Character Sketches of Romance Volume I Part 62

_The lady Caroline Campbell_, sister of lady Mary.--Sir W. Scott, _Heart of Midlothian_ (time, George II.).

CAMPEADOR [_Kam.pay'.dor_], the Cid, who was called _Mio Cid el Campeador_ ("my lord the champion"). "Cid" is a corruption of _sad_ ("lord").

CAMPO-Ba.s.sO (_The count of_), an officer in the duke of Burgundy's army, introduced by sir W. Scott in two novels, _Quentin Durward_ and _Anne of Geierstein_, both laid in the time of Edward IV.

CAN'ACE (3 _syl._), daughter of Cambuscan', and the paragon of women.

Chaucer left the tale half told, but Spenser makes a crowd of suitors woo her. Her brother Cambel or Cam'ballo resolved that none should win his sister who did not first overthrow him in fight. At length Tri'amond sought her hand, and was so nearly matched in fight with Camballo, that both would have been killed, if Cambi'na, daughter of the fairy Ag'ape (3 _syl._), had not interfered. Cambina gave the wounded combatants nepenthe, which had the power of converting enmity to love; so the combatants ceased from fight, Camballo took the fair Cambina to wife, and Triamond married Canace.--Chaucer, _Squire's Tale_; Spenser, _Faery Queen_, iv. 3 (1596).

_Canace's Mirror_, a mirror which told the inspectors if the persons on whom they set their affections would prove true or false.

_Canace's Ring_. The king of Araby and Ind sent Canace, daughter of Cambuscan' (king of Sarra, in Tartary), a ring which enabled her to understand the language of birds, and to know the medical virtues of all herbs.--Chaucer, _Canterbury Tales_ ("The Squire's Tale," 1388).

CANDACE, negro cook in _The Minister's Wooing_, by Harriet Beecher Stowe. She reverences Dr. Hopkins, but is slow to admit his dogma of Imputed Sin in Consequence of Adam's Transgression (1859).

CANDAU'LES (_3 syl._), king of Lydia, who exposed the charms of his wife to Gy'ges. The queen was so indignant that she employed Gyges to murder her husband. She then married the a.s.sa.s.sin, who became king of Lydia, and reigned twenty-eight years (B.C. 716-688).

CANDAY'A (_The kingdom of_), situate between the great Trapoba'na and the South Sea, a couple of leagues beyond cape Com'orin.--Cervantes, _Don Quixote_, II. iii. 4 (1615).

CANDIDE' (_2 syl._), the hero of Voltaire's novel of the same name. He believes that "all things are for the best in the best of all possible worlds."

Voltaire says "No." He tells you that Candide Found life most tolerable after meals.

Byron, _Don Juan_, v. 31 (1820).

CANDOUR (_Mrs._), the beau-ideal of female backbiters.--Sheridan, _The School for Scandal_ (1777).

CAN'IDIA, a Neapolitan, beloved by the poet Horace. When she deserted him, he held her up to contempt as an old sorceress who could by charms unsphere the moon.--Horace, _Epodes_, v. and xvii.

Such a charm were right Canidian.

Mrs. Browning, _Hector in the Garden_, iv.

CANMORE or GREAT-HEAD, Malcolm III. of Scotland (1057-1093).--Sir W.

Scott, _Tales of a Grandfather_, i. 4.

CANNING (_George_), statesman (1770-1827). Charles Lamb calls him:

St. Stephen's fool, the zany of debate.

_Sonnet in "The Champion_."

CANO'POS, Menelaos's pilot, killed in the return voyage from Troy by the bite of a serpent. The town Canopos (Latin, _Canopus_) was built on the site where the pilot was buried.

CAN'TAB, a member of the University of Cambridge. The word is a contraction of the Latin _Cantabrig'ia_.

CAN'TACUZENE' (_4 syl._), a n.o.ble Greek family, which has furnished two emperors of Constantinople, and several princes of Moldavia and Wallachia. The family still survives.

We mean to show that the Cantacuzenes are not the only princely family in the world.--D'Israeli, _Lothaire_.

There are other members of the Cantacuzene family besides myself.--Ditto.

_Can'tacuzene'_ (_Michael_), the grand sewer of Alexius Comne'nus, emperor of Greece.--Sir W. Scott, _Count Robert of Paris_. (time, Rufus).

CANTERBURY TALES. Eighteen tales told by a company of pilgrims going to visit the shrine of "St. Thomas a Becket" at Canterbury. The party first a.s.sembled at the Tabard, an inn in Southwark, and there agreed to tell one tale each both going and returning, and the person who told the best tale was to be treated by the rest to a supper at the Tabard on the homeward journey. The party consisted of twenty-nine pilgrims, so that the whole budget of tales should have been fifty-eight, but only eighteen of the number were told, not one being on the homeward route. The chief of these tales are: "The Knight's Tale" (_Pal'amon and Ar'cite, 2 syl._); "The Man of Law's Tale"

(_Custance, 2 syl._); "The Wife of Bath's Tale" (_A Knight_); "The Clerk's Tale" (_Grisildis_); "The Squire's Tale" (_Cambuscan_, incomplete); "The Franklin's Tale" _(Dor'igen and Arvir'agus)_; "The Prioress's Tale" (_Hugh of Lincoln_); "The Priest's Tale"

(_Chanticleer and Partelite_); "The Second Nun's Tale" (_St.

Cecil'ia_); "The Doctor's Tale" (_Virginia_); "The Miller's Tale"

(_John the Carpenter and Alison_); and "The Merchant's Tale" (_January and May_) (1388).

CANTON, the Swiss valet of lord Ogleby. He has to skim the morning papers and serve out the cream of them to his lords.h.i.+p at breakfast, "with good emphasis and good discretion." He laughs at all his master's jokes, flatters him to the top of his bent, and speaks of him as a mere chicken compared to himself, though his lords.h.i.+p is seventy and Canton about fifty. Lord Ogleby calls him his "cephalic snuff, and no bad medicine against megrims, vertigoes, and profound thinkings."--Colman and Garrick, _The Clandestine Marriage_ (1766).

CAN'TRIPS (_Mrs._), a quondam friend of Nanty Ewart, the smuggler-captain.

_Jessie Cantrips_, her daughter.--Sir W. Scott, _Redgauntlet_ (time, George III.).

CANT'WELL (Dr.), the hypocrite, the English representative of Moliere's Tartuffe. He makes religious cant the instrument of gain, luxurious living, and sensual indulgence. His overreaching and dishonorable conduct towards lady Lambert and her daughter gets thoroughly exposed, and at last he is arrested as a swindler.--I.

Bicker staff, _The Hypocrite_ (1768).

Dr. Cantwell ... the meek and saintly hypocrite.

L. Hunt.

CANUTE' or c.n.u.t and EDMUND IRONSIDE. William of Malmesbury says: When Canute and Edmund were ready for their sixth battle in Gloucesters.h.i.+re, it was arranged between them to decide their respective claims by single combat. c.n.u.t was a small man, and Edmund both tall and strong; so c.n.u.t said to his adversary, "We both lay claim to the kingdom in right of our fathers; let us therefore divide it and make peace;" and they did so.

Canutus of the two that furthest was from hope ...

Cries, "n.o.ble Edmund hold! Let us the land divide."

... and all aloud do cry, "Courageous kings, divide! 'Twere pity such should die."

Drayton, _Polyolbion_, xii. (1613).

CANUTE'S BIRD, the knot, a corruption of "Knut," the _Cinclus bellonii_, of which king Canute was extremely fond.

The knot, that called was Canutus' bird of old, Of that great king of Danes, his name that still doth hold, His appet.i.te to please ... from Denmark hither brought.

Drayton, _Polyolbion_, xxv. (1622).

CAN'YNGE (_Sir William_) is represented in the _Rowley Romance_ as a rich, G.o.d-fearing merchant, devoting much money to the Church, and much to literature. He was, in fact, a Maece'nas of princely hospitality, living in the Red House. The priest Rowley was his "Horace."--Chatterton (1752-1770).

CAP (_Charles_), uncle of Mabel Dunham in Cooper's _Pathfinder_ (1849). He is a sea-captain who insists in sailing a vessel upon the great northern lakes as he would upon the Atlantic, but, despite his pragmatic self-conceit, is nonplussed by the Thousand Islands.

"And you expect me, a stranger on your lake, to find this place without chart, course, distance, lat.i.tude, longitude, or soundings?

Allow me to ask if you think a mariner runs by his nose, like one of Pathfinder's hounds?"

Having by a series of blunders consequent upon this course, brought schooners and crew to the edge of destruction, he shows heart by regretting that his niece is on board, and philosophy with professional pride by the conclusion:--

"We must take the bad with the good in every v'y'ge, and the only serious objection that an old sea-captain can with propriety make to such an event, is that it should happen on this bit of d--d fresh water."

CAPABILITY BROWN, Launcelot Brown, the English landscape gardener (1715-1783).

CAP'ANEUS (3 _syl_.) a man of gigantic stature, enormous strength, and headlong valor. He was impious to the G.o.ds, but faithful to his friends. Capaneus was one of the seven heroes who marched against Thebes (1 _syl_.), and was struck dead by a thunderbolt for declaring that not Jupiter himself should prevent his scaling the city walls.