Part 150 (1/2)
CURTIUS, GEORG, German philologist, born at Lubeck, brother of the preceding; held professorial appointments in Prague, Kiel, and Berlin; one of the best Greek scholars in Germany, and contributed largely to the etymology and grammar of the Greek language (1820-1885).
CURTIUS, QUINTUS RUFUS, a Roman historian of uncertain date; wrote a history of Alexander the Great in ten books, two of which have been lost, the rest surviving in a very fragmentary state.
CURTMANTLE, a surname of Henry II., from a robe he wore shorter than that of his predecessors.
CURULE CHAIR, a kind of ivory camp-stool, mounted on a chariot, on which a Roman magistrate, if consul, praetor, censor, or chief edile, sat as he was conveyed in state to the senate-house or some public function.
CURWEN, JOHN, an Independent clergyman, born in Yorks.h.i.+re; the founder of the Tonic Sol-fa system in music; from 1864 gave himself up to the advocacy and advancement of his system (1816-1880).
CURZON, GEORGE NATHANIEL, LORD, English statesman, son of a clergyman, educated at Eton and Oxford; became Fellow of All Souls; became Under-Secretary for India in 1891; travelled in the East, and wrote on Eastern topics, on which he became an authority; was appointed Viceroy of India in 1899; _b_. 1859.
CUs.h.i.+NG, an American jurist and diplomatist (1800-1879).
CUSHMAN, CHARLOTTE, an American actress, born in Boston; represented, among other characters, Lady Macbeth, Rosalind, Meg Merilees, and Romeo (1810-1876).
CUSTINE, COUNT DE, a French general, born at Metz; seized and occupied Mayence, 1792; was forced out of it by the Prussians and obliged to retreat; was called to account and sent to the guillotine; ”unsuccessfulness,” his crime; ”had fought in America; was a proud, brave man, and his fortune led him _hither_” (1746-1793)
CuSTRIN, a strong little town, 68 or 70 m. E. of Berlin, where young Frederick the Great was kept in close confinement by his father.
CUTCH, a native State in the Bombay Presidency, in the country called Gujarat.
CUTCH, RANN OF, a salt-water mora.s.s between Gujarat and Scinde, which becomes a lake during the SW. monsoon.
CUTHBERT, a monk of Jarrow, a disciple of Bede; was with him when he died, and wrote in a letter a graphic and touching account of his death.
CUTHBERT, ST., born in Northumbria; originally a shepherd; saw a vision in the night-watches of the soul of St. Aidan ascending to heaven, which determined his destiny, and he became a monk; entered the monastery of Melrose, and eventually became prior, but devoted most of his time to mission-work in the surrounding districts; left Melrose to be prior of Lindisfarne, but longing for an austerer life, he retired to, and led the life of a hermit on, an island by himself; being persuaded to come back, he acted as bishop of Lindisfarne, and continued to act as such for two years, but his previous longings for solitude returned, and he went back to a hermit life, to spend a short season, as it happened, in prayer and meditation; when he died; what he did, and the memory of what he did, left an imperishable impression for good in the whole N. of England and the Scottish borders; his remains were conveyed to Lindisfarne, and ere long to Durham (635-687).
CUTTACK (47), capital of a district in S. of Bengal, at the apex of the delta formed by the Mahanuddy; noted for its gold and silver filigree work.
CUVIER, GEORGES, a celebrated naturalist, born at Montebeliard, of Huguenot ancestry; the creator of comparative anatomy and palaeontology; was educated at Stuttgart, where he studied natural science; but the observation of marine animals on the coast of Normandy, where he held a tutors.h.i.+p, first led him to the systematic study of anatomy, and brought him into correspondence with Geoffroy St. Hilaire and others, who invited him to Paris, where he prosecuted his investigations, matured his views, and became professor of Comparative Anatomy at the Jardin des Plantes, a member of the French Inst.i.tute, and Permanent Secretary of the Academy of Sciences, and eventually a peer of France; his labours in the science to which he devoted his life were immense, but he continued to the last a determined opponent of the theory, then being broached and now in vogue, of a common descent (1769-1832).
CUXHAVEN, a German watering-place at the mouth of the Elbe, on the southern bank.
CUYP, ALBERT, a celebrated Dutch landscape-painter, son of Jacob Cuyp, commonly called Old Cuyp, also a landscapist, born at Dort; painted scenes from the banks of the Meuse and the Rhine; is now reckoned a rival of Claude, though he was not so in his lifetime, his pictures selling now for a high price; he has been praised for his sunlights, but these, along with Claude's, have been p.r.o.nounced depreciatively by Ruskin as ”colourless” (1605-1691).