Part 1
# Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, "Cockaigne" to "Columbus, Christopher": Volume 6, Slice 6 ### By Various
---
Produced by Marius Masi, Don Kretz, Juliet Sutherland and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net
Transcriber's notes:
(1) Numbers following letters (without space) like C2 were originally printed in subscript.
(2) Side-notes were relocated to function as titles of their respective paragraphs.
(3) Letters topped by Macron are represented as [=x].
(4) The following typographical errors have been corrected:
Article COCKBURN, ALICIA: "Robert Chambers states that the ballad was written on the occasion of a great commercial disaster which ruined the fortunes of some Selkirkshire lairds." 'commercial' amended from 'commerical'.
Article COLCHESTER, CHARLES ABBOT: "From Westminster school Charles Abbot passed to Christ Church, Oxford, at which he gained the chancellor's medal for Latin verse as well as the Vinerian scholarship." Superfluous round bracket after 'scholarship'.
Article COLOGNE: "The foundation of the present cathedral was then laid by Conrad of Hochstaden (archbishop from 1238 to 1261)." '1238' amended from '1288'.
Article COLOMBIA: "Sotara (15,420 ft.), Huila (over 18,000 ft.), Tolima (18,432 ft.)" Missing round bracket before 'over 18,000'.
Article COLOMBIA: "Although it is found growing wild, cacáo is cultivated to a limited extent, and the product is insufficient for home consumption." 'Although' amended from 'Athough'.
Article COLORADO: "Melons are to some extent exported, and peaches also; the musk-melons of the Arkansas valley (Rocky Ford Canteloupes) being in demand all over the United States." 'Canteloupes' amended from 'Canteloups'.
ENCYCLOPAEDIA BRITANNICA
A DICTIONARY OF ARTS, SCIENCES, LITERATURE AND GENERAL INFORMATION
ELEVENTH EDITION
VOLUME VI, SLICE VI
Cockaigne to Columbus, Christopher
Articles in This Slice:
COCKAIGNE, LAND OF COLEPEPER, JOHN COLEPEPER COCKATOO COLERAINE COCKATRICE COLERIDGE, HARTLEY COCKBURN, ALEXANDER JAMES EDMUND COLERIDGE, JOHN DUKE COLERIDGE COCKBURN, ALICIA COLERIDGE, SIR JOHN TAYLOR COCKBURN, SIR GEORGE COLERIDGE, SAMUEL TAYLOR COCKBURN, HENRY THOMAS COLERIDGE, SARA COCKER, EDWARD COLET, JOHN COCKERELL, CHARLES ROBERT COLET, LOUISE COCKERILL, WILLIAM COLEUS COCKERMOUTH COLFAX, SCHUYLER COCK-FIGHTING COLIC COCK LANE GHOST COLIGNY, GASPARD DE COCKLE, SIR JAMES COLIMA (coast state of Mexico) COCKLE COLIMA (city of Mexico) COCKNEY COLIN, ALEXANDRE COCK-OF-THE-ROCK (bird) COLL COCK-OF-THE-ROCK (enclosed place) COLLAERT, HANS COCKROACH COLLAR COCK'S-COMB COLLATERAL COCKTON, HENRY COLLATIA COCKX COLLATION COCOA COLLÉ, CHARLES COCO DE MER COLLECTIVISM COCOMA COLLECTOR COCO-NUT PALM COLLE DI VAL D' ELSA COCYTUS COLLEGE COD COLLEONI, BARTOLOMMEO CODA COLLETER CODE COLLETTA, PIETRO CODE NAPOLÉON COLLEY, SIR GEORGE POMEROY CODIAEUM COLLIER, ARTHUR CODICIL COLLIER, JEREMY CODILLA COLLIER, JOHN PAYNE CODINUS, GEORGE COLLIN, HEINRICH JOSEPH VON COD-LIVER OIL COLLIN D'HARLEVILLE, JEAN FRANÇOIS CODRINGTON, CHRISTOPHER COLLING, ROBERT CODRINGTON, SIR EDWARD COLLINGWOOD, CUTHBERT COLLINGWOOD CODRUS COLLINGWOOD (city of Australia) CODY, WILLIAM FREDERICK COLLINGWOOD (town of Canada) CO-EDUCATION COLLINS, ANTHONY COEFFETEAU, NICOLAS COLLINS, JOHN CHURTON COEHOORN, MENNO COLLINS, MORTIMER COELENTERA COLLINS, WILLIAM (English poet) COELLO, ALONSO SANCHEZ COLLINS, WILLIAM (English painter) COELLO, ANTONIO COLLINS, WILLIAM WILKIE COELOM AND SEROUS MEMBRANES COLLODION COEN, JAN PIETERSZOON COLLOT D'HERBOIS, JEAN MARIE COENACULUM COLLUSION COENWULF COLLYER, ROBERT COERCION COLMAN, SAINT COEUR, JACQUES COLMAN, GEORGE COEUR D'ALÊNE COLMAN, SAMUEL COFFEE COLMAR COFFER COLNE COFFERDAM COLOCYNTH COFFEYVILLE COLOGNE COFFIN COLOMAN COG COLOMB, PHILIP HOWARD COGERS HALL COLOMBES COGHLAN, CHARLES FRANCIS COLOMBEY COGNAC COLOMBIA COGNITION COLOMBIER, PIERRE BERTRAND DE COGNIZANCE COLOMBO COHEN COLON (city of Panama) COHN, FERDINAND JULIUS COLON (town of Cuba) COHN, GUSTAV COLON (intestine) COHOES COLONEL COHORT COLONIAL OFFICE COIF COLONNA (Roman family) COIMBATORE COLONNA, GIOVANNI PAOLO COIMBRA COLONNA, VITTORIA COÍN COLONNADE COIN COLONSAY COINAGE OFFENCES COLONY COIR COLOPHON (ancient city of Ionia) COIRE COLOPHON (paragraph in manuscripts) COKE, SIR EDWARD COLORADO COKE, SIR JOHN COLORADO RIVER (stream of Argentine) COKE, THOMAS COLORADO RIVER (stream of U.S.A.) COKE COLORADO SPRINGS COL COLOSSAE COLBERT, JEAN BAPTISTE COLOSSAL CAVERN COLBERT DE CROISSY, CHARLES COLOSSIANS, EPISTLE TO THE COLBURN, HENRY COLOSSUS COLBURN, ZERAH COLOUR COLBY, THOMAS FREDERICK COLOURS, MILITARY COLCHAGUA COLOUR-SERGEANT COLCHESTER, CHARLES ABBOT COLOURS OF ANIMALS COLCHESTER (town of England) COLSTON, EDWARD COLCHESTER (township of Vermont) COLT, SAMUEL COLCHICUM COLT'S-FOOT COLCHIS COLUGO COLCOTHAR COLUMBA, SAINT COLD COLUMBAN COLDEN, CADWALLADER COLUMBANI, PLACIDO COLD HARBOR COLUMBARIUM COLDSTREAM COLUMBIA (city of Missouri) COLDWATER COLUMBIA (borough of Pennsylvania) COLE, SIR HENRY COLUMBIA (city of South Carolina) COLE, THOMAS COLUMBIA (city of Tennessee) COLE, TIMOTHY COLUMBIA RIVER COLE, VICAT COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY COLEBROOKE, HENRY THOMAS COLUMBINE (dancer) COLEMANITE COLUMBINE (plant) COLENSO, JOHN WILLIAM COLUMBITE COLENSO (village of Natal) COLUMBIUM COLEOPTERA COLUMBUS, CHRISTOPHER
COCKAIGNE (COCKAYNE), LAND OF (O. Fr. _Coquaigne_, mod. Fr. _cocagne_, "abundance," from Ital. _Cocagna_; "as we say 'Lubberland,' the epicure's or glutton's home, the land of all delights, so taken in mockerie": Florio), an imaginary country, a medieval Utopia where life was a continual round of luxurious idleness. The origin of the Italian word has been much disputed. It seems safest to connect it, as do Grimm and Littré, ultimately with Lat. _coquere_, through a word meaning "cake," the literal sense thus being "The Land of Cakes." In Cockaigne the rivers were of wine, the houses were built of cake and barley-sugar, the streets were paved with pastry, and the shops supplied goods for nothing. Roast geese and fowls wandered about inviting folks to eat them, and buttered larks fell from the skies like manna. There is a 13th-century French _fabliau_, _Cocaigne_, which was possibly intended to ridicule the fable of the mythical Avalon, "the island of the Blest." The 13th-century English poem, _The Land of Cockaygne_, is a satire on monastic life. The term has been humorously applied to London, and by Boileau to the Paris of the rich. The word has been frequently confused with Cockney (q.v.).
See D. M. Méon, _Fabliaux et contes_ (4 vols., 1808), and F. J. Furnivall, _Early English Poems_ (Berlin, 1862).
COCKATOO (_Cacatuidae_), a family of parrots characterized among Old World forms by their usually greater size, by the crest of feathers on the head, which can be raised or depressed at will, and by the absence of green in their coloration. They inhabit the Indian Archipelago, New Guinea and Australia, and are gregarious, frequenting woods and feeding on seeds, fruits and the larvae of insects. Their note is generally harsh and unmusical, and although they are readily tamed when taken young, becoming familiar, and in some species showing remarkable intelligence, their powers of vocal imitation are usually limited. Of the true cockatoos (_Cacatua_) the best known is the sulphur-crested cockatoo (_Cacatua galerita_), of a pure white plumage with the exception of the crest, which is deep sulphur yellow, and of the ear and tail coverts, which are slightly tinged with yellow. The crest when erect stands 5 in. high. These birds are found in Australia in flocks varying from 100 to 1000 in number, and do great damage to newly-sown grain, for which reason they are mercilessly destroyed by farmers. They deposit their eggs--two in number, and of a pure white colour--in the hollows of decayed trees or in the fissures of rocks, according to the nature of the locality in which they reside. This is one of the species most usually kept in Europe as a cage bird. Leadbeater's Cockatoo (_Cacatua Leadbeateri_), an inhabitant of South Australia, excels all others in the beauty of its plumage, which consists in great part of white, tinged with rose colour, becoming a deep salmon colour under the wings, while the crest is bright crimson at the base, with a yellow spot in the centre and white at the tip. It is exceedingly shy and difficult of approach, and its note is more plaintive while less harsh than that of the preceding species. In the cockatoos belonging to the genus _Calyptorhynchus_ the general plumage is black or dark brown, usually with a large spot or band of red or yellow on the tail. The largest of these is known as the funereal cockatoo (_Calyptorhynchus funereus_), from the lugubrious note or call which it utters, resembling the two syllables Wy--la--, the native name of the species. It deposits its eggs in the hollows of the large gum-trees of Australia, and feeds largely on the larvae of insects, in search of which it peels off the bark of trees, and when thus employed it may be approached closely. The cockateel (_Calopsittacus novaehollandiae_), the only species in the family smaller than a pigeon, and with a long pointed tail, is a common aviary bird, and breeds freely in captivity.
COCKATRICE, a fabulous monster, the existence of which was firmly believed in throughout ancient and medieval times,--descriptions and figures of it appearing in the natural history works of such writers as Pliny and Aldrovandus, those of the latter published so late as the beginning of the 17th century. Produced from a cock's egg hatched by a serpent, it was believed to possess the most deadly powers, plants withering at its touch, and men and animals dying poisoned by its look. It stood in awe, however, of the cock, the sound of whose crowing killed it, and consequently travelers were wont to take this bird with them in travelling over regions supposed to abound in cockatrices. The weasel alone among mammals was unaffected by the glance of its evil eye, and attacked it at all times successfully; for when wounded by the monster's teeth it found a ready remedy in rue--the only plant which the cockatrice could not wither. This myth reminds one of the real contests between the weasel-like mungoos of India and the deadly cobra, in which the latter is generally killed. The term "cockatrice" is employed on four occasions in the English translation of the Bible, in all of which it denotes nothing more than an exceedingly venomous reptile; it seems also to be synonymous with "basilisk," the mythical king of serpents.
COCKBURN, SIR ALEXANDER JAMES EDMUND, 10th Bart. (1802-1880), lord chief justice of England, was born on the 24th of December 1802, of ancient Scottish stock. He was the son of Alexander, fourth son of Sir James Cockburn, 6th baronet, his three uncles, who had successively held the title, dying without heirs. His father was British envoy extraordinary and minister plenipotentiary to the state of Columbia, and married Yolande, daughter of the vicomte de Vignier. Young Alexander was at one time intended for the diplomatic service, and frequently during the legal career which he ultimately adopted he was able to make considerable use of the knowledge of foreign languages, especially French, with which birth and early education had equipped him. He was educated at Trinity Hall, Cambridge, of which he was elected a fellow, and afterwards an honorary fellow. He entered at the Middle Temple in 1825, and was called to the bar in 1829. He joined the western circuit, and for some time such practice as he was able to obtain lay at the Devon sessions, quarter sessions at that time affording an opening and a school of advocacy to young counsel not to be found anywhere fifty years later. In London he had so little to do that only the persuasion of friends induced him to keep his London chambers open. Three years after his call to the bar, however, the Reform Bill was passed, and the petitions which followed the ensuing general election gave rise to a large number of new questions for the decision of election committees, and afforded an opening of which he promptly availed himself. The decisions of the committees had not been reported since 1821, and with M. C. Rowe, another member of the western circuit, Cockburn undertook a new series of reports. They only published one volume, but the work was well done, and in 1833 Cockburn had his first parliamentary brief.
In 1834 Cockburn was well enough thought of to be made a member of the commission to inquire into the state of the corporations of England and Wales. Other parliamentary work followed; but he had ambition to be more than a parliamentary counsel, and attended diligently on his circuit, besides appearing before committees. In 1841 he was made a Q.C., and in that year a charge of simony, brought against his uncle, William, dean of York, enabled him to appear conspicuously in a case which attracted considerable public attention, the proceedings taking the form of a motion for prohibition duly obtained against the ecclesiastical court, which had deprived Dr Cockburn of his office. Not long after this, Sir Robert Peel's secretary, Edward Drummond, was shot by the crazy Scotsman, Daniel M'Naughten, and Cockburn, briefed on behalf of the assassin, not only made a very brilliant speech, which established the defence of insanity, but also secured the full publicity of a long report in the _Morning Chronicle_ of the 6th of March 1843. Another well-known trial in which he appeared a year later was that of _Wood_ v. _Peel_ (_The Times_, 2nd and 3rd of July 1844), the issue being in form to determine the winner of a bet (the Gaming Act was passed in the following year) as to the age of the Derby winner Running Rein--in substance to determine, if possible, the vexed question whether Running Rein was a four-year-old or a three-year-old when he was racing as the latter. Running Rein could not be produced by Mr Wood, and Baron Alderson took a strong view of this circumstance, so that Cockburn found himself on the losing side, while his strenuous advocacy of his client's cause had led him into making, in his opening speech, strictures on Lord George Bentinck's conduct in the case which had better have been reserved to a later stage. He was, however, a hard fighter, but not an unfair one--a little irritable at times, but on the whole a courteous gentleman, and his practice went on increasing.
In 1847 he decided to stand for parliament, and was elected without a contest Liberal M.P. for Southampton. His speech in the House of Commons on behalf of the government in the Don Pacifico dispute with Greece commended him to Lord John Russell, who appointed him solicitor-general in 1850 and attorney-general in 1851, a post which he held till the resignation of the ministry in February 1852. During the short administration of Lord Derby which followed, Sir Frederic Thesiger was attorney-general, and Cockburn was engaged against him in the case of _R._ v. _Newman_, on the prosecution of Achilli. This was the trial of a criminal information for libel filed against John Henry Newman, who had denounced a scandalous and profligate friar named Achilli, then lecturing on Roman Catholicism in England. Newman pleaded justification; but the jury who heard the case in the Queen's Bench, with Lord Campbell presiding, found that the justification was not proved except in one
## particular: a verdict which, together with the methods of the judge and
the conduct of the audience, attracted considerable comment. The verdict was set aside, and a new trial ordered, but none ever took place. In December 1852, under Lord Aberdeen's ministry, Cockburn became again attorney-general, and so remained until 1856, taking part in many celebrated trials, such as the Hopwood Will Case in 1855, and the Swynfen Will Case, but notably leading for the crown in the trial of William Palmer of Rugeley in Staffordshire--an ex-medical man who had taken to the turf, and who had poisoned a friend of similar pursuits named Cook with strychnine, in order to obtain money from his estate by forgery and otherwise. Cockburn made an exhaustive study of the medical aspects of the case, and the prisoner's comment when convicted after a twelve days' trial was, alluding to the attorney-general's advocacy, "It was the riding that did it." In 1854 Cockburn was made recorder of Bristol. In 1856 he became chief justice of the common pleas. He inherited the baronetcy in 1858. In 1859 Lord Campbell became chancellor, and Cockburn became chief justice of the Queen's Bench, continuing as a judge for twenty-four years and dying in harness. On Friday, the 19th of November 1880, he tried causes with special juries at Westminster; on Saturday, the 20th, he presided over a court for the consideration of crown cases reserved; he walked home, and on that night he died of _angina pectoris_ at his house in Hertford Street.
Sir Alexander Cockburn earned and deserved a high reputation as a judge. He was a man of brilliant cleverness and rapid intuition rather than of profound and laboriously cultivated intellect. He had been a great advocate at the bar, with a charm of voice and manner, fluent and persuasive rather than learned; but before he died he was considered a good lawyer, some assigning his unquestioned improvement in this respect to his frequent association on the bench with Blackburn. He had notoriously little sympathy with the Judicature Acts. Many were of opinion that he was inclined to take an advocate's view of the cases before him, making up his mind as to their merits prematurely and, in consequence, wrongly, as well as giving undue prominence to the views which he so formed; but he was beyond doubt always in intention, and generally in fact, scrupulously fair. It is not necessary to enumerate the many _causes célèbres_ at which Sir Alexander Cockburn presided as a judge. It was thought that he went out of his way to arrange that they should come before him, and his successor, Lord Coleridge, writing in 1881 to Lord Bramwell, to make the offer that he should try the murderer Lefroy as a last judicial act before retiring, added, "Poor dear Cockburn would hardly have given you such a chance." Be this as it may, Cockburn tried all cases which came before him, whether great or small, with the same thoroughness, courtesy and dignity, so that no counsel or suitor could complain that he had not been fully heard in a matter in which the issues were seemingly trivial; while he certainly gave great attention to the elaboration of his judgments and charges to juries. He presided at the Tichborne trial at Bar, lasting 188 days, of which his summing-up occupied eighteen.
The greatest public occasion on which Sir Alexander Cockburn acted, outside his usual judicial functions, was that of the "Alabama" arbitration, held at Geneva in 1872, in which he represented the British government, and dissented from the view taken by the majority of the arbitrators, without being able to convince them. He prepared, with Mr C. F. Adams, the representative of the United States, the English translation of the award of the arbitrators, and published his reasons for dissenting in a vigorously worded document which did not meet with universal commendation. He admitted in substance the liability of England for the acts of the "Alabama," but not on the grounds on which the decision of the majority was based, and he held England not liable in respect of the "Florida" and the "Shenandoah."
In personal appearance Sir Alexander Cockburn was of small stature, but great dignity of deportment. He was fond of yachting and of sport, and was engaged in writing a series of articles on the "History of the Chase in the Nineteenth Century" at the time of his death. He was fond, too, of society, and was also throughout his life addicted to frivolities not altogether consistent with advancement in a learned profession, or with the positions of dignity which he successively occupied. At the same time he had a high sense of what was due to and expected from his profession; and his utterance upon the limitations of advocacy, in his speech at the banquet given in the Middle Temple Hall to M. Berryer, the celebrated French advocate, may be called the classical authority on the subject. Lord Brougham, replying for the guests other than Berryer, had spoken of "the first great duty of an advocate to reckon everything subordinate to the interests of his client." The lord chief justice, replying to the toast of "the judges of England," dissented from this sweeping statement, saying, amid loud cheers from a distinguished assembly of lawyers, "The arms which an advocate wields he ought to use as a warrior, not as an assassin. He ought to uphold the interests of his clients _per fas_, not _per nefas_. He ought to know how to reconcile the interests of his clients with the eternal interests of truth and justice" (_The Times_, 9th of November 1864). Sir Alexander Cockburn was never married, and the baronetcy became extinct at his death.
AUTHORITIES.--_The Times_, 22nd of November 1880; _Law Journal_; _Law Times_; _Solicitors' Journal_, 27th of November 1880; _Law Magazine_, new series, vol. xv. p. 193, 1851; Ashley's _Life of Lord Palmerston_; Nash's _Life of Lord Westbury_; "Reminiscences of Lord Chief Justice Coleridge," by Lord Russell of Killowen, in the _North American Review_, September 1894; _The Greville Memoirs_; Croker's _Correspondence and Diaries_; Justin M'Carthy's _History of Our Own Times_; Serjeant Ballantine's _Experiences; Bench and Bar_, by Serjeant Robinson; Fairchild's _Life of Lord Bramwell_; Manson's _Builders of Our Law_; Burke's _Peerage_, ed. 1879; Foster's _Peerage_, 1880.
COCKBURN, ALICIA, or ALISON (1713-1794), Scottish poet, authoress of one of the most exquisite of Scottish ballads, the "Flowers of the Forest," was the daughter of Robert Rutherfurd of Fairnalee, Selkirkshire, and was born on the 8th of October 1713. There are two versions of this song,--the one by Mrs Cockburn, the other by Jean Elliot (1727-1805) of Minto. Both were founded on the remains of an ancient Border ballad. Mrs Cockburn's--that beginning "I've seen the smiling of Fortune beguiling"--is said to have been written before her marriage in 1731, though not published till 1765. Anyhow, it was composed many years before Jean Elliot's sister verses, written in 1756, beginning, "I've heard them liltin' at our ewe-milkin'." Robert Chambers states that the ballad was written on the occasion of a great commercial disaster which ruined the fortunes of some Selkirkshire lairds. Later biographers, however, think it probable that it was written on the departure to London of a certain John Aikman, between whom and Alison there appears to have been an early attachment. In 1731 Alison Rutherfurd was married to Patrick Cockburn of Ormiston. After her marriage she knew all the intellectual and aristocratic celebrities of her day. In the memorable year 1745 she vented her Whiggism in a squib upon Prince Charlie, and narrowly escaped being taken by the Highland guard as she was driving through Edinburgh in the family coach of the Keiths of Ravelston, with the parody in her pocket. Mrs Cockburn was an indefatigable letter-writer and a composer of parodies, squibs, toasts and "character-sketches"--then a favourite form of composition--like other wits of her day; but the "Flowers of the Forest" is the only thing she wrote that possesses great literary merit. At her house on Castle-hill, and afterwards in Crichton Street, she received many illustrious friends, among whom were Mackenzie, Robertson, Hume, Home, Monboddo, the Keiths of Ravelston, the Balcarres family and Lady Anne Barnard, the authoress of "Auld Robin Gray." As a Rutherfurd she was a connexion of Sir Walter Scott's mother, and was her intimate friend. Lockhart quotes a letter written by Mrs Cockburn in 1777, describing the conduct of little Walter Scott, then scarcely six years old, during a visit which she paid to his mother, when the child gave as a reason for his liking for Mrs Cockburn that she was a "virtuoso like himself." Mrs Cockburn died on the 22nd of November 1794.
See her _Letters and Memorials_..., with notes by T. Craig Brown (1900).