The Nuttall Encyclopaedia Part 113

CATHCART, EARL, a British general and diplomatist, born in Renfrewshire; saw service in America and Flanders; distinguished himself at the bombardment of Copenhagen; represented England at the court of Russia and the Congress of Vienna (1755-1843).

CATHCART, SIR GEORGE, a lieutenant-general, son of the preceding; enlisted in the army; served in the later Napoleonic wars; was present at Quatre-Bras and Waterloo; was governor of the Cape; brought the Kaffir war to a successful conclusion; served in the Crimea, and fell at Inkerman (1794-1854).

CATHEDRAL, the princ.i.p.al church in a diocese, and which contains the throne of the bishop as his seat of authority; is of a rank corresponding to the dignity of the bishop; the governing body consists of the dean and chapter.

CATHELINEAU, JACQUES, a famous leader of the Vendeans in their revolt against the French Republic on account of a conscription in its behalf; a peasant by birth; mortally wounded in attacking Nantes; he is remembered by the peasants of La Vendee as the "Saint of Anjou"

(1759-1793).

CATHOLIC EMANc.i.p.aTION, the name given to the emanc.i.p.ation in 1829 of the Roman Catholics of the United Kingdom from disabilities which precluded their election to office in the State, so that they are eligible now to any save the Lord Chancellorship of England and offices representative of royalty.

CATHOLIC EPISTLES, the name, equivalent to encyclical, given to certain epistles in the New Testament not addressed to any community in particular, but to several, and given eventually to all not written by St. Paul.

CATHOLIC MAJESTY, a t.i.tle given by the Pope to several Spanish monarchs for their zeal in the defence of the Catholic faith.

CATILINE, or LUCIUS SERGIUS CATILINA, a Roman patrician, an able man, but unscrupulously ambitious; frustrated in his ambitious designs, he formed a conspiracy against the State, which was discovered and exposed by Cicero, a discovery which obliged him to leave the city; he tried to stir up hostility outside; this too being discovered by Cicero, an army was sent against him, when an engagement ensued, in which, fighting desperately, he was slain, 62 B.C.

CATINAT, NICOLAS, a marshal of France, born in Paris; one of the greatest military captains under Louis XIV.; defeated the Duke of Savoy twice over, though defeated by Prince Eugene and compelled to retreat; was an able diplomatist as well as military strategist (1637-1712).

CATLIN, GEORGE, a traveller among the North American Indians, and author of an ill.u.s.trated work on their life and manners; spent eight years among them (1796-1872).

CATO DIONYSIUS, name of a book of maxims in verse, held in high favour during the Middle Ages; of unknown authorship.

CATO, MARCUS PORTIUS, or CATO MAJOR, surnamed Censor, Priscus, and Sapiens, born at Tusculum, of a good old family, and trained to rustic, frugal life; after serving occasionally in the army, removed to Rome; became in succession censor, aedile, praetor, and consul; served in the second Punic war, towards the end of it, and subjugated Spain; was a Roman of the old school; disliked and denounced all innovations, as censor dealt sharply with them; sent on an emba.s.sy to Africa, was so struck with the increasing power and the threateningly evil ascendency of Carthage, that on his return he urged its demolition, and in every speech which he delivered afterwards he ended with the words, _Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam_, "But, be that as it may, my opinion is Carthage must be destroyed" (234-149 B.C.).

CATO, MARCUS PORTIUS, or CATO THE YOUNGER, or UTICENSIS, great-grandson of the former, and a somewhat pedantic second edition of him; fortified himself by study of the Stoic philosophy; conceived a distrust of the public men of the day, Caesar among the number; preferred Pompey to him, and sided with him; after Pompey's defeat retired to Utica, whence his surname, and stabbed himself to death rather than fall into the hands of Caesar (95-46 B.C.).

CATO-STREET CONSPIRACY, an insignificant, abortive plot, headed by one Thistlewood, to a.s.sa.s.sinate Castlereagh and other ministers of the crown in 1820; so called from their place of meeting off the Edgeware Road, London.

CATRAIL, an old Roman earthwork, 50 m. long, pa.s.sing S. from near Galashiels, through Selkirk and Roxburgh, or from the Cheviots; it is known by the name of the "Devil's d.y.k.e."

CATS, JACOB, a Dutch poet and statesman, venerated in Holland as "Father Cats"; his works are written in a simple, natural style, and abound in wise maxims; he did service as a statesman; twice visited England as an envoy, and was knighted by Charles I. (1577-1660).

CATSKILL MOUNTAINS, a group of mountains, of steep ascent, and with rocky summits, in New York State, W. of the Hudson, none of them exceeding 4000 feet; celebrated as the scene of Rip Van Winkle's long slumber; belong to the Appalachians.

CATTEGAT, an arm of the sea, 150 m. in length and 84 of greatest width, between Sweden and Jutland; a highway into the Baltic, all but blocked up with islands; is dangerous to shipping on account of the storms that infest it at times.

CATTERMOLE, GEORGE, artist, born in Norfolk; ill.u.s.trated Britton's "English Cathedrals," "Waverley Novels," and the "Historical Annual" by his brother; painted mostly in water-colour; his subjects chiefly from English history (1800-1868).

CATTLE PLAGUE, or RINDERPEST, a disease which affects ruminants, but especially bovine cattle; indigenous to the East, Russia, Persia, India, and China, and imported into Britain only by contagion of some kind; the most serious outbreaks were in 1865 and 1872.

CATULLUS, CAIUS VALERIUS, the great Latin lyric poet, born at Verona, a man of wealth and good standing, being, it would seem, of the equestrian order; a.s.sociated with the best wits in Rome; fell in love with Clodia, a patrician lady, who was the inspiration, both in peace and war, of many of his effusions, and whom he addresses as Lesbia; the death of a brother affected him deeply, and was the occasion of the production of one of the most pathetic elegies ever penned; in the civic strife of the time he sided with the senate, and opposed Caesar to the length of directing against him a coa.r.s.e lampoon (84-54 B.C.).

CAUCA, a river in Colombia, S. America, which falls into the Magdalena after a northward course of 600 m.

CAUCASIA, a prov. of Russia, geographically divided into Cis-Caucasia on the European side, and Trans-Caucasia on the Asiatic side of the Caucasus, with an area about four times as large as England.

CAUCASIAN RACE, a name adopted by Blumenbach to denote the Indo-European race, from the fine type of a skull of one of the race found in Georgia.

CAUCASUS, an enormous mountain range, 750 m. in length, extending from the Black Sea ESE. to the Caspian, in two parallel chains, with tablelands between, bounded on the S. by the valley of the Kur, which separates it from the tableland of Armenia; snow-line higher than that of the Alps; has fewer and smaller glaciers; has no active volcanoes, though abundant evidence of volcanic action.

CAUCHON, bishop of Beauvais, infamous for the iniquitous part he played in the trial and condemnation of Joan of Arc; _d_. 1443.

CAUCHY, AUGUSTIN LOUIS, mathematician, born in Paris; wrote largely on physical subjects; his "Memoir" on the theory of the waves suggested the undulatory theory of light; professor of Astronomy at Paris; declined to take the oath of allegiance to Napoleon III., and retired (1789-1857).

CAUCUS, a preliminary private meeting to arrange and agree on some measure or course to propose at a general meeting of a political party.

CAUDINE FORKS, a narrow mountain gorge in Samnium, in which, during the second Samnite war, a Roman army was entrapped and caught by the Samnites, who obliged them to pa.s.s under the yoke in token of subjugation, 321 B.C.

CAUDLE, MRS., an imaginary dame, a conception of Douglas Jerrold, famous for her "Curtain Lectures" all through the night for 30 years to her husband Mr. Job Caudle.

CAUL, a membrane covering the head of some children at birth, to which a magical virtue was at one time ascribed, and which, on that account, was rated high and sold often at a high price.

CAULAINCOURT, ARMAND DE, a French general and statesman of the Empire, a faithful supporter of Napoleon, who conferred on him a peerage, with the t.i.tle of Duke of Vicenza, of which he was deprived at the Restoration; represented Napoleon at the Congress of Chatillon (1772-1827).

CAUS, SALOMON DE, a French engineer, born at Dieppe; discovered the properties of steam as a motive force towards 1638; claimed by Arago as the inventor of the steam-engine in consequence.