Skip to content

Chapter C: The Modern Church (2)

Text size

CHUTE (Fr. for "fall," of water or the like; pronounced as "shoot," with which in meaning it is identical), a channel or trough, artificial or natural, down which objects such as timber, coal or grain may slide from a higher to a lower level. The word is also used of a channel cut in a dam or a river for the passage of floating timber, and in Louisiana and on the Mississippi of a channel at the side of a river, or narrow way between an island and the shore. The "Water-Chute" or water tobogganing, is a Canadian pastime, which has been popular in London and elsewhere. A steep wooden slope terminates in a shallow lake; down this run flat-bottomed boats which rapidly increase their velocity until at the end of the "chute" they dash into the water.

CHUTNEY, or CHUTNEE (Hindustani _chatni_), a relish or seasoning of Indian origin, used as a condiment. It is prepared from sweet fruits such as mangoes, raisins, &c., with acid flavouring from tamarinds, lemons, limes and sour herbs, and with a hot seasoning of chillies, cayenne pepper and spices.

CHUVASHES, or TCHUVASHES, a tribe found in eastern Russia. They form about one-fourth of the population of the government of Kazan, and live in scattered communities throughout the governments of Simbirsk, Samara, Saratov, Orenburg and Perm. They have been identified with the Burtasses of the Arab geographers, and many authorities think they are the descendants of the ancient Bolgars. In general they physically resemble the Finns, being round-headed, flat-featured and light-eyed, but they have been affected by long association with the Tatar element. In dress they are thoroughly Russianized, and they are nominally Christians, though they cling to many of the Old Shamanistic practices. They number some half a million. Their language belongs to the Tatar or Turkish group, but has been strongly influenced by the Finno-Ugrian idioms spoken round it.

See Schott, _De Lingua Tschuwaschorum_ (Berlin, 1841).

CIALDINI, ENRICO (1811-1892), Italian soldier, politician and diplomatist, was born at Castelvetro, in Modena, on the 10th of August 1811. In 1831 he took part in the insurrection at Modena, fleeing afterwards to Paris, whence he proceeded to Spain to fight against the Carlists. Returning to Italy in 1848, he commanded a regiment at the battle of Novara. In 1859 he organized the Alpine Brigade, fought at Palestro at the head of the 4th Division, and in the following year invaded the Marches, won the battle of Castelfidardo, took Ancona, and subsequently directed the siege of Gaeta. For these services he was created duke of Gaeta by the king, and was assigned a pension of 10,000 lire by parliament. In 1861 his intervention envenomed the Cavour-Garibaldi dispute, royal mediation alone preventing a duel between him and Garibaldi. Placed in command of the troops sent to oppose the Garibaldian expedition of 1862, he defeated Garibaldi at Aspromonte. Between 1862 and 1866 he held the position of lieutenant-royal at Naples, and in 1864 was created senator. On the outbreak of the war of 1866 he resumed command of an army corps, but dissensions between him and La Marmora prejudiced the issue of the campaign and contributed to the defeat of Custozza. After the war he refused the command of the General Staff, which he wished to render independent of the war office. In 1867 he attempted unsuccessfully to form a cabinet sufficiently strong to prevent the threatened Garibaldian incursion into the papal states, and two years later failed in a similar attempt, through disagreement with Lanza concerning the army estimates. On the 3rd of August 1870 he pleaded in favour of Italian intervention in aid of France, a circumstance which enhanced his influence when in July 1876 he replaced Nigra as ambassador to the French Republic. This position he held until 1882, when he resigned on account of the publication by Mancini of a despatch in which he had complained of arrogant treatment by M. Waddington. He died at Leghorn, on the 8th of September 1892. (H. W. S.)

CIBBER (or CIBERT), CAIUS GABRIEL (1630-1700), Danish sculptor, was born at Flensburg. He was the son of the king's cabinetmaker, and was sent to Rome at the royal charge while yet a youth. He came to England during the Protectorate, or during the first years of the Restoration. Besides the famous statues of Melancholy and Raving Madness ("great Cibber's brazen brainless brothers"), now at South Kensington, Cibber produced the bas-reliefs round the monument on Fish Street Hill. The several kings of England and the Sir Thomas Gresham executed by him for the Royal Exchange were destroyed with the building itself in 1838. Cibber was long employed by the fourth earl of Devonshire, and many fine specimens of his work are to be seen at Chatsworth. Under that nobleman he took up arms in 1688 for William of Orange, and was appointed in return carver to the king's closet. He died rich, and, according to Horace Walpole, built the Danish church in London, where he lies buried beside his second wife, to whom he erected a monument. She was a Miss Colley of Glaiston, grand-daughter of Sir Anthony Colley, and the mother of his son Colley Cibber.

CIBBER, COLLEY (1671-1757), English actor and dramatist, was born in London on the 6th of November 1671, the eldest son of Caius Gabriel Cibber, the sculptor. Sent in 1682 to the free school at Grantham, Lincolnshire, the boy distinguished himself by an aptitude for writing verse. He produced an "Oration" on the death of Charles II.--whom he had seen feeding his ducks in St James's Park,--and an "Ode" on the accession of James II. He was removed from school in 1687 on the chance of election to Winchester College. His father, however, had not then presented that institution with his statue of William of Wykeham, and the son was rejected, although through his mother he claimed to be of "founder's kin." The boy went to London, and indulged his passion for the theatre. He was invited to Chatsworth, the seat of William Cavendish, earl (afterwards duke) of Devonshire, for whom his father was then executing commissions, and he was on his way when the news of the landing of William of Orange was received; father and son met at Nottingham, and Colley Cibber was taken into Devonshire's company of volunteers. He served in the bloodless campaign that resulted in the coronation of the Prince of Orange, and on its conclusion presented a Latin petition to the earl imploring his interest. The earl did nothing for him, however, and he enrolled himself (1690) as an actor in Betterton's company at Drury Lane.

After playing "full three-quarters of a year" without salary, as was then the custom of all apprentice actors, he was paid ten shillings a week. His rendering of the little part of the chaplain in Otway's _Orphan_ procured him a rise of five shillings; and a subsequent impersonation (1694) on an emergency, and at the author's request, of Lord Touchwood in _The Double Dealer_, advanced him, on Congreve's recommendation, to a pound a week. On this, supplemented by an allowance of £20 a year from his father, he contrived to live with his wife and family--he had married in 1693--and to produce a play, _Love's Last Shift, or the Fool in Fashion_ (1696). Of this comedy Congreve said that it had "a great many things that were like wit in it"; and Vanbrugh honoured it by writing his _Relapse_ as a sequel. Cibber played the part of Sir Novelty Fashion, and his performance as Lord Foppington, the same character renamed, in Vanbrugh's piece, established his reputation as an actor. In 1698 he was assailed, with other dramatists, by Jeremy Collier in the _Short View_. In November 1702 he produced, at Drury Lane, _She Wou'd and She Wou'd Not; or the Kind Impostor_, one of his best comedies; and in 1704, for himself and Mrs Oldfield, _The Careless Husband_, which Horace Walpole classed, with Cibber's _Apology_, as "worthy of immortality." In 1706 Cibber left Drury Lane for the Haymarket, but when the two companies united two years later he rejoined his old theatre through the influence of his friend Colonel Brett, a shareholder. Brett made over his share to Wilks, Estcourt and Cibber. Complaints against the management of Christopher Rich led, in 1709, to the closing of the theatre by order of the crown, and William Collier obtained the patent. After a series of intrigues Collier was bought out by Wilks, Doggett and Cibber, under whose management Drury Lane became more prosperous than it ever had been. In 1715 a new patent was granted to Sir Richard Steele, and Barton Booth was also added to the management. In 1717 Cibber produced the _Nonjuror_, an adaptation from Molière's _Tartuffe_; the play, for which Nicholas Rowe wrote an abusive prologue, ran eighteen nights, and the author received from George I., to whom it was dedicated, a present of two hundred guineas. Tartuffe became an English Catholic priest who incited rebellion, and there is little doubt that the Whig principles expressed in the _Nonjuror_ led to Cibber's appointment as poet laureate (1730). It also provoked the animosity of the Jacobite and Catholic factions, and was possibly one of the causes of Pope's hostility to Cibber. Numerous "keys" to the _Nonjuror_ appeared in 1718. In 1720 Drury Lane was closed for three days by order of the duke of Newcastle, ostensibly on account of the refusal of the patentees to submit to the authority of the lord chamberlain, but really (it is asserted) because of a quarrel between Newcastle and Steele, in which the former demanded Cibber's resignation. In 1726 Cibber pleaded the cause of the patentees against the estate of Sir Richard Steele before Sir Joseph Jekyll, master of the rolls, and won his case. In 1730 Mrs Oldfield died, and her loss was followed in 1732 by that of Wilks; Cibber now sold his share in the theatre, appearing rarely on the stage thereafter. In 1740 he published _An Apology for the Life of Colley Cibber, Comedian ... with an Historical View of the Stage during his Own Time_. "There are few," wrote Goldsmith, "who do not prefer a page of Montaigne or Colley Cibber, who candidly tell us what they thought of the world, and the world thought of them, to the more stately memoirs and transactions of Europe." But beside the personal interest, this book contains criticisms on acting of enduring value, and gives the best account there is of Cibber's contemporaries on the London stage. Samuel Johnson, who was no friend of Cibber, gave it grudging praise (see Boswell's _Life of Johnson_, ed. Birkbeck Hill, vol. iii. p. 72).

In 1742 Cibber was substituted for Theobald as the hero of Pope's _Dunciad_. Cibber had introduced some gag into the _Rehearsal_, in which he played the part of Bayes, referring to the ill-starred farce of _Three Hours after Marriage_ (1717). This play was nominally by Gay, but Pope and Arbuthnot were known to have had a hand in it. Cibber refused to discontinue the offensive passage, and Pope revenged himself in sarcastic allusions in his printed correspondence, in the _Epistle to Dr Arbuthnot_ and in the _Dunciad_. To these, Cibber replied with _A Letter from Mr Cibber to Mr Pope, inquiring into the motives that might induce him in his satirical works to be so frequently fond of Mr Cibber's name_ (1742). Cibber scored with an "idle story of Pope's behaviour in a tavern" inserted in this letter, and gives an account of the original dispute over the _Rehearsal_. By the substitution of Cibber for Theobald as hero of the _Dunciad_, much of the satire lost its point. Cibber's faults certainly did not include dullness. A new edition contained a prefatory discourse, probably the work of Warburton, entitled "Ricardus Aristarchus, or the Hero of the Poem," in which Cibber is made to look ridiculous from his own _Apology_. Cibber replied in 1744 with _Another Occasional Letter ..._, and altogether he had the best of the argument. When he was seventy-four years old he made his last appearance on the stage as Pandulph in his own _Papal Tyranny in the Reign of King John_ (Covent Garden, 15th of February 1745), a miserable paraphrase of Shakespeare's play. He died on the 11th of December 1757.

Cibber's reputation has suffered unduly from the depreciation of Pope and Johnson. "I could not bear such nonsense," said Johnson of one of Cibber's odes, "and I would not let him read it to the end." Fielding attacked Cibber's style and language more than once in _Joseph Andrews_ and elsewhere. Nevertheless, Cibber possessed wit, unusual good sense and tact; and in the _Apology_ he showed himself the most delicate and subtle critic of acting of his time. He was frequently accused of plagiarism, and did not scruple to make use of old plays, but he is said to have been ashamed of his Shakespearian adaptations, one of which, however, _Richard III._ (Drury Lane, 1700), kept its place as the acting version until 1821. Cibber is rebuked for his mutilation of Shakespeare by Fielding in the _Historical Register for 1736_, where he figures as Ground Ivy.

If Cibber had not as much wit as his predecessors, he displayed in his best plays abundant animation and spirit, free from the extreme coarseness of many of his contemporaries, and a thorough knowledge of the requirements of the stage. His most successful comedies kept their place in the acting repertory for a long time. He was an excellent actor, especially in the rôle of the fashionable coxcomb. Horace Walpole said that as Bayes in _The Rehearsal_ he made the part what it was intended to be, the burlesque of a great poet, whereas David Garrick degraded him to a "garretteer."

The _Apology_ was edited in 1822 by E. Bellchambers and in 1889 by
R.W. Lowe, who printed with it other valuable theatrical books and
pamphlets. It is also included in Hunt and Clarke's _Autobiographies_
(1826, &c). Cibber's _Dramatic Works_ were published in 1760, with an
account of the life and writings of the author, and again in 1777.
Besides the plays already mentioned, he wrote _Woman's Wit, or the
Lady in Fashion_ (1697), which was altered later (1707) into _The
Schoolboy, or the Comical Rivals_; _Xerxes_ (1699), a tragedy acted
only once; _The Provoked Husband_ (acted 1728), completed from
Vanbrugh's unfinished _Journey to London_; _The Rival Queens, with the
Humours of Alexander the Great_ (acted 1710), a comical tragedy;
_Damon and Phyllida_ (acted 1729), a ballad opera; and adaptations
from Beaumont and Fletcher, Dryden, Molière and Corneille. A
bibliography of the numerous skits on Cibber is to be found in Lowe's
_Bibliographical Account of English Theatrical Literature_.

Colley Cibber's son, THEOPHILUS CIBBER (1703-1758), also an actor and playwright, was born on the 26th of November 1703. In 1734 he was acting-manager at the Haymarket, and he subsequently played at Drury Lane, Lincoln's Inn Fields and Covent Garden. His best impersonation was as Pistol, but he also distinguished himself in some of the fine-gentleman parts affected by his father. He was one of the ringleaders in the intrigues against John Highmore, who had bought a share in the patent of Drury Lane from Colley Cibber. Theophilus Cibber, with a number of other actors, seceded from Drury Lane, and in thus depreciating the value of the patent, for which his father had received a considerable sum, acted with doubtful honesty. He contemplated the publication of an autobiography, but was effectually dissuaded by the appearance (1740) of a scathing account of his career by an unknown author, entitled _An Apology for the Life of Mr T.... C.... supposed to be written by himself_. In 1753 he began _The Lives and Characters of the most Eminent Actors and Actresses of Great Britain and Ireland_, but he went no further than the life of Barton Booth. He wrote some plays of no great merit. In 1753 appeared _An Account of the Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland_, with the name of "Mr Cibber" on the title page. The five volumes of _Lives_ are chiefly based on the earlier works of Gerard Langbaine and Giles Jacob, and the MS. collections of Thomas Coxeter (1689-1747). The book is said to have been largely written by Robert Shiels, Dr Johnson's amanuensis. Theophilus Cibber perished by shipwreck on his way to Dublin to play at the Theatre Royal.

SUSANNAH MARIA CIBBER (1714-1766), wife of Theophilus, was an actress of distinction. She was the daughter of a Covent Garden upholsterer, and sister of Dr Arne (1710-1778) the composer. Mrs Cibber had a beautiful voice and began her career in opera. She was the original Galatea in Handel's _Acis and Galatea_, and the contralto arias in the _Messiah_ are said to have been written for her. She played Zarah in Aaron Hill's version of Voltaire's _Zaïre_ in 1736, and it was as a tragic actress, not as a singer, that her greatest triumphs were won. From Colley Cibber she learned a sing-song method of declamation. Her mannerisms, however, did not obscure her real genius, and she freed herself from them entirely when she began to act with Garrick, with whom she was associated at Drury Lane from 1753. She died on the 30th of January 1766. She married Theopihilus Cibber in 1734, but lived with him but a short time. Appreciations of Mrs Cibber's fine acting are to be found in many contemporary writers, one of the most discriminating being in the _Rosciad_ of Charles Churchill.

Colley Cibber's youngest daughter, CHARLOTTE, married Richard Charke, a violinist, from whom she was soon separated. She began as an understudy to actresses in leading parts, but quarrelled with her manager, Charles Fleetwood, on whom she wrote a one-act skit, _The Art of Management_ (1735). She also wrote two comedies and two novels of small merit, and an untrustworthy, but amusing _Narrative of Life of ... Charlotte Charke, ... by herself_ (1755), reprinted in Hunt and Clarke's _Autobiographies_ (1822).

CIBORIUM, a name in classical Latin for a drinking-vessel. It is the latinized form of the Gr. [Greek: kibôrion], the cup-shaped seed-vessel of the Egyptian water-lily, the seeds or nuts of which were known as "Egyptian beans." In the early Christian Church the _ciborium_ was a canopy over the altar (q.v.), supported on columns, and from it hung the receptacle in which was reserved the consecrated wafer of the Eucharist. The use of the word has probably been much influenced by the early false connexion with _cibus_, food, cf. Agatio, bishop of Pisa (quoted in Du Cange, _Gloss._ s.v.), "Ciborium vas esse ad ferendos cibos." In the Eastern Church the columns rested on the altar itself, in the Western they reached the ground. The name was early transferred from the canopy to the vessel containing the reserved sacrament, and in the Western Church the canopy was known as a "baldaquin," Ital. _baldacchino_, from _Baldacco_, the Italian name of Bagdad, and hence applied to a rich kind of embroidered tapestry made there and much used for canopies, &c. At the present day it is usual in the Roman Church to use the term "pyx" ([Greek: pyxis], properly a vessel made of boxwood) for the receptacle for the reserved sacrament used in administering the _viaticum_ to the sick or dying. Medieval pyxes and ciboria are often beautiful examples of the goldsmith's, enameller's and metal-worker's craft. They take most usually the shape of a covered chalice or of a cylindrical box with conical or cylindrical cover surmounted by a cross. An exquisite ciborium fetched £6000 at the sale of the Jerdone Braikenridge collection at Christie's in 1908. It is supposed to have come from Malmesbury Abbey, and is probably of 13th-century English make. It is of copper-gilt and ornamented with champlevé enamels, apple and chrysoprase green, scarlet, mauve and white, turquoise and lapis lazuli, the flesh tints being of a pale jasper. Various subjects from the Old and New Testament, such as the sacrifice of Abel, the brazen serpent, the nativity, crucifixion and resurrection are represented on circular medallions on the outside. It is illustrated in colours in the catalogue of the exhibition of the Burlington Fine Arts Club, 1897.

CIBRARIO, LUIGI, COUNT (1802-1870), Italian statesman and historian, descended from a noble but impoverished Piedmontese family, was born in Usseglia on the 23rd of February 1802. He won a scholarship at the age of sixteen, and was teaching literature at eighteen. His verses to King Charles Albert, then prince of Carignano, on the birth of his son Victor Emmanuel, attracted the prince's attention and proved the beginning of a long intimacy. He entered the Sardinian civil service, and in 1824 was appointed lecturer on canon and civil law. His chief interest was the study of ancient documents, and he was sent to search the archives of Switzerland, France and Germany for charters relating to the history of Savoy. During the war of 1848, after the expulsion of the Austrians from Venice, Cibrario was sent to that city with Colli to negotiate its union with Piedmont. But the proposal fell through when the news of the armistice between King Charles Albert and Austria arrived, and the two delegates were made the objects of a hostile demonstration. In October 1848 Cibrario was made senator, and after the battle of Novara (March 1849), when Charles Albert abdicated and retired to a monastery near Oporto, Cibrario and Count Giacinto di Collegno were sent as representatives of the senate to express the sympathy of that body with the fallen king. He reached Oporto on the 28th of May, and after staying there for a month returned to Turin, which he reached just before the news of Charles Albert's death. In May 1852 he became minister of finance in the reconstructed d'Azeglio cabinet, and later minister of education in that of Cavour. In the same year he was appointed secretary to the order of SS. Maurizio and Lazzaro. It was he who in 1853 dictated the vigorous memorandum of protest against the confiscation by Austria of the property of Lombard exiles who had been naturalized in Piedmont. He strongly supported Cavour's Crimean policy (1855), and when General La Marmora departed in command of the expeditionary force and Cavour took the war office, Cibrario was made minister for foreign affairs. He conducted the business of the department with great skill, and ably seconded Cavour in bringing about the admission of Piedmont to the congress of Paris on an equal footing with the great powers. On retiring from the foreign office Cibrario was created count. In 1860 he acted as mediator between Victor Emmanuel's government and the republic of San Marino, and arranged a treaty by which the latter's liberties were guaranteed. After the war of 1866 by which Austria lost Venetia, Cibrario negotiated with that government for the restitution of state papers and art treasures removed by it from Lombardy and Venetia to Vienna. He died in October 1870, near Salò, on the lake of Garda.

His most important work was his _Economia politica del medio evo_ (Turin, 1839), which enjoyed great popularity at the time, but is now of little value. His _Schiavitù e servaggio_ (Milan, 1868-1869) gave an account of the development and abolition of slavery and serfdom. Among his historical writings the following deserve mention:--_Delle artiglierie dal 1300 al 1700_ (Turin, 1847); _Origini ... della monarchia di Savoia_ (Turin, 1854); _Degli ordini cavallereschi_ (Turin, 1846); _Degli ordini religiosi_ (Turin, 1845); and the _Memorie Segrete_ of Charles Albert, written by order of Victor Emmanuel but afterwards withdrawn. Cibrario was a good example of the loyal, industrious, honest Piedmontese aristocrat of the old school.

His biography has been written by F. Odorici, _Il Conte L. Cibrario_
(Florence, 1872). (L. V.*)

CICADA (_Cicadidae_), insects of the homopterous division of the Hemiptera, generally of large size, with the femora of the anterior legs toothed below, two pairs of large clear wings, and prominent compound eyes. Cicadas are chiefly remarkable for the shrill song of the males, which in some cases may be heard in concert at a distance of a quarter of a mile or more. The vocal organs, of which there is a pair in the thorax, protected by an opercular plate, are quite unlike the sounding organs of other insects. Each consists in essence of a tightly stretched membrane or drum which is thrown into a state of rapid vibration by a powerful muscle attached to its inner surface and passing thence downwards to the floor of the thoracic cavity. Although no auditory organs have been found in the females, the song of the males is believed to serve as a sexual call. Cicadas are also noteworthy for their longevity, which so far as is known surpasses that of all other insects. By means of a saw-like ovipositor the female lays her eggs in the branches of trees. Upon hatching, the young, which differ from the adult in possessing long antennae and a pair of powerful fossorial anterior legs, fall to the ground, burrow below the surface, and spend a prolonged subterranean larval existence feeding upon the roots of vegetation. After many years the larva is transformed into the pupa or nymph, which is distinguishable principally by the shortness of its antennae and the presence of wing pads. After a brief existence the pupa emerges from the ground, and, holding on to a plant stem by means of its powerful front legs, sets free the perfect insect through a slit along the median dorsal line of the thorax. In some cases the pupa upon emerging constructs a chimney of soil, the use of which is not known. In one of the best-known species, _Cicada septemdecim_, from North America, the lifecycle is said to extend over seventeen years. Cicadas are particularly abundant in the tropics, where the largest forms are found. They also occur in temperate countries, and were well known to the ancient Greeks and Romans. One species only is found in England, where it is restricted to the southern counties but is an insect not commonly met with.

CICELY, _Myrrhis odorata_ (natural order Umbelliferae), a perennial herb with a leafy hollow stem, 2 to 3 ft. high, much divided leaves, whitish beneath, a large sheathing base, and terminal umbels of small white flowers, the outer ones only of which are fertile. The fruit is dark brown, long (¾ to 1 in.), narrow and beaked. The plant is a native of central and southern Europe, and is found in parts of England and Scotland in pastures, usually near houses. It has aromatic and stimulant properties and was formerly used as a pot-herb.

CICERO, the name of two families of ancient Rome. It may perhaps be derived from _cicer_ (pulse), in which case it would be analogous to such names as _Lentulus, Tubero, Piso_. Of one family, of the plebeian Claudian _gens_, only a single member, Gaius Claudius Cicero, tribune in 454 B.C., is known. The other family was a branch of the Tullii, settled from an ancient period at Arpinum. This family, four of whose members are noticed specially below, did not achieve more than municipal eminence until the time of M. Tullius Cicero, the great orator.

Comments

Log in to leave a comment.

Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, "Chitral" to "Cincinnati"Chapter C: The Modern Church (2)

0%19 min left in chapter