The Nuttall Encyclopaedia Part 126

CHRONICLERS, THE RHYMING, a series of writers who flourished in England in the 13th century, and related histories of the country in rhyme, in which the fabulous occupies a conspicuous place, among which Layamon's "Brut" (1205) takes the lead.

CHRONICLES I. and II., two historical books of the Old Testament, the narratives of which, with additions and omissions, run parallel with those of Samuel and Kings, but written from a priestly standpoint, give the chief prominence to the history of Judah as the support in Jerusalem of the ritual of which the priests were the custodians; Ezra and Nehemiah are continuations.

CHRYSeIS, the daughter of Chryses, priest of Apollo, a beautiful maiden who fell among the spoils of a victory to Agamemnon, and became his slave, and whom he refused to restore to her father until a deadly plague among the Greeks, at the hands of Apollo, whose priest her father was, compelled him to give her up.

CHRYSIPPUS, a Greek philosopher, born at Soli, in Cilicia, and lived in Athens; specially skilled in dialectic; the last and greatest expounder and defender of the philosophy of the Stoa, so pre-eminent, that it was said of him, "If Chrysippus were not, the Stoa were not"; is said to have written 705 books, not one of which, however, has come down to us save a few fragments (280-208 B.C.). See STOICISM.

CHRYSOLO'RAS, a Grecian scholar, born at Constantinople, left his native country and lived in Florence, where he, in the 14th century, became a teacher of Greek literature, and contributed thereby to the revival of letters in Italy; _d_. 1415.

CHRYSOSTOM, ST. JOHN, that is, Mouth of Gold, so called from his eloquence, born at Antioch; converted to Christianity from a mild paganism; became one of the Fathers of the Church, and Patriarch of Constantinople; he was zealous in suppressing heresy, as well as corruption in the Church, and was for that reason thrice over subjected to banishment; in the course of the third of which and while on the way, he died, though his remains was brought to Constantinople and there deposited with great solemnity; he left many writings behind him--sermons, homilies, commentaries, and epistles, of which his "Homilies" are most studied and prized (347-407). Festival, Jan. 27.

CHUBB, THOMAS, an English Deist, born near Salisbury; he regarded Christ as a divine teacher, but held reason to be sovereign in matters of religion, yet was on rational grounds a defender of Christianity; had no learning, but was well up in the religious controversies of the time, and bore his part in them creditably (1679-1746).

CHUNDER SEN, one of the founders of the BRAHMO-SOMAJ (q. v.); he visited Europe in 1870, and was welcomed with open arms by the rationalist cla.s.s of Churchmen and Dissenters.

CHUQUISA'CA (20), (i. e. Bridge of Gold), the capital of Bolivia, in a sheltered plain 9000 ft. above the sea-level; is a cathedral city; has a mild climate; it was founded in 1538 by the Spaniards on the site of an old Peruvian town.

CHURCH, RICHARD WILLIAM, dean of St. Paul's, born in Lisbon; a scholarly man; distinguished himself first as such by his "Essays and Reviews," wrote thoughtful sermons, and "A Life of Anselm," also essays on eminent men of letters, such as Dante, Spenser, and Bacon (1815-1890).

CHURCH, STATES OF THE, the Papal States, extending irregularly from the Po to Naples, of which the Pope was the temporal sovereign, now part of the kingdom of Italy.

CHURCHILL, CHARLES, an English poet, born at Westminster; began life as a curate, an office which he was compelled to resign from his unseemly ways; took himself to the satire, first of the actors of the time in his "Rosciad," then of his critics in his "Apology," and then of Dr. Johnson in the "Ghost"; he wrote numerous satires, all vigorous, his happiest being deemed that against the Scotch, ent.i.tled "The Prophecy of Famine"; his life was a short one, and not wisely regulated (1731-1764).

CHURCHILL, LORD RANDOLPH, an English Conservative politician, third son of the 7th Duke of Marlborough, who, though a man of mark, and more than once in office, could never heart and soul join any party and settle down to steady statesmans.h.i.+p; set out on travel, took ill on the journey, and came home in a state of collapse to die (1849-1895).

CHUZZLEWIT, MARTIN, the hero of a novel by d.i.c.kens of the name.

JAMES, a character in the same novel, a man distinguished for his mean and tyrannical character.

CHUSAN (30 or 40), princ.i.p.al island in the Chusan Archipelago, 18 m.

long and 10 broad; near the estuary of the Yangtse-kiang, has been called "the Key of China."

CHYLE, a fluid of a milky colour, separated from the chyme by the action of the pancreatic juice and the bile, and which, being absorbed by the lacteal vessels, is gradually a.s.similated into blood.

CHYME, the pulpy ma.s.s into which the food is converted in the stomach prior to the separation in the small intestines of the chyle.

CIALDINI, ENRICO, an Italian general and politician, born at Modena; distinguished himself in Spain against the Carlists, and both as a soldier and diplomatist in connection with the unification of Italy (1811-1892).

CIBBER, COLLEY, actor and dramatist, of German descent; was manager and part-proprietor of Drury Lane; wrote plays, one in particular, which procured for him the post of poet-laureate, which he held till his death; was much depreciated by Pope; wrote an "Apology for his Life," the most amusing autobiography in the language (1671-1757).

CIBRARIO, LUIGI, an Italian historian and statesman, born at Turin; he held office under Charles Albert of Sardinia (1802-1870).

CICERO, MARCUS TULLIUS, a Roman orator, statesman, and man of letters, born near Arpinum, in Latium; trained for political life partly at Rome and partly at Athens; distinguished himself as the first orator at the Roman bar when he was 30, and afterwards rose through the successive grades of civic rank till he attained the consuls.h.i.+p in 63 B.C.; during this period he acquired great popularity by his exposure and defeat of the conspiracy of Catiline, by which he earned the t.i.tle of _Father of his Country_, though there were those who condemned his action and procured his banishment for a time; on his recall, which was unanimous, he took sides first with Pompey, then with Caesar after Pharsalia, on whose death he delivered a Philippic against Antony; was proscribed by the second triumvirate, and put to death by Antony's soldiers; he was the foremost of Roman orators, the most elegant writer of the Latin language, and has left behind him orations, letters, and treatises, very models of their kind; he was not a deep thinker, and his philosophy was more eclectic than original (100-43 B.C.).

CICERO OF GERMANY, John III., Elector of Brandenburg, "could speak 'four hours at a stretch, in elegantly flowing Latin,' with a fair share of meaning in it too" (1455-1499).

CICOGNARA, COUNT, an Italian writer, born at Ferrara; author of a "History of Sculpture" (1767-1834).

CID CAMPEADOR, a famed Castilian warrior of the 11th century, born at Burgos; much celebrated in Spanish romance; being banished from Castile, in the interest of which he had fought valiantly, he became a free-lance, fighting now with the Christians and now with the Moors, till he made himself master of Valencia, where he set up his throne and reigned, with his faithful wife Ximena by his side, till the news of a defeat by the Moors took all spirit out of him, and he died of grief.

Faithful after death, his wife had his body embalmed and carried to his native place, on the high altar of which it lay enthroned for 10 years; his real name was Don Rodrigo Diaz of Bivar, and the story of his love for Ximena is the subject of Corneille's masterpiece, "The Cid."

CIGOLI, a Florentine painter, called the Florentine Correggio, whom he specially studied in the practice of his art; "The Apostle Healing the Lame," in St. Peter's, is by him, as also the "Martyrdom of St. Stephen,"

in Florence (1559-1613).

CILICIA, an ancient province in S. of Asia Minor.

CILICIAN GATES, the pa.s.s across Mount Taurus by which Alexander the Great entered Cilicia.

CIMABU'E, a Florentine painter, and founder of the Florentine school, which ranked among its members such artists as Michael Angelo, Raphael, and Leonardo da Vinci; was the first to leave the stiff traditional Byzantine forms of art and copy from nature and the living model, though it was only with the advent of his great disciple Giotto that art found beauty in reality, and Florence was made to see the divine significance of lowly human worth, at sight of which, says Ruskin, "all Italy threw up its cap"; his "Madonna," in the Church of Santa Maria, has been long regarded as a marvel of art, and of all the "Mater Dolorosas"

of Christianity, Ruskin does not hesitate to p.r.o.nounce his at a.s.sisi the n.o.blest; "he was the first," says Ruskin, "of the Florentines, first of European men, to see the face of her who was blessed among women, and with his following hand to make visible the Magnificat of his heart"

(1240-1302).

CIMAROSA, DOMENICO, a celebrated Italian composer; composed between 20 and 30 operas, mostly comic, his masterpiece being "II Matrimoneo Segreto"; he was imprisoned for sympathising with the principles of the French Revolution, and treated with a severity which shortened his life; said by some to have been poisoned by order of Queen Caroline of Naples (1754-1801).

CIMBER, a friend of Caesar's who turned traitor, whose act of presenting a pet.i.tion to him was the signal to the conspirators to take his life.

CIMBRI, a barbarian horde who, with the Teutons, invaded Gaul in the 2nd century B.C.; gave the Romans no small trouble, and were all but exterminated by Marius in 101 B.C.; believed to have been a Celtic race, who descended on Southern Europe from the N.

CIMERIANS, an ancient people N. of the sh.o.r.es of the Black Sea, fabled to inhabit a region unvisited by a single ray of the sun.