Page:The New International Encyclopædia 1st ed. v. 16.djvu/672

* QTJADRILLE. 588 QTTAGGA. talon, I'etf, la potile. la pastoiirellc, or la tn- nise, and la finale. The music accompanying these iiftures alternates between triple and duple time, 3-8, or 0-8, and 2-4. ilusard was the most distinguished composer of quadrille music, and under his treatment it became for a time one of the art forms. In the American quadrille there are five figures: (1) La promenade, (2) les mouVnets, (3) les chevaux de bois, (4) 7a passe, and (5) la corhcille; but these all vary greatly at different times or places. QUADBILIiE. A game of cards which, as its name denotes, is played by four persons. The number of cards employed is fort.y, the tens, nines, and eights being discarded from the pack. Tlie rank and order of the cards in each suit vary according as they are or are not trumps, and are different in the black and red suits. The ace of spades is always the highest trump, and is called tipadille ; the ace of clubs or Basto is always the third highest trump; while the deuce of spades or clubs, or the seven of hearts or diamonds, known as Manille, is the second highest trum]i. according to the suit which is the trump, being always of the trump suit. When the black suits are not trumps, the black cards rank as in whist ; and when they are trumps the order is the same with the exception as above mentioned of the deuce, which (in the trump suit only) becomes Manille, the deuce of the black suit which is not trumps retaining its position as the lowest card. The game is now practically obsolete, and has a value only to the student of late seventeenth and early eighteenth century customs and literature. It was complicated by a great number of cosdi- tions, making a complete description of it here impossible, but a good description of the game of Ombre or Uhomhre, practically the same game as quadrille, except that it was arranged for three players, will be found in Pope's Rape of Ihe Lock. QXJADKIV'ItTM (Lat., four branches of mathematics, place where four roads meet). The uame given, in the language of the schools of the West, to the higher course of the mediicval studies, from its consisting of four branches, as the lower course, for an analogous reason, was called triviura (q.v.), or 'three roads.' The quadriviuni consisted of arithmetic, music, geom- etry, and astronomy. These four studies com- pose the secondary part of the curriculum out- lined by Plato in The Republic, and are described in the seventh book of that work. The history of this organization of human learning is briefly sketched in the article on Arts, Seven Liberal, where references to the literature of the subject will be found. QUADKOON (from Sp. cuarteron, quadroon, fourth part, from euarto, from Lat. quartus, fourth, from qiinttuor, four). The name given to a mixture of European and negro in which the relative proportion of blood is three-fourths white and one-fourth black. The first mixture is called mulatto, the second tierceroon, the third quadroon, the fourth quintroon, etc. See Mis- CEGENATIOM; MiXED RACES. QtTADRU'MANA (Neo-Lat. nom. pi., from Lat. quattuor. four -f- manus, hand). In the system of C'uvier, an order of ISLammalia which contained the animals most nearly re-^embling man in their form and anatomical characters — viz. the monkey and lemur families. The name indicates that the extremities of all limbs are hands, formed for grasping; in fact, the anterior limbs have in many monkeys less perfect hands than the hind ones, tlirough the want or rudi- mentarj- character of the thumb. Xone of the Quadrumana are naturally adapted for an erect posture. The term is no longer used, as these animals are now classed with man in the order Primates (q.v.). QUADRtrPED (from Lat. quadrupes, quad- ripes, four-footed, from quattuor, four + pes, foot). A term often employed as a synonym of 'mammal,' a use which is inaccurate, since some mammals, as man, have only two feet, properly speaking, and others, as the whales, none at all; while alligators, lizards, and turtles are all 'four- footed.' The term, therefore, has no exact zoolog- ical meaning. QUADRUPLE ALLIANCE (Lat. quadra- plus, fourfold, from quattuor, four + -plus, -fold). (1) A league formed by Great Britain, France, Austria, and the Netherlands against Spain in 1718, when the policy of that country under the guidance of the ambitious Alberoni (q.v.) threatened to destroy the laboriously es- tablished balance of power in Southern Europe. (2) A league formed by Great Britain, Aus- tria. Prussia, and Russia in 1840, for the purpose of checking the power of Mehemet Ali (q.v.), whose victory over the' Turks at Nisib (183!)) threatened the overthrow of the reigning Otto- man dvnasty. Mehemet Ali was compelled to surrender Syria, which he had overrim, and to content himself with the hereditary rule over EgJ-pt- QUADRUPLET (from Lat, quadra plarc, to make fourfold, from qaadniplus, fourfold). In music, a rhythmical group of four notes, the time-value of which is eqiuil to three or six of the regular rhythm. It is written thus: value : CULL QUiESTOR, kwes'tor (Lat., investigator). The title of a class of Roman magistrates, reach- ing as fftr back, according to all accounts, as the period of the kings. The oldest qu.Tstors were the qumstorcs parricidii, two in number, whose office wps to conduct the prosecution of persons accused of murder, and to execute the sentence that might be pronounced. They ceased to exist as early as B.C. 306. A far more iinportant though later magistracy was the qucesforcs classici, to whom was intrusted the charge of the public treasury. They appear to have derived the epithet of classici from their having been originally elected by the centuries. At first they were only two in number, but in B.C. 421 two more were added. As province after province was added to the Roman Republic, the number was increased, and in the time of Civsar it was forty. On its first in- stitution the quiestorship was open only to patri- cians; but after B.C. 421 plebeians also became eligilde. QUACKGA (Hottentot name). One of the wild horses of South Africa {Equus qaa(i<ja), in- termediate between the horse and zebra, and now extinct. In length of ears and character of the tail it resembled the horse, although it agreed with the asses in wanting the callosity in the inner side of the hind leg. It was rather smaller than the zebras, which it resembled in its reddish