Page:Imperial Dictionary of Universal Biography Volume 1.pdf/903

CAL CALEF,, a merchant of Boston in New England, honourably distinguished for the brave and active share which he took in opposing the witchcraft delusion of 1692. When Cotton Mather published his Wonders of the Invisible World, Calef replied to him in a book entitled "More Wonders of the Invisible World." It gave great offence, but Hutchinson says it contains a fair narrative of the facts. The book was printed in London, and Dr. Increase Mather, then president of Harvard college, caused a copy of it to be burnt in the college yard. Calef states that, during the delusion, about 200 persons were accused, 150 imprisoned, 28 condemned, 19 hanged, and one pressed to death because he refused to plead. Public opinion was not long in coming round to his side, and honouring: him for opinions, the publication of which at the time was perilous. He died in Roxbury in 1719.—F. B.  CALENDARIO,, the Venetian architect of the fifteenth century who constructed the porticoes, supported by marble columns which surround the area of the square of St. Mark, and on which stands a range of buildings ornamented by bas-reliefs and paintings. He was liberally recompensed, and received the daughter of the doge, Martin Faletri, in marriage.  CALENTIUS or CALENZIO,, an Italian writer, died in 1503. He left a number of elegies, epistles, epigrams, satires, and fables, which were published at his death, under the title of "Opuscula." This collection found a place in the Index Expur., notwithstanding it was printed at Rome.  CALENUS, Q., served under Cæsar in the civil war. After the battle of Pharsalia had vanquished the adherents of Pompey, Calenus led an army which took Megara and some other Grecian cities. In reward for his services he was made consul,. 47. After the dictator's death he joined Antony, whose legions in the north of Italy he commanded. Calenus died at the close of the Perusinian war.—J. B.  CALEPINO,, an Italian philologist, born at Calepio in Bergamo in 1435. His Latin dictionary, published in 1502, is of note as one of the earliest works of the kind, and so great was its fame, that books of a like nature were long called calepines. Passorat published it in 1609, under the title "Dictionarium Octolingue," giving the corresponding words in seven other languages. Of this work a new edition appeared at Padua in 1731, by Facciolati, assisted by Forcellini, and was the foundation of Forcellini's Totius Latinitatis Lexicon, 4 vols. folio, which superseded all former Latin dictionaries. Calepino died in 1511, having been for some years blind.—J. B.  CALETTI,, called , was born at Ferrara about 1600. He was a successful imitator of Titian, especially in his lesser efforts of bacchanalian character. But the mind of the imitator could not keep pace with his hands. Lanzi, laughing, states that he placed wild boors on the sea, and dolphins on the land. That he was capable of better things, appears by his "St. Mark," and "Four Doctors of the Church," at Ferrara. He died in 1660.—W. T.  CALFHILL, CAWFIELD, or CALFED,, a Latin poet and learned divine, born in Shropshire in 1530. In 1562 he was proctor for the clergy of London, and chapter of Oxford in the convocation which drew up the Thirty-nine articles. He received various preferments in the church, and was about to be consecrated bishop of Worcester when he died in 1570. He wrote "Querela Oxoniensis Academiæ," &c., a Latin poem on the death of two sons of the duke of Suffolk; "Answer to John Marshall's Treatise of the Cross," and "Poemata Varia."—J. B.  CALHOUN,, one of the most eminent American statesmen of the present century, was born in Abbeville district, South Carolina, March 18, 1782. His father, Patrick Calhoun, a native of Ireland, was one of the first residents in this district while it was a frontier settlement; took an active and patriotic part in Indian border warfare and in the revolutionary contest, and served during nearly the whole later part of his life in the state legislature. The son, after receiving his preparatory education under the care of his brother-in-law, Dr Waddell of Georgia, was entered at Yale college in 1802, and graduated there with distinction in 1804. He pursued his professional studies at the law school in Litchfield, Connecticut, and was admitted to the bar of South Carolina in 1807. But he appears soon to have abandoned the practice of law for politics; and after serving for two sessions in the legislature of his native state, he was elected a representative to congress in 1811. From that time until his death, a period of nearly forty years, he was seldom absent from Washington, being nearly the whole time in the public service, either in congress or in the cabinet. Few American statesmen have had so much experience in public affairs, or have preserved so high a reputation for ability and uprightness. Though an active party leader, and often engaged in the most exciting contests, not the slightest imputation was ever thrown upon his private character, or the sincerity and manliness of his public conduct. When he first entered congress, the difficulties with England were fast approaching actual hostilities, and Mr. Calhoun immediately took part with that section—the young democracy as they were termed—of the dominant party, whose object it was to drive the still reluctant administration into a declaration of war. They succeeded, and as a member of the committee on foreign relations, Mr. Calhoun reported a bill for declaring war, which was passed in June, 1812. He afterwards strenuously supported all the necessary measures for carrying on hostilities with vigour, especially that for chartering a national bank, to aid in providing the requisite funds, though the bill for this purpose could not be carried till 1816. At the same period he also supported bills for effecting internal improvements, and for encouraging domestic manufactures, by imposing protective duties—measures which his later policy strongly condemned. When Mr. Monroe formed his administration in 1817, Mr. Calhoun became secretary of war, a post which he filled with great ability for seven years, reducing the affairs of the department from a state of great confusion to simplicity and order. In 1825 he was chosen vice-president of the United States under John Q. Adams, and again in 1829 under General Jackson. With the latter, however, he did not long continue on amicable political relations, but entered into fierce opposition, when the president and a majority of congress determined to enforce submission to the law of 1828 imposing a heavy protective tariff. It was at this period that Mr. Calhoun broached his famous nullification doctrine, which is substantially that the union of the United States is not a union of the people, but a league or compact between sovereign states, any one of which has a right to judge when the compact is broken, and to pronounce any law to be null and void which violates its conditions. From this time forward, that is, for the last seventeen years of his public service, Mr. Calhoun hardly aspired to be considered as a national statesman, acting for the whole country. He was content, he was even proud to be viewed only as a southern statesman. Hence his advocacy of the extreme doctrine of state rights; his censure of the Missouri compromise, passed thirteen years before, when he was himself in the cabinet; his support of all measures tending to the extension of slave-holding territory; and, finally, his proposal to amend the constitution by abolishing the single office of the presidency, and creating two presidents, one for the North and the other for the South, to be in office at the same time. The place in which he advocated these doctrines was his own favourite arena, the floor of the United States senate, where he continued for the rest of his life, except for a short time at the close of Mr. Tyler's administration, when he accepted the office of secretary of state, in order to complete a favourite measure—the annexation of Texas. At this period of his life his policy respecting European affairs was pacific; and it should be remembered to his honour, that he probably prevented a war with England on the Oregon question. His death took place at Washington in 1850. The eloquence of Mr. Calhoun, as was well said by Mr. Webster, "was part of his intellectual character. It grew out of the qualities of his mind. It was plain, strong, terse, condensed, concise, sometimes impassioned, still always severe." The same great orator and statesman, the most frequent and formidable of Mr. Calhoun's opponents, paid the following noble tribute to the dignity and purity of his public character. "He had the basis, the indispensable basis of all high character; and that was unspotted integrity, unimpeached honour and character. If he had aspirations they were high, and honourable, and noble. There was nothing grovelling, or low, or meanly selfish, that came near the head or the heart of Mr. Calhoun. However he may have differed from others of us in his political opinions or his political principles, those principles and those opinions will now descend to posterity under the sanction of a great name. He has lived long enough, he has done enough, and he has done it so well, so successfully, so honourably, as to connect himself for all <section end="903Zcontin" />