Character Sketches of Romance Volume I Part 63

CAPITAN, a boastful, swaggering coward, in several French farces and comedies prior to the time of Moliere.

CAPONSAC'CHI (_Guiseppe_), the young priest under whose protection Pompilia fled from her husband to Rome. The husband and _his_ friends said the elopement was criminal; but Pompilia, Caponsacchi, and _their_ friends maintained that the young canon simply acted the part of a chivalrous protector of a young woman who was married at fifteen, and who fled from a brutal husband who ill-treated her.--R. Browning, _The Ring and the Book_.

CAPSTERN (_Captain_), captain of an East

Indiaman, at Madras.--Sir W. Scott, _The Surgeon's Daughter_ (time, George II.).

CAPTAIN, Manuel Comne'nus of Treb'izond (1120, 1143-1180).

_Captain of Kent_. So Jack Cade called himself (died 1450).

_The Great Captain (el Gran Capitano)_, Gonzalvo di Cor'dova (1453-1515).

_The People's Captain (el Capitano del Popolo_), Guiseppe Garibaldi (1807-).

_Captain (A Copper)_, a poor captain, whose swans are all geese, his jewellry paste, his guineas counters, his achievements tongue-doughtiness, and his whole man Brummagem. See _Copper Captain_.

_Captain (The Black)_, lieutenant-colonel Dennis Davidoff of the Russian army. In the French invasion he was called by the French _Le Capitaine Noir_.

CAPTAIN LOYS [_Lo.is_]. Louise Labe was so called, because in early life she embraced the profession of arms, and gave repeated proofs of great valor. She was also called _La Belle Cordiere_. Louise Labe was a poetess, and has left several sonnets full of pa.s.sion, and some good elegies (1526-1566).

CAPTAIN! MY CAPTAIN! fallen leader apostrophized by Walt Whitman in his lines upon the death of President Lincoln (1865).

O Captain! my Captain! rise up and hear the bells!

Rise up! for you the flag is flung, for you the bugle trills; For you bouquets and ribboned wreaths, for you the sh.o.r.es a-crowding; For you they call, the swaying ma.s.s, their eager faces turning.

Here, Captain! dear father!

This arm beneath your head!

It is some dream that on the deck You've fallen cold and dead.

CAPTAIN RIGHT, a fict.i.tious commander, the ideal of the rights due to Ireland. In the last century the peasants of Ireland were sworn to captain Right, as chartists were sworn to their articles of demand called their _charter_. Shakespeare would have furnished them with a good motto, "Use every man after his desert, and who shall 'scape whipping?" (_Hamlet_, act ii. sc. 2).

CAPTAIN ROCK, a fict.i.tious name a.s.sumed by the leader of certain Irish insurgents in 1822, etc. All notices, summonses, and so on, were signed by this name.

CAP'ULET, head of a n.o.ble house of Verona, in feudal enmity with the house of Mon'tague (3 syl). Lord Capulet is a jovial, testy old man, self-willed, prejudiced, and tyrannical.

_Lady Capulet_, wife of lord Capulet and mother of Juliet.--Shakespeare, _Romeo and Juliet_ (1598).

CAPYS, a blind old seer, who prophesied to Romulus the military triumphs of Rome from its foundation to the destruction of Carthage.

In the hall-gate sat Capys, Capys the sightless seer; From head to foot he trembled As Romulus drew near.

And up stood stiff his thin white hair, And his blind eyes flashed fire.

Lord Macaulay, _Lays of Ancient Rome_ ("The Prophecy of Capys," xi.).

CAR'ABAS (_Le marquis de_), an hypothetical t.i.tle to express a fossilized old aristocrat, who supposed the whole world made for his behoof. The "king owes his throne to him;" he can "trace his pedigree to Pepin;" his youngest son is "sure of a mitre;" he is too n.o.ble "to pay taxes;" the very priests share their t.i.thes with him; the country was made for his "hunting-ground;" and, therefore, as Beranger says:

Chapeau bas! chapeau bas!

Gloire au marquis de Carabas!

The name occurs in Perrault's tale of _Puss in Boots_, but it is Beranger's song (1816) which has given the word its present meaning.

CARAC'CI OF FRANCE, Jean Jouvenet, who was paralyzed on the right side, and painted with his left hand (1647-1707).

CARAC'TACUS OR CARADOC, king of the Sil'ures (_Monmouths.h.i.+re_, etc.).

For nine years he withstood the Roman arms, but being defeated by Osto'rius Scap'ula the Roman general, he escaped to Brigantia (_Yorks.h.i.+re_, etc.) to crave the aid of Carthisman'dua (or Cartimandua), a Roman matron married to Venu'tius, chief of those parts. Carthismandua betrayed him to the Romans, A.D. 47.--Richard of Cirencester, _Ancient State of Britain_, i. 6, 23.

Caradoc was led captive to Rome, A.D. 51, and, struck with the grandeur of that city, exclaimed, "Is it possible that a people so wealthy and luxurious can envy me a humble cottage in Britain?"

Claudius the emperor was so charmed with his manly spirit and bearing that he released him and craved his friends.h.i.+p.

Drayton says that Caradoc went to Rome with body naked, hair to the waist, girt with a chain of steel, and his "manly breast enchased with sundry shapes of beasts. Both his wife and children were captives, and walked with him."--_Polyolbion_, viii. (1612).

CARACUL (_i.e. Caraeatta_), son and successor of Severus the Roman emperor. In A.D. 210 he made an expedition against the Caledo'nians, but was defeated by Fingal. Aurelius Antoninus was called "Caracalla"

because he adopted the Gaulish _caracalla_ in preference to the Roman _toga_.--Ossian, _Comala_.

The Caracul of Fingal is no other than Caracalla, who (as the son of Severus) the emperor of Rome ... was not without reason called "The Son of the King of the World." This was A.D. 210.--_Dissertation on the Era of Ossian_.

CARACULIAM'BO, the hypothetical giant of the island of Malindra'ma, whom don Quixote imagines he may one day conquer and make to kneel at the foot of his imaginary lady-love.--Cervantes, _Don Quixote_, I.i.1 (1605).

CAR'ADOC OR CRADOCK, a knight of the Round Table. He was husband of the only lady in the queen's train who could wear "the mantle of matrimonial fidelity." This mantle fitted only chaste and virtuous wives; thus, when queen Guenever tried it on--

One while it was too long, another while too short, And wrinkled on her shoulders in most unseemly sort.

Percy, _Reliques_ ("Boy and the Mantle," III. iii. 18).

_Sir Caradoc and the Boar's Head_. The boy who brought the test mantle of fidelity to king Arthur's court drew a wand three times across a boar's head, and said, "There's never a cuckold who can carve that head of brawn." Knight after knight made the attempt, but only sir Cradock could carve the brawn.

_Sir Cradock and the Drinking-horn._ The boy furthermore brought forth a drinking-horn, and said, "No cuckold can drink from that horn without spilling the liquor." Only Cradock succeeded, and "he wan the golden can."--Percy, _Reliques_ ("Boy and the Mantle," III. iii. 18).

CARADOC OF MEN'WYGENT, the younger bard of Gwenwyn prince of Powys-land. The elder bard of the prince was Cadwallon.--Sir W. Scott, _The Betrothed_ (time, Henry II.).

CAR'ATACH OR CARAC'TACUS, a British king brought captive before the emperor Claudius in A.D. 52. He had been betrayed by Cartimandua.

Claudius set him at liberty.

And Beaumont's pilfered Caratach affords A tragedy complete except in words.

Byron, _English Bards and Scotch Reviewers_ (1809).

(Byron alludes to the "spectacle" of _Caractacus_ produced by Thomas Sheridan at Drury Lane Theatre. It was Beaumont's tragedy of _Bonduca_, minus the dialogue.)

Digges [1720-1786] was the very absolute "Caratach." The solid bulk of his frame, his action, his voice, all marked him with ident.i.ty.

Boaden, _Life of Siddons_.

CAR'ATHIS, mother of the caliph Vathek. She was a Greek, and induced her son to study necromancy, held in abhorrence by all good Mussulmans. When her son threatened to put to death every one who attempted without success to read the inscription of certain sabres, Carathis wisely said, "Content yourself, my son, with commanding their beards to be burnt. Beards are less essential to a state than men."

She was ultimately carried by an afrit to the abyss of Eblis, in punishment of her many crimes.--W. Beckford, _Vathek_ (1784).

CARAU'SIUS, the first British emperor (237-294). His full name was Marcus Aurelius Valerius Carausius, and as emperor of Britain he was accepted by Diocletian and Maxim'ian; but after a vigorous reign of seven years he was a.s.sa.s.sinated by Allectus, who succeeded him as "emperor of Britain."--See Gibbon, _Decline and Fall, etc._, ii. 13.

CAR'DAN (_Jerome_) of Pa'via (1501-1576), a great mathematician and astrologer. He professed to have a demon or familiar spirit, who revealed to him the secrets of nature.