Character Sketches of Romance Volume I Part 81

_Lady Constant_, wife of Sir Bashful, a woman of spirit, taste, sense, wit, and beauty. She loves her husband, and repels with scorn an attempt to shake her fidelity because he treats her with cold indifference.--A. Murphy, _The Way to Keep Him_ (1760).

CONSTAN'TIA, sister of Petruccio, governor of Bologna, and mistress of the duke of Ferrara.--Beaumont and Fletcher, _The Chances_ (1620).

_Constantia_, a _protegee_ of Lady McSycophant. An amiable girl, in love with Egerton McSycophant, by whom her love is amply returned.--C.

Macklin, _The Man of the World_ (1764).

CON'STANTINE (_3 syl._), a king of Scotland, who (in 937) joined Anlaf (a Danish king) against Athelstan. The allied kings were defeated at Brunanburh, in Northumberland, and Constantine was made prisoner.

Our English Athelstan ...

Made all the Isle his own, And Constantine, the king a prisoner hither brought.

Drayton, _Polyolbion_, xii. 3 (1613).

CONSTANTINOPLE (_Little_), Kertch was so called by the Genoese from its extent and its prosperity. Demosthenes calls it "the granary of Athens."

CONSUELO (_4 syl._), the impersonation of moral purity in the midst of temptations. Consuelo is the heroine of a novel so called by George Sand (i.e. Mde. Dudevant).

CONTEMPORANEOUS DISCOVERIES. Goethe and Vicq d'Azyrs discovered at the same time the intermaxillary bone. Goethe and Von Baer discovered at the same time Morphology. Goethe and Oken discovered at the same time the vertebral system. _The Penny Cyclopaedia_ and _Chambers's Journal_ were started nearly at the same time. The invention of printing is claimed by several contemporaries. The processes called Talbotype and Daguerreotype were nearly simultaneous discoveries. Leverrier and Adams discovered at the same time the planet Neptune.

[Ill.u.s.tration] This list may be extended to a very great length.

CONTENTED MAN (_The_). Subject of a poem by Rev. John Adams in 1745

No want contracts the largeness of his thoughts, And nothing grieves him but his conscious faults, He makes his G.o.d his everlasting tower And in His firm munition stands secure.

CONTEST _(Sir Adam_). Having lost his first wife by s.h.i.+pwreck, he married again after the lapse of some twelve or fourteen years. His second wife was a girl of 18, to whom he held up his first wife as a pattern and the very paragon of women. On the wedding day this first wife made her appearance. She had been saved from the wreck; but Sir Adam wished her in heaven most sincerely.

_Lady Contest_, the bride of Sir Adam, "young, extremely lively, and prodigiously beautiful." She had been brought up in the country, and treated as a child, so her _navete_ was quite captivating. When she quitted the bride-groom's house, she said, "Good-by, Sir Adam, good-by. I did love you a little, upon my word, and should be really unhappy if I did not know that your happiness will be infinitely greater with your first wife."

_Mr. Contest_, the grown-up son of Sir Adam, by his first wife.--Mrs.

Inchbald, _The Wedding Day_ (1790).

CONTINENCE.

ALEXANDER THE GREAT having gained the battle of Issus (B.C. 333), the family of King Darius fell into his hands; but he treated the ladies as queens, and observed the greatest decorum towards them. A eunuch, having escaped, told Darius that his wife remained unspotted, for Alexander had shown himself the most continent and generous of men.--Arrian, _Anabasis of Alexander_, iv. 20.

SCIPIO AFRICa.n.u.s, after the conquest of Spain, refused to touch a beautiful princess who had fallen into his hands, "lest he should be tempted to forget his principles." It is, moreover, said that he sent her back to her parents with presents, that she might marry the man to whom she was betrothed. A silver s.h.i.+eld, on which this incident was depicted, was found in the river Rhone by some fishermen in the seventeenth century.

E'en Scipio, or a victor yet more cold, Might have forgot his virtue at her sight.

N. Rowe, _Tamerlane_, iii. 3 (1702.)

ANSON, when he took the _Senhora Theresa de Jesus_, refused even to see the three Spanish ladies who formed part of the prize, because he was resolved to prevent private scandal. The three ladies consisted of a mother and her two daughters, the younger of whom was "of surpa.s.sing beauty."

CONVEN'TUAL FRIARS are those who live in _convents_, contrary to the rule of St. Francis, who enjoined absolute poverty, without land, books, chapel, or house. Those who conform to the rule of the founder are called "Observant Friars."

CONVERSATION SHARP, Richard Sharp, the critic (1759-1835.)

COOK WHO KILLED HIMSELF (_The_). Vatel killed himself in 1671, because the lobster for his turbot sauce did not arrive in time to be served up at the banquet at Chantilly, given by the Prince de Conde to the king.

COOKS OF MODERN TIMES. Careme, called "The Regenerator of Cookery"

(1784-1833). Charles Elme Francatelli, cook at Crockford's, then in the Royal Household, and lastly at the Reform Club (1805-1876). Ude, Gouffe, and Alexis Soyer, the last of whom died in 1858.

COOKERY (_Regenerator of_), Careme (1784-1833.)

(Ude, Gouffe, and Soyer were also regenerators of this art).

COOPER (_Anthony Ashly_,) earl of Shaftesbury, introduced by Sir W.

Scott in _Peveril of the Peak_ (time, Charles II.)

COPHET'UA or COPET'HUA, a mythical king of Africa, of great wealth, who fell in love with a beggar-girl, and married her. Her name was Penel'ophon, but Shakespeare writes it Zenel'ophon in _Love's Labour's Lost_, act iv. sc. 1. Tennyson has versified the tale in _The Beggar-Maid._--Percy, _Reliques_, I. ii. 6.

COPLEY (_Sir Thomas_), in attendance on the earl of Leicester at Woodstock.--Sir W. Scott, _Kenilworth_ (time, Elizabeth).

COPPER CAPTAIN (_A_), Michael Perez, a captain without money, but with a plentiful stock of pretence, who seeks to make a market of his person and commission by marrying an heiress. He is caught in his own trap, for he marries Estifania, a woman of intrigue, fancying her to be the heiress Margaritta. The captain gives the lady "pearls," but they are only whitings' eyes. His wife says to him:

Here's a goodly jewel..

Did you not win this at Goletta, captain?..

See how it sparkles, like an old lady's eyes..

And here's a chain of whitings' eyes for pearls..

Your clothes are parallels to these, all counterfeits.

Put these and them on you're a man of copper, A copper,... copper captain.

Beaumont and Fletcher, _Rule a Wife and Have a Wife_ (1640).

COPPERFLELD (_David_), the hero of a novel by Charles d.i.c.kens. David is d.i.c.kens himself, and Micawber is d.i.c.kens's father. According to the tale, David's mother was nursery governess in a family where Mr. Copperfield visited. At the death of Mr. Copperfield, the widow married Edward Murdstone, a hard, tyrannical man, who made the home of David a dread and terror to the boy. When his mother died, Murdstone sent David to lodge with the Micawbers, and bound him apprentice to Messrs. Murdstone and Grinby, by whom he was put into the warehouse, and set to paste labels upon wine and spirit bottles. David soon became tired of this dreary work, and ran away to Dover, where he was kindly received by his [great]-aunt Betsey Trotwood, who clothed him, and sent him as day-boy to Dr. Strong, but placed him to board with Mr. Wickfield, a lawyer, father of Agnes, between whom and David a mutual attachment sprang up. David's first wife was Dora Spenlow, but at the death of this pretty little "child-wife," he married Agnes Wickfield.--C. d.i.c.kens, _David Copperfield_ (1849).

COPPERHEADS, members of a faction in the North, during the civil war in the United States. The copperhead is a poisonous serpent, that gives no warning of its approach, and hence is a type of a concealed or secret foe. (_The Trigonecephalus contortrix_.)

COPPERNOSE (_3 syl_.). Henry VIII. was so called, because he mixed so much copper with the silver coin that it showed after a little wear in the parts most p.r.o.nounced, as the nose. Hence the sobriquets "Coppernosed Harry," "Old Copper-nose," etc.

COPPLE, the hen killed by Reynard, in the beast-epic called _Reynard the Fox_ (1498).

CORA, the gentle, loving wife of Alonzo, and the kind friend of Rolla, general of the Peruvian army.--Sheridan, _Pizarro_ (altered from Kotzebue, 1799).

CORA MUNRO, the daughter of an English officer and the elder of the sisters whose adventures fill Cooper's _Last of the Mohicans._ Cora loves Heyward the as yet undeclared lover of Alice, and has, herself, attracted the covetous eye of Magua, an Indian warrior. He contrives to gain possession of her, and drawing his knife, gives her the choice between death and his wigwam.

Cora neither heard nor heeded his demand ... Once more he struggled with himself and lifted the keen weapon again--but just then a piercing cry was heard above them, and Uncas appeared, leaping frantically from a fearful height upon the ledge. Magua recoiled a step, and one of his a.s.sistants, profiting by the chance, sheathed his own knife in the bosom of Cora.

(1826).

CO'RAH, in Dryden's satire of _Absalom and Architophel_, is meant for Dr. t.i.tus Oates. As Corah was the political calumniator of Moses and Aaron, so t.i.tus Oates was the political calumniator of the pope and English papists. As Corah was punished by "going down alive into the pit," so Oates was "condemned to imprisonment for life," after being publicly whipped and exposed in the pillory. North describes t.i.tus Oates as a very short man, and says, if his mouth were taken for the centre of a circle, his chin, forehead, and cheekbones would fall in the circ.u.mference.

Sunk were his eyes, his voice was harsh and loud, Sure signs he neither choleric was, nor proud; His long chin proved his wit; his saint-like grace, A Church vermilion, and a Moses' face; His memory miraculously great Could plots, exceeding man's belief, repeat.

Dryden, _Absalom and Achitophel_, i. (1631).

CORBAC'CIO _(Signior)_, the dupe of Mosca the knavish confederate of Vol'pone (_2 syl_.). He is an old man, with seeing and hearing faint, and understanding dulled to childishness, yet he wishes to live on, and

Feels not his gout nor palsy; feigns himself Younger by scores of years; flatters his age With confident belying it; hopes he may With charms, like Aeson, have his youth restored.