Page:Imperial Dictionary of Universal Biography Volume 1.pdf/1081

CHO Dartmouth college in 1789, was a representative in congress from 1803 to 1813, and governor of the state for the two following years. He died in 1840, aged seventy-five.—F. B.  CHIYA,, of Kafri in Babylonia, a contemporary of R'Jehudah the prince, in the second century, by whom the Mishna, or traditional code of the Jews, was arranged in its present order. After having long been an active teacher of the law in Babylonia, where Huna was at the time exilarch (prince of the captivity), Chiya set out for the Holy Land, where the fame of his learning had prepared for him a friendly reception, especially from R'Jehudah. To R'Chiya, in conjunction with R'Hoshaiah (who belongs, however, to the generation after Chiya), is attributed a collection of traditional legal decisions, apart from R'Jehudah's Mishna, and known under the title of "Thosephtha," in three hundred and eighty-three chapters.—(Printed in Ugolini's Thesaurus, in Alfasi's Talmudical Commentaries, and elsewhere.) Two other compilations made by the same rabbi are no longer extant. An excellent biography of R'Chiya, the product of much research, has been published by Raphael Kirchheim, in the Orient, 1848.—T. T.  CHIYA or CHAYA,, by birth a Spaniard, but who, according to Fürst, at some time reside d at Marseilles, was a disciple of R'Moses Ha-Darshan, and teacher of the celebrated Aben Ezra. According to Rossi he still lived in the year 1136, although some annalists fix on the year 1105 as that of his death. Among his astronomical works special mention is due to the Sepher "Zurath Haarez," &c. (on the form of the earth, the spheres, and the orbits of the stars), composed at the request of his teacher; a Latin translation, with notes by Sebast. Münster, was published at Basle in 1546. He has also written on the Jewish calendar.—T. T.  CHLADNI,, a German philosopher, born in 1756; died in 1827. He was professor of jurisprudence at Leipzig, but resigned his chair in order to apply himself to natural philosophy. Chladni made some ingenious discoveries, the result of numerous experiments, on the nature and properties of sound. He has detailed them in a methodical manner in his "Treatise on Acoustics."—R. M., A.  CHODOWIECKI,, an engraver and designer, born at Dantzig in 1726. His father was a drug merchant, with an amateur talent for miniature painting. He brought up his son to work at drug selling, and to play at miniature painting. His son reversed the paternal precepts, he played at being a merchant, and worked hard as a painter, and luckily as it turned out. The father died prematurely, leaving no money, and a widow and child to live as they could out of a merchant's business which only brought in losses. The young Chodowiecki could not yet feel his art-feet. If he could have earned his own support, he had in addition to render aid to his mother. So he worked still at his art by encroaching on the time allotted him for sleep, and served the remainder of the day in the shop of a grocer. A halo of insolvency hung about him; the grocer failed, and the young man was sent to an uncle at Berlin, to serve out his term of apprenticeship. He still kept up the struggle of art against commerce. He painted snuff-box lids, selling them for what he could get, and sending his earnings to his mother. Gradually the light dissolved the bushel over it; his uncle unharnessed him, took the mercantile curb out of his mouth, had him taught enamelling, and bade him Godspeed as an artist. He dived into the sea of art, and soon brought up the pearl success. The Academy of Painting at Berlin took notice of him, and employed him to design and engrave the figures for their almanack. He was soon almost swamped with orders. He produced a series of twelve plates of the "Passion of Christ," which brought him great fame. He published a print called "Les Adieux de Calais," which created quite a sensation. He executed the designs and plates for Lavater's Physiognomy, Klopstock's Messiah, and editions of Don Quixote, Shakspeare, Voltaire, La Bruyere, La Fontaine, Gessner, Lessing, and others. He died at Berlin in 1801, director of the academy of arts of that city.—W. T.  * CHODZKO,, a Polish orientalist, born at Krzywicze on the 11th July, 1804; author of "Specimens of the popular Poetry of Persia," London, 1842; "Le Theâtre en Perse," Paris, 1845; "Le Guilan," &c.,; "Excursions aux pyles Caspiennes," 1851; "Le Khoraçan et son heros populaire," 1852; "Le Deçati," 1852; "Grammaire Persane," 1852; and other oriental works.—F. M. W.  * CHODZKO,, a Polish historian, born 6th November, 1800, at Oborek; a member of an ancient and noble Lithuanian family which has produced several distinguished men. He studied history at the university of Wilna under the celebrated Lelewel, and afterwards, as secretary to Prince Michel Oginski, travelled over Europe from 1819 to 1826, when he settled in Paris. In the revolution of 1830 he acted as aide-de-camp to La Fayette, but soon returned to literary pursuits, and was successively employed in the libraries of the Sorbonne, St. Genevieve, and the ministry of public instruction. His works are numerous, including "Histoire des légions Polonaises en Italie," Paris 1829; "Les Polonais en Italie," Paris, 1829; "Esquisse chronologique de l'histoire de la littérature polonaise," Paris, 1829; "Tableau de la Pologne Ancienne et Moderne"; "Coup d'œil, etc., sur la guerre actuelle entre la Russie et la Pologne," 1831; "Histoire politique de la Lithuanie," 1831; "Tableaux des révolutions de la Pologne," in conjunction with M. de Marcey; "Notices sur Kosciuzko;" "Fontainebleau," 1837; and a memoir of Lelewel, 1834; "La Pologne, historique, littéraire, monumentale, &c," 1834-47 "Histoire de Turquie," 1855; and "Histoire de Pologne," 1855. M. Chodzko has also contributed to the Globe, Constitutionnel, and Courrier-Francais.—F. M. W.  CHŒRILUS , born about 584 years before the christian era; died about 464. He was the author, it is said, of a hundred and fifty dramatic pieces, and to have repeatedly borne away the prize for which Æschylus and Sophocles are described as competitors. Some changes in the arrangement of the chorus, and the introduction of a metre before unused, are referred to him. A line which differs from the ordinary hexameter, by the fact of wanting the final syllable, is by some grammarians called the Chœrilian.—J. A., D. <section end="1081H" /> <section begin="1081I" />CHŒRILUS , born at Samos about 470 . This Chœrilus was a slave; author of an epic poem on the war of the Greeks against Darius and Xerxes. The work was entitled "The Persian." Some lines of it are preserved by Aristotle.—J. A., D. <section end="1081I" /> <section begin="1081J" />CHŒRILUS : this Chœrilus is mentioned as having lived about 340. He owes his immortality to Horace, by whom he is described as a sort of poet in ordinary to Alexander the Great. Alexander paid him liberally for his praises, but seems not to have estimated the poet himself highly. "I should," said he, "rather be the Thersites of Homer than the Achilles of Chœrilus." The scholiast to whom we owe this story tells another less credible. He says that Alexander agreed to give him a piece of gold for every good verse—a blow for every bad one. He got seven pieces of gold, and so many blows that he did not survive—so many were the blows he earned, and so scrupulously were they paid.—J. A., D. <section end="1081J" /> <section begin="1081Zcontin" />CHOISEUL, a French family, various branches of which are known in history by the names of representatives who attained distinction as commanders or as statesmen. The following are the more notable members of this family:—

, Duc de, Lord of Plessis-Praslin, known as marshal du Plessis, was born in Paris in 1598, and died in 1675. Particularly distinguished as a soldier, he was also a skilful diplomatist; and while he had the privilege of instructing Louis XIV. in the art of war, he had more than once the honour of assisting Richelieu in his game of diplomacy. It was he who conducted the negotiations between Louis XIV. and Charles II., which resulted in the treaty of alliance against Holland.

, Duc de, was born 28th June, 1719: entering in early life into the military service under the name of the comte de Stainville, he rapidly rose to the highest rank. In 1753 he commenced his political career as ambassador of France at Rome, and astonished the tranquil court of Benedict XIV. with the splendour of his luxury. He proved himself one of those gay and brilliant men whose influence is almost irresistible through their power of gracefully adapting themselves to the various influences around them, awakening no direct antagonisms, and appearing to favour every party, but in effect guiding all to purposes of their own. He acquired considerable authority at the papal court, and procured a promise of a cardinal's hat for the Abbé Bernis, then minister of foreign affairs in France, and to whose office Choiseul himself soon succeeded. From Rome Choiseul passed to Vienna, and the luxury of the embassy under his charge better suited an Austrian than an ecclesiastical capital. In 1758 he replaced <section end="1081Zcontin" />