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leave France shortly afterward, passing the greater part of her time in sensual indulgence and lit erary conversation. She made vast collections of works of art and books, and founded an academy. In 1660, upon the death of the king of Sweden, she went to Stockholm, and began to intrigue for the recovery of the crown; but she was compelled to sign another formal act of abdication. Six years later again she visited Sweden, but found it prudent to return without venturing to Stockholm. She then made some vain attempt to be proclaimed queen of Poland. It has been found, however, impossible, and by the best Swedish historians it has been judged unnecessary, to penetrate the reasons upon which she grounded these proceedings. She died at length in Rome, bequeathing her fortune to Cardinal Azzolini. She was interred in the church of St. Peter, and over her remains a magnificent monument bears a long inscription, although she had expressed a wish to have these simple words: Vixit Christina annos LXIII. Her collections of art were sold and scattered about the world; 900 precious MSS. are in the Vatican, and the most valuable of her paintings were removed in 1722 to Paris, having been bought by the duke of Orleans, regent of France. She left some writings (collected and published by Archenholtz in his memoirs of her life, 4 vols. 4to., 1751), which, says Geijer, exhibit a soul ardent and untamed by years, striving in all things after the extreme and the supreme, but submitting at last. "The feminine virtues," he adds in conclusion, "which she despised, avenge themselves upon her good name; yet was she better than her reputation." See Geijer's Svenska Folkets Historia; Lacombe's Histoire de Christine, and D'Alembert's Mémoires et réflexions sur Christine, reine de la Suede (both of these are based upon the memoirs of Archenholtz); Catteau-Calleville's Histoire de Christine, reine de la Suède; Grauert's Christine, Königinn von Schweden, und ihr Hof (2 vols., Bonn, 1838-'42); and the works of Bayle and Voltaire.

CHRISTMAS (Christ and mass), a festival of the Christian church, observed on Dec. 25, as the anniversary of the birth of the Saviour. Its institution is attributed by the decretal letters to Pope Telesphorus, who died A. D. 138, and throughout the subsequent history of the church it has been one of the most noted of Christian solemnities. At first it was the most movable of the Christian festive days, often confounded with the Epiphany, and celebrated by the eastern churches in the months of April and May. In the 4th century the urgency of St. Cyril of Jerusalem obtained from Pope Julius I. an order for an investigation to be made concerning the day of Christ's nativity. The result of inquiry by the theologians of the East and the West was an agreement upon the 25th of December. The chief grounds for the decision were the tables of the censors in the archives of Rome; and although, in the opinion of some of the fathers, there was not authentic

proof of the identification of the day, yet the decision was uniformly accepted, and from that time the nativity has been celebrated throughout the church on the same day. It has also been a common tradition that Christ was born about the middle of the night. The custom in Roman Catholic countries of ushering in Christmas day by the celebration of 3 masses, one at midnight, the 2d at early dawn, and the 3d in the morning, dates from the 6th century. The day was considered in the double light of a holy commemoration and a cheerful festival, and was accordingly distinguished by devotion, by vacation from business, and by merriment. During the middle ages it was celebrated by the gay fantastic spectacle of dramatic mysteries and moralities, performed by personages in grotesque masks and singular costumes. The scenery usually represented an infant in a cradle, surrounded by the Virgin Mary and St. Joseph, by bulls' heads, cherubs, eastern magi, and manifold ornaments. The custom of singing canticles at Christmas, called carols, which recalled the songs of the shepherds at the birth of Christ, dates from the time when the common people ceased to understand Latin. The bishops and lower clergy often joined with the populace in carolling, and the songs were enlivened by dances and by the music of tambours, guitars, violins, and organs. Fathers, mothers, sons, and daughters mingled together in the dance; if in the night, each bearing in his hand a lighted wax taper. Many collections have been made of these naïve medieval carols which filled the hours between the nocturnal masses, and which sometimes took the place of psalms in the churches. Of perhaps the oldest of these collections, only a single leaf remains, containing 2 carols, preserved in the Bodleian library, in a volume of "Christmasse Carolles," printed by Wynkin de Worde in 1521. Davies Gilbert published a volume of "Ancient Christmas Carols," with the tunes to which they were formerly sung in England, and William Sandys made a more complete collection (London, 1833). The carols of the Welsh are especially celebrated, and their Lffyr Carolan (Book of Carols) contains 66, and their Blodeugerdd Cymrü (Anthology of Wales) contains 48. The German carols were collected by Weinhold (Grätz, 1853), and one of the best of the many editions of French carols (noëls) was published at Poitiers in 1824. During the last days preceding Christmas it is still the custom for Calabrian minstrels to descend from the mountains to Naples and Rome, saluting the shrines of the virgin mother with their wild music, under the poetical notion of cheering her until the birth-time of her infant at the approaching Christmas. In a picture of the nativity by Raphael he has introduced a shepherd at the door playing on a sort of bagpipe. Preparatory to Christmas the bells are rung at dead midnight throughout England and the continent; and after the solemn celebration of the mass, for which the churches in France and Italy are mag

nificently adorned, it is usual for the revellers to partake of a collation (réveillon), that they may be better able to sustain the fatigues of the night. Among the revels of the Christmas season were the so-called feasts of fools and of asses, grotesque saturnalia, which were some times termed "December liberties," in which every thing serious was burlesqued, inferiors personifying their superiors, great men becoming frolicsome, and which illustrate the proneness of man to occasionally reverse the order of society and ridicule its decencies. In the Protestant districts of Germany and the north of Europe, Christmas is often called the "children's festival," and Christmas eve is devoted to giving presents, especially between parents and children, and brothers and sisters, by means of the so-called Christmas tree. A large yew bough is erected in one of the parlors, lighted with tapers, and hung with manifold gifts, sweetmeats, apples, nuts, playthings, and ornaments. Each of these is marked with the name of the person for whom it is intended, but not with the name of the donor, and when the whole family party is assembled, the pres ents are distributed around the room according to their labels, amid joyful acclama tions and congratulations. A more sober scene succeeds, for the mother takes this occasion to say privately to the daughters, and the father to the sons, what has been observed most praiseworthy and what most faulty in their conduct. Formerly, and still in some of the smaller villages of North Germany, the presents made by all the parents were sent to some one person, who, in high buskins, a white robe, • a mask, and an enormous flax wig, becoming the bugbear of children, known as Knecht Rupert, goes from house to house, is received by the parents with great pomp and reverence, calls for the children, and bestows the intend ed gifts upon them according to the character which he hears from the parents after severe inquiries. A beautiful poem of Hebel, Christ Baum, celebrates the German ceremonies on Christmas eve. It is an old Swedish tradition, preserved in the history of Olaus, archbishop of Upsal, that at the festival of Christmas the men living in the cold northern parts are suddenly and strangely metamorphosed into wolves; and that a huge multitude of them meet together at an appointed place during the night, and rage so fiercely against mankind and other creatures not fierce by nature, that the inhabitants of that country suffer more from their attacks than ever they do from natural wolves. Christmas has always been at once a religious, domestic, and merry-making festival in England, equally for every rank and every age. The revels used to begin on Christmas eve, and continued often till Candlemas (Feb. 2), every day being a holiday till twelfth-night (Jan. 6). In the houses of the nobles a "lord of misrule," or "abbot of unreason," was appointed, whose office was "to make the rarest pastimes, to delight the beholder," and whose

dominion lasted from "All-hallow eve" (Oct. 31) till Candlemas day. The larder was filled with capons, hens, turkeys, geese, ducks, beef, mutton, pork, pies, puddings, nuts, plums, sugar, and honey. The Italians have the following proverb: "He has more business than English ovens at Christmas." The tenants were entertained at the hall; and the lord of the manor and his family encouraged every art conducive to mirth.

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On Christmas eve the bells were rung;
On Christmas eve the mass was sung;
That only night, in all the year,
Saw the stoled priest the chalice rear.
Then opened wide the baron's hall,
To vassal, tenant, serf, and all;
Power laid his rod of rule aside,
And ceremony doffed his pride.
The heir, with roses in his shoes,

That night might village partner choose.
All hailed, with uncontrolled delight
And general voice, the happy night
That to the cottage, as the crown,
Brought tidings of salvation down.
England was merry England when
Old Christmas brought his sports again.
'Twas Christmas broach'd the mightiest ale;
'Twas Christmas told the merriest tale;
A Christmas gambol oft would cheer

A poor man's heart through half the year.

A glowing fire, made of great logs, the principal of which was termed the yule log, or Christmas block, which might be burnt till Candlemas eve, kept out the severity of the weather; and the abundance was shared amid music, snap-dragon, jokes, laughter, repartees, forfeits, conjuring, riddles, hot cockles, fool-plough,

and dances.

bowls of punch never failed to bring tumultuous The generous wassail bowls and joys. The favorite and first dish on Christmas day was a soused boar's head, which was borne to the principal table with great state and solemnity, "upon a silver platter, with minThere is a tradition that this custom stralsye." originated at Queen's college, Oxford, in comwhile on a walk reading Aristotle, being sudmemoration of the valor of a student, who, denly attacked by a furious wild boar, rammed the volume into the throat of the aggressor, crybeast to death. It was long observed in the ing Græcum est till he had fairly choked the Christmas festivities of the inns of court, and it is still retained at Queen's college, where the dish is brought in to the chant of an old halfLatin ditty:

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per under the mistletoe," are allusions. In old church calendars Christmas eve is marked: Templa exornantur (adorn the temples). Holly and ivy still remain in England the most esteemed Christmas evergreens, though at the two univer'sities the windows of the college chapels are decked with laurel. It was an old English superstition that on Christmas eve the oxen were always found on their knees, as in an attitude of devotion, and that after the change from old to new style they continued to do this only on the eve of old Christmas day. This was derived from a prevalent medieval notion that an ox and an ass which were present at the nativity fell upon their knees in a suppliant posture, as appears from numerous prints and from the Latin poem of Sannazarius in the 15th century. It was an ancient tradition, alluded to by Shakespeare, that midnight spirits forsake the earth and go to their own confines at the crowing of the cock, and that

-Ever 'gainst that season comes Wherein our Saviour's birth is celebrated, This bird of dawning singeth all night long; And then, they say, no spirit stirs abroad; The nights are wholesome; then no planet strikes ; No fairy takes, nor witch hath power to charm, So hallowed and so gracious is the time. There was a famous hawthorn in the churchyard of Glastonbury abbey, which always budded on the 24th and blossomed on the 25th of Dec. After the change of style it was observed that it blossomed on Jan. 5, which would have been Christmas day O. S. It is said that slips from this thorn are preserved which blossom on Jan. 5 to the present time. Near Raleigh there is a valley said to have been caused centuries ago by an earthquake which swallowed up a whole village and a church. It was formerly a custom for people to assemble here on Christmas morning, to listen to the ringing of the bells of the church beneath them. The Christmas celebrations in England have lost their primitive boisterous character, the gambols and carols are nearly gone by, and family reunions and evergreen trimmings are nearly all that remain of the various rough merriments which used to mark the festival. The last memorable appointment of a lord of misrule was in 1627, when he had come to be denominated a grand captaine of mischiefe." The poems of Herrick contain many descriptions of old English Christmas celebrations. In the United States, since the Puritans were at first stern opponents of Christmas pastimes, the day has been less generally celebrated in New England than in the middle and southern states. It has been made a legal holiday in some of the states, and is usually observed by a religious service and by making presents, and not unfrequently by trimming houses and churches with evergreens, and by imitating the German custom of Christmas trees.

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CHRISTMAS, HENRY, an English clergyman, author, and editor, born in Taunton, co. of Somerset, England, in 1806. At an early age he entered Cambridge university, and after taking

his bachelor's degree, he sought and received orders in the church of England. The "Church of England Quarterly Review" was, at its starting, placed under his charge, and soon became one of the leading representatives of English churchism. The monthly "British Churchman" was also placed under the editorial supervision of Mr. Christmas. He was, about the same time, one of those who originated the famous Camden society of Cambridge, and for several years the "Critic" and the "Clerical Journal" received a stated letter each from him, and the "Church and State Gazette" also owes much to his aid. His published works are numerous and upon a variety of topics, as travels, antiquities, moral philosophy, history, and biography. His "Echoes of the Universe," "Cradle of the Twin/Giants," a life of Napoleon III., a memoir of the late czar Nicholas I., and a biography of the sultan Abdul Medjid are among his principal publications. Appointed librarian of Sion college, London Wall, he was forced to relinquish many of his other literary labors; but he impaired his health, and next travelled in Spain and through the south of Europe to Turkey in Asia. Miss Pardoe, the authoress, and Risk Allah Effendi shared in his eastern travels. The "Church of England Quarterly Review," having passed temporarily into the hands of another, reverted to Mr. Christmas in 1855, with whom it still remains. The royal society of literature, London, instituted in 1856 a professorship of history and archæology, and conferred the chair upon Mr. Christmas.

CHRISTOPHE, HENRI, king of Hayti, born in the island of Grenada, Oct. 6, 1767, died by his own hand, Oct. 8, 1820. The accounts of his youth are conflicting, some relating that he was brought as a slave to St. Domingo at the age of 12, and was employed by his master as a cook, which business he afterward followed at Cape Haytien; others say that he fought in the American war of independence, was wounded at Savannah, and subsequently went to St. Domingo, where he soon found employment as an overseer on a plantation. When the agitation commenced which resulted in the massacre of the whites, and the independence of the black race, Christophe distinguished himself by activity and boldness. His bravery commended him to the notice of Toussaint L'Ouverture, who gave him a commission as brigadier-general, and employed him to quell an insurrection in the northern province of the island. Successful in this, he was appointed governor of the province, and when the French under Leclerc subjugated that part of the island, he and Dessalines were declared outlaws. When Toussaint was seized by the French, Christophe and Dessalines again headed a rebellion, and before the close of 1803 succeeded in driving the French from Hayti. During the brief administration of Dessalines, Christophe was general-in-chief of the army, and at his death, in 1807, was appointed president for life by an assembly convened at Cape

Haytien. The people of the southern portion of the island, however, preferred Pétion, and soon after organized a republic of which he was appointed president. A civil war ensued between the two chiefs, which continued for 11 years. In 1811 Christophe followed the example of Napoleon, and abolishing the republican government, caused himself to be proclaimed king of Hayti, under the title of Henri I., and organized a hereditary monarchy and nobility. He promulgated a code which, though based on the code Napoleon, was not a servile copy, but was adapted to the wants of the people. Meantime the defection of some of his adherents roused the jealousy and cruelty which seemed inherent in his nature, and did much to alienate the affections of his people. In general, however, his measures were judicious, but the mild and pacific sway of Pétion, and his successor Boyer, was far more agreeable to the indolent and peace-loving negroes than the stern rule of Christophe. The number and activity of the malcontents increased, till finally the army became infected, and even the king's body guard went over to Boyer. Irritated at this, and determined not to be the prisoner and sport of his foes, he shot himself. His eldest son, Ferdinand, had been sent as a hostage to France by General Leclerc, and died there in a hospital. His 2d son, Jacques Victor Henri, was killed by the insurgents a few days after his father's death. A pension was conferred on the widow of Christophe, the ex-queen Marie Louise, but the enmity of the people caused her to leave for England. Subsequently she travelled in Germany and Italy, and took up her abode in Pisa with one of her daughters.

CHRISTOPHER, duke of Würtemberg, a Protestant prince of the 16th century, born May 12, 1515, died Dec. 28, 1568. At the time of his birth the duchy of his father Ulric was in a very unsettled condition. In a little more than 4 years the confederated Swabian cities expelled Ulric from his principality, transferred the dukedom to the house of Austria, and removed Christopher to Vienna. When Solyman besieged that city, Christopher was well nigh made a Turkish prisoner. But Charles V., fearing him more than his father, resolved to shut him up in a monastery, and for this purpose ordered him in 1532 to Spain. Christopher, finding an opportunity to escape, fled to Bavaria, where his uncle, the reigning duke, together with the landgrave of Hesse, took up his cause, and that of his father; and when unsuccessful by entreaty, recourse was had to arms, which, through the secret aid of the French king Francis I., and a sudden sortie on the Austrians at Laufen, May 13, 1534, resulted in the restoration of Ulric to his duchy. Christopher succeeded to the dukedom on the death of his father in 1550, and set himself about establishing the reformed religion in his province. Instead, however, of seizing the church property, and devoting it to his own use, or dividing it among his nobles, like many Protestant princes of his day,

he constituted of it a fund called the "Würtemberg church property," out of the proceeds of which were supported all the public schools of the duchy, the university of Tübingen, and a variety of other public establishments. The duke also enlarged the liberties of the people, and gave them a code of laws. See Pfister's Herzog Christoph, aus grösstentheils ungedruckten Quellen (Tübingen, 1819).

CHRISTOPHER, SAINT, a saint of the early church, was beheaded in the year 250, in the persecution which the emperor Decius carried on against the Christians. Some writers have alleged that no such person as this saint ever lived; but the Bollandists and other learned critics, while they seem inclined not to give credence to the many legends which are connected with him, yet maintain that he existed, although very little is known about his history.

CHRISTOPULOS, ATHANASIOS, a modern Greek poet, born in Macedonia in 1772, died Jan. 29, 1847. He passed the greater part of his life in Constantinople, where he was styled the Anacreon of modern Greece. He composed a grammar, wrote dramas, and translated the Iliad into modern Greek. His poems are popular throughout Greece.

CHROMATIC, in music, proceeding by semi

tones.

CHROMATICS, that branch of optics which treats of the mathematical relations of colors. White light may be compared to a full chord in music, containing all the notes in the octave, but the comparison must not be insisted on too closely. By refraction through a prism, the colors may be separated more or less perfectly. This separation of colors by refraction takes place in nature by means of rain-drops, producing the parti-colored rainbow, or by means of minute snow-crystals, producing halos. By experiment, refraction can be produced in a great variety of ways, and the different colors of white light can also be brought out by other means than refraction. The mean distance between 2 waves in a ray of light is .0000225 of an inch. This distance in violet-colored rays is .0000167, and in red rays .0000266. To chromatics also belongs the discussion of the phenomena of polarization and double refraction. These phenomena depend upon the form of the wave of light, and the direction of the motion in that wave, the wave itself always going in a straight line. It is in these most minute and subtile optical investigations that the undulatory theory of light has achieved its highest triumphs.

CHROMIUM, CHROME (Gr. xpwua, color), a metal so named from its tendency to impart beautiful colors to its compounds. It was discovered by Vauquelin in 1797, who separated it from the red chromate of lead of Siberia. It is a metal resembling platinum in appearance, having a white color with a shade of yellow. It is very brittle, so as to be easily pulverized, and is also very infusible and not readily acted upon by acids, except the hydrofluoric. It is hard enough to scratch glass, or even, as stated

by M. St. Clair Deville, to cut it like diamond. Its specific gravity is 5.5 to 5.9, and its equivalent number 28. Fused with alkaline fluxes, it is oxidized and converted into chromic acid. Different methods are given for obtaining it, the simplest of which is by reducing the oxide at an intensely high heat with powdered charcoal; or the chloride made into a paste with oil, and highly heated in a crucible lined with charcoal and well covered, may be more easily reduced. The metal has no particular interest or importance except in its compounds. It forms 5 different combinations with oxygen, of which the sesquioxide or green oxide (Cr, O3) and the peroxide (Cr O3) are the most important. The former is a beautiful green-colored powder, its shades increasing in intensity according to the heat to which it is exposed. When heated nearly to redness, it exhibits the same peculiarity as zirconia, becoming ignited and glowing like tinder. It is then insoluble in acids, but its solubility is restored by fusing with an alkaline flux. It imparts a beautiful emerald green color to borax and other glassy substances with which it is melted, and the color of the emerald itself is owing to its admixture. It is one of the few colors used for porcelain that bear the high heat required in baking it. Alone, it gives shades of green; combined with 100 parts of peroxide of tin and 33 of chalk, it forms the color used for porcelain known as English pink. Various processes are given for obtaining this oxide, as by calcining the chromate of mercury at a red heat, or by boiling a solution of bichromate of potash with sugar or oxalic acid and hydrochloric acid. The chromic acid parts with a portion of its oxygen to convert the sugar or oxalic acid into carbonic acid, and the green oxide of chrome produced is taken up by the hydrochloric acid. From this it is precipitated as a hydrate by ammonia. The hydrate is a bulky green powder. The sesquioxide occurs in nature combined with protoxide of iron, alumina, and silica, in the mineral known as chromic iron, and from this the supplies of chrome used in the arts are obtained. It is found in many localities in the United States, disseminated through the serpentine rocks. At the Bare Hills, near Baltimore, it has long been profitably worked and exported to England. The English market, which consumes about 2,000 tons annually, is supplied from this source, and from the Shetland islands, and Drontheim in Norway. The Baltimore ore yields from 40 to 60 per cent. of the oxide. The peroxide, or chromic acid, is obtained in acicular crystals of beautiful ruby red color, which deliquesce on exposure to the air, and on being heated become almost black. At a red heat they are decomposed, being converted by the escape of oxygen into sesquioxide. The solar rays effect this change upon the solution when a piece of linen saturated with the liquid is exposed to them. Water dissolves the acid readily, and becomes of a deep yellow brown. The solu

tion has a sour metallic taste, and tinges the skin yellow. The readiness with which it parts with oxygen renders it a useful oxidizing agent in chemical operations. It also possesses bleaching properties, which lead to its being used as a substitute for chlorine in some styles of calico printing. Different processes of obtaining this acid are in use; perhaps the best is that of Mr. Warington. A cold saturated solution of bichromate of potash is mixed with from 1 to 1 times the quantity of pure concentrated sulphuric acid. The mixture becomes hot, and is then allowed to cool. The chromic acid separates in brilliant prismatic crystals, which, taken from the liquor, are drained upon a piece of porous earthenware, the air being excluded by another piece placed upon them.-Chromates are the salts of chromic acid. The native "red lead ore " is a chromate of lead, containing 31.71 per cent. of chromic acid. and 68.29 per cent. of lead. It occurs in beautiful hyacinth-red crystals at some of the gold mines of Brazil and Siberia; but the artificial compound is the material used in the arts, prepared by mixing chromate of potash with a soluble salt of lead. The yellow precipitate, which falls, is the chromate of lead (Pb O, Cr O3), or chrome yellow. Mixed with Prussian blue, it makes chrome green. The chromate and bichromate of potash, which are largely used by the calico printers, are obtained from the native chromic iron. This is reduced to powder, mixed with its weight of nitrate of potash, and subjected for several hours to a strong heat. The soluble matter is extracted by washing with water, and the process is repeated until the ore is entirely decomposed. On evaporating the washings the yellow crystals of chromate of potash are formed. These are oblique 4-sided prisms, terminated by 4-sided pyramids, of specific gravity 2.61. They consist of 52 parts of chromic acid and 48 of potash. The salt is insoluble in alcohol, but is very soluble in boiling water. About 1 part is taken up to 2 of the water at 60°. Its coloring property is so powerful that 1 part gives a perceptible yellow color to 40,000 of water. It is used in chemical analysis as a test for silver, lead, bismuth, mercury, and for other purposes. It is frequently adulterated with sulphate of potash, which, being isomorphous with it, may be introduced in any proportion without changing the crystalline form. The presence of a sulphate is detected by the addition of a few drops of nitrate of barytes to the solution aciducated with nitric acid. The bichromate of potash is obtained in fine large orange crystals of rectangular or square prisms. Its specific gravity is 1.98. Water dissolves of its weight and acquires acid reaction. It is obtained by taking up of the potash of the chromate by an acid, as acetic or nitric. Or, as has been long practised, it may be produced directly from the chromic iron by mixing this with quicklime or chalk and exposing it to an intense heat in a furnace. It is then digested

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