A Short Biographical Dictionary of English Literature. John W. Cousin
Atterbury (q.v.), and was involved in the consequences of his conspiracy, but escaped to France, where he remained until 1728. After his return he pub. a life of the Duke of Ormonde (1736), and a History of England to 1654 in 4 vols. (1747–54), the latter a work of great research, though dry and unattractive in style.
CARTER, ELIZABETH (1717–1806).—Miscellaneous writer, b. at Deal, dau. of a clergyman. Originally backward, she applied herself to study with such perseverance that she became perhaps the most learned Englishwoman of her time, being mistress of Latin, Greek, Hebrew, and Arabic, besides several modern European languages. She was also well read in science. She translated Epictetus 1758, and wrote a small vol. of poems. She was the friend of Dr. Johnson and many other eminent men. She was of agreeable and unassuming manners.
CARTWRIGHT, WILLIAM (1611–1643).—Dramatist, s. of a gentleman of Gloucestershire, who had run through his fortune and kept an inn at Cirencester, ed. at Westminster School and Oxf., entered the Church, was a zealous Royalist, and an eloquent preacher, and lecturer in metaphysics. He also wrote spirited lyrics and four plays. He was the friend of Ben Jonson, H. Vaughan, and Izaak Walton. He d. at Oxf. of camp fever. Among his plays are The Royal Slave, The Siege, and The Lady Errant. His virtues, learning, and charming manners made him highly popular in his day.
CARY, ALICE (1820–1871), and PHOEBE (1824–1871).—Were the dau. of a farmer near Cincinnati. The former wrote Clovernook Papers and Clovernook Children, and other tales, and some poems. The latter wrote poems and hymns. Both sisters attained considerable popularity.
CARY, HENRY FRANCIS (1772–1844).—Translator, was b. at Gibraltar, and ed. at Oxf., where he was distinguished for his classical attainments. His great work is his translation of the Divina Commedia of Dante (1805–1814), which is not only faithful to the original, but full of poetic fire, and rendered into such fine English as to be itself literature apart from its merits as a translation. He also translated from the Greek. C., who was a clergyman, received a pension in 1841.
CATLIN, GEORGE (1796–1872).—Painter and writer, b. at Wilkesbarre, Pennsylvania, practised for some time as a lawyer, but yielding to his artistic instincts he took to painting. He spent the 7 years, 1832–39, among the Indians of North America, of whom he painted about 500 portraits. He became thoroughly acquainted with their life, and pub. an interesting work, Illustrations of the Manners, etc., of the North American Indians (1857). His later years were spent chiefly in Europe.
CAVE, EDWARD (1691–1754).—Publisher, b. near Rugby, started in 1731 The Gentleman's Magazine, for which Dr. Johnson was parliamentary reporter from 1740. He pub. many of Johnson's works.
CAVENDISH, GEORGE (1500–1561).—Biographer, was Gentleman Usher to Cardinal Wolsey, to whom he was so much attached that he followed him in his disgrace, and continued to serve him until his death. He left in MS. a life of his patron, which is the first separate biography in English, and is the main original authority of the period. Admitting Wolsey's faults, it nevertheless presents him in an attractive light. The simple yet eloquent style gives it a high place as a biography.
CAXTON, WILLIAM (1422–1491).—Printer and translator, b. in the Weald of Kent, was apprenticed to a London mercer. On his master's death in 1441 he went to Bruges, and lived there and in various other places in the Low Countries for over 30 years, engaged apparently as head of an association of English merchants trading in foreign parts, and in negotiating commercial treaties between England and the Dukes of Burgundy. His first literary labour was a translation of a French romance, which he entitled The Recuyell of the Historyes of Troye, and which he finished in 1471. About this time he learned the art of printing, and, after being in the service of Margaret Duchess of Burgundy, an English princess, returned to his native country and set up at Westminster in 1476 his printing press, the first in England. His Recuyell and The Game and Playe of Chesse had already been printed—the first books in English—on the Continent. Here was produced the first book printed in England, The Dictes and Sayings of the Philosophers (1477). C. obtained Royal favour, printed from 80 to 100 separate works—many of them translations of his own—and d. almost with pen in hand in 1491. His style is clear and idiomatic.
CENTLIVRE, MRS. SUSANNA (1667–1723).—Dramatist and actress, was the dau. of a gentleman of the name of either Rawkins or Freeman, who appears to have belonged either to Lincolnshire or Ireland, or was perhaps connected with both, and who suffered at the hands of the Stuarts. She m. at 16, lost her husband in a year, then m. an officer, who fell in a duel in 18 months, and finally, in 1706, m. Joseph C., cook to Queen Anne, with whom she lived happily for the rest of her days. She wrote 18 or 19 plays, well constructed and amusing, among which may be mentioned The Perjured Husband (1700), The Busybody (1709), The Warder (1714), and A Bold Stroke for a Wife (1717). She was a strong Whig, and sometimes made her plays the medium of expressing her political opinions.
CHALKHILL, JOHN (fl. 1600).—Poet, mentioned by Izaak Walton as having written a pastoral poem, Thealma and Clearchus. As nothing else is known of him it has been held by some that the name was a nom-de-plume of W. himself. It has been shown, however, that a gentleman of the name existed during the reign of Elizabeth. W. says he was a friend of Spenser, and that his life was "useful, quiet, and virtuous."
CHALMERS, GEORGE (1742–1825).—Antiquary, b. at Fochabers, Elginshire, emigrated to America and practised law in Baltimore; but on the outbreak of the Revolutionary War returned to Britain, and settled in London as a clerk in the Board of Trade. He pub. in 1780 a History of the United Colonies, and wrote lives of Sir David Lyndsay, De Foe, and Mary Queen of Scots. His great work, however, is his Caledonia, of which 3 vols. had been pub. at his death. It was to have been a complete coll. of the topography and antiquities of Scotland; and, as it stands, is a monument of industry and research, though not always trustworthy in disputed points. Besides those mentioned, C. was the author of many other works on political, historical, and literary subjects, and had projected several which he was unable to carry out.
CHALMERS, THOMAS (1780–1847).—Divine, economist, and philanthropist, b. at Anstruther, Fife, s. of a shipowner and merchant, studied at St. Andrews and, entering the ministry of the Church of Scotland, was first settled in the small parish of Kilmeny, Fife, but, his talents and eloquence becoming known, he was, in 1815, translated to Glasgow, where he was soon recognised as the most eloquent preacher in Scotland, and where also he initiated his schemes for the management of the poor. In 1823, he became Prof. of Moral Philosophy at St. Andrews, and in 1828 of Divinity in Edin. In 1834 he began his great scheme of Church extension, the result of which was that in seven years £300,000 had been raised, and 220 churches built. In the same year, 1834, began the troubles and controversies in regard to patronage and the relations of Church and State, which in 1843 ended in the disruption of the Church, when 470 ministers with C. at their head, resigned their benefices, and founded the Free Church of Scotland. C. was chosen its first Moderator and Principal of its Theological Coll. in Edin. The remaining four years of his life were spent in organising the new Church, and in works of philanthropy. He was found dead in bed on the morning of May 30, 1847. His chief works, which were coll. and pub. in 34 vols., relate to natural theology, evidences of Christianity, political economy, and general theology and science. Those which perhaps attracted most attention were his Astronomical Discourses and his Lectures on Church Establishments, the latter delivered in London to audiences containing all that was most distinguished in rank and intellect in the country. The style of C. is cumbrous, and often turgid, but the moral earnestness, imagination, and force of intellect of the writer shine through it and irradiate his subjects. And yet the written is described by contemporaries to have been immeasurably surpassed by the spoken word, which carried away the hearer as in a whirlwind. And the man was even greater than his achievements. His character was one of singular simplicity, nobility, and lovableness, and produced a