336 



COKE 



COLBERT 



present in coal. Coal yields by weight about 70 

 per cent, of coke, which, however, increases in 

 volume in the process of coking by about one- 

 fourth. Coke will absorb about 30 per cent, of 

 moisture from the air, a circumstance which should 

 be borne in mind in its purchase and its use, for 

 ;such moisture in being driven oft' greatly reduces 

 the calorific value of the substance. 



Coke, SIR EDWARD, jurist, was born of a good 

 old Norfolk family, at Mileham, 1st February 1552. 

 From Norwich grammar-school he passed in 1567 

 to Trinity College, Cambridge, in 1571 to Clifford's 

 Inn, in 1572 to the Inner Temple ; and he was 

 called to the bar in 1578. His rise was rapid from 

 recorder of Coventry ( 1585 ) to member for Aid- 

 borough ( 1589), Solicitor-general ( 1592), Speaker of 

 the House of Commons (1593), Attorney-general 

 (1594), Chief-justice of the Common Pleas (1606), 

 Chief -justice of the King's Bench and privy-council- 

 lor ( 1613). Meanwhile he had married twice, first, 

 in 1582, Bridget Paston, who brought him 30,000, 

 and died 27th June 1598 ; next, nineteen weeks 

 later, Lady Elizabeth Hatton, the granddaughter 

 of his patron, Lord Burghley. The rancour shown 

 by him in the prosecutions of Essex and Southamp- 

 ton, Raleigh, and the Gunpowder conspirators ( 1600- 

 3-5) has gained him little credit with posterity; 

 but from 1 606 he stands forth as a vindicator of 

 the national liberties, opposing, unlike Bacon, 



every illegal encroachment on the part of both 

 church and crown. He dared to cite Bracton's 

 words to James's face, that ' the king should be 



; subject not to man, but to God and the law;' 

 alone of twelve judges, he resisted the royal pre- 

 rogative ; and in the Over bury case he showed an 

 indiscreet zeal to come at the real truth. His 

 removal from the bench on most trivial grounds 

 (November 1617) was aggravated by a quarrel with 

 his wife ; and though ten months afterwards he 

 was recalled to the council, his conduct in parlia- 

 ment from 1620 as a leader of the popular party, 

 aii opponent of Spain and of monopolies, estranged 

 him for ever from the court party. In 1621-22 

 he suffered nine months' durance in the Tower ; 

 :still, old though he was, he carried his opposition 

 into the next reign, the Petition of Right (1628) 

 being largely his doing. He died at Stoke Poges, 

 3d September 1634, and was buried at Tittleshall 

 in his native county. 



Coke was a great lawyer, withal an honest lover 

 of legality, but too bitter and narrow-minded to be 

 really a great man. His four Institutes ( 1628-44 ) 

 deal with tenures, statutes, criminal law, and the 

 jurisdiction of the several law-courts. The first of 

 these, and most famous, which in 1832 reached a 

 19th edition, is the so-called Coke upon Littleton 

 (q.v. ) a commentary that, in spite of its puerile 



etymologies, has still a real, if mainly historical, 

 value. Eleven of the thirteen parts of his epoch- 

 making Law Reports were published during his life- 

 time ( 1600-15) ; and the whole, translated out of the 

 original French and Latin, fills 6 vols. in Thomas 

 and Eraser's edition (1826). Mr G. P. Macdonell 

 mentions six minor works in his able and exhaustive 

 article on Coke in the Dictionary of National 

 Biography (vol. xi. 1887). See also the Lives by 

 Serjeant Woolrych (1826) and W. Johnson (2 vols. 

 1837). 



Coke, THOMAS, Methodist bishop, born at 

 Brecon in 1747, graduated in 1768 at Oxford, from 

 which university he received the degree of D.C.L. 

 in 1775. He settled as a curate in Somersetshire, 

 but a course of open-air preaching and cottage 

 services, initiated after his introduction to John 

 Wesley in 1776, brought about his dismissal by his 

 rector, and he joined the Methodists, by whom he 

 was attached to the London circuit. In 1782 he 



became first president of the Irish conference, and 

 he was elected president of the English conference 

 in 1797 and 1805. In 1784 he was set apart by 

 Wesley as 'superintendent' of the societies in 

 America, to which country he made nine voyages, 

 the last in 1803, and where his outspoken opposi- 

 tion to slavery aroused much hostility ; in 1787 he 

 induced the American conference to alter his title 

 to that of bishop. In 1784 Coke had drawn up the 

 first plan of the Methodist foreign missions, and to 

 this cause he devoted the later years of his life 

 with untiring zeal and skill, retaining to the last 

 the direct control of the system he had created. 

 He died in the Indian Ocean on a missionary 

 voyage to Ceylon, 3d May 1814. He published, 

 besides religious works, extracts from his American 

 Journals (1790), a History of the West Indies (3 

 vols. 1808-11), and, with Henry Moore, a Life of 

 Wesley (1792), intended to forestall Whitehead's 

 labours, with whom the two others, being joint 

 literary executors, had disagreed. 



Col ( Fr. , ' neck ' ), in Geography, is a depression 

 or pass in a mountain-range. In those parts of the 

 Alps where the French language prevails, the 

 passes are usually named cols as the Col de 

 Balme, the Col du Geant, &c. 



Cola Nuts. See KOLA NUTS. 



Colard, MANSION, the first printer of Bruges, 

 was of French extraction. He published twenty- 

 one works, all in French, save one Latin one ; and 

 died in 1484. 



Colberg, or KOLBERG, a seaport and watering- 

 place of Prussia, in the province of Pomerania, on 

 the Persante, near its mouth in the Baltic, 170 

 miles NNE. of Berlin by rail. It stands on a hill, 

 surrounded with three suburbs. The principal 

 church dates from 1316. In 1102 Duke Boleslaus 

 of Poland vainly besieged Colberg, which endured 

 long sieges in the Thirty Years' War, in the Seven 

 Years' War, and again in 1807, when it was most 

 gallantly defended against the French. Colberg 

 has manufactures of woollens, agricultural machines, 

 and spirits ; and salmon and lamprey fisheries. 

 Pop. (1895) 18,622. 



Colbert, JEAN BAPTISTE, one of the greatest 

 French statesmen, was born at Rheims in 1619. 

 Before he was twenty years of age he obtained a 

 post in the War Office under Le Tellier, and at once 

 began a very successful career. In 1651 he entered 

 the service of the great minister Mazarin, who 

 soon employed him in most important affairs of 

 state. On his death-bed Mazarin warmly recom- 

 mended Colbert to Louis XIV. ' I owe you every- 

 thing,' Mazarin is reported to have said to the king, 

 ' but I pay my debt to your majesty in giving you 

 Colbert.' It was in 1661 that Colbert became 

 the chief-minister of Louis XIV. He found the 

 finances in a ruinous condition, and immediately 

 began his reforms. Fouquet, the superintendent 

 under Mazarin, was found guilty of impoverishing 

 the state by his maladministration, and imprisoned 

 for life. The farmers of the state-revenues were 

 forced to yield up the resources of the crown of 

 which they had fraudulently possessed them- 

 selves. The debts of the state Colbert reduced by 

 arbitrary composition. In all the departments of 

 finance he introduced order and economy as far 

 as he could. So complete and thorough was the 

 change which Colbert effected, that in ten years 

 the annual revenue had risen to 104 million livres, 

 of which 27 were spent in collection and adminis- 

 tration ; whereas, when the management of the 

 finances was intrusted to him, the revenue 

 amounted to only 84 million livres, and 52 millions 

 were absorbed in its collection. The financial 

 reforms of Colbert, however, only served as a 



