314 



COB 



COBBETT 



Vera Cruz. It is navigable for large vessels for 30 

 miles, and is interesting as part of a route which 

 was once surveyed for an interoceanic canal. Near 

 its course was Captain Eads's projected ship-railway. 



Cobalt (sym. Co, eq. 59, from Cobalus, 'a 

 malicious sprite ' or ' gnome ' ) is a metal the ores 

 of which are sparingly distributed. In the metallic 

 state it is found in meteoric stones or aerolites to 

 the extent of one per cent., but it generally occurs 

 combined with arsenic as jSWm-cobalt, CoAs,, or 

 as cobalt-glance, the arsenide and sulphide of the 

 metal, CoSAs. To obtain the metal itself from its 

 ores is a matter of some difficulty, and although it 

 is more tenacious than iron, yet it has not oeen 

 applied to any practical use. It is of a gray 

 colour with a reddish tinge, brittle, hard, and very 

 magnetic. Many of its compounds are valued on 

 account of the brilliance and permanence of their 

 colours. The Protoxide of Cobalt, CoO, is employed 

 as a blue pigment in porcelain-painting. Zaffre is 

 the impure oxide obtained by partially roasting 

 cobalt ore previously mixed with two or three 

 times its weight of hne sand. Smalt is the term 

 applied to a deep-blue glass, which owes its colour 

 to the presence of oxide of cobalt, and which, when 

 reduced to very fine powder, is employed occa- 

 sionally by laundresses to correct thje yellow colour 

 of newly-washed linen, and by paper-makers as a 

 blue pigment for staining writing-paper. Smalt is 

 Also used in the production of the blue colours in 

 porcelain, pottery glass, encaustic tiles, fresco- 

 painting, &c. , and forms the principal ingredient in- 

 Old Sevres Blue, Thenard's Blue, Turquoise Blue, 

 &c. (see BLUE). A compound containing the 

 oxides of cobalt and zinc is of a beautiful green 

 colour, and is known as Rinman's Green. The 

 chloride of cobalt dissolved in much water, may 

 be employed as a sympathetic ink. In dilute solu- 

 tions, it is of a faint pink colour, which is not 

 observable when it is used for writing upon paper ; 

 but when heated before the fire, it loses water, 

 and becomes blue, and the writing is then capable 

 of being read. On allowing the paper there- 

 after to lie in a damp place, or exposing it to 

 the vapour of steam from a kettle, water is again 

 absorbed, and the writing returns to its invisible 

 state. The addition of a little perchloride of iron 

 to the ink makes the writing appear green ; a solu- 

 tion of zinc imparts a red tint ; and a salt of copper, 

 a yellow shade. 



Cohan, capital of the department of Vera Paz, 

 in Guatemala, on the fertile Tierra Templada 

 plateau, about 85 miles N. of the town of Guate- 

 mala. Pop. (1895) 27,700. 



Cobbe, FEANCES POWER, author, born near 

 Dublin, 4th December 1822, was educated at 

 Brighton, and early had her interest aroused in 

 theological questions. Her mother's death drove 

 her for spiritual help to Theodore Parker, whose 

 counsels are contained in his famous Sermon of 

 the Immortal Life. She travelled in Italy and 

 the East, and wrote The Cities of the Past 

 (1864), and Italics (1864). A strong Theist, a 

 supporter of women's rights, and a prominent 

 anti-vivisectionist, she published her Autobiography 

 in 1894. Among her other works are Friendless 

 Girls, and How to help Them ( 1861 ) ; Broken 

 Lights: an Inquiry into the Present Condition and 

 Future Prospects of Religious Faith ( 1864); Studies 

 New and Old (1865); Criminals, Idiots, Women, 

 and Minors: Is the Classification Sound? (1869); 

 Darwinism in Morals (1872); The Hopes of the 

 Human Race Hereafter and Here ( 1874) ; Re-echoes 

 (1876); The Peak in Darien (1882); and The 

 Scientific Spirit of the Age ( 1888). 



Cobbett, WILLIAM, born at Farnham, Surrey, 

 on 9th March 1762, was the son of a small farmer, 



and grandson of a day-labourer. From scaring crows 

 the ooy rose to be ploughman ; but a visit to 

 Portsmouth and a sight of the fleet had spoiled him 

 for farming, when, in May 1783, a sudden freak 

 took him to London. He reached it with just 

 half-a-crown, and for nine months was quill-driver 

 to a Gray's Inn attorney. Enlisting then in the 

 54th Foot, he first spent a year at Chatham, where 

 he mastered Lowth s English Grammar, and read 

 through a whole lending library Swift's Tale of a 

 Tub had been his boyhood's delight. Next he 

 served as sergeant-major in New Brunswick (1785- 

 91 ), meanwhile saving 150 guineas, and studying 

 rhetoric, geometry, logic, French, and fortification. 

 On his return he obtained a most flattering dis- 

 charge ; in February 1792 married ; but in March 

 went to France to get out of a court-martial on three 

 of his late officers, whom he had taxed with pecula- 

 tion. Six months later he sailed for America. At 

 Philadelphia he taught English to French refugees 

 ( Talleyrand wanted to be one of his pupils ) ; trans- 

 lated from the French ; and, as 'Peter Porcupine,' 

 wrote fierce onslaughts on Dr Priestley, Tom Paine, 

 and the native Democrats. Twice he was pro- 

 secuted for libel, and America got too hot for him, 

 so in June 1800 he returned to England. The 

 Tories welcomed him with open arms ; and in 1802 

 he started his famous Weekly Political Register, 

 which, with one three-months break in 1817, con- 

 tinued till his death. But, Tory first, it altered its 

 politics in 1804, till at last it 'became the most 

 fierce and determined opponent of the government, 

 and the most uncompromising champion of Radical- 

 ism.' A great lover of the country, Cobbett 

 settled at Botley in Hampshire, where he planted, 

 farmed, and went in for manly sports ; a true 

 soldiers' friend, he got two years in Newgate 

 (1810-12), with a fine of 1000, for his strictures 

 on the flogging of militiamen by German mercen- 

 aries. In 1817 money muddles and dread of a 

 second imprisonment drove him once more across 

 the Atlantic. He farmed in Long Island, writing 

 all the while for the Register, till in 1819 he 

 ventured back again, and came bringing Tom 

 Paine's bones the one really silly action of his 

 life. Botley had to be sold, but he started a 

 seed-farm at Kensington ; and bent now on enter- 

 ing parliament, stood for Coventry ( 1821 ) and 

 Preston (1826). Both times he failed; but his 

 ill-advised trial for sedition (1831) was followed 

 next year by his return for Oldham to the first 

 Reformed parliament. His career there, if not 

 quite a failure, was signalised chiefly by a crack- 

 brained attack on Peel ; anyhow, the late hours 

 were too much for him, and on 18th June 1835 he 

 died at Normanby farm, near Guildford. He was 

 buried at Farnham. 



Coarse, virulent, braggadocio, inconsistent 

 Cobbett was all this. He was often right, but he 

 must have been oftener wrong, for oftener he came 

 to abuse what once he had eulogised than vice versa. 

 He was a very Ishmael of politics ; Lord Dalling 

 dubs him 'the contentious man.' Still, a man he 

 was, a genuine John Bull ; and if he wrote nonsense 

 about Waterloo and the national debt, and more 

 nonsense than sense about the Reformation, he 

 wrote it in fine strong English. He loathed Whigs 

 and 'mock gentlefolks,' but he honestly loved the 

 poor loved Nature, too, and could paint her dear 

 English scenery with a freshness and insight 

 wholly and solely his own. The Rural Rides ( new 

 edition, with notes by Pitt Cobbett, 1885) are un- 

 surpassable. They were a reprint (1830) from the 

 Register, and followed or were followed by Porcu- 

 pine's Works (12 vols. 1801), the excellent and 

 entertaining English Grammar ( 1818), the savage 

 History of the Reformation ( 1824-27 ), the Wood- 

 lands (1825), the shrewd, homely Advice to Young 



