Chapter IX: Front Matter (9)

COYOTE, the Indian name for a North American member of the dog family, also known as the prairie-wolf, and scientifically as _Canis latrans_. Ranging from Canada in the north to Guatemala in the south, and chiefly frequenting the open plains on both sides of the chain of the Rocky Mountains, the coyote, under all its various local phases, is a smaller animal than the true wolf, and may apparently be regarded as the New World representative of the jackals, or perhaps, like the Indian wolf (_C. pallipes_), as a type intermediate between wolves and jackals. In addition to its inferior size, the coyote is also shorter in the leg than the wolf, and carries a more luxuriant coat of hair. The average length is about 40 in., and the general tone of colour tawny mingled with black and white above and whitish below, the tail having a black tip and likewise a dark gland-patch near the root of the upper surface. There is, however, considerable local variation both in the matter of size and of colour from the typical coyote of Iowa, which measures about 50 in. in total length and is of a full rich tint. The coyote of the deserts of eastern California, Nevada and Utah is, for instance, a smaller and paler-coloured animal, whose length is usually about 42 in. On this and other local variations a number of nominal species have been founded; but it is preferable to regard them in the light of geographical phases or races, such as the above-mentioned _C. latrans estor_ of Nevada and Utah, _C. l. mearnsi_ of Arizona and Sonora, and _C. l. frustor_ of Oklahoma and the Arkansas River district.

It is to distinguish them from the grey, or timber, wolves that coyotes have received the name of "prairie-wolves"; the two titles indicating the nature of the respective habitats of the two species. Coyotes are creatures of slinking and stealthy habits, living in burrows in the plains, and hunting in packs at night, when they utter yapping cries and blood-curdling yells as they gallop. Hares ("jack-rabbits"), chipmunks or ground-squirrels, and mice form a large portion of their food; but coyotes also kill the fawns of deer and prongbuck, as well as sage-hens and other kinds of game-birds. "In the flat lands," write Messrs Witmer Stone and W. E. Cram, in their _American Animals_ (1902), "they dig burrows for themselves or else take possession of those already made by badgers and prairie-dogs. Here in the spring the half-dozen or more coyote pups are brought forth; and it is said that at this season the old ones systematically drive any large game they may be chasing as near to their burrow, where the young coyotes are waiting to be fed, as possible before killing it, in order to save the labour of dragging it any great distance. When out after jack-rabbits two coyotes usually work together. When a jack-rabbit starts up before them, one of the coyotes bounds away in pursuit while the other squats on his haunches and waits his turn, knowing full well that the hare prefers to run in a circle, and will soon come round again, when the second wolf takes up the chase and the other rests in his turn.... When hunting antelope (prongbuck) and deer the coyotes spread out their pack into a wide circle, endeavouring to surround their game and keep it running inside their ring until exhausted. Sage-hens, grouse and small birds the coyote hunts successfully alone, quartering over the ground like a trained pointer until he succeeds in locating his bird, when he drops flat in the grass and creeps forward like a cat until close enough for the final spring."

When hard put to it for food, coyotes will, it is reported, eat hips, juniper-berries and other wild fruits. (R. L.*)

COYPEL, the name of a French family of painters. Noel Coypel (1628-1707), also called, from the fact that he was much influenced by Poussin, COYPEL LE POUSSIN, was the son of an unsuccessful artist. Having been employed by Charles Errard to paint some of the pictures required for the Louvre, and having afterwards gained considerable fame by other pictures produced at the command of the king, in 1672 he was appointed director of the French Academy at Rome. After four years he returned to France; and not long after he became director of the Academy of Painting. The Martyrdom of St James in Notre Dame is perhaps his finest work.

His son, ANTOINE COYPEL (1661-1772), was still more celebrated than his father. Antoine studied under his father, with whom he spent four years at Rome. At the age of eighteen he was admitted into the Academy of Painting, of which he became professor and rector in 1707, and director in 1714. In 1716 he was appointed king's painter, and he was ennobled in the following year. Antoine Coypel received a careful literary education, the effects of which appear in his works; but the graceful imagination displayed by his pictures is marred by the fact that he was not superior to the artificial taste of his age. He was a clever etcher, and engraved several of his own works. His _Discours prononces dans les conferences de l' Academie royale de Peinture, &c._; appeared in 1741.

Antoine's half-brother, NOEL NICHOLAS COYPEL (1692-1734), was also an exceedingly popular artist; and his son, Charles Antoine (1694-1752), was painter to the king and director of the Academy of Painting. The latter published interesting academical lectures in _Le Mercure_ and wrote several plays which were acted at court, but were never published.

COYPU, the native name of a large South American aquatic rodent mammal, known very generally among European residents in the country as nutria (the Spanish word for otter) and scientifically as _Myocastor_ (or _Myopotamus_) _coypu_. Its large size, aquatic habits, partially webbed hind-toes, and the smooth, broad, orange-coloured incisors, are sufficient to distinguish this rodent from the other members of the family _Capromyidae_. Coypu are abundant in the fresh waters of South America, even small ponds being often tenanted by one or more pairs. Should the water dry up, the coypu seek fresh homes. Although subsisting to a considerable extent on aquatic plants, these rodents frequently come ashore to feed, especially in the evening. Several young are produced at a birth, which are carried on their mother's back when swimming. The fur is of some commercial value, although rather stiff and harsh; its colour being reddish-brown. (See RODENTIA.)

COYSEVOX, CHARLES ANTOINE (1640-1720), French sculptor, was born at Lyons on the 29th of September 1640, and belonged to a family which had emigrated from Spain. The name should be pronounced Coezevo. He was only seventeen when he produced a statue of the Madonna of considerable merit; and having studied under Lerambert and trained himself by taking copies in marble from the Greek masterpieces (among others from the Venus de Medici and the Castor and Pollux), he was engaged by the bishop of Strassburg, Cardinal Furstenberg, to adorn with statuary his chateau at Saverne (Zabern). In 1666 he married Marguerite Quillerier, Lerambert's niece, who died a year after the marriage. In 1671, after four years spent on Saverne, which was subsequently destroyed by fire in 1780, he returned to Paris. In 1676 his bust of the painter Le Brun obtained admission for him to the Academie Royale. A year later he married Claude Bourdict.

In consequence of the influence exercised by Le Brun between the years 1677 and 1685, he was employed by Louis XIV. in producing much of the decoration and a large number of statues for Versailles; and he afterwards worked, between 1701 and 1709, with no less facility and success, for the palace at Marly, subsequently destroyed in the Revolution.

Among his works are the "Mercury and Fame," first at Marly and afterwards in the gardens of the Tuileries; "Neptune and Amphitrite," in the gardens at Marly; "Justice and Force," at Versailles; and statues, in which the likenesses are said to have been remarkably successful, of most of the celebrated men of his age, including Louis XIV. and Louis XV. at Versailles, Colbert (at Saint-Eustache), Mazarin (in the church des Quatre-Nations), Conde the Great (in the Louvre), Maria Theresa of Austria, Turenne, Vauban, Cardinals de Bouillon and de Polignac, Fenelon, Racine, Bossuet (in the Louvre), the comte d'Harcourt, Cardinal Furstenberg and Charles Le Brun (in the Louvre). Coysevox died in Paris on the 10th of October 1720.

Besides the works given above he carved about a dozen memorials, including those to Colbert (at Saint-Eustache), to Cardinal Mazarin (in the Louvre), and to the painter Le Brun (in the church of Saint Nicholas-du-Chardon).

Among the pupils of Coysevox were Nicolas and Guillaume Coustou.

See Henry Jouin, _A. Coysevox, sa vie, son oeuvre_ (1883); Jean du
Seigneur, _Revue universelle des arts_, vol. i. (1855), pp. 32 et seq.

CRAB (Ger. _Krabbe_, _Krebs_), a name applied to the Crustacea of the order _Brachyura_, and to other forms, especially of the order _Anomura_, which resemble them more or less closely in appearance and habits.

The _Brachyura_, or true crabs, are distinguished from the long-tailed lobsters and shrimps which form the order _Macrura_, by the fact that the abdomen or tail is of small size and is carried folded up under the body. In most of them the body is transversely oval or triangular in outline and more or less flattened, and is covered by a hard shell, the carapace. There are five pairs of legs. The first pair end in nippers or chelae and are usually much more massive than the others which are used in walking or swimming. The eyes are set on movable stalks and can be withdrawn into sockets in the front part of the carapace. There are six pairs of jaws and foot-jaws (maxillipeds) enclosed within a "buccal cavern," the opening of which is covered by the broad and flattened third pair of foot-jaws. The abdomen is usually narrow and triangular in the males, but in the females it is broad and rounded and bears appendages to which the eggs are attached after spawning (fig. 1).

As in most Crustacea, the young of nearly all crabs, when newly hatched, are very different from their parents. The first larval stage is known as a Zoea, this name having been given to it when it was believed by naturalists to be a distinct and independent species of animal. The Zoea is a minute transparent organism, swimming at the surface of the sea. It has a rounded body, armed with long spines, and a long segmented tail. The eyes are large but not set on stalks, the legs are not yet developed, and the foot-jaws form swimming paddles. After casting its skin several times as it grows in size, the young crab passes into a stage known as the _Megalopa_ (fig. 2), also formerly regarded as an independent animal, in which the body and limbs are more crab-like, but the abdomen is large and not filled up. After a further moult the animal assumes a form very similar to that of the adult. There are a few crabs, living on land or in fresh water, which do not pass through a metamorphosis but leave the egg as miniature adults.

Most crabs live in the sea, and even the land-crabs, which are abundant in tropical countries, nearly all visit the sea occasionally and pass through their early stages in it. Many shore-crabs living between tide-marks are more or less amphibious, and the river-crab of southern Europe or Lenten crab (_Potamon edule_, better known as _Thelphusa fluviatilis_) is an example of the freshwater crabs which are abundant in most of the warmer regions of the world. As a rule, crabs breathe by gills, which are lodged in a pair of cavities at the sides of the carapace, but in the true land-crabs the cavities become enlarged and modified so as to act as lungs for breathing air.

Walking or crawling is the usual mode of locomotion, and the peculiar sidelong gait familiar to most people in the common shore-crab, is characteristic of most members of the group. The crabs of the family _Portunidae_, and some others, swim with great dexterity by means of their flattened paddle-shaped feet.

Like many other Crustacea, crabs are often omnivorous and act as the scavengers of the sea, but many are predatory in their habits and some are content with a vegetable diet.

Though no crab, perhaps, is truly parasitic, some live in relations of "commensalism" with other animals. The best known examples of this are the little "mussel-crabs" (_Pinnotheridae_) which live within the shells of mussels and other bivalve mollusca and probably share the food of their hosts. Some crabs live among corals, and one species at least gives rise to hollow swellings on the branches of a coral like the "galls" which are formed on plants by certain insects. Another crab (_Melia tesselata_) carries in each of its claws a living sea-anemone which it uses as an animated weapon of defence and an implement for the capture of prey. Many of the sluggish spider-crabs (_Maiidae_) have their shells covered by a forest of growing sea-weeds, zoophytes and sponges, which are "planted" there by the crab itself, and which afford it a very effective disguise.

Many of the larger crabs are sought for as food by man. The most important and valuable are the edible crab of British and European coasts (_Cancer pagurus_) and the blue crab of the Atlantic coast of the United States (_Callinectes sapidus_).

Among the _Anomura_, the best known are the hermit-crabs, which live in the empty shells of Gasteropod Mollusca, which they carry about with them as portable dwellings. In these, the abdomen is soft-skinned and spirally twisted so as to fit into the shells which they inhabit. The common hermit-crab of the British coasts (_Pagurus_ or _Eupagurus Bernhardus_) is sometimes called the soldier-crab from its pugnacity. Small specimens are found between tide-marks inhabiting the shells of periwinkles and other small molluscs, but the full-grown specimens live in deeper water and are usually found in the shell of the whelk (_Buccinum_). As the crab grows it changes its dwelling from time to time, often having to fight with its fellows for the possession of an empty shell. Sometimes an annelid worm lives inside the shell along with the hermit and often the outside is covered with zoophytes. In some species, as in the British _Eupagurus prideauxi_, a sea-anemone is constantly found attached to the shell, profiting by the active locomotion of the crab and probably sharing the crumbs of its food, while it affords its host protection by its stinging powers.

In tropical countries the hermit-crabs of the family _Coenobitidae_ live on land, often at considerable distances from the sea, to which, however, they return for the purpose of hatching out their spawn. The large robber-crab or cocoa-nut crab of the Indo-Pacific islands (_Birgus latro_), which belongs to this family, has given up the habit of carrying a portable dwelling, and the upper surface of its abdomen has become covered by shelly plates. The stories of its climbing palm-trees to get the fruit were long doubted, but it has been seen, and even photographed in the act. (W. T. CA.)

CRABBE, GEORGE (1754-1832), English poet, was born at Aldeburgh in Suffolk on the 24th of December 1754. His family was partly of Norfolk, partly of Suffolk origin, and the name was doubtless originally derived from "crab." His grandfather, Robert Crabbe, was the first of the family to settle at Aldeburgh, where he held the appointment of collector of customs. He died in 1734, leaving one son, George, who practised many occupations, including that of a schoolmaster, in the adjoining village of Orford. Finally the poet's father obtained a small post in the customs of Aldeburgh, married Mary Lodwick, the widow of a publican, and had six children, of whom George was the eldest.

The sea has swept away the small cottage that was George Crabbe's birthplace, but one may still visit the quay at Slaughden, some half-mile from the town, where the father worked and the son was at a later date to work with him. At first attending a dame's school in Aldeburgh, when nine or ten years of age he was sent to a boarding-school at Bungay, and at twelve to a school at Stowmarket, where he remained two years. His father dreamt of the medical profession for his clever boy, and so in 1768 he went to Wickham Brook near Newmarket as an apothecary's assistant. In 1771 we find him assisting a surgeon at Woodbridge, and it was while here that he met Sarah Elmy. Crabbe was now only eighteen years of age, but he became "engaged" to this lady in 1772. It was not until 1783 that the pair were married. The intervening years were made up of painful struggle, in which, however, not only the affection but the purse of his betrothed assisted him. About the time of Crabbe's return from Woodbridge to Aldeburgh he published at Ipswich his first work, a poem entitled _Inebriety_ (1775). He found his father fallen on evil days. There was no money to assist him to a partnership, and surgery for the moment seemed out of the question. For a few weeks Crabbe worked as a common labourer, rolling butter casks on Slaughden quay. Before the year was out, however, the young man bought on credit "the shattered furniture of an apothecary's shop and the drugs that stocked it." This was at Aldeburgh. A year later Crabbe installed a deputy in the surgery and paid his first visit to London. He lodged in Whitechapel, took lessons in midwifery and walked the hospitals. Returning to Aldeburgh after nine months--in 1777--he found his practice gone. Even as a doctor for the poor he was an utter failure, poetry having probably taken too firm a hold upon his mind. At times he suffered hunger, so utterly unable was he to earn a livelihood. After three years of this, in 1780 Crabbe paid his second visit to London, enabled thereto by the loan of five pounds from Dudley Lang, a local magnate. This visit to London, which was undertaken by sea on board the "Unity" smack, made for Crabbe a successful career. His poem _The Candidate_, issued soon after his arrival, helped not at all. For a time he almost starved, and was only saved, it is clear, by gifts of money from his sweetheart Sarah Elmy. He importuned the great, and the publishers also. Everywhere he was refused, but at length a letter which reached Edmund Burke in March 1781 led to the careful consideration on the part of that great man of Crabbe's many manuscripts. Burke advised the publication of _The Library_, which appeared in 1781. He invited him to Beaconsfield, and made interest in the right quarters to secure Crabbe's entry into the church. He was ordained in December 1781 and was appointed curate to the rector of Aldeburgh.

Crabbe was not happy in his new post. The Aldeburgh folk could not reverence as priest a man they had known as a day labourer. Crabbe again appealed to Burke, who persuaded the duke of Rutland to make him his chaplain (1782), and Crabbe took up his residence in Belvoir Castle, accompanying his new patron to London, when Lord Chancellor Thurlow (who told him he was "as like Parson Adams as twelve to the dozen") gave him the two livings of Frome St Quentin and Evershot in Dorsetshire, worth together about L200 a year. In May 1783 Crabbe's poem _The Village_ was published by Dodsley, and in December of this year he married Sarah Elmy. Crabbe continued his duties as ducal chaplain, being in the main a non-resident priest so far as his Dorsetshire parishes were concerned. In 1785 he published _The Newspaper_. Shortly after this he moved with his wife from Belvoir Castle to the parsonage of Stathern, where he took the duties of the non-resident vicar Thomas Parke, archdeacon of Stamford. Crabbe was at Stathern for four years. In 1789, through the persuasion of the duchess of Rutland (now a widow, the duke having died in Dublin as lord-lieutenant of Ireland in 1787), Thurlow gave Crabbe the two livings of Muston in Leicestershire and West Allington in Lincolnshire. At Muston parsonage Crabbe resided for twelve years, divided by a long interval. He had been four years at Muston when his wife inherited certain interests in a property of her uncle's that placed her and her husband in possession of Ducking Hall, Parham, Suffolk. Here he took up his residence from 1793 to 1796, leaving curates in charge of his two livings. In 1796 the loss of their son Edmund led the Crabbes to remove from Parham to Great Glemham Hall, Suffolk, where they lived until 1801. In that year Crabbe went to live at Rendham, a village in the same neighbourhood. In 1805 he returned to Muston. In 1807 he broke a silence of more than twenty years by the publication of _The Parish Register_, in 1810 of _The Borough_, and in 1812 of _Tales in Verse_. In 1813 Crabbe's wife died, and in 1814 he was given the living of Trowbridge, Wiltshire, by the duke of Rutland, a son of his early patron, who, it is interesting to recall, wanted the living of Muston for a cousin of Lord Byron. From 1814 to his death in 1832 Crabbe resided at Trowbridge.

These last years were the most prosperous of his life. He was a constant visitor to London, and in friendship with all the literary celebrities of the time. "Crabbe seemed to grow young again," remarks his biographer, M. Rene Huchon. He certainly carried on a succession of mild flirtations, and one of his parishioners, Charlotte Ridout, would have married him. The elderly widower had proposed to her and had been accepted in 1814, but he drew out of the engagement in 1816. He proposed to yet another friend, Elizabeth Charter, somewhat later. In his visits to London Crabbe was the guest of Samuel Rogers, in St James's Place, and was a frequent visitor to Holland House, where he met his brother poets Moore and Campbell. In 1817 his _Tales of the Hall_ were completed, and John Murray offered L3000 for the copyright, Crabbe's previous works being included. The offer after much negotiation was accepted, but Crabbe's popularity was now on the wane.

In 1822 Crabbe went to Edinburgh on a visit to Sir Walter Scott. The adventure, complicated as it was by the visit of George IV. about the same time, is most amusingly described in Lockhart's biography of Scott, although one episode--that of the broken wine-glass--is discredited by Crabbe's biographer, M. Huchon. Crabbe died at Trowbridge on the 3rd of February 1832, and was buried in Trowbridge church, where an ornate monument was placed over his tomb in August 1833.

Never was any poet at the same time so great and continuous a favourite with the critics, and yet so conspicuously allowed to fall into oblivion by the public. All the poets of his earlier and his later years, Cowper, Scott, Byron, Shelley in particular, have been reprinted again and again. With Crabbe it was long quite otherwise. His works were collected into eight volumes, the first containing his life by his son, in 1832. The edition was intended to continue with some of his prose writings, but the reception of the eight volumes was not sufficiently encouraging. A reprint, however, in one volume was made in 1847, and it has been reproduced since in 1854, 1867 and 1901. The exhaustion of the copyright, however, did no good for Crabbe's reputation, and it was not until the end of the century that sundry volumes of "selections" from his poems appeared; Edward FitzGerald, of Omar Khayyam fame, always a loyal admirer, made a "Selection," privately printed by Quaritch, in 1879. A "Selection" by Bernard Holland appeared in 1899, another by C. H. Herford in 1902 and a third by Deane in 1903. The _Complete Works_ were published by the Cambridge University Press in three volumes, edited by A. W. Ward, in 1906.

Crabbe's poems have been praised by many competent pens, by Edward FitzGerald in his _Letters_, by Cardinal Newman in his _Apologia_, and by Sir Leslie Stephen in his _Hours in a Library_, most notably. His verses comforted the last hours of Charles James Fox and of Sir Walter Scott, while Thomas Hardy has acknowledged their influence on the realism of his novels. But his works have ceased to command a wide public interest. He just failed of being the artist in words who is able to make the same appeal in all ages. Yet to-day his poems will well repay perusal. His stories are profoundly poignant and when once read are never forgotten. He is one of the great realists of English fiction, for even considered as a novelist he makes fascinating reading. He is more than this: for there is true poetry in Crabbe, although his most distinctively lyric note was attained when he wrote under the influence of opium, to which he became much addicted in his later years.

BIBLIOGRAPHY.--_The Works of Crabbe_ (8 vols., Murray, 1834; 1 vol.,
Murray, 1901), and the _Works_ in the Cambridge Press Classics, edited
by A. W. Ward (1906), have already been referred to. The life by
Crabbe's son in one volume, _The Life of the Rev. George Crabbe,
LL.B., by his son the Rev. George Crabbe, A.M._ (1834), has not been
separately reprinted as it deserves to be. A recent biography is
_George Crabbe and His Times, 1754-1832; A Critical and Biographical
Study_, by Rene Huchon, translated from the French by Frederick Clarke
(1907). Brief biographies by T. H. Kebbel ("Great Writers" series) and
by Canon Ainger ("English Men of Letters" series) also deserve
attention. (C. K. S.)

CRACKER (from "crack," a common Teutonic word, cf. Ger. _krachen_, Dutch _kraken_, meaning to break with a sharp sound), that which "cracks"; it is, therefore, applied (1) to a firework so constructed that it explodes with several reports and jumps at each explosion, when placed on the ground (see FIREWORKS); (2) to a roll of coloured and ornamented paper containing sweets, small articles of cheap jewelry, paper caps and other trifles, together with a strip of card with a fulminant which explodes with a "crack" on being pulled; (3) to a thin crisp biscuit (q.v.); in America the general name for a biscuit. In the southern states of America, "cracker" is a term of contempt for the "poor" or "mean whites," particularly of Georgia and Florida; the term is an old one and dates back to the Revolution, and is supposed to be derived from the "cracked corn" which formed the staple food of the class to whom the term refers.

CRACOW (Pol. _Krakov_; Ger. _Krakau_), a town and episcopal see of Austria, in Galicia, 212 m. W. by N. of Lemberg by rail. Pop. (1900) 91,310, of which 21,000 were Jews, 5000 Germans and the remainder Poles. Although in regard to its population it is only the second place in Galicia, Cracow is the most interesting town in the whole of Poland. No other Polish town possesses so many old and historic buildings, none of them contains so many national relics, or has been so closely associated with the development and destinies of Poland as Cracow. And the ancient capital is still the intellectual centre of the Polish nation.

Cracow is situated in a fertile plain on the left bank of the Vistula (which becomes navigable here) and occupies a position of great strategical importance. It consists of the old inner town and seven suburbs. The only relics of the fortifications of the old town, whose place is now occupied by shady promenades, is the Florian's Gate and the Rondell, a circular structure, built in 1498. Cracow has 39 churches--about half the number it formerly had--and 25 convents for monks and nuns. Of these the most important is the Stanislaus cathedral, in Gothic style, consecrated in 1359, and built on the Wawel, the rocky eminence to the S.W. of the old town. Here the kings of Poland were crowned, and this church is also the Pantheon of the Polish nation, the burial place of its kings and its great men. Here lie the remains of John Sobieski, of Thaddaeus Kosciuszko, of Joseph Poniatowski and of Adam Mickiewicz. Here also are conserved the remains of St Stanislaus, the patron saint of the Poles, who, as bishop of Cracow, was slain before the altar by King Boleslaus in 1079. The cathedral is adorned with many valuable objects of art, paintings and sculptures, by such artists as Veit Stoss, Guido Reni, Peter Vischer, Thorwaldsen, &c. Part of the ancient Polish regalia is also kept here. The Gothic church of St Mary, founded in 1223, rebuilt in the 14th century with several chapels added in the 15th and 16th centuries, was restored in 1889-1893, and decorated with paintings from the designs by Matejko. It contains a huge high altar, the masterpiece of Veit Stoss, who was a native of Cracow, executed in 1477-1489; a colossal stone crucifix, dating from the end of the 15th century, and several sumptuous tombs of noble families from the 16th and 17th centuries. The Dominican church, a Gothic building of the 13th century, but practically rebuilt after a fire in 1850; the Franciscan church, also of the 13th century, also much modernized; the church of St Florian of the 12th century, rebuilt in 1768, which contains the late-Gothic altar by Veit Stoss, executed in 1518, during his last sojourn in Cracow; the church of St Peter, with a colossal dome, built in 1597, after the model of that of St Peter at Rome, and the beautiful Augustinian church in the suburb of Kazimierz, are all worth mentioning. Of the principal secular buildings, the royal castle (_Zamek Krolowsk_), a huge building, begun in the 13th century, and successively enlarged by Casimir the Great and by Sigismund I. Jagiello (1510-1533), is situated on the Wawel, and was until 1610 the residence of the Polish kings. It suffered much from fires and other disasters, and from 1846 onward was used as a barracks and a military hospital; it has now, however, been cleared out and restored. The Jagellonian university, now housed in a magnificent Gothic building erected in 1881-1887, was attended in 1901 by 1255 students, and had 175 professors and lecturers. The language of instruction is Polish. It is the second oldest university in Europe--the oldest being that of Prague--and was famous during the 15th and 16th centuries. It was founded by Casimir the Great in 1364, and completed by Ladislaus Jagiello in 1400. Its rich library is now housed in the old university buildings, erected in the 15th century, in the beautiful Gothic court of which a bronze statue of Copernicus was placed in 1900. The Polish Academy of Science, founded in 1872, is housed in the new university buildings. In the Ring-Platz, or the principal square, opposite the church of St Mary, is the _Tuchhaus_ (cloth-hall, Pol. _Sukiennice_), a building erected in 1257, several times renovated and enlarged, most recently in 1879, which contains the Polish national museum of art. Behind it is a Gothic tower, the only relic of the old town hall, demolished in 1820. The Czartoryski museum contains a large collection of objects of art, a rich library and a precious collection of manuscripts, relating to the history of Poland.

Among the manufactures of the town are machinery, agricultural implements, chemicals, soap, tobacco, &c. But Cracow is more important as a trading than as an industrial centre. Its position on the Vistula and at the junction of several railways makes it the natural mart for the exchange of the products of Silesia, Hungary and Russian and Austrian Poland. Its trade in timber, salt, textiles, cattle, wine and agricultural produce of all kinds is very considerable. In the neighbourhood of Cracow there are mines of coal and zinc, and not far away lies the village of Krzeszowice with sulphur baths. About 2-1/2 m. N.W. lies the Kosciuszko Hill, a mound of earth 100 ft. high, thrown up in 1820-1823 on the Borislava hill (1093 ft.), in honour of Thaddaeus Kosciuszko, the hero of Poland. On the opposite bank of the Vistula, united to Cracow by a bridge, lies the town of Podgorze (pop. 18,142); near it is the Krakus Hill, smaller than the Kosciuszko Hill, and a thousand years older than it, erected in honour of Krakus, the founder of Cracow. About 8 m. S.E. of Cracow is situated Wieliczka (q.v.), with its famous salt mines.

_History._--Tradition assigns the foundation of Cracow to the mythical Krak, a Polish prince who is said to have built a stronghold here about A.D. 700. Its early history is, however, entirely obscure. In the latter part of the 10th century it was annexed to the Bohemian principality, but was recaptured by Boleslaus Chrobry, who made it the seat of a bishopric, and it became the capital of one of the most important of the principalities into which Poland was divided from the 12th century onwards. The city was practically ruined during the first Tatar invasion in 1241, but the introduction of German colonists restored its prosperity, and in 1257 it received "Magdeburg rights," i.e. a civic constitution modelled on that of Magdeburg. In this year the _Tuchhalle_ was built. The town, however, had yet to pass through many vicissitudes. It suffered again from Tatar invasions; in 1290 it was captured by Wenceslaus II. of Bohemia and was held by the Bohemians until, in 1305, the Polish king Ladislaus Lokietek recovered it from Wenceslaus III. Ladislaus made it his capital, and from this time until 1764 it remained the coronation and burial place of the Polish kings, even after the royal residence had been removed by Siegmund III. (1587-1632) to Warsaw. On the third partition of Poland in 1795 Austria took possession of Cracow; but in 1809 Napoleon wrested it from that power, and incorporated it with the duchy of Warsaw, which was placed under the rule of the king of Saxony. In the campaign of 1812 the emperor Alexander made himself master of this and the other territory which formed the duchy of Warsaw. At the general settlement of the affairs of Europe by the great powers in 1815, it was agreed that Cracow and the adjoining territory should be formed into a free state; and, by the Final Act of the congress signed at Vienna in 1815, "the town of Cracow, with its territory, is declared to be for ever a free, independent and strictly neutral city, under the protection of Russia, Austria and Prussia." In February 1846, however, an insurrection broke out in Cracow, apparently a ramification of a widely spread conspiracy throughout Poland. The senate and the other authorities of Cracow were unable to subdue the rebels or to maintain order, and, at their request, the city was occupied by a corps of Austrian troops for the protection of the inhabitants. The three powers, Russia, Austria and Prussia, made this a pretext for extinguishing this independent state; and as the outcome of a conference at Vienna (November 1846) the three courts, contrary to the assurance previously given, and in opposition to the expressed views of the British and French governments, decided to extinguish the state of Cracow and to incorporate it with the dominions of Austria.

CRADDOCK, CHARLES EGBERT (1850- ), the pen-name of MARY NOAILLES MURFREE, American author, who was born near Murfreesboro, Tennessee, on the 24th of January 1850, the great-granddaughter of Col. Hardy Murfree. She was crippled in childhood by paralysis. She attended school in Nashville and Philadelphia. Spending her summers in the mountains of eastern Tennessee, she came to know the primitive people there with whose life her writings deal. She contributed to _Appleton's Journal_, and, first in 1878, to _The Atlantic Monthly_. No one, apparently, suspected that the author of these stories was a woman, and her identity was not disclosed until 1885, a year after the publication of her first volume of short stories, _In the Tennessee Mountains_. She deals mainly with the narrow, stern life of the Tennessee mountaineers, who, left behind in the advance of civilization, live amid traditions and customs, and speak a dialect, peculiarly their own; and her work abounds in exquisite descriptions of scenery. Among her other books are: _Where the Battle was Fought_ (1884), a novel dealing with the old aristocratic southern life; _Down the Ravine_ (1885) and _The Story of Keedon Bluffs_ (1887) for young people; _The Prophet of the Great Smoky Mountains_ (1885), a novel; _In the Clouds_ (1886), a novel; _The Despot of Broomsedge Cove_ (1888), a novel; _In the "Stranger-People's" Country_ (1891); _His Vanished Star_ (1894), a novel; _The Mystery of Witch-Face Mountain and Other Stories_ (1895); _The Phantoms of the Footbridge and Other Stories_ (1895); _The Young Mountaineers_ (1897), short stories; _The Juggler_ (1897); _The Story of Old Fort Loudon_ (1899); _The Bushwhackers and Other Stories_ (1899); _The Champion_ (1902); _A Spectre of Power_ (1903); _The Frontiersman_ (1904); _The Storm Centre_ (1905); _The Amulet_ (1906); _The Windfall_ (1907); and _Fair Mississippian_ (1908).

CRADLE (of uncertain etymology, possibly connected with "crate" and "creel," i.e. basket; the derivation from a Celtic word, with a sense of rocking, is scouted by the _New English Dictionary_), a child's bed of wood, wicker or iron, with enclosed sides, slung upon pivots or mounted on rockers. It is a very ancient piece of furniture, but the date when it first assumed its characteristic swinging or rocking form is by no means clear. A miniature in an illuminated _Histoire de la belle Helaine_ in the Bibliotheque Nationale in Paris (end of the 14th or beginning of the 15th century) shows an infant sleeping in a tiny four-post bed slung upon rockers. In its oldest forms the cradle is an oblong oak box without a lid--originally the rockers appear to have been detachable--but, like all other household appliances, it has been subject to changes of fashion alike in shape and adornment. It has been panelled and carved, supported on Renaissance pillars, inlaid with marqueterie or mounted in gilded bronze. The original simple shape persisted for two or three centuries--even the hood made its appearance very early. In the 18th century, however, cradles were often very elaborate--indeed in France they had begun to be so much earlier, but the richly carved and upholstered examples were used chiefly for purposes of state, being in fact miniature _lits de parade_. In modern times they have become lighter and simpler, the old hood being very often replaced by a draped curtain dependent from a carved or shaped upright. About the middle of the 19th century iron cradles were introduced, along with iron bedsteads. A number of undoubted historic cradles have been preserved, together with many others with doubtful attributions. Two alleged cradles of Henry V. exist; one which claims to have been used by the unhappy earl of Derwentwater is in the Victoria and Albert Museum in London; the other is at Windsor Castle. That of Henry IV. of France, now in the Chateau de Pau, is mounted upon a large tortoiseshell. That of the king of Rome ("Napoleon II.") was designed by Prud'hon, and along with that of the comte de Chambord is preserved in the Garde Meuble. In England a cradle is now often called a "bassinet" (i.e. little basket), and the "cot" has to some extent taken its place. By analogy, the word "cradle" is also applied to various sorts of framework in engineering, and to a rocking-tool used in engraving.

CRADOCK, a town of South Africa, capital of a division of the Cape province, in the upper valley of the Great Fish river, 181 m. by rail N. by E. of Port Elizabeth. Pop. (1904) 7762. It is one of the chief centres of the wool industry of the Cape, and does also a large trade in ostrich feathers, mohair, &c. The town enjoys a reputation as one of the best health resorts in the province. It stands at an altitude of 2856 ft.; the climate is very dry, the average annual rainfall being 14.50 in. The mean maximum temperature is 77.6 deg. F. Three miles N. of the town are sulphur baths (temp. 100 deg. F.) used for the treatment of rheumatism. In the neighbouring district survive a few herds of zebras, now protected by the game laws. The town dates from the beginning of the 19th century and is named after Sir John Cradock, governor of the Cape 1811-1813. The division has an area of 3048 sq. m. and a pop. (1904) of 18,803, of whom 41% are white.

CRAFT (a word common to Teutonic languages for strength, or power; cf. Ger. _Kraft_), a word confined in English only, of the Teutonic languages in which it occurs, to intellectual power, and used as a synonym of "art." It then means skill or ingenuity, especially in the manual arts, hence its use in the expression "Arts and Crafts" (q.v.), and it is thus applied to the trade or profession in which such skill is displayed, to an association of workmen of a particular trade, a trade gild, and in particular to Freemasons, "the craft"; the word appears also in words such as "handicraft" or "craftsman." Skill applied to outwit or deceive gives the common sense of cunning or trickery, and it is this meaning which is implied in such combined words as "priestcraft," "witchcraft" and the like. A more particular use of the word is in the nautical sense of vessels of transport by water; this is probably a colloquially shortened form either of "vessels of a fisherman's, lighterman's &c., craft," i.e. "art," or of "vessels of a heavier or lighter craft," i.e. burden or capacity; in both cases the qualifying words are dropped and the word comes to be used of vessels in general.

CRAG (a Celtic word, cf. Gael. _creag_, Manx _creg_, and Welsh and modern Scots _craig_), a steep rock. The word appears in many place-names in the north of England and in Scotland, and is also connected with "carrick," a word of similar meaning, also found in place-names. In geology, the term is applied to the strata in which a shelly sand deposit is found, and, in the expression "crag and tail," to a formation of hills, in which one side is precipitous and lofty and the other slopes or "tails" gradually away, as in the Castle Rock in Edinburgh.

CRAGGS, JAMES (1657-1721), English politician, was a son of Anthony Craggs of Holbeck, Durham, and was baptized on the 10th of June 1657. After following various callings in London, Craggs, who was a person of considerable financial ability, entered the service of the duchess of Marlborough, and through her influence became in 1702 member of parliament for Grampound, retaining his seat until 1713. He was in business as an army clothier and held several official positions, becoming joint postmaster-general in 1715; and, making the most of his opportunities in all these capacities, he amassed a great deal of money. Craggs also increased his wealth by mixing in the affairs of the South Sea Company, but after his death an act of parliament confiscated all the property which he had acquired since December 1719. He left an enormous fortune when he died on the 16th of March 1721. It is possible that Craggs committed suicide.

His son, JAMES CRAGGS the younger (1686-1721), was born at Westminster on the 9th of April 1686. Part of his early life was spent abroad, where he made the acquaintance of George Louis, elector of Hanover, afterwards King George I. In 1713 he became member of parliament for Tregoney, in 1717 secretary-at-war, and in the following year one of the principal secretaries of state. Craggs was implicated in the South Sea Bubble, but not so deeply as his father, whom he predeceased, dying on the 16th of February 1721. Among Craggs's friends were Pope, who wrote the epitaph on his monument in Westminster Abbey, Addison and Gay.

CRAIG, JOHN (1512?-1600), Scottish reformer, born about 1512, was the son of Craig of Craigston, Aberdeenshire, who was killed at Flodden in 1513. After an education at St Andrews, and acting as tutor to the children of Lord Darcy, the English warden of the North, he became a Dominican, but was soon in trouble as a heretic. In 1536 he made his way to England, but failing to obtain the preferment he desired at Cambridge, he went on to Italy, where the influence of Cardinal Pole, who was himself accused of heresy, secured him the post of master of the novices in the Dominican convent at Bologna. For some years he was busy travelling in the Levant in the interests of his order, but a perusal of Calvin's _Institutes_ revived his heretical tendencies, and he was condemned to be burnt. Like the English scholar and statesman, Thomas Wilson, he owed his escape to the riot which broke out on the death of Paul IV. on the 18th of August 1559, when the mob burst open the prison of the Inquisition. After various adventures he reached Vienna, where he preached, and was protected by the semi-Lutheran archduke (afterwards the emperor) Maximilian II.

In 1560 he returned to Scotland, where in 1561 he was ordained minister of Holyrood, and in 1562 Knox's colleague in the High Church. His defence of church property and privilege against the predatory instincts of the nobles and the pretensions of the state brought him into conflict with Lethington and others; but he seems to have condoned, if he was not privy to, Riccio's murder. At first he refused to publish the banns of marriage between Mary and Bothwell, though in the end he yielded with a protest that he "abhorred and detested the marriage." He had been associated with Knox in various commissions for the organization of the church, but he wished to compromise between the two extreme parties. From 1571-1579 Craig was in the north, whither he had been sent to "illuminate those dark places in Mar, Buchan and Aberdeen." In 1579 he was appointed chaplain to the young James VI., and returned to Edinburgh. In 1581 episcopacy was abolished as a result of the report of a commission on which Craig had sat; he also assisted at the composition of the _Second Book of Discipline_ and the National Covenant of 1580, and in 1581 compiled "Ane Shorte and Generale Confession" called the "King's Confession," which was imposed on all parish ministers and graduates and became the basis of the Covenant of 1638. He approved of the Ruthven raid, and admonished James in terms which made him weep, but produced no alteration in his conduct, and before long Craig was denouncing the supremacy of Arran. But he was averse from the violence of Melville, and was willing to admit the royal supremacy "as far as the word of God allows." James VI., like Henry VIII., accepted this compromise, and the oath in this form was taken by Craig, the royal chaplains and some others. In 1592 was published Craig's _Catechism_. He died on the 12th of December 1600.

See T. G. Law's Pref. to Craig's _Catechism_ (1885); Bain's _Cal.
Scottish State Papers_; Reg. P. C. Scotl.; Hew Scott's _Fasti Eccles._
Scot.; Knox's, Calderwood's and Grub's _Eccles. Histories_; McCrie's
_Life of Melville_; Hay Fleming's _Mary, Queen of Scots_; Bannatyne's
_Memorials_. (A. F. P.)

CRAIG, SIR THOMAS (c. 1538-1608), Scottish jurist and poet, was born about 1538. It is probable that he was the eldest son of William Craig of Craigfintray, or Craigston, in Aberdeenshire, but beyond the fact that he was in some way related to the Craigfintray family nothing regarding his birth is known with certainty. He was educated at St Andrews, where he took the B.A. degree in 1555. From St Andrews he went to France, to study the canon and the civil law. He returned to Scotland about 1561, and was admitted advocate in February 1563. In 1564 he was appointed justice-depute by the justice-general, Archibald, earl of Argyll; and in this capacity he presided at many of the criminal trials of the period. In 1573 he was appointed sheriff-depute of Edinburgh, and in 1606 procurator for the church. He never became a lord of session, a circumstance that was unquestionably due to his own choice. It is said that he refused the honour of knighthood which the king wished to confer on him in 1604, when he came to London as one of the Scottish commissioners regarding the union between the kingdoms--the only political object he seems to have cared about; but in accordance with James's commands he has always been styled and reputed a knight. Craig was married to Helen, daughter of Heriot of Lumphoy in Midlothian, by whom he had four sons and three daughters. His eldest son, Sir Lewis Craig (1569-1622), was raised to the bench in 1604, and among his other descendants are several well-known names in the list of Scottish lawyers. He died on the 26th of February 1608.

Except his poems, the only one of Craig's works which appeared during his lifetime was his _Jus feudale_ (1603; ed. R. Burnet, 1655; Leipzig, 1716; ed. J. Baillie 1732). The object of this treatise was to assimilate the laws of England and Scotland, but, instead of this, it was an important factor in building up and solidifying the law of Scotland into a separate system. Other works were _De unione regnorum Britanniae tractatus, De jure successionis regni Angliae_ and _De hominio disputatio_. Translations of the last two have been published, and in 1910 an edition of the _De Unione_ appeared, with translation and notes by C. S. Terry. Craig's first poem, an _Epithalamium_ in honour of the marriage of Mary queen of Scots and Darnley, appeared in 1565. Most of his poems have been reprinted in the _Delitiae poetarum Scotorum_.

See P. F. Tytler, _Life of Craig_ (1823); Life prefixed to Baillie's
edition of the _Jus feudale_.

CRAIGIE, PEARL MARY TERESA (1867-1906), Anglo-American novelist and dramatist, who wrote under the pen-name of "JOHN OLIVER HOBBES," was born at Boston, U.S.A., on the 3rd of November 1867. She was the elder daughter of John Morgan Richards, and was educated in London and Paris. When she was nineteen she married Reginald Walpole Craigie, by whom she had one son, John Churchill Craigie: but the marriage proved an unhappy one, and was dissolved on her petition in July 1895. She was brought up as a Nonconformist, but in 1892 was received into the Roman Catholic Church, of which she remained a devout and serious member. Her first little book, the brilliant and epigrammatic _Some Emotions and a Moral_, was published in 1891 in Mr Fisher Unwin's "Pseudonym Library," and was followed by _The Sinner's Comedy_ (1892), _A Study in Temptations_ (1893), _A Bundle of Life_ (1894), _The Gods, Some Mortals, and Lord Wickenham_. _The Herb Moon_ (1896), a country love story, was followed by _The School for Saints_ (1897), with a sequel, _Robert Orange_ (1900). Mrs Craigie had already written a one-act "proverb," _Journeys end in Lovers Meeting_, produced by Ellen Terry in 1894, and a three-act tragedy, "Osbern and Ursyne," printed in the _Anglo-Saxon Review_ (1899), when her successful piece, _The Ambassador_, was produced at the St James's Theatre in 1898. _A Repentance_ (one act, 1899) and _The Wisdom of the Wise_ (1900) were produced at the same theatre, and _The Flute of Pan_ (1904) first at Manchester and then at the Shaftesbury theatre; she was also part author of _The Bishop's Move_ (Garrick Theatre, 1902). Later books are _The Serious Wooing_ (1901), _Love and the Soul Hunters_ (1902), _Tales about Temperament_ (1902), _The Vineyard_ (1904). Mrs Craigie died suddenly of heart failure in London on the 13th of August 1906.

CRAIK, DINAH MARIA (1826-1887), English novelist, better known by her maiden name of Mulock, and still better as "the author of _John Halifax, Gentleman_," was the daughter of Thomas Mulock, an eccentric religious enthusiast of Irish extraction, and was born on the 20th of April 1826 at Stoke-upon-Trent, in Staffordshire, where her father was the minister of a small congregation. She settled in London about 1846, determined to obtain a livelihood by her pen, and, beginning with fiction for children, advanced steadily until _John Halifax, Gentleman_ (1857), placed her in the front rank of the women novelists of her day. _A Life for a Life_ (1859), though inferior, maintained a high position, but she afterwards wrote little of importance except some very charming tales for children. Her most remarkable novels, after those mentioned above, were _The Ogilvies_ (1849), _Olive_ (1850), _The Head of the Family_ (1851), _Agatha's Husband_ (1853). There is much passion and power in these early works, and all that Mrs Craik wrote was characterized by high principle and deep feeling. Some of the short stories in _Avillion and other Tales_ also exhibit a fine imagination. She published some poems distinguished by genuine lyrical spirit, narratives of tours in Ireland and Cornwall, and _A Woman's Thoughts about Women_. She married Mr G. L. Craik, a partner in the house of Macmillan & Company, in 1864, and died at Shortlands, near Bromley, Kent, on the 12th of October 1887.