The Nuttall Encyclopaedia Part 144

COTES, ROGER, an English mathematician of such promise, that Newton said of him, "If he had lived, we should have known something"

(1682-1716).

CoTES DU NORD (618), a dep. forming part of Brittany; the chief manufacture is linen.

COTIN, THE ABBe, a French preacher, born in Paris; a b.u.t.t of the sarcasm of Moliere and Boileau (1604-1682)

COTMAN, JOHN SELL, an English painter, born at Norwich; made Turner's acquaintance; produced water-colour landscapes, growing in repute; has been p.r.o.nounced "the most gifted of the Norwich School"

(1782-1842).

COTOPAXI, a volcano of the Andes, in Ecuador, the highest and most active in the world, nearly 20,000 ft., 35 m. SE. of Quito; it rises in a perfect cone, 4400 ft. above the plateau of Quito.

COTSWOLD HILLS, in Gloucesters.h.i.+re, separating the Lower Severn from the sources of the Thames; they are of limestone rock, 50 m. long, and extend N. and S.

COTTA, CAIUS, a distinguished Roman orator, 1st century B.C.; mentioned with honour by Cicero.

COTTA, German publisher, born at Stuttgart; established in Tubingen; published the works of Goethe, Schiller, Jean Paul, Herder, and others of note among their contemporaries (1764-1832).

COTTIAN ALPS, the range N. of the Maritime between France and Italy.

COTTIN, SOPHIE, a celebrated French auth.o.r.ess; wrote, among other romances, the well-known and extensively translated "Elizabeth; or, the Exiles of Siberia," a wildly romantic but irreproachably moral tale (1773-1807).

COTTLE, JOSEPH, a publisher and author; started business in Bristol; published the works of Coleridge and Southey on generous terms; wrote in his "Early Recollections" an exposure of Coleridge that has been severely criticised and generally condemned (1770-1853).

COTTON, BISHOP, born at Chester; eminent as a master at Rugby under Dr. Arnold, and as head-master at Marlborough College; was appointed Bishop of Calcutta, an office he fulfilled zealously; was drowned in the Ganges; he figures as "the young master" in "Tom Brown's School-days"

(1813-1866).

COTTON, CHARLES, a poet, born in Staffords.h.i.+re; his poetry was of the burlesque order, and somewhat gross; chiefly famous for his translation of "Montaigne's Essays"; was friend and admirer of Isaak Walton, and wrote a supplement to his "Angler" (1630-1687).

COTTON, SIR ROBERT BRUCE, a distinguished antiquary, and founder of the Cottonian Library, now in the British Museum, born at Denton; was a friend of Camden, and a.s.sisted him in his great work; was a great book-collector; was exposed to persecution for his presumed share in the publication of an obnoxious book, of which the original was found in his collection; had his books, in which he prided himself, taken from him, in consequence of which he pined and died (1571-1631).

COUCY, an old n.o.ble family of Picardy, who had for device, "Roi ne suis, ne duc, ne comte aussi; je suis le sire de Coucy." RAOUL, a court-poet of the family in the 12th century, lost his life at the siege of Acre in the third crusade.

COULOMB, a learned French physicist and engineer, born at Angouleme; the inventor of the torsion balance, and to whose labours many discoveries in electricity and magnetism are due; lived through the French Revolution retired from the strife (1736-1806).

COUNCILS, CHURCH, a.s.semblies of bishops to decide questions of doctrine and ecclesiastical discipline. They are oec.u.menical, national, or provincial, according as the bishops a.s.sembled represented the whole Church, a merely national one, or a provincial section of it. Eastern: Nice, 325 (at which Arius was condemned), 787; Constantinople, 381 (at which Apollinaris was condemned), 553, 680, 869; Ephesus, 431 (at which Nestorius was condemned); Chalcedon, 451 (at which Eutyches was condemned). Western: Lateran, 1123, 1139, 1179, 1215, 1274; Synod of Vienne, 1311; Constance, 1414; Basel, 1431-1443; Trent, 1545-1563; Vatican, 1869.

COURAYES, a French Roman Catholic ecclesiastic who pled on behalf of Anglican orders; was censured; fled to England, where he was welcomed, and received academic honours (1681-1777).

COURBET, a French vice-admiral, born at Abbeville; distinguished himself by his rapid movements and brilliant successes in the East (1827-1885).

COURBET, GUSTAVE, French painter, born at Ornans; took to landscape-painting; was head of the Realistic school; joined the Commune in 1871; his property and pictures were sold to pay the damage done, and especially to restore the Vendome Column; died an exile in Switzerland (1819-1877).

COURIER, PAUL LOUIS, a French writer, born at Paris; began life as a soldier, but being wounded at Wagram, retired from the army, and gave himself to letters; distinguished himself as the author of political pamphlets, written with a scathing irony such as has hardly been surpa.s.sed, which brought him into trouble; was a.s.sa.s.sinated on his estate by his gamekeeper (1772-1825).

COURLAND (637), a partly wooded and partly marshy province of Russia, S. of the Gulf of Riga; the population chiefly German, and Protestants; agriculture their chief pursuit.

COURT DE GeBELIN, a French writer, born at Nimes, author of a work ent.i.tled "The Primitive World a.n.a.lysed and compared with the Modern World" (1725-1784).

COURTNEY, WILLIAM, archbishop of Canterbury, no match for Wickliffe in debate, but had his revenge in persecuting his followers (1341-1396).

COURTOIS, JACQUES, a French painter of battle-pieces; became a Jesuit, died a monk (1621-1676).

COURTRAIS (29), a Belgian town on the Lys.

COUSIN, VICTOR, a French philosopher, born in Paris; founder of an eclectic school, which derived its doctrines partly from the Scottish philosophy and partly from the German, and which Dr. Chalmers in his cla.s.s-room one day characterised jocularly as neither Scotch nor German, but just half seas over; he was a lucid expounder, an attractive lecturer, and exerted no small influence on public opinion in France; had a considerable following; retired from public life in 1848, and died at Cannes; he left a number of philosophic works behind him, the best known among us "Discourses on the True, the Beautiful, and the Good"

(1792-1867).

COUSIN MICHAEL, a disparaging designation of our German kindred, as slow, heavy, unpolished, and ungainly.

COUSIN-MONTAUBAN, a French general, commanded the Chinese expedition of 1860, and, after a victory over the Chinese, took possession of Pekin (1796-1878).

COUSINS, SAMUEL, a mezzotint engraver, born at Exeter; engraved "Bolton Abbey," "Marie Antoinette in the Temple," and a number of plates after eminent painters; left a fund to aid poor artists (1801-1880).

COUSTON, the name of three eminent French sculptors: NICOLAS (1658-1733); GUILLAUME, father (1678-1746); and GUILLAUME, son (1716-1777).

COUTHON, GEORGES, a violent revolutionary, one of a triumvirate with Robespierre and St. Just, who would expel every one from the Jacobin Club who could not give evidence of having done something to merit hanging, should a counter-revolution arrive; was paralysed in his limbs from having had to spend a night "sunk to the middle in a cold peat bog" to escape detection as a seducer; trapped for the guillotine; tried to make away with himself under a table, but could not (1756-1794).