CTESIAS. 



CUDWORTH, RALPH. 



454 



Dictionary, he insinuates that he had discovered a striking connection 

 between Sanscrit and Hungarian ; but his views on this subject are 

 not generally regarded as sound. In the course of his travels and 

 researches, Csoma had altogether studied seventeen or eighteen 

 languages, in several of which he was a proficient. His English is the 

 English of a foreigner. 



CTE'SIAS, the son of Ctesiochus, was a Greek physician and 

 historian, who nourished about the end of the fifth ceutury B.C. 

 He belonged to an Aaclepiad house at Cnidos, but spent seventeen 

 years of his life at the court of Artaxerxes Mnemon. (Diodor. ii. 32.) 

 We gather from Tzetzea (ChiL i. 1, S2), that he was taken prisoner at 

 the battle of Cynaza (401 B.C.), and Diodorus says that he was raised 

 from the situation of a captive to his post of royal physician ; but it 

 appears from Xonophon and Plutarch (' Anab.' i. 8, 27 ; vit. 

 'Artaxerxes,' c. xi.) that he wag one of Artazerzes' immediate at- 

 tendants at that battle, so that of course he could not hare fallen 

 into the hands of the Persians on that occasion. It is more probable 

 that the great estimation in which Greek physicians were held in 

 Persia, where they had, since the time of Democedes, completely 

 superseded the Egyptian practitioners, induced Ctesias to follow the 

 ezample of some of his countrymen, and betake himself to a country 

 where his art was so much more appreciated and so much better 

 rewarded than in Greece. Ctesias wrote 1, 'Persian History,' in 

 twenty-three books, of which the first six treated of the Assyrian 

 monarchy, and the remainder carried down the history of Persia to 

 the year 398 B.C. (Diod. ziv. 46; and the eud of the'Persica' in 

 Photius.) 2, 'Indian History,' in one book. 3, 'A Treatise on 

 Mountains.' 4, ' A Description of Sea-coasts.' 5, ' On the Revenues 

 of Asia.' 6, ' On Medicine.' We have many fragments of his his- 

 torical writings, especially of the 'Persian History,' which are maiuly 

 preserved in the ' Myriobiblon ' of Photius : there are also fragments 

 in Diodorus, -'Elian, and other writers. Diodorus says (ii. 32) that he 

 had access to the royal archives ; but Aristotle, Plutarch, and Lucian, 

 charge him in strong terms with inaccuracy and falsehood. Mr. 

 ( 'linton thinks that Ctesias had no intention of misrepresenting, but 

 that bis materials were not trustworthy (' Fasti Hellenic!,' ii. p. 308) ; 

 and an elaborate justification of his general veracity has been at- 

 tempted by Ruhr, in the introduction to the best edition of the 

 remains of this author which has yet appeared. Ctesias wrote 

 mainly in the Ionic dialect. 



CTKSI'BIUS, an Alexandrian Greek who lived about BC. 150-120, 

 the instructor of Hero (according to Pliny), and the inventor of 

 various hydraulic and other machines, according to Pliny, Vitruvius, 

 Philo of Byzantium, Athenaeus, &c. This is all we know of Ctesibius 

 except that he wrote various works, which are referred to by Vitruvius, 

 and cited (cap. 1) with those of Archimedes, where mention is made 

 of authors on physics. A manuscript of Geodesy is said to be in the 

 Vatican, and another entitled 'Belopooica' in some English library 

 (Heilbronner is authority for both, who cites Possevinus 'Bibl. Sel.,' 

 edit. Horn. c. 8, p. 201, and the catalogue of the Cambridge library (?) ). 

 There is a life of Cte*ibius by Bernardino Baldi, Aug. Vend., 1614. 



Besides a clepsydra of complex construction which is attributed to 

 Ctesibius by Vitruvius, the remaining inventions attributed to him 

 are the water organ, mentioned by Pliny and Vitruvius, a pump for 

 i -, water, described by the litter, and, according to Philo of By- 

 zantium, a machine similar in principle to the air-gun. But all these 

 contrivances are imperfectly dcscrib-d, ezcepting only the pump, 

 which was lika what we now call a forcing-pump. T lie water was 

 rained by ezhaustion into a cylinder with an entering and issuing 

 valve : it entered by means of the former, and was expelled through 

 the latter by the descent of the piston. 



CTE'SIPHON, an Athenian, son of Leosthenes, of the deme 

 Anaphlystus. He is known for a decree by which he proposed to 

 presant Demoothenea with a golden crown as a public acknowledgment 

 of his services to the state. An accusation founded on this decree was 

 brought against Ctesiphon by yEschines, who charged him with uncon- 

 stitutional proceedings. Demosthenes replied in his celebrated oration 

 ' On the Crown.' and Ctesiphou was acquitted. The attack and the 

 defence are both extant. The case was tried B.C. 330. (Demosthenes, 

 'On the Crowu,' 243, 266; Clinton, 'Fast. Hel.') [^EsciiiNEs; 

 DEMOSTHENES.] 



lilTl', THOMAS, was born in 1788, and was the son of a 

 labouring man at Bnzton, a village in Norfolk. Thrown early on his 

 own resources, and denied the advantages of what is called a liberal 

 education, he nevertheless rose into eminence by skill and industry 

 combined witli integrity, and amassed a large fortune by the improve- 

 ments which he effected in the architecture and sanatory arrangement 

 of London. His father died while he was still a youth. The trade 

 to which he was brought up was that of a carpenter. He worked at 

 the bench for some time, aud then went out to India in the capacity 

 of ship's carpenter. Hnving accumulated some small amount of 

 money during his voyage out and home agiiiu, ho became a mastvr- 

 earpentr and then a builder in Uray's-inn-road. He was here engaged 

 to build the Metropolitan Institution in Kinsbury-circus. About 1823 

 he coutracted for the improvement of the property of the late Duke 

 I ford in the neighbourhood of Russell aud i'avistock squared, 

 and a y> ar or two later entered into a similar engagement with the lute 

 Marquis of Wetminstr and Mr. Lowndes for erecting mansions on 



their property between Knightsbridge and Westminster. The skill 

 with which he laid out and built what ii now frequently called 

 ' Belgravia,' recommended him to the late Mr. Kemp, who employed 

 him to build Kemp Town at Brighton. He subsequeutly laid out aud 

 built Clapham Park, and Southern Belgravia, including Warwick and 

 Eccleston squares at Pimlico. Mr. Cubitt was one of the first persons 

 to propose a comprehensive scheme of draining London by carrying 

 the sewerage to a point in the river Thames considerably below the 

 city. He was also the author of other sanitary plans for ths prevention 

 of nuisances from smoke, &c., and the appropriation of open spaces in 

 the suburbs of London as parks for the people. When her Majesty 

 and Prince Albert determined on rebuilding Osborne in the Isle of 

 Wight, the work was entrusted to Mr. Cubitt. For several years Mr. 

 Thomas Cubitt held the honorary post of examiner of candidates for 

 district surveyorships, and at one time was president of the Builders' 

 Society. Himself originally a working man, he felt and laboured for 

 the working classes. Thus he erected a workman's library and school- 

 room near his establishment at Thames Bank, and devised a plan for 

 supplying their families with the comforts of life from his own premises. 

 On one occasion, when his large works at Thames Bank were burnt 

 down, thinking nothing of his own loss, he commenced at once a 

 subscription for replacing the tools of his workmen. He died rather 

 suddenly at Denbies, Surrey, December 26, 1855, having just finished 

 his mansion there, and completed his contracts in Belgravia. His 

 brother, Mr. Alderman William Cubitt, formerly his partner in Gray's- 

 inn-road, was sheriff of London in 1847, and has represented Andover 

 in parliament since that date. 



* CUBITT, SIR WILLIAM, of a different family to the subject of 

 ,the preceding article, was born at Dilham in Norfolk in 1785. While 

 still a youth he showed a decided talent for the construction of 

 machinery. He was apprenticed to a joiner ; aud in 1807 made known 

 his invention of the self-regulating sails for windmills, having pre- 

 viously commenced business as a millwright. Shortly after he became 

 connected with the Messrs. Ransoms of Ipswich, celebrated as agri- 

 cultural instrument makers, but whose business is not confined to 

 that branch of manufacture. Hera Mr. Cubitt's talents as a general 

 engineer were more fully developed. He constructed gas-works, and 

 invented the tread-mill for prisons. In 1826 he settled in London as 

 a civil engineer; and his reputation procured him immediate employ- 

 ment, while his ingenuity, industry, and success ensured its continu- 

 ance. In 1827 an act was passed for the improvement of the Norwich 

 aud Lowestoft Navigation, and Mr. Cubitt was appointed engineer. 

 The object was to open a navigation for sea-going vessels from 

 Yarmouth or Lowestoft to Norwich. To effect this Mr. Cubitt 

 united the river Yare with the Waveney, thence to the small lake of 

 Oulton Broad, through Lake Lothing, with a passage onward to the 

 sea, 700 yards long and 40 wide ; Lake Lothing being thus formed 

 into an artificial harbour, the tide-lock of which will admit vessels 

 84 feet long, and 21 feet in beam. This undertaking was completed 

 in 1829. Among his subsequent employments, he designed the South 

 Eastern Railway, including the removal of the South Down Cliff by 

 blasting, which feat was accomplished under his superintendence. He 

 was officially appointed, being then President of the Society of Civil 

 Engineers, to ezercise a superintending watchfulness over the con- 

 struction of the building for the Great Exhibition of 1851 in Hyde 

 Park ; he received the honour of knighthood for thus contributing his 

 scientific experience in carrying out that national undertaking. 



CUDWORTH, RALPH, was born at Aller, in Sjmersetshire, 

 in 1617. Having been entered at Emmanuel College, Cambridge, 

 in 1630, when he was but thirteen, he commenced residence in 

 1632, and became in due course of time, as his father had been 

 before him, a fellow of Emmanuel. He acted for some time as 

 tutor in the college, and had among his pupils the afterwards cele- 

 brated Sir William Temple. He had taken the degree of M.A. in 

 1639 ; he took that of B.D. in 1644, maintaining upon this occasion 

 the two following theses: 1. 'Dantur bo.'ii et mali ratioues ceternae 

 et indispensabiles ; ' 2. ' Dantur substantiio iucorporese suft naturjl 

 iminortales. ' In 1644 he was also appointed muster of Clare Hall; 

 and in the succeeding year was elected to the regius professorship of 

 Hebrew. On receiving this appointment he devoted himself with zeal 

 to the subject of Jewish antiquities. He took the degree of D.D. in 

 1651. Though holding the two situations which have been men- 

 tioned, aud besides these the living of ttorth Cadbury, in Somerset- 

 shire, worth 30U/. a year, to which he had been presented by his 

 college shortly after taking his Master's degree, he did not find his 

 means sufficient for his support. It does not appear that he was a 

 man extravagant Jn his habits; but owing, it is said, to pecuniary 

 difficulties, he now absented himself for some time from Cambridge. 

 He returned in 1654, having been chosen master of Christ's College. 

 He now married, aud the remainder of his life was spout in this 

 college. In 1662 he was presented by the then Bishop of London to 

 the vicarage of Ashwell, in Hertfordshire ; and iu 1678 he was installed 

 prebendary of Gloucester. In this last-mentioned year appeared his 

 great work, the 'True Intellectual System of the Universe;' or 

 rather (for though complete in itself, it i.s but a fragment of a larger 

 work which he designed), the first part of the 'Intellectual System." 

 This first part is devoted to the refutation of atheism. The whole 

 work was to consist of three parts ; but the second aud third parts, 



