478 



COSTUME COTIN. 



perhaps she was sealed on :i throne, overshadowed 



wilh a canopy a (a Hotonaisc. I hose liy whom she 



wu surrounded were drewed in the Turkish style; 

 while :i master ofliorM-, in the costume of tlie age of 

 chivalry, offered her his hand. I" Germany, tlie 

 stage, nt that time, was no better in this respect. It is 

 not very long since tlie e<>m]>aiiions of 'I heseii- made 

 Ilieir appe.iiaiu-e there willi large perukes; and. in 

 the Clfinen:n di Tito, Ivonmn soldiers inarclied on 

 the siage with stiff IKMIIS, and stiller queues. The 

 Gprnians, however, first made a thorough reform 

 these ab-iirdiiies. and (lie national, now royal, theat re, 

 in lierlin, in point of scenery and costiune, is at pre- 

 sent the most correct in the world. In France, 

 Talma reformed the 1'arisian stage. What he did 

 in this respect for the drama, David (who had, how- 

 i \ IT, a predecessor in Vien) effected for painting, and 

 liool is entitled to the honour of having strictly 

 observed propriety of costume. The question, To 

 what extent should truth be sacrificed to beauty? is 

 answered in the best manner by an article on the 

 subject of dramatic representation, in Muellner's Al- 

 manac for Private Theatres (Almanack fuer Privat- 

 hite/nien, in two volumes, 1818). There poetical cor- 

 rectness is distinguished from historical, and the 

 eases are pointed out, in which the latter must 

 yield to the former, partly on account of the harmony 

 that must necessarily exist between the external ap- 

 pearances and the spirit of poetry, anil partly for the 

 sake of intelligibleness, and avoiding what would be 

 offensive to the less informed spectators. That art 

 may be permitted to idealize costume as well as 

 language, cannot be denied. No perfect work on 

 COM nine has as yet appeared. Dandre Bardon, in 

 his Costumes of tlie most Ancient Nations, did not 

 (online himself to the true sources of information. 

 The Traite des Costumes of Lenz is a very feeble pro- 

 duction, and Martini's Commentaries liave very little 

 improved it. Spalart's Essay on the Costume of the 

 most celebrated Nations of Antiquity, of the Middle 

 Ages, and of Modern Times (t'ersuch ueber das Cos- 

 tume der vorzueglichsten I'oelker des Alterthums, des 

 mittlern Alters und der neueren Ceiten, published by 

 Ignatius Albrecht, Vienna, 1796 99, 3 vols.) is su- 

 perior, but not entirely free from faults. The Re- 

 cueils des Costumes Antiques, by Rocheggiani and 

 Willemin, are more useful productions, but not 

 sufficiently comprehensive. A new Essay on Antique 

 and Modern Costumes, by Gironi, appeared in Italy, 

 in 1819 ; and an Illustration of the Egyptian, Gre- 

 cian, and Roman Costume, in forty sketches, with 

 Descriptions, was published by Thomas Baxter, 

 London, 1810. There is often no means of informa- 

 tion for the artist but the original sources. For the 

 costume of the ancients, he must have recourse to 

 the engravings of antiquities ; for the modern cos- 

 tume, he must resort to essays on painting in different 

 ages, monumental figures, and treatises on costume ; 

 and in regard to the costume of foreign nations 

 he may derive information from books of travels ; 

 histories, antiquities and geographies, are indis- 

 pensable guides in these inquiries. The costumes 

 of modern times and foreign nations are de- 

 scribed in the Costumes civils actuels de tous les Peu- 

 vles connus, by St Sauveur ; and in a large work en- 

 titled Collections of Costumes of various Nations (Lon- 

 don, 180O et seq.) ; and in several publications on 

 the costiune of the theatre, viz., Costumes et Annales 

 des gran .s Theatres de Pa' is ; Costumes of the Im- 

 perial Court Theatre in Vienna (Costumes des K. K. 

 Ho/theaters in fPien), with coloured plates (Vienna, 

 1812 and 1813) ; Costumes of the National Theatre 

 at Berlin (Theatercostumes des berliner nationalthea- 

 ters) from 1816 to 1823 the old ones were given 

 from ITS') to 1813. 



COTE-D'Oll ; a chain of mountains in Burgundy, 

 so called from the abundance of excellent wine which 

 they yield. Their height varies from MIX) French 

 feet to 1600. The chain runs from N. N. K. to S. S. 

 U'., and is about 3(5 leagues long, beginning at the 

 plateau of Langres, and extending to the sources of 

 the Bourbince and the Dheune. 



COTE-D'OR ; a department of France, formerly 

 a part of Burgundy. See Deftnrtnii'iit. 



COTERIE; a French word now much used in 

 English society. Originally, coterie was a commercial 

 term, signifying an association in which each mem- 

 ber furnished his part, and received his proportion ol 

 the profits, or bore his proportion of the loss. Thence 

 it was used for small societies, in which certain indi- 

 viduals are in the habit of meeting, and each contri- 

 butes his share of conversation and entertainment. 

 A coterie consisting of ladies and gentlemen of talem , 

 vivacity and agreeable manners, is one of the finest pro- 

 ductions of modern society. 1 1 is from coteries that we 

 derive a large stock of the most entertaining and in 

 structive matters in the numberless French memoirs 



COTES-DU-NOUU; a French department, for- 

 merly the northern part of Upper Brittany. 



COTES, VIN LIE ; Bordelais wine. See Borde- 

 lais. 



COETHEN, ANHAI.T ; one of the Anhalt principa- 

 lities. See Anhalt. All the possessions of the prince 

 of Anhalt-Coethen, amount only to 300 square miles, 

 containing four towns and 33,500 inhabitants, fur- 

 nishing 320,000 gilders of revenue, and burdened 

 with 1.200,000 gilders public debt. The prince and 

 his wife a natural daughter of Frederic William II. 

 of Prussia embraced the Catholic religion in Paris, 

 Oct. 24, 1815, which caused some religious excite- 

 ment in Germany. Coethen, the capital, has 700 

 houses and 5500 inhabitants. 



COTHURNUS, with the ancients; a kind of 

 shoes, laced high, such as Diana and her nymphs art- 

 represented as wearing. They are still worn by the 

 hunters in Italy. They were particularly in use 

 among the Cretans. Galen and Pollux describe 

 them as reaching up to the middle of the calf, and 

 laced tight by means of thongs, to protect the foot 

 and ankle, without obstructing freedom of motion. 

 Tlie tragic actors also wore them, perhaps, at first, 

 as commemorative of the expeditions of Bacchus ; 

 and, at a later period, in order to give additional 

 height to the actors who played the part of heroes. 

 Hence cothurnus is sometimes used figuratively for 

 tragedy. The cothurnus used for this purpose differ- 

 ed from the hunting cothurnus in this respect, that it 

 had a sole of cork, at least four fingers thick. 



COTIN, CHARLES, counsellor and almoner of the 

 king, and member of the French academy, was born 

 at Paris, in 1004. He is indebted for his notoriety, 

 in a great measure, to the satires of Boileau. He 

 possessed a knowledge of theology and philosophy, 

 understood the Hebrew and Syriac languages, and 

 studied the Greek authors so diligently, that he could 

 repeat large portions of Homer and Plato by heart. 

 Among his poems are many which have much merit. 

 It has often been supposed, that Boileau introduced 

 the, name of Cotin into his satires, because it furnish- 

 ed a convenient rhyme, and Moore refers to this in 

 his Life of Byron, vol. I. But Boileau had good 

 reasons for complaining of Colin, who had represent- 

 ed him, at the hotel R'ambouillet, as a dangerous 

 man. The ridicule of Boileau exasperated Cotin 

 still more, and he attempted every means of silenc- 

 ing him. His influence at court, his title and wealth, 

 appeared to give him the means of effecting this ob- 

 ject; but, unluckily, his follies drew upon him a i lev- 

 enemy in Moliere, who in his Femmes Savantes, in- 

 Iroduced him on the stage, and exposed him to ridi- 



