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CHUBRUCA Y ELORZA. 



CIBBER, THEOPHILUS. 



2C4 



Churchill became acquainted with John Wilkes, and contributed to 

 the pages of the ' North Briton.' To gratify his political patron, he 

 wrote the ' Prophecy of Famine ; a Scots Pastoral," which was greatly 

 extolled, not only by Wilkes, and the politicians of his party, who 

 said it was " personal, poetical, and political," but by the literary 

 public : and the admiration of contemporaries has been so far sustained 

 by posterity. 



The praise and profit which Churchill obtained by this 'jeu d'esprit' 

 seem to havn overwhelmed his common sense : he plunged at once 

 into the greatest irregularities of conduct, which drew from his 

 parishioners a serious remonstrance, and induced him to relinquish 

 the clerical profession. At the same time he quarrelled with and 

 separated from hia wife, who herself is said to have been anything but 

 a prude. The utter recklessness of his conduct at this period is 

 shown by his seduction of a tradesman's daughter in Westminster, 

 whom he shortly afterwards abandoned. His poem called the ' Con- 

 ference ' was composed whilst he seemed to suffer some feelings of 

 contrition. He boasted however in letters to his friends that he felt 

 "no pricks of conscience" at his abandonment of his wife or his pro- 

 fession " the woman I was tired of, and the gown I was displeased 

 with," aud throwing aside his clerical habit, he appeared in a blue 

 coat, gold-laced waistcoat, large ruffles, and a gold-laced hat. His 

 satirical ' Epistle to Hogarth ' was revenged by the artist's caricature 

 of ' The Reverend Mr. Churchill as a Russian bear ' in canonicals, 

 holding a club and a pot of porter, with a pug-dog which is treating 

 the poet's works with great indignity. We have still to mention 

 several poems, all of which are more or less satirical ; namely, the 

 'Duellist;' the 'Author;' 'Gotham;' the ' Candidate ;' 'Independ- 

 ence ; ' the ' Journey ; ' and ' Farewell.' Of these, the ' Author ' is 

 by far the most pleasing and fairest, if it be not in all respects the 

 most powerful. The ' Candidate ' ia replete with poetical fire and 

 spirit. ' Farewell ' is comparatively tame, and ' Gotham,' which was 

 written during a short fit of retirement and reformation, is chiefly 

 descriptive. Churchill was a close and occasionally a very successful 

 imitator of Dryden. His verses have much of the fervour and force 

 of this great poet ; and at the same time all the coarseness and rug- 

 gedness of Donne and Oldham. Cowper, in a long passage in his 

 ' Table Talk,' assigns him, on the whole, a distinguished place as a 

 poet, calling him a "spendthrift alike of money and of wit" He died 

 at Boulogne in 1765, while on a visit to Wilkes, his intimate friend. 

 His complete works were published in 8vo, in 1804, with a life and 

 portrait. Some interesting particulars are given in ' Genuine Memoirs 

 of Mr. Cliurchill,' 12mo, 1765. See also Mr. Tooke's 'Memoirs of 

 Charles Cliurchill,' and Mr. John Forster's able essay on ' Churchill,' 

 republinhed from the ' Edinburgh Review,' with additions, in Long- 

 man's Traveller's Library. 



CHURRUCA Y EL011ZA, COSME DAMIAN DE, one of the most 

 distinguished naval officers whom Spain has ever produced, was born 

 at Motrico, a sea-port of the province of Guipuzcoa, on the 27th of 

 September 1761. He was intended for the church, but in a stay which 

 he made at the palace of Rodriguez de Arellano, archbishop of Burgos, 

 he met with a naval officer a nephew of the prelate, and from his 

 conversation took a warm attachment to the sea, which he adopted 

 as a profession. His first service, after studying at Cadiz and Fcrrol, 

 was in the American war, and he distinguished himself in rescuing 

 from the waves some of the sufferers of the floating batteries at 

 Gibraltar. HH knowledge of astronomy afterwards recommended 

 him to an appointment with Don Ciriaco de Ceballos in the expe- 

 dition under Cordoba, sent out by the Spanish government to survey 

 the straits of Magellan, and his diary of the exploration of Tierra del 

 Fut'go, which was published at Madrid in 1793, is considered a model 

 of works of the kind. In 1791, though only of the age of thirty, and 

 captain of a frigate, he was appointed to the command of a similar 

 expedition to survey and lay down the coasts of the Gulf of Mexico, 

 but the breaking out of the war between France and Spain prevented 

 his execution of more than a part of the plan. He however took 

 back with him to Cadiz four-aud-thirty charts of the coasts of Cuba, 

 Hayti, Puerto Rico, Trinidad, &c., only a few of which have been yet 

 published, but those few are esteemed among the choicest products of 

 Spanish hydrography, which as is well known holds a high rank. 

 They wore made use of for the French charts of the Antilles pub- 

 lished shortly after, and Churruca had a brilliant reception from 

 Napokon, then first consul, when not long afterwards sent by his 

 government to Brest. He was bitterly mortified by another com- 

 pliment paid him by the French, who, on the Spaniards agreeing by 

 treaty to give up to them six vessels which they should select, chose 

 for one of them the ' Conquistador,' Churruca's ship, which it had 

 been for some years his constant study to improve aud render 

 efficient. On the 20th of October 1805 Churruca was in command of 

 the ' Han Juan,' and left Cadiz in company with the French and 

 Spanish fleets under Villeneuve and Graviua, on the next day took 

 place the battle of Trafalgar. He had written to a friend a few days 

 before, " If you hear that my ship is taken, know for certain that I 

 am dead." His right leg was carried off by a cannon-ball, and he 

 died three hours after with his flag still flying, but soon after his 

 decease the ship surrendered. The English victors, according to the 

 account of Churruca's Spanish biographer, Captain Don Francisco 

 Pnvia, showed a respect to the memory of the fallen commander 

 MOO. D1V. VOL. IT. 



which did them honour, and it is well to remember that all of the 

 brave who fell at Trafalgar, were not on one side only. A public 

 fountain was dedicated to the memory of Churruca in 1812 in tho 

 great square of Ferrol. 



CIBBER, CAIUS GABRIEL, a celebrated sculptor, a native of 

 Holstein, was bom about 1630, and came to England during tho 

 Protectorate of Oliver Cromwell, or shortly afterwards. The two 

 figures of 'Raging' and 'Melancholy Madness,' which adorned the 

 principal gate of Old Bethlehem Hospital, were his work ; the statues 

 of the kings and that of ' Gresham ' in the Royal Exchange, but most 

 of which perished in the fire which destroyed that building ; and also 

 the bassi-rilievi on the pedestal of the London Monument. He married 

 as his second wife the daughter of William Colley, Esq. of Glaiston, 

 in Rutlandshire, and granddaughter of Sir Anthony Colley, a stauch 

 royalist, who in the cause of Charles I., reduced his estate from 3000J. 

 to 300Z. per annum. By this lady he had Colley Gibber, the actor, 

 dramatist, and poet laureat. Mr. Gibber was employed in the latter 

 years of his life by the Earl, afterwards Duke of Devonshire, in the 

 improvement and decoration of the magnificent family seat at Chats- 

 worth ; and at the time of the revolution in 1638, he took arms under 

 that nobleman in favour of the Prince of Orange. He died about 1700. 

 He acquired considerable wealth, and Walpole states that he built tho 

 Danish church in London, and was buried there himself, as well as his 

 second wife. 



CIBBER, COLLEY, was born, according to his own statement, on 

 the 6th of November, o.s., 1671, in Southampton-street, Coveut 

 Garden. In 1682 he was sent to the Free School at Grautham, Lin- 

 colnshire. In 1687 he returned to London, and in 1688 was at his 

 father's request received as a volunteer in the forces raised by the Earl 

 of Devonshire in support of the Prince of Orange. In 1689 he indulged 

 an early conceived inclination for the stage, by fixing upon it seriously 

 as his profession ; and after performing gratuitously for about eight or 

 nine mouths, obtained an engagement at a salary of ten shillings per 

 week, which was afterwards increased to fifteen shillings ; but a 

 feeble voice aud a meagre person were considerable obstacles to his 

 progress, and the trifling part of the Chaplain in Otway's ' Orphan ' 

 was the first in which he attracted any attention. His performance of 

 Lord Touchwood at a very short notice, in consequence of Mr. Kynas- 

 ton's illness, obtained him the commendations of Cougreve and five 

 additional shillings per week. At this time, being scarcely twenty- 

 two years of age, after a very short courtship, he married Miss Shore, 

 to the great anger of her father, who immediately spent the greatest 

 part of his property in the erection of a little retreat upon the Thames, 

 which he called Shore's Folly. Mr. Gibber's professional progress was 

 very slow for some years, notwithstanding his having turned author, 

 and the success of his comedies, ' Love's Last Shift,' ' Love makes a. 

 Man,' ' She Would and She Would Not,' ' The Careless Husband,' &c. 

 In 1711 however he became joint patentee with Collier, Wilks, aud 

 Dogget, in the management of Drury Lane, and afterward* with 

 Booth, Wilks, and Sir Richard Steels ; which latter partnership con- 

 tinued till the death of Mr. Eusden, the poet leaureat, in 1730, when 

 Gibber was appointed to succeed him, and sold out, having become 

 during his nineteen years' management so great a favourite with the 

 public in the performance of fops and feeble old men, that after ho 

 had retired from the stage he was occasionally tempted back to it by 

 the offer of fifty guineas for one night's performance. In 1745 ho 

 played Pandulph iu his own tragedy of ' Papal Tyranny.' Ho died 

 suddenly on the 12th of December 1757. 



Mr. Gibber has described himself with considerable candour iu hij 

 well-known and very amusing 'Apology' for his life. Vain, incon- 

 sistent, and negligent, he was withal a quick-witted, good-humoured, 

 and elegant gentleman. As a writer of comedy, he is inferior perhaps 

 only to Congreve, Wycherly, and Vanbrugh ; but his Birth-day Odes 

 are by no means exceptions to the u-mal dulness of such compositioiid. 

 His best comedy is ' The Careless Husband,' the dialogue of which is 

 easy aud polished ; but the play which brought him the most money 

 was his adaptation of Molicre's ' Tartuffe,' entitled ' The Nonjuror,' on 

 which Bickerstuft" afterwards founded his ' Hypocrite.' For this play 

 King George I., to whom it was dedicated, sent him '2001. He was the 

 author and adapter of nearly thirty dramas of various descriptions, 

 amongst which, besides those already mentioned, we may record ' Tho 

 Provoked Husband,' written in conjunction with Sir John Vaubrugh, 

 and tho modern acting version of Shakspere's 'Hichurd III.' His 

 'Apology' is published iu two vols. 12uio, aud his dramatic works iu 

 five vols. 12mo. 



CIBBER, THEOPHILUS, the son of the laureat, was boru on tho 

 26th of November 1703. At the ago of thirteen ho was sent to 

 Winchester school. In 1721 wa find him on tho stage performing iu 

 the ' Conscious Lovers." He acquired considerable reputation iu 

 characters similar to those supported by his father. He married early 

 an actress of the name of Johnson, who died in 1733, and in 1734 he 

 formed a second union with Miss Arne. His extravagant habits forced 

 him to retire to France in 1738, and on his return he separated from 

 his wife under very discreditable circumstances. After twenty years 

 more, passed some iu prison and the rest in alternate prodigality and 

 penury, he engaged with Mr. Sheridan of the Dublin theatre, and 

 sailed for Ireland in company with Mr. Maddox, a dancer on the wire, 

 in the mouth of October 1758. The vessel was however driven by a 



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