Page:Imperial Dictionary of Universal Biography Volume 1.pdf/1008

CAZ was dwarfish and completely deformed; but he was possessed of great courage and ability, and, by his enactment of a new code of laws and his vigorous administration of justice, conferred great benefits upon his people. He was also a munificent patron of literature and art, and was justly reckoned one of the ablest Asiatic princes of his age.—J. T.  CAZOTTE,, born at Dijon in 1720. The name of Cazotte is better known in connection with a strange prophecy regarding the Revolution than as an author, notwithstanding the grace and liveliness of his "Diable Amoureux," and other pleasant tales. It is related by La Harpe, one of the persons present, that at a banquet where appeared amongst the guests a number of distinguished individuals, doomed victims of the approaching revolution, Cazotte distinctly prognosticated the manner of the death of each. He told Condorcet that he would commit suicide to escape the guillotine; to Chamfort he announced the death that followed by his own hand; predicted what would be the fate of Bailly; and, in reply to some question touching the attendance of priests at the scaffold, announced that there would be only one confessor spared for the benefit of the king of France. It must be acknowledged that the description of this very miraculous piece of clairvoyance, which up to a late period was held worthy of controversy, is now believed to have been the work of La Harpe, après coup. At the time Cazotte was said to have lifted the veil of the future, he had become a religious mystic, animated by the most ardent piety. He was himself one of the victims of the Revolution, being brought to the scaffold, 25th September, 1792.—J. F. C.  CAZWYNY, , a famous Arabic naturalist, born at Cazwyn, a town of Persia, about the year 1210; died in 1283. At Bagdad, where he studied law and natural science, he won the favour of the caliph, and was taken into the public service. His great work entitled "Wonders of Created Things, and Singularities of Existing Things," a cosmogony derived from Greek and Arabic sources, which has procured its author the title of the Pliny of the East, but which is still imperfectly known in Europe, no edition of the text having as yet appeared, was written after the capture of Bagdad by the Tartars in 1258.—J. S., G.  CECCHI,, a Florentine comic dramatist, born in 1517. His plays, of which only ten are extant, although now little read, are of considerable interest to the historian of letters, inasmuch as they were the first to revive the idea of the classic comedy, and to displace from the stage the absurd troop of Harlequin and Pantaloon. He died in 1587.—A. C. M.  CECCO D'ASCOLI, or, an Italian encyclopedist, born at Ascoli in 1257. He taught astrology in the university of Bologna, and published a work on the occult sciences, for which he was first subjected by the church to correctional punishment, and then condemned to death. He was burned alive at Florence in 1327. His death has been sometimes attributed to the enmity of Dino del Garbo, a friend of Dante.—A. C. M.  CECIL,, first earl of Salisbury, the son of William Cecil, Lord Burleigh, by his second wife, was born about the year 1550, and educated at St. John's college, Cambridge. He was trained by his father to statecraft as a profession, and was early employed by Queen Elizabeth in many difficult and delicate negotiations. He was deformed in person, but, as an old biographer quaintly says, "upon his little crooked body he carried a head and a head-piece of a vast content." He inherited much of Lord Burleigh's courteous prudence, skilful foresight, and exquisite good sense: and proved himself possessed of that consummate tact which amounts to wisdom, in the discharge of public business. He served on board the English fleet against the Spanish Armada in 1588; and represented the county of Hertford in parliament. The queen sent him as assistant to the earl of Derby, ambassador at the French court; and afterwards (1596) created him second secretary of state under Sir F. Walsingham. Upon the death of Walsingham he succeeded to his office, and served during the remainder of his life as first secretary. In 1597 he became chancellor of the duchy of Lancaster, and lord privy seal; and ultimately succeeding his father as prime minister (1599), conducted the affairs of state with the power of a kindred prudence and patriotism. He upheld Elizabeth's policy in resistance to the Spaniards, and support of the United Provinces, and while subduing an Irish rebellion turned his attention to many practical measures for the relief of the country. In the course of Cecil's administration we find him wisely alive to Irish grievances, endeavouring to abate the charges of the garrisons, to introduce systematic law, and to develope industrial energies. Upon the accession of James I., with whom he had kept up a private correspondence, Cecil continued to hold the office of prime minister, and appeared "in dearness and privacy" with the king, as though he had been his faithful servant for many years before. Sully called James the wisest fool in Christendom, and he certainly had wit enough to perceive the value of a well-trained statesman who understood the management of a kingdom. Cecil advanced his principles of policy though free of practical necessities; and when compelled to act in a way opposed to his own views, he still continued in office as a means of tempering antagonisms, and preventing the complete triumph of an inimical cause. Thus, although he could not overcome James' desire to make peace with Spain, he yet moderated his servility; and while there was scarce a courtier of note who tasted not of Spanish bounty either in gold or jewels, he kept himself free from corruption. Every transition age needs these mediators between abstract laws of right, and the prominent, tangible, vested interests of the hour; and there is no doubt that James' reign would have been more shameful, had Cecil been absent from the council chamber. In especial, his allegiance to protestantism did good service. His devotion to the interests of the United Provinces caused many unsuccessful efforts to be made by the Spaniards and their partisans to effect his ruin. Cecil came to the knowledge of the "surprise plot," according to which James was to be compelled to change his ministry and favour the catholic party; and he was a chief agent in preventing its success. The prosecution of Sir W. Raleigh, however, upon the alleged discovery of Spanish treason, was a deep blot upon his administration. Upon the death of the earl of Dorset, Cecil became lord high treasurer. May 4th, 1608, and carried out some financial reforms. In the words of an old biographer, "he encouraged manufactures, as the home making of alum; salt by the sun; salt upon salt by new fires and inventions; copper and copperas of iron and steel; that the subjects at home might be kept on work, and the small treasure of the nation hindered from going abroad." On the other hand, Cecil sometimes stretched the claims of the royal prerogative in the raising of money. For instance, it is said that he got £200,000 for making two hundred baronets, telling the king—"He should find his English subjects like asses, on whom he might lay any burden, and should need neither bit nor bridle, but their asses' ears." Cecil's intense application to business aggravated certain consumptive tendencies, and rendered him an easy prey to a tertian ague. He died at Marlborough, 24th May, 1612, and was buried at Hatfield in Hertfordshire. He left two children by his wife Elizabeth, daugher of Lord Cobham, viz., a son, William, who succeeded to the title, and a daughter, Frances, married to Lord Clifford, heir to the earldom of Cumberland. In Cecil, James lost a councillor who tried, with consummate skill, to unite the service of his royal master with the prosperity of his country, and who played the double part of a courtier and a patriot. Had he been less a courtier, his country would have suffered through the loss of his influence in the council chamber. In an age when an enlightened patriotism ran in danger ofttimes of being condemned as treason, Cecil, Lord Salisbury, by an exquisite prudential tact managed to maintain himself as the servant and lover both of his king and of his country. He was the author of a treatise against the papists; some parliamentary speeches; a treatise concerning the state and dignity of a secretary of state, with the care and peril thereof, and of some notes on Dr. John Dee's discourse concerning the reformation of the calendar. His correspondence has been published by Lord Hailes.—L. L. P.  CECIL,, an English engraver who flourished about 1630. Evelyn highly praises him, accounting him on a level with the greatest artists of his day. His plates show very neat clean execution, and are principally portraits after his own drawings.—W. T.  CECIL,, Lord Burleigh; the foremost statesman of the great Elizabethan era of English history; was born at Bourne in Lincolnshire, Sept. 15, 1520. He was the son of Richard Cecil, master of the robes to Henry VIII. An accident introduced him to the notice of Henry. Happening to meet in the presence-chamber two Irish priests who had accompanied their chieftain <section end="1008Zcontin" />