CHERUBINI-CHESHIRE.

CHERUBINI, MARIA LUIGI CARLO ZENOBI SALVADOR, one of the best Italian composers, was born September 8, 1760, at Florence, and died March 15, 1842, in Paris, where he was director of the Conservatoire. In his thirteenth year, by his early compositions-a mass and an intermezzohe attracted the attention of Sarti, who received him as a pupil. In the interval from 1780 to 1788, he composed eleven Italian operas, including Ifigenia in Aulide, the most successful of the series. In 1784 he visited London. After 1786, C. resided chiefly in Paris, whence his fame rapidly extended over Europe. Besides the Ifigenia, his chief pieces are Demophoon (1788), Lodoiska (1791), Elisa (1794), Médée (1797), the Portuguese Inn (1798), Les Deux Journées, and Anacreon. C. also composed church music, chamber music, &c., with singular beauty and success. It is worthy of remark that the richness of his instrumental music, which was once made a ground of objection, now appears moderate as contrasted with the monstrous prodigalities of the modern orchestra. See Piechianti, Notizie sulla Vita e sulle Opere di Cherubini (Milan, 1843).

CHERU'SCI, a German tribe first mentioned by Cæsar. They dwelt north of the Silva Bacencis, or Harz Forest, but the exact boundaries of their territory cannot be ascertained. They are chiefly memorable in connection with their great leader Arminius, or Hermann, who, having formed an alliance with other German tribes, attacked and annihilated the Roman legions under Varus, in the forest of Teutoburg, 9 A. D. After the death of Arminius, internal strifes broke out among the C., and Tacitus says that they were subjugated by the Chatti, a neighbouring tribe. Notwithstanding this they again appear as the chief tribe in the military league of the Saxons about the end of the 3d century. In the beginning of the 4th c., they are included among the peoples who had leagued against Constantine, and towards the close of the same are still mentioned distinctively by Claudian.

CHE'SAPEAKE BAY, the largest inlet on the Atlantic coast of the United States, being 200 miles long, and from 4 to 40 broad. Its entrance, 12 miles wide, has, on the north, Cape Charles, in lat. 37° 3' N., and long. 76° 2′ W.; and on the south, Cape Henry, in lat. 36° 56' N., and long. 76° 4′ W., both promontories being in Virginia. C. B. has numerous arms, which receive many navigable rivers, such as the Susquehanna and the Patapsco on the north, through Maryland; the James on the south-west, from Virginia; and the Potomac on the west, between these two states. Unlike the shallow sounds towards the south (sce CAROLINA), this network of gulfs and estuaries, to say nothing of its noble feeders, affords depth of water for ships of any burden, virtually carrying the ocean up to the wharves of Baltimore and the arsenals of Washington.

CHE'SELDEN, WILLIAM, an English surgeon and anatomist, was born in 1688, at Barrow-on-the Hill, in Leicestershire. He commenced his medical studies at fifteen, at twenty-three established himself as a lecturer on anatomy, and in the following year was elected a fellow of the Royal Society. He was afterwards appointed surgeon to St. Thomas's, St. George's, and Westminster hospitals, where he acquired great reputation as an operator. In this respect, few surgeons, if any, ever surpassed him. He died at Bath, 11th April 1752. C.'s principal works are-the Anatomy of the Human Body (1713), long a text-book on the subject in England; a Treatise on the Operation for the Stone (1723); and Osteology, or Anatomy of the Bones (1733). He also contributed several valuable papers to the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society.

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England, bounded north by the river Mersey, and CHE'SHIRE, a maritime county in the west of partly also by the Irish Sea, in lat. 52° 56'-53° 54' N., long. 1° 47'-3° 11' W. Its greatest length from north-east to south-west is 58 miles; greatest breadth, 32; area, 1052 square miles, of which only CHE'RVIL (Anthriscus Cerefolium), an umbelli- is uncultivated; circuit, 200 miles, of which 8 are ferous plant, which has been long cultivated as a coast. The surface forms an extensive nearly level pot-herb, and used in soups and for a garnish, &c., plain between the Derbyshire and Welsh mountains, in the same manner as parsley. It is much more well wooded, and studded with small lakes or used in some parts of the continent of Europe than meres, and chiefly occupied by grazing and dairy in Britain. It is a native of Europe, naturalised in tracts, which are among the most important in some parts of England. The leaves have a peculiar, England. This plain, comprising four-fifths of the somewhat sweetish, pleasantly aromatic smell and surface, rests on new red sandstone, and is crossed, taste, by which the plant may be known from its near the middle, by a tract of high ground runcongener Anthriscus vulgaris or Scandix Anthriscus, ning south-west from a promontory overlooking the a poisonous weed, whose leaves have a disagreeable Mersey, near the mouth of the Weaver, to Beeston smell, and which is also distinguished by its hispid Castle rock, 366 feet high. On the east border of fruit. There is a variety of C. with large roots, the county is a line of new red sandstone hills. for the sake of which it is cultivated. The umbel- In the north-east is part of the Lancaster coalliferous plant called VENUS'S COMB or SHEPHERD's field. In the east, are large tracts of peat, and NEEDLE (Scandix pecten or S. Pecten Veneris), a much of the county is wet and rushy. The northnative of Britain and of the continent of Europe, west part of C. forms a hammer-headed peninsula often found in cornfields, and remarkable for the called Wirral, about 8 miles broad, between the appearance and large size of its fruit, and another estuaries of the Dee and Mersey. Coal measures species (S. australis) which grows in the south of appear on the west side of this peninsula, as well as Europe, have a taste and smell resembling C., and on the west border of the main part of the county. are used in the same way on the continent. SWEET The chief rivers are the Dee, Mersey, and Weaver, C. or SWEET CICELY (Myrrhis odorata; Scandia which are navigable. The Dee skirts the county on odorata of the older botanists), a native of the south the west 55 miles, and the Mersey on the north for of Europe and of some parts of Asia, common in 40 miles. The Weaver rises in the east part of the the neighbourhood of houses in Britain, although county, and runs 40 miles west-north-west into the probably not a true native, is frequently cultivated Mersey. The county contains an almost unrivalled in Germany under the name of Spanish C. or Anise system of canals, including the celebrated Bridge Chervil. In Scotland, the plant is commonly called water Canal, and is traversed by the main line of Myrrh by the peasantry. Its smell is peculiarly the London and Liverpool Railway, and the Crewe, attractive to bees; and the insides of empty hives | Chester, and Holyhead Railway. The chief mineral are sometimes rubbed with its leaves, to induce products are rock-salt and coal. The rock-salt, swarms to enter.-The species of Charophyllum, discovered in 1670, and mined by gunpowder, is coarse weeds, are also called chervil. found near the Weaver and its branches, especially

CHESNUT-CHESS.

near Northwich, at the depth of 28 to 48 yards, in and is used in house-building, for making furniture, two beds, the upper one being 15 to 25 yards, and for many other purposes. The timber of the C. and the lower one above 40 yards thick, under a so much resembles that of the oak, as in old buildstratum of hard rock, 25 to 35 yards thick. The ings to be distinguished with difficulty. The bark mines, one occupying 35 acres, when lighted up, is used for tanning, but is worth only about half resemble a fairy palace sparkling with gems and the price of oak-bark. Young C. trees are much crystal. Much salt is also made from brine-springs esteemed for hop and espalier poles. The C. is 20 to 40 yards deep. Coal is worked in the north- therefore frequently grown in England as coppiceeast part of the county. There are also lead (with wood; but it succeeds well as a timber-tree even in cobalt) and copper-mines, and in almost every Scotland, although it does not generally ripen its part of the country freestone, limestone, millstone, fruit. In Devonshire, however, and in some other and marl are found. The climate is moist. The parts of England, it is planted to a considerable soil is mostly a clayey or sandy loam, with marl extent as a fruit-tree. It succeeds throughout ail and peat, and very fertile. The soil and climate the middle latitudes of Germany, but dislikes a are well fitted for pasturing, dairy-farming, and damp foggy atmosphere. It prefers a dry light soil, cheese-making, which are the chief agricultural and succeeds only where there is a dry subsoil. occupations. About 100,000 cows are kept in The nuts are generally two in each husk. They C., and the quantity of cheese annually pro- form a principal part of the food of the poor in duced is estimated at from 11,000 to 15,000 tons the south of Europe, being used either roasted -the best being made on the strongest lands. The or boiled, and often ground into flour, and made hedgerows abound in oaks. C. is a manufacturing into a kind of bread. They contain 15 per cent. as well as an agricultural county. Pop. in 1851, of sugar, and by pressure yield a sugary juice, 455,725. The chief towns are Chester (the county- which readily undergoes the vinous fermentation, town), Macclesfield, Stockport, Congleton, Knuts- and from which a crumb-like kind of sugar may ford, and Birkenhead. The county of C. returns 4 be obtained. The best kinds of chestnuts are members to parliament. C. has some Roman roads, called by the French Marrons. When cultivated tumuli, barrows, remains of religious houses, and as a fruit-tree, the C. is generally grafted, by many old castles and halls. The 12th Roman legion which means the better varieties are secured.occupied Chester till the 3d century. Egbert, in Other species of C. also bear eatable fruits: those 828, added C. to the Anglo-Saxon kingdom of of the AMERICAN C. (C. Americana), a tree much Mercia. William the Conqueror erected C. into a resembling the common C., and of the DWARF C., county palatine, under Hugh Lupus, with an inde- or CHINQUAPIN (C. pumila), a low tree, or more pendent parliament and 8 barons. Henry VIII. generally a shrub of 7-8 feet high, are used in subordinated it to the English crown; but C. did America. The fruit of the Dwarf C. is of the size not sent representatives to the English parliament of a common hazel-nut; the nut is convex on both till 1549, and the last remnant of the separate juris- sides. The plant reaches its southern limit on diction of the palatinate ceased only in 1831. the banks of the Delaware.-A number of species are natives of the East. The inhabitants of the mountains of Java eat the fruit of the SILVERY C. (C. argentea), and the TUNGURRUT (C. Tungurrut), boiled or roasted, like the common chestnut. Both of these are large trees, the Tungurrut reaching a height of 150 feet. The HORSE C. (q. v.) is entirely different from the true chestnut.

CHE'SNUT, or CHESTNUT (Castanea), a genus of plants of the natural order Cupulifera, closely allied to the Beech (Fagus), and distinguished from it by long male catkins, longitudinally set with groups of flowers, a 5-8-celled ovary, and compressed rounded nuts. The name is derived from the town

Branchlet, Leaves and Catkins of Sweet Chestnut.

of Castanum, near Magnesia, in Asia Minor. The COMMON C., SPANISH C., or Sweet C. (C. vulgaris), is said to have been first brought from Asia Minor to Sardinia, and from thence to have gradually extended over the south of Europe, where it has long been naturalised, and forms extensive woods. It is an ornamental, stately, or, in exposed situations, a very spreading tree, of great size and longevity; the still surviving C. of Totworth in England was known as a boundary-mark in the reign of King John. A celebrated C. tree on Mount Etna measured 204 feet in circumference of trunk. The C. has oblongo-lanceolate, acuminate, serrated, smooth leaves. The timber is durable and hard,

CHESS (Fr. échecs, Ger. schach). The origin of this, the most purely intellectual of all games of skill, has been much disputed; thus much may now be considered as certain, that, under the Sanscrit name of Chaturanga, a game, essentially the same as modern C., was played in Hindustan nearly 5000 years ago. In its gradual diffusion through the world in succeeding ages, the game has undergone many alterations and modifications, both in nature and in name; but marked traces of its early Asiatic origin and descent are still discerned by the learned in its nomenclature and other characteristics. From Hindustan, C. spread into Persia, and thence into Arabia. The Arabs, it would appear, in the 8th c., introduced the game into Spain and the rest of Western Europe; and in England, chess-play seems to have been known prior to the Norman Conquest. Into Constantinople, and probably some other cities of Eastern Europe, the game may have been imported from Persia at a period earlier than its Moorish conveyance into Spain.

The original Hindu game was played on a board of sixty-four squares, as now, but by four persons, two being allied against two, as in whist. Hence the name Chaturanga, from chatur, 'four,' and anga, 'a member' or 'component part.' The name Shatranj, used by the Persians and Arabs, is a corruption of the Sanscrit. The English, French, and other European names are derived from the Persian term shah, 'king.' Check, the warning when the king is in danger, is but another form of shah; in fact, 'king' is sometimes used for 'check,' and in German

CHESS.

schach is both the name of the game and the term of warning. The term rook is from the Sans. roka, Pers. rukh, meaning a ship or chariot; pawn is said to be from peon, an attendant, or foot-soldier.

a pawn moves one square diagonally either right or left; but the pawn never moves backward. On arriving at an 8th square, or the extreme line of the board, a pawn may be exchanged for any piece his owner chooses to call for, except a king; so that a player may have several queens on the board at once. If, on moving two squares, a pawn pass by an adverse pawn which has arrived at the 5th line, the advanced adverse pawn may take the other in passing in exactly the same manner as if the latter had moved but one square.

The books written upon C. would form a tolerably large library.' Of works on the antiquities of the subject, we may mention Dr. D. Forbes's History of Chess (Lond. 1860). The best modern practical works on the art of chess-play are the Chessplayer's Hand-book, and C. Praxis, by Staunton; Morphy's Games at C., edited by Lowenthal; Jaenisch's Treatise on the Openings, translated by Walker; and Horwitz and Kling's Collection of End-nally, but diagonally only; therefore a bishop can games. The subject is also pretty fully treated in never change the colour of his square. Chambers's Information for the People, 'In-door Amusements.'

The game of C. is played upon a square board marked out into sixty-four square divisions, which are coloured alternately black and white, in order the more clearly to determine and denote the respective movements of the several pieces. In placing the board for play, each player must always have a white corner square at his right hand. There are two sets of pieces, of opposite colours, of sixteen men each, and of various powers according to their rank. These sets of men are arrayed opposite to each other, and attack, defend, and capture, like hostile armies. The accompanying diagram will best explain the name, form, and place of each man at the commencement of the game:

The superior officers occupying the first row on each side are called pieces; the inferior men, all alike, standing on the row immediately in front of the pieces are called pawns. Their moves and powers, along with the peculiar terms used in C., may be briefly described as follows:

A Pawn, at his first move, may advance either one or two squares, straightforward; but after having once moved, he can only advance a single square at a time. In capturing * an adverse piece, however, * Taking is always performed by lifting the captured man from the board, and placing the captor on his square. The pawn is the only man whose mode of taking differs from his ordinary move.

A Bishop moves any number of squares diago

A Knight moves two squares, so as always to change colour-that is, he moves one square forward or backward, and one diagonally. On account of this crooked movement, he can leap over or between any surrounding pieces; and therefore a knight's check-unless he can be taken-always compels the king to move.

The Rook, or Castle, moves any number of squares forward, backward, or sidewise, but not diagonally.

The Queen is by far the most powerful of the pieces, and moves over any number of squares, either in straight lines or diagonals, forward, backward, or sidewise; so that her action is a union of that of the rook and bishop. At starting, the queen always stands on a square of her own colour.

The King is the most important piece on the board, as the game depends upon his safety. He moves only one square at once, in any direction, except when he castles a term to be explained presently. The king cannot be taken; but when any other piece attacks him, he is said to be in check, and must either move out of check or interpose some one of his subjects, unless the checking piece can be captured. When there is no means of rescuing the king from check, he is said to be checkmated, and the game is over. Of course, the two kings can never meet, as they would be in check to each other. Double-check is when a piece, by being moved, not only gives check itself, but also discovers a previously masked attack from another.

Castling is a privilege allowed to the king once in a game. The move is performed either with the king's rook or queen's rook-in the former case, the king is moved to the king's knight's square, and the king's rook is placed on the king's bishop's square: in the latter case, the king is played to the queen's bishop's square, and the queen's rook is played the queen's square. But the king cannot castle after having once moved, nor at a moment when he is actually in check, nor with a rook that has moved, nor when he passes over a square attacked or checked by an adverse piece, nor when any piece stands between him and the rook with which he would castle, nor when in the act of castling either the king or rook would have to capture an adverse piece.

Rook.

to

A drawn game results from neither player being able to checkmate the other: thus, a king left alone on each side must of course produce a draw, as do also a king with a bishop, or a knight, against a king.

Stalemate, or the not being able to move either the king or any other piece, also constitutes a drawn game.

Odds is a term applied to the advantage which a

CHESS.

CHESS CHEST.

bishops, or king, knight, and bishop against king—are occasionally made to the fund by individuals.