handsome
monument over the neglected ashes ol the bard.
Before this period the Florentines had vainly endea¬
voured to obtain from the city of Ravenna the bones of
their great poet. In the age of Leo X. they made a se¬
cond attempt, by a solemn application to the pope for that
purpose; and Michel Angelo, an enthusiastic admirer of
Dante, very liberally offered to execute a magnificent mo¬
nument to the poet. But the hopes of the Florentines
were again disappointed. The particulars of their singu¬
lar petition may be found in the notes of Codivi’s Life of
Michel Angelo.
At what time, and in what place, he executed the great
and singular work which has rendered him immortal, his nu¬
merous commentators have been unable to determine, Boc¬
cacio asserts that he began it in his thirty-fifth year, and
had finished seven cantos of his Inferno before his exile ;
and that in the plunder of his house on that occasion the
beginning of his poem was fortunately preserved, but re¬
mained for some time neglected, till its merit being acci¬
dentally discovered by an intelligent poet named Dino, it
was sent to the Marquis Marcello Malespina, an Italian
nobleman, by whom Dante was then protected. The mar¬
quis restored these papers to the poet, and entreated him
to proceed with a work which opened in so promising a
manner. To this incident we are probably indebted for
the poem of Dante, which he must have continued under
all the disadvantages of an unfortunate and agitated life.
It does not appear at what time he completed it; perhaps
before he quitted Verona, as he dedicated the Paradise to
his Veronese patron. The critics have variously account¬
ed for his having called his poem Commedia. He gave it
the title, said one of his sons, because it opens with dis¬
tress and closes with felicity. The very high estimation
in which this production was held by his country appears
from a singular institution. The republic of Florence, in
the year 1373, assigned a public salary to a person ap¬
pointed to read lectures on the poem of Dante, and Boc¬
cacio was the first person engaged in this office; but his
death happening about two years after his appointment, his
comments extended only to the seventeen first cantos of
the Inferno. The critical dissertations which have been
written on Dante are almost as numerous as those to
which Homer himself has given birth ; the Italian, like the
Grecian bard, having been the subject of the highest pa¬
negyric and of the grossest invective.
The most ancient Italian commentary extant on the
Divina Commedia is that of Boccacio, which, however,
was not printed until 1724, at Naples. Specimens of
other commentaries will be found in the first volume of
Muratori’s Antiquitates Italicce. The first edition of the
text without commentaries is that of 1472, in folio, with¬
out the name of any place, but printed at Foligno under
the title of La Commedia di Dante Alighieri, delle pene e
punizioni de Vizj, e premj delle Virtu. I he same year
D AN DAN 649
Danton. another appeared at Mantua, in folio, bearing the Latin
' title of Dantis Capitula, Italice ; but the most valuable of
all these editions is that of Naples, 1477, in folio, which is
now very scarce and high priced. The first of the old edi¬
tions with commentaries is that of Milan, 1478, in folio,
entitled Danlis Comcedia cum Commentariis, by Martin
Paul Nidobeato de Navarre, printed, the text in beautiful
characters, and the commentaries in Gothic. This edition
is highly esteemed on account of the purity of the text,
and the excellent lessons which it affords. The principal
editions accompanied with commentaries are those of
Florence, 1481, folio; Venice, 1491, folio; Venice, 1554,
in 4to; Lyons, 1547, in 16to; Venice, 1568, in 4to; Pa¬
dua, 1727, in 3 vols. 8vo; Venice, 1739, in 3 vols. 8vo;
Verona, 1749; and Venice, 1757, 1758, 3 vols. large 4to.
The most esteemed editions of the text alone since the
fifteenth century, are those of Venice, Aldus, 1502, in
8vo ; Aldus and Andrea d’Assola, 1515, in 8vo ; Florence,
Juntos, 1506, in 8vo; Florence, 1595, in 8vo, being the
Della-Cruscan edition, which was reprinted at Naples in
1716, in 12mo; Paris, Prault, 1768, in 2 vols. 12mo; Par¬
ma, Bodoni, 1796, in 3 vols. 4to; Pisa, 1804, in 3 vols. folio;
Milan, Mussi, 1809, in 3 vols. large atlas folio. The best
French translation of Dante’s works is that of Artaud, pub¬
lished at Paris in 1811, 1812, 1813. In English there are
two translations, both excellent, the one by Carey and the
other by Wright. The Inferno has given rise to a good
deal of speculation, of which some account will be found
in the Edinburgh Review, vol. Iv. The lyric productions
or Rime of Dante, though inferior to his great poem, are
not unworthy of him. They are to be found in the Ve¬
netian editions of his works, published by Pasquali in
1741 and by Zatta in 1758. These two editions also con¬
tain the prose works of Dante, the most interesting of
which is his Vita Nuova. The Convivio di Dante is a
commentary in prose on three of his Canzoni. The trea¬
tise De Monarchia, written in Latin, had for its object to
support the rights of the Emperor Henry VII. by whose
means Dante hoped to be restored to his country in spite
of the pope, who had been the cause of his disgrace and
exile; and though the style is devoid of elegance, it ne¬
vertheless displays considerable vigour. In the treatise De
VidgariEloquentia, also written in Latin, Dante proposed
to examine the state of the Italian language about a cen¬
tury after its origin, to indicate the idioms formed nearly
at the same time in different parts of Italy, which ought
to prevail, and to point out the different species of com¬
position in which the language had been employed with
success, as well as the authors who had most distinguish¬
ed themselves by their writings in that language. The edi¬
tion of Zatta above mentioned also contains paraphrases
of the seven penitential psalms, of the Credo, the Pater
Noster, and the Ave Maria,, pieces which have nothing in
common with his great poem, except the form of the verses
and the interlacement of the rhymes.
DANTON, George-Jacques, born at Arcis-sur-Aube
on the 28th October 1759, was, at the epoch of the revo¬
lution, advocate to the council of the king, and one of the
most terrible enemies of the authority to which a little be¬
fore he appeared to have attached his fortune. Nature
seems to have fitted this man for the part which he chose
for himself. In appearance, in figure, and in voice, he
might well have passed for an incarnate impersonation of
a malignant but mighty fiend. Of colossal stature and
extraordinary strength, with a countenance deeply marked
by the small-pox, a flat and wry nose, protruding lips, and
little sparkling eyes, he had an ardent and audacious look ;
whilst his rude and powerful voice made the public halls
resound with its harsh thunder, and his diction, full of
gigantesque figures and violent apostrophes, terrified those
VOL. VII.
whom it failed to overpower. Mirabeau, who wanted per- Danton.
sons of this description, in order to frighten the court and v—
produce the first shocks of the revolution, employed Dan¬
ton, as a sort of forge-blast, to inflame the popular passions.
Ever since the year 1789, he had been the principal chief
of the Parisian populace, in fact a true fish-market king.
When the capital had been divided into districts, he was
chosen to preside over that of the Cordeliers ; and this
portion of Paris immediately became the rendezvous of the
most furious revolutionists;—in its assemblies all authori¬
ties were attacked, and all principles perverted. But this
local anarchy did by no means satisfy the wishes of Dan¬
ton. For, as the tribune of the district was accessible to
all the citizens, there occasionally appeared in it reasonable
men, who forcibly combated his extravagances ; and hence,
in order to ensure the development of his system, he
required auxiliaries disposed rather to go beyond than to
fall short of his intentions. With this view he established
the club of the Cordeliers, compared to which, that of the
Jacobins was a collection of moderate and rational persons.
Hitherto the district had only attacked monarchical insti¬
tutions ; but the new club had for its object to subvert,
even to its foundations, the whole fabric of society. About
the same time Danton took under his protection the infa¬
mous Marat, whose journal corrupted the populace, and
stimulated them to the commission of every kind of ex¬
cess ; he withdrew that diseased miscreant from the agents
of the police, afforded him an asylum, and employed him
as often as he had occasion for any seditious movement, or
for spreading some denunciation necessary to his designs.
But it was not only in district assemblies nor in the clubs
that Danton domineered ; he was to be seen in the streets
and in the public places, in the midst of tumultuous as¬
semblages, haranguing the multitude, often with vehe¬
mence, and sometimes with gaiety. He had not, like
many others, declared for the revolution on speculative
grounds. His views were far less elevated. Devoted to
sensual indulgences, he belonged to that class of intriguers
who seek to bring on great civil commotions in order
thereby to arrive at fortune; and sometimes he made no
mystery of his intentions in this respect.
But it was not till the flight and return of Louis XVI.
from Varennes that he began to make himself generally
feared. On that occasion he put himself at the head of
the assemblage in the Champ-de-Mars, which demanded
the trial and punishment of the king. This first essay, how¬
ever, proved unsuccessful; Danton was ordered to be arrest¬
ed ; and being at the same time pursued for debt, he durst
not appear openly at the elections. But he had neverthe¬
less the audacity to go to canvass for votes; and when an
officer named Damien attempted to seize him, the poor
man was himself arrested for having violated the national
sovereignty. The populace, who watched over the safety
of their chiefs, wished to massacre the officer ; and Danton
was named deputy attorney-general of the commune of
Paris, in the face of the laws, and even of the constituent
assembly itself, to which this nomination was a manifest
outrage. At length the constitutional advisers of Louis
XVI. seeing that they could not overpower Danton, or
rather that they durst not attempt it, resolved to purchase
him ; but the persons charged with the negociation having
estimated his services at too low a price, were consequently
treated with disdain ; he haughtily rejected their proposi¬
tions, and had the incredible audacity, in one of his dis¬
courses to the commune, to signify, that if the terms pro¬
posed had not been accepted, it was only because they
were below his pretensions. In order, however, to silence
some rumours which were circulated against him, he now
showed himself fiercer than ever against royalty, and con¬
tributed more than any other individual to the revolution
4 n .
650
D A N T O N.
Danton. of the tenth of August. The real republicans still confined
themselves to mere declamations; they were undecided
what course they should follow, and they dared not push
matters to extremities. It was Danton who struck the
decisive blow, after having prepared all the means neces¬
sary to render it effectual. Some days before the catas¬
trophe, Petion, major of Paris, had caused to be lodged in
the house of the Cordeliers, and recommended to its bene¬
volence, that horde of ruffians who, under the name ot the
Marseillais, had traversed France, to the number of six
hundred, declaring openly, wherever they went, that they
were going to Paris to murder the king. Danton received
them, entertained them, gave them the necessary instruc¬
tions, provided them with suitable auxiliaries, and ar¬
ranged with them the attack of the Tuilleries ; and it was,
in fact, by means of these vagabonds that the oldest and
most powerful monarchy of Europe was, at a moment of
weakness and terror, overthrown.
After this event, Danton was appointed minister of jus¬
tice by the legislative assembly, which had now lost all
authority, and decreed whatever he required of it. Even
Robespierre, afterwards so powerful, durst not as yet ven¬
ture to show himself; and Danton stood alone on the field
of battle, surrounded only by a small number of friends.
He began by causing the barriers to be shut, and decreeing
domiciliary visits in order to discover those who were
known to be attached to the party of the court. These
searches were made in the middle of the night, and a
crowd of persons, chiefly belonging to the most distin¬
guished classes, were hurried to prison, where a dreadful
fate awaited them. An extraordinary tribunal was insti¬
tuted, and the first victims were sent to the scaffold ; but,
formidable as were the men who composed it, this tribu¬
nal still proceeded too slowly for the taste of the popular
leaders, who required numerous executions, and proceed¬
ings more rapid and terrible. On the morning of the 2d
September 1792, intelligence arrived that the Prussians,
commanded by the Duke of Brunswick, and having with
them two brothers of the king, and a great number of emi¬
grants, had entered the territory of France and taken pos¬
session of Longwyand Verdun. This news threw the ca¬
pital into the.most violent agitation. Danton immediately
repaired to the committee of the commune, and, having
convoked the committee of public safety, whose members
all belonged to the club of the Cordeliers, had a long con¬
ference with them. The prisoners were then deprived of
all instruments and moveables which might have been
used by them in their own defence ; whilst those detain¬
ed for debt, and some other persons who were fortunate
enough to interest the popular leaders, were released.
I his being done, the terrible minister of justice proceed¬
ed to the bar of the national assembly, gave an account
of the progress of the enemy, and required that a general
arming should be instantly decreed, that the tocsin should
be sounded, and that all citizens able to bear arms should
be summoned to the Champ-de-Mars, to be there enroll¬
ed and formed into military cohorts, to march against the
tyrants and their satellites. The deputy Vergniaud, in a
vehement harangue, enumerated the menaces of the Duke
of Brunswick, and converted the demand of the minister
into a motion, which was unanimously agreed to.
But scarcely had this decree passed, when alarm and
terror spread all over the capital. At the lugubrious
sound of the tocsin, and the hollow roll of the generale,
the furious multitude shouted “ to arms,” insulting and
menacing all who did not participate in their frenzy;
whilst the emissaiies of the clubs and of the committee of
the commune declared loudly, that before marching against
the enemy, it was necessary to exterminate the “ scelerats”
of the interior, and particularly the prisoners seized in the
course of the domiciliary visits. These unhappy men, fore- Danton.
seeing their fate, supplicated the individual charged with
the superintendence of the prisons to save their lives ; and,
to his eternal honour, that person courageously undertook
to do his utmost in order to provide for their safety. He
repaired to the hotel where the ministers were assembled,
and first addressed himself to Danton, giving an account
of the movements which were observed around the pri¬
sons, with the alarm of the prisoners, and representing to
the colossal terrorist that it particularly belonged to him,
as minister of justice, to afford them protection. Danton,
however, repulsed the application in language worthy of
a revolutionary Moloch. With a bellowing tone of voice,
and a gesture appropriated to the expression, he exclaim¬
ed, i'n words which we shall not translate, “ Je me f. . .
bien des prisonniers ; qu’ils deviennent ce qui ■pouront;”
and went away grinning a diabolical smile at his own san¬
guinary brutality. It was equally by his orders or with his
approbation that the persons who had been sent to the
high court of Orleans were brought back to Versailles, and
there massacred. It was under his countersign that the
odious circular issued by the committee of the commune
of Paris was sent into the departments to invite the “ pa¬
triots” to repeat in the provinces the executions of Sep¬
tember in the capital. These dreadful massacres produ¬
ced the effect which their authors had expected from them.
Terror froze every heart. In the greater number of the
departments, as well as in Paris, the enemies of the royal
authority alone obtained suffrages at the elections; and
all public functions were performed by the most furious
of this class.
Danton quitted the ministry of justice in order to dis¬
charge the duties of a deputy to the convention, to which
he had been called by the electors of Paris, hoping to ex¬
ercise there the same ascendency as he had done over the
clubs and the people of the capital; but he carried along
with him a double source of discord and enmity, namely,
his crimes and his success. Although he was in fact the
real founder of the republic, yet the true republicans were
necessarily his adversaries. This class of revolutionists,
amongst whom were several who to fine talents united
elevated sentiments, did not choose that the republic,
which was the object of their wishes, should from its very
birth be attainted by crimes so horrible and so monstrous
as the executions of September; and they warmly de¬
manded the punishment of those who had committed them,
or had been accessary to their commission. On the other
hand, the dark jealousy of Robespierre observed with un¬
easiness that Danton divided with him the favour of the
populace, and possessed at least equal influence in the
convention ; and from this time accordingly he meditated
Danton’s destruction.
Although at this time much more criminal than his rival,
Danton was nevertheless of a disposition less exclusively
wicked. He was one of those proud beings who, conceiv¬
ing themselves called to regulate the destinies of states,
think that all crimes become lawful actions, provided they
tend to ensure the success of grand designs ; but he would
not have committed useless crimes, and it may be said of
him that he ceased to be criminal from the moment when
he had no longer any pretension to figure as a statesman.
Even at the first sitting of the convention, he wished to
re-establish order and to inspire confidence, by demand¬
ing that all property should be guaranteed by a solemn
decree. More tolerant than other persons who had not
to reproach themselves with the same excesses, he said
he was afraid of rendering liberty hateful by too rigorous
an application of what he was pleased to call “philosophi¬
cal principles.” On several occasions he even took upon
himself the defence of religious worship ; and it is not
D A N T O N.
Danton. altogether improbable that this terrible man would have
'V'*-' become prudent and moderate, had he not been forced to
repel the attacks directed against his party. Roland, his
colleague in the ministry, hoping to render himself agree¬
able to the people by proving that he had not shared in
the peculations which had recently taken place, gave an
account of his conduct in office, and caused placards con-
651
taining his official exposition to be affixed to the corners
of the streets. Danton, on the other hand, being unable
to parade so much honesty, pretended that the ministers
were only responsible as a whole, and could not render an
account except collectively. This doctrine prevailed, and
Roland fell under the axe of the guillotine.
Danton voted for the death of Louis XVI.; but it was
not apparently a judgment which he wished to pronounce.
In answer to one of the familiars who, in conversation, re¬
presented to him that the convention had done wrong in
putting the king on his trial, “ You are right,” said Dan¬
ton ; “ therefore we will not judge him, we’ll kill him.”
The new republic was already tormented with the most
violent discords, which, notwithstanding all his audacity,
occasioned Danton great uneasiness. He foresaw inevitable
catastrophes, and dreaded that he and his associates would
not be able much longer to command events. “ The metal
boils,” said he; “ but the statue of liberty is not yet cast.
If you do not watch the furnace, you will be all burned.”
On his return from Belgium, whither he had been sent
with Lacroix to superintend the armies and revolutionize
the country, he was warmly accused of peculation, parti¬
cularly by Marat. He treated Marat with contempt, and
silenced his accusers; but he could never efface the im¬
pression which this denunciation had made. After the
check which the armies experienced at Aix-la-Chapelle,
Danton returned to Paris to give an account of the state
of things, and to prepare the necessary means of defence.
These were terror and levies en masse. In the clubs and
in the sectional assemblies, the cry to arms was continual¬
ly resounded; and to supply the place of the massacres of
September, which being too complete could not be renew¬
ed, Danton caused Chaumette, then one of his partisans,
to demand the formation of a revolutionary tribunal. To¬
wards the close of the struggle which terminated in the
events of the 31st May 1793, Danton hesitated what part
to take. The popularity of Robespierre disturbed him ;
but the declared determination of the moderate republi¬
cans to bring the authors of the massacres of September
to punishment did not occasion him less alarm. At the
moment of the crisis, M. de Meilhan, who belonged to the
latter party, endeavoured to draw him over by flattering
his pride. Danton listened to him with attention, looked
for an instant undecided, then, reflecting on the danger to
which he would expose himself, and the influence which
he would lose by a change of system, he merely replied,
with reference to the republicans, “ They have not confi¬
dence ;” and entered the hall of the convention, where,
mingling with those who were rushing blindly into a new
revolution, he invoked without success the vengeance of
the laws against Henriot, who had outraged the conven¬
tion, and appeared to desire its dissolution. After the
31st of May, Danton demanded that the committee of
public safety should be erected into a provisional govern¬
ment; and, in order to prevent all suspicion, he refused to
become a member of that body.
Less verbose than Robespierre in his popular cajoleries,
Danton nevertheless sought to attach the multitude by
means which must have appeared to him much more ef¬
fectual. He attacked all the laws of the maximum, and
especially the tax on grain ; and as the sectional assemblies
of Paris had been deserted, terror having kept away some,
and the necessity of labour others, he caused a decree to
be passed, ordaining that each citizen who attended these Danton-
assemblies should receive an indemnity of forty sous. From
this time they were inundated by crowds of the lowest
populace, prepared to believe whatever was told them, and
to do whatever they were desired. One of their first acts
was to demand that Danton should be added to the com¬
mittee of public safety; and although he affected to re¬
fuse, he ended by consenting to form one of that body.
In the month of November 1793, he attacked the extra¬
vagant festivals of Reason, which the schismatic Corde¬
liers dared to celebrate, even in the very bosom of the
convention. “ When shall we cause these mummeries to
cease?, said he. “ We have not wished to destroy super¬
stition in order to establish atheism.” Robespierre joined
him in overthrowing a faction which threatened both alike ;
and soon afterwards the principal founders of the worship
of reason parted with their heads on the scaffold.
But this understanding could not be of long duration.
Robespierre was not one of those men who hate in vain,
Camille Desmoulins, the friend of Danton, had ventured
to compare the measures then pursued with those which
had been employed by I iberius, and to exhibit proofs in
a pamphlet entitled Ae Vieux Cordelier, wherein he pub¬
lished various passages from Tacitus, which certainly
went to show that a perfect similitude existed between
the decrees of the convention and those of the Roman
emperor. Robespierre rebuked him sharply, and aban¬
doned him to the vengeance of the chiefs of his party,
whom he had turned into ridicule. Danton took the part of
Desmoulins, and counselled him not to be alarmed at the
severity of the reproof administered by Robespierre, who
could no longer tolerate any opposition to his will. He also
wished to defend Fabre d’Eglantine, his intimate adviser,
who had been accused of malversation ; but he was unable
to save his biother peculator, and ought to have learned
by this check that he himself would soon be attacked. In
fact the struggle now commenced between these redoubted
rivals ; and those who dreaded the consequences attempted
to bring them together. They met at dinner, but parted
in greater alienation than ever. “ It is right,” said Dan¬
ton, addressing Robespierre, “ that the royalists should be
put down; but the innocent ought not to be confounded
with the guilty, and we should only strike when the blow
will be useful to the republic.” “ Eh ! who has told you,”
replied Robespierre, knitting his eye-brows fiercely, “ that
any innocent man has perished ?” “ I must show myself,”
said^Danton, in retiring; “ there is not a moment to be
lost. Nevertheless, instead of acting he hesitated. Wes-
termann, his principal agent, pressed him to strike, and
promised assistance. Danton merely answered, “ He dares
not.” But before braving him, Robespierre had taken his
measures, and the giant who had overturned the throne
was arrested in bed on the night of the 31st March 1794,
without offering the least resistance. Lacroix, his friend,
was arrested the same night, and both were conducted to
the Luxembourg. Danton, on entering, politely saluted the
numerous detenus who had crowded around in order to see
him. “ Gentlemen,” said he, “ I had hopes of soon bring¬
ing about your liberation; but here I am myself among
you; and I no longer know how all this will end.” Some
deputies wished to remonstrate against this arrest; but
Robespierre appeared in the tribune, and having indignant¬
ly asked who they were that dared to take the part of the
conspnatoi, and the immoral man with whose crimes the
people weie about to be made acquainted, they all remained
silent. Danton and Lacroix were confined in separate
cells, but sufficiently near to be able to converse, and to be
overheard by the other detenus. Lacroix threw out some
reproaches against Danton, accusing him of indolence and
carelessness. “ It is this,” said he, “ which has ruined
652 DAN
Dantzic. us.” They then conversed gaily on the fate which awaited
them, and which they appeared to deride. When brought
before the revolutionary tribunal, four days after their
arrest, they scarcely deigned to answer the interrogatories
put to them by the president, and during the discussion
they amused themselves with rolling pellets of bread, and
darting them at the noses of the judges and the jury. Dan-
ton, whilst occupied in forming these missiles, merely ob¬
served, “ Mon individu sera bientot dans le neant; inais
mon nom est dejd dans la posterile.” 1 lie tribunal, terrified
at their audacity, consulted the committees of government
on the subject, and the latter gave orders to put the pri¬
soners hors des dehats, that is, to condemn them at once,
without further hearing. This decision threw Danton into
an inexpressible rage, and he launched out into impreca¬
tions against those by whom he had been proscribed. “ It
was I,” cried he on entering the chamber of the condemn¬
ed, “ it was I who caused this infamous tribunal to be in¬
stituted ; I ask pardon of God and man for having done so.
I leave every thing,” added he, “ in a frightful hodge¬
podge ; no one understands any thing of government: be¬
sides, they are all brothers of Cain; Brissot would have
caused me to be guillotined as well as Robespierre.” The
sight of the apparatus of punishment did not in the slight¬
est degree discompose him ; he mounted the fatal cart
with unshaken firmness; his head was high, and his looks
full of pride ; and he seemed still to command the popu¬
lace. Nevertheless, before submitting himself to the exe¬
cutioner, he seemed for an instant to be softened, if not
overcome. “ Oh, my well-beloved ! oh, my wife,” cried he,
“ I shall never see you more.” Then rousing him abrupt¬
ly, he shouted, “ Be thyself, Danton ; no weakness after
which he rapidly ascended the scaffold, and said to the
executioner, “ You will show my head to the people; it is
worth the trouble.” He died on the 5th April 1794, at the
age of thirty-five. (Biographie Universelle.) (j. b—E.)
DANTZIC (in German, Danzig), the principal port and
commercial city of Prussia, province of Prussia Proper, and
capita] of a cognomina! government, lies on the left bank of
the Vistula, about four miles from its mouth. N. Lat. 54.
20.; E. Long. 18. 38. Population in 1849, including mili¬
tary, 63,917; ofwThom2369 were Jews, 13,339 Catholics, and
47,723 Protestants. Ramparts, bastions, and wet ditches,
which have been vastly strengthened since the war, and gi¬
gantic works for laying the country underwater, have done
what fortifications can to make Dantzic impregnable.
Its modern name, according to Malte-Brun, is derived from
Dansk Vik, which means Danish port or gulf, a Danish co¬
lonyhaving at one time established itself in this advantageous
position. In consequence of a war against Waldemar I.,
king of Denmark, Dantzic, as well as the province in which
it is situated, was subjected by turns to the Danes, the
Swedes, the Pomeranians and to the Teutonic Knights;
but its name (in Polish Gdansk, and in Latin Gedanum)
scarcely appears in history before the tenth century. It
was held for a considerable period by the knights of the
Teutonic Order, under whom the present cathedral was
founded. Upon shaking off their yoke in 1454 it became
a free city, and was a principal member of the Hanseatic
League. More than one attempt was afterwards made by
the Poles to take possession of the city. In repelling these
attacks such important aid was rendered by a number of
Scotch residents, whose ancestors had settled in the place
as weavers, that they were invested with the privileges of
freemen, and the district where they resided still bears the
name of Schottland.
In 1 /92 Dantzic, feeling itself pressed on all sides by
Prussia, which was continually encroaching, attempted to re¬
sist ; but being abandoned by Poland it could not sustain the
struggle, and in virtue of a convention, signed 8th March
1 /93, the Prussians took military possession of the town.
DAN
Again, during the war between France and Prussia it Danube,
was besieged and taken by the French under Marshal
Lefebvre in 1807.
At the peace of Tilsit, Dantzic was placed under the
triple protection of France, Russia, and Saxony, and de¬
clared a free town with a territory of two leagues beyond.
But being in reality completely under the power of France,
its independence was a mere name, and its prosperity de¬
clined. After the retreat of the French from Moscow, in
February 1814, Dantzic again fell under the power of
Prussia, and is now incorporated with that kingdom.
The city is traversed by the small river Motlau. On ap¬
proaching it by land, lines of horse-chestnuts on each side
of the road give a pleasing appearance to the suburbs in sum¬
mer, and numerous country houses suggest ideas of citizen
comfort and opulence, which, however, are not justified by
the appearance of the interior. The town consists of narrow
streets, and quaint melancholy-looking dwellings, with few
remarkable public buildings except the cathedral church of
St Mary, which was finished in 1503, and in which is a cele¬
brated picture of the Last Judgment, attributed to Van Eyck.
The town-house, arsenal, and exchange, also deserve notice.
There are 29 places of public worship, with several mon¬
asteries and convents. Dantzic likewise has a gymnasium
and 31 public schools, with a variety of literary, scientific,
and charitable institutions.
Dantzic is the seat of the courts of government, a council
of admiralty, and a tribunal of commerce. It contains a
vast number of distilleries and breweries, and flour-mills,
dye-works, sugar refineries, &c. Next to St Petersburg,
Dantzic is the most important commercial city in the north
oi Europe, and is, after Odessa, at the head of all the corn
shipping ports of the world. The Vistula, with its impor¬
tant tributaries the Bug, the Narew, &c., give it the com¬
mand of an extensive internal navigation, rendering it the
entrepot for the products of West Prussia, Poland, and
part of Lithuania. The quality of the Dantzic wdieat is for
the most part excellent; the rye is also very superior; but
the exports of barley and oats are comparatively inconsider¬
able. Next to grain, timber is the most important article
of export, but the supply is said to be diminishing, and the
quality inferior to what it was formerly. The other ex¬
ports are salt pork, black beer, ashes, linseed, &c. The
principal imports are cotton, coflee, coals, herrings, iron
and steel ware, lead, sugar, salt, &c. The exports in 1851
amounted to L.l, 145,924, and the imports to L.611,486.
The usual depth of water at the river’s mouth is from 13
to 14 feet, but in the roads there is good anchorage for
ships of any burden. The greater part of the trade is in the
hands of foreigners, particularly the English.
(G. Loschin, Geschichte Danzigs; Dantzic, 1822. M‘Cul-
loch’s Commercial Dictionary, 1854. Milner, The Baltic,
its Gates, Shores, and Cities, 1854, &c.)
DANUBE (Ger. Donau ; Hung. Duna ; Danu-
bius, and in the lower part of its course, Ister), the largest
river of Europe next to the Volga, traversing the southern
part of Germany, Hungary, and Turkey, and falling into
the Black Sea after a course of about 1 750 miles. This
large river drains a territory of nearly 250,000 square miles.
Its basin is formed by the Black Forest, some of the minor
Alpine ranges, the Bohemian Forest, and the Carpathian
mountains on the north, and by the Alps and the range of the
Balkan on the south. The Danube is generally considered
to take its rise from the union, at Donaueschingen, of
the Brigach and the Brege, two mountain streams which
have their sources in the Black Forest. A third stream,
originating in a spring in the palace garden of Donaues¬
chingen, and joining the infant river, is, however, by some
held to be the true source of the Danube. It flows first
N.E. through the kingdom of Wiirtemburg and part of Ba¬
varia to Ratisbon, where it turns to the S.E., in which direc-
DAN
Danube, tion it flows till it approaches Lintz in Austria. From this
towmits course is mostly easterly to Hungary, which it enters a
little above Presburg. From Presburg it flows S.E. through
the lesser Hungarian plain to its confluence with the Raab,
whence it runs E. to Waitzen. At Waitzen it turns S., and
flows with a slow' current and numerous windings through
the greater plain of Hungary for nearly 2} degrees of lati¬
tude. After its junction with the Drave it again takes a
general S.E. direction to Orsova, where it leaves the Aus¬
trian territories. From Orsova, its course is generally S.
by E. to Kalafat, thence mostly E. by S. to Sistova; it there
takes an E. by N. direction to Rassova, then N. to Galatz,
and finally eastward to the Black Sea. Among its nume¬
rous tributaries the principal are, on the right the Iller,
Lech, Iser, Inn, Ens, Raab, Drave, Save, Morava, Timok,
Isker, Vid, and Jantra ; and on the left, the Altmuhl, Nab,
Regen, March, Waag, Gran, Theiss, Femes, Chyl, Aluta,
Jalomnitza, Sereth, and Pruth. The Danube communicates
with the Rhine by means of the Altmuhl, the Main, and the
Ludwfigs canal, and with the Elbe by means of the Moldau
and other canals. Steam navigation was introduced on the
Danube in 1830. The upper course of this river is frozen
over all winter, and even in the plain of Hungary from De¬
cember to March. The breaking up of the ice always causes
great anxiety to the inhabitants. If the thaw begins in the
upper part of the stream before the ice has given way below,
the waters rush down with incredible fury, tossing about
large masses of ice in all directions, and frequently doing
incalculable damage. When a sudden thaw is apprehended,
watchmen are stationed on eminences along the banks of
the river, to give notice by firing alarm guns when the ice
is broken.
At its source, the Danube is 2850 feet above the level of
the sea. Its course lies through an Alpine country to Ulm,
where its elevation is 1400 feet. At this town it receives the
Iller, and becomes navigable for flat-bottomed boats of 100
tons. From Donauworth to Passau it traverses the Bava¬
rian plain. Leaving this plain, it intersects a second moun¬
tainous region till it reaches Vienna. At Passau it is 800 feet
above the level of the sea, and at Vienna450. From Vienna to
the mouth of the Drave it flows through an expanse of plain
country, broken only in a few places, as at Presburg, Buda,
and Waitzen. The following minute account of the lowrer
parts of the Danube is from an excellent article in the Times
of 29th December 1853.
The general valley of the Danube is naturally divided into four
basins by chains of mountains, which successively become detached,
extend away to the right and left, then meet and inclose the valley
of the Danube in three different places, force the river to change
its bed, and to pass over four vast slopes. The third of these great
inclosures is formed by the junction of the Veliki-Balkan and the
Eastern Carpathians, in the direction of Orsova, the point where
the Danube issues from the Austrian dominions, and rolls away on
its course to the Ottoman territory. It is at this point that its
fourth basin commences, which only terminates in the Black Sea.
To the north extend the chain of the Carpathians and the successive
heights which rise between the Pruth and the Dneister, and to the
south the Veliki and the vast chain of the Balkans. This fourth
basin, through which the noble river rolls its huge volume of waters,
swelled by many navigable streams, to the Euxine, comprises the
whole of Bulgaria on the south, Wallachia and Moldavia on the
north, and a portion of Bessarabia. While yet the Danube waters
the Hungarian plains its bed is generally regular, deep, without
torrents, and is intersected by many islets; its banks are mostly
low, and its width in some places from two and a half to three
English miles. But when it approaches Orsova, where the Car¬
pathians and the Balkans approach, it becomes completely changed ;
it struggles through that formidable barrier ; flings itself with the
fury of a vast torrent through the gigantic walls of granite which
close in upon it; it returns on itself, coils and winds, as if in con¬
vulsive rage against the rocks and shallows which bar its passage ;
and where it cannot undermine these adamantine barriers, lifts its
■waters and dashes in fury over them. Some of these whirlpools
and rapids are passed by the hardy natives of the mountains in
small boats in certain spots; but the steamers which navigate the
stream thus far from Vienna, there arrest their course, and the
U B E. - 653
merchandise with which they are laden is transported on the backs Danube,
of men and animals through a road cut in the rocks, from Orsova v ■>
for some miles down to Kladova, while the tortured river passes
away to the east. The spot where it is thus strangled, as it were,
is known by the name of the Iron Gate, or the Gate of Trajan.
New Orsova, in the Servian territory, is situate in an isle of the
Danube. It forms nearly a rectangle, and is defended on the right
bank by Fort St Elizabeth. It was taken by the Austrians in
1789. Kladova, a little to the south, is also a Servian town; and,
like most of the small towns near the Danube, is encased by an
earthen rampart, with a ditch, and pallisades of oak sufficiently
strong to resist all but cannon shot. Kladova was taken by the
Russians in 1829. To the north, and not far from Tchernetz, are
the remains of Trajan’s bridge, originally of twenty arches, but of
which five only remain, and which was flung across the river when
it measured more than 3000 feet in width.
To the south of Kladova, the river, escaping from its more for¬
midable girdle, rolls more freely between the rocky steeps, and
forms the boundary between Servia and Wallachia; it has on its
right Berza-Palanka, a fortified town, and there receives the waters
of the Timok, which comes up from the south, and separates Servia
from Bulgaria. The Danube then rolls through a vast plain, but
still bears the impress of its previous struggle, for it rolls rapidly,
but not tumultuously, along. It grows wider and wider, and its
waters are interspersed with isles, which are covered with brush¬
wood. It next reaches Widdin, a considerable town, with a popu¬
lation of about 26,000, and a garrison of 8000 or 10,000 men.
Widdin is one of the important fortified places of the military line
of the Danube. It covers the approaches of Servia, commands
Little W allachia, the defiles of Transylvania, and, above all, the
opening of the road which leads through Kissa and Sophia on to
Adrianople. Its form is an irregular pentagon ; it is strongly
bastioned, possesses a fortified castle, with two redoubts in the isl¬
ands, and its defences are completed by an extensive marsh. It
was before the walls of Widdin that the Turks were defeated bv
the Imperialists in 1689; and it was under cover of its guns that
the Ottoman army effected its passage to Kalafat, which is on the
left bank, and established itself in Little Wallachia. Below Wid¬
din the river makes a bend, and then flows on to the east, and
waters on its right bank Argul-Grad, Lorn, Zibroul-Palanka, and
Orsova, all situate at the confluence of the streams which come up
from Veliki-Balkan on the south, and at the points where the right
bank becomes lower and ceases to command the left. These towns
present no serious means of defence, but are sufficient to annoy an
enemy crossing the stream. The Danube flows on to the east with
some windings till it reaches the town of Nicopolis, which was
founded by Trajan. Nicopolis is an important place, owing to its
position at the point where the Oswa enters the Danube, and to its
being almost right opposite to the Aluta, which also enters it on
the Wallachian side. Its population is 10,000, and its garrison be¬
tween 2000 and 3000 men. It has been strongly fortified by Omar
Pasha. Opposite, on the Wallachian bank of the river, is the town
of Turna, which ^erved formerly as its tete-du-pont, until it was
dismantled by the Russians in 1828. It was by that tete-du-pont
that the Turks used to penetrate into the valley of the Aluta, while
Nicopolis covered the route to the Balkans, and which leads by the
defile of Gabrova. It was taken by the Russians in 1810, and again
in 1829. The ground near it has been the scene of many battles.
After Nicopolis the Danube reaches Sistova, where it is large
and deep enough to bear vessels of 500 tons burden. Its popula¬
tion is estimated at about 12,000. Sistova has a wall flanked with
towers, and a castle; but it is of secondary importance. It was
taken and dismantled by the Russians in 1810. From Widdin to
Sistova the Danube flows from west to east without many or con¬
siderable windings; but at Sistova it begins to take a northern
direction. In its gradual course upwards it reaches Rustchuk, one
of the three most important places of the line of the Danube. It is
situate at the confluence of the Kara-hom, at the extreme point of
the great route from Russia to Constantinople by Vassy, and Bucha¬
rest in Lower Wallachia, and of the two principal routes of the Bal¬
kans, those of Gabrova and Shumla. Rustchuk has a fortified castle,
which commands the town and the river, and has been recently for¬
tified. Its population is 30,000, and its present garrison about
7000. In front of Rustchuk, and on the left bank, is Giurgevo, a
Wallachian town, which was formerly its tete-du-pont, and which
played a great part in most of the wars between the Russians and
Turks. It was dismantled by the latter in 1828.
Prom the Danube, which up to Rustchuk had flowed regularly in
one bed, issue at this point several streams, which inundate the
country for 8 or 10 miles distant. The last slopes of the Bulgarian
mountains dip down towards one bank, while the other is bounded
by patches of low marshy soil, cut up by other vagrant streams, or
by pools of stagnant water, interspersed with islets covered with
brushwood or with thick reed-grass. The river, however, soon again
I
654
DAN
DAP
Danube.
Dobrous-
cha.
gathers itself into one undivided stream, and rolls on to Turtukai,
situate opposite the point where the Argisch, flowing down from
Wallachia, enters the Danube. Turtukai—which, owing to its im¬
portant position, has been regularly fortified—connects the two im¬
portant towns of Itustchuk and Silistria; and it is, moreover, be¬
tween these two towns that both banks of the Danube are equally
low, and present the points where its passage is without difficulty.
Opposite to Turtukai, and about a mile and a half from the left
bank, is the Wallachian village of Oltenitza. It was there that in
1810, and again in 1829, the Hussians passed the Danube. At the
commencement of the war they were also in force there, when the
Turks boldly crossed the river and beat them.
Silistria is the next place of importance which the Danube waters
in its gradually northward course. It is situate at the extremity
of the principal route of the Balkans, by Shumla ; has a population
of 20,000, considerable fortifications, a castle, capacious barracks,
and carries on in ordinary times an extensive trade on the river.
Its present garrison is in proportion to its importance. It was un¬
successfully attacked by the liussians in 1773 and 1809, and, after
a long siege, was taken in 1829. Rustchuk, Silistria, and Shumla
are at the angles of a triangle which forms as it were the citadel
of that part of the Turkish territory which lies between the Danube
and the Balkans.
Leaving Silistria, the river advances, but still gradually, towards
the north, while it again throws out branches, the most consider¬
able of which is Borchicha, which flows along the parent stream
for more than 50 miles, but at a distance of from 15 to 20; after
which it unites with it by various channels, forming marshy islets,
—so much so that the whole of the left bank of the Danube up to
Hirsova is impracticable. The river then passes to Bassova, a small
fortified town, defended in front by impassable marshes. At this
spot, it is said that the Danube, in times now remote, continued
unvarying its western course to Kostendje, in the Black Sea, from
which it is only separated about 50 or 60 miles, but that it became
blocked up by long accumulating sandbanks, and was forced to
seek a new outlet. At Rassova it now at all events turns sharply
to the north, and traverses a space of 80 leagues before it empties
itself into the Euxine. In the time of the Romans, a wall and
ditch, which extended for 50 miles, from Bassova to the sea, re¬
pelled the invasions of the Dacians; and of that barrier, the Val¬
lum Trajani, traces may still be seen. A canal which would unite
the Danube with the Black Sea at that spot was once projected, and
recently plans have been furnished of a railroad, which would make
Rassova the station for vessels descending the Danube.
The mighty stream after leaving Rassova once more quits its
bed, and scatters its waters, which flow along a low soil cut up into
a maze of marshes. In this state it reaches Hirsova, which is de¬
fended by a fortified castle, and has a garrison of about 2000 men.
This place was taken by the Russians in 1809 and 1828. Though
small, it is of considerable importance from its position on the very
spot where the Borchicha returns to the Danube, and the river it¬
self resumes its course. It covers the points where a passage might
be effected in the Dobrouscha. The Dobrouscha is the rectangular
peninsula comprised between the Danube, from Rassova to the
mouth of the Kilia, Trajan’s Vallum, and the Black Sea. It is in
many parts inundated, but has good pasturage for the excellent
horses -which constitute the sole wealth of the Tartars who inhabit
it. If the Danube be then passed, the routes by Varna and Shumla
to Constantinople are open to an enemy.
After Hirsova the Danube again loses itself in many streams,
and thus scattered reaches Mathine, a town protected by two forti¬
fied castles and a wall, and which has now a garrison of about 4000
men. Its importance in 1809 and 1828 was considerable, as its
tete-du-pont was the Wallachian Brailow, though separated from it
by four or five acres of the river about four or five miles in breadth.
In the latter year it was dismantled by the Russians. By means of
it Wallachia was turned, and the entry into Moldavia secured ; and
it covered the Lower Danube and the Dobrouscha. It was many
times besieged, as the Russians could not venture beyond the Da¬
nube with such a place in their rear.
Below Brailow the Danube again recovers its single bed, and
flows on to Galatz, which is on the left bank and near the conflu¬
ence of the Sereth : it is the only port Moldavia possesses on the
river. Once more the waters are divided; but the Danube reaches
its highest northern point at Reni, where it resumes its original di¬
rection from AV. to L. It passes through a district almost entirely
inundated, and it hurries on its way through vast lakes. It is again
confined nearly to one bed before it reaches Isaktchi, where hostili¬
ties were commenced in the present war by the attack made on the
place by the Russians. With a fortified castle, and a garrison of
about 1500 men, Isaktchi is but a post of observation on the embou¬
chures of the river. The same may be said of Toultcha, which is
the last fortified place held by the Turks on the Danube, and which
has a garrison of 1200 men. Above Toultcha, the river is divided
into a great many arms ; the three most important of which form Daphne,
a vast delta, which belongs in great part to Russia. The first divi- i
sion of the delta begins at the island of Tchatal, where the Danube
separates into two large branches—the first of which, called the Ki¬
lia, takes a northern direction, and reaches Ismail and Kilia, both
taken by the Turks from the Russians, and which now command
the whole of the delta of the Danube. In former times Ismail was
for the Turks a position of the same importance as Brailow. Its
capture by assault, under Suwarrow, in 1790, when 35,000 of the
inhabitants were involved in a general massacre, has been cele¬
brated in prose and poetry. The Kilia, divided and subdivided
into several branches, is scarcely navigable; at its mouth the water
is from four to seven feet deep. The second branch is the Sulina,
which flows to the S.E., and is divided into the two streams, St
George and Dunavitz—the latter, more to the southward, flows
into the maritime lake of Rassein. The Sulina is easy of na¬
vigation ; it is from 400 to 600 feet in width, it ought to be 18
to 22 feet in depth, and flows in an undivided channel to the
sea. The St George branch is about 30 feet deep, but its mouth
is almost entirely blocked up with sand. The Dunavitz is not na¬
vigable. The mouths of the Danube extend over 70 miles of coast.
The delta is formed of isles Tchatal and Leti, between the Kilia and
the Sulina; of the Isle of St George, between the Sulina and the
St George; and of the isle Portitza, between St George and the
Dunavitz. This last only is possessed by the Turks; all the rest
belong to the Russians, who, intentionally or through negligence,
have, since the recent quarrel with the Porte, allowed the sand to
accumulate at the mouth of the Sulina so as to do incalculable injury
to the navigation of the most important river of Europe. The whole
of the delta, with the exception of the Island of Portitza, which is
a mass of sand, is neither thinly peopled nor poorly cultivated.
DAPHNE, in Mythology, daughter of the river-god
Ladon in Arcadia, or of the river-god Peneus in Thessaly,
by the goddess Terra, was a nymph of surpassing beauty, of
whom Apollo became deeply enamoured. This passion
had been incited by Cupid, with whom Apollo, elated at
his recent conquest of the serpent Python, had disputed
the power of his darts. Daphne, filled with terror at the
importunities of the god, endeavoured to elude his embraces
by flight; and when on the point of being overtaken by
her pursuer, she invoked the assistance of the gods, and
was metamorphosed into a laurel—in Greek called Satyr]—
which tree was thenceforward sacred to Apollo. Accord¬
ing to another legend, Daphne was beloved by Leucippus,
son of CEnomaus, king of Pisa in Elis, who disguised his
sex, and attended her in the woods in the habit of a hunt¬
ress ; but his sex having been discovered by his rival Apollo,
Leucippus was killed by the companions of Daphne.
(Ovid, Met. i. 452, &c.)
Daphne was also the name of a daughter of the sooth¬
sayer Tiresias, a priestess in the temple of Delphi. She
is more generally called Manto.
Daphne, a grove, temple, and oracle of Apollo, about
five miles from Antioch in Syria, and one of the most re-
nowned and sumptuous places of devotion in the whole
Pagan world. In the wmrds of Gibbon,—“ The perpetual
resort of pilgrims and spectators insensibly formed in the
neighbourhood of the temple the stately and populous vil¬
lage of Daphne, which emulated the splendour without ac¬
quiring the title of a provincial city. The temple and vil¬
lage were deeply bosomed in a thick grove of laurels and
cypresses, which reached as far as a circumference of ten
miles, and formed in the most sultry summers a cool and
impenetrable shade. A thousand streams of the purest
waters issuing from every hill preserved the verdure of the
earth and the temperature of the air; the senses were gra¬
tified with harmonious sounds and aromatic odours, and the
peaceful grove was consecrated to health and joy, to luxury
and love.” Daphne first became famous in the reign of
Seleucus Nicator, w ho designed it. Under the Romans its
reputation was not suffered to decline till the days of the
Apostate Julian. When that emperor visited the place, he
complained that, instead of hecatombs of fat oxen sacrificed
by the tribes of a wealthy city to their tutelary deity, he
found only a single goose provided at the expense of a
priest, the pale and solitary inhabitant of this decayed tem-
DAE
Daphne- pie. In the reign of Zeno, Daphne became a third-rate
phoria provincial town. For a very detailed history of Daphne,
iarabiird. S-G Gibbon’s HistorU of the Decline and Fall, chap, xxiii!
ho lemains that can with certainty be pronounced those
of the ancient village and grove have been discovered.
DAPHNEPHORIA, in Antiquity, a festival celebrated
every ninth year by the Boeotians, in honour of Apollo,
surnamed Ismenius or Galaxius. It was so called from the
lauiel blanches borne by those who took part in its cele¬
bration, which was conducted as followsAn olive-bough
was adorned with garlands of laurel and various kinds of
flowers, and on the top of it was fixed a brazen globe, from
which smaller globes were suspended. About its middle
were ananged purple gariands, and a globe of size inferior
to that at the top, while the lowest part of the bough was en-
\ eloped with a saffi on-coloured covering. The uppermost
globe represented Apollo or the sun; that in the middle
was an emblern of the moon; while the others were symbols
of the stars. 1 he garlands, in number 365, indicated the
couise of the year. The bough, thus adorned, was carried
in solemn procession to the temple of Apollo, where sup¬
plicatory hymns were sung to the god. At the head of this
procession walked the Aou^vi^opos, or chosen priest of
Apollo for that year, who was a youth selected for his
strength and beauty from one of the most distinguished
families of Thebes, and whose parents were both living.
He was arrayed in a magnificent robe which reached to Ins
feet, his hair hung loose and dishevelled, on his head was a
golden crown, in his hand he bore a branch of laurel, and
on his feet were a kind of shoes called iphicratidce, from
the Athenian Iphicrates, who first introduced them. Im¬
mediately before him walked his nearest kinsman, bearing
the olive bough above mentioned; and after him followed
a choir of virgins with branches in their hands and singing
hymns. This festival was of great antiquity; and similar
festivals appear to have been celebrated in other parts of
Greece. The Daphnephoria was instituted on the following
occasion :—When an oracle advised the iEolians, who in¬
habited Arne and the adjacent country, to abandon their
ancient possessions and go in quest of a settlement, they
laid siege to Thebes, which was at the same time attacked
by the Pelasgians, and ravaged the adjoining country. As
the celebration of Apollo’s festival was near, both nations,
who religiously observed it, laid aside their hostilities, and,
according to custom, cut down laurel boughs from Mount
Helicon and in the neighbourhood of the river Melas, and
walked in procession in honour of Apollo. The day on
which this solemnity was observed, there appeared in a
dream to Polematas, the general of the Boeotian forces, a
youth who presented him with a complete suit of armour,
and commanded the Boeotians to offer solemn prayers to
Apollo, with laurel boughs in their hands, every ninth year.
Three days after this vision Polematas made a sally upon the
besiegers, and with such success that they were compelled to
relinquish their enterprise. He accordingly instituted a no¬
vennial festival to the god who had favoured the Boeotians.
DAPHNIS, a Sicilian shepherd, to whom the invention
of bucolic poetry is ascribed. He was struck blind by a
Naiad for having broken his vow of constancy to her, but
was afterwards translated to heaven by his reputed father
Hermes. According to one account, Daphnis was not
himself a poet, but gained that reputation merely from hav¬
ing been the theme of the bucolic strains of Stesichorus.
DAPIFER (Eat. dapes, feast, and fero, to bear), literally,
one who brings meat to table, was formerly the title or
office of the grand-master of a king’s household. This
title was given by the Emperor of Constantinople to the
Czar of Russia as a testimony of favour. In France an
analogous office was instituted by Charlemagne. The dm-
nity daPifer still subsists at some of the German courts!
DARABJIRD, or Darab-guierd, a town of Persia, in
DAE 655
the province of Fars, situated on the banks of a river which Darapti
runs through an extensive plain interspersed with villages II
and cultivated lands, 150 miles N.E. from Schiraz. It is ^Darflir-
surrounded with groves of orange and lemon trees, which
yield fruit in such abundance that the juice is exported to
all parts of Persia. Although a great part of the town is in
ruins, it still contains from 15,000 to 20,000 inhabitants.
DARAPTI, in Logic, one of the modes of syllogisms
of the third figure, the premises of which are universal af¬
firmatives, while the conclusion is a particular affirmative :
thus,—
Every body is divisible;
Every body is a substance ;
Therefore some substance is divisible.
D’ARELAY, Madame. See Burney, Fanny.
DARDANELLES, Straits of the, form the commu¬
nication between the Sea of Marmora and the Archipelago.
This channel, through which there flows a constant current
out °f the Sea of Marmora into the Archipelago, is upwards
of 50 miles long, and varies in breadth from 1 mile towards
its wrestern to 10 miles at its eastern extremity- It derives
its name from two ancient fortresses on either side of the
liver, of which one is built on the site of the ancient Sestos,
and the other on the site of the ancient Abydos. About
20 miles to the west of these are two modern fortresses called
the_ New Castles, and between the old and the new forts are
military works of various descriptions. The total number of
guns mounted on these fortresses is 689, some of which dis¬
charge stone shot, and require a charge of more than 3 cwts.
of powder. It derived its ancient name of the Hellespont
fiom the tradition of Phryxus and Helle, and is celebrated in
ancient times for the bridge of boats built over it by Xerxes.
It is memorable also as the scene of the death of Leander.
DARDANUS, the mythical ancestor of the Trojans,
was the son of Jupiter and Electra. According to the
Greek legend, he came from Arcadia to Samothrace, and
thence removed to Phrygia, where he established the fa¬
mous palladium, originally the dowry of his wife Chryse,
which was afterwards enshrined at Troy. Dardanus after¬
wards married Bateia, the daughter of Teucrus, and by her
became the father of Ericthonius and Idaea. According to
a later tradition he was the son of Corythus an Etruscan
prince, and emigrated from Etruria to Phrygia.
Dardanus, Dardanum, or Dardania, in Ancient Geo¬
graphy, a city of the Troad in Mysia, taking its name from
Dardanus the founder of the dynasty of Troy. It was a
small and unimportant town even during the authentic pe¬
riod of ancient history, and is chiefly memorable as the spot
where Sulla and Mithridates met in b.c. 84, to arrange the
terms of peace.
DARES, a Phrygian, who lived during the Trojan war,
and wrote the history of it in Greek. This history was ex¬
tant in the age of JElian. A Latin translation, which has
come down to us, is generally allowed to be spurious, and
is attributed by some to Cornelius Nepos. It was first pub¬
lished at Cologne in 1470.
DARFUR, or Darfoor, a considerable kingdom of Cen¬
tral Africa, occupying a large tract of the country lying be¬
tween AbyssiniaandBornu. The boundaries of this kingdom
are not well defined. According to the best authorities, it
has on the east Kordofan and the country of the Shilluks,
which separate it from Sennaar and Abyssinia; on the west
Bergu, which divides it from Begherme and Bornu ; whilst
the regions to the south are occupied by barbarous nations,
extending to and inhabiting the Mountains of the Moon, and
the early course of the Bahr-el-Abiad.
Darfur is destitute of any great river or lake ; and ac¬
cordingly during the dry season the aspect of the country
is parched and sterile. The rainy season commences in
June and continues till September. Then the fields
are clothed with luxuriant verdure, and the empty ravines
656 D A R
Darfur, filled with water. This is the season for sowing, at the
commencement of which, the king, with his attendants, goes
out into the fields, and with his own hand makes several
holes in the ground for the reception of the seed. 1 he
vegetable productions of Darfur are found chiefly to the
south, where water is most abundant. I he ground is ex¬
tensively covered with trees, amongst which the tamaiind,
plane, and sycamore are found, but not in great abundance.
The heglig and the nebbek are two species peculiar to Dar¬
fur ; their wood is hard, and they are very thorny. There
are also two small trees or shrubs called the enneb and shair.
The other plants copiously produced are the mimosa nilo-
tica, the gum of which is carried into Egypt; the water¬
melon, the gourd, hemp, capsicum, and tobacco. The date
tree is here small, and of inferior quality. Camels of all
forms and sizes are exceedingly abundant. The wild animals
are principally the lion, leopard, hyena, wolf, jackal (Canis
aureus), and wild buffalo. These, however, are chiefly con¬
fined to the uncultivated parts of the country, except the
jackal and hyena, herds of which enter the villages at night
and commit great ravages. Here also are found the ele¬
phant, rhinoceros, cameleopard, hippopotamus, and crocodile.
Darfur has no good horses except those obtained from
Dongola, and no good asses except those from Egypt. The
sheep are inferior to the Egyptian, and their wool is very
coarse. Goats and horned cattle are numerous, and their
flesh is good. Very fine copper is brought from the south ;
and gold is plentiful in the east and west, but it is con¬
veyed to Northern Africa by other channels. The rocks
of Darfur consist chiefly of gray granite. Various kinds of
marble, alabaster, fossil salt, and sulphur are also found.
Thermal springs are said to exist in a mountain called
Gebel Maria.
The national industry is directed chiefly to agriculture.
Wheat is raised only in small quantities : the principal
grains are the dokn, which seems to be a species of millet,
and another of larger size called kassob. The harvest is
conducted by the women and slaves, who break off the
ears with their hands and carry them away in baskets ; whilst
the straw is left standing to be employed in building, &c.
The grain, after being thrashed, is buried in the earth, and
is thus tolerably well preserved. The houses are built of
clay, sometimes embellished with a coating of plaster ; the
roofs are flat, and formed of light beams of wood, with a co¬
vering of clay. An apartment of about 20 feet by 12, and
secured by a rude door with a padlock, is used as the repo¬
sitory of all property belonging to the family; another,
called kournac, somewhat larger than the above, but with¬
out a door, serves for sitting and sleeping in ; and a third,
somewhat similar to the latter, is appropriated to the women.
The population is supposed by the most recent travellers
not to exceed 200,000. Cobbe, the capital, has not more
than 6000 inhabitants. There are only eight other consi¬
derable places, the remaining collective residences being
only small villages. The population of the towns, and es¬
pecially of the capital, consists in a great measure of foreign
traders, from Egypt, and from the eastern countries of Don¬
gola, Sennaar, and Kordofan. Many of the various tribes
of Arabs wdiich wander in the surrounding deserts have
also settled in the interior of Darfur.
The government, like that of other Mohammedan coun¬
tries, is despotic. Beyond the Koran, which is inviolable,
the will of the king is unlimited. The Fukhara or eccle¬
siastics alone are en titled to remonstrate ; but if their warn¬
ing be rejected, they have no means of enforcing it. A very
formidable power resides in the army, which consists of
about 2000 men ; and no sovereign can wdth impunity act
In opposition to that body. On the death of the monarch,
the crown constitutionally descends to the eldest son ; but
is liable to be seized by any stronger or more popular
member of the royal family. The revenue of the sovereign
D A R
is derived from various sources; from a duty on all mer- Daric
chandise imported, amounting in most instances to about a ||
tenth ; fines for misdemeanours ; and to which is added, in Darien,
case of murder, a certain proportion of the property of the
village in which the murder has been perpetrated ; presents
received continually from the nobles and merchants, and
the tribute of the bordering Arab tribes. Lastly, the king
is an extensive merchant, with means of procuring a market
which are not enjoyed by private individuals.
The Darfurians differ from the negroes on the coast of
Guinea, though their complexion is black, and their hair
generally short and woolly. In their dispositions they are
cheerful; and the females are not immured, nor, unless
among the great, are their faces concealed by a veil. Not¬
withstanding the law of the prophet, a fermented liquor is used
by persons of both sexes, and sometimes to a great extent.
The only commerce of Darfur is inland ; but this is ex¬
tensive, and the merchants are the most important persons
in the country. The chief intercourse is with Egypt, and
it is carried on entirely by the African system of caravans.
These are not only very uncertain in their journeys, but
are exposed to great dangers from the attacks of wild Arabs.
Among the articles sent into Egypt, the most important are
slaves, camels, ivory, the horns, teeth, and hides of the
rhinoceros and hippopotamus, ostrich feathers, gum, pi¬
mento, parroquets in abundance, and a small quantity of
white copper. The imports are extremely various, compris¬
ing beads of all sorts, toys, glass, arms, light cloths of differ¬
ent kinds, &c. Commerce is carried on entirely by barter,
which greatly increases the difficulty of conducting it. The in¬
tercourse with Mecca is considerable ; and in this the objects
of trade and religion are combined. (See Browne’s Travels^)
DARIC (SapeiKos), a very pure gold piece, generally
supposed to have been first coined by Darius tbe son of
Hystaspes, probably during his stay at Babylon, out of the
vast quantity of gold which had been accumulated in the
treasury of that capital. The daric was widely circulated
not only in the Pei'sian empire, but also in Greece ; so that
the Persian daric, which was also called stater, was the
gold coin best known in Athens in ancient times. Accord¬
ing to Dr Bernard, it weighed fifteen grains more than our
guinea. Hussey gives its value at about L.l, Is. lOd. P76
farthings. There are specimen of this rare coin in the Bri¬
tish Museum, of the respective weights of 128*4 grains and
128*6 grains. They are stamped on one side with the figure
of a kneeling archer clothed in a long robe, with a spiked
crown on his head, and holding a bow in his left hand
and an arrow in his right; and on the other side with a sort
of quadrata incusa or deep cleft. All the other pieces of
gold of the same weight and value which were coined by the
succeeding kings, both of the Persian and Macedonian race,
were also called darics. Of these there were whole darics
and half darics ; and in those parts of Scripture wrritten after
the Babylonish captivity they are called adarkonim, and by
the Talmudists darkonoth. There were also silver darics.
DARIEN GULF, a large gulf on the northern coast of
New Granada. It measures 26 leagues from N. to S., and
9 from E. to W. Several rivers flow into it, the largest of
which is the Atrato. The coast is full of sharp and inacces¬
sible shoals, and possesses few places fit for disembarkation.
Darien, Isthmus of. See Panama.
Darien, Scottish Colony of. Of the rise, progress, and
catastrophe of this ill-fated undertaking, Sir John Dal-
rymple, in the second volume of his Memoirs of Great
Britain and Ireland, has given a very interesting account,
authenticated in every particular by unquestionable docu¬
ments. The projector and leader of the Darien expedition
was a clergyman of the name of Paterson, who having a
strong desire to see foreign countries, made his profession
the means of indulging it, by going to the new western
w’orld on the pretence of converting the Indians to the
Darien, religion of the old. During his residence there he became
acquainted with Captain Dampier and Mr Wafer who
afterwards published, the one his voyages, and the other
his travels in the region where the separation is narrowest
between the Atlantic and the Pacific Oceans; and both of
whom appear to have been men of considerable observa¬
tion. But he obtained much more knowledge from men
who could neither read nor write, by cultivating the ac¬
quaintance of some of the old buccaneers, who, after sur¬
viving their glories and their crimes, still, in the extremity
of age and misfortune, recounted with transport the ease
with which they had passed and repassed from the one sea
to the other, sometimes in hundreds together, and driving
s rings of mules before them loaded with the plunder of
STfi Y K °f meS,' Paterson having examined the places,
satisfied himself that on the Isthmus of Darien there was
a tract of country running across from the Atlantic to the
the Spaniards had never possessed, and
inhabited by a people continually at war with them; that
along the coast on the Atlantic side, there lay a string of
islands called the Sambaloes, uninhabited, and full of na¬
tural strength and of forests, from which last circumstance
one of them was called the island of the pines; that the
seas there were filled with turtle and the manati or sea
cow; that midway between Porto-Bello and Carthagena,
but neaily fifty leagues distant from either, at a place
called Acta, m the mouth of the Darien, there was a natu-
ral harbour, capable of receiving the greatest fleets, and
defended from storms by other islands which covered the
mouth of it, and from enemies by a promontory which
commanded the passage, and by hidden rocks in the pas¬
sage itself; that on the other side of the isthmus, and in
t le same tract of country, there were natural harbours,
equally capacious and well defended ; that the two oceans
were connected by a ridge of hills, which by their height
created a temperate climate in the midst of the most sul-
tiy latitudes, and were sheltered by forests, but not ren¬
dered damp, because the trees grew at a distance from
each other, and had very little underwood; that, contrary
to the usual barren nature of hilly countries, the soil was
of a black mould two or three feet deep, and producing
spontaneously the fine tropical fruits and plants, roots and
herhs; that roads might be formed with ease along the
ridge, by which mules, and even carriages, might pass from
the one sea to the other in the space of a day, and con¬
sequently that this passage seemed to be pointed out by
nature, as a common centre to connect together the trade
and intercourse of the universe.
Paterson knew that ships which stretch in a straight line
from one point to another, and with one wind, run less
risks, and require fewer hands, than ships which pass
through many latitudes, follow the windings of many coasts
and require many winds; that vessels of seven or eight
hundred tons burden are often to be met in the South
Sea, navigated by not more than eight or ten hands, be¬
cause these hands have little else to do than set their
sails when they begin their voyage, and to take them in
when they end it; that as soon as ships from Britain
should get so far south as to reach the trade-wind, which
seldom varies, that wind would carry them to Darien and
the same wind would carry ships from the Bay of Panama
on the opposite side of the isthmus, to the East Indies-
that as soon as ships coming from the East Indies to the’
tfay of Panama got so far north as the latitude of 40° to
reach the westerly winds, which about that latitude blow
almost as regularly from the west as the trade-winds do
from the east, these winds would carry them, in the track
of the Spanish Acapulco ships, to the coast of Mexico
whence the land-wind, which blows for ever from the
north to the south, would carry them along the coast of
VOL. VII. °
DARIEN.
Mexico into the Bay of Panama. Thus, in eoina from
Britain, ships would encounter no uncertain winds ex¬
cept during their passage south into the latitude of the
trade-wind; and in coming from India to the Bay of Pa¬
nama they would meet no uncertain winds, except in
their passage north to the latitude of the westerly winds
and m going from the other side of the isthmus to the
east, with no uncertain wind whatsoever. Gold was seen
by Paterson in some places of the isthmus; and hence
an island on the Atlantic side was called the Gold island
?hpd rr\7T °” the tide rTning t0 the Pacific was called
tie Golden river; but these were objects which he re¬
garded not at that time, because far greater were in his
eye, namely, the shortening of distances, the drawing of
nations nearer to each other, the preservation of the valu¬
able lives of seamen, and the saving in freight, and in time
so important to merchants, and to an animal whose 1 fe X
of so short duration as that of man.
obscare Scotchman a project was formed to set-
tle on this neglected spot, a great and powerful colony;
not as other colonies have for the most part been settled
apd ”nProtected by the country whence they
proceeded; but by system, upon foresight, and to receive
t le ample protection of those governments to whom he was
to offer his project. And certainly no greater idea has
been formed since the time of Columbus.
Paterson’s original intention was to submit his project to
1 ngland, as the country which had most interest in it, not
only from the benefit common to all nations, of shortening
whinh"? °f ,V°'VLgeS !h? EaSt Indies’ but by tbc effect
which it would have had in connecting the interests of
Indi^nT*3?0’ Indiaf’ American’ African, and East
Indian trade. Paterson, however, having few acquaint¬
ances and no protection in London, thought of drawing
t le public eye upon him, and ingratiating himself with
moneyed men and with great men, by assisting them to
model a project, which was at that time in embryo for
XchT l Bank 0f,England’ But tbat baPPenedJto’him
which has happened to many projectors in his situation ;
the persons to whom he applied made use of his ideas
ook the credit of them to themselves, were civil to him
foi a while, and neglected him afterwards. He therefore
communicated his project of a colony only to a few per¬
sons in London, and these few discouraged him. 1
He next submitted his project to the Dutch, the Ham-
urgers, and the elector of Brandenburg; because, by
means of the passage of the Rhine and Elbe through
their states, he thought that the great additional quanti¬
ties of East Indian and American goods which his colony
would export to Europe would be distributed throughout
Germany. The Dutch and Hamburg merchants, although
they had most interest in the project, heard him with
indifference ; while the elector, who had very little interest
in it, received him with honour and kindness; but court
favour ^ ^ rep°rtS S0°n Iost him even that prince’s
Paterson, on his return to London, formed a friendshin
with Mr Fletcher of Saltoun, whose mind was inflamed
with the love of public good, and all whose ideas to pio-
cure it had a sublimity about them. Fletcher brought
%r0nJ°rX° SCOtla"<i’ presented him the Marquis
of IVeeddale, then minister for that country ; and there!
after, with that power which a vehement spirit always
possesses over a diffident one, persuaded the marquis, by
arguments of public good, and the honour which wiuld
redound to h.s administration, to adopt the project. Lord
Stair and Mr Johnston, the two secretaries of state, pa-
tromsed those abilities m Paterson which they possessed
in themselves; and the lord advocate, Sir James Stuart
the same pei son who had adjusted the Prince of Orange’s
4 o
X
s'
658 D A R
Darien, declaration at the Revolution, and whose son had married
a niece of Lord Stair, went naturally along with his con¬
nections. These persons, in June 1695, procured a statute
from parliament, and afterwards a charter from the crown
in terms thereof, for creating a trading company to Africa
and the new world, with power to plant colonies and build
forts, by consent of the inhabitants, in places not pos¬
sessed by other European nations.
Paterson now finding the ground firm under him, and
that he was supported by almost all the power and talents
of his country, the character of Fletcher, and the sanction
of an act of parliament and royal charter, threw his pro¬
ject boldly before the public, and opened a subscription
for a company. The frenzy of the Scotch nation to sign
the solemn league and covenant never exceeded the rapi¬
dity with which they ran to subscribe to the Darien com¬
pany. The nobility, the gentry, the merchants, the peo¬
ple, the royal burghs without the exception of one, and
most of the other public bodies, subscribed. Young wo¬
men threw their little fortunes into the stock ; and widows
sold their jointures to get the command of "money for the
same purpose. Almost immediately L. 400,000 were sub¬
scribed in Scotland, although there was not at that time
above L.800,000 of cash in the kingdom. The famous
Mr Law, then a youth, afterwards confessed that the faci¬
lity with which he saw the passion of speculation commu¬
nicate itself, satisfied him of the possibility of producing
the same effect by means of the same cause, but upon a
larger scale, when the Duke of Orleans engaged him
against his will to turn his bank into a bubble. Paterson’s
project, which had been received by strangers with fears
when opened to them in private, filled them with hopes
when it came to them upon the wings of public fame; for
Colonel Erskine, son of Lord Cardross, and Mr Haldane of
Gleneagles, the one a generous branch of a generous stem,
and the other a country gentleman of fortune and cha¬
racter, having been deputed to receive subscriptions in
England and on the Continent, the English subscribed
L. 300,000, and the Dutch and Hamburgers L.200,000
more.
In the mean time the jealousy of trade, which has done
more mischief to the commerce of England than all other
causes put together, created an alarm in England; and
the Houses of Lords and Commons, without previous in¬
quiry or reflection, on the 13th of December 1695, con¬
curred in a joint address to the king against the establish¬
ment of the Darien company, as detrimental to the interest
of the East India Company. Soon afterwards the Com¬
mons impeached some of their own countrymen for being
instrumental in erecting the company, and also some of the
Scotch nation, one of whom was Lord Belhaven ; that is to
say, they arraigned the subjects of another country for mak¬
ing use of their own laws. Among six hundred legislators,
not one had the sense, not to say genius, to propose a com¬
mittee of both parliaments to inquire into the principles
and consequences of the establishment; and if these should,
upon inquiry, be found sound and beneficial, that the
advantage should be communicated, by a participation of
rights, to both nations. The king’s answer was, that he
had been ill advised in Scotland. He soon afterwards
changed his Scottish ministers, and sent orders to his
resident at Hamburg to present a memorial to the senate,
in which he disowned the company, and warned them
against all connections with it. The senate transmitted
the memorial to the assembly of merchants, who re¬
turned it with the following spirited answer : “ We look
upon it as a very strange thing, that the king of Britain
should offer to hinder us, who are a free people, to trade
with whom we please; but are amazed to think that he
would hinder us from joining with his own subjects in Scot-
I E N.
land, to whom he had lately given such large privileges, Darien,
by so solemn an act of parliament.” But the merchants,
seeing the scheme discouraged by their governments,
were soon intimidated; and the Dutch, Hamburg, and
London merchants withdrew their subscriptions.
The Scotch, not discouraged, were rather animated by
this oppression; for they converted it into a proof of the
envy of the English, and of their consciousness of the
great advantages which were to flow to Scotland from the
colony. The company proceeded to build six ships in
Holland, from thirty-six to sixty guns, and they engaged
1200 men for the colony; amongst whom were younger
sons of many of the noble and ancient families of Scot¬
land, and sixty officers who had been disbanded at the
peace, who carried with them such of their private men,
generally raised on their own or the estates of their rela¬
tions, as they knew to be faithful and brave, most of them
being Highlanders. The Scotch parliament, on the 5th
August 1698, unanimously addressed the king to support
the company. The lord president Sir Hugh Dalrymple,
brother of Lord Stair, and head of the bench, and the lord
advocate Sir James Stuart, head of the bar, jointly drew up
memorials to the king, able in point of argument, informa¬
tion, and arrangement, in which they defended the rights
of the company upon the principles of constitutional and
of public law ; and neighbouring nations, with a mixture
of surprise and respect, saw the poorest kingdom of Eu¬
rope sending forth the most gallant and the most numerous
colony which had ever set out from the old to the new
world.
On the 26th day of July 1698, the whole city of Edin¬
burgh poured down to Leith to see the colony depart,
amidst the tears, and prayers, and praises of relations, and
friends, and countrymen. Many seamen and soldiers, whose
services had been refused, because more had offered them¬
selves than were needed, were found hid in the ships, and,
when ordered ashore, clung to the ropes and timbers,
imploring to go without reward along with their compa¬
nions. Twelve hundred men sailed in five stout ships,
and arrived at Darien in two months, with the loss of only
fifteen of their people. At that time it was in their power,
most of them being well born, and all of them hardily
bred and inured to the fatigues and dangers of the late
war, to have marched from the northmost part of Mexico
to the southmost point of Chili, and to have overturned
the whole empire of Spain in South America. But modest
respecting their own and their country’s character, and
afraid of its being alleged that they had plunder, and not
a settlement, in view, they began with purchasing lands
from the natives, and sending messages of amity to the
Spanish governors within their reach ; and then fixed their
station at Acta, calling it New St Andrew, from the name
of the tutelar saint of Scotland, and the country itself New
Caledonia. One of the sides of the harbour being formed
by a long narrow neck of land which ran into the sea, they
cut it across so as to join the ocean and the harbour.
Within this defence they erected their fort, planting upon
it fifty pieces of cannon. On the other side of the harbour
there was a mountain about a mile in height, on which
they placed a watch-house, which, in the rarefied air
within the tropics, so favourable for vision, gave them an
immense range of prospect, in order to prevent all sur¬
prise. To this place it was observed that the Highland¬
ers often repaired to enjoy the cool air, and to talk of
their friends whom they had left behind on their native
hills. The first public act of the colony was to publish a
declaration of freedom of trade and religion to all nations.
This luminous idea originated with Paterson.
But the Dutch Ease India Company having pressed the
king, in concurrence with his English subjects, to prevent
DARIEN.
Darien, the settlement at Darien, orders had been sent from Eng-
land to the governors of the West Indian and American
colonies, to issue proclamations against giving assistance,
or even holding correspondence with the colony ; and these
were more or less harshly expressed, according to the
temper of the different governors. The Scotch, trusting
to far different treatment, and to the supplies which they
expected from these colonies, had not brought sufficient
provisions along with them, and fell into diseases from bad
or inadequate food; but the more generous savages, by
hunting and fishing for them, afforded them that relief
which fellow Britons had refused. They lingered eight
months, waiting in vain for assistance from Scotland, and
almost all of them either died out or quitted the settle¬
ment. Paterson, who had been the first to enter the ship
at Leith, was the last to go on board at Darien.
During the space of two years, while the establishment
of his colony had been in agitation, Spain had made no
complaint to England or Scotland against it. The Darien
council even averred in their papers, which are in the
Advocates’ Library, that the right of the company was
debated before the king, in presence of the Spanish am¬
bassador, ere the colony left Scotland. But now, on the
3d of May 1698, the Spanish ambassador at London pre¬
sented a memorial to the king, in which he complained of
the settlement at Darien as an encroachment on the rights
of his master.
The Scotch, ignorant of the misfortunes of their colony,
but provoked at this memorial, soon afterwards sent out
another colony of 1300 men, to support an establishment
which was now no more ; but this last expedition having
been more hastily prepared than the first, proved unlucky
in its passage. One of the vessels was lost at sea, many
men died on board, and the rest arrived at different times,
broken in their health, and dispirited when they heard the
fate of those who had gone before them. Added to the
misfortunes of the first colony, the second had a misfor¬
tune peculiar to itself. The General Assembly of the Church
of Scotland sent out four ministers, with orders to take
charge of the souls of the colony, and to erect a presby¬
tery, with a moderator, clerk, and record of proceedings ;
to appoint ruling elders, deacons, overseers of the manners
of the people, and assistants in the exercise of church dis¬
cipline and government, and to hold regular kirk-sessions.
When they arrived, the officers and gentlemen were occu¬
pied in building houses for themselves with their own hands,
because there was no assistance to be got from others;
yet the four ministers complained grievously that the
council did not order houses to be immediately built for
their accommodation. They had not had the precaution
to bring with them letters of recommendation from the
directors at home to the council abroad ; and on these ac¬
counts, not meeting with all the attention they expected
from the higher, they paid court to the inferior ranks of
the colonists, and by this means sowed divisions in the
colony. They exhausted the spirits of the people, by re¬
quiring their attendance at sermon four or five hours at a
time, relieving each other by preaching alternately, but al¬
lowing no relief whatever to their hearers. The employ¬
ment of one of the days set aside for religious exercise,
which was Wednesday, they divided into three parts;
thanksgiving, humiliation, and supplication, in which three
ministers followed one another. And as the service of
the church of Scotland consists of a lecture with a com¬
ment, a sermon, two prayers, three psalms, and a blessing,
the work of the day, upon an average of the length of the
service in that age, could not occupy less than twelve
hours, during which time the colony was collected, and
kept crowded together in the guard-room, which was used
as a church, in a tropical climate, and in a sickly season.
659
The preachers presented a paper to the council, which Darien,
they took care to make public, requiring them to set aside
a day for solemn fasting and humiliation ; and, under pre¬
tence of enumerating the sins of the people, they poured
out abuse on their rulers. They damped the courage of
the people by continually representing hell as the termi¬
nation of life to most men, because most men are sinners.
Carrying the presbyterian doctrine of predestination to an
extreme, they put a stop to all exertions, by showing that
the consequences of these depended not on the individuals
by whom they were made, but on an all-controlling and ir¬
resistible power, by which, independently of human efforts
and volitions, everything was necessarily determined. They
converted the numberless accidents to which soldiers and
seamen are exposed into immediate judgments of God
against their sins ; and, having resolved to quit the settle¬
ment, they, in excuse for doing so, wrote bitter letters to
the general assembly against the characters of the colo¬
nists, and the advantages of the colony itself. One of
these men, in a kind of history of the colony which he
published, exulted with a savage triumplf over the mis¬
fortunes of his countrymen. “ They were such a rude
company,” said he, “ that I believe Sodom never declared
such impudence in sinning as they. An observant eye
might see that they were running the way they went;
hell and judgment was to be seen upon them, and in them,
before the time. Their cup was full; it could hold no
more : they were ripe; they must be cut down with the
sickle of the wrath of God.”
The last party which joined the second colony at Darien,
after it had been three months settled, was Captain Camp¬
bell of Finab, with a company of the people of his own
estate, whom he had commanded in Flanders, and whom
he carried to Darien in his own ship. On their arrival at
New St Andrew, they found that intelligence had been
received that a Spanish force of 1600 men, which had
been brought from the coast of the South Sea, lay en¬
camped at Tubucantee, waiting there till a Spanish squa¬
dron of eleven ships which was expected should arrive,
when they were jointly to attack the fort. The military-
command was offered to Captain Campbell, in compliment
to his reputation and to his birth as a descendant of the
families of Breadalbane and Atholl. In order to prevent
a joint attack, he resolved to attack first; and therefore
on the second day after his arrival, he marched with two
hundred men to Tubucantee, before his approach could
be known to the enemy, stormed the camp in the night¬
time, dissipated the Spanish force with much slaughter,
and returned to the fort the fifth day. But he found the
Spanish ships off the harbour, their troops landed, and
almost all hope of aid or of provisions cut off; yet he stood
a siege of nearly six weeks, until almost all the officers
had died, the enemy by their approaches had cut oft' his
wells, and his ammunition had been so far expended that
he Vas obliged to melt the pewter dishes of the garrison
into balls. The garrison then capitulated, and obtained
not only the common honours of war and security for the
property of the company, but, as if they had been con¬
querors, even exacted hostages for the performance of the
conditions. Captain Campbell alone desired to be ex¬
cepted from the capitulation, saying, that he was sure
the Spaniards would not forgive him the mischief which
he so lately had done them. But the brave, by their cou¬
rage, often escape that death which they seem to provoke.
Captain Campbell made his escape in his vessel, and ar¬
rived safely at New York, whence he proceeded to Scot¬
land, where the company presented him with a gold me¬
dal, in which his bravery was duly commemorated. The
lord-lyon king-at-arms, whose office it is in Scotland to
confer badges of distinction upon honourable actions ac-
660 D A R BAR
Darii cording to the rules of heraldry, also granted him a High-
II lander and an Indian as supporters to his coat of arms.
Darling. gu(. a iiarder fat;e attended those whom Captain Camp-
bell left at Darien. They were so weak in their health as
not to be able to weigh up the anchors of the Rising Sun,
one of their ships, which carried sixty guns ; the generous
Spaniards, however, assisted them. In going out of the
harbour the vessel ran aground. The prey was tempting;
and, to obtain it, the Spaniards had only to stand by and
look on ; but they showed that mercy to the Scotch in
distress which one of their own countrymen, General El¬
liot, afterwards returned to the posterity of those Spa¬
niards at the siege of Gibraltar. The Darien ships being
leaky and weakly manned, were obliged in their voyage to
take shelter in different ports belonging to Spain and Eng¬
land. But the Spaniards in the new world treated them
with uniform kindness, while the English governments
showed them none; and one of their ships was seized and
detained. In fact, only Captain Campbell’s ship and an¬
other small one were saved. The Rising Sun was lost on
the bar of Charlestown ; and of the colony, not more than
thirty, saved from war, shipwreck, or disease, ever re¬
turned to their native country.
Paterson, who had withstood the blow, could not endure
the reflection of misfortune. He was seized with a lunacy
in his passage home, after the ruin of the first colony ; but
he recovered in his own country, where his spirit, still ar¬
dent and unbroken, presented a new plan to the company,
founded on the idea of King William, that England should
have the joint dominion of the settlement with Scotland.
He survived many years in Scotland, pitied, respected,
but neglected. After the union of the two kingdoms, he
claimed reparation of his losses from the equivalent-money
obtained by England to the Darien Company, but was paid
nothing ; because a grant to him from a public fund would
have been only an act of humanity, and not a political job.
Thus ended the colony of Darien ; an adventure which, in
its disastrous results, inflicted a severe blow upon Scot¬
land, and excited feelings of deep hostility towards the
English government and nation, which half a century was
scarcely sufficient to extinguish.
DARII, in Logic, one of the modes of syllogism of the
first figure, in which the major proposition is an universal
affirmative, and the minor and conclusion are particular
affirmatives: thus,
Every thing that is moved, is moved by another;
Some body is moved ;
Therefore some body is moved by another.
DARIUS, the name of several kings of Persia. See
Persia.
DAR JEELING, in Hindustan, asanatory station founded
by the British government for the reception of invalid Eu¬
ropean soldiers from one of the military divisions of the
presidency of Bengal. It is situate on a strip of mountain
territory ceded in 1836 by the Rajah of Sikkim in consi¬
deration of a pecuniary equivalent. The spot possesses great
advantages for a sanatarium, in the salubrity of its climate
and facility of access from the plains of Bengal. Its eleva
tion is /218 feet above the level of the sea, and as in India
generally, the temperature is observed to fall one degree for
every 300 feet of elevation. Its mean temperature is about
twenty-four degrees below that of Calcutta, or only two above
that ot London. 1 he grant of L.600 per annum, which was
made to the Rajah of Sikkim as compensation for the cession
of Darjeeling, was declared to be forfeited in 1850 in conse¬
quence of gross outrages committed by that prince against
British subjects. Lat. 27.2.; Long. 88. 19. (e. t.)
DARLING, one of the principal rivers of Central Aus¬
tralia, formed by numerous streams between S. Lat. 26. and
27; and E. Long. 151. and lo2. Its general course is S.W.
to about 142. E. Long., whence its direction is S. to the Mur- Darlington
ray river, which it joins about S. Lat. 34.; E. Long. 142. ||
During the greater part of its course its wraters are salt. Partford.
DARLINGTON, a municipal borough and market-
town of England, county of Durham, and eighteen miles
S. of the town of that name. It occupies a declivity on the
right bank of the Skerne (an affluent of the Tees), here
crossed by a bridge of three arches. The surrounding
country is rich and fertile. The market-place is a large
and well-built square, from which several of the streets di¬
verge. On the eastern side of the square stands the church
of St Cuthbert, a cruciform building in the early English
style, and surmounted by a fine tower and spire 180 feet
high. Darlington has a grammar-school founded by Queen
Elizabeth, a blue-coat, national, and infant schools, me¬
chanics’ institute, dispensary, savings-banks, &c. The ma¬
nufactures of Darlington are considerable, consisting of
woollen and linen stuffs, yarns, worsted, optical glasses, and
iron and brass wares. Market-day, Monday. Pop. (1851)
11,228.
DARMSTADT, the capital ofthe grand duchy of Hesse-
Darmstadt, and of a cognominal circle in the province of
Starkenburg, is situated on the banks of the small stream
Darm, from which it takes its name, fifteen miles S. of
Frankfort-on-the-Maine. It consists of an old and a new
town, with three suburbs, and has a population of about
31,000. The Darm separates the old from the new town.
The former, which is inclosed by old walls, has a gloomy un¬
interesting appearance: the latter is regularly built, and
has many handsome edifices. Among the principal bidd¬
ings are the new palace, the residence of the grand duke,
the old palace containing a large picture gallery and a pub¬
lic library of nearly 200,000 volumes, a fine new Catholic
church, the Lutheran city church, the arsenal, excrcier-haus
(drilling-house), theatre, and several barracks. It has also a
gymnasium, a normal school, a school of arts and sciences,
numerous literary and scientific institutions, and several
museums and public gardens. Darmstadt is the seat of the
government and the principal courts, but is a place of little
trade. The chief manufactures are tobacco, wax candles,
carpets, paper, jewellery, &c. In the fourteenth century
Darmstadt was only a village, belonging to the Counts of
Katzenellenbogen. In 1380 it was raised to the rank of a
town. The male line of the house of Katzenellenbogen
becoming extinct by the death of Philip in 1479, Darm¬
stadt passed by marriage into the house of Hesse. In the
war of Smalkalde the town was taken by the imperial army.
After the death of Philip the Magnanimous in 1567 the
town fell to his youngest son George, who there fixed his
residence, and was the founder of the line of Hesse-Darm-
stadt.
DARNETAL, a town of France, department of Seine-
Inferieure, arrondissement of Rouen, and two miles E. of
that city. It is situated on a small stream called the Aubette.
Manufactures,—woollens, flannels, cottons, and paper. Pop.
5900.
DAROCA, a small town of Zaragoza, in the fertile basin
of the Jiloca. It contains a fine old Gothic church. From
its position it is very liable to inundations-, but the waters
are carried off by a magnificent tunnel 2340 feet long, and
24 feet square, constructed in 1560, by a French architect
named Pierre Bedel. For the first time since the construc¬
tion of this great woi’kthe town was inundated in 1854, and
a large portion of it swept away. Pop. 500.
HARTFORD, a parish and market-town of Kent, 15
miles E.S.E. of Kent, on the river Darent, from which it
derives its name. It is celebrated as the first place in
England where the manufacture of paper was established,
and it still contains extensive paper mills. It had also the
priority in the preparation of iron for wire-drawing, and still
possesses a considerable trade in iron and machinery. The
D A R
Dartmouth water-power of the river is made available for driving cot-
11 ton, oil, and corn mills, and in the neighbourhood there is
Duru. an extensive powder manufactory. The parish church is a
handsome edifice, and there are four places of worship for
Dissenters. Near the town are the ruins of an ancient
nunnery founded by Edward III., and occupied temporarily
as a royal residence by Henry VIII. and Elizabeth. Pop.
(1851) 5763.
DARTMOUTH, a seaport-town of Devonshire, at the
mouth of the Dart, 31 miles S.W. from Exeter, and 12
miles from Torquay. It stands in the recess of a spacious
bay capable of containing 500 sail, and is defended by an
ancient castle and a battery. The river, which is crossed at
Dartmouth by a floating bridge, is navigable as far as Tot-
ness. The town formerly carried on a considerable trade
with Newfoundland, but this has been almost entirely alien¬
ated. It is now for the most part dependent on the coasting
trade, and the trade with the Mediterranean. The principal
exports are cider and barley. Dartmouth is one of the qua¬
rantine ports of the channel. The town contains several
handsome churches, and munificent charitable endowments.
Its occupation was strongly contested in the parliamentary
war; the town having been besieged by Prince Maurice in
1643, and retaken by Fairfax in 1646. Pop. (1851) 4508.
DARU, Comte de, a peer of France, a member of the
French Academy and of the Academy of Sciences, and a
distinguished historian, was born in 1767 at Montpellier,
where his father held the office of secretary to the inten¬
dancy of Languedoc. He entered the army at the age of
sixteen, and at the period of the revolution was lieutenant
and commissary at war. Likemostof the high-spirited youths
of that time, he warmly embraced the principles of political
amelioration which were then professed, and made the cam¬
paign of 1792 against the Prussians. But not long after
the battle of Valmy, and the retreat of the Duke of Bruns¬
wick, he was arrested as a suspected person, and imprisoned
for 18 months, during which he amused his solitary hours
with poetical and other compositions. After the guillotine
had done tardy justice on Robespierre, and terrorism had
ceased, he was liberated ; and subsequently he filled several
important situations in the commissariat and the office of
the ministry of war. When the 18th Brumaire gave France
a new master in Bonaparte, the first consul appointed him
secretary to the ministry at war ; ami the day after the
battle of Marengo, the victorious chief nominated him one
of the commissioners for the execution of the convention
concluded between General Berthier and General Melas.
Having warmly attached himself to the fortunes of Napoleon,
Daru was, in 1805, nominated a counsellor of state and in-
tendant-general of the emperor’s military household. In
1806, he was appointed intendant-general of the Brunswick
territory, and subsequently commissioner for the execution
of the treaties of Tilsit and Vienna, as well as minister
plenipotentiary at Berlin. In 1806 he was elected a mem¬
ber of the Institute, and in 1808 an honorary member of
the Berlin Academy. In 1811 he was appointed minister
secretary of state; and shortly afterwards he received the
portfolio of the war department. He accompanied Napo¬
leon in his Russian campaign; and in the council sum¬
moned immediately after the capture of Smolensko, to con¬
sider whether the French forces should advance farther
during that season, he gave his voice decidedly in the ne¬
gative. When the disastrous retreat from Moscow had
commenced, General Matthieu Dumas having fallen into
bad health, Daru was obliged to assume the functions of
intendant-general of the army ; and his capacity for labour,
which was happily united with an iron constitution, enabled
him to fulfil, with apparent ease, duties which might have
killed several men of ordinary strength. After the restora¬
tion of the Bourbons, he was made intendant-general to
the king; an appointment which he received in December
DAE 661
1814. But on the return of Napoleon from Elba he Darwin,
joined the standard of his old master, subscribed a consi- ^
derable sum for the purpose of arming the Parisian federes,
and in his capacity of counsellor of state attached his sig¬
nature to the celebrated declaration of the 25th March.
The second restoration, accordingly, found him compro¬
mised by his connection with the government of the Hun¬
dred Days ; and he retired for a time to private life, in
order to devote himself to literary pursuits. But in 1819
he was summoned by royal ordonnance to the Chamber of
Peers, where his rectitude of judgment, his administrative
knowledge, his business habits, and his talents as a public
speaker, rendered him one of the most formidable adver¬
saries of the Villele ministry, and enabled him to signalize
himself as one of the most powerful defenders of the na¬
tional liberties. In 1821 he published his History of Ve¬
nice, which is by far the most important of his works, and
that upon which his literary fame principally rests. It is
now universally regarded as the most complete and impar¬
tial history of that singular government, equally remark¬
able for its strength and duration. His subsequent work,
the History of Bretagne, displays great labour and accu-
racy, but is devoid of interest except to historical antiqua¬
ries alone. His other productions consist of a poetical
translation of Horace, a variety of occasional poems, dis¬
courses and eloges pronounced in the academy, and speeches
delivered in the Chamber of Peers. Count Daru died at
his residence near Meulan, Sept. 5, 1829, aged sixty-two.
His remains were deposited in the Cimitiere Montmartre,
and five discourses were pronounced over his tomb by MM.
Mirbel, Cuvier, Silvestre de Sacy, Ternaux, and Leroy.
Lamartine the poet was elected to fill the vacancy in the
Academy occasioned by his death.
DARWIN, Erasmus, a poet, physician, and medical
writer, was born at Elston, near Newark, in Nottingham¬
shire, Dec. 12, 1731. He was the fourth son of Robert
Darwin, Esq., and received the early part of his education
at Chesterfield school, under the Rev. Mr Burrows. He
was entered, with two of his elder brothers, at St John’s
College, Cambridge ; and, being intended for the practice
of physic, he took the degree of bachelor in medicine in
1755, defending in his thesis an opinion that the motion of
the heart and arteries is produced by the immediate sti¬
mulus of the blood. During his residence in Cambridge,
Darwin was elected to one of Lord Exeter’s scholar¬
ships, worth about sixteen pounds per annum, which, from
the meagreness of his father’s income at that time, was es¬
teemed a desirable acquisition. After having prepared him¬
self for his future profession, by an attendance on the lec¬
tures of Dr Hunter in London, and by a severe course of
study at Edinburgh, he contemplated the metropolis as the
proper theatre for his exertions. Deterred, however, by
the improbability of obtaining immediate patronage, Dr
Darwin thought it more advisable to settle in the country.
The first place to which he went, in the capacity of physi¬
cian, was Nottingham, where, being disappointed in his
hopes of practice, he removed to Lichfield. Here his great
capacity and various acquirements were most justly appre¬
ciated. He resided at Lichfield for many years, in the en¬
joyment of an extensive reputation, and a profitable practice.
In the year 1757 Dr Darwin married Miss Mary How¬
ard, daughter of Charles Howard, Esq. By this lady, who
died in 1770, he had five children, two of whom died in
infancy. The eldest son, Charles, was educated for the
medical profession, but died in the twentieth year of his
age, very soon after he had finished his curriculum at Edin¬
burgh, where he gained considerable reputation, by endea¬
vouring to furnish a criterion for distinguishing pus from
mucus. Soon after the decease of his wife, Dr Darwin
commenced the Zoonomia, which, however, he did not
publish till long afterwards.
662 DAT
Data In 1780 Dr Darwin married the widow of Colonel Sache-
II verel Pole, a lady with a jointure of L.600 per annum.
Dathan. rp}1jg marriage occasioned his removal from Lichfield to
^ Radbourne, and ultimately to Derby, where he continued
to reside till within about two months of his death.
During the last years of his life, Dr Darwin was much
subject to inflammation of the chest and lungs ; a,nd in the
spring of 1801 he had a very serious attack of this disease,
from which, after repeated bleedings, he with difficulty re¬
covered. On 10th April 1802 he was attacked with febrile
disorder, which at the end of a week proved fatal.
Dr Darwin left a widow and six children, three boys and
three girls, by his last marriage. Besides these, he left two
natural daughters, whom he had established in a school at
Ashbourne, and for whose instruction and assistance he
composed and published his Treatise on Female Education.
Darwin was distinguished through life for his benevolence
of disposition, which was particularly conspicuous in the
care which he took even of the lower animals. He was
of a middle stature, in person portly and corpulent; his
features were coarse, and his countenance, though not
wholly devoid of animation, certainly was by no means ex¬
pressive.
The pretensions of Dr Darwin as a medical philosopher
rest chiefly on his Zoonomia. Whether this work be con¬
sidered as a mere repository of curious natural and medical
facts, or as a scheme and system of pathological and phy¬
siological disquisition, it must be allowed to possess consi¬
derable merit. As a philosophical agriculturist Dr Darwin
is entitled to high consideration. A small portion of his
Phjtologia is devoted to a fanciful system of vegetable
physiology; the second part, divided into three sections,
treats of the economy of vegetation; and the third of
agriculture and horticulture. Dr Darwin’s reputation as a
poet does not stand high. As a prose writer he was incor¬
rect ; his grammatical errors are numerous, and he was
even deficient in orthography. In the year 1758 he pub¬
lished various papers in the Philosophical Transactions.
In 1782 the Botanical Society of Lichfield published a
translation of Linnaeus’s Systema Vegetabilium, the execu¬
tion of which was principally confided to Dr Darwin. He
left a poem entitled The Temple of Nature, which was
published after his death.
DATA, among mathematicians, a term for such things
or quantities as are given or known, by which to find things
or results that are unknown. The data of Euclid form the
first in order of the books which have been written by the
ancient geometricians, to facilitate the method of resolution
or analysis.
From the primary use of the word data in mathematics,
it has been transplanted into other branches, as philosophy,
medicine, and the like, where it expresses any quantity
which, for the sake of a present calculation, is taken for
granted to be such, without requiring an immediate proof of
its certainty; which is also called the given quantity, num¬
ber, or power. And hence also such things as are known,
and from which, either in natural philosophy, the animal
mechanism, or the operation of medicine, we come to the
knowledge of others unknown, are now by physical writers
frequently termed data.
DATE (Lat. datum, given ; from do, to give), that ad¬
dition to a writing of any kind which specifies the year,
month, and day, when given or executed. Under this term
is usually included also the name of the place where the
writing is executed.
Date, the fruit of the palm. See Phcenix Dactyli-
fera; and Botany, vol. v., p. 213.
DATHAN, a Reubenite chief who, with Korah and
Abiram, conspired against the authority of Moses and
Aaron, and was miraculously swallowed up by the earth.
(Numbers xvi.)
D A U
DATISI, in Logic, a mode of syllogisms in the third Datisi
figure, in which the major is an universal affirmative, and
the minor and conclusion are particular affirmative proposi- Dauben-
tions. For example, ^
All who serve God are kings; v-*-
Some who serve God are poor;
Therefore some who are poor are kings.
DATIVE, in Grammar, the third case in the declension
of nouns, expressing the state or relation of a thing to
which some other thing is referred. It is called dative,
because usually governed by a verb implying something
to be given to some person. As commodare Socrati, to
lend to Socrates ; utilis reipublicce., useful to the common¬
wealth ; perniciosus ecclesice, injurious to the church. In
English, in which properly there are no cases, this relation
is expressed by to or for.
DAUBENTON, Louis-Jean-Marie, a distinguished
naturalist, was born at Montbar, in the department of the
Cote d’Or, in France, May 29, 1716. His father, Jean
Daubenton, was a notary in that place ; his mother’s name
was Marie Pichenot. In his youth he was distinguished
for the sweetness of his temper, and by his diligent ap¬
plication to his studies. The Jesuits of Dijon, under whose
tuition he was first placed, noticed him in a peculiar man¬
ner. Having gone through a course of what was called
philosophy under the Dominicans of Dijon, his father, who
destined him for the church, and who had made him assume
the ecclesiastical dress at the age of twelve, sent him to Paris
to study theology. But his predilection for natural history
induced him privately to study medicine. Accordingly he
attended the lectures of Baron, Martinenq, and Col de Vil-
lars, and likewise those of Winslow, Hunault, and Antoine
de Jussieu, in the botanic garden. The death of his father
in 1736 enabled him to follow his inclination without con¬
straint. Accordingly he took his degree at Rheims in 1741,
and returned to his native town with the intention of fol¬
lowing the practice of medicine. But fortune destined him
for a more brilliant career.
Buffon, also a native of Montbar, had at this time formed
the bold plan of giving life to the dry and sterile study of
natural history. Too ardent and impatient to brook the
tedium of minute and prolonged investigation, he looked
around for a man of sufficient patience and sagacity to act
a secondary part in the undertaking. Such a man he found
in Daubenton, the companion of his infancy.
The character of these two philosophers was almost op¬
posite in every respect. Buffon was violent, impatient, and
rash ; Daubenton was all gentleness, patience, and caution ;
Buffon wished to divine the truth rather than to discover it;
Daubenton believed nothing which he had not himself seen
and ascertained ; Buffon suffered his imagination to lead him
from nature; Daubenton, on the contrary, discarded from
his writings every expression which was calculated to mis¬
lead. They were thus happily fitted to correct each other’s
faults; and accordingly the history of quadrupeds, which ap¬
peared whilst they thus laboured together, is the most ex¬
empt from error of any of the divisions or departments into
which Buffon’s great work on natural history is divided.
Buffon drew Daubenton to Paris about 1742, and pro¬
cured for him the place of demonstrator of the cabinet of
natural history, at first with a salary of only 500 francs, but
which was gradually increased to 2000. He furnished him
likewise with a lodging, and neglected nothing to secure his
comfort and convenience. Daubenton, on his side, devoted
himself to carry out the views of his benefactor. The cabinet
of natural history, which was arranged, and in a great mea¬
sure collected, by his means, proved of immense service.
In the history of quadrupeds he gave the description and
dissection of a hundred and eighty-two species of quadru¬
peds. These details contained a great number of new facts,
arranged in such a manner that the most curious results are
D A U
D A U
663
)aughter often obtained merely by comparing them together. This
|| work procured for Daubenton a very high reputation, and
Dauphin. (]rew upon him the envy of Reaumur, who at that time con-
sidered himself as at the head of natural history in France.
But the credit and reputation of Buffon were sufficient to
prevent his friend from falling a victim to the attack of this
formidable antagonist.
In the subsequent parts of his natural history, Buffon was
persuaded to separate himself from Daubenton. This in¬
jured the precision and value of these parts excessively,
whilst it deprived Daubenton of 12,000 francs a-year. Af¬
terwards the intimacy between them revived, and continued
till the death of Buffon.
The number of dissertations on natural history which
Daubenton published in the Memoirs of the French Aca¬
demy is so great, that even a list of them would be too
long for this place. Descriptions of different animals, dis¬
sections, comparisons between the forms of different ani¬
mals, anatomical examinations of fossil bones in order to
determine the animals to which they had belonged, the
physiology of vegetables, and different departments of mi¬
neralogy, successively occupied him; not to mention his
experiments on agriculture and rural economy, which,
however, were of more service to him afterwards than all
the rest of his labours, on account of the reputation which
they had procured for him among the people.
By his lectures, as well as by his publications, Daubenton
greatly promoted the cause of science. From 1775 he gave
lectures on natural history in the college of medicine. In
1783 he lectured on rural economy. He was appointed
professor of mineralogy by the Convention at the Jardin du
Roi, and he gave lectures at the Normal School during the
ephemeral existence of that institution. He was likewise
one of the editors of the Journal des Savans, and contri¬
buted to both the Encyclopaedias. As a lecturer he was
extremely popular, and, what is uncommon, he retained his
popularity to the last.
In the year 1799 he was appointed one of the members
of the conservative senate, and he resolved to attend the
meeting of it. This obliged him to alter his regimen. The
season was severe. At the first meeting which he attended
he fell from his seat in an apoplectic fit. The most speedy
assistance was procured, and he was restored to conscious¬
ness. With the utmost calmness he pointed out with his
fingers the progress of the paralysis in different parts of his
body. After a short illness he died Jan. 1, 1800.
DAUGHTER (Saxon, dohter ; Ger. tochter); a female
child. In the Old Testament, the word daughter is used
in a variety of other senses : as, for example, to designate
a uterine sister, niece, or any female descendant; wo¬
men, as natives, or professing the religion of certain places,
as the “ Daughter of Zion,” “ Daughters of the Philistines
also to denote small towns or colonies belonging to or de¬
rived from large cities, &c. This metaphor is illustrated by
the almost universal custom of representing towns under the
figure of a woman.
D AULIS, in Ancient Geography, one of the oldest towns
of Phocis, not far from the confines of Bceotia. It was as¬
sociated in mythology with the tragic story of Tereus,
Progne, and Philomela. Daulis was twice destroyed in an¬
cient times; first by Xerxes, in the second Persian inva¬
sion ; and afterwards by Alexander the Great. Its position,
on the top of a strong hill, rendering it important as a mili¬
tary station, caused it to be rebuilt. The ruins of Daulis
are still to be seen near the modern village of Dhavlia.
DAUPHIN, a title given to the eldest son of the royal
family of France, and heir presumptive of the crown, on ac¬
count, as is said, of the province of Dauphine, which in 1349
was granted to Charles Philippe of Valois (afterwards
Charles V.), on this condition, by Humbert, dauphin of the
Viennois. The dauphin, in his letters patent, styled him-
Daurat.
self “ By the grace of God, eldest son of France, and dau- Dauphine
phin of Viennois.”
Most authors who have sought the origin of the name
Dauphin and Dauphine, seem to have indulged too much in
conjecture. Duchesne is of opinion that it was the grand¬
son of Guy the Fat who first bore the name of dauphin.
But Chorier observes, that William, canon of Notre-Dame
at Grenoble, who wrote the life of Margaret, daughter of
Stephen earl of Burgundy, married to Guy, son of Guy the
Fat, calls the latter simply Guy the Old, and the former al¬
ways Count Dauphin ; and he adds, that no record nor mo¬
nument ever attributes the title of dauphin to Guy the Fat,
or to any of his predecessors. Hence the word must neces¬
sarily have taken its rise in his son, all of whose successors so
constantly assumed it that it became tbe proper name of tbe
family. Guy died in the year 1142, in the flower of his
youth ; so that it must be about the year 1120 that the title
originated, and without doubt, on some remarkable occa¬
sion. Chorier observes further, that this prince was of a
military disposition, and delighted in nothing but war; and
again, that it was the custom of the cavaliers to deck their
casques, their coats of arms, and the housing of their horses,
with some figure or device peculiar to themselves, and by
which they were distinguished from all others engaged in
the same combat or tournament. From all these circum¬
stances, he conjectures that this Guy chose the dolphin for
his symbol, that this was the crest of his helmet, and that
he bore it on his coat in some notable tournament or battle
in which he distinguished himself. Such, according to Cho¬
rier, is the real origin of the appellation.
The seigneurs or lords of Auvergne have likewise borne
the appellation of dauphin ; but the dauphins of Auvergne
did not bear that title till a considerable time after those of
the Viennois, and even received it from them. The manner
of their doing so may be briefly explained. Guy VIII. dau¬
phin of Viennois, had by his wife Margaret, daughter of Ste¬
phen earl of Burgundy, a son and two daughters. The son was
his successor Guy IX. Beatrix, one of the daughters, was
married to the Count d’Auvergne, who, according to Blon-
del, was William V., or rather, as Chorier and others think,
Robert VI., father of William V. This prince lost the greater
part of the county of Auvergne, which was taken from him
by his uncle William, assisted by Louis the Young; and he
was left master of only the little canton of which Vaudables
is the capital. But he had a son whom he called Dauphin,
on account of Guy, or Guignes, his uncle by the mother’s
side; and from his time his successors, holding the same
petty canton of Auvergne, styled themselves dauphins of
Auvergne, and bore a dolphin for their arms.
DAUPHIN^, an ancient province of south-eastern
France, now forming the departments of Isere, Drome, and
Hautes-Alpes. Its first Celtic occupants were the Allo-
broges and Caturiges, and it remained under their sway
till the time of Charles Martel. When annexed to the ter¬
ritory of the French king, the title of dauphin, now extinct
in the line of independent counts, was given to the eldest
son of the royal family.
DAURAT, or Dorat, Jean (1507-1588), a French
poet, born in the Limousin. He studied at the University
of Paris, and succeeded Stracellus as professor of Greek.
He had an excessive fondness for anagrams, and his enthu¬
siasm led him to write a French and Latin commentary on
the centuries of the prophet Nostradamus. His rage for
verse-making amounted almost to a disease. Scaliger, who
entertained a high opinion of his learning and abilities, and
ranked him with Cujas as a critic, informs us that Daurat
spent the latter part of his life in endeavouring to find all
the Bible in Homer. In the reign of Henry II. he was
preceptor to the king’s pages; and Charles IX., who took
great delight in his conversation, honoured him with the
title of his poet.
664 DAY
Davenant DAVENANT, John (1576-1641), a learned English
David Prelate, was born at London, where his father was a wealthy
v ^ i merchant. He was educated at Queen’s College, Cam¬
bridge, and ultimately became Margaret professor of divi¬
nity, and master of his college. He was sent to the synod
of Dort in 1618; and three years after was elevated to the
see of Salisbury. His principal works are an Exposition of
the Epistle to the Colossians, and Prelections on certain
disputed points in theology, including a Treatise on Jus¬
tification.
Davenant, Sir William, a distinguished dramatic poet
of the seventeenth century, was born in 1605 at Oxford,
where his father kept the Crown Inn. He was entered at
Lincoln College, Oxford, and on leaving the university be¬
came page to the Duchess of Richmond, and afterwards
entered the service of Lord Brooke. On the death of Ben
Jonson he was created poet-laureate; but political troubles
compelled him almost immediately afterwards to retire to
France. On his return he was knighted by the king, at the
siege of Gloucester, in 1643 ; but after a short residence in
England, he again retired to France, where he rendered him¬
self still more obnoxious to the king by changing his religion
and engaging in the service of Henrietta Maria, the queen-
mother. By her he was commissioned to undertake an expe¬
dition to Virginia ; but having been captured at sea, he was
taken prisoner and thrown into the Tower. At the interces¬
sion of Milton and others he was liberated, and established a
theatre, on the stage of which he exhibited declamations illus¬
trative of moral virtue, accompanied by recitative music.
After the Restoration, the regular drama reappeared upon the
stage, but most of Davenant’s pieces were disfigured by the
combination of English and French styles. His wmrks con¬
sist chiefly of dramas and addresses. Gondibert, an unfin¬
ished epic, was written during his residence in Paris, and is
dedicated to Hobbes. He died in 1668, and was buried in
Westminster Abbey. In imitation of Ben Jonson’s epitaph,
his tomb bears the inscription, “ O rare Sir William Dave¬
nant.” In personal appearance Davenant bore a striking
resemblance to Shakespeare. A story was current in his
own day that he was an illegitimate child of the great poet,
who, on his journeys to London, had frequently to put up at
his father’s inn. Certain it is that Davenant never dis¬
countenanced the circulation of such a rumour. His son,
Dr Charles Davenant (1656-1714), was inspector of plays
to James II., and attracted considerable attention by his
Essay on Trade, and his pamphlets on the political and
financial measures of the day.
D A V E N T R Y, a parish and market-town in the hun¬
dred of Fawsley, Northamptonshire, 13 miles N.W. from
Northampton. It stands on an eminence near the source
of the Avon and Nen, and carries on an extensive manufac¬
ture in shoes and whips. Pop. (1851) 4430.
T) AVIY) (i.e. Beloved), the psalmist of Israel, was born at
Bethlehem, and was the youngest son in a princely family
of Jndah. He was shepherd of his father’s flocks when
piivately anointed by Samuel to fill the throne of the apos¬
tate Saul; but his skill as a musician brought him on seve-
ial occasions to court, to soothe the melancholy of the king,
and his personal bravery ultimately raised him to the rank
of royal armour-bearer. Having probably retired for some
time to his rustic duties, he was recognized neither by Saul
nor his captains when he presented himself for single com¬
bat wath Goliath. His splendid victory, however, soon
roused the morbid jealousy of the king ; and in his fits of
melancholy Saul made several ineffectual attempts to de¬
stroy him. Convinced at last that there was a method in
the royal madness, David precipitately retreated from the
court, and narrow y escaped falling into the hands of the
emissaries of Saul. The flight of Abiathar to the rebel,
after the massacre of the priests by Saul, now roused the
piety of the Hebrews as his heroic deeds had roused their
D A V
valour, in his favour. For a time he sought refuge with the David.
Philistines, and feigned insanity in order to escape the ma- ^ ^
chinations of their princes. When this retreat became dan¬
gerous, he enjoyed a precarious shelter in the caveof Adul-
lam. At last, recommending his family to the protection of
the king of Moab, he assumed the defensive, and at the
head of 600 men, principally malcontents, he captured the
frontier fortress of Keilah. In the wilderness of Ziph he re¬
ceived a consolatory visit from Jonathan, the crown-prince ;
and twice in the pursuit the person of Saul fell into his
hands, but he refused to pave his way to the throne by re¬
gicide. Retiring to Ziklag, which he had received from
Achish, he engaged in excursions against the predatory
enemies of Israel, on whom he was inflicting a dire revenue
for the burning of his city, when the death of Saul called
him to the vacant throne. Having been recognised as king
by the tribe of Judah, he fixed the centre of his adminis¬
tration at Llebron, an ancient city, honourable by its asso¬
ciation with Abraham, and appointed one of the cities of
refuge at the entrance of the Israelites into Canaan. At
this crisis a faint opposition was stirred up in the other
eleven tribes in favour of Ishbosheth, Saul’s son ; but the
coalition fell to pieces, and was suffered to die away in
silence. After the battle of Gilboa, the Philistines entirely
disappear from the field, content perhaps with having bro¬
ken the power of Saul, and calculating probably on the
friendship of the hero whom they had recently sheltered
amongst them. Feeling themselves unequal to the task of
subjecting the land of Israel, it is probable that they were
glad to welcome the prospect of peace held out by the
dissensions of th^ kingdom in regard to the succession. At
Hebron David strengthened himself by forming an alliance
with the daughter of 1 almai, king of Geshur; and it was
here that six of his sons were born. In the eighth year of
David’s reign (b.c. 1048), the rulers of the eleven tribes
rendered homage to him as the king appointed by Jehovah,
and the event was solemnized by a feast. With the assassina¬
tion of Ishbosheth the hopes of the house of Saul were ex¬
tinguished ; but the consolidation of the Israelitish power
under one constitutional kingdom roused the fears of the
surrounding princes. After defeating the Philistines in
the valley of Rephaim, David addressed himself to the
siege of Jehus or Jerusalem, whose citadel had till then
remained in the hands of the Jebusites. At an early
period of his history David had recognised the strength of
the fortifications of Jerusalem, and had chosen the forts
which belonged to Judah as the safest place in which to
deposit the head of Goliath. The strength of his arms,
however, now enabled him to seize on the Benjamite for¬
tress, which that tribe, from its weakness, had never been
able to wrest from the Jebusites. The previous bipartite
division of the fortresses (compare Joshua xv. 8, and xviii.
16) thus absolves us from the necessity of regarding the
incident in David’s earlier history as an anachronism. Se¬
lecting it for his residence, he built a palace on Mount
Zion ; and soon after removed the ark of the covenant, the
throne of Jehovah, from Kirjath-jearim to Jerusalem. The t
disorganized state of the priesthood during the time of Saul,
E apparent from many incidental notices in the narrative.
They were now, however, appointed to their various sacred
duties, and the monarch himself set a public example of
piety, by forgetting his dignity in presence of the ark. His
intention to build a temple as a palace for the throne of God,
was defeated by Nathan and reserved for his successor. As
the author of the inspired psalmody, he conferred a more
lasting boon on the universal church. Under David the
arms of the Hebrews were victorious in every quarter. The
Nomadic Arabs, the Amalekites, Edomites, Moabites, and
even the Philistines and Ammonites, were forced to bow to
their dominion. The auxiliary kings of Maachah, Bethre-
hob, Zobah, and Tob, were defeated by him ; and even
DAY
David. Hackdezer, the king of Nisibis, an ally of the Assyrians, was
obliged to x’emain quiet on the eastern side of the Euphrates,
and leave to the Hebrews the kingdom of Damascus as far
as Berytus. The last days of David were afflicted by the
inevitable results of polygamy and despotism. The rebel¬
lion of Absalom, the insurrection of Sheba, and the con¬
spiracy of Adonijah, followed hard upon each other, and
peace was restored only by the decisive measure of raising
Solomon to the throne. Of all David’s sons Absalom had
naturally the greatest pretensions to the throne, and his
popularity and address gained him numerous adherents in
his insurrection. Multitudes flocked to his standard at
Hebron ; and if the prompt advice of Ahithophel had been
carried into effect, David would either have been imprisoned
or slain in his own capital. The delay of the rebels facili¬
tated his escape, and soon he had mustered sufficient force
to crush their army in the field. The slaughter of Absa¬
lom by Joab in the retreat put an end to the hopes of the
rebels. Far more unaccountable is the insurrection of
Sheba ; but the vigorous tactics of Amasa isolated him from
his followers, and the few who were with him in Beth-
maachah compounded for their own safety by throwing
their chieftain’s head over the wall. The conspiracy of
Adonijah, supported by the priestly influence of Abiathar,
and the military experience of Joab, seemed more formida¬
ble than either of the previous risings ; but on the elevation
of Solomon to the throne an amnesty was proclaimed, and
the coalition quickly fell to pieces. David died at peace in
Jerusalem, in the seventy-first year of his age, thirty-three
of which he had reigned over the whole people of Israel,
and seven over the united tribes of Judah and Benjamin, at
his capital in Hebron. In regard to the character of David,
his scrupulous attachment to the principles and practice of
the theocracy gained him the appellation of the “ man after
God’s own heartand it was doubtless in this spirit that
many of his political acts of vengeance were perpetrated.
Of his own generous disposition, we have many unmistake-
able proofs, even in his later years ; as, for example, his
choice of pestilence to be the instrument of national punish¬
ment, which unlike war or famine struck alike at the peasant
and the prince. Certainly he was no ideal model of human
perfection; but the flagrant enormities of which he was on
several occasions guilty, and more especially the never to be
forgotten outrage on the wife of Uriah the Hittite, must be
read in the light of those psalms which have not only sup¬
plied the language of contrition to penitents of every age,
but were the predestined utterances of the Redeemer’s
agony.
Y)Jdeques-Louis, the founder of the modern French
school of painting, which he led to the study of antique
sculpture. He was born at Paris in 1750; and in 1774 went
to Rome, where he devoted himself particularly to histori¬
cal painting. In this department he soon began to evince
considerable talents. In 1784 he finished his Oath of the
Horatii, which he had been commissioned by Louis XVI.
to design from a scene in the Horaces of Corneille. This
work gave a certain impulse to the national taste; but though
the figures be correctly drawn, their attitudes are con¬
strained and theatrical ; the colouring is hard, and deficient
in what is technically termed juiciness. In the same year he
painted his Belisarius; in 1787 appeared his Death of So¬
crates ; and these were followed in quick succession by other
works. He had begun to distinguish himself also in por¬
trait-painting, and might have followed out a tranquil and
brilliant career; but on the outbreak of the revolution, he
was seized with the universal mania, and mixed himself up
with some of the most revolting transactions of that bloody
period. In 1789 he finished his large picture of Brutus
condemning his sons to death. He also furnished the de¬
signs of the numerous monuments and republican festivals
of that time. In 1792 he was chosen an elector in Paris,
VOL. VII.
day 665
and afterwards a deputy; and during the Reign of Terror he David’s, St
was one of the most zealous Jacobins, and wholly devoted
himself to Robespierre. At the trial of Louis XVI. he
voted for the death of that unfortunate prince. In January
1794 he presided in the convention. After the fall of Ro¬
bespierre, he was in great danger, and his fame as a painter
alone stood between him and the guillotine. Amongst the
scenes of the revolution which David strove to immortalize
by his pencil are the murders of Marat and Lepelletier ; and
particularly the Oath of the Jeu de Paume, and the entrance
of Louis into the National Assembly. In 1799 he executed
the Rape of the Sabine Women, which is regarded as his
masterpiece, and by the exhibition of which he realized, it is
said, L.4000 sterling. In 1804 he was appointed first painter
to the emperor, and received commands to execute four
pieces,—amongst which the coronation of Napoleon was
particularly distinguished. Among his finest works of this
period are many representations of the emperor, particularly
that in which, as first consul, he is represented on horseback
on Mount Bernard, pointing out to his troops the path which
led them to victory. This piece is now in Berlin. In 1814
he painted Leonidas, the last work which proceeded from
his pencil before he quitted Paris on the reverses of his im¬
perial master. When Napoleon returned from Elba he
appointed David a commander of the legion of honour.
After the second restoration of Louis XVIII. he was in¬
cluded in the decree which expatriated all the regicides.
He established himself in Brussels, where he painted Cupid
leaving the arms of Psyche. The last of his productions,
Venus, Cupid, and the Graces, disarming Mars, was much
admired at Paris. David died in exile at Brussels, December
29, 1825. Various opinions are entertained of his merits.
It cannot be denied that his pictures are marked by cold
correctness and knowledge of the antique; but the works
of the bloody agent of the Reign of Terror scarcely can be
said to exhibit the fire of true genius. His most celebrated
productions, the Oath of the Horatii, and the Rape of the
Sabine Women, were purchased by the French government,
and are now to be seen in the gallery of the Luxembourg.
DAVID’S, St, an ancient and decayed episcopal city
of Wales, Pembrokeshire, situated on the small river
Allan, 15 miles from Haverford-West. A religious esta¬
blishment was founded here at a very early period, and
appears to have been deemed of the highest importance by
the ancient Britons. The ecclesiastical buildings suffered
severely from a Danish force about 911 ; and were again
much injured by Sweyne, the son of Harold, in 993. Wil¬
liam the Conqueror, who entered Wales with a great army,
visited this place as a pilgrim and devotee, and made an
offering at the shrine of St David. The cathedral, episcopal
palace, St Mary’s College, and the other ecclesiastical build¬
ings, were inclosed within a lofty embattled wall, more than
1200 yards in circumference, with four strong and hand¬
some gateways. The present cathedral, occupying the site
of the more ancient structure, is a venerable Gothic cruci¬
form edifice, commenced in the reign of Henry I., and com¬
pleted in that of John, but now in a very dilapidated state.
A richly ornamented square tower, 127 feet, high, surmounts
the western end. The length of the building within the walls
is 307 feet, of the nave 128, of the choir'and chancel 99.
The bishop’s throne is of exquisite workmanship. Many
of the tombs are old and curious. The aisles north and south
of the chancel are roofless, and the cloisters and some other
parts are mere heaps of ruins. Of the bishop’s palace, founded
by bishop Gower in the fourteenth century, and one of the
most magnificent edifices of the kind in the kingdom, parts
of two sides only remain. It appears to have formed a com¬
plete quadrangle, inclosing an area of 120 feet square. The
grand entrance is a beautiful but ruined gateway. Of St
Mary’s College, founded by John of Gaunt in 1365, the
only relic is a chapel which has long been without a roof^
4 p
666
Davidists
II
Davila.
v
DAY
DAY
and is fast going to decay. The shrine of St David was for
ages regarded as possessing a peculiar sanctity, and was re¬
sorted to by crowds of pilgrims. At the western extremity of
the town is an ancient cross, where the market was formerly
held. Besides the few clergy who perform duty in the ca¬
thedral, the inhabitants of St David’s are chiefly labouiers
employed on the adjacent farms. Every part of the sur¬
rounding country was at one time covered with chapels,
crosses, and sainted wells. It still abounds with relics of
Druidical usages. St David’s Head, the most western point
of Wales, is a lofty, rugged, and gloomy promontory, about
two miles N.W. of the city.
DAVIDISTS, or David-Georgians, an heretical sect,
the followers of David Joris, who was born at Delft in 1501.
This man was the son of a market-crier, and early made
himself conspicuous by his fanatical opposition to the Ro¬
man Catholics. He joined the Anabaptists in 1534, and in
his preaching tours became an object of general persecu¬
tion. In 1542 he published his Book of Wonders, from
which the most extravagant opinions, in regard to his own
Messiahship, and his contempt of morality, have been ex¬
tracted by his enemies. For twelve years before his death
he lived at Basle in communion with the Reformed church,
under the feigned name of John von Brugge. His followers,
in spite of laws passed against them, maintained themselves
in Holland till the middle of the seventeenth century.
DAVIES, Sir John (1570-1626), a celebrated poet and
lawyer of the age of Queen Elizabeth, was a native of Tis-
bury in Wiltshire. He is chiefly known now by his didactic
poem, entitled Nosce Teipsum. After holding a number of
minor legal appointments, and sitting in the Irish parlia¬
ment, Davies died suddenly of apoplexy immediately after
he had been chosen Lord Chief Justice of England.
DAVILA, Arrigo Catering, a celebrated historian,
was born October 30, 1570, at Sacco, a village near Padua.
He was the youngest son of Antonia Davila, grand con¬
stable of Cyprus, who, on the taking of that island by the
Turks in 1570, had been obliged to retire into Spain, from
which his family supposed that they had derived their name
and origin. From Spain Antonio repaired to the court of
France, and settled his son Louis and two daughters under
the patronage of Catharine de’ Medici, whose name he after¬
wards gave to the historian. Young Davila was brought
early to France; and at the age of eighteen he signalized
himself in the civil wars of that country, and had a horse
killed under him at the siege of Honfleur in 1594. His
last exploit there was at the siege of Amiens, where he
fought under Henry IV. and received a wound in the knee.
After peace had been established in France, in 1598 he
withdrew into Italy, whither he had been recalled by his
father, and afterwards entered into the service of the Vene-
tians. While at Venice he wrote his admirable work en¬
titled Historia delle guerre civili di Francia di Henrico
Caterino Davila, nella quale si contengono le operationi
di quattro re, Francesco II., Carlo IX., Henrico III., et
Henrico IV., cognominato ilgrande, in fifteen books (Venice,
Tommaso Baglioni, 1630, 4to), which contains everything
worthy of notice that passed from the death of Henry II.
in 1539 till the peace of Vervins in 1598. He continued
to serve the republic of Venice with great reputation, till
an unfortunate adventure put an end to his life in 1631.
Happening to pass through Verona with his wife and family
on his way to Crema, which he had been appointed to de¬
fend, and demanding, according to the usual custom of per¬
sons in his station, a supply of horses and carriages for his
retinue, a brutal Veronese, called II Turco, entered the
room where he and his family were at supper, and being
mildly reprimanded for his intrusion by Davila, discharged
a pistol at him and shot him dead on the spot. The ac¬
complices of the assassin also killed the chaplain of Davila,
and wounded most of his attendants. But his eldest son
Antonio, a youth of eighteen, avenged the death of his fa- Davis
ther by killing the murderer on the instant. All the confe- II
derates in this dreadful tragedy were secured next morning, avits
and publicly executed at Verona.
There is only one opinion concerning the merit of Davila
as a writer. His style is singularly exempt from the vices
which prevailed at that time, and, though less pure than
that of Guicciardini, is more compact and concise, and at
the same time distinguished for its admirable facility. He
appears indeed to have taken great pains to discover the
truth, to have derived his information from the best sources,
and to have spoken in general with much freedom. But
this explicitness is sometimes affected by his individual
position and connections, and also by the prejudices of his
age and country. An Italian of this period could not pos¬
sibly hold the balance even between the Catholics and Pro¬
testants. A man who owed the fortune of his sister, of his
brother, and also the commencement of his own, to Catha¬
rine de’ Medici, and whose very name reminds us that he
had been devoted to her service from the period of his birth,
could not be an impartial judge of the conduct of the queen-
mother. He has accordingly been censured, and not with¬
out reason, for the partiality which he evinces towards that
bold, bad woman, dwelling upon her address and her pru¬
dence, when he should have exposed her profound dissimu¬
lation, perfidy, and cruelty. But notwithstanding some other
grave faults, on which this is not the place to expatiate, his
history remains with all the eminent qualities that distin¬
guish it, whilst its defects can no longer be productive of
error or misconception.
The edition which Davila published of his history was very in¬
correct. It is said that he had offered the work to several pub¬
lishers of Venice, but that they had all refused it, with the excep¬
tion of Baglioni, whose presses were idle, and who undertook to
print it; on the condition, however, that if any preferable employ¬
ment came in his way, the printing of the history should be post¬
poned. But when the edition was finished it met with so rapid a
sale that the whole was disposed of in a week. It is added that it
was reprinted under the same date, and that 15,000 copies were
sold in the course of a year ; but this appears to be greatly exag¬
gerated. The editions which followed (Venice, 1634 and 1638;
Lyons, 1641; and Venice, 1642) were scarcely less faulty than the
first; but a better, and indeed a very beautiful one, issued from the
royal press at Paris in 1644, folio. The work was translated into
French by J. Baudoin, Paris, 1642, in two vols. folio—a translation
which has been several times reprinted; into Spanish by Basil Va-
ren de Soto, Madrid, 1651 and 1659; and into English, first by
William Aylesbury, London, 1647, folio; and next by Charles
Cotterell, London, 1666, folio. Lastly, it was translated into Latin
by Pietro Francesco Cornazzano, Rome, 1745, in 3 vols. 4to. The
best edition of the original work, however, is that printed at \ enice
in 1733, 2 vols. folio.
DAVIS, John, a famous navigator of the sixteenth cen¬
tury, was born at Sandridge, near Dartmouth, Devonshire.
He distinguished himself by making three voyages along
the northern shores of America, in order to discover a north¬
west passage to the East Indies, and was the discoverer of
the straits which still bear his name. He afterwards per¬
formed five voyages to the East Indies, in the last of which
he was slain in a desperate encounter with some Japanese,
near the coast of Malacca, Dec. 27, 1605. He wrote an
account of his second voyage for the discovery of the north¬
west passage, a voyage to the East Indies, and several other
tracts. A quadrant invented by him continued in use until
superseded by that of Hadley.
DAVIS’S Straits, that part of the Polar Sea lying be¬
tween Greenland and Cumberland Island, and extending
from Cape Farewell to Disco Island. It forms the medium
of communication between Baffin’s Bay and the North At¬
lantic Ocean. It was discovered by Davis in 1586; and is
now the principal resort of whalers in the Northern Ocean.
DAVITS, beams of wood or iron, with sheaves or blocks
at their ends, projecting over a vessel’s side or stern, to
hoist on the boats.
DAVY.
Davy. DAVY, Sm Humphry. This eminent philosopher was
born on the 17th of December 1778, in the small town of
Penzance, in Cornwall, of very respectable parents, in the
humbler walks of life. In that place he received the ele¬
ments of his education, until 1793, when he was removed
to the grammar-school of Truro, then under the direction
of the Rev. Dr Cardew. There is scarcely any thing wor¬
thy of record in the early years of Davy, except the fa¬
cility with which he appears to have gleaned the substance
ol any book that happened to engage his attention, and
his early predilection for poetry.
No biography of Davy should omit the disinterested
friendship of Mr Tonkin, a respectable medical practi¬
tioner of Penzance. This amiable man had adopted the
mother of Davy and her sisters, under circumstances of
deep distress; and his kindness was extended to all her
children, particularly Humphry, whose intended profes¬
sional career was probably influenced by that of his friend
and patron.
In 1794i Davy lost his father, and his mother found her¬
self under the necessity of becoming a milliner in Penzance,
whilst young Davy was, in 1795, apprenticed to Mr Bor-
lase, then practising as a surgeon-apothecary, but who af¬
terwards became a physician in that place.
While yet very young, our philosopher had exhibited
traces of an ardent, inquisitive mind, an inclination for de¬
vising experiments, and for examining the productions of
nature. On entering the service of Mr Borlase, his atten¬
tion was turned to chemical investigations, which he pur¬
sued with a characteristic enthusiasm, to the neglect of the
humbler art of compounding medicines. His chief labo¬
ratory at that time was the garret of his friend Mr Ton¬
kin, who was occasionally alarmed and annoyed by unex¬
pected explosions. His defective apparatus was supplied
by the fertile resources of his own ingenuity. It was dur¬
ing this period that he attempted to investigate the nature
of the air contained in the vesicles of sea-weed; and his
ingenuity in supplying his want of more perfect instru¬
ments is well illustrated in the facility with which he
contrived to supply the place of an air-pump, by an old
French injecting syringe, which accident put into his
hands. With this he made several experiments, and ac¬
tually employed it as an air-pump, in his first original paper
on the Nature of Heat and Light.
Davy was not of a temperament or cast of mind to re¬
main long in obscurity. The panting after scientific re¬
nown had early taken possession of his soul; and while
still the apothecary’s apprentice, and regarding medicine
as his future means of support, he felt aspirations after
distinction in the paths of philosophical discovery; but he
was in some degree indebted for an earlier emergence
from the obscurity of his native place, to the accidental
notice of Mr Davies Giddy Gilbert. The attention of
that gentleman had been arrested by the strange contor¬
tions of countenance of an ungainly boy, whom he observ¬
ed hanging over the hatch-gate of Mr Borlase’s house;
and on being informed that the boy was “ a son of Davy
the carver, and very fond of making chemical experi¬
ments,” he sought the acquaintance of young Davy, and
was ever afterwards bis steady friend.
Another accidental acquaintance was not without its
influence on the fortunes of Davy. The late Mr Gregory
Watt, long an invalid, had been recommended by his phy¬
sicians to try the mild air of Cornwall, and took up his
lodgings in the house of Mrs Davy. Their first intercourse
was not cordial. Watt was taciturn and reserved; and
young Davy, with that want of tact which is not uncom¬
mon at his age, instead of endeavouring to recommend
himself by showing his knowledge of any branch of experi¬
mental or natural philosophy which he had studied, sought
to make an impression on the valetudinarian inmate of his
mother’s house by crude and flippant metaphysical specu- v
lations. Watt was disgusted, and retired within himself,
until an incidental remark of Davy on the imperfection of
the French theory of combustion and calcination arrested
the attention of the former. They then began to discuss
questions congenial to the minds of both, and soon became
attached friends.
It was through these two gentlemen that the subject of
our memoir was introduced to Dr Beddoes, who liad vi¬
sited Cornwall on a geological tour, in company with his
friend and philosophical opponent Professor Hailstone of
Cambridge. The abilities of Davy were favourably shown
during the friendly contentions of these rival geologists;
and their judgment being advantageously impressed by the
encomiums of Gilbert and Watt, Davy was soon afterwards
engaged by Dr Beddoes to superintend a pneumatic medical
institution, which that able but eccentric man had just
then established at Bristol, for the treatment of diseases.
After some negociation, Davy, much to his own satis¬
faction, received the appointment of superintendent, and
repaired to Bristol in 1798, before he had completed his
twentieth year. Mr Borlase readily gave up Davy’s in¬
denture ; but this removal was a severe disappointment to
Mr Tonkin, who had placed his fondest hopes on seeing
his young friend settled as a practitioner in Penzance.
Davy was now placed in a sphere where his genius
could expand; he associated with men engaged in similar
pursuits ; he was provided with suitable apparatus; and he
speedily entered upon that brilliant career of discovery
which has rendered his name illustrious among philoso¬
phers. It was not his original intention to abandon the
study of medicine; but after his engagement with Dr
Beddoes had terminated, he had intended to prosecute
his medical studies at Edinburgh; a plan which he was
induced to abandon by the all-engrossing interest of his
chemical discoveries.
Soon after his removal to Bristol, his speculations on
Heat, Light, and Respiration, appeared in Beddoes’s
“ West-Country Contributions.” In that essay, written
before he left Cornwall, he endeavoured to prove the im¬
materiality of heat, by showing its generation from the
friction ot two pieces of ice under the exhausted receiver;
but his reasoning on this point was inconclusive, and his
mode of insulating the ice very imperfect; whilst it is well
known that heat will radiate through the most perfect va¬
cuum. His speculations on Light and Respiration are ex¬
travagant, and savour little of the spirit of philosophical
induction. It was unfortunate for Davy that he had not
a more judicious adviser than Beddoes, a man singularly de¬
void of philosophical caution, and easily led astray by the
loosest analogies.
Davy’s first scientific discovery was the detection of
siliceous earth in the epidermis of the cannae, reeds, and
grasses. Though the chain of induction be simple, yet
the steps give a favourable specimen of his method of in¬
vestigating phenomena. A child had accidentally dis¬
covered, that on rubbing together two pieces of bonnet-
cane, a faint light was emitted; on examining the fact, he
found, that on striking them together, vivid sparks were
produced, like those emitted by the collision of flint and
steel. On stripping off the epidermis the luminous pro¬
perty was lost, and analysis showed that the epidermis
contained silex. I he shining appearance of the stems of
reeds, corn, and grasses, induced him to examine them
also, and he found that they all yielded silex, even in
larger quantity than the cane.
About the same period he made his first gaseous dis¬
covery, the respirability of nitrous oxide. The first inti¬
mation of its intoxicating qualities is given in a letter to
667
Davy.
668
DAVY.
Davy, his friend Mr Gilbert, dated April 16, 1799. Soon after,
he examined its properties more accurately, administered
it to various individuals, and published an account of his
discoveries in a volume entitled Researches Chemical and
Philosophical, chiefly concerning Nitrous Oxide and its Re¬
spiration. This essay breathes a very different spirit from
his first. It exhibits good models of cautious induction
from ingeniously contrived experiments, and shows a hap¬
py talent for analyzing the different circumstances which
influence the chemical changes observed.
Fortunately for Mr Davy, while the impression from
this publication was still fresh on the public mind, the es¬
tablishment of the Royal Institution in London, under the
auspices of Count Rumford, had taken place ; and a lec¬
turer of talent was wanting to fill the chemical chair. Dr
Hope of Edinburgh has the merit of thus early discover¬
ing the high talents of Davy, and of introducing him to
the notice of the count; and he was, in the beginning of
1801, chosen lecturer to the institution, and director of the
laboratory.
It has been said, that on his first appearance in London,
his ungainly exterior had prejudiced Rumford and some
other directors against him; but when he began to lec¬
ture, he won the approbation of all. His lectures became
a fashionable lounge; his ingenuity and happy facility of
illustration gained him a high reputation; his company
was courted by the choicest society of the metropolis;
and soon his presence was regarded as an indispensable
requisite in the brilliant soirees of the gay and fashionable
world. Adulation paid to talent became fashionable ; and
at the early age of twenty-two Davy had triumphed over
considerable personal defects, and found himself the idol of
an admiring capital.
Those who had enjoyed an opportunity of observing
him at Bristol, had remarked the simplicity of his mind
and manner at that period; and they had noticed his ta¬
lent for discussing difficult questions, even where his infor¬
mation was exceedingly defective. That the extravagant
adulation of the metropolis, so soon after his appearance
there, should have been injurious to his native simplicity
of manner, is far less surprising, than that it did not en¬
tirely destroy that ardour in research which conducted
him to fame,
Davy’s style of lecturing was well adapted to command
the attention of his audience; it was animated, clear, and
impressive, notwithstanding the naturally unharmonious
tones of his voice ; whilst the ingenuity of his happily de¬
vised experiments, and the neatness of their execution,
were calculated to fix the attention of his hearers. How
much these circumstances are calculated to affect the
usefulness and popularity of a teacher, is well illustrated
by the different impression made on nearly the same au¬
dience by the no less original but more profound lectures
of Dr Thomas Young, which were discontinued by the
committee of the Royal Institution two years after the
appearance of Davy.
I he young chemist was fortunate in the time of his
commencing his metropolitan career. Experimental che¬
mistry was beginning to be the fashion of the day, and it
was a very general topic of conversation among the upper
circles. Voltaic electricity had just been found to possess
the most extraordinary powers of effecting decompositions
of chemical compounds ; and innumerable experimental
chemists, aware of the field of discovery which this power¬
ful instrument promised to open to these researches, were
most anxious to possess a powerful galvanic battery. The
liberality of the committee of the Royal Institution sup¬
plied what few private individuals could afford ; and early
in his first course as professor of chemistry, Davy was put
in possession of a battery of four hundred five-inch plates,
and one of forty plates a foot in diameter. With these his
early and most brilliant investigations were conducted;^
and their liberality and his ingenuity were rewarded by
the discovery of the metallic bases of the alkalies.
The first communication of Davy to the Royal Society
was “ an account of some galvanic combinations formed
by an arrangement of single metallic plates and fluids,”
which was read in June 1801. This paper is the first of
that series of electro-chemical investigations which have
immortalized his name. In all hitherto constructed piles,
the series had consisted of not less than two metals, or of
one plate of metal, another of charcoal, and some in¬
terposed fluid. He showed in this paper, that the usual
galvanic phenomena might be energetically exhibited by
a single metallic plate and two strata of different fluids,
or that a battery might be constructed of one metal and
two fluids, provided one of the fluids was capable of caus¬
ing oxidation on one of the surfaces of the metal. Be¬
tween this communication and his next paper on galvanic
phenomena five years elapsed; a period during which
many interesting discoveries were made by other philoso¬
phers ; but Davy had not been idle. In 1802 he was ap¬
pointed professor to the board of agriculture; and, in
addition to the duties of his situation in the Royal Insti¬
tution. to which that of joint editor of the Journal had
been added, he gave a course of lectures on the connec¬
tion between agriculture -and chemistry, which was an¬
nually continued for ten successive years. In 1803 he
was admitted a member of the Royal Society, of which
he became first the secretary, and ultimately the presi¬
dent; and he continued to enrich the transactions with
numerous memoirs on different branches of experimental
philosophy for twenty-five years. Indeed his most valu¬
able productions are contained in the Philosophical Trans¬
actions; and it is on these detached papers that his claims
to celebrity almost entirely rest. Of his other publica¬
tions, the Elements of Chemical Philosophy was a signal
failure, and only the first volume ever saw the light. His
Elements of Agricultural Chemistry had some popularity,
though they have scarcely added any thing to our pre¬
vious stock of knowledge; but there is scarcely one of
his communications to the Royal Society which does not
announce some new and important fact, or does not eluci¬
date some general principle of experimental philosophy.
He had undertaken to deliver some lectures on the
principles of the art of tanning, and had been furnished
with the means of obtaining practical and experimental
knowledge on the subject. In the course of his prepara¬
tion for these lectures he discovered some new facts, which
were first noticed in the journals of the institution, and
afterwards embodied in an elaborate communication to
the Royal Society, entitled An account of some experi¬
ments and observations on the constituent parts of certain
astringent vegetables, and their operation in tanning, read
in February 1803.
In 1805 he read two papers to the Royal Society. The
first was An account of some analytic experiments on the
Wavellite, which he affirmed to consist of alumine and
vrater. In this analysis he overlooked the presence of
fluate of alumine, which was detected in it by the Rev.
William Gregor; and still more unaccountably did both
the British chemists fail to detect in the mineral phos¬
phate of alumine, which was found afterwards by Berze¬
lius to constitute one third of it. The second paper of
Davy, On the method of analysing stones containing a fixed
alkali, by boracie acid, is really an important addition to
analytic chemistry. His method is founded on the strong
affinity of that acid for different earths at the point of in¬
candescence, and on the ease with which these borates are
decomposed by the mineral acids.
Davy.
DAVY.
669
Davj^ We now approach the period of Davy s great disco- composition of the alkalies by galvanism had been a fa- Davy,
veries. Vourite speculation with several philosophers; but the
1 lie power of the pile to effect decompositions was want of a sufficient power had always opposed an obsta-
shown in 1800 by Nicholson and Carlisle, and immediate- cle to success. Davy had the command of va«t <>-alvanic
- extended by Cruickshank. The appearance of alkalies power, and applied it to this problem. His first attempts
and acids at opposite poles of the battery had been no- were made on solutions of potash, without effect; his next
ticed by difieient philosophers, but it was reserved for efforts were made on fused potash placed on a disc of
Davy to connect these discoveries by one general law, and platina, connected with the negative pole, and having its
to illustrate Ins theory of Voltaic action by some most hap- upper surface in contact with the positive wire. "The
pi y devised experiments, in the Bakerian lecture, read potash began to fuse; strong effervescence took place at
to die Royal Society in November 1806. It will be suf- the positive wire, while metallic globules appeared at the
hcient to state, that he satisfactorily showed that the other, which continued to form, and speedilv to burn and
liberation of acid at the positive pole, and of alkali at the explode with a very bright flame. He soon discovered a
negative pole, proceeded entirely either from the decompo- method of repressing their combustibility, by investing
sition of the vessels used in the experiment, the impurity them with a film of naphtha; by which means he was ena-
of the water subjected to analysis, or from the elements bled to collect the metallic globules for examination,
of the atmosphere uniting with the hydrogen or oxygen He found that they were so light as to float in every
of the water to form ammonia or nitric acid. By a series fluid except recently distilled naphtha; that they had the
of very elegantly conducted experiments, he showed that brilliancy of mercury; that at the ordinary temperature
in all Voltaic decompositions the tendency of the electric of the air they are malleable, and so soft as to be spread
action was to collect the acid of the compound at the po- out with a knife ; that this metal melts at about 150° Fah-
sitiye wire, and its bases, whether alkaline, earthy, or me- renheit, but at 32° it is a hard crystalline solid, brittle,
talhc, at the other pole. He proved that such transfers and extremely splendent; and that in all its states it is a
were not confined to the immediate neighbourhood of the perfect conductor of electricity ; in short, that it possess-
poles, but extended through the whole galvanic circuit ed every general property hitherto recognised in metals,
winch connected them; and that even an acid might be except its extremely low specific gravity. The metallic
conveyed fiom one wire to the other, through an alkaline, globules were soon converted into potash in the air; and
earthy, or metalhc solution, without entering into union when brought into contact with water, or even with ice,
with it, provided the substance transferred did not form instantly took fire and burnt, giving rise to potash. The
an mspluble compound with the interposed solution, effervescence at the opposite pole he ascertained to be
\Vhen it did form an insoluble compound, it was withdrawn owing to the evolution of oxygen gas. To the metal thus
from the \ oltaic action, and consequently its transference obtained he gave the name of potassium. The rapidity
was stopped. After examining a great number of such and energy with which potassium attracts oxygen from
phenomena he generalized the results by stating, that almost all bodies, showed that it is a valuable instrument
hydrogen, the alkalis, earths, metals, and certain oxides, of analysis in the hands of the chemist. Davy pursued
are attracted by negatively electrified, and repelled by a similar process with pure soda, and obtained from it a
positively electrified metallic surfaces; that oxygen and metal of analogous properties, to which he gave the name
acids are attracted by positively, and repelled by negatively of sodium.
electrified metallic surfaces. < This splendid discovery appears to have been made in
. these practical elucidations, Davy proceeded to October 1807, was read in November of that year to
investigate the law of electro-chemical action. In repeat- the Royal Society; and in the following year the" results
ing and extending the researches of Bennet, Cavallo, and of Davy were fully confirmed by Gay-Lussac and The-
o ta, on the electricity evolved by the contact of bodies, nard, who succeeded in decomposing potash by iron fil-
Davy showed, that substances capable of chemical union ings in a red-hot gun-barrel. In the Bakerian lecture of
exhibited unequivocal symptoms of opposite electrical 1807, Davy mentions the probability of the earths having
states; that the mutual chemical attraction of the ele- also metallic bases; but his discoveries were suspended,
ments of a compound are subverted by inducing an elec- and very nearly closed for ever, by a severe illness, attend-
tncal state opposite to that natural to them ; while their ed with fever and delirium, which attacked him soon af-
chemical union is promoted by increasing their natural ter the reading of his second Bakerian lecture, the conse-
electric energies. Hence he drew the inferences, that quence of severe bodily exertion and high mental excite-
electro-chemical combinations and decompositions are re- ment. In March 1808 he was able to resume his labours ; but
Terrible to the law of electric attractions and repulsions, during this interval, baryta and lime had been decompos-
and that both “ chemical and electrical attractions are ed by Berzelius and Pontin, who obtained the result by
produced by the same cause, acting in the one case on negatively electrifying mercury in contact with portions
the particles, in the other on the masses.” of the pure earths. Their oxygen was thus driven off
The whole of this beautiful memoir is a happy example and their bases united into amalgams with the mercury ’
of most admirably devised experiments, legitimate deduc- These experiments were communicated to Davy who
turns, or ingenious inferences. What is fully established, in June 1808, read a memoir on that subject to the Royal
is carefully discriminated from what rests on probable Society. His paper then describes the amalgamation
conjecture; and it raised the reputation of Davy to the of strontia, and his process for obtainino- the amaRam
highest pitch. It procured for him not only the willing from magnesia. He also stated that he had succeeded
homage of his own countrymen, but it was crowned by in obtaining the metal of barytes from the amaRam • that
the French Institute with the medal of three thousand it was white like silver, of a higher specific gravity than
francs, founded by the first consul for the encouragement water, and fluid below a red heat. He attempted unsuc-
of discoveries in galvanism; a proud triumph of scienti- cessfully to decompose argil, silex, and zircon, though the
Ac reputation over national jealousy, and the implacable results showed a high probability of their having metallic
acrimony of our then national hostility. bases. The curious experiment of amalgamating ammo-
Davys next discovery was the most brilliant of all, nia had occurred to Berzelius and Pontin, and they had
though it may be questioned whether it be that which communicated the result to Davy. This new subject he
places his talents in the highest point of view. The de- pursued with eagerness, and confirmed their results, but
670 D A
Davy, could not succeed in distilling ofF, as he seems to have ex-
pected, the compound'metallic basis;.an idea founded on
analogy, but not very probable. It is needless to discuss
the various conjectures on the nature of the new metals
of the alkalies and earths, to which the discoveries of
Davy gave rise; some of the ablest chemists of the day
considered them as probable compounds of hydrogen, with
some unknown bases. This opinion has not derived any
confirmation from subsequent research; and, with regard
to the ammoniacal amalgam, it is now generally regarded,
not as a true metallic alloy, but as a species of mechanical
mixture of ammonia, or its elements, with mercury.
The third Bakerian lecture, read in December 1808, and
its appendix of next spring, contain an account of various
attempts to effect the decomposition of certain bodies
which had not been resolved into their elements. The
subjects discussed in this paper were handled with his
usual ingenuity; but his success did not equal his own or
the public expectation. The only certain result was the
proof that hydrogen could not be obtained by any known
means from potassium, and that therefore we ought to
consider it as a simple body.
In his experiments on ammonia, by the medium of pot¬
assium, he obtained an olive-coloured substance, which he
considered as an amalgam, and appears to have been san¬
guine in the idea that he had decomposed nitrogen in this
process; but was afterwards compelled to admit his fail¬
ure. His next inquiries were into the nature of sulphur,
phosphorus, and carbon, which he suspected to contain
hydrogen, and his experiments led him to believe that
these substances contained it in minute quantities; but
his conclusions are now considered as erroneous, and the
minute portion of hydrogen obtained is regarded as due
to the presence of water in the inflammables, or to the
obstinacy with which some of them absorb and retain dif¬
ferent gases. The third subject discussed was the nature
of boracic acid, from which he obtained a basis, by him then
considered as of a metallic nature; but he was anticipated
on this subject by Gay-Lussac and Thenard, who inves¬
tigated the subject more completely, established the ana¬
logy of the radicle of boracic acid with carbon, and the
substance is now called boron. The other subject of in¬
quiry, “ The Nature of Muriatic and Oxymuriatic Acids,”
is remarkable as an ingenious defence of a theory of their
formation, which’he mainly contributed some time after¬
wards to overthrow.
It may be interesting to remark, that the original 500
plate batteries of the institution were so worn in the course
of Davy’s experiments as to be unserviceable; but a libe¬
ral voluntary subscription among the members, in July 1808,
put him in possession of the most powerful Voltaic battery
ever constructed, consisting of 2000 double plates, with a
surface equal to 128,000 square inches. The results, how¬
ever, produced with this stupendous power did not add
one new fact of any importance to science. AH Davy’s
splendid Voltaic discoveries were made before it was in
use, and it only served to show the phenomena of galva¬
nism with greater brilliancy.
The fourth Bakerian lecture, read in November 1809,
contained the same views, and added little to scientific
discovery, though every part of it exhibits the talent and
ingenuity of the author; but in his researches on oxymu¬
riatic acid, and on the elements of muriatic acid, we find
Davy overturning the theory he had laboured to defend
in former Bakerian lectures, adducing new proofs of the
oxymuriatic acid being a simple body, and muriatic acid
a compound of that body and hydrogen.
It had indeed been previously shown by Cruickshank,
that the mixture of oxymuriatic acid and hydrogen, in
equal proportions, produces common muriatic acid; and
V Y.
the same fact had been more thoroughly investigated by Davy.
Gay-Lussac and Thenard, who proved that no water is ■'v'*
formed during the process, and that, in all cases where
oxygen is evolved from oxymuriatic acid, water is always
present, and muriatic acid pnvariably appears. Davy not
only confirmed and extended the experiments of these
philosophers, but, as it appears to us, has an undoubted
claim to priority in deducing from the facts the legitimate
consequence, viz. that oxymuriatic acid is, as Scheele, its
discoverer, had supposed, a simple body; and that muria¬
tic acid is a compound of hydrogen and that body, for
which he proposed the name of chlorine.
In his Bakerian lecture in 1810, and" in his essay read
February 1811, he considers the changes which these views
render necessary in chemical nomenclature, and announces
the discovery of a compound of chlorine and oxygen, to
which he gave the name of euchlorine, a term which has
been since changed for the more appropriate appellation
o'iprotoxide of chlorine, to distinguish it from another com¬
pound of these substances, which he discovered while in
Italy in 1815, and which is termed the peroxide of chlorine.
While on this subject, we may remark, that this latter was
discovered while engaged in a controversy with Gay-Lus¬
sac on the nature of chloric acid, the discovery of the lat¬
ter ; in which, we are compelled to say, neither the temper
nor the philosophic dignity of our countryman appear to
advantage.
The reputation of Mr Davy was now at its zenith ; and
he was invited by the Dublin Society to give a course of
lectures on electro-chemical science, which he commenced
on the 8th November, and concluded on the 29th of that
month, in 1810, and for which he received 500 guineas.
The Dublin Society, in the following year, invited him to
give two courses, one on the Elements of Chemical Philoso¬
phy, and the other on Geology, for which he was remune¬
rated by a sum of L.750 ; and the Provost and Fellows of
Trinity College did themselves honour by investing Davy
with the degree of LL. D.
In 1811 our author was employed to adopt some means
for ventilating the House of Commons ; a task which he
seems to have undertaken without any previous study of
the subject; for his attempts were a signal failure, from a
miscalculation of the diameter of the pipes necessary to
carry off the vitiated and to supply fresh air to so large a
building, and became a source of considerable mortifica¬
tion to himself, as well as of malignant pleasantry to the
witlings of that period.
In the following year, the connection between Davy and
the Royal Institution was dissolved, by his giving his fare¬
well lecture on the 9th April 1812.
On the preceding day, he had received the honour of
knighthood from the hands of the prince regent; and on
the 11th of that month he was married to Mrs Apreece,
daughter and heiress of Charles Kerr, Esq. of Kelso, and
the possessor of an ample fortune.
This important step is admitted by his warmest friends
to have produced a change in the deportment of Davy.
From that time he seemed to regard patrician rank, and
the adventitious distinctions of society, with no philosophic
indifference ; and he is alleged to have lowered his ambi¬
tion to meaner objects than were to be won on the fields
of scientific investigation.
During the next two or three years, Sir Humphry Davy
produced little important to science; and we find him rather
following than directing the steps of others. He made
two communications to the Royal Society in 1812. The
first was on Some Compounds of Phosphorus and Sul¬
phur, in which the most important matters are two new
definite compounds of phosphorus and chlorine, and a pro¬
position to name all the precipitates from aqueous solutionu
DAVY.
671
Davy, hydrats, because he found them to contain water in defi-
nite proportion. The name was unfortunate, especially as
in the same paper he had proposed the prefix hydro for
compounds into which hydrogen entered as a definite in¬
gredient. In the second paper he described a detonating
compound of chlorine and nitrogen, but which had been
some time before discovered in hrance. The first, and, as
it proved, the only volume, ever published o’tXds Elements
of Chemical Philosophy appeared in 1812; and in the fol¬
lowing year he published his Elements of Agricultural
Chemistry, the substance of the lectures which he had
some years before delivered to the Board of Agriculture.
His paper on fluoric acid read in 1813 to the Royal So¬
ciety, was little more than a confirmation of the analytic
experiments of Ampere, who established that the base of
fluoric acid unites with oxygen to form that acid, and that
acid with boron to form the fluoboric acid.
In the latter part of 1813, Sir Humphry Davy obtained
the permission of the French emperor to travel in France ;
and in October of that year he went, with his lady and Mr
Faraday, to the Continent. His visit to Paris brought him
personally acquainted with the principal French savans,
among whom he particularly singled out Ampere as his
chosen friend ; but this feeling was at a subsequent period,
we are grieved to say, changed into one of bitter hatred
on the part of Davy; who so far forgot himself as to exert
all his influence to prevent Ampere’s election as a foreign
member of the London Royal Society.
The most remarkable circumstance arising out of Davy’s
visit to Paris was the proof it afforded of his utter want of
any relish for the sublimest productions of the pencil and
the chisel, with which the French capital then abounded.
He was well received by the French philosophers ; he was
honoured by their flattering attentions; but we are con¬
strained to say that he returned their courtesies with an
arrogance and ridiculous affectation of superiority, which
justly offended, and tended much more to lower English
philosophy than to elevate Davy in their estimation. This
was peculiarly unfortunate; for every little feeling of na¬
tional jealousy seems to have been banished from their
minds, and we fear that the odium of want of cordiality
must rest with our countryman. But another act of ill-
judged interference completed the disgust which his ab¬
surd conduct in other respects had excited. Before the
time of Davy’s visit to France, Courtois had discovered
iodine, and Gay-Lussac and Thenard were engaged upon
its properties. Some of that substance was given to Davy
by Ampere, and he immediately began to examine it. On
the 11th of December he offered to the Institute a general
view of its nature and relations, and transmitted to Lon¬
don an account of its properties, which was read to the
Royal Society on the 20th of January 1814. This paper
is introduced with the remark that “ Gay-Lussac is still
engaged in experiments on this subject; and from his ac¬
tivity and great sagacity a complete chemical history of it
may be anticipated.” This priority of occupation ought to
have prevented Davy from the ungenerous anticipation.
From Paris Davy proceeded, in the end of December, to
Montpellier, and from thence to Italy by the Col de Tende.
At Genoa and Florence he continued his experiments on
iodine, which he obtained from the ashes of various fusci.
At the latter place he made experiments also on the com¬
bustion of the diamond with the great lens in the cabinet
of natural history ; and he discovered that, after the dia¬
mond has been once ignited, it will continue to burn with
splendour in pure oxygen, though the source of heat has
been withdrawn. Thence he proceeded by Rome to Na¬
ples, where he was engaged on observations on the pheno¬
mena of Vesuvius, and collected specimens of the colours
used by the ancients in their pictures, which formed the
subject of a memoir to the Royal Society. The most in¬
teresting part of this paper is, that the fine blues of the
ancients were formed of silex, soda, and copper ; and that
they may be exactly imitated by strongly heating together
three parts of copper filings, fifteen parts of carbonate of
soda, and twenty of powdered flint, for two hours. After
spending the winter in Italy, he returned on the 23d of
April to London.
The year 1816 is memorable in the history of Sir Hum¬
phry Davy, as that in which he turned his attention to a
method of preventing the dreadful accidents from explo¬
sions of fire-damp in coal-mines. The frequent accidents
in the Newcastle and Sunderland collieries from such ex¬
plosions had given rise to the formation of a society for
ascertaining how they could be prevented; and the Re¬
verend Dr Gray, the president, requested Davy’s opinion.
After he had visited the mines, specimens of fire-damp were
transmitted to him in London. He began by an analysis
of the gas, and by ascertaining the limits of its exploding
properties. He found that it would not explode when
mixed with less than six times, or with more than four¬
teen times its volume of atmospheric air; that air rendered
impure by the combustion of a candle will not explode fire¬
damp, though the candle will still burn for a time ; that if
a candle be burnt in a close vessel, with small apertures
only above and below the flame, no explosion will take
place, even in an exploding mixture ; that in this case the
flame wfithin will be enlarged, but no explosion will reach
outward; and that the gas from mines will not explode
in a tube less than one eighth inch in diameter.1 From
these principles, Davy proposed several different lamps,
some of which strongly resemble the contemporary inven¬
tions of Murray and Clauny ; but all were finally super¬
seded by the simple lamp of Davy, in which a small oil
light was covered by a cylinder of wire gauze.
The introduction of this beautiful invention was for a
time violently opposed by prejudice and passion ; but the
experience of the miners of Britain, Belgium, and other
countries, has confirmed its utility and comparative safety.
This triumph of Davy’s genius, exerted as it was in the
cause of suffering humanity, is the noblest monument to
his fame ; and the debt of gratitude is enhanced by the dis¬
interested manner in which his discovery was freely com¬
municated, without any idea of a pecuniary reward. The
coal-owners of Newcastle and its vicinity, impressed with
the important services conferred on them by Davy’s disco¬
very, presented him with a superb service of plate, em¬
bellished with a suitable inscription.
The succeeding years of the life of Sir Humphry Davy,
though they do not present any remarkable discoveries,
were by no means spent in inactivity. The^world is usual¬
ly unjust in its anticipations from those who have done
much, and is apt to feel disappointment at any symptom
of relaxation in those who have contributed most to the
public excitement.
In 1815, 1816, and 1817, he read various communica¬
tions to the Royal Society on the subject of fire-damp, and
on the nature of flame, for which he received the Rum-
ford medals. In 1818 and 1819 he produced four me¬
moirs “ On the fallacy of the experiments in which Water
is said to have been produced by the decomposition of
Chlorine,” on “Some Combinations of Phosphorus,”“Obser-
_ 1 This last fact was discovered, however, long before by Grotthus, and was by the late Dr Murray of Edinburgh applied, at the very
time Davy was engaged on the subject, to the construction of a safety-lamp for mines, which may be seen in the Edinburgh Philoso¬
phical Transactions.
672
DAY Y.
Davy, vations on the Formation of Mists over Lakes and Rivers,”
“ On Electro-magnetism.” In 1818 Sir Humphry, who
had made some previous experiments on unrolling the
papyri of Herculaneum, was sent by the British govern¬
ment to examine the manuscripts in the Neapolitan mu¬
seum, in order to attempt on the spot their evolution. He
soon satisfied himself that these papyri had not been char¬
red, but altered by the percolation of water, or merely by
the application of tuft’aceous ashes. His remarks on them,
contained in his paper to the Royal Society in 1821, are
highly ingenious, but no success attended his labours,
probably from the unfortunately irremediable condition of
the Herculanean papyri; but he also hints at obstruc¬
tions thrown in his way by the persons employed in the
museum. During this excursion, he published at Naples
an account of the thermal baths of Lucia, from the waters
of which are deposited silica and oxide of iron, which he
conjectures to have been held together in solution in the
bowels of the earth ; and he inferred that the oxide of
iron was held in solution as a protoxide by silica, which,
with Berzelius, he conceived to act the part of an acid.
In 1820 Davy returned to England, and on the death
of Sir Joseph Banks, in that year, was elected President
of the Royal Society. The opinions of members were di¬
vided between him and Dr Wollaston ; but the latter per¬
emptorily refused to be put in nomination, and lent all
his influence to support the pretensions of the former. It
is doubtful how far Sir Humphry’s pursuits and tempera¬
ment qualified him for filling this station with advantage
to the society. With regard to his high claims to the
distinction, there can only be one opinion ; but unfortu¬
nately he lent himself to the petty cabals of a coterie
during his possession of the chair. His ill-concealed par¬
tiality for the aristocracy of birth over that from which
he alone drew his own rank, the aristocracy of talent; the
preposterous assumption in his own person, on some occa¬
sions, of a patrician haughtiness, and a neglect of the or¬
dinary courtesies of society, procured him many enemies;
and when he resigned the chair, he had become one of the
most unpopular presidents that had for years ruled the so¬
ciety.
In the year 1821-22, he continued to make some ex¬
periments on electro-magnetism, and electricity in vacuo,
but in his results he was anticipated by other observers ;
and in his memoir on electrical phenomena in vacuo, he
has not arrived at any definite conclusion, except that
electric light, and attractions and repulsions, may be ex¬
hibited in the most perfect vacuum we can form. In his
paper on the fluids contained in the cavities of natural
crystals, Davy showed that these cavities were filled with
fluids less dense than those under atmospheric pressure;
and he thence inferred that such crystals must have had
an igneous origin. In most of his experiments the fluid
seems to have been water; but in some later investiga¬
tions, particularly in those of Dr Brewster, the fluids in
crystals appear to be more varied in their nature.
In 1823 the interesting discovery by Mr Faraday, of
the condensation of certain gases by mechanical pressure,
induced Sir Humphry Davy to repeat the experiment;
and he succeeded, by heating them in strong sealed tubes,
to convert sulphurous acid and prussic acid gases into
liquids. His paper on this subject contains some rather
fanciful conjectures on the probable application of these
condensed gases as mechanical powers.
In the same year he investigated the cause of the rapid
decay of copper sheathing on ships. The subject was pro¬
posed by the admiralty to the president and council of
the Royal Society, and Sir Humphry undertook the in¬
vestigation of the cause, and its remedy. It occurred to
him, that as sea-water only acts on the copper when it is
in a positive state of electricity; if he could render it
slightly negative, it would be defended from the action of
sea-water. For this purpose he attached to plates of cop¬
per portions of iron or of zinc, and he had the satisfaction
of finding that they remained unchanged on immersion in
sea-water. He therefore communicated to government,
in January 1824, his discovery of a remedy for the defects
of copper sheathing; and immediate orders were given to
put his scheme into practice on a cutter, while models
were fitted up. and floated in sea-water at Somerset House.
These trials appeared so perfectly satisfactory, that im¬
mediately orders were issued to apply plates of iron, or
“ protectors" as they were called, to many ships belong¬
ing to the royal navy; and many merchant-men were fit¬
ted out with the same.
A short experience however showed, that though the
copper was protected from corrosion, an unlooked-for evil
of another kind speedily arose. The bottoms of the “ pro¬
tected” ships soon became extremely foul. The negative
state of the copper sheathing favoured the deposition of
the calcareous matter from sea-water, the growth of sea¬
weeds, and the adhesion of enormous lepades and balani
everywhere to the copper; so as most seriously to impede
the sailing of the ships. This was proved, not only in the
navy, but extensively in the merchant service in London,
Liverpool, and other sea-ports; so that in spite of the ridicu¬
lous attempts of a clique of the pretended friends of our phi¬
losopher at first to deny, and afterwards to conceal the facts,
orders were everywhere given to remove the protectors.
This was a severe mortification to Davy, whose temper it
appears greatly to have ruffled. He had read an elabo¬
rate memoir on the subject to the society in June 1825,
and the navy order for the discontinuance of the protec¬
tors followed in July. The infirm state of Sir Humphry’s
health probably increased his irritability; and much of what
has been placed to the mortification of unsuccessful exer¬
tion, and sensibility to ill-applied and unjust sarcasm on
this occasion, ought, in all probability, to be ascribed to the
approaches of disease, that was undermining the constitu¬
tion of the philosopher. In 1826 his health had visibly de¬
clined, and his friends began to perceive that he was with
difficulty able to indulge in his favourite sports of angling
and shooting. On returning to London from Somerset¬
shire he was unable to attend the anniversary dinner of
the Royal Society. In January 1827 he published his six
anniversary discourses on awarding the royal and Copley
medals. Early in 1827 he went abroad, and soon reach¬
ed Ravenna, where he seemed to derive some intermission
of his ailments, which he describes as arising “ from de¬
termination of blood to the brain; at last producing the
most alarming nervous symptoms, and threatening the
loss of power and life.” In the summer, to avoid the heats,
he removed to Salzburg, from which city he sent in his
resignation of the president’s chair of the Royal Society,
from a conviction of the necessity of mental and bodily re¬
pose. In the end of autumn he returned to England, and
removed to London in the winter, where he published his
Salmonia in the spring of 1828. This work, though infe¬
rior in interest to the delightful pages of Isaac Walton, in
imitation of which it is written, is vet an interesting per-
’ J ox
I ormance.
Shortly before Davy quitted England, he communicated
to the Royal Society his paper on Volcanoes, chiefly from
observations made on Vesuvius in 1820; in which he ad¬
vocates the idea that volcanic phenomena depend on the
oxidation of the bases of the alkalies and earths (an opinion
which was before maintained by Humboldt), while Davy
at the same time thinks that there are strong proofs, in
the increasing temperature as we descend in mines, of a
central fire.
D A X
Dawes 1° 1828 Sir Humphry Davy quitted his native country
|| for the last time, and spent the summer and autumn in
Dax. his favourite amusement of angling and in shooting near
Laybach. In the winter he descended into Italy, and fix¬
ed his residence at Rome, whence he sent his last commu¬
nication to the Royal Society, Remarks on the Electri¬
city of the Torpedo, which was written in Illyria in Octo¬
ber. The chief peculiarity of this paper is his finding
that the electricity of the torpedo has' no effect on the
most delicate galvanometer, which he ascribes to the tor¬
pedo’s influence being exerted, not in a continued stream,
but in instantaneous and successive shocks; an idea con¬
firmed by the same want of magnetic influence in mode¬
rate shocks from the Leyden phial.
Sir Humphry had suffered from a previous paralytic
attack; at Rome he had auother, which greatly alarmed
his friends, and made his wife and his brother hasten to
his assistance. They were soon with him ; and he having
become eager to quit Rome for Geneva, the party set out
by easy journeys for the latter place. On the 28th May
he slept at Chambery, and at three next afternoon arrived
at Geneva, dined heartily at four o’clock, and was unusu¬
ally cheerful. During the night an attack of apoplexy
came on, and he expired at three o’clock in the morning
of the 30th May 1829. His remains were deposited, with
all the honours which a public funeral could bestow, in the
State where he had breathed his last.
A posthumous work, entitled Consolations in Travel, or
the Last Days of a Philosopher, shows a high degree of
fancy, and an almost poetic inspiration; and, whether we
regard the matter or the manner, is an evident offspring
of a bold imagination.
We have sufficiently characterized the various produc¬
tions of this eminent man in our review of his life. We
have alluded to those little infirmities which mix them¬
selves with the aspirations of genius with no unfriendly in¬
tention. They are specks on its bright mirror, which they
do not obscure; but as every thing connected with such
a man belongs to history, they should not be passed over
in silence ; for while the example of his great qualities are
held up to animate the exertions of unfriended talent
struggling with obscurity, the consequences of his infirmi¬
ties may become valuable lessons to check the presump¬
tion of successful genius. (t. s. t.)
DAWES, Richard (1708—66), a classical scholar, best
knswn by his Miscellanea Critica, published in 1745, was
born at Market-Bosworth, Leicestershire, and educated at
the Charter-house School and at Emmanuel College, Cam¬
bridge, of which he became a fellow in 1731. His attempt
to translate Milton into Greek hexameters was unsuccessful,
although among English scholars he had deservedly a con¬
siderable reputation. He was a man of coarse manners and
violent antipathies, and a bitter enemy of Bentley. The
controversies between these twTo eminent men abundantly
prove that the odium criticum is scarcely less violent than
the odium theologicum.
DAWLISH, a watering-place in Devonshire, 12 miles
south from Exeter. The only building of importance is the
public baths, recently erected. Besides an ancient parish
church, it has three Dissenting chapels. Pop. (1851) 2671.
DAX, an arrondissement of the department of Landes,
in France. Area 905^ square miles, comprising 8 cantons
and 108 communes. Pop. 108,415.
Dax, Ax, or Ags (Aquce Tarbellicce), an ancient town
of France, department of Landes, capital of the above arron-
dissement, situated in a fertile plain on the left bank of the
Adour, 32 miles S.W. of Mont-de-Marsan. It is surrounded
by old walls flanked with towers, and has a cathedral, epis¬
copal palace, hall of justice, prison mineralogical museum,
agricultural society, &c. It possesses numerous thermal
medicinal springs. Manufactures—earthenware, pitch, oil,
VOL. VII.
D E A 673
thread, leather, &c.; and it has some trade in corn, wine, Day
brandy, and wood. Pop. 5238. Before the Roman con- ||
quest of Gaul, Dax was the capital of the Tarbellii. Dead Sea-
DAY. See Calendar, vi., p. 75; Astronomy, iv., p. 22.
DAYTON, a city, capital of Montgomery county, state
of Ohio, N. America, situated at the confluence of the Mad
and Miami rivers, 66 miles W.S.W. of Columbus. It is a
place of quite recent date. In the beginning of 1829 the
Miami Canal, between Cincinnati and Dayton, 60 miles in
length, was completed,—and from that date the prosperity
of the town commenced. Pop. (1850) 10,977. Dayton is
connected by railway with Cincinnati, Toledo, Xenia, &c.
A canal from the Mad river, four miles above the town, fur¬
nishes an important motive power to manufacturers and
others. It has extensive manufactures of railway carriages,
stoves, paper, linseed oil, and oilcake. There are two mar¬
ket-houses, and an elegant court-house.
DAZE, a term among English miners to designate any
glittering stone, particularly such as contain laminae of
mica.
DEACON (Siukovos, minister, servant), the name given
to the lowest grade of office-bearers in the Christian church.
From the appointment of the seven Hellenic deacons (Acts
vi.) we learn that their duty under the apostles was simply
to distribute alms from the public fund. In the early
church, however, they soon came to usurp higher functions.
I hey assisted the bishop and presbyter in the service of
the sanctuary; in the administration of the Eucharist they
handed the elements to the people ; they instructed the cate¬
chumens ; and in some cases baptized, and even exercised
the judicial power of the bishop over the inferior clergy.
In the Church of England, the form of ordaining deacons
declares that it is their office to assist the priest in the dis¬
tribution of the holy communion ; in which, agreeably to
the practice of the ancient church, they are confined to the
administering of the wine to the communicants. A deacon
in England is not capable of any ecclesiastical promotion, yet
he may officiate as a private chaplain, as curate to a bene-
ficed clergyman, or as lecturer to a parish church. He may
be ordained at twenty-three years of age, anno currente;
but it is expressly provided that the bishop shall not ordain
the same person a priest and deacon in the same day. In
Presbyterian churches, as in apostolic times, the deacons
have charge only of the pecuniary affairs of the congrega¬
tion. In the Roman Catholic Church it is the deacon’s
office to incense the officiating priest or prelate; to lay
the corporal on the altar; to receive the patten or cup
from the subdeacon, and present it to the person officiat¬
ing ; to incense the choir ; to receive the pix from the offi¬
ciating prelate, and carry it to the subdeacon ; and at the
pontifical mass, when the bishop gives the blessing, to put
the mitre on his head, and to take off the archbishop’s pall
and lay it on the altar.
Deacon, in Scotland, also denotes the president of an
incorporated trade.
DEACONESS,a female deacon, the name given to those
women in the Christian church who undertook for the fe¬
male portion of the church a duty similar to that discharged
by the deacons towards the male church members and cate¬
chumens. The remnant of such an order existed in the
Latin Church till the tenth or eleventh century ; and in the
Greek till the twelfth century.
DEAD-LIGH IS, ports or shutters to close in the cabin
windows of a ship in bad weather.
Dead-Reckoning, in Navigation, the estimation that is
made of the place where a ship is situated, without having
recourse to observation of the celestial bodies. It is made
by observing the distance she has run by the log, and the
course on which she has been steered, making allowance
for drift, lee-way, &c.
Dead Sea. See Asphaltites.
4 Q
674
DEAF AND DUMB.
Deaf and The education of those unfortunate persons, who, from
birth or early infancy, have been destitute of the sense of
hearing, and who are therefore precluded from receiving
instruction in the ordinary way, must obviously be attend¬
ed with peculiar difficulties. The senses being the only
inlets to knowledge, and one of the most important of
these inlets being closed, an extensive class of ideas and
of associations belonging to them is totally excluded from
their minds; and, as the principal medium of mental in¬
tercourse does not exist, we are obliged to resort to new
and less perfect channels of communication, and to em¬
ploy peculiar methods and artifices in imparting know¬
ledge. The invention and employment of means calcu¬
lated to attain these purposes constitutes a particular art,
having for its object the instruction of the deaf and dumb ;
an art which, though it has not hitherto been dignified by
any specific appellation, is so highly interesting in a mo¬
ral as well as philosophical point of view, that we conceive
it incumbent upon us to present our readers with some
account of the principles on which it is founded, and of
the methods which experience has shown to be the most
successful.
The proportion of children born deaf, and who must as
a necessary consequence remain mute, was formerly sup¬
posed to be much smaller than it really is; as appears
from the great number of cases which have presented
themselves to notice, since the formation of various esta¬
blishments for the express purpose of their instruction.
The celebrity which the Abbe de 1’Epee acquired at Pa-
. ris for his success in this art drew forth into view a mul¬
titude of persons of this description, much greater than
had ever before been suspected to exist. It was discover¬
ed that about two hundred deaf and dumb persons were
living in Paris alone; a number which, calculating from
the proportional population, would give above three thou¬
sand for the whole of France before the revolution. The
same apparent increase has been remarked in every town
where similar institutions have been formed; whence we
may conclude that this congenital defect is by no means
unfrequent.
It is scarcely necessary to observe, that the incapacity
of speech in such persons as are designated by the term
of deaf and dumb, results altogether from the want of
the sense of hearing, and not from any physical imperfec¬
tion in the organs of speech. Some fanciful writers, in¬
deed, have ascribed it to an alleged sympathy between
the organs of hearing and the organs of speech, by which
the disease or defect of the former is communicated to
the latter; but for this notion there does not appear to be
the slightest foundation. All who are deaf from birth
must necessarily be dumb; that is, they must be inca¬
pable of using language, the sound of which they have
never had the perception of, and which they consequently
could never attempt to imitate. From a strange inatten¬
tion to this circumstance, it was usual, even with parents
who noticed the slowness of their progress in comparison
with other children, to ascribe it to a natural imbecility of
intellect, which, they took it for granted, was equally ir¬
remediable with the organic defect from which it origi¬
nated, and effectually precluded all attempt at instruc¬
tion, and all hope of rendering them useful members of
society. Their minds were accordingly suffered to re¬
main without culture; they were abandoned to them¬
selves, degraded from the privileges of men, and exiled
from the community of rational beings. To such a cul¬
pable extent was this prejudice carried, that it has been Deaf and
the practice in some countries to destroy as monsters all Dumb,
children who remained at three years old incapable ofw'Y''“'
either hearing or speaking. In France the very birth of
such children was accounted a sort of disgrace to the fa¬
mily from which they sprung; and the duties of humanity
were deemed to extend no further in their behalf, than
to the maintenance of their animal existence, whilst they
were carefully secluded from the eyes of the world, either
within the walls of a convent, or in some hidden asylum
in the country. Abandoned thus early to their fate, and
regarded as little better than idiots, it is not surprising
that their future behaviour should have been such as
might seem to justify the narrow views which had prompt¬
ed this ungenerous treatment. All motives to exertion
being withheld, and all desire of improvement being re¬
pressed, the faculties soon languished, and became para¬
lysed, for want of proper objects on which they could be
exercised; and in time the man sunk to the condition of
the brute.
That the neglect and oblivion to which these wretched
outcasts of humanity were consigned, were founded on
very mistaken notions of their mental powers, has since
been fully proved by a great number of instances in which
the exertions of benevolent and persevering instructors to
convey to them knowledge of various kinds have been
crowned with the most signal success. Yet the enter¬
prise has still appeared one of the boldest and most ar¬
duous that could well be attempted, and every instance
of success excited much astonishment even in persons of
great knowledge and scientific attainments. So impressed
was Dr Johnson, for example, with the notion of its ex¬
traordinary difficulty, that he represents the education of
the deaf and dumb as a great philosophical curiosity. The
study of the means by which these effects are produced
must therefore be highly curious in itself, as throwing
light upon that science, which is interesting above all
others, namely, the science of the human mind. But it
has yet a higher claim to our attention, as being directed
to a purpose of great and immediate practical utility.
What object can be more worthy of praise, or more con¬
genial to a benevolent heart, than the redemption of a
kindred spirit from the degraded and forlorn condition to
which it appeared to have been doomed ? What occupa¬
tion can be more delightful in itself than to awaken the
dormant powers of the mind, to usher a new world to its
acquaintance, to furnish it with the instruments and ma¬
terials of thought, to open unbounded channels of inter¬
course with the living and the dead, to inspire the soul
with fresh powers as well as motives to exertion, and, by
supplying unlimited sources of intellectual and moral im¬
provement, to place within its reach the purest and most
elevated enjoyments of which our nature is susceptible?
Before entering into the detail of the particular me¬
thods adapted to convey instruction to the deaf and dumb,
it will be necessary to inquire more precisely what is the
general end we should propose to ourselves in their edu¬
cation, and what are the leading objects to which our en¬
deavours ought, in conformity with this end, to be direct¬
ed. And it appears to us, that the great and fundamen¬
tal object should be, to qualify our pupils to hold ready
communication with the rest of the world, that is, with
persons who, having the faculties of hearing and speech,
employ the current language of the country for purposes
of mutual intercourse. They must, above all things, be
DEAF AI
DtAf and taught the use of ordinary language, both as an instru-
Dumb. ment for expressing their own "thoughts, and for under-
standing those of others. This qualification, it is evident,
is absolutely essential to their becoming members of that
community from which, by nature, they would have been
excluded, and to which it is our chief aim to restore them :
it is essential to their deriving advantage from, or being
of any utility to that community, a reciprocation of inte^
rests in which consists the true value and dignity of hu¬
man nature. It is the only foundation on which they can
hereafter build any solid acquirement. Once masters of
language, they possess the key to all the sciences, and
have access to every species of human knowledge; and
their future progress will be proportional to their own di¬
ligence, and will be impeded by no obstacles except those
which their own exertions are competent to remove.
Language, or the ordinary medium of communication
between men, is either spoken or written. To enable the
deaf and dumb to speak, so as to be perfectly understood
by others, and to enable themselves to understand readily
what is said by persons speaking to them, is doubtless the
ultimate stage of perfection in the art which we are con¬
sidering, and would in fact be nearly equivalent to a re-
stoiation of the privileges which nature had refused them.
But whether we regard such perfection as attainable, and
as worth the pains requisite for success, or whether we
limit our views to more moderate qualifications, the know¬
ledge of wiitten language must still be an indispensable
preliminary in every system of education. Let us first,
therefore, direct our attention to the means of communi¬
cating to the deaf and dumb this fundamental acquisition.
For this purpose it will be necessary to have a clear view
of the real nature of the class of ideas we are proposing
to instil into the mind of our pupil, and of the real condi¬
tion of that mind by which they are to be received.
Speech, being the expression of ideas by oral sounds
formed into words, is by far the most ready and universal
mode of communication among mankind, and must there¬
fore have long preceded the invention of written language,
which has accordingly been formed upon the model of
speech. Writing, instead of being the direct sign of ideas,
as is the case with hieroglyphical characters, or, more pro¬
perly speaking, rude portraits of external objects, consists
of symbols of the particular sounds composing oral lan¬
guage. Written words are in fact the signs of other signs ;
the one set of signs being addressed to the ear, and the
other to the eye. The perceptions of hearing are inter¬
mediate links of association between the visible appear¬
ances of the written characters, and the ideas they are
intended to convey to the mind. This circumstance is the
source of the principal difficulties which stand in the way
of all instruction to one who is deaf and dumb, one in
whom these intermediate perceptions can have no exist¬
ence, whilst a very different process must be employed for
establishing in his mind a connection between ideas and
certain signs; because, for want of this step in the pro¬
cess, he is incompetent to trace any regular correspon¬
dence or appropriate adaptation of these signs to the ideas
they are designed to represent. To an ordinary child,
whose ear is already familiar with the name of an object
as spoken, and in whose mind the association of the sound
with the corresponding idea is firmly established, the
learning the use of the letters expressive of such sound is
a comparatively easy step in his education. The infant
lisping for the first time in broken and faultering accents
the endearing name of its parent and its nurse, has in fact
made a prodigious stride ; he has already entered into hu¬
man society, and has begun to participate in its blessings.
His stock of words daily increases; he feels the value of
his new acquisition; his ideas multiply; his powers are
^D DUMB. 675
developed. Pleasure animates his efforts, and attends Deaf and
every stage of his progress. To learn his native tongue Dumb,
is a sport; to repeat what he has learned is ever a fresh v—
source of delight. The mighty task is accomplished with¬
out any extraordinary interference on the part of the in¬
structor, or laborious effort on that of the pupil. Who
would dream of appointing a master to supersede nature
in teaching the infant to speak? In this act, as in that
of walking and running, the scholar of nature, where all
around unconsciously aid her in the work, will be found
the best proficient. Far different is the lot of that hap¬
less and solitary being, who, born without the sense of
hearing, is doomed to eternal silence, and is shut out from
the inspiring influence of social intercourse. Debarred
from the chief avenue to information at this early and cri¬
tical period of his intellectual growth, the blandishments
of |lis nurse, the caresses of his parents, the accents of
praise or blame, the cry of pain or pleasure, in vain salute
his ear. He is already but half a human being. Insu¬
lated from the main portion of the world, he must live
chiefly within himself; his untutored mind must be left to
its own slender resources in the acquisition of knowledge ;
and his progress must therefore be both slow and limited!
He is an eagle whose unfledged wings have been clipped,
and who stalks on the ground, unconscious that his inhe¬
ritance lies in another element.
So deeply rooted do the associations become, which
are thus established in our infancy, between ideas and
sounds, that we cannot easily perceive how much we have
owed to them, and how much of our subsequent acquisi¬
tions has been founded upon them; nor can we readily
place ourselves in the situation of a child bereft of these
advantages, so as to understand the nature and force of
the difficulties with which he has to contend in every step
°f his progress. We might suppose, if we had not at¬
tended to these considerations, that the whole business of
the tutor of the deaf and dumb would be to point out the
words to his pupil, while he, by some other means, commu¬
nicated to him the ideas of which they are the represen¬
tatives. It might be presumed that, by frequent repeti¬
tion of the same process, the pupil could not fail to learn
to connect the two together in his mind, and that he would
have no occasion to trouble himself with whatever sounds
the rest of the world might associate with these written
characters; sounds which, as to him they have no exist¬
ence, so neither do they anywise concern him ; and which
may be regarded but as useless stepping-stones in form¬
ing a communication which he is enabled to accomplish
at a single stride.
If such be the illusions into which a prejudice natural
to every one tends to betray us, a little reflection on the
laws by which associations between ideas are established
in the mind will be sufficient to dispel them. There is
manifestly a great difference in the comparative facility
with which ideas of different kinds become associated in
the mind; and since memory consists in the strength and
permanence of the associations, there is consequently a
great difference in the facility with which different kinds
of ideas become impressed and retained in the memory.
Some ideas unite immediately, as by a natural affinity,
and cannot afterwards be disjoined. In other cases the
connection is remote and difficult, and the ideas, like
giains of sand, lefuse to adhere together. Some inter¬
medium must be found, which may cement and conso¬
lidate their union. Some analogy or relation must con¬
nect eveiy new idea with a former idea already existing
in the mind, before it can become the subject of recol¬
lection. I he facility with which such connections can
be formed will depend much upon the number and va¬
riety of ideas already in store, as well as upon the ease
676 DEAF AN
Deaf and with which the successive transitions can be made from
Dumb, one to another. In casual and apparently arbitrary as-
sociations, there exist always a number of invisible links
that compose the chain of connection ; and the facility
with which these links can be formed uetermines the
readiness of the association. We recol ect a new name
that we see written, from its resemblance to some othei
name previously known ; but it is by means of the sound
which it would have when pronounced that this associa¬
tion is effected. lhat this is the case will soon become
apparent, when we reflect on the difficulty experienced in
retaining new and barbarous words, of which the pi enun¬
ciation is difficult or grating to the ear.. Ihat we leatn
them by the ear more than by the eye, is also shown by
the difficulty we should find in recollecting an arbitrary
combination of the same number of consonants, which
would of course not admit of being pronounced as a word.
We should in this case be driven to the expedient of in¬
terposing vowels, in order, as it were, to give them breath,
and transfer the task from the eye to the ear; although
it is evident that the addition of these vowels would in¬
crease the number of things to be remembered. All this
will appear in a still stronger light, if we impose upon our¬
selves the task of learning by heart a set of characters
equally familiar to us with the letters of the alphabet, but
which do not afford a similar resource, at least not in so
direct a manner. Let us, for instance, open a book of lo¬
garithmic tables, and try to learn a page or two by heart;
we shall soon be sufficiently convinced of the arduous na¬
ture of the undertaking. Just so it is with the deaf and
dumb. The printed letters of a book are to them so many
separate ciphers, distinguished indeed from each other
by their form, but having no perceptible medium of asso¬
ciation, and of which the apparently endless variety of
combination, like those of the figures of logarithms, are
sufficient to perplex the most sagacious observer, and
baffle the most retentive memory. To them all distinc¬
tions into vowels and consonants, into long and short syl¬
lables, all the varieties of metre, and all the harmony of
verse, have no existence; these belong to creatures of
another world, from which they are doomed to an eter¬
nal exclusion. No wonder, therefore, that their own un¬
tutored efforts should be utterly inadequate to give them
the remotest conception of the use of language ; and that
the records of history have never exhibited to us a single
instance of a person deaf from birth, or even having lost
the hearing at an early age, who has taught himself to
read or write a single word.
But the deaf and dumb child lies under the further dis¬
advantage of possessing a smaller stock of ideas to set out
with than other children. His faculties of observation
have been less called into play, and the sphere of their
operation has been more limited. The task of the in¬
structor is, in this instance, analogous to that of the agri¬
culturist who redeems a savage land, which the plough
has never loosened, and where the soil has not been fer¬
tilized by previous vegetation. He has to sow the first
seed it has yet received, and must watch with anxious so¬
licitude every stage of its growth and fructification. De¬
prived at the outset of the ordinary resources of commu¬
nication, what means are we to employ in order to awaken
the attention of our pupil, and how can we make him sen¬
sible of the object of our endeavours, and animate him to
those exertions which are necessary to their success, and
which habitual indolence have probably rendered difficult
and irksome ?
But resources yet remain; and art has triumphed over
all these obstacles, numerous and formidable as they may
appear. The deaf and dumb child has in truth still the
means of acquiring a large stock of ideas of a certain
D DUMB.
class, and has a certain range of expedients by which he Deaf and
communicates with others. When we read the exagge- Dumb,
rated statement which some authors have given of the
deficiencies of such children, we can easily discern the in¬
fluence of preconceived theory in distorting obvious facts,
and the false colouring which they have derived from a
vivid imagination. “ What,” says Sicard, “ is the condi¬
tion of the deaf and dumb child considered in himself,
and before any species of education has begun to establish
connections between him and the rest of his species, or
with that great family to which he appertains by his ex¬
ternal form ? He is a perfect nullity in that community ;
a living automaton; a statue like the one imagined by
Bonnet, and after him by Condillac; a statue in which
every sense in succession has yet to be unlocked, and di¬
rected to its proper objects, in order to supply the want
of that one of which he is so unhappily deprived. His ac¬
tions being limited to mere physical movements, prior to
the removal of the envelope which cramped and confined
his reason, he is not endued even with that instinct which
is allotted to the brutes, and which is their only guide.
He is therefore to be considered merely as a kind of walk¬
ing machine, of which the organization, with regard to the
effects that result from it, is inferior to that of animals.
To denominate him a savage, is to assign him a higher
rank than appertains to his miserable condition; for fie is
not even on a level with the savage, either in moral rela¬
tions, which, to a certain extent, exist among all savages,
or in means of intercourse with his fellow-creatures. With
regard to the latter, indeed, he is much inferior to the
savage, who can always communicate with others by lan¬
guage, however rude and inarticulate may be the sounds
which compose it. These sounds are the means of fixing
ideas in the mind, and afford the medium of comparison
among those ideas, whence result combinations, judg¬
ments, and reasonings. Being destitute of these means
of communication, and of these signs which fix and de¬
termine the power of recollection, all the impressions
he receives are transitory, and the images fugitive; no¬
thing remains in his mind to which he can refer what is
passing within him, and which can serve as a term of com¬
parison. His ideas can only consist of such as result from
direct impressions; none can be derived from reflection.
So that, being unable ever to combine two such ideas to¬
gether, for want of the signs by which they could be laid
hold of and retained, it is impossible for him to arrive at
even the simplest process of reasoning.” Condillac had
already advanced the same doctrine, and had even gone
the length of asserting that the deaf and dumb from birth
could have no power of memory, because they were de¬
prived of those artificial signs by which alone the associ¬
ations could be fixed and rendered permanent. He com¬
pares their minds to those of brute animals, and even be¬
lieves that they are equally incapable of carrying on any
train of reasoning.
But the results of observation are quite at variance with
these conclusions, derived from speculative reasoning. The
real education of the deaf and dumb child, like that of him
who is possessed of hearing, may be said to commence
from the period of its birth. Dr Watson judiciously ob¬
serves, that “ persons born deaf are in fact neither de¬
pressed below nor raised above the general scale of hu¬
man nature, as regards their dispositions and powers either
of body or mind. They are human beings, individually
differing from their kind only by an accidental defect.
This defect is not such as to disturb the course of nature
in the first stage of the growth of the mental faculties,
though, while it operates as a bar to the acquisition of lan¬
guage, it retards and almost precludes their expansion
after this stage.” The whole of the visible and tangible
DEAF AND DUMB.
677
3eaf and worlds are still open to them; hearing at so early an age
Dumb. can give them comparatively but little assistance in ac-
■''■V'"-'' quiring the knowledge of external objects; and it is al¬
ways some time before the discovery is made of their be¬
ing insensible to sound. Still their sensibility expands;
their affections are called into play ; their passions are ex¬
cited nearly as in other children, though the means may
be somewhat different. The visible marks of attention the
child receives from those around, their caresses, their
smiles, and their frowns, all make their corresponding im¬
pressions on its tender mind ; it lives in the looks of those
on whom it is dependent. Its whole attention being turn¬
ed to the study of these visible appearances, the only lan¬
guage which it has to learn, its proficiency in the interpre¬
tation of these appearances is comparatively greater. The
gestures of its parent it acknowledges by responsive gesti¬
culations, and expresses in this primitive language of na¬
ture all its feelings, conditions, and passions. Far from
being the living automaton delineated in the closet by
theorising metaphj'sicians, it differs but little in early in¬
fancy from other children ; and has even some advantages
in the superior quickness of the eye, in the more expres¬
sive play of the features, and in the more ready apprehen¬
sion of the slightest look or gesture it observes in others.
It is remarkable, indeed, that the defect of hearing is ge¬
nerally not discovered till at an advanced period. Though
the child remains mute, the real cause is not readily ac¬
knowledged. Doubts and fears may indeed be entertain¬
ed; but hope is kept alive by parental fondness, and in¬
spires a thousand excuses. A year or two thus slips away,
when it is gradually remarked, that when a want is to be
made known, or an approval or aversion expressed, it is
done by a motion of the hand, head, or countenance; and
in place of the loquacious and engaging prattle usual at
his age, there is silence, or only inarticulate sounds. At
times he is pensive and cheerless, no doubt feeling the
disappointments necessarily resulting from incapacity to
make himself fully understood by those about him, who,
possessing a more perfect medium of mental intercourse,
are too apt to be inattentive to the signs and gestures of
the little mute. Yet his mind, instead of presenting a
total blank, is in fact furnished with a multitude of ideas,
arranged indeed after his own peculiar method, but still
affording an extensive foundation for future attainments.
Already has he established a species of intercourse with
those around him, by the language of pantomime, derived
from nature, and improved by his own ingenuity. Already
does this simple language comprehend the use of nouns,
pronouns, verbs, and above all interjections, though he is
totally unconscious of the nature or existence of these
grammatical distinctions ; just as he has moved and jump¬
ed, without being aware that he was effecting these ac¬
tions by means of muscles and tendons, ligaments and
bones.
It is therefore in the study of this species of pantomime,
which is the native language of the deaf and dumb, that
the first duty of the instructor consists. He must, in truth,
begin by taking lessons from his pupil, and condescend to
learn his language, in order to qualify himself for teaching
him his own. He must study to familiarize himself with
this language, by frequent intercourse with his pupil, and
engage his affections by repeated offices of kindness. No
better preparation can be devised for the exercises which
are to follow, than this intercourse of the heart and inter¬
change of confidence. Curiosity, a principle of action in
which deaf and dumb children are generally by no means
deficient, and which the judicious tutor will be careful to
stimulate and sustain, will give him a strong hold in di¬
recting their exertions. On the other hand, they are very
apt to be discouraged by the consciousness of their own
inferiority, and are thrown into despondency at the idea Deaf and
of the immense interval which they feel must ever sepa- Dumb,
rate them from others. This feeling it is our duty to
soften as much as possible, by removing the occasions
which may give rise to it, and diverting the attention to
more cheering views of their own powers, and to the pros¬
pect of their advancement. Perhaps it is even better, in
many cases, that the truth should be in some degree dis¬
guised, and that they should be left, at least at first, in
ignorance of the extent of the disadvantages they labour
under. For this reason, we should not be disposed to adopt
the plan practised by the Abbe de 1’Epee, in order to ex¬
plain to them the nature and uses of that sense which
they do not inherit. The expedient which he hit upon
for this purpose may be briefly described. Having col¬
lected his pupils round a large tub full of water, which was
allowed to subside till perfectly at rest, he let fall into it
perpendicularly an ivory ball, directing their attention to
the undulations of the water, which struck against the
sides of the vessel. He then moved a hand-screen back¬
wards and forwards rapidly in a room, so as to put in mo¬
tion feathers, or other light bodies, floating in the air at
some distance; and explained to them that the room is as
full of air as the tub was of water, and that the air set in
motion strikes the sides of the room, as the waves did
those of the tub. He next took up a repeating watch,
and applying the fingers of his pupils to the hammer,
made them feel the rapid succession of strokes which it
produced. He now informed them that the ear of every
person contains an apparatus of the same kind; and that
the air, in its passage from the body which has set it in
motion, enters the ear and sets in motion the little ham¬
mer which is placed there. He gave his pupils to under¬
stand, that the reason why they do not hear is because
they have no such hammer in their ears, or because its
motions are impeded, or the part on which it strikes is
void of sensibility. “ Whenever,” says he, “ I have given i
this explanation, I have observed it to make very different
impressions on different individuals. Some expressed
great delight at having acquired the knowledge of what
hearing consisted in. Others became affected with pro¬
found melancholy on learning that either they were des¬
titute of so useful an instrument as this hammer, or that
the one they had could not be used. The first two girls
to whom this information had been imparted could not
conceal their ill-humour on finding that the house-cat and
the canary bird had each their little hammers in the ears,
while they themselves had none.”
The first and most important lesson to be taught to our
pupil is, that written words have a meaning, and suggest
to all persons of education the same definite idea. In
teaching him the meaning of words, we should follow as
much as possible the natural order in which they are ge¬
nerally acquired by those who have the sense of hearing.
The first and simplest kind of knowledge is that which
relates to the material world. We must commence, there¬
fore, by instructing him in the names of external objects,
beginning with those that are best known to him, and of-
tenest recur to his view. The name of an object of this
kind, such as hat, may be written in large letters on a
board; and the attention of the child being directed al¬
ternately to the name and to the object itself, which is to
be presented to it at the same time, he will gradually be
brought to understand that a certain relation exists be¬
tween them, though what that relation is, we are not to
expect that he will as yet be able to comprehend. The
idea of this relation w ill become more distinct when a si¬
milar process has been followed with regard to several
other names. Occasionally we may find it difficult to
convey by this means the least notion that the one is the
678 DEAF AND DUMB.
Deaf and sign of the other; the child being unable to conceive bow
Dumb, what appears to him to be an irregular collection of crook-
ed lines, bearing no resemblance in form to the object
pointed out in connection with them, can serve as its type.
Experience, derived from the observations we may lead
him to make, will, however, gradually teach him this les¬
son. Sufficient has been done to excite his attention; let
us now, in his presence, call upon other children, more ad¬
vanced in their education, to direct their eye upon these
mysterious characters, of which the immediate conse¬
quence will be their pointing to the object. I he effect
produced by the word will be observed by the attentive
pupil, and will make its due impression. Let three or
four words be written at the same time on the board, and
the corresponding objects placed on an adjoining table.
On each of these words being pointed out to the advanced
child, he will bring the proper article from the table. We
shall now have an opportunity of ascertaining how far the
proceeding has been understood by the younger pupil, by
repeating the experiment on himself. If he lay hold of
the proper object, it is clear that our meaning has been
understood, and that the first step, the most difficult of
all, has been accomplished.
Care must all this while be taken that our pupil impute
not to any circumstance or quality in the words shown to
him, different from that of their form, the significancy
which he finds them to possess. We must show him, for
instance, that their particular situation on the board is not
the circumstance from which it derives its meaning. This
we can do by changing the order of the words, or by writ¬
ing them on paper, and in different modes, preserving al¬
ways the same precise form of the letters. It is evident
that in these preliminary exercises we should give the
preference to very short words, such as box, pen, shoe,
cap, ring, and the like. The association between the name
and the object should be strengthened by frequent repeti¬
tion, and also by occasionally varying the mode of im¬
pressing it. The process we have just described, for in¬
stance, should sometimes be reversed, the child being re¬
quired to point out the name when the object is shown to
him. In fact, we should neglect no means of assuring
ourselves that we are fully and perfectly understood, and
that the associations we are labouring to establish are
firmly rivetted in his mind.
We are, however, by no means to trust to a single asso¬
ciating principle in establishing these essential connec¬
tions; we should multiply as much as possible the liga¬
ments which compose the union. The child, while learn¬
ing written words, should be made to copy them himself,
so that, by dwelling upon their forms sufficiently, they
may make an indelible impression on his mind. We should
from time to time show him the objects, and require him
to write their names himself. In these preliminary lessons
it is obvious that much assistance may occasionally be de¬
rived from drawings of the objects we may wish to point
out, but which may not be immediately at hand. The
Abbe Sicard has availed himself, with much ingenuity, of
this mode of denoting objects as an introduction to the
use of written words.
He begins, for instance, by tracing the outline of a fa¬
miliar object, such as a key, on a black board, with a chalk
pencil; and placing the object itself before the eye of his
pupil, he will readily understand the resemblance of the
design with what it is meant to represent. He does the
same with other objects, and exercises his pupil in point¬
ing out the objects denoted by each drawing, which of
course is to him a mere amusement. He next writes the
name of each object within the outline of the figure on
the board, and, after effacing the outlines, so that nothing
but the words remain, signifies to the pupil that he is still
to consider what he now sees as the representation of the Deaf and
drawing, that is, of the object denoted by the drawing. r>i>mh.
These methods, which are susceptible of variation accord-
ing to circumstances and the ingenuity of the instructor,
are to be understood as applicable only to the early les¬
sons ; for, after the pupil has once thoroughly understood
the value and use of words, all the drawings on the slate
should be laid aside, and the more useful medium of writ¬
ten language should be exclusively resorted to.
With regard to the choice of objects, of which the names
may compose the first lessons, we should select those to
begin with which are of immediate interest and utility,
such as the different parts of the body, articles of dress
and of furniture, and common instruments in most fre¬
quent use. We should see that every thing that is learn¬
ed is learned perfectly, by frequently going over the same
lesson, so that they may all be deeply engraven on the
memory. We must recollect that repetition is the prin¬
cipal means of impressing the memory; and this is the
more necessary in the case of the deaf and dumb, as a
principal barrier to their acquisition of language consists
in their having few means of reviewing words and phrases
but by direct instruction or prescribed study.
But our pupil is not always confined to his apartment;
and he can hardly take a step beyond its threshold with¬
out meeting with something that he knows very well by
sight, and of which it will be useful to him to know the
name. We cannot remove it into our school-room, to
teach him its name there; nor can we very conveniently
carry our writing tablets with us on all occasions. En¬
gravings of such objects will, however, readily supply us
with the means of extending our instructions to them
also, and, by furnishing us in small compass with the lines
that bound their visible appearances in perspective order,
will enable us to preserve the remembrance of them, and
to keep them in readiness for every purpose. Association
will at once recall to our minds the properties that mani¬
fest themselves to our other senses, and enable us to
read and interpret this picture-language as we would any
other collection of artificial signs. A vocabulary, on the
plan originally recommended by Locke, consisting of
“ those words standing for things which are known and
distinguished by their outward shapes, accompanied by
draughts and prints,” will therefore be of great utility,
and shorten the labour both of the teacher and learner.
For this express purpose, Dr Watson has had a set of
plates engraved, containing delineations of objects most
generally met with and commonly known. These engrav¬
ings are annexed to his book of Instruction of the Deaf and
Dumb, and represent above six hundred different objects,
being comprised in eighty octavo pages. They are ac¬
companied by a printed vocabulary, consisting of the names
of all the objects thus represented, as also of most of the
words explained in the earlier lessons, before the engrav¬
ings are had recourse to. The first time of going through
this vocabulary, the heads or generic names under which the
objects are classed are not regarded; but, in a subsequent
revision, these are particularly attended to, and their rela¬
tions to the subordinate specific names are fully explained.
The analysis of words into letters is the next step of
importance in the early education of the deaf and dumb.
It should follow almost immediately upon their complete
comprehension of the use of words. They should be
shown, as soon as they have learned a small stock of
words, that these words are formed from a certain limited
number of characters, or letters of the alphabet. Various
modes of familiarizing them with this knowledge may be
adopted. One of the most simple is, to have each letter
written on a small piece of card, of which a number, dis¬
posed in parcels, and arranged in proper order, may be
DEAF AT
)eaf and contained in a box. After making the child observe a
Dumb, written word that he already knows, we should point out
to him the first letter, and take out the same letter
from the box; then indicating to him the next, we may
conduct his hand to the proper letter in the box, and
continue this operation till the word is completed. He
will soon reject our assistance, and seek the letters for
himself. By practising a little in this way, he will
very soon have learned the alphabet, and will understand
its use, and will be able, of his own accord, to compose
known words with the letters thus furnished him. He
must all this time be diligently exercised in writing, so
as to acquire facility in forming and joining letters in a
running hand.. He must be taught the various forms of
letters, according to the different ways in which they are
used, and the purposes to which they are applied. The
capital, small, and double letters, both in the Roman and
Italic types, must be perfectly learned, by frequent and
daily piactice. Writing being an operation to which deaf¬
ness offers no impediment, nothing particular need be said
respecting the method of teaching it. It is proper, how¬
ever, to remark, that it cannot be taught too early, as,
agreeably to the observations formerly made, every varia¬
tion in the mode of exercising the attention to any set of
objects is of material assistance to the memory of those
objects.
It will also be advantageous to instruct our pupil, as
soon as he is familiar with the use of letters, in another
mode of visible communication, very easy to be acquired,
namely, by the manual alphabet, as it is called; that is,
the expression of letters by different positions of the fin¬
gers. This art is valuable on many accounts ; in the first
place, as being a very quick and ready means of commu¬
nication ; and, secondly, as it is a method verv generally
undei stood and practised by other persons besides the deaf
and dumb. This art of talking with the fingers is com¬
monly leai ned at school, and is easily retained, or recovered
if lost. It furnishes a substitute for the pencil, or pen and
ink, when the materials for writing are not at hand. The
deaf and dumb, when properly instructed, can converse
with the utmost rapidity by this method; habit enables
them to follow with the eye motions which, to others,
would be too rapid for observation; they readily catch at
the meaning of a word or question before it is half spelt.
In the common methods of indicating letters by the
fingers, both hands are employed. Some persons have
thought it would be attended with advantages, in point
of convenience, to contrive a manual alphabet that would
require the use of one hand only. Periere claims the in¬
vention of this method, to which he has given the pom¬
pous name of Dactylology^ a term which the Abbe de
1’Epee proposes to change to Dactylolaly. It appears,
from a book published near two centuries ago, in which
are engravings of different positions of the fingers of one
hand, representing the several letters, that this method was
well known at. that time in Spain. Sicard, in his Cours
d Instruction d un Sourd-Muet de Naissance, has given a
plate of the manual alphabet employed in this institution.
It would appear, however, to be a considerable objection
to this single-handed alphabet, that it is not in general use
among other persons, so that it cannot assist the deaf and
dumb beyond the precincts of his school. These alpha¬
bets are, however, so easily acquired, that it must always
be worth while for him to learn them both.
There is yet another mode of visible intercourse, still
quicker in its operation than the former, and which it may
occasionally be very convenient to employ. It is that of
indicating the forms of the letters by the point of the fin¬
ger moved in the air, constituting, as it were, an aerial
writing, which, by a little use, is quickly followed with the
J D D U M B. 679
eye. It must be recollected that, to a spectator who Deaf and
stands before us, the writing would appear reversed if Dumb,
traced in the ordinary manner. This must be remedied
by the letters being written in a reversed form, a method
which may be readily acquired by practising before a look¬
ing-glass. If the person to whom we addressed ourselves
were behind us, there would evidently be no necessity for
this artifice, since the motions of the fingers would be seen
by him in the same aspect as by ourselves. By means
somewhat similar, namely, by tracing the letters with the
finger on any part of the body, such as the hand or the
back of the person with whom we wish to communicate,
we may easily converse with him in the dark, a situation
in which the deaf are peculiarly helpless.
Having proceeded thus far in our instructions, having
taught our pupil the use and conventional meaning of
words, having familiarized him by the various modes of
writing and reading, with their visible appearances, and
put him in possession of a copious vocabulary of the names
of objects of common occurrence, we may be considered
as having achieved the most difficult, and, certainly, the
most important part of our task. TLhere yet, however, re¬
mains much to be done. Substantives are all that he at
present knows; but the expression of thought and passion,
the affirmation or denial of the relations between ideas,
demand words of another class, or, as they are called,
other parts of speech. The most natural order of pro¬
ceeding would seem to be that of teaching him next the
use of adjectives, and the relation in which they stand
to substantives. A few examples of adjectives, denoting
sensible properties of objects, such as those of colour and
form, connected with substances that possess these pro¬
perties, will very soon give them this knowledge, and en¬
able them to apply these adjectives properly. The mean¬
ing of pronouns and of verbs are next to be pointed out,
with their various modifications of person, number, and
tense. All this should, in our opinion, be taught wholly
by examples; for which purpose, short and simple senten¬
ces should be selected, of which the meaning may readi¬
ly be conveyed by the assistance of pantomimic language,
and will soon be collected by the pupil himself, whose sa¬
gacity in observing the occasions on which such expres¬
sions are employed will lead him to the discovery by a
natural process of induction.
A method proceeding on a diametricall}'- opposite prin¬
ciple has been adopted by teachers of the first eminence
on the Continent, who insist upon the necessity of teach¬
ing the deaf and dumb all the parts of speech, one after
another, with critical and philological precision, and in
exact conformity with the order of the analysis of the
different classes of words. They appear to forget that, in
the case of ordinary children, nature pursues a very differ¬
ent course. These learn their native language in a short
period, without all the technical apparatus of the peda¬
gogue. The study of the rules of grammar is more espe¬
cially useful in teaching a new language to a person who
is already conversant with his own. The business of the
teacher is here, indeed, reduced chiefly to that of transla¬
tion ; whilst the substance is the same, it is the form only
that is varied. Dr Watson is decidedly of opinion that,
naming perceptions as they arise, without regard to meta¬
physical or grammatical distinctions, is the only sure and
direct road to the acquisition of a language by those who
have only the natural language of gesture and feature to
assist them in acquiring it. For let it be strictly borne in
mind, that the analogy between the natural deaf and those
who hear, in learning a language, holds only with respect
to the first language, or the mother tongue. There can be
very little in common with them, in the learning of a fo¬
reign or dead language, by the latter; for in this case the
680
DEAF AND DUMB.
Deaf and mother tongue always serves to explain the terms of the
Dumb. ^ language to be acquired, an advantage of which the deaf
an[i dumb are totally deprived; and yet, if we compare
the progress they make with that generally made by young
scholars in what are termed the learned languages, in the
same length of time, we shall, for the most part, have rea¬
son to draw a conclusion in favour of the plan of following
nature in teaching a language. It should not, however,
be forgotten, that, fairly to estimate the attainments of a
deaf scholar, he should rather be compared, though sub¬
ject to great disadvantages, to a child of an age equal to
the length of time he has been under tuition, than to a
youth having all his faculties who has been long at school.
Whilst proceeding through the vocabulary of substan¬
tives, we are recommended by the same judicious author,
in order to give variety to the lessons, to teach the pro¬
nouns, personal and demonstrative, &c. at suitable inter¬
vals, always making the learner write- the words with his
own hand. Then the verbs to be, to have, and the other
auxiliaries, are to be learned or varied according to third
persons, joined to nominative cases, as, I am, he has, &c.
The meaning of all these is learned by application in
examples. When he says I, he points to himself; when
he says you, he points to the person teaching him ; he, to
a third person, &c. Nothing is more obvious to the eye
than number as a property of things; we, therefore, easily
learn to count one, two, three, &c.
These preliminaries being settled, we proceed to the con¬
struction of short sentences, without learning the rules of
syntax. Thus, for instance, we may say, this is my pen, that
is your pen, that is his pen, these are our pens, &c. I have
one body, I have two hands, &c. showing the meaning by
pointing out the objects and their relations already per¬
ceived by and familiar to the learner, though he could not
express them. By way of practice, he is taught to change
the substantive, till he can himself give examples, and
rightly apply all the words in such sentences, which, in
general, he is not a little proud to do. Examples might
be multiplied indefinitely in the application of each of the
parts of speech, but enough have already been shown in
illustration of the general principle of the process. In all
cases, examples should be furnished to the learner till the
effect intended be produced on his mind; that is, till it
appears by examples given by himself that he rightly ap¬
plies the word intended to be illustrated. These exercises
should be introduced as reliefs to the less amusing, but, in
the first instance, more important business of learning the
vocabulary.
The system of instruction we have already alluded to,
as opposed to the simple process now detailed, is founded
upon the employment of a peculiar medium of communi¬
cation between the teacher and his pupils. This medium,
totally different and independent of ordinary language, is
formed by a set of artificial signs for the expression of
ideas, consisting, not of words, but of certain gestures
assumed by convention as the representative of those ideas.
Ihese signs may, indeed, be considered as being virtually
words, though wearing a different form. They in fact per¬
form to the deaf all the functions of words, since every
word in the language is represented in this system by its
peculiar and appropriate gesture. In instructing the deaf
and dumb according to this method, care is taken that, on
their learning the meaning of any written word, the parti¬
cular gesticulation appropriated to it shall be learned in
conjunction with the word. The Abbe de 1’Epee, the ori¬
ginal inventor of this ingenious system, which was adopted
and extended by his successor the Abbe Sicard, gives the fol¬
lowing account of the circumstances which first turned his
attention to the subject, and paved the way to the inven¬
tion.
Two sisters, both deaf and dumb, resided at Paris in a ueat and
street opposite to the society entitled Les Peres de la Dumb.
Chretienne. Father Fanin, one of the associates of that
community, had attempted, but in a way not sufficiently
methodical, to supply the deficiencies of instruction to
which the loss of the faculties of hearing and of speech
had subjected them ; but he was unfortunately carried off
by a premature death before his labour had rewarded him
with any degree of success. The two sisters, as well as
their mother, were inconsolable for the loss they bad suf¬
fered, when a fortunate accident introduced to them a
person eminently qualified to fill the place of him they
mourned for. The Abbe de 1’Epee had occasion to call at
their house. The mother was out, and while he was wait¬
ing her return, he put some questions to the young ladies ;
but their eyes remained fixed on their work, and they gave
no answer. In vain did he renew his questions ; they were
still silent. Not suspecting that the ears of those whom
he was addressing were closed to all earthly sound, he was
lost in conjecture at the insensibility they manifested,
when the mother arrived, and the mystery was resolved.
So strong was the impression produced by this incident,
that his thoughts were, from that moment, bent upon de¬
vising means of restoring to those unhappy young women
the faculties of speech, and the means of intellectual in¬
tercourse. After meditating long on the subject, it oc¬
curred to him that every language is but an assemblage
of signs, in the same manner as a series of drawings is a
collection of figures, the representations of a multitude of
objects. Gestures are also signs ; and we may figure every
thing by gestures, as we paint every thing by colours, or
express every thing by words. Every object has a form,
and every form is capable of being imitated. Actions
strike our sight, and we are competent to delineate and
describe them accurately by imitative gestures alone.
Words are but conventional signs. Why should not ges¬
tures serve the very same purposes ? Why may there not
be framed a language of gestures as there has been a lan¬
guage of words ?
Full of these impressions, the abbe was not long with¬
out revisiting the family who had inspired him with so
much interest; it is easy to imagine the joy his presence
gave them. He was eager to try the success of his new¬
ly invented imitative art. He began his drawings, his
gesticulations, his writings, conceiving he had but to teach
a new language; while, in lact, he had first to form minds
wholly uncultivated. Severe were the toils and the diffi¬
culties, and bitter the disappointments, he had to encoun¬
ter in these first essays. He showed his pupils merely
letters, which he taught them to imitate; but nothing
like ideas could in this way ever reach their minds; the
act of imitation had been purely mechanical. Even when
the objects themselves, denoted by words, were pointed
out, still no conception of the relation in which they stood
to each other was formed; for written words were not
images. It was not enough that the abbe had invented ges¬
tures to correspond with every word in the language; the
necessary medium of communication was still wanting; he
had no fulcrum for his apparatus to rest upon; and he
was moving in a world placed beyond the narrow sphere
of their conceptions. He was striving to teach a foreign
language by a grammar written in that very language,
without reflecting that an idiom, the words and the syn¬
tax of which are alike unknown, cannot be taught but by
the aid of a dialect with which it is capable of being com¬
pared. No such comparative grammar exists for those
whose ideas are limited to what may be suggested by
transient sensations, resulting from instinctive wants. In
leading his pupils to write words as signs, he was endea¬
vouring to lead them to what they did not know, by set-
DEAF AND DUMB.
Deaf and ting out from what was equally unknown. He succeeded,
it is true, in enabling them to transcribe whole pages of
the most abstiact disquisitions by the intermedium of •ves¬
tures,• but these gestures, which they had mechanically
associated with certain characters, conveyed to them no
notions of the real signification of those characters ; for,
as in every language words are but conventional signs, it
is clear that, before their meaning could have been agreed
upon, theie must have existed some prior language mu¬
tually understood by the parties making the agreement.
Notwithstanding the radical and glaring defects of De
1 Epee s method, which must have precluded it from ever
being of the slightest utility to those who followed it, the
ostentatious display ot that kind of success he obtained,
and which was of a nature particularly calculated to im¬
pose upon a superficial observer, excited the astonishment
and applause of a host of spectators ; and being seconded
by the impulse of his religious zeal and beneficent cha¬
rity, it soon raised him to a high degree of reputation. His
fame spread itself all over Europe, and his lectures and
exhibitions attracted everywhere crowds of enthusiastic
admirers. There were not wanting persons, however, who
saw through the delusion. At a public exhibition of the
pupils of the Abbe Storck, who were taught according to
this method at Vienna, Mr Nicolai, an academician of
Berlin, proposed to the abbe to require one of his pupils
to describe in writing the action he was about to perform.
The challenge being accepted, the academician struck his
breast with bis hand, upon which the deaf and dumb boy
immediately wrote the words, hand, breast. Mr Nicolai
withdrew, satisfied with this proof of total failure. It was
evident that, notwithstanding all this parade of learning,
and their quickness in writing down any question, toge¬
ther with its answer, both had been equally dictated by
their master, in the same language of gesture, but with¬
out any corresponding ideas, or the exertion of any intel¬
lectual faculty, except that of memory. They were ut¬
terly incapable of composing a single sentence of their
own accord; and it was found, accordingly, that their
spontaneous answers to the questions asked them were
limited to the monosyllables yes and no, of which it is
even doubtful whether they fully understood the mean¬
ing. It is more easy to conceive than to describe the dis¬
appointment which the parents must have felt at the dis¬
covery of the real ignorance of their children after so
many years of instruction, and after the brilliant manner
in which they acquitted themselves in their public pro¬
bations. The secret is, indeed, betrayed in some letters
of the Abbe de 1’Epee, published by Sicard, in a note to
the work already referred to, in which he avows that his
views of education were limited to the mechanical quali¬
fications necessary to enable his pupils to perform their
parts in a public exhibition, namely, that of writing words
upon certain gestures being made to them, without the
least intelligence of their import, and of course without
the power of employing these words, either as instruments
of thought, or as vehicles of meaning.
The Abbe Sicard, who had been for some time the assist¬
ant, and was afterwards the successor, of De 1’Epee, whilst
he retained the system of artificial signs contrived by the
latter, soon discovered that the intellectual education of
his pupils should be the chief object of his efforts, and, in
the pursuit of this object, struck out for himself a new
path. An opportunity soon occurred for the develop¬
ment of his plan, by his appointment as teacher to a school
which had been recently established at Bordeaux, fly the
Archbishop M. Champion de Cice; and among the first
pupils presented to him for admission, was a boy and his
sister, belonging to a numerous and indigent family, of
whom five were deaf and dumb. They lived in an ob-
vol. vn.
681
scure cottage in a remote part of the country; and the Deaf and
sole occupation of John Massieu, the name of the boy, Dumb,
had been to tend his father’s flock of sheep, amidst heaths
and forests ; and whatever habits he had contracted were
those of a savage life. On being brought to Bordeaux,
for the purpose, as he thought, of looking after other
flocks, his astonishment and alarm at the new objects he
beheld were extreme. His suspicions were awakened by
every look directed towards him, and he shrunk from all
intercourse with those who sought his confidence. His
dull and vacant countenance, his timid and embarrassed
air, his frigid and sullen reserve, all denoted a being un¬
susceptible of education. By judicious management, the
prospect brightened; his faculties were developed ; his
intellectual powers were gradually excited and exercised ;
his capacity for receiving instruction expanded, and he
made rapid strides in the acquisition of every kind of
knowledge. He is at present distinguished by his intel¬
ligence, acuteness, and general information ; and is not
only conversant with literature, but expresses himself with
facility, clearness, and elegance. Sicard has detailed in
his work the several steps of his instruction, as a model
of his general method ; of which, however, after what has
been already said, only a short notice will be sufficient.
The object of his first lessons is to teach his pupil the
relation between the names of objects and the objects
themselves ; the analysis of words into the letters of the
alphabet; and the particular gesture which he is to attach
to each wTord as its distinctive sign. He then explains the
meaning of collective words, as distinguished from those
denoting individual objects or parts of objects. Thence
he proceeds to general terms, applicable in common to a
number of individuals, and to generic names comprehend¬
ing a number of species; and, lastly, ascends to the most
general and abstract words, such as being, thing, object.
I he qualities which are expressions of the accidents, va¬
riations, and modifications of objects, and are denoted by
adjectives, are next taught. He endeavours to make his
pupil conceive these qualities, in the first place, as inhe¬
rent in the objects themselves, and next as being capable
of being detached, by a mental operation, from such ob¬
jects, though, in fact, they have no existence but as unit¬
ed with them. We shall here give a specimen of the con¬
trivances he had recourse to in assisting his pupils to un¬
derstand such abstract conceptions. Taking seven pieces
of paper, each white on one side, and coloured on the
other with one of the primitive colours, he places them on
a table, before a black board, with their white sides up¬
permost. He then writes the word PAPER on the board,
leaving sufficient intervals between the letters for the in¬
sertion of other letters. Then turning the sheet painted
blue, so that the coloured side is now uppermost, he writes
the word blue between the letters of the former word,
but in smaller characters, thus,
PbAlPuEeR.
The same thing is done successively with regard to the
other sheets of paper, inserting the name of its respective
colour between the letters of the word PAPER, which is
repeated for that purpose. This being finished, the blue
sheet is again turned down, so that its white side is pre¬
sented ; upon which the smaller letters, composing the
word blue, are effaced, while the other letters, P, A, P, E, R,
are allowed to remain. By this process the pupil is taught
to consider the quality as part of the object, or as inhe¬
rent in it. In like manner, he proceeds with other adjec¬
tives, such as round, square, and the like, expressing the
form of objects; writing them in the intervals of the let¬
ters composing the name of the respective objects; effa¬
cing them, and substituting others, according as the form
of the object is varied.
4 R
J
682
DEAF AND DUMB.
Deaf and
Dumb.
In order to lead his pupil to form the abstraction of the
quality thus expressed, that is, to the use of the adjective
as a separate word ready to be applied to different sub¬
stantives, he employs the following diagram, the different
lines of which he traces before his eyes, in order to point
out the steps by which he is to arrive at this abstraction.
PbAlPuEeR
P • A
P • A
E
E
R
R
BLUE
The two words, thus obtained separate, he afterwards
unites by a connecting line, thus,
PAPER — BLUE.
The next step, in order to form this into a complete
sentence, is to insert the word is, instead of the line; of
which line it may accordingly be regarded as the substi¬
tute and representation.
PAPER is BLUE.
By thus making his pupils understand the nature of a
verb, and afterwards teaching them that the verb can ex¬
press either an existence or an action, past, present, or fu¬
ture, he leads them to the system of conjugation, and to
all the shades of tenses adopted in various languages.
'I he various significations and inflections of pronouns, with
the couesponding affections ot verbs, in regard to number
and person, are conveyed to the minds of the deaf and
dumb, by contrivances very analogous to the preceding,
and which need not be dwelt upon, after the example
aheady given. They proceed upon the general principle
of connecting together by lines the words, denoting the
ideas, which are the component parts of other ideas, so as
to express their union ; and writing in the place where
the lines unite, or, in place of the other words in a similar
diagiam, the name of the compound idea. Another part of
Sicard s system is the employment of a system of ciphers,
written on the top of every word or member of a sentence,
according to the office it performs in that sentence ; by
the help of which his pupils are better enabled to analyze
it into its essential parts, distinguishing the name of the ob¬
ject which is either acting or receiving an action, the verb
and its regimen, direct, indirect, or circumstantial, and
thus comprehending and displaying every part of speech.
ms he instructs his pupils in the science of universal
grammar, applicable to the primitive expressions of signs,
as well as to all spoken and written languages.
Of the system of artificial signs, which is represented
by teicard as the essential groundwork of all this know¬
ledge, and as the principle means of imparting it, there is
much room to doubt the practical advantage. To the
praise of ingenuity its author has certainly a claim; but
it can scarcely be regarded as any approach to a philo-
sop uca anguage, being as much founded in metaphor
and distant analogies as any existing language. With
speech it cannot bear any comparison in point of quick¬
ness, for the modulations of the voice are capable of being
executed with a rapidity far exceeding that of gestures,
ihere is, besides, hardly any mode of fixing the idea of a
gesture by some visible type, as there is that of sound by
writing, which serves at all times to renew the impression
with perfect correctness. Hence the difficulty of forming Deaf and
a vocabulary of gestures, even to those already in pos- Dumb,
session of the use of written language, of which we must,
of course, suppose our pupils ignorant. These gestures,
it is pretended, are engrafted on the natural language of
pantomime; but this natural language can carry us but a
very little way in the expression of thought. Every ac¬
tion, the visible part of which can be imitated by gesture,
admits easily of being so expressed; as the action of eat¬
ing^ by lifting the hand to the mouth, followed by the
motion of the jaws; and of sleeping, by closing the eyes
and reclining the head. The expression of different pas¬
sions, of approbation or disapprobation, of surprise, of in¬
quiry, &c. may all be signified very intelligibly by modifi¬
cations of the countenance. It is in this simple manner, ob¬
serves Dr Watson, that two or more deaf and dumb per¬
sons are enabled to hold instant converse with each other,
though brought together for the first time from the most
distant parts. Thus far these signs may be termed natu¬
ral; but the naturally deaf do not stop here with this
language of pantomime. When they are fortunate enough
to meet with attentive companions, especially where two
or more deaf persons happen to be brought up together,
it is astonishing what approaches they will make towards
the construction of an artificial language. By an arbi¬
trary sign, fixed by common consent, or accidentally hit
upon, they will designate a person or a thing, and only
that particular person or thing, by this sign, which is ever
after used by them as a proper name. It is remarkable,
that, although in the first instances of inventing or apply¬
ing these sign-names, if they may be so called, they are
guided by some prominent, but perhaps by no means
permanently distinguishing mark; such as, in the case of a
person, a particular article of dress being wrorn, the first
time of becoming acquainted, an accidental wound, though
it leave no scar, a peculiarity of manner, and the like;
yet, after having fixed upon it, they never vary, notwith¬
standing the peculiarity that guided their choice should
have long ceased to be observable in the person of the in¬
dividual they have so designated. Nor will they fix upon
the same sign for another of their acquaintance, though,
at the time of first meeting him, he may have the same
mark about him which they had used to specify a former
person. This fully proves that they regard the sign mere¬
ly as a proper name; and they receive it as such from
one another, without inquiry as to its origin. Thus, sup¬
posing a person, the first time he should be particularly
taken notice of by one who is deaf and dumb, had acci¬
dentally cut his face, and wore a patch, it is a hundred to
one that this would, from henceforward, be his distin¬
guishing mark, unless some one else of the deaf person’s
acquaintance had already been so distinguished. The
wround might be cured, and the patch removed; but
the deaf person would uniformly put the end of his finger
to the part of the face where the patch had been worn,
when he wanted to point him out. And lest those to
whom he might be desirous of afterwards communicating
something concerning this person should not comprehend
him, he will not fail to introduce him to them by repeat¬
edly pointing to him, and then to the mark by which he
means to describe him, till he thinks he has sufficiently
engaged their attention. By similar contrivances, places
and things, as well as persons, nay, even qualities and cir¬
cumstances, are distinguished by the deaf, in an astonish¬
ing j^anner. To attempt in words a description of those
signs1 would be endless, because they are various as the
fancies and circumstances of their inventors. Yet being
grafted on the parent stock of natural and universal signs,
they may in some measure be regarded as different dia¬
lects of the same language.
DEAF AND DUMB.
)eaf and
Dumb.
Hence every one who undertakes the arduous task of
teaching' the deaf and dumb, should sedulously turn his
attention to the study of that language termed natural,
where it consists of gesture and feature, in order to ena¬
ble him to compiehend, as far as possible, the signs of his
scholai s, which at first more or less differ from one another,
as they more or less resemble those signs universally in¬
telligible. Of how much importance it is to the teacher
to understand these signs, will readily be apprehended, if
any one will attempt either to teach or learn a language,
without having another common to master and scholar.
But never let any thing so chimerical be thought of as an
attempt to turn master to the deaf and dumb in the art
of forming signs. What should we expect from an Euro¬
pean who should undertake to teach his own regular, co¬
pious, and polished language to a South Sea Islander, who
was henceforward to live among Europeans, and whose
scanty vocabulary extended only to a very few words,
baiely sufficient to enable him to express, in a rude man¬
ner, what was required by the uniformity of his condition
and the paucity of his thoughts ? Should we suspect that
the teacher would set about new-modelling, methodizing,
and enlarging this rude and imperfect language, as the
leadiest method of making the islander acquainted with
the European tongue, especially when this new-modelled
language,^ after all the pains bestowed in forming and
teaching it, could be of no manner of use but to assist the
inteicourse between these two persons? If this supposi¬
tion appear ridiculous, how much more fanciful and useless
is an attempt to methodize signs for the instruction of the
deaf and dumb. Would it not be a more natural and
rational mode of procedure for the teacher to begin by
watching the objects and occasions to which the scholar
applied the words of his barbarous speech, that by know¬
ing these he might gradually substitute the words of the
language to be taught, using the former only as an intro¬
duction to the latter ? It should never be lost sight of,
that deaf people are not educated to live always among
persons in their own unfortunate situation. Were this the
case, indeed, an artificial language of methodized signs
might be of important use. But as they are intended
to mix with their fellow beings, in social habits and ne¬
cessary avocations, we have to open a channel to this in¬
tercourse ; and this cannot be done so effectually by any
other means as by teaching them the language of the
country where they reside.
To these judicious remarks of Dr Watson may be add¬
ed the consideration, that our object in educating the deaf
and dumb is not so much to make them acute gramma¬
rians and subtile metaphysicians, as to render them useful
members of society. Experience shows that the more
simple and ordinary modes of instruction will effect this
latter purpose in less time, and with better success, than
the former can be accomplished by the complex and ela¬
borate system we have been considering.
Another most important branch of the education of the
deaf and dumb remains to be considered, namely, the
teaching them to speak, and to understand what is spoken
by others, by observing the motion of their lips. That
any person, without the guidance of the sense of hearing,
should be enabled, merely by studying the position and
action of the organs of voice, to utter articulate sounds
with any tolerable perfection, would at first view appear
scarcely credible. Experience however has shown, that
the task, though laborious and tedious, is not attended
with this extreme difficulty. Even the earliest attempts
of those who have cultivated this art appear to have been
as completely successful as those of modern instructors.
Great patience and perseverance would seem to be the
qualities chiefly necessary to ensure success in ordinary
683
cases. When we talk of success, however, it must be Deaf and
stated, that a wide difference must ever remain percepti- Dumb,
ble between the speech of the deaf and of those who hear,
Ibis aitificial speech is evidently laborious and constrain¬
ed, conveying frequently the idea of pain as well as of effort.
As it cannot be regulated by the ear of the speaker, it is
often too loud, and generally monotonous, harsh, and dis¬
cordant. It is often, from this cause, scarcely intelligible,
except to those who are accustomed to its tones. °It is
only, indeed, to such as are in habits of daily intercourse
with them, that it fully answers the purpose for which
that gift was bestowed on man, namelv, the communica¬
tion of thought.
It may, indeed, be a matter of some doubt, whether
these advantages, limited as they must necessarily be, are
a sufficient compensation for the time and labour consum¬
ed in their attainment, and which might perhaps be bet¬
ter employed. The decision of this question, as far as it
concerns any particular individual, must, however, depend
in a great measure on peculiar circumstances, such as his
condition in life and future destination. The Abbe Sicard,
perhaps from a predilection for the method of artificial
signs, i enounced the pursuit of this object, as not worth
the pains, and as interfering with his general plan. In
Gjeat Britain this art has been at all times cultivated
with more assiduity and with greater success than on the
Continent. The experience of Dr Watson is decidedly in
favour of its utility. In support of his opinion he states
one argument, which must doubtless be allowed to have
considerable weight. Ihe more numerous are the means
of association, he justly observes, the more perfect will be
the i ecollection, or, in other terms, the more frequent
the recurrence of words, and their corresponding ideas to
the mind. Thus, persons who can hear, speak, read, and
write, retain a discourse much better, and have far great¬
er facility in expressing themselves, than persons who
possess only two of these faculties; that is, illiterate per¬
sons, who can hear and speak, but who cannot read nor
write. Now as deaf and dumb persons, educated without
articulation, can only have two of the means, viz. the third
and fourth; that is, the impressions made upon the eye
by characters, and the action of the hand in writing; can
it be questioned that we render them an essential service
by adding the actions of the organs of speech ; a very
powerful auxiliary, since by it words become, as it were,
a part of ourselves, and more immediately affect us ? In
learning the pronunciation of the letters, a very important
operation is going on in the mind of a deaf person ; name¬
ly, the association, in the memory and understanding, of
the figures of written or printed characters, with certain
movements or actions of the organs of speech. The very
habit of regarding the one as the representative of the
other, paves the way for considering combinations of those
actions or characters as the signs of things or of ideas •
that is, significant words, written or articulate. We who*
hear consider words chiefly as sounds; the deaf who have
learnt to speak consider them rather as actions proceed¬
ing from themselves. And this gives language to them a
sort of tangible property, which is of vast importance both
cis icspccts its letention in the memory, cincl as it respects
one of its most important uses, the excitation of ideas in
their own minds. On this account the time, the labour,
and attention, necessary to articulate speech by those who
are dumb, through want of hearing, would be well bestow¬
ed, even if their speech were net intelligible to others.
Deaf peisons having learnt to speak are frequently over-
heard speaking softly to themselves; that is, rehearsing
words or sentences, either for the purpose of better re¬
membering them, or of framing such expressions as they
think will best convey their ideas.
634
DEAF AND DUMB.
Deaf and The act of speaking is evidently an operation purely
Dumb, mechanical; and the instruments by which it is perform-
ed are the lungs, windpipe, and larynx, the tongue, nos¬
trils, lips, and the various parts of the mouth. I he lungs
supply breath like the bellows to a musical organ; and
the shortening or elongation of the cavity of the pharynx
and mouth produce the varieties of grave and sharp tones
in the voice, though these tones are again modulated by
the movements of the parts of the larynx, which are dis¬
posed so as to expand or contract the aperture of the
glottis. The articulation of syllables, or the formation of
the different letters, begins after the breath has been
emitted through the larynx, and is accomplished by means
of the mere external organs of speech, that is, the mouth,
nostrils, tongue, teeth, and lips.
The following is the process employed by Dr Watson
in teaching the pronunciation of the vowels. “ The first
step,” he says, “ is to obtain a clear and distinct sound
from the throat (in a voice tolerably well pitched, for this
is our materia loquelce), as of a in the word wall, &c. To
effect this, and to habituate the pupil to associate the
sound which he is learning to form with the figure of the
letter which is to be its representative, this is distinctly
traced upon paper, or any convenient tablet, and he is
made to look at it for a minute or two; he then, if of
acute intellect, will look up, with some anxiety in his
countenance, as if he would ask what he is to do with it.
The sound is then slowly and fully pronounced, and the
learner made to observe, by his eyes, the position and mo¬
tion of the external organs of speech, and to feel the as-
triction of the muscles of the larynx, by placing his finger
upon the throat, carefully making him perceive the dif¬
ference to be felt there between sound and silence. Hav¬
ing made these observations for a minute or two, he will
seldom hesitate to attempt an imitation of what he has
been observing ; and that, for the most part, successfully.
When the contrary is the case, nothing more is necessary
than patient and good-natured perseverance; for if he
perceive that his failure has excited chagrin or disappoint¬
ment in his teacher, he will make another effort with great
reluctance. The sound once acquired must be practised
sufficiently to avoid any danger of losing it; for the great¬
est care must be taken, all throughout his progress, never
to proceed to a new sound till the preceding has become
familiar, and unattended with doubt as to the manner of
producing it. A contrary practice would lead to endless
vexation. A principal requisite is to keep the learner in
good humour, and to make him think that he is doing well
beyond expectation; nothing is more discouraging than
to put him back.” In the same manner he proceeds to
the simple sounds of the other vowels, and then to the
consonants.
By the powers of the consonants are meant the posi¬
tions and actions of the several organs employed in their
formation, without the addition of any distinct vocal
sound. For although frequent mention will be made of
sound in the throat, in their formation, it is to be un¬
derstood as so confined by the position of the organs, as
not to partake of any of the sounds represented by the
vowels.
_ By closing the lips, sounding gently in the throat, for¬
cing them asunder by the emission of the breath, and care¬
fully avoiding to let any of it pass through the nose, we
have the power of B. After the same manner is formed
the power of P, but without sound in the throat. M re¬
quires the lips to be closed, the sound is made in the
throat, and the breath suffered to escape through the nose.
The power of C, or what is called its hard sound, that
is, the sound of K, is formed by raising the back part of
the tongue to the roof of the mouth, near the uvula, and
forcing it away again rather quickly, by an emission of Deaf and
the breath, without sound in the throat. G has the same Dumb,
formation, with the addition of sound in the throat.
The power of D is produced by placing the tip of the
tongue against the two rows of teeth, which are to be
quite, or nearly shut, sounding in the throat, emitting the
breath in removing the tongue from the teeth, and, at the
same time, opening them a little. T has the same forma¬
tion, only without sound in the throat.
By placing the upper row of teeth upon the under lip,
and gently emitting the breath, without sound in the
throat, we have the power of F. V has the same forma¬
tion, with the addition of sound in the throat.
H is a mere emission of breath, with the mouth a little
open.
J has the power of D and SH combined.
L is formed by raising the point of the tongue to the
roof of the mouth, near the upper teeth, sounding in the
throat, and suffering the breath to escape freely on each
side of the tongue.
The power of N is formed by raising and pressing the
tongue to the palate, with the whole of its upper surface,
so that no breath may escape except through the nose;
the lips being kept open, and a gentle sound being made
in the throat.
For Q, join K and W.
R is variously formed; but the surest and easiest way
of teaching its power to a deaf person is by elevating the
fore part of the tongue to the palate, and, with the assist¬
ance of the breath, causing a vibratory motion of it, ac¬
companied with a gentle sound in the throat.
In forming S, place the tip of the tongue just below
the under teeth, raise the sides of it to the palate, leaving
a small aperture in the middle, through which the breath
is to be forced, without sound in the throat, which
will be intercepted by the teeth being shut, and form
the hissing sound required. Z requires the same position
of the organs, with the addition of sound in the throat.
X is compounded of K and S.
CH is compounded of the powers of T and SH.
SH has a power nearly resembling that of S, and re¬
quires a position of the organs something similar, except
that the tip of the tongue must be drawn back, instead of
touching the gums and teeth; and the current of the
breath emitted must be intercepted by the under teeth
only in part; the rest must be suffered to escape between
the rows of teeth, which must be a little opened for that
purpose.
TH requires the tongue to be a little advanced be¬
tween the two rows of teeth, and the breath emitted be¬
tween it and the upper row, which must, nevertheless, be
nearly in contact with it; this will produce the sound of
TH, as heard in the word think. It has another power,
requiring precisely the same position of the organs, but
with the addition of sound in the throat, heard in the word
this, &c.
NG represents a strong nasal sound; to form it the
tongue is drawn back and raised to the roof of the mouth,
towards the uvula; a sound is made in the throat, and forced
through the nose.
It is evident that when the power of a consonant is ac¬
quired, it needs only to be combined with the vowels to
form syllables ; as ba, ab, &c. These the pupil pronoun¬
ces almost at sight, as he does also bab, and any other com¬
bination of a vowel and a consonant or consonants, if well
grounded in the foregoing formations of them. From the
easiest combinations we proceed to the most complex, and
by practice acquire a readiness in pronouncing the longest
polysyllables.
Whilst acquiring the faculty of speaking, the deaf and
DEAF AND DUMB.
685
Deaf and dumb imperceptibly learn to distinguish by the eye the
Dumb, words spoken by others. “ It is truly astonishing,” says
Dr Watson, “ and would hardly be credited by any one
who had not seen it, how readily deaf persons, who have
themselves been taught to speak, catch words, and even
long sentences, from the mouths of those who address
them. Yet, in this sort of conversation, it is indispensa¬
ble that the speech should be immediately directed to the
spectator (we must not call him auditor), who must have
an opportunity of observing every motion of the muscles
(as far as these can be seen externally) and countenance,
in order to make out the discourse. On this account it is
impossible for a deaf person to understand the conversa¬
tion of a mixed company, a discourse from the pulpit, or
an harangue to an assembly, where the speaker does not
immediately address him.”
After the sketch we have thus given of the principles
on which the different departments of the education of
the deaf and dumb should be conducted, it only remains
for us to consider the best order in which we should pro¬
ceed with their lessons and studies, and the period within
which we may reasonably expect that they are to be com¬
pleted. In giving directions with this view, we shall still
take Dr Watson as our guide.
Schools for the deaf and dumb, in which a great num¬
ber are instructed at the same time, afford peculiar advan¬
tages to the teacher, and are very favourable to the profi¬
ciency of the scholars. By associating with others, who,
being equally deprived of hearing, are on a level with re¬
gard to the difficulties to be surmounted, they are reliev¬
ed from the continual sense of inferiority which oppresses
and disheartens the deaf child when placed in the midst
of those who have the perfect use of all their senses ; and
the influence of example, and a spirit of emulation, will
operate with due force in exciting them to intellectual ex¬
ertions. Dr Watson finds, by experience, that one deaf
person may be employed to teach another with the hap¬
piest effect. So much so, that when he happens to be for
the moment at a loss to make one of slow apprehension
understand a lesson, he turns him over to one of his
school-fellows who has learnt it, and never without ad¬
vantage to both. For it is with the deaf as with every
one, that we ourselves learn best by endeavouring to teach
others.
The acquisition of the pronunciation of letters, of syl¬
lables, and of words, with their correct orthography, con¬
tained in the vocabulary already described, together with
such additional exercises as will most obviously exempli¬
fy the application and meaning of the connecting parts of
speech, will be sufficient occupation to the pupil during
the first year of his attendance upon the school; and when
the capacity is good, great progress is usually made in
these particulars during this period. He is then prepared
for longer exercises, and for the application of the words
he has learnt, in the construction of longer sentences, to
which he, of course, requires to be led on by easy and fa¬
miliar examples. A sort of colloquy, or dialogue, must be
entered into with him. The questions at first must be all
on the teacher’s part, and the answers must be formed
for the learner, in the most obvious words and phrases
that will convey his ideas, in strict conformity to which
they must constantly be framed. Due attention being
paid by learner and teacher, the good effects of this me¬
thod will presently appear. The latter will soon be
agreeably surprised by his scholar changing parts with
him, and becoming, in his turn, the interrogator; and
that, too, in a way that will show he practically under¬
stands analogy.
It will be useful to set aside certain stated periods, as
cnee or twice in a week, for the repetition of words al¬
ready learnt; taking care to see minutely that correct Deaf and
ideas are annexed to each. When the whole of the words , Dumb.
in the select vocabulary, substantives, verbs, and adjec-
tives, have been gone through several times, and the read¬
er can correctly spell, speak, and point them out (if the
names of things engraved), or show their signification by
his signs (if the names of actions, or qualities, &c.), then
he is to enter upon a work as yet altogether new to him.
He is to go over his vocabulary again, and to learn a short
definition of each word; that is, to tell the meaning of
words by words. This employment is prescribed, not be¬
cause he will better understand the words in his vocabu¬
lary by being taught to define them, but because an oppor¬
tunity is thus afforded of enlarging it, by the introduction
of synonymous words, and words that are defined in some
way from those we are defining; and these new words
enable us to explain others. So that, by this means, and
by our colloquial exercises, our vocabulary is daily and
almost imperceptibly enlarging. This is strictly analogous
to the manner of acquiring a first language by those who
hear. The conjugation of verbs is, in the mean time, to be
carefully attended to ; and one example, at least, through
all the moods, tenses, and persons, should now be per¬
formed every morning, till the pupil can write any person
of any mood or tense required.
By this time, probably about the third year of the
learner’s progress, supposing in him the requisite atten¬
tion and capacity, it will be proper and necessary to be¬
gin the reading of printed books, for the sake of profiting
by the information they contain. As far as the mere act
of reading is concerned, we have no new difficulty to sur¬
mount, for all our exercises and lessons have, in fact, been
read as well as written by the learner. The difference be¬
tween printed characters and those used in writing has,
of course, not been unobserved. What constitutes the
chief impediment to making sense of what is met with in
books, is the promiscuous use of words, without regard to
our selections. What is to be done when we meet with
a word which we have never seen before ? Precisely
that which is done with all children under similar circum¬
stances ; explain it by the substitution of a word of which
the meaning is known, if it can be done; if not, pass it
over till a favourable opportunity shall occur to show its
meaning by an example. If no such opportunity ever oc¬
cur, then can the meaning of the word be of no great mo¬
ment to the learner.
In order to discover the progress he has made, and is
daily making, and to assist him in the composition of sen¬
tences, or the expression of his thoughts in writing, he is
now required, every day, to furnish, according to his ca¬
pacity, a certain number of lines from his own ideas. He
is at liberty to choose his subject; he may relate what he
has seen in his walk or his play-ground, or he may unfold
the stores of his memory relative to more distant places
and periods. He may ask questions, and seek for infor¬
mation of any kind. His rude essays at expression are
often curious, and require some skill in the language of
pantomime to discover their meaning by his own explana¬
tions. This being attained, it is put into correct but easy
language ; he commits it to his memory thus corrected ; and
goes to work again, “ at his leisure hour in the evening,”
for the next day, generally profiting considerably by the
alterations it was necessary to make in his preceding es¬
say. We have now a new channel of communication
opened ; and the knowledge of the meaning of words, and
their use in the construction of sentences, which we have
already acquired, may be carried to almost any given
degree of perfection and extension. Frequent conversa¬
tion and intercourse, by the words of the language he has
learnt, is of the very utmost importance to a deaf person,
686
DEAF AND DUMB.
Deaf and especially if he should have but little leisure or inclination pleasing to the ear or taste. Sound, a noise; I cannot Deaf and
Dumb. for reading, as the means of extending his knowledge of hear what is called sound. Piano-forte, a large curious Dumb,
language, and of enlarging his conception of things, and musical instrument used by ladies. Bagpipe, an instrument
as the means of retaining what he has acquired. Every consisting of a leathern bag and pipes used by Highland-
one will readily perceive this, who considers how easily a ers.” At these examinations, too, they exhibit their at-
foreign or dead language is lost for want of reading, writing, tainments in geography and arithmetic, and display a minute
or speaking in it. acquaintance with the facts and doctrines of the Christian
The asylum for educating the deaf and dumb children of religion; and the specimens of composition which are pro-
the poor, established in the immediate vicinity of London, duced not only manifest much good sense and accuracy,
by private subscriptions, in the year 1792, was originally but sufficiently controvert the assertion, that none of the
under the very able superintendence of Dr Joseph Watson, deaf and dumb can ever be taught to write grammatically.
Five years being, generally speaking, deemed sufficient to The public are permitted to visit the school every Tuesday
accomplish that course of instruction which was thought from twelve to one o’clock, for the purpose of examining
most essential to such children, destined to earn their bread the various classes.
by the labour of their hands, and fourteen being the earliest
age at which they could be apprenticed, it was judged best,
for the economical purposes of the institution, not to re¬
ceive them before the age of nine years.
An institution of a similar kind was also established at
Birmingham, under the superintendence of Mr Thomas
Braidwood, who had previously conducted a private school
for the deaf and dumb at Hackney. Though the original de¬
sign did not go beyond that of a day-school, yet afterwards,
by the zealous exertions of a number of its friends, a liberal
subscription was raised for providing a building fitted for the
reception of children from distant places. This building
was completed and opened in January 1815, and is suffi¬
cient to contain forty children. In various other towns also
similar institutions have been established.
In June 1810 a society was instituted in Edinburgh for
the education of deaf and dumb children. The first teacher
was Mr John Braidwood, a member of the family which
has done so much for the instruction of this interesting class
of persons. On his removal, a short time afterwards, Mr
Robert Kinniburgh was appointed teacher of the school,
and this gentleman long continued to discharge the duties
of his office with equal ability and success. The number
of the pupils at present (1854) is fifty-seven. All of them
are boarded in the society’s house, where they are taught
reading, writing, geography, and arithmetic, and are care¬
fully instructed in the principles of the Christian religion.
They are also, in some cases, taught to express their wants
and ideas in articulate speech ; and all are instructed to
communicate their sentiments by written language, which
they do with great facility. No child, except under special
circumstances, is admitted under eight years of age. Be¬
sides the above-mentioned branches of education, which all
the pupils are taught in common, the female pupils are
taught needle-work, and those of an inferior station are
qualified by suitable instruction for becoming domestic ser¬
vants. Some of the boys are also taught to be tailors, or shoe¬
makers, or learn some other useful craft. Since this institu¬
tion commenced its labours, a very large number of pupils,
both male and female, have left school more or less instructed,
and, by having their rational and moral powers awakened,
qualified to become useful members of society. The sys¬
tem of tuition followed in the Edinburgh school is nearly
the same as that of the London institution.
The pupils occasionally undergo public examinations, and
they never fail to gratify the assembled audience, particu-
laily by their promptitude in defining abstract terms. The
following, on the word Music, may serve as a specimen:
“Music, the language of sentiment and the breath of the
passions ; a harmonious and sweet sound, such as the sound
of a piano-forte or a violin. Language, a medium of con¬
versation between one man and another i it is either artificial
oi natural. Natural, not acquired, not taught, not learned.
Artificial, cultivated by art,not natural. Sentiment, thought,
opinion, the judgment of the mind. Breath, life, moving
air. Passions, such as extreme love, anger, zeal. Har¬
monious, concordant or agreeing. Sweet, delicate, luscious.
The institution was established and is wholly supported
by private subscription, and by the aids contributed by
auxiliary societies in some of the other towns in Scotland.
Its expense for one year, ending 31st December 1853, was
L.1338.
Although the institution has been liberally patronized by
the public, yet its income has always been insufficient to
meet its expenditure. In consequence of this the directors
have been generally under the painful necessity of prefer¬
ring those applicants who could afford to pay a part of the
expense of their own maintenance during the period allotted
for their education. However, in not a few cases where the
parents or friends have been found unable to contribute
any portion of this expense, it has been wholly defrayed by
the institution.
Besides this institution, Edinburgh possesses in Donald¬
son’s Hospital (which has accommodation for 300 poor chil¬
dren) the means of instruction for a limited number of deaf
and dumb pupils. The number of these in 1853.was 26
boys and 21 girls. For an account of this noble establish¬
ment, see Edinburgh.
Various institutions for similar objects have been formed
on the Continent. The asylum for the deaf and dumb at
Paris, which was formerly under the management of the
Abbe Sicard, has for its object not only to enable the pupils
to communicate their ideas and to form their understand¬
ing, but also to qualify them to earn their subsistence. On
quitting the asylum, they are all capable of followinga trade
or profession. Their apprenticeship begins on their first
entering the institution, and is terminated with their in¬
struction. This apprenticeship takes place under the in¬
spection of ten masters, viz., a printer, an engraver of pre¬
cious stones, a copperplate engraver, a drawing-master, a
turner, a mosaic artist, a tailor, a shoemaker, a cabinet¬
maker, and a gardener. All these masters reside in the
asylum, and receive their beard and a salary.
Institutions formed more or less upon the model of that
at Paris have been established in Portugal, Spain, Italy,
Switzerland, Baden, Wurtemberg, Bavaria, Austria, Prus¬
sia, Saxony, Hesse-Cassel, Nassau, Hanover, Brunswick,
the Free Towns of Germany, Belgium, Holland, Denmark,
Sweden, Russia, Poland, the United States of America,
Canada, Mexico, and Bengal, to say nothing of those in
Great Britain and France. But in comparatively few of
them is any attempt made to teach the pupils to speak.
By the census of 1851 in Great Britain, 12,553 persons Number of
(6884 males and 5669 females) are returned as deaf and deaf and
dumb. Of this number, 10,314 are in England, 2155 in durab in
Scotland, and 84 in the Islands in the British Seas. The 'Bn"
subjoined table (No. 1) shows the proportion which the deaf ain*
and dumb bear to the general population ; and from it we
learn that in Great Britain 1 in every ] 670 inhabitants is a
deaf-mute, in England 1 in 1738, in Scotland 1 in 1340,
and in the islands 1 in 1704. These numbers and propor¬
tions would be slightly increased if allowance were made
for the omission of infants, with respect to whom, owing to
the difficulty of ascertaining the existence of deafness and
DEAF AND DUMB.
Deaf and
Dumb.
consequent muteism in the first years of life, the returns
are unavoidably imperfect. The above numbers will there¬
fore be received as an under-statement of the actual state
of deaf-dumb ness. But as the same defect of necessity
exists in the returns ol other countries, no erroneous con¬
clusions will be formed from using them for the purposes of
comparison.
According to the most recent returns, the average pro-
poi tion of the deaf and dumb to the population of Europe
generally is found to be l in every 1593 persons. In tlol-
land, Belgium, and other states presenting chiefly a flat
suiface, the proportion is much smaller than in Norway and
bwitzerland ; indeed, in some of the Swiss cantons, where
cretinism is prevalent amongst the mountain passes, there
is 1 deaf-mute in every 206 inhabitants. In Ireland the
average is 1 in 1380 persons; and in the United States of
America, where, however, the returns (census 1850) are
admitted to be very defective, 1 in 2366.
Looking at the distribution of the deaf and dumb over
the face of Great Britain, we find them to be more common
in the agricultural and pastoral districts, especially where
the country is hilly, than in those containing a large amount
ot town population. The northern counties of Scotland,
which include the wild and mountainous region of the High¬
lands, present the highest average—1 in 156 of the popu¬
lation ; then the south-western division of England, with 1
in 1393 ; followed by the southern counties of Scotland, 1
in 1480; and the Welsh division, 1 in 1542. We have
already seen that the south-western and Welsh divisions of
England and the northern counties of Scotland contain the
largest proportional number of blind persons.
Table No. 1.—Number of the Deaf and Dumb, and their
Proportion to the Population.
687
Great Britain and i
Islands in the Bri- l
tish Seas . . J
Population.
20,959,477
England and Wales . 17,927,609
Scotland . . . 2,888,742
Islands in the British
Seas .... 143,126
Number
of
Deaf-and
Dumb.
Proportion
to
Population,
12,553
10,314
2,155
84
England and Wales.
Divisions.
I. London .
II. South-Eastern.
III. South-Midland
IV. Eastern .
V. South-Western
VI. West-Midland.
VII. North-Midland
VIII, North-Western
IX. Yorkshire
X. Northern
XI. Welsh .
2,362,236
1,628,386
1,234,332
1,113,982
1,803,291
2,132,930
1,214,538
2,490,827
1,789,047
969,126
1,188,914
Scotland.
Southern Counties
Northern Counties
One in
1,670
1,738
1,340
1,704
1325
836'
649
669
1,295
1,325
694
1,237
1,042
471
771
1,813,562
1,075,180
1,225
930
1,783
1,948
1,902
1,665
1,393
1,610
1,750
2,014
1,717
2,058
1,542
yet exceptions are remarked on applying this test to the Deaf and
counties, and the smaller subdivisions composing them. Dumb.
The following English counties, for example, present widely
different results, scarcely to be explained by a reference to
their physical or geographical peculiarities :—
Yorkshire, East Riding.... 1 Deaf and Dumb in every 2231 inhab.
Monmouthshire  1 ... ... 2300
Kent {Extra-Metropolitan) 1 ... ... 2343
Durham  1 ... ... 2480
Huntingdon  1 ... ... 3016 .!.
Hereford  1 Deaf and Dumb in every 1054 inhab.
Worcester  1 ... ... 1160
Derby   1 ... ... 1272 ...
Cornwall   1 ... ... 1273
The relative numbers of the sexes are in all countries
much more disproportionate amongst the deaf and dumb
than amongst the blind. In Great Britain and in England
and Wales there are 121 male deaf-mutes to 100 females ;
in Scotland the inequality is somewhat greater, namely, 125
males to 100 females ; in the Islands in the British Seas
there are 121 males to 100 females. The Irish returns give
the reversed proportion of 111 females to 100 males.
In every 10,000 of the general population of each sex in
Great Britain, 6‘7 males and 5'3 females are deaf and dumb.
But while the returns for the whole country exhibit a larger
proportion of males, the reverse obtains in some localities;
thus in Berks, Bedford, Salop, Derby, and Monmouth, more
females are returned than males relatively to the numbers
living of each sex.
An examination of the ages of the deaf and dumb pre¬
sents results the opposite of those indicated by the tables
relating to the blind. It has been shown that blindness is
found chiefly in persons in advanced life—47 per cent, of
the blind being upwards of 60 years of age—and to a small
extent amongst young persons.
The subjoined table (No. 2) exhibits the proportions
which the deaf and dumb and the blind bear to the male
and I female population living at different ages in England
and Wales. It will be seen that of the deaf and dumb the
highest proportions exist at the periods of age ranging be¬
tween 5 and 25 years—the numbers gradually diminishing as
the ages advance. The blind, on the other hand, increase
at each period from infancy to old age—after 55 very rapidly,
and nearly in the same ratio as the general mortality.
Table No. 2.—England and Wales.—Proportion of the
Deaf and Dumb and the Blind at different Ages to the
Male and Female Population.
1,480
1,156
Cretins, most of whom are deaf-mutes, are found in some
of these localities: the disease of cretinism is also accom¬
panied by mental imbecility in a greater or less degree.
The proportion of deaf-mutes is lowest in the northern
division of England—1 in 2058 inhabitants; and in the
north-western division (Cheshire and Lancashire), where a
nearly similar average prevails, 1 in 2014.
Although as a general principle a greater degree of pre¬
valency of deaf-dumbness seems to exist in rural and hilly
localities than amidst urban and manufacturing populations,
Years of Ago.
To every 100,000 living at each age, the
Proportion of
Deaf and Dumb.
0 
5 
10 
15 
25 
35.. . 
45 
55 
65.. .., 
75 
85 and upwards.
Males. Females.
24-1
86-8
91-8
74-8
65-0
57-7
56-1
52,6
51-1
49-5
37-8
18-2
72-5
75-3
56-6
49-9
49-4
44-2
44-9
37-9
44-5
20-0
Blind.
Males. Females.
21-8
33-1
38-7
52-7
64-0
102-0
166-7
289-4
637-9
1,305-0
2,802-3
17-8
26-0
34-0
37-3
43-1
60-7
113-0
225-9
539-0
1,251-5
2,870-5
Of the 12,553 deaf-mutes, only 783, or 6’2 per cent., had
reached 60 years of age—a fact showing the unfavourable
position of this class as regards length of life; while those
under 20 years of age, although the numbers are unques¬
tionably deficient, amounted to 47 per cent. The incom¬
pleteness of the returns for the years of early life, arising
688 D E A F A N
Deaf and from the uncertainty which must exist with respect to in-
])umb. fants, and the natural indisposition of parents to form a
v—^ paintiil conclusion on the subject while the slightest grounds
for doubt exist, has already been adverted to. A rough es¬
timate of the omissions Irom this cause may be made by
assuming the deaf-mutes under 5 years of age to bear the
same proportion to the general population ot the same age
as the persons aged 5 years and upwards bear to the residue
of the population. In 1851, there were in Great Britain, of
5 years of age and upwards, 18,222,518 persons, of whom
11,993 were deaf and dumb. If a like proportion existed
amongst the population under 5 years of age (2,736,959
persons), 1801 deaf-mutes, instead of 560, would have been
returned under the first quinquennial period of age. The
addition of 1241 cases would raise the percentage of those
under 20 years of age to 52, and lower that of the ages
above 20 to 48; but as the omissions would not be so fre¬
quent in the fourth and fifth years of age as in the earlier
years, the supposed number to be added is probably too large.
In London a larger proportion is observed between 5 and
15 years of age than elsewhere ; a circumstance attributable
to the institutions for the deaf and dumb established in the
metropolis. Throughout the country, however, a very small
number, scarcely more than 1100, were returned as inmates
of schools or asylums ; and when it is remembered that even
partial instruction can be imparted to persons in their con¬
dition only by a special course of training, and then with
great difficulty, the inadequacy of the existing provision
for their education will be apparent. Without careful
instruction, the deaf-mute is sometimes highly dangerous
to society.
A Spanish Benedictine monk, of the convent of Saha-
gun, in Spain, named Pedro de Ponce, who died in 1584,
is the first person who is recorded to have instructed the
deaf and dumb, and taught them to speak. He has, how¬
ever, left no work upon the subject; though it is probable
that the substance of his method is contained in a book of
Bonet, secretary to the constable of Castile, printed at
Madrid in 1620, under the title of Arte 'para ensenar a hab-
lar los Mudos. The following is a catalogue of the prin¬
cipal works in connection with this subject:—
Philotophos, or the Deaf and Dumb Maris Friend; by
Dr John Bulwer, 1648. Also, by the same author, in
1644, Chirologia, or the Natural Language of the Hand;
and Chironomia, or the Art of Manual Rhetorique.
Dr Wallace’s Grammatica Lingua Anglicana; and a
treatise prefixed to it, De Loquela, ac de sonorum omnium
formatione.
A Letter from Dr Wallace to Mr Boyle, in the Philo¬
sophical Transactions for July 1670; and another from the
same, in the volume for 1698.
Helmet’s Alphabeti vere naturalis Hebraici brevissima
Delineaiio, Salzburg, 1657.
In the Philosophical Transactions for January 1668,
an account is given of a small tract published the pre¬
ceding year by the same author, entitled Alphabetum Na¬
ture.
Dr Holder’s Elements of Speech, with an Appendix con¬
cerning persons Deaf and Dumb, 1669.
Treatise concerning those that are born Deaf and Dumb.
By George Sibscote, 1670.
G. Dalgarno’s Didascalocophus, or the Deaf and Dumb
Maris Tutor, 1680.
C. Amman’s Surdus Loquens, 1692 ; and Dissertatio de
Loquela, 1700.
Defoe’s History of Duncan Campbell, who was born
deaf and dumb, but who himself taught the deaf and dumb
to understand. London, 1720.
The Memoires presents d V Academic Roy ale, 4to, Paris,
1678, contains a valuable memoir of Periere.
Institution des Sourds et Muets, par la voie des Signes
D DUMB.
Mcthodiques; outrage qui contient le pro jet diune Langue Deaf and
Universelle, par Ventremise des Signes naturels assujettis d Dumb.
une methode, Paris, 1776, an anonymous work of the Abbe
de 1’Epee. A new edition appeared in 1784, much altered,
and with the title of La veritable maniere diinstruire les
Sourds et Muets, confirmee par une longue experience.
This last work has been introduced into the Encyclopedic
Methodique des Arts et des Metiers, under the article Muets
et Sourds, and it was translated into English anonymously
in 1801.
An Essay on the Method of Teaching the Deaf and
Dumb to Speak, by Dr William Thornton, is to be found
in the third volume of the Transactions of the American
Philosophical Society. Philad. 1793.
Cours dInstruction diun Sourd-Muet de Naissance, et
qui peut etre utile d VEducation de ceux qui entendent et
qui parlent. Par Roch-Ambroise Sicard, Paris, 1800. A
second edition appeared in 1803.
Memoire ou Considerations sur les Sourds-Muets de Nais¬
sance, et sur les moyens de donner Vouie et la parole d ceux
qui en sont susceptibles. Par U. R. T. le Bouvyer Des-
mourtiers. Paris, 1800.
Instruction of the Deaf and Dumb. By Joseph Whitson,
LL.D., 2 vols. 8vo. Lond. 1809.
Theorie des Signes pour VInstruction des Sourds-Muets.
Par R. A. Sicard, 2 tom. 8vo. Paris, 1808.
Recueil des Definitions et Reponses les plus remarquables,
de Massieu et Clerc, Sourds-Muets, aux divers questions
qui leur ont ete faites, dans les Seances Pubhques, de M.
VAbbe Sicard d Londres. Auquel on a joint VAlphabet
Manuel des Sourds-Muets, le Discours d'Ouverture de M.
VAbbe Sicard, et une Lettre explicative de sa Methode. Par
M. Laffon de Ladebat. Avec Notes et une Traduction An-
glaise, par J. H. Sievrac. London, 1815.
Methoden-Buch zum Unterricht fur Taubstumme, von
Michael Ritter, Pfarrer zu Kallham in Ober-Oesterreich.
Wien, 1828.
Der durch Gesicht und Tonsprache der Menscheit wie-
dergegebene Taubstumme, von Dr Graser. Bayreuth, 1829.
Gelegenheitliche-Aeusserungen ilber menschliche Bildung,
besonders uber die Bildung der Taubstummen, von Franz
Hermann Czech. Wien, 1830.
TJebersicht der Taubstummen und der Anstaltenfiir deren
Bildung, in Preussichen Staate Berlin, 1830.
Diderot, Lettre sur les Sourds-Muets.
Troisieme Circulaire de VInstitut Royal des Sourds-
Muets de Paris. Paris, 1832, 8vo.
Diderot alludes to the possibility of a child being born at
once deaf and blind, a possibility which has also been anti¬
cipated by the Abbe Sicard, in the preliminary discourse to
his Cours d'Instruction, where he suggests different methods
of instruction that might be attempted in circumstances so
apparently hopeless. The first instance in which this de¬
plorable combination of defects is recorded to have occurred
in any individual, is mentioned by Dr Watson, in a quota¬
tion from the Gentleman!s Magazine for November 1808.
He also adds another example in the person of James Mit¬
chell, whose history has been narrated by the masterly pen
of Mr Dugald Stewart, in a memoir published in the Trans¬
actions of the Royal Society of Edinburgh (vol. vii. p. l0),
and also in the appendix to the last volume of his Elements
of the Philosophy of the Human Mind. Mr Wardrop, who
performed upon him the operation of couching, has also
given us some valuable and interesting particulars of his
case, in a separate work, entitled History of James Mitchell,
a Boy born Blind and Deaf, with an account of the Ope¬
ration performed for the Recovery of his Sight. (London,
4to, 1813). In the eighth volume of the Transactions oj
the Royal Society of Edinburgh, are to be found Addi¬
tional Communications respecting the Blind and Deaj
Boy, James Mitchell, by Dr John Gordon, a gentleman
D E A
DEC
689
Deal
I
Death-
Watch.
who had paid particular attention to the case of Mitchell,
and from whom Mr Stewart acknowledges that he received
much of the information contained in his paper. This vo¬
lume also contains a paper on the Education of James Mit¬
chell, by Dr Dewar ; and an additional communication from
the same author on this subject. Two interesting cases of
the same kind, which occurred in the United States of North
America, are given in Dr Daubeny’s Travels, (p. m. r.)
Debateabl
Land
II
Deccan.
DEAL (Sax. dcelan, to divide), fir timber sawn into planks.
Deal, a municipal and parliamentary borough, market-
town, and parish, in the hundred of Bewsborough, Kent, 8
miles N.N.E. from Dover. It derives its trade and impor¬
tance from the vicinity of the Downs, a fine anchorage
between the shore and the Goodwin Sands, in which large
fleets of wind-bound vessels may lie in safety. This cir¬
cumstance gives rise to an extensive trade in victualling and
naval stores at Deal. The Deal pilots are famous for their
skill and daring, and a considerable portion of the inhabitants
is engaged in boat-building. The town is also resorted to for
sea-bathing. The great mass of the population reside in
Lower Deal, which consists of three principal streets lying
parallel to the beach. In Upper and Middle Deal the houses
are detached, and inhabited by the wealthier classes. There
are three churches belonging to the Establishment, and
an equal number to the Dissenters. In the neighbour¬
hood are Sandoun and Deal castles, erected by Henry VIII.,
and Walmer castle, the official residence of the warden of
the Cinque Ports, to w hich, as member of the port of Sand¬
wich, Deal has been annexed. Along with Walmer and
Sandwich, Deal returns two members to the imperial par¬
liament. Pop. (1851) 7067.
DEAN (Fr. doyen, the eldest of a corporation ; Lat.
decanus, from decern, one set over ten persons), in England,
is an ecclesiastical dignitary in a cathedral or a collegiate
church, and the head of a chapter. He is the second digni¬
tary of a diocese ; and was so named because originally he
was set over ten canons or prebendaries. In former times
the dean was elected by the chapter, in virtue of a conge
d’elire from the king, and letters missive of recommendation;
but in the chapters founded by Henry VIII. out of the spoils
of the monasteries, the deanery is donative, and the instal¬
lation merely- by royal letters patent.
A Rural Dean, or arch-presbyter, had jurisdiction ori¬
ginally over ten churches; but afterwards he became only
the bishop’s substitute, to grant letters of administration,
probate of wills, &c. The office is now merged in that of
the archdeacon and chancellor.
Deans in Peculiar, are deans of particular parishes and
churches, or of rural districts that have jurisdiction within
themselves, being independent of the ordinary of the diocese.
Dean and Chapter, the council of a bishop, to aid him
with their advice in the affairs of his see. See Chapter.
Deans of the Chapel Royal. See Chaplain.
Dean of a Monastery, a superior established under the
abbot, to whom was intrusted the care of ten monks: hence
his name.
Dean of Guild, in the municipal system of Scotland, the
head of the merchant company or guildry, who has the su¬
perintendence of all buildings, public and private, within the
burgh ; and in this respect his functions may be said to
resemble those of the aediles of ancient Rome. See Guild.
Dean of the Faculty of Advocates, in Edinburgh, the
president and chief officer of that body.
There are also deans of the several faculties in the uni¬
versities.
Dean, Forest of See Gloucestershire.
DEATH-WATCH, a name given to a small kind of
beetle, Anohium tesselatum, remarkable for producing a
ticking noise, like the beat of a watch, by striking its head
with great force and quickness several times in succession
against the plane of its position. These insects infest old
houses, where they get into the wood. The ticking sound
appears to be the signal-call of the sexes, and when no
VOL. VII.
answer is returned, the insect repeats it in another place.
The number of strokes is usually from seven to eleven. It
appears to share this power of pulsation in common with
some other insects. The name death-watch is derived
from a prevalent superstition among ignorant people, that
this ticking sound is a presage of death. See Anobium, in
index to Entomology.
DEBATEABLE LAND, that part of Great Britain
which lay between Scotland and England when the king¬
doms were distinct, and to which both nations laid claim.
DEBENTURE (Lat. debeo, to owe), in a general sense,
a writing acknowledging a debt; applied more particularly
to a kind of certificate used at the custom-house, which en¬
titles a merchant to receive a bounty or drawback of duty
already paid on the exportation of specified goods.
DEBRECZYN, or Debretzin, a royal free city of
Hungary and, after Pesth, the largest in the kingdom, is
situated in a sandy plain 114 miles E. of Pesth, with which
it is connected by a railway. It is the capital of the county
of Bihar. Debreczyn is an ill-built straggling town, with
houses almost all of one story and thatched, while the
streets are unpaved and dirty. Among its principal build¬
ings are the town-hall, several churches, monasteries, and
hospitals, the orphan asylum, and the Protestant College.
This last has a library of 20,000 volumes, and is attended by
upwards of 2000 students. Debreczyn has also a Piarist
college, a Roman Catholic gymnasium, and other schools.
The manufactures are considerable, including tobacco pipes,
shoes, leather, coarse woollen cloth, soap, combs, cutlery,
furs, and coopers’ and turned wares. Pop. 63,000, mostly
Magyars and Calvinists. An extensive fair for agricultural
and other produce is held here every three months.
DEBRUIZED, in Heraldry, an epithet denoting the
restraint imposed on an animal by any of the ordinaries be¬
ing placed over it. It is also applied to charges over which
another charge is borne.
DEBT, National. See England, and Funding
System.
DECADE (Fr. decade, from Lat. decas, Gk. Se/ca), the
sum or number of ten. Decades, an enumeration by tens, as
a decade of years. Livy’s great work is divided into decades.
DECAGON, in Geometry, o. plane figure with ten sides
and ten angles.
DECALITRE, a French measure equivalent to 10 litres.
See Litre.
DECALOGUE, the ten commandments delivered by
God to Moses.
DECANDOLLE. See Candolle, De.
DECANTATION, the act of pouring a liquor gently
from its lees or sediment, by inclining the lip or canthus of
the vessel; and hence the name.
DECANUS, in Roman Antiquity, a petty officer who
presided over the ten soldiers of his contubernium, or those
living in the same tent.
DECAPOLIS, in Ancient Geography, a name given
collectively to the ten cities of Damascus, Philadelphia,
Raphana, Scythopolis, Gadara, Hippos, Dion, Pella, Gadasa,
and Canatha. It gradually, however, came to include other
cities besides these.
DECAPROTI, Decempeimi, in Roman Antiquity, the
ten chief aldermen in the municipia and colonies.
DECASTYLE, a portico with ten columns in front.
See glossary to Architecture.
DECCAN, or the Country of the South, in Hindustan,
includes, according to Hindu geographers, the whole of the
4 s
690 DEC
Deccan, territories situate to the south of the Nerbuddah. In its
v—more modern acceptation, however, it is sometimes under¬
stood as comprising only the country lying between that
river and the Krishna, the latter having for a long period
formed the southern boundary of the Mohammedan empire
of Delhi. Assigning it the more extended of these limits,
it comprehends the whole of the Indian peninsula, and in
this view the mountainous system, consisting of the Eastern
and Western Ghauts, constitutes the most striking feature
of the Deccan. These two mountain ranges unite at their
northern extremities with the Vindhya chain of mountains,
and thus is formed a vast triangle supporting at a consider¬
able elevation the expanse of table-land which stretches
from Cape Comorin to the valley of the Nerbuddah. The
surface of this table-land slopes from W. to E. as indicated
by the direction of the drainage of the country ; the great
rivers the Cauvery, Godavery, Krishna, and Pennaur,
though deriving their sources from the base of the Western
Ghauts, all finding their way into the Bay of Bengal through
fissures in the Eastern Ghauts.
In early times this country embraced that possessed by
the five Hindu princes of Telingana, Maharashta, the Tamul
country, Orissa, and Carnata or Bijayanagar. It was first in¬
vaded by the Mohammedans in 1294, who stormed Deogiri,
the capital of Maharashta, and abandoned the city to pillage.
In the year 1325 the Mohammedans made further progress
in its conquest; and having extirpated the Hindu dynas¬
ties, annexed the provinces as far south as the Krishna to
the empire of Delhi. The imperial sway was however of
brief duration. Telingana and Carnata speedily reverted
to their former masters; and this defection on the part of
the Hindu states was followed by a general revolt, resulting
in the establishment in 1347 of the independent Moham¬
medan dynasty of Bahmani, and the consequent withdrawal
of the power of Delhi from the territory south of the Ner¬
buddah. In the struggles which ensued, the Hindu king¬
dom of Telingana fell to the Mussulmans, who at a later
period formed a league against the remaining Hindu prince,
and at the battle of Talikote in 1565 destroyed the monarchy
of Bijayanagar or Carnata. On the dissolution of the Bah¬
mani empire, its dominions were distributed into the five
Mohammedan states of Golconda,Beejapore, Ahmednuggur,
Beder, and Berar. Of these the larger succeeded in sub¬
verting those of less importance; and in 1630, during the
reign of Shah Jehan of Delhi, the greater proportion of the
Deccan had been absorbed by the kingdoms of Golconda,
Ahmednuggur, and Beejapore. Duringthe reign of Aurung-
zebe (in the latter half of the seventeenth century) all those
states were reduced, and the Deccan was again annexed to
the empire of Delhi. In the subsequent reigns, when the
great empire of Aurungzebe fell into decay, the Nizam
threw off his allegiance and fixed his court at Hyderabad.
At the same time the Mahrattas, emerging from obscurity,
established a powerful monarchy, which was usurped by the
Peishwa. The remainder of the imperial possessions in the
peninsula were held by chieftains acknowledging the supre¬
macy of one or the other of these two potentates. In the
sequel, Mysore became the prize of the Mohammedan usurper
Hyder Ali. During the contests for power which ensued
about the middle of the last century between the native
chiefs, the French and the English took opposite sides.
After a brief course of triumph, the interests of France de¬
clined, and a new empire in India was established by the
British. Mysore formed one of their earliest conquests in
the Deccan. 1 anjore and the Carnatic were shortly after
annexed to their dominions. In 1818 the forfeited posses¬
sions of the Peishwa added to their extent; and these acqui¬
sitions, with others which have more recently fallen to the
paramount power by cession, conquest, or failure of heirs,
form a continuous territory stretching from the Nerbuddah to
Cape Comorin. Its length is upwards of 1000 miles, and its
DEC
extreme breadth exceeds 800. This vast tract comprehends December
the chief provinces now distributed between the presidencies ||
of Madras and Bombay, together with the native states of Hy- Decemviri,
derabad, Mysore, and those of Colapore, Sawunt Warree,
Travancore, Cochin, the kingdom of Rajah Tondiman, and
the petty possessions of France and Portugal. (e.t.)
DECEMBER (Eat. December), the last month of the year,
in which the sun enters the tropic of Capricorn and makes
the winter solstice. December was the tenth month in Romu¬
lus’s year, which commenced with March ; and hence it was
named from its number, decern, ten. The Romulian Decem¬
ber contained 30 days ; Numa reduced it to 29 ; and Julius
Caesar increased it to 31. See Calendar, vol. vi., p. 77.
DECEMPEDA, a rod ten feet in length, used by the
ancients in measuring land, &c.
DECEMVIRI (i. e., the Ten Men) in Antiquity, ten
magistrates of absolute authority among the Romans. The
privileges of the patricians raised dissatisfaction among the
plebeians, who, though freed from the power of the Tar-
quins, still saw that the administration of justice depended
upon the will and caprice of the patricians, without any
written statute to direct them, and convince the people that
they were governed with equity and impartiality. The tri¬
bunes complained to the senate, and demanded that a code
of laws might be framed for the use and benefit of the Ro¬
man people. The petition was complied with, and three com¬
missioners were sent to Athens and all the other Grecian
states, to collect the laws of Solon and of the other cele¬
brated legislators of Greece. Upon the return of these
commissioners, it was universally agreed that ten new ma¬
gistrates, called Decemviri, should be elected from the
senate, in order to carry the project into execution. Their
power was absolute, all other offices ceased after their elec¬
tion, and they presided over the city with regal authority.
They were invested, each in his turn, with the badges of the
consulship, and the one so distinguished was preceded by the
fasces, and had the power of assembling the senate and con¬
firming its decrees. The first decemvirs were Appius
Claudius, T. Genutius, P. Sextus, Sp. Veturius, C. Julius,
A. Manlius, Ser. Sulpitius, Pluriatius, T. Romulus, and Sp.
Posthumius, in the year of Rome 302 (b.c. 451). Under
them the laws, which had been exposed to public view (in
order that every citizen might speak his sentiments regard¬
ing them), were publicly approved as constitutional, and ra¬
tified by the priests and augurs with the most solemn reli¬
gious rites. These laws were originally ten in number, and
were engraved on tablets of brass ; but when two were after¬
wards added, they were called the laws of the twelve tables,
leges duodecim tabularum, and leges decemvirales. The
decemviral power, which was beheld by all ranks of people
with the greatest satisfaction, was continued ; but in the
third year after their creation the decemvirs became odious
on account of their tyranny ; and the attempt of Appius
Claudius, one of their number, to ravish V irginia led to the
total abolition of the office. The people were so exaspe¬
rated that they demanded of the senate that the decemvirs
should be burned alive. Consuls were again appointed, and
tranquillity was re-established in the state.
There were other officers in Rome called decemvirs, who
were originally appointed, in the absence of the praetor, to
administer justice. Their appointment became afterwards
necessary, and they generally assisted at sales, called sub-
hastationes, because a spear, hasta, was fixed at the door of
the place where the goods were exposed to sale. They
were called decemviri litibus judicandis. The officers whom
Tarquin appointed to guard the Sibylline books were also
called decemviri. They were originally two in number,
called duumviri, till the year of Rome 388, when their num¬
ber was increased to ten, five of whom were chosen from the
plebeians and five from the patricians. Sylla increased their
number to fifteen, so that they were called qumdecimviri.
DEC
ftecen-
nalia
Jecimal
Coinage.
DECENjSALIA, or Decennia, in Roman Antiquity, a.
festival celebrated by the emperors, with sacrifices, games,
and largesses to the people, every tenth year of their reign.
This festival owed its institution to the circumstance that
_ Augustus declined to assume the supreme power for life
when it was offered to him by the people, and would only con¬
sent to accept of it for the limited period of ten years ; at the
end of vyhich term he accepted it anew, and so on to the
end of his life. In this manner he continued to retain the
sovereign power without offence ; for at the conclusion of
each term he went through the form of surrendering his
authority into the hands of the people, who were so charmed
by his seeming disinterestedness, that they immediately re¬
quested him to resume it. In memory of this solemn farce,
the subsequent emperors celebrated the Decennalia every
tenth year of their reign.
DECHALES, Claude Francois Millet (1611-1678),
a f rench mathematician and astronomer, descended of a
noble family, and born at Chambery. He was successively
professor of mathematics at Clermont, Marseilles, and Turin;
and published an edition of Euclid, which was long the fa¬
vourite text-book on the Continent. His works were col¬
lected in 3 vols. folio, under the title oi Mundus Mathema-
ticus.
DECIDUOUS (Lat. deciduus, from de and cado), fall-
mg ; not perennial or permanent. In botany, a deciduous
leaf is one that falls in autumn ; a deciduous calyx, one that
falls along with the flower-petals and stamens.
DECIL, in Astronomy, an aspect or position of two
planets, when they are distant from each other a tenth part
of the zodiac.
PP^^MAL Arithmetic, the art of computing by deci¬
mal fractions. See Arithmetic.
Circulating Decimals, called also recurring or repeating
decimals, are those in which a figure or several figures are
continually repeated. They are distinguished into single
and multiple, and these again into pure and mixed.
A pure single circulate is that in which one figure only
is repeated ; as '222, &c. and is marked thus '2.
A pure multiple circulate is that in which several figures
are continually repeated ;. as '232323, &c. marked -23; and
‘524524, &c. marked *524.
A mixed single circulate is that which consists of a ter¬
minate part and a single repeating figure; as 4‘222, &c. or
4‘2. And
A mixed multiple circulate is that which contains a ter¬
minate part with several repeating figures; as 45*524.
1 hat part of the circulate which repeats is called the re-
petend; and the whole repetend, supposed to be infinitely
continued, is equal to a vulgar fraction whose numerator is
the repeating number or figures, and its denominator the
same number of nines ; so *2 is = f ; and ‘23 is = M • and
•524 is = M4.
DEC
691
Dr Wallis of Oxford was the first who distinctly con¬
sidered or treated of infinite circulating decimals, as he him¬
self informs us in his Treatise of Infinities.
Decimal Coinage, a system of monetary calculation ad¬
vancing to infinity from a fixed standard of value, and per¬
forming its multiplications by any increasing progression of
tens, and its divisions by a decreasing progression which is
also decimal.
This system, whose superiority to all others now in use
is universally acknowledged, was first organized and esta¬
blished by the Constituent Assembly of France in 1790.
It forms a part of that vast decimal metrical system of
weights and measures, which, since the close of the last
century, has obtained in France, and is slowly spreadino-
thence into the other countries of Europe and America,
lie subject was so widely and keenly agitated throughout
Great Britain m the opening months of 1853, that the House Decimation
of Commons appointed a committee to investigate the whole II
matter. The report of this committee was laid before the Declama-
house on the 1st of August of that year. This document . tio°-
was introduced with a strong recommendation of the deci-
mal system of coinage, and proposed that the basis of that
system when introduced should be the present pound ster¬
ling. By the retention of the pound, the decimal system
might be introduced with the least possible change. Its
tenth part already exists in the shape of the florin or two-
shilling piece, while an alteration of four per cent, in the
value of the present farthing will serve to convert that coin
into the lowest step of the decimal scale, which it is neces¬
sary to represent by means of an actual coin, viz., the
pait of a pound. lo this lowest denomination it was pro¬
posed by the committee to give the name of mil, in order
to mark its relation to the unit of value. The addition of a
coin to be called a cent, of the value of ten mils, and equal
to the hundredth part of a pound, or the tenth part of the
florin, would serve to complete the list of coins necessary
to represent the monies of account, which would accord-
pounds, florins, cents, and mils. As to the coins
by means of which the decimal system will be developed,
it is proposed that some of those now in use be retained,
and that new coins be substituted for others of them. The
coins thus retained would be the preseat sovereign (1000
mils), the half-sovereign (500 mils), florin (100 mils), and
shilling (50 mils, or 5 cents). The present sixpence, under
the denomination of 25 mils, might be retained; and the
crown piece, or a piece of 250 mils, of which few are in cir¬
culation, need not be withdrawn. On the other hand, it
would be desirable to withdraw the half-crown, and the
threepenny and fburpenny pieces, which are inconsistent
with the decimal scale.
DECIMATION decimatio), a tithing; a selection
of every tenth person by lot.
The term decimatio was applied by the Romans to a
punishment inflicted on such soldiers as quitted their posts,
or had been guilty of any crime. The names of the guilty
were put into an urn or helmet; and as many having been
drawn out as made the tenth part of the whole number,
these were punished. The Romans had also the vicesimatio,
and even centesimatio, when only tile twentieth or the hun¬
dredth man suffered by lot.
DECIPHERING, the art of finding the alphabet of a
cipher, 01 discovering a method of reading an unknown cha¬
racter or tongue. See Cipher.
DECI US MUS, Publius, a Roman consul who liberated
the Roman army under M. Valerius Corvus Arvina, when
inclosed by the enemy in the mountain passes of Sam-
nium (b.c. 343). In the Latin war (b.c. 340) he devoted
himself as a sacrificial victim for the safety of his countrv.
His son, after distinguishing himself in the wars with the
Etruscans and Samnites, followed the example of his father,
and fell in the same way at the battle of Sentinum (b.c. 295)!
His grandson also is said to have sacrificed his life in the same
manner in the war with Pyrrhus and the Tarentines. This
last incident is, however, generally believed to be fabulous"
Decius, Roman Emperor (a.d. 249-251). See Roman
History.
DECK of a Ship (Ger. decken, to cover), the planked
floor, resting upon her beams.
Flush-Deck, is a floor continued on one line from stem
to stern.
Half-Deck, the under part of the quarter-deck of a ship
of war, contained between the foremost bulk-head of the
steerage and the fore-part of the quarter-deck. It also de¬
notes a partial deck in the fore-part of small vessels. See
Ship-building.
DECLAM AI ION, a speech made in public, in the tone
and manner of an oration.
692 DEC
Declarator DECLARATOR,in Scots Law, a for m of action by which
li some right of property, or of servitude, is sought to be judi-
Decurio. QjgJIy cl0clcir0(l»
^ DECLINATION or Declension, in Grammar, the
inflection of a noun through its various terminations; as
nominative, genitive, dative, &c. . . .
Declination, in Astronomy, the distance or any celestial
obiect from the equator, northward or southward. It is either
true or apparent, according as the real or apparent place of
the object is considered. See Astronomy, yol. iv., p. .
Declination of the Compass or Needle, is its variation
from the true meridian of a place. „
Declination of a Plane or Wall, in Dialling, an aic of
the horizon contained between the plane and the prime vei-
tical circle, reckoning from east to west, or between the
meridian and the plane, reckoning from north to south. See
Dialling. . .. n
DECLINATOR, or Declinatory, an instrument chiefly
used in practical dialling, for taking the declinations, incli¬
nations, or reclinations of the planes on which the dials are
to be delineated. See Dialling.
DECOCTION (Lat. decoqno, decoctum), the act of
boiling a substance in water, to extract its virtues ; or the
liquor itself in which the substance has been boiled.
DECOLLATION, the act of beheading; a term used
frequently with reference to St John the Baptist, to denote
a painting representing the decapitation of that saint.
DECOMPOSITION, in Chemistry, analysis; the sepa¬
ration of the constituent parts of any body which are chemi¬
cally combined. See Chemistry.
DECORATION, in Architecture, anything that adorns
and enriches an edifice ; as figures, vases, festoons, &c.
DECOUPLE!, or Uncoupled, in Heraldry, parted or
severed ; as a chevron decouple.
DECREMENT, decrease; the state of becoming gra¬
dually less. In Heraldry, it signifies the wane of the moon,
which in this state is said to be decrescent, or in decours. In
Mathematics, decrements are the small parts by which a
variable and decreasing quantity becomes gradually less.
DECREPITATION, the crackling noise which attends
the separation of the parts of a body when heated, oc¬
casioned by the unequal sudden expansion of their sub¬
stance.
DECRETAL, in the canon law, is a letter of a pope, de¬
termining some point or question in ecclesiastical law. 1 he
decretals compose the second part of the canon law. See
Canon Law, vol. vi., p. 189.
DECUMATES Agri, tithe lands, or fields granted on a
tithe, as appears from Tacitus, to the rabble of Gauls who
succeeded the Marcomanni. This people had till then proved
a check to the Roman conquests on the Rhine; and hence
probably their name, which signifies people living on the
marches or limits of the empire. In Cicero we meet with
Ager Decumanus, which is of the same import with the Ager
Decumanus of Tacitus.
DECUPLE (Lat. decuplus), tenfold; containing ten
times as many. Hence decuple proportion is that of ten to
one.
DECURIA. See Decurio, and Army.
DECURIO, an officer in the Roman cavalry, who com¬
manded a decuria, which was a body consisting of ten men.
There were certain provincial magistrates called decu-
riones municipals, who represented the Roman senate in
free and corporate towns. As the name implies, they con¬
sisted of ten ; and their duty was to watch over the interests
of their fellow-citizens, and to increase the revenues of the
commonwealth. Their court was called curia decurionum,
and minor senatus ; and their decrees, called decreta decu¬
rionum, were marked with two Ds at the top. They ge¬
nerally styled themselves civitatum patres curiales, and
honorati municipiorum senatorum. They were elected
DEE
with the same ceremonies as the Roman senators; they re- Decussa-
quired to be at least twenty-five years of age, and to be Aon
possessed of a certain fixed income. The election took
place in the kalends of March. . ,
DECUSSATION, a term in geometry, optics, and ana-
tomy, signifying the crossing of two lines, rays, or nerves,
which meet in a point and then diverge.
DEDICATION, the act of consecrating a temple, altar,
statue, palace, or other work, to a divine being or to a sacred
purpose.
The custom of dedication is very ancient, both amongst
the worshippers of the true God and amongst the heathens.
In the Scripture we meet with dedications of the taber¬
nacle, of altars, of the first and second temple, and even of
the houses of private persons. There were also dedications
of vessels and garments of the priests and Levites, and
even of the men themselves. The heathens had like¬
wise dedications of temples, altars, and images of their gods.
Nebuchadnezzar made a solemn dedication of his statue:
Pilate at Jerusalem dedicated gilt bucklers to Tiberius: in
like manner Petronius would have dedicated a statue to
the emperor in the same city ; and Tacitus mentions the
dedication of the capital, upon its being rebuilt by Ves¬
pasian.
When the celebrated temple of Apollo on the Palatine
Hill was built by Augustus, the poet Horace wrote on the
occasion his beautiful ode beginning—
“ Quid dedicatum poscit Apollinem
Yates ?”
This had reference to a superstition prevalent at Rome, that
whoever first appeared at the shrine of any deity, early on
the day on which a new temple was dedicated to him, that
person wrould obtain from the god whatever request he pre¬
ferred.—Hor., B. I., Ode 13.
The Jews every year celebrated the anniversary of the
dedication of their temple for eight days. This was first
enjoined by Judas Maccabeus, and the whole synagogue,
in the year 148 cf the Syro-Macedonian era, or 164 years
before Christ. The heathens had similar anniversaries,
as that of the dedication of the temple of Parthenope, men¬
tioned by Lycophron.
The Christians finding themselves in possession of liberty
under Constantine, began to replace their ruinous churches
by new ones, which they dedicated with much solemnity.
The dedication was usually performed in a synod ; at least
a number of bishops assembled to assist at the service. 1 he
description of such of the churches at Jerusalem and Tyre
as were thus rebuilt maybe found in Eusebius, while many
others are noticed in later writers.
DEDITICII, the name given to that class of libertini
which consisted of persons who had surrendered in war, and
had thus lost entirely their political existence. By the law
Delia Sentia, slaves who had been branded or whipt for
any crime, but afterwards freed by their masters, were in¬
cluded amongst the Dediticii, and thus rendered incapable
of aspiring to the privileges of Roman citizenship.
DEE, a river of England, rising in Bala lake, Merioneth¬
shire. In the first part of its course, which lies through the
beautiful valley of Llangollen, its current is exceedingh
rapid. After passing Wynnestay it turns northwards, and
forms the boundary line which separates Denbighshire from
Flintshire and Cheshire. In its after course it runs wholly
within Cheshire. After nearly encircling the city of Ches¬
ter, it is continued by an artificial channel for about nine
miles until it falls into a spacious tidal estuary, which at its
communication with the sea is nearly six miles wide. Its
principal tributary is the Alwyn, which joins it at Holt. Its
whole course is upwards of 70 miles in length.
Dee, a river of Scotland, rising in the Cairngorm hills,
about 25 miles above Braemar. After an easterly course of
96 miles, chiefly through the beautiful valley of Deeside,
DEE
Dee. it falls into the German Ocean at Aberdeen. Its salmon
fishery is one of the most valuable in Scotland.
Dee, John, a mathematician and astrologer, was born
in July 1527, at London, where his father was a wealthy
vintner. In 1542 he was sent to St John’s College, Cam¬
bridge. After five years’ close application to mathematical
studies, particularly astronomy, he went to Holland, in or¬
der to visit several eminent mathematicians on the Conti¬
nent. Having remained abroad nearly a year, he returned
to Cambridge, and was elected a fellow of Trinity College,
then first erected by King Henry VIII. In 1548 he took
the degree of master of arts ; but in the same year he found
it necessary to leave England on account of the suspicions
then entertained of his being a conjuror. A piece of ma¬
chinery in the Irene of Aristophanes, which he exhibited
to the University, and in which he represented the scarabaeus
flying up to Jupiter, with a man and a basket of victuals on
its back, had helped to give currency to these surmises,
and his subsequent conduct was little fitted to allay the po¬
pular prejudice.
On leaving England he repaired to the University of
Louvain, where he resided about two years. He then set
out for France, where, in the college of Rheims, he read
lectures on Euclid’s Elements with great applause. In 1551
he returned to England, and was introduced by the Secre¬
tary Cecil to King Edward, who assigned him a pension of
a hundred crowns, which he afterwards exchanged for the
rectory of Upton-upon-Severn. Soon after the accession
of Mary, he was accused of using enchantments against the
queen’s life ; but after a tedious confinement, he obtained
his liberty in 1555, by an order of council.
When Elizabeth ascended the throne, Dee was asked by
Lord Dudley to name a propitious day for her majesty’s
coronation. On this occasion he was introduced to the
queen, who took lessons in the mystical interpretation of
his writings, and made him great promises, which, howT-
ever, were never fulfilled. In 1564 he again visited the
Continent, in order to present a book which he had de¬
dicated to the Emperor Maximilian. He returned to Eng¬
land in the same year; but in 1571 we find him in Lor-
rain, where, being dangerously ill, two physicians were sent
to his relief by the queen. Having once more returned
to his native country, he settled at Mortlake, in Surrey,
where he continued his studies with unremitting ardour,
and made a collection of curious books and manuscripts,
and a variety of instruments, most of which w'ere destroyed
by the mob during his absence, on account of Dee’s sup¬
posed familiarity with the devil. In 1578 Dee was sent
abroad to consult with German physicians and astrologers,
in regard to the illness of the queen. But having returned
to England, we find him employed in investigating the title
of the crown to the countries recently discovered by Bri¬
tish subjects, and in furnishing geographical descriptions.
Two large rolls containing the desired information, which
he presented to the queen, are still preserved in the Cot-^
tonian Library. A learned treatise on the reformation of
the calendar, written by him about the same time, is still
preserved in the Ashmolean Library at Oxford.
From this period the philosophical researches of Dee de¬
generated into mere necromantic vagaries. In 1581 he
became acquainted with one Edward Kelly, by whose as¬
sistance he performed various incantations, and maintained
a frequent imaginary intercourse with spirits. Shortly after,
Kelly and Dee were both introduced to a Polish nobleman,
Albert Laski, palatine of Siradia, who was addicted to the
same ridiculous pursuits, and persuaded the two friends to
accompany him to his native country. They embarked for
Holland in September 1583, and travelling overland, arrived
at the town of Laski in February following. Their pa¬
tron, however, finding himself deceived by their idle pre¬
tensions, persuaded them to pay a visit to Rodolph, king of
D E F 693
Bohemia, who, though a credulous man, soon became dis- Peeg
gusted with their practices. They were afterwards intro- ^ II
duced to the king of Poland, but with no better success. v C e” ’>
They were, however, invited by a rich Bohemian nobleman
to his castle of Trebona, where they continued for some
time in great affluence, owing, as they asserted, to their
power of transmutation exerted by means of a powder in the
possession of Kelly.
Dee, having at length quarrelled with his companion, quit¬
ted Bohemia and returned to England, where he was made
warden of Manchester College in 1595. He afterwards re¬
turned to his house at Mortlake, where he died in 1608,
aged eighty-one.
His principal works are Propcedumata Aphoristica, Lond.
1558, 12mo ; Monas Hieroglyphica, Antwerp, 1564 ; Epis-
tola ad Fredericum Commandinum, Pisauri, 1570; Pre¬
face to the English Euclid, 1570; Divers Annotations and
Inventions added to the tenth book of the English Euclid,
1570; Epislola prcejixa Ephemeridibus Joannis Feldi,a
1557 ; Parallaticce Conimentationis Praxeosque nucleus
quidam, London, 1573. The catalogue of his printed and
published works is to be found in his Compendious Rehear¬
sal, as well as in his letter to Archbishop Whitgift, to which
the reader is referred.
DEEG, in Hindustan, a town in the native state of
Bhurtpore, situate amidst numerous marshes and small lakes,
fed by a stream called the Manas Nye. In 1760 this place
was occupied and strongly fortified by Soorag Mull, the
rajah of the Jauts. In 1776 it was taken from that tribe by
Nujuff Khan, the powerful minister of Shah Alum, empe¬
ror of Delhi, after a siege of twelve months, but was soon
afterwards restored to them. It was under the walls of this
town that the Mahratta army, commanded by Holkar, sus¬
tained a defeat on the 13th November 1804 from a British
force under the command of General Fraser. Upon this
occasion the Jauts of Deeg having treacherously opened a
fire of musketry and cannon on the victors, siege was laid to
the fortress by Lord Lake on the 16th December following,
and this celebrated stronghold, previously supposed to be
impregnable, was carried by storm on the 23d of the same
month. At the conclusion of peace, it was restored to the
Rajah Runjeet Sing. After the capture of Bhurtpore by
Lord Combermere in 1826, Deeg surrendered without re¬
sistance, and having been dismantled was delivered over to
the new Rajah by the British who had placed him upon the
throne of Bhurtpore. Lat. 27. 29.; Long. 77. 23. (e. t.)
DEEMSTERS, or Demsters (Saxon dema, judge of
umpire), a judge in the Isle of Man and in Jersey. All
controversies in the Isle of Man are decided without pro¬
cess, writings, or any charges, by certain judges, chosen
yearly from among the people. These are called deemsters,
and there are two of them for each division of the island.
The deemsters sit as judges in all courts, either for life or
property ; and with the advice of twenty-four keys, declare
what is law in uncommon emergencies.
DEER. See index to Mammalia.
DEFAMATION, the speaking slanderous words of an¬
other ; for which the slanderer is punishable, according to
the nature of his offence, either by action upon the case at
common law, or by statute in the ecclesiastical court.
DEFAULT, in Laic, non-appearance in court at a day
assigned. It also imports any omission of that which we
ought to do, for which judgment may be given against the
defaulter.
DEFECTION (Lat. deficio, to fall off), the act of
abandoning or relinquishing a party or interest in which one
has been engaged.
DEFEND, to protect or ward off injuries.
Defend, in our ancient laws and statutes, signifies to
prohibit or forbid; as Usuarios defendit quoque rex Ed-
wardus ne remanerent in regno. L. L. Edw. Conf, cap. 38,
694 D E F D E F
Defender an(j 5th Rich. u. cap. 7. In this sense Chaucer also uses
Defoe ^ie followinS passage :
. j Where can you say in any manner, age,
' That ever God defended marriage.
In 7th Edward I. there is a statute entitled “ Statutum de
defensione portandi armi" &c. And “ it is defended by
law to distrain on the highway.”
DEFENDER of the Faith (Fidei Defensor), a pecu¬
liar title belonging to the sovereign of England ; in the
same way that Catholicus belongs to the king of Spain, and
Christianissimus to the king of France. These titles were
given by the popes of Rome. 1 hat of Fidei Defensor was
first conferred by Leo X. on Henry VIII. for writing against
Martin Luther ; and the bull bestowing it bears date quinto
idus Octob. 1521. This title was afterwards confirmed by
Clement VII. But when Henry suppressed the religious
houses at the time of the Reformation, the pope not only
deprived him of the title, but also deposed him from his
crown ; but, in the thirty-fifth year of his reign, the title
of “ Defender of the Faith” was confirmed by parliament,
and has continued to be used by all his successors on the
English throne. Chamberlayne says the title belonged to
the king of England before that time ; and, in proof of his
assertion, appeals to several charters granted to the Univer¬
sity of Oxford ; so that Pope Leo’s bull was only a renova¬
tion of an ancient right.
DEFENDERS were anciently notable dignitaries both
in church and state, whose business it was to look to the pre¬
servation of the public weal, to protect the poor and help¬
less, and to maintain the interests and causes of churches
and religious houses. (See Protector.) The council of
Chalcedon (can. 2) calls the defender of a church vEkSikos.
Codin {De officiis aulce Const.) makes mention of defenders
of the palace. There were also a defender of the kingdom,
defensor regni ; defenders of cities, defensores civitatis ; de¬
fenders of the people, defensores plebis ; defenders of the
poor, fatherless, widows, &c.
About the year 420, each patriarchal church began to
have its own defender ; a custom which was afterwards in¬
troduced into other churches, and continued till later days
under other names, as those of Advocate and Advowee. In
the year 407, we find that the council of Carthage asked
the emperor for defenders of the number of Scholastici, or
advocates who were in office, and that it might be allowed
them to enter and search the cabinets and papers of the
judges and other civil magistrates, whenever it should be
found necessary for the interest of the church.
DEFERENS, or Deferent, in the Ancient Astronomy,
an imaginary circle, which sweeps round the body of a pla¬
net, and is the same with the eccentric, being invented to ac¬
count for the eccentricity, perigee, and apogee of the planets.
DEFINITION, in general, a short description of a thing
by its properties; or, in Logic, the explication of the essence
of a thing by its kind and difference.
DEFINITIVE, a term applied to whatever terminates
a process, question, or the like, in opposition to provisional
and interlocutory.
DEFLAGRATION, in Chemistry, the kindling or set¬
ting fire to a salt or mineral, either alone, or mixed for the
purpose with nitrate of potassa, to purify it.
DEFLEC ITON of the Days of Light, a property which
Dr Hook observed in 1675, and described before the Royal
Society in March the same year. He says he found it dif¬
ferent from both reflection and refraction, and that it was
made perpendicularly towards the surface of the opaque
body. I his is the same property which Sir Isaac Newton
calls inflecting.
DEFOE, Daniel, a man of varied and original genius,
who distinguished himself as a political writer, and, above
all, immortalized his name by the incomparable romance
of Dobinson Crusoe, was born in London about the year Defoe.
1663. He was the son of James Foe, butcher in the pa-
rish of St Giles, Cripplegate, and grandson of Daniel Foe,
of Elton, in Northamptonshire, yeoman. How he came
to take the name of De Foe or Defoe, we are not inform¬
ed ; but his enemies have asserted that he assumed the
De in order to pass for a Frenchman. It appears, how¬
ever, that in January 1688 he was, under the name of Da¬
niel Foe, admitted to the freedom of the city by reason of
his birth. The family of Defoe were Protestant dissen¬
ters; and Daniel, who had received his education in an
academy belonging to that body at Newington Green,
near London, became by reflection attached to those prin¬
ciples which he had inherited by his birth, and approved
himself through life their able and zealous defender. For¬
tune seemed to have destined him to be merely an arti¬
san, and, accordingly, he was bound apprentice to a ho¬
sier ; but his naturally active mind, already expanded by
his early studies, sought to exercise itself on other objects
than the details of a mechanical profession, and he read
assiduously the public papers, in which subjects of great
interest were sometimes discussed. The unpopular go¬
vernment of James the Second had begun to agitate the
minds of men on questions of religion and politics; and
that of Defoe, who had not yet attained his tw^enty-first
year, partook largely of the general excitement. His first
publication, which appeared in 1683, was a Treatise against
the Turks, written in order to combat the prevailing sen¬
timent of the time in favour of the Ottomans, as opposed
to the house of Austria. But Defoe soon showed that he
could wield the sword as well as the pen, and that he w'as
as ready to fight as to write in defence of freedom. In
June 1683, when he had not yet completed his twenty-
third year, he appeared in arms for the unfortunate Duke
of Monmouth ; an exploit of which he was accustomed to
boast, in the latter period of his life, when it had ceased
to be dangerous to avow participation in that imprudent
and ill-fated enterprise; and he had the good fortune not
merely to escape the hazards of the field, but the still
more imminent perils of Judge Jefferies’ sanguinary “ west¬
ern campaign.” In 1687 he attacked the proclamation for
the repeal of the penal laws, in a tract, in which he expos¬
ed the unconstitutional measures pursued by King James,
and warned the dissenters against the insidious toleration
with which the court had sought to delude them. In com¬
mon with all the friends of liberty, Defoe warmly greeted
the Revolution, which he had endeavoured to promote by
his sword as well as his pen; and when King William and
Queen Mary were entertained by the city of London, on
the 29th of October 1689, he was one of the regiment of
volunteers which, commanded by the celebrated Earl of
Peterborough, attended their majesties on that occasion
from Whitehall to the Mansion-house.
At this period Defoe is said to have acted as a hosier
in Freeman’s Court, Cornhill: but with the imprudence
which is too frequently the concomitant of genius, he ne¬
glected business for pleasure; frequented companies, where
the readiness and vivacity of his wit made him always a
welcome guest; and spent those hours in social enjoyment
or the cultivation of literature which ought to have been
devoted to the cares and calculations of the counting-
house. The consequence was, that in 1692 he fell into
difficulties, and being obliged to abscond for a time, a
commission of bankruptcy was issued against him; but
this was afterwards superseded on the petition of his prin¬
cipal creditors, who, on his own personal bond, accepted
a composition which, by efforts of unwearied diligence, he
punctually and honourably paid. Nor did even this satisfy
the scrupulous integrity of the author of Robinson Crusoe.
For when, by the favour of King William, his circum-
D E
Defoe, stances had been improved, he paid such of his creditors as
^ had themselves fallen into distress, their full claims, and,
exclusively of the composition already mentioned, at length
reduced his whole debts from seventeen to less than five
thousand pounds; an instance of probity admirable in it¬
self, and, considering that it was exemplified by a man
who had to struggle with a numerous family, without as¬
sistance excepting his own industry, often paralysed by
misfortunes, deserving of unqualified commendation. As
yet he had mortified no great man by his keen satire, and
offended no party by his caustic pamphlets; whilst by his
powers of pleasing, which never deserted him, he had
acquired friends who evinced a desire to serve him. Their
project was that he should settle as a factor at Cadiz, a
place with which he had previously had some correspond-
ence as a trader ; but, as he himself remarks, Providence,
w ich had other work for him to do, placed a secret aver¬
sion in his mind to quitting England.
Defoe now began to meditate a variety of schemes for
the benefit of his country, and, in January 1697, published
his Bssay upon Projects, which shows an extensive range
of knowledge ; recommends the establishment of a society
for encouraging learning, refining the English language,
and preventing barbarisms in manners as well as in speech •
and well deserves the commendation which both Prior and
Swift afterwards bestowed upon it. In 1695 Defoe was ap¬
pointed accountant to the commissioners for managing the
duties on glass ; but this situation he lost in 1699, when the
tax on glass was repealed by act of parliament. In 1701
appeared The True-horn Englishman, a poem in vindication
of King William, who had been attacked by one Tutchen,
in a scurrilous piece entitled The Foreigners. This was the
first effort of his satirical muse, and it appears to have suc¬
ceeded amazingly; for it had a prodigious sale, and the
author was admitted to several personal interviews with the
king, who certainly was not a frequent reader of poetry.
After the peace of Ryswick, he published an argument to
prove that a standing army, with consent of parliament, is
not inconsistent with a free government; and afterwards,
when the grand jury of Kent, in May 1701, presented a pe¬
tition to the Commons, in which the honourable house were
unceremoniously desired to mind the public business more
and their private heats less, Defoe dictated a remonstrance,
signed Legion, against the commitment of Culpepper,
Polhill, Hamilton, and Champneys, who had avowed this
intrepid paper, and he imitated the courage of those whose
cause he espoused, by speaking plain truths in bold lan¬
guage. At this time also he published a treatise on the
original power of the collective body of the people of Eng¬
land, which he dedicated to King William, in a strain of
very vigorous eloquence, and which, whilst it vies with Mr
Locke’s celebrated tract in force of reasoning, greatly trans¬
cends it in the graces of style. Soon after this appeared
his pamphlet “ against stockjobbing elections of parliament
men,” which was a very seasonable production, and fully
sustained his reputation. Yks Reasons against a War with
France, which he next published, is one of the finest tracts
in the English language, and replete throughout with elo¬
quence and wisdom. He declares that he is not adverse
to a war with France, provided it be undertaken on justifi¬
able grounds ; but he trusts that England will never become
so inconsiderable a nation as to make use of dishonest pre¬
tences to bring about any of her designs ; and he observes
with striking truth, that he who desires that we should
end the war honourably, ought also to desire that we
should begin it fairly. King William could scarcely be
supposed to relish a treatise which, however able, was dia¬
metrically opposed to his favourite line of policy; but he
never evinced the smallest resentment against the author
on this account; and his death, which happened soon af-
’ 0 E- 695
terwards, deprived Defoe of a patron and protector whom Defoe,
he revered, and whose memory he could never patiently
hear abused. In the midst of the furious party contests
which took place on the accession of Queen Anne, he enga¬
ged in a controversy concerning the occasional conformity
of dissenters; a subject which then led to frequent disputes
between the two houses of parliament, but which is now pro¬
bably at rest for ever. “During the first fury of high-flying,”
says Defoe, “ I fell a sacrifice for writing against the madness
of that high spirit,and in the service of the dissenters.” This
alludes to The Shortest Way with the Dissenters, which he
published in 1 /02, and which is a piece of exquisite irony,
although, in the excited state of men’s minds at that time,
it was pertinaciously interpreted ad pedem literce both by
churchmen and dissenters, and being voted a gross libel by
the House of Commons, was ordered to be burned as such
by the hands of the common hangman.
It has been well observed that Defoe had, during the pre¬
vious twenty years of his life, been unconsciously charging
a mine which now blew both himself and his family into the
air. He had fought for the Duke of Monmouth; he had
opposed King James; he had vindicated the revolution;
Axrn- done justicf to the character and memory of King
William ; he had displeased Godolphin and offended Marl¬
borough, by objecting to the war in Flanders ; he had defend¬
ed the rights of the collective body of the people; he had
bantered Sir Edward Seymour and Sir Christopher Mus-
grave, the lory leaders of the House of Commons ; and he
had ridiculed all the high-flyers in the kingdom;—in a word,
by following a course of undeviating political rectitude, and
by constantly directing the force of his great talents against
every species of public delinquency or folly, he had incurred
the hatred of all parties, and was at last obliged to seek
shelter from their overpowering and resistless vengeance.
A reward of fifty pounds was offered to any one who should
discover his retreat; and although he immediately pub¬
lished an explanation of the alleged libel, yet, being ap-
piehended, he was tried, convicted, and sentenced to the
pillory, fine, and imprisonment. Thus was Defoe ruined
a second time; for, by this prosecution, he asserts that
he lost above L.3500. Whilst in Newgate he amused some
of his dreary hours by writing a Hymn to the Pillory, in
which generous sentiments are intermingled with pointed
satire, and the most cutting sarcasms against his perse¬
cutors. Defoe continued, in the solitude of his captivity,
to pursue his literary labours, and to write on various sub¬
jects. He corrected for the press a collection of his writ¬
ings, beginning with The True-horn Englishman, and end¬
ing with The Shortest Way to Peace and Union; and to
this was prefixed a print of the author, with the too ap¬
propriate motto, Laudatur et alget. In his prison also he
projected The Review, a periodical paper far superior to
any thing of the kind that had yet appeared, and which
formed the prototype of the Tatlers, Spectators, and Guar¬
dians, and contained many things which, in point of wit
elegance, and purity of diction, would have done honour to
Steele or to Addison. In 1704 he published The Storm
being a collection of the most remarkable casualties which
had occurred during the tempest of the 23d November
1703; a production which displays higher attainments in
science and literature than Defoe had generally been sup¬
posed to possess, and which is altogether exceedingly in¬
teresting. ^ J
While the author lay in Newgate, with his family ruin¬
ed, and his hopes of deliverance crushed, a verbal mes¬
sage was brought him from Harley, Speaker of the House
of Commons, and afterwards Earl of Oxford, desiring to
know what could be done for him. In a factious age, a po-
jnt,ri®uer. Darley doubtless foresaw that a man
of Defoe s genius and ability might be rendered service-
Defoe, able to the purposes of his ambition; whilst, on the other
hand, the captive and ruined author was fain to intimate
a wish for his release from durance. But this was by no
means easily nor speedily accomplished. Karley became
secretary of state in April 1704; yet four months elapsed
before his representations to the queen and the treasurer
Godolphin, in favour of Defoe, produced the desired effect.
The queen, however, inquired into the circumstances of
the distressed author; Godolphin sent a considerable sum
to his wife, and a further sum to Defoe himself, to enable
him to pay his fine and the expense of his discharge ; and
at length, in August 1704, he was released from Newgate.
Defoe was exceedingly grateful for this deliverance, and
ever afterwards, amidst all the vicissitudes of party and
faction, remained sincerely attached to the queen and to
Oxford. In 1705 he published The Consolidator, or Me¬
moirs of sundry Transactions from the World in the Moon,
in which he makes the lunar politicians discuss the policy
of Charles the Twelfth in pursuing the Saxons and the
Poles: he also engaged in a controversy respecting a pro¬
ject then brought forward for employing the poor ; and he
published a second volume of the “ Writings of the Author
of the True-born Englishman" containing eighteen pieces
in prose and verse. The persecutions of party rendered this
a year of disquiet to Defoe. For, when his affairs had led
him to the west of England, a project was formed to send
him perforce as a soldier to the army; but being a free¬
holder of England, and a liveryman of London, he knew
that these characters could not be violated with impunity ;
and when the western justices had resolved to apprehend
him as a rogue and vagabond, they were deterred from
doing so by the courage with which he asserted his rights,
and denounced the meditated attack on his personal liberty.
In his absence, too, real suits were commenced against him
for fictitious debts ; but he manfully advertised, that whilst
genuine claims would be fairly satisfied, such as were
groundless and vexatious would be resisted to the last. All
these circumstances were published in his Review.
Defoe commenced the year 1706 with A Hymn to Peace,
occasioned by the two houses of parliament uniting in an
address to the queen; in May he published an “ Essay at
removing national prejudices against an Union with Scot¬
land;” and in July appeared his Jure Divino, in which he
attacked the doctrines of passive obedience and divine
right,respecting which the world then seemed to be running
stark mad, from tbe sheer fanaticism of servility. About
this time, Godolphin, who knew how to discriminate men,
resolved to employ Defoe on a mission of importance ; and
he was accordingly sent to Scotland, where his knowledge
of commerce and revenue, his powers of insinuation, and
the aptitude of his pen, which was that of a ready writer,
proved of no small utility in promoting the great measure
of the union. He arrived in Edinburgh in October 1706 ; he
attended the committees of parliament, which he furnish¬
ed with calculations on the subject of trade and taxes; he
endeavoured to confute all that was published against the
project of the union; and, though exposed to consider¬
able danger, he escaped the vengeance of the populace, by
whom he was continually watched, and sometimes insult¬
ed. In the midst of this agitating scene of business and
tumult, he collected those documents, which he afterwards
published for the instruction of posterity, respecting one of
the most critical and important transactions in our whole
national annals. Towards the close of this year he published
Caledonia, a poem in honour of the Scottish nation ; and
soon after the act of union had been passed by the parlia¬
ment of Scotland, he returned to London. How he was re¬
warded by the ministers for the important services he per¬
formed on this difficult occasion, has not been ascertained ;
but Mr Chalmers is of opinion that a pension was settled on
him. He published his History of the Union in 1709; but Defoe,
it attracted little notice on its first appearance, though it -y>»
was republished in 1712, and again in 1786, when the pro¬
ject of a union with Ireland had become a topic of fre¬
quent discussion. In the year 1709 also appeared his His-
tory of Addresses, which, in 1711, was followed by a second
volume, intended to abate the public ferment occasioned
partly by the mad harangues of Sacheverel, and still more
by the incredible folly which raised them into consequence
by the parliamentary censure of their author.
Defoe now lived at Newington in comfortable circum¬
stances, and employed himself chiefly in writing the Re¬
view, which, however, he at length relinquished in order
to commence A General History of Trade ; but this last
production, although it exhibits all the ingenuity and
strength of Defoe, extended only to two numbers ; the au¬
thor having been silenced by noise, obloquy, and insult,
and forced to withdraw for a time to the borders of Lan¬
cashire. Here, observing the insolence of the Jacobite
party, and incapable of remaining an indolent or passive
spectator of events, he published several pamphlets, with
ironical titles, which were much approved by the friends
of the Protestant succession, and diligently dispersed
throughout the country; yet, for writing these seasonable
tracts, Defoe was arrested, held to bail in the enormous
sum of L.800, and ultimately committed to Newgate in
Easter term of 1713. But on making a proper submission,
he was soon released, and the Earl of Oxford being still
in power, interceded to procure him the queen’s pardon.
Still darker days were, however, at hand. “ No sooner
was the queen dead,” says he, “ but the rage ot men in¬
creased upon me to that degree, that their threats were
such as I am unable to express. Though I have written
nothing since the queen’s death, yet a great many things
are called by my name, and I bear the answerers’ insults.
I have not seen or spoken with the Earl of Oxford since
the king’s landing but once; yet he bears the reproach of
my writing for him, and I the rage of men for doing it.”
Stunned by factious clamour, and overborne though not
silenced by unmerited obloquy, Defoe appears to have lost
his original appointment on the final expulsion from power
of the Earl of Oxford; and instead of meeting with any
reward for his zealous services in support of the Protest¬
ant succession, he was, on the accession of George I. dis¬
countenanced even by those who had derived most be¬
nefit from his active exertions. This cruel treatment prey¬
ed on his mind, and brought him to the very verge of the
grave. In 1715 he published an Appeal to Honour and
Justice, containing an account of his conduct in public af¬
fairs ; and in stating his motives for doing so, he affecting-
ly says, “ By the limits of mortality, and the infirmities of
a life of sorrow and fatigue, I have reason to think that
I am very near to the great ocean of eternity, and the
time may not be long ere I embark on the last voyage;
wherefore I think I should make even accounts with the
world before I go, that no slanders may lie against my
heirs, to disturb them in the peaceable possession of their
father’s inheritance, his character.” But before he had
finished his “ appeal” he was struck with apoplexy; and as
he languished for more than six weeks in a state which
held out but little prospect of recovery, his friends judged
it proper not to delay the publication any longer. The
treatment which he here complains of was undoubtedly
the cause of this calamity : when he reflected on what he
had done and suffered, his heart yielded to despair, and he
sunk under the agony of his own desponding feelings. But
this shock, severe as it proved, was not altogether without
its benefit on the mind of Defoe, which it served to wean
from politics, and to estrange from pursuits productive of
nothing but disappointment and sorrow. The death of
DEFOE.
Defoe. Queen Anne, and the accession of George the First, con-
vinced him of the vanity of party-writing; and from this
period he appears to have studied, not how to mend the
state, but how to improve the human heart and to regu¬
late the practice of daily life, f he only other production
of Defoe’s which appeared in 1715, was The Family In¬
structor, in three parts; but Religious Courtship, which may
be considered as the third volume, was not published until
1722. v
We have now reached that period in the life of Defoe
when he gave to the world the most remarkable, and per¬
haps the most lasting, of all his works; we mean the Life
and surprising Adventures of Robinson Crusoe, which ap¬
pealed in 1719. 1 his extraordinary production met with
the most favourable reception, and immediately became so
popular, that Taylor, who purchased the manuscript after
every other bookseller had refused it, is said to have gain¬
ed a thousand pounds by the transaction. Seldom, indeed,
has any immediate decision of the public respecting a li¬
terary performance been so fully ratified by posterity. At
the distance of more than a century it has lost none of its
original attraction. There is an air of reality and truth
about it which belongs to no other work of fiction ; we can¬
not indeed persuade ourselves that it is the creation of
fancy, nor divest ourselves of the conviction, which every
circumstance conspires to rivet on the mind, that we are
perusing real adventures, and conversing with actual per¬
sonages. Hence, whilst it carries captive the affections of
childhood, it fixes the admiration of mature years; it is
the book of all countries, and of every age and class; it
delights the illiterate, and amuses as well as instructs
persons of the most cultivated minds ; and it speaks in the
resistless language of nature to all hearts. It also contains,
if not a treatise, at least a practical exemplification of a
system of natural education, detailed with matchless truth
and simplicity. “ Puisqu’il nous faut absolument des
livres,” says Rousseau in his Emile, “ il en existe un qui
fournit, a mon gre, le plus heureux traite d’education na-
turelle. Ce livre sera le premier que lira mon Emile ; seul
il composera long-temps toute sa bibliotheque, et il y
tiendra toujours une place distinguee. Il sera le texte
auquel tous nos entretiens sur les sciences naturelles ne
serviront que decommentaires. Il servira d’epreuve durant
nos progres, a Tetat de notre jugement; et tant que notre
gout ne sera pas gate, sa lecture nous plaira toujours.
Quel est dont ce merveilleux livre? Est-ce Aristote ?
Est-ce Platon ? Non, c’est Robinson Crusoe.” In a word,
had all Defoe’s other writings perished, the history of the
author of this extraordinary production would still have
been an object of literary curiosity. As to the story that
the author had surreptitiously obtained and unceremo¬
niously appropriated the papers of Alexander Selkirk, a
Scottish mariner, who, having suffered shipwreck, had lived
for three or four years on the island of Juan Fernandez,
it is scarcely deserving of serious notice, and is certainly
as unworthy of reputation as the fable published by Mr
James Stanier Clarke, that the first volume of Robinson
Crusoe was written by the Earl of Oxford during his im¬
prisonment in the Tower of London. Calumnies of this
sort always track the footsteps of genius; and dull malig¬
nity, where it dares not condemn a work, often seeks to
tarnish the fame of its author, by trying to fasten on him
a charge of plagiarism. In the present case, all that is
needful to repel the accusation has been amply supplied
by Chalmers and Wilson, who have proved that Selkirk
had in truth no papers to lose, and, moreover, shown that
the internal evidence is decidedly in favour of the entire
originality of Defoe’s inimitable fiction. How, indeed, could
the rude journal of a rough sailor ever be supposed to
have entered into the composition of such a finished mas-
VOL. VII.
697
terpiece ? or even allowing that some hints had been de- Defoe,
rived from such a source, how can that be held as in any
degree detracting from the genius of him who bade these
dry bones live ?
The success of Robinson Crusoe induced Defoe to pub¬
lish, in 1720, The Life and Piracies of Captain Singleton,
a romance of the same description, but much inferior in all
respects. In 1725, he brought out another fictitious nar¬
rative, entitled A New Voyage round the World by a
Course never sailed before, a work which displays uncom¬
mon skill, and is highly interesting throughout. The
History of Duncan Campbell, who was born deaf and
dumb, and who taught others in the same unfortunate
situation with himself, had appeared in 1720; and the
Fortunes and Misfortunes of Moll Flanders, the morality
of which cannot be commended, followed in 1721, when
he also published the Life of Colonel Jaque, a work of a
similar tendency. The Adventures of Roxana, which ap¬
peared in 1724, is likewise a production by which few will
be made wiser, and none better. But tbe Memoirs of a
Cavalier is a work of a very different description. This
romance is so like truth that it has been mistaken for real
history ; and in fact it contains the best account extant of
the civil wars, the narrative being drawn up with great
simplicity, and enlivened with such just and natural re¬
flections as at once to instruct the ignorant and entertain
the instructed. The Family Instructor and Religious Court¬
ship have been already noticed. But there are other per¬
formances of his possessing not inferior merit. In 1722, he
published A Journal of the Plague, which, like his Memoirs
of a Cavalier, is, in its frame-work, a pure fiction; The
great Law of Subordination appeared in 1724; the Politi¬
cal History of the Devil, and a System of Magic, which may
be regarded as a supplement thereto, came out in 1726 ;
and the Treatise on the Use and Abuse of the Marriage-bed,
an excellent book, wdth an absurd title, was given to the
world in 1727. He also published a Tour through Eng¬
land in 1724 and 1725, and one through Scotland in 1727.
But the reader must not be misled by this title ; for De¬
foe was one of those travellers who seldom quit the banks
of the Thames. His last works were the Complete Eng¬
lish Tradesman, published in 1727, and a. Plan of the Eng¬
lish Commerce, which appeared in 1728. In these trea¬
tises are many directions for the conduct of business, and
many lessons of prudence and economy, which cannot be
too frequently and earnestly inculcated.
But the glass of the indefatigable Defoe was now near¬
ly run. After a laborious and checkered life, he died in
April 1731, in the parish of St Giles, Cripplegate, leav¬
ing a widow, who did not long survive him, and six sons
and daughters. From several circumstances, it is more
than probable that he died insolvent; and it is at least cer¬
tain that he left no other inheritance to his children but his
good name and high literary reputation. Defoe was a man
of strong natural parts and of clear good sense ; ingenious
and lively in conversation ; bold and enterprising in spirit,
but scantily gifted with prudence; and withal possessed
of good nature and of real honesty. As a writer he is dis¬
tinguished for the fertility of his invention, the vivid dis¬
tinctness of his conceptions, the transparent perspicuity
of his style, the keenness of his wit, the justness and ori¬
ginality of his reflections, and the inimitable ease and
simplicity which more or less characterize all his perform¬
ances. But though his merits both as a man and as a
writer were undoubtedly great, yet few men have expe¬
rienced more unjust treatment at the hands of their con¬
temporaries ; and, notwithstanding the general integrity
of his conduct, he was repeatedly represented as an un¬
principled writer, who had no view but to his own advan¬
tage, and who would employ his pen for any party which
4 T
698 D E P
Defolia- chose to hire his services. These charges, however, are
tion. refuted by the whole tenor of his life ; and, indeed, they
are in all probability the offspring of political rancour,
which, in fact, no man ever did more to provoke. His
readiness and power as a political writer, and, above all,
the unsparing use which he made of ridicule and sarcasm,
weapons which in his hands were peculiarly formidable,
must have raised him up a host of enemies; and those
who might feel themselves unequal to contend with the
gifted writer, could at least find no difficulty in traducing
the man. It has often struck us as surprising that his poli¬
tical works, on which he employed the very best of his days
and his talents, should, comparatively speaking, be so little
known. They constitute a mine which none can explore
without being enriched with much that is precious in wis¬
dom, impressive in eloquence, and striking in truth. But
still his fame must principally rest upon those works which
were entirely the offspring of imagination; and amongst
these, and indeed all others of the kind, whether we regard
the felicity of the design, the truth of the incidents, the
variety and minute discrimination of the details, the na¬
tural justness of the sentiments, or the beautiful simplicity
of the whole narrative, Robinson Crusoe must ever occupy
the first place. Defoe, indeed, was an essentially original
writer ; and hence all his productions possess a raciness and
a freshness which add incalculably to their attraction. But
if he had any model at all, it was Bunyan, an author whom
he must have read in his youth, and from whose works he
probably imbibed that taste for simplicity in writing for
which he was throughout distinguished ; and what ren¬
ders this still more certain is, that in the second volume of
Robinson Crusoe may be discovered obvious traces of the
religious principles so beautifully unfolded in Bunyan’s
admirable allegory. It must be admitted, however, that
Defoe borrowed from the Pilgrims Progress little else
than the love of natural simplicity ; and that in all which
essentially distinguishes him as a writer, he is remarkable
for nothing so much as for inexhaustible fertility, allied
to extraordinary freshness and originality. (j. b—e.)
DEFOLIATION (from de, and folium, a leaf), the fall
of the leaves ; a term opposed to frondescentia, the annual
renovation of the leaves, produced by the unfolding of the
buds in spring.
Most plants in cold and temperate climates shed their
leaves every year. This happens in autumn, and is gene¬
rally announced by the flowering of the common meadow
saffron. The term is only applied to trees and shrubs; for
herbs perish down to the roots every year, losing stem,
leaves, and all. All plants do not drop their leaves at the
same time. Amongst large trees, the ash and walnut, al¬
though the latest in unfolding, are soonest divested of their
leaves ; which, indeed, the latter seldom carries above five
months. On the oak and hornbeam the leaves die and wither
as soon as the cold commences; but they remain attached to
the branches until they are pushed off by the new ones, which
unfold themselves the following spring. These trees are
doubtless a kind of evergreens. The leaves are probably
destroyed only by cold ; and perhaps would continue longer
on the plant, but for the force of the spring sap joined to the
moisture.
In mild and dry seasons the lilach, privet, yellow jessa¬
mine of the woods, and maple of Crete, preserve their leaves
green until spring, and do not drop them till the new leaves
are beginning to appear. The fig-tree, and many other
trees that grow between the tropics, are of this particular
class of evergreens. The trees in Egypt, as Hasselquist ob¬
serves, cast their leaves in the latter end of December and
beginning of January, having young leaves ready before all
the old ones have fallen off; and, to forward this operation
of nature, few of the trees have buds; the sycamore and
willow^ indeed, have some, but with few and quite loose ti-
DEG
pula or scales. Buds seem to be less necessary in southern Deformity
than in northern countries. II
Lastly, some trees and shrubs preserve their leaves Degenera,
throughout the year, and are not in the least influenced by ^ 10n' ,
the clemency or inclemency of seasons. Such are the firs,
juniper, yew, cedar, cypress, and many other trees, hence
denominated “ evergreens.” These preserve their old
leaves long after the formation of the new, and do not drop
them at any determinate time. In general the leaves of
evergreens are harder and less succulent than those which
are renewed annually. The trees are generally natives of
warm climates, as the alaternus or rhamnus of France and
Italy, and the evergreen oak of Spain, Portugal, and Suabia.
Some herbaceous perennials, as the house-leeks and navel-
worts, enjoy the same privilege with the evergreen trees,
and resist the severities of winter ; some even can dispense
with the earth for a time, being replete with juices, which
the leaves imbibe from the humidity of the atmosphere, and
which in such plants are of themselves sufficient for effect¬
ing the purposes of vegetation. It is for this reason that,
unless in excessively hot weather, gardeners seldom water
succulent plants, as the aloes, which rot when they are mois¬
tened, if the sun does not quickly dry them.
The leaves of all the evergreen shrubs and trees have a
thin compact skin or cover over their surface, as is easily
discovered by macerating them in water, in order to sepa¬
rate the parenchyma or pulp from the vessels of the leaves,
which cannot be effected in any of these evergreens till a
thin parchment-like cover is taken off. rI hese trees and
shrubs are found by experiment to perspire but little, when
compared with others which shed their leaves; and it is,
perhaps, principally owing to this close covering, as also to
the small proportion of moisture contained in their vessels,
that they retain their verdure, and continue through the
winter on the trees. The nutritive juices of these plants
always abound more or less with an oily quality, which se¬
cures them from being injured by severe frosts; so that
many of these evergreen trees are adapted to grow in the
coldest parts of the habitable world.
With respect to deciduous trees, the falling off of the leaves
seems principally to depend on the temperature of the at¬
mosphere, which likewise serves to hasten or retard the
process in question. A hot sun contributes to hasten the
dropping of the leaves; and hence in warm and very dry
summers the leaves of the lime-tree and horse-chestnut turn
yellow about the first of September, whilst in ordinary years
the yellowness does not appear till the beginning of Octo¬
ber. Nothing, however, contributes more to hasten the
fall of the leaves than immoderate cold or moist weather in
autumn ; but moderate droughts serve to retard it. As a
proof of this position, M. Adanson relates, that in the year
1759, the leaves of the elm-tree, which generally fall oft
about the 25th of November, continued in verdure and vi¬
gour at Paris, where the autumn was remarkably dry, till the
tenth of the following month.
It deserves to be remarked, that an evergreen grafted
upon a deciduous tree determines the latter to retain its
leaves. This observation is confirmed by repeated experi¬
ments, particularly by grafting the laurel, or cherry-bay, an
evergreen, on the common cherry; and the ilex, oi ever¬
green oak, on the oak.
DEFORMITY (Lat. deformitos), the want of that regu¬
larity of form necessary to constitute the beauty or symmetry
iff an object.
DEGENERATION, or Degenerating, in general de¬
notes the growing worse, or losing some valuable qualities
of which a thing was formerly possessed, borne naturalists
have been of opinion that things are capable of degenerat¬
ing into quite a distinct species; but this is chimerical.
All that happens in the degeneration of a plant, for instance,
is the losing its usual beauty, colour, smell, or the like; a
DEG
egerando. circumstance entirely owing to its being planted in an im-
—v^**^ proper soil, climate, or situation.
DEGERANDO, Marie Joseph, one of the most dis¬
tinguished ethical and metaphysical philosophers of France,
was born at Lyons, February 29, 1772. When that city
was besieged in 1793 by the armies of the republic, the
young Degerando took up arms in defence of his native
place, was made prisoner, and with difficulty escaped with
his life. He first took refuge in Switzerland, whence he
afterwards fled to Naples. In 1796, after an exile of three
years, the establishment of the directory allowed him to re¬
turn to France. Finding himself, at the age of twenty-five,
without a profession, he resolved to embrace the career of
arms, and enlisted as a private in a cavalry regiment. About
this time the class of moral and political sciences had pro¬
posed as a subject for an essay this question,—“ What is
the influence of symbols on the faculty of thought ?” De¬
gerando gained the prize, and heard of his success after the
battle of Zurich, in which he had distinguished himself.
This literary triumph was the first step in his upward career.
In 1799 he was attached to the ministry of the interior by
Lucien Bonaparte; in 1804 he became general secretary
under Champagny; in 1805 he accompanied Napoleon into
Italy; was nominated maitre des Requetes; in 1811 re¬
ceived the title of councillor of state ; and in the following
year was appointed governor of Catalonia. On the over¬
throw of the empire, Degerando was allowed to retain this
office; but having been sent during the hundred days into
the department of the Moselle to organize the defence of
that district, he was punished at the second Restoration by
a few months of neglect. He was soon after, however, re¬
admitted into the council of state, where he distinguished
himself by the prudence and conciliatory tendency of his
views. In 1819 he opened at the law-school of Paris a
class of public and administrative law, which in 1822 was
suppressed by government, but re-opened six years later
under the Martignac ministry. In 1837 the government ac¬
knowledged the long and important services which Degerando
had rendered to his country by raising him to the peerage.
He died November 9, 1842, at the age of seventy.
Degerando’s works are very numerous. That by which
he is best known now, and which constitutes his chief title
to posthumous fame, is his Histoire Compares des Systemes
de Philosophic relativement aux principes des Connais-
sances Humaines, of which the first edition appeared at Paris
in 1804, in 3 vols. 8vo. The germ of this work had already
appeared in the author’s Memoirs de la Generation des Con-
naissances Humaines, published at Berlin in 1 vol. 8vo,
1802. In this work Degerando, after a rapid review of
ancient and modern speculations on the origin of our ideas,
singles out the theory of primary ideas, which he endeavours
to combat under all its forms. The latter half of the work,
devoted to the analysis of the intellectual faculties, is in¬
tended to show how all human knowledge is the result of
experience ; and reflection is assumed as the source of our
ideas of substance, of unity, and identity.
Degerando’s great work is divided into two parts, the
first of which is purely historical, and devoted to an ex¬
position of various philosophical systems; in the second,
which comprises fourteen chapters of the entire work, the
distinctive characters and value of these systems are com¬
pared and discussed. Great fault has been found with this
plan, and justly, as it is impossible to separate advantage¬
ously the history and critical examination of any doctrine
in the arbitrary manner which Degerando has chosen for
himself. Despite these disadvantages, however, the work
has great merits. It brought back the minds of men to a
due veneration for the great names in philosophical science,
a point which had been utterly neglected by Condillac
and his school. In correctness of detail and comprehen¬
siveness of view it is greatly superior to every work of the
DEG
same kind that has hitherto appeared in France, Deslandes’
not excepted. During the Empire and the first years of the
Restoration, Degerando found time, despite his many poli¬
tical avocations, to recast the first edition of his Histoire
Compares, of which a second edition appeared at Paris in
1823, in 4 vols. 8vo. The plan and method of this edition
are the same as in the first; but it is enriched with so many
additions that it may pass for an entirely new work. It is
greatly to be regretted that the author did not live to brino-
down his great work to his own times. His last chapter
ends with the revival of letters and the philosophy of the
fifteenth century.
The next valuable work of Degerando was his essay Du
Perfectionnement moral etVeducation de soi-meme, rewarded
by the French Academy in 1825. The fundamental idea
ot this work, in which the speculative and the practical
mingle in nearly equal proportions, is, that human life is in
reality only a great education of which perfection is the
aim.
Besides the works already mentioned, Degerando left many others
of which we may indicate the following:—Considerations sur di-
verses mlthodes diobservation des peuples sauvages, 8vo, Paris, 1801 •
Moge de Damarsais ; discours qui a remporte le prix propost par la
seconde classe de VInstitut National, 8vo, Paris, 1805 ; Le Visiteur
du pauvre, 8vo, Paris, 1820; Institutes du Droit Administratif, 4
vols. 8vo, Paris, 1830; Cours normales des Instituteurs primaires ou
Directions relatives d Education physique, morale, et intellectuelle dans
les tcoles primaires, 8vo, Paris, 1832; De I’education des Sourds-
Muets, 2 vols, Paris, 1832; De la Bienfaisance publique, 4 vols. 8vo,
1838. A detailed analysis of the Histoire Comparle des Systemes
will be found in the Fragmens Philosophiques of M. Cousin.
699
Degrada¬
tion.
DEGRADATION, in our law books called degradation
and deposition, the act of depriving or stripping a person of
a dignity or degree of honour, and taking away the title,
badge, and privileges thereof.
The degradation of a peer, a priest, a knight, a gentle¬
man, an officer, or such like person, is performed with dif¬
ferent ceremonies. That which anciently obtained in de¬
grading a person from his nobility is very curious. It was
practised in the time of Francis I. upon Captain Fangel, who
had in a cowardly manner given up Fontarabia, of which
he was governor. On this occasion, twenty or thirty cava¬
liers, sans peur et sans reproche, were assembled; before
whom Fangel was accused of treason and breach of faith
by a king-at-arms. Two scaffolds were erected; the one
for the judges, heralds, and pursuivants, and the other for
the guilty cavalier, who was armed at all points, and his
shield placed on a stake before him, reversed with the point
upwards. Ihere also assisted twelve priests in surplices,
who sung the vigils of the dead. At the close of each
psalm they made a pause, during which the officers of arms
stripped the condemned of some piece of his armour, be¬
ginning with the helmet, and proceeding thus till he was
quite disarmed; which being done, they broke his shield
in three pieces with a hammer. 1 hen the king-at-arms
emptied a basin of hot water on the criminal’s head; and
the judges, putting on mourning habits, went to the church.
Tins being performed, the degraded was drawn from off the
scaffold with a rope tied under his arm-pits, laid on a bier,
and covered with mortuary clothes, the priest singing some’
of the prayers for the dead; and then he was delivered to
the civil judge and the executioner of justice.
A more domestic instance is that of Sir Andrew Harcla,
earl of Carlisle, who, on being attainted and convicted of
treason, by the 18th Edward II. coram rege, after judgment
had been pronounced on him, his sw'ordwas broken over his
head, and his spurs hewn off his heels, was thus addressed by
Sir Anthony Lucy, the judge, “ Andrew, now thou art no
knight, but a knave.” By statute 13th Car. II., William Lord
Monson, Sir Henry Mildmay,and others, were degraded from
all titles of honour, dignities, and pre-eminences, and pro¬
hibited to bear or use the title of lord, knight, esquire, or
700 DEG
Degree, gentleman, or any coat of arms, for ever afterwards. It
v —' has been maintained that the king may degrade a peer; but
it appears from modern authorities that a peer cannot be e-
graded but by act of parliament. , . ,
As to ecclesiastics, we have an instance of degradation be¬
fore condemnation to death, in the eighth century, at Con¬
stantinople. It is in the person of the patriarch Constantine,
whom Constantine Copronymus caused to be executed. He
was made to ascend the ambo, when the patriarch Nicetas
sent some of his bishops to strip him of the pallium, and to
anathematize him ; after which, they made him go out of the
church backwards. .
But we have a much later instance in our own history.
When Cranmer, archbishop of Canterbury, was degraded
by order of Queen Mary, he was dressed in episcopal robes
made of canvas, invested with the mitre, the pastoral staff
was placed in his hand, and in this attire he was shown to
the people. When this was done he was stripped of his
mock attire piece by piece. Subsequently it was not deemed
necessary to go through the ceremony of degradation before
putting a priest to death, on accountof the delays and difficul¬
ties which sometimes occurred. Pope Boniface pronounced
that six bishops were required to degrade a priest; but the
difficulty of assembling so many bishops rendered the pun¬
ishment frequently impracticable. In England, a priest, after
being delivered to his ordinary, if he could not purge him¬
self of the crime with which he was charged, underwent the
disgrace of having his gown and other robes stripped over
his^ears by the common hangman ; after which he was de¬
clared divested of his orders.
It has been decided, however, that degradation does not
efface the priestly character. Degradation seems only to
differ from deposition by the addition of a few ignominious
ceremonies which custom has sanctioned. Accordingly, in
the affair of Arnoul, archbishop of Rheims, sentenced in
the council of Orleans in 991, it was deliberated what form
they should follow in the deposition; whether that of the
canons, that is, simple deposition; or that of custom, namely,
degradation. It was decided that he should surrender the
ring, pastoral staff, and pallium, but that his robes should not
be torn off. In effect, the canons prescribe no more than
a mere reading of the sentence. Degradation, therefore,
properly consists in those ceremonies that have been added
by custom, namely, the stripping off the ornaments and the
tearing the pontifical vestments.
DEGREE, in Geometry, a division of a circle, being a
three hundred and sixtieth part of its circumference.
Degree of Latitude. See Latitude.
Degree of Longitude. See Longitude.
A degree of the meridian on the surface of the globe has
been variously determined by different observers. M. Picart
measured a degree in the latitude of 49. 21., and found it
equal to 57,060 French toises. But the French mathema¬
ticians who examined Picart’s operations found, that the
degree in that latitude is 57,183 toises. Mr Norwood
measured the distance between London and York, and
found it 905,751 English feet; and finding the difference
of latitudes 2. 28., determined the quantity of one degree
to be 367,196 English feet, or 69 English miles and 288
yards. Maupertuis measured a degree in Lapland, in the
latitude of 66. 20., and found it 57,438 toises. A degree
was measured at the equator by other French mathemati¬
cians, and found to contain 56,767’8 toises. From these mea¬
surements it appears that the earth is not a sphere, but an
oblate spheroid.
Degree, in the civil and canon law, denotes an interval
in kinship, by which proximity and remoteness of blood are
computed.
Degree, in Music, the difference of position or of eleva¬
tion found between two notes placed on one and the same
part, for a voice or an instrument. See Music.
DEI
Degrees, Academical. See Universities. Degrees
DEHISCENT (Lat. dehisco, to gape), in Botany, open- ||
ing, as the capsule of a plant. eisca1,
DEIFICATION. See Apotheosis.
DEINOCRATES, or, as his name is sometimes writ¬
ten, Dinochares or Tymochares, a celebrated Macedonian
architect, who flourished in the time of Alexander the
Great. He furnished the designs for the second temple of
Diana at Ephesus; drew plans, which he submitted to Alex¬
ander, for cutting Mount Athos into a statue of that hero;
and, at the command of Ptolemy Philadelphus, prepared to
build a temple at Alexandria in honour of that monarch’s
deceased wife Arsinoe, the roof of which was intended to
be arched with load-stones, so that the iron statue of the
late queen might seem to float in mid-air. The exact dates
of Deinocrates’s birth and death are unknown.
DEIOCES, the founder of the Median empire, flourished
towards the close of the eighth century b.c. On the de¬
struction of Sennacherib and his army under the walls of
Jerusalem, the nations which till that time had owned alle¬
giance to the Assyrians revolted, and among them the
Medes. Deioces, whose love of justice had already made
him distinguished in his own village, was appointed ruler of
the new kingdom, and founded the Median dynasty, which
lasted for 150 years. Deioces died after a peaceful reign
of 35 years.
DEIOTARUS, a prince of Gallo-Graecia, or Galatia,
who joined the Romans against Mithridates, and received
as his reward portions of Armenia and Pontus, with the title
of king. In the civil wars he took the side of Pompey and
of his patrons, the senate, against Csesar. His own grand¬
son, Castor, accused him of an intended assassination of
Caesar, which produced the fine oration of Cicero “pro Rege
Deiotaro,” in which the orator defended successfully his
former friend. On the death of Caesar, Deiotarus sided
with Brutus ; but afterwards made his peace with Octavius
Caesar, and joined him in the war against Antony, by which
policy he retained possession of his territories. After this
period history is silent about Deiotarus.
DEIPNOSOPHISTS (Sewnw, a feast, o-o^icmfc, a
sophist), an ancient sect of philosophers, famous for their
learned conversation at meals. Athenaeus has left a collec¬
tion of Ana, which bears the title of Deipnosophista. See
Athenjeus.
DEISCAL, the name of a ceremony originally used in
the druidical worship of Britain, and retained in many
places down to a very late period, as a civil ceremony to¬
wards persons of distinction. The Druids, in performing
the public offices of their religion, invariably made three
turns round the altar, accompanied by all the worshippers.
The memory of this practice was preserved in some places
for many ages after the Druids and their religion had disap¬
peared ; as in the custom in the Scottish isles of walking
three times round the ancient cairns, from east to west, ac¬
cording to the course of the sun. This custom was called
deiscal, from deas or dess, the right hand, and soil or sul,
the sun ; the right hand being ever next the heap or cairn.
In the same isles it was customary for the people to testify
their respect for their chieftains by performing the deiscal
around their persons in the same manner. The ceremony
is described by a proprietor who experienced this mark of
respect as follows :—“ One of the natives would needs ex¬
press his high esteem for my person, by making a turn
round about me, sun-ways, and at the same time blessing
me, and wishing me all happiness. But I bid him let alone
that piece of homage, telling him I was sensible of his good
meaning towards me. But this poor man was very much
disappointed, as were also his neighbours ; for they doubted
not but this ancient ceremony would have been very ac¬
ceptable to me; and one of them told me that this was a
thing due to my character from them as to their chief and
DEI DEL 701
Deism patron, and that they could not, and would not, fail to per¬
il form it.”
Deist. , DEISM, the doctrine or belief of the deists. Deism or
Theism, from Deus, or ©eds, God, is properly used to denote
natural religion, as comprehending those truths which have
a real foundation in reason and nature ; and in this sense it
is so lar from being opposed to Christianity, that it is one
great design of the gospel to illustrate and enforce it. Thus
some of the deistical writers have affected to use it. But
deism more commonly signifies that system of religion, re¬
lating both to doctrine and practice, which every man may
discover for himself by the mere force of natural reason,
independently of all revelation, and exclusive of it.
DEIST, one who acknowledges the existence of a God,
but denies revealed religion ; one who professes no form of
religion, but follows the light of nature and reason as his
guides in doctrine and practice. Deists are sometimes
otherwise denominated Free-thinkers.
The name of Deist seems to have been first assumed as
the denomination of a party about the middle of the six¬
teenth century, by some persons in France and Italy, who
were desirous of thus disguising their opposition to Chris¬
tianity by a more honourable appellation than that of athe¬
ists. Virot, an eminent reformer, mentions certain persons,
in his epistle dedicatory prefixed to the second volume of
his Instruction Chretienne, published in 1563, who called
themselves by a new name, that of Deists. These, he says,
professed to believe in God, but showed no regard to Jesus
Christ, and considered the doctrines of the apostles and
evangelists as fables and dreams. He adds, that they scoffed
at all religion, though they outwardly conformed to the re¬
ligion of those with whom they lived, or whom they wished
to please, or feared to offend. Some, he observes, professed
to believe the immortality of the soul, but others denied
both this doctrine and that of a providence.
The deists hold that, considering the multiplicity of reli¬
gions, the numerous pretences to revelation, and the preca¬
rious arguments generally advanced in proof of them, the
surest way is to return to the simplicity of nature and the
belief of one God, which is the only truth agreed to by all
nations. They complain, that the freedom of thinking and
reasoning is oppressed under the yoke of religion; and
maintain, that nothing should be required to be believed
but what reason clearly comprehends.
The distinguishing character of modern deists is, that
they reject all revealed religion, and discard all pretences
to it, as the effects of imposture or enthusiasm. They pro¬
fess a great regard for natural religion, though they are not
agreed in their notions concerning it. They are classed by
some of their own writers as mortal and immortal deists;
the latter acknowledging a future state, and the former de¬
nying it, or representing it as very uncertain.
Dr Clarke distinguishes four sorts of deists. 1. Those
who pretend to believe the existence of an eternal, infinite,
independent, intelligible Being, who made the world, with¬
out concerning himself in the government of it. 2. Those
who believe the being and natural providence of God, but
deny the difference of actions, as morally good or evil, re¬
solving it into the arbitrary constitution of human laws, and
who therefore suppose that God takes no notice of them.
With respect to both these classes he observes, that their
opinions can consistently terminate in nothing but down¬
right atheism. 3. Those who have right apprehensions con¬
cerning the nature, attributes, and all-governing providence
of God, and seem also to have some notion of his moral
perfections, though they consider them as transcendental, and
such in nature and degree that we can form no true judg¬
ment, nor argue with any certainty, concerning them; but
who deny the immortality of the human soul, alleging that men
perish at death, and that the present life is the whole of hu¬
man existence. 4. Those who believe the existence, per¬
fections, and providence of God, the obligation of natural Deity
religion, and a state of future retribution, on the evidence II
of the light of nature, without a divine revelation. These, Delambre'
he says, are the only true deists; but their principles, he
apprehends, should lead them to embrace Christianity ; and
therefore he concludes that there is no consistent scheme of
deism in the world.
The first deistical writer of any note who appeared in
this country was Lord Herbert. He lived and wrote in the
seventeenth century; and his book, De Veritate, was first
published at Paris in 1624. This, together with his book
De Causis Errorum, and his treatise De Religione Laid,
were afterwards published in London. Elis celebrated work
De Religione Gentilium was published at Amsterdam in
1663, in 4to, and in 1700, in 8vo; and an English transla¬
tion of it appeared at London in 1705. As he was one of
the first who formed deism into a system, and asserted the
sufficiency, universality, and absolute perfection of natural
religion, with a view to discard all extraordinary revelation
as useless and needless, we shall subjoin the five fundamen¬
tal articles of this universal religion. These are,—1. That
there is one supreme God ; 2. That he is chiefly to be wor¬
shipped ; 3. That piety and virtue are the principal part of
his worship ; 4. That we must repent of our sins, and if we
do so God will pardon them ; 5. That there are rewards for
good men, and punishments for bad men, both here and
hereafter.
DEITY, Godhead; an appellation given to God, and
also applied by the poets of antiquity to the heathen gods
and goddesses.
DEJANIRAjin Grecian Mythology, daughter of CEneus,
king of iEtolia, and wife of Hercules. The centaur Nessus
endeavoured to ravish her, and was slain by Hercules with a
poisoned arrow. Nessus, when dying, gave his bloody tunic
to Dejanira, assuring her that it was a sovereign remedy to
cure her husband if he ever proved unfaithful. Some time
afterwards Dejanira, suspecting his fidelity, sent Hercules the
tunic, which he had no sooner put on than he was seized with
the most excruciating torments. Being unable to support
his pains, he retired to Mount Gita, where he kindled a fune¬
ral pyre and perished in the flames. Dejanira killed herself
in despair.
DELAGOA Bay, an inlet on the S.E. coast of Africa,
lying between 25. and 27. S. Eat. It is about 60 miles in
length from north to south, and 20 in breadth; and contains
several islands. It is frequented by South Sea whalers.
The Portuguese, who have a small fort on the coast, carry on
some trade in ivory, gums, gold dust, and slaves.
DELAMBRE, Jean Baptiste Joseph, an eminent ma¬
thematician and astronomer, born at Amiens, Sept. 19, 1749.
He studied in the gymnasium of that town under the cele¬
brated poet Delille, with whom he maintained an intimate
friendship till his death.
Fortunately for Delambre, his family had formerly
founded a gratuitous place for a limited time in one of the
great colleges of the University of Paris, and placed it at
the disposal of the town of Amiens; and this enabled him
to carry on his studies, thus auspiciously begun. The ex¬
piry of this privilege, however, left him to struggle with
great privations. During the interval in which he was
awaiting permanent employment he devoted himself to his¬
torical and literary studies. He undertook extensive trans¬
lations from Latin, Greek, Italian, and English ; and at the
same time entered on the study of the mathematical sciences.
By the advice of his friends, he resolved to devote his
attention to the instruction of youth, and with this view he
went to Compiegne; but he soon returned to Paris, where
he pursued the same career, with the additional advantages,
however, of competent and independent subsistence.
Ele now yielded to the natural bias of his mind towards
the study of physics and astronomy. When he presented
702 D E L A
Delambre. himself at the College of France to attend the lectures of
^ Lalande, he had already read the works of that astronomer,
and had made a complete commentary on them. This was
first remarked when, in the course of instruction, an occa¬
sion offered to him of citing from memory a passage of
Aratus. Lalande immediately foresaw the advantages his
pupil was likely to confer on science, and from that moment
regarded Delambre as a fellow-labourer. He entrusted to
him the most complicated astronomical calculations, and
prevailed on M. Dassy (whose son had received lessons
from Delambre) to establish an observatory at his house,
where Delambre applied himself to astronomical observa¬
tions. Delambre at the same time undertook the most ex¬
tensive researches ; he formed the design of completing the
astronomical tables; and he dedicated his life to the study
and the description of the heavens, a resolution he had pre¬
viously entertained during his stay at Compiegne.
In 1781 the discovery of the planet Uranus by Herschel
excited general attention among astronomers; and the
Academy of Sciences proposed the determination of its
orbit as the subject of one of its annual prizes. Delambre
undertook the formation of tables of its motion, and the
prize was awarded to him for his labour. His next effort
was the construction of solar tables, and tables of the mo¬
tions of Jupiter and Saturn; he likewise undertook the
construction of ecliptical tables of the satellites of Jupiter ;
and in a few years he completed that laborious and exten¬
sive work. He took a part in the sitting of the Academy
of Sciences when Laplace communicated his important dis¬
coveries on the inequalities of Jupiter and Saturn ; and he
formed the design of applying the result of that profound
analysis to the completion of tables of the two planets.
Delambre turned his attention more especially to the satel¬
lites of Jupiter—an undertaking ofgreat difficulty and extent.
In this he was sustained by two powerful motives—public
utility, and the dignity of the subject. He had been en¬
gaged for several years in the composition of his ecliptical
tables, when the Academy of Sciences proposed the same
question as the subject of a prize. This was awarded to
Delambre; and soon afterwards (viz. in 1792) he was elected
a member of the academy.
The great diversity of weights and measures, and the
consequent inconvenience to commerce, engaged the at¬
tention of the French nation about the time of the first re¬
volution; and in the year 1790, Talleyrand, then minister
of foreign affairs, brought the subject before the consti¬
tuent assembly, where it was resolved that the king should
be requested to apply to his Britannic Majesty, with the view
of getting the English parliament to concur with the na¬
tional assembly in fixing on some natural unit as a standard.
It was proposed that commissioners from the Academy of
Sciences should meet an equal number of members of the
Royal Society of London, in order to ascertain the length
of a pendulum in some determinate latitude, and thence to
deduce an invariable model for all weights and measures;
and a commission—composed of Borda, Lagrange, Laplace,
Monge, and Condorcet—was appointed to consider this
gtand project. Besides the length of the pendulum, two
other units were suggested, namely, a quadrant of the ellip¬
tic meridian, and a fourth part of the earth’s circumference
at the equator. Of the three, the commission adopted the
quadrant of the meridian, and its execution was begun by
appointing Delambre and Mechain to measure an arc from
Dunkirk to Barcelona. Ibis undertaking, in itself labo¬
rious, was, by circumstances which arose out of the revolu¬
tion, rendered highly dangerous to the personal safety of
those engaged in it. Mechain died whilst the work was
proceeding; and its successful termination was at last accom¬
plished by the zeal, the talents, the perseverance, and the
piudence of Delambre. The details of this grand labour
have been consigned to posterity in his work entitled Base
MERE.
du Systems Metrique Decimal, the first volume of which Delambre
bears the date of 1806, and the third and last that of 1810. ^'
The labours of Delambre and Mechain were followed up
by those of Biot and Arago; who have added as a supple¬
ment to the Base du Systems Metrique their Recueil d’Ob¬
servations Geodesiques, Astronomiques, et Physiques, pub¬
lished in 1820, in which the operations are detailed by
which the measurement of the meridian was prolonged from
Barcelona to Formentera in the Mediterranean. Altogether
this work does honour to the nation which produced such
mathematicians, astronomers, and artists as were united in
the execution of the labours detailed in it, but particularly
to Delambre, the great directing mind that in the course of
eight years brought them to a successful termination. The
opinion of the National Institute of France was solemnly
expressed when, having considered what had been the most
important application of the mathematical and physical
sciences during the preceding ten years, the universal suf¬
frages of the members decreed the prize to the author of
the Base du Systems Metrique.
Delambre, who had been chosen as an associate of almost
every scientific body in Europe, and a member of the French
Board of Longitude, was appointed perpetual secretary for
the mathematical sciences in the Institute. He had suc¬
ceeded Lalande in the chair of astronomy of the College of
France, and he was appointed one of the principal directors
(titulaires) of the university. For twenty years he performed
the duties of his office in one of the classes of the Institute,
and, in doing so, he enjoyed the reputation of being impar¬
tial, faithful, and just. His annual reports, his historical
eloges, which have been published, and his exposition of the
progress of science, are eminently distinguished by profound
erudition, a talent for writing formed on the best models,
and, above all, by a disposition of mind which inclined him
to place in the most favourable light the works of others, as
far as was consistent with historical truth. His literary and
scientific labours were very numerous, and, in respect of
excellence, of the highest order. His History of Astronomy
(6 vols. 4to) is a work of prodigious research. It puts the
modern astronomer in possession of all that had been done,
and of the methods employed by those who have gone be¬
fore him.
His Methodes Analytiques your la Determination d'xm
Arc du Meridien, his numerous memoirs in the additions to
the Connaissances des Temps, and his Astronomic Theo-
rique et Pratique, exhibit the finest applications of modern
analysis to astronomy and geography; in fact, they have
given a new direction to these sciences. Astronomers
have now laid aside the purely geometrical methods, which,
however elegant, always required at last numerical calcula¬
tions ; and, instead of these, have expressed everything to
be determined in astronomy by compact analytical formulae,
of which a great number are due to Delambre.
It is a remarkable fact in the life of Delambre, that he
did not apply himself to astronomical observations until he
was about thirty-five years of age; whereas, in general,
the particular subject in which a man is destined to excel
attracts his attention in early youth. Delambre was ap¬
pointed a member of the Royal Council of Public Instruc¬
tion in 1814 ; a place, however, which he lost in 1815. He
was in Paris when it was taken by the allied armies; and,
in a letter written at that time to a friend and pupil, he
says that on the day of the siege, in the hearing of the can¬
nonade, he laboured with tranquillity in his study from eight
in the morning till midnight. He had a happier fate than
Archimedes in a like position, for he was not molested by
the victors, and no one was billeted on him, probably from
respect to his high reputation. At the creation of the Le¬
gion of Honour Delambre wTas made a member of that
order. Lie was appointed chevalier of St Michael in 1817,
an officer in the Legion of Honour in 1821 ; but a long time
DEL
Delaware, previous, he had been created a hereditary chevalier, with an
v--'' endowment, which was decreed as a national reward.
The life of* continued and hard study which Delambre
led, at last affected his health. The disease by which he
was cut off became apparent in the month of July 1822.
His total loss of strength, with frequent and long-continued
fainting-fits, gave warning of a fatal result. He foresaw
what was about to happen, and preserved to the last mo¬
ment the unalterable mildness of his character and the
serenity of his mind. At last, Aug. 19, 1822, at the age of
seventy-two, he sunk under his disease, not without having
suffered, but without having complained, or betrayed any
symptoms of impatience.
The following is a list of his works which appeared separately :
Tables de Jupiter et de Saturn, 1789; Tables du Soleil, de Jupiter,
e > aturn, d Uranus, et des Satellites de Jupiter, pour servir d la
Sme edition VAstronomie de Lalande, 1792; Mkhodes Analytiques
pour la Determination d'un Arc du Mhidien, 1799: Tables Trigo-
nometriques Decimales, par Borda, revues, augmentks, et publiees par
M. Delambre, 1801 ; Tables du Soleil (publiees par le Bureau des
Bongitudes), 1806; Base du Systems Metrique Decimal, &c., 3 vols. in
, 7°’ 71806-1810 ’ Rapport Historique sur les Progres des Sciences
MatUmatiques depuis 1789, &c., 1810 ; Abrigt, d'Astronomie, ou
Decons Elementaires d'Astronomie THorique et Pratique, in 8vo;
Astronomie Thkorique et Pratique, 3 vols. in 4to, 1814; Tables Eclip-
tiques des Satellites de Jupiter, 1817 ; Histoire de VAstronomie An-
cienne, 2 vols. in 4to; Histoire de VAstronomie du Moyen Age, 1819,
1 yol. in 4to ; Histoire de VAstronomie Moderns, 1821, 2 vols. in 4to •
Histoire de VAstronomie au Dixhuitieme Siecle, 1 vol. 4to, 1827.
In addition to these, he furnished a very considerable number of
memoirs (about 28) on various points of astronomy, to the Connais-
sances de Temps, beginning with the year 1788. He also contri¬
buted to the Memoirs of the Academies of Stockholm, Petersburg,
Eerlin, and Turin, and to those of the first class of the French In¬
stitute ; and he composed eloges on many of his contemporaries at
their death, among which may be noticed one on our highly dis¬
tinguished countryman Dr Maskelyne, the astronomer-royal of
England. Delambre has also rendered essential service by dispel¬
ling the delusion propagated by his friend Bailly regarding the
antiquity of the Indian astronomical tables, which he held to be
only about 700 years old.
DELAWARE, one of the United States of North Ame¬
rica, and, after Rhode Island, the smallest in the Union,
having an area of only 2120 square miles. It occupies the
north-eastern portion of that peninsula lying between the
bays of Chesapeake and Delaware, and extends from Eat.
38. 28. to 39. 47. N., and from Long. 74. 56. to 75. 46. W.
It is bounded on the north by Pennsylvania, on the west
and south by Maryland, and on the east by Delaware Bay
and the Atlantic Ocean. Its length from north to south is
about 92 miles, and its breadth varies from 36 miles in the
south to less than 10 in the north. The general character
of the surface is plain, with a general slope towards the De¬
laware and the ocean. The northern part as far as Chris¬
tiana Creek is hilly, and somewhat rugged, but none of its
eminences exceeds 500 feet above the level of the ocean.
A table-land or low sandy ridge, nowhere more than 60 or
70 feet in height, passes through the state near its western
boundary, and divides the waters that fall into the Chesa¬
peake from those that fall into Delaware Bay. This table¬
land abounds with swamps in which most of the rivers and
streams have their sources. At the southern extremity of
the state is the Cyprus swamp, a morass 12 miles in length
and 6 in width, including an area of 50,000 acres, the whole
of which is a high level basin, containing a great variety of
trees and plants; and infested by wild animals and reptiles.
The rivers are all small, generally rising within the state
and flowing into the Delaware. The Brandywine, how¬
ever, rises in Pennsylvania. It is 40 miles in length, and
uniting with the Christiana creek, forms the harbour of
Wilmington one mile below that town, and two miles west
of the Delaware River. The other principal streams are
the Appoquinnimink, Duck Creek, Jones’ Creek, Mispilion
Creek, and Indian River. The eastern shore is washed by
the Delaware Bay, but contains no good harbours, having
BEL
703
generally long sandy beaches. To remedy this inconveni- Delaware,
ence, the government of the United States has constructed '
the Delaware breakwater opposite the village of Lewestown,
above Cape Henlopen. It consists of two piers, the one
forming a shelter from the fury of the waves, which roll in
here with great violence, and the other affording protection
from the masses of floating ice brought down by ebb tide.
The former is 2743 feet "long at the bottom, or 2030 at
high water mark, 75 feet wide at low water mark, and raised
15 feet above low, or 3 feet above high water mark; the
ice-breaker is 1700 feet long at the bottom, and 1378 at
the top, of the same breadth as the other, but only 9 feet
in height. The only arms of the sea extending inland, are
Rehoboth Bay, and the estuary called Indian River, which
are spacious but shallow basins, not admitting vessels of more
than six feet draft.
1 he soil of Delaware is in many places excellent, but is
generally thin and sandy. In the northern parts of the
state along the Delaware River and Bay, and for 8 or 10
miles inland, the soils are generally rich clays; thence to
the swamps, the soil is light and sandy, and of an inferior
quality; while the central and southern parts have also a
sandy soil, which gradually becomes less productive the
farther south. Bog iron-ore is found in the swampy tracts
in the south, and has long been used for economical pur¬
poses; shell-marl, extensively used in agriculture, occurs
in considerable quantities; and in the north is found poi’ce-
lain clay, which is sent to supply the Philadelphia porce¬
lain works. Agriculture is the principal occupation of the
inhabitants; but in the north, where there is an abun¬
dance of water power, manufactures have long been in
existence, and are in a very flourishing condition. Com¬
merce and trade are also extensive, and the whale fisheries
have been prosecuted with success from Wilmington. The
principal agricultural productions are wheat, rye, Indian
corn, oats, barley, buckwheat, potatoes, and flax. In the
southern part of the state there is some fine grazing land.
In 1850 there were 513 manufacturing establishments,
producing to the value of 0500 and upwards ; and of these
12 were cotton factories, employing 413 males and 425
females, 8 woollen mills, employing 122 males and 18 fe¬
males, 15 establishments engaged in manufacturing iron,
viz. 13 in manufacturing castings, employing 250 "hands,
and 2 wrought-iron, employing 50 hands ; and 16 tanneries,
employing 108 hands. The other establishments are chiefly
grist, flour, saw, gunpowder, and paper mills, smitheries,
&c., and in the north are several machine shops. Some
salt is made from sea water at Lewes and Rehoboth, and
ship building is carried on to a considerable extent at
Wilmington. The foreign trade of Delaware is effected
chiefly through Baltimore, New York, and Philadelphia,
especially the last; so that its direct foreign commerce is
very inconsiderable (the exports in 1849 amounting to
only $38,229, and the imports to $1400); the coasting
trade, however, is extensive and active. The total amount
of shipping owned within the state at 30th June 1850 was
16,719 tons, of which 1651 tons were of the class “re¬
gistered,” 14,639 tons of the class “licensed and enrolled,”
and 447 tons small licensed craft under 20 tons. The
steam shipping amounted to 2774 tons. During 1850
16 vessels were built, of an aggregate burden of 1848
tons, viz., 12 schooners, 3 sloops, and 1 steamer. The
Chesapeake and Delaware Canal is an important work
connecting these two bays by a channel navigable for sea¬
going vessels. It extends from Delaware city to Buck
Creek, a navigable branch of the Elk River, and is 13^- miles
in length, 66 feet wide at the top, and 10 feet deep." The
Newcastle and F renchtown railway, extending also across
the peninsula, is 16|- miles in length, and, in connection
with steam-boats at each terminus, forms a line of commu¬
nication between Philadelphia and Baltimore. The Phila-
704
DEL
Delaware, delphia, Wilmington, and Baltimore Railway crosses De a-
ware farther north, and being the nearest land line between
those cities, it is the usual route taken by travelleis between
the northern and southern states. .
This state is divided into 3 counties (Newcastle m the
north, Kent in the middle, and Sussex in the south) and
25 hundreds. The population in the different decennial
periods since 1810 was as follows:
Whites. Free Coloured.
Delfico.
1810  55,361
1820  55,282
1830  57,601
1840  58,561
1850  71,289
13,136
12,958
15,855
16,919
17,957
Slaves.
4177
4509
3292
2605
2289
Total.
72,674
72,749
76,748
78,085
91,535
Of the entire population in 1850 there were 58 deaf and
dumb, 46 blind, 70 insane, and 101 idiotic.
The legislature meets at Dover, the capital, on the first
Monday of January biennally, and consists of a senate and
house of representatives, styled the General Assembly. Se¬
nators, of whom three are sent from each county, must be
at least 27 years of age, possessed of 200 acres of freehold
land in the county, or an estate therein worth #1000, citi¬
zens and inhabitants of the state for three years, and of the
county for the last year previous to election. Their term of
office is four years. The representatives, of which there
are seven for each county, must be at least twenty-four
years of age, and are elected for twTo years. The elective^
is vested in all free white male citizens twenty-one years of
age, who have resided in the state for one year, and in the
county in which the vote is given one month previous to the
election. The governor is elected for four years, and must
be at least thirty years of age, a citizen of the state for the
last twelve, and an inhabitant for the last six years pre¬
vious to the first meeting of the legislature after his election.
Delaware sends one representative to the federal congress.
The judiciary consists of a superior court, court of chancery,
orphan’s court, &c. There are five judges in the state, one
of whom is chancellor and president of the orphan’s court,
one chief justice of the state, and the remaining three are
associate justices, one residing in each county. The chief
justice and two of the associate justices form the superior
court, and court of general session; and all the judges ex¬
cept the chancellor form the court of oyer and terminer.
The orphan’s court consists of the chancellor and the asso¬
ciate judge of the county. The government of Delaware is
one of the least expensive in the Union, the income in 1850
amounting to only #31,863, and the expenditure to only
#26,792. In 1850 there were in the state 209 free schools,
with 13,288 scholars. Besides these there are about 40
academies and grammar-schools. The Delaware college at
Newark was founded in 1838, and in 1850 had a president,
5 professors, and 30 students, and a library of 7000 volumes.
St Mary’s college at Wilmington, a Roman Catholic se¬
minary, had, in 1850, a president, 3 professors, and 107
students. The most numerous religious body in the state
is the Presbyterian, and after that the Methodist. There
are also many Episcopalians, Roman Catholics, Baptists,
and Quakers. This state derives its name from Lord De la
War, governor of Virginia, who (in 1610) was the first to
enter the bay, which took its name from him. It was first
settled by the Swedes and Finns, under the patronage of
Gustavus Adolphus, in 1627, and took the name of New
Sweden. In 1630 the colonists built a fort at Lewestown,
and a year after, another near Wilmington. They were,
however, too weak, and too far removed from the protection
of the mother country, to defend themselves against the
Dutch, who claimed the country ; and accordingly, in 1655,
Delaware came into their power. In 1664 this colony, with
other parts of New Amsterdam, fell into the hands of the
English, and was granted by Charles II. to his brother James
Duke of York, who in 1682 conveyed it to William Penn.
In 1704, Delaware, though still under the same proprietor,
DEL
became a separate colonial establishment, and remained such Delaware
till the revolution. The people of Delaware, by a unani¬
mous vote in convention, adopted the constitution of the
United States 3d December 1787.
Delaware, a river of the United States, which rises on
the west side of the Catskill Mountains, state of New York,
and after separating Pennsylvania from New York and New
Jersey, falls into the Delaware Bay five miles below New¬
castle. It is formed by the union of two streams. The
Mohawks, or western and main branch, rises from a small
lake in Lat. 42. 45. N., at an elevation of 1886 feet above
the sea, and flows S.W. for nearly 50 miles, when it turns
suddenly to the S.E., flowing in that direction for five miles
to the Pennsylvania boundary line in Lat. 42. N. Eight
miles below this spot it is joined by the Popaeton branch,
which has a previous S.W. course of about 50 miles. After
the union of these two streams, the river pursues a winding
S.E. course between New York and Pennsylvania for 60
miles to the N.W. corner of New Jersey, where it receives
the Neversink River. It then turns S.W. along the base of
the Kittaning range for 35 miles, in passing through which
it forms what is called the “ W ater Gap,” a great natural
curiosity. The banks here rise precipitously from the water’s
edge to the height of 1600 feet, overhung by immense
masses of rock, and at the S.E. entrance leaving scarcely
room for a road. The passage, however, widens towards
the N.W. Its entire length is about 2 miles. From this
point it pursues a S.E. and then a S.W. course to Easton,
where it receives the Lehigh, a large tributary, from the
west. A little below this the river passes through South
Mountain, and has a S.E. course to Trenton, 60 miles be¬
low Easton; having in that distance 25 rapids, with a total
fall of 165 feet. These falls are navigable at high water.
The river below Trenton turns to the S.W. until near the
bay, which it enters in a S.E. direction, after an entire course
of 309 miles. It is navigable for vessels of the largest class
to Philadelphia, 40 miles, and for sloops 35 miles farther, to
Trenton. Above the falls at Trenton it is navigable for
boats of 8 or 9 tons for 100 miles. The Delaware is con¬
nected with the Hudson river and the bays of New York
by the Delaware and Hudson Canal, the Morris Canal, and
the Delaware and Raritan Canal.
Delaware Bay, at the mouth of the Delaware River, is
a large arm of the sea, 75 miles long, 20 miles wide be¬
tween Cape May on the N. and Cape Henlopen on the S.,
and 30 miles wide in the middle. The navigation is difficult
and dangerous, being interrupted by many shoals. Its low
and sandy shores were without harbours until the construc¬
tion of the breakwater within Cape Henlopen, noticed under
the State of Delaware.
DELETERIOUS (Lat. deleo, to blot out or destroy),
an appellation given to things of a destructive or poisonous
nature.
DELFICO, Melchiore, an eminent Italian writer on
political economy, was born at Teramo in the Abruzzi in
1744, and educated at Naples. His life and writings were
dedicated to the improvement of the jurisprudence of his
native country, and his labours were appreciated under al
its dynasties. His first publication was rather moral than
economic, being a curious and eloquent vindication of ma¬
trimony against the too prevalent customs of a loose age. It
appeared in 1774. But from that time to 1795 his talents
were devoted to the composition of several treatises, which
being generally addressed to the king of Naples, and directed
to the amelioration of the institutions of his country, were
productive of great advantage to the state. This was espe
daily the case with his Memorie sul Tribunale della Grazia
e sulle Legge Economiche nelle Provmcie conjinante de
Regno. To these Memorie the Neapolitans owe the abo¬
lition of the most vexatious and absurd restrictions on the
sale and exportation of agricultural produce. A similai
DEL
Delft.
effect followed his two Memorie on kindred topics, devoted
— like their predecessors to the advocacy of free measures
whenever they might safely be allowed to come into opera¬
tion, and followed, as had been anticipated, with the best
effects. Jhesp were published in the years 1787-88.
Equally beneficial was the adoption of the principles de-
vdoped in ^ Riflessioni sulla Vendita dei Feudi Deooluti,
in 1/90, and his al Duca di antalupo sni Feudi
JJevoluti, in 1 i9o, which were so powerfully reasoned that
a law w^s promulgated for the sale of all feudalities revert¬
ing to the crown as free estates.
. H‘s m1erits were ^cognized by Joseph Bonaparte dur¬
ing his short reign at Naples ; and Melchiore was made a
councillor of state, and employed in the formation of the
new judicial organization of Naples. He was employed in
a similar manner under Murat; and when Ferdinand was
restored in 1815, Delfico was made president of the com¬
mission of the archives ; an office which he filled until 1823
when lie tendered his resignation on account of his advanced
age. His sovereign acknowledged his eminently patriotic
services by the grant of a large pension for life. Soon after,
he retired to his native town, where he died in 1835 at the
advanced age of ninety-one.
Besides the works we have noticed, on which his Nea¬
politan fame may be said chiefly to rest, we owe to him
several general works of no mean reputation, especially Ri-
cer-che sulvero Carattere della Giurisprudenza Romana,
e di sue Cultore, 1 /90, and Pensieri sulla Storia, e suW
Jncertetza ed Inutihtd della Medesima, 1806. In this last
he has anticipated the scepticism of Niebuhr on the early
history of Rome, and disabused us on many of its fables;
but he has fallen into the opposite extravagance, of deny-
mg to the Rorpans before the second Punic war all arts
but that of agriculture, and making war on their neieh-
bours- r (T. s# T ?
DELFT, a large town of South Holland, on the Schie
nearly ten miles N.W. from Rotterdam, and in the line of
the canal between Rotterdam and the Hague. It formerly
possessed extensive potteries of “Delft ware,” but the pot-
tery ot Hof and is now almost entirely superseded bv arti¬
cles of English manufacture. There are still, however, a
few manufactories of coarse earthenware and tobacco-pipes
besides coarse woollen stuffs, carpets, and soap. The new
?-qq0/1 Ti?'™: the monuments of Grotius (born here in
lo83) and William I. of Orange; the old church contains
the tombs of Admiral Van Tromp and Leuwenhoeck the
naturalist I he city itself is well built but gloomy, the
streets being intersected by narrow stagnant canals lined
with trees. Pop. 17,500.
Delft Ware, a kind of pottery of baked earth, covered
with an enamel or white glazing, which gives it the appear¬
ance and neatness of porcelain. Some kinds of this ena¬
melled pottery differ from others, either in their sustaining
sudden heat without breaking, or in the beauty and regu-
Jarity of their forms, enamel, and the painting with which
they are ornamented. In general, the fine and beauti-
11 y enamelled potteries, which approach the nearest to
porcelain in external appearance, are, at the same time,
those which least resist a brisk fire ; whilst those which
sustain a sudden heat are coarse, and resemble common
pottery.
The basis of this pottery is clay, which, when too fat, is
mixed with such a quantity of sand that the earth preserves
enough of its ductility to be easily worked, moulded, and
turned ; and yet so that its fatness may be sufficiently coun¬
teracted, and that it may not crack or shrink too much in
drying or in baking. Vessels formed of this earth must be
dried very gently to avoid cracking. They are then placed
m a furnace to receive a slight baking, which is only meant
w give them a certain consistence or hardness. And, lastly
vyo“red With an enamel 0r glazin£’ which is d°de
DEL
by putting upon the vessels thus prepared the enamel, which
has been ground very fine and diluted with water.
As vessels to which the enamel is applied are but slightly
baked, they readily imbibe the water in which the enamel
is suspended, and a layer of the enamel adheres to their
surface. These vessels may then be painted with colours
composed of metallic calces, mixed and ground with a fusible
g ass. When they have become perfectly dry, they are
placed in the furnace, included in cases of baked earth called
seggers, and exposed to a heat capable of fusing uniformly
the enamel which covers them. The heat applied to fuse
the enamel, being much stronger than that which was ap¬
plied at first to give some consistence to the ware, is also
the heat necessary to complete the baking process. The
urnace and colours used for painting this ware are the same
as those employed for porcelain. The glazing, which is
nothing but white enamel, ought to be so opaque as not to
s low the ware under it. There are many receipts for mak¬
ing these enamels ; but all of them are composed of sand or
fiints, vitrifying salts, calx of lead, and calx of tin ; and the
sane must be perfectly vitrified, so as to form a glass to-
Jerably fusible. Somewhat less than an equal part of al¬
kaline salt, or twice its weight of calx of lead, is requisite to
e ect such vitrifications of sand. The calx of tin is not in¬
tended to be vitrified, but to give a white opaque colour to
the mass ; and one part of it is added to three or four parts
ot all the other ingredients taken together. From these
general principles various enamels may be made to suit the
different kinds of earths. To make the enamel, lead and
tin are calcined together with a strong fire; and the sand
is also made into a frit with the salt or ashes. The whole
is then well mixed and ground together, and the matter is
placed under the furnace, where it is melted and vitrified
during the baking of the ware. It is next ground in a mill,
and applied as above directed.
The preparation of the white enamel is a very essential
article in making delft ware, and one in which artists often
fail. A French writer, in a memoir concerning this kind
of ware, recommends the following proportions; namely, a
hundred pounds of calx of lead to be mixed with about a
seventh part of that quantity of calx of tin for common delft
ware, or a fourth part of calx of tin for the finest kind, a
hundred or a hundred and ten pounds of fine sand, and
about twenty or thirty pounds of sea-salt. Concernimv the
earth of which the ware is made, he observes, that pure clay
is not a proper material when used alone ; and that differ¬
ent kinds of earth mixed together are found to succeed
better. Pieces of ware made of clay alone are found to re¬
quire too much time to dry ; and besides this they crack,
and lose their form, unless they are made exceedingly thick.
An addition of marl diminishes the contraction of the clay'
renders it less compact, and allows the water to escape
without altering the form of the ware in drying ; and it also
affords a better ground for the enamel, which appears more
glossy and white than when laid upon clay alone. The
kinds of clay which are chiefly used in the composition of
delft ware are the blue and the green. A mixture of blue
clay and marl would not be sufficiently solid, and would be
apt to scale, unless it were exposed to a fire more intense
than that which is commonly used for the burning of delft
vvare. But to give greater solidity, there is added some red
clay, which, on account of its ferruginous matter, possesses
t le requisite binding quality. The proportions of these in¬
gredients vary in different works, according to the different
qualities of the earths employed. Three parts of blue clay,
two parts of red clay, and five parts of marl, form the com¬
position used in several manufactories. It has been said
t iat the best delft ware might be made of equal parts of
pure clay and pure calcareous earth ; but this composition
would require that the fire should be continued twice as
long as it generally is.
4 u
705
Delft.
700 DEL
Delhi. DELHI, in Hindustan, a British district under the juris-
■V»'/ diction of the lieutenant-governor of the north-western pro¬
vinces. Its boundaries are the district of Panneeput on the
north ; the River Jumna on the east, dividing it from the
districts of Meerut and Boolundshuhur; the district of Goor-
gaon on the south, and the petty native states of Buhardoor-
gurh and Jhujur on the west. It has an area of 602 square
miles, and lies between Lat. 28. 24. and 28.54.; Long. 76.
49. and 77. 29. The climate is characterized by aridity, and
the soil being for the most part sandy or stony, its success¬
ful cultivation depends in a great measure on artificial means
of irrigation. The principal alimentary crops are wheat,
barley, and pulse. Water is procured from wells, but these
have to be dug to a great depth. Happily an abundant sup¬
ply from a more accessible source has been rendered avail¬
able to a considerable portion of the district. In 1356 a
celebrated aqueduct, diverging from the Jumna at the very
spot where that river issues from the mountains, was con¬
structed by Feroz Shah, king of Delhi, and conducted in a
westerly direction to the royal hunting grounds of Hansi and
Hissar. At the distance of 80 miles from the commencement
of this aqueduct, the canal of Ali Mardan Khan, a Persian
nobleman of great eminence, parted from Feroz Shah’s canal,
and traversing the district in a southerly direction, rejoined
the Jumna at the city of Delhi. It was a noble work, which
gave fertility to a large district along its banks, and was the
sole source of vegetation in the gardens of Delhi, besides
furnishing the inhabitants with the only drinkable water
within their reach. This aqueduct, which, from indolence,
neglect, and the devastations of intestine war to which this
province was long exposed, had been allowed to fall entirely
into disrepair, was re-opened by the British government in
1820, to the great joy of the inhabitants of Delhi, who went
out in jubilee to meet its stream, throwing flowers, ghee,
and other things into the water, and calling down all man¬
ner of blessings on the British government. The supply of
water derived from this aqueduct enables the inhabitants
in a large tract of country to have recourse to irrigation, and
thus to render the soil productive. According to the cen¬
sus taken in 1853 the population amounts to 435,744. Of
this number 235,203 are males, and 200,541 females. The
Hindu population greatly preponderates; its proportion, com¬
pared with that of all other classes, being about eight to
three ; but in the city of Delhi, long the seat of a Moham¬
medan monarchy, the proportion of Mussulmans nearly
equals that of Hindus.
Delhi, the chief city of the above province, and for many
years the capital of the Patan and Mogul empires, situated
on the banks of a branch of the Jumna. During the era of
its splendour it is said to have occupied a space of twenty
miles round; and its great extent is still attested by the
ruins, which cover a vast surface. The inhabited part of
the town is about seven miles in circuit: it is seated on a
range of rocky hills, and is surrounded by an embattled
wall, which the English government have put into repair,
and strengthened with bastions, a moat, and a regular glacis.
The city has seven gates in addition to those on the river
face, namely, the Lahore gate, Ajmeer gate, Turkoman
gate, Delhi gate, Mohur gate, Cabul gate, and Cashmere
gate ; all built of freestone. The houses within the walls
are many of them large and high. The streets are in ge¬
neral narrow, with the exception of two : the first leading
from the palace to the Delhi gate, which has an aqueduct
along its whole extent; and the second from the palace to
the Lahore gate. Ihese are really wide, handsome, and,
for an Asiatic city, remarkably clean. The breadth of
the first may be about equal to that of Pall-Mall in Lon¬
don, and is called Chandnee Chokee, or Silversmiths’ Street,
though few of the present residents belong to that craft. The
city contains a great number of mosques, with high minarets
and gilded domes, and the remains of many splendid pa-
D E L
laces belonging to the great omrahs of the empire. They Delhi.
are all surrounded with high walls, and occupy a consider-
able space of ground, as they comprehend gardens, baths,
stables for all sorts of animals, and music galleries. Above
all is seen the imperial palace, a very high and extensive
cluster of towers and battlements. It was built by Shah
Jehan, on the west bank of the Jumna, and is surrounded
on three sides by an embattled wall sixty feet high, built
of red granite, with small round towers, and two noble
gateways, each defended by an outer barbican of the same
material, though of less height, and the whole surrounded
by a wide moat. It is a place of no strength ; but, “ as a
kingly residence,” says Heber, “ it is one of the noblest
that I have seen. It far surpasses the Kremlin; but I do
not think that, except in the durability of its materials, it
equals Windsor.” On the opposite bank of the river is the
fortress of Selimghur, now in ruins. The gardens of Sha-
limar were made by the Emperor Shah Jehan, and are said
to have cost one million sterling ; but, like his other works,
they are now in ruins. They were surrounded by a brick
wall, and were about a mile in circumference.
There are many fine mosques in Delhi still in good re¬
pair, the chief of which are the Jumna Musjeed and the
Kala Musjeed. The former is advantageously elevated on
a small rocky eminence to the full height of the surround¬
ing houses. It was begun by Shah Jehan in the fourth
year of his reign, and was completed in the tenth. In front
it has a large square court, surrounded by a cloister open on
both sides. It is paved with granite inlaid with marble,
and commands a view of the whole city. In the centre is
a great marble reservoir of water, with some small fountains
supplied by machinery from the canal. On its west side
and rising at another flight of steps, is the mosque itself,
which is entered by three noble Gothic arches, surmounted
by three domes of white marble. It has at each end a very
tall minaret. “ The ornaments,” says Heber, “ are less
florid, and the building less picturesque, than the splendid
group of the Imambara and its accompaniments at Luck¬
now ; but the situation is far more commanding. Bishop
Heber was more impressed with the size, the solidity, and
rich materials of this building, than with anything of the
sort which he had seen in India. By the liberality of the
British rulers, it is kept in excellent repair, a grant having
been made for this purpose. The Kala Musjeed is small,
and is chiefly worthy of notice from its plainness, solidity,
and great antiquity, being a work of the first Patan con¬
querors in the times of primitive Mussulman simplicity.
Not far from the palace is the pretty little mosque of Ilo-
shun ud Dowlah, with its three gilt domes, on the porch of
which it is said that, in 1739, Nadir Shah sat to witness
the massacre of the unfortunate inhabitants by his licen¬
tious soldiery ; and a gate leading to a bazaar near it retains
the name of “ Coonia Durwazu,” or the Slaughter Gate.
There are besides about forty other mosques of inferior
size. The tombs of the imperial family at Delhi have se¬
veral of them the most splendid architectural ornaments.
That of Humaioon, the second of the Mogul dynasty who
reigned over Hindustan, is a noble building of granite, in¬
laid with marble, and in a very simple style of architecture.
It is surrounded by a large garden with terraces and foun¬
tains ; and the garden itself is surrounded by an embattled
wall with towers, four gateways, and a cloister within all the
way round. In the centre of the square is a platform of
about twenty feet high and two hundred feet square, sup¬
ported by cloisters, and ascended by four great flights of
granite steps. Above rises the tomb, also a square, with a
great dome of white marble in its centre. The apartments
within consist of a circular room, in the centre of which lie,
under a small raised slab, the mortal remains of the prince ;
and smaller chambers in the angles where other branches
of his family are interred. About a mile westward is an-
Delhi.
DEL
other burying-ground, or collection of tombs and small
mosques, some of them very beautiful. The most remark¬
able is a little chapel in honour of a celebrated Mussul¬
man saint Nizam ud Deen ; and around his shrine most
of the deceased members of the present imperial family lie
buried, all in their own little inclosures, surrounded by
very elegant latticework of white marble. From the gate of
Agra to Humaioon’s tomb is a very awful scene of desola¬
tion ; “ ruins after ruins,” says Bishop Heber, “ tombs after
tombs, fragments of brick-work, freestone, granite, and
marble, scattered everywhere over a soil naturally rocky
and barren, without cultivation except in one or two small
spots, and without a single tree.” Amongst these ruins is to
be seen one mass which is larger than the rest. This is
the old Patan palace, which was a large and solid fortress,
in a plain and unornamented style, and chiefly remarkable
for a high black pillar of cast metal, called Feroz’s Walking
Stick, a Hindu emblem of Siva, as is supposed, concerning
which there is a tradition, that whilst it stood the children
of Brahma were to bear rule in Indraput, the name of the
Hindu city which preceded Delhi. The vanity of the pre¬
diction appeared when the country was conquered. The
pillar is covered with inscriptions, mostly in Persian and
Arabic; but that portion of it which probably contains the
prophecy is inscribed with characters obsolete and unknown
—a sure mark of its high antiquity.
Delhi has fallen from its ancient splendour; the palaces
of the nobles, which formerly gave an air of grandeur to the
city, having been for the most part demolished. But as
these memorials of the resources and magnificence of the
Mohammedan dynasties of Hindustan disappear, their sites
become occupied by structures of less pretension, but still
possessing much elegance of architectural design, and, upon
the whole, the city is represented as having greatly im¬
proved. Much attention has been paid to its cleanliness ;
it is amply supplied with water by means of the canal which
diffuses constant streams throughout its streets; and the
locality is considered healthy. From a series of observa¬
tions continued over a period of three years, the mean tem¬
perature of the atmosphere in the daytime is estimated as
follows: January 56°, February 61°, March 72°, April 83°,
May 91 , June 92°, July 86°, August 83°, September 83°,
October 77°, November 65°, December,'58°. During the
cooler months, the frost of the night is sufficient to produce
ice, which is carefully removed in the morning and depo¬
sited for preservation in deep pits.
Among the more modern buildings of Delhi is the Go¬
vernment College. This institution was founded in 1792.
It is divided into four departments—English, Arabic, Per¬
sian, and Sanscrit. The number of students, according to
the latest returns, amounted to 333, of whom 206 were Mo¬
hammedans, 105 Hindus, and 22 Christians. There is also
the palace of the British resident and a Protestant church
built at the cost of L.l0,000 by the munificence of the late
Colonel Skinner, a military officer in the service of the East
India Company. By a census taken on the 1st January
1853, the city is stated to contain 152,424 inhabitants, of
whom 76,390 are represented as being'Hindus, and 76,034
as Mohammedans.
The ruins which surround the present town mark the
site of old Delhi, which was founded on the ruins of the
still larger Hindu city of Indraput towards the west. This
city was taken in 1193 by the Mohammedans under Cut-
tubbadeen Khan, who fixed his residence there, and, upon
his succeeding to the throne, made it his capital. It was
increased and improved, until, under the Afghan monarchs,
Agra was made the capital, which continued to be the seat
of empire till the x’eturn of Humaioon from Persia in 1554.
During the reigns of Akbar and Jehangire, Delhi was de¬
serted, but was restored to its ancient splendour by the
Emperor Shah Jehan, who founded the present city in 1631,
D E L
707
and removed to it many of its inhabitants; others soon fol¬
lowed, to be near the palace and the principal markets;
and as, during the disorders of the Mahratta government'
it was unsafe to remain without the walls, the old city was
soon entirely abandoned. After the defeat of the Mogul
army at Kurnaul in 1739, Delhi was occupied by Nadir
Shah, the sovereign of Persia. During his stay in "the city
the Persian troops were rashly attacked by the populace ;
and Nadir, vainly attempting to restore order, gave direc¬
tions for a general military execution, which were acted
upon with terrible fidelity. From this period the dismem¬
berment of the empire of Delhi rapidly proceeded. Ahmed
Shah, the great Mogul, who had succeeded to the shattered
sovereignty in 1748, was deposed in 1754, and blinded ; and
upon the accession of his successor nothing remained to the
house of Baber but the decayed metropolis, which itself
was taken in 1756 by Ahmed Shah Dooranee, and again
in 1/58 by the Mahrattas. The emperor Shah Alum suc¬
ceeded to the titular sovereignty in 1759, and having thrown
himself into the hands of the Mahrattas, long suffered ne¬
glect and abject poverty. Upon the discomfiture of the
Mahratta army by Lord Lake in 1803, Delhi admitted the
conquering forces without resistance, and the Mogul em¬
peror was taken under the protection of the East India
Company. He was honourably treated by the English,
who assigned him an annual pension of ten, twelve, and
ultimately of fifteen lacs of rupees for his subsistence, and
who rendered him all the outward homage of royalty, ac¬
knowledging him as the sovereign of the country, and them¬
selves as his tributaries. But the altered position of the
British in India at length rendered it expedient to discoun¬
tenance the further assumption of regal dignity on the part
of the Mogul dynasty ; and an arrangement has been made
with the heir apparent to the titular sovereignty under which
upon the reigning emperor’s death the palace is to be given
up to the British, the members of the royal family removino-
to other residences. The royal allowances will be continued^
but the position of the head of the family will have subsided
into that of a subject. Delhi was besieged in 1804 by the
Mahratta chief Holkar, commanding an army of 70,000
men, but it maintained a gallant and successful defence un¬
der the command of Lieutenant-Colonel Burn. The city
has an elevation of 800 feet above the level of the sea. Lat.
28. 39.; Long. 77. 18. (E. T>)
DELIA, in Antiquity, a festival celebrated every fifth
year in the island of Delos, in honour of Apollo. It was
first instituted by Theseus, who on his return from Crete
placed at Delos a statue which he had received from
Ariadne. At the celebration they crowned the statue of
the god with garlands, appointed a choir of music, and ex¬
hibited horse-races. They afterwards led a dance, in which
they imitated by their motions the various windings of the
Cretan labyrinth, from which Theseus had extricated him¬
self with Ariadne’s assistance. There was another festival
of the same name yearly celebrated by the Athenians at
Delos, and also instituted by Theseus, who, when going to
Crete, made a vow that if he returned victorious, he would
yearly visit in a solemn manner the temple of Delos. The
persons employed in this annual procession were called Be-
hastcB and Theori; and the ship which had carried The¬
seus, and had been carefully preserved by the Athenians,
was called TAeoria and Be/ias. During this festival it was
unlawful to put any one to death ; and hence it was that the
life of Socrates was prolonged for thirty days.
Delia, a surname of the goddess Diana; from Delos the
place of her birth. Hence also Apollo is called Delius.
DELIACAL Problem, a celebrated problem among the
ancients, concerning the duplication of the cube.
DELILLE, Jacques, early acquired deserved celebrity
as the founder of a new school in French poetry, but un¬
fortunately his ambition extended with his fame, till he left
Delia
II
Delille.
708 DEL
Delille. behind him as many didactic poems as Sir Richard Bkck-
i,- more has epics, and we suspect the greater number ot them
are already almost as little known. The author of tie
Jar dins, indeed, will always hold his rank among poets ; but
it would have been no great misfortune to his memory i le
had written little more. .
He was born on the 22dof June 1738, in the neighbour¬
hood of Clermont, in Auvergne. His father was a man of
neither fortune nor family; but he was connected by us
mother with that of the Chancellor de 1 Hopital. \\ ith very
slender means of support, he was educated at Paris, and
made such progress in his studies as augured well foi his
future distinction. When his education was completed he
was forced to accept of a very humble situation as teacher
in the College of Beauvais ; but this wras soon exchanged
for the more honourable station of professor of humanity at
Amiens. After returning to Paris, where he likewise ob¬
tained a professorship, he speedily accpiired a considerable
poetical name, and was encouraged, by the younger Racine,
to give to the world a translation of the Georgies of Virgil,
which he had begun at Amiens. Voltaire was greatly struck
with the enterprise and the success of Delille ; and without
any personal acquaintance with the poet, he, of his own ac¬
cord, recommended him and his work to the good graces of
the Academy. It w^as not, however, till some years afterwards
that Delille became a member of that celebrated body. He
now aimed at a higher distinction than even a finished trans¬
lation of the most finished poem in the world could confer
upon him; and in the Jardins, which he published a few
years after his reception into the Academy, he made good
his pretensions as an original poet.
Before he had gone far in the composition of his next
poem, which was not, indeed, published till after many of his
other works, he made a voyage to Constantinople in the train
of the ambassador M. de Choiseul Gouffier. On his return
to Paris he lectured, in his capacity of professor, on the Latin
poets, and was attended by a numerous audience, who were
delighted, not only with his critical observations, but with his
beautiful recitation. Delille continued to advance in fame
and fortune, though without hazarding any more publications,
till the period of the Revolution, when he was reduced to
poverty, and sheltered himself in retreat from the aisasters
which surrounded him. He quitted Paris, and retired to St
Diez, the native place of Madame Delille; and here he com¬
pleted, in deep solitude, his translatic n of the JEneid, which
he had begun many years before. A residence in France,
however, soon became very undesirable, and he emigrated first
to Bale and then to Glairesse in Switzerland, a charming
village on the lake of Bienne, opposite Rousseau’s island of
St Pierre. Much delighted with this enchanting country, and
with the reception which he met from its inhabitants, he oc¬
cupied himself constantly in the composition of poetry, and
here finished his Homme des Champs, and his poem on the
Trois Regnes de la Nature. His next place of refuge was
in Germany, where he composed his La Pitie; and finally,
he passed two years in London, chiefly employed in trans¬
lating Paradise Lost. In 1801, finding that he might re¬
turn safely to Paris, he did so, carrying with him his immense
Poetical Encgclopcedia, and from that time he sent poem
after poem into the world, till at last he himself quitted it on
the 1st of May 1813, at the age of seventy-five.
Delille appeal's to have been a person of a very amiable
and simple character ; his conversation was full of a child¬
like gaiety, and his writings are always moral and pious; but
with all his beauty of versification, and occasional felicity of
expression, he yet shows, in his latter works especially, a
great ignorance of the line of distinction between prose and
poetry.
Delille has left behind him little prose. His preface to
the translation of the Georgies is an able essay, and contains
many excellent hints on the art and the difficulties of trans-
Delos.
DEL
lation. He wrote the article La Bruyere in the Biogra- Deliques-
phie Universelle. The following is the list of his poetical cence
works: Les Georgiques de Virgile, traduites en vers Fran-
gais, Paris, 1769, 1782, 1785, 1809. Les Jardins, en quatre ^
chants, 1780; nouvelle edition, Londres, 1800; Paris, 1802.
L’Hommes des Champs, ou les Georgiques Franca,ises,
1800. Poesies Fugitives, 1802. A collection given under
the title of Poesies Diverses, 1801, was disavowed by De¬
lille. Dithyrambe sur VImmortalite de VAme, suivi du
passage du Saint Gothard; poeme traduit de 1’Anglais de
Madame la Duchesse de Devonshire, 1802. La Pitie;
poeme en quatre chants. Londres et Paris, 1803. L’Eneide
de Virgile, traduite en vers Frangais, 1805. IJImagina¬
tion, poeme en huit chants, 1806. Les Trois Regnes de la
Nature, 1809. La Conversation, 1812.
DELIQUESCENCE (Lat. deliquesco, to dissolve), spon¬
taneous liquefaction ; a property of certain bodies by which
they attract moisture from the air, and thereby become
liquid.
DELIQUIUM, in Chemistry, is the dissolution or melt¬
ing of a salt by suspending it in a moist cellar. Salt of
tartar, or any fixed alkali, placed in a cool and moist situa¬
tion, and in an open vessel, resolves or runs into a kind
of liquor called by the older chemists oil of tartar per de-
liquium.
DELIRIUM (from delirare, to rave), a state in which the
ideas excited in the mind do not correspond with external
objects, but are produced by the change induced on the sen-
sorium, either by fever or some other cause.
DELLAMCOTTA, a fortress of Northern Hindustan,
in the province of Bootan. It is situated on a range of lofty
mountains, which rises about a mile and a half above the
plains of Bengal, and commands the principal pass into
Bootan. It was stormed by the British troops in 1773,
which so alarmed the Booteans that they petitioned for
peace. The fortress was then restored to them. Distant
27 miles E. from Durjeeling. Lat. 26. 59.; Long. 88. 44.
DELOS, in Ancient Geography, an islet in the TEgean
Sea, the most famous of the Cyclades, and the central spot
round which that group was believed by the ancients to
cluster in a nearly circular form. It was known by the an¬
cients under many names, such as Asteria,Chlamydia, Cyn-
thus, Ostygia, Pyrpile, &c. Delos is the smallest of the
Cyclades, being only about 5 miles in circumference, and
lies at nearly equal distances between Myconos and Rheneia,
though somewhat nearer the latter, in N. Lat. 37. 23. and
E. Long. 25. 17. Many traditions were current in ancient
times regarding the origin of Delos, the most popular of
which, recorded with some variations by the different poets
of antiquity, describes it as having been called forth from the
bottom of the sea by a stroke of Neptune’s trident, and as
having floated through the iEgean till Jupiter moored it as
a place of refuge for the persecuted Latona. Here it was
that Apollo and Diana were soon after born ; and from this
circumstance the island wras ever after deemed peculiarly
sacred to these deities. The early history of Delos is in¬
volved in much obscurity. The best authorities describe
the island as originally colonized by Ionian settlers, and as
being the seat of a great Pan-Ionic festival, which was cele¬
brated with musical as well as with gymnastic contests. So
sacred was the island believed to be, that in the time of
Pisistratus all the tombs within sight of the temple were re¬
moved as being displeasing to the god; a purification which
was repeated even more strictly in the course of the Pelo¬
ponnesian war by the Athenians, who removed every tomb
that was there, and ordained that no one should hencefoi th
either die or be born on the island. Invalids and pregnant
women were accordingly always removed from Delos to
some of the adjacent islands. The purification was a few
years afterwards completed by the final removal of all the
inhabitants from the island. A full account of this second
DEL
Delphi, purification and all the ceremonies consequent upon it will
—be found in the third book of Thucydides’ History. It was
just about this time that the great festival already mentioned
began to lose its national character and assume a local one.
It still however afforded great facilities for commerce, of
which, after the overthrow of Corinth, Delos became the
great emporium in the vEgean. The fame and importance
of the island, however, had by this time been long on the
wane; and in the Mithridatic w'ar it received a shock from
which it never afterwards fully recovered. In the time of
Pausanias it was little better than a barren uninhabited
rock. The town in which the temple of Apollo was situ¬
ated lay on the western side of the island, at the foot of
Mount Cynthus. In the middle ages the greater portion of
these magnificent ruins were carried off by the Turks and
Venetians to Constantinople and Venice; and nothing now
remains but a few broken pillars and architraves to mark the
site of one of the most sacred and sumptuous edifices of the
ancient world. The only inhabitants of Delos now are a
few shepherds who cross over with their flocks during the
Rummer months from the neighbouring islands. (See
Leake’s Northern Greece; Sallier, Histoire de Vile de Delos;
1 hucydides, Book III.; and Smith’s Dictionary of Ancient
Geography.
DELPHI, in Ancient Geography, a town of Phocis, si¬
tuated on the south-western extremity of Mount Parnassus.
It was famous for the temple and oracle of Apollo, the ori¬
gin of which is ascribed to an accidental discovery. A
number of goats which were feeding on Mount Parnassus
happened, it is said, to approach a place in which there was a
long and deep perforation. The vapour which issued from
the cavity seemed to inspire the goats, and they played and
frisked about in such an uncommon manner, that the goat¬
herd was tempted to lean over the aperture, in order to see
what mysteries the place contained. But he was immedi¬
ately seized with a fit of enthusiasm ; his expressions were
wild and extravagant, and passed for prophecies. This cir¬
cumstance soon became known throughout the country, and
many experienced the same enthusiastic inspiration. The
place was revered ; a temple was soon afterwards erected in
honour of Apollo ; and a city was built, which became the
most illustrious in Phocis. The influence of this oracle
afterwards controlled the councils of states, directed the
course of armies, and decided the fate of kingdoms. The
ancient history of Greece is full of its energy, and an early
register of its authority. The circumjacent cities were the
stewards and guardians of the god ; and their deputies com¬
posed the famous Amphictyonic assembly which once guided
all Greece.
The temple of Apollo was at first a kind of cottage
covered with boughs of laurel; which, however, was early
replaced by a more sumptuous structure. An edifice of stone
was erected by Trophonius and Agamedes, and subsisted
about seven hundred years, but was burned in the year 636
after the taking of Troy, and 548 before Christ. It is men¬
tioned in the hymn to Apollo ascribed to Homer. The
opulent and illustrious family, of the Alcmaeonidae, having
fled from Athens and the tyrant Hippias, contracted with
the deputies for the building of a new temple, and far ex¬
ceeded their agreement. The front was raised with Pa¬
rian marble, instead of the stone called porus, which re¬
sembled it in whiteness, but was not so heavy; the pedi¬
ments were adorned with representations of Latona, Diana,
and Apollo, and the Muses, with the setting of Phoebus
or the sun, Bacchus, and the women called Thyades; and
the architraves were decorated with golden armour, with
bucklers suspended by the Athenians after the battle of
Marathon, and with shields taken from the Gauls under
Brennus. In the portico were inscribed the celebrated
maxims of the seven sages of Greece. There was also an
image of Homer; and in the cell was an altar of Neptune,
DEL 709
with statues of the Fates, and of Jupiter and Apollo, who Delphi,
were surnamed Leaders of the Fates. Near the hearth,
before the altar at which Neoptolemus, the son of Achilles,
was slain by a priest, stood the iron chair of Pindar. In
the sanctuary stood an image of Apollo. The inclosure
was of great extent, and filled with treasures—many cities
having consecrated tenths of the spoil taken in war—and
with the public donations of renowned states in various
ages. It was the grand repository of ancient Greece, in
which, by the labours of the sculptor and statuary, gods,
heroes, and illustrious persons, were seen collected and ar¬
ranged ; the inequalities of the area of acclivity contributing
to give a full display of the noble assemblage.
The oracles were delivered by a priestess called the Py¬
thoness, who received the prophetic influence in the follow¬
ing manner. A lofty tripod, decked with laurel, was placed
over the aperture whence the sacred vapour issued. The
priestess, after washing her body, and especially her hair, in
the cold water of Castalia, mounted on the stool to receive
the divine effluvia. She wore a crown of laurel on her head,
and shook a sacred tree which grew near the aperture.
Sometimes she chewed the leaves; and the frenzy which
followed may probably be attributed to this usage, and the
gentler or more violent symptoms to the quantity taken.
In one instance the paroxysm was so terrible that the priests
and suppliants ran away, and left her alone to expire, as was
believed, of the god. Her part was an unpleasant one ; but
if she declined to undertake it, she was dragged by force
to the tripod. The habit of her order was that of virgins.
The rules enjoined temperance and chastity, and prohibited
luxury in apparel. The season of inquiry was in the spring ;
after which Apollo was supposed to visit the altars of the
Hyperboreans.
The city of Delphi arose in the form of an amphitheatre,
upon the winding declivity of Parnassus, the picturesque tops
of which overshadowed it like a canopy on the north, whilst
two immense rocks rendered it inaccessible on the east and
west, and the rugged and shapeless Mount Cirphis defended
it on the south. The foot of the last-named mountain was
washed by the rapid Plistus, which discharged itself into the
sea at the distance of only a few leagues from the sacred
city. This inaccessible and romantic situation, from which
the place derived the name of Delphi (a word signifying
solitary), was rendered still more striking by the innume¬
rable echoes which multiplied every sound, and increased
the ignorant veneration of visitants for the divinity of the
oracle. The artful ministers of Apollo also collected such
objects in the groves and temple as were fitted to astonish
the senses of the admiring multitude. The splendour of
marble, the magic of painting, and invaluable statues of
gold and silver, had not, to use the language of antiquity,
the resemblance of an earthly habitation, but rather ex¬
pressed the image of Olympus, adorned and enlightened by
the actual presence of the gods.
The protection and superintendence of this precious de¬
pository of riches and superstition belonged to the Amphic-
tyons. But the inhabitants of Delphi, who, if we may use
the expression, were the original proprietors of the oracle,
always continued to direct the religious ceremonies, and to
conduct the important business of prophecy. It was their
province alone to determine at what time, and on what oc¬
casion, the Pythia should mount the sacred tripod, in order
to receive the prophetic exhalations by which she commu¬
nicated with Apollo. When overflowing with the heavenly
inspiration, she uttered the confused words, or rather frantic
sounds, irregularly suggested by the impulse of the god;
and these sounds the Delphians collected, reduced them
into order, animated them with sense, and adorned them
with harmony. The Pythia, being appointed and dismissed
at pleasure, was a mere instrument in the hands of those
artful ministers, whose character became so venerable and
710 DEL
Delphi sacred, that they were finally regarded, not merely as atten-
II dants and worshippers, but as the peculiar family of the di-
Deluge. yjjjjty. Their number, though never exactly ascertained, must
have been considerable, since all the principal inhabitants
of Delphi, claiming an immediate relationship with Apollo,
were entitled to officiate in the rites of his sanctuary; and
even the inferior ranks belonging to that sacred city were
continually employed in dances, festivals, and processions,
and in displaying all the gay pageantry of an airy and elegant
superstition.
Delphi was conveniently situated for the resort of vota-
ries, being in the centre of Greece, and, as was then ima¬
gined, also in that of the universe. It was customary for
those who consulted the oracle to make rich presents to the
god. His servants and priests feasted upon the numerous
victims which were sacrificed to him; and the rich mag¬
nificence of his temple had become proverbial even in the
age of Homer. In after times, Croesus, the wealthiest of
monarchs, was particularly munificent in his donations.
This sacred repository of opulence, therefore, often became
the object of plunder. Neoptolemus was slain while sacri¬
ficing, on suspicion of a design of this kind. Xerxes di¬
vided his army at Panopeus, and proceeded with the main
body through Boeotia into Attica, whilst a party, keeping
Parnassus on the right, advanced along Schiste to Delphi;
but it was seized with a panic when near Ilium, and fled.
This monarch, it is related, was as well apprised of the
contents of the temple, and the sumptuous offerings of
Halyattes and Croesus, as of the effects which he had left
behind him in his own palace. The divine hoard was seized
by the Phocensians under Philomelus, and dissipated in a
long war with the Amphictyons. The Gauls experienced
a reception similar to that of the Persians, and manifested
similar dismay and superstition. Sylla, wanting money to
pay his army, sent to borrow from the holy treasury ; and
when his messenger would have frightened him, by report¬
ing a prodigy, namely, that the sound of a harp had been
heard from within the sanctuary, the Roman replied, it was
a sign that the god was happy to oblige him.
The city of Delphi became free under the Romans. In
the time of Pausanias, who has particularly described it,
there still remained an invaluable treasure of offerings
within the court of the temple. The number, variety, and
beauty of these gifts were prodigious; the store appeared
inexhaustible; and the robbery of Nero, who removed no
less than five hundred brazen images, was rather regretted
than perceived. The holy treasuries, though empty, served
as memorials of the piety and glory of the cities which had
erected them. The Athenian portico preserved the beaks
of ships and the brazen shields, trophies won in the Persian
wars; and a multitude of curiosities remained untouched in
other parts of the temple.
Constantine the Great, however, proved a more fatal
enemy to Apollo and to Delphi than either Sylla or Nero.
DEL
He removed the sacred tripods to adorn the hippodrome
of his new city, where these, with the Apollo, the statues
of the Heliconian muses, and the celebrated Pan, dedicated
by the Greek cities after the conclusion of the war with
the Medes, were extant when Sozomen wrote his history.
Julian afterwards sent Oribasius to restore the temple;
but he was admonished by an oracle to represent to the
emperor the deplorable condition of the place. “ Tell
him the well-built court is fallen to the ground. Phcebus
has not a cottage, nor the prophetic laurel, nor the speak¬
ing fountain Cassotis ; and even the beautiful water is ex¬
tinct.” Delphi has been identified with the modern Kastri.
DELPHIN, in Literary History, a name given to an
edition of the Latin classics prepared and commented on by
thirty-nine of the ablest scholars of the time, by command of
Louis XIV., for the use of the dauphin (inusum Delphini)
under the care and direction of his governor M. de Mon-
tausier, and his preceptors Bossuet and Huet.
DELPHINIA, in Antiquity, feasts which the inhabi¬
tants of Algina celebrated in honour of Apollo, surnamed
Delphinius, as is pretended, because he assumed the form
of a dolphin, in order to conduct Castilius and his colony
from the isle of Crete to the Sinus Crissceus Delphinium,
one of the courts of judicature of the Athenians.
DELPHIN US, the Dolphin, a constellation of the
northern hemisphere, the stars of which are ten in Ptole¬
my’s catalogue, in Tycho’s the same number, in Hevelius’s
fourteen, and in Flamsteed’s eighteen.
DELPHOS, or Castri as it is most frequently named
by the inhabitants, a wretched village in the province of
Livadia, consisting of about seventy houses, which occupy
the site of the ancient city of Delphi. The remains of the
gymnasium, stadium, and other buildings, are still extant in
its vicinity; but except these, and the stories connected
with them, it has now little to recommend it to the notice
of travellers beyond the splendid prospect which it com¬
mands of the surrounding country.
DELTA, a part of Lower Egypt, included in the space
between the branches of the Nile and the Mediterranean
Sea. The ancients called it the Isle of Delta, because its
triangular form resembled the Greek letter of that name. It
extends about a hundred and thirty miles along the coast from
Damietta to Alexandria, and seventy on the sides from the
place where the Nile begins to divide itself. It is the most
fruitful country in all Egypt, but the fertility is chiefly
owing to the periodical inundations of the river Nile. The
principal towns on the coast are Damietta, Rosetta, and
Alexandria. The same name has since been extended to
similar alluvial tracts, formed in a similar manner at the
mouths of other great rivers.
DELTOID, in the form of the Greek letter A ; a term
applied in anatomy to a muscle of the shoulder which
moves the arm forward, upward, and backward; and in
botany, to a leaf of a triangular form.
DELUGE.
A deluge is an inundation or overflowing of the earth,
either wholly or in part, by water.
Me have several deluges recorded in history; as that
of Ogyges, which overflowed almost all Attica, and that
of Deucalion, which drowned Thessaly, in Greece : but the
most memorable was that called the Universal Deluge, or
Noalis Flood, which overflowed and destroyed the whole
earth, and from which only Noah, and those with him in
the aik, escaped. This flood forms one of the most con¬
siderable epochs in chronology. Its history is given by
Moses, in the book of Genesis ; and its date is fixed, by the
best chronologers, at the year from the creation 1656,
which answers to the year before Christ 2293. From this
flood, the state of the world is divided into diluvian and
antediluvian.
Amongst the many testimonies to the truth of this part
of the Mosaic history, may be mentioned the general voice
of mankind at all times, and in all parts of the world. The
objections of the free-thinkers have indeed principally
turned upon three points: the want of any direct history
of that event by the profane writers of antiquity ; the ap¬
parent impossibility of accounting for the quantity of wa-
DELUGE.
Deluge, ter necessary to overflow the whole earth ; and the ab-
sence of any apparent necessity for an universal delude,
as the same result might have been accomplished by a par¬
tial one.
The first of these objections has given rise to several
very elaboiate treatises ^ though all that has yet been done
in this way has scarcely been able to silence the objectors.
Mr Biyant, in his system of mythology, has with great
learning and considerable success endeavoured to show,
that the deluge was the principal, if not the only, founda¬
tion of the Gentile worship ; that the first of their deities
was Noah ; that all nations of the world looked up to him
as their founder; and that he, his sons, and the first pa-
tiiarchs, ai e alluded to in most, if not in all of the religious
ceremonies, not only or the ancient, but of the modern
heathens. In short, according to this author, the deluge,
so far from being forgotten or obscurely mentioned by the
heathen world, is in reality conspicuous throughout every
act of religious worship performed by them.
.The Egyptian Osiris, according to him, was the same
with Ham the son of Noah, though the name was some¬
times bestowed on Noah himself. That this is the case
is evident, he thinks, from its being said that he was ex¬
posed in the ark, and afterwards restored to day; that he
planted the vine, taught mankind agriculture, and incul¬
cated upon them the maxims of religion and of justice.
Something of the same kind is related of Perseus. He is
repiesented by some ancient historians as a great astro¬
nomer, and as well versed in other sciences. After being
conceived in a shower of gold, he was exposed in an ark
upon the waters, and is said to have had his life renewed.
Further, the history of Myrina the Amazon affords a kind of
abridgment and mixture of the histories of Osiris and Per¬
seus ; and similar to these is the history of Hercules himself.
But our author observes, that under the titles of Osiris, Per¬
seus, Myrina, and the like, the ancients spoke of the ex¬
ploits of a whole nation, who were no other than the Cu-
thites or Cushites, the descendants of Cush the son of Ham
and father of Nimrod. These people spread themselves into
the most remote corners of the globe; and hence the he¬
roes whom they represented are always described as con¬
quering the whole world. According to Diodorus Siculus,
the Egyptian Osiris was the same with the Dionysus of
the Greeks. He is said to have been twice born, and to
have had two fathers and two mothers; to have been won¬
derfully preserved in an ark; and to have travelled all over
the earth, and taught men the use of the vine, building,
planting, and the like. The Indians also claim him as a
native of their country, though some allow that he came
from the west. Of Kronus and Astarte, it is said that
they travelled over the whole earth, disposing of the coun¬
tries as they pleased, and doing good wherever they went.
The same thing is related of Ouranus, Themis, Apollo,
and others ; though all their exploits are said to have been
the effects of conquest, and their benevolence was enfor¬
ced by the sword. In a similar manner does he explain the
stories of other heroes of antiquity; and having thus, in
the characters and histories of the most celebrated per¬
sonages, found traces of the history of Noah and his fami¬
ly? he proceeds to inquire into the memorials of the de¬
luge itself which are to be met with in the history or reli¬
gious rites of the different nations of antiquity.
“ We may reasonably suppose,” says he, “ that the particu¬
lars of this extraordinary event would be gratefully comme¬
morated by the patriarch himself, and transmitted to every
branch of his family ; that the}1- were made the subject of
domestic converse, where the history was often renewed,
and ever attended with a reverential awe and horror, es¬
pecially in those who had been witnesses to the calamity,
and had experienced the hand of Providence in their fa-
711
vour. In process of time, when there was a falling off Deluge,
from the truth, we might farther expect, that a person of
so high a character as Noah, so particularly distinguished
by the Deity, could not fail of being reverenced by his
posterity, and, when idolatry prevailed, that he would be
one of the first among the sons of men to whom divine
honours would be paid. Lastly, we might conclude, that
these memorials would be interwoven in the mythology of
the Gentile world; and that there would be continual al¬
lusions to these ancient occurrences in the rites and mys¬
teries as they were practised by the nations of the earth.
In conformity to these suppositions, I shall endeavour to
show that these things did happen ; that the history of
the deluge was religiously preserved in the first ages ; that
every circumstance of it is to be met with among the his¬
torians and mythologists of different countries ; and traces
of it are to be found, particularly in the sacred rites of
Egypt and of Greece.
“ It will appear from many circumstances in the more
ancient writers, that the great patriarch was highly reve¬
renced by his posterity. They looked up to him as a per¬
son highly favoured by heaven, and honoured him with
many titles, each of which had a reference to some parti¬
cular part of his history. They styled him Prometheus,
Deucalion, Atlas, Theuth, Zuth, Xuthus, Inachus, Osiris.
When there began to be a tendency towards idolatry, and
the adoration of the sun was introduced by the posterity
of Ham, the title of Helius, among others, was conferred
upon him. They called him also Mqv and Mat', which is
the moon. When colonies went abroad, many took to
themselves the title of Minyada and Minyce from him;
just as others were denominated AchcBmenidce, Auritce,
Heliadce, from the sun. People of the former name are
to be found in Arabia and in other parts of the world.
The natives at Orchomenos were styled Minyae, as were
some of the inhabitants of Thessaly. Noah was the ori¬
ginal Zeus and Dios. He was the planter of the vine,
and inventor of fermented liquors; whence he was deno¬
minated Zeuth, which signifies ferment, rendered Zeus
by the Greeks. He was also called Dionusus, interpreted
by the Latins Bacchus^ but very improperly. Bacchus was
Chus, the grandson of Noah ; as Ammon may in general
be esteemed Ham, so much reverenced by the Egyptians.
“ Among the people of the East the true name of the
patriarch was preserved; they called him Noas, Naus,
and sometimes contracted Nous; and many places of
sanctity, as well as rivers, were denominated from him.
Anaxagoras of Clazomene had obtained some knowledge
of him in Egypt. By him the patriarch was denominated
Noas or Nous ; and both he and his disciples were sensible
that this was a foreign appellation ; notwithstanding which,
he has acted as if it had been a term of the Greek lan¬
guage. Eusebius informs us that the disciples of Anax¬
agoras say ‘ that Nous is, by interpretation, the deity,
Dis or Dios; and they likewise esteem Nous the same as
Prometheus, because he was the renewer of mankind, and
was said to have fashioned them again,’ after they had
been in a manner extinct. After this, however, he gives
a solution of the story, upon the supposition that Nous is
the same with the Greek word voug, the mind; that ‘ the
mind was Prometheia; and Prometheus was said to re¬
new mankind, from new forming their minds, and leading
them, by cultivation, from ignorance.’
“ Suidas has preserved, from some ancient author, a
curious memorial of this wonderful personage, whom he
affects to distinguish from Deucalion, and styles Nannacus.
According to him, this Nannacus was a person of great
antiquity, and prior to the time of Deucalion. He is said
to have been a king, who, foreseeing the approaching de¬
luge, collected every body together, and led them to a
712
DELUGE.
Deluge, temple, where he offered up his prayers for them, accom-
panied with many tears. There is likewise a proverbial
expression about Nannacus applied to people of great an¬
tiquity.
“ Stephanus gives great light to this history, and sup¬
plies many deficiencies. ‘ The tradition is,’ says he, ‘ that
there was one formerly named Annaeus, the extent of
whose life was above three hundred years. rIhe people
who were of his neighbourhood and acquaintance had in¬
quired of an oracle how long he was to live ; and there
was an answer given, that when Annaeus died, all man¬
kind would be destroyed. The Phrygians, upon this ac¬
count, made great lamentations, from whence arose the
proverb vo Awctxou the lamentation of Annaeus,
made use of for people in circumstances highly calamitous.
When the flood of Deucalion came, all mankind were de¬
stroyed, according as the oracle had foretold. Afterwards,
when the surface of the earth began to be again dry, Zeus
ordered Prometheus and Minerva to make images of clay
in the form of men; and, when they were finished, he
called the winds, and made them breathe into each, and
render them vital.’ ”
From these histories Mr Bryant concludes, that how¬
ever the story may have been varied, the principal outlines
plainly point out the person who is alluded to in these his¬
tories. It is manifest, he thinks, that Annaeus, and Nan¬
nacus, and even Inachus, relate to Noachus or Noah. And
not only these, but the histories of Deucalion and Prome¬
theus, have a like reference to the patriarch; in the six
hundredth year, and not the three hundredth, of whose life
the waters prevailed upon the earth. Fie was the father
of mankind, who were renewed in him. Hence he is re¬
presented by another author, under the character of Pro¬
metheus, as a great artist, by whom men were formed
anew, and were instructed in all that was good.
“ Noah was the original Kronus and Zeus, though the
latter is a title conferred sometimes upon his son Ham.
There is a very particular expression recorded by Clemens
of Alexandria, and attributed to Pythagoras, who is said to
have called the sea the Tear of Kronus ; and there was a
further tradition concerning this person, that he drank or
swallowed up all his children. The tears of Isis are repre¬
sented as very mysterious. They are said to have flowed
whenever the Nile began to rise, and to flood the country.
The overflowing of that river was the great source of
affluence to the people, and they looked upon it as their
chief blessing; yet it was ever attended with mystical
tears and lamentations. This was particularly observed at
Coptos, where the principal deity was Isis. An ancient
writer imagines that the tears and lamentations of the
people were to implore an inundation, and the tears of
Isis were supposed to make the river swell. But all this
was certainly said and done in memorial of a former flood,
of which they made the overflowing of the Nile a type.
“ As the patriarch was by some represented as a king
called Naachus or Nauchus ; so by others he was styled
Inachus, and supposed to have reigned at Argos. Hence
Inachus was made a king of Greece, and Phoroneus and
Apis brought in succession after him. But Inachus was
not a name of Grecian original; it is mentioned by Euse¬
bius, in his account of the first ages, that there reigned in
Egypt felegonus, a prince of foreign extraction, who was
the son of Ones the shepherd, and the seventh in descent
from Inachus. And in the same author we read that a
colony went forth from that country into Syria, where
they founded the ancient city of Antioch; and that they
were conducted by Casus and Belus, who were sons of
Inachus. By Inachus is certainly meant Noah; and the
history relates to some of the more early descendants of
the patriarch. His name has been rendered very unlike
itself, by having been lengthened with terminations, and Deluge,
likewise fashioned according to the idiom of different lan-
guages ; but the circumstances of the history are so pre¬
cise and particular that we cannot miss of the truth.
“ Fie seems in the East to have been called Nous, Noasis,
Nusus, and Nus; and by the Greeks his name was com¬
pounded Dionusus. The Ammonians, wherever they
came, founded cities to his honour; hence places called
Nusa will often occur, and indeed a great many of them
are mentioned by ancient authors. These, though widely
distant, being situated in countries far removed, yet re¬
tained the same original histories, and were generally fa¬
mous for the plantation of the vine. Misled by this simi¬
larity of traditions, people in after times imagined that
Dionusus must necessarily have been where his history
occurred; and as it was the turn of the Greeks to place
every thing to the account of conquest, they made him a
great conqueror, who went over the face of the whole
earth, and taught mankind the plantation of the vine.
We are informed that Dionusus went with an army over
the face of the whole earth, and taught mankind, as he
passed along, the method of planting the vine, and how
to press out the juice and receive it in proper vessels.
Though the patriarch is represented under various titles,
and even these not always uniformly appropriated, yet there
will continually occur such peculiar circumstances of his
history, as will plainly point out the person referred to.
The person preserved is always mentioned as preserved
in an ark. Fie is described as being in a state of darkness,
which is represented allegorically as a state of death. He
then obtained a new life, which is called a second birth;
and is said to have his youth renewed. He is, on this ac¬
count, looked upon as the first-born of mankind ; and both
his antediluvian and postdiluvian states are commemo¬
rated ; and sometimes the intermediate state is also spoken
of. Diodorus calls him Deucalion, but describes the de¬
luge as in a manner universal. ‘ In the deluge which hap¬
pened in the time of Deucalion, almost all flesh died.’
Apollodorus having mentioned Deucalion tv Xocgyax/, con¬
signed to the ark, takes notice, upon his quitting it, of his
offering up an immediate sacrifice to the God who deli¬
vered him. As he was the father of all mankind, the an¬
cients have made him a person of very extensive rule, and
supposed him to have been a king. Sometimes he is de¬
scribed as a monarch of the whole earth, at other times
he is reduced to a petty king of Thessaly. He is men¬
tioned by Helladias in this latter capacity, who speaks of
the deluge in his time, and of his building altars to the
gods. Apollonius Rhodius supposes him to have been a
native of Greece, according to the common notions; but
notwithstanding his prejudices, he gives so particular a
character of him, that the true history cannot be mis¬
taken. He makes him indeed the son of Prometheus, the
son of Japetus; but in these ancient mythological ac¬
counts all genealogy must be entirely disregarded.
Though this character be not precisely true, yet we may
learn that the person represented was the first of men,
through whom religious rites were renewed, cities built,
and civil polity established in the world; none of which
circumstances are applicable to any king of Greece. We
are assured by Philo that Deucalion was Noah; and the
Chaldeans likewise mentioned him by the name of Xisu-
thrus, as we are informed by Cedrenus.
“ That Deucalion was unduly adjudged by the people
of Thessaly to their country solely, may be proved from
his name occurring in different parts of the world, and al¬
ways accompanied with some history of the deluge. The
natives of Syria laid the same claim to him. Fie was sup¬
posed to have founded the temple at Hierapolis, where
was a chasm through which the waters after the deluge
D E L U G E.
Deluge, were said to have retreated. He was likewise reported
to have built the temple of Jupiter at Athens, where there
was a cavity of the same nature, and a like tradition, that
the waters of the flood passed off through this aperture.
However groundless the notions may be of the* waters*
having retreated through these passages, yet they show
what impressions of this event were retained by the Am-
monians, who introduced some history of it wdierever they
came. As different nations succeeded one another in these
parts, and time produced a mixture of generations, they
varied the history, and modelled it according to their no¬
tions and traditions; yet the groundwork was always true,
and the event for a long time universally commemorated.
Josephus, who seems to have been a person of extensive
knowledge, and versed in the histories of nations, says
that this great occurrence was to be met with in the writ¬
ings of all persons who treated of the first ages. He men¬
tions Berosus of Chaldea, Hieronymus of Egypt, who
wrote concerning the antiquities of Phoenicia ; also Alna-
seas, Abydenus, Melon, and Nicholaus Damascenus, as
writers by whom it was recorded; and adds, that it was
taken notice of by many others.
“ Among the eastern nations, the traces of this event
are more vivid and determinate than those of Greece, and
more conformable to the accounts of Moses. Eusebius
has preserved a most valuable extract to this purpose
from Abydenus, which was taken from the archives of
the Medes and Babylonians. This writer speaks of Noah,
whom he names Seisithrus, as a king, and says that the
flood began upon the 15th day of the month Desius ; that
during the prevalence of the waters, Seisithrus sent out
birds, that he might judge if the flood had remained ; but
that the birds, not finding any resting-place, returned to
him again. This was repeated three times; when the
birds were found to return with their feet stained with
soil, by which he knew the flood was abated. Upon this
he quitted the ark, and was never more seen of men, be¬
ing taken away by the gods from the earth. Abydenus
concludes with a particular, in which the eastern writers
are unanimous, that the place of descent from the ark was
in Armenia, and speaks of its remains being preserved for
a longtime. Plutarch mentions the Noachic dove, and its
being sent out of the ark. But the most particular his¬
tory of the deluge, and the nearest of any to the account
given by Moses, is to be found in Lucian. He was a na¬
tive of Samosata, a city of Comagene, upon the Euphrates,
a part of the world where memorials of the deluge were
particularly preserved, and where a reference to that
history was continually kept up in the rites and worship
of the country. His knowledge, therefore, was obtained
from the Asiatic nations among whom he was born, and
not from his kinsmen the Helladians, who were far infe¬
rior in the knowledge of ancient times. He describes
Noah under the name of Deucalion, and says, ‘ that the
present race of mankind are different from those who first
existed; for those of the antediluvian world were all de¬
stroyed. The present world is peopled from the sons of
Deucalion, having increased to so great a number from
one person. In respect to the former brood, they were
men of violence, and lawless in their dealings. They re¬
garded not oaths, nor observed the rights of hospitality,
nor showed mercy to those who sued for it. On this ac¬
count they were doomed to destruction ; and for this pur¬
pose there was a mighty eruption of waters from the earth,
attended with heavy showers from above, so that the ri¬
vers swelled and the sea overflowed, till the whole earth
was covered with, a flood, and all flesh drowned. Deuca¬
lion alone was preserved to re-people the world. This
mercy was shown to him on account of his piety and jus¬
tice. His preservation was effected in this manner. He
VOL. Vll.
713
put all his family, both his sons and their wives, into a Deluge,
vast ark which he had provided, and he went into it him- v—
self. At the same time animals of every species, boars,
horses, lions, serpents, whatever lived upon the face of the
earth, followed him by pairs; all which he received into
the ark, and experienced no evil from them ; for there pre¬
vailed a wonderful harmony throughout, by the immediate
influence of the Deity. Thus were they wafted with him
as long as the flood endured.’ After this he proceeds to
mention, that upon the disappearing of the waters, Deu¬
calion went forth from the ark and raised an altar to God ;
but he transposes the scene to Hierapolis in Syria, where
the natives pretended, as has been already mentioned, to
have very particular memorials of the deluge.
“ Most of the authors who have transmitted to us these
accounts at the same time inform us that the remains of
the ark were to be seen in their days on one of the moun¬
tains of Armenia. Abydenus particularly says, in confir¬
mation of this opinion, that the people of the country used
to get small pieces of the wood, which they carried about
by way of amulet. And Berosus mentions that they
scraped off the asphaltus with which it was covered, and
used it as a charm. Some of the fathers seem to insist on
the certainty of the ark being still remaining in their time.
Iheophilus says expressly that the remains were to be
seen upon the mountains of Aram or Armenia. And
Chrysostom appeals to it as to a thing well known. ‘ Do
not, says he, ‘ those mountains of Armenia bear witness
to the truth? those mountains where the ark first rested?
And are not the remains of it preserved there even unto
this day ?’
“ There was a custom among the priests of Ammon of
carrying a boat in procession at particular seasons, in which
was an oracular shrine held in great veneration. They
were said to have been eighty in number, and to have car¬
ried the sacred vessel about just as they were directed by
the impulse of the deity. This custom was likewise in
use among the Egyptians; and Bishop Pocock has pre¬
served three specimens of ancient sculpture, wherein this
ceremony is displayed. They are of wonderful antiquity,
and were found by him in Upper Egypt.
“ Part of the ceremony in most of the ancient mysteries
consisted in carrying about a ship or boat; which custom,
upon due examination, will be found to relate to nothing
else but Noah and the deluge. The ship of Isis is well
known, and the festivity among the Egyptians whenever
it was carried in public. The name of this, and of all the
navicular shrines, was Baris, which is remarkable ; for it
was the very name of the mountain, according to Nicolaus
Damascenus, on which the ark of Noah rested, the same
as Ararat in Armenia. He mentions that there is a large
mountain in Armenia, which stands above the country of
the Minyae, called Baris; to this it was said that many
people betook themselves in the time of the deluge, and
were saved; and there is a tradition of one person in par-
ticulai floating in an ark, and arriving at the summit of
the mountain. We may be assured, then, that the ship of
Isis was a sacred emblem, in honour of which there was
among the Egyptians an annual festival. It was in after
times admitted among the Homans, and set down in their
calendar for the month of March. The former, in their
description of the primary deities, have continually some
reference to a ship or float. Hence we frequently read of
hoi vavriX/.ovTig, sailing gods. I hey oftentimes, says Por-
phyry, describe the sun in the character of a man sailing
upon a float. And Plutarch observes to the same purpose,
that they did not represent the sun and moon in chariots,
but wafted about upon floating machines. In doing which,
they did not refer to the luminaries, but to a person repre¬
sented under those titles. The sun, or Orus, is likewise
4 x
714 DEL
Deluge, described by Jamblicbus as sitting upon the lotus, and
sailing in a vessel.
“ It is said of Sesostris that he constructed a ship which
was two hundred and eighty cubits in length. It was of
cedar, plated without with gold, and inlaid with silver; and
it was, when finished, dedicated to Osiris at Thebes. It
is not credible that there should have been a ship of this
size, especially in an inland district, the most remote of
any in Egypt. It was certainly a temple and a shrine.
The former was framed upon this large scale; and it was
the latter on which the gold and silver were so lavishly ex¬
pended. There is a remarkable circumstance relating to
the Argonautic expedition, that the dragon slain by Jason
was of the size of a trireme; by which must be meant
that it was of the shape of a ship in general, for there
were no triremes at the time alluded to. And I have
moreover shown, that all these dragons, as they have been
represented by the poets, were in reality temples, Dracon-
tia, where, among other rites, the worship of the serpent
was instituted. There is another reason to think that this
temple, as well as that of Sesostris, was fashioned, in re¬
spect to its superficial contents, after the model of a ship;
and as to the latter, it was probably intended in its out¬
lines to be the exact representation of the ark, in com¬
memoration of which it was certainly built. It was a tem¬
ple sacred to Osiris at Theba, or, to say the truth, it was
itself called Theba; and both the city, said to be one of
the most ancient in Egypt, as well as the province, were
undoubtedly denominated from it. Now Theba was the
name of the ark. It is the very word made use of by the
sacred writer; so that we may, I think, be assured of the
prototype after which this temple was fashioned. It is
said indeed to have been only two hundred and eighty
cubits in length, whereas the ark of Noah was three
hundred; but this is a variation of only one fifteenth in
the whole; and as the ancient cubit was not in all coun¬
tries the same, we may suppose that this disparity arose
rather from the manner of measuring, than from any real
difference in the extent of the building. It was an idola¬
trous temple, said to have been built by Sesostris in ho¬
nour of Osiris. I have been repeatedly obliged to take no¬
tice of the ignorance of the Greeks in respect to ancient
titles, and have shown their misapplication of terms in
many instances, especially in their supposing temples to
have been erected by persons to whom they were in reali¬
ty sacred. Sesostris was Osiris; the same as Dionusus,
Menes, and Noah. He is called Seisithrus by Abydenus,
Xixouthros by Borosus and Apollodorus, and is represent¬
ed by them as a prince in whose time the deluge happen¬
ed. He was called Zuth, Xuth, and Zeus, and had cer¬
tainly divine honours paid to him.
“ Pausanias gives a remarkable account of a temple of
Hercules, at Eruthra in Ionia, which he mentions as of
the mghest antiquity, and very like those of Egypt. The
deity was represented upon a float, and was supposed to
have come thither in this manner from Phoenicia. Aris¬
tides mentions that at Smyrna, upon the feast called Dio-
nysia, a ship used to be carried in procession. The same
custom prevailed among the Athenians at the Panathenaea,
when what was termed the sacred ship was borne with
great reverence through the city to the temple of Dame-
ter at Eleusis. At Phalerus, near Athens, there were ho¬
nours paid to an unknown hero, who was represented in
the stern of a ship. At Olympia, the most sacred place
m Greece, was a representation of the like nature. It
was a building like the forepart of a ship, which stood
facing the end of the hippodromus; and towards the mid¬
dle of it was an altar, upon which, at the renewal of each
Olympiad, certain rites were performed.
“ I think it is pretty plain that all these emblematical
U G E.
representations, of which I have given so many instances, Deluge,
related to the history of the deluge, and the conservation
of one family in the ark. This history was pretty recent
when these works were executed in Egypt, and when the
rites were first established; and there is reason to think,
that in early times most shrines of the Mizraim were form¬
ed under the resemblance of a ship, in memory of this
great event. Nay, further, both ships and temples re¬
ceived their names from thence, being styled by the
Greeks, who borrowed largely from Egypt, Naug, and
Naog, and mariners Naura, Nautce, in reference to the pa¬
triarch, who was variously styled Noas, Nous, and Noah.
“ However the Greeks may in their mysteries have
sometimes introduced a ship as a symbol, yet in their re¬
ference to the deluge itself, and to the persons preserved,
they always speak of an ark. And though they were apt
to mention the same person under various titles, and by
these means different people seem to be made principals
in the same history; yet they were so far uniform in their
account of this particular event, that they made each of
them to be exposed in an ark. Thus it is said of Deuca¬
lion, Perseus, and Dionusus, that they were exposed upon
the waters in a machine of this fabric. Adonis was hid in
an ark by Venus, and was supposed to have been in a state
of death for a year. Theocritus introduces a pastoral per¬
sonage named Comates, who was exposed in an ark for the
same term, and wonderfully preserved. Of Osiris being
exposed in an ark we have a very remarkable account in
Plutarch, who mentions that it was on account of Typhon,
and that it happened on the 17th of the month Athyr,
when the sun was in Scorpio. This, in my judgment, was
the precise time when Noah entered the ark, and when
the flood came, which, in the Egyptian mythology, was
called Typhon.
“ Typhon is one of those whose character has been
greatly confounded. This has arisen from two different
personages being included under one name, who undoubt¬
edly were distinguished in the language of Egypt. Ty¬
phon was a compound of Tuph or Tupha-On, and signified
a high altar of the deity. There were several such in
Egypt, upon which they offered human sacrifices; and the
cities which had these altars were styled Typhonian. But
there was another Typhon, who was very different from
the former, however by mistake blended with that charac¬
ter. By this was signified a mighty whirlwind and inun¬
dation, and it oftentimes denoted the ocean, and particu¬
larly the ocean in a ferment; for, as Plutarch observes, by
Typhon was understood any thing violent and unruly. It
was a derivative from Tuph, like the former name; which
Tuph seems here to have been the same as the Suph of
the Hebrews. By this they denoted a whirlwind ; but among
the Egyptians it was taken in a greater latitude, and sig¬
nified any thing boisterous, particularly the sea. Plutarch
speaks of it as denoting the sea, and says likewise that the
salt of the sea was called the foam of Typhon. It signified
also a whirlwind, as we learn from Euripides, who ex<»
presses it Tuphos; and the like is to be found in Plesy-
chius, who calls it a violent wind.
“ The history of Typhon was taken from hieroglyphical
descriptions. In these the dove, oinas, was represented
as hovering over the mundane egg, which was exposed to
the fury of Typhon; for an egg, containing in it the ele¬
ments of life, was thought no improper emblem of the ark,
in which were preserved the rudiments of the future world.
Hence, in the Dionusiaca, and in other mysteries, one part
of the nocturnal ceremony consisted in the consecration
of an egg. By this, we are informed by Porphyry, was
signified the world. This world was Noah and his family,
even all mankind, inclosed and preserved in the ark.
“ In respect to Typhon, it must be confessed that the
DELUGE.
Deluge, history given of him is attended with some obscurity. The from the account given by Clemens Alexandzdnus. “There
Grecians have comprehended several characters under one is a caste of Indians,” says he, “ who are disciples of Bou-
term, which the Egyptians undoubtedly distinguished, tas. This person, on account of his extraordinary sanctity,
The term was used for a title as well as a name, and se- they look up to as a god.” The name of Boutas, Battus,
veral of those personages.which had a relation to the de- and Bceotus, though apparently conferred upon the patri-
luge were styled lyphonian or Diluvian. All these the arch, yet related originally to the machine in which he was
Grecians have included under one and the same name, preserved. Of this some traces may be found among the
Typhon. ihe real deity by whom the deluge was brought Greeks. One of the Ammonian names for the ark was
upon the earth had the appellation of Typhonian, by which Aren or Arene, and Bceotus is said by Diodorus Siculus
was meant Diluvii Deus. It is well known that the ark to have been the son of Neptune and Arne, which is a
was constructed by a divine commission, in which, when contraction of arene, the ark. The chief city, Boutus, in
it was completed, God inclosed the patriarch and his fa- Egypt, where was the floating temple, signified properly
mily. Hence it is said that Typhon made an ark of curi- the city of the float or ark. The Boeotians, who in the
ous workmanship, that he might dispose of the body of Dionusiaca so particularly commemorated the ark, were
Osiiis. Into this Osiris entered, and was shut up by Ty- supposed to be descended from an imaginary personage,
phon. All this relates to the lyphonian deity who inclosed Bceotus ; and from him likewise their country was thought
Noah, togethei with his family, within the limits of an ark. to have received its name. But Bceotus was merely a va-
The patriarch also, who was thus interested in the event, riation from Boutus, and Butus, the ark; which in ancient
had the title of Typhonian. I have shown that the ark by times was indifferently styled Theba, Argus, Aren, Butus,
the mythologists was spoken of as the mother of mankind, and Bceotus. The term Cibotus is a compound of the same
The stay in the ark was looked upon as a state of death import, and signifies both the temple of the ark and also
and of regeneration. The passage to life was through the a place for shipping.
door of the ark, which was formed in its side. Through “ All the mysteries of the Gentile world seem to have
this the patriarch made his descent, and at this point was been memorials of the deluge, and of the event which im-
the commencement of time. This history is obscurely al- mediately succeeded. They consisted for the most part
luded to in the account of Typhon, of whom it is said, that of a melancholy process, and were celebrated by night, in
without any regard to time or place, he forced a passage commemoration of the state of darkness in which the pa-
and burst into light obliquely through the side of his mo- triarch and his family had been involved. The first thine
ther. This return to light was described as a revival from at those awful meetings was to offer an oath of secrecy to
the grave; and Plutarch accordingly mentions the return all who were to be initiated, after which they proceeded
of Osiris from Blades, after he had been for a long season to the ceremonies: these began with a description of chaos,
inclosed in an ark and in a state of death. This renewal by which was signified some memorial of the deluge. Chaos
of life was by the Egyptians esteemed a second state of was certainly the same as fiuQog, ihe great abyss. Who,
childhood. They accordingly, in their hieroglyphics, de- says Epiphanius, is so ignorant as not to know that Chaos,
scribed him as a boy, whom they placed upon the lotus and Buthos, the abyss, are of the same purport ?
or water-lily, and called him Orus. He was the supposed “ The names of the deities in Japan and China, and the
son of Isis; but it has been shown that Isis, Rhea, Atar- form of them, as well as the mythology with which they
gatis, weie all emblems of the ark, that receptacle which are attended, point out the country from whence theyori-
was styled the mother of mankind. Orus is represented ginally came. In China the deity upon the lotus in the
as undergoing from the Titans all that Osiris suffered midst of waters has been long a favourite emblem, and
from Typhon, and the history at bottom is the same, was imported from the West; the insigne of the drao-on
Hence it is said of Isis, that she had the power of making was from the same quarter. The Cuthites worshipped
people immortal, and that when she found her son Orus, Cham, the sun, whose name they variously compounded,
in the midst of the waters, dead through the malice of the In China most things which have any reference to splen-
Titans, she not only gave him a renewal of life, but also dour and magnificence seem to be denominated from the
conferred upon him immortality.” same object. Cham is said, in the language of that coun-
.this manner does Bryant interpret almost all the an- try, to signify any thing supreme. Cum is a fine building
cient fables, of which no satisfactory solution was ever be- or palace, similar to Coma of the Ammonians. Cum is a
fore given. He shows that the primitive gods of Egypt, lord or master, Cham a sceptre. Lastly, by Cham is sig-
who were eight in number, were no other than the eight nified a priest, analogous to the Chamanim and Chamenim
persons saved in the ark ; and that almost all the heathen of Cutha and Babylonia. The country itself is bv the Tar-
deities had one way or other a reference to Noah. He tars called Ham. The cities Cham-ju, Campion, Compi-
proves that Noah was characterized under the titles of tion, Cumdan, Chamul, and many others of the same form,
Janus, Nereus, Proteus, Cannes, Dagon; and, in short, are manifestly compounded of the sacred term Cham. Cam-
that the deluge, so far from being unknown to the hea- balu, the name of the ancient metropolis, is the city of
thens, or forgotten by them, was in a manner the basis Cham-bal; and Milton styles it very properly ‘ Cambalu,
of their whole worship. He traces the history of the raven seat of Cathaian Chan.’ By this is meant the chief city of
and dove sent forth by Noah in the customs of various the Cuthean monarch; for Chan is a derivative of Cahen
nations, not only in the East, but the West also. And, not a prince. It seems sometimes in China and Japan to*have
content with these testimonies, he shows that the same been expressed Quan and Quano.
mythology as that of the Egyptians, and the same hiero- “ Two temples are taken notice of by Hamilton, near
glyphics, were carried as far as China and Japan. The In- Syrian, in Pegu, which he represents as so like in struc-
dians have a person whom they call Buto or Budo, or ture that they seemed to be built on the same model.
Buddha. This is the same as Boutas of Egypt, Battus of One of these was Kiakiack, or the God of Gods temple.
Gyrene, and Bceotus of Greece: and the account given of The other is called the temple of Dagan; and the doors'
him is similar to that of Typhon; for it is said that he and windows of it are perpetually shut, so that none can
did not come to life in the usual way, but made himself enter but the priests. They will not tell of what shape
a passage through the side of his mother, who is repre- the idol is, but only say that it is not of human form. The
sented as a virgin. . I his history, though now current former deity, Kiakiack, is represented as asleep, of a hu-
among the Indians, is of great antiquity, as we learn man shape, and sixty feet long, and when he awakes the
715
Deluge.
716
deluge.
Deluge.
world is to be destroyed. As soon as Kiakiack has dis¬
solved the frame and being of this world, Dagun will ga¬
ther up the fragments and make a new one. I make no
doubt but the true name of the temple was lack lack, and
dedicated to the same god as the Jachusi in Japan. Mr
Wise takes notice of the Grecian exclamation to Dion-
usus, when the terms lacche, O lacche, were repeated ; and
he supposes, with great probability, that the Peguan name
had a reference to the same deity. It is certain that the
worship of Dionusus prevailed very early among the na¬
tions in the East. The Indians used to maintain that his
rites first began among them. Professor Bayer has shown
that traces of his worship are still to be observed among
the Tamuli of Tranquebar. ‘ They have a tradition,’ says
he, ‘that there was once a gigantic person named Maida-
shuren, who was born of Nisadabura, near the mountain
Meru. He had the horns of a bull, and drank wine, and
made war upon the gods. He was attended by eight Pu-
dam, who were gigantic and mischievous daemons, of the
family of those Indian shepherds called Kobaler'. In this
account we have a manifest reference to the history of
Dionusus, as well as that of the Dionusians, by whom his
rites were introduced. And we may perceive that it bears
a great resemblance to the accounts transmitted by the
Grecians. What are these Kobaler, who were descended
from the shepherds, but the same as the Cobali of Greece,
the uniform attendants upon Dionusus? a set of priests
whose cruelty and chicanery rendered them infamous.
‘ The Cobali,’ says an ancient author, ‘ were a set of cruel
daemons, who followed in the retinue of Dionusus. It is a
term made use of for knaves and cheats.’
“ As the deity, in the second temple of Syrian, to which
strangers were not admitted, was not of a human form, and
was called Dagun, we may easily conceive the hidden
character under which he was described. W’e may con¬
clude that it was no other than that mixed figure of a man
and a fish, under which he was of old worshipped both in
Palestine and Syria. He is expressed under this symbo¬
lical representation in many parts of India, and by the
Brahmins is called JVistnu or Vishnu. Dagon and Vishnu
have a like reference ; they equally represent the man
of the sea, called by Berosus Cannes, whose history has
been reversed by the Indians. They suppose that he will
restore the world when it shall be destroyed by the chief
God. But by Dagon is signified the very person through
whom the earth has been already restored when it was in
a state of ruin, and by whom mankind was renewed. Da¬
gon and Noah I have shown to be the same. Vishnu is
represented, like Dagon, under the mixed figure of a man
and a fish, or rather of a man, a princely figure, proceed¬
ing from a fish. rlhe name of this district, near which the
temples above stand, we find to be called Syrian, just as
was named the region where stood the temples of Atar-
gatis and Dagon. Syrus, Syria, and Syrian are all of the
same purport, and signify Ccelestis and Solaris, from Sehor,
the sun.”
He next proceeds to describe some of the Indian tem¬
ples or pagodas, particularly those of Salsette, Elephanta,
and another called Elora, near Aurungabad, in the pro¬
vince of Balagate.
Many of these ancient structures,” continues Mr Bry¬
ant, have been attributed to Ramscander, or Alexander
the Great ; but there is nothing among these stately edi¬
fices that in the least savours of Grecian workmanship,
nor had that monarch, nor any of the princes after him,
opportunity to perform works of this nature. We have
not the least reason to think that they ever possessed the
country, for they were called off from their attention this
way by feuds and engagements nearer home. There is no
tradition of this country having been ever conquered ex¬
cept by the fabulous armies of Hercules and Dionusus.
What has led people to think that those works were the
operation of Alexander, is the similitude of the name Ramt-
xander. To this person they have sometimes been attri¬
buted; but Ramtxander was a deity, the supposed son of
Bal, and he is introduced among the personages who were
concerned in the incarnations of Vishnu.
“ The temple of Elora, and all the pagodas of which I
have made mention, must be of great antiquity, as the
natives cannot reach their era. They were undoubtedly
the work of the Indo-Cuthites, who came so early into
these parts. And that these structures were formed by
them, will appear from many circumstances; but espe¬
cially from works of the same magnificence which were
performed by them in other places. For scarce any people
could have effected such great works, but a branch of that
family which erected the tower in Babylonia, the walls of
Baalbec, and the pyramids of Egypt.”
Having then described a number of Indian idols of sur¬
prising magnitude, “ the Babylonians and Egyptians,”
says he, “ and all of the same great family, used to take
a pleasure in forming gigantic figures, and exhibiting other
representations equally stupendous. Such were the co¬
lossal statues at Thebes, and the sphinx in the plains of
Coume. The statue erected by Nebuchadnezzar in the
plains of Dura was in height threescore Babylonish cu¬
bits. It was probably raised in honour of Cham, the sun;
and perhaps it was also dedicated to the head of the
Chaldaic family, who was deified and reverenced under
that title. Marcellinus takes notice, of a statue of Apollo
named Comeus, which, in the time of the Emperor Ve-
rus, was brought from Seleucia to Rome. This related to
the same deity as the preceding. We may also infer that
the temple at Kamju was erected to Cham, the sun, whom
the people worshipped under the title of Samonifu.”
It is remarkable that in Japan the priests and nobility
have the title of Cami. The Emperor Quebacondono, in
a letter to the Portuguese viceroy in 1585, tells him that
Japan is the kingdom of Chamis ; whom, says he, we hold
to be the same as Scin, the origin of all things. By Scin
is probably meant Sail, the sun, who was the same as
Cham, rendered here Chamis. The laws of the country
are spoken of as the laws of Chamis; and we are told by
Kaempfer that all the gods were styled either Sin or Ca¬
mi. The founder of the empire is said to have been Ten-
sio Dai Sin, or Tensio the god of light. Near his temple
was a cavern religiously visited, upon account of his having
been once hid, when no sun nor stars appeared. He was
esteemed the fountain of day, and his temple was called
the Temple of Naiku. Near this cavern was another temple,
in which the canusi or priests showed an image of the
deity sitting upon a cow. It was called Dainits No Ray,
the great representation of the sun. One of their princi¬
pal gods is Jakusi, similar to the lacchus of the West.
Kaempfer says that he is the Apollo of the Japanese, and
they describe him as the Egyptians did Horus. His temple
stands in a town called Minnoki; and Jakusi is here re¬
presented upon a gilt tarate flower, which is said to be the
nymphcea palustris maxima, or faba Egyptiaca of Prosper
Alpinus. One half of a large scallop shell is like a ca¬
nopy placed over him; and his head is surrounded with a
crown of rays. They have also an idol named Menippe,
much reverenced in different parts. Both these, continues
Bryant, relate to the same person, namely, Noah. Kaemp¬
fer, an author of great credit, saw the temple of Dabys,
which he truly renders Daibod, at Jedo, in Japan. By
Daibod was meant the god Buddha, whose religion was
styled the Budso, and prevailed greatly upon the Indus
and Ganges. Kaempfer, from whom Mr Bryant takes
this account, says that the people of Siam represent him
DELUGE.
Deluge
under the form or a Moor, in a sitting posture, and of a
pi odigious size. His skin is black, his hair curled, and
the images about him are of the same complexion. “ This
god, says Mr Biyant, “ was supposed to have neither
father no. mother. By Budha we are certainly to un¬
derstand the idolatrous symbol called by some nations
Buddo ; the same as Argus and Theba, names for the
ark. In the mythology concerning it we may see a re-
feience both to the machine itself and to the persons
preserved in it; in consequence of which we find this
person also styled Bod, Budha, and Buddo; and in the
nest Butus, Battus, and Bceotus. He was said by the
Indians not to have been born in the ordinary way, but
to have come to light indirectly through the side of his
mother. By Clemens of Alexandria he is called Bouia ;
and in the history of this person, however varied, we may
perceive a relation to the arkite deity of the sea, called
.Poseidon or Neptune; also to Arculus and Dionusus,
styled Boeotus and Ihebanus. Ksempfer has a curious
history of a deity of this sort called Abutto, whose temple
stood in the province of Bungo, upon the sea-shore, near
the village of Toma. About a quarter of a German mile
before you come to this village, stands a famous temple of
the god Abutto, which is said to be very eminent for mi-
laculously curing many inveterate distempers, as also for
procuring a favourable wind and a good passage. For this
reason sailors and passengers always tie some farthings to
a piece of wood, and throw it into the sea, as an offerin<T
to Abutto, to obtain a propitious wind. The same deity,
but under a different name, was worshipped in China.
The Apis, Mnevis, and Anubis of Egypt, have often been
mentioned and explained, as well as the Minotaur of Crete.
The same hieroglyphics occur in Japan; and we are in-
formed by Marco Polo that the inhabitants worship idols
of different shapes. Some have the head of an ox, some
of a swine, and others the head of a dog. The most com¬
mon representation in this country is that of Gocho Ten
Oo, or 4 the ox-headed prince of heaven.’
It has already been noticed, that the ark was repre¬
sented under the symbol of an egg, called the mundane
egg, which was exposed to the rage of Typhon. It was
also described under the figure of a lunette, and called
Selene, or the moon. 1 he person by whom it was framed,
and who through its means was providentially preserved,
occuis under the character of a steer, and the machine
itself under the semblance of a cow or heifer. We have
moi cover been told that it was called Cibotus, which Cle¬
mens of Alexandria calls Ihebotha. Epiphanius mentions
it by the name of Idaal Baoth ; and says that, according
to an eastern tradition, a person named Nun was preserv¬
ed in it. The horse of Neptune was another emblem, as
was also the hippopotamus or river-horse. The people of
Elis made use of the tortoise for the same purpose, and
represented Venus as resting upon its back. Some traces
of these hieroglyphics are to be found in Japan, which
weie certainly carried thither by the Indie Ethiopians.
“ From an account of a temple of Daiboth, probably the
same with Daibod, at Meaco, in Japan, we may perceive
that the people there speak of the renewal of the world
at the deluge as the real creation, which I have shown to
be a common mistake in the histories of the event. And
though the story is told with some variation, yet in all the
circumstances of consequence it accords very happily with
the mythology of Egypt, Syria, and Greece. It matters
not how the emblems have by length of time been misin¬
terpreted. We have the mundane egg upon the waters,
and the concomitant symbol of the moon ; and the egg at
last opened by the assistance of the sacred steer, upon
which the world issues forth to this day.” The author
proceeds afterwards to mention the great veneration paid
717
in these parts to the ox and cow, and says that nobody Deluge,
dares injure them. One deity of the Japanese w^as Canon,
the reputed lord of the ocean. He was represented in an
erect posture, crowned with a flower, and coming out of
the mouth of a fish. He is represented in the same man¬
ner by the natives of India, and named Vishnu and Ma-
cauter; and he is to be found in other parts of the East.
Father Boushet mentions a tradition among the Indians
concerning a flood in the days of Vishnu, which covered
the whole earth. It is moreover reported of him, that
seeing the prevalence of the waters, he made a float, and
being turned into a fish, he steered it with his tail. This
person, in the account of the Banians by Lord, is called
Menow ; which certainly should be expressed Men-Now.
It is said, that in the Shaster of this people, a like history
is given of the earth being overwhelmed by a deluge, in
which mankind perished ; but the world was afterwards
renewed by two persons called Menou and Ceteroupa.
Vishnu is described under many characters, which he is said
at times to have assumed. One of these, according to
the Brahmins of Tanjour, was that of Rama Sami. This
undoubtedly is the same as Sama Rama of Babylonia, only
i eversed ; and it relates to that great phenomenon the
Ins, which was generally accompanied with the dove, and
held in veneration by the Semarim.
As the history of China is supposed to extend upwards
to an amazing height, it may be worth while to consider
the first eras in the Chinese annals, as they are represent¬
ed in the writings of Japan (for the Japanese have pre¬
served histories of China); and by such a collation, I be¬
lieve no small light may be obtained towards the discovery
of some important truths. Hitherto it has not been ob¬
served that such a collation could be made.
In the histories of this country, the first monarch of
China is named boki, the same whom the Chinese call
Fold, and place at the head of their list. This prince had,
according to some the body, according to others the head,
of a serpent. If we may believe the Japanese historians,
he began bis reign above 21,000 years before Christ. The
second Chinese emperor was Sin-Noo, by the people of
China called Sin-Num ; and many begin the chronology
of the country with him. He is supposed to have lived
about 3000 years before Christ, consequently there is an
interval of near 18,000 years between the first emperor
and the second, a circumstance not to be credited. The
third, who immediately succeeded Sin-Noo, was Hoam-Ti.
In this account we may, I think, perceive, that the Chi¬
nese have acted like the people of Greece and other re¬
gions. The histories which were imported they have pre¬
fixed to the annals of the nation ; and adopted the first
personages of antiquity, and made them monarchs in their
own country. Whom can we suppose Fold, with the head
of a serpent, to have been, but the great founder of all
kingdoms, the father of mankind ? dhev have placed him
at an immense distance, not knowing his true era. And
I think we may be assured, that under the character of
Sin-Num and Sin-Noo we have the history of Noah; and
Hoam-Ti was no other than Ham. According to Kamip-
fer, Sin-Noo was exactly the same character as Serapis
of Egypt. 4 He was a husbandman, and taught mankind
agriculture, and those arts which relate to the immediate
support of life. He also discovered the virtues of many
plants; and he was represented with the head of an ox,
and sometimes only with two horns. His picture is held
in high estimation by the Chinese.’ Well indeed might
Raempfer think that in Sin-Noo he saw the character of
Serapis, for this personage was no other than Sar-Apis,
the great father of mankind, the same as Men-Neuas of
Egypt* the same also as Dionusus and Osiris. By Du
Halde he is called Chin-Nong, and made the first mo-
718 DEL
Deluge, narch after Fohi. The Chinese accounts afford the same
history as has been given above.
“ As the family of Noah consisted of eight persons in¬
clusive, there have been writers who have placed some of
them in succession, and supposed that there were three
or four persons who reigned between Sin-Noo and Hoam.
But Du Halde says, that in the true histories of the coun¬
try, the three first monarchs were Fohi, Chin-Nong, and
Hoam, whom he styles Hoang-li. lo these, he says,
the arts and sciences owe their invention and progress.
Thus we find that those who were heads of families have
been raised to be princes, and their names have been
prefixed to the list of kings, and their history superadded
to the annals of the country. It is further observable, in
the accounts given of those supposed kings, that their
term of life, for the first five or six generations, corre¬
sponds with that of the patriarchs after the flood, and de¬
creases much in the same proportion.
“ The history of Japan is divided into three eras, which
consist of gods, demigods, and mortals. The person whom
the natives look upon to be the real founder of their mo¬
narchy is named Synmu, in whose reign the Sintoo re¬
ligion, the most ancient of the country, was introduced.
It was called Sin-sju and Chami-mitsa, from Sin and
Chami, the deities which were the objects of worship.
At this time it is said that 600 foreign idols were brought
into Japan. To the Sintoo religion was afterwards added
the Budso, together with the worship of Amida. This
deity they commonly represented with the head of a dog,
and esteemed him the guardian of mankind. This religion
was more complicated than the former, and abounded with
hieroglyphical representations and mysterious rites. It
is the same which I have termed the Arkite Idolatry,
wherein the sacred steer and cow were venerated. The
deity was represented upon the lotus and upon a tortoise,
and oftentimes as proceeding from a fish. In this also,
under the character of Buddha, we may trace innumerable
memorials of the ark, and of the person preserved in it.
The author above, having mentioned the eleventh em¬
peror inclusive from Syn-Mu, tells us that in his time
these rites began. ‘ In his reign Budo, otherwise called
Kobotus, came over from the Indies to Japan, and brought
with him, upon a white horse, his religion and doctrines.’
We find here, that the object of worship is made the per¬
son who introduced it (a mistake almost universally pre¬
valent), otherwise in this short account what a curious
history is unfolded.
“ The only people to whom we can have recourse for
any written memorials concerning these things are the in¬
habitants of India Proper. They were, we And, the per¬
sons who introduced these hieroglyphics both in China and
Japan. It will therefore be worth while to consider what
they have transmitted concerning their religious opinions,
as we may from hence obtain still greater light towards
explaining this symbolical worship. Every manifestation
of God’s goodness to the world was in the first ages ex¬
pressed by an hieroglyphic ; and the Deity was according¬
ly described under various forms, and in different attitudes.
These at length were mistaken for real transfigurations;
and Vishnu was supposed to have appeared in different
shapes, which were styled Incarnations. In one of these
he is represented under the figure before mentioned, of a
princely person coming out of a fish. In another he ap¬
pears with the head of a boar, treading upon an evil dae¬
mon, which seems to be the same as the Typhon of the
Egyptians. On his head he supports a lunette, in which
are seen cities, towers, in short, all that the world contains.
In Baldaeus we have a delineation and history of this incar¬
nation. Kircher varies a little in his representation, yet
gives him a similar figure of the Deity, and styles him
U G E.
Vishnu Barachater. By this I should think was signified Deluge.
Vishnu, “ the offspring of the fish.” The Brahmins say
that there was a time when the serpent with a thousand
heads withdrew itself, and would not support the world,
it was so overburdened with sin. Upon this the earth
sunk in the great abyss of waters, and mankind and all
that breathed perished. But Vishnu took upon himself
the form above described, and diving to the bottom of the
sea, lifted up the earth out of the waters, and placed it,
together with the serpent of a thousand heads, upon the
back of a tortoise.
“ In the third volume of M. Perron’s Zendavesta, there
is an account given of the cosmogony of the Parsees; also
of the subsequent great events that ensued. The supreme
Deity, called by him Ormisda, is said to have accomplish¬
ed the creation at six different intervals. He first formed
the heavens, at the second the waters, at the third the
earth. Next in order were produced the trees and vege¬
tables ; in the fifth place were formed birds and fishes,
and the wild inhabitants of the woods ; and in the sixth
and last place he created man. The man thus produced
is said to be an ox-like person, and is described as consist¬
ing of a purely divine and a mortal part. For some time
after his creation he lived in great happiness ; but at last
the world was corrupted by a daemon named Ahriman.
This daemon had the boldness to visit heaven, whence he
came down to the earth in the form of a serpent, and in¬
troduced a set of wicked beings called karsesters. By him
the first ox-like personage, called Aboudad, was so infect¬
ed that he died; after which Kaimorts, probably the di¬
vine part, of which the ox was the representative, died
also. Out of the left arm of the deceased proceeded a
being called Goschoraun, who is said to have raised a cry
louder than the shout of 1000 men. After some conver¬
sation between the supreme Deity and Goschoraun, it was
determined to put Ahriman to flight, and to destroy all
those wicked persons he had introduced; for there now
seemed to be an universal opposition to the supreme
Deity Ormisda. At this season a second ox-like personage
is introduced by the name of Taschter. He is spoken of
both as a star and a sun. At the same time he is men¬
tioned as a person upon earth under three forms. By
Taschter is certainly signified De Ashter, the same per¬
son whom the Greeks and Syrians represented as a female,
and called Astarte. She was described horned, and some¬
times with the head of a bull; supposed to proceed from
an egg ; and they esteemed her the same as Juno and the
moon. At last it was thought proper to bring an univer¬
sal inundation over the face of the earth, that all impurity
might be washed away; which being accomplished by
Taschter, every living creature perished, and the earth
was for some time entirely covered. At last, the waters
retreating within their proper bounds, the mountains of
Albordi in Ferakh-kand first appeared ; which the author
compares to a tree, and supposes that all other mountains
proceeded from it. After this there was a renewal of the
world, and the earth was restored to its pristine state.
The particular place where Ormisda planted the germina
from whence all things were to spring was Ferakh-kand,
which seems to be the land of Arach, the country upon
the Araxes, in Armenia.”
Thus we have given ample specimens of this author s
method of reasoning, and of discovering traces of the sacred
history even in things which have been thought to have the
least possible relation to it. That the Greeks and western
nations had some knowledge of the flood, has never been
disputed; and from what has been already related, it ap¬
pears that the same has pervaded the remotest regions of
the east. The knowledge which these people have of the
fall of man, and the bitter consequences which ensued, can-
DELUGE.
Deluge, not, according to Bryant, have arisen from their intercourse
—\—' with Christians ; for their traditions afford no traces of any
kind, either of Christianity or its founder. Whatever truths
may be found in their writings, therefore, must be deriv¬
ed from a more ancient source. “ There are,” says he
“ in every climate some shattered fragments of original
history, some traces of a primitive and universal lano-uao-e •
and these may be observed in the names of deitfes’
terms of worship, and titles of honour, which prevail among
nations widely separated, who for ages had no connection.
The like may be found m the names of pagodas and temples,
and of sundry other objects which will present themselves
to the traveller.”
The accounts hitherto met with in the American conti¬
nent are far from being equally authentic and satisfactory
with those already treated of. In Acosta’s history of the
Indies, however, we are informed that the Mexicans
make particular mention of a deluge in their country, by
winch all men were drowned. According to them, one
Viracocha came out of the great lake Titicaca in their
country. I his person dwelt in Tiaguanaco, where at this
day are to be seen the ruins of some ancient and very
stiange buildings; and thence he proceeded to Cusco,
where mankind began to multiply. They show also a
small lake, where they say the sun hid himself; for which
reason they sacrifice largely to him, both men and other
animals. Hennepin informs us that some of the savages
are of opinion that a certain spirit, called Otkon by the
Iroquois, and Atahauta by those at the mouth of the river
bt Lawrence, is the creator of the world ; and that Messou
repaired it after the deluge. They say that this Messou
or Otkon, .being a-hunting one day, his dogs lost them¬
selves in a great lake, which thereupon overflowing, cover¬
ed the whole earth in a short time, and swallowed up the
world. According to Herrera, the people of Cuba knew
that the heavens and the earth had been created, and
said they had much information concerning the flood, and
that the world had been destroyed by water by three per¬
sonages who came three several ways. Gabriel de Cabrera
was told by a man of more than seventy years of age that
an old man, knowing the deluge was to come, built a great
ship, and went into it with his family and abundance of
animals; that he sent out a crow, which did not at first
return, staying to feed on the carcases of dead animals,
but that she afterwards came back with a green branch.
He is said to have added other particulars nearly conso¬
nant to the Mosaic account. The same author likewise in¬
forms us that it was reported by the inhabitants of Castilla
del Oro, in Terra Firma, that wrhen the universal deluge
happened, one man with his wife and children escaped in
a canoe, and that from them the world had been peopled.
The Peruvians likewise affirmed that they had received
by tradition from their ancestors, that, many years before
there were any incas or kings, when the country was very
populous, there happened a great flood; the sea breaking
out beyond its bounds, so that the land was covered with
water, and all the people perished. To this it is added by
the Guancas, inhabiting the vale of Xausea, and the na¬
tives of Chiquito in the province of Callao, that some per¬
sons found shelter in the hollows and caves of the highest
mountains, who again peopled the land. Others again affirm
that all perished in a deluge, only six persons being saved
in a float, from whom are descended all the inhabitants of
that country. In Nieuhoff’s voyages to Brazil we are inform¬
ed that the most barbarous of'the Brazilians, inhabiting the
inland countries, scarcely knew any thing of religion or of an
Almighty Being. But they had some knowledge remaining
of a general deluge, it being their opinion that the whole
race of mankind were extirpated by a general deluge, except
one man and his sister, who being with child before, they
719
by degrees repeopled the world. M. Thevet gives us the Deluge,
creed of the Brazilians in this matter more particularly.
In the opinion of these savages the deluge was universal.
Fhey say that bummay, a Caribbee of great dignity, had
two children named Tamendonare and Ariconte. Beino-
of contrary dispositions, one delighting in peace and the
other in war and rapine, they mortally hated each other.
One day Ariconte, the warrior, brought an arm of an enemy
whom he had encountered to his brother, reproaching him
at the same time with cowardice. But the other retorted by
telling, that if he had been possessed of the valour which
he boasted, he would have brought his enemy entire. On
this Ariconte threw the arm against the door of his bro¬
ther s house. At that instant the whole village was car¬
ried up into the sky; and Tamendonare striking the ground
with Violence, a vast stream of water issued out from it,
and continued to flow in such quantity, that in a short
time it seemed to rise above the clouds, and the earth was
entirely covered. The two brothers seeing this, ascended
the highest mountains of the country, and with their wives
ascended the trees which grew upon them. By this deluge
all mankind, as well as all other animals, were drowned,
excepting the two brothers above mentioned and their
wives, who having descended when the flood abated, be¬
came the heads of two different nations.
Io these American testimonies we may add another
from the remote and uncivilized island of Otaheite. Dr
YY atson, in his discourse to the clergy, informs us, that
one of the navigators to the southern hemisphere havino-
as 'ed some of the inhabitants of that island concerning
their origin, was answered, that their supreme God, a long
time ago, being angry, dragged the earth through the sea,
and their island, being broken off, was preserved. In the
East Indies, we are informed by Dr Watson that Sir
ilham Jones, by whom a society for the advancement
of Asiatic literature was instituted at Calcutta, discovered
in the oldest mythological books of that country such an
af.c,0runt °* ^le deIuSe as corresponds sufficiently with that
of Moses.
The fact being thus established by the universal con¬
sent of mankind, that there was a general deluge which over¬
flowed the whole world, it remains next to inquire by what
means it may reasonably be supposed to have been accom¬
plished. I here have been many speculations on the in¬
stillments employed in bringing about this grand cata¬
clysm ; and a great division of opinion has existed as to the
effects which it might be expected to have produced on
the surface of the earth.
It has been asserted that a quantity of water wras cre¬
ated on purpose, and at a proper time annihilated, by
divine power. This, however, besides its being absolutely
without evidence, is directly contrary to the words of the
sacred writer whom the supporters of this hypothesis mean
to defend. He expressly derives the waters of the flood
from two sources; first, the fountains of the great deep,
which he tells us were all broken open; and secondly, the
windows of heaven, which he says were opened: and
speaking of the decrease of the waters, he says, the foun¬
tains of the deep and the windows of heaven were stop-
ped, and the waters returned continually from off the face
of the earth. Here it is obvious that Moses was so far from
having any difficulty about the quantity of wrater, that he
thought the sources whence it came were not exhausted;
since both of them required to be stopped by the same
almighty hand which had opened them, lest the flood
should increase more than it actually did.
Di Burnet, in his lelluns Theoria Sacra, endeavours
to show that all the waters in the ocean w^ere not sufficient
to cover the earth to the depth assigned by Moses. Sup¬
posing the sea drained quite dry, and all the clouds of the
720
DELUGE.
Deluge, atmosphere dissolved into rain, we should still, according
to him, want much the greater part of the water of a de¬
luge. To get rid of this difficulty, Dr Burnet and otheis
have adopted Descartes’ theory. I hat philosopher sup¬
poses the antediluvian world to have been perfectly lound
and equal, without mountains or valleys. He accounts
for its formation on mechanical principles, by supposing it
at first in the condition of a thick turbid fluid, replete with
divers heterogeneous matters, which, subsiding by slow
degrees, formed themselves into different concentric stiata
or beds, in obedience to the law of gravity. Dr Burnet im¬
proves on this theory by supposing the primitive earth to
have been no more than a shell or crust investing the sui-
face of the water contained in the ocean, and in the central
abyss which he and others suppose to exist in the bowels of
the earth. At the time of the flood, this outward crust,
according to him, broke in a thousand pieces; and conse¬
quently sunk down among the water, which thus spouted
up in vast cataracts, and overflowed the whole surface.
He supposes also, that before the flood there was a per¬
fect coincidence of the equator with the ecliptic, and con¬
sequently that the antediluvian world enjoyed a perpe¬
tual spring; but that the violence of the shock by which
the outer crust was broken shifted also the position of
the earth, and produced the present obliquity of the eclip¬
tic. This theory, it will be observed, is equally arbitrary
with the former. But it is, besides, directly contrary to
the words of Moses, who assures us, that all the high hills
were covered; whilst, in opposition to this, Dr Burnet af¬
firms that there were then no hills in existence.
Other authors, supposing a sufficient fund of water in
the abyss or sea, are only concerned for an expedient to
bring it forth. Accordingly some have recourse to a shift¬
ing of the earth’s centre of gravity, by which, the water
being drawn out of its channel, the several parts of the
earth were successively overwhelmed.
Mr Whiston, in his New Theory of the Earthy shows,
from several remarkable coincidences, that a comet de¬
scending in the plane of the ecliptic, towards its perihelion,
must have passed just before the earth on the first day of
the deluge; the consequences of which would be, first,
that this comet, when it came below the moon, would
raise a vast and strong tide, both in the small seas, which
according to his hypothesis existed in the antediluvian
earth (for he allows no great ocean there, as in ours), and
also in the abyss which was under the upper crust of
the earth; and this tide would rise and increase during
all the time of the approach of the comet towards the
earth, and would be at its greatest height when the
comet was at its least distance from the earth. By the
force of this tide, and also by the attraction of the co¬
met, he judges that the abyss must have assumed an el¬
liptical figure, the surface of which being considerably
larger than the former spherical one, the outward crust
of the earth, incumbent on the abyss, must accommodate
itself to that figure, which it could not do whilst it remain¬
ed solid and conjoined. He concludes, therefore, that it
must of necessity have been extended, and at last broken,
by the violence of the tides and attraction; and that the
included water issuing thence was a great means of the
deluge, according to what Moses says of the fountains
of the great deep being broken open.” Again, the same
comet, he maintains, in its descent towards the sun, passed
so close by the body of the earth, as to involve the latter
in its atmosphere and tail for a considerable time, and of
consequence left a vast quantity of its vapours, both ex¬
panded and condensed, on its surface, a great part of
which being rarefied by the solar heat, would be drawn
up into the atmosphere, and afterwards return in violent
rains. And this he takes to be what Moses intimates by
“ the windows of heaven being opened,” and particularly Deljge.
by the “ forty days rain.” Lastly, to remove this vast orb v'—
of waters again, he supposes a mighty wind to have arisen,
which dried up some, and forced the rest into the abyss
through the clefts by which it came up; only a great
quantity remained in the alveus of the ocean, now first
formed, and in lesser seas, lakes, and the like. This the¬
ory was at first only proposed as an hypothesis; but, on
further consideration, Mr Whiston thought he could ac¬
tually prove that a comet did at that time pass very near
the earth, and that it was the same which afterwards ap¬
peared in 1688. But the uncertainty of the comet’s re¬
turn in 1758, and the absolute failure of that which ought
to have appeared in 1788 or 1789, must certainly render
Mr Whiston’s calculations for such a length of time ex¬
tremely dubious.
Mr Hutchinson and his followers present us with a the¬
ory of the deluge, which they pretend to derive from the
word of God itself. This theory has been particularly
enlarged upon and illustrated by Mr Catcot, who in 1768
published a volume on the subject. This gentleman as¬
serts, that when the world was first created, at the time
when it is said to have been “ without form and void,” the
terrestrial matter was then entirely dissolved in the aque¬
ous ; so that the whole formed, as it were, a thick muddy
water. The figure of this mass was spherical; and on the
outside of this sphere lay the gross dark air. Within the
sphere of earth and water was an immense cavity, called
by Moses the deep ; and this internal cavity was filled with
air of a kind similar to that on the outside. On the crea¬
tion of light, the internal air received elasticity sufficient
to burst out through the external covering of earth and
water. Upon this the water descended, filled up the void,
and left the earth in a form similar to that which it has at
present. Thus, according to him, the antediluvian world,
as well as the present, consisted of a vast collection or
nucleus of water, called the great deep, or the abyss. The
breaking up of these fountains was occasioned by a miracu¬
lous pressure of the atmosphere, from the immediate action
of the Deity himself; and so violent was this pressure, that
the air descended to where it had originally been, occu¬
pied the space of the abyss, and drove out the waters over
the whole surface of the dry land. But this account, so
far from being infallibly certain, seems inconsistent with
the most common observation. No pressure, however vio¬
lent, will cause water to rise above its level, unless the
pressure is unequal. If therefore the atmosphere entered
into the supposed abyss by a vehement pressure on the
surface of the ocean, that pressure must only have been
on one place, or on a few places; and even though we
suppose the atmosphere to have been the agent made use
of, it is impossible that it could have remained for any
time in the abyss, as the pressure of the water would im¬
mediately have forced it up again through those holes
which had afforded it a passage downwards.
M. de Beaumont has indulged in the speculation that
the sudden appearance of the Cordillera of the Andes may
have caused the historical deluge ; that the unfathom¬
able ocean was suddenly upheaved, and converted into dry
land, thereby displacing a great body of water, and pro¬
ducing a diluvial wave or regurgitation, which inundated
the previously existing portion of the earth. An event of
this kind, it cannot be disputed, would very probably have
produced such an effect as he anticipates; but the sudden
elevation of such a mountain-ridge as the Andes to the
height of ten, fifteen, or twenty thousand feet, would dis¬
place a great volume of atmospheric air, not ol water, and,
if the velocity of the movement were sufficiently great,
might occasion a tremendous hurricane.
It is not to be supposed that we can pretend to ascer-
,1
DELUGE.
Deluge
tain any thing more on the subject than others have done.
Tiie following conjectures, however, may be offered as to
the manner in which the deluge might have happened,
without any violence to the established laws of nature.
If we consider the quantity of water requisite for the
pin pose of the deluge, it will not appear so very extraor¬
dinary as has been commonly represented. The height of
the highest hills is thought not to exceed four or five
miles. It will therefore be deemed a sufficient allowance,
when we suppose the waters of the deluge to have been
four miles deep on the surface of the ground. Now it is
certain that water, or any other matter, when spread out
at large upon the ground, seems to occupy an immense
space in comparison of that which it does when contained
in a cubical vessel, or when packed together in a cubical
form. A cube often miles of water would very nearly over¬
flow two hundred and fifty-six square miles of plain ground
to the height of four miles. But if we take into account
the vast number of eminences with which the surface of
the earth abounds, the above-mentioned quantity of water
would cover a great deal more. If, therefore, we attempt to
calculate the quantity of water sufficient to deluge the
earth, we must make a very considerable allowance for
the bulk ot all the hills upon its surface. But, to consider
this matter in its utmost latitude, the surface of the earth
is supposed by the latest computations to contain about
199,512,595 square miles. In order to overflow this sur¬
face to the height of four miles, there is required a pa¬
rallelepiped of water sixteen miles deep, and containing
49,8/8,148 square miles of surface. Now, considering the
immense thickness of the globe of the earth, it is by no
means improbable that this quantity of water might be con¬
tained in its bowels, without the necessity of any remark¬
able abyss or huge collection of water, such as most of our
theorists suppose to exist in the centre. It is certain that,
as far as the earth has been mined, it has been found, not
dry, but moist; nor have we any reason to imagine that it
is not at least equally moist to the centre. How moist it
really is cannot be known, nor can the quantity of water
requisite to impart to it the degree of moisture it has be
ascertained; but we are certain that it must be immense.
It was not, however, from the bowels of tbe earth alone
that the waters were discharged, but also from the air; for
we are assured by Moses that it rained forty days and forty
nights. But this source of the diluvian waters has been
considered as of small consequence by almost every one
who has written on the subject.
With reference to this subject we must observe, how¬
ever, that there is a very general mistake with regard to
the air, similar to that above mentioned regarding the earth.
Because the earth below our feet appears to our senses firm
and compact, therefore the vast quantity of water contain¬
ed even in the most solid parts of it, and which will readily
appear on proper experiment, is overlooked. In like man¬
ner, because the air does not always deluge with excessive
rains, it is also imagined that it contains but little water.
Because the pressure of the air is able to raise only thirty-
two feet of water on the surface of the earth, it is there¬
fore supposed that we majT ascertain to what depth the
atmosphere could deluge the earth if it was to discharge
the whole water contained in it. But we know that the
pressure of the atmosphere has not the least connection
with the quantity of water which it contains. Nay, if there
is any connection, the air, as exhibited by the barometer,
seems to be lightest when it contains most water. For
these reasons we think that the quantity of water con¬
tained in the whole atmosphere ought to be considered as
indefinite, especially as we know that by whatever agent
tt is suspended, that agent must counteract the force of
gravity, otherwise the water would immediately descend.
VOL. VII.
The above considerations render it at least probable
that there is in nature a quantity of v'ater sufficient to
deluge the world, provided it were applied to the purpose.
We must next consider, therefore, whether there be any
natural agent powerful enough to effect this purpose; ami
we shall take the phrases used by Moses in their most ob¬
vious sense. The breaking up of the fountains of the deep
we may reasonably suppose to have been the opening of
all passages, whether great or small, through which the
subterraneous waters could possibly discharge themselves
on the surface ol the earth. The opening of tbe windows
of heaven we may also suppose to be the pouring out of the
water contained in the atmosphere, through those invisible
passages by which it enters in such a manner as totally to
elude our senses, as when water is absorbed by the air in
evaporation. As both these are said to have been opened
at the same time, it seems therefore probable that one na-
tuial agent was employed to do both. Now it is certain
that the industry of modern inquiry has discovered an
agent unknown to former ages, the influence of which is
so great, that with regard to this world, it may be said to
possess a kind of omnipotence. The agent which we mean
is electricity. It is certain, that by means of it immense
quantities of water can be raised to a great height in the
air. I his is clearly proved by the phenomena of water¬
spouts. Mr burster relates, that he happened to see one
break very near him, and observed a flash of lightning to
proceed from it at the moment of its breaking. The con¬
clusion from all this is obvious. When the electric matter
was discharged from the water, it could no longer be sup¬
ported by the atmosphere, but immediately descended.
I hough water-spouts do not often appear in this country,
yet every one must have made an observation somewhat
similar to Mr Forster’s. In a violent storm of thunder and
rain, after every flash of lightning or discharge of electri¬
city from the clouds, the rain pours down with increased
violence; thus showing that the cloud having parted with
so much of its electricity, cannot longer be supported in
the form of vapour, but must descend in rain. It is not
indeed yet discovered that electricity is the cause of the
suspension of water in the atmosphere, but it is certain
that evaporation is promoted by electrifying the fluid to be
evaporated. It may therefore be admitted as a possibility,
that the electric fluid contained in the air may be the agent
by which it is enabled to suspend the water which rises
in vapour. It therefore the air be deprived of the due
proportion of this fluid, it is evident that rain must fall in
prodigious quantities.
Again, we are assured, from the most undeniable obser¬
vations, that electricity is able to swell up water on the
surface of the earth. This we can make it do even in our
trifling experiments ; and much more must the whole force
of the fluid be supposed capable of doing it, if applied to
the watei s of the ocean, or to any others. I he agitation
of the sea in earthquakes is a sufficient proof of this. It is
certain that at these times there is a discharge of a vast
quantity of electric matter from the earth into the air;
and that, as soon as this happens, all becomes quiet on the
surface of the earth.
Iiom a multitude of observations, it also appears that
there is at all times a passage of electric matter from the
atmosphere into the earth, and, vice versa, from the earth
into the atmosphere. I here is therefore no absurdity in
supposing the Deity to have influenced the action of the
natuial powers in such a manner, that for forty days and
foi ty nights theelectric matter contained in the atmosphere
should descend into the bowels of the earth : if indeed
there be occasion for supposing any such immediate influ¬
ence at all; since it is not impossible that there might have
been, from some natural cause, a descent of this matter
4 Y
721
Deluge.
722
DELUGE.
Deluge.
from the atmosphere at that time. But by whatever cause
the descent was occasioned, the consequence would be,
the breaking open of the fountains of the deep, and the
opening of the windows of heaven. The water contained
in the atmosphere being left without support, would de¬
scend in impetuous rains; whilst the waters of the ocean,
those from which fountains originate, and those contained
in the solid earth itself, would rise from the very centre,
and meet the waters which descended from above. Thus
the breaking up of the fountains of the deep, and the open¬
ing of the windows of heaven, would accompany each other,
as Moses tells us they actually did; for, according to him,
both happened at the same time.
In this manner the flood would come on gradually, with¬
out that violence to the globe which Burnet, Whiston, and
other theorists, are obliged to suppose. The abatement of
the waters would ensue on the ascent of the electric fluid ;
the atmosphere would then absorb the water as formerly;
that which had ascended through the earth would again
subside; and thus every thing would return to its former
state.
Having thus shown in what manner an universal deluge
might have been produced by means of those natural
agents with which we are at present acquainted, we shall
next consider some of those remarkable geological facts
which place it beyond a doubt, not only that that event
did happen, but that the deluge was universal. It has
long been a question, even before the commencement of
geological researches, whether the deluge mentioned in
Scripture was universal in reference to the whole surface
of the globe, or only so with respect to that portion of it
which was then inhabited by man. Vossius was of opinion,
that in the days of Noah, mankind had not extended them¬
selves beyond the borders of Syria and Mesopotamia ; and
no reason, says he, “ obliges us to extend the inundation
of the deluge beyond those bounds which were inhabited;
yea, it is altogether absurd to aver that the effect of a
punishment inflicted upon mankind only, should extend
to those places where no man lived. Although we should
therefore believe that part of the earth only to have been
overflowed by the waters which we have mentioned, and
which is not the hundredth part of the terrestrial globe,
the deluge will nevertheless be universal oecumenical, since
the destruction was universal, and overwhelmed the whole
habitable world.”
If such an interpretation were admissible, there are two
classes of phenomena in the configuration of the earth’s
surface, which, according to Professor Lyell, might enable
us to account for such an event; first, extensive lakes ele¬
vated above the level of the ocean; and, secondly, large
tracts of dry land depressed below that level. “ When
there is an immense lake, having its surface, like Lake Su¬
perior, raised six hundred feet above the level of the sea, the
waters may be suddenly let loose by the rending or sink¬
ing down of the barrier during earthquakes ; and hereby
a region as extensive as the valley of the Mississippi, in¬
habited by a population of several millions, might be de¬
luged. On the other hand, there may be a country placed
beneath the mean level of the ocean, as is the case with
certain parts of Asia ; and such a region must be entirely
laid under water, should the tract which separates it from
the ocean be fissured or depressed to a certain depth.
1 he great cavity of Western Asia is 18,000 square leagues
in area, and is occupied by a considerable population.
Ihe lowest parts, surrounding the Caspian Sea, are three
hundred feet below the level of the Euxine; here, there¬
fore, the diluvial waters might overflow the summits of
hills rising three hundred feet above the level of the plain ;
and if depressions still more profound existed at any for¬
mer time in Asia, the tops of still loftier mountains may Deluge,
have been covered by a flood.”
Pallas, and some of the geologists of his day, denied that
the summits of the hills had been covered by the deluge;
for, according to his hypothesis, the mass of water requir¬
ed to surmount, or even to cover them all round the globe
could not be disposed of within the earth, even were its in¬
terior wholly made up of caverns. Had the deluge been of
this partial and transient description, we should have been
led to look for its effects only in certain situations ; in those
countries, in particular, which we know were inhabited by
antediluvian mortals. Such, however, is not the fact; the
distinct traces of its action being visible under innumer¬
able circumstances, and in almost every country on the
face of the globe. To what, we would ask, do those im¬
mense tracts of gravel and loam, so frequent in Prussia,
Denmark, and other parts of the European continent, and
in situations to which no torrents nor rivers now in ac¬
tion could ever have drifted them, owe their existence ?
Whence came those vast collections of fossil bones and
other animal remains so common in Siberia, in Behring’s
Strait, in the valley of the Arno in Tuscany, and in many
districts of Germany and England ? How were the beds
of shells and other marine productions brought together
in such profusion, and raised to elevations which the sea-
breeze never reached ? By what means were those large
erratic boulders so common among the sand in the north
of Germany, and in numerous other places, removed from
their original position, and conveyed sometimes hundreds
of miles from any rock of a similar description ?
Dr Buckland, in his Reliquice Diluviance, enumerates a
great many English localities where remains of the ele¬
phant, rhinoceros, hyena, and the other larger animals have
been met with. In Scotland and Ireland they have also
been occasionally found. At the village of Theide, near
Brunswick, a congeries of tusks, teeth, and bones, were
discovered in 1816, some of the former upwards of four¬
teen feet in length. Within the last ten years, parts of
the skeletons of at least a hundred hippopotami have been
discovered in the valley of the Arno, and placed in the
museum of Florence, along with numerous remains of
the rhinoceros and elephant, horse, ox, several species of
deer, hyena, bear, wolf, dog, tiger, tapir, hog, beaver,
mastodon, and fox. Over the frozen regions of Kussia and
Siberia their dispersion is also nearly universal. There is
not, says Pallas, in all Asiatic Russia, from the Don to the
extremity of the promontory of Tchutchis, a stream or river
in the banks of which are not to be found the remains of
elephants and other animals, now strangers to that climate.
These are washed out by the violent floods arising from the
thaw of the snows, and have attracted universally the at¬
tention of the natives, who collect annually the elephants’
tusks, in order to sell them as ivory. Humboldt has also
noticed them in the plains of Mexico and in the province
of Quito. How is it possible, says Buckland, to explain the
general dispersion of all these remains, but by admitting
that the elephants, as well as all the other creatures
whose bones are buried with them, were the antediluvian
inhabitants of the extensive tracts of country over which
we have been tracing them, and that they were all de¬
stroyed together by the waters of the same inundation
which produced the deposits of loam and gravel in which
they are imbedded.
The diluvium of geologists is the name applied to those
deposits of loam and gravel which were formed by the
flood, in order to distinguish them from those which are in
daily and gradual progress, and commonly called alluvium.
The origin of the alluvial formations may be referred to
the action of torrents, rivers, and lakes, whilst to the pro¬
duction of the diluvial deposits no cause at present in
DEL
)eluge. action is adequate; and they can therefore only be refer-
red to the waters of a sudden and transient deluge.
Immense deposits of diluvium have taken place in Hol¬
land, Denmark, Holstein, Pomerania, and along the south¬
ern shores of the Baltic. The whole coast, from the
Thames to the Tweed, consists of such deposits, beino-
composed principally of a tough bluish clay, through which
are dispersed irregularly pebbles of different sizes, and con¬
taining almost every description of rock. Much gravel
is accumulated in the midland counties of England, com¬
posed of the wreck of rocks of the most distant ages, and
which exist in their native state only in remote quarters
of the island.
The immense boulders, or erratic blocks as they are term¬
ed by geologists, which are met with in many parts of Eu¬
rope, frequently at the distance of several hundred miles
from any similar rocks existing in situ, afford evidences of a
stream having overflowed it, capable of overwhelming and
disregarding objects, and by which the Nile or the Ganges
would have been turned out of their course. In Great Bri¬
tain we have instances of this in almost every county. Pro¬
fessor Sedgwick, for instance, has remarked, that the blocks
of Shap granite, which cannot be confounded with other
rocks in the north of England, are not only drifted over the
hills near Appleby, but have been rolled over the great cen¬
tral chain of England into the plains of Yorkshire—imbed¬
ded into the transported detritus of the Tees, and even car¬
ried to the eastern coast. Blocks of granite and syenite of
a very peculiar character have been drifted from the Criffle
Hill, in Galloway, across the Solway Frith, to the base of
the mountains in Cumberland. Large blocks of another
kind of granite have been transported in still greater num¬
bers from Ravenglass, on the coast of Cumberland, over
the plains of Lancashire, Cheshire, and Staffordshire, and
may be observed in masses of some tons weight to the
west of the towns of Macclesfield and Stafford, and be¬
tween Dudley and Bridgenorth. Numerous examples of
a similar description might be cited ; but the most re¬
markable circumstance attending these erratic blocks is,
that they do not occur promiscuously throughout the
country, but invariably to the southward of the rock
whence they have been derived. From this it would ap¬
pear, and indeed it is now pretty generally admitted by
geologists, that the direction of the great flood was, in
this part of the wmrld at least, from north to south. The
boulders on the east coast of England have, according
to Mr Phillips, been derived both from Norway and from
Scotland ; and Dr Hibbert mentions boulders three or four
feet in height on the northern coasts of Shetland, which
do not correspond with any known rock of the country,
and were probably derived from the northward. If the
supposition that a mass of waters passed over Britain be
founded on probability, the evidences of such a passage
should be found in the neighbouring continent of Europe,
and the general direction of the transported substances
should be the same. Now this is precisely what is found
to be the case. In Sweden and Russia large blocks of rock
occur in great numbers, and no doubt can be entertained
that they have been transported from the north. In Swe¬
den the transported materials were observed by Brogniart
to run in lines, sometimes inosculating, but having a ge¬
neral direction from north to south. Between Peters¬
burg and Moscow the erratic blocks are very numerous,
and consist of Scandinavian rocks. In some places, espe¬
cially in Esthonia, these blocks appear at greater or less
intervals, apparently owing to the form of the land at the
time of their transport: for they occur where escarpments
U G E. 723
presented themselves; whilst, in places where the land Deluge,
sloped away, or became more or less horizontal, they dis-
appear, thus seeming to show that the steep escarpments
caught them in their passage.1 In Eastern Prussia, and in
that part of Poland situated between the Vistula and the
Niemen, the granite blocks are abundant, and consist of
the same varieties as those found in Finland; and thence
westward over the whole of the north of Germany, we find
boulders whose origin is unequivocally Scandinavian. Thus
the hornblende blocks are from Southern and Western
Finland ; the quartzose blocks are exactly the same as the
rocks named fjall sandstein between Sweden and Norway;
the porphyritic blocks are of the same mineralogical cha¬
racter as the porphyries of Elfdal in Sweden ; and some of
the granites contain even particles of orthite, a mineral
which has never been noticed anywhere except near Stock¬
holm and in the eastern district of the northern peninsula.
The same thing has been frequently observed in Ame¬
rica; and there also these erratic blocks must have been
rolled from the northward. Between Lake Erie and Lake
Huron the woods are strewed with masses of gneiss, por¬
phyry, conglomerate, and greenstone ; and the summits of
some of the highest hills in Nova Scotia, which are com¬
posed of slate, are also strewed with large boulders of
granite.
The phenomena of scratches and abrasions on the surface
of rocks was first accurately noticed by Sir James Hall in
an elaborate paper in the Edinburgh Philosophical Trans¬
actions. It is well known that masses of rock carried down
by torrents exhibit traces of their passage by scratches and
abrasions on such smooth surfaces as they may have encoun¬
tered in their progress, “-frequently resembling those of
a wet road along which a number of heavy and irregular
bodies have been recently dragged.”
The hypothesis derived from the foregoing facts was
formerly supposed to receive further confirmation from the
scratches and abrasions exhibited by the surface of many
rocks, and in some instances it may be so; but modern in¬
vestigations have now referred these rather to the action
of glaciers—a theory first propounded by M. Agassiz, and
since elaborately illustrated from a long series of observa¬
tions by Professor J. D. Forbes and others..
It has been considered that the traces of currents which
the surface of the earth exhibits, and which might be ascribed
to diluvial action of some kind, are not the results of one
universal simultaneous submergence, but of many distinct
local aqueous forces for the most part continued in action
for long periods, and of a kind precisely analogous to such
agency as is now at work.
Notwithstanding the foregoing arguments in favour of a
universal deluge, it is the more general opinion among geo¬
logists that the deluge must be referred to local action, and
that it extended only to the then inhabited parts of the earth.
Dr Pye Smith contends that there is no real contradiction
between the natural phenomena bearing upon the subject
which would favour the theory of a local deluge, and the
description in the Mosaic record when rightly interpreted.
This author shows, by a large comparison of similar passages,
that the Scripture terms commonly taken to imply the uni¬
versality of the deluge, are only to "be understood as express¬
ing a great extent; as Gen. xli. 56, and Deut. ii. 25.
In any point of view, it must be admitted that the subject
involves difficulties of no inconsiderable amount; and if,
after due consideration, we should still feel it necessary to
retain a cautious suspense of judgment on the subject, it
may be also borne in mind that such hesitation will not in¬
volve the dereliction of any material religious doctrine.
1 De la Beche’s Geological Manual.
724 DEM
Delvino DELVING, a large village of European Turkey, and
il capital of a sanjak; province of Albania. It is situated on
Demetrius tiie declivity of a hill 44 miles W.N.W. of Yanina, and has
about 10,000 inhabitants.
DEMADES, an orator and demagogue, who, from being
a common sailor, rose to a prominent position at Athens.
He espoused the cause of Philip in the war against Olyn-
thus ; and having fallen into the hands of the Macedonians
at the battle of Chaeronea, he was instrumental in procuring
a treaty of peace between IVlacedon and Athens. He con¬
tinued to be a favourite of Alexander, and saved Demos¬
thenes and the other obnoxious Athenian orators from his
vengeance. Harpalus and Antipater both succeeded in
bribing him to their cause; but the latter, discovering a
correspondence which showed him to have been at the
same time in communication with Perdiccas, put him
to death along with his son Demeas. A fragment of a
speech bearing his name is still extant, and is to be found
in the Oratores Attici, but its genuineness is exceedingly
doubtful.
DEMBEA, or Tzana, the principal lake of Abyssinia.
See Abyssinia.
DEMENTIA. See Mental Diseases.
DEMERARA, or Demerary. See Guiana, British.
DEMESNE, or Demain, in Law, is commonly defined
to be the lord’s chief manor place, with the lands thereto
belonging, which he and his ancestors have from time im¬
memorial kept in their own manual occupation.
DEMETER, in Antiquity, the goddess of corn. See
Ceres.
DEMETRIA, in Grecian Antiquity, a festival in hon¬
our of Demeter (Ceres). An annual festival of the same
name was instituted by the Athenians in b.c. 307, in hon¬
our of Demetrius Poliorcetes ; and to honour that prince the
more, they also changed the name of the Dionysia to De-
metria. Athenaeus (xii.) appears to refer to the Dionysia
under their new name.
DEMETRIUS, a son of Antigonus and Stratonice, sur-
named Poliorcetes or the Besieger. At the age of twenty-
two he was sent by his father against Ptolemy, who had in¬
vaded Syria, and he was totally defeated near Gaza; but
he soon repaired his loss by a victory which he obtained
over Cilles, in the neighbourhood of Myus. After con¬
ducting an expedition against Babylon, and engaging in
several campaigns against Ptolemy on the coasts of Cilicia
and Cyprus, Demetrius sailed with a fleet of two hundred
and fifty ships to Athens, and restored the Athenians to
liberty, by freeing them from the power of Cassander and
Ptolemy, and expelling the garrison which had been sta¬
tioned there under Demetrius Phalereus. After this suc¬
cessful expedition he besieged and took Munychia, and de¬
feated Cassander at Thermopylae. His reception at Athens,
after these victories, was attended with the greatest ser¬
vility; and under the title of “ The Preserver” the Athenians
worshipped him as a tutelary deity. In the next campaign
he defeated Menelaus by land, and completely destroyed
the naval power of Ptolemy. After an interval spent in
the greatest luxury at Cyprus, he endeavoured to punish
the Rhodians for having deserted his cause ; and his inge¬
nuity in devising new instruments of siege, in his attempt
to reduce the capital, gained him the appellation of Polior¬
cetes. His subsequent successes in Greece, however,
roused the jealousy of the successors of Alexander; and
Seleucus, Cassander, and Lysimachus united to destroy
Antigonus and his son. The hostile armies met at Ipsus,
B.C. 301. Antigonus was killed in the battle, and Deme¬
trius, after sustaining a severe loss, retired to Ephesus.
This reverse of fortune raised him many enemies; and the
Athenians, who had lately adored him as a god, refused
even to admit him into their city. But he soon afterwards
ravaged the territory of Lysimachus, and effected a recon-
D E M
dilation with Seleucus, to whom he gave his daughter Stra- Demetrius
tonice in marriage. Athens was at this time oppressed by ,wv-w
the tyranny of Cassander ; but Demetrius, after a protracted
blockade, gained possession of the city, and pardoned the
inhabitants their former misconduct. The loss of his pos¬
sessions in Asia recalled him from Greece; and he esta¬
blished himself on the throne of Macedonia by the murder
of Alexander the son of Cassander, b.c. 294. But here he
was continually threatened by Pyrrhus, who took advantage
of his occasional absence to ravage the defenceless part of
his kingdom ; and at length the combined forces of Pyrrhus,
Ptolemy, and Lysimachus, assisted by the disaffected among
his own subjects, obliged him to leave Macedonia, after he
had sat on the throne for seven years. He passed into
Asia, and attacked, with various success, some of the pro¬
vinces of Lysimachus ; but famine and pestilence destroyed
the greater part of his army, and he retired to the court of
Seleucus to seek support and assistance. Here he met with
a kind reception; but, nevertheless, hostilities soon broke
out; and alter he had gained some advantages over his son-
in-law, Demetrius was totally forsaken by his troops in the
field of battle, and became an easy prey to the enemy. His
son Antigonus offered Seleucus all his possessions, and even
his person, in order to procure his father’s liberty; but all
proved unavailing, and Demetrius died in the fifty-fourth
year of his age, after a confinement of three years, b.c. 284.
His remains were given to Antigonus, honoured with a
splendid funeral at Corinth, and thence conveyed to Deme-
trias. His posterity remained in possession of the Macedo¬
nian throne till the time of Perseus, who was conquered by
the Romans. See Macedonia.
Demetrius I., Soter, king of Syria, was sent to Rome
as a hostage during the reign of Antiochus Epiphanes. He
contrived, however, to escape from confinement, partly
through the assistance of the historian Polybius, and esta¬
blished himself on the throne. He acquired his surname
from the Babylonians on account of the expulsion of Hera-
cleides from their capital; and is famous in Jewish history
for his contests with the Maccabees. Demetrius fell in battle
against the usurper Balas, about b.c. IoO.
Demetrius II., Nicator, was the son of the preceding,
and lived in exile during the usurpation of Balas. At the
head of a body of Cretan mercenaries, and with the assist¬
ance of Ptolemy Philometer, whose daughter he married,
he regained the throne of Syria. His cruelties and vices,
however, ultimately procured his expulsion from the king¬
dom ; and Antiochus, the infant son of Balas, was proclaimed
king in his stead. After ten years’ captivity in Parthia, he
succeeded in establishing himself once more upon the throne;
but his wife Cleopatra, indignant at his subsequent marriage
with a daughter of the Parthian king, procured his assassi¬
nation (b.c. 126).
Demetrius, Phalereus, an orator and Peripatetic philo¬
sopher, so called from the Attic demos of Phalerus, where
he was born. He was the son of a poor man named Phano-
stratus, and was a scholar of Theophrastus. He acquired so
much authority at Athens as an orator, that he governed the
city for ten years, and 360 statues were erected to his honour.
Ori the restoration of the old democracy by Demetrius Po¬
liorcetes, he was obliged to leave the city, and escaped into
Egypt, where he was protected by Ptolemy Lagus. Ihis
king, it is said, having asked his advice concerning the suc¬
cession ef his children to the throne, was advised by Deme¬
trius to leave his crown to the children of Eurydice, rather
than to Philadelphus, the son of Berenice. I his displeased
Philadelphus so much, that when his father died he banished
Demetrius; and the unfortunate exile put an end to his life
by the poison of an asp. Demetrius composed more works
in prose and in verse than any other Peripatetic of his time.
His writings treated principally of poetry, history, politics,
rhetoric, and accounts of embassies; but none are extant
D E M
Demetrius except his rhetoric, which is usually printed among the
1 Rhetores Selecti.
Dkmetrius, a Cynic philosopher, and disciple of Apollo¬
nius Tyanseus, to whom he afterwards proved an able anta¬
gonist. He spent the greater part of his life at Corinth, and
first became famous during the reign of Caligula. The
emperor, wishing to gain the philosopher to his iifterest, sent
him a large present; but Demetrius refused it with indig¬
nation, and said, “ If Caligula wishes to bribe me, let him
send me his crown.” Vespasian was displeased with his inso¬
lence, and banished him; but the Cynic derided the punish¬
ment, and bitterly inveighed against the emperor. He lived
to an advanced age; and Seneca observes, that nature had
brought him forth to show mankind how an exalted genius
may live uncorrupted by the vices of the world.
DEMI (formed from Lat. dimidium, half), a word used
frequently in composition with other words.
Demi-George, in Fortification, that part of the polygon
which remains after the flank is raised, and which stretches
from the curtain to the angle of the polygon. It is half of
the vacant space or entrance into a bastion.
Demi-Quaver, or Semi-Quaver, in Music, a note equal
in value to half a quaver.
Demi-Semiquaver, a note equal to half a demi-quaver.
Demigod, one partaking of a divine nature; a general
appellation of the inferior deities of Greece and Italy, more
particularly of those fabulous heroes who were the mixed
offspring of a divinity and a mortal.
DEMI ATTICI, boroughs or larger villages of Attica.
See Attica, vol. iv., p. 193.
DEMISE (Lat. demitto), literally a laying or sending
down; a term applied in law to an estate either in fee-simple,
fee-tail, or for a term of life or years. As applied to the
crown of England, demise signifies its transmission to the
next heir on the death of the sovereign.
DEMIURGE, Demiurgus (from Sr/go?, people, and
tpyov, work), literally signifies a handicraftsman ; but in the
language of the Platonists it was used to denote an exalted
and mysterious agent, or jFon, employed by the Supreme
Deity in the creation of the universe. The Platonizing Chris¬
tians regarded the Logos, or Second Person of the Trinity,
as one of an infinite series of Demiurgi employed by the
Deity in the creation of the universe.
Demiurgus was also the title of the chief executive
magistrate in some of the ancient Grecian states.
DEMMIN, a town of Prussia, capital of a cognominal
circle in the government of Stettin, is situated on the Peene,
which here receives the Trebel and the Tollense, 72 miles
W.N.W. of Stettin. It has manufactures of woollen cloths,
linens, hats, and hosiery; besides breweries, distilleries, tan¬
neries, &c.; and an active trade in tobacco, gloves, corn, and
timber. Pop. (1849), including military, 7609. Demmin is
a town of considerable antiquity, having been a place of im¬
portance in the time of Charlemagne, and is noted for the
number of sieges it has sustained. Its fortifications were
destroyed in 1759. In J 807 several engagements took place
here between the French and Russians.
DEMOCRACY (from Brj/Aos, people, and Kparlw, to go¬
vern), a form of government in which the supreme power is
lodged in the hands of the people. Such were the govern¬
ments of Rome and Athens of old; but the most perfect
example of democracy is afforded by the United States of
North America at the present day, the government of which,
for the security it gives, the good order it preserves, the
small burdens it imposes, and the judgment with which its
foreign and domestic policy have been conducted, is de¬
servedly considered as one of the best the world has seen.
DEMOCRITUS, a celebrated philosopher of antiquity,
was a native of Abdera—an Ionian colony in Thrace. The
date of his birth is not accurately known. By some autho¬
rities it is referred to the first year of the 80th Olympiad,
DEM 72,j
i. e. 460 B. c.; by others to the year 470 b. c. ; while Dio- Democri-
dorus Siculus, perhaps the most reliable authority on this tus*
question, assigns it to b.c. 494. His father, whose name ^
was Hegesistratus (though he is sometimes called Atheno-
critus and Damasippus), was an Abderitan of so great
wealth, that when Xerxes passed through Abdera on his
way back from Greece after Salamis, he entertained him
and his suite with great magnificence. In return for this
hospitality, the Persian monarch is said to have sent to He¬
gesistratus men skilled in all the learning of Persia and
Chaldaea, to teach the young Democritus the sciences then
cultivated in the East. The immense wealth which he in¬
herited from his father he spent in travel, visiting India,
Chaldaea, Persia, and Ethiopia. From these countries he is
believed to have passed into Egypt, where he spent several
years in studying the physical sciences which Pythagoras
had learned there before him. It is not improbable that
from Egypt he passed into Magna Graecia, where he found
the minds of the people divided between the rival schools
of Pythagoras and Zeno of Elea. From Italy he is said to
have crossed over to Greece, attracted by the celebrity of
Athens, where Socrates and Anaxagoras were then teach-
ing, and to have attended the lectures of these philosophers
incognito. A tradition also is current that he had a per¬
sonal quarrel with Anaxagoras; but this is sufficiently refuted
by certain passages in his own works, in which that philo¬
sopher is mentioned in terms of the highest praise. After
wandering over nearly the whole of the then known world,
he returned to his native Abdera so poor, despite his once
large inheritance, that he was obliged to ask an asylum
from his brother, by name Damasus, The history of his
old age is even more obscure and contradictory than that of'
his youth. According to one tradition, he is said to have
fallen into a state of imbecility, which so excited the sym¬
pathy of his countrymen, that they sent for the celebrated
physician Hippocrates from Cos, and consigned the un¬
fortunate philosopher to his care. According to other ac¬
counts, however, he is said to have prosecuted his studies
without interruption almost till his death. The date of De¬
mocritus’s death, like that of his birth, is very uncertain.
By some he is said to have attained the great age of 109;
by others, that of 104. Diodorus Siculus, whose version
is probably the most reliable, states that at the time of
his death Democritus had completed his 90th year. The
memory of Democritus was held in high esteem by his
countrymen, who, on his return home in poverty, are said
to have presented him with large sums of money, and to
have erected bronze statues to his honour in various parts
of the town. His knowledge of natural science, in parti¬
cular, is said to have proved on various occasions beneficial
to the Abderitans, who honoured him on that account even
more than on account of his philosophy. From the intensity
of his application he is said to have injured his eye-sight so
much that he ultimately became blind. On tliis story is
founded the tradition of a later age, according to which he
put out his eyes in order that his attention might not be
distracted by the contemplation of a multiplicity of objects.
His cheerfulness and humour he retained to the last; and,
from his habit of viewing things on the bright side, and his
extremely happy temperament, he earned for himself the
title of the Laughing Philosopher. Heraclitus of Ephesus,
who had regarded the world from the opposite point of view,
had before this been familiarly known as the Weeping Phi¬
losopher.
According to Diogenes Laertius, Democritus was the
author of seventy-two works. They are said to have com¬
prised treatises on almost every subject of human inquiry.
Of these, nothing has descended to our days except some
titles and a few fragments. Some of these treatises are
praised by Cicero as remarkable for the clearness and poeti¬
cal beauty of the style, which, in his opinion, rivalled that.
726
DEM
DEM
Demogor- of Plato. The fundamental ideas of Democritus’s cosmo-
S”11 logical philosophy were borrowed from Leucippus, and
Demoivre were *n ^‘rect opposition to those of the Eleatic school.
i ^ ^ / These were, 1st, that a vacuum exists as well as its op¬
posite, and that non-existence is no less true than exist¬
ence; 2dly, that the divisibility of being, an inevitable con¬
sequence of the existence of a void, has necessarily limits.
Here, at the very outset, may be discerned the materialistic
character of this system; for the property which is here
ascribed to being in general only belongs to matter, which
alone can be limited and divided by space. Democritus en¬
deavoured to prove the existence of a vacuum from motion,
and from certain experiments originally devised by Leucip¬
pus. In his ethical philosophy Democritus maintained that
peace of mind was the object to the attainment of which all
our efforts should be directed. From notices and fragments
of his works which have come down to us, it may be inferred
that his ethical system contained much practical wisdom;
and his ideas on Virtue and the Good are marked by a very
high standard of moral aspiration.
The best collection of the fragments of Democritus is that by F.
G. A. Mullach, 8vo, Berlin, 1843. His doctrines have given rise to
much historical inquiry in modern times. They are fully discussed
in the following works :—Magneni Democritus revivisccns, seu Vita
et Philosophia Democriti, Pavia 1646, and Leyden 1648; Genderi
Democritus Abderita, philosophus accuroxissimus, ab injuriis vindi~
catus, Altona, 1665; Jenichen, Progr. de Democrito Philosopho,
Leipzig, 1720; Ploucquet, De Placitis Democriti Abderitce, Tubingen,
1767; Hill, De Philosophia Epicurea, Democritea, et Theophrastea, Ge¬
neva,1669; Gcedingi, Dissert, de Democritoejusque Philosophia, Upsal,
1703; Schwartz, Dissert, de Democriti Theologia, Cobourg, 1718; Liit-
kemann, Disput. Democrit. Eleaticce Sectce Antistitem, Greifsw. 1718;
Ritter, art. Democritus in Ersch and Gruber s Dictionary, Leipzig,
1833; Benjamin Lafaist, Dissert, sur la Philosophic Atomistique,
Paris, 1833; Ritter, History of Philosophy, xo\. \. p.559; Brandis,
Rhein. ol. iii. p. 133, &c.; and Papencordt, Atomicorum Doctrina.
DEMOGOR GO N {bafpwv, demon, and yopyo's, terrible'),
in Pagan Mythology, a mysterious divinity, regarded by
some as the author of creation, and by others as a great
magician to the power of whose spell all the inhabitants of
Hades were subjected. The origin, attributes, and history
of this dread Deity are involved in obscurity ; but all writers
concur in representing Demogorgon as an object of terror
rather than of worship. Hence Milton—
  behold the throne
Of Chaos, and his dark pavilion spread
Wide o’er the wasteful deep: with him enthroned
Sat sable-vested Night, eldest of things,
The consort of his reign; and by him stood
Orcus and Ades, and the dreaded name
Of Demogorgon. Paradise Lost, B. ii.
DEMOIVRE, Abraham, an eminent mathematician,
was born at Vitry, in Champagne, May 26, 1667. The revo¬
cation of the edict of Nantz, in 1685, determined him to fly
into England rather than abandon the religion of his fathers.
Having laid the foundation of his mathematical studies in
France, he perfected himself at London, where he read
public lectures for his support. The Principia Mathema-
tica of Newton, which chance threw in his way, made him
comprehend at once how little he had advanced in the
science which he professed; but he pursued his studies
with vigour; and soon became distinguished among first-
rate mathematicians. His eminence and abilities opened
to him an entrance into the Royal Society of London, and
afterwards into the Academies of Berlin and Paris. His
merit was so well known and acknowledged by the Royal
Society, that they judged him a fit person to decide the
amous contest between Newton and Leibnitz concerning
the invention of fluxions. The collection of the Academy
of Paris contains no memoir of this author, who died at
London, Nov. 27, 17o4 soon after his admission into that
body; but the Philosophical Transactions of London con-
tain several of his papers, all of them interesting. He also
published some excellent works, such as Miscellanea Ana-
lytica, de Seriebus et Quadraturis, 1730, in 4to. But he Demon
has been more generally known by his Doctrine of Chances, |]
or method of calculating the Probabilities of Events at Play. Demos-
This work was first printed in 1618, in 4to, and dedicated thenes-
to Sir Isaac Newton. It was reprinted in 1738, with great
alterations and improvements; and a third edition was after¬
wards published with additions. He likewise gave to the
world a Treatise on Annuities, 1724, in 8vo, dedicated to
Lord Carpenter.
DEMON. See Djemon.
DEMONSTRATION. See Logic.
DEMONTE, a town of Italy, kingdom of Sardinia, pro¬
vince of Coni, and 14 miles S.W. of the town of that name,
on the right bank of the Stura. Pop. about 6000. Its for¬
tifications w ere demolished by the French in 1801.
DEMOSTHENES, the most celebrated of all orators,
sought the chief uses of his eloquence in the public emer¬
gencies of his agitated time. Neither his personal history
nor his literary character can be rightly estimated, till a just
account is taken of his position as a statesman. He lived
and acted in the last struggle which Greece maintained for
freedom; and he died when the battle was lost, a sacrifice
to the vengeance of the conquerors.
To observers tolerably impartial it cannot but appear, that
the policy which for thirty years Demosthenes so energeti¬
cally advocated, was in its outlines not only self-consistent,
but. adapted with very much practical sagacity for the at¬
tainment of its purpose. Nor (though the point is disputed
more or less openly by several of our modern historians) is
it really less certain, that the purpose itself was noble and
desirable. We must set very little value on national inde¬
pendence, or be infected by more than a reasonable dread
of popular influences, if we fail to convince ourselves that
the continued existence of Greece as a group of republics
would, notwithstanding its imperfect cohesion, and all other
faults and dangers, have been a state of things infinitely
better than that fettered and terrified subjection to which
she was reduced by her monarchical neighbours. In the
history of that interesting generation, the most doubtful
question that suggests itself is the question, whether the
struggle on which the Greeks ventured was prudent—whe¬
ther it could be entered on with a reasonable likelihood of
success ; and on this question, it must be confessed, opposite
views were at the time adopted by Greeks equally virtuous
and patriotic. On the one hand, for instance, Phocion, de¬
spondent, somewhat misanthropic, keenly sensitive to the
vices of a time when corruption and decay had begun to
enfeeble the race, and indignantly contemptuous of the
abuses which arose out of a democracy destitute of fit
checks—Phocion, the purity of whose motives no man ever
questioned—despaired of his country during the whole period
of his public life, and never cherished any higher aim than
that of making favourable terms with the masters whose
sway he believed it impossible to escape from. He survived
long enough to see his worst prophecies of evil lamentably
fulfilled. Yet was there not only a more honourable and
manly spirit, but perhaps also a more correct calculation of
probable chances, in that course of active resistance which
recommended itself to the more sanguine temper of Demos¬
thenes. Greece could not but have fallen, sooner or later,
unless the urgency of the crisis had breathed, as it promised
to breathe more than once, a fresh flame of patriotic inspira¬
tion into the hearts of her people ; unless her several states
had thrown off’ their ancient hatreds and their subsisting
jealousies of each other, as they did throw off these in one
or two hours of imminent peril; unless the citizens in each
of the states had sacrificed, not (as they did) in short fits of
alarm or indignation, but with steady and life-long devotion,
the love of luxury which made rich and poor alike slow to
aid the finances of the commonwealth, and the habits ot
pacific indolence which devolved the battles of the Hellenic
DEMOSTHENES.
race on hordes of mercenary soldiers. But, fighting at every
disadvantage, Greece would not have fallen when she did
fall, if it had not happened that the enemy who attacked her,
Philip, king of Macedon, was a man of extraordinary genius,
both military and diplomatic. It was a fact which no man
could have ventured to foretell, and which no Grecian states¬
man was entitled to assume in the earlier stages of the con¬
test, that within a quarter of a century Philip should have
raised a small, poor, and barbarous kingdom to a height of
power, which not only laid Greece at its feet, but enabled
his heroic son to found, by a few years of conquest, one of
the great monarchies of the world. Even against adver¬
saries thus formidable, the Greeks maintained a struggle
which, at more crises than one, was decided against them by
very narrow causes; and when, after the death of Alexan¬
der, they were again encouraged to rise, it was only, perhaps,
by reason of the discouragement diffused by a generation of
fruitless warfare, that this, the last act of the tragedy, did
not issue in a different catastrophe.
The year of Demosthenes’ birth has not been exactly as¬
certained. The authorities refer it to years ranging from
384 to 380 b.c. ; the fixed point being, that it took place
in the ninety-ninth Olympiad. His enemies used to taunt
him with his barbaric pedigree. His maternal grandfather,
Gylon, had been charged with betraying a fort in the Cri¬
mea (the Tauric Chersonesus), and, being driven into exile,
had married a woman of foreign blood. The orator’s father,
whose name he inherited, was an Athenian citizen, exten¬
sively engaged in manufacture and commerce, and entered
in the richest class on the tax rolls. Demosthenes was left
an orphan between his fifth and his tenth year; and the
affairs of himself and his sister were entrusted to three guar¬
dians, two of them kinsmen, from whom, after attaining his
legal majority at the age of sixteen, he long endeavoured in
vain to extort a reckoning. The property which in the end
he was able to recover, saved him from being poor, but was
not enough to make him by any means wealthy. He is said
to have been first directed towards the study of oratory, by
the necessity which he speedily foresaw of having to insti¬
tute a law-suit against his guardians; for the Athenian forms
of procedure did not, unless in cases of special exemption,
allow litigants in private causes to plead in the courts other¬
wise than in person. At any rate, Demosthenes did so plead
for himself in those matters, in three, or perhaps five, ora¬
tions, still extant; besides delivering, long afterwards, in
another personal suit, his energetic invective against Midias.
The composition, also, for payment, of speeches to be deli¬
vered by litigants, was a part of the ordinary business of
advocates or orators at Athens ; and the state of his affairs,
together, perhaps, with the desire of thus training himself
better for political eloquence, led him to occupy himself
much in this way, especially in the earlier part of his public
life. Such occasions gave rise to a considerable number of
the speeches which are preserved among his works. He
gave instructions in oratory, likewise, as we gather from the
sneers of Jischines.
Demosthenes accused his guardians of having thrown
obstacles in the way of his education. But he was certainly,
in his youth, instructed as fully and variously as any Athe¬
nian of that refined and well-informed time ; and his feeble¬
ness and sickliness of body, while it clung to him in mature
years, and was a drawback on his efficiency as a public man,
increased from boyhood his natural turn for reading and
reflection. He studied regularly under the orator Isaeus ; he
benefited in one way or another from the teaching both of
Isocrates and of Plato ; he was a diligent student of Greek
literature, especially in the history of Thucydides, which he
is said to have copied till he had it by heart, and which was
pronounced by his critical countrymen to have strongly
affected the formation of his style; and his discourses ex¬
hibit a familiarity both with the details of business and with
727
the principles of administration, which shows convincingly
that, with all his zeal in mastering the art of communication,
and amidst all the enthusiasm with which he contemplated
the glory of the older Grecian times, he looked with a most
observant eye on the concerns of actual and present life,
and taught himself to glance from end to means with the
coolest sagacity of a practical statesman. Yet we know
enough to be fully assured, that he who was thus earnest in
learning what to tell, employed, in learning how to tell it,
an amount of labour never equalled by any other public
speaker. Every one remembers the stories celebrating the
indomitable perseverance with which, inspired by the lofty
ambition of being a great orator in a time and country which
made oratory the most honoured and powerful of all accom¬
plishments, he toiled to overcome physical defects ; how he
shut himself up for months to write or to declaim ; how he
modulated his voice and strengthened his lungs for the din
of the popular assemblies, by practising recitation in climb¬
ing steep hills, or in walking beside the stormy shore of
the sea; how he received lessons from Satyrus the player,
and went so far as to study attitudes before a mirror. By
the sedulous use, in short, of all expedients available in a
school of oratory more refined and elaborate than any other
that the world has ever seen, he proved his deep sense of
the truth and importance of his own sound maxim ; that
“ good delivery” (for this, not “ action” merely, is the right
rendering of his phrase) is the first and greatest qualifica¬
tion of a public speaker. In spite of these exertions, it was
not till after repeated failures that he attained that impres¬
sive force and dignity of elocution, which his adversaries
themselves were compelled to acknowledge and admire, and
which made the orations of Demosthenes, when they issued
from his own lips, to be even mightier instruments of per¬
suasion than they are when we read them in the quietness
of the closet. As to the matter of his speeches, too, it is to
be noted, that while Aeschines and others of his contem¬
poraries prided themselves on extemporaneous fluency, he
never possessed much readiness of speech, and always
shrunk from speaking publicly when he had not had full
time for preparation.
The Orations which we have under the name of Demos¬
thenes are sixty ; or sixty-one, if those critics are right who
divide the first Philippic into two. But no more than forty
are universally admitted as genuine ; and the evidence
against a good many of the rest is quite conclusive. The
collection, as it stands, falls into three classes: sixteen
speeches delivered in the national assemblies (A^yopuu);
judicial speeches (Adyoi AiKavucdi), forty-two in number, of
which thirty deal with private civil causes, the others in¬
volving questions of public interest; and two orations of
display (Adyoi’ETTiSeum/coi), both of which are spurious.
There is also a curious collection of fifty-four Proemia, or
introductions to political discourses ; the separate composi¬
tion of which, to be used as occasion might occur, is a
singular illustration of the carefully artificial character of
Grecian eloquence in the hands of its greatest masters.
Many of the Orations of Demosthenes are invaluable con¬
tributions to the history of his times, for some facts of which
indeed they are our principal evidence; and the delivery of
the leading ones, or the circumstances out of which they
aiose, mark almost all the most prominent epochs in the
biography of the orator.
His public life may thus be distributed into four stages.
I he first of these begins with the year b.c. 354, when he
was somewhere between his twenty-seventh and his thirtieth
year. I hen, having sufficiently tried his powers, both by
delivering the orations on his family-affairs and by compos¬
ing several for other litigants, he stept into the arena of the
public assemblies. The period thus begun came to a close
in b.c. 346. At its opening, the duty which he thought
mainly incumbent on him was to urge, in the Oration on the
Demos¬
thenes.
DEMOSTHENES.
728
Demos- Symmories, union among the Greeks, and self-denying zeal
thenes. on j.jle par(. 0f' individual citizens, and to caution his coun-
trymen against wasting their strength in needless attacks on
their ancient enemy Persia. Next year, in the Oration for
the Megalo[)olitans, the text was still the abandonment of
jealousies between state and state. Within a year after this,
Philip of Macedon was in the Propontis; and now, while
the old themes are not forgotten, and practical measures are
recommended with the same statesman-like acuteness as
before, Macedon is denounced as the enemy against whom
Grecian liberty must be protected most vigorously. 1 hese
and similar views furnish the matter of the First Philippic.
The Speech for the Rhodians followed ; and next, while
Philip was overrunning the Chalcidic peninsula, came the
three noble Olynthiacs. The rash invitations of the dis¬
cordant Greeks had now, in the Sacred War, brought Philip
to the very gates of their country. Demosthenes himself,
already the most active leader of the Anti-Macedonian party
in Athens, was unable to make head against the general
despondency ; and in b.c. 347 he consented to be one of
the envoys in that famous embassy to Philip, in which, not
by him, Athens was betrayed, and her allies were sacrificed.
The king of Macedon was allowed to occupy the pass of
Thermopylae, admitted to the Amphictyonic League, and
elected its chief.
The second period in the career of Demosthenes lasted
about six years from b.c. 346. It was not fertile in great
public event-, but all the more so in great efforts of the
orator, now in the years just before and after his fortieth.
There was peace in name between Macedon and Athens.
But Philip was using, by encroachments continually spread¬
ing, the footing which he had gained in Greece ; and the
Athenians were led, by Demosthenes and his party, into a
series of indirect and isolated resistances to him, which
ended, as they could not but end, in open warfare. The
political speeches of this stage came in the following order:
the second Philippic ; the Oration on the Misconducted
Embassy to Philip, delivered on the first of those two cele¬
brated occasions which brought the character and the po¬
licy of Demosthenes into close comparison with those of
TEschines, his eloquent rival and personal enemy ; the mas¬
terly and impassioned Oration on the affairs of the Cher¬
sonese ; and the third and fourth Philippics.
In autumn b.c. 340 began the third of our periods, the
most eventful epoch in the times. A contest of five years,
conducted by the Greeks with an energy which might have
saved them if it had been exerted sooner, issued in a dis¬
comfiture which was total and proved to be irremediable.
Demosthenes, now at the summit of his popularity and
power, had in the meantime no opponent strong enough to
call forth his eloquence ; and his time was closely and anxi¬
ously occupied by discharging, amidst difficulties of which
the worst was the worthlessness of his chief assistants and
instruments, duties which have been described fairly when
he is called the war-minister of Athens. After war was
declared, he carried through valuable reforms in the admi¬
nistration of the fleet; and, in the panic and anger which
were aroused when Philip had marched into the heart of
Greece, he organized without opposition the generous pro¬
posals which brought about alliance between Athens and
Ihebes. But, in August b.c. 338, the fatal battle of Chse-
ronea laid the Greeks prostrate before their enemy; the
endeavours of the Athenians to gain allies for a renewal of
the war were fruitless ; and a peace was concluded which
really made Greece a province of Macedon. Philip was
assassinated two years afterwards; but the dreams raised
on his removal were dissipated by the unexpected vigour
of his son. Alexander having carried Ins army to the
Danube, the Thebans revolted, and were assisted by Athens
with a subsidy received from Persia. The young king
rapidly returned home, captured Thebes, and destroyed it.
Besides executing other bloody punishments, he demanded Demos-
surrender of nine leaders of the war-party at Athens, De- thenes.
mosthenes being of course in the number. It is disputed v-*-7
whether his withdrawal of the demand was caused by the
venal negotiations of the orator Demades, or by the more
honourable intercession of Phocion. Thus, in b.c. 335, the
last hopes of the Greeks seemed to be extinguished. Even
during Alexander’s absence in the East, their courage did
not rise high enough to prompt any general revolt.
Accordingly, during the twelve years after b.c. 335,
which were the closing stage in the great orator’s life, he
was a fallen man; fallen from power and popularity, and
exposed to continual attacks from old and now very dan¬
gerous enemies. But he was still full of courage, not des¬
titute of hope, and as vigorous of intellect as ever. His
oratorical masterpiece, the Oration on the Crown, or for
Ctesiphon, belongs to this period, the trial which gave op¬
portunity for it taking place in b.c. 330, when he must have
been somewhat past his fiftieth year. A public honour
which, immediately after the defeat at Chaeronea, the Athe¬
nians had done honour to themselves by conferring on De¬
mosthenes, was now made a ground of impeachment against
Ctesiphon, on whose motion it had been granted. Demos¬
thenes was the person really attacked ; and a hostile survey
of his whole political life makes, with a short notice of the
question ostensibly at issue, the staple of the magnificent
address in which jEschines supported the prosecution. This
oration, and that of Demosthenes in answer, are the very
finest monuments which the records of eloquence have to
show. The proceedings which were challenged by ASschines
having been clearly irregular, the verdict of acquittal which
was pronounced was certainly wrong in law. But it was
creditable to the popular board which constituted the court,
to have refused to pronounce a verdict of conviction which,
though seemingly bearing only on the nominal defendant,
would avowedly have been accepted as a condemnation of
the most distinguished and patriotic citzen in the state, as
well as of the whole line of policy by which the corrupted
Athenians had in part reclaimed the ancient lustre of their
name. A subsequent attack on Demosthenes, made in b.c.
324, was more successful. Harpalus, one of Alexander’s
satellites, deserted the province of which he had been made
governor, sought shelter in Athens with large plunder, and
endeavoured to prevail on his hosts to take up arms in his
defence. In the course of the agitation thus excited, De¬
mosthenes was accused of having been bribed by the refu¬
gee, was convicted, heavily fined, and thrown into prison,
whence he escaped, and fled into exile. The question of
his guilt or innocence has been warmly argued on both
sides. The recorded evidence against him is extremely
slight, and the presumption in his favour from antecedents
almost impregnably strong; nor is it hard to believe that he
was sacrificed to the terror of Alexander, which was felt by
the cowed citizens, and fostered by the intrigues and threats
of the Macedonian partizans. His countrymen themselves
revoked their sentence immediately on commencing pre
parations for a new rising, when, in b.c. 323, Alexander’s
death was heard of. Demosthenes, recalled by a national
resolution, and having his fine paid out of the public exche
quer, was again the most trusted of Athenian statesmen.
But this was only a lightening before death—it did not en¬
dure many months. The campaign in Thessaly, usually
described as the Lamian War, ended in the defeat of the
allied Greeks by Antipater at Crannon. Alexander’s ge¬
neral and successor repeated the demand for blood which
had been made by his master; and there was now neither
protection nor intercession. Demosthenes, solemnly recon¬
ciling himself with the orator Hyperides, another of the vic¬
tims, sought, in the temple of Poseidon, in the islet of Ca-
laurea, a sanctuary which, he knew well, would not be re¬
spected. The exile-hunters pursued him to his retreat; and
DEM
Demotic, he died before falling into their hands, having, as is com-
—monly believed, poisoned himself. His death took place in
the year b.c. 322, when his age was not less than fifty-eight
or more than sixty-two.
The name of Demosthenes is written in the last of the
four periods, which comprehend the brilliancy and purity of
Grecian hteiatuie. In the period of epic poetry, Homer
stands supeiioi and apait \ in the period of lyric poetry, a
pre-eminence nearly as decided belongs to Pindar ; in the
next period came the historians, Herodotus, Thucydides,
and Xenophon, the four chiefs of the Attic drama, the early
. philosophers, Socrates and the sophists. Then followed the
peiiod of the Greek philosophers and orators; and in it,
Plato and Aristotle do not project more sublimely beyond
all other thinkers of the ancient world, than does Demos¬
thenes beyond all its masters of eloquence. This, in truth,
is fat too little to say. Perhaps no literary judgment has
been pronounced with fewer dissents, than that which has,
in every enlightened generation during the last two thousand
years, declared Demosthenes to be the greatest of all orators
ancient or modern. The opinion has been clothed in such
a multiplicity of forms, and has been expressed so finely by
men themselves eloquent, that a respectful acquiescence in
it is all that can now be called for. That reasons not only
various, but sometimes not quite consistent with each other,
should have been assigned in support of it, is a fact which’
if rightly dissected, may be found to be really a proof of
the diversity and profundity of the powers out of which
the marvellous effect is generated. In comparing such
criticisms, all of us shall often discover that, even where the
several points of excellence do not seem to be either exhaus¬
tively apprehended or justly subordinated to one another, each
brings to the surface something overlooked by the rest, and
yet important for the right appreciation of the works ; while,
after we have endeavoured to collect into one focus the
scattered rays of illumination, there rests on us a fixed im¬
pression that the deepest coils of the secret spring still re¬
main undetected. Critical analysis is as incompetent to
unveil the ultimate mysteries of a mighty soul worthily ac¬
tuated, as is the dissector’s knife to lay bare the principle
of animal vitality. The law thus hinted at is valid for
literature as much as for action, and for eloquence nearly
as much as for poetry; the genius of Homer is scarcely
further beyond the reach of lower intellects, than is the
genius of Demosthenes : he who could completely fathom
either, would be a Homer or a Demosthenes himself.
The praise of Demosthenes is by no one expressed more
warmly, and by few more discriminatingly, than by the cau¬
tious David Hume. “ Could his manner be copied, its suc¬
cess would be infallible over a modern assembly. It is
rapid harmony exactly adjusted to the sense ; it is vehement
reasoning without any appearance of art; it is disdain, anger,
boldness, freedom, involved in a continual stream of argu¬
ment ; and, of all human productions, the Orations of De¬
mosthenes present to us the models which approach the
nearest to perfection.” Some of the orator’s most striking
peculiarities, and not a few of the methods by which his
effects were attained, are analysed in the “ Dissertation on
the Eloquence of the Ancients,” appended to the collected
edition of Lord Brougham’s speeches.
The older editions of Demosthenes, of which the most
noted were those of Taylor and lieiske, have been super¬
seded in the present century by that of Bekker. Biblio¬
graphical details are fully given in Westermann’s Geschichte
der Beredtsamkeit. The biography of the orator may be
studied best in the general histories of Greece, or in some
historical works devoted to particular periods. The Macedo¬
nian side is taken up by Mitford with his usual keenness and
spirit, and somewhat less decidedly by Droysen : a fairer
estimate may be gathered from Thiriwall and Grote. (\v. s.)
DEMOTIC or Enchorial characters, in Egyptian An-
VOL. VII.
D E M 729
tiquities, are terms used synonymously to distinguish the al- Demotica
phabet used by the common people; in contradistinction to II
the Hieratic, or that used by the priests. The words are de- DemPster.
rived respectively from %iotikos, ‘belonging to the people,’
and iyxupios, ‘ indigenous,’ or ‘ of the country.’ See Hiero¬
glyphics.
DEMOTICA, a town of European Turkey, on the Ma¬
ri tza, province of Roumeliaand sanjakof Gallipoli, at the foot
of a conical hill surmounted by a castle, 25 miles S. of Ad-
rianople. Pop. about 10,000. The town is tolerably well-
built, and has a mosque, several Greek churches, colleges,
and public baths; and manufactures of silk and woollen
stuffs and earthenware. Charles XII. of Sweden resided
here for more than a year after the battle of Poltava.
DEMPSTER, Thomas, one of the most learned men
whom Scotland has produced, was born at Cliftbog in
Aberdeenshire, on the 23d of August 1579, being the
twenty-fourth out of twenty-nine children by the°same
mother. His father, who bore the same name with him¬
self, he describes as proprietor of Muresk, Auchterless,
and Killesmont, and prorex, or lieutenant, of the county
of Banff and the district of Buchan. His mother was
Jane, the sister of Lesley of Balquhain ; and one grand¬
mother was daughter to the last earl of Buchan of the
family of Stewart, and the other was sister to Lord For¬
bes. He was born during the lifetime of his grandfather.-
at whose decease, the family, more distinguished by its
gentility than its opulence, was left in very unprosperous
circumstances.
According to his own account, his first step in learning
was as wonderful as any part of his subsequent progress*
for, at the age of three years, he completely mastered the
alphabet in the space of a single hour. He was afterwards
committed to the care of Andrew- Ogston, a schoolmaster at
Tuireff, and was next removed to Aberdeen, where he was
initiated in classical learning by Thomas Cargill, an excel-
lent grammarian. In the mean time, the family was involved
in ruin, chiefly by the misconduct of James, his eldest bro¬
ther ; of whom he has given an account which it would have
been much wiser to suppress. This brother took the extraor¬
dinary step of marrying his father’s concubine, Isabella Gor¬
don of Achavach; and having consequently been disinherit¬
ed, he attempted to revenge himself by collecting a band
of Gordons, and making a violent assault upon his father
when he was one morning proceeding on horseback, with
the view of transacting some public business. Several
attendants of the latter were slain in this encounter, and,
amongst others, his brother-in-law Gilbert Lesley ; he was
himself dangerously wounded. Two of the Gordons were
likewise left dead on the field, and several were w-ounded
on both sides. In order to cut off all hope of succession
from such an heir, he sold to the earl of Errol his estate
of Muresk, situated in the county of Aberdeen; but the
bargain w^as never fulfilled by the other party, and he was
unable to recover either his lands or their price. Thus,
we aie told, he only left to his son Jhomas an empty
title. But Thomas, who represents himself as the twen¬
ty-fourth child, does not venture to assert that, if the
estate had still remained in the family, he was next in the
order of succession ; and when in various works he styled
himself baron of Muresk, he must have been aware, even
taking baron in the sense of laird, that his title was as
empty as could well be imagined. After this act of atro¬
cious violence, his brother James fled to the northern
islands, and having there collected a band of ruffians, he
lived in open defiance of the laws, till he at length set
file to the bishop of Orkney’s palace, and then returned
to the country which he had been compelled to abandon.
His wife, who had become the mother of seven children,
was now discarded; and having made choice of another
companion, he sought an asylum in the Netherlands, where
4 z
730 D E M P
Dempster, he served as a captain of horse. But the divine vengeance
at last overtook him ; for having been guilty of some gross
act of violence towards his colonel, he was executed at
Utrecht in the most appalling manner; he was torn limb
from limb by four horses, and thus, according to his bro¬
ther’s account, ended a career of more than common crime
and infamy. .
In the progress of these events, Thomas, by the advice
of his uncle John Dempster, whom he describes as an
eminent lawyer of Edinburgh, was induced to seek in an¬
other country that fortune from which he seemed to be
precluded in his own. In the tenth year of his age, he
repaired to Cambridge, where he for some time studied
in Pembroke Hall. He afterwards directed his course to
France ; and having on his journey been robbed of his
money and stript of his clothes, he with difficulty made
his way to Paris. Here he was kindly treated by some
of his countrymen, and was beginning to think of resum¬
ing his studies, when he was seized with a contagious
disease, which deprived the schools of their auditors, and
the city of its inhabitants. When he at length recovered
from this dangerous malady, he hastened to the university
of Louvain, which was then adorned by the erudition of
Lipsius, but not long after his arrival he found that Wil¬
liam Crichton, a Jesuit, principal of the Scotish College,
had received insti’uctions to send some of his young coun¬
trymen to Rome; and those whom he selected, besides
Dempster himself, were Patrick Anderson, who was al¬
ready a Jesuit, Robert Hill, who died professor of philo¬
sophy at Montpellier, and Thomas Lyon, who was blind
from his infancy. He reached the papal city after a dan¬
gerous journey, for the plague was raging in Germany,
and Italy was the scene of military operations. By the
kindness of Cardinal Cajetano, protector of the Scotisji
nation, he was admitted as a student in the Roman semi¬
nary, and, under the tuition of Stephoni, began the study
of poetry, that is, the art of Latin versification : but having
again been attacked by a dangerous disease, the physi¬
cians recommended a change of climate ; and, in company
with Andrew Crichton, proceeding by way of Switzer¬
land, he directed his wandering steps towards the Nether¬
lands. At Tournay he experienced the kindness of his
countryman James Cheyne, who sent him to the univer¬
sity of Douay, where he wras maintained by a pension from
the king of Spain and the archduke Albert. He now
prosecuted the study of poetry with new vigour, but did
not neglect the other branches of learning. In poetry
he obtained the first, and in philosophy the second prize.
Having taken the degree of A. M. he for a short time
taught humanity at Tournay; but as his prospects were
not there very encouraging, he again presented himself at
Paris, and having taken the degree of doctor of the canon
law, he succeeded David Sinclair as a regent in the College
of Navarre. At that period, according to his own state¬
ment, he had not attained the age of seventeen ; and he
must therefore have obtained his preferment in the year
1596. In what university he afterwards took the degree
of doctor of the civil law, he has omitted to mention ; but
in several of his works he describes himself as Juris utri-
usque Doctor, or doctor of both laws, civil and canon.
From the beginning to the end of his career he was a
restless wanderer, and he soon quitted Paris with the in¬
tention of settling at Toulouse. On his route, he halted
for some time at St Maixant in Poitou. At Toulouse he
S T E R.
began to teach humanity; but his zeal in contending forDempstci
the interests of the university excited the resentment of
certain individuals of rank or influence, and he again
thought it expedient to change his place of residence.
His views were next directed to a professorship of philo¬
sophy at Montpellier, whither he appears to have been
invited by his countrymen Adam Abernethy and Andrew
Currie, the former of whom is still remembered as an
author; but, in the mean time, he made his appearance
at Nismes, where the professorship of eloquence was to
be awarded to the most deserving competitor, and where
only one of twenty-four judges decided against him. As
this was a seminary appropriated to the Huguenots, Bayle
conjectures that he must have suspended his zeal for the
Romish faith.1 One of the unsuccessful candidates, Jacob
Grasser of Basel, sought to avenge himself by making a
violent assault upon Dempster, by publishing a libel against
him, and by applying for a legal interdict to prohibit him
from discharging the duties of his office; but the profes¬
sor, who possessed courage as well as strength, repelled the
joint attack of Grasser and some of his associates, and
found means to have him committed to prison, first at
Nismes, and afterwards, when he had made his escape,
at Montpellier, and again at Paris. After a tedious litiga¬
tion of two years, the cause was at length decided in his
favour by the parliament of Toulouse, and the libel pub¬
lished against him was ordered to be burnt at Nismes by
the hands of the executioner.
Nor did he long retain his professorship of eloquence.
After making a journey into Spain, he accepted the ap¬
pointment of preceptor to Artus d’Espinay, subsequently
bishop of Marseille, a son of the famous Sainte Luc, grand¬
master of the artillery of France, who was killed at the
siege of Amiens in the year 1597. But a quarrel in which
he involved himself at Brissac with one of his pupil’s rela¬
tions, hastened the termination of this engagement, and
he now adopted the resolution of returning to his na¬
tive country. With the viewr of recovering some portion
of the family property, he brought an action in the court
of session, and, according to his own impression, would
ultimately have succeeded, if he had not found it expe¬
dient to withdraw before the decision was pronounced.
His relations were either reduced to poverty, or were un¬
willing to assist him, on account of his adherence to the
popish faith; and for the same reason he was exposed to
persecution from the Scotish clergy, chiefly, as he con¬
ceives, at the instigation of William Cowper, afterwards
bishop of Galloway. With this divine he was for three
days engaged in a theological disputation at Perth, and
he appears to have been extremely well satisfied with the
manner in which he acquitted himself. To the resent¬
ment of Cowper in being foiled, not by a theologian, but
by a lawyer, he imputes the injurious representations
which were made to the king.2 He again bad adieu to
Scotland, and, returning to Paris, was for seven years em¬
ployed, with honour as well as emolument, as a regent in
four different colleges, those of Lisieux, Grassins, Du
Plessis, and Beauvais.3
Of the decision and ferocity of his character he exhibit¬
ed a notable instance in the last of these colleges. Gran-
gier, the principal, having occasion to absent himself from
Paris, appointed Dempster to act as his substitute, being
no doubt persuaded that he had sufficient energy to main¬
tain the most rigid discipline. A student challenged one
1 Bayle, Dictionaire Historique et Critique, tom ii. p. 986. ® Dempsteri Historia Ecclesiastica, p. 195. ^77*
a A. du Saussay, bishop of Tulle, m his continuation of Bellatmin, has mentioned Dempster in the following terms : ‘ Docm
magno discipulorum concursu, nec minori omnium doctorum sestimatione et plausu: inter ejus auditores in mea juventute cons i i.
Cceterum tantus vir pugnaci animo et contentioso ac instabili fuit, quo genio ductus plerumque domicilia mutavit. (De scrip o-
ribus Ecclesiasticis, p. 82. edit. Colon. 1684j 4to.)
DEMPSTER.
)empster. of his companions to fight a duel: the vice-principal was
moved with indignation at such a proceeding ; and having
seized the offender and untrussed his points, he placed
him on the back of a stui’dy knave, and, in the presence
of the whole college, gave him a sound flogging. The
young gentleman, burning with resentment, brought one
day to the college three of his kinsmen who served in the
guards; but Dempster, undismayed at this military inva¬
sion, put arms into the hands of the servants, and having
ordered them to kill the horses which were left at the
gate, made so formidable an attack on the soldiers, that
they were speedily reduced to the necessity of beggino-
for mercy. Their lives were spared by the victor,&who
hovvevei detained them for a short time as prisoners in
the college belfry. When they had thus ascertained that
he was a match for them at their own weapons, they en¬
deavoured to find a more competent remedy; and as he
was not persuaded that a legal enquiry into his proceed¬
ings would tend to his advantage, he quitted his station
in the College of Beauvais, and sailed for England.1 Ac¬
cording to one of his Irish antagonists, the cause of his
flight was of a much more foul description f but the work
which contains this statement displays such a fierce spirit
of detraction, as must deprive it of all historical credit.
He had been invited to England by King James, who be¬
stowed upon him the title of historiographer royal, and
made him a present of two hundred pounds, which at
that period was no inconsiderable sum. This gift he re¬
ceived in the thirteenth year of the king’s reign, namely,
in 1615 or 1616.3 At London he married Susannah Wal¬
ler, a woman of great beauty and elegance, who afterwards
proved a very precarious acquisition. His hopes of ob¬
taining preferment were defeated by the remonstrances
of the clergy, particularly Dr Montague, bishop of Bath
and Wells: they endeavoured to impress the king with a
sense of the impropriety of thus taking under his protec¬
tion, and into his favour, a known and zealous catholic.
He therefore took his leave of the learned monarch, and
again directed his course towards Italy. When he ar¬
rived at Home, he was suspected of being a spy, and for
a single night was detained in custody; but his charac¬
ter and pretensions were easily ascertained, and from
the pope and several cardinals he obtained letters of re¬
commendation to the grand duke of Tuscany, Cosmo II.
Being likewise befriended by Guicciardini, the duke’s am¬
bassador at the court of Rome, he proceeded to Florence,
andintheyear 1616 wasappointed professorof the Pandects
in the university of Pisa.4 He had previously distinguished
himself by the publication of various works in prose and
verse, and had earned the reputation of extensive erudi¬
tion. At an early period of his life he had betaken him¬
self to the study of the law; and by his edition of the
Antiquitates Romance o£ Rosinus, printed in the year 1613,
he had evinced his proficiency as a civilian. The study
of the Roman law is so closely blended with the study of
Roman history and antiquities, that the one cannot be
safely disjoined from the other.
Soon after he had been admitted to this office, he was
furnished with letters and money by the grand duke, and
returned to England for the purpose of conveying his wife
to Italy. They proceeded by way of Paris; and when
731
they were one day walking in the street, his lady attract-Dempster,
ed a crowd of gazers, not merely by the beauty of her
person, but chiefly by exhibiting a more ample portion of her
bosom and shoulders than suited the established usages of
the country. So great was the concourse of people, that
they were obliged to fly for shelter to an adjoining house.5
In due time he returned to Pisa, and read his inaugural
lecture on the second of November. His salary was aug¬
mented to four hundred ducats, and he now appeared to
have a fair prospect of honour and emolument. He re¬
commended himself to the duke by undertaking his great
work De Etruria Regali, which he must have completed
with wonderful energy and dispatch. In the year 1617,
he paid another visit to Britain, with the view of arrang¬
ing some private affairs. But his restless and turbulent
disposition did not long permit him to enjoy tranquillity.
He involved himself in an angry and pertinacious dispute
with an Englishman, whose name he has not thought pro¬
per to mention, nor is the origin or progress of this dispute
rendered in any degree intelligible by his abrupt narra¬
tive. It however appears that his antagonist, who was
probably an ecclesiastic, succeeded in producing a favour¬
able impression on the grand duke, who only left Demp¬
ster the alternative of making an apology or quitting the
luscan dominions. The learned civilian was of too stub¬
born a nature to be readily convinced that he was in the
wrong, and too proud to stoop to what he considered as
an unworthy compliance : he accordingly accepted the lat¬
ter part of this alternative, and took his departure from
Pisa on the 21st of July 1619.
Disgusted with Italy, he now reverted to the plan of
settling in his native country; but on arriving at Bologna,
he paid his respects to Cardinal Capponi, legate of that
papal city, who prevailed upon him to abandon his inten¬
tion, and within the short space of twelve days procured
him the appointment of professor of humanity. This was
an honourable and a lucrative office, which had been held
by men of high reputation, by P. Manutius, Sigonius, and
Robortellus. A new office naturally involved such a per¬
son in new contentions: the professor of humanity was en¬
titled to take precedence of other professors; and as this
place of honour was fiercely contested, he maintained his
own rights with his usual pertinacity, and with more than
his usual success.
More serious evils awaited him. The Englishman who
had interrupted his tranquillity at Pisa, still infested him
at Bologna: he accused the professor of being a catholic
of dubious faith, and of being guilty of the crime of hav¬
ing heretical books in his library. Dempster addressed
to his adversary a letter, which appears to have been so
intemperate as to incur the censure of some of the car¬
dinals; but he proceeded to Rome in person, and after
obtaining more than one audience of the pope, was enabled
to remove any aspersions which had been aimed at his
character. A formal reconciliation was at length effected
between these pertinacious antagonists, but the spirit of
reconciliation was probably wanting in both parties. The
professor mentions that he had prepared a full statement
of his case, and that if his adversary recurred to his for¬
mer practices, it should be transmitted to posterity. In
the mean time, he discharged his duty in the university
Erythnei Pinacotheca Imagmum illustnum Doctrinas vel Ingenii Laude Virorum, tom. i. p. 24. Colon. Asrin 1645-8 3 tom
8vo._Ihis account seems to receive some confirmation from Dempster’s more brief statement: “ A Joanne liobillardo Normano
Cadomensi penculum vitae adnt, qui frequenti stationario milite comitante sub noctem irrumpens, armis cum suis exutus ac in cus
todiam datus, iter conceptum Thomae acceleravit.” (Historia Ecclesiastica, p. 677.) ^ uis exutus ac in cus
2 Hiberniae, sive Antiquioris Scotiae, Vindiciae, p. 52-8. Antverp. 1621, 8vo.
3 Nichols’s Progresses of King James the First, vol. ii. p. 136.
4 Fabronii Historia Academiae Pisanae, tom. ii. p. 234. Pisis, 1791-5, 3 tom. 4to.
6 Erythraei Pinacolheca, tom. i. p. 25.
732
DEMPSTER.
Dempster, with diligence and ability. His reputation attracted pupils
of a higher rank, and his salary was augmented to eight
hundred crowns. His love of wandering seems at length
to have abated; for he declined an offer of a thousand
crowns a year as professor of the civil law in the uni¬
versity of Padua. Pope Urban VIII. who was himself a
Latin poet, treated him with more than usual distinction,
by conferring upon him the honour of knighthood,^ and
accompanying this honour with an annual pension of one
hundred pieces of money, but of what denomination, is
not sufficiently apparent. Dempster likewise became a
member of the Accademia della Notte, in which, accord¬
ing to the Italian fashion, he assumed the name of Evan-
tius, and in the proceedings of which he is said to have
taken a great interest. He now appeared to have reached
a place of rest, when he was overtaken by the severest of
all his calamities. After his arrival in Italy, his wife had
born a daughter, who did not survive many days, and this
was fortunately the only offspring of such a mother. On
returning from one of his lectures, he discovered that she
had made an elopement, in which one or more of his own
pupils were either concerned as principals or accessories.
He immediately commenced a pursuit of the fugitives, who
seem to have added robbery to their other crime ; but
when he had proceeded as far as Vicenza, a city of Lom¬
bardy, he found that they must already have passed the
Alps. This painful journey had been performed during the
heat of the dog-days. Oppressed with fatigue of body and
anguish of mind, he sought repose and tranquillity at Bu-
tri, in the neighbourhood of Bologna ; but having been sud¬
denly attacked with a fever, he was removed to his own
residence, and there died on the 6th of September 1625,
soon after he had completed the forty-sixth year of his
age. His remains were interred in the church of St Do¬
minic, where his brethren of the Accademia della Notte
erected a monumental stone to his memory, and added a
Latin inscription written in a very quaint style. One of
their number, Ovidio Montalbani, pronounced his funeral
oration, which was published in the course of the follow¬
ing year.1
Such was the turbulent life, and such the premature
death, of Thomas Dempster, a man distinguished by some
eminent endowments of body as well as mind. In his per¬
son, he was above the ordinary size, and was possessed of
proportional strength. He had an ample head, with black
hair, and a dark complexion, so that in Italy he might easi¬
ly have been mistaken for an Italian. He was a man of a
noble aspect, and was possessed of undaunted courage.
The irritability of his temperament involved him in many
quarrels, nor was his sword less formidable than his pen.
He never acquired the habit of restraining the natural im¬
petuosity of his mind, and was equally decided and un¬
disguised in his friendships and in his resentments. To his
friends he was very pleasant, and equally odious to his
enemies. Little inclined to forgive injuries, he pursued
his enemies with the most violent animosity, and express¬
ed his tumultuous feelings without any scrupulous regard
to decency.2 In several of his works, we find sufficient
evidence of his being somewhat loose in his assertions ; Dempster,
and indeed men of a violent and perverse disposition seem 'w-v'**
frequently to be incapable of distinguishing falsehood from
truth : they are much inclined to embrace as true what¬
ever is best suited to the state of their mind during its
morbid excitement.
Dempster’s intellectual endowments were likewise of a
mixed character. He was endowed with such extraordi¬
nary powers of memory, and read with such indefatigable
diligence, that he was regarded as a speaking library. It
was customary with him to devote fourteen hours a day to
study. He was allowed to possess an equal knowledge
of the Greek and Latin languages; and his knowledge of
both was so familiar, that in either language he undertook
to dictate verses as rapidly as the pen of a ready writer
could commit them to paper. He was a poet and philo-
loger, as well as a civilian and historian. He evinces no
mean portion of poetical fancy, and his verse is more ele¬
gant than his prose. His Musca is one of the few Latin
poems, written by natives of Scotland, which the learned
Wasse has recommended for republication.3 In his more
elaborate works, he displays very extensive and diversi¬
fied erudition, but in many instances his learning appears
superior to his judgment. The life which he led was sub¬
ject to many vicissitudes, and his writings partake of the
same desultory character. His style is unequal, and fre¬
quently unpolished, nor is he sufficiently scrupulous in se¬
lecting words of the purer ages of Latinity.
His principal work, De Etruria Regali, was completed
in the space of about three years; and when we consider
its great extent, and its ample stores of recondite know¬
ledge, we cannot but regard it as a wonderful performance.
Errors and defects may naturally be expected to occur in
a work relating to such a subject, and executed with so
much rapidity ; but sufficient room is still left for our ad¬
miration of the author’s vivacity of mind, and resources of
learning. His edition of Rosinus likewise displays the co¬
piousness of his reading, and it has supplied materials to
all those who have subsequently laboured in the depart¬
ment of Roman antiquities. His juridical works entitle
him to a respectable place among civilians. Ludewig, who
is himself an able writer, has expressed a wish that his
notes on the Institutes of Justinian should be reprinted.4
As a classical critic, his character is chiefly to be ascer¬
tained from his editions of Claudian and Corippus, two
poets who belong to the declining ages of Roman litera¬
ture, and one of them indeed belongs to the latter part of
the sixth century.5 The editor might easily have select¬
ed purer models of language and taste ; but on various oc¬
casions he chose to travel in a by-path of his own, and his
annotations on Corippus, as well as on Claudian, have con¬
tributed to his reputation as a man of miscellaneous eru¬
dition. Among his own works he enumerates notes on
Statius and a commentary on iElian, but there seems no
reason to believe that they were ever printed.
On the ecclesiastical and literary history of Scotland,
some of his publications are very slight and unsatisfactory.
His Menologium and Scotia Illustrior are so much occu-
1 Itagionamento funebre havuto publicamente nell’ Accademia della Notte, per la Morte dell’ eccellentissimo Tomaso Demstero.
Bologna, lb2(i.-—This publication, which we have never seen, is mentioned by Bayle, and likewise by Niceron, Memoires pour servir
& ITIistoire des Hommes illustres dans la Republique des Lettres, tom. xxviii. p. 314.
3 “ Moribus ferox fuit, apertus omnino, et simulandi nescius, sive enim amore, sive odio aliquem prosequeretur, utrumque palam ;
consuetudine jucundissimus, amicis obsequentissimus, ita inimicis maxime infensus, acceptaeque injurise tenax, earn aperte agnoscens
ac repetens.” These are the expressions of Mattlueus Peregrinus, who has completed the account of Dempster which occurs at the
end of his Historia Ecdesiastica.
3 Wasse’s Memorial concerning the Desiderata of Learning: libiiotheca luteraria, No. iii. p. 11—See likewise Borrichii Disser-
tationes Academicae de Poetis, p. 151. A selection from Dempster’s poems may be found in the Delitiae Poetarum Scotorum, tom.
i. p. 30G.
4 J. P. de Ludewig Vita Justiniani, p. 45. Hake Salicae, 1731, 4to.
4 Leyseri Historia Poetarum Medii yEvi, p. 172. Hake Magdeb. 1721, 8vo.
Dempster, p.ed with fierce contentions “ de lana caprina,” that they
can now excite little interest or curiosity. His Nomcncll
tura is a mere catalogue of names, which were to be illus¬
trated in a subsequent work. In his native country, he is
most generally known as the author of a book on which he
has bestowed the title of Histona Ecclesiastica Gentis Sco-
ioirum, a title which is by no means descriptive of its con¬
tents. It contains a long enumeration of Scotish saints,
writers, and other worthies, who lived, or are supposed to
have lived, at periods very remote from each oilier. Of
many of h.s saints and writers, the very existence is con¬
sidered as more than doubtful, and many of the rest be¬
long, not to Scotland, but to other countries. It is not
always easy to distinguish the early Scotish from the early
Irish writers. Ihe name of Scotia or Scotland has no^
been traced in any author who flourished before the third
century. At first it was exclusively applied to the coun¬
try now called Ireland; but after the descendants of the
lush had established themselves in the north of Britain
they still retained the appellation of Scots; although it
was not before the eleventh century that the name of
Scotknd was transferred from the one country to the
other. . After that period, the green island gradually lost
its ancient designation. Some degree of confusion may
therefore be supposed to be connected with this identity
of names, nor has it always been avoided by writers more
accurate than Dempster. His notices of persons who liv¬
ed in earlier times are necessarily very scanty, and are of¬
ten very erroneous. Nor are his catalogues of books less
remarkable than his list of writers : he ascribes various
works to various individuals who flourished long before the
art of writing was introduced into Scotland; and nothino-
can be more ludicrous than his formal enumeration of tlm
productions of such imaginary authors. The principal
value o his book consists in its notices of those writers
who belonged to his own time, and particularly of those
who passed the better part of their lives on the continent
Relative to these, he presents us with many curious glean¬
ings of information, which is nowhere else to be found;
and on many occasions his information is more authentic
tian his readers may be inclined to suppose. According
to Bishop Lloyd, he “ was as well inclined to believe a lye
as any man in his time ;”4 and to Dr Towers he “ seems
to have thought it highly meritorious to advance the
grossest falsehoods, if those falsehoods would, in any de¬
gree^ contribute to the honour of his country.”5 A person
convicted of many errors is naturally suspected of many
more. Thus, when Dempster speaks of Kidd, or Ca-
danus, as^ being an eminent professor of law in the uni-
veisity of Toulouse, and the author of several works in
prose and verse, he has perhaps by some readers been
D E M P S T E R,
733
suspected of introducing an imaginary character ; and yet Dempster,
the same individual, utterly forgotten in his native coun- 1
try, ]s mentioned by Baluze as a professor of great ability
and reputation.6 On the continent there were many La¬
tin poems and tracts published by natives of Scotland, du¬
ring the age of Dempster and a short period immediately
preceding; and such of them as were written by indivi¬
duals who did not acquire any considerable celebrity,
have in various instances left but few traces behind them!
The works of Dempster are very numerous and very
miscellaneous. We subjoin a list, which is as complete as
we have been able to render it; but he has himself enu¬
merated various others, which do not appear to have been
published. All the articles from No. 29 to No. 47 inclu¬
sive, are copied from his own list; and it is to be re¬
gretted that he has not described them in a more satisfac¬
tory manner.
1. Cl. Claudiani quae extant, cum notis Thomas Dempster! Scot!
Flexias, 1607, 16mo.
2. In Claudianum Commentarius lib. i. Lugduni, et alibi.
3. Epithalamion in Nuptiis generosissimorum Jacobi Comitis
Perthani, Domini Drommondi, Baronis Stobhalliae, &c., et Isabellas
umcas Robert! Comitis Wintonii, Domini Setonii, &c. filias. Edin.
1608, 4to.
4. In desideratissimum Rectoratum clariss. viri D. D. Jacobi
\ assorii, Panegyris extemporanea. Par. 1609, 4to.
5. Eucharisticon, dictum post Telemachum cl. v. D. D. Petri
Valentis in Aula Montana Cal. Septemb. Par. 1609, 8vo.
6. Corippi Africani Grammatici de Laudibus Justini Minoris
August! libri quatuor : Thomas Dempsterus a Muresk, J. C. re-
censuit, lacunas supplevit, mendis expurgavit, commentarium ad-
jecit, &c. Par. 1610, 8vo.
7. Musca ; sive Strena Kal. Jan. ad illustrem nobilissimunique
virum D. Petrum Huraldum Hospitalium Fayum, Dominum de
Bel-ebate, &c. Par. 1610, 4to.
8. Epinicion ; seu Victrix Academia. Par. 1612, 4to.
9. Tragcedia Decemviratus abrogatus. Par. 1613, 8vo.
10. Antiquitatum Romanarum Corpus absolutissimum, in quo
praeter ea quae Joannes Rosinus delineaverat, infinita supplentur
mutantur, adduntur. Par. 1613, fol.—Of this work there are
many subsequent editions. Under the title of “ Thomm Demp-
steri Kalendarium Romanum,” an extract from this work is in¬
serted in Graevius’s Thesaurus Antiquitatum Romanarum, tom. viii
col. 115. ’
11. Panegyricus augustiss. potentiss. q. Principi Jacobo I. Brit-
taniar. Bond. 1615, 4to.
12. Strena Kal. Januar. ad Jacobum Hayum, Dominum ac Ba-
ronem de Saley. Bond. 1616, 4to.
13. Votum illustriss. generosiss. q. D. Robert! Caro, Somerseti
Comiti, &c., 4to.
14. Bicitatio Professorum ; sive Prasfatio solemnis habita Pisis
postndie Kal. Novembris M.DC.XVI. Pisis, 1616, 4to.
15. Troia Hetrusca; sive Gamelia Ludicra. Floren., 1616, 4to
16. Bandum Mediceum ; sive Strena Kl. Jan. MDCXVIL de
Stemmate, Pila, Hercule, Beone. Florent. 1617, 4to.
17. Bononia; sive Praefatio solemnis, habita ix. Cal. Novembris
Bononim, 1619, 4to.
2 ^nnkarum Ecclesiarum Antiquitates, p. 728. Dublin. 1639, 4to.
Pinkerton s Enquiry into the History of Scotland, vol. ii. p. 228.
tamen sua |aude fmudandua est. De meliore n0taPZ“ta eoZeaffi de iis erSS 1S ? V,"d'CeS <lenti'le.>" '^e. Nec
reconditas literas in academiis Gallonnn, Italorumque et Gernianorum . A ^ ptoribus qui, exules patnee, interiores et
thematicas disciplinas alii jurisprudentiamve colentes laudem hand ^ ,-a ^ocuerunt* A*11 literas humaniores, nia.
praesides sunt faiti, „„me„qJue Seoticun, late per orbem Smn. nrona™ru« vS pr°ff8S0reS Vf> g.vnnasi’orum
sacerdotes, professores, milites, et interdum mores hominum notaL’ P(Pnef in Hist FcrhH 1 emPst.erus suites, quorum meminit,
. 4 Lloyd’s Historical Account of Church-Government ^it was in GrS RrR»in r . f eJltl0n1em a.lteram’ P- xii-)
tian Religion, p. 153. sec. edit. Lond. 1684, Svo™111611 ^ 1 " ^ Bntain and Ireland> when they first received the Chris-
s Biographia Britannica, vol. v. p. 94.
6 “ Deinde per tres continues annos in academia Tnlrwnnn • j , . „
et canonicum audivit, usus magnis doctoribus, Gulielmo Marano Culielmn^d ocendo cet^as Luropae facillime anteibat, jus civile
tun, publics jus utrumque in e”a civitate profitebaTt^ » Chabotio, et Jane a Costa, ,ut
tionem exxm. Imperatoris Justiniani, virum, ut ipse aiebat in utrom.e iurm tunc interpretantem Novellam Constitu-
lum, bonasque literas legum ac canonum cognidonfadd^is^ ^^o^uZuVt^d^T^ f’ ^ calleret ad miracu-
henderent.” (Baluzii Epistola de Vita Petri de MarcfS^ deplorabat, qui obscuritatem in Cadano depre-
James, instead of William. ’ Bansiens.s, p. 10. Pans. 1663, 8vo.) Dempster calls him
7 P. Burmanni Secundi praef. in Claudianum, p. xi.
734 DEM
Dempster 18. Scotorum Scriptorum Ifomenclatura, &c. Bonon. 1619, 4to.
19. Scotia Illustrior; seu Mendicatmla repressa, modesta Parec-
Demur- basi; qua libelli famosi impudentia detegitur, mendacia ridicula
rage. confutantur, Scotias Sancti sui vindicantur, ac bcna fide asseruntur.
^ ^ Lugduni, 1620, 8vo.
20. Assert! Scotiae Gives sui, S. Bonifacius Dationibus ix. Joan¬
nes Duns liationibus xii. Bonon. 1621, 4to.
21. Ulyssis Aldrovandi Quadrupedum omnium Bisulcorum His-
toria: Joannes Cornelius Uterverius Belga colligere inccepit, Tho¬
mas Dempsterus, Baro a Muresk Scotus, J. C. perfecte absolvit,
Hieronymus Tamburinus in lucem edidit. Bonon. 1621, fol.
Bonon, 1642, fol.
22. Menologium Scotorum. Bonon. 1622, 4to.
23. Apparatus ad Historiam Scoticam lib. ii. Accesserunt
Martyrologium Scoticum Sanctorum DCLXXIX. Scriptorum Sco¬
torum MDCIII. Nomenclatura. e Bonon. 1622, 4to.—The first
book treats “ De Religione,” and the second “ De Regno.” The
work was intended as a prelude to his Historia Ecclesiastica.
24. xai ’oSaw in Glossas lib. iv. Institutionum Justiniani.
Bonon. 1622, 8vo.
25. De Juramento lib. iii. Bonon. 1623, 8vo.
26. Benedict! Accolti de Bello a Christianis contra Barbaros
gesto, pro Chris ti Sepulchro et Judaea recuperandis, libri iii.
Thomas Dempsterus mendis expurgavit, et notis non vulgaribus
illustravit. Florent. 1623, 4to. Nunc denuo ad exemplar Flo-
rentinum CIOIOCXXIII. ab curavit Henricus Hofsnider, cum in¬
dice satis luculento. Groningae, 1731, 8vo.
27. Lessus; sive Laudatio Funebris illustriss. D. Julio Caesari
Signio, Episcopo Reatino. Bonon. 1623, 4to.
28. Votum Divae Virgin! Sanlucianse. Bonon. 1623, 8vo.
29. Tragoedia Stilico lib. i. Sammaxentii.
30. Epithalamium Marchionis Brandeburgici lib. i. Francofurti.
31. Epithalamium Vicecomitis Hadintonii lib. i. Londini.
32. Panegyricus Clementi VIII. Pontifici lib. i. Romas.
33. Panegyricus Paulo V. Pontifici lib. i. Romae.
34. Expostulatio cum Musis et Senatu Aremorico, dum custo-
diam sum innocentiae ultro subivit. Nemausi.
35. Divinatio ad Regem lib. i. Londini.
36. Eucharisticon Alberto Archiduci lib. i. Duaci et Lovanii.
37. Actio Scholastica de S. Catharina lib. i. Lutetias.
38. Poemata de S. Thoma Aquinate lib. i. Tolosae.
39. Acrosticha de Europae Principibus lib. i. Duaci.
40. In Elizabetham Angliae Reginam lib. i. Duaci.
41. Lachrymae ad Timoleontem d’Espinay Sanlucium in Funere
Uxoris lib. i. Par. et Lugduni.
42. Judicium de omnibus omnium Gentium et Temporum His-
toricis lib. i. Par.
43. Xotae in Sphaeram lib. i. Francofurti.
44. Politicae Parecbases, nuncupatae Alexandra Razivillo, Prin-
cipi Polono, auditori suo, lib. i. Par.
45. Genethliacon Delphini Franciae, nunc Regis Ludovici XIII.
lib. i. Flexias.
46. De Inundatione Anglicana lib. i. Flexiae.
47. Votum Scipioni Burghesio, S. R. E. Cardinali, lib. i. Romas.
48. Historia Ecclesiastica Gentis Scotorum lib. xix. qua viri
sanctitate, literis, dignitatibus, toto orbe illustres, et familiae Sco-
ticae, in varias urbes transmissa?, et praecipue Placentium, recen-
sentur. Illustrissimo viro Fabio Scoto Placo. Miceni Com. dicata.
Bononias, 1627, 4to.—This posthumous work is printed in the
most negligent manner, insomuch that very many passages are
scarcely intelligible. The reprint for the use of the Bannatyne
Club : “ Thomas Dempsteri Historia Ecclesiastica Gentis Scotorum:
give, de Scriptoribus Scotis. Editio altera.” Edinb. 1829, 2 tom.
4to, was superintended by Dr Irving, who, in a preface of consi¬
derable length, has given an account of the author and his singu¬
lar performance.
49. Cerasum et Sylvestre Prunum; opus poematicum, de Virtu-
tum et Vitiorum Pugna; authore Alexandro Montgomrio Scoto,
in Latinos versus translatum. Arctauni Franc. 1631, 8vo. Edin.
1696, 8vo.
50. De Etruria Regali libri vii. nunc primum editi, curante
Thoma Coke, Magnse Britannias Armigero. Florentias, 1723-4,
2 tom. fol. A supplement to this work was published by Giam¬
battista Passeri. Lucas, 1767, fol. (d. i.)
Dempster of Court, the name formerly given in Scot¬
land to the common executioner or hangman.
DEMSTER, or Deemster, a judge ; see Deemster.
DEMULCENTS (Eat. demulceo, to soften), medicines
for removing or counteracting acrimonious humours. Such
are the loots of marsh-mallows, gums, and other mucilagi¬
nous substances.
i DEMURRAGE (Lat. demorar, to delay), in Commerce,
DEN
an allowance made to the master of a ship for delay or Demumer
detention in port beyond the time appointed for his depar- ||
ture. This expense is paid by the merchant who causes Denbigh,
the detention.
DEMURRER, in Law, a stop put to any action upon
some point of difficulty.
DEMY (Fr. demi, half), is used to signify a size of paper
intermediate between royal and crown, and measuring 22
inches by 18.
Demy is also applied to a half fellow at Magdalen Col¬
lege, Oxford.
DENAIN, a village of France, department Du Nord,
arrondissement and 14 miles east by south of Douay, near
the left bank of the Scheldt. It is celebrated in history
as the scene of the decisive victory gained in 1712 by
Marshal Villars over the allies commanded by Prince Eu¬
gene.
DENARIUS, in Roman Antiquity, the chief silver coin
among the Romans, worth in our money about 7fd. It
was originally of 62 grains weight; and was considered
equivalent to the Attic drachma, which, however, weighed
67 grains. It was originally one-seventh, but afterwards
fell to one-eighth ounce. (See Arbuthnot on Coins.) There
was also a golden denarius, of which there is a specimen in
the British Museum weighing 60 grains, besides others of
less weight. As a weight it was equal to the seventh part
of a Roman ounce.
Denarius is also used in our law-books for an English
penny.
DENBIGH (Welsh Dmbych, signifying a hill fort), the
capital of the county of the same name, a market and bo¬
rough town 179 miles N. W. from London, beautifully situated
on an eminence in the vale of Clwyd, surmounted by the
extensive ruins of the fine old castle. The houses are well
built of stone, and there are many very handsome edifices
amongst them. The public buildings are not of much pre¬
tension. There is a good modern market building lately
constructed. The corporation consists of a mayor, six al¬
dermen, and twelve councillors. In conjunction with the
boroughs of Holt and Ruthin, it returned one member to
parliament from 1536 to 1832, since which time Wrexham
has been added as one of the returning towns. Constitu¬
ency in 1832, 1131 ; in 1852, 858 only. The political in¬
fluence is chiefly in the hands of the Myddelton Biddulphs
of Chirk Castle (liberal), and the Wests of Ruthin Castle
(conservative), and of the Williams Wynns of Wynnstay
(conservative). The assessed taxes yield annually L.2668.
The annual value of real property paying income tax is
L.41,518. The population in 1851 was 16,614. There
are weekly markets on Wednesdays and Saturdays, and
several fairs in the course of the year. The quarter ses¬
sions are held here, but the assizes are held at Ruthin, as
being in a more central situation.
A large export trade in leather and shoes, which are
manufactured in the town, is carried on ; but Denbigh is
chiefly resorted to as an agreeable place of retirement.
Denbigh is well supplied with school accommodation.
There is a foundation called the Blue Coat School which
clothes and educates 24 boys. There is also a grammar-
school and a commodious national, as well as British and
foreign school. Near the town is a very extensive and
well managed asylum for the insane of North Wales.
Denbigh, in ancient times, was a place of great military
importance, and the castle was successively vested—after
having been wrested from the Welsh—in Henry Lacy, Earl
of Lincoln (who built the castle in the time of Edward I.),
Roger Mortimer, and Dudley, Earl of Leicester, the favourite
of Elizabeth. It was gallantly held by Colonel W illiam Salis¬
bury for the king during the civil wars of the revolution,
but finally surrendered to the parliamentary forces under
General Mytton.
DENBIGHSHIRE.
Denbigh- DENBIGHSHIRE (Welsh Sir Ddinbych), a county
shire, of North Wales, which, from its particular configuration,
partakes of the characters both of a maritime and inland
county. It is bounded N.W. by the estuary of the Dee,
N. by Flintshire, N.E. by Cheshire, E. by Cheshire, part
of Flint and Shropshire, S. by Montgomery and Merioneth
shires, and W. by Caernarvonshire. Its greatest length
from S.E. to N.W. is about 39 miles, and its greatest
breadth from S.W. to N.E. about 29 miles. It possesses
an area of 603 square miles, or 386,052 acres, and is the
seventh largest of the Welsh counties. It was in the time
of the Romans included in that part of Cambria occupied
by the Ordovices, and formed a part of Venedotia, one
of the minor partitions of Britannia Secunda.
This county possesses very varied geological features.
The west and south are occupied by the lower, middle, and
upper Silurian beds. The northern central portion, com¬
prising the celebrated vale of Clwyd, lies upon the new red
sandstone; and there is also a considerable extent of the
same formation on the extreme east, the intermediate space
being occupied by the carboniferous limestone, the mill¬
stone grit, and the coal measures; while on the borders of
the new red in the vale of Clwyd, and separated from it
by the mountain limestone, there exists a narrow strip of
the old red sandstone, serving to illustrate the changes to
which the earth’s crust has been subjected.
Denbighshire occupies an important position as a mineral
county, and possesses very valuable seams of coal and iron ;
which are extensively worked at Chirk, Ruabon, Minera,
and Brymbo. It also exports annually immense quantities
of limestone for the purpose of fluxing the ironstone in
Staffordshire. Some idea of the extent of this trade may
be formed, when it is mentioned that from one quarry alone,
that of Col. Myddelton Biddulph, near Llangollen, sometimes
as much as from 70,000 to 100,000 tons a-year are sent by
canal into the great iron districts of the midland counties.
It also possesses extensive slate and flagstone quarries, and
some lead mines.
Denbighshire is very mountainous, and is traversed
throughout its entire length by the Berwens—the principal
mountain range in North Wales, which commences near the
sea at Prestatyn, and following a south-east direction along
the northern edge of the vale of Clwyd forms the county
boundary, separating it from Flint. After approaching the
town of Llangollen, the direction of the range is changed
to south-west; and after crossing the county at its narrowest
part, it again forms the county boundary, separating it from
Merioneth. Some of the peaks are lofty and imposing,
though far inferior to those of the neighbouring county of
Caernarvon. The principal are Cader Fronwen 2563 feet,
Cader Ferwyn 2107, and Moel Ferna 2108 feet in height
above the level of the sea. These mountains are situated
in the extreme south on the borders of Merioneth. In the
vale of Clwyd, the Moel Fammau rises to the height of
1845 feet, and is crowned by a pillar commemorating the
jubilee of George the Third.
The valleys of Denbighshire have long been famed for
their beauty. The best known is the vale of Llangollen, which
being embosomed among mountains, and watered through¬
out its entire length by the river Dee, presents an appearance
of romantic beauty hardly to be surpassed. The smiling
verdure of the vale is greatly enhanced by the savage gran¬
deur of the surrounding mountains; while the interest is
heightened by a conical hill which rises from the middle of
the valley, bearing on its summit the grey ruins of a re¬
nowned stronghold of Gryff'ydd ap Maelor, one of the most
famous of the Welsh chieftains. In the middle of the county,
to the north, lies the vale of Clwyd, said to be the ori¬
ginal of Johnson’s “ Happy Valley. Like the vale of Llan¬
gollen, it is surrounded on all sides except its mouth by fine
mountains, and is watered by the placid stream from which
735
it takes its name. In the extreme west there is the valley Denbigh-
of the Conway in the immediate neighbourhood of the lofty shire-
Caernarvonshire mountains. Besides these, there are seve-
ral other valleys of considerable extent, among which may
be mentioned the vale of Mochnant, watered by the Tanat,
and the vale of Llansaintfraidd Glyn Ceiriog, watered by
the river Ceiriog, from which it takes its name.
The principal rivers in the county are the Conway, forming
the western boundary of the county for a distance of nearly
30 miles. The Dee (Welsh Dii), which, rises in Merioneth¬
shire, enters the county near Llangollen, and first flowing
west, crosses the county to the borders of Shropshire, near the
village of Chirk, from which point it flow's in a direction
nearly due north, forming the county boundary, till it leaves
it at a point near Chester. The Clwyd also rises in Merio¬
nethshire, and traverses the centre of the county in a di¬
rection nearly due north, watering the town of Ruthin in its
course, and finally leaving the county at St Asaph. The
Clwyd ranks among its tributaries the Aled and the Elwy,
two considerable streams which traverse the western extre-
mity of the county; while the Dee in the S. and E. has the
Geirw, the Ceiriog and the Alyn. The Ceiriog is a stream
of considerable historical interest, as being the scene of the
struggles between Owen Glendower, the famous Welsh
chieftain, and Henry II.; and it was down this stream that
the English monarch retreated after his defeat by the Welsh.
A curious confirmation of the correctness of the tradition as
to the scene of one of the combats, was lately picked up by
a ploughman in the shape of a gold piece of Henry’s reign.
Denbighshire possesses few lakes. The most important is
Llyn Aled in the S.W. In the S.E., near a village called
Llanrhaidr yn Mochnant, is the finest of all the Welsh wa¬
terfalls. It is called in Welsh Pistyll Rhaidr, two words
signifying a spout of water and a cascade, as if to mark its
importance by the double expression. It falls nearly 210
feet, and when the stream is full presents a grand appearance.
The climate of Denbighshire is mild and soft in the north
and in the valleys; but in the southern and more elevated
portions it is cold and bleak. In the valleys, and more
especially in the vale of Clwyd, the soil is fertile, and bears
excellent crops of corn and turnips; but a great part of the
mountainous district is abandoned to the little hardy Welsh
sheep, and the no less hardy Welsh ponies, which brave the
blasts of winter on these savage wastes without shelter, sub¬
sisting on the scanty herbage and on the shoots of the heath,
when the snow prevents their reaching the grass. The
cereal crops consist of wheat, oats, barley, and here; tur¬
nips, pease, beans, potatoes, vetches, carrots, and mangold-
wurtzel. The vale of Clwyd annually exports a large quan¬
tity of wheat to Liverpool. The other exports are cattle,
sheep, and ponies; butter, cheese, and wool; oats and
barley; timber and oak-bark; slates, paving flags, iron, coals,
and limestone; also lead ore; paper and Welsh flannels,
for the manufacture of which there are several mills in the
county ; also leather, shoes, and millstones. The farms are
generally of considerable size, and great efforts are making
to improve the farming. These have as yet been most suc¬
cessful at Chirk in the E., where the quality of the farming
is rapidly approaching that of the best farmed districts:
there, also, the best description of Cheshire cheese is made.
It is calculated that about one-half of the county is in open
sheep-walks or heaths.
There are two railways in the county,—one in the east
from Chester to Shrewsbury, the other in the west passing
along the shores of the estuary of the Dee from Chester to
Holyhead,—two others have been projected to pass through
the centre of the county from east to west. There is a very
excellent canal, a branch of the Chester and Ellesmere,
which traverses the vale of Llangollen from a point imme¬
diately beyond the town, and leaves the county at a point
near the village of Chirk. This canal in its course passes
736
D E N
Denbigh- over the valleys of the Ceiriog and the Dee on two aque-
shire. ducts constructed by the celebrated Telford, and considered
amongst the finest of his works ; but although these are now
dwarfed in comparison by the splendid viaducts of the Shrews¬
bury and Chester railway over the same valleys, still the
Pont y Cysyllte, the aqueduct over the Dee, remains an
elegant monument of mathematical skill and genius when
such great works were less common than they now are.
The principal towns are Denbigh, Ruthin, and Wrexham;
but besides these there are Llanrwst, Abergele, Holt, and
Ruabon. Denbigh, Ruthin, and Holt, are boroughs. The
county has returned two members to parliament since the
reform act period; from 1536 to which time it only sent one.
The political influence is chiefly in the hands of Sir Watkyn
Williams Wynn of Wynnstay, and Col. Myddelton Biddulph
of Chirk Castle, who is also lord lieutenant. Constitu¬
ency in 1852, 3901. The average gross rental of the county
is estimated at fourteen shillings per acre. The annual
value of real property paying income-tax is L.431,504.
The population of the county by the last census was
92,583, giving an average of 153 persons to a square mile,
or 4-2 persons to an acre. Of the total number, 46,708
were males, and 45,875 females. The number of inha¬
bited houses was 18,352, uninhabited 994, building 168;
giving an average of 32 inhabited houses to a square mile,
and 4’8 persons to each house. The following table gives
the census return for the last fifty years :—
1801.
60,299
1811.
1821.
64,249 I 76,428
1831.
82,665
1841.
88,478
1851.
92,583
Increase of
Population per
cent, in Fifty
Years.
54
It is calculated that about one-fourth part of the whole
population are in the condition of labourers, servants, &c.;
about 9 per cent, live by trade, manufactures, &c., and nearly
13 per cent, by agriculture ; while about two thousand per¬
sons possess independent means.
In 1847 the total number of children of the working-
classes at day-schools within the county was 7405. The
total number of schools was 127, of which 60 were church
or national, with 3846 scholars; 2 Calvinistic Methodists,
with 92 scholars ; 2 Independents, with 84 scholars ; 1
Wesleyan, with 85 scholars ; 11 British and Foreign, with
1740 scholars ; 11 without any precise distinction, with 626
scholars ; 2 workhouse, with 123 scholars ; 38 private ad¬
venture, with 809 scholars. In 119 of these schools, in¬
struction was given in English only, and in 8 in Welsh and
English. It appears that the average annual income of the
teachers was L.25, 18s., and that the average annual income
of each school was L.31, 3s. 6d. The total number of Sun¬
day schools was 235, with 23,806 scholars, of which 32 were
Church of England, with 3145 scholars; 19 Baptist, with
1343 scholars; 104 Calvinistic Methodist, with 13,066
scholars; 40 Independent,with3023 scholars; 38 Wesleyan,
2980 scholars. Other denominations, 2 with 249 scholars.
A very considerable number of the inhabitants use Welsh
habitually, but the proportion who can speak English also
is rapidly increasing.
This county contains some fine old castles and other
structures and remains of interest and importance. Denbigh
Castle, now in ruins, has been likened to Stirling, in respect
of its situation. It is placed on the summit of a command¬
ing eminence in the vale of Clwyd, and, even in ruins, pre¬
sents a grand and imposing appearance. Ruthin Castle,
also in the vale of Clwyd, the residence of Mr Frederick
West, is a fine extensive structure of red sandstone, rising
in the midst of and overlooking the town of Ruthin. It has
lately been partly rebuilt by the present possessor. Chirk
Castle, in the east of the county, is one of the finest speci¬
mens of the old Norman strongholds remaining in a perfect
D E N
condition in the country. The present structure dates from Denderah
a very remote antiquity, and is said to have been built on ||
the site of a still older structure of the pre-historic period. Denliam-
It was a place of great importance during the revolutionary
period, and was besieged and occupied by the royalists and
republicans in succession ; Charles himself having on one
occasion occupied it for some days. The present possessor
of this noble edifice has lately had it placed in the most
perfect repair, in accordance with the style of the period to
which it belongs. Wrexham Church is a fine structure of
the time of Henry VII., and was long reckoned one of the
wonders of Wales. The tower of this church is one of the
most beautiful in existence. There is a most interesting
ruin of an abbey of Cistercian friars near Llangollen, gene¬
rally known by the name of Valle Crucis, so called from
the pillar or cross of Eliseg, which stands in a ruinous con¬
dition in the valley near the abbey.
The celebrated Sir Hugh Myddelton, who brought the
New River to London, was a native of this county.
DENDERAH, the ancient Tentyris, now a mere village
on the left bank of the Nile. It possessed a magnificent
temple, of which extensive remains still exist. See Egypt.
DENDERMONDE, or Termonge, a fortified town of
Belgium, capital of a cognomina! arrondissement in the
province of East Flanders, at the confluence of the Dender
with the Scheldt, 16 miles east of Ghent, and on the line
of railway from the latter place to Mechlin. Pop. (1851)
8225. It is defended by a citadel constructed in the six¬
teenth century; and has a town-hall, several churches and
chapels, numerous schools, a hospital, lunatic and orphan
asylums, &c.; also extensive bleaching and dye works,
cotton factories, and breweries; and the vicinity is celebrated
for the growth of fine flax.
DENDRITIC, containing the figures of shrubs or
trees, as a dendrite or arborescent mineral.
DENDROMETER (SeVSpov, a tree, and /aerpew, to mea¬
sure}, an instrument for measuring trees, invented by Dun-
combe and Whittel. It is fitted to a theodolite, and may be
used either with or without it, as occasion requires. Its
principal use is to measure the length and diameter of a tree,
perpendicularly or obliquely to a horizontal plane, or in any
situation of the plane on which it rests, or of any figure,
whether regular or irregular, and also the length and dia¬
meter of the boughs, by mere inspection. The inventors
also calculated tables, by the help of which the quantity of
timber in a tree may be obtained without calculation or the
use of the sliding rule. Roger’s dendrometer is an instru¬
ment for the same purpose.
Dendrometer, an instrument for measuring distances
by a single observation, proposed by Mr Pitt of Pendeford,
near Wolverhampton. See Repertory of Arts, vol. i.
DENDROPHORIA, in Antiquity, the carrying of
boughs or branches of trees ; a religious ceremony, so called
because certain priests, thence called dendrophori or tree-
bearers, marched in procession, carrying the branches of
trees in their hands in honour of some god, as Bacchus,
Cybele, and Sylvanus. The college of the dendrophori is
often mentioned on the ancient marbles ; and in basso-re¬
lievos, bacchanals are frequently represented carrying little
shrubs or branches of trees.
DENEB, an Arabic term signifying tail, and used by
astronomers to denote several fixed stars. Thus, deneb
elect signifies the bright star in the Lion’s tail; and deneb
adigege that in the Swan’s tail.
DENHAM, Sir John, an eminent English poet, the
only son of Sir John Denham, chief baron of the exche¬
quer in Ireland, was born at Dublin in 1615. His father
having, in 1617, been made a baron of the exchequer in
England, he received his education in that country; and in
his youth he was greatly addicted to gaming. In 1641 he
published a tragedy called the Sophy, which was much ad-
DEN
Denier mired by the best judges ; and in 1643 he composed his
l[ Cooper s Hill a poem which Dryden says will ever be the
Denina^ gtan(jarc} 0f g00[i wrjting for majesty of style. Denham
was sent as ambassador from Charles II. to the king of
Poland; and at the Restoration he was made surveyor-
general of his Majesty’s buildings, and created Knight of the
Bath. On obtaining this post he is said to have renounced
poetry for more important studies. He died at his office
in Whitehall in 1668 ; and his works have since been often
printed. The sixth edition is that of 1719; but besides
this collection, Wood mentions several pieces, which are
either his productions, or have been ascribed to him.
“Denham,’ says Dr Johnson, “is deservedly considered
as one of the fathers of English poetry. Denham and
Waller, according to Prior, improved our versification, and
Dryden perfected it. He appears to have had the ambition
of being upon proper occasions a merry fellow ; and to have
been by nature or by early habits debarred from it. No¬
thing is less exhilarating than the facetiousness of Denham.
He does not fail for want of effort: he is familiar, he is
gross ; but he is never merry, unless the ‘ speech against
peace in the close committee ’ be excepted. For grave
burlesque, however, the imitation of Davenant shows him
to have been well qualified. Cooper’s Hill is the work that
confers upon him the rank and dignity of an original author.
He seems to have been, at least amongst us, the author of
a species of composition that may be denominated local
poetry, of which the fundamental subject is some particular
landscape, to be poetically described, with the addition of
such embellishments as may be supplied by historical re¬
trospection or incidental meditation. He appears to have
been one of the first that understood the necessity of eman¬
cipating translation from the drudgery of counting lines and
interpreting single words. How much this servile practice
obscured the clearest and deformed the most beautiful parts
of the ancient authors, may be discovered by a perusal of
our earlier versions. Denham saw the better way, but has
not pursued it with great success. His versions of Virgil
are not pleasing, but they taught Dryden to please better.”
DENIER, a small French copper coin, of which there
were twelve to a sol.
DENINA, Carlo Giovanni Maria, an eminent Italian
writer, was born at Revel, in the principality of Piedmont,
in the year 1731. Having studied at Saluzzo, he was about
to enter into the order of the Grand Augustines at Ceva,
at the age of fifteen, when one of his uncles appointed him
to a benefice. He accordingly assumed the ecclesiastical
habit, and remained two years at Saluzzo, where he learned
a little divinity, and acquired a knowledge of the French
language through the medium of a Swiss officer. In 1748
he obtained an exhibition, wdiich enabled him to prosecute his
studies at the provincial college in the University of Turin.
Some time afterwards he took orders; and in 1753 he was
appointed professor of humanity at Pignerol. In conse¬
quence, however, of a quarrel with the Jesuits, he was
obliged to quit Pignerol and the royal schools, and was sent
to the schools of an inferior order. In 1756, on taking his
degree of doctor in theology at the Palatine schools of
Milan, he printed his first work, which was a theological
tract. After this he was restored to the royal schools, and
appointed extraordinary professor of humanity and rhetoric
at the Superior College of Turin ; and six months after¬
wards he had the offer of the situation of an ordinary pro¬
fessor at Chambery,' which he refused. About this period
he projected, but did not execute, a work on the literary
history of Piedmont. His discourse On the Vicissitudes of
Literature, which was printed in 1760, attracted a consi¬
derable degree of attention, and drew upon him the ven¬
geance of Voltaire, who attacked him in his Homme aux
quarante ecus, published in 1767. The publication of the
first volume of his great work On the Revolutions af Italy
VOL. VTI.
DEN 737
obtained for him the professorship of rhetoric in the Supe- Denina.
rior College of Turin ; and twelve months afterwards, on '-
the publication of the second volume, he was preferred to
the chair of Italian eloquence, and of the Greek language,
at the university. The third volume, which was published
in 1771, was still more favourably received than the preced¬
ing ; while at the same time it tended to augment the num¬
ber and to increase the virulence of his enemies. The mis¬
fortune, however, which he now experienced, was partly
occasioned by his own indiscretion. A manuscript, con¬
taining some obnoxious opinions, which he had entrusted
to Cambiagi at Florence, having been published by autho¬
rity of the Tuscan censors, but without that of the censors
of Turin, Denina was declared to be guilty of an infraction
of the Piedmontese laws, and punished with great severity.
His book w as suppressed, and he was compelled to pay the
costs. He was then banished to Vercelli, and afterwards
received orders to retire to his native province. Denina’s
friend, the Abbe Costa d’Arignan, undertook his defence,
and procured the restoration of part of his annual pensions,
with permission to return to Turin.
In 1782 he repaired to Berlin, having before his depar¬
ture received the honorary title of librarian to the king of
Sardinia. On his arrival at Berlin, Frederick II. appointed
him a member of the Royal Academy, but he never became
a favourite of that prince. He continued to reside in Ger¬
many for many years, where he occupied himself with lite¬
rary pursuits, and published a variety of works. Being at
Mentz in 1804, he attracted the notice of Napoleon, who,
in the month of October of that year, appointed him his
librarian. Denina accordingly went to Paris, where he con¬
tinued to reside until his death, on the 5th of December 1813.
Denina is esteemed one of the most distinguished of the
later Italian authors. The work upon which his reputation
is principally founded is his History of the Revolutions of
Italy, of which an improved edition was published at Turin
in 1782, in five volumes 4to. In this work the facts are re¬
lated with accuracy, and the narrative exhibits considerable
talent for historical inquiry. Some able critics in the Italian
language have remarked that there is a great difference be¬
tween the style of this work and that of the other writings
of the same author ; and Denina acknowledged that he had
submitted his history to the review of his friend the Abbe
Costa d’Arignan, afterwards Cardinal and Archbishop of
Turin, who made a good many judicious corrections.
The following is a list of his other works Z>e Studio Theologias
et norma fidei, 1758, 8vo. Bincorso sopra le vicende della Lettera-
tura, 1760, 12mo, which was reprinted, with additions, at Glasgow,
in 1763, and has since gone through several editions. Letter a di
N. Daniel Caro (the anagram of Carlo Denina), sopra il dovere de’
ministri evangelici di predicare colie istruzioni, e coll’ esempio Vosser-
vanza delle leggi civili, e specialmente in riguardo agV imposti, Lucca,
1762, 8vo. Saggio sopra la Letteratura Italiana, con alcuni altri
opuscoli, Lucca, 1762. This work is a supplement to the first edition
of his Revolutions of Literature. Delle Lodi di Carlo Emmanuele
III. re di Sardegna, 1771, 4to and 8vo. Panegirico primo alia
Maesta di Vittorio Amedeo HI., Turin, 1773, 4to and 8vo. Pane¬
girico secondo alia Maesta di Vittorio Amedeo III., 1775, 4to and
8vo, with notes. In 1777 he composed a third panegyric on the
same prince. Bibliopea, o Varte di compor libri, Turin, 1776, 8vo.
DelV impiego delle persone, Florence, 1777. This was the work
which gave so much offence, and occasioned the persecution of the
author. It was reprinted at Turin, 1803, in 2 vols. small 8vo.
Istoria politica e letteraria della Grecia, Turin, 1781-2, 4 vols. 8vo.
Reprinted at \enice, 1783. Elogio storico di Mercurino di Gatti-
nara, Turin, 1782, 8vo. Elogio del Cardinal Guala Bichiere, 1782,
8vo. Discors au Roi de Prime sur les progres des Arts, 1784, 12mo.
Viaggio Germanico, primo quaderno delle lettere Brandenburqcnsi,
Berlin 1785, 8vo. A second series of these letters afterwards ap¬
peared. La Sibilla Teutonica, Berlin, 1786. Reprinted in the
fourth volume of the Revolutions of Literature. Reponse d la question
Que doit on a l Espagne ? Berlin, 1786. This tract was translated
into Spanish, and was also printed at the end of the later editions
of the Vicende. Lettres Critiques, a supplement to the preceding,
1786, 8vo. Apologie de Frederic II. sur la preference que le Roi
parut donner d la Litterature Fran^aise, Dessau, 1787, 8vo. Dis-
5 A
738
Denis
II
Denmark.
History.
DEN
DEN
cours sur les Progres de la Litterature dans le nord de VAllemagne,
Berlin, 1788. JEssai sur la Vie et le PCegne de Frederic II. &c., Berlin,
1788, 8vo. La Prusse Litteraire sous Frederic II., &c., Berlin,
1790-1, 3 vols, 8vo. This work may be considered as a supplement
to the Life of Frederic. Guide Litteraire, 1790-1, 8vo. The^ Russiad;
a poem, 1799. It was translated into French by M. Andre in 1809,
under the title of Pierre le Grand. The History of Piedmont, and
of the other States of the King of Sardinia; translated into German
by M. Frederick Strass, from the Italian manuscript of Denina,
Berlin, 1800-5, 3 vols. 8vo. In this history the narrative is brought
down to the recovery of Turin, under the reign of \ ictor Amadeus
II. Revoluzioni della Germania, Florence, 1804, 8 vols. 8vo. La
Clef des Langues, ou Observations sur VOrigine et la Formation de
principales Langues qu’on parlc et qu on ecrit en Europe, Berlin,
1804, 3 vols. 8vo. Tableau Historique, Statistique, et Morale de la
Haute-Italie, &c., Paris, 1805, 8vo. Essais sur les traces anciennes
du caractere des Italiens modernes, &c., 1807, 8vo. Liscorso istorico
sopra Vorigins della gerarchia e de* concordati fra la podesta Eccle~
siastica e la Secolare, 1808, 8vo. This work was afterwards sup¬
pressed. In the Melanges de Philosophic, d'Histoire, de Morale, et
de Litterature, No. 49, there is a long and severe article upon the
Liscorso Istorico. Istoria della Italia occidentale, 1809, 6 vols. 8vo.
Besides these works, Denina wrote some other tracts, which were
inserted in various journals.
There is a biographical account of Denina in the Magazin Ency-
clopedique for January 1814, by M. Barbier. See also the Biogra¬
phic Universelle. (j. C.)
DENIS, St, a small town of France, department of the
Seine, on the line of the Great Northern railway, about
five miles from Paris. It stands not far from the right
bank of the Seine, at the junction of two small streams, the
Rouillon and the Croud, and is traversed by a branch of
the grand canal de 1’Ourcq. St Denis is without the forti¬
fications of Paris, but within the circle of forts with which
that city is now girded round on every side. It is clean
and well-built, and has an appearance of industry and thrift
such as few towns of the same size in France possess. The
antiquity of the town is very great. It is said that the
martyred St Denis was buried here about the middle of
the second century, and that a chapel was erected over his
grave. Four centuries later the chapel was replaced by a
handsome oratory, which in turn gave way to a splendid
church. On the site of this latter edifice was built the
magnificent abbey church, which now constitutes the prin¬
cipal ornament of St Denis. It was begun in 1130, and
not completed till 1281. In the crypts of this church the
whole Capetian dynasty of France was interred, the body
of each king being buried in the floor of the church in front
of the high altar, where it lay till the next king died. It
was then removed to the crypts, and its place occupied by
the coffin of the succeeding monarch. The last king thus
interred was Louis XVIII., whose remains have lain un¬
disturbed since his death before the high altar. On the
outbreak of the first French revolution it was decreed by
the convention that these monuments should be destroyed.
They were accordingly broken open by the mob, who
treated with the most revolting indignities the bodies of the
dead kings, many of which were found nearly entire.
Under the Directory the old windows of stained glass were
removed, the lead stripped from the roof, and serious
thoughts were entertained of levelling the cathedral with
the ground. When Napoleon assumed the reins of govern¬
ment, he began to restore the church, and after various in¬
terruptions this work was completed by Louis Philippe on Denizen
a scale of greater magnificence than the church had ever
exhibited before. The abbey of St Denis, to [which this Denmark,
church was an appendage, was suppressed in 1792. The
abbey buildings have been converted into a school, in which
the orphans of members of the Legion of Honour receive a
gratuitous education. St Denis possesses a considerable
trade. In the town are several large flour mills, some ma¬
nufactories of chemicals, cotton mills, bleaching-greens, &c.
A fair of great importance is annually held at St Denis in
the latter end of June, and lasts for a fortnight. Pop. of
commune (1851) 12,213.
DENIZEN (Welsh, dinassdyn, man of the city), in Late,
an alien made a subject by letters of denization granted by
the crown through the home-secretary of state.
A denizen is in a kind of middle state between an alien
and a natural-born subject. He may take lands by pur¬
chase or devise, which an alien may not; but he cannot
take by inheritance, for his parent through whom he must
claim, being an alien, had no inheritable blood, and there¬
fore could convey none to the son; and upon a like defect
of blood, his issue born previous to his denization cannot
inherit, but his issue born after may. A denizen is not ex¬
cused from paying the alien’s duty, and some other mer¬
cantile burdens. No denizen can be of the privy-council,
or sit in either house of parliament, or hold any office of
trust, civil or military, or receive any grant of lands, &c.,
from the crown.
Denization differs from naturalization only in degree; the
latter merely conferring a few additional privileges.
The act 7th and 8th Viet. cap. 66, affords greater facili¬
ties for the naturalization of an alien than formerly existed
for obtaining the lesser privilege of denizenship ; and hence
it is probable that denization will be superseded entirely.
DENMAN, Thomas, Lord, one of the most distin¬
guished of the chief-justices of England, was born at Lon¬
don 23d July 1779. He received the rudiments of his
education at Palgrave School, near Diss, in Norfolk, at that
time conducted by Mrs Barbauld. After attending various
preparatory schools he was entered at St John’s College,
Cambridge, where he graduated honourably in 1800. Soon
after taking his degree he married; and in 1806 was called
to the bar at Lincoln’s Inn, when he engaged in the active
pursuit of the law. At the general election of 1818, he was
returned M.P. for Wareham, and at once took his seat with
the Whig opposition. In the following year he was re¬
turned for Nottingham, for which place he continued to sit
till his elevation to the bench in 1832. His liberal princi¬
ples had obtained his exclusion from office till in 1822 he
was appointed common Serjeant by the corporation of Lon¬
don. In 1830 he was made attorney-general under Lord
Grey’s administration. Two years later, after his elevation to
the bench, he was raised to the peerage. In 1850 he re¬
signed the chief-justiceship of the queen’s bench and retired
into private life, followed by the best wishes of the nume¬
rous friends whom he had attached by the integrity of his
personal character, his noble efforts for the abolition of the
sla^fe-trade, and his unceasing exertions in the cause of law
and political reform. Lord Denman died September 26,1854.
DENMARK,
A kingdom in the north of Europe, small in extent and
scanty in population, but known in history from an early
period of the Christian era. There is no authentic account
of the origin of the name of Denmark, nor of the quarter
from which the country received its early inhabitants.
From the similarity of the Danish and German languages,
as well as from the general course of migration in early ages,
it seems probable that Denmark was peopled by immigrants
from the south—from Holstein, Hanover, and Saxony.
There are no means of ascertaining whether natives of Den¬
mark formed part of the formidable hordes w’hich passed
the Roman frontiers in the fifth and sixth centuries; but Maritime
the attacks on this empire were probably made by tribes ®*Peg ^ tlje
less remote, the expeditions of the Danes being in general DaneSi
DENMARK.
Denmark, maritime. For such expeditions they were remarkable as
early as the eighth and ninth centuries, as was proved by
their repeated invasions of England, their occasional de¬
scents on Scotland, and their conquest, followed by perma¬
nent occupation, of Normandy. To cross a sea of three or
four hundred miles in breadth was a bold undertakino- for
men unacquainted with the use of the compass; bu? the
number of islands in Denmark early accustomed the in¬
habitants to navigation, and gave them a practical dexterity
in it, similar to that acquired by the Dutch from their vici¬
nity to arms of the sea, and to the mouths of great rivers.
Both countries proved the advantage of a maritime position,
for in those days neither France nor England were capable
of sending forth a naval, armament.
At the period in question, or rather somewhat later, viz.
about the early part of the tenth century, commences the
authentic history of Denmark. Till then the country, ill
cultivated and thinly peopled, seems not to have been sub¬
ject to one sovereign, but to have obeyed provincial or local
rulers, like England during the Heptarchy. Alfred had, it
is well known, various conflicts with those northern in¬
vaders ; but he had the judgment eventually to suspend
hostilities, and to assign to them a portion of his territories.
He knew how small a part of England was cultivated, and
he considered that there was ample room in the country
ettled in for both Dane and Saxon. The establishment thus given
i6 east to the Danes in England, and the subsequent arrival of
rfland k0(^es t^ie^r countrymen, joined to the talents of two of
”s an * their princes, Sweyne and Canute, enabled the latter to ac¬
quire the crown of England. Canute completed the con¬
quest begun by his father, and became king of England as
well as of Denmark in the year 1017: he resided generally
in this country, and left the crown to his sons Harold and
Hardi-Canute. On the death of the latter, without male
heirs, the Danish dynasty in England came to a close in
1041. After the eleventh century, we read of no invasion
of England by the Danes, although a considerable propor¬
tion of the inhabitants of our eastern and northern counties
were doubtless descended from Danish settlers,
imilari- The progress of society and the course of political events
es in Da- in Denmark resembled in several points those of our own
s^aifd country. The feudal system was introduced there in the
story twelfth century, which, as well as the thirteenth, were
marked in Denmark, as in England, by contentions between
the sovereign and the barons, and by concessions from the
former in the style of Magna Charta. About the thirteenth
century, the population of towns in Denmark, as in Ger¬
many and the central parts of Europe, though still very
small, became such as to entitle them to obtain from the
crown charters of incorporation, and an exemption from the
control of the barons, in whom was vested almost the whole
property of the land. A regular constitution began now
to be formed in Denmark ; and the towns sent deputies or
representatives to the states or parliament, which, it was
enacted, should meet once a-year. It was also ordered
that the laws should be uniform throughout the kingdom,
and that no tax should be imposed without the authority of
parliament.
It would be tedious and uninteresting to recapitulate the
successive sovereigns of Denmark in the middle ages, of
whom few were of distinguished ability. The names of
most frequent occurrence among them in those early times
were Canute, Valdemar, and Eric. Those of Christiern or
Christian and Frederick were of later date. One of the
most remarkable of the Danish sovereigns in the middle
ages was Valdemar II., who succeeded to the crown in
1203, and some time afterwards proceeded to Livonia, in
Vvhich his predecessors had endeavoured to introduce Chris¬
tianity. He found no great difficulty in defeating bodies
of men so little advanced in civilization as to be clothed in
the skins of wild beasts ; but a country in so barbarous a
739
state presented little attraction in either a commercial or Denmark,
political sense ; so that the Danes found little inducement v—-v-”^
to extend their settlements on the southern shores of the
Baltic.
The chief mercantile intercourse of Denmark in those Lubeck
times was with Lubeck and the north-west of Germany, and Dant-
To the Baltic Lubeck was nearly what Venice was to the zic-
Mediterranean, the earliest commercial town of consequence.
There was also some traffic from Denmark to the mouths
of the Vistula; the name of Dantzic or Dansvik (Danish
town or port) indicating that a Danish colony, aware of the
advantages of the situation, had established itself there.
The more remote provinces of Courland and Esthonia were
also objects of ambition to the Danes; but they did not find
it practicable to keep settlements there. Holstein was more
within their control, and much more advantageous, from the
comparative civilization of its inhabitants.
At the time of which we are now treating, namely, the Hans
fourteenth century, the association of the Hans Towns had Towns,
acquired considerable strength, and asserted strenuously
the freedom of commerce in the north of Europe. Den¬
mark, commanding the great entrance into the Baltic by the
Sound, was the power most interested in laying merchant
vessels under a toll or regular contribution; and the result
was repeated contentions, followed at times by open war,
between the Danish government and this powerful con¬
federacy.
The most important event in the history of Denmark, or Union of
indeed of Scandinavia, in the middle ages, was the conjunct Calmar.
submission of Sweden, Denmark, and Norway to one sove-
reign, by the compact or union of Calmar, in the year 1397.
The circumstances were as follows: Valdemar III., king
of Denmark, having died in the year 1378, left two daugh¬
ters, of whom the second, Margaret, was married to Haquin
or Haco, king of Norway. On the demise of her husband
the government of Norway remained in her hands; and
afterwards, on the death of her son, who had been declared
king of Denmark, the states or parliament of that country
fixed this princess on the throne, on her consenting to ex¬
tend and secure their rights and privileges. The states of
Norway followed their example ; so that Margaret, finding
herself seated on the thrones of Denmark and Norway, di¬
rected her attention to that of Sweden, the succession to
which would have fallen to her husband Haquin had he sur¬
vived. The Swedes were divided into two parties—that of
Margaret, and that of a Duke of Mecklenburg, who, though
unconnected with the royal family of Sweden, claimed to
be king by election. Margaret, a princess of great activity
and ambition, was indefatigable in obtaining the support of
the clergy and nobility of Sweden ; an appeal to arms took
place, and the result was favourable to the cause of the
queen, her competitor being defeated and made prisoner.
In 1397 the states of the three kingdoms w'ere convoked at
Calmar, a town centrally situated for such an assemblage,
being in the south of Sweden. There they concurred in
passing the well-known act called the Union of Calmar,
the purport of which was, that the three kingdoms should
henceforth be under one sovereign, who should, however,
be bound to govern each according to its respective laws and
customs. To guard against their separation, it was enacted,
that if a sovereign should leave several sons, one of them
only should be the ruler of the three kingdoms, the other
holding fiefs under him; and in the event of the reigning
king or queen dying without children, the senators and
parliamentary deputies of the three kingdoms should jointly
proceed to the election of another sovereign, that the union
of the kingdoms might be maintained.
Such were the precautions taken by this vigilant and
able princess, who has been called the Semiramis of the
North, in order to banish war and political dissensions from
Scandinavia. For a time they were successful, and peace
DENMARK.
Sound
dues paid
by English
vessels.
Plunder¬
ing ship¬
wrecked
vessels.
The Re¬
formed
faith intro
duced into
Denmark.
and concord were maintained during the lifetime of Mm-
garet and two of her successors. But the union, as regai ded
the Swedes, was far from being cordial; they submitted
reluctantly to a foreign family, and considered themse ves
as obliged to act in subserviency to the political views ot
Denmark. They saw the chief places of trust in then-
country conferred on Danish or German ministers, and
viewed these foreigners with as much jealousy as the Bel¬
gians in our dav felt towards the Hollanders introduced by
the house of Orange. These and other causes prevented
the union of Sweden from being cordial or complete. Local
insurrections, fomented by particular classes, and strength¬
ened bv national antipathy, occurred from time to time dur¬
ing the” century, or somewhat longer period, that the union
of Calmar continued to exist. At last the severity, or rather
the cruelty, of one of the Danish kings, Christian II., and
the appearance of an able assertor of Swedish independence
in Gustavus Vasa, a man of rank, led to an insurrection, which
beginning in the northern province of Dalecarlia, extended
throughout Sweden, and led to a definitive sepaiation of the
two crowns in the year 1523.
In 1490 the reigning king of Denmark made a commer¬
cial treaty with Henry VII. of England, by which the Eng¬
lish engaged to pay the Sound dues on all vessels entering
or returning from the Baltic; and in return they were al¬
lowed to have mercantile consuls in the chief sea-ports of
Denmark and Norway. By this time the extension of trade
had given rise in Denmark, as in England, to a middle class,
among whom the sovereign found in each country the means
of balancing the political weight of the nobility; hence a.
grant was made by the kings of Denmark of various privi¬
leges to traders, and relief from a number of local imposts
on the transit of merchandise.
The rude habits of the age were strongly marked by the
difficulty which the Danish government found in putting a
stop to the practice of plundering merchantmen shipwrecked
on the coast. Vessels proceeding to and from the Baltic
necessarily approached the coast of Jutland, particularly in
an age when the ignorance of mariners led to their consi¬
dering the vicinity of the land in the light of a protection.
Shipwrecks were consequently of frequent occurrence there,
and were generally turned to the profit of the nobility, who
were proprietors of the maritime districts. We may here re¬
mark, that the nobles claimed not only the soil, but even the
persons of the peasantry; for the principle of personal bondage
was until lately maintained in Denmark. The practice was to
collect in the vicinity of a wreck such a number of the inhabi¬
tants as to prevent the master or mariners from opposing the
seizure of the merchandise. Even bishops residing on the
coast, though humane in their treatment of the crews, did
not scruple to aid in taking forcible possession of the cargo ;
so crude were in those days the notions of justice towards
merchants. It is a remarkable fact, that a law passed by the
king about the year 1521 for the prevention of these prac¬
tices was abrogated and publicly burned at the instance of
the barons and clergy a few years after, when a new sovereign
had succeeded to the crown.
The doctrines of the Reformation happily found their way
into Denmark at an early date. Frederick I., who began
to reign in 1525, and had formerly been duke of Holstein,
in that year embraced the Protestant religion. The inha¬
bitants of Denmark being divided between the Catholics
and Protestants, Frederick began by an edict for tolerating
both religions. An assembly of the states or parliament
next passed a solemn act for the free preaching of the Re¬
formed faith, and for allowing ecclesiastics of any class to
marry and reside in any part of the kingdom. The conse¬
quence of this was a reduction of the number of the inmates
of abbeys, monasteries, and convents, along with the gene¬
ral diffusion of the Lutheran faith throughout the kingdom.
This rapid progress enabled the succeeding sovereign,
Christian HI., to act like Henry VIII. of England, by an- Denmark,
nexing the church-lands to the crown, and strengthening k'—y—
the power of the sovereign at the expense of that of the
clergy.
The great religious war which broke out in 1618 for the
first time fixed the attention of Europe on Denmark. 1 he
victories of the Imperial General Tilly, and Maximilian of
Bavaria, over the Protestants, appeared to make the Em¬
peror Ferdinand, who was the head of the Catholic party,
complete master of Germany, when Christian IV. of Den¬
mark, encouraged by England and France, determined to
take up the Protestant cause as a principal in the general
contest. But being weakly supported by his allies, the
Danish king, after one year’s campaign, was obliged to fly
before the victorious army of Wallenstein (1626), and to
sue for peace, which was concluded at Lubeck 1629. By
the stipulations of this peace Denmark bound itself never
to interfere in the affairs of Germany, and was besides com¬
pelled to acknowledge Wallenstein Duke of Mecklenburg.
This peace would have been still more humiliating for Den¬
mark, if France, already influenced by the counsels of Riche¬
lieu, had not interposed its efforts on behalf of the van¬
quished. The emperor now thought of nothing less than
the entire subjection of Germany to his will. A new ad¬
versary, however, arose in Gustavus Adolphus the king of
Sweden. The short and glorious career of this king will
be found described in its proper place. But this much must
be here observed, that despite the fall of Adolphus in the
battle of Lutzen in 1632, the power of Sweden was be¬
coming continually more considerable and consequently an
object of real envy to all its neighbours, but especially to
Denmark. Thus it happened that, besides the general re¬
ligious war, repeated hostilities were being carried on be¬
tween Sweden and Denmark separately.
The first contest lasted from 1637 to 1645, and the treaty Treaty of
concluded in the latter year proved rather a truce than Copenha-
a peace. The Danish government formed an alliance Sen*
with Holland, and aided that republic in her sanguinary
contest in 1652 with England, then under the authority of
Cromwell. The king of Sweden at that time was Charles
Gustavus, a prince in the vigour of life, and actuated by all
the ambition and enterprise of the house of Vasa. He had
carried his military operations into Poland, which then, as
at other times, seemed to invite the presence of foreigners
by its internal dissensions. But on learning the hostile dis¬
position of the Danish government, Charles withdrew his
troops from Poland, entered Holstein, and overran the
whole province. As soon as the winter had advanced, and
it had become practicable to cross on the ice the arms of the
sea separating the Danish islands from the mainland, the
Swedish army traversed in that manner the Little Belt,
took Odensee, the capital of the island of Funen, and even
invested Copenhagen. That capital was not without a mi¬
litary force, but its walls were weak, nor was it adequately
supplied with provisions or military stores. On this occa¬
sion the Danes, with their king Frederick III. at their
head, discovered great firmness, and resisted the efforts
of the Swedes, until, under the mediation of the English
envoy at the court of Copenhagen, hostilities were sus¬
pended, and a treaty signed. This treaty, however, was
only partly carried into execution. Dissatisfied at the delay
which took place, Charles Gustavus made a second attempt
on Copenhagen in the autumn of 1658 ; but he found it
impracticable to prevent supplies being introduced into the
city by sea, as the Dutch now came to the assistance of their
Danish allies. Still the Swedes persisted in the siege, and
in the depth of winter (in February 1659) made an at¬
tempt to take Copenhagen by storm. The attacks were
made on three points, each headed by an able commander,
but each was unsuccessful, and the siege was necessarily
converted into a blockade. Soon afterwards the king o
DENMARK.
Denmark. Sweden died, and the sanguinary contest was brought to
a close by the treaty of Copenhagen in 1660. This peace
ceded to the Swedish crown Sconia, Aland, several places
on the island of Rugen, and a free passage through the
Sound.
Revolu- In the following year, 1660, the vicissitudes of war were
tion in the succeeded by a remarkable revolution in domestic politics.
constitu- The reigning king of Denmark had gained great popula-
Denmark. rity’ .as wel1 by his sPirit and firmness in the field, as by
resisting the claims made by the nobility to the disadvantage
of the other orders of the state. He was thus assured of
the support of the middle classes in any attempt to reduce
the power of the nobility. On assembling the states or
parliament, the representatives of the different towns were
found sufficiently strong, when united with the clergy and
strengthened by the power of the crown, to outweigh the
influence of the nobility, and the court determined °to act
with vigour in extending its prerogative. The political
contest began about the crown lands, which had hitherto
been let to nobles only, and at very low rents. It was pro¬
posed and carried in the parliament, that men of any class or
station might henceforth be candidates for them, and that they
should be let to the highest bidder. The next proposition
of the clergy and commons was, that the crown, hitherto in
some degree elective, should be so no longer, but should
devolve, as a matter of right, on the lawful heir, whether
male or female. To a people who had suffered so greatly
from the contentions of factions, this proposition was highly
acceptable; and even the nobility felt the necessity of concur¬
ring in the measure, which was followed by an alteration in
the coronation oath of the sovereign. That oath had hi¬
therto specified explicitly the rights of the nobility, but it
henceforth contained no stipulation on the part of the so¬
vereign. The record or original of the oath which the
reigning king had signed at his accession, and which limited
his authority, was surrendered to him, and an engagement
of unqualified allegiance was then taken by each of the or¬
ders. 1 hese important changes were, some time afterwards,
followed by an act or law still more comprehensive and ab¬
solute, which invested the sovereign with unlimited power,
and declared him to possess the right to make, repeal, and in¬
terpret any law, or to enter into any engagement with¬
out reference to parliament. This applied equally to fo¬
reign and domestic affairs. Henceforth, in Denmark, what¬
ever power could be shown to have belonged to any ruler
in any country, was now forthwith to be understood as be¬
longing to the king.
This remarkable change in the form of the government
is to be explained chiefly by the repugnance of the people
of Denmark to the ascendency of the nobility. The French
revolution proceeded from causes somewhat similar; but
in Denmark the control possessed by the privileged class
was not tempered, as in France, by civilized and refined
habits. The direct authority of the nobles was also greater,
for they possessed the power of life and death over their
vassals. Many of them attempted to resist the change, but
without success—so powerful was the union of the people
and the sovereign. Frederick lived ten years after this
singular revolution ; a period which enabled him to conso¬
lidate it, and to reinstate in peace the trade and finances of
his country.
Renewed His successor, led away by the ardour of youth, abandoned
jar with the pacific policy of his father, and ventured to make war
we en. against Sweden. He relied on the aid of the Elector of
Brandenburg, commonly called the Great Elector; the pos¬
session of so extensive a country as Prussia placing him quite
at the head of the princes of the empire. Swedish Pomera¬
nia was chosen as the scene of operations, from being open
to attack by the Prussians. The Swedes were overmatched
in force, but being well commanded, they made a firm and
spirited resistance. By sea the Danes had the advantage,
having the aid of a Dutch squadron commanded by the Denmark,
well-known Van Tromp. This enabled them to convey an '
invading force to Schonen or Scania, the southern and most
fertile province of Sweden. Here the forces of the Swedes
were brought to bear against their opponents, with the ad¬
vantage of vicinity to their supplies; nearly in the same
way that the military means of France were at that time
concentrated in Flanders and Alsace against those of more
distant powers. The result was, that the Danes were
obliged to retreat from Scania, and, after several alterna¬
tions of success, peace was signed between the two king¬
doms in 1679, the year after the treaty of Nimeguen had
suspended the war in the central part of Europe. As usual,
after much bloodshed and many vicissitudes of fortune, the
adverse states were placed by the treaty in nearly the same
situation as at the commencement of the war; but hopes
of peace for the future were justified by the marriage of
the young king of Sweden, Charles XL, with a princess of
Denmark.
These hopes were realized during twenty years; and peace
continued until 1699, when Charles XI. having died, the
reigning king of Denmark, Frederick IV., was tempted by
the youth of Charles XII. of Sweden to invade the dominions
of his ally the Duke of Holstein. Frederick was little aware
of the spirit of his opponent, who became afterwards so w'ell
known in the wars of the north of Europe. Charles, de¬
termined to strike at once at his enemy’s capital, lost no
time in crossing the narrow sea between Sweden and Den¬
mark, and in investing the city of Copenhagen. The in¬
habitants in alarm appealed to the humanity of the young
monarch ; and the result was the speedy conclusion of peace,
with the payment of a sum of money to*the Swedes. Taught
by this lesson, the Danish government remained neutral
in the following years, when the course of events led
Charles and his army into Poland and Saxony. There
success attended him year after year, until his memorable
march into the heart of the Ukraine in 1708. The Swedes
were even then superior to their uncivilized opponents, but
no discipline would bear up against privations and absolute
want. The consequence was the loss of the battle of Pul-
towa, the capture of the Swedish army, and the flight into
Turkey of its heroic leader. The king of Denmark then
found himself independent, and eagerly embraced the op¬
portunity of renewing hostilities with Sweden, invading both
Holstein in the south, and the province of Scania to the
north. Scania was badly provided with troops, but it had
officers trained in one of the best military schools of the
age, and a peasantry full of national antipathy towards the
Danes. The result was a spirited attack on the invading
army, followed by its defeat and precipitate flight into Den¬
mark. The war was then carried on with alternate success
in different parts—in Pomerania, in Holstein, and in Nor¬
way ; until at last the military career of Charles XII. came
unexpectedly to a close in the end of 1718. Some time
afterwards, negotiations were opened between Sweden and
Denmark, under the mediation of England, and ended in
1720 in a definitive treaty of peace, concluded at Stock¬
holm. It was then that Sweden lost all the advantages
gained since the peace of Westphalia, and that George I.
of England as Elector of Hanover, Prussia, and Peter the
Great, shared with Denmark the spoil of Sweden. Hence¬
forth no danger threatened Denmark from the side of its
neighbour, though the cessation of the rivalry was more per¬
ceptible in the decline of Sweden than the progress of
Denmark.
I he Danish government had now ample experience of
the sacrifices attendant on war, and of the expediency, to
a state of such limited power, of avoiding political collisions.
It consequently adopted a policy to which it has almost
ever since endeavoured to adhere, a course of uninterrupted
peace.
742
DENMARK.
Denmark,
The minis¬
try of Bern
storff.
Counts
Struen-
see and
Brandt.
The armed
neutrality
of 1780.
It was towards the middle of the eighteenth century that
the family of Bernstorff became known in the councils of
Denmark ; the first minister of that name, a man of superior
■ talent and information, having come forward at that time.
By the prudence of the ministry, and the pacific disposition
of the sovereign, Denmark was kept from taking part in the
war begun in Germany in 1740, as well as in the more ge¬
neral contest begun in the same country in 1756.
Frederick V. of Denmark was twice married, and died in
1766, leaving a son by each wife. The crown devolved of
course on the elder, his son by the first wife, who took the
name of Christian VII. He was a weak prince, and lis¬
tened too readily to the insinuations of his step-mother,
whose secret wish was to secure the succession of the crown
to her own son, and who did not scruple, with that view, to
sow discord between Christian and his young consort, a
princess of England, and youngest daughter of George II.
The circumstances were these : A German adventurer
named Struensee had ingratiated himself into the favour of
Frederick V., the late king, and had found means to be ap¬
pointed his prime minister—a situation which he was ill qua¬
lified to fill. He continued to hold that office under Chris¬
tian, and was introduced to the young queen as her hus¬
band’s confidential minister. On this the queen dowager
founded an intrigue, and succeeded in persuading the king
that the queen, in concert with Struensee and his friend
Count Brandt, had formed a project to set him aside, and
to get herself declared regent of the kingdom. By work¬
ing on the fears of this weak prince, the queen dowager pre¬
vailed on him to authorize the arrest of the queen and the
two ministers. The latter were thrown into prison, and
Struensee was accused of having abused his authority as
minister, and of other criminal acts. As there was no proof
of these acts, recourse was had to the barbarous alternative
of torture, the dread of which led Struensee to declare, in
the form of a confession, much to the injury of the young
queen, which is now considered as unfounded. This, how¬
ever, did not enable him to escape ; for he and Count
Brandt were both beheaded in April 1772; whilst the queen
consort was, at the instance of the British government, al¬
lowed to retire and to pass the remainder of her short life
at Zell, in Hanover, repeatedly but fruitlessly demanding
an open trial. This ill-fated princess died in her twenty-
third year, without the satisfaction of knowing that the au¬
thor of her misfortunes, the queen dowager, had lost her in¬
fluence at the court of Denmark.
One of the principal political questions between England
and Denmark occurred in the year 1780, in the midst of
our war with France, Spain, and the North American colo¬
nies. During that arduous contest, England, superior at
sea, had no difficulty in obtaining, by her own merchant¬
men, a supply of hemp, cordage, and other naval stores,
from the Baltic, whilst France and Spain trusted to receiv¬
ing such supplies by neutral vessels. But our government
denied the right of neutrals to carry warlike stores ; and the
northern powers, headed by the ambitious Catherine of
Russia, entered into a compact, called the armed neutrality,
by which, without resorting to actual hostility, they sought
to overawe this country, and to continue the questionable
traffic. Happily no bloodshed followed this diplomatic me¬
nace, and the question fell to the ground in 1782, on the
negotiation for a general peace.
1 he king of^Denmark, subject all along to imbecility,
became after 1184 quite incapable of governing. His son,
the crown prince, was therefore appointed regent, and soon
passed several judicious enactments. The peasants living
on the crown lands were gradually emancipated—an exam¬
ple followed by a number of the nobility on their respective
estates. In the abolition of the African slave trade Den¬
mark had the honour of taking the lead among the govern¬
ments of Europe. The crown prince, guided by the coun¬
sels of Count BernstorfF, son of the minister already men- Denmark,
tinned, long remained neutral in the political convulsion
engendered by the French Revolution. He continued to
adhere steadfastly to this plan until in 1801 the Emperor
Paul of Russia having, as in the case of the armed neu¬
trality, formed a compact of the northern powers hostile to
England, a British fleet was sent into the Baltic under the
orders of Sir Hyde Parker, with Lord Nelson as his second
in command.
It was this fleet which taught the Danes that their ca- Lord Xel-
pital was not impregnable, and that the long line of men- son’s at-
of-war moored in front of the harbour was an insufficienttack on Co"
defence against such enterprising opponents. The attack ^enhagen-
took place on 2d of April 1801 ; and the resistance of the
Danes was spirited, but fruitless. The loss of the English
in killed and wounded exceeded 1000 men, but that of their
opponents was much greater, and most of their shipping was
destroyed. Happily little injury was done to the capital. A
cessation of hostilities took place forthwith, and was followed
by a treaty of peace. The death of the Emperor Paul,
which occurred soon afterwards, dissolved the compact be¬
tween the northern courts.
But no treaty of peace could be regarded as permanent
during the ascendency of Bonaparte. After defeating first
Austria, and then Prussia, that extraordinary man found
means to obtain the confidence of the Emperor Alexander
of Russia, and in the autumn of 1807 threatened to make
Denmark take part in the war against England. Although
the Danish government discovered no intention to violate Copenha-
its neutrality, our ministers, eager to please the public by gen again
acting on a system of vigour, despatched to the Baltic bothattacked'
a fleet and an army, in order to compel the surrender of the
Danish navy upon condition of its being restored at a peace.
To such a demand the crown prince gave an immediate
negative, declaring that he was both able and willing to
maintain his neutrality, and that his fleet could not be given
up on any such condition. On this the English army landed
near Copenhagen ; laid siege to that city; and soon obliged
the government to purchase its safety by surrendering the
whole of its naval force.
This act, the most questionable in point of justice of any
committed by the British government during the war, can
hardly be defended on the score of policy. The battle of
Trafalgar had ere this been fought; and after that great
victory our superiority at sea was so decisive as to exempt
us from the necessity of offending foreign powers by adopt¬
ing extreme measures. The resentment felt on that occa¬
sion by the Emperor of Russia was so great as to deprive
us during four arduous years of the benefit of his alliance;
and the seizure of the Danish fleet so exasperated the crown
prince and the nation at large, that they forthwith declared
war against England, throwing themselves completely into
the arms of France.
The hostilities between England and Denmark were car-War k-
ried on by sea, partly at the entrance of the Baltic, andtween
partly on the coast of Norway. These consisted of a pen-
of actions between single vessels or small detachments, in marj{i
which the Danes fought always with spirit, and not unfre-
quently with success. In regard to trade, both nations suf¬
fered severely; the British merchantmen in the Baltic being
much annoyed by Danish cruizers, whilst the foreign trade
of Denmark was in a manner suspended by our naval su¬
periority.
Such continued the situation of the two countries during
five years, when at last the overthrow of Bonaparte in Rus¬
sia opened a hope of deliverance to those who were invo¬
luntarily his allies. The Danish government would now
gladly have made peace with England; but our ministry,
in order to secure the cordial co-operation of Russia and
Sweden, had gone so far as to guarantee to these powers
the cession of Norwav on the part of Denmark, The Danes,
DENMARK.
Denmark, ill prepared for so great a sacrifice, continued their connec-
tion with France during the eventful year 1813; but at
the close of that campaign a superior force was directed by
the allied sovereigns against Holstein, and the result was
first an armistice, and eventually a treaty of neace in Tan-
Ty,]814; P6 termS °f the Peace "^e, that Denmark
should cede Norway to Sweden, and that Sweden, in return,
should give up Pomerania to Denmark. But Pomerania
being too distant to form a suitable appendage to the Danish
territory, was exchanged for a sum of money and a small dis¬
trict in Lauenburg adjoining Holstein. On the part of Eng¬
land, the conquests made from Denmark in the East and West
Indies were restored; all, in short, that had been occupied
by British troops, excepting the small island of Heligoland
Since the Congress of Vienna, by which the extent of the
Danish monarchy was considerably reduced, the court of
Copenhagen has been from time to time disquieted by a
spirit of discontentment manifesting itself in the duchie=
and especially in that of Holstein, the outbreak of which in
1848 tin eatened the monarchy with complete dissolution.
A short recapitulation of the relation of the different parts
of the kingdom to each other will furnish a key to the better
comprehension of these internal troubles. When Christian
I. ot the house of Oldenburg ascended the throne of Den¬
mark m 1448, he was at the same time elected Duke of
Sleswick and Holstein, while his younger brother received
Oldenburg and Delmenhorst. In 1544 the older branch
was again divided into two lines, that of the royal house of
Denmark, and of the dukes of Holstein Gottorp. Several
collateral branches arose afterwards, of which those that
survived are, the Augustenburg and Glucksburg branches
belonging to the royal line, and the ducal Holstein-Gottorp
branch, the head of which was Peter III. of Russia. In
1762 Peter threatened Denmark with a war, the avowed
object of which was the recovery of Sleswick, which had
been expressly guaranteed to the Danish crown by England
and France at the peace of Stockholm 1720. His sudden
dethronement, however, prevented him from putting this
design into execution. The empress Catharine agreed to
an accommodation, which was signed at Copenhagen in
1164, and subsequently confirmed by the emperor Paul,
1773, by which the ducal part of Sleswick was ceded to
the crown of Denmark. The Czar abandoned also his part
of Holstein in exchange for Oldenburg and Delmonhorst,
which he transferred to the younger branch of the Gottorp
family. According to the scheme of Germanic organization
adopted by the Congress of Vienna, the king of Denmark
was declared member of the Germanic body on account of
Holstein and Lauenburg, invested with three votes in the
General Assembly, and a place, the tenth in rank, in the
ordinary diet.
After the restoration of peace in 1815, the states of the
duchy of Holstein, never so cordially blended with Den¬
mark as those of Sleswick, began to show their discontent at
the continued non-convocation of their own assemblies
despite the assurances of Frederick VI. The preparation
of a new constitution for the whole kingdom was the main
pretext by which the court evaded the claims of the peti¬
tioners, who met, however, with no better success from the
German diet, before whom they brought their complaints
in 1822. After the stirring year of 1830, the movement in
the duchies, soon to degenerate into a mutual animosity be¬
tween the Danish and German population, became more
general. The scheme of the court to meet their demands
by the establishment of separate deliberative assemblies for
each of the provinces failed to satisfy the Holsteiners, who
continually urged the revival of their long-neglected local
laws and privileges. Nor were matters changed at the ac¬
cession of Christian VIII. in 1838, a prince noted for his
popular sympathies and liberal principles. The feeling of
national animosity was greatly increased by the issue of
743
certain orders for Sleswick, which tended to encourage the Denmark,
culture of the Danish language to the prejudice of the Ger- v _ , v ^J
man. But what served to increase the jealousy of race
against race, was the expected extinction of the male line of
the reigning dynasty—a topic freely discussed by the press,
as affording the prospect of rendering the duchies entirely
independent of the crown of Denmark. In 1842, the union
of Sleswick with the German confederacy was formally dis¬
cussed in the provincial assembly, and advocated by a part
ot the German press. This agitation was met by a letter
patent from the king, in which it was proclaimed, that with
the exception of some parts of Holstein, in reference to
which some changes must be made, the laws regulating the
succession were the same in Denmark, Sleswick, and Lauen¬
burg. The consequence of this was, that the gap between
content
he
hies,
the Danish and German party became every day wider, and
the more so as the German party felt encouraged by the
diet. 1 he elements of a revolution wrere thus ready, and
only waiting some impulse to break forth into action.
Christian died in the very beginning of 1848, before the
outbreak of the French revolution in February, and left his
throne to his son Frederick VII., who had scarcely re¬
ceived the royal unction when half of his subjects rose up
in rebellion against him.
The Parisian revolution at once reacted on the whole of
Germany, which was then apparently on the eve of an en¬
tire reorganization; and this latter circumstance could not
fail to hasten the open rupture of Holstein with Den¬
mark, as well as to make Prussia, from its jealousy of Aus¬
trian supremacy, openly declare for the duchies. In March
1848, Prince Frederick of Augustenburg, having gained
over the garrison of Rendsburg, put himself at the head
of a provisional government proclaimed at Kiel. A Danish
army, marching into Sleswick, easily reduced the duchy
as far as the banks of the Eider; but, in the meantime,
the new national assembly of Germany resolved upon the
incorporation of Sleswick; and the king of Prussia fol¬
lowed up their resolution by sending an army into the
duchies under the command of General Wrangel. The
Prussian intervention (it is needless to remark), while calcu¬
lated to increase the anxiety of the court of Copenhagen,
materially altered the nature of the war. The Prussian
general, after driving the Danes from Sleswick, marched into
Jutland;—a step fully sufficient to excite the attention of
foreign powers, and especially that of England and Russia.
I he mediating efforts of these powers to settle the dispute
at the very beginning, however, appear not to have been of
a nature to bring the belligerents to a desire of peace; though
the sudden evacuation of Jutland by the Prussians was
attributed to foreign influence. At'the instance of the
Assembly of Frankfurt, to whom this retreat appeared ex¬
ceedingly suspicious, Wrangel received orders to move on¬
wards ; and did so ostensibly, when, contrary to all expecta¬
tion, and to the no small displeasure of the Frankfurt As¬
sembly, Prussia and Denmark agreed to an armistice of
seven months, signed at Malmoe, August 26. According
to this agreement, the government of the duchies was in^
trusted to a commission of five members—two nominated
by Piussia, two by Denmark, and the fifth by the common
consent ot the four, Denmark being also promised an in¬
demnification for the requisitions made in Jutland. It is
needless to say, that Sleswick-Holstein was still less satis¬
fied with the conduct of the court of Berlin than with that
of the Assembly of Frankfurt.
After the expiry of the armistice, the war was renewed
with the aid of Prussian and other troops of the confederacy,
(from Mar«h to July 1849), when Prussia signed a second
armistice for six months. The duchies now continued to in¬
crease their own troops, being determined to carry on the war
at their own charge without the aid of Prussia, whose policy
they stigmatized as inconsistent and treacherous. The chief
DENMARK.
744
Denmark, command of the Sleswick-Holstein army was intrusted to
General Willisen, a scientific and able soldier; but hence¬
forth the Danes had little to fear, especially as the cry of
German unity brought but an insignificant number ot vo¬
lunteers to the camp of the Holsteiners. I he last victory
of the Danes, under Generals Krogh and Schlepegrell, was
at the battle of Idsted (July 23). Near this small village,
protected by lakes and bogs, \\ illisen lay encamped with his
centre ; his right wing at Wedelspung, extending along the
lake Langso; his left spreading along the Arnholtz lake.
The Danes, approaching on the high road from Flensburg
to Sleswick, attacked the enemy on all sides; and, after hav¬
ing been repeatedly repulsed, they succeeded in driving the
Sleswick-Holsteiners from all their positions. The forces en¬
gaged on each side were about 30,000; the number of killed
and wounded on both sides was upwards of 7000. Some
attributed this victory to artificial manoeuvres and peculiar
strategy of the Danes, though one might with more reason
assign it to the want of discipline and good officers in the
camp of Willisen.
Peace with After the victory of Idsted, the Danes could hardly ex-
Prussia. pect to meet with any serious resistance. But what tended
most of all to raise the confidence of the court of Copen¬
hagen was the peace concluded with Prussia (July 1850),
by which the latter abandoned the duchies to their own
fate, and soon afterwards aided in their subjection. This
strange phenomenon may be thus easily explained. While
Austria was threatened with complete dissolution on the
side of Italy and Hungary, the court of Berlin hoped to se¬
cure to its account the convulsions of Germany by conniv¬
ing at the proceedings of the Frankfurt Assembly, which
was then engaged in framing a new charter for the empire.
For a while the popularity of Frederick William IV. was
so great, that he was even offered the imperial throne.
Prussia was able even to gain over Hanover and Saxony for
a while for her ambitious designs, having afterwards con¬
voked a diet at Erfurth, with the view of re-organizing
the empire under her own auspices, to the utter neglect
and disregard of the house of Hapsburg. It naturally
flowed from this policy that, though unwilling to sanction
the revolutionary principle, Prussia was led by her own in¬
terest to espouse the cause of the duchies, so popular in
Germany, and so closely connected with the idea of Ger¬
man unity. But about the end of 1849, Austria, having re¬
duced both Hungary and Italy, immediately turned her at¬
tention to the affairs of Germany ; and her first step was, to
convoke a meeting of the diet at Frankfurt to counteract the
decisions of the Prussian diet of Erfurth. The new atti¬
tude of Austria, and the remonstrances of the Czar, soon
made the weak Prussian king pause in his ambitious schemes
of innovation, and his feigned sympathies with Sleswick-
Holstein. England, too, which had exerted a tardy media¬
tion during the two years’ war, never countenanced the idea
of the dismemberment of the Danish monarchy, to which
Prussian policy at first tended. Hence it happened, that while
Denmark was treating with Prussia in Berlin, a protocol,
guaranteeing the integrity of the Danish monarchy, was
signed in London (July 4, 1850). Soon after the signing
of this deed, the two great German powers, under the in¬
fluence of the Czar, agreed in the conferences of Olmutz
as to the measures to be taken for the pacification of Ger¬
many ; and a joint army of Austrians and Prussians was
immediately marched into the two duchies to disarm the
inhabitants. Thus was Denmark most seriously threatened,
and at the same time rescued, by foreign influence.
The sole question of importance which awaited its solu¬
tion was the order of succession, which the European
powers thought to be of such importance as to delay its
final settlement till 1852. Before proceeding to this critical
point of Danish affairs, we will first indicate the internal
reforms introduced since the outbreak of the war of 1848.
The new constitution, sanctioned by Frederick VII., ac- Denmark,
knowledges the principle of limited monarchy, the king w
sharing his power with a diet of two houses, both of which
are elective. The first, called Folkething, has the privilege
of discussing the budget and other public questions, while
the other is confined to the local affairs of the provinces.
The liberty of religion and of the press, and the inviolability
of person and property, are amply guaranteed by the new
charter. All the reforms, however, failed to produce uni¬
formity between the government of the different parts of the
kingdom, not to speak of the duchies. Of the anomalies to
be found in the new state of affairs, the principle of re¬
sponsibility offers the most striking instance. The ministers
for Denmark Proper, for example, are responsible to the
diet, while those of the two duchies depend solely on the
king. But what is still more singular is, that even the re¬
sponsible ministers, as those of War and Foreign Affairs,
whose control extends also over the duchies, are only respon¬
sible as far as Denmark Proper is concerned. The state of
Sleswick-Holstein, however, must not be regarded as defini¬
tively settled.
The extinction of the male line in the present King
Frederick was an event foreseen by the king, the people,
and the foreign powers. The heir presumptive to the
throne, Prince Frederick Ferdinand, uncle of the king, be¬
sides being advanced in age, was likewise without issue, and
in absence of a general arrangement, the kingdom would
probably be dismembered in consequence of the laws of
succession established in the different pi’ovinces. In Den¬
mark Proper, the succession might pass over to the female
line, while, according to the ancient laws of Holstein, fe¬
males are excluded tfom the throne. Besides this, in Hol¬
stein, the eldest branch was represented by the duke of
Augustenburg, who headed the revolution ; and after it
came the family of Gliicksburg; and lastly, the Emperor of
Russia was the representative of the Holstein-Gottorp line.
The German party, in fact, flattered themselves with the
hopes of seeing Holstein, and even Sleswick, in which the
rights of succession were variously construed, become en¬
tirely independent of the Danish crown, with the expected
extinction of the reigning male line. But the foreign courts
thought otherwise. After protracted negotiations between
the different courts, the representatives of England, F rance,
Austria, Russia, Prussia, and Sweden, the following treaty re¬
lative to the Danish succession was signed May 8, 1852 :—
Art. I.—After having taken into serious consideration
the interests of his monarchy, his Majesty the King of Den¬
mark, with the assent of his Royal Highness the hereditary
Prince, and his nearest of kin, called to the succession by
the royal law of Denmark, as well as in concert with his
Majesty the Emperor of all the Russias, chief of the elder
branch of the house of Holstein-Gottorp, having declared
his desire to regulate the order of succession to his states
in such a manner as that, in default of male issue in the
direct line of King Frederick III. of Denmark, his crown
may be transmitted to his Highness the Prince Christian
of Sleswick-Holstein-Sonderburg-Gliicksburg, and to the
descendants sprung from the marriage of that prince with
her Royal Highness the Princess Louisa of Sleswick-
Holstein-Sonderburg-Gliicksburg, born princess of Hesse,
in the order of primogeniture from male to male; the high
contracting parties, appreciating the wisdom of the views
which have determined the adoption of this combination,
bind themselves by a common agreement, whenever the
eventuality contemplated may arise, to recognise in his
Highness the Prince Christian of Sleswick-Holstein-Son-
derburg-Glucksburg, and his descendants male, sprung in
direct line from his marriage with the said princess, the
right to succeed to all (a la totalite) the states actually
united under the sceptre of his Majesty the King of Den¬
mark.
Denmark. Akt. IL—The high contracting parties, recco-nisino- the
principle of the integrity of the Danish monarchy as perma¬
nent, bind themselves to take into consideration such ulte¬
rior overtures as Ins Majesty may think it proper to make to
them, if (which God forbid) the extinction of the heirs
male, in the direct line of his Highness Prince Christian of
Sleswick-Holstein-Sonderburg-Gliicksburg, by his marriage
with the Princess Louisa, should become imminent
AkT. HI —It is expressly understood, that the rights and
reciprocal obligations of his Majesty the King of Denmark,
and of the Germanic confederation, concerning the duchies
of Hosteinand Lauenburg rights and obligations esta¬
blished by the federal act of 181o", and by the existing fe¬
deral law, shall not be altered by the present treaty.
Art. IV.—The high contracting parties reserve to them¬
selves the right of bringing the present treaty to the know¬
ledge of other powers, by inviting them to accede to it.
At first sight this treaty, which guaranteed the integrity
of the Danish kingdom, ought to have been as gratifying
to the Danes as it was calculated to excite the resentment of
the duchies. Its promulgation, however, produced discontent
even in Denmark Proper. Highly gratified as the Danes
were at the idea of the indivisibility of the monarchy, they
ooked with apprehension at a change which, while it abo¬
lished the lex vegia of 1665, admitting the succession of the
female line, and transferred the right of succession to the
branch of Glucksburg, expressly confined it to the male
hue, and reserved the whole question for further settlement
in case of its extinction^
The apprehension of the Danes on the subject was still
eightened by the consideration that Russia possessed claims
to a portion of the duchies, which, though formerly re¬
nounced, would again become valid with the extinction of
the new male line. Hence the terms of the treaty of May
were attributed solely to Russian influence; which, under
the pretext of maintaining the integrity of the Danish king¬
dom, sought on this very ground to open up a way for the
eventual succession of the czars. The possibility of such
an event was apparent, Prince Christian GlUcksburg havino-
only one son ; and the fact of the treaty of London having
jeen preceded by a protocol of Warshau, signed between the
courts of St Petersburg and Copenhagen, by which the
Lmperor Nicholas reserved to himself the ancient right of
succession to a portion of the duchies in case of the extinc¬
tion of the Glucksburg male line, was sufficient to rouse the
suspicions of the nation. The protestations of Russia did not
avail to dispel such apprehensions ; so that, while the courts
declared their satisfaction with the treaty, the Danes saw
under the newly-established indivisibility a door opened for
a Russian pretender.
The new order of succession was announced to the diet
in October 1852; and a committee of seventy members,
nominated by the assembly to examine the royal message,
rejected the new law by a large majority. After the dissolu¬
tion of this diet, the measure met a similar fate when intro¬
duced before the new house (Feb. 1853). The court then
determined upon a second dissolution, and in consequence
of this several of the ministers resigned. After Oersted was
called to the head of affairs a third parliament was convened
(June 24), which adopted the new law. It must here be
observed, the ministry of Copenhagen itself was caught by
the spirit of diffidence with which the measure was regarded
out of doors; but, once pledged to the foreign powers, it
accepted their assurances that the Danish throne, if becom¬
ing vacant, would again become a European question to be
decided collectively by the powers who guaranteed the
treaty of May. The result of this arrangement (which, it
must be confessed, is exceedingly obscure and indefinite)
remains yet to be seen.
As to the present state of the duchies, the outward traces
of the late war seem to have entirely disappeared; but the
VOL. VII.
DENMARK.
4d
thi!Sca"dinavian andGerman elements Denmark,
can hardly be said to have been extinguished with the end v ^
of the campaigns. The Danish government, however, well
deserves praise for their lenient treatment of the parties im¬
plicated m the war; especially if contrasted with the course
pursued by the king of Prussia after the Berlin revolution,
and the policy of Austria in regard to the revolutionary
outbreaks in Hungary and Italy.
The kingdom of Denmark, comprehending, besides Den- statistics
mark Proper, the duchies of Sleswick, Holstein, and Lauen- Statlstlcs-
burg, and also several islands in the Baltic and Cattegat
hes between N. Lat. 53. 22. 42. and 57. 44. 52.; and be-
tween E. Long. 7. 37. 22. and 12. 34., with the exception
of the island of Bornholm, which lies between E. Long.
14. 42. and 15. 10. It is bounded N. by the Skagerrack ; E.
u ™ Cattegat> the Sound, and the Baltic ; S. by the Elbe
and Mecklenburg; and W. by the North Sea. The kingdom
° n1 !nn^k,]r,per has an area ofl4>642 square miles, of
which 966/ belong to the mainland of North Jutland, and
49 /o to the islands. Of these last, Zealand with its smaller
islands contains 2698, Fiihnen with its smaller islands 1280
Laaland 4455, and Bornholm 222 square miles. The duchy
of Sleswick has an area of 3534, the duchy of Holstein of
d^59, and that of Lauenburg of 402 square miles; giving the
entire area of the Danish kingdom at 21,837 square miles.
of the l>0Pulation wi" ap- St.li6llcsof
1840.
1,283,027
348,526
455,093
45,342
1845.
1,350,327
362,900
479,364
46,486
pear from the following table :
^ „ 1769. 1834-35.
-Denmark Proper... 814,238 1,223,797
Sleswick  249,104 337A78
Hoistein  278,963 435,596
Lauenburg' 
the population of Denmark Proper, 1st February 1850
was as follows:— ’
rr , . , ,r Towns. Rural Districts.
Zealand and Moen  170,392 338,068
Bornholm   g 18,’476
Fuhnen, &c  31,324 156’494
Laaland and Falster  11 164 67 853
North Jutland  68,234 536’291
population.
Total.
508,460
27,927
187,818
79,017
604,525
rp, , . „ 290,565 1,117,182 1,407,747
1 lie population of the principal towns of Denmark Pro¬
per (1st February 1850) was as follows, viz.:—Copenhagen
129,695; Odensee 11,122; Helsingor 8111 ; Aarhuus 7886;
Aalborg 7745; Rauders 7338; Horsens 5827; Rbnne47l7;
Svendborg 4556; Frederick 4326; Viborg 4039; Slagelse
4011; and Roeskilde 3805.
In the duchy of Sleswick, the principal towns with their
populations on 1st February 1840 was as follows, viz.- 
Flensborg 12,561; Sleswick 11,204; Hadersleve 6165;
Eckernsforde 4058; and Apenrade 4021. In that of Hol¬
stein as follows, viz.:—Altona 28,095; Kiel 12,344 ; Rends-
burg 10,009 ; and GlUckstadt 5939.
r i Tlie Tcolonial Possessions of Denmark are the Faroe Colonies
Islands, Iceland, Greenland, and the islands of Santa Cruz
St Thomas, and St John, in the West Indies. Tranquebar
and Serampore, in the East Indies, were sold to the English
East India Company in 1846; and the Danish settlements
on the coast of Guinea were ceded to England two years
afterwards. I he extent and population of these in 1850
were as follows, viz.:—
-TV. T , , Square Miles,
r aroe Islands  495
Iceland    38,200
Greenland..   3 950
West Indies—
Santa Cruz   74
St Thomas   23
St John      21
Population.
8,150
60,000
9,400
23,720
13,666
2,228
Total   42,763 117,164
The island of Zealand contains about 2800 square miles Zealand
of territory, corresponding in extent to two middle-sized and the
counties in England. Its surface is in general flat, and only a<lJoi"in^
0 _ « islands.
O B
746
DENMARK.
Denmark.
Jutland.
South Jut¬
land, its
west coast
or marsh
land.
a few feet higher than the level of the sea. The highest point
is only about 490 feet above the sea.. Possessing an undu¬
lating and woody surface, its aspect is the most pleasam oi
any part of the territory of Denmark; but in other respects
it is greatly behind England or the Netherlands. Though
personal slavery has been abolished among the peasantry o
Denmark since the beginning of the present century, t rei e
yet remain many traces of the feudal system. Having hardly
anv capital, the tenants, even in Zealand, pay their rent m
produce, or by the labour of themselves and their cattle.
It is only in the present age that Danish landholders have
considered their peasantry as entitled to take land on lease.
Tithes are still collected by government: one portion of
the collection is for the church as a body, another for in¬
dividual clergymen, and a third for the royal treasury. The
island is in general fertile, but less so in the northern parts
and the elevated districts of the interior, where a sandy soil
prevails. Fiihnen, the island next in extent to Zealand, is
traversed by a chain of hills in the S. and W. The northern
parts are level, unwooded, and fertile. After these come
the smaller islands of Laaland, Langeland, Falster, and
Bornholm,—the last situated at some distance in the Baltic.
In the islands, as on the mainland, a part of the crown lands
is let on easy terms to tenants, who become bound to carry
certain improvements into effect.
The provincial divisions of Denmark on the mainland
occupy a much wider extent of territory than those on the
islands. Jutland is a hundred and eighty miles in length,
and nearly eighty in breadth, its extent being 9667 square
miles. Its general outline is oblong, with a triangle towards
the north. It is divided into four stifts or dioceses, viz.
Aalborg in the north, Wyborg in the centre, Aarhuus in
the east, and Ribe in the south and west. The rivers of
Jutland are necessarily small, from the few hills and the
limited breadth of the country; but there are numerous
bays or inlets of the sea which run a great way up into the
interior, of which by far the longest and most extensive
is the Lymfiord. Fish forms consequently a staple article
of food in Jutland.
Jutland was in former ages covered with forests. Part
of these still remain; and the features of this part of the
Danish territory are wilder than those of the islands. Still
Jutland is agreeably diversified with woods and pastures.
Wild animals formerly abounded in its forests; but they
have gradually disappeared with the extension of cultiva¬
tion. As to the soil of Jutland, a great proportion of it is
dry and sandy, which, when raised in clouds by the wind,
and scattered over cultivated districts, is productive of great
mischief. The best means of lessening these calamities is
to sow bent grass and plant shrubs in the sandy soil, as is
practised in the downs in Holland, and as has long been
enjoined by the Danish government.
The pasturages in Jutland are extensive, and the horses
are of large size, but fitter for draught than for the saddle.
The horned cattle are also of a good breed, and large num¬
bers of them are annually sent to Holstein. In minerals
neither Jutland nor indeed any part of the Danish territory
is rich. Coal is found in very few parts,—-a great privation
in a country where the facility of communication by water
would make coal so generally useful. The common fuel is
either peat or turf.
Such is the state of three-fourths of Jutland. A different
scene is presented along its western coast, as well as along
the western shore of Sleswick and Holstein. In all these
the surface is a continued level, gained in the course of
ages from the sea, and fortified against inundation, as in
Holland, by dikes or mounds. It is called the marsh land,
and resembles the fens in Lincoln and Cambridgeshire.
The soil being rich, is well adapted for wheat and barley, as
well as oats and rye. The crops of oats are very heavy ;
rape is also cultivated with advantage; but the chief pursuit
of the agriculturists is cattle-rearing. The horses of Hoi- Denmark
stein have long been noted for their shape as well as spirit,
and are exported annually in considerable numbers to
Germany, France and Russia.
Sleswick is of an oblong form, about seventy miles in Sleswick.
length, and from thirty to fifty-six in breadth. Its surface is
3534 square miles. A mountain range intersects the duchy
from N. to S., the highest points being towards the north.
To the east of this ridge are fruitful well-cultivated fields, in¬
terspersed with patches of woodland. To the west the ground
gradually slopes into a plain covered with moors and marshes.
The climate resembles that of the north of England. Rain
occurs w'ith both east and west winds, and the extremes of
cold or heat are seldom of long continuance. Here, as in
Jutland, the greater part of the interior is dry and sandy.
Holstein, somewhat less in extent than Sleswick, has a Holstein,
surface of 3259 square miles. The western part, adjoin¬
ing the German Ocean and the banks of the Elbe, was,
like the maritime border of South Jutland, reclaimed in
former ages from the sea, and is secured by dikes against
inundations. It has the rich soil of an alluvial country,
whilst that of the inland part of the duchy is light, and in
some degree sandy. The products are rye, barley, oats,
with more wheat than in any other part of the Danish ter¬
ritory. The state of the peasantry here, as in Sleswick, is
not quite so backward as in Jutland.
In the marsh lands along the western coast of the Danish
dominions, the dikes exclude the action of the high tides.
In former ages melancholy scenes are known to have oc¬
curred from irruptions of the sea ; but during the last two
centuries such irruptions have been completely obviated,
the banks and dikes being sufficiently strong to resist the
violence of the waves. Fields, and even districts, when un¬
der water, are drained by windmills, as in the Netherlands.
The mounds and other defensive works are under the man¬
agement of a government board, which, like the W aterstaat
in Holland, prescribe regulations, which the local proprietors
or tenants are bound to follow. It is curious to trace the
successive extensions of the cultivated land by the old em¬
bankments, which are seen at some distance inland, all along
the west side of Sleswick and Holstein, and which form a
continued level, as in the Dutch provinces. The prevail¬
ing malady of a marshy district, ague, is also common to
these countries with Holland.
In order to complete our account of the territory subject Duchy of
to Denmark, it only remains to notice the duchy of Lauen- Lauen-
burg, on the banks of the Elbe, a short distance above Ham- ““S1
burg. It has an area of about 400 square miles, with a
population of 46,486. In the north and west the country
is flat; but in the south, along the banks of the Elbe, it as¬
sumes a hilly character. Woods occupy one-sixth of the
entire area. In the east the picturesque Razeburger and
Schall lakes form the boundary on the side of Mecklenburg.
The population is almost wholly agricultural. 4 his petty
state, formerly governed by its own dukes, became incor¬
porated with Hanover in 1689. It was made over to Den¬
mark in 1815 at the congress of Vienna, along with a sum
of money, in lieu of Swedish Pomerania, which, as already
stated, was too distant to form a suitable appendage to the
Danish dominions. ., ,
Climate.—The climate of Denmark may be said to bear tm
some resemblance to that of Scotland; and differs from it less
in the nature of the seasons than in the rapidity of their transi¬
tions. The following is the mean annual temperature (Fain.)
in Altona, Apenrade, Copenhagen, and Frederickshavn :
Fredericks-
Apenrade. Copenhagen.
32- 32-9
45-05 43-7
62-375 63-05
49-55 49-1
47-24 47-18
Altona.
Winter, i  32-45
Spring,  47'3
Summer,  62-375
Autumn,   49-775
Whole Year,   47-975
havn.
32-
43-02
60-35
48-65
46-00
DENMARK.
747
Denmark. Snow falls on an average for thirty clays in the year, and
 / westerly winds are more prevalent than easterly in the ratio
ol 16 to 10. Storms ot wind and rain are exceedingly fre~
quent, particularly in July and August, and the atmosphere
is certainly more humid than that of Scotland. In the dis¬
trict of Aalborg, in the north of Jutland, a cold and dry
N.W. wind called Skai prevails in May and June, and is
exceedingly destructive to vegetation, while along the en¬
tire west coast of the peninsula similar effects are produced
by a salt mist which carries its influence to a distance of
from 15 to 30 miles inland.
igricul- Despite its maritime position, Denmark derives its
are. greatest resources from the productions of the soil; and it
is estimated that 60 per cent, of the population are engaged
in agricultural pursuits. This remark, however, does not
apply to the duchies of Sleswick-Holstein.
In 184/ the chief articles of agricultural produce in
English quarters were as follows :—
Denmark. Sleswick. Holstein.
Wheat  282,857 90,640 183,652
Rye  1,642,142 211,702 278,753
Barley  1,765,761 220,151 221,707
Oats  2,007,761 436,904 644,359
Pease   347,285 42,674 82,720
Buckwheat  69,666 97,638 92,187
Bapeseed  52,380 37,394 63,789
Total, 6,167,852 1,137,103 1,567,167
But, though agriculture is more highly developed under
the more genial climate of the duchies, its progress is no
less perceptible in the whole kingdom. Many tracts of land
have been, within late years, reclaimed by the husbandman,
and the people have gradually profited by the scientific im¬
provements in the construction of implements, tile-draining,
and the practice of manuring. In the same ratio that the
duchies surpass Denmark in agricultural produce the former
have the advantage in cattle-breeding. This progress is
mainly owing to the abolition of serfdom, though the barons
still retain many of their feudal privileges.
The large estates of the nobles are generally in the hands
of farmers; but the greater part of the land is possessed by
the peasantry, who maintain a hereditary attachment to their
ancestral farms. According to Mr Laing, “ the number of
large farms in the two duchies (generally possessing a range
of pasture for 200 cows) is above 3000; while that of the
small peasant estates (generally capable of supporting from
10 to 15 cows) is above 125,000. Below these there is
also a class of smaller landholders csMed jumters, who are
properly cottars, with a house, a yard, and land for 1 or 2
cows, and number about 67,710. The comparatively happy
condition of the labouring class is a fact generally known.
The money wages of farm-servants is generally above three
pounds a-year, besides board and lodging; which, though
small in Britain, is reckoned good pay in Denmark. The
people are well lodged, and more roomily and warmly than
in England. On the meanest dwelling there is always a
good sound heavy roof of thatch. The country abounds in
small lakes—scarcely a farm without a pool; and the abun¬
dance of reeds and of rye-straw makes the roofing material
plentiful and cheap. The side walls and gables are con¬
structed of brick in wooden framework; or of clay and
straw, as in Bedfordshire ; and are whitewashed every year,
and the wooden beams painted black. The houses of the
peasant proprietors are entered by a large folding door in the
gable, through which the long waggon with its two horses
is received into the dwelling-house. On the one side stand
the horses and cattle, on the other are the dwelling rooms,
and above in the loft is stowed a large proportion of winter
fodder In the rooms there is much neatness and
comfort; and even the great hall—which is stable, cow¬
house, and waggon-house, and into which they have their Denmark,
usual entrance—is always very clean. One sees many in-
dications that the inhabitants enjoy some ease, and have
leisure to bestow on the gratifications of taste. The win¬
dows of the poorest house rarely want a bit of ornamental
drapery, and are always decked with flowers and plants in
flower-pots In no part of Europe are the ordinary
garden flowers produced in such abundance and luxuriance
as in Holstein and Sleswick.”1 The most remarkable fea¬
ture in their husbandry is, that greater value is attached to
the produce of the dairy than to that of the soil; and that
much of horse-power is withdrawn from the field, and em¬
ployed in the work of the dairy. Independently of the stock
maintained upon the large dairy farms, this branch of in¬
dustry has given rise to a distinct class of men hiring cows
by the year. Notwithstanding the large quantity of land in
pasture, the country produces more grain than is required
for its own consumption ; a fact perhaps to be mainly attri¬
buted to the slow increase of the population.
Whether or not a larger market for the raw products of
Denmark would be furnished if the government assumed a
less restrictive policy as regards the importation of foreign
manufacture; and whether such a liberal policy would in
the end benefit those whom the government means to pro¬
tect by the present system; and lastly, whether such a
change might, to the advantage of the landed interest, over¬
throw the dairy husbandry, and turn the whole energy of
the agricultural classes to the arable land—are questions
which in this place it is enough merely to hint at.
In an industrial point of view, the most flourishing part Manufao
of the kingdom is Holstein; and Sleswick takes prece- ture.
dence of Denmark Proper. In the duchies upwards of 23
per cent, of the population are engaged in industrial pur¬
suits, but in Denmark Proper little more than 21 per cent.
Very little advantage has yet been taken of the natural faci¬
lities for manufacture and trade which this country pre¬
eminently enjoys. Its easy access to the coal-fields of Eng¬
land, and its own abundant resources of turf, afford an ex¬
tensive basis for the prosecution of various branches of
manufacture. Its rich clays also present valuable materials
for the manufacture of earthenware. In several parts of
the kingdom glass and porcelain works are carried on with
considerable activity. Of the former class four extensive
factories exist in Denmark, annually producing articles to
the value of L.5600 sterling. In Sleswick and Holstein
the glass-works are neither so numerous nor so extensive
in their scale of operations. The principal porcelain-work,
viz. that at Copenhagen, gives employment only to about
80 men. In the kingdom and duchies there are about 1000
brick and tile works, and about 300 limekilns, but they are
mostly of small size, and their products comparatively in¬
considerable. The iron-works of the kingdom and duchies
have recently made considerable progress since its separa¬
tion from Norway; and the importation of raw material from
England has been trebled within the last ten years. The
largest iron-foundry is at Carlshiilte, near Rendsburg, em¬
ploying about 250 workmen. In the duchies the princi¬
pal foundries are at Altona, Kiel, and Flensburg. There
are no less than 16 iron-foundries in and around Copen¬
hagen.
The woollen, linen, and cotton manufactures of Denmark
are for the most part domestic, and carried on purely for
local consumpt. The number of persons engaged in weav¬
ing in the kingdom (1850) amounted to 12,971; in the
duchies (1845) to 6594. Linen is the principal article of
domestic industry in Zealand. During the war the manu¬
facture of cloth received a considerable impulse, having
then the sole command of the market; but after the esta¬
blishment of peace it again declined. The wmollen manufac-
1 Laing’s Danmark and the Duchies.
74S DENMARK.
Denmark, ture in the kingdom employs 1800 men, and in the duchies
1200 ; and the annual product of both is about 49,270 cwt.
The sugar refineries, of which the largest are at Copen¬
hagen and Flensburg, prepare most of the sugar required
for domestic consumption. The manufacture of paper .em¬
ploys about 1100 men, and yields an annual product of
about 548,200 cwt. The distilleries, of brandy throughout
the kingdom and duchies yield annually about 10,000,000
gallons.
Commerce. " Formerly the commercial legislation of Denmark was to
such a degree restrictive that imported manufactures had
to be delivered to the customs, where they were sold by
public auction, the proceeds of which the importer received
from the custom-houses after a deduction was made for the
duty. To this restriction, as regards foreign intercourse,
was added a no less injurious system of inland duties im¬
peding the commerce of the different provinces with each
other. The want of roads also, and many other disadvan¬
tages, tended to keep down both the development of com¬
merce and industry. Within the present century, how¬
ever, several commercial treaties were concluded between Denmark.
Denmark and the other powers of Europe, which made the
Danish tariff more regular and liberal.
Of no less importance were the regulations made from
time to time concerning the Sound toll, a question which
in the seventeenth century led to many hostilities between
Denmark, Sweden, and Holland. Having formerly pos¬
sessed both sides of the entrance to the Baltic, the Danish
crown looked upon the Sound as exclusively her own, re¬
fusing to admit any foreign vessel without paying a certain
duty ; and this right was never contested by the other
powers. These duties form a considerable item in the re¬
venue of Denmark.
The principal seaports are Copenhagen, Elsinore, Kiel,
Flensburg, Aarhuus, Aalburg, Frederikshavn, Gliickstadt,
and Altona.
The chief articles imported are sugar, syrup, coffee, tea,
woollen and linen manufactures, silk goods, iron, coal, and
salt. The main seat of the transit commerce is Altona. The
exports are corn, flour, peas, horses, black cattle, and sheep.
Canal of
Kiel.
The following Table shows the value of the Exports and Imports to and from the various countries for the year 1852.
Denmark.
Imports.
Exports.
Total.
Imports.
Exports.
Holstein.
Imports.
Exports.
Total.
England 
Norway and Sweden.
Hamburg  
Transit Imports 1
through Kiel }
America, West In- \
dies, and South \
Sea........ J
Lubeck ., 
Danish West Indies .,
Iceland, -Green- 1
land, and the \
Faroe Islands... J
Russia 
Prussia    
Holland & Belgium
Mecklenburg     
France   
Altona & Wands- )
beck J
Mediterranean  
Hanover & Bremen..
East Indies
and Guinea
Other countries
lies, China, j
Ainea j
L.
577,221
389,072
255,894
354,432
487,156
172,211
162,948
137,017
188,701
96,077
105,630
29,318
63,497
51,790
43,332
63,453
56,856
12,738
L.
832,494
629,490
3,646
19,305
27,084
14,840
74,742
27,606
87,183
73,382
5,424
16,158
51,102
2,022
1,420
5,081
70,309
Total....  3,247,343
1,941,285 5,188,628
L.
1,409,715
1,018,562
613,97.2
506,461
199,295
177,788
211,759
216,307
183,260
179,012
34,742
79,652
102,892
45,354
64,873
61,937
83,047
L.
72,107
89,007
435,673
15,230
17,981
15,108
8,100
74,039
21,795
10,144
590
7,256
94,799
238
37,945
922
L.
218,831
26,710
176,084
10,899
27,291
2,039
4,863
13,455
25,374
7,164
991
107,552
14,739
4,205
L.
290,938
115,717
611,757
15,230
28,880
42,399
10,139
78,902
35,250
35,518
7,754
8,247
202,351
238
52,684
5,127
L.
28,705
43,243
652,002
59,083
245
9,905
24,066
7,337
1,870
1,819
186
250,104
26,329
12,977
L.
14,091
8,832
684,954
46,610
1,418
4,584
18,413
62,384
27,008
2,775
245,252
32,708
13,698
L.
169,621
52,075
1,336,956
105,693
245
11,323
28,650
25,750
64,254
28,827
2,961
495,356
59,037
26,675
900,934
640,197
1,541,131
1,117,872
1,289,552
2,407,424
The towns of Altona and Wansbeck are included under
the head of foreign commerce, as standing without the toll-
regulations of the kingdom.
The navigation from the north of Germany to Denmark,
around the northern point of Jutland, being always tedious,
and sometimes dangerous, gave rise to the idea of uniting
t|ie two seas by means of a canal, communicating with the
river Eyder. The work was commenced in 1777, and finished
in the course of seven years, at a great expense. This is the
Canal of Kiel, which begins near the town of that name, on
the side of the Baltic, and extends eastward about twenty-
three miles, when it comes in connection with the Eyder.
This canal is nearly 100 feet wide at the surface, and
54 at the bottom; it has six locks, and its least depth of
water is 10 feet; it admits vessels of 120 tons burden ; and
of such small shipping no less than from 2000 to 3000 pass
in a year. Of no less importance is the Stecknitz Canal,
which, along with the railway between Altona, Gliickstadt,
and Kiel, serves to promote the commerce of the duchies.
There are also railways from Copenhagen to Elsinore, and
from Copenhagen to Roeskilde; and one has been recently
opened from Tonning to Flensburg, with a branch to
Rendsburg. Tonning is the port on the east coast, and the
length of navigation from there to the Baltic is about 105
miles.
The passage to the Baltic by the Sound continues to be
followed by English, Dutch, and other vessels of heavy
burden, as well as by Swedes and Norwegians, on account
of the vicinity of their respective countries to the Sound;
but coasting vessels and other traders from Oldenburg,
Hamburg, the mouth of the Elbe, as well as from Ton¬
ning and the ports of Sleswick, and still more small Danish
barks belonging to the islands, find it a great convenience
to traverse the Canal of Kiel. The hazard on the north
coast of Jutland arises from extensive sandbanks and a num¬
ber of currents.
After 1807, when the open war between Denmark and
Britain made the passage by the Sound inexpedient, if not
impracticable, for our mercantile convoys proceeding up the
Baltic, recourse was had by them to the Great Belt, the
DENMARK.
74&
Denmark, width of which is nowhere less than ten miles, and in most
v—^ parts much greater. The width of the Sound is not more
than five English miles.
National The Danes are of a middling stature and fair complexion,
character, and are habituated more than the inhabitants of the south
of Europe to the use of animal food and spirituous liquors.
1 he inhabitants of Holstein, and even of Sleswick, partake
a good deal of the German character. Without going into
any nice discrimination of manners, it may be remarked in
general terms that the Danes have the habits of a people
living in a northern latitude, and are little acquainted, ex¬
cept in the capital, with the improvements of the more
polished parts of Europe. The peasantry, moreover, are
but recently emancipated from a state of feudal subjection.
Army. According to the organization of 28th April 1842, the
Danish army in time of peace was divided into the general
staff, an engineer corps, an artillery brigade, 27 squadrons
of cavalry, and 23 battalions of infantry. Its nominal strength
amounts to about 25,000 men, but of these not more than
the half are in actual service. By the same organization the
standing army in timeof war consists of40,000 men, of which
three-fifths, or 24,000, may be levied in Denmark Proper,
and two-fifths, or 16,000, in the duchies. The militia, when
called, musters an effective force of 60,000 men.
Navy. The following is the state of the Danish navy in 1854:—
5 Ships of the Line..
6 Frigates.
1
1
r1
i
3
1
fl
4 Corvettes •; 2
u
1 Barque 
4Brigs  {o
3 of 84 guns = 252 guns.
72
66
60
48
46
44
28
20
14
14
16
12
8
1
72
66
60
48
138
44
28
40
14
14
32
24
8
2
3 Schooners 
90 Gun-boats  
6 Steam-vessels  35
1 Cutter  6
1^0 883
The financial state of the kingdom will best appear from
the following estimates contained in the budget for 1854-5:—
Revenue for the whole monarchy, with the exception of
Lauenhurg.
-Receipts.
Domains  L.189,748
Surplus from Lauenburg  34,683
Lotteries  5625
Posts and Telegraph   2601
Sound, River, and Canal Dues  238,308
Customs, Stamps, &c  733,331
Sundries....,     31,217
Interest on State Capital  154,300
Floating Debt    146,250
L.1,536,063
Deduct Receipts of the West Indian
Colonies..    1,063
L.1,535,000
Expenditure.
Civil list    L.90,000
Appanage of the Royal Family  36,133
Privy-council   5,130
Foreign department  25,942
War do  521,837
Marine do.    185,480
Finance do.   47,780
Pensions  171,810
Interests, &c  834,660
Extraordinary expenses    16,751
L.l,935,523
Besides these, there are special estimates for each of the Denmark,
duchies, and also for Denmark Proper. The total amounts
of each for the above year are as follows, viz.:—
General receipts  £1,535,000
Special receipts of the kingdom    572,719
Do. do. of the duchy of Sleswick  236,696
Do. do. of the duchy of Holstein.  238,828
Do. do. of the duchy of Lauenburg  34,226
Total  L.2,617,469
General expense  L.1,935,523
Special expenses of the kingdom  322,095
Do. do. of the duchy of Sleswick  81,996
Do. do. of the duchy of Holstein  91,720
Do. do. of the duchy of Lauenburg  21,720
Total  L.2,453,054
The national debt in 1853 amounted to L.13,612,500.
The government of Denmark, like that of other Gothic Form of
countries, was formerly far from despotic ; the succession govern-
to the crown was even elective until the revolution of 1660.ment-
That singular change is to be explained, by supposing, on
the part of the nation, not so much an indifference to free
institutions, as a resentment of the overbearing conduct of
the nobility, and a consciousness of the perpetual uncer¬
tainties of an elective government. The court found it thus
a matter of little difficulty to unite the clergy and commons
against the aristocracy; and the power of the crown has
since continued without a parliament or any constitutional
check. But by the constitution of 1848 mentioned before,
Denmark became in form of government similar to the
other limited monarchies of Europe.
The privy-council consists of the king, prince Frederick
Ferdinand, and the ministers. The duchies have a special
ministry responsible only to the king.
The titles of nobility in Denmark Proper are only two ;
those of count or earl, and baron ; but there is an untitled
nobility, consisting of the most ancient families in the coun¬
try, which rank higher in public estimation than even those
whom the crown has ennobled. The nobility of Sleswick
and Holstein form a distinct body.
The king of Denmark, as already observed, is a member
of the Germanic body as constituted in 1815, having, on
account of Holstein and Lauenburg, three votes in the
general assembly, and a place, the tenth in rank, at the or¬
dinary diet.
In regard to law, there have been from time to time Laws,
various improvements based on the code of Christian V.
The most effective changes were made since 1848. Be¬
sides courts of arbitration, about the usefulness of which no
doubt can be entertained, the distribution of justice is se¬
cured by the superintendence of the higher courts over the
lower ones, while provisions are made to prevent idle de¬
lays and useless expense. Sleswick and Holstein have
separate courts of justice and administration.
^ The established religion in Denmark is the Lutheran, Religion,
which was introduced as early as 1536, the church revenue
being at that time seized and retained by the crown. At
present the nomination of the bishops is vested in the king.
The bishops in Denmark have no political character ; they
inspect the conduct of the subordinate clergy, confer holy
orders, and, in short, enjoy nearly all the privileges of fellow
dignitaries among us, except that of voting in the legisla¬
ture. Complete toleration is now enjoyed in Denmark.
I he ancient literature of Denmark Proper is in itself
not very important, as hardly anything except inscriptions
is preserved ; but the Icelandic, with which it is connected,
is in a very high degree interesting. Still the literature of
Denmark forms a continuous chain, from the classical age,
that of the Scalds, through the middle ages downwards, to
the commencement of the modern literature. Each of these
three periods has its peculiar language and peculiar taste.
750
Denmark.
Univer¬
sity and
schools.
D E N M A E K.
In the first, Braghi hinn Gemli is prominent; Saxo Gram¬
maticus, who wrote in Latin, belongs to the second; and
to it also belong Arild Hvidtfeld and Sven Aageson, who
wrote in a dialect intermediate between the ancient and
modern Danish, in which likewise are compared the songs
of the Danish champions or heroes called K&mpeviser.
The German has exercised a considerable influence on the
formation of the modern Danish.
In respect of literature and literary culture, Denmark is
partly original and isolated, or rather the chief representa¬
tive of the ancient Scandinavian family, and partly owes
to Germany the eminence which she has attained forming^
in regard to literature, as well as to politics, a portion of
that country. The language, the poetry, the history, the
entire polite literature, and the laws of Denmark, are Scan¬
dinavian ; but religion, science, and several political insti¬
tutions, she has borrowed from Germany. The language,
cognate as it is to the Teutonic dialects, belongs entirely
to 'an independent and distinct family (the Scandinavian),
and is, both with regard to structure and roots, more remote
from modern High German than French is from Portu¬
guese. The principal distinctive characters which the
Danish possesses as a Scandinavian language, and which
the Teutonic languages in general have not, are, 1. a post¬
positive definite article ; 2. a passive and middle voice in
the verbs, formed by inflection, whilst the Mcesogothic only
has a passive voice ; 3. the want of the German preforma-
tive, which the supines and past participles of that lan¬
guage require ; 4. the want of two of the forms which the
German has in the inflection of its adjectives, that language
having four, whilst the banish has only two, a definite and
an indefinite. There are several characters besides, posi¬
tive as well as negative, which distinguish the Scandina¬
vian and Teutonic languages from each other; but the
above are a few of the most essential. Yet the similitude,
and even identity, of roots is so great between the Teu¬
tonic and Scandinavian languages, that no doubt can be
entertained of their common origin. The separation, how¬
ever, of these languages into two distinct families must have
taken place long before the period of commencement of
authentic history, and thus their identity of origin is only
a matter of philological inference.
The modern Danish is a daughter of the Norse, or an¬
cient Danish, formerly called Norrcena or Donsh Tunga ;
and it bears exactly the same relation to that language as
Italian bears to Latin. In both cases we have the same
curtailing, simplification, and abandonment of inflections,
the same sacrifice of inversion and artificial construction,
the same process of softening the idiom, and of substitut¬
ing what is considered as beauty for energy and grandeur.
The modern Danish is a much softer language than it is ge¬
nerally supposed to be. When a foreigner hears it spoken
for the first time, he hardly perceives any sounds in it ex¬
cept the vocalic; and the consonants are so much softened
in pronunciation that they scarcely appear. Of course the
vocalic system of this language is very perfect. Rask has
distinguished ten vowels in Danish, the sounds of all which
are quite distinct.
The educational institutions of Denmark have reached
a very high degree of perfection ; indeed few countries, if
any, can compete with Denmark in this respect. Most of
the peculiar advantages in the Danish system seem to
arise from this, that all schools, both grammar and other,
have been put in a state of dependence on the university
and under its control, whilst the university itself is particu¬
larly well managed. All educational institutions of the coun¬
try are now managed by a royal college consisting of three
or four assessors and a president, called the royal commis¬
sion for the university and grammar-schools. This commis¬
sion has no superior but the king, and reports to him directly.
It appoints all professors in the university of Copenhagen
(not those in Kiel, for that university belongs to another Denmark,
department), all rectors, co-rectors, and other teachers of
grammar-schools in Denmark Proper (not in Holstein or
Sleswick), and promotes these functionaries from lower to
higher grades. Education is compulsory. Poor parents
pay a nominal sum weekly for the education of their chil¬
dren at the government schools, so that almost all the lower
class can read and write. Confirmation is also compulsory.
Until that rite has been received, the youth of both sexes
are in statu pupillari. Certificates of baptism, confirmation,
and vaccination are indispensable before entering on service,
apprenticeship, or matrimony.
In Danish literary history the following names are parti- Authors,
cularly distinguished. Holberg, of Norwegian origin, was
an eminent poet and historian; he was at once the Swift
and the Hume of Denmark. Bartholin, Lungebeck, Suhm,
Luxdorff, and Schjonning, were historians and antiquaries.
Treschow is much admired as an eclectic philosopher.
Both the Thorlaciuses, father and son, were very eminent
scholars and critics ; their works are chiefly written in Latin.
The Danes have especially excelled in dramatic poetry.
Their most eminent poets are Ewald, Wessel, Thaarup,
Samsoe, Abrahamson, Ingemann, Johan Ludwig Heiberg,
Adam Oehlenschlager, and Cure Bernhard. The two last
are most popular. The two brothers Oersted are highly
distinguished; Andreas as a lawyer and philosopher, and
Hans Christian Oersted as a chemist, and for his discoveries
in natural science. Among the antiquarians, the best known
names are Suhm, Magnusen, Wormius, and Thomsen. As
to philology, it will be enough to mention the name of
Erasmus Rask.
The centre of literary activity is Copenhagen. Since the
late war history has gained by the labours of Goerde and
Schiern. The latter has published a work on the origin of
the races of Europe. Last of all we have only to mention
the memoirs of Oersted, the great jurisconsult and present
minister, as well as a new poem, by Paludan Muller, the
well-known author of Adam Homo.
The Danish language is spoken by three-fourths of the
population: the remaining fourth, inhabiting Holstein, Sles¬
wick, and Lauenburg, speak German.
The following is a list of the Kings of Denmark from the
earliest times.
Year. Year.
Gormo, from 714 till
Sigefridus 
Gelticus 
Olaiis III 
Hemmengius  
Uingo Siwardus 
Ilarald I. I
Black )  
Siwardus II., 
Eric I., 
Eric II., 
Canute I.,  
Gormo II., 
Harald II.,, 
Gormo III.,  
Harald III., 
Suenon I., 
Canute II., the Great,...
Canute III. (Hardica-1
nute), J
Magnus, 
Suenon II., 
Harald IV., 
Canute IV.,  
Olaiis IV., 
Eric III., 
Nicolas, 
Eric IV.,  
Eric V., 
Suenon III., 
"Waldemar I., the 1
Grand,  J
764
765
809
810
812
817
843
846
847
854
873
897
909
930
980
1015
1036
1042
1048
1074
1080
1086
1095
1106
1134
1139
1147
1157
1182
Canute V.,    1203
Waldemar II.,  1241
Eric VL,  1250
Abel,  1252
Christopher I.,  1259
Eric VII.,  1286
Eric VIII.,  1320
Christopher II.,  1336
Waldemar III.,  1375
Olaiis V.,  1387
Margaret, Queen of j
Sweden, Norway, V 1412
and Denmark,  )
Eric IX.,   1439
Christopher III.,  1448
Christian I.,  1481
John,  1513
Christian II.,  1523
Frederick I.,   1533
Christian III.,  1559
Frederick II.,   1588
Christian IV.,  1648
Frederick III.,  1670
Christian V.,  1699
Frederick IV.,   1736
Christian VI.,  1746
Frederick V.,  1766
Christian VII.,  1808
Frederick VI.,  1839
Christian VIII.,  1848
Frederick VII.
(J. L—E.) (E. S—D.)
DEN
Dennis. DENNIS, John, a celebrated critic, was the son of a
respectable tradesmen in London, and born in the year 1657.
He received the first branches of education at the great
school of Harrow on the Hill, where he commenced ac¬
quaintance and intimacy with many young noblemen and
gentlemen who afterwards made a considerable figure in
public affairs. By these means he laid the foundation of a
very strong and extensive interest, which, but for his own
fault, might have been of infinite use to him in his future
life. From Harrow he went to Caius College, Cambridge,
where, as soon as he was of proper standing, he took the
degree of bachelor of arts. When he quitted the univer¬
sity, he made the tour of Europe, in the course of which he
conceived such a detestation of despotism, as confirmed him
still more in those Whig principles which he had from his
infancy imbibed.
On his return to England, he became early acquainted
with Dryden, Wycherly, Congreve, and Southerne, whose
conversation, inspiring him with a passion for poetry, and a
contempt for every attainment that had not in it something
of the belles leltres, diverted him from the acquisition of any
profitable art, or the exercise of any profession. This, to a
man who had not an independent income, was undoubtedly
a misfortune. However, his zeal for the Protestant succes¬
sion having recommended him to the patronage of the Duke
of Marlborough, through that nobleman he obtained a place
in the customs worth L.120 per annum. This he enjoyed
for some years, till, from profuseness and want of economy,
he was reduced to the necessity of disposing of it to satisfy
some very pressing demands. By the advice of Lord Halifax,
how'ever, he reserved to himself, in the sale of it, an annuity
for a term of years; which term he outlived, and hence, in
the decline of his life, he was reduced to extreme necessity.
The following is an instance of the whimsical idea he
had of his own importance :—In 1704 appeared his favou¬
rite tragedy Liberty Asserted ; in which there were so many
strokes against the French nation, that he thought they
were never to be forgiven. He had worked himself into a
persuasion that the king of France would insist on his be¬
ing delivered up before consenting to conclude a peace;
and, full of this idea of his own importance, when the con¬
gress was held at Utrecht, he is said to have waited on his
patron, the Duke of Marlborough, in order to desire that
no such article might be stipulated. The duke told him that
he had really no interest then with the ministry; but that
he had made no such provision for his own security, though
he could not help thinking he had done the French as much
injury as Dennis himself. Another story relating to this
affair is, that being at a gentleman’s house on the coast of
Sussex, and walking one day on the sea-shoi’e, he saw a
ship sailing, as he fancied, towards him. He instantly set
out for London, in the fancy that he was betrayed; and
congratulating himself upon his escape, gave out that his
friend had decoyed him down to his house in order to sur¬
render him up to the French.
Dennis, partly through a natural peevishness and petu¬
lance of temper, and partly perhaps for the sake of procur¬
ing the means of subsistence, was continually engaged in
controversy with his contemporaries, whom he always treated
with the utmost severity; and though his observations wTere
sometimes judicious, yet he conveyed them in language so
scurrilous and abusive as destroyed their intended effect;
and as his attacks were almost always on persons of abili¬
ties greatly superior to himself, as Addison, Steele, and
Pope, their replies usually turned the popular opinion so
strongly against him, that, by irritating his testy temper,
they rendered him a perpetual torment to himself. Pope
has pilloried him in the Dunciad and in the following
epigram:—
Should Dennis publish you had stabb’d your brother,
Lampoon’d your monarch, or debauch’d your mother;
DEO 751
Say, what revenge on Dennis can be had ?
Too dull for laughter, for reply too mad:
On one so poor you cannot take the law;
On one so old your sword you scorn to draw;
Uncag’d then let the harmless monster rage,
Secure in dulness, madness, want, and age.
At length, after a long life of vicissitudes, disappoint¬
ments, and turmoils, rendered wretched by indiscretion,
and hateful by malevolence, he was compelled to submit to
the degrading humiliation of receiving obligations from
those whom he had been continually reviling. In the very
close of his days a play was acted for his benefit at the little
theatre in the Haymarket, through the united interests of
Thomson, Mallet, and Pope; the last of whom, notwith¬
standing the gross manner in which Dennis had calumniated
him on many occasions, interested himself very warmly in
his behalf, and even wrote an occasional prologue to the
play, which was spoken by Cibber. Not long after this,
on the 6th of January 1733, the unfortunate man died, in
the seventy-seventh year of his age.
DENOMINATOR, in Arithmetic, that number placed
below the line in vulgar fractions that shows the number
of parts into which the integer is divided.
Denominator of a Ratio, is the quotient arising from
the division of the antecedent by the consequent. Thus 6
is the denominator of the ratio 30 to 5; because 30 divided
by 5 gives 6. This is otherwise called the exponent of the
ratio.
DENSITY (Lat. densitas), compactness or closeness
of constituent parts. It is opposed to rarity. A body is
said to have double or triple the density of another body,
when, the bulk being equal, the quantity of matter in the
one is double or triple the quantity in the other. No body
is absolutely dense; that is, all bodies contain interstices,
or have a certain degree o f porosity.
DENTAL (Lat. dentalis ; from dens, a tooth), in Gram¬
mar, a term applied to an articulation or letter which is pro¬
nounced by placing the tongue against the upper teeth, as
d, t, th.
DENTATUS, Curius, a renowned and highly disinte¬
rested Roman general, whose virtues render him more me¬
morable than even his great military reputation, flourished
272 years b. c. He was thrice consul; he conquered the
Samnites, Sabines, and Lucanians ; and he gave each citi¬
zen forty acres of land, reserving no more for himself. The
ambassadors of the Samnites, who paid him a visit, found
Dentatus boiling turnips in a pipkin, and they hence in¬
ferred that he might be gained over to their interest by a
bribe; but Dentatus told them that his design was not to
grow rich, but to command those who were so. He defeated
Pyrrhus near Tarentum, and received the honour of a
triumph.
DENTIFRICE (Lat. dens, a tooth, andfrico, to rub),
any preparation for cleaning or preserving the teeth. Den¬
tifrices very similar to those of the present day appear to
have been in general use among the Romans.
DENTILS, in Architecture. See Glossary to Archi¬
tecture.
DENTITION, the breeding or cutting of Jeeth in
children.
D’ENTRECASTEAUX’S Channel, a strait on the
south-east coast of Van Diemen’s Land, from which it se¬
parates Bruny’s Isle. It is about 35 miles in length, and
contains several harbours and islets.
DENUNCIATION, a solemn publication or promul¬
gation implying accusation or threatening.
DEOBSTRUENTS, in Pharmacy, such medicines as
remove obstructions and open the natural passages.
DEODAND fDeo dandum, a thing to be given to God)
has been used in England from very early times to denote
any personal chattel which is forfeited because it has been
the immediate cause of death to a human being. For ex-
Denomina-
tor
Deodand.
752 D E P
Deodhur ample, if a horse strike his keeper and kill him; if a man,
II in driving a cart, meet his death by falling under the wheel;
v°Pi atory^ if a tree, when felled, falls and kills a person : in the first
case the horse, in the second the cart-wheel, cart, and
horses, and in the third the tree, are forfeited to the king,
to be applied to pious purposes, and distributed in alms by
his high almoner. In general, however, the right to deo-
dands—within certain limits—was granted by the crown
either to individuals for an estate of inheritance, or as per¬
taining to lands. “ Omnia quae movent ad mortem sunt
deodanda,” says Bracton. This law probably was derived
from that promulgated in Exodus xxi.—“ If an ox gore a
man or a woman that they die, then the ox shall be surely
stoned to death, and his flesh shall not be eaten; but the
owner of the ox shall be quit:” and afterwards the instrument
came to be devoted to pious uses. Fleta (a pseudonymous
commentator on English law in the reign of Edward I.)
says that the deodand is to be sold, and the price distributed
to”the poor, for the soul of the king, his ancestors, and all
faithful people departed this life. The rule has been, that
when the instrument of death is at rest, and is composed of
several parts, the particular part by which the person is killed
shall alone be forfeited ; as, for instance, if a man, in climb¬
ing up the wheel of a cart, falls and is killed, the wheel only
is a deodand.
This ancient custom was abolished by act 9th and 10th
Viet., cap. 62, which enacts that subsequent to September 1,
1846, there shall be no forfeiture of chattels in respect of
homicide.
DEODHUR, a town of Hindustan, situated on the north¬
west frontier of Gujerat. Its population consists principally
of rajpoots and coolies. It possesses a citadel 150 yards
square, which is well fortified; and it is surrounded by a wall
and deep ditch. The town labours under a great deficiency
of water, and is hemmed in by the jungle, which comes up
close to the houses. It is the principal place of a small in¬
dependent territory, which pays no tribute to any govern¬
ment. Its ruler, nevertheless, acknowledges the supremacy
of the British ; but the paramount power exercises no inter¬
ference in the internal administration of affairs. The town
of Deodhur is in Eat. 24. 9. Long. 71. 49. (e. t.)
DEONELLA, or Deonhully, a town and fort of Hin¬
dustan, in Southern India, belonging to the rajah of Mysore.
The place is unimportant, except from its association with
historical recollections. It appears to have been the birth¬
place of Hyder Ali, and it was here that he made his first es¬
say in arms. Here also, in 1753, was born his son, Tippoo
Saib. Itwas taken by Lord Cornwallis in 1791. Itisl9miles
N.N.E. of Bangalore. E. Long. 77. 46.; N. Lat. 13. 15.
DEPHLEGMATION, an antiquated term to denote
the process of separating water from spirits or acids by eva¬
poration or distillation. This is otherwise termed concen¬
tration, particularly when acids are the subject.
DEFHLOGISTICATED, in Chemistry, deprived of
phlogiston, or the supposed principle of inflammability.
Dephlogisticated Air, an old term for oxygen gas.
DEPILATORY (Lat. depilo, to pull out the hair),any
application for removing hair from the human skin without
injuring its texture. Depilatories act either mechanically or
chemically. The former are commonly mere plasters of pitch
and resin, which, by their adhesive property, bring away the
hair from the surface to which they have been applied. The
true depilatories act by penetrating the pores of the skin,
and destroying the bulbous roots of the hairs. Of these
there are several kinds; but none can be compared for effi¬
cacy to the celebrated Oriental rusma, which is prepared
as follows:—
“ Mix two ounces of quicklime with half an ounce of orpiment
or realgar (sulphuret of arsenic); boil that mixture in one pound
of strong alkaline lye, then try its strength by dipping a feather
into it, and when the flue falls off the rusma is quite strong enough.
It is applied to the skin by a momentary friction, followed by wash-
D E P
ing with warm water. Such a caustic liquid should be used with Deponent
the greatest circumspection, beginning with it somewhat diluted. ||
A soap is sometimes made wdth lard of the above ingredients; or Depura-
soft soap is combined with them : in either case to form a depilatory tion.
pomade. Occasionally one ounce of orpiment is taken to eight y ^ /
ounces of quicklime, or two to twelve, or three to fifteen ; the last ”
mixture being of course the most active. Its causticity may be
tempered by the addition of one-eighth of starch or rye flour, so as
to form a soft paste, which being laid upon the hairy spot for a few
minutes, usually carries away the hairs with it. The rusma should
never be applied but to a small surface at a time, for, independently
of the risk of corroding the skin, dangerous consequences might
ensue from absorption of the arsenic.”—(lire’s Diet, of Arts, Ac.)
However, a safer, and very effectual depilatory, is formed
by impregnating cream of quicklime with sulphuretted hy¬
drogen.
DEPONENT, in Latin Grammar, a term applied to
verbs which have active significations, but passive termina¬
tions or conjugations; as loquor, I speak.
Deponent, in Law, one who gives a deposition or testi¬
mony on oath in a court of justice, or to be used as evidence.
DEPOSITION, in Law, the testimony given in court
by a witness upon oath.
Deposition also denotes the sequestrating or depriving a
person of his dignity and office. See Deprivation.
DEPRESSION of the Pole. When a person sails or
travels towards the equator he is said to depress the pole,
because as many degrees as he approaches nearer the equa¬
tor, so many degrees will the pole be nearer the horizon.
This phenomenon arises from the spherical figure of the
earth.
Depression of a Star, or of the Sun, is its distance be¬
low the horizon, which is measured by an arc of a vertical
circle intercepted between the horizon and the place of
the star.
Depression of the Visible Horizon, or Dip of the Ho¬
rizon, denotes its sinking or dipping below the true hori¬
zontal plane, by the observer’s eye being raised above the
surface of the sea, in consequence of which the observed
altitude of an object is by so much too great.
DEPRIVATION, in the canon law, is of two kinds,
namely, a benejicio, and ab officio.
Deprivation a benejicio is, when for some great crime
a minister is wholly and for ever deprived of his living or
preferment; which differs from suspension, in that the lat¬
ter is only temporary.
Deprivation ab officio is, when a minister is for ever
deprived of his order, which is the same, in reality, with
what we otherwise call deposition and degradation. De¬
privation is usually awarded for some heinous crime de¬
serving death, and is performed by the bishop with solemn
formalities. See Degradation.
DEPTFORD, a parliamentary borough of England, in
the counties of Kent and Surrey, at the junction of the
Thames and the Ravensbourne, three miles from London,
and contiguous to Greenwich. The lower town, next the
river, consists of narrow irregular streets and ill-built houses;
but the upper town is superior in these respects. By the Re¬
form act, Deptford unites with Greenwich, &c., in returning
two members to parliament. Pop. (1851) 27,896. It con¬
tains an extensive naval arsenal, victualling office, and dock¬
yards covering an area of 31 acres; private dock-yards;
two large hospitals for decayed shipmasters and pilots, or
their widows, well-endowed and regulated by the elder
brethren of Trinity House ; also, a well-endowed charity
school, dispensary, barracks, savings-bank, and a royal naval
school incorporated in 1840. See Dock-Yards.
DEPURATION (Ital. depurare, to purge), the act of
freeing any fluid from heterogeneous matter. It is of three
kinds: first, by decantation, when the feculent matter will
be deposited at the bottom of the vessel; secondly, by de-
spumation, effected by boiling or fermentation, and skim¬
ming, or by clarification ; and, thirdly, by filtration.
Derby.
D E Jl
Deputation DEPUTATION, a mission of select persons, out of a
company or body, to treat with other parties in their name
, u DEPUTY, a person employed tomanage a particular'
business by some community or individual in authority. Also
one who exercises an office in another’s right.
DERA GHAZEE KHAN, a large and populous town
ot Afghanistan, four miles from the right bank of the Indus
in N. Eat 30. 5., E. Long. 70. 52. It has an extensive
transit trade, and manufactures of silks, cottons, scarfs, and
coarse cutlery. The bazaar contains 1600 shops. Pop. about
25,000, of whom nearly one-half are Hindus, the rest Mo¬
hammedans.
DERA ISMAIL KHAN, a considerable town of Af¬
ghanistan, built at a short distance from the right bank of
the Indus, to replace the former town of that name, which,
being only 100 yards from the river, was swept away by
a flood so that not a vestige of it was left. N. Lat. 31. 50.;
E. Long. 70. 58. It has a considerable transit trade, and
extensive manufactures of white cotton cloth. Pop. about
8000.
DERBEND, or Derbent (the ancient a forti¬
fied town of Russia, capital of the province of Daghestan,
situated on the western shore of the Caspian, 135 miles
N.N. W. of Baku. Pop. 1200. It is built in the form of a
pai ailelogram, and extends from the shore to the declivity
of a mountain ridge running N.E. from the Caucasus, and
terminating about a mile from the Caspian. The walls
which inclose the town on the north and south are of great
antiquity, and very strong, being 8 feet thick and 26 feet
high, and many of the stones are cubes of 6 feet. They are
strengthened by numerous round and square towers; and
the citadel in the upper part of the town is well fortified. It
has little trade, owing to the poverty of the surrounding
countries, but very fine saffron is cultivated in the neigh¬
bourhood. The harbour is one of the worst on the Caspian
Sea. It had formerly a quay, which is now sunk under
water. Derbend is a place of great antiquity. The cele¬
brated khaliph Haroun-al-Raschid lived here at different
times, and brought the town into great repute, by promot¬
ing commerce and the arts. In the convulsions of this part
of Asia it has frequently changed masters. In 1722 it was
taken possession of by the Russians, who retained posses¬
sion ot it until 1735, when it was restored to the Persians.
In the war with Persia in 1796, it surrendered to the Rus¬
sians, and has ever since remained in their possession.
DERB\, a municipal and parliamentary borough of Eng¬
land, capital of the county of that name, is pleasantly situ¬
ated in a wide and fertile valley on the Derwent, which is
navigable hence to its confluence with the Trent. Besides
the Derwent the town is traversed by the Markeaton brook,
both being crossed by several handsome bridges. On the east
ank of the river, opposite to Derby, was the Roman station
Derventio. I he chief public buildings are, the town and
county halls, the prison, jail, and county lunatic asylum,
t contains seven churches, a Roman Catholic chapel, general
mfiimary, mechanics’ institute, and a philosophical society
founded by Dr Darwin, who here composed the greater por¬
tion of his works. Here are extensive manufactories of silk,
cotton, and fine worsted stockings. The silk-mill is the first
and largest of its kind erected in England. Derby also con¬
tains large porcelain works, and manufactories where all kinds
of ornaments are made of the marbles, spars, petrifactions, &c.,
found in the neighbourhood. All Saints’ church contains
numerous monuments of the Cavendish family. Richardson
the novelist was a native of this town. A castle once existed
at Derby; but the last remains of the building are said to
have disappeared during the reign of Elizabeth. Several
religious establishments were founded here at a very early
period; but no vestiges of them now remain. Prince Charles
Stuart advanced as far as Derby on his march into Eng¬
land, and the house in which he lodged is still pointed out
VOL. VII.
D E R
753
Through the munificence of Joseph Strutt, Esq., the work¬
ing classes of Derby possess peculiar opportunities of en¬
joyment and gratification. This public-spirited individual
appropriated nearly eleven acres of land, containing an ex¬
tensive collection of trees and shrubs, for the recreation of
the inhabitants and their families. This piece of land, called
the Arboretum, was tastefully laid out, at the donor’s ex¬
pense, by J. C. Loudon, Esq. F ive acres of ground have
since been added and laid out in a similar manner. The
Derby grammar-school is supposed to be one of the most
ancient foundations of the kind in the kingdom. Flamsteed,
the astronomer, received his early education in this school.
It is governed by a mayor, 12 aldermen, and 36 councillors,
and returns two members to parliament. Pop. (1851)40,609.
DERBYSHIRE was, in the time of the Britons, a por¬
tion of the district which constituted the kingdom of the
Contani. During the government of the Romans, it formed
a part of Britannia Prima; and under the Heptarchy it was
included in the kingdom of Mercia. It is situated nearly in
the centre of England, and is bounded on the east by the
county of Nottingham and a part of Leicestershire ; on the
west it is divided from Staffordshire and Cheshire by the
rivers Trent, Dove, the Etherow, and Goyt; on the north
it has Yorkshire and a part of Cheshire, and on the south
Leicestershire. Its figure is very irregular, but approaches
rudely to that of a triangle. The greatest length of Derby¬
shire fiorn south-east to north-west is about fifty-six miles;
its greatest width from east-north-east to west-south-west
thirty-three. It contains 1029 square miles, or 658,803 sta¬
tute acres.
This country is divided into the hundreds of High Peak,
Scarsdale, Appletree, Repton and Gresley, Morleston and
Littchurch, and the wapentake of Wirksworth. It contains
fourteen market-towns, viz., Alfreton, Ashbourne, Ashover,
Bakewell, Helper, Buxton, Chapel-en-le-Frith, Chesterfield,
Cromfbrd, Derby, Ilkeston, Tideswell, Winster, and Wirks¬
worth. It consists of 132 parishes, besides parts of six
others; is included as an archdeaconry in the diocese of
Lichfield and Coventry; and is divided into six deaneries,
viz., High Peak, Chesterfield, Ashbourne, Castillar, Derby,
and Repington. This county returns four members to the
House of Commons, and for that purpose it has been formed
into two divisions. The northern part comprehends the
whole of the hundreds of High Peak and Scarsdale, and so
much of the wapentake of Wirksworth as is comprised in
Bakewell division : the polling-place is the town of Bake¬
well. The southern part comprehends the hundreds of
Appletree, of Repton and Gresley, of Morleston and Litt¬
church, and the remainder of the wapentake of Wirksworth,
and the polling-place for the division is the town of Derby!
Derby gives the title of earl to the noble family of Stanley,
Chesterfield the same title to that of Stanhope, and Har-
tington affords the title of marquis to his Grace the Duke of
Devonshire.
There is no English county which presents such a variety
of scenery as Derbyshire. The surface of the southern
district is, for the most part, pretty level, containing nothing
remarkable in its hills, and consequently little of the pic¬
turesque. But the northern part abounds in hill and dale,
and the scenery is in many places romantic and sublime.
The county rising gradually from the south to the town of
Wiiksworth, and thence to the north, assumes a mountain-
ous appearance, which it continues to possess to its ex-
ti emity. I hese elevations are the commencement of that
mountainous ridge which from thence divides the island and
extends into Scotland. Ihe highest points in the moun¬
tainous tract of Derbyshire are—Ax Edge,about three miles
south-west of Buxton ; Lord’s Seat, near Castleton; and
Kinderscout, near the north-western extremity of the county.
About the town of Derby, and to the south of it, the country
is flat and low. In the hilly districts some of the valleys
5 c
Derby¬
shire.
754 DERBY
Derby- are very beautiful, particularly those of Castleton and Glos-
Bhire. SOp . but what constitutes the most picturesque and singu-
's—lar scenery of this county is the great number and variety
of smaller valleys or dales with which the limestone district
abounds. These may differ in extent and some particular
circumstances, but the general characteristics of them are
precipitous rocks of very singular and picturesque forms,
with mountain streams and rivulets running through the
lower parts of the dales, the sides of which are generally
well wooded. The most celebrated of these are, Matlock-
Dale, on the river Derwent; Monsal-Dale, the upper part
of which is called Millers-Dale, on the river Wye ; Mid¬
dleton-Dale, Eyam-Dale, and Dove-Dale. In Matlock-
Dale is a stupendous rock, called the High-Tor, rising al¬
most perpendicularly from the river to the height of about
300 feet.
The soils of Derbyshire consist chiefly of clay, loam,
sand, and peat, very irregularly intermixed. The southern
part, which has been distinguished by the appellation of the
fertile district, consists principally of a red loam, on various
subsoils, which approaches to marl, clay, loam, sand, grit
or gravel, according to the nature of the substratum, or its
exposure to the atmosphere. Peat mosses are abundant in
the northern part of the county, denominated High Peak.
The substrata of most of the southern portion of the county
consist of gravel, intermixed with large portions of red
marl of very irregular forms, in several parts of which are
beds of gypsum of considerable extent. The substrata of
the other parts of Derbyshire consist of limestone of various
kinds, and toadstone or trap ; shale and sandstone, coal and
indurated clay, resting on each other in alternate layers.
Derbyshire is a well-wooded county, and several of the
noblemen’s parks contain fine oaks of very noble appearance.
Those of Kedlestone Park, the seat of Lord Scarsdale, are
supposed to be the largest and oldest in the kingdom, se¬
veral being thought to be eight hundred years old.
The atmosphere and climate of Derbyshire vary very
much in different parts. From its northern situation, even
the southern part of the county is colder, and more fre¬
quently visited with rain, than many of the other central
counties. In summer, cold and thick fogs are frequently
seen hanging over the rivers, and surrounding the bases
of the hills, and hoar-frosts are not unfrequent even in the
months of June and July. Owing to the great elevation
of the northern parts, some kinds of grain will not grow at
all in the Peak, and even that which is sown in the more
sheltered places is seldom cut till late in the year. The
winters are, in general, very severe; and the mountains by
attracting the clouds in their passage over them, cause this
region to be distinguished from the others by the greater
quantity of rain that falls.
The chief rivers are, the Trent, the Derwent, the Wye,
the Dove, the Etherow, the Earwash, and the Rother. The
Trent does not intersect the county, but forms the boun¬
dary between it and Staffordshire on the south. The Der¬
went, which rises at the northern extremity of the county,
has a course of 40 miles. It was formerly navigable from
Wylne-Ferry up to Derby, but the navigation was aban¬
doned when the Derby Canal was completed in 1795. The
Wye has its origin a little to the north of Buxton, and falls
into the Derwent near Rowsley. The Dove, which has
its source in the High Peak, a few miles to the south of
Buxton, is for many miles the boundary between Derby¬
shire and Staffordshire: it falls into the Derwent near
Newton-Solney. I he Wye and the Dove are celebrated
for their trout and grayling fishing. The river Rother
rises near Padley, and, after running by Chesterfield, enters
Yorkshire near Killamarsh. The Earwash flows from the
skirts of Sherwood Forest in Nottinghamshire, and falls
into the Trent near Long Eaton. The Etherow rises
amongst the hills at the northern boundary of the county,
SHIRE.
flows nearly due south, dividing Derbyshire from Cheshire, Derby,
and, meeting the Goyt near Marple, assumes the name of shire.
Mersey. The lesser rivers are—the Amber, Barbrook, Bur- v"*-
bage, Ecclesburn, Goyt, Lathkill, Maese, and the Morledge.
Derbyshire has several canals intersecting it in different
directions. The Trent and Mersey, or Grand Trunk Ca¬
nal, communicating between Liverpool and London, and
also with Bristol and Hull, was begun in 1776 by the ce¬
lebrated Brindley, a native of the county, and completed
in 1777 under his able successors Smeaton and Rennie.
It passes through Derbyshire, from Burton to its termina¬
tion at Wilden-Ferry, following the course of the Trent.
The Chesterfield Canal was begun in 1771 by Brindley,
and completed by his brother-in-law Mr Henshall in 1776.
It enters the county at Killamarsh, and terminates at
Chesterfield. The Langley Bridge, or Earwash Canal,
begun in 1777 by Mr Jessop, commences in the Trent
navigation, near Sawley, and terminates at Langley Mill.
It runs parallel to the little river Earwash, and opens into
the Cromford Canal. The Peak Forest Canal was com¬
menced in 1794, and finished in 1800. It proceeds from
the Ashton-under-Line Canal, near Dukinfield Bridge,
and terminates at Chapel Milton, Derbyshire. The Crom¬
ford Canal was begun in 1789. Its line is wholly in Der¬
byshire, commencing at Langley Mill, where the Earwash
terminates, and ending at Cromford. It was completed
in 1794 by Mr Jessop. The Ashby-de-la-Zouch Canal,
begun in 1793, but not finished until 1805, is connected
with the southern part of Derbyshire ; its line passing by
Willesley and Measham. The line of the Derby Canal
is entirely in this county: commencing in the Trent and
Mersey Canal, north of Swarkstone, passing by Derby,
with a branch to Little Eaton, and terminating in the Ear-
wash Canal, half a mile south of Sandiacre. The Nut-
brook Canal was made in 1793. It commences in the
Earwash Canal, and, after running four miles and a half,
finishes at Shipley Wharf. The Midland Railway traverses
the county, and numerous branch lines connect the various
points. One line from Ambergate proceeds up the beau¬
tiful vale of the Derwent through Matlock, to Rowsely,
a little way from Haddon Hall. The High Peak Railway
is intended to connect Buxton and Castleton with the south.
This county is celebrated for its metals and minerals.
They are various and plentiful, particularly in the limestone
strata. Lead ore is found in several forms, but most com¬
monly as galena or sulphuret of lead. That species called
slickenside, with a smooth glossy surface, is found in the
Odin and Castleton mines. The amount of silver found
in the Derbyshire lead is not sufficient to repay the trouble
of separating it. Carbonate of lead sometimes occurs. Cala¬
mine, or carbonate and siliceous oxide of zinc, is found at
Castleton, Cromford, Bonsall, and Wirksworth. It occurs in
various colours and of different qualities ; sometimes in no¬
dules, in a botryoidal form, and in the ochreous state. Blende,
or black-jack, another ore of zinc, is also obtained. Cop¬
per has been found in small quantities only. Pieces of
considerable size, detached from any vein, have frequently
been met with at Matlock and Bonsall; and a slender
vein has been discovered between Tideswell and Buxton.
Iron ore is found in very great abundance in all those
tracts of the county where coal has been discovered. It
lies at different depths ; and frequently, from the great dip
of the strata, appears upon the surface of the ground.
The beds of ore are from two to twelve inches thick, pro¬
ducing chiefly that of the argillaceous kind; but the car¬
bonates, or sparry iron ores, of a fine brownish-red colour,
sometimes bright yellow, scaly, or dirty brown, are found in
amorphous masses near the surface, and filling detached cavi¬
ties. The principal foundries and forges are Butterley,
Codnor, Morley Park, Wimrerworth. Chesterfield, Biddings,
and Stavely.
DERBYSHIRE.
Derby¬
shire.
Springs.
The ore of manganese appears in various forms. The
ores of aisenic and antimony are found in small (juantitieSj
^ united with lead ore. quartz crystals, various crystals of
calcareous spar, and of tluor or fluate of lime, gypsum, se¬
lenite, and barytes, here called cauk. The most beautiful
among the minerals of this county is that much admired fluor
known by the name of Blue John, or Derbyshire spar,
found in the fissures of the limestone, in the neighbour¬
hood of Castleton. This substance, when polished, exhi¬
bits an infinite variety of blue, purple, red, and yellow
shades; and from being transparent shows the colours to
greater advantage. A considerable trade is carried on in
Buxton, Castleton, Bakewell, Matlock, and a few other
places, in the manufacture of various ornaments, as vases,
cups, inkstands, and tables, from this spar, and the variously-
coloured marbles. Petroleum, or mineral oil, is found in
the black marble at Ashford. Elastic bitumen, a substance
peculiar to this county, resembling in appearance the com¬
mon Indian rubber, is also found in the cavities of the Odin
mine.
Coal is very plentiful, abounding in large fields in seve¬
ral districts. It is of different degrees of hardness, comes
out of the pit in long foliated masses of a shining fracture,
burns with a brilliant flame and crackling noise, and leaves
a reddish-white ash. The limestone of this county is of
various colours, white, gray, yellow, blue, and black ; and
is of various qualities, some being soft, and some sufficiently
hard to be polished into beautiful marble. A variety, of
a deep red colour, similar to Rosso antico, has been found
near New Haven. The Duke of Devonshire preserves it
for particular purposes. Fine freestone, greenstone, shale,
clunch, stalactitical concretions, and fuller’s earth, are also
found in different parts. Impressions of leaves and plants,
a great variety of coralline bodies, fossil shells, and even a
small alligator, have been found imbedded in the limestone
of this county.
The warm mineral and other springs have long been cele¬
brated. The principal are those of Buxton and Matlock.
The heat of the Buxton water is 82°, and never varies with
the temperature of the atmosphere. The water is remark¬
ably pure, being very slightly impregnated with saline par¬
ticles. It is used both for bathing and drinking, and is
chiefly recommended for gout, rheumatism, derangement of
the biliary and digestive organs, and diseases of the urinary
passages, for all of which it is of considerable efficacy. There
are various public and private baths, both for ladies and gen¬
tlemen, and one open gratis to the poor. It appears from
several remains discovered at different times that these
waters were known to the Romans; and from their time
to the present they have been resorted to by invalids.
The following analysis of the Buxton waters is by Sir
Charles Scudamore.
Gaseous contents in a Gallon.
Cubic Inches.
Carbonic acid.... DSO
Azote 4’64
6-14
Solid Contents in a Gallon.
Grains-
Muriate of magnesia  *58
■  soda  2'40
Sulphate of lime    -60
Carbonate of lime 10-40
Extractive matter, &c  ’50
Loss     ‘52
15-00
Matlock water is not so warm as the Buxton, the ther¬
mometer seldom rising to more than 68° of Fahrenheit.
The springs issue from between fifteen and thirty yards above
the level of the river. Higher or lower the springs are cold,
differing in nothing from common water. The water is very
pure, and less impregnated with mineral substances than
that of Buxton. There are also several baths at Matlock,
which are much resorted to.
There is a tepid chalybeate spring at Bakewell, the tem¬
perature of which is about 59°. It is tonic, and recom¬
mended for indigestion, debility, and chronic rheumatism.
Here there are good baths. At this place there is also a
spring, which has been found to contain in sixty quarts thir¬
teen cubic inches of sulphuretted hydrogen. The tepid
spring at Stony-Middleton much resembles that of Matlock,
but it is not so wrarm, being only 63°. There are several
other tepid springs in the county. Among the sulphureous
springs, that of Kedleston is the strongest. It is like the
Harrowgate water, and is used externally for most cutaneous
diseases, particularly for those of an ulcerous nature ; while
it is taken internally as an antiscorbutic and diuretic. There
are cold and warm baths. Other sulphureous springs are
also found in many districts. The most celebrated chaly¬
beate water is at Quarndon, three miles from Derby, which
is a good deal frequented.
Among the wonders of Derbyshire, all authors mention
the intermitting spring at Barmoor, near Tideswell. It is
generally called the Ebbing and Flowing Well; but the
intermission is not regular, for in dry seasons the ebbing and
flowing ceases for several weeks, and in wet vveather it often
ebbs and flows every ten minutes.
I he southern and south-eastern parts of this county are
the best cultivated ; and great quantities of excellent wheat
and barley are grown there. The arable lands in the north¬
ern parts are chiefly cultivated for oats, of which grain there
is a great consumption, oaten bread leavened being the prin¬
cipal food of the lower classes. The dairy country is around
Ashbourne and the south-western side of the county.
The breed of cows in this county has been very much
improved of late years. They are in general horned, large,
and handsome ; yielding upon an average ten quarts of milk
a-day, and three cwt. of cheese annually. They are most
commonly speckled, with large well-turned horns, though of
late the short-horned Lancashire breed has been introduced.
The horses of Derbyshire are well adapted to the different
regions of its diversified surface. In the northern districts
the breed is small, of light and slender make; in the southern
parts they are in general of a strong and heavy kind ; and
in the stables of the country gentlemen this beautiful ani¬
mal may be found in the full perfection of its symmetry.
The sheep also vary in size. Those that are bred on the
borders of Leicestershire differ but little in weight from the
breed of that county ; but they gradually diminish in size
as we proceed northwards, till they get as small as any in
the kingdom. The stock consists of about 360,000, yield¬
ing about 9000 wool packs annually. The parks in the
county are well stocked with fallow-deer.
The woollen manufactories, for which this county was
formerly celebrated, are now confined to the worsted-spin¬
ning at Derby, Melbourne, and Tideswell, and to the weav¬
ing a few blankets at Chesterfield. The first silk-mill
established in this kingdom was introduced into Derby in
the beginning of the last century, and the improved machi¬
nery of it was brought from Italy by the celebrated John
Lombe. This mill is still worked with the original machi¬
nery ; but very great improvements have been made of late
years in the construction of the spinning apparatus ; and the
facility attained in working the several articles of silk manu¬
facture has contributed to the extension of this branch of
business in a very eminent degree. The manufacture of
stockings was introduced into Derbyshire about 1717; and
this acquired additional celebrity by the ingenious discovery
of Strutt, who introduced a machine for making ribbed
stockings about the year 1755.
1 he manufacture of cotton was introduced in the year
1771, when Sir Richard Arkwright, the inventor, esta¬
blished one of the first cotton-mills on the improved prin¬
ciples ; and in 1773 he, in conjunction with Mr Jedediah
Strutt and Mr Need, made at Derby the first successful
attempt to establish the manufacture of calicoes in this king¬
dom. This county, therefore, is the cradle of the most im-
755
Derby¬
shire.
756 DEE
Derby- portant branches of the cotton trade ; and, at the present
shire, moment, an immense capital is employed in the business,
which is carried on to a great extent.
There are in several places manufactures of linen, and
flax-spinning is carried on in others, but upon a small scale.
White and red lead works, various manufactures connected
with the iron trade, marble and spar works, a long esta¬
blished and celebrated porcelain manufactory, and grindstone
mills, are found in different parts of the county. In the
town of Derby there is a considerable quantity of jewellery
goods prepared, of good taste and quality.
The real property was estimated in 1815 at L.883,370 ;
in 1843 at L.1,379,025, of which L.1,024,204 was on rail¬
ways, L.40,638 on mines, L.21,454 on canals, and L.6005
on iron works. The county income in 1848 was L.18,489.
Among the singular customs of Derbyshire may be men¬
tioned that of rush-bearing (now nearly obsolete), a ceremony
of strewing the churches on a certain day w ith rushes. It
usually takes place on the anniversary of the dedication of
the church, or on midsummer eve. The ancient custom of
hanging up in the churches garlands of roses, with a pair of
gloves cut out of white paper, which had been carried be¬
fore the corpses of unmarried women at their funerals, still
prevails in many parishes of the Peak ; and that of dressing
wells and fountains with flowers is still preserved at Tissing-
ton, where Holy Thursday is devoted to the festival. The
country wakes are generally observed here, on the Sunday
following the day of the dedication of the church or chapel,
or on the day of the saint to w hom it is dedicated.
The British antiquities of this county are druidical cir¬
cles, tumuli of earth and stones, rocking-stones, rock-ba¬
sins, and some rude military works in the uncultivated parts
of the county. The Roman remains deserving of notice are,
the altar preserved in Haddon-Hall, the inscribed pigs of
lead now in the British Museum, and the silver plate found
in Risley Park. Several Roman roads, the remains of which
are still visible, passed through the county; and many sta¬
tions of consequence may be easily traced.
The ecclesiastical edifices of this county exhibit the taste
of different ages. Of the Saxon period is the crypt under
Repton church, which is supposed to be the remains of the
conventual church, destroyed by the Danes in the year 874.
Melbourne church is a very perfect specimen of the mas¬
sive style of architecture which prevailed in the eleventh
century. The desecrated church of Steetly exhibits a very
complete specimen of the latter and more enriched style
of Saxon architecture on a small scale. Other and numer¬
ous remains of Saxon architecture are to be found in this
county.
Specimens of the early Gothic style are not frequent;
and those of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries are in¬
considerable, except the tower of All-Saints at Derby,
which has been generally and deservedly admired. It is
about 150 feet high, and richly ornamented with Gothic
tracing.
The only monastic buildings in this county, of which any
remains at present exist, are Dale Abbey, the arch of the
east window of which still stands ; Beauchief Abbey, now
used as a church ; part of the original Saxon monastery of
Repton, and an ancient brick tower, which formed part of
the prior’s lodging.
The ancient castles of Derbyshire whose ruins now re¬
main are those of Castleton, Codnor, Horsley, and Mel¬
bourne. Castleton was most probably erected by William
Peverill, to whom the manor was given by William the
Conqueror; Codnor was the ancient seat of the Grey family;
Horsley was built in the beginning of the thirteenth cen¬
tury, by Ferrers, earl of Derby ; and Melbourne existed as-
early as the time of Edward the Third.
The most remarkable mansion-house in this county, in
point of antiquity, is Haddon-Hall, belonging to the Duke
DEE
of Rutland. It has been erected at various times, but no Dercetis
part later than the middle of the sixteenth century. The
manor-house of South Wingfield, a very splendid and spa- Derivative,
cious edifice, erected by Lord Ralph Cromwell in the reign
of Henry VI., is now a mere ruin, having been suffered to
fall into decay soon after the civil war in the seventeenth
century.
The noblemen’s seats are—Chatsworth, the chief seat, and
Hardwick, the occasional residence, of the Duke of Devon¬
shire ; Elvaston, the seat of the Earl of Harrington ; Sud¬
bury, that of Lord Vernon ; Kedleston, the elegant mansion
of Lord Scarsdale; Bretby, the seat of the Chesterfield
family; Doveridge, that of Lord Waterpark; and Hassop,
that of the Earl of Newburgh.
The population of the county in 1851 amounted to
296,084, of whom 147,737 were males, and 148,347 females,
being an increase of 83 per cent, in 50 years. There were
288 persons to a square mile, and 2’2 square acres to a per¬
son. The inhabited houses were 59,371, uninhabited 2498,
and those in the course of erection numbered 453, making
a total of 62,322.
Belonging to the Church of England there are 250
places of worship, with 89,714 sittings; to other denomi¬
nations 526 places of worship, with 105,481 sittings. Day
schools 840, scholars 37,271 ; Sunday schools, 558, scholars
55,307. (J. b. D.)
DERCETIS, or Derceto, a Syrian goddess. See
Atergatis.
DEREHAM East, or Market-Dereham, a clean,
well built, and pleasantly situated market-town of England,
county of Norfolk, 16 miles W.N.W. of Norwich. The
principal building is the parish church, an ancient cruciform
edifice surmounted by a tower ; and containing a rich an¬
tique font, many interesting relics, and a monument to the
poet Cowper, who was interred here in 1800. The vicinity
is highly cultivated, and has many gardens and orchards.
Market-day Friday. Pop. (1851) 3372.
DERELICTS (from de, and relinquo, to leave), in the
civil law, are such goods as are thrown away or relinquished
by the owner.
DERG LOUGH. See Donegal.
DERH AM, William, D.D., an English divine and na¬
tural philosopher of considerable eminence, was born at
Stoughton near Worcester, in 1657. He received the ru¬
diments of his education at Blockley in his native county,
and was afterwards entered of Trinity College, Oxford,
where he graduated with much distinction in 1679. Three
years later he became vicar of Margrave in Berkshire ; and
in 1689 was preferred to the valuable living of Upminster
in Essex. He had now leisure to devote himself to his
favourite pursuits, and published his Artificial Clockmaher,
a work which rapidly went through several editions. The
best known of his subsequent works are his Physico-Theo-
logy, published in 1711-12; his Astro-Theologyi 1714;
and his Christo-Theology, 1730. For these services to
science and theology he was first made a canon of Windsor,
and ultimately received the degree of D.D. from Oxford.
His last work, entitled A Defence of the Church s right in
Leasehold Estates, was published a short time before lus
death, which happened in 1735. Besides the worl pub¬
lished in his own name, Derham contributed largely to the
periodical literature of his day ; revised the Miscellanea
Curiosa; wrote the notes for Albin’s Natural History;
and published some of the MSS. of Ray the botanist and
Hooke the natural philosopher.
DERIVATIVE, in Grammar, a word which takes its
origin from another word, called its •primitive. Such is the
word derivative itself, which takes its origin from the pii-
mitive rivus, a rivulet or channel, out of which lesser sti earns
are drawn. Thus manhood, deity, lawyer, are derived from
man, deus, law.
D E S
Dervis DERVIS, Dervise, or Dervish, a name given to a kind
!l of Turkish priests or monks, who lead a very austere life,
Desaix de an(j profess extreme poverty, though they are allowed to
Voygoux. marry< 'phg worcl is originally Persian, and signifies a beg-
gar, or one who has nothing; and because religious persons,
particularly the followers of Mevelava, pretend not to pos¬
sess anything, the religious in general, and the Mevelavites
in particular, are called Dervises or Dervishes.
The dervises called Mevelavites are a Mohammedan
order of religious persons, the chief or founder of which
was one Mevelava. They are now exceedingly numerous.
Their chief monastery is situated near Cogna, in Natolia,
where the general has his residence, and where the assem¬
blies of the order are held ; the other houses being all de¬
pendent on this, by a privilege granted to the monastery
under Ottoman I.
The dervises affect a great deal of modesty, patience,
humility, and charity. They go bare-legged and open-
breastecl, and frequently burn themselves with hot irons, in
order to inure themselves to patience. They fast regularly
on Wednesdays till after sunset; and on Tuesdays and
Fridays they hold meetings, at which the superior of the
house presides. One of them plays all the while on a flute,
and the rest dance, whirling their bodies round with the
greatest rapidity imaginable. This practice they observe
with great strictness, in memory of Mevelava, their patri¬
arch, having turned miraculously round, as they pretend,
for the space of four days, without any food or refreshment,
his companion Hamsa playing all the while on the flute;
after which he fell into an ecstacy, in which he received
wonderful revelations for the establishment of his order.
They believe the flute an instrument consecrated by Jacob
and the shepherds of the Old Testament, and that the lat¬
ter sang the praises of God accompanied by this instrument.
They profess poverty, chastity, and obedience, but seldom
practise these virtues. For the most part they are either
fools, fanatics, or knaves; most generally the last.
DERWENT, the name of several English rivers. See
Cumberlandshire ; Derbyshire ; Navigation, Inland.
DERWENTWATER. See Cumberland.
DESAGUILIERS, Jean Theophile, D.D., a dis¬
tinguished philosopher and mechanician, was born at Ro¬
chelle, March 12, 1683, and brought to England whilst yet
an infant by his father, who was a French Protestant mini¬
ster, and had left his native country at the revocation of
the edict of Nantes. He received his education at Christ-
Church, Oxford, where he ultimately succeeded Dr Keil
in reading lectures on experimental philosophy at Hart-
Hall. Dr Desaguiliers became chaplain to the Duke of
Chandos, who presented him to the living of Edgeware; and
he afterwards was made chaplain to Frederick Prince of
Wales. He continued to read lectures with great success
till his death in 1749. To the Philosophical Transactions he
communicated many curious papers. He also published a
valuable Course of Experimental Philosophy, in 2 vols.
4to; and gave to the world an edition of Gregory’s Ele¬
ments of Catoptrics and Dioptrics, with an appendix on re¬
flecting telescopes, 8vo. He was a member of the Royal
Society, and of several foreign academies. The following
lines of the poet Cawthorn depict the indigence and neglect
into which he fell in his old age :—
How poor, neglected, Desagui tiers fell!
How he who taught two gracious kings to view
All Boyle ennobled, and all Bacon knew,
Died in a cell, without a friend to save,
Without a guinea, and without a grave.
DESAIX DE VOYGOUX, Louis Charles Antoine,
one of the most distinguished generals of the French repub¬
lic, was born at Vegou, near Riom in 1768. The first en¬
gagement in which he took part was the battle of Lauter-
burg in which he was wounded ; and when Moreau exe-
D E S 757
cuted his masterly retreat through the Black Forest, Desaix Desault,
contributed not a little to the success of that memorable v v— >
exploit. After some gallant achievements, such as the
repulse of the Archduke Charles at Rastadt, and the de¬
fence of the bridge of Kehl, he accompained Bonaparte to
Egypt, where he dispersed the Arabs, and for his various
services was made commander of Upper Egypt. On his
return to Europe he found Bonaparte marching to the con¬
quest of Italy. With a small squadron he hastened to join
the first consul, whom he overtook at Marengo at the very
moment when the Austrians had deemed themselves secure
of the victory. His timely arrival changed the fortune of
the day; but in the moment of victory he was shot through
the heart and immediately expired, 14th June 1800. His
body was embalmed at Milan, and finally deposited in the
convent of Mount St Bernard, where a handsome monu¬
ment is erected to his memory.
DESAULT, Pierre Joseph, a distinguished French
surgeon, was born at Magny-Vernais, a village of Franche-
Compte, in 1744. He was descended of humble parents;
received the early part of his education in a school of the
Jesuits, and was destined for the church; but his own in¬
clination tended to the study of medicine; and he was at
length settled as an apprentice in the military hospital of
Befbrt. Here he acquired some knowledge of anatomy
and surgery ; and having previously made considerable pro¬
gress in mathematical studies, he applied this knowledge,
after the example of Borelli and others, to the investigation
of physiological subjects. He early translated the work of
Borelli De motu Animalium, and added notes and illustra¬
tions, which, although founded on wrong principles, gave
undeniable proofs of zeal and industry.
He went to Paris when about tw enty years of age, and
opened a school of anatomy in the winter of 1766, which
was soon attended by about three hundred pupils, a great
proportion of whom were older than himself. His success
excited the jealousy of the established teachers and profes¬
sors, who exerted all the influence of authority to silence
hirn ; and although he was patronized and protected by
some surgeons of great eminence, the strength of the op¬
position would have obliged him to renounce public teach¬
ing, had he not eluded all their efforts by the expedient of
adopting the name of another as a sanction to his proceed¬
ings. His reputation was now greatly extended ; but still
he declined private practice, till he should be established
in some distinguished public station. In 1776 he was ad¬
mitted a member of the corporation of surgeons; and so
limited were his finances at this time, that he was indulged
by that body in paying his fees at his own convenience.
He successively filled the honourable stations in the cor¬
poration and academy of surgery; and in 1782 he was ap¬
pointed surgeon-major to the hospital De la Charite.
Desault was now regarded as one of the first surgeons of
Paris. He succeeded to the next vacancy at the Hotel
Dieu ; and, after the death of Moreau, almost the whole
surgical department of that hospital was intrusted to him.
Here he instituted a clinical school of surgery on a liberal
and extensive plan, which attracted a great concourse of
students, not only from every part of France, but also from
foreign countries. An audience composed of about 600
students frequently met to hear his instructions ; and most
of the surgeons of the French army derived their knowledge
from his lectures. He introduced many improvements into
the practice of surgery, as well as in the construction of
various surgical instruments.
In 1791 he published a work entitled Journal de Chir-
urgerie, the object of which was to record the most inte¬
resting cases which had occurred in his clinical school, with
the remarks which he had made upon them in the course of
his lectures. The editing of this w'ork was intrusted to his
pupils. But in the midst of his valuable labours he became
758 D E S
Descant obnoxious to some of the prevailing parties of that turbulent
II period; and in 1792 he was, on some frivolous charge, de-
^escent. nounce(j |.0 p0pUlar sections. After being twice ex-
amined, he was seized while delivering a lecture, carried
away from his theatre, and committed to the prison of the
Luxembourg. In three days, however, he was liberated,
and permitted to resume his functions. When the school
of health was established, he was appointed clinical pro¬
fessor for external maladies ; and it was through his means
that the Eveche was converted into an hospital for surgical
operations.
The dreadful scenes of May 1795 made so deep an im¬
pression on his mind, that from the apprehension of a re¬
newal of the horrors which he had formerly experienced,
he was seized with an ataxic fever, accompanied with de¬
lirium, which put an end to his life June 1st of that year.
From the circumstance of his having attended the dauphin
in the Temple, and his death having happened but a short
time before that of the prince, an opinion was prevalent
among the populace that he was poisoned because he had
refused to do anything against the dauphin’s life. This
story seems to be without foundation ; but it affords a proof
of the opinion entertained by the public of Desault’s inte¬
grity. A pension was settled on his widow by the repub¬
lic. Fame, and not emolument, having always been the
object of his ambition, he neglected many opportunities of
acquiring wealth. His temper was ardent, and sometimes
rather violent; but his sentiments were always elevated
and noble, and hence his pupils called him Le Bourru
Bienfaisant. The only work of which he is the sole author
is entitled Traite des Maladies Chirurgicales, et des Ope¬
rations qui leur conviennent, in 2 vols. 8vo.
DESCANT, or Discant, an old musical term signify¬
ing what has since been called counterpoint.
DESCARTES. See Cartes, Des.
DESCENSION, in Astronomy,is either right or oblique.
Bight Descension is an arc of the equinoctial inter¬
cepted between the next equinoctial point and the inter¬
section of the meridian, passing through the centre of the
object, at its setting, in a right sphere.
Oblique Descension is an arc of the equinoctial inter¬
cepted between the next equinoctial point and the horizon,
passing through the centre of the object, at its setting, in
an oblique sphere.
DESCENT (Eat. descensus), is the act of passing from
a higher to a lower place. Thus, all bodies, unless other¬
wise determined by a force superior to their gravity, de¬
scend towards the centre of the earth.
Descent, or Hereditary Succession, in Law, is the title
by which a man, on the death of his ancestor, acquires his
estate by right of representation, as his heir-at-law.
Descent is either lineal or collateral. The former is
that which is conveyed down in a right line from the grand¬
father to the father, and from the father to the son, and
from the son to the grandson. The latter is that which
springs out of the side of the line or blood, as from a man
to his brother, nephew, or the like.
Descent of Dignities. A dignity differs from common
inheritances, and goes not according to the rules of the
common law; for it descends to the half-blood, and there
is no coparcenership in it, but the eldest takes the whole.
The dignity of peerage is personal, annexed to the blood,
and so inseparable that it cannot be transferred to any
person, nor surrendered even to the crown ; it can move
neither forward nor backward, but only downward to pos¬
terity ; and nothing but corruption of blood, as when the an¬
cestor is attainted of treason or felony, can hinder its de¬
scent to the right heir.
Descent, in Genealogy, the order succession of descend¬
ants in a line or family, or their distance from a common pro¬
genitor. Thus we say one descent, two descents, and so on.
DES
DESERT (Lat. desertum, participle of desero, to desert, Desert
to leave), a large tract of barren country ; a waste. Some ||
deserts are sandy, as those of Lop, Xamo, Arabia, and se-DesiSnator-
veral others in Asia; and in Africa those of Libya and Sa-
hara; whilst others are stony, as the desert of Pharan in
Arabia Petraea. It appears, however, that in all the sandy
deserts of considerable extent there are large tracts of
clayey soil, interspersed with hills of sandstone and lime¬
stone. (See Denham’s Travels.)
DESHACHE, in Heraldry, is where a beast has its
limbs separated from its body, so that they still remain on
the escutcheon, with only a small separation from their na¬
tural places.
DESIDERATUM (Latin) is used to signify the desir¬
able but not yet acquired perfection in any art, science,
&c.: thus, it is a desideratum with the blacksmith to ren¬
der iron fusible by a gentle heat, and yet preserve it hard
enough for ordinary uses; with the glass-maker, to render
glass malleable ; and with the clockmaker to bring pendu¬
lums to be useful where there are irregular motions.
DESIGN (Fr. dessein, from Lat. designo), a scheme or
plan; purpose, intention ; a representation of a thing by an
outline or sketch ; &c.
Design, in the manufactories, expresses the figures with
which the workman enriches his stuff or silk, and which he
copies after some pattern.
Design, in Painting, is the first idea of a large work,
drawn roughly; to be afterwards carefully executed and
finished. See Drawing, and Perspective.
Design, Schools of, are establishments for instructing
pupils in the art of drawing. In some the instruction is
confined to what is subservient to the fine arts; but in
others, especially in the very admirable establishment at
Edinburgh, under the Board of Trustees of Arts and Manu¬
factures, not only is attention paid to the instruction of the
painter and the sculptor, but design is taught, to perfect
the mechanic in the principles of his art, wherever orna¬
mental pattern is required. Such schools have been long
opened in France, and various parts of Germany, from
which important benefit has been conferred on the manu¬
facturing industry of .those countries, The Edinburgh
School of Design appears to have been the first established
in Britain for the express improvement of manufacturing
industry. It is most ably conducted, and has found its pupils
in demand for the chief seats of English manufacturing art.
In England, besides the establishment at Somerset House,
London, there is a branch school of design in Spitalfields that
is well attended. Similar schools are now established in Bir¬
mingham, Manchester, Coventry, Nottingham, Leeds, York,
Huddersfield, Sheffield, Norwich, Stoke-on-Trent, New¬
castle-on-Tyne, Hanley, Glasgow, and Paisley.
Design, in Music, is defined by Rousseau to be the in¬
vention and the conduct of the subject, the disposition of
every part, and the general order of the whole.
It is not sufficient to form beautiful airs and a legitimate
harmony; all these must be connected by a principal sub¬
ject, to which the various parts of the work relate, and by
which they become one. Thus unity ought to prevail in
the air, in the movement, in the character, irt the harmony,
and in the modulation; and all these must indispensably
relate to one common idea which unites them.
DESIGNATION(LvX.designatio, from designo,\,opoint
out, to describe), the act of marking or indicating and mak¬
ing a thing known. The designation of an estate is made
by the tenants, butments, and boundings. Amongst the
Romans there were designations of the consuls and other
magistrates, some time before their election.
DESIGNATOR, in Roman Antiquity, an officer who
assigned and marked out to each person his place and rank
in public ceremonies, shows, processions, and the like ; ancj
who thus was a kind of marshal or master of ceremonies.
D E S
Desmou- There were designators also at funeral solemnities, as well
lins. as at the games, theatre, and shows.
DESMOULINS, Camille Benoit, the most highly
gifted of all the literary men who took part in the first
French Revolution, was born at Guise in Picardy in 1762.
After a singularly brilliant career at school and college he
adopted the profession of the law ; but the frivolous levity
of his manner precluded the possibility of his permanent
success at the bar. He then began to take part in the po¬
litical questions which at that time agitated France. Deeply
versed in the literature of ancient Greece and Rome, he
conceived that the social constitution of these countries
might be applied to remedy the state of anarchy and dis¬
order into which his native country had at this time fallen.
With this idea he published his two first works, La Philo¬
sophic au peuple Francois (1788) and La France libre
(1789). On hearing of the dismissal of Necker he rushed
to the Palais Royale, where he soon infected a large mul¬
titude of bystanders with the fanaticism with which he was
himself inspired. Pulling some leaves oft' an adjoining tree,
he fixed one in his own hat and distributed the rest among
his hearers. This was the origin of the national cockade
and the prelude of the insurrection. Desmoulins next be¬
gan to publish, under the title of Les RevolutionsdeFlandres
et de Brabant, a periodical which gave a strong impulse to
the march of events. This work owed its success as much
to the exaggerated sentiments and bold theories which it
embodied as to the brilliant colouring and rapid energy of
style which it displayed side by side with the most revolt¬
ing cynicism. An example of this latter character may be
found in the title which the author assumed as procureur-ge-
neral de la Lanterne. In 1790, Desmoulins married a young
French woman, by name Lucile Duplessis, with whom he re¬
ceived a considerable fortune. Of the sixty persons who at¬
tached their names to his marriage contract, there remained
six months later only two, Danton and Robespierre ; all the
rest were either in exile or guillotined. The charge against
Desmoulins of complicity in the September massacres has
been now proved to be utterly devoid of foundation. At the
trial of Louis XVI. Desmoulins voted for the king’s execu¬
tion, “though too late, perhaps,” he said, “ for the honour of
the convention.” He now threw the whole weight of his in¬
fluence and genius into the cause of the Mountain against
the Girondins; and, by his satirical pamphlet entitled His-
toire des Girondins, contributed not a little to bring on the
trial and secure the execution of these ill-fated men. But
this was more than Camille had intended; and when he saw
his twenty-two victims led to the scaffold, he cried out in
accents of despair, “ ’Tis I who have brought them to the
gibbet.” From this time he greatly moderated the extra¬
vagance of his sentiments, though too late to benefit either
his country or himself. In 1793 he published the first num¬
bers of the Vieux Cordeliers, which produced an immense
sensation. In his previous works he had undertaken the
task of unfolding the abuses of the old regime ; in this he
set himself to expose the horrors of the new. Taking Taci¬
tus and Juvenal for his models, he traced out, under the
thin disguise of ancient forms, the crimes of the modern
tyrants of France. He had even the boldness, in the
face of decrees which inserted terror in the order of the
day, to propose the formation of a committee of clemency.
This ill-judged moderation drew down upon its proposer
the fiercest execrations of the still powerful Mountain; and
Desmoulins’ haughty reply to the motion of Robespierre,
that the published numbers of the Vieux Cordeliers should
be burnt, made that all-powerful despot his mortal enemy.
Soon afterwards appeared the seventh number of his journal,
which concluded with the memorable words, “ The gods are
athirst.” On the night of the 30th of March 1794, Desmou¬
lins, along with his friend Danton, was arrested at the in¬
stigation of St Just; and shortly afterwards these two prime-
DES 759
movers of the Revolution perished on the same scaffold. Desna
On the evening before his death, Desmoulins wrote from ||
his prison a letter to his wife, which, indeed, was never deli- Desuitor,
vered to her, but which has come down to our days, a mo-
nument of sincere and ardent affection. This letter alone
is sufficient to prove that Desmoulins’ heart was not unsus¬
ceptible to impulses of high and virtuous thought, and makes
us deplore that the faculties he possessed should have been
so early and so completely abused.
DESNA, a river of European Russia, rising in the go¬
vernment of Smolensk, flowing through those of Orel and
Tchernigov, and falling into the Dnieper nearly opposite
Kiev, after a course of about 600 miles. It is navigable
during the greater part of its course.
DESPOT, an absolute sovereign; a tyrant. The word
originally had the same signification as the Latin herus, and
the English master; but in time it underwent the same
change as the word Ccesar did with regard to Augustus;
BACIAEYC answering to Augustus, and AECIIOTHC,
despotes, to Caesar. Thus, Nicephorus having ordered his
son Stauracius to be crowned, the son, out of respect, would
only take the title of AECIIOTHC, leaving to his father
that of BACIAEYC. This delicacy, however, did not last
long; for the following emperors preferred the quality of
AECIIOTHC to that of BACIAEYC, particularly Constan¬
tine, Michael Ducas, Nicephorus Botoniates, Roman us
Diogenes, the Comneni, and some others. In imitation of
the princes, the princesses likewise assumed the title of
AECIIOINA. It was the Emperor Alexius, surnamed the
Angel, who created the dignity of despot, and made it the
first after that of emperor, and superior to that of Augustus
or Sebastocrator and Caesar. The despots were usually the
emperors’ sons or sons-in-law, and their colleagues or co¬
partners in the empire, as well as their presumptive heirs.
The despots who were sons of the emperors had more pri¬
vileges and authority than those who were only sons-in-law.
Under the successors of Constantine the Great, the title
“ Despot of Sparta” was given to the emperor’s son or bro¬
ther, who had the city of Sparta or Lacedaemon by way of
appanage.
DESPOTICAL, in general, denotes anything that is
uncontrolled and absolute; but it is particularly used for
an arbitrary government, where the power of the prince is
unlimited, and his will a law to his subjects.
DESPOUJLLE, in Heraldry, the whole skin or slough
of a beast, with all appurtenances, so that when filled and
stuffed it looks like the entire creature.
DESPREAUX. See Boileau.
DESSAU, a city of Germany, capital of the duchy of
Anhault-Dessau, the residence of the duke, and the seat of
the government. It is situated on the left bank of the
Mulda, about 3 miles from its confluence with the Elbe; and
67 miles S.W. of Berlin, with which it is connected by
railway. The town is walled on three sides, while oh the
fourth or eastern it is bounded by the river, which is here
crossed by a handsome bridge. It consists of an old and
new town, and four suburbs (one of which is on the right
bank of tlie river), and in 1846 had 12,000 inhabitants, of
whom 800 were Jews. The ducal palace, originally founded
in 1341, is a handsome building, containing a picture gal¬
lery and collections of art, with a fine pleasure garden at¬
tached. Among the other buildings are the palace of the
duchess-dowager, town-hall, theatre, Amelia asylum, and
the city church. The new cemetery is elegantly laid out,
and contains many fine monuments. The schools and li¬
terary and scientific institutions are numerous. Mendel¬
sohn the philosopher was born here in 1729.
DESSERT, a service of fruits and sweetmeats, usually
served up last at table.
DESTINY, among philosophers and divines. See Fate.
DESULTOR, in Antiquity, the name given to a per-
760 D E T
Determi- son who leapt from one horse to another as a feat of dex-
nate terity. In the Iliad (xv. 679) a performer of this kind is
II represented keeping four horses at full speed and leaping
v etrm j from one to another like equestrian performers in the mo-
dern circus. These exhibitions were very popular among
the Romans, who appear, however, to have used but two
horses for the purpose. The Greeks and the Romans ap¬
pear to have borrowed this kind of equestrian exercise from
the Numidians, who, it seems, applied it to the purposes of
war. Livy (xxiii. 29) mentions a troop of Numidian horse,
of which each man was provided with two horses, which
were used alternately as occasion required. 1 he Scythians,
Armenians, and some Indian tribes, wrere likewise noted for
feats of this kind.
DETERMINATE Problem, in Geometry ana Ayialy sis,
is that which has but one solution, or a certain limited num¬
ber of solutions; in contradistinction to an indeterminate
problem, which admits of an infinite number of solutions.
Determinate Section, the name of a tract or general
problem, written by the ancient geometrician Apollonius.
None of this work has come down to us, excepting some ex¬
tracts, and an account of it by Pappus, in the Pieface to
the 7th book of his Mathematical Collections. He there
says that the general problem was “ To cut an infinite right
line in one point, so that, of the segments contained be¬
tween the point of section sought, and given points in the
said line, either the square on one of them, or the rectangle
contained by two of them, may have a given ratio, either to
the rectangle contained by one of them and a given line, or
to the rectangle contained by two of them.”
DETERMINATION, in Mechanics, the tendency or
direction of a body in motion. See Mechanics.
DETINUE (Fr. detenir, to detain), in Law, a writ or
action that lies against one who wrongfully detains goods or
other things delivered to him, or in his possession.
DETMOLD,a small city of Northern Germany, capital
of the principality of Lippe-Detmold, is situated on the
Werre, 46 miles SAV. of Hanover. It is divided into an
old and new town, the latter of which is well built, and con¬
tains the palace, a gymnasium, normal seminary, trades’
school, hospital, orphan asylum, theatre, Bible society, and
about 5000 inhabitants.
DETONATION (Eat. detono, to thunder),-in Chemis¬
try, an explosion or sudden report made by the inflamma¬
tion of a combustible body, as that of gunpowder, fulmina¬
ting gold, &c.
DETRANCHE, in Heraldry, aline bend-wise, proceed¬
ing always from the dexter side, but not from the very angle,
diagonally athwart the shield.
DETRITUS (Eat. detritus, worn), a geological term de¬
noting a mass of substances detached by attrition from solid
bodies. It is applied to the finer portions of debris, which
last generally comprises detritus, while detritus excludes the
idea of the larger debris.
DETROIT, a city and port of entry of the United States
of N. America, capital of the county of Wayne, Michigan,
situated on the west bank of the Detroit strait or river, which
connects lakes Huron, St Clair, and Erie. Eat. 42. 2. N.,
Long. 83. 2. W. The city extends along the river for more
than a mile and a-half, its central point being 7 miles from
Lake St Clair, and 18 from Lake Erie. The river is here
about five-eighths of a mile in width, and its depth varies
from 12 to 48 feet. The descent from Lake St Clair to Lake
Erie is about 6 feet or 3 inches per mile; and the velocity
of the current at the deepest part, opposite the city, is 2J
miles per hour. Its shores on both sides are highly culti¬
vated ; and, from its outlet into Lake Erie to its origin at
Lake Huron, resemble a continuous village with fine farms,
pleasant villas, groves, gardens, and excellent roads. The
town is well and regularly built, extending in the form of a
rectangle for about 1200 feet from the river, and afterwards
D E IT
terminating in a triangle. Some of the principal streets are Deucale-
200, others 120, and others 60 feet wide. These generally donius
cross each other at right angles. The houses are mostly of ])eU(^ion
wood, but many of them are of brick. The principal of the \ ca^Qn-
public buildings are—the old State House, the United States "" v~'*'
Buildings (of polished limestone), the state buildings for the
supreme courts, public offices, county court-house, county
jail, city hall and market, the new Catholic cathedral, and the
cathedral of St Anne. There are numerous schools and
churches, and several charitable asw'ell as literary and scien¬
tific institutions. Detroit is well supplied with water from
the river, by means of hydraulic machinery in the upper
part of the town. Ship and boat building is a large and im¬
portant branch of business; and there are several large steam
saw'-mills, iron foundries, &c. Detroit has a very extensive
trade, for which it enjoys many advantages. The harbour
is capacious and secure. It is connected by the Michigan
Central railroad with Chicago rid New Buffalo and Michi¬
gan city, a distance of 258 miles, and by the Pontiac, with
the town of that name, 20 miles distant. The Great West¬
ern railway, about to be constructed through Canada, will
bring it into direct communication with the New York and
other eastern routes. The vessels cleared at the port in
1851 were 2611 of 920,690 tons ; entered, 2582 of 905,646
tons. The periodical press of Detroit consists of 3 daily
newspapers, 1 tri-weekly, 7 weekly, and 2 monthly. In 1802
the village of Detroit was incorporated ; in 1810 the act of
incorporation was repealed, and in 1815 it received its pre¬
sent charter of incorporation. The population in 1801 \yas
only 770, and in 1830, 2222; in 1840 it amounted to 9193,
and in 1850 to 21,057 ; while in the summer of 1853 it was
34,439. This, however, includes only those within the cor¬
porate limits; beyond which there is a numerous population,
whose entire occupation and interests are in the city.
DEUCALEDONIUS Oceanus (supposed to be de¬
rived from the Gaelic words Duah Gael, the JSorthern
Highlanders), the sea on the north-west of Scotland.
DEUCALION, king of Phthia, in Thessaly, was the
son of Prometheus and Clymene. The flood said to have
happened in his time (b.c. 1500) is supposed to have been
only an inundation of that country, occasioned by heavy
rains, and an earthquake which stopped the course of the
river Peneus at the place where it previously discharged
itself into the sea. On these circumstances the fable of
Deucalion’s flood is founded. According to the tradition,
Deucalion, being forewarned by his father of the impend¬
ing deluge, built a ship, in which, with his wife Pyrrha, he
was saved, when the rest of mankind perished in the flood.
When the waters subsided, their ship was stranded on Mount
Parnassus. The first care of Deucalion and bis wife was
to consult the oracle of Themis as to the means by which
the earth was to be repeopled. The oracle ordered them
to veil their heads and faces, to unloose their girdles, and to
throw behind their backs the bones of their great mother.
At this advice Pyrrha was seized with horror; but Deu¬
calion explained the mystery by observing, that their great
mother must mean the earth, and her bones the stones.
The stones which Deucalion threw over his head became
men, while those thrown by his wife became women. Some
writers have supposed that Deucalion may be identified
with the patriarch Noah; and that Deucalion’s flood in
Thessaly, as well as that of Ogyges in Attica, and of Pro¬
metheus in Egypt, were the same as the great deluge re¬
corded in Scripture. Diodorus Siculus expressly says, that
in the deluge which happened in the time of Deucalion
almost all flesh died ; and Apollodorus after mentioning how
Deucalion took refuge, tv Xapvdia, or in the ark, describes
him as immediately af ter his deliverance sacrificing to /.cus
Phyxius, Jupiter, the preserver of fugitives. I he most
minute account of the traditions concerning the deluge of
Deucalion, is to be found in Lucian, a native of Samosata,
DEV
Deunx of Commagene, on the Euphrates. His narrative coincides
|| with the Mosaic version to a surprising extent.
Deventer. DEUNX, in Homan Antiquity, 11 ounces, or of the
v'—libra, and of other things.
DEU TEROC ANONICAL, a term applied in modern
times to those sacred books, originally denominated eccle¬
siastical and apocryphal, which were not included in the
Jewish canon, but, being contained in the old Greek versions,
were publicly read in the early Christian church.
DEUTERONOMY, the Alexandrian name of the
Fourth Book of Moses. See Pentateuch.
DEUTEROPOTMI, or Usteropotmi, in Grecian An¬
tiquity, a designation given to such persons as had been
supposed dead, and, after the celebration of the funeral rites,
appeared alive.
DEUTEROSIS, the Greek name by which the Jews
designated their Mischnah or second law.
DEUX FONTS (German Zweibrilkeri), a town in the
Bavarian circle of the Palatinate, on the Erbach, near its
confluence with the Serre, 50 miles W. of Spires. It was
formerly the capital of a duchy of the same name, originally
governed by its own dukes, and which afterwards passed
successively into the power of Sweden and of Bavaria.
During the wars of the revolution this duchy was taken pos¬
session of by France, and confirmed to it by the peace of
Luneville ; but it was restored to Bavaria by the peace of
Paris in 1814. The town is pleasantly situated and well
built. The old palace of the dukes of Deux Fonts, formerly
one of the finest in Germany, was in a great measure de¬
stroyed by the French, and part of it has been converted
into a Roman Catholic church. It has a cathedral and two
Lutheran churches; a gymnasium, lyceum, orphan asylum,
hospital, and 7300 inhabitants. The principal manufactures
are woollen, linen, and cotton stuffs; besides leather and
tobacco. The town derives its name from two bridges,
which here cross the Erbach. The well-known Bipontine
edition of the classics was published here.
DEVA, the ancient name of Chester, which see; and also
of the Dee, an estuary on which stood the town of Devana,
near the modern Aberdeen.
DEVAPRAYAGA, a town of Northern Hindustan, in
the native state of Gurwhal, situated at the junction of the
Bhagarathi and Aluknunda rivers, the union of which forms
that part of the Ganges held most sacred by the Hindus,
who believe that bathing in its waters wall purify them from
all their sins. This is one of the five principal prayags, or
holy points where two rivers meet, mentioned in the Shas-
tras, and is considered as peculiarly sacred. The town stands
on a spur of the mountain, about a hundred feet above the
water. It contains only 250 houses, which are built of
stone, two stories high, and covered with shingles. In the
upper part of the town stands the celebrated temple of Ra-
macbandra, constructed of large blocks of cut stone, piled
up without mortar to the height of sixty feet. The presiding
deity is an image about six feet high, cut in black stone,
the lower part of which is painted red. The town is chiefly
inhabited by Brahmins of different sects, who draw rich con¬
tributions from the superstition of the pilgrims; besides w'hich
they have an estate consisting of twenty-five villages. The
town and temple suffered much by an earthquake in 1803.
The latter was repaired at the expense of Dowlut Rao
Scindia. Long. 78. 39. E.; Lat. 30. 8. N. (e. t.)
DEVENTER, a fortified town of Holland, province of
Overyssel, on the right bank of the Yssel, where that river
is joined by the Schipbeek, 18 miles S. by E. of Zwolle. This
town is strongly fortified, and has a handsome town-house,
a cathedral, seven churches, an athenaeum, college with an
extensive library and an observatory, and a large iron foundry.
The chief manufactures are linen, carpets, hosiery, and iron
ware; and it has a considerable trade in dairy and agricul¬
tural produce and in cattle. (Pop. 1850) 15,004.
VOL. VII.
DEV 761
DEVEREUX, Robert, Earl of Essex, the son of Wal- Devereux.
ter Devereux, Viscount Hereford, was born at Netherwood,
in Herefordshire, November 10, 1567. He succeeded to the
title of Earl of Essex at the age of ten; and about two years
afterwards was sent by his guardian, Lord Burghley, to Tri¬
nity College, Cambridge. He took the degree of master of
arts in 1582, and soon afterwards retired to his seat at
Lampsie, in South Wales. He did not, however, continue
long in this retreat; for we find him, in his seventeenth year,
at the court of Queen Elizabeth, by whom he was immediately
honoured with singular marks of favour. Authors seem very
unnecessarily perplexed to account for this young earl’s gra¬
cious reception at the court of Elizabeth. But the reasons
seem pretty obvious; he was her relation, the son of one of
her most faithful servants, the son-in-law of her favourite
Leicester, and a very handsome and accomplished youth.
Towards the end of 1585, he attended the Earl of Leices¬
ter to Holland; and gave signal proofs of his personal courage
during the campaign of 1586, particularly at the battle of
Zutphen, where the gallant Sir Philip Sidney was mortally
wounded. On this occasion the Earl of Leicester conferred
on Essex the honour of knight banneret.
In 1587, on Leicester’s being appointed lord steward of the
household, Essex succeeded him in the honourable post of
master of the horse ; and the year following, when the queen
assembled an army at Tilbury to oppose the Spanish inva¬
sion, Essex was made general of the horse. From this time
he was considered as the favourite of the queen ; and if any
mark was yet wanting to fix the opinion of the people in
this respect, it was shown by the queen’s conferring on him
the honour of the garter.
It is not to be wondered at that so rapid an elevation
should have affected the mind of the youthful earl, who
henceforward showed a very high spirit, and often be¬
haved haughtily to the queen herself. His eagerness
about this time to dispute her favour with Sir Charles
Blount, afterwards Lord Mountjoy and Earl of Devonshire,
cost him some blood; for Sir Charles, thinking himself af¬
fronted by the earl, challenged him, and after a short con¬
test wounded Essex in the knee. The queen, so far from
being displeased with this occurrence, is said to have sworn
a good round oath that it was fit somebody should take him
down, otherwise there would be no ruling him. However,
she reconciled the rivals, who, to their credit, continued
good friends as long as they lived.
The gallant Essex, however, was not so entirely capti¬
vated with his situation as to become insensible to the allure¬
ments of military glory. In 1589, Sir John Norris and Sir
Francis Drake having sailed on an expedition against Spain,
the young favourite, without the permission or knowledge
of his royal mistress, followed the fleet, which he joined as
they were sailing towards Lisbon, and acted with great re¬
solution in the repulse of the Spanish garrison of that city.
The queen w'rote him a very severe letter on the occasion ;
but, alter his return, she was soon appeased. Yet it was not
long before he again incurred her displeasure, by marrying
the widow of Sir Philip Sidney. In 1591 he was sent to
France with the command of 4000 men to the assistance of
Henry IV. In 1596 he was joined with the lord high ad¬
miral Howard in the command of the famous expedition
against Cadiz, the success of which is universally known.
In 1597 he was appointed master of the ordnance, and the
same year commanded another expedition against Spain,
called the Island Voyage.
Soon after his return he was created earl marshal of Eng¬
land ; and, on the death of the great Lord Burghley in 1598,
elected chancellor of the university of Cambridge. This,
however, may be regarded as the turning-point of his for¬
tunes. His enemies, who had long looked with jealousy on
his honours, now conspired together to effect his downfall.
The first shock he received in the queen’s favour arose from
5 D
762 DEV
Device a warm dispute in regard to the nomination of a viceroy for
Devise ^relant^ The affair is related by Camden, who tells us
v ', that nobody was present except the lord admiral, Sir Robert
” Cecil, secretary, and Windebank, clerk of the seal. The
queen wished Sir William Knolls, uncle of Essex, to be
named as her representative; but Essex pressed the appoint¬
ment of Sir George Carew. Unable to persuade the queen
to approve his choice, Essex so far forgot his duty as to
turn his back upon her in a contemptuous manner; and her
Majesty resented the insolence by giving him a box on the
ear, and bidding him go and be hanged. On this the earl
put his hand to his sword and swore revenge. This violent
storm, however, soon subsided, and they were again, to all
appearance, reconciled.
A more disastrous result, however, followed his fatal pre¬
ferment to the lord-lieutenancy of Ireland in the same year.
For this appointment he was more indebted to the malice
of his enemies than the confidence of his friends. In the
midst of the disasters which attended his first efforts for the
reduction of Ireland, an army was suddenly raised in Eng¬
land under the command of the Earl of Nottingham, on
the pretext that Essex meditated an invasion of his native
country, rather than the reduction of the Irish rebels. To
justify his conduct and repel this insinuation, Essex quitted
his post and came over to England without leave. On his
arrival he burst into her Majesty’s bed-chamber as she was
rising, and was received with a mixture of tenderness and
severity; but she soon afterwards deprived him of all his
appointments except that of master of the horse ; and he
was committed to the custody of the lord-keeper, with whom
he continued six months. No sooner had he regained his
liberty than he plunged into the most reckless extrava¬
gancies, consulting nothing but the dictates of his own
powerful passions. He first determined to obtain an audi¬
ence of the queen by force; and afterwards refused to at¬
tend the council when summoned. When the queen sent
the lord-keeper, the lord chief-justice, and two others, to
learn his grievances, he confined them, and then marched
with his friends into the city, in expectation that the people
would rise in his favour. But in this he was completely dis¬
appointed. He was at last besieged and taken in his house
in Essex Street; and after being committed to the Tower,
he was tried, condemned, and executed February 25, 1601.
The queen was long irresolute in the signing of the warrant
for his execution, and doubtless had he appealed to her
clemency, he would have been pardoned. Essex was an
accomplished scholar, and a generous patron of literature.
He perished in the thirty-fourth year of his age, leaving one
son and two daughters.
DEVICE (in French devise), in Heraldry, Painting, and
Sculpture, any emblem used to represent a certain family,
person, action, or quality, with a suitable motto applied in a
figurative sense. Thus a plough represents agriculture, and
so forth.
DEVICOTTA, a fort and seaport-town in the south of
India, and district of Tanjore, situated at the mouth of the
Coleroon River. It was taken in 1749 from the rajah of
1 anjore, and became one of the Company’s principal fac¬
tories on the Coromandel coast. The approach to the port
is very dangerous owing to an extensive shoal which lies off
it. Long. 79. 52. E.; Lat. 11. 22. N.
DE\ IL (diabolus), an evil angel, one of those celestial spi¬
rits cast down from heaven for aspiring to be equal with God.
DE\ INCTIO, in Antiquity, was applied to a love
charm or incantation used to gain the affection of a person
beloved. It was formed by tying knots, and is thus de¬
scribed by Virgil in his eighth Eclogue:
Necte tribus nodis ternos, Amarylli, colores:
Necte, Amarylli, modo; et, Veneris, die, vincula necto.
_ DEVISE, in Law, the act by which a person bequeathes
his real or personal estate by his last will or testament.
DEV
DEVIZES, a municipal and parliamentary borough and Devizes
market-town of England, county of Wilts, on the Kennet 11
and Avon Canal, 22 miles N. by W. of Salisbury. It is Devon-
situated on an eminence near the N. limit of the Salisbury v sh _ )
plain, and consists of several wide and well paved streets
diverging from the market-place, in which is a large cross
erected in 1815. It has two ancient parish churches, partly
in the Roman and partly in the perpendicular style of archi¬
tecture, with some curious monuments. There are dissent¬
ing places of worship belonging to the Presbyterians, Me¬
thodists, Independents, Quakers, &c.; a charity school;
national and infant schools ; savings-bank; and dispensary.
The town-hall is a handsome modern building with a cir¬
cular front and Ionic pillars. On the basement floor of this
edifice a cheese-market is held. Devizes has also a large
county jail, a union workhouse, and manufactures of silk,
snuff, and malt. The market is held on Thursday, and is
one of the largest in the west of England for corn. The
town is divided into two wards, and is governed by a mayor,
6 aldermen, and 18 councillors. It returns two members to
parliament. Pop. (1851) 6554.
DEVONPORT. See Plymouth.
DEVONSHIRE, the British name of which was Dyv-
naint, while the inhabitants were called Dyvnonwyn, or
inhabitants of low lands, formed a part of the district in¬
cluded in the appellation of Damnonium. The Romans
included it in the district called Britannia Prima ; but
under the Saxons it was constituted a part of the kingdom
of Wessex.
The county of Devon is the second in size of all the
English shires, being exceeded by that of York alone. On
the N. and N.W. it is bounded by the Irish Channel, on
the W. by the rivers Tamar and Marsland-waters, on the
S. and S.E. it has the British Channel, and on the E. and
N.E. it is conterminous with the counties of Dorset and
Somerset. Its figure is very irregular, but something like
that of a trapezium. Its greatest extent from N. to S. is
about 71 miles, and from E. to W. 72 ; and its circumfer¬
ence is about 287; its area is 2585 square miles, being equal
to 1,654,400 acres of land, of which about 1,200,000 are in
cultivation; containing 33 hundreds, 465 parishes, and 36
market towns. The population in 1801 was 340,308; in
1841, 532,959 ; and in 1851, 557,098, being an increase of
66 per cent, in 50 years.
The county of Devon is in the see of Exeter, and is in¬
cluded in the western circuit. The assizes are held at the
county town, Exeter.
A county of so great extent as Devonshire must present
a great variety of surface. The mountains in the vicinity
of Dartmoor rise to 1500 and 1800 feet above the level of
the sea. On the south and south-east are extensive wastes,
the surfaces of which are covered with rough masses of
detached granite and immense rocks. To the north and
north-west are large tracts of swampy ground, and many
peat bogs of great depth. But that part called the Vale of
Exeter, a district the area of which is about 200 square
miles, consists of some very fine land ; and though the soils
vary considerably, the most prevalent are a strong red loam,
foliated clay intersected with veins of ironstone, and a mix¬
ture of sand and gravel. The district called the South
Hams is frequently termed the garden of Devonshire, from
its fertility. It is strikingly diversified by bold swells and
luxuriant vales, and in many parts towards the north the
scenery is picturesque and romantic. The surface and soil
of West Devon are remarkably uniform, the latter consist¬
ing of polished slate-stone, rubble, and mud, intermixed
with a portion of loamy mould. Here the cultivated lands
are all inclosed, and villages and farm-houses are frequent.
North Devon, or the country round Biddeforde, Barnstaple,
and South Molton, contains much productive land, and is
greatly diversified with beautiful scenery.
DEVONSHIRE.
Devon¬
shire.
Climate.
Rivers.
Minerals.
Although the climate of Devonshire varies much in dif-
^ ferent districts, still, from its situation between two seas, its
immediate exposure to the south-west winds as they blow
from the ocean, and the elevated summits of the surround¬
ing mountains, it is upon the whole much milder than that
of the other English counties. The winters are exceed¬
ingly mild, and proverbially favourable to the cure of pul¬
monary complaints. The air is generally dry and warm,
and the harvest earlier than in any other parts of the west.
On the southern coast the myrtle flourishes in the open air.
The principal rivers of Devonshire are the Taw, the
Torridge, the Tamar, the Dart, the Teign, and the Exe;
and the lesser are the Tavy, the Plym, the Yealme, the
Arme, the Aven, the Otter, the Sid, the Axe, and the Lyn.
In some of them, particularly the Tamar and Tavy, the
salmon-fishing is valuable. The royalty of the Tavy be¬
longs to the Drake family, who have constructed a very large
weir across the river, furnished with traps for taking the sal¬
mon on their way down after a flood. The Exe salmon is
esteemed superior to that of any other river in this country.
These streams furnish trout in great plenty ; and plaice, the
torpedo or electric ray, the opah or king-fish, and the sepia
or cuttle-fish, are found in and at the mouths of these
rivers.
The Grand Western Canal connects the south-eastern
coast and the Bristol Channel. Its length is about 35 miles,
traversing through part of this county, and passing the towns
of Exeter, Tiverton, Taunton, &c. The Tamar Canal fol¬
lows the course of the Tamar River, on the southern coast
of Devonshire. Its northern extremity is considerably ele¬
vated. It greatly facilitates the import of coals, lime, and
manures, and the export of agricultural products. It com¬
mences in the Tamar River, at Morewellham quay, and
terminates at Tamarton Bridge. Tavistock Canal follows a
north-eastern direction for about four miles and a half in
this county. It commences where the Tamar Canal finishes,
and reaches the town of Tavistock where it ends.
The Bristol and Exeter Railway enters this county at
Beam Bridge. At Exeter the South of Devon line, 58
miles in length, commences, and proceeding in a south¬
easterly direction to Teignmouth, turns inland to Newton
Bushel (whence there is a branch to Torquay), and keeps a
south-westerly course to Totness, Plymton, and Plymouth.
The mineral waters, which are all chalybeate, are nu¬
merous, but inconsiderable. The principal of them are
those of Gubb’s Well near Cleave, Bella Marsh near King
Steignton, Ilsington near Totness, Brook near Tavistock,
and Brampton.
The ores of iron, lead, tin, and manganese, are found in
considerable quantities in Devonshire ; and gold, silver,
copper, bismuth, antimony, and cobalt, have been sometimes
discovered in small quantities. Ironstone is common in
many districts, but it is not of a quality that yields much
metal. It is supposed that the inhabitants of this county
were in the habit of working the iron, as well as the other
metallic mines, before the arrival of the Romans. The lead
ore of this county is of many kinds, but principally of a
grayish-blue colour. The potters’ or tesselated ore is of a
shining, rectangular, tabulated structure, always breaking
into cubical granules; another kind is of a flaky, smooth,
and glossy texture, breaking into ponderous fragments;
and a third sort is more closely grained, with the fracture
sparkling and uneven, and very rich in silver. The tin-
works were anciently numerous and valuable ; but the
Cornwall mines being much more productive, those of De-
vonshfre are nearly abandoned. Native silver has been found
in different substances and in various forms. Cobalt, inter¬
spersed with numerous filaments of silver, has been found
at Sampford in great abundance. Antimony of a dark lead
colour, full of long, shining, needle-like striae, has been dis¬
covered at Chudleigh, Hennock, and South Bovey. Lime¬
763
stone of almost every description is found in different parts Devon-
of the county. In the eastern parts it has a good deal the shire,
appearance of chalk. In the neighbourhood of South Hams v—
it is hard, beautifully veined, bears a fine polish, and re¬
sembles the Italian marble. In other districts it is ma¬
nufactured into black marble, variegated with streaks of
white; into a flesh colour, having streaks of brown; into
a pale red, blue, and indeed into almost every variety of
colours. Gypsum is found, but not in abundance, in the
neighbourhood of Plymouth, Salcombe-Regis, and Exe¬
ter. Fluor spar is produced in great plenty in the mines
of Beer-Ferris.
Among the argillaceous substances of the county are fine
pipe-clay, found in great abundance at Wear-Gifford ; pot¬
ters’ clay in the Vale of King-Steignton ; and slate of an
excellent quality near Slapton Sands and East Alwington.
The siliceous clay of this county contains quartz crystals of
a small size ; and flints in great abundance, but particularly
in the mountainous tract of Haldon. Freestone of various
kinds is dug up in the parishes of Salcombe, Branscombe,
and Beer. Whinstone, basalt, and a substance like the
Derbyshire loadstone, are found in different parts of the
county. Granite is met on Dartmoor, at which point com¬
mences the range which extends into Cornwall.
Coal of various sorts is found in Devonshire. That pro¬
cured at Bovey-Heathfield, and thence called Bovey coal,
is a singular production. Its strata extend about 9 miles
in a southern direction, the uppermost of which rises to the
surface, and is from 18 inches to 4 feet thick, but increases
in thickness downwards, until the lowermost stratum of coal
is 16 feet thick. This stratum lies on a bed of clay, under
which is a sharp green sand, from which rises water of a
vivid green colour, abounding in sulphur and vitriol, and as
warm as some of the Bath springs. The exterior parts of
this coal, which lie nearest the clay, have a great mixture
of earth, and are generally of a dark-brown colour. The
veins which lie nearer the centre are more compact and
solid, and in colour and weight are like common pit-coal.
The stratum called the wool-coal is a vein sometimes of
chocolate colour and sometimes of black coal, consisting of
a number of laminae or thin splinters, which divide like
whalebone, and is generally dug out in pieces of three or
four feet in length. Pyrites, in globular balls of various
sizes, are obtained in different parts of the county.
A society for the improvemeut and encouragement of-Agrieul-
agriculture was established in Devonshire in the year 1791,ture-
and has been of considerable service in spreading a know¬
ledge of the most improved modes of practice adopted in
other parts of the kingdom. The forest of Dartmoor con¬
tains considerable tracts capable of much improvement;
and the land in the vale of Exeter, which is the best in the
country, is cultivated with wheat, barley, beans, peas, and
some little flax. The pasture lands are chiefly appropri¬
ated to supply the dairy; but in some parts considerable
attention is paid to breeding sheep and cattle. Orchards,
and apple trees in hedges, are common in most of the farms;
oats, turnips, and potatoes, are also cultivated in many dis¬
tricts. In West Devon two-thirds of the inclosed lands are
employed alternately in raising corn and the grasses; red
clover, rye-grass, and sometimes white clover and trefoil.
Irrigation is common, and so is also peat-burning. In
North Devon the soil is productive, the orchard grounds
are extensive, and the inclosures tolerably large. The
farms in Devonshire are held generally by a lease of three
lives, or for ninety-nine years. As the lives drop, new
ones are put in on payment of an adequate sum. Landed
property seems to be more regularly divided in this county
than in most others, there being very few large freeholds;
and the inhabitants live sociably and independently upon
their own moderate-sized tenements. Their principal ma¬
nures are lime, sea-sand, seaweed, and dung. The pro-
764
Devon¬
shire.
Manufac¬
tures.
Antiqui¬
ties.
DEVONSHIRE.
duce per acre of wheat varies from 16 to 25 bushels ; and
of barley from 35 to 50.
Besides the productions of Devonshire which it has in
common with other counties, its cider deserves notice. It
is traditionally said that the planting of orchards com¬
menced between two hundred and three hundred years ago,
at Buekland Priory. A great quantity of cider is now ma¬
nufactured, and it is in general of a good quality ; but dif¬
fers according to the districts in which it is made; that of
the neighbourhood of Exeter and the contiguous places
being the most esteemed. The best orchards yield about
3^ cwts. of cider per acre.
~In these parts also a considerable quantity of butter is
made. The average produce from each cow is about a
pound a-day. Cattle and sheep are bred and fattened here
in great numbers. The stock of moor sheep averages
about 630,000, the yield of wool being 15,500 packs. The
fish which abound in the rivers and on the coast of Devon¬
shire, besides the home consumption, afford considerable
exports to the Bath and London markets. The oyster-
beds in the neighbourhood of Lympstone are said to be a
hundred acres in extent.
Devonshire cows are celebrated throughout the island.
When in a state of the greatest purity, they are distin¬
guished by a high red colour, without any white spots ;
by a light dun ring round the eye; by being fine in the
bone and clean in the neck ; by the horns being of a me¬
dium length, bent upwards; by the tail being small and
set on very high ; by being thin-skinned and silky in hand¬
ling ; and by the property of feeding at an early age. The
North Devon variety is in high estimation for the fineness
of the grain of the meat; and the superiority of the oxen
over most other breeds, in possessing more activity, being
better calculated for labour, and having more blood, is ge¬
nerally admitted. A good Devonshire cow will yield for
the first twenty weeks after calving about three gallons of
milk daily. The oxen weigh from 50 to 60 stone, and the
cows from 30 to 40.
The native horses are small, but hardy, and much accus¬
tomed to the pack-saddle. The breed of sheep is various;
mostly of the Dorsetshire kind as to weight of carcass and
length of wool, but characterized by a great variety of heads,
some having horns, some having none, and others having
nobs. Leases of farms usually run from six to ten years.
The extent of farms averages 100 to 200 acres.
Devonshire was long a manufacturing county for thin
woollen goods ; but the trade has of late years rapidly
declined. The greater part of the woollen trade with
Spain was carried on from Exeter ; but scarcely a vestige
of it now remains, and that little is chiefly with Bilboa.
The only article now demanded is a species of serge,
known by the name of long ells, which is spun and wo¬
ven at Collumpton, Crediton, North Tawton, and in the
villages surrounding these towns. Of late years the ma¬
nufacture of linen goods, and the spinning of linen yarn by
machinery, has been introduced on the streams which had
previously been applied to work fulling-mills. The riots of
the Luddites in Nottinghamshire drove some capitalists
from that county to Tiverton, where machinery upon a
prodigious scale is in activity, producing lace and lace-net,
for which there is a great demand in France, Germany,
Italy, and most parts of the Continent. The great manu¬
factory is, however, in the King’s Dock-yard at Plymouth,
where all the stores for building and equipping ships of
war are prepared; and much private ship-building is carried
on in other ports of the county. The number of persons
employed in manufactures in 1841 was about 2448 in serges
and other woollens, 763 in gloves, 398 in cotton, 355 in silks,
and 1821 in lace ; besides shoemakers, carpet-weavers, and
others, amounting in all to 7000.
Among the British antiquities of Devonshire are the nu
merous cairns on the eminence called Hall-down Hill, a crom- Devon-
lech at Drew-Steignton, and at a little distance from it a lo- shire.
gan or rocking-stone. Several remains of British houses are
scattered over Dartmoor.
The ancient castles, now in ruins, are Berry-Pomeroy,
built by Ralph de la Pomeroy, who came to England with
the Conqueror ; Compton Castle ; Rougemont Castle, for¬
merly the seat of the West Saxon kings, in the vicinity of
Exeter, and, according to tradition, built by Julius Caesar;
the castle of Oakhampton, which stood about a mile south¬
west of the town ; Plympton Castle, which was the resi¬
dence of Richard de Rivers, earl of Devon, in the reign of
Henry I. The same person was also in possession of Ti¬
verton Castle, the ruins of which may still be seen, and of
Totness Castle, erected by Judhael de Totnais, to whom
the manor was given by the Conqueror.
The remains of the abbeys and monasteries of Devon¬
shire are those of Buckfastleigh, near Ashburton ; Buck-
land Abbey, on the eastern banks of the river Tay ;
Dunkeswell, near Collumpton; the Cistercian Abbey at
Axminster, the property of Lord Petre ; Hartland Abbey,
part of the present house of Paul Orchard, Esq. ; the ruins
of a priory of Benedictines at Moodbury; and Tor Abbey,
a portion of the modern seat of G. Cary, Esq.
The venerable and magnificent cathedral of Exeter de¬
mands the first notice among the ancient specimens of ec¬
clesiastical buildings. The variety of the styles discovered
in this edifice proves that it was erected at various periods.
It is supposed that the part called St Mary’s Chapel is the
ancient Saxon church, erected prior to the year 868. It is
likely that the first considerable cathedral was planned by
Bishop Warlewart, before the year 1138. It consists of a
choir with side aisles, a nave also with side aisles, and two
short transepts ; besides a chapter-house, ten oratories, and
a consistory court. The height of the Norman towers is
130 feet, and that of the roof 69. The entire length of the
cathedral from east to west is 408 feet, walls included. At
Bishop’s Seighton is a church in the early Saxon style.
Teignmouth church is a specimen of the earliest Norman.
The island of Lundy belongs to this county. It is ra¬
ther more than three miles in length, about one in breadth,
and contains 2000 acres of land, of which only 400 are un¬
der cultivation.
The county returns four members to Parliament, viz.,
two for the northern, and two for the southern division ;
Barnstaple, two ; Tiverton, two ; Ashburton, one ; Dart¬
mouth, one ; Devonport, two ; Exeter, two ; Honiton, two;
Plymouth, two ; Tavistock, two ; and Totness, two. Total,
twenty-two.
Annual value of real property assessed to property-tax
1850-1, L.2,736,361.
Places of worship belonging to the Church of England
549, sittings 221,989 ; other denominations, 748 places of
worship, 157,898 sittings. Day-schools 1614, scholars
64,266 ; Sunday-schools 772, scholars 58,408.
The principal noblemen’s and gentlemen’s seats are,
Castle Hill, seat of Earl Fortescue; Storar House, that of
the Duke of Somerset; Endsleigh, that of the Duke of
Bedford ; Saltram, that of Earl Morley ; Mount Edgcumbe,
that of Earl Mount Edgcumbe ; Bagtor, that of Lord Ash¬
burton ; Exeter Palace, that of the Bishop of Exeter;
Bicton, that of Lord Rolle; Haldon Hall, that of Sir L.
Palk, Bart.; and Escort, that of Sir J. Kennaway, Bart.
See Polwhele’s History of Devon, and Beauties of hng-
Inwrl nrtfl Wrilpv ()
DEVOTION (Lat. devotio), a yielding of the heart and
affections to God ; devoutness ; also the state of being con¬
secrated or solemnly set apart for any particular purpose.
Devotion, among the Romans, was a kind of sacrifice or
ceremony, by which a person consecrated himself to the
service of some other.
D E W.
765
Dew. DEW is the humidity which the air, under certain cir-
cumstances, deposits, in the form of minute globules, on
Etymology the surfaces of the bodies in contact with it. The Greek
of the term fy0g0(. was evidently derived from vdug, aqua, imply¬
ing simply watering or humifaction. The Latin name ros
is of the same descent. Our English word is obviously
borrowed from the German than, akin to the verb which
signifies to melt, and conveying the idea therefore, in the
Shaksperian phraseology, of air “ melting, thawing, and re¬
solving itself into a dew.'’ The Swedish term dag is no
doubt of the same origin, though it likewise denotes low
mist or floating vapour. It is remarkable that the French
language, though certainly not remarkable for its copious¬
ness, has two distinct terms for dew : serein for the humi¬
dity which collects in the evening; and rosee, for what ap¬
pears accumulated in the morning; the latter being de¬
rived from the Latin word ros, and the former intimating
that clearness and serenity of the sky which is most con¬
ducive to the formation of dew.
When the atmosphere has a temperature below the
point of congelation, the dew which might adhere to the
substances exposed to it passes into the form of hoar¬
frost. This was called by the Greeks Kayjr\, from its hard
or consolidated nature. The French term is exactly the
same compound as our own, white frost or gelee blanche.
But the German language has a simple and primitive
word to denote it, reif; which, in the Swedish, has been
slightly modified into rim, a word likewise adopted by the
older English writers, and still retained in the Scottish
dialect, or dilated into rime-frost, and thence prgbably cor¬
rupted into raw-frost.
As dew appears to collect only during fine clear nights,
when the heavens glow with sparkling constellations, the
dewC.trnin^anc*ents’ ^ie infancy °f science, imagined it to be ac¬
tually shed from the stars, and, therefore, to partake of a
pure and celestial essence. Hence the vulgar notion that
deivfalls, which has prevailed through all ages, and con¬
tinues to tincture every language.1 The mythologists de¬
scribed dew as the daughter of Jove and of the Moon ;2
and Plutarch asserts it to be most abundant in the time
of full moon. The lunar beams themselves were suppos¬
ed to contribute some influence, being of a cold nature,
and therefore possessed of a humifying quality.3 The
moon, it was imagined, performed merely the office of an
imperfect mirror, reflecting the softened lustre of the sun
without any portion of his heat.
The dew of heaven has always been regarded as a fluid
of the purest and most translucid nature. Hence it was
celebrated for that abstergent property which, according
to the vulgar persuasion, enables it to remove all spots
and stains, and to impart to the skin the bloom and fresh¬
ness of virgin beauty. Like the elixir of later times, it
was conceived to possess the power of extending the du¬
ration of human life; and Ammianus Marcellinus ascribes
the longevity and robust health of mountaineers, in com¬
parison with the inhabitants of the plains, chiefly to the
frequent aspersion of dew on their gelid bodies. Dew
was also employed as a most powerful agent, in all their
operations, by the alchemists; some of whom pretended
that it possessed such a subtile and penetrating efficacy as
to be capable of dissolving gold itself. Following out the
same idea, the people of remote antiquity fancied that the
Dew.
Ancient
notions
Its abater
gent r ua-
lity.
external application of dew had some virtue in correcting
any disposition to corpulence. The ladies of those days,
anxious to preserve their fine forms, procured this celestial
wash, by exposing clothes or fleeces of wool to the humi¬
faction of the night. It was likewise imagined that grass¬
hoppers feed wholly on dew, and owe their lean features
perhaps to such spare diet.4
The philosophers of Greece, after genuine knowledge Opinion of
had illumined that interesting region, entertained far just-Aristotle,
er notions concerning the nature and formation of dew.
Aristotle, whose universal genius ranged over both the
physical and the intellectual world, studied facts closely,
and sought to reason accurately from the phenomena ac¬
tually observed. In his book DeMundo, he defines “dew
to be humidity detached in minute particles from the clear
chill atmosphere.”5 In his treatise of Meteorology, he states
that “ dew is only formed beneath a calm and cloudless
sky, but never in windy weather.”6 He further subjoins,
that it collects in low places, and not on the summits of
mountains. Vapour, which, according to him, is only
heat combined with water, rises in the atmosphere during
the day; but when the cold begins to prevail at night it
again discharges its humidity. This vapour, however, he
thinks can never ascend high above the surface of the
earth, both because it must soon lose its buoyant heat, and
because in lofty situations it would be scattered and dis¬
solved by the agitation of the air. Dew is hence most co¬
pious in fine weather, and in low damp situations. A north
wind checks its production, but a gentle southern gale,
charged with humidity, will occasion a copious deposit.
When a more intense cold prevails in the atmosphere, the
vapour precipitates its humidity in a congealed form, and
the dew passes immediately into hoar-frost. Cold occa¬
sions this consolidation. Dew has hence the same rela¬
tion to hoar-frost that rain bears to snow, the frozen mass
of clouds constituting the one, and attenuated low vapour,
seized by frost, forming the other. The heat of the sun’s
rays thus first raises the vapour from below; but, in all
its subsequent changes and modifications, the moon and
stars, contrary to the earlier and more popular notions,
exert no sort of influence.
The Aristotelian opinions seem to have given place Opinions
among the Romans to the ruder notions which prevailed among the
in remote antiquity respecting the mode of its formation. ^omans*
Pliny invariably speaks of a dew as falling from the hea¬
vens ; cum ros cecidisset. We might expect, therefore,
that the poets would continue in their verses to perpetu¬
ate the same idea.
Sparsaque coelesti rore madebit humus. Ovid, Fast. i. 312.
Vitreoque madentia rore,
Tempora noctis eunt. Id. Fast. iii. 880.
qua prata jacent,
Quae rorifera mulcens aura,
Zephyrus vernas evocat herbas. Seneca Trag.
Hinc ubi roriferis terram nox obruit umbris. Lucret. vi. 4. 64.
Virgil marks the cold which always accompanies the
formation of dew, and which, when it becomes more in¬
tense, converts the lucid globules into spicular shoots of
hoar-frost.
Cum primum gelidos rores aurora remittit. Eclog. viii. 15.
1 Gesner, Facciolatus, and other lexicographers, blend this idea in their definition of dew. Itos, Humor cash defluem noctu, cum
sudum est, et omnis aura quiesclt; qui si gelu concrescat, est Pruina.
* A/a; 6uya.rr,(> iorcr. rPitp-i xect
3 Statius has the expression rorifera luna.
* Rore aluntur cicada. Fein. xi. 26. Dumque thymopascentur apes, dum rore cicada. Virg. Eclog.
6 &oo<ro$ itrriv vy^ov cii@qioc$ xcctcc avtr'Ttt.aiv hiVTOv.
* The same observation is repeated by Pliny, Nat. Hist, xviii. 29—Neque in mile neque inflatu cadunt rores; and in another nlace,
still more explicitly, thus : Rores neque gelu, neque ardoribus, neque ventis, nec nisi serend node. Id. ii. 70.
766
D E W.
Devr. The opinion that dew falls from the sky maintained its
credit during the course of the middle ages. The alche-
thealche- mistS even carried th’s idea so far as to fancy that, since
mists. " t^ie ^ew gradually evanishes in the progress of the day
under the action of the solar rays, it then merely seeks by
sympathy to regain its native seat in the highest heavens.
Nay, some of those ingenious enthusiasts have not scrupled,
in confirmation of their wild hypothesis, broadly to assert
that a few drops of morning dew, being inclosed in an
empty egg-shell, which is placed at the foot of a ladder
resting against the roof of a house, the shell will become
buoyant while the sun shines, and will mount along the
ladder till it reaches the very top. The famous Van Hel-
mont, who refined on the notions of the alchemists, con¬
sidered the lights of heaven as of two distinct kinds, the
one which flows from the sun and rules the day, being
intrinsically warm, and possessing masculine virtue; the
other, which rules the night, and emanates from the moon
and stars, being of a feminine nature, and having a cool or
refrigerating influence. This cold light, he imagined, pro¬
duces the purest essence of water, which is stored in the
moon, to recruit the waste of the nether world; and he sup¬
posed the allegory of Jacob’s ladder might represent that
perpetual ascent and descent of aqueous matter, by which
the revolution of the system is constantly maintained.
That the moon’s beams are naturally cold, he thought
sufficiently established by the prevailing belief of the
common people, who carefully avoid sleeping in the open
air, without some screen to protect them from the chilling
impressions which are shot down upon the ground.
Baptista Porta asserted that air is actually converted
into water from the accession of cold, and thought this
transmutation proved by the fact that, on the approach of
severe weather, the windows of an apartment have the in¬
side of the panes of glass covered with moisture. Gaspar
Schott, as late nearly as the middle of the seventeenth
century, was so much persuaded of the coldness of the
moon’s rays, that he stoutly appealed to the effects of their
concentration in the focus of a reflector. This experiment,
however, was made sixty years before, and with an oppo¬
site result, by the famous Sanctorio, the founder of scien¬
tific medicine, and the inventor of the thermometer. He
actually employed the air thermometer for the first time;
but this very ingenious inquirer must have been deceived
by some extraneous circumstances, when he saw the li¬
quor sink so considerably as he asserts, under the calorific
action of the moon’s light. The philosophical ideas of
Sanctorio were perhaps in some instances too refined for
his age, and the vulgar notion concerning the production
of dew continued afterwards, for more than an hundred
years, to be still generally retained. But the progress of
horticulture near the latter part of the seventeenth cen¬
tury brought out some unexpected facts, which seemed at
variance with the popular belief. It was remarked that a
bell-glass being placed in the evening over a plant, was
in the morning profusely covered with dew on the inside,
though scarcely any moisture appeared to adhere to the
external surface. The humidity which formed the minute
globules must therefore have risen from the plant or the
ground, and adhered against the glass.
Diososeope Such, however, was the very slow advance of sound
philosophy, that Perlicius, who proposed what he calls a
Drososcope, consisting of an oblique balance playing in a
sort rack, for indicating the quantity of dew accumulated
m the absence of the observer, concludes the discourse
which, under the direction of Professor Weidler, he deli¬
vered in scholastic form on taking out his degree at Wur-
temberg in 1727, with the general inference that dew de¬
scends to us from the atmosphere of Jupiter, Venus, the
Moon, Mars, and Saturn ; but that, though it falls from the
air, it by no means originates in this fluid. He had found Dew.
in the month of August that 250 grains of dew formed on
the surface of a square foot in the country, while only
ninety-four, and at other times seventy-six, or even sixty-
four grains, were deposited in the town.
The first person, however, who appears to have openly Ideas of
rejected the inveterate opinion of the descent of dew, wasGerslen.
Gersten, another German professor, who made several ex¬
periments on the subject, and printed at Giessen, in 1733,
an academical thesis, in which he advanced the opposite
hypothesis. He found that all plants exhale, in various
proportions, the moisture which forms the aqueous depo¬
sit ; and remarked, that plates of copper exposed during
the night have only their under surface bedewed. This
dissertation led the celebrated Professor Muschenbroeck
to repeat the same observations at Utrecht. Having ob¬
tained similar results, he communicated the main facts to
his Parisian correspondent, M. du Fay, who planned im¬
mediately a series of experiments on a large scale. This Obse^va-
ingenious philosopher caused two tall ladders to be set up, tionsjf Du
reclining against each other, in a vacant space, remote Fay.
from all trees and lofty buildings; and on the 25th Octo¬
ber 1736, at four o’clock in the evening, the weather be¬
ing clear and calm, he laid panes of glass on the steps at
the different heights of six, thirteen, seventeen, twenty-
five, and thirty-one feet above the ground. These he
visited at certain intervals during the progress of the night.
By five o clock a pane close to the ground had its under
side completely wet, while its upper side was only slightly
dewed. At six o’clock the pane, six feet above the sur¬
face, was covered with dew; and at seven o’clock the ef¬
fect had reached the highest pane. During the whole
night the dew continued to form; but it appeared always
more copious on the lower panes.
These facts might be deemed sufficiently conclusive;
but M. du Fay sought likewise to ascertain the relative
quantities of moisture deposited at different altitudes. He
procured several rectangular bits of green cloth, cut six
inches long and four inches broad, and adjusted all to the
same weight. These he suspended in horizontal positions
at four o’clock in the evening, one of them only half a foot
above the ground, and the rest at the heights of six, thir¬
teen, and twenty-five feet. On weighing them next morn¬
ing he found that they had respectively imbibed fifty-three,
sixty-six, fifty-six, and fifty-four grains of dew. The sub¬
sequent night having proved windy, they gained only
seven, nine, ten, and six grains. It was evident, there¬
fore, that dew is formed not only sooner, but more copi¬
ously, near the surface of the ground than at greater eleva¬
tions.
To determine still more precisely the several quanti¬
ties of moisture imbibed at different heights, M. du Fay
took three linen towels, each three and a half feet long
and two and a half broad, and having dried them thorough¬
ly in the sun, he stretched them horizontally at one foot,
and seventeen, and twenty-eight feet above the ground.
After exposure during the whole night, the air being quite
clear and calm, the lowest one was found to have gained
3060 grains, the next only 2346, and the highest 2742.
There occurs some slight anomaly in this result; but on
reducing the greatest effect to English measures, it corre¬
sponds almost exactly to a cubic inch of dew for each
square foot of the surface. This might appear to be
rather a low estimate for the climate of Paris in the au¬
tumnal season, since, at the same rate, it would give only
a deposit of about two and a half inches during the whole
year.
In the mean time, Muschenbroeck made observations onDisccwery
the humifaction of substances placed above the leaden of Mus-
platform of his observatory at Utrecht. The dew formed cfienbroec'E‘
D E W.
Dew.
in sucli a situation, he thought, could not have risen from
— r — the ground, but must have fallen from the atmosphere.
But, pushing these experiments further, he was conduct¬
ed to a most curious and interesting discovery. He found
that dew forms in very different proportions on different
bodies, and that it will scarcely adhere to a surface of
polished metal, while it streams profusely over glass or
porcelain. Even the colour of the substance appeared in
some instances, to alter the effect. Thus, a piece of red
morocco leather acquired, by exposure through the night,
twice as much dew as another piece of the same size,’
whether black or blue. A closer examination, however,
convinced him that this modification was not caused by
the mere colour itself, but was occasioned by the addition
or infusion of the matter employed to produce it.
Extension M. du Fay, on his part, repeated those experiments
Dy ' with the same success. He likewise performed others of
a similar description. Electricity was at this period in
high vogue, and he had distinguished himself in that de¬
partment. It, therefore, struck M. du Fay that the dispo¬
sition of certain bodies to attract or to repel dew was some¬
how connected with the distinction into electrics and con¬
ductors. In the prosecution of this idea he sought to
compare the humifying action of vitreous with that of re¬
sinous substances. He took a tin basin, of the same shape
and dimensions as one of glass, and having coated it on
both sides with forty or fifty applications of a solution of
shell-lac in alcohol, he exposed the two vessels during a
fine clear night; but the surface of the glass was found
to gather twice as much dew as the resinous coating. In
the course of his researches, he likewise noticed another
curious fact, the explication of which must be referred to
a recent discovery. Having selected two large and equal
watch-glasses, he set their convex faces horizontally, the
one on a porcelain and the other on a silver saucer, and
exposed them both, in this position, to the influence of
the night-air; when the former was always observed to
collect five or six times more dew than the latter. The
metallic surface must have, therefore, in some way or
other, contributed by its presence to check the precipita¬
tion of humidity, though its direct action is confined to a
very narrow limit, since, under a resinous coating of only
the hundredth part of an inch in thickness, the effect is
precisely the same as with a cake of wax. In confirma¬
tion of this remark, having composed a square plate, by
cementing at the edge a polished rectangle of brass, six
inches long and three inches broad, to a similar piece of
glass, he found, on exposing it to the atmosphere at night,
the vitreous surface covered as usual with dew, while the
metallic one was scarcely at all affected; but, on laying
another slip of glass across these plates, the end which
rested on the brass remained quite dry, while the other
end soon became profusely wetted.
It seemed to follow from the experiments of Muschen-
broeck and Du Fay, that, strictly speaking, dew neither
falls nor rises, but, according to the doctrine of Aristotle,
only separates, under a certain change of circumstances,
from the air, and attaches itself to some substances in
preference to others. The theory of vapour, proposed
afterwards by Le Roy of Montpellier, threw further light
on the subject. Moisture is suspended in the atmosphere
by a real chemical solution, in the same manner as nitre
and other salts are dissolved in water. The solvent energy
is in both cases augmented by the addition of heat. A
rise of temperature enables the air to support a larger
portion of humidity, while the decrease of it enfeebles the
attractive power, and occasions a precipitation in the shape
of mist or dew. This perspicuous explication, as we have
seen, had been already anticipated, though but vaguely
stated, by Aristotle.
767
Results.
A deposition entirely similar to dew or hoar-frost is Dew.
hence formed, whenever the air becomes suddenly chill- —
ed, by touching any surface much colder than itself, and
not consisting of polished metal. Thus the walls of long
passages, vaults, or massive buildings, generally drip with
wet during the early part of the summer, before the ex¬
ternal heat has sufficiently penetrated. In like manner,
it is observed, that when a severe and long-continued frost
is succeeded by a thaw, the backs of houses are quickly
incrusted with shoots of hoary icicles.
I he formation of dew is hence easily produced artifi¬
cially in a close room, without waiting for exposure under
a clear nocturnal sky. If a caraffe, filled with water from
a spring or well, be carried into a warm apartment, the
outside of the glass will become soon covered over with an
aqueous deposit, which must increase till the body of water
has acquired nearly the temperature of the encircling air,
and will afterwards gradually disappear. But if a piece of
tin-foil be applied to the bottle, it will remain dry, while
the rest of the surface appears humified with dew.
. ^ a curious fact, that air always begins to deposit Various
its moisture on glass, even before it has reached the point observa-
ot saturation, or become absolutely damp. This property, tions of
and the circumstances connected with it, Professor Leslie Leslie'
discoveied, in the year 1798, by help of his hygrometer,
which he had already brought nearly to a state of perfec¬
tion. On exposing wine-glasses at the approach of even¬
ing, they were soon covered with dew, while this instru¬
ment still indicated several degrees of dryness. The dif¬
ference was yet greater in summer than in winter. The
hygrometer being inclosed within a small glass receiver,
placed on a wetted plate likewise of glass, stood, after the
whole internal surface had become lined with dew, at 5°
in a very cold room, but at 15° when the apartment was
kept warm.
The general observation is explained by Professor Les¬
lie’s researches into the propagation of heat. No adjoin¬
ing substances can ever come into absolute contact; but
air approaches much nearer to the boundary of glass,' por¬
celain, or paper, than to a surface of polished metal. By
an extension, therefore, of the principle of capillary action,
the suspended aqueous particles, which have a strong ad¬
hesion to glass, to which they are brought so close, readily
detach themselves from their union with the air. But the
same particles being held back from the proximity of a
metallic surface to which they have little attraction, are
never deposited on it unless the air is actually overloaded
with them. The hygrometer will accordingly reach the
absolute zero when it is shut up within a case of polished
tin.
Professor Leslie afterwards made several occasional obser¬
vations relative to the production of dew, particularly during
a series of clear warm days in the month of May 1801, at
Easbury, in Dorsetshire, where he placed his instruments
both on the lawn and on the balustrade of a tower sixty
feet in height. Without entering into details, it may be
sufficient here to mention the principal results. The perio¬
dical variations, both of the hygrometer and thermometer,
were much greater near the surface than at some eleva¬
tion. On the approach of sunset the thermometer on the
ground sunk rapidly; the hygrometer relapsed to about
five degrees, and the dew began to form on the blades of
glass. During the night, the thermometer descended still
lower, the hygrometer indicated absolute humidity, and
the lawn was covered with a profusion of dew. But a
little after sunrise, the thermometer again mounted, the
hygrometer began to act, and the sheet of moisture gra¬
dually exhaled. In the progress of the day the heat and
dryness increased; and, about two o’clock, the thermo¬
meter and hygrometer, both of them screened from the
768
DEW.
Dew. direct action of the sun, stood generally, the former at /5°,
w-v-w' and the latter at 85°. But, on the top of the tower, all
those changes were less violent. The thermometer, which
at that altitude seldom rose in the course ot the day to
70°, or the hygrometer to 65°, indicated, as night again
closed, a depression, though very moderate in compaiison
with what was shown at the surface of the ground. A he
thermometer stood several degrees higher than below, the
hygrometer remained at a dryness of 15° or 20 , and no
dew was deposited on the balustrade. But similai differ¬
ences of effect, although on a smaller scale, weie. exhi¬
bited at very moderate heights. On lifting those instru¬
ments in the evening only a foot fiom the ground, the
thermometer would rise a degree or two, and the hygro¬
meter mount from the verge of moisture to perhaps 10°.
At an elevation of four feet those changes were nearly
doubled. The dew thus always began, as in Du Fay’s
experiments, to form at the surface of the eai th, and con¬
tinued to mount upwards with the progress of the night.
Explica- It is hence easy to explain the general phenomena of
tion of the dew. “ In fine calm weather, after the rays of the de-
pheno- dining sun have ceased to warm the surface of the ground,
mena* the descent of the higher mass of air gradually chills the
undermost stratum, and disposes it to dampness, till their
continued intermixture produces a fog, or low cloud. Such
fogs are, towards the evening, often observed gathering in
narrow vales, or along the course of sluggish rivers, and ge¬
nerally hovering within a few inches of the surface. But in
all situations, these watery deposits, either to a greater or
a less degree, occur in the same disposition of the atmo¬
sphere. The minute suspended globules, attaching them¬
selves to the projecting points of the herbage, form dew
in mild weather, or shoot into hoar-frost when cold predo¬
minates. They collect most readily on glass, but seem to
be repelled by a bright surface of metal.”1 The unequal
heating of the surface during the day thus occasions, on
statical principles, a perpetual interchange between the
higher and the lower atmosphere, which is prolonged
through the night, the warm portions of air still continuing
to ascend, and leaving their place to be occupied by the
descent of similar cold portions of that fluid. This verti¬
cal play is a provision of nature for the attempering of the
diurnal vicissitudes of climate. “ In clear and calm wea¬
ther, the air is always drier near the surface during the
day than at a certain height above the ground, but it be¬
comes damper on the approach of evening, while, at some
elevation, it retains a moderate degree ot dryness through
the whole of the night. If the sky be clouded, less altera¬
tion is betrayed in the state of the air, both daring the
progress of the day and at different distances from the
ground ; and if wind prevail, the lower strata of the atmo¬
sphere, thus agitated and intermingled, will be reduced to
a still nearer equality of condition.”2
Curious The descent of chill air caused by superior density,
experi- explains the formation of dew in low situations, and its
ments of progressive elevation as the cold accumulates. But some
j>,e' further explication was wanted to reconcile the concluding
observations of M. du Fay. The subject was in conse¬
quence resumed by M. Benedict Prevost, who performed
a curious set of experiments, described in a Memoir read
before the Philosophical Society of Montauban in 1803.
The results are certainly perplexing, and would almost
seem anomalous. 1. Tin or copper foil, and gold or silver
leaf, being applied to plates of glass, and exposed to dew,
were observed, as before, to remain generally dry, while
the vitreous surface became bathed with moisture. 2. Af¬
ter exposure to the night air, not only a dry border ap¬
peared, extending a little way beyond the film of metal, Dew.
but the side opposite to that coating continued still dry, v—
though all the rest of the glass was profusely wetted.
3. A piece of glass, being laid above the metallic leaf,
destroyed its effect. 4. A rectangular piece of tin-foil
being pasted on the inside, at the top of a pane of glass,
in a window having a northern exposure, and a similar
piece applied at the bottom on the outside; when the
dewing began first against the inside, the interior coating
appeared wetter than the naked surface, and the portion
of this immediately behind the exterior coating seemed
always drier than the rest. The facts were exactly re¬
versed when the dewing commenced on the outside of the
window. 5. Opposite to the middle of a rectangular leaf
of metal, a similar but smaller piece being applied on the
outside of the pane, when the dew began to form within
the apartment, the space behind the exterior coating still
remained dry. 6. In all cases, whether on the inside or
the outside of the pane, on covering the metallic leaf with
a piece of glass of the same dimensions, the effect was
exactly the same as if no metal had been interposed.
7. Similar appearances were produced by combining gilt
paper or quicksilvered glass, the results depending wholly
on the nature of the extreme surfaces, according as they
consisted of metal, or of glass or paper.
On reviewing these curious facts, M. Prevost was struck
with their apparent analogy to the phenomena of electri¬
city. He thought they might all be comprised under a
single proposition : T/iat glass which separates two masses
of air of unequal temperatures attracts or repels humidity ac¬
cording as it is armed with metal on the hot or on the cold
side. To account for these very singular yet interesting
facts, he proposed a random and strained hypothesis,
grounded on some loose notions of chemical affinities. But
we need not stop to examine it.
Dr Thomas Young, in his Lectures on Natural Philoso- Theoreti-
phy, published in 1806, concludes a short abstract of the ex- cal views-
periments of Prevost with suggesting, that they would de¬
rive their explication from Professor Leslie’s Discoveries on
Heat. The anticipation was perfectly just, though the dis¬
coveries themselves required then a little further extension
to embrace the whole phenomena. Professor Leslie had
carefully investigated the laws which modify the propaga¬
tion of hot or cold pulses through an atrial medium from
a solid or a liquid boundary. But he did not contemplate
the pulsation excited at the conterminous surface of two
strata of air having different temperatures. It was indeed
impossible to devise an experiment in which the opposite
layers of fluid could be kept distinct, for the warmer por¬
tions of air would seek always to rise, while its colder and
denser portions would endeavour to sink downwards, and
thus form, by insensible shades, a vertical gradation of
temperature. But though the pulsatory action excited at
each successive horizontal stratum might singly escape
observation, it seemed probable that the accumulated im¬
pressions transmitted from numerous boundaries would
become very sensible. Accordingly, in a close heated
room, the pyroscope, or differential thermometer, having
one of its balls gilt, which is susceptible of such pulses
only, marks, near the floor, perhaps four or five degrees
of calorific impression, yet, when lifted higher, it indicates
an effect always diminishing in proportion to the proximity
of the ceiling. The entire action exerted, or the amount
of the intermediate energies, was therefore, as the excess
of the temperature of the stratum of air next the ceiling
above that of the stratum in which the instrument hap¬
pened to be placed. Carried out of doors in clear and
1 Leslie On the Relations of Air to Heat and Moisture, p. 132.
2 Ibid. p. 92.
D E W. 769
Dew. calm weather, after the sun had withdrawn his beams, it
betrayed a much stronger tendency the contrary way, and
marked a copious frigorific impression, evidently produced
by the coldness which must pervade the upper regions of
the atmosphere. But to fit the pyroscope for making
observations during the day, it was converted into the
JEthrioscope, in which the influence of light is neutralized ;
a combination of great delicacy, and, therefore, a valuable
acquisition to meteorological science. (See the article Cli¬
mate.) The application of this new instrument has not
only ascertained the existence, but measured the intensity,
of the cold pulses which are at all times darted down¬
wards from the successive strata of air, though often par¬
tially intercepted by clouds, or more completely obstruct¬
ed by low fogs. But since the spheroidal cup, which con¬
centrates the various oblique impressions on the upper
ball of the aethrioscope, can do little more than double the
direct action against a horizontal surface, it may hence
be computed that, in fine bright evenings, those cold
pulses rained from the sky are sufficient alone to depress
the temperature of the ground, according to the seasons,
sometimes eight degrees, but generally about three de¬
grees, by Fahrenheit’s scale. The blades of grass, thus
chilled from exposure, cool in their turn the damp air
which touches them, and cause it to drop its moisture.
For the same reason, the naked ball of the aethrioscope,
as it is still more cooled, appears much sooner affected,
being commonly covered with profuse liquid globules long
before the dew has begun to form on the surface of the
ground.
Anomalies All the difficulties and seeming anomalies of the obser-
explained. vations of Du Fay and Prevost now vanish away. The
various phenomena proceed chiefly from the cold induced
by exposure under a clear sky; but other causes will often
essentially modify the results. 1. The impression received
on a plate of polished metal scarcely amounts to the tenth
part of what is communicated to a surface of glass, wood,
cloth, paper, earth, or grass. 2. When the action continues
the same, the corresponding depression of temperature yet
depends on the slowness with which the cold, is subse¬
quently dispersed. In calm weather a plate of glass, or a
sheet of paper, if covered on both sides with a leaf of me¬
tal, will gain or lose heat twice as slow as before, and if
coated only on one side, its progress will be a half ."lower.
But high winds greatly assist the dispersion of heat, and
often reduce the effects of external impressions to the
third or the fourth part of their ordinary measure.
Hence the reason why scarcely any dew is formed in
windy weather, though the sky be clear; for the frigorific
pulses must then have little efficacy, not cooling the ground
perhaps more than one or two degrees. In the last obser¬
vation of Du Fay, the slip of glass laid across the rectan¬
gle, composed of alternate bars of glass and of brass, being
greatly chilled by exposure, had by contact communicated
its coldness to the matter under it, and thus enabled the
metal to assist in the deposition of dew. In Prevost’s se¬
cond experiment, the metallic leaf, being scarcely affected
by the frigorific impressions, checked by its presence the
progress of cold along the vitreous surface, and therefore
maintained a dry border all around it. Hence, in his third
experiment, a piece of glass covering the metal received
the entire impressions, and restored the former effect. The
application of a metallic coating against the inside of a
pane, must, in the fourth experiment, have augmented by
one half the efficacy of the external pulses of cold, and
thus made the dew to attach more profusely. For a like
reason, while a leaf of metal on the outside of a pane be¬
came, in the fifth experiment, slightly dewed, the addition
of a smaller metallic leaf against the inside increased the
effect, by promoting the accumulation of cold.
YOL. VII.
The remarkable experiments which the late Dr Patrick Dew.
Wilson, professor of practical astronomy in the university --y-^
of Glasgow, performed during the severe frost of January Wilson’s
1780, are easily explained on the same principles. In theobserva-
declivity of a garden, a thermometer laid, in a clear startions ?n
light, on the surface of the snow, stood from eight to ten k03*"*1081"
degrees lower than when suspended at the height of a few
inches. This excessive cold was evidently not occasioned
by evaporation; for, on blowing with bellows against the
bulb when it lay on the snow, so fai from sinking more,
the mercury actually rose two degrees higher than its sta¬
tion in the free air. The intensity was no doubt in part
owing to the low position of the snow; for a thermometer
suspended at a pole projecting from a window twenty-four
feet above the surface indicated four degrees less cold
than below. But, besides the accumulating action of the
descent of cold air, the snow must have been also chilled
extremely by the frigorific pulses darted from an azure
sky. This inference, though not perceived at the time,
or, indeed, likely to have been admitted then as philoso¬
phical, is distinctly supported by an experiment of Dr
Wilson. Having screened a spot of the garden by a sort
of sharp roof formed with two inclined sheets of brown
paper, and laid a thermometer under it on the surface of
the snow, the instrument soon marked six degrees of less
cold than before, or than another exposed at only a short
distance. But this open screen, since it could not impede
the mere descent and influx of cold air, must have inter¬
cepted a more powerful frigorific influence.
Dr Wilson afterwards performed other similar experi¬
ments, which are detailed in his paper on hoar-frost, drawn
up in 1788, and inserted in the first volume of the Trans¬
actions of the Royal Society of Edinburgh. He made the
important remark, that during a fog there was no differ¬
ence of temperature between the surface of snow and the
incumbent air. But he neglected to pursue the conse¬
quences, and was disposed, from the various facts which
he had observed, to conclude vaguely that hoar-frost is
always accompanied by a production of cold.
About the same time Mr Six of Canterbury, the in- six>g ob_
ventor of the self-registering thermometer, employed thatservations
very useful instrument in making similar but more exten-on dew.
sive observations. He found, in a clear summer evening,
his thermometer, when laid on the grass, to sink five de¬
grees lower than when suspended freely near the surface.
But he had occasion afterwards to remark still greater dif¬
ferences. On a clear and still night in winter, the ther¬
mometer which had been supported in the air fell no fewer
than thirteen and a half degrees when placed flat on a
meadow. He likewise noticed, as Dr Wilson had done,
that thick fogs always impede, and often wholly prevent,
the peculiar cooling of the ground.
It seemed therefore ascertained that, in the absence of
the sun, the surface of the earth, and especially its pro¬
jecting herbage, acquire, in calm weather, from the mere
aspect of a bright and unclouded sky, a very notable de¬
gree of cold. This cold appears likewise connected evi¬
dently with the formation of dew. But what is the nature
of that relation ? Is the coldness contracted by substan¬
ces on exposure to the nocturnal air to be considered as
the effect or as the cause of their dewing? The former
opinion, we have seen, was espoused by Dr Wilson, though
sound theory should make us expect that the deposition
of dew, or the conversion of humidity from a gaseous to
the liquid state, must, on the contrary, occasion a small
extrication of heat. But constant experience shows that
cold bodies, not sheathed with metallic lustre, become
always sprinkled with minute aqueous globules, from the
contact of damp air. The simplest truths, however, are
very seldom the soonest perceived, and the late ingenioui
5 E
770
DEW
DEW
Dew.
Discovery
of Dr
Weils.
vations.
and learned Dr Wells has the merit of being the first who
distinctly attributed the formation of dew to the previous
cold induced on the ground from the aspect of the sky.
He had early conceived an opposite idea, but a closer
examination of the subject led him to adopt juster views.
Being once engaged in the research, he prosecuted his
observations with assiduity and ardour for upwards of two
years, at a friend’s villa on the skirts of London, in spite
of his professional avocations, and at the evident risk of
his precarious health. The numerous facts thus collected
are detailed in his Essay on Dew, which appeared in 1814,
and immediately attracted a very considerable share of
public notice. This little work, however, does not add much
to our stock of accurate information, but it is rendered in¬
teresting by the variety of collateral objects which it em¬
braces. The experiments themselves rarely display address
or delicacy; and Dr Wells, without ever employing the
hygrometer or the pyroscope, instruments which he could
have then easily procured, generally contents himself with
stating merely rude approximations. Fortunately, such
coarse results were sufficient to support the main princi¬
ple, for otherwise they would have required much correc¬
tion. But we must still regret that the worthy author
should have frequently trusted to conjectural reasoning,
instead of appealing to direct experiment.
Abstract of The chief observations collected by Dr Wells may be
his obser. recluced to a narrow compass. The coldness of the objects
exposed was always found to precede the formation of dew,
which continued, in favourable circumstances, to accumu¬
late somewhat progressively during the whole night, so
that, from midnight to sunrise, the deposition w'as even
greater than from sunset to midnight. Dew was more
abundant in the spring and autumn than at other seasons,
and it was always very copious when the atmosphere in¬
clined to humidity; for instance, in clear nights succeed¬
ing to misty mornings, or in clear mornings succeeding to
misty nights.
The coldness which bodies contract from exposure must
be augmented by every circumstance which retards the
communication of heat. Hence loose and spongy mate¬
rials are mostly affected. Thus, in a clear night the grass
was twelve degrees colder than the garden mould, and
sixteen and a half degrees colder than a hard gravel walk.
In another bright evening, the surface of snow being nine
degrees colder than the air, a piece of swandown laid on
it became still four degrees colder. Again, a lock of wool
placed on a small table in the garden became nine and a
half degrees colder than the air, while swandovvn, in the
same situation, acquired a coldness of eleven and a half
degrees.
The quantities of dew which attach to different substan¬
ces appear to follow the proportions of their relative cold¬
ness. Parcels of wool, each weighing ten grains, being
teased out into flattened balls of two and a half inches di¬
ameter, and laid on a grass plot, on a gravel walk, and on
fresh garden mould, acquired, during a clear calm night,
respectively, sixteen, nine, and eight grains of humidity.
In another favourable night ten grains of wool laid on the
table attracted sixteen grains of dew, while another simi¬
lar parcel, suspended at the same height in the free air,
acquired only ten grains ; but the former must have also
been much colder than the latter, since its confined situ¬
ation, unlike the open exposition, would check the dissipa¬
tion of the frigorific impressions. Hence dew is always
denser on grass than on the leaves of shrubs.
But the cooling of substances from exposure, though one
great source of dew, is not the only cause of its formation.
In low fogs, while the ground is scarcely colder than the
incumbent bed of air, the humidity yet settles profusely
on all bodies, even on the polished surface of metals. From
Six’s experiments, it appears that, from the height of 200 Dewas
feet, the temperature of the atmosphere, in fine even- [|
ings, decreases regularly about ten degrees, the colder and ■^)e Witt,
therefore denser portions being always thrown down to the
surface. Hence the reason of the ancient remark, that Coldness of
dew is more copious in low vales than on the tops ofthe SLlrface
hills. But the observations of Dr Wells serve to confirm
the general statement. A lock of wool exposed on a table, of dew> e
imbibed, during a clear night, sixteen grains of dew ; but
a similar parcel, placed immediately under the table, and
consequently screened from the aspect of the sky, attracted
four grains. In the latter case, the mere accumulation
of cold air below must have occasioned the aqueous depo¬
sition.
It might perhaps have been judged sufficient if Dr Wells
had contented himself with assuming the coldness induced
on the ground as merely an experimental fact. At any
rate, we cannot help regretting that he should have sought
the explication of this primary phenomenon from the
very loose, cumbrous, and visionary hypothesis of M. Pre-
vost of Geneva, concerning what is gratuitously called ra¬
diant heat. We are at a loss indeed to conceive how a
speculation so repugnant to all the principles of sound
philosophy should at this time have procured any favour,
unless it proceeds from the blind admiration which the
multitude are prone to entertain for whatever lulls the rea¬
soning faculty, and appears cloudy and mysterious. See
Meteorology. (j. l.)
DEW AS, in Hindustan, a town, the principal place of a
small native principality, situated in the province of Malwa,
between Lat. 22. 30. and 23. 2., Long. 75. 53. and 76. 27.,
and containing an area of 256 square miles. The authority
by which this petty state is ruled deserves notice from its
singular character. The territory appears to have been
originally granted to two brothers, and it still continues to
be held conjointly by two princes of the Puar or Pramara
rajpoots. Although these chiefs were personally on good
terms, it was found that their principal servants, in conduct¬
ing the administration of affairs, came frequently into col¬
lision ; and at length an arrangement was effected under
which the two rajahs agreed to act by a union of authority,
and to carry on the government by means of one public
minister. By the provisions of a treaty concluded in 1818,
British protection has been extended to this petty state,
and the rajahs in return are bound to maintain a military
force to be at the disposal of the British government. The
revenue of the state amounts to about LAO,000 per annum,
and its population is estimated at 25,000. The town is in
Lat. 22. 58., Long. 76. 4. (e. t.)
DE WITT, John, one of the greatest statesmen of Hol¬
land, was born at Dort in 1625. From his father, who had
been a member of the states of Holland, he inherited a sleep¬
less jealousy and suspicion of the power and influence ofthe
house of Orange : and when in 1652 he was made grand-
pensioner of Holland, he used all his efforts to break up
that plurality of office which had hitherto been vested in
the princes of that family, and had made them, in the capa¬
city of stadt-holders, almost the equals of kings. The last
stadt-holder had died in 1650, and his son, afterwards Wil¬
liam HI. of England, was at this time a mere infant. Avail¬
ing himself of the opportunity thus presented, De Witt
caused the office of stadt-holder to be abolished, and the
power ofthe states-general to be declared supreme. In 1654
he concluded a treaty with Cromwell, in a secret article
by which, provision was made that no member of the Orange
family should in future hold the highest offices of state.
On the restoration of Charles II., the grand-pensionary
sought the alliance of France. England, alarmed at this,
declared war against Holland; and though her arms were at
first successful, she was ultimately obliged to sue for peace.
D E Y
Dewsbury the more especially as De Ruyter had appeared with a
Deirah T'6* flee,t “L*! m0uth of the TI,ames. burnt the
CSh',Pp,"gc“ ^,d™y-T,Soon the aggrandizing
^ Pobcyof Louts XIV of France began to assume a definite
form against Holland, and De Witt hastened to seek the
assistance of Sweden and England. The treaty with these
powers was concluded in great haste, so that it was not sub¬
mitted to the federal council of each province, but was rati¬
fied at once by the states-general. This measure, which
was perfectly justifiable in the emergency, was afterwards
brought up against the grand-pensionary. Meanwhile De
Witt was organizing the internal policy of Holland, regula-
ting the finances, and carrying out his scheme of excludino-
the Orange family from any share in the government. But
his plans were _ defeated by the intrigues of Louis XIV.
which resulted in a coalition of France and England against
rl oil and. 1 he armies of France entered Holland in 1672
laid waste the country, and advanced to within a few miles
of Amsterdam. At this crisis the people rose against the
grand-pensionary, whom they believed to have neglected
the necessary precautions against an invasion, put the young
Prince of Orange at the head of the army, and expelled the
grand-pensionary’s brother Cornelius. De Witt himself
immediately resigned his office ; and as he and his brother
were retiring into the country, the mob rose against them
and murdered them in cold blood, under circumstances
of the most revolting cruelty.
DEWSBURY, a market-town in thewest riding ofYork-
slure, situated at the foot of a hill rising from the left bank
of the Calder, and on the line of the Manchester and Leeds
railway, eight miles S. by W. of Leeds. Pop. (1851) 5033.
Ihis town, though ancient, owes its present importance to
the extensive manufactures which are carried on there.
These consist chiefly of blankets, carpets, druggets, and an
inferior woollen cloth made from rags, which, by powerful
machinery, are reduced to wool, and afterwards re-spun and
made into the cloth known as shoddy. Dewsbury is con¬
nected by canals with Hull and Liverpool. The town is
pleasantly situated and generally well built. Part of the
principal church is of great antiquity. It was rebuilt in the
iattei half of the last century in conformity with the original
plan, and a great part of the interior was preserved. Dews¬
bury has a new court-house recently erected, a blanket hall
market cross ; also a charity school, free-school, mechanics’
institute, and several subscription libraries and news-rooms.
UiLAl AJ\h, m Roman Antiquity, ten ounces, or 44 of
the libra, or of anything else. 12
DEXTER, in Heraldry, right as opposed to left in a
S 11^uvr'nCT^tTv?£armS ’ as band-dexter, dexter-point, &c.
DEXTRINE. See Brewing, vol. v., p. 320; and
Chemistry.
DEXTROCHERE, or Destrochere, in is ap¬
plied to the right arm painted in a shield, naked or clothed,
or adorned with a bracelet, and sometimes armed, or holding
a moveable member used in the arms.
DEY, the title of the former sovereigns of Algiers, under
theprotection of the Grand Signior. The sovereignty and the
ex‘st w^en Algiers became a colony of France.
DEYJNSE, atown of Belgium, province of East Flanders,
arrondissement of Ghent, and nine miles S.W. of the town
of that name, on the left bank of the Lys, and on the Ghent
and Courtrai railway. It is celebrated for its manufacture
of gin. Pop. (1851) 3661.
DEYRAH, a town of Northern Hindustan, and the prin¬
cipal place of the British province designated the Deyrah
Doon. It is populous and well built, and its position is
favourable for commerce, as it stands at the intersection of
the road from Hurdwar to Sirmoor with that from Suha
runpore to the Sanatarium of Mussouree. The valley of
the Deyrah Doon is 45 miles in length, with a varying
breadth of from 15 to 20. It lies between Eat. 30. and 30. 32.,
D H o
771
Long. 77.43. and 78.24., and contains an area of673 square Derphoul
miles, with a population ot 32,083. This tract formerly be- ||
Jongea to the rajah of Gurwhal, from whom it was wrested ^^00^P00r<
by the Goorkhas in 1803. During the Nepaul war in 1815 v"—
t ie Deyrah Doon became the scene of military operations,
and acquired a mournful celebrity by the obstinate defence
made by the Goorkhas at Kalunga or Nalapani, in the sieo-e
of which the British lost a considerable number of men, in¬
cluding their gallant commander General Gillespie, (e. t.)
DEZPHOUL, a town of Persia, in the province of Kii-
zibtan, situated in a beautiful plain, on the eastern bank of the
Abzal, 28 miles W. from Shuster. Its only ornament is an
elegant bridge, erected by the command of Sapor, a prince
celebrated both as the destroyer and the founder of cities.
I his bridge is 450 paces in length, 20 in breadth, and about
40 in height. T he piers are of large stones, and the arches
and upper parts of brick. Pop. of Dezphoul nearly 15,000.
DHAR, in Hindustan, a town, the principal place of the
raj or petty native state of the same name, is situate 33 miles
west of the British military station of Mhow, in the territory
of Indore. It is defended by a fort erected on an eminence
using 40 feet above the plain. The raj, of which this town
is the capital, contains an area of 1070 square miles, and a
population of 104,860. By the provisions of a treaty con¬
cluded in 1819, Dhar was taken under the protection of
the British government; in return for which the rajah ceded
certain tributes, and moreover entered into the usual en¬
gagements of subordinate co-operation and friendly alliance.
1 he town of Dhar has an elevation of 1908 above the level
of the sea, and is situated in Eat. 22. 35., Long. 75.20. (e. t.)
^n(lustan> a town, the principal place
of a British collectorate of the same name, subject to the
jurisdiction of the presidency of Bombay. The town, which
is situate to the south of the fort, is further protected by a
wall and ditch. The fort is strong, though not built on the
strict plan of a regular fortification, and the ditch is from 25
to 30 feet wide and nearly as many in depth. This place
has often changed masters. In the year 1685 it ivas taken
from the king of Bejapore by the armies of the emperor
Aurungzebe; and soon after the decease of that monarch
it fell into the hands of the Mahrattas, from whom it was
taken by Tippoo Sultan in 1784. It was retaken in 1791
by the Mahrattas, aided by the British, after a siege of
tedious duration, in the course of which it was almost totally
destroyed. Upon the fall of the Peishwa in 1818, the town,
with all the possessions of the Mahratta leader, fell to the
disposal of the British. The collectorate, of which this
town is the capital, extends from Eat. 14. 16. to 15. 50., and
from Long. 74. 50. to 76-, and contains an area of 3837
squaie miles, with a population of /54,385. In most parts
of the district the soil is fertile and peculiarly adapted to
the growth of American cotton, the cultivation of which
has spread with extraordinary rapidity within the last few
years. The experimental cultivation of the New Orleans
species commenced in 1842 in farms established by the
British government; and its superiority over the indigenous
cotton is now universally recognised throughout the district
Lat. of town 15. 28., Long. 75. 4. (E. T \
DHOOLPOOR, in Hindustan, a town, the chief place
of the raj or native state of the same name, is situate about
a mile from the left bank of the river Chumbul. It is a
place of great antiquity, and contains several fine mosques
and mausoleums. Baber, in his autobiography, adverts to
its surrender to him in 1526. The territory of Dhoolpoor
extends iiom Lat. 26. 30. to 26. 57., and from Long. 77.32.
to <8. 20., and contains an area of 1626 square miles. It
is governed by a chief of the Jaut tribe, w hose ancestors
lined over Gohad, and subsequently became masters of the
fort of Gwalior and the adjacent country. Some of these
possessions had been wrested from the ruling family by
the Mahrattas; and under the provisions of a treaty con-
772
D I A
Diabetes eluded in 1804 between the Rana and the British, the latter
II engaged to establish the Rana in his hereditary dominions.
Dialling. Owing to the opposition of Scindia, it was subsequently
deemed inexpedient to carry out this engagement. A modi¬
fication of the treaty was thereupon agreed to, in conformity
with which the Rana consented to relinquish the possessions
guaranteed to him by the British, and to accept in lieu
thereof the territory of Dhoolpoor and its dependencies.
A military force consisting of 2000 men is maintained by
the Rana. The town of Dhoolpoor is in Lat. 26. 41.,
Long. 77. 58. v (E*T-) .
DIABETES (Greek, from Sid through, and fdaivw to go),
an immoderate flow of urine. Ihere are two varieties of
this disorder; one a mere superabundance of the ordinary
discharge the other, termed diohetos /urliltus, in which
the urine becomes highly charged with saccharine matter,
and which usually, if not always, terminates fatally.
DIACAUSTIC Curve, a species of the caustic curves
formed by refraction.
DIACHYLON (Greek, Sid and x^Aos, juice), a name
given by the ancient Greek physicians to an emollient plas¬
ter, composed of the resinous juices of certain herbs. The
term is retained in modern pharmacy, to denote a plaster
prepared by boiling hydrated oxide of lead with olive oil.
DIACOUSTICS, called also Diaphonics, the consi¬
deration of the properties of refracted sound, as it passes
through different media. The word is formed from the
Greek Sia, through, which intimates a passage, and iikovui,
I hear; the consideration of the passage of the sounds
which we hear. See Acoustics.
DIACRII, in Antiquity, was the name of the oligarchic
party or faction at Athens, as distinguished from the pedtaci
or democratic party. They derived their names, the for¬
mer from inhabiting the upper part of the city, and the
latter the lower quarters. The laws of Solon designed that
Peisistratus should be the chief of the diacrii; though the
scholiast on Aristophanes’s comedy of The Wasps affirms
that Pandion distributed the quarter of the diacrii among his
sons, and put Lycus at their head.
DIADEM. See Crown.
DLERESIS (Gk. separation), in Grammar, the divi¬
sion of one syllable into two ; which is usually noted by two
points over a letter, as auldi for aula.
DI^ETETiE, or arbitrators at Athens, were of two kinds :
the cleroti and diallacterii. The former were public arbi¬
trators, chosen by lot to determine all causes exceeding ten
drachms within their own tribe ; and from their sentence an
D I A
appeal lay to the superior courts. The latter were private Diagnosis
arbitrators, from whose sentence there lay no appeal; and ||
accordingly they always took an oath to administer justice J)ialling'
with impartiality.
DIAGNOSIS (from Stayvwo-Kw, to discern or distinguish),
in Medicine, the diagnostics or the signs of a disease. They
are of two kinds, namely, the adjunct and the pathognomo¬
nic. The former, being common to several diseases, serve
only to point out the difference between diseases of the
same species ; but the latter, being those which always at¬
tend the disease, distinguish it from all others.
DIAGONAL, in Geometry, a right line drawn across a
quadrilateral figure, from one angle to another; sometimes
called the diameter, and also the diametral, of the figure.
DIAGORAS, of Melos (fl. 458-415 b.c.), a poet and
philosopher, who in ancient times obtained the surname
of the Atheist. He is said to have been a scholar of De¬
mocritus, and to have exchanged the superstition of his
early dithyrambics for an undisguised system of atheism.
Having been defrauded by a man to whom he had intrusted
one of his writings, he was provoked to deny the existence
of a God on account of the violation of justice in permitting
the villain to go unpunished. Despite the religious suscep¬
tibilities of antiquity, perhaps he might have succeeded in
living peacefully had he only endangered the truths of natu¬
ral religion; but he went farther, and boldly assailed the
popular religion. At Athens, with Alcibiades and others,
he ventured to ridicule the Eleusinian mysteries. For this
offence he was tried, and was compelled to seek safety in
flight; since a price was fixed upon his head to any one
who should bring him dead or alive. Fie escaped, however,
to Corinth, where he died in peace.
DIAGRAM, in Geometry, a scheme for explaining and
demonstrating the properties of any figure.
Diagram, among ancient musicians, a musical scale.
DIAL. See Dialling.
DIALECT (Sia and \eyo>, to speak)', the form or idiom of
a language peculiar to a particular province, state, or king¬
dom. The ancient Greek language possessed four dialects,
the Attic, Ionic, Alolic, and Doric.
In Great Britain, besides the grand diversity of English
and Scotch, almost every county has a dialect of its own,
all differing considerably in pronunciation, accent, and tone,
although one and the same language.
DIALECTICS, in the literary history of the ancients,
that branch of logic which taught the rules and modes of
reasoning. See Logic.
DIALLING.
Dialling, sometimes called Gnomonics, is a branch of
the mixed mathematics, which treats of the construction
of sun-dials. Its foundation is the astronomical theory of
the sun’s apparent motions ; and from these its rules and
operations have been deduced by the aid of geometry and
trigonometry.
It may be supposed that in the early ages men would
be satisfied with the divisions of the day marked by the
rising and setting of the sun, and his greatest elevation
above the horizon. When the gnomon, an upright pillar,
the first of all astronomical instruments, had been applied
to astronomy, the angular motion of its shadow might sug¬
gest that it was applicable to the division of the day.
The earliest mention that is made of a sun-dial is in
the Bible. We read in the thirty-second chapter of Second
Chronicles, that when Hezekiah was sick, he prayed to the
Lord, and “ He gave him a sign what that sign was is par¬
ticularly told in Isaiah, chap, xxxviii. verse 8, “ Behold I
will bring again the shadow of the degrees which is gone
down in the sun-dial of Ahaz ten degrees backward. So the
sun returned ten degrees, by which degrees it was gone
down.” This was about 700 years before the Christian era.
The Chaldeans, among the earliest astronomers, as
well as the other nations of Asia, divided the day into
sixty parts. They had also a division of the day into
twelve hours. The earliest of all sun-dials of which we
have any certain knowledge was the Hemicycle or Hemi¬
sphere of their astronomer Berosus, who probably lived
about 540 years b. c. This was the most simple and na¬
tural of all sun-dials, and therefore must have preceded
the others. It has been the most generally used, but
it could never be of any considerable dimensions, and was
not susceptible of much accuracy. It, however, requir¬
ed no mathematical theory for its construction; a dis¬
tinct notion of the spherical motion of the heavens was
sufficient. To understand this dial, let us suppose a con¬
cave hemisphere, placed horizontally in an open place,
with the concavity turned towards the zenith, and let a
DIAL
globule be suspended or fixed in any way at its centre;
when the sun’s centre rises above the horizon the shadow
of the globule will enter the hemisphere, and throughout
the day the shadow will trace on its inside the sun’s diurnal
parallel. Now, let the lines described by the shadow on the
solstitial and equinoctial days be traced on the inside of
the sphere, and also on as many intermediate days as
may be, but in fact the tropical paths of the shadow will
be sufficient ^ let each of these be divided into twelve
equal parts, and let curve lines be drawn through cor¬
responding points of division. These will be sensibly
great circles on the inside of the hemisphere, and will two
and two converge towards points in the meridian more or
less distant. Here then is a sun-dial which will divide
the period between sunrise and sunset into twelve por¬
tions, called temporary hours. The hours indicated by
this dial were from its nature unequal, and varied from day
to day. This defect, however, was not of much conse¬
quence when there were no machines for dividing time:
a knowledge of geometry would have served to construct
the dial so as to divide time equally, but at that remote
period geometry was not known as a science.
The difference between the equinoctial hours, which
were equal, and the unequal temporary hours, might not be
at first observed, or might have been disregarded by a people
who inhabited a climate where the elevation of the pole
was small, and who, besides, attended only to the rising
and setting of the sun, and, it may be, his passing the meri¬
dian, which at all times divided the day into parts nearly
equal. They probably first divided each half of the day, as
well as they could by estimation, into three equal parts, and
these again each into two. The dial of Berosus, although
imperfect, was a great step towards improvement in the divi¬
sion of time, and was not at variance with the conjectural
divisions, because in both ways the twelve hours had the
same bounding limits, the rising and setting of the sun.
It would have been easy to have passed from the tem¬
porary to equal hours, which were marked by equal arcs
on the equator; it was only necessary to describe semi¬
circles through these points of division which should cut
each other in the poles of the world : these would have
divided the parallels into arcs of fifteen degrees each: by
carrying the divisions into fifteen degrees upon the sum¬
mer tropic from the six o’clock hour circle to sunrise and
sunset, there would have been got the excess of the
longest above the equinoctial day. Thus a more exact no¬
tion of the length of the day and night at all seasons would
have been obtained. But this would have appeared a
great innovation, and not likely to have been adopted:
every one knows how obstinate the common people are in
adhering to old habits. Accordingly the construction of
Berosus descended beyond the time of Hipparchus and
Ptolemy. We find it in the year 900 among the Arabians,
who followed it in the construction of their dials, as ap¬
pears from the work of Albategnius ; and it is only since
the invention of mechanical instruments for dividing time
that it has altogether disappeared.
It is doubtful whether the Chaldeans had any mathe¬
matical theory for their dial, although it was of great sim¬
plicity. The facility, however, of its corfstruction has
probably made it the best known. Four have, in modern
times, been recovered in Italy. One was discovered in the
year 1746, at Tivoli. It has been supposed that this belonged
to Cicero, who in one of his letters says that he had sent a
dial of this kind to his villa near Tusculum. P. Zuzzeri,
a Jesuit, has made this dial the subject of a memoir pub¬
lished at Venice. The second and third were found in
1751 ; one at Castel-Nuovo, and the other at Rignano ; and
a fourth was found in 1762 at Pompeii. It differs from the
others in respect that the tropics are not expressly marked,
LING, 773
and the equator alone is seen. G. H. Martini, the author Dialling
of a dissertation, in the German language, on the Dials of
the Ancients, supposes this last to be the oldest of the
four, and that it is probably the primitive dial, such as was
known to Berosus. Delambre, however, in his Histoirede
I Astronomic Ancienne, expresses himself of a contrary
opinion, because it was more difficult to construct such a
dial without than with the tropics. Martini says that the
dial was made for the latitude of Memphis; it may there¬
fore be the work of Egyptians, if it was not constructed
in the school of Alexandria. It may be ascribed to the
Egyptians, however, without attributing to them much
knowledge in geometry ; a terrestrial globe, on which were
traced the equator and tropics, divided into degrees, and
with its pole elevated to the latitude of the place, w^as all
that was necessary. This being cut into two hemispheres
horizontally, and great circles traced through the corre¬
sponding points of the two tropics, would furnish two con¬
vex models of the dial, from which any number of concave
ones might easily be formed. The convex spherical model
might even have had the parts cut away which were not
to be shown on the concavity, and thus the construction
of the dial might be a purely manual operation performed
by an artist.
When the first dial was constructed, it was easy from
that to make others. Thus, by the side of a Chaldean dial
let a plane be fixed in any position, with a perpendicular
gnomon ; mark on the plane the position of the top of the
shadow from hour to hour on the solstitial and equinoctial
days, and join the corresponding horary points by lines,
and it will appear that the three analogous points are
always in a straight line; and thus there might be form¬
ed, without any theory, temporary dials of all kinds.
It may be supposed that every nation that cultivated
astronomy had found means to divide time. It appears
that the Egyptians had found in the heavens the means
of attaining this object, but no sun-dial has been found
among the antiquities of Egypt, and their sculptures give
no indication of any having existed; they may, however,
be buried in the sands, or overwhelmed in the midst of
the vast ruins of their cities. It has been supposed that
the numerous obelisks found everywhere in Egypt were
erected in honour of the sun, and employed as gnomons.
The famous circle of Osymandias might have determined
the azimuths of the heavenly bodies, and thus have given
the hours of the day or night.
Herodotus has recorded that the Greeks derived from
the Babylonians the use of the pole and of the gnomon,
and the division of the day into twelve parts: the pole
was an instrument that showed the hour of the day. The
Greeks by their geometry were in full possession of the
means of constructing dials; and the Syntaxis of Ptolemy
treats of their construction by means of his Analemma, an
instrument by which the various problems of astronomy
might be resolved.
The dials of the ancients marked the hour of the day by
the shadow of a gnomon, but they had neither centres nor
axes, and in some respects this was an advantage. The
nature of their hours, which varied with the season, made
it necessary to give such directions to the horary lines as
prevented them from meeting in a point; they therefore
were satisfied with finding the position of three points in
each, although two would have been sufficient, for the
lines were sensibly straight in all plane dials; the diurnal
paths of the extremity of the shadow were hyperbolas,
which intersected the horizon in the points of rising and
setting, and of these there might be any number, but in
general they were limited to the arcs of Cancer and Ca¬
pricorn ; the line for Aries and Libra was always straight,
and furnished a middle point in the hour line.
774
DIALLING.
Dialling.
The constructions given by Ptolemy were sufficient for
regular dials, the only ones he treats of. It is certain, how¬
ever, that the ancients constructed vertical declining dials,
for eight are yet in existence on the Tower of the Winds
at Athens. Probably a part of the book of the Analemma
is now lost, otherwise it would be remarkable that after
Ptolemy had announced, in commencing, that he proposed
to facilitate the construction of dials, he should not say a
single word on the applications which may be made of his
obscure methods and graphical operations, the object of
which can hardly be seen, or the principles understood.
The ancient hours were called hectemoria by the Greeks,
because they were sixth parts of the semidiurnal arc. It
does not appear that the nature of the hectemorial hour
lines was ever considered by the ancients ; indeed, practi¬
cally, their precise nature was of little importance to them,
and of no use in tracing their dials. On the sphere, when
the pole is not considerably elevated, the lines which di¬
vide the semidiurnal arcs into equal parts differ not much
in appearance from arcs of great circles, as has already
been remarked; and that they are not exactly so was
first suggested by Clavius. Delambre has treated of them
in his History of Astronomy, and in the Connoissance des
Temps for 1820. Mr Cadell has treated the subject at
considerable length in the eighth volume of the Transac¬
tions of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, and, again, Mr
Davis in the twelfth volume of the same work.
The most interesting monument of ancient gnomonics
is the Tower of the Winds, which is yet in existence, and
is figured and described by Stuart in his Antiquities of
Athens. This is a regular octagon, on the faces of which
the eight principal winds are represented, and over them
are eight different dials; four regular, viz. east, west,
north, and south ; the other four have the intermediate
directions. Vitruvius has described the Tower in the
sixth chapter of his first book; but he has not said any
thing of the dials. This is remarkable, because he has
described all tbe dials known in his time, and these are in
every way more important than those of which he has men¬
tioned the inventors. His silence gives reason to believe
that the dials on the Tower have been an after thought, and
are of a date later than his time, and much posterior to
that of Andronicus Cyrresthes, author of the monument.
It is impossible to say any thing with precision as to the
time when these eight dials were erected. From the im¬
paired purity of style in the architecture of the Tower, it
has been judged to be later than the time of Pericles and
Anaxagoras. In their day the science of gnomonics was
too little advanced to have served for the construction of
the dials ; however, as far as mathematical science was
required, they might have been made in the time of Hip¬
parchus, or later. It is certain they must have required a
science of gnomonics, and therefore a trigonometry, un¬
less they were made empirically by the help of the con¬
cave hemisphere of Berosus.
These dials, as described by Stuart, have the forms of
those in the commentary given by Commandine on the
Analemma of Ptolemy ; everywhere the style is wanting,
but the hole in which it had been inserted is visible in the
marble. Its vertex is rarely in the axis of the hole,
even in the regular dials, which are four in number. How¬
ever, the height and the foot of the style are not indispen¬
sable data ; they may be discovered from the principal di¬
mensions of the dial. By a careful examination, Delambre
ascertained that the south dial, the most important, was
remarkably accurate, and that the height of the style was
ten and a hall English inches. The hours are not num¬
bered, but they are temporary, and reckoned from sunrise
to noon, and thence to sunset. The north dial is but a
supplement of the south, on the same scale, and with the
same style. There appear only two evening and two Diallins?.
morning lines; and these, instead of being horary, are 'y—
truly azimuthal; they only indicate the direction of the
shadow. Two of these four lines are even a little too
long, because that, instead of the hyperbolic arc, which
should limit them, a straight line has been drawn. These
slight defects are of no real importance.
The east dial is as exact as the south. It is very nar¬
row, although it has a style double tbe length, almost
nineteen and a fifth inches. The south-east presents the
same agreement in all its parts. The height of the style
is about twenty-five and a half inches. The inclination of
the equinoctial to the horizontal line is 42° 40', such as
calculation makes it.
The north-east dial does not appear to have been traced
with so much care, or at least success ; the style is only
about six and a half inches. The horary lines, three in num¬
ber, are very oblique. The artist, however, may be excus¬
ed, because tbe least error in the graphical operations might
alter sensibly their length. Besides, this dial is the least
important of them all; there is nothing which cannot be
determined with more certainty on some one of the neigh¬
bouring dials. The three remaining dials, viz. the south¬
west, the west, and the north-west, are merely the coun¬
terparts of their opposite, and have not been figured in
Stuart’s book. The whole give the same general view of
the ancient gnomonics as had been previously acquired by
an examination of a dial found at Delos, and described by
Delarnbre in the class of mathematical sciences of the In¬
stitute for 1814. They are however larger and better
executed than that dial, and in their original position. Al¬
together they form the most complete monument of the
practical gnomonics of the ancients.
There is another remarkable combination of dials in
Athens, known by the name of the dials of Phaedrus.
They are four in number, and are traced on the same
block of pentelique marble. It bears the following inscrip¬
tion : tpctidgog ^uiXou Kaiuvisvs evoisi. From the form of the
letters, M. Visconti, who communicated the designs of
these dials to Delambre, has inferred that the monument
may be of tbe second or third century of our era. Delam¬
bre described and carefully verified all the parts of these
dials (Hist, de lAstron. An. vol. ii.), and everywhere he
found, if not all the conformity which he desired, at least
as much as he could expect. The dials by themselves
confirm what is manifest from those on the Tower of the
Winds, that the Greeks had geometrical methods for ver¬
tical, and also for declining dials.1 To the ancient dials
which have been here noticed we may add a singular one
found at Portici in 1755, and described by the academi¬
cians of Naples. It has the figure of a bacon ham, and,
like all the others, shows temporary hours. The theory
of this dial is simple, but, considering the imperfect trigo¬
nometry of the Greeks, its construction by calculation
might be laborious; probably it was made by the simple
process, already described, from the Chaldean dial. The
epoch of this dial is not known, nor is any dial of this kind
noticed by Vitruvius, to whom we owe all the knowledge we
have of other ancient dials. Vitruvius has attributed to
Berosus the hemicycle hollowed in a square cut according
to the inclination of the place (a description which De¬
lambre says is incorrect). He has added, that Aristarchus
of Samos invented the horologium called scaphe (boat), or
the hemisphere. This may have been the hemisphere of
Berosus which Aristarchus taught the Greeks. Fie attri¬
butes also to him the disk in a plane. This may have been
an equinoctial or a horizontal dial; these the Greeks could
execute graphically without calculation. Vitruvius gives
precepts for the construction of this dial, which are not,
however, very intelligible now. He goes on to say, that
1 These interesting dials are now in the British Museum; Elgin Saloon, No. 186.
DIAL
Dialling, the aranea is due to Eudoxus, or, according to others, to
' Apollonius. This appears to have been a horizontal dial,
on which circles of altitude were traced. Scopas of Syra¬
cuse invented the plinth or lambris, and he assigns to
1 armenion the invention of an universal dial; and he goes
on to speak of many others, the nature of which can only
now be guessed. He indicates dials of suspension intend¬
ed for travellers; these may have been like our ring-dials,
but he does not explain them particularly. Xn concluding,
he says that, to comprehend the theory of dials, it was ne¬
cessary to know that of the Analemma.
The fiist sun-dial erected at Home was in the year 290
b. c. Papii ius Cursor had taken it from the Samnites. In
261 b. c. Valerius Messala placed in the forum a dial
which he had taken at Catania, the latitude of which is
five degrees less than that of Home. In 164, Q. Marcius
Philippus caused the first dial to be constructed ; it was
probably the work of a foreign artist, for no Roman has
written any thing on gnomonics. We have seen that the dial
found at Pompeia was made for the latitude of Memphis,
consequently it was less adapted to its position than that
of Catania was to Rome. These facts prove that mathe¬
matical knowledge was not cultivated at Rome or in Italy.
It appears that sun-dials had been common in the days
of Plautus. In a fragment of one of his comedies (77-e
Boeotian) preserved by Aulus Gellius in his Attic Nights,
he makes a parasite declaim against sun-dials in these
terms:
Ut ilium di penlant, primus qui horas repperit,
Quique adeo primus statuit hie solarium.
Qui mihi comminuit misero articulatim diem,
Nam me puero uterus erat solarium
Multo omnium istorumet verissimum,
Ubi iste monebat esse, nisi quum nihil erat-
Nunc etiam quod est, non est, nisi Soli lubet.
Itaque adeo jam oppletum est oppidum solariis.
Major pars populi aridi raptant fame.
The gods confound the man who first found out
How to distinguish hours ! Confound him, too.
Who in this place set up a sun-dial,
To cut and hack my days so wretchedly
Into small portions. When I was a boy.
My belly was my sun-dial; one more sure.
Truer, and more exact than any of them.
This dial told me when ’twas proper time
To go to dinner, when I had aught to eat.
But now-a-days, why, even when I have,
I can’t fall-to unless the sun give leave.
1 he town’s so full of these confounded dials,
The greatest part of its inhabitants.
Shrunk up with hunger, creep along the streets.
Translation of Plautus by Thornton and Warner.
The Arabians, as they drew their knowledge of astrono¬
my from the Greeks, so they also adopted their system of
gnomonics without any material alteration. They studied
the Analemma of Ptolemy, and found means of simplifying
and diversifying his solutions. No nation attached more
importance to gnomonics. Indeed, when there was no
other way of knowing the hours, dials were in great re¬
quest, particularly in southern climes; for in northern
countries the shortness of the day for a great part of the
year, and the uncertainty of sunshine, diminished much
their utility. Abul-Hassan, who lived about the begin¬
ning of the thirteenth century, and one of their most mo¬
dern writers, introduced among them equal hours, and
taught how to trace them on dials; but he made but little
use of them, and it does not appear that his invention
was supported. He was also the author of a new way of
describing the arcs of parallels. He invented a dial call¬
ed khaphir, a word which means the hoof of a horse ; the
Greeks had no such dial. He made various others, to
which particular names were given. He taught how to
L t N G. 775
trace the progress of the shadow on plane, cylindrical, Dialling,
conic, and spherical surfaces. The Greeks, however, had
preceded him in the construction of dials on conic sur¬
faces.
The writings of Abul-Hassan present a theory not to
be found in the gnomonics of the Greeks, or any other
Arabian writer, or in that of the moderns. He employed
the properties of the conic sections to describe the arc of
signs. It is true, Commandine and Clavius have also traced
their arcs of signs by means deduced from the theory of
these curves ; but their mode of proceeding, very obscure,
is not that o! the Arabian. We do not find among them
the universal dial of Regiomontanus, nor the analemmatic
dials, which give the hour by the sun’s altitude; nor had
they any idea of the angles at the centre of different dials.
We find these angles and different other novelties in the
first European authors who have written on gnomonics;
but these geometers do not say that they were the inven¬
tors of these happy innovations. There is therefore in the
history of gnomonics a blank which cannot now be filled
up. We see a marked progress, without knowing precise¬
ly to whom we owe the obligation. These discoveries pro-
bably preceded the invention of printing. The original
works are lost, but tradition has handed down to us what
was most useful in them. The oldest of these writers,
Munster and Schoner, have affected to imitate the Arabs,
in suppressing all demonstrations, as had been done by
Albategnius and Ebn-Jounis. They have given construc¬
tions resting on principles nowhere demonstrated, and
hence has arisen an obscurity not easily to be dissipated.
Among the first of the moderns who have treated of
gnomonics may be reckoned John Stabius, Andrew Stri-
borius, and John Werner, astronomers of the fifteenth cen¬
tury. Their works however have never been printed. To
these may be added John Schoner, an astronomer of the
sixteenth century, who gave in 1515 a work entitled Ho-
rarii cylindri Canones, in which he treats of the construc¬
tion of cylindrical dials. His other works on dialling were
afterwards published by Andrew Schoner, his son. Some
notions on modern gnomonics were given in a treatise on
the Roman calendar, printed in 1518. This writer treats
of a general horary square, after Regiomontanus, which
supposes equal hours; so that these appear to have been
established in the middle of the fifteenth century, and
probably earlier. It appears from Stoffler, that in his time
a new system of gnomonics had been formed, the author
of which however is unknown.
Sebastian Munster, a cordelier, who had embraced the
opinions of Luther, published at Basle, in 1531, a work with
this title, Compositio Horologiorum in piano muro, truncis,
anulo concavo cylindro, et variis quadrantibus, &c.; and
again, in 1533, Horologiographia post priorem editionem.
The author was born at Ingelheim in 1489, and died of the
plague at Basle in 1532. He employs equinoctial hours,
and supposes great circles to pass through the pole of the
world perpendicular to the equator, dividing it into twenty-
four equal parts. A plane which cuts all these circles shows
the hours by its. intersection with the different planes.
Here then is a complete revolution in the theory of dial¬
ling; and doubtless the change had subsisted for some
time; for he speaks with contempt of these vuGar con¬
structors who, without any theory, blindly followed the
rules and tables which had been given to them. It is
very remarkable that so total a change should have taken
place without the author being known; and not fess so
that the first author who printed a book on gnomonics
should have given all his precepts without demonstration.
Equinoctial hours were now substituted for temporary
hours, a centre was given to the dial, an axis was substi¬
tuted for the perpendicular style; centres and dividing
776 DIAL
Dialling, radii were now introduced; all these changes could only
have been made by a skilful geometer. Among the in¬
ventions of Munster was a moon-dial. It is not certain
that he was the author of all the inventions which he de¬
scribes, but at any rate he was the first to publish them.
The next writer to be noticed was Andrew Schoner.
His book has the date 1562, with this title: Gnomonice
Andrece Schoneri Noriberyensis, hoc est de descriptionibus
horologiorum sciatericorum omnis generis, &c. omnia recens
nata et edita. By the concluding words, the author seems
to assert that all contained in his book was his own in¬
vention. This, however, could not be true of any thing
contained also in the first or second edition of Munster’s
book, which preceded his by twenty-nine years. Schoner
speaks of many learned men that had gone before him in
the same science, and regrets that their labours were un¬
known. He cites Regiomontanus and others, but he does
not name Munster. He was an enthusiast on his particu¬
lar subject, and affirmed that dials could no more be dis¬
pensed with than meat and drink. He was an obscure
writer, and communicated nothing new, unless in treating
of inclining-declining dials, of which no mention is made
by Munster, nor among the ancients. In the same cen¬
tury there came out other treatises on dialling, as by Be¬
nedict in 1574, Elie Vinet in 1564, John of Padua in
1582, and Valentino Pini in 1598. These do not seem to
have added much to what was previously known.
In the following century we have a work on dialling by
an astronomer, La Hire. The first edition came out in
1682, another in 1698. Montucla pronounces this book
obscure, and Delambre agrees in his opinion ; for La Hire
merely indicates his demonstrations, and his constructions
are so complicated that they are with difficulty under¬
stood. He never employs calculation, unless indeed in
an appendix, which might be left out, without altering
the character of the work. All his operations may be
performed without any idea of even plane trigonometry.
He employs only compasses, the rule, and the plumb-line.
A dial may be traced by his directions, without knowing
whether it be horizontal, vertical, east, west, declining, or
inclining, and without the latitude of the place or the sun s
declination being known. This plan is not the best for prac¬
tice ; but it was new, and therefore remarkable and deserv-
ingof notice. His constructions are often ingenious; but they
have the essential fault of not admitting of much accuracy.
There is a treatise on gnomonicsby Ozanam, of datel693.
It also forms a part of his Cours de Matheniatiques, printed in
1697. This, in the opinion of Delambre, is a perspicuous
work, and much superior for practice to that of La Hire.
The subject of dialling was greatly agitated in the course
of the seventeenth century by all writers on astronomy.
Thus a quarto volume of 800 pages, entirely on gnomonics,
forms a part of the works of Clavius, printed in 1612.
This may be supposed to contain all that was known be¬
fore his time, as well as his own inventions. In this work
he has demonstrated both the theory and practice, after
the manner of the ancient mathematicians.
The eighteenth century produced some writers on dial¬
ling ; but clocks and watches had by this time superseded
sun-dials: their theory was well known and explained in
all works on astronomy. The art of constructing them
was now considered as a mathematical recreation. At this
point we shall conclude their history.
The principal writers on dials and dialling are the fol¬
lowing :—Ptolemy, restoration of his work on the Analem-
ma, by Commandine ; Vitruvius, in his Architecture; Sebas¬
tian Munster, in his Horologiographia ; Orontius Fineus,
De Horologiis Solaribus, &c.; Mutio Oddi da Urbino, Gli
Horologi Solari nelle Superjicie Piane; Dryander, De
Horologiorum varia Compositione ; Conrad Gesner’s Pan-
L I N G.
dectce; Andrew Schoner s Gnomonicce; F. Commandine, Dialling.
De Horologiorum Descriptione; Joan. Bapt. Benedictus,
De Gnomonum Umbrarum Solarium Usu; Joannes Geor¬
gius Sch o m berg, Exegesis Fundo mentor urn Gnomonicorum ;
Solomon de Cans, Traite de Horologes Solaires; Joan.
Bapt. Trolta, Praxis Horologiorum; Desargues, Maniere
Universellepour poser VEssieu et placer les Heures et autres
Choses au Cadrans Solaires; Ath. Kircher, Ars magna
Lucis et Umbra ; Hallum, Explicatio Horologii in Horto
Regio Londini; Joan. Mark, Tractatus Horologiorum;
Clavius, Gnomonices de Horologiis; the treatises of Des-
chales, Ozanam, Schottus, Wolfius (in his Elementa),
Picard, Lahire, Walper, with additions by Sturnius, &c.
In the German language there are treatises by Paterson,
Michael, and Muller. Of English writers there are, Fos¬
ter, Horolographia (in his works) ; Wells, The Art of Sha¬
dows ; Collins, Leadbetter, Jones, Leybourn, and others.
At a later period we have treatises by Emerson, by Fer¬
guson in his Lectures, and others.
The theory of dialling has sometimes been treated as a
branch of perspective, as by Gravesand in Essai de Per¬
spective, and Dr Horsley in his Tracts on the Projection of
the Sphere; also, as a branch of analysis, by Kaestner in
his Gnomonica Universalis Analytica ; by MM. Sejour and
Godin, in Recherches Gnomoniques, &c. Lastly, it has been
referred to descriptive geometry, by Hachette, Cours de
Geometric Descriptive. Lefran^'ois, Journal d Ecole Poly¬
technique, 2d cahier. Delambre has treated of the sub¬
ject in different parts of his Histoire de VAstronomic, and in
his Astronomic Theorique et Pratique. Biot has added a
tract on it by Berroyer to his Astronomic Physique.
General Principles of Dialling.
1. The theory of dialling, to be fully understood, re¬
quires an acquaintance with some of the more simple doc¬
trines of astronomy ; also of the elements of geometry and
plane and spherical trigonometry. However, a less exten¬
sive knowledge of pure mathematics will be sufficient for
the construction of the more simple and common dials. A
correct notion of the nature of an angle, and a knowledge
of the elementary problems of practical geometry, viz. the
drawing of parallels, perpendiculars, &c., and how to make
an angle of any proposed number of degrees, also to
measure an angle, will suffice for the mere geometrical
construction of dials. The instruments required are com¬
passes, a scale of chords, or a protractor for measuring
angles, and a straight-edged rule. A globe is useful in
giving distinct notions of the doctrine of the sphere, but
may be dispensed with in the practice of dialling. A dial¬
ling scale facilitates the practice; and therefore instruc¬
tions will be given by which it may be constructed.
2. The preliminary astronomical knowledge has been
delivered in the article Astronomy. To avoid repetition,
we must direct the attention of the reader to that article.
He will find it in the first and second chapters of the Se¬
cond Part; but it is only the definition of the circles of the
sphere, and the description of the apparent motions, to
which we shall have occasion to refer.
3. The apparent diurnal motion of the starry heavens
is perfectly uniform. The sun’s apparent diurnal motion
about the earth’s axis, however, deviates a little from per¬
fect equality, by reason of his unequal angular motion in
the ecliptic, and its obliquity to the equator; but these
need not be attended to in the construction of a sun-dial.
Their joint effect produces the equation of time, a correction
which must always be applied to the time it indicates.
We have given a table of its quantity for every day in the
year at the end. Atmospheric refraction likewise might
be taken into account, but in practice it is neglected, ihe
construction of a dial is a graphical operation, subject to
DIALLING.
Dialling, the imperfection of instruments and their application. The
object in view is a practical methodof finding a measure of
time for the ordinary affairs of life; and for this, extreme
accuracy is not required.
4. The mean distance of the earth from the sun is
23,984 times its semidiameter. Hence we may infer that
all the phenomena of the solar motions, as seen from any
part of the earth’s surface, will be almost exactly the same
as if they were seen from its centre, the difference being in¬
appreciable by the nicest instrument; just as the apparent
position of a spire or other object four miles distant, in
respect of neighbouring objects, will not be in the least
altered by a change of a foot in the position of the eye to
either side of the point from which the object was first
viewed. Hence it follows, that if we place in sunshine
a globe on which the circles of the sphere are delineated,
or, instead of a globe, a skeleton sphere, such as is repre¬
sented in figs. 1 and 2 of Plate CC. formed of twenty-four
equal wire circles, which all pass through the extremities
of a common diameter Pjo, formed of some solid matter ;
and if these circles, in radiating from their intersections P,
p, make equal angles round these points, just as the meri¬
dians do on the common terrestrial globe; then, if the axis
P/> be placed parallel to the earth’s axis, the shadow pro¬
jected by the axis will fall on the wires one after another
at intervals of an hour, because the apparent angular motion
of the sun about the axis Vp will be uniform, just as it is
about the imaginary axis of the earth.
This very simple instrument, if correctly made, and
placed in a fixed position, with its axis directed to the
pole of the world, which is near the pole star, and, more¬
over, with one of its circles in the plane of the meridian
(that is, in a direction due north and south), would serve
to divide the day into twenty-four equal portions. This
is the most natural and elementary of all dials.
5. We have supposed our dial to be composed entirely
of wires or material circles; and although the hour of the
day will be known if the shadow of the axis be observed
to fall on one of the circles, there will be an uncertainty
as to the exact time when the shadow is passing between
two circles. To remedy this, let us suppose that a plane
ABCD, fig. 1, or AFCG, fig. 2, of some solid matter, is
placed within the sphere, and passes through E its centre.
The shadow of the axis PE will now be projected on this
plane surface, and will be seen at all times in its progress
from wire to wire. If now straight lines be drawn from
the centre E to the points in which the plane DAB meets
the wire circles, and the hours be marked on them as in
the figures, it will be noon when the shadow falls along
the line E XII., and eleven in the forenoon when it falls on
E XL, and one in the afternoon when it falls on EI., and so
on throughout the day. As the shadow on the plane will
always be visible, any time intermediate between two
hours may be guessed at nearly by the position of the
shadow in respect to the lines on which it falls at the pre¬
ceding and following hours.
6. It is evident that the plane BAD may have any posi¬
tion whatever within the sphere; the dial will still indicate
the hours, supposing always that the axis Yp is directed to¬
wards the north and south poles of the heavens. We may
assume that the plane DAB is horizontal; then the lines
drawn on the plane from the centre to the points in which
it cuts the wires will constitute a horizontal dial. Such a
dial, constructed as has been explained, for London, in la¬
titude 51^°, is shown by fig 1. On the longest day the
sun’s centre rises at London forty-four minutes before four,
and sets seventeen minutes after eight; therefore the ex¬
treme hours marked on the dial are IV. and VIII.
7. If again we suppose the plane AEG to be vertical, as
in fig. 2, and that it faces the south, then we have a south
VOL VII.
dial. In this case the plane of the dial cannot be illumi¬
nated before six in the morning, nor after six in the even¬
ing ; therefore these are the extreme hours marked on it.
8. If the plane, which we have supposed to be in the in¬
side of the sphere, were perpendicular to the axis, it would
then pass through the equator in the heavens, and the re¬
sult would be an equinoctial dial. In this case, the circle
which forms the circumference of the dial would evident¬
ly be divided into equal parts by the wire circles; there¬
fore the shadow would move with an uniform angular mo¬
tion about the centre, just as the hour-hand of a watch does ;
and, moreover, it would be illuminated on the north side
only in the summer, and on the south side in the winter.
In the same way, by giving different positions to the plane,
the student of this subject may get an exact conception
of every other kind of dial.
9. It is sufficiently obvious, that when the points in
which the circles cut the plane BAD (fig. 1) or FCG
(fig. 2) have been once determined, and lines drawn from
them to the centre, the circles are no longer necessary to
the dial, which is then simply a plane; and although we
have employed the hypothesis of material circles to repre¬
sent the circles of the sphere, as being a convenient way
of treating the subject, yet the intersection of the circles
and the plane of the dial may be determined either by a
geometrical construction or a numerical calculation.
10. It will now be proper to define certain terms which
will frequently occur in treating this subject.
The plane ABCD (fig. 1), on which the lines that in¬
dicate the hours are drawn, is called the plane of the dial.
The material line PE, which rises out of the plane of
the dial, and projects a shadow on it, and thereby indi¬
cates the hours, is called the axis of the dial. Instead of
being a line or rod, it is sometimes the edge of a thin flat
plate (as in fig. 3, 4, &c.) fixed on the plane of the dial; it
is sometimes called the gnomon, also the style, of the dial.
The circles Yap, Yhp, Yep, &c. also the circles of the
celestial sphere which they represent, are hour circles
(Astronomy, Part II. chap. 1). Of these, that which
passes through the sun at noon is the meridian ; the others
are named from the hours, as the six o’clock hour circle, &c.
The lines E XL E XII. E I. &c. which are the intersec¬
tions of the hour circles and the plane of the dial, are
called hour lines ; that in the plane of the meridian, which
indicates the hour of noon, is the meridian line.
The common intersection of the hour lines is called the
centre of the dial. The angles which the hour lines make
with the meridian lines are the hour angles at the centre of
the dial; and the spherical angles which the hour circles
make with the meridian are the hour angles at the pole.
These are the same as the angles which the planes of the
circles make with the meridian.
A horizontal dial is that which is delineated on a hori¬
zontal plane.
A vertical dial is that on a vertical plane. These may
be north, south, east, or west, according to the quarter which
they face.
Vertical declining dials are such vertical dials as do not
face any of the cardinal points.
Inclining or oblique dials are those traced on planes
which make oblique angles with the horizon. They are re¬
clining when they lean backwards from an observer, and
proclining when they project forward.
An equinoctial dial is that whose plane is parallel to the
equator, or perpendicular to the earth’s axis.
A polar dial is that traced on a plane perpendicular to
the meridian, and passing through the poles.
Construction of Horizontal Dials by a Globe.
11. I he manner in which the general principles of dial-
5 F
Dialling.
778
DIALLING.
Dialling, ling have been explained shows directly how a dial may be
constructed by means of a terrestrial globe. Let PEjo be
the axis of a globe (fig. 1), XII. E XII. the equator, and
BAD its horizon. Suppose now the globe to be rectified for
the latitude of any place, London for instance, which is in
latitude 51|° ; this is done by placing it in such a position
that the arc of the brazen meridian between the pole and
horizon is equal to the latitude. Then it is manifest, that
if at London the brazen meridian of the globe be placed
in the plane of the celestial meridian, its axis will point to
the poles of the world ; and if any one of the meridians on
the globe be brought under the brazen meridian, all the
meridians, supposing there are twenty-four, will correspond
to hour circles in the heavens. In short, the meridians on
the globe will correspond to the sphere formed of wire
circles, its wooden horizon to the plane inserted within the
sphere formed by -the circles, and its axis to the axis of that
sphere. Assuming now the line drawn from E. Mie centre
of the globe, to the north point on the horizon as the twelve
o’clock hour line, the angle XII. E I. which the one o’clock
line makes with it at the centre of the dial, will have for
its measure the arc of the horizon between the arc of the
meridian P XII. and the arc P I. of the next hour circle.
This will be about llf°. In the very same way the hour
angle XII. E II. at the centre will be measured by the arc
of the horizon between the brazen meridian and the arc
P II. of the two o’clock hour circle, and so on. The angles
made by the forenoon hour lines and the meridian line are
equal to those made by the corresponding afternoon hour
lines and the meridian line ; that is, the angle XL E XII. to
the angle I. E XII. and X. E XII. to II. E XII. &c. The
morning and evening hour lines for YT. will both be perpen¬
dicular to the meridian ; and it is easy to see that the morn¬
ing hour line for V. will be the continuation of the after¬
noon hour line for V.; and that the hour lines for IV. and
III. in the morning will be the prolongations of the lines
for the same hours in the afternoon. In the same way the
evening hours after VI. are determined from the morning
hours.
12. If the globe have more than twenty-four circles
(some have thirty-six), place the first meridian, which is
that of London, under the brazen meridian, and set the
moveable hour index to XII. at noon; then turn the globe
westward until the index points successively to I. II. III.
IV. V. and VI. in the afternoon, or until 15°, 30°, 45°, 60°,
75°, and 90° of the equator pass under the brazen meri¬
dian ; and it will appear that the first meridian of the globe
cuts the horizon in the following number of degrees from
the north toward the east, viz. llf°, 24£°, 38T^°, 53£°,
7lyj°5 and 90° ; these are the respective distances of the
above hours from XII. on the plane of the horizon.
13. To transfer these and the rest of the hours to the
plane of a horizontal dial (Plate CC. fig. 3), draw parallel
straight lines ac, bd, distant from each other by the thick¬
ness of the style or gnomon ; these, or the space between
them, will mark the meridian or twelve o’clock line on the
dial. Cross the double meridian line by the perpendicular
gabh, and this will be the hour lines for VI. in the morning
and evening.
About a and b as centres, with any convenient radius,
describe quadrants of circles eg, fh, and divide each into
ninety equal parts or degrees, as in the figure.
Because the hour lines are less distant from each other
about noon than in any other part of the dial, it is conve¬
nient to have the centres of these quadrants at some dis¬
tance from the centre of the surface on which the dial is de¬
lineated, to admit of more space for the hour lines about noon.
Lay a rule over b, and draw the hour line of I. through
llf° in the quadrant; the hour line of If through 24^°;
of III. through 38j^°; of IV. through 53f°; and of V.
through 71T13r°. Again, lay the ruler to the centre a of Dialling,
the quadrant eg, and through the like divisions or degrees
of that quadrant, viz. llf°, 24A°, 38^°, 53/,and 71^°,
draw the forenoon hours of XL X. IX. VIII. and VIL
Extend the hour lines of IV. and V. in the afternoon
through b across the dial, and the prolongations will be
the hour lines of the same morning hours. In like man¬
ner, the prolongation of the hour lines of VIII. VIL of the
morning hours through a will give the hour lines of the
same evening hours.
lo form the style, draw a line from a through that de¬
gree of the quadrant eg which h the latitude of the place, in
the presen* case 511°. This line will determine the eleva¬
tion of the style, which is represented in the figure by the
shaded triangle, supposed to be of solid matter, and lying on
the surface of the dial. The thickness of the style must be
equal to ab, the breadth between the meridian lines. Let
it now be placed truly upright on the dial, so as to stand
on the space between them, and the dial will be finished.
The style should be of such a height that its shadow at
midsummer shall reach to the space on which the hours
are marked.
Note. '1 he trouble of dividing the quadrants will be
avoided if you have a scale of chords, or protractor, and
know how to lay down by them an angle of any given
number of degrees. This is one of the simplest problems
of practical geometry.
To construct a direct South Dial by a Globe.
14. Let PBpDF (fig 2. Plate CC.) be a globe on which
twenty-four meridians or hour circles are marked, P and
p being the north and south poles, and XII. E XII. the
equator. Suppose now Yp, the axis of the globe, to coin¬
cide with the axis of the world; and some one meridian
on it, as PFDp, with the meridian of the place lor which
the dial is to serve; then if the globe be cut through
the centre E, by a vertical plane AFCG, in an east and
west direction, it is manifest that straight lines drawn from
the centre to the points on which this plane meets the hour
circles on the globe will be the hour lines of a south or
north dial. The figure shows a south dial on the lower
half of the circle, which is the common section of the circle
and cutting plane, the hour lines being E VI. E VII. &c,;
and Ejt>, the southern half of the axis of the globe, is the
axis ot the dial. A north dial wmuld just be its counter¬
part on the upper and opposite side of the plane.
15. By a comparison of fig. 1 and 2, it will appear that,
as in fig. 1, the angle which the axis PE makes with DAB,
the plane of the dial, is the latitude of the place; so in fig.
2, the angle which the axis pE makes with the plane
FAGC is the complement of the latitude, or what it wants
of 90°. Hence it follows that a south dial for any given
place will serve as a horizontal dial at a place whose lati¬
tude is the complement of that of the given place, and vice
versa. Indeed it is easy to see that, if a dial be correctly
constructed on any given plane for a given place, there will
be some other place, which may be found, ivhere that dial will
serve as a horizontal dial. And the reason is this; what¬
ever be the position of a plane, there must be some place
on the earth whose horizon is parallel to that plane. Now
all dials whose planes are parallel, wherever they be si¬
tuated on the earth’s surface, have their axes parallel;
therefore, at the same instant the angular motion of the
shadow will be the same on them all. If the planes of
dials which are parallel be perpendicular to the same me¬
ridian, they will indicate the same hour at the same in¬
stant. If they are not, the difference between the hours
they indicate at any instant will be different, because of
their difference of longitude.
16. From what has been explained, it is evident how the
dialling.
Dtplhng. south dial (fig. 7) is to he constructed for a given place
'--V—' Jr0"1'?" for instance. Draw two vertical lines ac. Id, on
the plane ot the dial, for the twelve o’clock hour lines
so that the distance between them may be exactly the
thickness of the style; cross them perpendicularly by the
line VI. a VI.; this is the six o’clock hour line. On a and
b as centres with any convenient distance describe quad¬
rants, and divide each into ninety degrees. Kectily now
the globe for the complement of the latitude of the place •
bring a meridian or hour circle on the globe to the north
point of the horizon, and (supposing there are twenty-four
hour circles) note the degrees reckoned from the north
on the horizon, in which it is intersected by the hour
circles; these will be the angles which the hour lines make
with the double meridian line at a and b the centre of the
dial. Proceed in laying them down exactly as in making a
horizontal dial; and it will only be necessary to lay down
the hours from noon to six in the evening and the morn-
ing, because a vertical plane facing the south can never
be illuminated earlier nor later.
17. We have explained the application of a globe to the
construction of dials, less with a view to recommend it in
practice, than to elucidate the theory. Other methods
aie better, because, with the best mounted globe, the
hour angles at the centre of the dial cannot be determin-
ed with much accuracy. It will be better to compute
the angles and lay them down from a scale of chords; or
we may use a geometrical construction ; or, lastly, we may
ay down the hour lines by means of a dialling scale, the
easiest method of any.
779
ference be divided into twenty-four equal parts, beginning Dialling,
from A, cis fit 2, &c.5 find lines be druwn from the centre
through the points of division, it is manifest that the sha¬
dow will fall on the lines at the hours marked on them,
and the circle will serve as a dial. And since its plane
coincides with that of the equator in the heavens, it is an
Equinoctial Dial.
Geometrical Theory of Dialling.
18. It has been shown (art. 3 and 4) that if at any place a
stiaight rod or wire be parallel to the earth’s axis, in which
position it may be considered as coinciding with the axis
of the heavens, the angular motion of the sun about that
rod will appear to be perfectly uniform throughout the
day, and therefore the shadowy space within which the
suns light is wholly or in part intercepted by the rod
will also turn uniformly about it. Hence, to construct a
sun-dial, it is only necessary to place the rod so that its
shadow may fall on a surface of any kind, and to trace on
that surface, at any equal intervals of time (hours for in¬
stance), the line shown on the surface by the shadow at
the instants which separate these intervals. These lines,
numbered according to the hours, will serve to show time
by the shadow at all seasons. This is the most simple
way of constructing a dial, but it supposes that we have
the means of dividing time into equal intervals, a thing
indeed easy since the invention of clocks and watches.
Io reduce the subject to a geometrical theory, let
us suppose that, in the adjoining figure, OCF is the rod
(considered as a material straight line) which projects
the shadow, and that it is perpendicular to the plane of a
Equinoctial Dial.
19. To construct this dial (Plate CCII. fig. 6), on C,
a point in the middle of its face, as a centre, describe a
circle ABDE; divide the circumference into twenty-four
equal parts, and from the points of division draw straight
lines to the centre ; these will be the hour lines ; mark die
hours on them as in the figure; fix a thin and straight
wire in the centre, perpendicular to the face of the dial,
for its style, and place it with the style directed to the
pole, and the twelve o’clock hour line in the plane of the
meridian ; and when the dial is illuminated by the sun,
the hours will be indicated by the shadow of the style.
20. In our climate the superior side of an equinoctial
dial is illuminated when the sun is on the north side of
the equator, and the inferior or opposite when lie’ is on
the south side. On the equinoctial days neither side will
be illuminated, because the sun is in the plane of the dial.
However, if it have a ledge rising a little above the oppo¬
site sides, and the hour lines lie continued on the led<>-e,
the shadow will fall on its inside, and indicate the hour,
although the direction of the suns rays be almost parallel
to its face. 1
21. To set up an equinoctial dial, direct the straight
edge of a vertical plane towards the polar star, which is
about one degree thirty-six minutes from the pole of the
world; it will then nearly coincide with the axis of the
sphere; but for greater accuracy the edge may he direct¬
ed to the star when highest or lowest, and a line drawn
on the plane, making with its edge the above angle. This
will be in the true direction of the axis of the" dial, the
plane of which must be placed perpendicular to the line
so determined, and the six o’clock hours in a horizontal
line : the dial will then be properly placed.
22. An equinoctial dial may be set up about the time of
either solstice without knowing either the latitude of the
place or the direction of the meridian, from this property,
that when truly placed, the extremity of the shadow of
the axis will then describe a circle on the plane of the
dial, the centre being the common intersection of the hour
lines. If, therefore, the dial be placed nearly in a true
position, with the six o’clock hour line exactly horizontal,
by observing the line which is the extremity of the path of
the shadow, it will he seen in which way the deviation
from the true position lies, and by repeated adjustment it
may be truly placed. About the equinoxes the daily path
will deviate somewhat from a circle, by reason of the quick
change in the sun’s declination.
circle APB
the shadow
Horizontal Dial.
23. Let GEDH (see the adjoining figure) be a hori¬
zontal plane on which a dial is to he delineated, and let
LOK he a meridian line on this plane; let OCF he a ma¬
te) ud line oi i od in the plane of the meridian, which meets
the horizontal plane in O, and makes with OK an angle
equal to the latitude of the dial: this rod will he directed
to the pole, and will be the axis of the dial. Let BAP he
an equinoctial dial, having OCF for its axis, and C for its
centre; and let CA, the meridian line on this dial, meet
the meridian line on the horizontal plane in K. As has
„ . i i /-. * i i . . been explained, the plane of the shadow will turn uniform-
at C its centre, and let C A be the pos.t.on of ]y about the axis OCF, meeting the equinoctial plane in
on the circle at noon I hen, if the circum- some line CPQ, and the horizontal plane in a correspond-
780 DIAL
Dialling, ing line OQ. Let Cl, C2, &c. be the hour lines after
noon on the equatorial dial, and O I. O II. &c. the corre¬
sponding hour lines on the horizontal dial; the former will
make with the meridian line OAK angles proportional to
the time from noon, and will be known when the hour is
given, 15 degrees being reckoned an hour. The plane of
the equinoctial dial being supposed extended to meet the
horizontal plane in the line QK, which will be at right
angles to the meridian lines CK, OK, the problem to
be now resolved is, to find the hour angle KOQ at the
centre of the horizontal dial corresponding to any given
angle KCQ at the centre of the equinoctial dial, which
measures the time from noon.
The triangles CKQ on the equinoctial plane, and OKQ
on the horizontal plane, have a common side KQ, and each
a right angle at K; therefore, by trigonometry,
CK : KQ = rad. : tan. KCQ,
and KQ : OK — tan. KOQ: rad.,
therefore ex. ceq. CK : OK — tan. KOQ : tan. KCQ.
But in the triangle COK, right angled at C,
CK : OK = rad.: sin. OCK,
therefore rad. sin. OCK — tan. KOQ : tan. KCQ.
Hence we have this general theorem or rule for comput¬
ing the hour angles at the centre of a horizontal dial: As
radius to the sine of the latitude, so is the tangent of the hour
from noon {reckoning 15° to an hour) to the tangent of the
hour angle at the centre of a horizontal dial; or, putting x
LING.
for the hour from noon in degrees, y for the hour angle at Dialling,
the centre of the dial, L for the latitude of the place, y-w
tan. a: sin. L ,, x
tan-y = —^d.— ; (L)
We have supposed GHDE to be a horizontal plane, but
the formula evidently applies to any plane whatever per¬
pendicular to the meridian: all that is required for its ap¬
plication is the angle which the axis OF makes with the
meridian line OK on the plane.
As an example, let it be required to find the hour angle
at the centre of a horizontal dial for XL or I. o’clock for
the latitude of London 51^°. In this case the hour angle
from noon at the pole is 15°.
As rad 10*00000
To sin. 51° 30' 9*89354
So is tan. 15° 9*42895
19*32159
To tan. 11° 51'. 9*32159
Here we have found that the hour lines of XI. and I. must
each make an angle of 11° 51' with the meridian line at
the centre of the dial.
24. In this way the following table has been computed
for every half degree of latitude from 50° to 59° 30', which
are the limits of Britain.
Table of the Angles which the Hour Lines on a Horizontal Dial make with the Meridian for every
half degree of latitude from 50 to 591°.
Latitude.
50° O'
50 30
51 0
51 30
52 0
52 30
53 0
53 30
54 0
54 30
55 0
55 30
56 0
56 30
57 0
57 30
58 0
58 30
59 0
59 30
Mor. H. XI.
Af. H. I.
11° 36'
11 41
11 46
11 51
11 55
12 0
12
12
12 14
12 18
12 23
12 27
12 31
12 36
12 40
12 44
12 48
12 52
12 56
13 0
Mor. H. X.
Af. H. II.
23° 51'
24 l
24 10
24 19
24 28
24 37
24 45
24 54
25 2
25 10
25 19
25 27
25 35
25 43
25 50
25 58
26 5
26 13
26 20
26 27
Mor. H IX.
Af. H. III.
M. H. VIII.
Af. H. IV.
37° 27'
37 39
37 51
38 3
38 14
38 25
38 37
38 48
38 58
39 9
39 19
39 30
39 40
39 50
39 59
40 9
40 18
40 27
40 36
45 45
M. H. VII.
Af. H. V.
53° O'
53 12
53 23
53 35
53 46
53 57
54 8
54 19
54 29
54 39
54 49
54 59
55 9
55 18
55 27
55 36
55 45
55 54
56 2
56 11
70° 43'
70 51
70 59
71 6
71 13
71 20
71 27
71 34
71 40
71 47
71 53
71 59
72 5
72 11
72 17
72 22
72 28
72 33
72 39
72 44
M. H. VI.
Af. H. VI.
90 0
90 0
90 0
90 0
90 0
90 0
90 0
90 0
90 0
90 0
90 0
90 0
90 0
90 0
90 0
90 0
90 0
90 0
90 0
90 0
In this table the angles which the hour lines of V. IV.
III. make with the meridian are not put down, because
they are the same as those of the like hours in the after¬
noon, the former being the continuation of the latter; a
similar remark applies to the hour lines of VIL VIII. IX-
in the evening, which are the continuation of the like
morning hows.
The use of the table is obvious. For example, if the
angles of the hour lines at the centre of a dial for 56° of
latitude be required, the table shows that the hour lines
of XI. and I. make angles of 12° 31' with the meridian,
and the hour lines of X. and II. angles of 25° 35', and so
on. If the latitude is not exactly contained in the table,
proportional parts may be taken, without any sensible
error. Thus, if the hour line angles of a horizontal dial
for 55° 42' be required, the table gives 12° 27' for the an¬
gle of the XI. or I. o’clock line in lat. 55° 30', and 12° 31' in
lat. 56°: the difference of the angles corresponding to 30'
difference of latitude is 4'. Now the proposed latitude ex¬
ceeds the least of these two by 12', therefore we state this
proposition 30 : 12 = 4': —^— = 1A6. Hence we find
that 12' of addition to the latitude gives l'*6, or nearly 2
of addition to the hour angle, which will therefore be 12
29'.
DIALLING.
781
Dialling.
Geometrical Construction of a Horizontal Dial.
25. The formula of art. 23, namely, that the tangent of
the angle which any hour line makes with the meridian
line is a fourth proportional to radius, the sine of the la¬
titude, and the tangent of the hour angle at the pole (that
is, the hour from noon in degrees), reduces the construc¬
tion of a dial to this geometrical problem.
Having given any angle, to find another whose tangent
shall have to that of the former a given ratio. This pro¬
blem may be resolved graphically in various ways, and
in as many ways may the hour lines on a dial be deter¬
mined.
First Construction.
26. Draw two parallel straight lines CM, C'M' (Plate
CC. fig. 5) at a distance equal to the thickness of the
style for the double meridian line, and cross them at
right angles by the six o’clock hour line VI. C'C VI.
Make a right angled triangle HCK (fig. 6), having K a
right angle, and C equal to the angle which the axis of
the dial is to make with its plane, that is, to the lati¬
tude of the place, which for London is 511°. About
C and C' (in fig. 5) as centres with a radius equal to
CH, the hypothenuse of the triangle CKH (fig. 6), de¬
scribe the quadrants M6, M'G ; and about the same cen¬
tres, with a radius equal to HK, the side of the triangle
opposite to C, describe concentric quadrants, as in the
figure; divide these each into six equal parts at the points
11, 10, 9, &c. on one side of the meridian line, and at
1, 2, &c. on the other side. From the points of divi¬
sion in the inner quadrant draw lines parallel to the meri¬
dian line, and from those in the outer quadrant draw lines
parallel to the six o’clock line, so that the lines drawn
from the corresponding divisions in the concentric quad¬
rants may meet, viz. those from 11 in a, from 10 in &, &c.
on one side, and those from 2 in a, from 3 in b, &c, on
the other side ; draw straight lines C'XI. C I. through the
points a and a on each side of the meridian line, and these
will be the hour lines of XL and I. In like manner, draw
straight lines C'X. C II. through b and b, and these will be
the hour lines of X. and II. and so on. Extend the morn¬
ing hour lines of VII. VIII. and IX. across the dial, and
the prolongations will be the hour lines of the same hours
in the evening; and in like manner form the hour lines of
V. IV. III. in the morning from the same afternoon hours.
The style CLM (fig. 6) must have the angle at C equal
to the latitude, and may be formed from the triangle CHK
(see art. 23).
27. To demonstrate the truth of this construction, let CB
(fig. 5) be any one of the hour lines determined by the
intersection of DB a parallel, and EBA a perpendicular
to the meridian line, drawn from corresponding points D,
E in the concentric quadrants. The points C, D, E will
be in a straight line ; and from similar triangles,
AE : AB = CE : CD = CH : HK (fig. 6).
Now AE is to AB as the tangent of ACE, the hour from
noon (in degrees) to the tangent of ACB, the angle made
by the hour line and the meridian, and CH is to HK as
radius to the sine of the latitude : Therefore (art. 23) the
hour line is rightly determined.
Second Construction.
28. In the following figure let C be the centre of the
dial, CM the XII. and CA the VI. o’clock hour lines. Make
the angle MCB equal to the latitude of the place. Take
CB of any length, and draw BA perpendicular to CA;
make CM equal to CB, and join MA; bisect MA in D;
draw DO perpendicular to MA, and equal to DM or DA;
join OM, OA ; and about O as a centre, with OM or OA
(which are equal) as a radius, describe the quadrant M3A, Dialling,
and divide it into six equal parts at the points 1, 2, 3, 4, 5.
These are to correspond to hours; but each may be sub¬
divided into quarters, or other smaller parts of an hour.
Now, to determine any hour line, for example, that of
II. o’clock; draw a straight line OH from O to the divi¬
sion 2 of the quadrant, meeting MA in E; next draw a
straight line CK from C through E, and this will be the
hour line for II. Exactly in the same way all the other
hour lines for the afternoon, and by a like construction
on the other side of the meridian those for the forenoon,
may be found.
29. To demonstrate this construction, draw MK perpen¬
dicular to CM, meeting CE in K, and MH perpendicular
to OM, meeting OE in H. The triangles OAE, HME,
are manifestly equiangular; so also are the triangles CAE,
KME;
therefore MH : OA = ME ; AE = MK : AC.
Now, by trigonometry, making MO radius,
MH : OA = tan. MOH : tan. OMA.
And making MC radius; MK : AC=tan. MCK: tan. AMC.
Therefore tan. MOH : tan. OMA = tan. MCK : tan. AMC.
And by alter, tan. MOH: tan. MCK=tan. OMA: tan. AMC.
That is, because tan. OMA = radius,
tan. MOE : tan. MCE = rad. : tan. AMC.
But rad.: tan. AMC = CM or CB : C A = rad.: sin. CMA;
therefore, radius is to the sine of CMA, the latitude, as
the tangent of MOA, the hour angle from noon, to the
tangent of MCE; hence (art. 23) CE is the hour line re¬
quired..
30. If OD be made the radius of a circle, DE will evi¬
dently be the tangent of the hour angle, reckoned from
three o’clock; and in general, the segment between the
middle of AM and the point in which any hour line cuts
it, will be the tangent of the interval in time between that
hour and three o’clock. If therefore these tangents be laid
down on a scale, which may be called the scale of hours,
it will serve for the construction of all dials whatever.
It has been shown that CM is to CA as radius to the
sine of the latitude; but CM is to C A as radius to the
tangent of CMA, therefore the tangent of CMA is equal
to the sine of the latitude; so that the latitude being
known, the angle CMA may be found by inspection in the
trigonometrical tables. Let this angle be v, then AC
sin* v
— AM X —-j- is known. From this formula, a second
rad.
scale, which shall show the length of AC for every degree
of latitude, may be formed; this may be called the scale
782
DIALLING.
Dialling. Gf latitudes, and, with the scale of hours, will serve for
the construction of all dials.
Construction of Dialling Scales.
31. Scales for the construction of dials may be either
made entirely by a geometrical construction, or their di¬
visions may be computed by trigonometry, and laid down
from a scale of equal parts.
If a geometrical construction is used (Plate CC. fig. 8),
divide AD a quadrant of a circle into six equal parts, at 1,
2, 3, &c\, each of these may be again divided into four
(these, however, are not shown in the figure). Draw a
straight line from E, the centre, to 3, the middle point
of division, and draw r3s perpendicular to E3 ; also straight
lines from the centre through A, D, the extremities of
the quadrant, meeting the perpendicular in r and s; and
against these marks put XII. and VI. Draw straight lines
from E through the intermediate division 1, 2, &c. and
where they meet rs mark I. II. III. IV. V. The line rs
thus divided is the scale of hours.
32. Divide CD, another quadrant of the circle, into 90
equal parts (only every tenth division is shown), and from
the points of division draw perpendiculars to the radius
EC ; these cut off distances E10, E20, &c. which are equal
to the sines of 10°, 20°, <S:c. and EC is a line of sines.
33. Draw straight lines from D through 10, 20, &c. the
bottoms of the perpendiculars on EC, and produce them
to meet the circle in a, b, &c.; transfer the chords of the
arcs H«, Bb, Sec. to the line BC, and mark the divisions
10, 20, &c.; there will thus be formed the scale of lati¬
tudes BC.
34. Transfer the chords of the arcs D10, D20, &c. or
of A10, A20, &c. arcs equal to them, to the line AB,
thus forming a scale of chords AB. The scales of hours,
latitudes, and chords, are shown together in fig. 9.
35. The dialling scales may also be constructed by lay¬
ing down the divisions from a good scale of equal parts,
and the numbers in the two following tables, of which the
first gives the distances of the divisions on the scale of la¬
titudes, in thousandth parts of the whole length of the
scale; and the second gives, in the same equal parts, the
distances of the divisions on the scale of hours, from the
beginning, XII. to every fifth minute of each hour.
Distance of Divisions from beginning of Scale of Latitudes.
D.
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
Parts. D.
24'
49-
73'
98'
122'
147'
171'
194
218'
241'
265'
287'
310
332
354'
375
396'
417
437'
457'
477'
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
Parts.
496T
514-6
532-8
550-5
567-8
584-6
601-0
616-9
632-5
647-5
662-2
676-4
690-2
703-6
716-6
729-2
741-4
753-2
764-7
775-8
786-5
D.
43
44
45
46
47
48
49
50
51
52
53
54
55
56
57
58
59
60
61
62
Parts. D.
796-8
806-7
816-5
825-9
834-8
843-6
851-9
860-0
867-8
875-3
882-5
889-5
896-2
902-6
908-8
914-7
9203
925-8
931-1
936-0
63
64
65
66
67
68
69
70
71
72
73
74
75
76
77
78
79
80
85
90
Parts.
940-8
945-4
949-6
953-9
957-8
961-5
965-1
968-5
971-6
974-5
977-4
980-1
982-5
984-8
986-9
988-8
990-6
992-4
998-2
1000-0
Distance of Divisions from beginning of Scale of Hours. Dialling.
Hours
and
Minutes.
XII. 0
5
10
15
20
25
30
35
40
45
50
55
I. 0
5
10
15
20
25
30
35
40
45
50
55
Parts.
0-0
30-3
591
87-0
113-8
139-6
164-5
188-8
212-0
234-6
256-7
278-0
298-8
319-2
339-0
358-4
377-3
395-9
414-2
432-2
449-8
467-1
484-8
501-1
Hours
and
Minutes.
II. 0
5
10
15
20
25
30
35
40
45
50
55
III. 0
5
10
15
20
25
30
35
40
45
50
55
Parts.
517-7
534-1
550-4
566-4
582-4
598-3
614-0
629-6
645-2
660 8
676-3
691-7
707-1
722-5
737-9
753-4
769-0
783-6
800-2
816-0
831-9
847-8
863-8
880-1
Hours
and
Minutes.
IV. 0
5
10
15
20
25
30
35
40
45
50
55
V.O
5
10
15
20
25
30
35
40
45
50
55
VI. 0
Parts.
896-5
913-1
930-0
947-1
964-5
982-0
10000
1018-3
1036-9
1055-8
1075-2
1095-0
1115-4
1136-2
1157-5
1179-6
1202-2
1225-4
1249-7
1274-6
1300-4
1327-2
1355-1
1383-9
14 14-2
Construction of a Horizontal Dial by the Scales or the
Tables.
36. Draw tw-o parallel straight lines ac, bd, at a distance
equal to the thickness ot the sty'e of the dial (Plate
CC. fig. 4), for the double meridian line, and across them,
at right angles, draw fabe, the six o’clock hour line. Sup¬
posing the dial is to be for London, in latitude 51^°,
make be and of each equal to the distance from 0 to Sl^
on the scale of latitudes (fig. 9), and place between the
points e, / and the meridian lines, straight lines ed, fc,
each equal to the whole length of the scale of hours, viz.
from XII. to VI.; make cl and d\ each equal to the dis¬
tance from XII. to I.; and through the points 1, 1 draw
aXI. and bl. for the eleven and one o’clock hour lines. In
like manner, make c2 and d'2 equal to the distance XII.
II., and draw the hour lines aX. bi\. and so on, for the re¬
maining hour lines; the quarters and lesser divisions are
to be laid down in the same way. The lines for the hours
before VI. in the morning, and after VI. in the evening,
are to be drawn as directed in art. 26.
37. If a common scale of equal parts and the tables be
used, then make be and af each equal to 871-5 equal parts,
this being the mean between the numbers for 51° and 52°
in the table for the scale of latitudes; the lines ed and ac
must in all cases be each 1414-2 from the same scale; and
the distances dY and cl each 298-8; andrf2, c2 each 517-7,
these being the distances for 1 and 2 from the beginning of
the scale (see Table). The distances of 3, 4, 5 from c and d
must be701-7,896-5, and 1154-4equal parts respectively, as
appears by the table; and in this way the points in de, cf,
through which the hour lines pass, also the lines for every
fifth minute, may be readily found, and the corresponding
divisions transferred to the circumference of the dial.
Vertical North and Soidh Dials.
38. These dials are represented in figs. 1 and 2 of
Plate ClI. It has been explained in par. 15 that south
and north dials lor a given latitude would be horizontal
DIALLING.
783
Dialling, dials if carried to a place whose latitude is the comple-
Wr'Y''^ inent of that latitude ; so that a south dial for latitude 51,10
would be a horizontal dial for 38-1-°. This principle, first
discovered by the Arabian writers on gnomonics, enables
us to apply all that has been here taught concerning ho¬
rizontal dials to those directly facing the south and north.
39. If we put x to denote the hour angle in the hea¬
vens, reckoned from noon either way, and y for the angle
which any hour line on a north or south dial makes with
the meridian line, and L for the latitude; the formula for
determining trigonometrically the hour lines on a north
and south dial will be
tan. y = cos. L tan. x (2.)
In north latitudes, a north dial can only be illuminated
when the sun has north declination, that is, from about
21st March to 22d September; and the nearest times to
noon which can be shown by it are those at which the
sun crosses the prime vertical on the day of the summer
solstice. A south dial can never be illuminated before
six in the morning, nor after six in the evening; because
when the sun rises earlier and sets later, he never crosses
the prime vertical so early as six in the morning, nor so
late as six in the evening. It will therefore be needless
to describe on either more hours than can be wanted.
40. Supposing a dial to be traced on a thin material
plane, it is easy to understand that a direct north dial is
only the back of a direct south one; so that if the hour
lines of one of them were cut through it, and extended,
they would form on the opposite side the hour lines of the
other, and the style of the one dial produced would form
the style of the other dial.
Vertical East and West Dials.
41. These are described on vertical planes facing due
east and west; therefore their planes coincide with the
meridian, and pass through the poles of the world. Fig. 8
and 9, in Plate CCII. represent east and west dials. In
fig. 8, let HR be a horizontal line on a plane facing due
east, and ab a line in the direction of the earth’s axis cross¬
ing it at c. Through this point draw EQ perpendicular to
ab, then EQ will be in the plane of the equinoctial circle
in the heavens.
Suppose now that at any two points a, b in the line di¬
rected to the pole there are wires of equal length fixed
perpendicular to the plane cf the dial, and that their tops
are joined by a third wire, so as to form a rectangle An/;B
(see fig. 10), one side of which ab is on the face of the
dial, and the opposite side AB is parallel to it and direct¬
ed to the pole. The earth’s radius being as nothing when
compared with the sun’s distance, it follows that the an¬
gular motion of the sun about the line AB will be uniform,
just as it is about the earth’s axis, and therefore that the
shadow of the line will turn uniformly about it as an axis,
and its projection on the dial will always be perpendicu¬
lar to the line EQ. It will now be easy to understand,
that at six in the morning the shadowy plane will be per¬
pendicular to the plane of the dial, and will fall on the
line ab; and that, as it turns uniformly about its axis, it
will cut off from cQ lines which will be the tangents of
the angles generated by the shadow, that is, the tangents
of the hour angles from six.
The same will be true of a west dial (see fig. 9) ; the
hour lines of both will be perpendicular to EQ, the line
in which the plane of the equator intersects the plane of
the dial; and if d be put for the height of the rod AB
above the dial, x for the hour angle from six o’clock,
and y for the distance of the hour line reckoned on EQ
either way from c, then, supposing radius = 1, the formula
for the dial will be
y=zd tan. x (3.)
Geometrical Construction of Vertical East and West Dials. Dialling.
42. On the east and west vertical plane (fig. 8, 9) draw
the horizontal line HR, and at an assumed point c in that
line draw a straight line acb, so as to make with it an angle
equal to the latitude of the place, and directed, in each
dial, towards the north. This line is to serve as the six
o’clock hour line, over which the rod or wire AB is to be
placed on its supports, Aa, V>b, as the style of the dial. In
the line acb take cb equal to B/v, the height of the style.
About b as a centre, with a radius equal to be, describe a
semicircle, and divide each quadrant into six equal parts;
draw EcQ perpendicular to be, and from b, through the
points of division of the circle, draw straight lines, pro¬
ducing them until they meet the line EQ. Through the
points of intersection draw perpendiculars to EQ, which
will be the hour lines; against these the hours are to be
written as in the figures. At the points a and b erect the
supports of the style perpendicular to the plane of the
dial, and each equal in length to the line be, and over
them place the rod AB, and the dial is finished.
43. The east dial will show the hours from sunrise until
near noon, and the west dial from a little after noon until
sunset; but neither can indicate the exact time of noon by
a shadow, because then it goes off parallel to their planes.
Polar Dial.
44. This dial is shown in fig. 3, Plate CCII. It is de¬
scribed on a plane perpendicular to the meridian, and pass¬
ing through the poles. It has a great affinity with east
and west dials; for if a prism with six rectangular faces
were placed with its axis directed to the pole, and two
of its faces due east and west, the remaining two would
form planes for polar dials, and the face directed to the
pole would serve as the plane of an equinoctial dial.
45. The style of a polar dial, like that of an east or
west dial, must be parallel to its face, and may have the
same form (see fig. 10). To construct it, draw ab in the
plane of the meridian for the twelve o’clock hour line, and
cross it at right angles by the horizontal line HR. The
hour lines are to be found exactly as in the east and west
dials, and marked with the hours as in the figure.
A polar dial may, if it be of sufficient extent, showtime
from a little after six in the morning to a little before six
in the evening. At the hours of six the sun is in the plane
of the dial, and the shadow parallel to its face.
Putting x to denote the hour from noon, and y for the
distance of the hour line from the meridian line, and d for
the height of the style above the plane of the dial; the
formula for a polar dial is
y — d tan. x     (4.)
Vertical Declining Dials.
46. It seldom happens that an upright wall faces ex¬
actly one of the cardinal points; therefore, in general, a
dial described on the plane of a wall will be a vertical
declining dial.
47. The declination of a plane is an arch of the horizon
between the plane and the prime vertical; or it is the arch
between the meridian and a plane perpendicular to the
dial plane, and is always reckoned from the south or north.
48. The meridian of a plane is the meridian perpendi¬
cular to the plane of the dial. This differs from the me¬
ridian of the place, which is the meridian that is perpendi¬
cular to the horizon.
I he substyle ol a dial is the common section of its plane
and the plane ot its meridian, or it is the line in which
perpendiculars drawn from every point in the axis of the
dial meet its plane. In horizontal and in vertical south
and north dials, the substyle coincides with the twelve
o’clock hour line; but not in declining dials.
784
dialling.
Dialling. The difference of longitude of a dial plane is the a.ngle
which the plane of its meridian makes with the meridian
of the place.
The latitude of any dial plane is the angle which the
axis makes with the plane ; which is also the latitude of
the place where the dial would be a horizontal one.
49. In the adjoining figure let AB be a line drawn on a
vertical plane, a wall, for instance. It may have any as¬
pect, but, to fix our ideas, let us suppose it to face some
point between the south and west; let CE be the style or
axis fixed at C in the wall in the direction of the earth’s
axis; draw the vertical line CD on the plane, and from E,
the extremity of the style, draw ED perpendicular to
CD ; the plane of the triangle CDE will manifestly coin¬
cide with the meridian, and CD will be the twelve o clock
hour line on the dial.
Let NCF be a horizontal line passing through C due east
and west; conceive a plane to pass along NF and the ver¬
tical line CD ; this will coincide with the prime vertical
in the heavens. Let us now suppose that at some hour,
for example two in the afternoon, the horary plane (that
is, the plane passing through the sun and the axis CE)
meets the plane of the dial in the line CH, and the plane
of the prime vertical in C^ ; the first of these lines will be
the hour line of two on the dial to be constructed, and the
second the line of the same hour on the prime vertical,
that is, on a vertical south dial. Now by the theory of
that dial (art. 38) the angle DC/< will be known ; it is,
however, the angle DCH that is required in order to con¬
struct the dial under consideration.
50. Suppose a horizontal plane to pass along ED, and
meet the horary plane in the line EH4, the plane of the
dial in DH, and the prime vertical in DA ; the plane EDA
may now be regarded as that of a horizontal dial, of which
EC is the axis, E the centre, and ED the meridian line;
and on this dial EH will be the hour line of two ; but for
any given hour, the angle DEH will be known by for¬
mula 1, art. 23. And because the horizontal lines DE, DA
lie, one in the plane of the meridian CDE, and the other
in the plane of the prime vertical CDA, which is perpen¬
dicular to the former, the angle EDA will be a right angle ;
now the angle HDA, or its equal BCE, is the declination
of the dial plane (art. 46), and therefore is given, or may
be found; therefore the angle EDH, its complement, is
known; and hence
51. All the angles of the triangle DEH are known.
Let L denote the latitude of the place for which the
dial is to be made ; D, the angle HDA or BCE, the decli¬
nation of the plane; and E the angle made by the meri¬
dian ED of the assumed horizontal dial, and EH the hour
line; then, in the triangle DEH we have the angle at E
(denoted by E), the angle EDH = 90 — D, and there¬
fore the third angle DHE = 180 — (E +90 — D) =
90° — (E — D).
In the right-angled triangles CDE, CDH (which have
CD, one of the sides about the right angle, common to Dialling,
both), by trigonometry,
DE: DH = tan. DCE or cot. DEC : tan. DCH.
But in the triangle DEH,
DE : DH = sin. DHE : sin. DEH = cos. (E—D) : sin. E ;
therefore, cos. (E — D) : sin. E = cot. DEC ; tan. DCH.
Now the first three terms of this proposition are known,
because the angles E and D are given, and also the angle
DEC, which is the latitude; therefore the fourth term,
viz. the tangent of DCH, is known; and hence the angle
DCH, between the hour line CH on the dial and the me¬
ridian line CD, is known. Thus may all the angles made
by the hour lines and the meridian of the dial be deter¬
mined by plane trigonometry.
52. This way of finding the hour lines requires two ope¬
rations for each, viz. one to find the angle DEH at the
centre of the auxiliary horizontal dial; and a second to
find the angle DCH at the centre of the dial to be con¬
structed. We shall now investigate a formula which gives
each angle by a single operation, when two subsidiary quan¬
tities common to them all have been found.
For any vertical declining dial let
L = latitude of the place;
D m BCE, the declination of the dial plane reckoned
from the east towards the south ;
x the variable horary angle described by the sun since
noon ;
y the corresponding angle DCH at the centre of the
dial; and, as before, put E for the angle described
at the centre of a horizontal dial for the same la¬
titude in the time x.
From what has been shown in the preceding articles,
we have
tan. y
cot. L sin. E
.(1.)
cos. (E—D)
tan. E = sin. L tan.   ,..(2.)
In formula (1), instead of cos. (E —D), put its equal
cos. E cos. D + sin. E sin. D (Algebra, art. 239), then di¬
vide the numerator and denominator by cos. E, and lastly,
p sin. E
put tan. E instead of
the formula will then be trans-
cos. E’
formed to this,
tan. y — cQg ^ g-n> ^ tan> ^
Now put sin. L tan. x instead of tan. E; and again
cot. L tan. E
sm. x
cos. x
instead of tan. x ; we then have
tan. y —
cqkf. L sin. L sin.
•o
D
cos. x cos. D + sin. L sin
Let P denote a subsidiary angle, such, that
. _ ^ sin. L sin. D
tan, P = sm. L tan. D =
...(3.)
then cos. D =
sin. L sin,
cos. D
D cos. P
sin. P
this value of cos. D being substituted, instead of it, in
formula 3, we get
cot. L sin. P sin. x
tan. y —
(4.)
sin. D ’ cos. a; cos. P + sin. a: sin. P
The denominator of this last fraction is manifestly
cos. (P—x). Hence we have the following simple formula
for computing the angle which the shadow of the axis of
any vertical declining dial describes in any time before or
after noon.
cot. L sin. P sin, x
tan< y ~ ^7D * cos. (x—P)’
This formula gives the afternoon hours on a vertical
DIALLING.
785
Dialling, south dial declining towards the west; but we have only
to suppose the angles D and x to vary, and attend to the
change of sign of sin. x and cos. (#—P), and the for¬
mulae will be adapted to the forenoon hours.
53. If we suppose D, the declination of the plane, to de¬
crease, the dial will approach to a south dial; and since
;an* jv— Sm-, as D decreases, P will decrease (since L
tan. D rad. v
is constant), and they will vanish together, so that ulti¬
mately the fraction
sin. P tan. P cos. P _ sin. L cos. P
cos. D
cos. L , ,
■ ■ -m- ■) and the preced*
cot. L r
sin. D tan D cos. D
becomes simply S?n*-X = sin. L =
tan. Q =
rad.
cot. L sin. P
sin. D
These quantities, P and tan. P, may be called the constants
of the dial. Then, the forenoon hours on the west declin¬
ing dial, and the afternoon hours on the east, will be found
from the formula
tan. Q sin. x \
tan.?/ = 7— « (5.)
cos. (x + P)
and the morning hours on the east declining dial, and af¬
ternoon hours on the west, by the formula
tan. Q sin. x /S /c \
tan.y = ? pv Pi5-)
cos.(x—P)
56. We shall now give examples of the application of
the formulae.
Ex. 1. Let it be required to find the angles which the
hour lines make with the meridian line on a vertical south
dial that declines 36° westward, the latitude being 54^°.
In this dial, which is represented in Plate CCII. fig. 5,
L = 54° 30'; D = 36° west.
Computation of P and tan. Q.
tan. (D = 36°) 9-86126
sin. (L = 54° 30') 9-91069
tan. (P = 30° 36')
sin. P
cot. L
sin. D
9-77195
9-70675
9-85327
ar. comp. 0-23078
tan. Q 9-79080
Having determined the constants, the hour line angles Dialling,
may be found as follows :
Calculation of hour line angle of XI. A. M.
sin. (x = 15°) 9-41300
tan. Q 9-79080
cos. (# + P = 45° 36') ar. comp 0-15511
tan. (y = 12° 52') 9-35891
Calculation of hour line angle of I. p. m.:—
sin. x 9*41300
tan. Q 9-79080
cos. (x — P = 15° 36') ar. comp 0-01630
sin. D
ing formula becomes, when D = 0,
tan. y — cos. L tan. x,
agreeing with the formula for a south dial (art. 39).
54. When the dial declines to the east instead of the
west, that the formula may apply, we assume that D is
negative; then sin. D and tan. I) will be negative (Alge¬
bra, art. 225); and since tan. P = sin. L tan. D, we
must in the formula make the sign of P negative, and it
will in this case be
cot. L sin. P sin. x
tan. y — .rr • , > w>r
^ sin. D cos. (x+r)
for the afternoon hours.
55. On the whole, we have this formula for the construc¬
tion of all south vertical declining dials.
Let L denote the latitude of the dial,
D the declination, which may be west or east,
x the hour angle from noon (15° to an hour),
y the hour line angle from the meridian line on the
dial.
Find these two auxiliary quantities, viz. an angle P, and
the tangent of an angle Q (of which only the logarithm is
required), such, that
sin. L tan. D
tan. P =
tan. (y = 9° 26') 9-22010
The following table exhibits at one view the elements
of the dial and the hour line angles for its construction;
Given L = 54° 30'
D = 36 0 west
1 hence i P = 30° 36,
st. j (log. tan. Q, = 9-79080
Hours.
IX. a. m.
X.
XL
XII.
I. p.m
II.
III.
IV.
V.
VI.
VII.
VIII.
45°
30
15
0
15
30
45
60
75
90
105
120
sc+V.
75° 36'
60 36
45 36
30 36
P.
15° 36'
0 36
14 24
30 24
44 24
59 24
74 24
89 24
?/the hour angle.
60° 21'
32 10
12 52
0 0
9 26
17 10
24 17
31 34
39 52
50 30
65 44
88 52
57. If the hour lines of this dial were traced on a trans¬
parent plane and extended, and if the style were produ¬
ced through the dial, the reverse would show a north dial
declining eastward 36°.
Ex. 2. Suppose a vertical south dial decline east 49°
in the latitude 51° 30'; to determine the hour line angles.
(See fig. 4 of Plate CCII.)
In this case L = 51° 30'; D = 49° east. We now ap¬
ply formula (3 of (5). The data of the dial, the constants,
and hour line angles, are exhibited in the following table:—-
Given L = 51° 30'
D = 49 0 east
hence
( P = 42°
( log. tan. Q, = 9-84834.
Hours.
III. a.m.
IV.
V.
VI.
VII.
VIII.
IX. *
X.
XL
XII.
I. p.m.
II.
135°
120
105
90
75
60
45
30
15
0
15
30
93°
78
63
48
33
18
3
12
27
42
x + P.
57
72
95° 59'
71 12
56 19
46
39
32 42
26 32
19 49
11 35
0 0
18 32
48 47
VOL. VII.
In the calculation for the hour line angle of III. a. m.
the cosine of x — P =: 93° is negative; this makes the
sign of y negative, and therefore y an angle between 90°
and 180°.
58. If this dial were traced on a plane, and the hour
5 G
786
DIALLING.
Dialling, lines extended and continued through it, and if the style
also were produced through the plane, the reverse would
be a north vertical dial, declining to the westward 49°.
In general, to make a north declining dial, we have only
to make a south declining dial whose declination is the
same and lies the same way, and then turn it upside down,
and it will be the dial required; but the hours must be
numbered the contrary way. Therefore these two exam¬
ples, duly considered, will serve for examples of all declin¬
ing dials.
59. It has been already observed (art. 15), that a dial
on any plane whatever, given in position at a given place,
will be a horizontal dial at some other place, which may
be found. This principle gives another method of con¬
structing a declining vertical dial; for if the latitude of
that place, and also the difference between its longitude
and that of the place where the dial is to show the time, be
found, the former will be the angle which the style must
make with the plane of the dial; that is, the angle it makes
with the substyle; and the latter will give the time the
shadow takes to pass between the twelve o’clock line and
the substyle, from which the angle they contain may be
found. These three elements being known, viz. the lati¬
tude and longitude of the place where the dial would be
horizontal, and the angle contained by the meridian line
and substyle, the construction is reduced to that of a ho¬
rizontal dial.
Let L be the latitude of the place where the dial is to Dialling,
serve,
D the declination of the dial (art. 47),
l the latitude of the dial, that is, of the place where
it would be horizontal (48),
a the longitude of the dial,
b the angle between the substyle and the vertical.
Then from the above proportions there is got
sin. I —
cot. a —
tan. b —
cos. L cos. D
rad.
sin. L cot. D
rad.
cot. L sin. D
rad.
a
P
7
These formulae, when L and D are known, give the
three elements for the construction of the dial, which is
now reduced to that of a horizontal dial. The hour line
angles must, however, be so found that one of them shall
fall on the vertical or twelve o’clock hour line.
62. Let us again take Ex. 1 of art. 56, and suppose that
a vertical south dial, declining 36° to the west, is to be
constructed, the latitude being 54° 30' (fig. 5 of Plate
CCII.) In this case L = 54° 30', D = 36®.
Calculation of l, of a, of b.
cos. L 9-76395 sin. L 9-91069 cot. L 9-85327
cos. D 9-90795 cot. D 10-13874 sin. D 9-76922
60. These elements may be found by spherical trigono¬
metry as follows; let SZNz be the meridian, in which Z
and z are the zenith and nadir, and P, p the poles : Let
SEN be the horizon, S and N being the south and north
points, and E the east; letZFzbe a vertical plane or great
circle of the sphere on which the dial is to be drawn; let
this plane cut the horizon in F, and the plane of the me¬
ridian in the straight line Zz ; and let it be cut perpendi¬
cularly in the line Aa by a circle PAp which pa.sses^
through the poles. Then Cp or CP will be the axis of
the dial, according as it faces the south or the north, Cz
or CZ the twelve o’clock hour line, and C« or CA the
substyle (art. 48).
In the spherical triangle ZPA, right angled at A, PZ,
the complement of the latitude of the place where the dial
is to show time is given ; so also is the angle PZA, for it
is measured by FZ, the arc of the horizon of which the
complement is the declination of the dial (art. 47) ; from
these, AP, the measure of the angle contained by PC the
axis, and AC the substyle, that is, the latitude of the dial,
(art. 48), also AZ, the measure of the angle contained
by the substyle AC and the vertical or twelve o’clock
hour line, lastly, the angle ZPA, the difference of longitude
of the planes ZPC, APC (art. 73), may be all found.
61. By the principles of spherics (see Spherical Tri¬
gonometry),
rad. : sin. PZ zz sin. Z : sin. AP;
rad. : cos. PZ z= tan. Z : cot. P;
rad.: tan. PZ = cos. Z : tan. AZ.
sin b 9-67190 cot. 10-04943 tan. b 9-62249
/ = 28° P a = 41° 45' b = 22° 45'
The construction of our south declining dial for latitude
54° 30' is now reduced to that of a horizontal dial for la¬
titude 28° 1'; for the sake of brevity, let us call the for¬
mer place A and the latter B. The earliest hour that can
be shown at A, on the dial, is about IX. a. m. that is, 45°
of an hour angle from noon. Now when it is 45° from
noon at A, because of the difference of longitude, it will
be 45° + a = 86° 45' at B ; the hour line angle with the
meridian corresponding to this will, by the formula for a
horizontal dial, be found by this proportion :
As rad   10*00000
to sin. latitude (28° I')  9-67191
so is tan. hour angle from noon (86° 45') 11-24577
to tan. hour line angle with meridian (83° 6')... 10-91768
Here we have found that at the place B, when it is nine
in the morning at A, the hour line will make with the me¬
ridian line there an angle of 83° 6'; this is the angle
which the hour line of IX. at A will make with the substyle.
In the same manner may the angles which the remaining
hour lines on the dial make with the substyle be found.
The whole are shown in this table.
Hours
at A*
IX.
X.
XI.
XII.
I.
II.
III.
IV.
V.
VI.
VII.
VIII.
Hour Angles
at B.
86° 45'
71 45
56 45
41 45
26 45
11 45
Substyle.
3 15
18 15
33 15
48 15
63 15
78 15
Hour Line
Angles with
Meridian at B.
83° 6'
54 56’
35 37
22 45
13 19
5 35
1 32
8 49
17 7
27 45
42 59
66 7
Hour Line
Angles with
Meridian at A.
60° 21'
32 11
12 52
0 0
9 26
17 10
24 17
31 34
39 52
50 30
65 44
88 52
Ming. The angles which the hour lines make with the verti-
^ cal or meridian line at A are found from the like angles
? - 4 „e flfference between them and the angle
6 - 22 43 for all those on one side of the substyle, and
the sum of each and that angle when they lie on the other
side. The agreement of the results in this table with those
in article 36 will appear by inspection.
To trace a Meridian Line on any Plane.
63. In constructing a dial it is always necessary to de¬
termine the line in which the plane of the meridian meets
the plane of the dial. On an assumed point in the me-
udian line as a centre describe several concentric circles
with any distances in the compasses: at this point fix a
wire truly perpendicular to the plane, and of such a length
that when the sun shines its shadow shall extend beyond
the circles. Watch now the instant when the extremity
of the shadow exactly reaches some one of the circles in
the foienoon, and mark the point in which it crosses the
circle. In the afternoon, mark in like manner the point
in which it again crosses the same circle : and any point
that is equally distant from the two points so determined
will be in a meridian line passing through the centre of
the circle, which may now be drawn. By a like attention
to the path of the extremity of the shadow when it crosses
the othei ciicles, points may be found in a meridian line
passing through their common centre ; and a mean position
of all the meridian lines thus found will be sufficiently ac¬
curate for a dial.
The theory of this method is sufficiently obvious. At
equal intervals of time each way from noon, the shadow is
nearly of the same length, and makes nearly equal angles
with the meridian line ; the deviation from absolute equa¬
lity arises chiefly from the continual change in the sun’s
declination. This, however, is but little in the course of a
day near the solstices. Accordingly, greater accuracy will
be obtained about midsummer or midwinter than nearer
the equinoxes.
64. A good compass will give an approximation to the
true position of the meridian; but the variation, which is
not the same at all places and at all times, must be known.
In 1823 it was about 24° ICK west at London, and in the
same year 27° 48' west at Edinburgh. If the direction of
the meridian be known at one place, the variation may be
there determined; and thence the direction of the meri¬
dian at another place not very distant may be found.
65. If a good watch be set to true time, or its deviation
from it be found, by taking equal altitudes of the sun with a
sextant, or by a single altitude, or anj^ other astronomical
observation, a dial may thereby be set truly in the meridian.
66. The pole star is distant from the pole about 1° 36';
hence, knowing the latitude, its greater azimuth may be
found. At London its greatest deviation from the me¬
ridian either way is about 2° 34' in azimuth. If now two
plummets be suspended at some distance from each other,
and in such a position that the pole star may appear in the
same plane with them, that plane will be nearly in the me¬
ridian. If one of the plummets be moveable, and it be
shifted, following the change of position in the star, the
two extreme positions of the plumb-line will, with the
other plummet, determine two vertical planes, which de¬
viate equally from the meridian in opposite directions.
If lines were now traced on a horizontal plane in the
directions of the vertical planes thus found, these would
form with the meridian line sought equal angles on op¬
posite sides of it, and the meridian would be found by
bisecting the angle they contain. The pole star comes to
the meridian about noon and midnight in the beginning of
October. It may then be seen twice in the same night at
dialling.
787
its gieatest distance on opposite sides of the meridian ; but Dialling,
one observed maximum distance, and the computed devi- ■v'—'
ation in azimuth, would serve to find the meridian at any
time. J
The time of the meridian passage of the pole star on any
day of the year may be found as taught in works on astro¬
nomy. At this time, as shown by a watch, two plumb-lines
may be placed in the meridian, or one, and the corner inter¬
section of two walls truly perpendicular instead of an¬
other. Great accuracy in the time of the observation is
not required, the motion of the star in azimuth being only
7 minutes of a degree in ten minutes of time at London.
67. A meridian line may be traced by observing when
two stars which have the same right ascension, or which
differ in right ascension by twelve hours, come into the
same vertical plane; for then they are both in the meri¬
dian.
The pole star and the star i (the first of the three in
the tail) of the great bear have nearly this relative posi¬
tion. On the 1st of January 1834, their mean right ascen¬
sion, as given in our table of the places of the fixed stars
(Astronomy), will be,
Hours. Min. Sec.
* Ursse Majoris 12 46 41
Polaris  1 0 34
11 46 7
The difference from twelve hours is about forty-six mi¬
nutes of time. By the revolution of the heavens the star t
comes into the meridian under the pole ; but the pole star
is not then exactly in the meridian. Afterwards they
come into the same vertical, and then the pole star is
very near the meridian, and, for finding a meridian line,
may be considered as exactly so. The azimuth of the
pole star, at the instant when the stars are in the same
vertical, may be found by calculation, and the approximate
meridian thereby corrected.
There are other pairs of stars which come into the me¬
ridian nearly at the same time. The stars /3 Draconis and
a Ophiuchi are such. The stars <3 of the lesser bear, and
a of the lyre, are also well adapted to the end in view, in
latitudes exceeding the polar distance of the most remote
star, which is about 511°.
68. In whatever way a meridian line has been found on
a horizontal plane, two plummets hung over it, or so that
their lines may pass through it, will indicate the position
of the plane of the meridian in space. The line in which
it cuts any other plane, as a vertical wall not far from the
meridian line, may be found by placing the eye in the
meridional plane, with the plummets between it and the
wall, and noting points on the wall which their lines cover
from the eye. The ingenious diallist may now, with a lit¬
tle dexterity in practical geometry, fix the style of his dial
in the wall or other plane, with its edge in the meridian
plane, and making with a vertical line the proper angle, so
that it may point to the pole. A perpendicular drawn now
from the end of the style on the plane, will give a point
in the substyle, which may now be drawn to the centre.
Thus two important elements in a dial will be determined.
To find the Declination of a Vertical Plane.
69. Place a board in a position truly horizontal, with a
straight side in contact with the plane ; trace a meridian
line on the board; and the angle made by this line and
the line in which the board meets the vertical plane will
be the inclination of the plane to the meridian.
To find the Inclination of any Plane to the Horizon.
'0* Extend a surface truly level until it meet the plane;
7'88
Dialling.
D I A L L I N G.
the line of their intersection will be horizontal. Draw
perpendiculars to this line on the two planes from any
point in it, and the angle which these form will be the in¬
clination of the plane to the horizon. _
If the plane were made to form one side of a temporary
trough into which water was poured, the surface of the
water would accurately mark the horizontal line. The
inclination of the plane to the surface of the water, which
is horizontal, might be found by various expedients too
obvious to require being pointed out. .
When the position of the meridian and the axis or the
dial are truly determined, the finding of the inclination
and declination of the plane are problems in practical
geometry which may be resolved by the application of
levels, or plumb-lines and squares, and those simple pim-
ciples’with which most workmen are familiar.
Inclining Dials.
71. We come now to consider inclining dials, or those
which stand oblique to the horizon, either projecting for¬
wards from the perpendicular, or retiring backwards.
From what has been taught, any dial plane being given in
position, a meridian line may be traced on it; also, at a point
in that line an axis may be fixed pointing to the pole of
the world. Suppose now that in the following figure, OB
is a meridian line drawn on an inclining dial plane, and OC
let it meet the horizon in F, and the plane of the meridian Dialling,
in the line HA; the line YOp will be the axis of the dial,^^^'
and HOA the meridian line. The arch EF between the
east point of the horizon and the plane will be its declina¬
tion, and the spherical angle HFN its inclination to the
horizon, or the complement of its reclination from the ver¬
tical position.
the axis directed to the pole; the angle COB will be the
complement of the latitude of that place where the dia ,
being vertical, would show true time: this, therefore, is
known. If, in addition, we knew the declination of the dial,
the hour line angles might be found by the formulae of art.
55. Now it is easy to find the declination, for since the
horizon must be perpendicular to the vertical OB, if CB
be drawn in the plane of the meridian, and HBA in the dial
plane, both perpendicular to OB, these lines will be in the
plane of the horizon of the place where the dial, being ver¬
tical, would show true time; and the angle CBH will be the
inclination of the plane of the dial to the meridian, which
is the complement of the declination (art. 47). If now we
make BH = BA of any length, and join CH, CA, we have,
by trigonometry,
™tt _ (CA + CH) (CA —CH)
cos. CBH _ 4BH-BC
Hence, by measuring the lines on a scale of equal parts, the
inclination may be found.
72. Thus, having the position of the meridian, and the
axis, on a dial plane making a given angle with the hori¬
zon, we may find the latitude of the place where it would
be a vertical declining dial, and also its declination at that
place; and with these data the angles which the hour
lines make with the meridian may be found by the formu¬
lae for vertical dials, art. 55 ; or else we may find the lati¬
tude and longitude of that place where the dial would be
horizontal, and construct it by the rules for a horizontal dial.
73. To begin with the first of these methods, let SZNA
be the meridian (see fig. in next column), Yp the axis of the
sphere, Z the zenith of a place where the dial is to stand,
SEN the horizon, S, E, and N, the south, east, and north
points respectively ; also let HFI be a circle of the sphere
on the plane of which the dial is to be constructed, and
Now, let SEn be the horizon of a place having H for its
zenith, which of course is the place where the dial would
be a vertical dial, and let it cut the dial plane ciicle mjr ;
because the two horizons are perpendicular to the meri¬
dian, their intersection will be in the east point in both.
Let L = PN, the given latitude of the place where the
dial is to be made ;
D —. FE, the declination of the dial;
R = complement of angle^/EF, its reclination;
l = the latitude of the place where the dial would
be vertical, which is sought;
d = Ef, its declination there, also sought:
then l—L = Nrc, the measure of the angle FE/. <
By spherical trigonometry, in the triangle El/ right an¬
gled at £ . _
rad.: sin. EF = sin. F: sin. E/j
rad. : cos. EF = tan. F : cot. E.
From these proportions we find
. , cos. R sin. D
sin. d — j .
rad. f (17 ^
cot. (I—L) —
rad. (
cot. R cos. D v
rad.
Hence the angles d and l are determined; and these being
substituted in the formula of art. 55, instead of L and D>
it will become a general expression for the angle y, which
the shadow makes with the meridian line on the reclining
dlExAMPLE.—To find the hour lines on a south dial plane
FHA, that declines westward 25°, and reclines 15°, in la¬
titude 54° 30'.
D = 25°, R = 15°.
To find l.
rad 10-00000
cot. R 10-57195
cos. D  9-95728
Here L = 54° 30',
To find d.
rad 10-00000
cos. R  9-98494
sin. D  9-62595
sin. (d = 24° 6') 9-61089 cot.((—L)—16°27' 10-52923
Since l — L = 16° 27', and L = 54" 30’, therefore
l— 70° 57'. The dial declines to the west; thereioie
(art. 55),
_ tan. QjsimjK for the forenoon hour lines,
cos. (x + P)
tani y — tan. Q Sin-/L for the afternoon.
tan. y
cos. (x — P)
sin. I tan. d
In these tan. P —
rad.
Dialling.
DIALLING.
tan. Q —
cot. I sin. P
sin. d
and hence P = 22° 55', and log. tan. Q = 9-51759.
The elements of the dial and the results of the calcu¬
lation are exhibited in this table.
Given l
d
= 70° 51'1 hence J P = 22° 55'
= 24 c f hence (log. tan. Q = 9-
51759.
Hours.
Hour
Angle a?.
a + P.
x — P.
Hour Line
Angles y.
VIII. a. m.
IX.
X.
XL
XII. noon.
I. p. m.
II.
III.
IV.
V.
VI.
VII.
60°
45
30
15
0
15
30
45
60
75
90
105
82° 55'
67 55
52 55
37 55
22 55
7°
7
22
37
52
67
82
55'
5
5
5
5
5
5
66° 37'
31 46
15 16
6 10
0
4
9
14
0
55
25
6
19 40
27 22
40 13
66 35
The hour lines are to be drawn on the dial, so as to
make with the XII. o’clock hour line the angles in this table.
The dial is represented in fig. 7 of Plate CCII.
74. To construct the dial by finding the latitude and
longitude of a place where it would be horizontal, we must
find the angle which the substyle makes with the meri¬
dian, and also the latitude and longitude of the plane.
Resuming the figure of art. 73, let a great circle pass¬
ing through the pole, and perpendicular to the plane of the
dial, meet it in the line OA ; this will be the substyle,
and AOH the angle which it makes with the meridian
or XII. o’clock hour line ; AOP the angle which the axis
makes with the plane of the dial, and the spherical angle
APH its difference of longitude.
In the spherical triangle AHP right-angled at A,
AHP = fhs is measured by the arc fs ; but this arc is the
complement of the arc^E, which we have denoted by d,
therefore the angle AHP is the complement ofd. Again,
the arc HP is the complement of the arc Pn, which was
expressed by 1. Now formulae have been given (in the
preceding article) for the computation of d and l, there¬
fore the angle AHP and the side HP of the spherical
triangle maybe considered as known. The three remain¬
ing parts of the triangle may be found by spherical trigo¬
nometry by these proportions,
rad. : cos. H = tan. PH : tan. AH;
rad. : sin. H = sin. PH : sin. AP;
rad. : tan. H = cos. PH : cot. P.
By substituting the symbols d and / in these proportions,
they give
tan. AH (the angle made by the 4 _ sin, d cot. I
substyle and meridian) J — rad. ’
sin. AP (the angle made by thel _ cos, d cos. I
axis and substyle) j — rad. ’
v cot. d sin. I
cot. P (the dif. of long.)   —  •
These formulae, applied to the example of last article,
give
angle made by substyle and meridian = 8° P;
angle made by axis and substyle = 17° 20';
diff. of longitude of dial plane 25° 20' =: lh. 41^m.
The dial may now be constructed as horizontal, and
for latitude 17° 20'; and since the meridian line lies to
the east of the XII. o’clock line, the hour lines of 2h. 41^m.,
3h. 41^m. &c., reckoned from the substyle of the dial, must
be found, and made the hour lines of XL, X., &c. in the
forenoon. Also, the hour line of 41^ra. must be made the
hour line of I. The hour line of II. will be on the other
side of the substyle, and will correspond to 18fm., that of
III. to lh. 18|m., and so on.
Of the Time when the Sun begins or ceases to shine on a
Dial on a given Day.
75. The solution of this problem is wanted, that it may
be known what hours should be inscribed on a dial. It
has various cases; but as all are to be resolved on the
same principles, it will be sufficient if we consider one.
Retaining the construction of the fig. of art. 73, let
PI be the hour circle passing through the sun when he is
in the plane of the dial on a given day. In the spherical
triangle HAP, we have found AP, the measure of the
angle contained by the axis and substyle; and HPA, the
difference of longitude. Again, in the spherical triangle
IAP, right-angled at A, besides AP, there is known IP,
the sun’s distance from the pole on the given day. Hence
the angle IPA may be found by this proportion:
tan. PI : tan. PA = rad. : cos. API.
The angle API, expressed in time, is half the period the
sun shines on the plane; and the hour angle HPI, in
time, is the interval between noon and the sun’s leaving
the plane.
76. Taking the dial constructed in art. 73 as an ex¬
ample, it will be found that when the sun is in the north¬
ern tropic, that is, when PI =: 66° 30', the angle IPA
= 82° 12'. Now (art. 74), HPA = 25° 20'; therefore,
when the sun ceases to shine on the plane, the horary
angle IPH from noon is 107° 32' = 7 hours 10 minutes,
the sum of the two arcs; and when he begins to shine on
it, the horary angle is 56° 52' = 3 hours 47 minutes, their
difference. Hence it will be needless to trace on the dial
any hour line earlier than VIII. in the morning, or later
than VIII. in the evening.
Of the Line described by the extremity of a Shadow on a
Plane.
77. Sometimes the line which is the boundary of the
space passed over by the shadow of the axis of a dial on
given days of the year is traced on its plane. The path
of the extremity of the shadow when the sun enters the
different signs of the ecliptic is an elegant appendage to a
dial, and the geometrical problem which determines it is
interesting.
78. Setting aside the considerations of the change in
the sun’s declination, the apparent diurnal path of the sun
in the heavens is, in the theory of dialling, considered to
be a circle parallel to the equator; therefore any fixed
point that projects a shadow throughout a day may be
considered as the vertex of a cone, the base of which is
the diurnal circle described by the sun on that day, and
the space bounded by the shadow will be the same cone
continued beyond its vertex. Thus it appears that the
shadow of a fixed point in space generates the surface of
a cone whose axis passes through the pole of the world;
and hence the path of the shadow on any plane will be a
conic section, because it is the line in which the surface of
the cone meets the plane.
Let O be the centre of a horizontal dial, OF the axis,
O XII. the meridian line, and OB the shadow of the axis
at any time ; join FB, draw FA perpendicular to O XIL, and
AD perpendicular to OB, meeting OB in D ; and join FD.
Because FA is perpendicular to the plane BO XIL the
plane of the triangle FAD is perpendicular to that plane
Now, by construction, BD is perpendicular to their com¬
mon section DA, therefore it is perpendicular to the plane
&
r9o
Dialling.
DIALLING.
Dialling.
v ~
2T —
of the triangle FAD, and consequently FD is perpendicu¬
lar to OB.
Let a — OF the length of the axis;
r = OB the length of its shadow;
J the angle BOA contained by the shadow
j and the meridian ;
/ the angle FOB contained by the shadow
\ and the axis;
L = the angle FOA, the latitude ;
D — the angle ObB, the sun’s polar distance;
in the triangles ODF, ODA, right-angled at D,
OD : OF = cos. FOD : rad.
OA : OD = rad. : cos. AOD,
therefore OA : OF = cos. FOD : cos. AOD;
but in the triangle OAF,
OA : OF = cos. FOA : rad.
therefore cos. FOA : rad. = cos. FOD : cos. AOD.
From the triangle FOB we get this other proportion,
sin. (F + O) or sin. B : sin. F = OF : OB.
The last two proportions in symbols are
cos. L : rad. = cos. v : cos. ?/,
sin. (D + ■y) : sin. D = a : r.
By the first proportion, we may determine v fromy, the
angle the shadow makes with the meridian; and by the
second we get r, the length of the shadow. We may also
express its length by the hour angle from noon ; for if we
put x to denote that angle, then (art. 23),
rad. : sin. L = tan. x : tan. y.
From the first and last of these three proportions, it
is easy to infer, by spherical trigonometry, that the arcs
L and ?/ are the sides of a right-angled spherical triangle,
of which v is the hypotenuse, and that x is the angle op¬
posite the side y ; hence it follows that
cos. x : tan. L = rad. : tan. v.
To determine the length of the shadow, we have now
these formulae,
4 rad. tan.L
tan. v =  (i)
cos. L cos. y -j- cot. D 1 — cos.2 L cos.2 y
This is the polar equation of the line which limits the
shadow; it may also have this form,
a — r cos. L cos. y = cot. D Vr2 — r2 cos.2 L cos.2 y.
Supposing now t and u to be rectangular co-ordinates,
w ^ch have their origin at O ; we have t—r cos. y, and
r — t + m2; therefore, by substitution, and taking the
squares of both sides, we find
(cot.2 D sin.2 L — cos.2 L) *2 + 2 a * cos. L1
+ w2 cot.2 D — a2 j — 0,
an expression which by the calculus of sines may be trans¬
formed to
*2 sin* (D + L) sin. (D — L) — 2 at cos. L sin.2 D1
— w2 cos.2 D + a2 sin.2 D | — 0.
This is the equation of the line described by the sha¬
dow referred to axes perpendicular to each other ; it con¬
tains the first and second powers of the co-ordinates and
constants, therefore the line is, in general, a conic section.
80. If L —- D, then sin. (L — D) 0. In this case
the teim which contains £2 vanishes, and the remaining
terms indicate that the curve is a parabola.
If L is greater than D, so that the sine of D — L is
negative, the equation belongs to an ellipse; but if L be
less than D, the equation belongs to a hyperbola. In each
case the meridian line is the transverse axis of the curve.
The path of the shadow is an ellipse at any place within
the polar circle on the days when the sun does not set;
it is a parabola at that place on the day that the sun just
touches the horizon at midnight; it is a straight line at
all places of the earth on the equinoctial days; and in
every other case it is a hyperbola.
81. The points in which the curve crosses its axis may
bejbund from its polar equation by making « = 0, and
u — 180°. If / and r" denote the distances from the cen¬
tre, when m — 0, then i* — ~ S—‘J?_. r« — a Sln' ^
rpi p sin.(D + L),? sin.(D—L)
The first of these is the length of the shadow at noon.
The vertices of the curve lie on the same side of the cen¬
tre of the dial when it is a hyperbola, but on opposite sides
when it is an ellipse. The other elements of the curve
may be found in the same way, and the curve may be
described as a conic section. In practice it will however
be sufficient to find the points in which the curve crosses
the hour lines of the dial, and then trace the curve through
them by hand. The intersection of the curve and any
hour line may be found by this construction.
cos. x
cos. L cos. y
cos. v   — ■
rad.
a sin. D
sin. (D + «f) ’’
By these, and the formulae
•f2)
.(3)
tan. y ~
sin. L tan. x
rad.
the position of the shadow, and its length, may be found
at any time on any given day; the sun’s declination being
taken from the table which concludes this article.
79. It has been shown (art. 78) generally, that the
me described by the shadow is a conic section : the for¬
mulae just found serve to determine its nature in any given
__ %calculus of sines (Algebra, art. 239), sin. (D + v)
~r sin;Dcos.v + cos.Dsin.v; now sin. */(l — Cos.2 «?),
therefore,from formulae (2) and (3), putting rad.=1, we have
yji
Let 0 be the centre of the dial, and O XII. the meri¬
dian line. Take any two lines, OM, ON, in the propor¬
tion of the cosine of the latitude to radius; and about O
as a centre, with these distances, describe circles. Take
OF in the meridian line equal to the axis of the dial, and
make the angle OFH equal to the sun’s distance from the
dialling.
rJf' K b* the ■"‘craection of any hour line and the
lesser circle. Draw KL perpendicular to the meridian,
meeting the greater circle in G. Draw OG, meeting FH
in H In the hour line OY, take OB equal to OH? and
theUadow ‘n WhlC l the h0lU'line “eetS the Path of
For, by trigonometry,
OG : OK = sin. OKL: sin. OGL = cos. KOL: cos. GOL •
that is, because KOL = YOL = y,
rad. : cos. L = cos. y : cos. HOL.
Hence tlie angle HOL = v (formula 2 of art. 78); now
HbG _ D, and OF — a, and sin. H : sin. F = OF : OH
that is, sin. (D + v) : sin. D = a • OH •
therefore OH = OB is the length of the shadow (Tor-
mula 3). v
Whatever has been shown regarding the shadow of a
horizontal dial, will apply to any dial whatever, if L be
put for the latitude of the place where the dial would be
horizontal, and the substyle be taken for the meridian line.
Dials with variable Centres.
82. Dials of this kind are not common; yet they are
deserving of attention, because of the elegance of their
geometrical theory. Their construction depends on this
principle.
It is possible to determine a system of hour points on a
plane, such, that if a style be placed in the plane of the meri¬
dian at certain points, to be found, corresponding to the days
of the year, and making with the horizon any given angle,
its shadow shall pass through the hour points at the times they
indicate,^ and in this way show the time of the day.
83. lo establish the truth of this proposition, the fol¬
lowing problem is to be resolved.
Having given the sun’s declination, the time from noon,
and the latitude of a place; to find the angle which the
shadow of a style in the plane of the meridian, and in¬
clined at a given angle, makes with the meridian line on
a horizontal plane.
PS—90° — D, PQ_E — L, Q=180o — z. P=x •
and in the second, ’ •*
LQM=*, LM=:y, sin. QL=sin. QN=sin.E;
have ^ ^ substltutlng the symbols in the formula, we
tan. D sm. ( E L)=—cot.2rsin.a?+cos.(E—L)cos. x • flY
cot. z — cot. y sin. E ’ (2.)
Let the value of cot. z be substituted instead of it in
f firs^ Ration, then, deducing from the result the
value of cot. y, we find
cot. y = ggs- (E — L) cos, a? — sin. (E — L) tan. D
sin. E sin. x
This formula gives the value of y, the angle made by
quiredad0VV ^ ^ mendian of the dial> which was re-
84. Fig. 13 of Plate CCII. represents a dial with a
moveable centre, O XII. being the meridian line, and the
hour points as shown in the figure. Let C be the vari¬
able centre, which is the position of the bottom of the style
on any given day, A any one of the hour points, and AC
the position of the shadow at that hour on the given
day; then, a? denoting the hour angle from noon, and y
the hour line angle AC XII., the preceding formula gives
the valueofy. Draw AB perpendicular to the meridian,
put OB — t, AB — u, ^ and u being the co-ordinates of an
mur point; and put r for OC, the variable distance of the
bottom of the style from the fixed point C in the plane of the
dial; then Be = £—r. And because cot. C= —, that is
BA 5
. t—r
cot. y   ,
therefore
t r __ cos. (E — L) cos, x — sin. (E — L) tan. O
V' . sin. E sin. x ';
and hence, deducing the value of r,
t sin. E sin. x — u cos. (E — L) cos. x
Let LMN be the horizon, LPN the meridian, P the
pole, CQ the style, which, being produced, meets the ce¬
lestial meridian in Q. Let S be the sun in the hour circle
PS, and MSQA a great circle passing through S and Q,
and cutting the horizon in the line MCA.
Put L = PN, the given latitude ;
E = QN, the given elevation of the style;
•D — PS, the sun’s distance from the pole;
x — QPS, the hour angle ;
2 = the angle LQM;
V — angle ACN, or arc LM, which is to be found.
In the spherical triangle PSQ, by spherics,
cot. PS. sin. PQ = cot. Q sin. P -f- cos. PQ cos. P;
and in the spherical triangle QLM, right-angled at L ’
cot. LQM = cot. LM sin. QL.
Now, in the first of these formula1,
r — J sin. E sin. x
+ u sin. (E — L) tan. D
sin. E sin. x
By the nature of the dial, the position of the style must
depend entirely on the sun’s declination, and be altogether
independent of the hour of the day. These conditions will
be satisfied if we make
t sin. E sin. x — u cos. (E — L) cos. a; = 0 •
u sin. (E — L)
sinT E sin. a; = a constant quantity;
for by this assumption t and u are independent of D, the
suns declination; and r - « tan. D independent of ar.
By resolving the equations, we obtain
t — a cot. (E — L) cos. x. (1.)
sin. E
M“fl'sb7(E-L) Sm** (2.)
r zz a tan. D  /o \
These equations express the nature of every dial of this
85. To construct the dial, we must assume a line of any
convenient length, as a scale on which the co-ordinates
of the hour points may be measured. The values of * and
u are now to be computed by making * = 15° for the
boms of XL and I.; again, a? = 30° for the hours of X.
and II., and so on. A graduated scale must be formed
a ong the meridian line, proceeding both ways from O,
that point being the position of the style at the equinoxes •
and since it appears from the figure in art. 83, that for
^ 6 \the anSle y at the variab?e centre
g t to increase as the sun approaches the north pole,
t ic scale of decimation for the north side of the equator
792
dialling.
Dialling, must lie on the north side of O ; and that for the south,
on the opposite side. Lastly, the months and days of the
year ought to be placed on the scale opposite to the de¬
grees of declination to which they correspond.
86. We may investigate, from the equations, the na¬
ture of the curve that is the locus of the dial points, or
which has t and u for rectangular co-ordinates. Ihis will
be obtained by eliminating the angle x.
x \ s'10, E
Put m — a cotan. (E — L), n — a ^ ;
we have now
L -j- m cos.2 x + sin.2 a? = 1;
m? nl
hence it appears that the locus of the hour points is an el¬
lipse, of which the axes are m and n.
Azimuth or Analemmatic Dial.
87. This dial, represented by fig. 16, Plate CCIL, is of
the 'kind having a variable centre. Its style is vertical,
therefore, by what has been shown in par. 84, the equa¬
tions of the hour points on the dial will be
tzz a tan. L. cos. x; u — a sec. L. sin. x; r — a tan. D.
The dimensions of the ellipse which is the locus of the
hour points are these :
m — semiconjugate or merid. axis — a tan. L,
n — semitransverse axis = a sec. L,
Eccentricity = a.
These values of t, u, r, serve to find the hour points by
calculation. They may also be found by this construc¬
tion, fig. 15.
Draw two straight lines Aa, ¥>b, intersecting at right
angles in O ; and in OA, one of these lines, take OD of
any suitable length for the eccentricity of the dial; draw
DB so as to make with DO an angle equal to the latitude
of the place; then CB will be half the lesser axis, and B
the twelve o’clock hour point.
In OD, take OA and Oa each equal to DB ; and Aa
will be the hour points for six o’clock in the morning and
evening.
On O as a centre, with OA and OB as radii, describe
circles, and divide the quadrants in the same angle, each
into six equal parts. From K, any one of the divisions of
the outer circle, draw KL perpendicular to Oa ; and from
the corresponding point in the inner circle, draw AN paral¬
lel to Oa, meeting KL in N; this will be one of the hour
points, and in the same way may all the others be found.
At the point D make angles ODE, ODe, each 23^- de¬
grees, the sun’s greatest declination ; and E, e shall be the
positions of the bottom of the style at the solstices, that of
the summer being on the north of O, the middle of the
dial. Describe a circle with DO as a radius, and find the
tangents of the series of arcs 1°, 2°, 3°, &c. of that circle,
and lay them down as a scale from O to E and e, on each
side. Find, in the tables which conclude this article, the
sun’s declination on the first day of every month, and
mark the beginning of the month on the scale E opposite
to its corresponding degree of declination. As many of
the intermediate days may in like manner be laid down
as there is room for.
The style must now, by some contrivance, be placed
over the scale, so as to admit of sliding along it, and being
set to any day, and the dial is finished.
If a dial of this kind be united to a horizontal dial, as
they can only show the same hour when their meridian
lines are in their true position, the compound dial may
be set to show time without the help of a compass or me¬
ridian line.
Lamberts Dial.
Dialling.
88. This is a particular case of the class of dials with
a variable centre. It was given by M. Lambert in the
Berlin Ephemerides for 1777.
It has been found (art. 86), that L being put to denote
the latitude, and E the angle which the style is to make
with the meridian line, the semiaxes of the ellipse, which
is the locus of the hour points, are
a cotan. (E — L),
a sin. E
sin. (E — L)’
Now these will be equal, if the cosine of E — L be equal
to the sine of E, that is, if E — L + E ==: 90°, or E = ^
(90 + L). When E, the elevation of the style, has this
value, the hour points are in the circumference of a circle.
At London E would be 70° 45'.
Lambert’s dial may be constructed geometrically thus:
(see fig. 14 of Plate CCIL
Take a straight line OD of any length, and draw a per¬
pendicular OB. At the point D, make the angle ODB
equal to half the sum of 90° and the latitude of the place,
and OB will be the radius of the dial.
Describe a circle about O as a centre, with the radius
OB, and divide the quadrants each into six equal parts,
and the points of division will be the hour points on the
dial.
Draw the lines DE, De, and make a scale of tangents
of the sun’s declination from O to E and e, and against
the divisions of the scale write the days of the month ex¬
actly as directed in the Analemmatic dial. Also place
the style over the meridian, so that it may be adjusted
to the time of the year, and make with the meridian
line an angle equal to BDO, and the dial will be con¬
structed.
Note.—The style must be on the north or south of the
point O, according as the sun is on the north or south
side of the equator.
In these dials, instead of making the style moveable, it
might be fixed, and different sets of hour points found for
different days of the year. This, however, would make
the construction laborious.
Thus far we have given the theory of the dials, along
with their construction. In what follows, we shall, for the
sake of brevity, simply give their construction. In gene¬
ral, the theory is just an application of what has been al¬
ready delivered.
Portable Dial on a Card.
89. This dial, represented by fig. 11, Plate CC., has
been called the Capuchin, because of a supposed resem¬
blance it has to the head of a capuchin friar with his cowl
inverted. It may be constnicted as follows :
Draw a straight line ACB parallel to the top of the
card (fig. 10), and another DCE bisecting the former
at right angles; on C as a centre, with any convenient
radius CA, describe a semicircle, and divide it into twelve
equal parts, at the points r, s, t, u, v, &c. From the points
r, s,t, &c. draw* lines perpendicular to ACB> the diameter
of the circle, and these will be the hour lines, viz. the line
through r will be the hour line of XI. I. (see fig. 11), that
through s the hour line of X. II. &c., the hour of XII. noon
being at A. The half hours and quarters may also be laid
down by subdivision. At A, the extremity of the diame¬
ter, drawT a line AD, making with AC an angle equal to
the latitude of the place, and meeting the six o’clock line
in D, through which draw a line FDG at right angles to
AD. At the point A, draw lines AF, AG, to make with AD,
on opposite sides, angles of 23^ degrees, the sun s greatest
DIALLING.
Dialling, declination: these determine the line FDG, the scale of
months. Describe a semicircle on FG as a diameter • di- Dicil on a Cylinder.
■vide it into six equal parts at m, n, o, p, q, and draw mh, 91. This dial is represented by fig. 4, Plate CCI. It
nl, oiJ, pk, qi perpendicular to IG; these points are the shows the hour of the day, the sun’s place in the ecliptic,
centies of the arcs of the signs. an(j h;s altitude at the time of observation. The dial is
Axr/rfr ,as cent.res’ through A, describe the arcs constructed by tracing the lines on a rectangular piece
AH, AG, lor the tropics of Capricorn and Cancer, the of paper (fig. 5), and pasting it on the surface of the cy-
rormer or which is marked and the latter 05 (fig. 11); linder. The lines may be traced by the following rules.
a t° a xt ai *’ aS Fentres through A, describe the arcs Having formed on paper a rectangle ABDC, of such a size
c • • °ne I36 arc t^e s’gns Aquarius ZZ that, when wrapped round the cylinder, its opposite sides
and bagitanus $ ; and the other the arcs of Gemini n AC, BD, may just coincide; produce the side BA to a,
and Leo ; and on l and k, as centres through A, any convenient distance, and on a as a centre, with the
describe the arcs AK and AM, one for the signs Pisces distance aA, describe the quadrantal arc AE, and divide
K and Scorpio nt, and the other for Taurus ft and it into ninety equal parts for degrees; draw lines from the
Virgo a# ; and lastly, on D as a centre, through A, de- centre through as many divisions of the quadrant as there
scnbe the arc AL for the signs Aries and Libra are degrees of the sun’s altitude in the longest day of the
On A as a centre, with any convenient radius, describe an year at noon of the place for which the dial is to serve,
arc RST, terminating in the lines AF, AG, and divide which at London is 62°, and continue these lines until they
each half into 231 equal parts for the scale of the sun’s meet the tangent line AC. From the points of meeting
declination. Find from the tables which conclude this ar- draw lines across the rectangle parallel to AB, as shown
tide the sun s declination for every fifth day of the year, in the figure, and these will be the parallels of the sun’s
and, laying a ruler over A, and the degree of each day on altitude, in whole degrees, from sunrise to sunset, on all
the scale RT, mark the point in which the ruler meets the the days of the year.
line FG, thereby forming the scale for the months and Divide AB, CD, the top and bottom sides of the rect-
days of the year, as shown in fig. 11 (between A and angle, into twelve equal parts for the signs of the ecliptic,
B), observing that the days from 21st of March to 23d and draw straight lines, joining the points of division, on
September must be on the right hand side of D, the mid- which, at the bottom, place the characters of the signs, as
die of the scale. Cut a slit through the card along the line in the figure. The twelve divisions should be subdivided
AB in fig. 11, corresponding to FG in fig. 10, and through by parallel lines into halves, and, if there be room, into
it put a thread having a bead c sliding along it, and a quarters.
plummet D at one end, which may hang freely along the At the top of the rectangle make a scale of the months
face of the dial when it is held vertically; and make a and days of the year, so as that the division of the scale
knot on the thread at the back of the dial, so that it may for each day may stand over the division for the sun’s
not be drawn through the slit. Draw the shadow line place on that day in the scale of signs. The sun’s place
(fig. 11) parallel to the top of the card, and on ah, a part in the ecliptic each day of the year 1830, the second after
of it, form the rectangle ahcd for the gnomon. Cut the leap year, is given at the end of this article, and may serve
card through, along the three sides ha, ad, dc of the rect- for this scale. Compute the sun’s altitude for every hour
angle, and partly through along he, the fourth, on the in the latitude of the place, when he is in the beginning
back of the card, so as to admit of the rectangle turning and middle of each sign, and in the upright parallel lines
on he as a hinge. The hours, the scale of months, and scale make marks for these computed altitudes among the pa-
of declinations, being drawn on the card, as shown in fig. rallels of altitude, reckoning them downward according
11, the dial will be finished. to the order of the numeral figures set to them along the
90. To rectify the dial, set the thread in the slit AB side BD, answering to the divisions of the quadrant on
against the day in the month, and stretch it over the point the opposite side; and through these marks draw the
where the circles of the signs meet at XII.; then slide the curve hour lines, and set the hours to them, as in the
bead c along the thread until it be on that point, and the figure, reckoning the forenoon hours downwards, and the
dial is rectified. afternoon hours upwards. The sun’s altitude should also
To find the hour of the day, raise the gnomon by turn- be computed for the half hours; as to the quarter hour
ing it about the line he, so that when the card is held ver- points, they may be put nearly in their proper place by
tically with its edge towards the sun, the side ah of the estimation with the eye.
gnomon may cast a shadow along the shadow line ; then, The scales and hour lines being constructed, the part of
the thread being brought into a vertical line, passing along the paper on which the quadrant was drawn is to be cut
the face of the card by the weight of the plummet, the off along the line AC, and that on the opposite side along
hour line on which the bead falls indicates the time of the BD. The superfluous parts at the top and bottom are
day before or after noon. also to be removed, and it will be fit for being pasted
Note. About noon the hour will be shown with uncer- round the cylinder,
tainty; this is an inconvenience inseparable from all dials The cylinder, reduced in size, is represented by ABCD,
that show the hour by the sun’s altitude. fig. 4. It should be hollow, to hold the style DEe when
To find the time of sun rising and setting: Having rec- it is not used. The crooked end of the style is put into a
tified the dial for the given day, move the thread about hole in the top AD of the cylinder, which fits on it tight-
its end in the slit until it be parallel to the hour lines; it ly, and may be turned round, like the lid of a paper snuff-
will then cut the time of sun rising among the forenoon box. The style must stand straight out, perpendicular to
hours, and of setting among those of the afternoon. the side of the cylinder, just over the line AB, round the
To find the sun’s declination : Stretch the thread from top from which the parallels of the sun’s altitude are
the day of the month over the hour point at XII., and it reckoned; and the length of the style, projecting beyond
will indicate the declination on the graduated arch. the cylinder, must be exactly equal to Aa, the radius of
To find on what days the sun enters the signs : When the quadrant in fig. 5.
the bead, as above rectified, moves along any one of the To use the dial, place the base of the cylinder on a level
arcs of the signs, the sun enters that sign on the day table where the sun shines, and turn the top round till the
pointed out by the thread on the scale of months. style stand directly over the day of the month ; then turn
' vol. vii. 5 H
793
Dialling.
794
DIALLING.
Dialling, the cylinder about on the table till the shadow falls on it
parallel to those upright lines which divide the signs, that
is, till the shadow be parallel to the (supposed) axis of the
cylinder; and then the point or lowest shadow windfall
upon the time of the day among the curve hour lines, and
will show the sun’s altitude at that time, among the cross
parallels of his altitude which go round the cylinder; at
the same time it will indicate the sign of the ecliptic in
which the sun is.
The dial may also, when used, be suspended by the
ring F in its top. Dials of this kind, of rather rude con¬
struction, are sometimes used by the rural population in
France.
92. The construction of this dial requires that the sun’s
altitude be found for any given hour of the day, knowing
the latitude of the place and the sun’s declination.
Let D be the sun’s declination,
L the latitude,
x the hour angle at the pole,
z the sun’s altitude.
Then 90° — D, 90° — L, 90° — z, are the three sides
of a spherical triangle, and x is the angle opposite to the
last of these sides; hence, by spherics,
sin. z = sin. L sin. D + cos. L cos. D cos.# (1.)
This is equivalent to
sin. z — sin. L sin. D (1 -f- cot. L cos. D cos. x) (2.)
From this formula, by giving different values to x, the
hour from noon, there will be found corresponding values
of z, the sun’s altitude.
Ex. To find the sun’s altitude at ten in the forenoon or
two in the afternoon on the 21st of May at London, in la¬
titude 51° 31', the sun then nearly entering the sign ge-
mini. In this case, from the table at the end, D = 20°,
8', we have also L zr 51° 31', and # 2h 30°.
cot. L 9‘90035 sin. L 9,8936F
cot. D 10-43580 sin. D 9-53682
cos. x 9-93753 2-878 0-45909
1- 878 0-27368 sin. z 9-88955
2- 878 rz 1 + cot. L cot. D cos. # z z=. 50° 51'.
The formula supposes that the latitude and declination
are of the same name, that is, both north or both south.
When one is north and the other south, then the first term
will be negative, and we have for this case
sin. 2 — sin. L sin. D (cot. L cos. D. cos. x — 1)....(3);
and when the hour angle exceeds 90°, it must be remem¬
bered that cos. # is a negative quantity, so that the ex¬
pression in which it occurs is subtractive.
Ring Dial.
93. This kind of dial is shown in figure 7. It is formed
of a brass ring or rim, usually about two inches in dia¬
meter, and one third of an inch in breadth. In a point
of this rim there is a hole, through which the sun’s light
passes, and forms a lucid speck on the opposite concave
surface, on which the hours of the day are marked.
These divisions are made by describing a circle to re¬
present the ring, and drawing a horizontal chord EF;
with this as a radius describe a quadrant FD, and divide
it into degrees, and through those which mark the sun’s
altitude at every hour of the day, at the time of either equi¬
nox, draw lines from E to the opposite side of the circle,
and there put the corresponding figures. Thus for a
place whose latitude is 51° 32', the XII. o’clock line will
pass through 38° 38' the colatitude, and the XL and I.
line through 36° 56', the X. and II. through 32° 36', the
IX. and III. through 26° 5', the VIII. and IV. through
18° 8', and the VII. and V. through 9° 17'. The dial,
thus constructed, would only show time at the equinox ;
but to make it perform the whole year, the hole is made
moveable, and the signs of the ecliptic or the days of the Dialling,
month are marked on the convex surface of the ring by
taking ET and E£, on each side of E, equal to twice the
sun’s declination when he enters any particular sign, as
Taurus and Pisces, and there marking the character of
the sign or corresponding month, and so for all the others;
and by these the dial is rectified for the time of the year.
From the figure it appears that E XII. h is equal to FE XII.
or the altitude of the sun in the equinox ; but T XII. E is
equal to the sun’s declination in Taurus, because it is an
angle at the circumference standing on an arc which is
double the declination; therefore T XII. 3 is equal to the
meridian altitude when the sun enters Taurus, and a ray
passing through the hole at T will mark the XII. o’clock
hour of that day. But this dial will not show the other
hours exactly, because T III. c? exceeds E Ill.d, the equi¬
noctial hour, by the angle of declination, and the same
holds of the rest. To remedy this defect, the concave
surface of the ring has sometimes been made broader, and
seven circles described upon it, the middle one to repre¬
sent the equinoctial, and the extremes the tropics ; and on
these circles the hours have been marked as shown in a
table of altitudes.
To use the dial, set the moveable hole to the day of the
month, or the degree of the sun’s place in the ecliptic;
then, suspending it by the ring, turn it towards the sun
till his rays point out the hour among the divisions in the
inside.
Universal or Astronomical Ring Dial.
94. This is represented in figure 6 of Plate CCI. It
serves to show the time of the day in any part of the
earth, whereas the former is only adapted to a particular
latitude. It consists of two rings or flat circles from two
to six inches in diameter. The outer ring A represents
the meridian of any place. Two of its opposite quadrants
are divided into 90°, serving, the one for north and the
other for south latitude. The inner ring represents the
equator, and turns within the outer on two pivots at the
extremities of a diameter, where the hour XII. is marked.
A thin reglet or bridge goes across the circles, and in its
middle there is an opening, along which there slides a
cursor C, having a small hole in it for the sun to shine
through. The middle of this bridge represents the axis of
the celestial sphere, and its extremities the poles; on one
side of it the signs of the zodiac are drawn, and on the
other the days of the month. A piece, to which a ring H
is fixed, slides along the meridian ; and the dial when used
is suspended by the ring.
In this dial, the divisions laid down on the axis on either
side of the centre are the tangents of the angles of the
sun’s declination, to a radius equal to that of the brass
circle, which represents the equator. These may be laid
down from a scale of equal parts, of which 1000 answer
to the length of the semiaxes from the centre to the equi¬
noctial ring; and then the extreme divisions on the axis
will be at the distance of 434 of these equal parts (the
tangent of 23° 29') from the division at the centre.
To use this dial, place the line marked on the sliding
piece (opposite to the supporting ring) over the degree ot
the latitude of the place, and put the line which crosses
the hole of the cursor to the degree of the sign or to the
day of the month. Turn the inner ring on its pivots, and
put it at right angles to the outer; and suspend the in¬
strument by the ring H, so that the middle of the bridge
(which is the axis of the dial) may be parallel to the axis
of the world; then turn its flat side towards the sun, so
that his rays passing through the little hole in the cur¬
sor may fall exactly on a line drawn round the middle of
the concave surface of the inner ring; and in this posi-
DIAL
Dialling, tion the bright spot shows the hour of the day on that
surface.
The hour of XII. is not shown by this dial, because the
outer circle, being then in the plane of the meridian, hin¬
ders the sun’s rays from falling on the inner. Nor will it
serve to show the hour on the equinoctial days, because
his rays then pass parallel to the plane of the dial.
Universal Dial on a Cross.
95. This dial, represented by figure 1 of Plate CCI. is
moveable on a joint C for elevating it to any latitude on the
quadrant CO 90, as it stands on the horizontal board A.
The arms of the cross stand perpendicularly to the middle
part, and the top of it from a to n is of equal length with
either of the arms mk, nt.
Having set the board A level, and the line ut (on the
middle of a side of the cross) to the latitude of the place
on the quadrant, and the point N on the compass north
by the needle, allowing for the variation ; the plane of the
cross will then be parallel to the plane of the equator,
and the dial rectified so as to show time.
The morning hours from III. till VI. will be shown by
the upper edge hi of the arm io casting a shadow on a face
of the arm cm ; from VI. to IX. the lower edge i of the
arm io will cast a shadow on the hours of the side oq;
from IX. to XII. noon, the edge ab of the upper part an
will cast a shadow on the arm nf; from XII. to III. in the
afternoon, the edge cd of the top part will cast a shadow
on the hours of the arm him ; and from III to VI. the edge
gh will cast a shadow on the hours on the part pu ; and
from VI. to IX. the shadow of the edge ef will show the
time on the top part an.
The breadth of each part ab, ef, &c. must be so great as
never to let the shadow fall entirely without the part or
arm on which the hours are marked, when the sun is at
his greatest declination from the equator. To determine
the breadth of the sides of the arms which contain the
hours, make an angle ABC (fig. 2) of 23£0, the sun’s great¬
est declination; and in Be take Be?, equal to the intended
length of each arm, from the side of the long middle part,
which is also the length of the top part above the arms,
and draw the perpendicular def.1 Then, as the edges of
the shadow from each arm will be parallel to BA when
the sun’s declination is 23i°, it is plain that if the length
of the shadow be Bt?, the least breadth it can have to
keep the edge Be of the shadow Vtegd from going off the
side of the arm before it comes to its end, must be de or
¥>d'; but in order to keep the shadow within the quarter
divisions of the hours when it comes near the end of the
arm, the breadth thereof should be still greater, so as to
be almost doubled, on account of the distance between the
tips of the arms.
To place the hours right on the arms, lay down the
shape and size of the cross abed on paper (fig. 3), and on
a as a centre, with ae as a radius, describe the quadrantal
arc ef. Divide this arc into six equal parts, and through the
divisions draw lines ag, ah, &c. continuing three of them
to the arm ae, which are all that fall on it, and they will
meet the arms in the points through which the hour lines
are to be drawn right across it.
Divide each arm in the same manner, and set the hours
to their proper places, as shown in the figure; each of the
hour spaces should be divided into four equal parts for
the half hours and quarters in the quadrant ef; and
straight lines should be drawn through the division marks
of the quadrant to the arms of the cross, in order to de-
LING. 795
termine the places where the subdivisions of the hours Dialling,
must be marked.
An universal Dial, showing the Hours by a Globe, and by
several Gnomons.
96. The dial is represented in fig. 9, Plate CCI. It
may be made of a thick square piece of wood or hollow
metal. The sides are cut into semicircular hollows, on
which the hours are placed, the style of each coming ou
from its bottom as far as the ends of the hollow projects.
The corners are cut into angles, in the insides of which
the hours are also marked; and the edge at the end of
each side of the angle serves as a style for casting a sha¬
dow on the hours marked on the opposite side. In the
middle of the uppermost plane there is an equinoctial dial,
in the centre of which an upright wire is fixed for casting
a shadow on the hours of that dial, and supporting a small
terrestrial globe on its top. The whole dial stands on a
pillar rising out of a circular base, in which there is a com¬
pass and magnetic needle for placing the meridian style
towards the '.south. The pillar has a joint with a gradu¬
ated quadrant on it (supposed to be hid from sight under
the dial in its representation) for setting the dial to the
latitude of any given place. The equator of the globe is
divided into twenty-four equal parts, and the hours are
laid down on it; the time of the day may be shown by
these hours when the sun shines on the globe.
To construct the dial: On a square piece of wood or me¬
tal of proper thickness draw the lines ac, bd (fig. 8) at a
distance equal to the intended thickness of the style abed;
and in the same manner trace out the form of the three
other styles efgh, iklm, nopq, all directed towards the centre
of the square. On a and b as centres, with such a radius as
will leave sufficient strength of stuff, when the distance KI
is equal to Aa, describe the quadrantal arcs Ac, Be?. In like
manner, with the same radius describe arcs in all the quad¬
rantal openings, leaving room, however, for the equinoctial
dial in the middle. Divide each quadrant into six equal
parts for as many hours, as in the figure, and subdivide these
for half hours and quarters, numbering the whole eight
quadrants as in the figure. To lay down the hours in the an¬
gular spaces in the corners: On K and I as centres, with a
radius equal to KI, which is equal to Aa, describe the arcs
K^, It, meeting in t. Divide each arc into four equal parts,
and from the centres through the points of division draw
the right lines 13, I 4, I 5,1 6,1 7, and K2, KI, K12, Kll;
and they will meet the sides of the angle where the hours
should be marked. These hour spaces should also be sub¬
divided into quarters. Do the like for the other three an¬
gles, determining in this way the hours shown as in the
figure, in which it will be observed that the dotted lines
which are parallel are all directed to the same hour of
the day. The angular and quadrantal spaces should now
be cut out, quite through the solid material of which the
dial is formed, and the gnomons inserted in their proper
position, observing that these should be as broad as the
dial is thick, and this breadth and thickness such as to
keep the shadows of the gnomons from ever falling quite
out of the hollows, even when the sun’s declination is
greatest. Lastly, construct the equinoctial dial in the mid¬
dle, agreeably to its theory in art. 19, and the dial will be
finished.
To rectify.and use the dial: Place it with its base level,
and the gnomons of the quadrants directed to the cardi¬
nal points by means of the compass ; then bend the pillar
in the joint, till the axis be inclined to the horizon at an
1 Place dashes (omitted in the engraving) over the letters d and e in the perpendicular.to Be, thus making them d', e>; and in fig.
3 observe that the letter a ought to be over the figure 3 on the adjoining line. Also in fig. 1 write l> on the top opposite to c.
796
DIALLING.
Dialling, angle equal to the latitude of the place. The plane of the
‘-'■"Y-'w' equinoctial dial will then be parallel to the equator, the
axis of the globe directed to the pole of the heavens ; and
when the sun shines on the dial, the hours will be indi¬
cated by all the parallel edges which cast a shadow, as
well as by the axis of the globe and the globe itself, which
will show to what places of the earth the sun is rising, set¬
ting, and in the meridian.
Universal Mechanical Dial, Plate CCII. Fig 11.
96. This is an equinoctial dial, which may be applied to
the construction of a dial on any kind of plane, by a process
requiring no calculation. Suppose, for example, the plane
ABCD is horizontal, and that GEF is the meridian line,
assumed if the plane be moveable, or found if it be fixed.
Place the equinoctial dial H with its axis GI directed to
the pole, or, in the present case, so as to make with the
meridian line an angle equal to the latitude of the place,
with the twelve o’clock hour line over the meridian line.
If now EF, the lower edge of the upright triangular sup¬
port KEF, lie along the meridian, and the edge EK
make with EF an angle equal to the latitude, the dial H
will be in its proper position when its axis GI is parallel
to EK. Supposing now the whole apparatus to be in a
dark place, let a lighted candle be carried round GI, the
axis of the equinoctial dial, and let the position of the sha¬
dow on the horizontal plane be noted when it falls on the
successive hours of the equinoctial dial, then lines from G
through these positions will be the hour lines on the hori¬
zontal dial. In this way a dial may be described on any
plane whatever.
Dials on three different Planes, Plate CCII. Fig. 12.
97. This combination of dials shows the hour at the same
time on the equinoctial dial IK, the horizontal dial ABC,
and the vertical south dial; the same axis or gnomon
FHG serving all the three. The figure sufficiently ex¬
plains its construction and application. The method of
tracing the hour lines proposed in the preceding article
may be applied to produce the horizontal and south dials
from the equinoctial dial.
Dahylonian, Italian, and Jewish Hours.
The dials which have been described in this article are
all intended to show astronomical or apparent time, of
which the hours are equal, if we set aside the equation of
time. Such are the hours by which we reckon time; but
besides these, there are Babylonian, Italian, and Jewish
hours.
The Babylonian hours are reckoned from sun rising to
sun rising, and are twenty-four equal hours, nearly of the
same length as the common hours, only they are differ¬
ently numbered.
The Italian hours begin at sunset, and are numbered to
twenty-four at sunset next day. They also are equal, and
nearly the same as the common hours.
Ihe Jewish hours, otherwise called the old unequal
■planetary hours, are reckoned from sunrise ; and the day,
from sunrise to sunset, is divided into twelve equal parts
or hours. The hours of one day, however, will not be
equal to those of another, at least in our climate, because Dialling,
of the inequality of the length of the days.
The older writers on dialling teach how to construct
dials which shall show time according to all these ways of
dividing the day. They are, however, mere matters of
curiosity, and therefore we think it sufficient, in tliis work,
to have thus briefly noticed them. They are fully explain¬
ed by Emerson in his Dialling ; see also Ferguson’s Lec¬
tures.
Table of the Sun’s Longitude and Declination, and the
Equation of Time, for every day in the year.
The construction of some of the dials which have been
described requires that the sun’s place in the ecliptic, that
is, his longitude reckoned from the beginning of the sign
Aries, and his declination for the different days of the
year, should be known. And in order to convert apparent
time into true time, that is, the time shown by the sun
into the time shown by a good clock or watch going uni¬
formly, the equation of time is wanted for every day of
the year. None of these, however, can be exactly the
same on the same day of every year at any given place.
Thus, at Greenwich, for four succeeding years beginning
with 1820, they were at noon on the first of March as
follows:
Years.
Sun’s Longitude.
Declination.
Equation of
Time.
1820
1821
1822
1823
1824
11 10 52 39
11 10 38 10
11 10 23 38
11 10 8 49
11 10 54 55
7 29 44
7 35 13
7 40 43
7 46 18
7 28 50
M.
12
12
12
12
12
s.
36-2
39-1
41-7
43-4
36-1
There are various reasons why the above three ele¬
ments are not the same on the same day of every year:
the principal one is, because the sun requires nearly six
hours more than 365 days to complete a revolution in the
ecliptic; and this annual deficiency being compensated
by the intercalary day in every fourth year, after this
interval the elements return nearly, but not exactly, to
the same value on the same day of the year. Our table
corresponds to 1830, the second after leap year. This will
be sufficiently accurate for the construction of dials, and
finding true time by them for a considerable number of
years to come.
The columns of the table containing the sun’s longitude
and declination require no explanation. The numbers in
that for the equation of time have the signs of addition
( + ) and of subtraction (—) annexed to them. Thus the
sign + joined to 3m. 50s., the equation for the first of Ja¬
nuary, is understood to belong to all the days from the
beginning of the year to the 15th of April inclusive, and
to indicate that the equation is to be added to the time
shown by the dial to get true time, or that shown by the
clock. Again, the sign — belongs to all days from 16th
April to 15th June inclusive, and shows that the equation
must be subtracted from the time shown by the dial, and
so on throughout the year.1 (h. h—e.)
1 See also the article Dipleidoscope.
Dialling.
dialling.
TABLE shoving the Suns Longitude and Declination, and the Equation of Time, for every day of the second
year after leap year.
Days.
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
DIALLING,
Table of the Suns Longitude and Declination^ fyc. continued.
JULY.
Sun’s Longi¬
tude.
9 4
10 1
10 58
11 56
12 53
3 13 50
3 14 47
3 15 44
3 16 41
3 17 39
18 36
19 33
20 30
21 28
22 25
3 23 22
3 24 19
3 25 17
3 26 14
3 27 11
3 28 9
3 29 6
4 0 3
4 1 1
4 1 58
55
53
50
47
45
42
Sun’s Decli¬
nation.
23 9 N.
23 5
23 0
22 55
22 50
22 44
22 38
22 32
22 25
22 18
22 10
22 2
21 54
21 45
21 36
21 26
21 16
21 6
20 55
20 44
20 33
20 21
20 9
19 57
19 44
19 31,
19 18
19 4
18 50
18 36
18 22
AUGUST.
8 40
9 37
10 34
11 32
12 29
4 13 27
4 14 24
4 15 22
4 16 19
4 17 17
18 15
19 12
20 10
21 8
22 5
23 3
24 1
24 58
25 56
26 54
27 52
28 50
29 48
0 46
1 43
2 41
3 39
4 37
5 35
6 33
7 31
18 7N.
17 51
17 36
17 20
17 4
16 48
16 31
16 15
15 57
15 40
15 22
15 5
14 46
14 28
14 10
13 51
13 32
13 12
12 53
12 33
12 13
11 53
11 33
11 13
10 52
10 31
10 11
9 49
9 28
9 7
8 45
Equation of
Time.
M. S’.
3 21 +
3 32
3 44
.3 55
4 5
4 15
4 25
4 35
4 44
4 53
5 1
5 9
5 17
5 24
5 31
37
43
48
53
57
6 0
6 3
6 6
6 8
6 9
6 10
6 10
6 9
6 8
6 6
6 4
4 5
3 53
3 40
3 27
3 14
3 0
2 45
2 30
2 15
1 59
1 43
1 26
1 9
0 51
0 33
0 15
Days.
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
SEPTEMBER.
Sun’s Longi¬
tude.
8 30
9'28
10 26
11 24
12 22
5 13 20
5 14 19
5 15 17
5 16 15
5 17 14
5 18 12
5 19 10
5 20 9
5 21 7
5 22 6
23 5
24 3
25 2
26 0
26 59
27 58
28 57
29 55
0 54
1 53
2 52
3 51
4 50
5 49
6 48
Sun’s Decli¬
nation.
8 24 N.
8 2
7 40
7 18
6 56
40
17
54
31
8
2 45
2 22
1 59
1 35
1 12
0 49
0 25
0 2
0 22 S.
0 45
1 8
1 32
1 55
2 19
2 42
OCTOBER.
6 7 47
6 8 46
6 9 45
6 10 44
6 11 43
6 12 42
6 13 42
6 14 41
6 15 40
6 16 40
17 39
18 39
19 38
20 38
21 37
6 22 37
6 23 36
6 24 36
6 25 36
6 26 35
6 27 35
6 28 35
6 29 35
7 0 35
7 1 34
2 34
3 34
4 34
5 34
6 34
7 34
3 5 S.
3 29
3 52
4 15
4 38
5 1
5 24
5 47
6 10
6 33
6 56
7 19
7 41
8 4
8 26
8 48
9 10
9 32
9 54
10 16
10 37
10 59
11 20
11 41
12 2
12 23
12 43
13 3
13 23
13 43
14 3
Equation of
Time.
M. S.
0 3-
0 22
0 41
1 1
1 20
6
27
48
9
30
6 51
7 12
7 33
7 54
8 14
8 34
8 55
9 15
9 35
9 54
10 14-
10 33
10 51
11 10
11 28
11 46
12 3
12 20
12 36
12 52
13 8
13 23
13 37
13 51
14 4
14 17
14 29
14 41
14 52
15 3
15 12
15 22
15 30
15 38
15 45
15 52
15 57
16 2
16 7
16 10
16 13
Days.
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
NOVEMBER.
Sun’s Longi¬
tude.
8 34
9 34
10 35
11 35
12 35
13 35
14 35
15 36
16 36
17 36
18 37
19 37
20 38
21 38
22 39
7 23 39
7 24 40
7 25 41
7 26 41
7 27 42
28 43
29 43
0 44
1 45
2 45
Sun’s Decli¬
nation.
14 22 S.
14 41
15 0
15 19
15 38
15 56
16 14
16 31
16 49
17 6
17 23
17 39
17 55
18 11
18 27
18 42
18 57
19 12
19 26
19 40
19 53
20 6
20 19
20 32
20 44
20 55
21 7
21 17
21 28
21 38
DECEMBER.
8 8 50
8 9 51
8 10 52
8 11 53
8 12 54
8 13 55
8 14 56
8 15 57
8 16 58
8 17 59
8 19
8 20
8 21
8 22
8 23
8 24 5
8 25 7
8 26 8
8 27 9
8 28 10
8 29 11
9 0 12
9 l 14
9 2 15
9 3 16
4 17
5 18
6 19
7 20
8 22
9 23
21 48 S
21 57
22 6
22 14
22 22
22 29
22 36
22 43
22 49
22 55
23 0
23 5
23 9
23 13
23 17
23 20
23 22
23 24
23 26
23 27
23 27
23 28
23 27
23 26
23 25
23 23
23 21
23 18
23 15
23 12
23 8
Equation of
Time.
M. S.
16 15-
16 16
16 17
16 16
16 15
16 13
16 10
16 6
16 1
15 56
15 49
15 42
15 34
15 25
15 15
15 4
14 53
14 40
14 27
14 13
13 58
13 42
13 26
13 9
12 51
12 32
12 13
11 53
11 32
11 11
10 49-
10 26
10 3
9 39
9 14
8 49
8 23
7 57
7 30
7 3
6 36
6 8
5 39
5 10
4 41
4 12
3 43
3 13
2 43
2 13
1 43
1 13
0 43
0 13
0 17+i
0 47
1 16
1 46
2 15
2 44
3 13
Dialling.
D I A
Dialogism DIALOGISM, in Rhetoric, a mode of writing which
II consists in the narration of a dialogue, or in which the con-
Dialogue^ versation 0f two or more persons is given in the reported
form. It is also applied, less strictly, to a soliloquy, or that
kind of conversation which a person holds with himself, when
reduced into the narrative form.
DIALOGUE, a conversation between two or more per¬
sons ; either written or oral.
This mode of writing was introduced at a very early pe¬
riod, there being several instances of it in the Mosaic history.
The dialogue was .the, form most generally adopted by the
Greek philosophers as the most convenient and agreeable
method of conveying instruction. And indeed it seems to
be attended with considerable advantages, if judiciously
managed; for in this way things may be canvassed more
minutely, and many lesser matters, which serve to clear up
a subject, may be introduced with better grace, by means
of questions and answers, objections and replies, than can be
conveniently done in a continued discourse. It possesses
also this further advantage, that the author is at liberty to
choose his speakers ; and therefore, as Cicero has observed,
when we imagine that we have persons of an established
reputation for wisdom and knowledge talking together, this
circumstance necessarily adds a weight and authority to
the discourse, and more closely engages the attention. The
subject-matter of dialogue is very extensive; for whatever
is a proper subject of discourse, public or private, serious
or jocose—whatever is fit for wise and ingenious men to
talk upon, either for improvement or diversion—is suitable
for a dialogue.
The principal things necessary to be observed in this
species of composition may be well illustrated from Cicero’s
excellent dialogues concerning an orator. A dialogue then
consists of two parts ; an introduction, and the body of the
discourse.
The introduction acquaints us with the place, time, per¬
sons, and occasion of the conversation. Thus Cicero places
the scene of his dialogues at the country seat of Crassus ;
a very proper retreat, both for such a debate and the parties
engaged in it. And as they were persons of the first rank
employed in the greatest affairs of the state, and as the
discourse occupied them for two days, he represents it to
have happened at the time of a festival, when no business
was done at Rome, and an opportunity was thus afforded
them of being absent. The two principal disputants are
Crassus and Antony, the greatest orators of that age, and
therefore the most proper persons to dispute respecting the
qualifications essential for their art. Some good writers
have run into the impropriety of feigning dialogues between
persons who were not contemporaries. Plato adopted this
method, in which he has been followed by Macrobius.
Others, again, who wished to bring persons to discourse
together who lived in different ages, without such incon¬
sistency, have written dialogues of the dead. Lucian has
made himself most remarkable in this way. As to the num¬
ber of persons in a dialogue, they may be more or fewer.
Some of Cicero’s dialogues have but two, others three or
more, and those concerning an orator seven. But it is
convenient in some respects that they should all be persons
of different characters and abilities; a circumstance which
contributes both to the variety and beauty of the discourse,
like the different attitudes of figures in a picture. Thus,
in Cicero’s dialogues last mentioned, Crassus excelled in art,
Antony principally by the force of his genius, Catullus by
the purity of his style, Scevolo by his skill in the law,
Caesar by wit and humour ; and Sulpitius and Cotta, though
young men, were both excellent orators, yet they differed
in their manner. But there should be always one principal
person, having the main part of the conversation ; like the
hero in an epic poem or a tragedy, who excels the rest in
action, or the principal figure in a picture, which is always
D I A 799
made the most conspicuous. In Plato’s dialogues this is Dialogue.
Socrates; and in those of Cicero, above mentioned, the
principal person is Crassus.
It is usual likewise, in the introduction, to acquaint us
with the occasion of the discourse. Indeed this is not al¬
ways mentioned; as in Cicero’s dialogue concerning the
parts of oratory, where the son begins immediately with
desiring his father to instruct him in the art. But it is ge¬
nerally taken notice of, and most commonly represented as
accidental. Thus Cicero, in his dialogues concerning an
orator, makes Crassus occasionally fall upon the subject of
oratory, in order to divert the company from the melancholy
thoughts of what they had been discoursing of before, with
relation to the public disorders, and the dangers which
threatened their common country. But prolixity in the in¬
troduction is especially to be avoided. Addison condemns
this fault in some authors who employ dialogue. “For
though,” as he says, “ some of the finest treatises of the
most polite Latin and Greek writers are in dialogue, as
many very valuable pieces of French, Italian, and English
appear in the same dress; yet in some of them there is so
much time taken up in ceremony, that, before they enter
on their subject, the dialogue is half over.”
Regarding the body of the discourse, some things relat¬
ing to the persons, and others to the subject, may be here
remarked.
With reference to the persons, the principal thing to be
attended to is to keep up throughout a justness and consis¬
tency of character. This distinction ought to be so per¬
fectly observed, that even from the very words it may be
always known who is the speaker. Herein consists one
great difficulty in the composition of a dialogue, especially
when the characters are numerous. The principal speaker
should appear to be a person of superior sense and wisdom,
and best acquainted with the subject. No question ought
to be asked him, nor objection started, but what he should
fairly answer; and all that is said by the rest should princi¬
pally tend to promote his discourse, and carry it through in
the most agreeable manner. When the argument is at¬
tended with difficulties, one other person or more, of equal
reputation, or nearly so, but of different sentiments, should
be introduced to oppose him, and maintain the contrary
side of the question. This affords an opportunity for a tho¬
rough examination of the point on both sides, and for an¬
swering all objections. But if the combatants are not pretty
equally matched, and masters of the subject, they will treat
it but superficially. Through the whole debate, however,
there ought not to be the least wrangling or obstinacy; no¬
thing, indeed, but the appearance of good humour and good
breeding, together with a readiness to submit to conviction
and the force of truth, according as the evidence shall ap¬
pear to be on one side or the other. In Cicero, these two
characters are Crassus and Antony; and from them Addi¬
son seems to have taken his Philander and Cynthio in his
Dialogues upon the Usefulness of Ancient Medals, which are
formed pretty much upon Cicero’s plan. When younger per¬
sons are introduced, or such as are not equally acquainted
with the subject, they should rather be inquisitive than dis-
putative; and the questions they ask should be neither too
long nor too frequent, in order that they may not too much
interrupt the debate. Sulpitius and Cotta sustain this cha¬
racter in Cicero, and Eugenius in Addison. It is very con¬
venient, however, that there should be one person of a
witty and jocose humour, to enliven the discourse and ren¬
der it the more entertaining, especially when the dialogue
is drawn out to any considerable length. Caesar performs
this part in Cicero ; and in Addison, Cynthio, a person of a si¬
milar turn, opposes Philander in a humorous way. Addison’s
subject admitted of this ; but the seriousness and gravity of
Cicero’s argument required a different speaker for the jocose
part. Many persons ought not to speak immediately after
800 D I A
Dialogue, one another; though Scaliger and others think a fourth
person may sometimes be permitted to speak in the same
scene without confusion. However, if this is not commonly
allowed upon the stage, where the actors are present, and
may be distinguished by their voice and habit-; much less
should it be so in a dialogue, where we have only their
names to distinguish them. -
With regard to the subject, all the arguments should ap¬
pear probable at least, and nothing should be advanced
which may seem weak or trivial. 1 here Ought also to be
an union in dialogue, in order that the discourse may not
ramble, but keep up to the main design. Short and plea¬
sant digressions are sometimes allowable, foi the ease and
entertainment of the reader ; but every thing should be so
managed that he may still be able to carry on the thread of
the discourse in his mind, and keep the main argument in
view, till the whole be finished. The writers of dialogue
have not confined their discourses to any certain space of
time, but either concluded them with the day, or broken off
when their speakers have been tired, and resumed them
again the next day. Thus Cicero allows two days for his
three dialogues concerning an orator; but Addison extends
his to three days, allowing a day for each. But the same
method has not always been observed in composing dia¬
logues : for sometimes the writer, by way of narrative, relates
a discourse which passed between other persons. Such are
the dialogues of Cicero and Addison last mentioned, and
many others both of the ancients and moderns. But at
other times the speakers are introduced in person as talking
to each other. This, as Cicero observes, prevents the fre¬
quent repetition of those words, “ he said,” and “he replied;”
and by placing the hearer, as it were, in the conversation,
gives him a more lively representation of the discourse. In
this manner, therefore, Cicero wrote his Dialogue of Old
Age, in which Cato, who was then advanced in years, re¬
counts tbe satisfaction of life which may be enjoyed in old
age ; and, in fact, he tells his friend Atticus he was himself
so affected with that discourse, that when he reviewed it,
D I A
he sometimes fancied they were not his own words, but Dialysis
Cato’s. There are some other dialogues of Cicero written ||
in the same way; and both Plato and Lucian generally Diameter,
chose this method.
DIALYSIS, in Grammar, a mark or character con¬
sisting of two points placed over one of two vowels, to dis¬
solve a diphthong, that is, to show that the two vowels are
to be separated in the pronunciation of the word; as aer,
mosaic.
DIAMASTIGOSIS, in Grecian Antiquity, a solemnity
performed at Sparta at the festival of Diana Orthia. It is
said to have had its origin in the following circumstance:—
Two Spartans had discovered under a tree the wooden sta¬
tue of that goddess which had been brought by Orestes
fi-om Tauris, and immediately lost their reason. To pro¬
pitiate the angry goddess, the inhabitants of the Spartan
suburbs immediately offered sacrifices at her altar. Dur¬
ing the ceremony, however, a quarrel arose, in the course
of which some persons were killed. It was necessary to
atone for this pollution without delay: and human victims
chosen by lot were annually sacrificed, until Lycurgus in¬
troduced the less inhuman rite of the diamastigosis, which
consisted in scourging a certain number of young men with
stripes until the blood flowed down their bodies upon the
altar. Besides merely preventing a waste of valuable
life, Lycurgus designed by the introduction of the dia¬
mastigosis to inure the Spartan youth to bodily pains and
hardships of the severest kind; and many legends are to be
found in the ancient classics of young men who bore these
tortures with such unflinching firmness, that though they
sometimes proved fatal, the sufferers exhibited no signs of
pain even in the agonies of death. Death thus manfully
encountered, was considered among the Spartans as no less
honourable than death on the field of battle.
DIAMETER, in Geometry, a right line passing through
the centre of a circle, or other curvilinear figure, termi¬
nated at each side by the circumference, and dividing the
figure into two equal parts.
END OF YOLU3IE SEVENTH.
NEILL AND CO., FBINTEKS, EDINBURGH.
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COLLIERY.
PLATE PLJXV%
overU^S^ Upon ^
Scafe 6 feet to an inch .
St ale 60 yards $a an iruiv.
Published hy A.&C.Black, Ediii"burg]i,1854.
Engt-ty 6J.iknuui.BdmV
COLLIERY.
rj.Al'K CLXA'VI.
LIFTING PUMPS
Fig. Z.
FORCING PUMPS
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COLLIERY.
PLATE CL XXIX.
Scalxl inch -= 6 feet.
Eng^by G.AOvwJiEdxst
Pal)lisliedlyA.&C.llack,EdinbTirglL, 1854:.
COLLIERY.
PLATE CLA’XP.
A I B- CROSSING,
fl.Y AS KN1.AMGV.D SCALE.
Draw trig Roads
Roads cut off
Building Sc Stowing
Air split  
Brattice doors
R. R. air regulators
Air crossing
Solid eadl....
For preventing loss of life by "Choke Damp'
in cases of explosion.
F.ruj^bij G.AOviwn, F.duiC
Scale 60 yards to an. inch.
Publishe dby A.& C.BlackEdmli-uxgiidS 54
Pui)lis]iedlyA&GBlack,ldmbur^li,1854.
ILYWY'l.) 'tEJj VrIcL * VH M I rI rl (> )
.Published C. Black, E dmbuxgh, j.854,
PLATE CLXXXIK.
COINAGE.
J. Farey, Del*
Published by A.& C. Black,Idmburgh.
Fngd by G.Aiktnan.Edinr
PLATE CLXXXIV.
COINAGE.
Machines used in the Mint.
Fie). 2.
Fie). 3.
Sir John Barton’s Machine for redneing Plates ofMeted, to an equal thickness.
4"
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PublisliedbyA.<& C.Black,Edinburgh.
Enj ^ by G.Aikmjii.EcLinE
CO1NAG E
PLATE CLXXXVI,
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ELEVA TION of COINING PRESS used in the ROYAL MINT.
Fig. 1.
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PubUsle dtiy A.& GBlack, E dinburgh.
Eng* by G.Atknuvi. EJm r
PLATE (LXXXVll.
C O LD.
Professor Leslie's Apparatus for cooling and Freezing
Fig. 5.
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COTTON MANUFACTURE
PLATE CJTC.
Side Elevation of Cards.
Fig.l.
CARDING.
Front Elevation of Cards.
Fig. 3.
Plan of Cards.
Vertical Section of Cards.
Fig. 5.
End Elevation of Drawing frame.
DR A WING AND ROVING .
Fig.7.
End Elevation of Roving frame.
Fig. 9.
Front Elevation of Roving or Can fiame.
Plan of Drawing frame.
Fig.6.
Plan of Roving frame.
PublisliecLl)yA.& C. Black, E dinbuxgli.
b.ru] l by G.Aikm.m. Edit! ’
PLATE CXCI.
COTTON MANUFACTURE.
Twist spinning .
. Sir R. Arkwright .V Spinning Frame.
The Throstle.
Mule spinning .
'The Mule Jenny.
Tub] ishedby A& GTBIack,Edinburgh.
by G.AUuruui. Ed in
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PLATE ( A ( /J.
Publishe dly A&C.Blajck,Ed±abuigli.
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