COM 
Ranfom ; the aft of exchanging a corporal for a pecu¬ 
niary punifliment.—The law of God had allowed an eva- 
iion, that is, by way of commutation or redemption. Brown. 
COMMUTA'TION, f. angle of, in altronomy, is the 
diltance between the fun’s true place feen from the earth, 
and the place of a planet reduced to the ecliptic : which 
therefore is found by taking the difference between the 
fun’s longitude, and the heliocentric longitude of the 
planet. 
COMMU'TATIVE, adj. Relative to exchange; as, 
commutative juJUce , that honefly which is exercifed in 
traffic, and which is contrary to fraud in bargains. 
To COJViMU'TE, v. a. \_commuto , Lat.] To exchange; 
to put one thing in the place of another; to give or re¬ 
ceive one thing for another.—This will commute our talks; 
exchange thele pleafant and gainful ones, which God af- 
iigns, for thofe uneafy and fruitlefs ones we impofe on 
ourfelves. Decay of Piety. —To buy off, or ranfom one 
obligation by another.—Some commute fwearing for whor¬ 
ing; as if forbearance of the one were a difpenfution for 
the other. VEf range. 
To COMMUTE, <u. n. To atone; to bargain for ex¬ 
emption.—Thofe inftitutions which God defigned for 
means to further men in holinefs, they look upon as a 
privilege to ferve inflead of it, and to commute for it. South 
COMMU'ri/AL, adj. [con and mutual.} Mutual; re¬ 
ciprocal. Ufed only in poetry : 
There, with commutual zeal, we both had drove 
In ails of dear benevolence and love ; 
Brothers in peace, not rivals in command. Pope. 
COMNE'NA (Ann), daughter of Alexus Comnenus, 
emperor of the Eaft ; memorable for her great learning 
and virtue, and for her Hiftory of the Life and Actions 
of her father, which is highly efteemed. She flourifhed 
about the year 1117. The hiftory, which is in fifteen 
books, was firfl publifhed very imperfeilly by Hefchelius 
in 1610; and afterwards printed in the colleilion of the 
Byzantine liiflorians, with a diffufe and incorreil Latin 
verfion by the Jefuit Poffimus, but with excellent notes 
by the learned Du Frefne. 
COMNE / NO, a town of European Turkey, in the pro¬ 
vince of Albania : thirty-fix miles fouth-eaft of Albafuno. 
CO'MO, a town of Italy, now capital of the department 
of Lario, in the Cifalpine republic, was built by the Gauls, 
under the conduct of Brennus, at the fouth end of a lake 
to which it gives name. It is pleafantly fituated in a 
plain, almoft furrounded with mountains, large, popu¬ 
lous, and commercial; it is the fee of a bifhop, fuffragan 
of Goritz, and contains twelve pariffi churches, and 
j 8,000 inhabitants. The town is furrounded by a wall, 
guarded with piilurefque towers, and backed by a coni¬ 
cal eminence, on which Hand the ruins cf an ancient 
caflle. The houfes are neatly built of hone; and the 
cathedral is a liandfome edifice of white marble, hewn 
from the neighbouring quarries. The inhabitants have 
eftabiifhed feveral manufailOres of cotton and filk, and 
carry on fome trade with the Grifons. This town was 
the birth-place of the younger Pliny, and the inhabitants 
have placed his ftatue on the outfide of one of the 
churches, with a Latin infcription, bearing the date of 
1499. Paulus Jovius was alfo born here. Twenty miles 
north of Milan. Lat. 45. 44. N. Ion. 26. 34, E. Ferro. 
CO'MO (Lake of), a lake of Italy, mentioned above, 
about nine leagues in length from north to fouth, and 
hardly one wide; towards the fouth it is divided into 
two branches, at the end of one ftands Como, and at the 
end of the other Lecco. The river Adda palies through 
it, and feveral towns and villages are iituuted on its 
banks, which are adorned with vines, chefnuts, and al¬ 
mond-trees. 
COMOCLA'DTA, f [ho^o?, hairy, and v.Aaoo?, a 
branch ; from the boughs forming a buffi or head.] 
In botany, a genus of the clafs triandria, order mono- 
gynia, natural order of terebintacese, The generic 
C O M 871 
charailers are—Calyx: perianthium one-leafed, three- 
parted, fpreading, coloured ; divifions rouridijli. Corolla : 
petals three, ovate, acute, flat, very fpreading. Stamina : 
filaments three, Mbulate; ffiorter than the corolla ; an- 
therae roundiffi, incumbent. Piftillum: germ ovate; 
ftylenone; iiigma obtufe, fimple. Perianthium : drupe, 
oblong, crooked, marked above with three dots. Seed : 
nut membranaceous, the figure of the drupe. FJfential 
Charader. —Calyx, three-parted ; corolla, three-parted'; 
drupe, oblong, with a two-lobed nucleus. 
Species. 1. Comocladia integrifolia: leaves entire. 
Seldom more than twenty feet in height; trunk ered, 
feidom growing to any confiderable thicknefs, dividing 
into few branches, adorned at the end with pinnated 
fmcoth leaves like a frond, having'at moft eight leaflets 
on each fide of a round rib two feet in length, with an 
odd one at the end ; tliefe are ovate-lanceolate, acumi¬ 
nate, (lightly wrinkled by the tranlverfe veins, the edges 
a little revolute, petioled, four inches long : from the 
axillas hang loole panicied racemes, a foot and a half in. 
length, divided into about twenty-four partial lateral al¬ 
ternate racemes ; and tbefe more or lefs compounded, 
the whole forming an ample panicle. Flowers very nu¬ 
merous, fmail, fefiile, without fcent, of a deep red colour: 
many of them have the calyx and corolla four-parted, 
with four flamens. The whole tree abounds in a watery 
lap, (lightly glutinous, which grows black in the air, and 
dies the hands a deep black that can lcarcely be wafhed" 
out. Native of Domingo and Jamaica ; flowering in De¬ 
cember, January, and February. The fruit is eatable, 
but not inviting; and the wood is hard, of a fine grain, 
and reddiffi colour. 
2. Comocladia dentata: leaflets fpiny-toothed. Very 
like the foregoing fpeeies. If the tree be ever lb (lightly 
wounded, it has a ltrong fmell of dung. The natives 
have a notion that it is dangerous to deep under it. Na¬ 
tive of Cuba. 
3. Comocladia ilicifolia: leaflets angular-fpiny. Na¬ 
tive of the Weff-Indies, as Antigua, &c. 
Propagation and Culture. Thele plants are propagated 
by feeds, when they can be obtained from the places of 
their growth, which foould be fown in pots, and plunged 
into a hot-bed; the plants, when fit to remove, thould be 
each planted in a fmail pot, and plunged into a tan-bed, 
and in the autumn fhould be plunged into the bark-bed 
in the (love, and treated as other tender plants. 
COMONA'VA, a town of European Turkey, in the 
province of Macedonia: fixty miles north-north-eafl of 
Akrida. 
COMO'RA, or Gomara Islands, iflands in the 
Ealiern Indian Ocean, between the northern extremity 
of the ifland of Madagafcar and the continent of Africa. 
They are four in number, viz. Comora, or Angazija, 
Joanna, or Anjoan, Mayotto, and Mohila. Lat. n. 50. 
to 13. S. Ion. 43. to 45. E„.Greenwich. 
COMO'RA, or Gomara, an ifland of Africa, which 
gives name to a duller in the Ealiern Indian Sea, about 
fix leagues long, and three wide, but little known. Lat. 
11. 50. S. Ion. 43. E. of Greenwich, 
COMO'RA, or CoMOfiN, a town of Hungary, and ca¬ 
pital of a country to which it gives name, fituated at the 
conflux of the Waag and the Danube, ffrongly fortified, 
and defended by a fort refs, fo that it has never been 
taken. It was chiefly inhabited by Hungarians, or 
Rafcians, who follow the Greek church. In 1783, it was 
almoft wholly deftroyed by an earthquake: thirty-fix 
miles fouth-eaft of Freiburg, and fixty-four fouth-eaft of 
Vienna. 
COM PACH, a river of Carinthia, which runs into 
the Moll, near Vellach. 
COM'FACF, f. [padurn, Lat.] A contrail; an ac¬ 
cord; an agieement; a mutual and fettled appointment 
-between tw’O or more, to do or to forbear fbmething. 
It had anciently the accent on the laft lyllable.—In the 
beginnings of (peech there was an implicit comp ad, found¬ 
ed 
