CHIO CHIVALRY. 



199 



tion of caustic potass,) ground with 1 sixth part of mercury 

 in oil, and applied at the pleasure of the artist. 



Ground laying is frequently adopted prior to gilding ; 

 and is thus effected : Well boiled linseed oil, turpentine, 

 and red lead, as a fluid, the artist lays even all the proper 

 parts of the ware, by a pencil of suitable size. He then 

 with a look of cotton applies the powder of the enamel 

 colour, with one-tenth additional flux ; and carefully ad- 

 justs the coating, so that all the parts may be equally 

 covered. This is then baked in the muffle, and conse- 

 quently gilded. 



CHIO ; called by the ancients Chios. See Scio. 



CHIPPEWAY ; a town in Upper Canada, on the 

 Chippeway or Welland, two miles N. W. Niagara 

 falls, ten S. Queenstown. This place is famous for 

 a victory gained near it by the American troops over 

 the British, July 5, 1814. 



CHIPPEWAY ; a river of the United States in 

 the North-West Territory, which runs S.W. into the 

 Mississippi ; Ion. 92 W. ; lat. 43 4# N. ; length 

 about 300 miles. 



CHIPPEWAYS; Indians, in the North-West 

 Territory, on the Chippeway, in Michigan Territory, 

 and in Canada on the Utawas. Number, according 

 to Pike, 11,177; 2049 warrriors. See Indians. 



CHIQUITOS; a province of S. America, in 

 Buenos Ayres, inhabited, in 1732, by seven Indian 

 nations, each composed of about 600 families. The 

 country is mountainous and marshy ; but the more 

 fertile soils produce a variety of fruits without cul- 

 ture. The varilla is common, and a kind of cocoa is 

 found, whose fruit is more like a melon than a cocoa- 

 nut. It lies to the south of Moxes. 



CHIRAC RA ( Greek; from %6 S , the hand, and 

 ,yyt, a seizure) ; that species of arthritis, or gout, 

 which attacks the joints of the hand (the wrist and 

 knuckles) and hinders their motions. It gradually 

 deprives the liands of their flexibility, and bends the 

 fingers, distorts them, and impedes their action, by 

 the accumulation of a calcareous matter around the 

 sinews, which finally benumbs and stiffens the joints. 



CHIROGRAPH. See Charter. 



CHIROLOGY ; the language of the fingers, or 

 the art of making one's sell" understood by means of 

 the hands and fingers. It is an important means of 

 communication for the deaf and dumb. 



CHIROMANCY (from the Greek), or PALMISTRY 

 the pretended art of prognosticating by the lines of 

 the hand. Its adherents maintain, that human incli- 

 nations, faults, and virtues are designated in an in- 

 fallible manner by the lines which divine Providence 

 has originally drawn in the hands of all men. Traces 

 of chiromancy are found in the writings of A ristotle, 

 who asserts, for instance, that it is a sign of a long 

 life if one or two lines run across the whole hand. 

 The chiromancers quote some passages of the Bible 

 to prove that their art is founded on the divine de- 

 crees, as the following: " And it shall be for a sign 

 unto thee upon thine hand, and for a memorial be- 

 tween thine eyes " (Exodus xiii. 9) ; and, " He seal- 

 eth up the hand of every man, that all men may know 

 his work " (Job xxxvii. 7). In the middle ages, chi- 

 romancy was cultivated ; and, in the present age, the 

 French chiromancer madame Lenormand found, as 

 she states, some eminent adepts in Paris, and in her 

 travels to the different European congresses. The 

 books in which chiromancy is explained and taught 

 are numerous ; and, in order to give dignity to the 

 art, it has been connected with astrology. The Gip- 

 seys are at present the principal professors of chiro- 

 mancy, and people who have no faith in the art not 

 unfrequently amuse themselves with their predic- 

 tions. 



CHIRON; son of Saturn and Philyra. Saturn as- 

 sumed the shape of a horse, in this amour, to deceive 

 his wife Rhea. The shape of Chiron, therefore, was 

 half that of a man, half of a horse. In j *)int of fact, 



Chiron was one of the people called Centaurs. He 

 was celebrated tlu-ough all Greece for his wisdom 

 and acquirements ; and the greatest princes and he- 

 roes of the time Bacchus, Jason, Hercules, Achilles, 

 ^Esculapius, Nestor, Theseus, Palamedes, Ulysses, 

 Castor, and Pollux, &c. were intrusted to him for 

 education. Besides the other branches in which 

 young men of rank were instructed at that time, they 

 learned from him music and medicine. He was par. 

 ticularly skilled in surgery. When Hercules drove 

 the Centaurs from mount Pelion, they took refuge 

 with Chiron, in Malea ; but their enemy pursued them 

 even into this retreat, and unfortunately wounded his 

 old teacher with a misdirected arrow. The speedy 

 operation of the poison, in which the arrow had been 

 dipped, rendered remedies useless ; and Chiron suf- 

 fered the severest torments. The gods, at his pray- 

 er, put an end to his life, though his nature was im- 

 mortal by reason of his descent from Saturn. After 

 his death, he was placed among the stars, and became 

 the constellation Sagittarius. 



CHIRONOMY (xupiefii*, Greek ; from x i, ( , the 

 hand, and lapes , a rule) ; the science which treats of 

 the rules of gesticulation, which is a part of panto- 

 mime. The ancient orators recognised the importance 

 of gesticulation as a means of giving expressiveness 

 to a discourse. See Gilbert Austin's Chironomia, or 

 a Treatise on Rhetorical Delivery, London, 1806. 



CHIVALRY (from the French chevalier, a horse- 

 man ; in German, Ritter, which signifies likewise a 

 rider on horseback). Poets still sometimes use chiv- 

 alry for cavalry ; but this word is generally employ- 

 ed to signify a certain institution of the middle ages. 

 The age of chivalry is the heroic age of the Teuton- 

 ic-Christian tribes, corresponding to the age of the 

 Grecian heroes. This heroic period of a nation may 

 be compared to the youth of an individual ; and we 

 find, therefore, nations, in this stage of their progress, 

 distinguished by the virtues, follies, and even vices, 

 to which the youth of individuals is most prone 

 thirst for glory, enthusiasm, pride, indescribable and 

 indefinite aspirations after something beyond the re- 

 alities of life, strortg faith hi virtue and intellectual 

 greatness, together with much vanity and credulity. 

 Chivalry, in the perfection of its glory and its extra- 

 vagance, existed only among the German tribes, or 

 those which were conquered by and mingled with 

 them, and whose institutions and civilization were im- 

 pregnated with the Teutonic spirit. Therefore we 

 find chivalry never fully developed in Italy, because 

 the Teutonic spirit never penetrated all the institu- 

 tions of that country, as it found a civilization already 

 established, of too settled a character to be material- 

 ly affected by its influence. We do not find much of 

 the chivalric spirit in Greece, nor among the Sclavo- 

 nic tribes, except some traces among the Bohemians 

 and the Poles, who had caught a portion of it from 

 the Germans. Among the Swedes, though a genuine 

 Teutonic tribe, chivalry never struck deep root ; but 

 this is to be ascribed to their remote situation, and to 

 the circumstance that they early directed their at- 

 tention to navigation and naval warfare, which, in 

 many ways, were unfavourable to the growth of the 

 chivalric spirit ; affording, for instance, comparative- 

 ly little opportunity for that display of courage and 

 accomplishment in the eyes of admiring multitudes, 

 or hi the adventurous quests of the single knight, 

 which formed so striking a feature of the chivalric 

 age. Poets and orators are fond of declaring that 

 the chivalric spirit is gone. The famous passage in 

 Burke's Reflections is familiar to every one ; but the 

 man who coolly investigates the character of past 

 times, and compares them with the present, will hard- 

 ly come to the conclusion that our age is deficient in 

 any of the qualities which constituted the glory o* 



