CHAPMAN 



1269 



CHARCOAL 



months. During the last six years of his life 

 he was lieutenant-governor of Quebec. 



CHAPMAN, GEORGE (1557 or 1559-1634), the 

 poet and dramatist of Shakespeare's day who 

 is remembered chiefly as having been the first 

 to translate into English verse Homer's im- 

 mortal epics, the Iliad and the Odyssey. Such 

 critics as Pope, Lamb and Coleridge greatly 

 admired these translations for their lofty lan- 

 guage and swiftness of action; and they in- 

 spired one of the finest sonnets Keats ever 

 wrote On First Looking into Chapman's 

 Homer in which occur these oft-quoted lines: 



Oft of one wide expanse had I been told 



That deep-browed Homer ruled as his demesne ; 



Yet did I never breathe its pure serene 



Till I heard Chapman speak out loud and bold : 



Then felt I like some watcher of the skies 



When a new planet swims into his ken. 



Chapman was born near the town of Hitchin, 

 in Hertfordshire, and learned his Greek at 

 Oxford. When he was about thirty-five he 

 published his first long poem, The Shadow of 

 Night, and in 1598 his first play, a comedy 

 which bore the quaint title of The Blinde 

 Begger of Alexandria, Most Pleasantly Dis- 

 coursing His Variable Humours. The Iliad and 

 Odyssey translations were published in instal- 

 ments, appearing at intervals throughout a 

 period of nearly twenty years. It was not until 

 1611 that the entire twenty-four books of the 

 Iliad were completed, and not until 1616 that 

 the Odyssey was published in its entirety. 



All this time, however, Chapman was writing 

 successful plays, among the most popular being 

 the comedies of Al Fooles, The Widow's Tears 

 and Monsieur d'Olive, and the tragedy of 

 Bu$sy d'Ambois. A play called Eastward Hoe, 

 written by Chapman in collaboration with Ben 

 Jonson and John Marston, led the Stuart 

 king, James I, to send him to prison because 

 of a satirical remark about the Scotch, and 

 the play was ordered reprinted with the offend- 

 ing passage omitted. As a writer for the stage, 

 however, Chapman did not equal the other 

 dramatists of the Elizabethan period, either 

 in his handling of plot or of character. 



He also wrote a number of long poems, made 

 some translations from Latin literature, and 

 completed the paraphrase called Hero and 

 Lcander which Christopher Marlowe had be- 

 gun and left unfinished at his death. 



CHAPULTEPEC, chah pool te pec' , BATTLE 

 OF, the last battle of the war between the 

 United States and Mexico before the capture 

 of the City of Mexico. The scene of the en- 



gagement was the small hill of Chapultepec, 

 which, crowned by an imposing fortified castle, 

 guarded the gates to the capital city. On Sep- 

 tember 12, 1847, the American force under 

 General Scott began an attack on the hill, 

 which continued the following day and resulted 

 in the retreat of the Mexicans to the capital. 

 On the 14th the Americans entered the city 

 and the war was practically at an end. About 

 7,500 Americans and 4,000 Mexicans engaged 

 in the three-days' fight, the loss on each side 

 being over 800. 



CHARADE, sharade', a popular form of 

 riddle, the answer to which is a word of several 

 syllables, each of which alone is in itself a 

 word. Each syllable, taken as a word, is de- 

 scribed, and finally a puzzling definition of the 

 whole word is given. The following is an 

 example: "Some one threw my first and sec- 

 ond at me, and it hit my third. It did not 

 hurt me, for it was only a branch of my whole." 

 The answer is Mistletoe. A girl, sitting under 

 a high table, would suggest the word misunder- 

 stand. 



A pleasing charade requiring more thought 

 is in the form of a rhyme, as 

 "My first is a circle, my second a cross ; 

 If you meet with my whole, look out for a toss." 



The answer is Ox. Then, too, charades are 

 often presented in the form of little plays, each 

 syllable representing a scene. They are then 

 called acting charades. This form of amuse- 

 ment is much in vogue on social occasions. It 

 is thought that the name was derived from a 

 French word meaning idle talk, which in its 

 turn was derived from Spanish words meaning 

 speech and actions of a clown. 



CHARCOAL, char' hole, is the familiar brit- 

 tle, coal-like material produced when wood 

 burns incompletely, and hence often found in 

 the ashes of a wood fire. The origin of the 

 word char is doubtful, but some authorities 

 derive it from the Anglo-Saxon ccarcian, mean- 

 ing to crackle. Charcoal was formerly made 

 in large quantities by cutting down trees, pil- 

 ing the logs into mounds or pyramids, covering 

 these with earth and setting the wood on fire. 

 The earth restricted the draught, or supply 

 of air, to the fire and thus kept the wood from 

 burning completely to ashes. In countries 

 where hardwood is plentiful, charcoal is still 

 made in ways similar to that described. Some- 

 times the heating is carried out in closed iron 

 retorts, and the escaping gases are cooled so 

 as to condense the acetic acid, wood alcohol 

 and acetone which they contain. 



