[1] Gardiner's _Hist. of the Civil War_, iv. 206; cf. article on
Fairfax by C.H. Frith in the _Dict. of Nat. Biog._
CAPEL CURIG, a tourist resort in Carnarvonshire, North Wales, 14-1/2 m.
from Bangor. It is a collection of a few houses, too scattered to form a
village properly so called. At the Roberts hotel is shown on a window
pane the supposed signature of Wellington. The road from Bettws y coed,
past the Swallow Falls to Capel Curig, and thence to Llanberis and
Carnarvon, is very interesting, grand and lonely. Excellent fishing is
to be had here, chiefly for trout. In summer, coaching tours discharge
numbers of visitors daily; the railway station is Bettws (London &
North-Western railway). Capel Curig means "chapel of Curig," a British
saint mentioned in Welsh poetry. The place is a centre for artists,
geologists and botanists, for the ascent of Snowdon, Moel Siabod, Glydyr
Fawr, Glydyr Fach, Tryfan, &c., and for visiting Llyn Ogwen, Llyn Idwal,
Twll du (Devil's Kitchen), Nant Ffrancon and the Penrhyn quarries.
CAPELL, EDWARD (1713-1781), English Shakespearian critic, was born at
Troston Hall in Suffolk on the 11th of June 1713. Through the influence
of the duke of Grafton he was appointed to the office of
deputy-inspector of plays in 1737, with a salary of L200 per annum, and
in 1745 he was made groom of the privy chamber through the same
influence. In 1760 appeared his _Prolusions, or Select Pieces of Ancient
Poetry_, a collection which included _Edward III._, placed by Capell
among the doubtful plays of Shakespeare. Shocked at the inaccuracies
which had crept into Sir Thomas Hanmer's edition of Shakespeare, he
projected an entirely new edition, to be carefully collated with the
original copies. After spending three years in collecting, and comparing
scarce folio and quarto editions, he published his own edition in 10
vols. 8vo (1768), with an introduction written in a style of
extraordinary quaintness, which was afterwards appended to Johnson's and
Steevens's editions. Capell published the first part of his commentary,
which included notes on nine plays with a glossary, in 1774. This he
afterwards recalled, and the publication of the complete work, _Notes
and Various Readings of Shakespeare_ (1779-1783), the third volume of
which bears the title of _The School of Shakespeare_, was completed,
under the superintendence of John Collins, in 1783, two years after the
author's death. It contains the results of his unremitting labour for
thirty years, and throws considerable light on the history of the times
of Shakespeare, as well as on the sources from which he derived his
plots. Collins asserted that Steevens had stolen Capell's notes for his
own edition, the story being that the printers had been bribed to show
Steevens the sheets of Capell's edition while it was passing through the
press. Besides the works already specified, he published an edition of
_Antony and Cleopatra_, adapted for the stage with the help of David
Garrick in 1758. His edition of Shakespeare passed through many editions
(1768, 1771, 1793, 1799, 1803, 1813). Capell died in the Temple on the
24th of February 1781.
CAPELLA, MARTIANUS MINNEUS FELIX, Latin writer, according to Cassiodorus
a native of Madaura in Africa, flourished during the 5th century,
certainly before the year 439. He appears to have practised as a lawyer
at Carthage and to have been in easy circumstances. His curious
encyclopaedic work, entitled _Satyricon_, or _De Nuptiis Philologiae et
Mercurii et de septem Artibus liberalibus libri novem_, is an elaborate
allegory in nine books, written in a mixture of prose and verse, after
the manner of the Menippean satires of Varro. The style is heavy and
involved, loaded with metaphor and bizarre expressions, and verbose to
excess. The first two books contain the allegory proper--the marriage of
Mercury to a nymph named Philologia. The remaining seven books contain
expositions of the seven liberal arts, which then comprehended all human
knowledge. Book iii. treats of grammar, iv. of dialectics, v. of
rhetoric, vi. of geometry, vii. of arithmetic, viii. of astronomy, ix.
of music. These abstract discussions are linked on to the original
allegory by the device of personifying each science as a courtier of
Mercury and Philologia. The work was a complete encyclopaedia of the
liberal culture of the time, and was in high repute during the middle
ages. The author's chief sources were Varro, Pliny, Solinus, Aquila
Romanus, and Aristides Quintilianus. His prose resembles that of
Apuleius (also a native of Madaura), but is even more difficult. The
verse portions, which are on the whole correct and classically
constructed, are in imitation of Varro and are less tiresome.
A passage in book viii. contains a very clear statement of the
heliocentric system of astronomy. It has been supposed that Copernicus,
who quotes Capella, may have received from this work some hints towards
his own new system.
Editio princeps, by F. Vitalis Bodianus, 1499; the best modern edition
is that of F. Eyssenhardt (1866); for the relation of Martianus
Capella to Aristides Quintilianus see H. Deiters, _Studien zu den
griechischen Musikern_ (1881). In the 11th century the German monk
Notker Labeo translated the first two books into Old High German.
CAPE MAY, a city and watering-place of Cape May county, New Jersey,
U.S.A., on the Atlantic coast, 2 m. E.N.E. of Cape May, the S. extremity
of the state, and about 80 m. S. by E. of Philadelphia. Pop. (1890)
2136; (1900) 2257; (1905) 3006; (1910) 2471. Cape May is served by the
Maryland, Delaware & Virginia (by ferry to Lewes, Delaware), the West
Jersey & Seashore (Pennsylvania system), and the Atlantic City (Reading
system) railways, and, during the summer season, by steamboat to
Philadelphia. The principal part of the city is on a peninsula (formerly
Cape Island) between the ocean and Cold Spring inlet, which has been
dredged and is protected by jetties to make a suitable harbour. The
further improvement of the inlet and the harbour was authorized by
Congress in 1907. On the ocean side, along a hard sand beach 5 m. long,
is the Esplanade. There are numerous hotels and handsome cottages for
summer visitors, who come especially from Philadelphia, from New York,
from the South and from the West. Cape May offers good bathing, yachting
and fishing, with driving and hunting in the wooded country inland from
the coast. At Cape May Point is the Cape May lighthouse, 145 ft. high,
built in 1800 and rebuilt in 1859. In the city are canneries of
vegetables and fruit, glass-works and a gold-beating establishment. Fish
and oysters are exported. Cape May was named by Cornelis Jacobsen Mey,
director of the Prince Hendrick (Delaware) river for the West India
Company of Holland, who took possession of the river in 1623, and
planted the short-lived colony of Fort Nassau 4 m. below Philadelphia,
near the present Gloucester City, N.J. Cape May was settled about
1699,--a previous attempt to settle here made by Samuel Blommaert in
1631 was unsuccessful. It was an important whaling port early in the
18th century, and became prominent as a watering-place late in that
century. It was incorporated as the borough of Cape Island in 1848, and
chartered as the city of Cape Island in 1851; in 1869 the name was
changed to Cape May.
CAPENA, an ancient city of southern Etruria, frequently mentioned with
Veii and Falerii. Its exact site is, however, uncertain. According to
Cato it was a colony of the former, and in the wars between Veii and
Rome it appears as dependent upon Veii, after the fall of which town,
however, it became subject to Rome. Out of its territory the _tribus
Stellatina_ was formed in 367 B.C. In later republican times the city
itself is hardly mentioned, but under the empire a _municipium
Capenatium foederatum_ is frequently mentioned in inscriptions. Of these
several were found upon the hill known as Civitucola, about 4 m.
north-east of the post station of _ad Vicesimum_ on the ancient Via
Flaminia, a site which is well adapted for an ancient city. It lies on
the north side of a dried-up lake, once no doubt a volcanic crater.
Remains of buildings of the Roman period also exist there, while, in the
sides of the hill of S. Martino which lies on the north-east,[1]
rock-cut tombs belonging to the 7th and 6th centuries B.C. but used in
Roman times for fresh burials, were excavated in 1859-1864, and again in
1904. Inscriptions in early Latin and in local dialect were also found
(W. Henzen, _Bullettino dell' Istituto_, 1864, 143; R. Paribeni,
_Notizie degli Scavi_, 1905, 301). Similar tombs have also been found on
the hills south of Civitucola. G.B. de Rossi, however, supposed that the
games of which records (fragments of the _fasti ludorum_) were also
discovered at Civitucola, were those which were celebrated from time
immemorial at the Lucus Feroniae, with which he therefore proposed to
identify this site, placing Capena itself at S. Oreste, on the
south-eastern side of Mount Soracte. But there are difficulties in the
way of this assumption, and it is more probable that the Lucus Feroniae
is to be sought at or near Nazzano, where, in the excavation of a
circular building which some conjecture to have been the actual temple
of Feronia, inscriptions relating to a municipality were found. Others,
however, propose to place Lucus Feroniae at the church of S. Abbondio, 1
m. east of Rignano and 4 m. north-north-west of Civitucola, which is
built out of ancient materials. On the Via Flaminia, 26 m. from Rome,
near Rignano, is the Christian cemetery of Theodora.
See R. Lanciani, _Bullettino dell' Istituto_, 1870, 32; G.B. de Rossi,
_Annali dell' Istituto_, 1883, 254; _Bullettino Cristiano_, 1883, 115;
G. Dennis, _Cities and Cemeteries of Etruria_ (London, 1883), i. 131;
E. Bormann, _Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum_ (Berlin, 1888), xi. 571;
H. Nissen, _Italische Landeskunde_ (Berlin, 1902), ii. 369; R.
Paribeni, in _Monumenti dei Lincei_, xvi. (1906), 277 seq. (T. As.)