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CRABETH CRAIG. 



forth in all their deformity ; not a flaw escapes his 

 notice, not a fissure but he gives to it "a local ha- 

 bitation and a name." His anatomy of character is 

 most searching and minute ; there is no depth of in- 

 ferny which he dares not look into ; no disguise 

 which he cannot penetrate. In some of his match- 

 less researches into the workings of the human mind, 

 we feel as if we witnessed the writhings of a living 

 wrt-tch under the scalpel of the anatomist. Yet 

 with all this there is much of kindliness and compas- 

 sion, much of tenderness and true pathos. To give 

 full scope to his sketches, he sought the subjects for 

 his muse in humble life, where its asperities show 

 themselves most openly where impulse is not over- 

 borne by the conventional rules of polite society. 

 To excite the sympathy of the polishea and the polite 

 for such beings as he delights to paint, was only to be 

 accomplished by a great and original mind ; one of less 

 power would have shrunk from what to it would 

 have appeared insurmountable. As a writer, his style 

 is often quaint and prosaic, and his versification is 

 far from correct. Vet with all his faults, and these 

 are not few, wherever originality and vigour in poetry 

 are regarded, there will the writings of Crabbe be 

 honoured and admired. 



CRABETH, DIERK and WOUTER, brothers; pain- 

 ters on glass ; said, by some, to be Germans ; by 

 others, to be Dutchmen. They lived at the end of 

 the 15th and the beginning of the 16th centuries, at 

 Gouda, where they executed eleven paintings on 

 glass, in St John's church, which are still admired. 

 W outer excelled in exactness, Dierk in power. The 

 art of painting on glass, according to some accounts, 

 ceased with them. It is related that the jealousy of 

 the two brothers prevented them from communicat- 

 ing to each other, the secret of their particular style, 

 and that each, on receiving a visit from the other, 

 carefully concealed such of his works as were not 

 completed, lest the observation of the gradual im- 

 provement of the painting might enable nis brother 

 to acquire the peculiar advantages of his style. 



CRACOW; a republic and city in Poland, in 

 West Galicia, situated on an extensive plain, at the 

 confluence of the rivers Rudawa and Vistula, where 

 many important commercial roads centre ; Ion. 19 

 57' 9'' E. ; lat. 50 3' 52" N. It was formerly the 

 capital of Poland, and though, afterwards, Sigismund 

 III. (who reigned from 1587 to 1632) fixed the royal 

 residence at Warsaw, still it remained, till 1764, the 

 place of coronation. It contains about 25,000 inhabi- 

 tants, of whom many are Germans, and a great num- 

 ber Jews. It consists of Cracow proper, or the old 

 city, surrounded with fortifications, walls, and ditches, 

 and the suburbs of Stradom and Clepar on the left, 

 and Casimir on the right, bank of the river Vistula. 

 The traveller, on seeing the number of rich old 

 churches and towers, the lofty castle, and the mass 

 of houses, spread out before him on the boundless 

 plain, would suppose that he was approaching a 

 splendid city ; but, on entering, he finds a labyrinth 

 of crooked and dirty streets, bearing the remains of 

 Conner splendour. 



Cracow is the see of a bishop, who formerly bore 

 the title of duke of Severia. The church of the castle 

 (a Gothic building well worth seeing), the richest 

 church in Galicia, contains the monuments of many 

 Polish kings, the tombs of the famous Sobieski, of 

 Jos. Poniatowski, of Kosciusko and Dombrowski. 

 Of the other 72 churches, some are remarkable for 

 their antiquity. In the church of St Anna stands the 

 marble monument of Copernicus. On one of the 

 three hills near Cracow stands the monument of 

 Kosciusko, 120 feet high. The city is supposed to 

 have been founded by a prince named Croats, about 

 A. D. 700. It adopted the Magdeburg law in 1257. 



From this time, it has been Uie seat of a flourishing 

 commerce, and has possessed a good university, with 

 an observatory. The university was remodelled in 

 1817. On the division of. Poland, in 1795, Cra- 

 cow fell to Austria, which had already taken posses- 

 sion of the suburb of Casimir. In 1809, it was, to- 

 gether with all West Galicia, made a part of the 

 duchy of Warsaw. By an act of the congress of 

 Vienna (1815), Cracow, with a territory of 487 

 square miles and 108,000 inhabitants (of whom 7300 

 are Jews, and 1500 Lutherans), was declared a re- 

 public, to remain perpetually neutral, and to be go- 

 verned according to the constitution of May 3, 1815. 

 The city has a militia for its defence. The taxes are 

 considerably reduced, a part of the debts paid, and 

 useful buildings have been erected. The three 

 powers, under whose protection Cracow is (Austria, 

 Russia, and Prussia), on the 5th of Oct., 1826, esta- 

 blished a new course of study for the university and 

 other institutions for instruction. The constitution, 

 signed by Metternich, Rasumoffsky, and Harden- 

 berg, for Austria, Russia, and Prussia, establishes a 

 house of representatives, and a senate with a presi- 

 dent, a court of appeal, &c. The legislative body 

 consists of representatives chosen by the corporations, 

 together with three deputies of the senate, three pre- 

 lates of the chapter, three doctors of the university, 

 and six judges. The executive power is in the hands 

 of a senate, consisting of twelve senators, eight of 

 whom are for life, and four for a limited period. The 

 president and eight of the members are chosen by 

 the national assembly ; the other four by the chapter 

 and the university. Most of the inhabitants are Ca- 

 tholics, but all sects are protected. No one is quali- 

 fied for being a senator or representative without 

 having studied in one of the universities of Poland. 



CRADLE, in shipbuilding ; a frame placed under 

 the bottom of a ship, in order to conduct her, smooth- 

 ly and steadily, into the water, when she is launch- 

 ed ; at which time it supports her weight whilst she 

 slides down the descent or sloping passage called 

 the ways, which, to facilitate her passage, are daubed 

 with soap and tallow. 



CRAFT, in sea language, signifies all manner of 

 nets, lines, hooks, &c., used in fishing. Hence little 

 vessels, as ketches, hoys, smacks, &c., of the kind 

 commonly used in the fishing trade, are called small 

 craft. 



CRAIG, JOHN, a learned mathematician, who was 

 a native of Scotland, and was settled at Cambridge, 

 in the latter part of the seventeenth century. No- 

 thing more is known of his personal history. As a 

 mathematical writer, he distinguished himself by a 

 number of papers on Fluxions, and other subjects, in 

 the Philosophical Transactions ; and by a controversy 

 with John Bernouilli, on the quadrature of curved 

 lines and curvilinear figures. But his principal claims 

 to notice depend on his Theologiae Christianas Prin- 

 cipia Mathematica, London, 1699, 4to. The ob- 

 ject of this work is to show, from mathematical cal- 

 culations 1. That the certainty of the history 01 

 Jesus Christ would have ceased entirely at the end ot 

 the eighth century, if it had been supported only by 

 the oral testimony of one person. 2. That the pro- 

 bability of this history composed by four writers, and 

 propagated by a great many copies of their works, 

 was as strong in 1699 as it would have been in the 

 time of Christ, to a person who had heard it related 

 by the twenty-eight disciples. 3. That the probabil- 

 ity of this history at the end of 3150 years from the 

 birth of Christ, will entirely cease, and that this con- 

 sequently will be the period when the Son of Goo 

 will come to judge the world ; because then, as is 

 inferred from Luke, chap. viii. ver. 8, there will be 

 no more faith on the earth. From this statement it 



