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CHAP-BOOKS

Chap-books are little stitched tracts written for the people, and sold by chapmen, or travelling pedlars, whose representative Autolycus is SO vividly brought before our eyes by Shakespeare in Winter's Tale. The literary wares of the chapman were mostly ballads or other broadsides, but he also dealt in these stitched booklets. Popular literature has naturally become scarce on account of the vicissitudes to which it is subject, and few of the older chap-books exist at the present day. Samuel Pepys collected some of considerable interest which he bound in small quarto volumes and lettered Vulgaria. Besides these he left four volumes of chap-books of a smaller size which he lettered Penny Merriments, Penny Witticisms, Penny Compliments and Penny Godlinesses. The small quarto chap-books are the descendants of the black-letter tracts of Wynkyn de Worde, Copland, and other famous printers, and were probably bought from booksellers as well as from chapmen. With the 18th century came in a much inferior class of literature, which was printed in a smaller size, and forms the bulk of what is known to us now in collections of chap-books. These tracts were printed largely in Aldermary Churchyard, and afterwords in Bow Churchyard, as well as at Northampton, York, Newcastle-on-Tyne, Stokesley, Warrington, Liverpool, Banbury, Aylesbury, Durham, Birmingham, Wolverhampton, Coventry, Whitehaven, Carlisle, Worcester, Penrith, Cirencester, &c., in England; at Edinburgh, Glasgow, Falkirk, Paisley, Dumfries, Kilmarnock, Stirling, &c., in Scotland; and at Dublin. As ballads are frequently reduced versions of romances, so chap-books usually contain vulgarised versions of popular stories. The subjects of the chap-books are very various; first and foremost are the popular tales, such as Valentine and Orson, Fortunatus, Reynard the Fox, Jack and the Giants, Patient Grissel, Tom Thumb, and Tom Hickathrift; then come the lives of heroes, historical abridgments, travels, religious treatises, and abstracts of popular books like Robinson Crusoe and Don Quixote. Besides these

there are the more modern inventions of hack writers. Dougal Graham (1724-1779), bellman to the city of Glasgow, was a popular writer who is supposed to have done much to give a special character to Scottish chap-book literature. Motherwell has styled him the vulgar Juvenal of his age. His works were reprinted at Glasgow in 2 vols. in 1883.

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that Whittington set out before daybreak on AllHallows' Day, and before he got as far as Bunhill he heard Bow Bells ring out. Holloway replaced Bunhill in the later versions, and hence arose the myth connected with Whittington Stone on Highgate Hill.

Hannah More's Repository Tracts, and afterwards the publications of the Useful Knowledge Society, Chambers's Miscellany of Tracts, and the growth of cheap magazines, greatly reduced the popularity of chap-books; but Catnach, a London printer, kept up the supply in the early portion of the 19th century, and even now chap-books are still produced in England and elsewhere.

The influence of chap-books can never have been very great in Britain from the inferiority of their literary character. This has not been the case in other countries, and Mr Wentworth Webster has discovered the curious fact that the Pastorales or Basque dramas owe their origin to the chap-books hawked about the country (see article BASQUES). A valuable and standard work on the chap-books of France was published in 1854, entitled Histoire des Livres Populaires, ou de la Littérature du Colportage, by M. Ch. Nisard; but little has been done in England for this class of literature. Mr J. O. Halliwell-Phillipps printed in 1849 Notices of Fugitive Tracts and Chap Books and Descriptive Notices of Popular English Histories; Mr John Ashton published in 1882 a useful work on Chapbooks of the Eighteenth Century; and five of the most interesting of the old chap-books have been reprinted (1885) by the Villon Society, with introductions by Mr Gomme and Mr H. B. Wheatley. For German chap-books, the reader should consult Karl Simrock, Die deutschen Volksbücher (55 parts, Berlin and Frankfort, 1839-67), and Gotthard Oswald Marbach, Altdeutsche Volksbücher (44 vols. Leip. 1838-47).

which, according to Brachet, already in the 7th Chapel (through Fr. from a late Latin capella, century had the sense of a chapel, but earlier meant the sanctuary in which was preserved the cappa or cope of St Martin, and was next expanded to mean signifies a building erected for the purposes of any sanctuary containing relics). The term now public worship, but not possessing the full privileges

and characteristics of a church. In this sense all places of worship erected by dissenters are now called chapels in England, and the term is also applied to supplementary places of worship, even though in connection with the established churchsuch as parochial chapels, chapels of ease, free In former times it was chapels, and the like. An instance

The chap-books of the 17th century are valuable as illustrations of manners; but little is to be learned from those of the 18th century, which are altogether of an inferior character.

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of this may be taken from the story of Dick
Whittington. The earliest version of this tale
which has come down to us is a small quarto tract
entitled The Famous and Remarkable History of
Sir Richard Whittington, three times Lord Mayor
of London, who lived in the time of King Henry
the Fifth in the year 1419, with all the remarkable
passages, and things of note, which happened in his
time with his Life and Death.' It is without a
date, but was probably published about 1670. In
this the historical character of the subject is fairly
kept up, although the dates are somewhat mixed,
and to this the widespread folk-tale of the cat is
added.
In the later chap-book versions the histori-
cal incidents are ruthlessly cut down, and the ficti-
tious ones amplified. The three chief points of the
story are (1) the poor parentage of the hero, (2) his
change of mind at Highgate Hill by reason of hear-
ing Bow Bells, and (3) his good fortune arising
from the sale of his cat. Now these are all equally
untrue as referring to the historical Whittington,
and the second is apparently an invention of the
18th century. In the 17th-century story we learn

applied either to a domestic oratory, or to a place
of worship erected by a private individual or a
body corporate. In the latter sense we speak of
But its earliest significa-
chapels in colleges.
tion was that of a separate erection, either within
ately dedicated, and devoted to special services
or attached to a large church or cathedral, separ-
(see CHANTRY). Chapels had no burying-ground
attached to them, and the sacrament of baptism
was not usually administered in them.-The name
is also given to a printer's workshop, hence to a
be so applied because Caxton set up his press in a
union of the workmen in a printing-office-said to
chapel at Westminster.

Chapelain, JEAN, a somewhat curious figure in the gallery of French authors, was born in 1595, and died in 1674. He was a learned, industrious writer, who passed for a time as a poet, and was accepted as the dominant authority in the world of French letters between the literary dictatorships of Malherbe and of Boileau. He produced one of the abortive epics which it was the fashion to write during the regency of Mazarin. This work, the

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Pucelle, dealt with the story of Joan of Arc, in twenty-four books. Its appearance covered its author with ridicule. Chapelain was gibbeted in the satires of Boileau, and the critic's severity was in this case amply justified by the dullness and grotesque absurdities of the work which he attacked. Chapelain also wrote a number of odes, one of which, composed in honour of Cardinal Richelieu, is not without merit. An edition of part of the Pucelle (1 vol. folio) was published in 1656. The last twelve books still remain in manuscript in the Bibliothèque Impériale.

Chapel Royal, in England, consists of a dean, sub-dean, forty-eight chaplains, ten priests in ordinary, and a numerous lay choir, styled gentlemen of the chapel, with a clerk of the closet, and deputy-clerks of the closet, and an organist. The chaplain's duty is preaching, a certain number being appointed beforehand to take duty each month of the year; the liturgical offices are performed by the dean, sub-dean, and priests in ordinary. The establishment is bound to attend the sovereign wherever the court happens to be; but in fact the services of the chapel are confined to London-formerly to the chapel at Whitehall, destroyed by fire after the Restoration, more recently to the small oratory in St James's Palace. The earliest records concerning the Chapel Royal date from the reign of Edward IV.

The CHAPEL ROYAL OF SCOTLAND was an ancient foundation originally located in Stirling Castle, founded by Alexander I., and liberally endowed by his successors. In the reign of Queen Mary the Chapel Royal was transferred to Holyrood House. After the Reformation 'the minister of the king's household' conducted service in it, and the chapel was used as their parish church by the people of the Canongate. It was endowed with the teinds of various churches, and the revenues of the abbey of Dundrennan. During the period of Episcopal church government the Chapel Royal of Holyrood was presided over by a dean, generally one of the bishops, and served by a number of chaplains (see HOLYROOD). After the Revolution the revenues of the Chapel Royal were bestowed on various ministers and chaplains. In accordance with the report of the University Commission issued in 1863 the whole revenues have latterly been taken to augment the income of several professors of divinity, among whom they are divided. The present Dean of the Order of the Thistle is appointed by his commission from the crown the Dean of the Chapel Royal of Scotland. The other members of the chapel are the chaplains in ordinary, six in number, who are appointed during the pleasure of the crown. Neither the dean nor the chaplains receive any of the revenues of the Chapel Royal, which have been all disposed of in the manner stated, and their duties are purely honorary. Chaperon, a hood or cap worn by knights of the Garter. Such a hood was at one time in general use, but was latterly appropriated to doctors and licentiates in colleges. A person who acts as a guide and protector to a lady at public places is called a chaperon, probably from this particular piece of dress having been used on such occasions. The name was also applied to devices which were placed on the heads of horses at pompous funerals.

Chaplain, originally an ecclesiastic who accompanied an army, and carried the relics of the patron saint (see CHAPEL). It now signifies a clergyman employed to officiate at court, in the household of a nobleman or bishop, in prisons, with troops, and on board ship. Such officials appear first in the palaces of the Byzantine emperors. For the royal chaplains in Britain, see CHAPEL ROYAL. prison and workhouse chaplains, see PRISON, POOR.

For

CHAPMAN

An ARMY CHAPLAIN, in Britain, is a clergyman not having charge of a parish, especially commissioned to do duty with troops. The office, which has existed for many years, was at one time regarded as a saleable perquisite; but the system was reorganised and improved in 1796. The Chaplains' Department, a branch of the Military Department of the War Office, consists of a Chaplain-general, ranking as major-general; 16 Chaplains to the Forces of the first class, ranking as colonels; 10 of the second class, ranking as lieutenant-colonels; 18 of the third class, ranking as majors; and 35 of the fourth class, ranking as captains. Of these, 13 are Roman Catholic and 6 Presbyterian. Their pay, which in the fourth class is 10s. a day, rises to 22s. 6d. in the highest rank, the chaplain-general receiving £1000 a year. Chaplains are sent on active service with the troops, and in peace are allotted to the various military stations. Their duties are to conduct divine service in camp or barracks, officiate at burials, baptisms, and churchings, visit the hospital and barrack-rooms, give religious instruction in the schools, and generally treat the soldiers and their families as though they were their parishioners. Where the number of troops is small, the parish clergyman is appointed acting chaplain, performs these duties, and receives head-money. Soldiers who do not belong to the Church of England are marched to the nearest place of worship belonging to their denomination, and head-money is granted to the minister in charge. In the United States army, regimental chaplains and post-chaplains may be of any of the regular denominations. They mostly have the rank of captain.

sion has a chaplain. The Navy Estimates provide NAVY CHAPLAIN. Every large ship in commisfor above 100 commissioned chaplains, at stipends The Chapvarying from £219 to £401 per annum. lain of the Fleet has an income (with allowances) of £759 a year. The chaplains perform divine service at stated times on shipboard, visit the sick sailors, and assist in maintaining moral discipline among the crew. The estimates of 1887-88 included also £3400 for 'allowances to ministers of religion,' besides the salaries of chaplains. In the United States navy, chaplains on the active list are of various relative ranks, from that of lieutenant to that of captain.

Chapman, a trader, but popularly applied in a more limited sense to a dealer in small articles, who travels as a pedlar or attends markets. Our familiar chap, a fellow,' is a mere shortening of the name, which is derived from A.S. ceáp, 'trade,' seen in Cheapside, Eastcheap, and in cognate form in Copenhagen. See CHAP-BOOK.

Chapman, GEORGE, dramatist and translator of Homer, was born near Hitchin, Hertfordshire, about 1559. He is supposed to have studied at Oxford University, and to have afterwards proceeded to Cambridge. From a passage in his earliest poem, The Shadow of Night (1594), it has been somewhat hastily inferred that he served as a volunteer under Sir Francis Vere in the Netherlands. To Lawrence Keymis's Relation of the Second Voyage to Guiana (1596) he prefixed a spirited poem, De Guiana, Carmen Epicum. His earliest extant play, The Blind Beggar of Alexandria, which has little merit, but was very popular, was produced in February 1595-96, and printed in 1598. The excellent comedy, All Fools, printed in 1605, was probably produced in 1599; and about this time he wrote other plays, which have perished. In 1598 he completed Marlowe's unfinished poem, Hero and Leander. The first of his Homeric translations was Seven Books of the Iliads of Homer (1598). It is a translation of books i. ii. vii.-xi., and is

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CHAPONE

written in rhymed verses of fourteen syllables. The dedicatory epistle to the Earl of Essex admirably illustrates the writer's dignified temper. Later in 1598 he published Achilles' Shield, translated from the eighteenth book of the Iliad. In this translation he used rhymed verses of ten syllables, the metre that he afterwards employed in his rendering of the Odyssey. It was not until 1610 or thereabouts that he published Homer, Prince of Poets: translated according to the Greeke in twelve Bookes of his Iliads, with a fine dedicatory epistle in verse to Prince Henry. The complete translation of The Iliads of Homer, Prince of Poets, in rhymed verses of fourteen syllables, appeared in 1611. In the Preface to the Reader he states that the last twelve books had been translated in less than fifteen

weeks. Having finished the Iliad, he set to work on the Odyssey, and in 1616 appeared The Whole Works of Homer, Prince of Poets, in his Iliads and Odysseys, which was followed (about 1624) by The Crowne of all Homer's Workes, Batrachomyomachia, or the Battaile of Frogs and Mice: His Hymns and Epigrams. In spite of all harshnesses, obscurities, and conceits, Chapman's translation of Homer is a noble achievement. He was not a profound scholar, and has often missed the sense where a schoolboy could set him right. But the work is instinct with life, full of heat and energy. By his contemporaries -Jonson, Drayton, Daniel, and the rest it was applauded, and in later days it has never lacked admirers. Pope acknowledged its merits ; Coleridge declared that it was such a poem as Homer might have written if he had lived in England in the time of Elizabeth; Lamb admired it enthusiastically; and Keats wrote a famous sonnet in its praise. While he was busy with his Homeric labours, Chapman was also writing for the stage. He joined Jonson and Marston in the composition of Eastward Ho (1605), and in 1606 published a graceful comedy, The Gentleman Usher. In 1607 appeared Bussy d'Ambois: a Tragedie; and The Revenge of Bussy d'Ambois followed in 1613. These tragedies contain much inarticulate bombast intermingled with exalted poetry. Heavy and undramatic though they were, they held the stage for many years by reason of their impassioned earnestness. Two other tragedies, The Conspiracie and Tragedie of Charles, Duke of Byron (1608), are also undramatic, but abound in fine poetry. Lamb was of opinion that of all the Elizabethan dramatists Chapman came nearest to Shakespeare in the descriptive and didactic, in passages which are less purely dramatic. Chapman's other plays are The May Day (1611), The Widow's Tears (1612), and Cæsar and Pompey (1631). Two posthumous tragedies, published in 1654, Alphonsus and Revenge for Honour, bear his name, but their authorship is uncertain. The Ball, a comedy, and The Tragedie of Chabot were published in 1639 as the joint work of Chapman and Shirley. Among Chapman's non-dramatic works are Enthymia Raptus (1609), Petrarch's Seven Penitentiall Psalmes (1612), The Divine Poem of Musaus (1616), and The Georgicks of Hesiod (1618). Chapman died in the parish of St Giles's in the Fields, 12th May 1634. Wood describes him as a person of reverend aspect, religious and temperate, qualities rarely meeting in a poet.' A complete edition of Chapman's works in 3 vols., with an essay by A. C. Swinburne, appeared in 1873-75.

6

Chapone, HESTER, authoress, daughter of Thomas Mulso, was born at Twywell, Northamptonshire, 27th October 1727. She wrote a short romance in her tenth year, and after her mother's death her attention was divided_between_household duties and the study of French, Italian, Latin, music, and drawing. She wrote for the Rambler (No. 10), Adventurer, and Gentleman's

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Magazine, and soon became known to a literary circle, including Richardson; but she is now chiefly remembered by her Letters on the Improvement of the Mind (1772), which went through many editions. She married an attorney in 1760, but next year was left a widow; she herself died at Hadley, 25th December 1801. See her Works with Life (4 vols. 1807).

Chapped Hands, a form of inflammation of the skin of the back of the hands characterised by abnormal dryness and roughness, with the formation of cracks or fissures. It is caused by exposure to cold, and can generally be prevented or cured by carefully drying the hands after they are washed, and applying glycerine, vaseline, or other simple ointment. The hands should also be protected in cold weather by warm gloves.

Chappell, WILLIAM, F.S.A., the author of the most learned work on ancient English music, was born November 20, 1809. Most of his life he lived in London, where he was for some years a member of a great music publishing house. His first work of importance was 4 Collection of Song, Ballad, and Dance Tunes (2 vols. [1838-40]). National English_Airs, consisting of Ancient This work, which contained 245 airs, ultimately grew into the greater and entirely rewritten work, containing over 400 airs, re-harmonised on a consistent plan by Macfarren, Popular Music of the Olden Time; a Collection of Ancient Songs, Ballads, and Dance Tunes, illustrative of the National Music of England (2 vols. [1855-59]). The first volume, itself containing 200 airs, forms known, down to the reign of Charles I.; the a complete collection of English airs, so far as all the more interesting or important airs of later second is rather a selection, containing, however, date. Mr Chappell took a principal part in the foundation in 1840 of the Musical Antiquarian Society and the Percy Society, and edited some of Dowland's songs for the former and several rare collections for the latter. He published a few papers in the Archæologia, contributed invaluable notes to Hales and Furnivall's reprint of the Percy Folio MS. (1867-68), and annotated the first three volumes (1869-79) of the Ballad Society edition of The Roxburghe Ballads (continued by his friend Mr Ebsworth). Mr Chappell published in 1874 the first volume of a History of Music. He died in London, 20th August 1888.

Chapra, a town in Bengal, on the Gogra, 1 mile above its confluence with the Ganges. It is capital of the district of Saran. Pop. (1881) 51,670.

Chaptal, JEAN ANTOINE, COMTE DE CHANTELOUP, French statesman and chemist, was born at Nogaret, Lozère, 4th June 1756, and studied at Montpellier, where in 1781 the states of Languedoc founded for him a chair of Chemistry. A considerable fortune left him by his uncle he devoted to the establishment of works for the manufacture of mineral acids, alum, soda, &c. He was made a member of the Institute in 1798, and in 1800 Minister of the Interior. He resigned in 1804, but in 1811 was made a count by the emperor. During the Hundred Days he was a minister of state and director of commerce and manufactures; after the Restoration he withdrew into private life, but was admitted to the chamber of peers by Louis XVIII. in 1819. He died in Paris, 30th July 1832.

Chapter. See BIBLE, Vol. II. p. 126.

Chapter-house (Fr. salle capitulaire), the building in which the monks and canons of monastic establishments, and the dean and prebendaries of cathedral and collegiate churches, meet for the management of the affairs of their order or society (see CATHEDRAL). Chapter-houses frequently exhibit the most elaborate architectural adornment,

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In

Gloucester, &c. are parallelograms; Lichfield is an oblong octagon; Lincoln, a decagon; and Worcester a circle. In France the chapter-house is generally square. They are always contiguous to the church, and are not generally placed to the west of the transepts. They sometimes open into the church, or are entered by a passage, but are more frequently in connection with the cloisters. some instances there are arches or windows between the chapter-house and the cloisters to enable those standing in the latter to hear what goes on in the chapter-house. A stone seat on a raised step generally runs round the apartment. Chapter-houses were often used as places of sepulture, and have sometimes crypts under them, as at Wells and Westminster.

Chapultepec, a rock 2 miles SW. of the city of Mexico, rising to a height of 150 feet, and crowned by a castle, which was erected by the Spanish viceroy in 1785 on the site of the palace of

Montezuma.

Char, a fish. See CHARR.

Chara. The Characea or Stoneworts are a small group of common aquatic plants found growing in large tufts, or even covering large expanses on the bottoms of fresh-water ponds and shallow lakes, brackish or even salt-water lagoons, &c., and of which the systematic position has undergone the most extraordinary and instructive vicissitudes. The early botanists, with K. Bauhin, had no hesitation in describing them as horsetails (Equisetum). In 1719 Vaillant proposed for them a separate genus (Chara), while Linnæus, although at first disposed to regard them as Algae, as their habitat suggests, decided that the small red male reproductive body must be a stamen, and the larger green female one a pistil, and accordingly placed them as flowering plants among the Monacia Monandria. His pupils

CHARA

at most ventured to remove these to the Monandria Monogynia, while De Jussieu regarded them as a genus of Naiadaceae (q.v.), an order of monocotyledonous aquatics with much reduced flowers. In similar opinions he was followed by De Candolle and other eminent systematists: and it was not until 1851 that a careful re-examination of their structure and mode of reproduction by Thuret finally disproved the phanerogamous view, and established their cryptogamic nature. Since that time the group has attracted great attention, and is now on grounds of peculiar instructiveness, both morphological and physiological, one of the classical forms usually presented to the beginner, not only in cryptogamic botany, but general biology.

Commencing with the vegetative system, we find this apparently consisting of a stem with regular whorls of leaves arising at definite points (nodes) of the stem. The internodes, or distances between these, are at first considerable; but as we approach the apex these are shorter and shorter, and at length we lose sight of them in the crowded terminal bud. The resemblance to a young shoot of Equisetum is so far satisfactory, and the mineral incrustation (in some species so abundant as to lead to the substitution of the plant for scouring metal) appears to confirm this. The incrustation, however, is calcareous, not silice ous. Even under microscopic examination we may at first sympathise with the old observers, and seem to see in the stem a multicellular structure, even a cortex; nay, to see under our very eyes the actual circulation of the sap. More careful scrutiny, however, enables us to repeat the work of later and more accurate observers. We see that this movement is not the circulation of the sap in a stem, but a streaming of the protoplasm within what is simply a single enormous cell stretching from one node to the next (see CELL). The apparent cortex is a single layer of cells covering this internodal cell;

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and the whole

Vegetative structure is unravelled when we roughly dissect out the

terminal bud, harden, stain and imbed this

in paraffin, and

Fig. 1.

Shoot of Chara.

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thus cut a fine longitudinal section (fig. 2). An apical cell is seen which continually segments off a lower one; this divides (still transversely to the axis) into two new ones; and the lower of these henceforth steadily lengthens as the internodal cell, while the upper undergoes repeated division, until a plate of nodal cells is formed. In the simpler family (Nitella) the internode thus consists of a single naked cell: in the higher (Chara), this is inclosed by the so-called cortex, a layer of smaller cells proceeding from those of the upper and lower nodes;

Fig. 2.-Longitudinal Section of the apical bud of Chara.

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and itself showing a minor nodal and internodal arrangement. In all cases, from the nodal cells there divide off, parallel to the outer surface of the stem, a new set of apical cells, which proceed, like the parent one, to form the 'leaves,' reproducing, that is to say, the stem structure, until they lose the power of division, and end in a single enlarged vegetative cell. A branch may arise from a new formed apical cell cut off in the axil of the oldest leaf of any whorl, while the so-called roots, which fix the plant in the mud, are simply unicellular hairs, lengthenings produced from the superficial

cells of buried nodes.

The apparently very complex and characteristic reproductive organs arise also at the nodes of the stem or leaves, in positions and numbers varying with the species. Commencing with the female (fig. 3a), which arises in the position of a branch, we find this to be obviously a shortened and modified one.

Fig. 3.-Node, bearing reproductive organs:

a, Mature; b, developing.

Its apical cell forms only an internode and node, then ceases division, and becomes enlarged

and filled with a

store of starch

and other reserve material to form an eggcell; while the cover or arche

gonium inclosing this is readily seen to be а mere modification of the familiar cortex. In

the male apparatus, or antheridium, the branch structure is further modified: its apical cell similarly remains all but sessile, forming only a short node and internode; but segmentation now begins, thus recalling the behaviour of a nodal cell-with which, in having below it an internodal, and not as in the case of the egg-cell, a nodal cell (fig. 3b), it so far corresponds. Eight quadrantlike cells are formed, but these now segment off new cells in the interior of the spherical mass, and in the growth and development of these the nodal and internodal alternation of ordinary vegetative growth can still be traced. Soon, however, a number of long segmented filaments are developed, and the protoplasm of these undergoes rejuvenescence, and becomes modified into a ciliated spermatozoid. When the reproductive organs are ripe, this archegonium is easily broken, and its filaments spread free in the water; the spermatozoids escape in a myriad, and some reach the egg-cell of the archegonium by means of a small opening, which is left by the all but incomplete upgrowth of the cortical cells which form the wall of the archegonium. After a period of rest, the fertilised ovum germinates, producing, however, not directly a new Chara plant, but a simple filament of cells called a proembryo, of which one cell segments into a node, and the oldest cell of this becomes the growing point of the new plant.

The affinities and systematic position of the group thus still afford ground for discussion, although now within narrower limits than formerly; some systematists regarding them as a somewhat aberrant group of Algae, while others insist on their resemblance to the archegoniate cryptogams (see VEGETABLE KINGDOM). The fruits of what seem to

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have been gigantic Characeae (Spirangium) occur from the Carboniferous to the Wealden, and ordinary Characeæ are abundant in the Tertiary strata. See Howes' Biological Atlas, and Sachs' Botany. Characin'idæ. See SALMONIDE. Characteristic. See LOGARITHMS.

Character to Servant. The master is under land, to give a character to his servant, however no legal obligation, either in England or in Scotlong, faithfully, or efficiently he may have served him; but, if given, the character must be strictly true, or, at all events, in accordance with the master's belief, otherwise he may be exposed to an action of damages, either by the servant whom he whom he has deceived. If true, however, the fact has calumniated, or by a subsequent employer of its being prejudicial will expose the master to no risk. In order to justify the giving of a bad character, however, it must, in general, be asked for by the servant, as the master is not entitled needlessly to publish the servant's defects. Where asked, it will lie with the servant to prove its falsehood, not with the master to prove its truth. The case of the servant being known by the master to have committed a felony while in his service, is, however, an exception to this rule, as, in a case so extreme, the master is at liberty to warn others against taking him into their employment. Even though strictly true, the character, if prejudicial,

must not be more so than the circumstances render necessary. Acts of petty dishonesty, such as are too common among servants, will not warrant the master in branding him as a thief. The safe course, in such a case, is to state the offence, and not to describe it by a general epithet, which may convey an erroneous impression of its magnitude.

It is probable that, partly from thoughtless goodnature, and partly from a selfish desire to get rid of a bad servant in the most comfortable manner, false characters are given in favour of servants very is desirable that masters and mistresses should have much more frequently than to their prejudice. It in view that they may render themselves liable in be the direct result of thus inflicting on a stranger reparation of any damage which can be shown to a wrong which is unquestionably within the reach of the law.

By an Act of 1816, personating a master, and thus giving a false character to a servant, or asserting in writing that a servant has been hired, contrary to truth; and any person offering himself as a servant, pretending to have served where he has not served, or producing a false certificate, or altering a certificate, or pretending not to have been in any former service, &c., are offences at common law, punishable on conviction before two justices with a fine of £20.

Charade, or 'syllable-puzzle' as the Germans call it, is an amusement which consists in dividing a word of one or more syllables into its component syllables, or into its component letters, predicating something of each; and then, having reunited the whole, and predicated something of that also, the reader or listener is asked to guess the word. specimen of the charade depending upon syllables we adduce the following:

As a

'My first is ploughed for various reasons, and grain is frequently buried in it to little purpose. My second is neither riches nor honours, yet the former would generally be given for it, and the latter are often tasteless without. it. My whole applies equally to spring, summer, autumn, and winter; and both fish and flesh, praise and censure, mirth and melancholy, are the better for being in it. Ans. Sea-son.'

As a specimen of the second class of charades, we take the following happy example from the French:

Quatre membres font tout mon bien,

Mon dernier vaut mon tout, et mon tout ne vaut rien. The word is zero. It is composed of four letters, of

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