FOOTNOTE:

[1] The earliest known problem is ascribed to an Arabian caliph of

the 9th century. The first known collection is in a manuscript (in

the British Museum) of King Alphonso of Castile, dated 1250; it

contains 103 problems. The collection of Nicolas of Lombardy, dated

1300, comprises 192 problems.

CHEST (Gr. [Greek: kiste], Lat. _cista_, O. Eng. _cist, cest_,&c.), a

large box of wood or metal with a hinged lid. The term is also used of a

variety of kinds of receptacle; and in anatomy is transferred to the

portion of the body covered by the ribs and breastbone (see RESPIRATORY

SYSTEM). In the more ordinary meaning chests are, next to the chair and

the bed, the most ancient articles of domestic furniture. The chest was

the common receptacle for clothes and valuables, and was the direct

ancestor of the "chest of drawers," which was formed by enlarging the

chest and cutting up the front. It was also frequently used as a seat.

Indeed, in its origin it took in great measure the place of the chair,

which, although familiar enough to the ancients, had become a luxury in

the days when the chest was already an almost universal possession. The

chief use of chests was as wardrobes, but they were also often employed

for the storing of valuables. In the early middle ages the rich

possessed them in profusion, used them as portmanteaux, and carried them

about from castle to castle. These portable receptacles were often

covered with leather and emblazoned with heraldic designs. As houses

gradually became less sparsely furnished, chests and beds and other

movables were allowed to remain stationary, and the chest lost its

covered top, and took the shape in which we best know it--that of an

oblong box standing upon raised feet. As a rule it was made of oak, but

it was sometimes of chestnut or other hard wood.

There are, properly speaking, three types of chest--the domestic, the

ecclesiastical and the strong box or coffer. Old domestic chests still

exist in great number and some variety, but the proportion of those

earlier than the latter part of the Tudor period is very small; most of

them are Jacobean in date. Very frequently they were made to contain the

store of house-linen which a bride took to her husband upon her

marriage. In the 17th century Boulle and his imitators glorified the

marriage-coffer until it became a gorgeous casket, almost indeed a

sarcophagus, inlaid with ivory and ebony and precious woods, and

enriched with ormolu, supported upon a stand of equal magnificence. The

Italian marriage-chests (_cassone_) were also of a richness which was

never attempted in England. The main characteristics of English domestic

chests (which not infrequently are carved with names and dates) are

panelled fronts and ends, the feet being formed from prolongations of

the "stiles" or side posts. There were, however, exceptions, and a

certain number of 17th-century chests have separate feet, either

circular or shaped after the indications of a somewhat later style.

There is usually a strong architectural feeling about the chest, the

front being divided into panels, which are plain in the more ordinary

examples, and richly carved in the choicer ones. The plinth and frieze

are often of well-defined _guilloche_ work, or are carved with

arabesques or conventionalized flowers. Architectural detail, especially

the detail of wainscoting, has indeed been followed with considerable

fidelity, many of the earlier chests being carved in the linenfold

pattern, while the Jacobean examples are often mere reproductions of the

pilastered and recessed oaken mantelpieces of the period. Occasionally a

chest is seen which is inlaid with coloured woods, or with geometrical

parquetry. Perhaps the most elaborate type of English parquetry chest is

that named after the vanished Palace of Nonesuch. Such pieces are,

however, rarely met with. The entire front of this type is covered with

a representation of the palace in coloured woods. Another class of chest

is incised, sometimes rather roughly, but often with considerable

geometrical skill. The more ordinary variety has been of great value to

the forger of antique furniture, who has used its carved panels for

conversion into cupboards and other pieces, the history of which is not

easily unravelled by the amateur who collects old oak without knowing

much about it. Towards the end of the 17th century chests were often

made of walnut, or even of exotic woods such as cedar and cypress, and

were sometimes clamped with large and ornamental brass bands and hinges.

The chests of the 18th century were much larger than those of the

preceding period, and as often as not were furnished with two drawers at

the bottom--an arrangement but rarely seen in those of the 17th

century--while they were often fitted with a small internal box fixed

across one end for ready access to small articles. The chest was not

infrequently unpanelled and unornamented, and in the latter period of

its history this became the ruling type. It will not have been forgotten

that it was in an old oak chest that the real or mythical heroine of the

pathetic ballad of "The Mistletoe Bough" concealed herself, to her

undoing.

Ecclesiastical chests appear to have been used almost entirely as

receptacles for vestments and church plate, and those which survive are

still often employed for the preservation of parish documents. A

considerable variety of these interesting and often exceedingly

elaborate chests are still left in English churches. They are usually of

considerable size, and of a length disproportionate to their depth. This

no doubt was to facilitate the storage of vestments. Most of them are of

great antiquity. Many go back to the 14th century, and here and there

they are even earlier, as in the case of the coffer in Stoke d'Abernon

church, Surrey, which is unquestionably 13th-century work. One of the

most remarkable of these early examples is in Newport church, Essex. It

is one of the extremely rare painted coffers of the 13th century, the

front carved with an upper row of shields, from which the heraldic

painting has disappeared, and a lower row of roundels. Between is a belt

of open tracery, probably of pewter, and the inside of the lid is

decorated with oil paintings representing the Crucifixion, the Virgin

Mary, St Peter, St John and St Paul. The well-known "jewel chest" in St

Mary's, Oxford, is one of the earliest examples of 14th century work.

Many of these ecclesiastical chests are carved with architectural

motives--traceried windows most frequently, but occasionally with the

iinenfold pattern. There is a whole class of chests known as "tilting

coffers," carved with representations of tournaments or feats of arms,

and sometimes with a grotesque admixture of chivalric figures and

mythical monsters. Only five or six examples of this type are known

still to exist in England, and two of them are now in the Victoria and

Albert Museum. It is not certain that even these few are of English

origin--indeed, very many of the chests and coffers of the 16th and 17th

centuries are of foreign make. They were imported into England chiefly

from Flanders, and were subsequently carved by native artisans, as was

the case with other common pieces of furniture of those periods. The

_huche_ or "hutch" was a rough type of household chest.

The word "coffer" is properly applied to a chest which was intended for

the safe keeping of valuables. As a rule the coffer is much more massive

in construction than the domestic chest; it is clamped by iron bands,

sometimes contains secret receptacles opening with a concealed spring,

and is often furnished with an elaborate and complex lock, which

occupies the whole of the underside of the lid. Pieces of this type are

sometimes described as Spanish chests, from the belief that they were

taken from ships belonging to the Armada. It is impossible to say that

this may not sometimes have been the case, but these strong boxes are

frequently of English origin, although the mechanism of the locks may

have been due to the subtle skill of foreign locksmiths. A typical

example of the treasure chest is that which belonged to Sir Thomas

Bodley, and is preserved in the Bodleian library at Oxford. The locks of

this description of chest are of steel, and are sometimes richly

damascened. It was for being implicated in the breaking open and robbing

of just such a chest as this, to which the College de Navarre had

confided coin to the value of 500 ecus, that Francois Villon was hanged

on the gibbet of Montfaucon.

CHESTER, EARLS OF. The important palatine earldom of Chester was first

held by a certain Fleming named Gherbod (fl. 1070), and then by Hugh of

Avranches (d. 1101), a son of Richard, viscount of Avranches. Hugh, who

was probably one of William the Conqueror's companions, was made earl of

Chester in 1071; he had special privileges in his earldom, and he held

land in twenty counties. He was called _Le Gros_ on account of his great

bulk and _Lupus_ on account of his ferocity. However, he regarded St

Anselm as his friend, and he showed the customary liberality to

religious houses. His life was mainly spent in fighting the Welsh and in

Normandy, and he died on the 27th of July 1101. Hugh's only son Richard,

who was childless, was drowned in the White Ship in November 1120. Among

subsequent holders were Ralph, or Randulph, de Gernon (d. 1153), who

took a prominent part in the civil wars of the reign of Stephen,

fighting first on one side and then on the other; and his son Hugh de

Kevelioc (1147-1181), who shared in the rising against Henry II. in

1173. But perhaps the most celebrated of the early earls was Ralph,

Ranulf, or Randulph, de Blundevill (c. 1172-1232), who succeeded his

father Hugh de Kevelioc as earl in 1181, and was created earl of Lincoln

in 1217. Ranulf married Constance, widow of Henry II.'s son, Geoffrey of

Brittany, and is sometimes called duke of Brittany and earl of Richmond.

He fought in Wales, was on the side of John during his struggle with the

barons over Magna Carta, and was one of this king's executors; he also

fought for the young king Henry III. against the French invaders and

their allies. In 1218 he went on crusade to the Holy Land and took part

in the capture of Damietta; then returning to England he died at

Wallingford in October 1232. After speaking of Ranulf's unique position

in the kingdom, which "fitted him for the part of a leader of opposition

to royal or ministerial tyranny," Stubbs sums up his character in these

words: "On more than one occasion he refused his consent to taxation

which he deemed unjust; his jealousy of Hubert (de Burgh), although it

led him to join the foreign party in 1223, did not prevent him from more

than once interposing to prevent his overthrow. He was, moreover, almost

the last relic of the great feudal aristocracy of the Conquest."

Although twice married he left no children, and his immense possessions

passed to his four sisters. The earl's memory remained green for a long

time, and in the _Vision of Piers Plowman_ his name is linked with that

of Robin Hood. In November 1232 the earldom of Chester was granted to

his nephew John the Scot, earl of Huntingdon (c. 1207-1237), and in

1246, nine years after John had died childless, it was annexed to the

English crown "lest so fair a dominion should be divided among women."

In 1254 Prince Edward, afterwards King Edward I., was created earl of

Chester, and since this date the earldom has always been held by the

heirs apparent to the English crown with the single exception of Simon

de Montfort, earl of Leicester. Since 1399 the earls of Chester have

been also princes of Wales, although the act of Richard II. (1398),

which created Chester into a principality to be held by the king's

eldest son, was revoked by Henry IV.

CHESTER, an episcopal city and county of a city, municipal, county and

parliamentary borough, and the county town of Cheshire, England, 179 m.

N.W. of London. Pop. (1901) 38,309. It lies in a low plain on the Dee,

principally on the north (right) bank, 6 m. above the embouchure of the

river into its wide, shallow estuary. It is an important railway centre,

the principal lines serving it being the London & North-Western, Great

Western, Cheshire Lines and Great Central. The city is divided into four

principal blocks by the four principal streets--Northgate Street,

Eastgate Street, Bridge Street and Watergate Street, which radiate at

right angles from the Cross, and terminate in the four gates. These

four streets exhibit in what are called "the Rows" a characteristic

feature of the city. Their origin is a mystery, and has given rise to

much controversy. In Eastgate Street, Bridge Street and Watergate

Street, the Rows exist on each side of the street throughout the greater

part of its length, and may be described as continuous galleries open to

the street, over and under which the houses lining the streets project,

and which are formed as it were out of the front first-floor of the

houses, approached by flights of steps from the roadway. The Rows are

flagged or boarded under foot and ceiled above, thus forming a covered

way, standing in the same relation to the shops, which are at their

back, as the foot pavement does in other towns. In Northgate Street, on

the other hand, the Row on the west side is formed as it were out of the

ground floor of the houses, having cellars beneath, while on the east

side the Row is formed at the same elevation as in the other three

principal streets. In these streets are several examples of old timbered

houses and some good modern imitations of them,--all combining to give a

picturesque and individual character to the city. Among the most

interesting of the ancient houses are Derby House, bearing the date

1591, Bishop Lloyd's house, and God's Providence House in Watergate

Street, and the Bear and Billet in Lower Bridge Street; the three last

date from the 17th century. There is also a chamber with stone groined

roof of the 14th century in the basement of a house in Eastgate Street,

and another of a similar character in Watergate Street. A mortuary

chapel of the early part of the 13th century exists in the basement of a

house in Bridge Street.

Chester is the only city in England that still possesses its walls

perfect in their entire circuit of 2 m. The gateways have all been

rebuilt at various dates; the north and east gates on the site of the

Roman gates. The Grosvenor bridge, a single span of stone 200 ft. in

length, said to be the largest save one in Europe, carries the road to

Wrexham and Shrewsbury over the Dee on the south-west; while the old

bridge of seven arches is interesting on account of its antiquity and

picturesqueness. The castle, with the exception of "Caesar's Tower," and

a round tower with adjacent buildings, in the upper ward, was taken down

towards the end of the 18th century, and replaced by a gateway,

barracks, county hall, gaol and assize courts.

The cathedral church of Christ and the Virgin Mary, which stands towards

the north of the city within the walls, rose on the site of a church of

extreme antiquity. It appears that the dedication of this church was

altered, perhaps in the reign of Athelstan, from St. Peter and St Paul

to St Werburgh and St Oswald, St Werburgh being a niece of St Etheldreda

of Ely. In 1093 Hugh Lupus, earl of Chester, richly endowed the

foundation as a Benedictine monastery. The bishops of Mercia had

apparently a seat at Chester, but the city had ceased to be episcopal,

until in 1075 Peter, bishop of Lichfield, removed his seat thence to

Chester, having for his cathedral the collegiate church of St John. The

seat of the see, however, was quickly removed again to Coventry (1102),

but Cheshire continued subject to Lichfield until in 1541 Chester was

erected into a bishopric by Henry VIII., the church of the dissolved

abbey of St Werburgh becoming the cathedral. The diocese covers nearly

the whole of Cheshire, with very small portions of Lancashire and

Staffordshire. The cathedral does not rank among the most splendid

English churches, but possesses certain details of the highest interest,

and gains in beauty from the tones of its red sandstone walls and the

picturesque close in which it stands. It is cruciform with a central

tower 127 ft. high. The south transept is larger than the north. The

nave is short (145 ft.), being of six bays; the southern arcade is

Decorated, while the northern, which differs in detail, is of uncertain

date. The basement of the north-western tower--all that remains of it,

now used as a baptistery--is Norman, and formed part of Hugh Lupus'

church; and the fabric of the north wall is also of this period. The

north transept also retains Norman work, and its size shows the original

plan, as the existence of the conventual buildings to the north probably

rendered its extension undesirable. The south transept has aisles, with

Decorated and Perpendicular windows. The fine organ stands on a screen

across the north transept; but some of its pipes are upon the choir

screen, both screens being the work of Sir Gilbert Scott. The style of

the choir is transitional from Early English to Decorated, and its

length is 125 ft. It is a fine example, and its beauty is enhanced by

the magnificent series of ancient carved wooden stalls unsurpassed in

England. The Lady Chapel, east of the choir, is of rich Early English

workmanship. Of the conventual buildings the cloisters are

Perpendicular. The chapter-house, entered by a beautiful vestibule from

the east cloister, and lined with cases containing the chapter library,

is Early English (c. 1240). The refectory, adjoining the north cloister,

is of the same period, with Perpendicular insertions; it has been

curtailed in size, but retains its beautiful Early English lector's

pulpit. An early Norman chamber, with massive pillars and vaulting,

adjoins the west cloister, and may be the substructure of the abbot's

house. The abbey gateway is of the 14th century.

Within the walls there are several churches of ancient foundation; thus

St Peter's is said to occupy the site of a church erected by Aethelflaed,

queen of Mercia, and St Mary's dates from the 12th century. None,

however, is of any special interest; but the church of St John, outside

the walls, which as already stated became the cathedral in 1075, is a

massive early Norman structure, with later additions, and, especially as

regards the exterior, considerably restored in modern times. Its fine

tower fell in 1881. It was a collegiate church until 1547, and there are

some remains of the adjoining buildings. Among numerous modern churches

there may be mentioned St Mary's without the walls, built in 1887 by the

duke of Westminster, of red sandstone, with a fine spire' and peal of

bells.

Among the chief secular buildings, the town hall replaced in 1869 the

old exchange, which had been burnt down in 1862. The Grosvenor Museum

and School of Art, the foundation of which was suggested by Charles

Kingsley the novelist, when canon of Chester cathedral, contains many

local antiquities, along with a fine collection of the fauna of Cheshire

and the neighbourhood. The King's school was founded by Henry VIII.

(1541), who provided that twenty-four poor scholars should be taught

free of cost. It was reorganized as a public school in 1873, and

possesses twelve king's scholarships tenable in the school, and close

scholarships tenable at the universities. Among other schools may be

mentioned the blue-coat school (1700), the Queen's school for girls

(1878), the girls' school attached to the Roman Catholic convent, and

the diocesan training college for schoolmasters. For recreation

provision is made by the New Grosvenor Park, presented to the city in

1867 by the marquess of Westminster; Handbridge Park, opened in 1892;

and the Roodee, a level tract by the river at the base of the city wall,

appropriated as a race-course. An annual race-meeting is held in May and

attendedby thousands. The chief event is the race for the Chester Cup,

which dates from 1540, when a silver bell was given as the prize by the

Saddlers' Company. Pleasure vessels ply on the Dee in summer, and an

annual regatta is held, at which all the principal northern rowing-clubs

are generally represented. The town gains in prosperity from its large

number of visitors. The principal industries are carried on without the

walls, where there are lead, shot and paint works, leather and tobacco

factories, and iron foundries. The trade gilds number twenty-four. There

is a considerable amount of shipping on the Dee, the navigation having

been much improved in modern times. The parliamentary borough returns

one member. The municipal council consists of a mayor, 10 aldermen and

30 councillors. Area, 2862 acres.

_History._--Setting aside the numerous legends with regard to the

existence of a British city on the site now occupied by Chester, the

earliest authentic information relating to its history is furnished by

the works of Ptolemy and Antoninus. As the Roman station of Deva it was

probably founded about A.D. 48 by Ostorius Scapula, and from its

advantageous position, both as the key to communication with Ireland and

as a bulwark against the hostile tribes of the north, it became a

military and commercial centre of considerable importance. In A.D. 78-79

it was the winter-quarters of Agricola, and later became illustrious as

the permanent headquarters of Legio XX. Valeria Victrix. Many

inscriptions and remains of the Roman military occupation have been

found, and the north and east walls stand in great part on Roman

foundations. The Saxon form of the name was Leganceaster. About 614 the

city was captured and destroyed by Aethelfrith, and henceforth lay in

ruins until Aethelflaed in 907 rebuilt the walls, restored the monastery

of St Werburgh, and made the city "nigh two such as it was before." In

the reign of Aethelstan a mint was set up at Chester, and in 973 it was

the scene of Edgar's truimph when, it is said, he was rowed on the Dee

by six subject kings. Chester opposed a determined resistance to the

Conqueror, and did not finally surrender until 1070. On the erection of

Cheshire to a county palatine after the Conquest, Chester became the

seat of government of the palatine earls. The Domesday account of the

city includes a description of the Saxon laws under which it had been

governed in the time of Edward the Confessor. All the land, except the

bishop's borough, was held of the earl, and assessed at fifty hides.

There were seven mint-masters and twelve magistrates, and the city paid

a fee-farm rent of L45. It had been much devastated since the time of

Edward the Confessor, and the number of houses reduced by 205.

The earliest extant charter, granted by Henry II. in 1160, empowered the

burgesses to trade with Durham as freely as they had done in the reign

of Henry I. From this date a large collection of charters enumerates

privileges granted by successive earls and later sovereigns. One from

Ralph or Ranulf de Blundevill, granted between 1190 and 1211, confirms

to the citizens a gild merchant and all liberties and free customs, and

three from John protect their privilege of trading with Ireland. Edward

I. empowered the citizens to elect coroners and to hold courts of

justice, and granted them the fee-farm of the city at a yearly rent of

L100. In the 14th century Chester began to lose its standing as a port

through the gradual silting up of the estuary of the Dee, and the city

was further impoverished by the inroads of the Welsh and by the

necessity of rebuilding the Dee bridge, which had been swept away by an

unusually high tide. In consideration of these misfortunes Richard II.

remitted part of the fee-farm. Continued misfortunes led to a further

reduction of the farm to L50 for a term of fifty years by Henry VI., who

also made a grant for the completion of a new Dee bridge. Henry VII.

reduced the fee-farm to L20, and in 1506 granted to the citizens what is

known as "the Great Charter." This charter constituted the city a county

by itself, and incorporated the governing body under the style of a

mayor, twenty-four aldermen and forty common councilman; it also

instituted two sheriffs, two coroners and a recorder, and the mayor, the

ex-mayors and the recorder were appointed justices of the peace. This

charter was confirmed by James I. and Charles II. A charter of George

III. in 1804 instituted the office of deputy-mayor. The charter of Hugh

Lupus to the abbey of St Werburgh includes a grant of the tolls of the

fair at the feast of St Werburgh for three days, and a subsequent

charter from Ranulf de Blundevill (12th century) licensed the abbot and

monks to hold their fairs and markets before the abbey gates. A charter

of John the Scot, earl of Chester, mentions fairs at the feasts of the

Nativity of St John Baptist and St Michael. For many centuries the

rights claimed by the abbot in connexion with the fairs gave rise to

constant friction with the civic authorities, which lasted until, in the

reign of Henry VIII., it was decreed that the right of holding fairs was

vested exclusively in the citizens. Charles II. in 1685 granted a

cattle-fair to be held on the first Thursday in February.

In 1553 Chester first returned two members to parliament, having

hitherto been represented solely in the parliament of the palatinate. By

the Redistribution Act of 1885 the representation was reduced to one

member. The trades of tanners, skinners and glove-makers existed at the

time of the Conquest, and the importation of marten skins is mentioned

in Domesday. In the 14th century the woollen trade was considerable, and

in 1674 weavers and wool-combers were introduced into Chester from

Norwich. The restoration of the channel of the Dee opened up a

flourishing trade in Irish linen, which in 1786 was at its height, but

from that date gradually diminished.

See _Victoria County History, Cheshire_; R. H. Morris, _Chester in the

Plantagenet and Tudor Reigns_ (Chester, 1894); Joseph Hemingway,

_History of the City of Chester_ (2 vols., Chester, 1831).

CHESTER, a city of Delaware county, Pennsylvania, U.S.A., on the

Delaware river, about 13 m. S.W. of Philadelphia. Pop. (1800) 20,226;

(1900) 33,988, of whom 5074 were foreign-born and 44O3 were negroes; (U.

S. census, 1910) 38,537. It is served by the Baltimore & Ohio and the

Philadelphia & Reading railways, by the Philadelphia, Baltimore &

Washington division of the Pennsylvania system, and by steamboat lines.

Chester has several interesting buildings dating from early in the 18th

century--among them the city hall (1724), one of the oldest public

buildings in the United States, and the house (1683) occupied for a time

by William Penn. It is the seat of the Pennsylvania Military College

(1862); and on the border of Chester, in the borough of Upland (pop. in

1900, 2131), is the Crozer Theological Seminary (Baptist), which was

incorporated in 1867, opened in 1868, and named after John P. Crozer

(1793-1866), by whose family it was founded. Chester has a large

shipbuilding industry, and manufactories of cotton and worsted goods,

iron and steel, the steel-casting industry being especially important,

and large quantities of wrought iron and steel pipes being manufactured.

Dye-stuffs and leather also are manufactured. The value of the city's

factory products in 1905 was $16,644,842. Chester is the oldest town in

Pennsylvania. It was settled by the Swedes about 1645, was called Upland

and was the seat of the Swedish courts until 1682, when William Penn,

soon after his landing at a spot in the town now marked by a memorial

stone, gave it its present name. The first provincial assembly was

convened here in December of the same year. After the battle of

Brandywine in the War of Independence, Washington retreated to Chester,

and in the "Washington House," still standing, wrote his account of the

battle. Soon afterwards Chester was occupied by the British. In 1701 it

was incorporated as a borough; in 1795 and again in 1850 it received a

new borough charter; and in 1866 it was chartered as a city. For a long

time it was chiefly a small fishing settlement, its population as late

as 1820 being only 657; but after the introduction of large

manufacturing interests in 1850, when its population was only 1667, its

growth was rapid.

See H. G. Ashmead, _Historical Sketch of Chester_ (Chester, 1883).

CHESTERFIELD, PHILIP DORMER STANHOPE, 4TH EARL OF (1694-1773), son of

Philip Stanhope, third earl (1673-1726), and Elizabeth Savile, daughter

of George Savile, marquess of Halifax, was born in London on the 22nd of

September 1694; Philip, the first earl (1584-1656), son of Sir John

Stanhope of Shelford, was a royalist who in 1616 was created Baron

Stanhope of Shelford, and in 1628 earl of Chesterfield; and his grandson

the 2nd earl (1633-1714) was grandfather of the 4th earl. Deprived at an

early age of his mother, the care of the boy devolved upon his

grandmother, the marchioness of Halifax, a lady of culture and

connexion, whose house was frequented by the most distinguished Whigs of

the epoch. He soon began to prove himself possessed of that systematic

spirit of conduct and effort which appeared so much in his life and

character. His education, begun under a private tutor, was continued

(1712) at Trinity Hall, Cambridge; here he remained little more than a

year and seems to have read hard, and to have acquired a considerable

knowledge of ancient and modern languages. The great orators of all

times were a special object of study with him, and he describes his

boyish pedantry pleasantly enough, but by no means without a touch of

self-satisfaction in the memory. His university training was

supplemented (1714) by a continental tour, untrammelled by a governor;

at the Hague his ambition for the applause awarded to adventure made a

gamester of him, and at Paris he began, from the same motive, that

worship of the conventional Venus, the serious inculcation of which has

earned for him the largest and most unenviable part of his reputation.

The death of Anne and the accession of George I. opened up a career for

him and brought him back to England. His relative James Stanhope

(afterwards first Earl Stanhope), the king's favourite minister,

procured for him the place of gentleman of the bedchamber to the prince

of Wales. In 1715 he entered the House of Commons as Lord Stanhope of

Shelford and member for St Germans, and when the impeachment of James,

duke of Ormonde, came before the House, he used the occasion (5th of

August 1715) to put to proof his old rhetorical studies. His maiden

speech was youthfully fluent and dogmatic; but on its conclusion the

orator was reminded with many compliments, by an honourable member, that

he wanted six weeks of his majority, and consequently that he was

amenable to a fine of L500 for speaking in the House. Lord Stanhope

quitted the Commons with a low bow and started for the continent. From

Paris he rendered the government important service by gathering and

transmitting information respecting the Jacobite plot; and in 1716 he

returned to England, resumed his seat, and took frequent part in the

debates. In that year came the quarrel between the king and the heir

apparent. Stanhope, whose politic instinct obliged him to worship the

rising rather than the setting sun, remained faithful to the prince,

though he was too cautious to break entirely with the king's party. He

was on friendly terms with the prince's mistress, Henrietta Howard,

afterwards countess of Suffolk. He maintained a correspondence with this

lady which won for him the hatred of the princess of Wales (afterwards

Queen Caroline). In 1723 a vote for the government got him the place of

captain of the Gentlemen Pensioners. In January 1725, on the revival of

the Bath, the red riband was offered to him, but was declined.

In 1726 his father died, and Lord Stanhope became earl of Chesterfield.

He took his seat in the Upper House, and his oratory, never effective in

the Commons by reason of its want of force and excess of finish, at once

became a power. In 1728 Chesterfield was sent to the Hague as

ambassador. In this place his tact and temper, his dexterity and

discrimination, enabled him to do good service, and he was rewarded with

Walpole's friendship, a Garter and the place of lord high steward. In

1732 there was born to him, by a certain Mlle du Bouchet, the son,

Philip Stanhope, for whose advice and instruction were afterwards

written the famous _Letters_. He negotiated the second treaty of Vienna

in 1731, and in the next year, being somewhat broken in health and

fortune, he resigned his embassy and returned to England.

A few months' rest enabled him to resume his seat in the Lords, of which

he was one of the acknowledged leaders. He supported the ministry, but

his allegiance was not the blind fealty Walpole exacted of his

followers. The Excise Bill, the great premier's favourite measure, was

vehemently opposed by him in the Lords, and by his three brothers in the

Commons. Walpole bent before the storm and abandoned the measure; but

Chesterfield was summarily dismissed from his stewardship. For the next

two years he led the opposition in the Upper House, leaving no stone

unturned to effect Walpole's downfall. In 1741 he signed the protest for

Walpole's dismissal and went abroad on account of his health. He visited

Voltaire at Brussels and spent some time in Paris, where he associated

with the younger Crebillon, Fontenelle and Montesquieu. In 1742 Walpole

fell, and Carteret was his real, though not his nominal successor.

Although Walpole's administration had been overthrown largely by

Chesterfield's efforts the new ministry did not count Chesterfield

either in its ranks or among its supporters. He remained in opposition,

distinguishing himself by the courtly bitterness of his attacks on

George II., who learned to hate him violently. In 1743 a new journal,

_Old England; or, the Constitutional Journal_ appeared. For this paper

Chesterfield wrote under the name of "Jeffrey Broadbottom." A number of

pamphlets, in some of which Chesterfield had the help of Edmund Waller,

followed. His energetic campaign against George II. and his government

won the gratitude of the dowager duchess of Marlborough, who left him

L20,000 as a mark of her appreciation. In 1744 the king was compelled to

abandon Carteret, and the coalition or "Broad Bottom" party, led by

Chesterfield and Pitt, came into office. In the troublous state of

European politics the earl's conduct and experience were more useful

abroad than at home, and he was sent to the Hague as ambassador a second

time. The object of his mission was to persuade the Dutch to join in the

War of the Austrian Succession and to arrange the details of their

assistance. The success of his mission was complete; and on his return a

few weeks afterwards he received the lord-lieutenancy of Ireland--a

place he had long coveted.

Short as it was, Chesterfield's Irish administration was of great

service to his country, and is unquestionably that part of his political

life which does him most honour. To have conceived and carried out a

policy which, with certain reservations, Burke himself might have

originated and owned, is indeed no small title to regard. The earl

showed himself finely capable in practice as in theory, vigorous and

tolerant, a man to be feared and a leader to be followed; he took the

government entirely into his own hands, repressed the jobbery

traditional to the office, established schools and manufactures, and at

once conciliated and kept in check the Orange and Roman Catholic

factions. In 1746, however, he had to exchange the lord-lieutenancy for

the place of secretary of state. With a curious respect for those

theories his familiarity with the secret social history of France had

caused him to entertain, he hoped and attempted to retain a hold over

the king through the influence of Lady Yarmouth, though the futility of

such means had already been demonstrated to him by his relations with

Queen Caroline's "_ma bonne Howard_." The influence of Newcastle and

Sandwich, however, was too strong for him; he was thwarted and

over-reached; and in 1748 he resigned the seals, and returned to cards

and his books with the admirable composure which was one of his most

striking characteristics. He declined any knowledge of the _Apology for

a late Resignation, in a Letter from an English Gentleman to his Friend

at The Hague_, which ran through four editions in 1748, but there is

little doubt that he was, at least in part, the author.

The dukedom offered him by George II., whose ill-will his fine tact had

overcome, was refused. He continued for some years to attend the Upper

House, and to take part in its proceedings. In 1751, seconded by Lord

Macclesfield, president of the Royal Society, and Bradley, the eminent

mathematician, he distinguished himself greatly in the debates on the

calendar, and succeeded in making the new style a fact. Deafness,

however, was gradually affecting him, and he withdrew little by little

from society and the practice of politics. In 1755 occurred the famous

dispute with Johnson over the dedication to the _English Dictionary_. In

1747 Johnson sent Chesterfield, who was then secretary of state, a

prospectus of his _Dictionary_, which was acknowledged by a subscription

of L10. Chesterfield apparently took no further interest in the

enterprise, and the book was about to appear, when he wrote two papers

in the _World_ in praise of it. It was said that Johnson was kept

waiting in the anteroom when he called while Cibber was admitted. In any

case the doctor had expected more help from a professed patron of

literature, and wrote the earl the famous letter in defence of men of

letters. Chesterfield's "respectable Hottentot," now identified with

George, Lord Lyttelton, was long supposed, though on slender grounds, to

be a portrait of Johnson. During the twenty years of life that followed

this episode, Chesterfield wrote and read a great deal, but went little

into society.

In 1768 died Philip Stanhope, the child of so many hopes. The constant

care bestowed by his father on his education resulted in an honourable

but not particularly distinguished career for young Stanhope. His death

was an overwhelming grief to Chesterfield, and the discovery that he had

long been married to a lady of humble origin must have been galling in

the extreme to his father after his careful instruction in worldly

wisdom. Chesterfield, who had no children by his wife, Melusina von

Schulemberg, illegitimate daughter of George I., whom he married in

1733, adopted his godson, a distant cousin, named Philip Stanhope

(1755-1815), as heir to the title and estates. His famous jest (which

even Johnson allowed to have merit)--"Tyrawley and I have been dead

these two years, but we don't choose to have it known"--is the best

description possible of his humour and condition during the latter part

of this period of decline. To the deafness was added blindness, but his

memory and his fine manners only left him with life; his last words

("Give Dayrolles a chair") prove that he had neither forgotten his

friend nor the way to receive him. He died on the 24th of March 1773.

Chesterfield was selfish, calculating and contemptuous; he was not

naturally generous, and he practised dissimulation till it became part

of his nature. In spite of his brilliant talents and of the admirable

training he received, his life, on the whole, cannot be pronounced a

success. His anxiety and the pains he took to become an orator have been

already noticed, and Horace Walpole, who had heard all the great

orators, preferred a speech of Chesterfield's to any other; yet the

earl's eloquence is not to be compared with that of Pitt. Samuel

Johnson, who was not perhaps the best judge in the world, pronounced his

manners to have been "exquisitely elegant"; yet as a courtier he was

utterly worsted by Robert Walpole, whose manners were anything but

refined, and even by Newcastle. He desired to be known as a protector of

letters and literary men; and his want of heart or head over the

_Dictionary_ dedication, though explained and excused by Croker, none

the less inspired the famous change in a famous line--"Toil, envy, want,

_the patron_, and the jail." His published writings have had with

posterity a very indifferent success; his literary reputation rests on a

volume of letters never designed to appear in print. The son for whom he

worked so hard and thought so deeply failed especially where his father

had most desired he should succeed.

As a politician and statesman, Chesterfield's fame rests on his short

but brilliant administration of Ireland. As an author he was a clever

essayist and epigrammatist. But he stands or falls by the _Letters to

his Son_, first published by Stanhope's widow in 1774, and the _Letters

to his Godson_ (1890). The _Letters_ are brilliantly written--full of

elegant wisdom, of keen wit, of admirable portrait-painting, of

exquisite observation and deduction. Against the charge of an undue

insistence on the external graces of manner Chesterfield has been

adequately defended by Lord Stanhope (_History_, iii. 34). Against the

often iterated accusation of immorality, it should be remembered that

the _Letters_ reflected the morality of the age, and that their author

only systematized and reduced to writing the principles of conduct by

which, deliberately or unconsciously, the best and the worst of his

contemporaries were governed.

The earldom of Chesterfield passed at his death to his godson, already

mentioned, as 5th earl, and so to the latter's son and grandson. On the

death of the latter unmarried in 1871, it passed in succession to two

collateral heirs, the 8th and 9th earls, and so in 1887 to the latter's

son as 10th earl.

See Chesterfield's _Miscellaneous Works_ (London, 1777, 2 vols. 4to);

_Letters to his Son, &c._, edited by Lord Mahon (London, 1845-1853, 5

vols.); and _Letters to his Godson_ (1890) (edited by the earl of

Carnarvon). There are also editions of the first series of letters by

J. Bradshaw (3 vols., 1892) and Mr C. Strachey (2 vols., 1901). In

1893 a biography, including numerous letters first published from the

Newcastle Papers, was issued by Mr W. Ernst; and in 1907 appeared an

elaborate _Life_ by W.H. Craig. (A.D.)

CHESTERFIELD, a market town and municipal borough in the Chesterfield

parliamentary division of Derbyshire, England, 24 m. N. by E. of Derby,

on the Midland and the Great Central railways. Pop. (1891) 22,009;

(1901) 27,185. It lies at the junction of two streams, the Rother and

Hipper, in a populous industrial district. It is irregularly built, with

narrow streets, but has a spacious market-place. The church of St Mary

and All Saints is a large and beautiful cruciform building principally

of the Decorated period. Its central tower carries a remarkable twisted

spire of wood covered with lead, 230 ft. high; the distortion has

evidently taken place through the use of unseasoned timber and

consequent warping of the woodwork. The church, which contains numerous

interesting monuments, possesses also the unusual feature of an apsidal

Decorated chapel. There is an example of flamboyant tracery in one of

the windows. Among public buildings, the Stephenson memorial hall

(1879), containing a free library, art and science class-rooms, a

theatre and the rooms of the Chesterfield Institute, commemorates George

Stephenson, the engineer, who resided at Tapton House, close to

Chesterfield, in his later life; he died here in 1848, and was buried in

Trinity church. Chesterfield grammar school was founded in 1574. The

industries of the town include manufactures of cotton, silk,

earthenware, machinery and tobacco, with brass and iron founding; while

slate and stone are quarried, and there are coal, iron and lead mines in

the neighbourhood. The town is governed by a mayor, 6 aldermen and 18

councillors. Area, 1216 acres. In the immediate neighbourhood of

Chesterfield on the west is the urban district of Brampton and Walton

(pop. 2698), to the south-east is Hasland (7427), and to the north-east

Brimington (4569).

In spite of the Roman origin suggested by its name, so few remains have

been found here that it is doubtful whether Chesterfield was a Roman

station. Chesterfield (_Cestrefeld_) owes its present name to the

Saxons. It is mentioned in Domesday only as a bailiwick of Newbold

belonging to the king, and granted to William Peverell. In 1204 John

gave the manor to William Bruere and granted to the town all the

privileges of a free borough which were enjoyed by Nottingham and Derby;

but before this it seems to have had prescriptive borough rights. Later

charters were granted by various sovereigns, and it was incorporated by

Elizabeth in 1598 under the style of a mayor, 6 brethren and 12 capital

burgesses. This charter was confirmed by Charles II. (1662), and the

town was so governed till the Municipal Act 1835 appointed a mayor, 3

aldermen and 12 councillors. In 1204 John granted two weekly markets, on

Tuesday and Saturday, and an annual fair of eight days at the feast of

the Exaltation of the Holy Cross (Sept. 14). This fair, which is still

held, and another on Palm Tuesday, are mentioned in the _Quo

Warranto_ roll of 1330. The Tuesday market has long been discontinued.

That Chesterfield was early a thriving centre is shown by the charter of

John Lord Wake, lord of the manor, granting a gild merchant to the town.

In 1266 the town was the scene of a battle between the royal forces and

the barons, when Robert de Ferrers, earl of Derby, was taken prisoner.

In 1586 there was a terrible visitation of the plague; and the

parliamentarian forces were overthrown here in the Civil War. With the

development of cotton and silk industries the town has increased

enormously, and is now second in importance only to Derby among the

towns of the county. There is no record that it ever returned

representatives to parliament.

See Stephen Glover, _History and Gazetteer of the County of Derby_

(Derby, 1831-1833); J. Pym Yeatman, _Records of the Borough of

Chesterfield_ (Chesterfield and Sheffield, 1884); Thomas Ford,

_History of Chesterfield_ (London, 1839).

CHESTER-LE-STREET, a town in the Chester-le-Street parliamentary

division of Durham, England, near the river Wear, 6 m. N. of the city of

Durham on the North-Eastern railway. Pop. (1901) 11,753. The parish

church of St Mary and St Cuthbert is an interesting building, formerly

collegiate, with a tower 156 ft. high, and a remarkable series of

monumental tombs of the Lumley family, collected here from Durham

cathedral and various ruined monasteries, and in some cases remade.

About 1 m. along the river is Lumley Castle, the seat of the earl of

Scarborough, and about 2 m. north lies Lambton Castle, the residence of

the earl of Durham, built in 1797 on the site of the old House of

Harraton. Collieries and iron-works employ the industrial population.

Chester-le-Street is a place of considerable antiquity. It lies on a

branch of the Roman north road, on which it was a station, but the name

is not known. Under the name of _Cunecastre_ it was made the seat of a

bishop in 882, and continued to be the head of the diocese till the

Danish invasion of 995. During that time the church was the repository

of the shrine of St Cuthbert, which was then removed to Durham.

CHESTERTON, GILBERT KEITH (1874- ), English journalist and author, who

came of a family of estate-agents, was born in London on the 29th of May

1874. He was educated at St Paul's school, which he left in 1891 with

the idea of studying art. But his natural bent was literary, and he

devoted himself mainly to cultivating that means of expression, both in

prose and verse; he did occasional reviewing, and had some experience in

a publisher's office. In 1900, having already produced a volume of

clever poems, _The Wild Knight_, he definitely took to journalism as a

career, and became a regular contributor of signed articles to the

Liberal journals, the _Speaker_ and _Daily News_. He established himself

from the first as a writer with a distinct personality, combative to a

swashbuckling degree, unconventional and dogmatic; and the republication

of much of his work in a series of volumes (e.g. _Twelve Types_,

_Heretics_, _Orthodoxy_), characterized by much acuteness of criticism,

a pungent style, and the capacity of laying down the law with unflagging

impetuosity and humour, enhanced his reputation. His powers as a writer

are best shown in his studies of Browning (in the "English Men of

Letters" series) and of Dickens; but these were only rather more

ambitious essays among a medley of characteristic utterances, ranging

from fiction (including _The Napoleon of Notting-hill_) to fugitive

verse, and from artistic criticism to discussions of ethics and

religion. The interest excited by his work and views was indicated and

analysed in an anonymous volume (_G.K. Chesterton: a Criticism_)

published in 1908.

CHESTERTON, an urban district in the Chesterton parliamentary division

of Cambridgeshire, England, 1-1/2 m. N. from Cambridge station, on the

north bank of the Cam. Pop. (1901) 9591. The church of St Andrew is

Decorated and Perpendicular, retaining ancient woodwork and remains of

fresco painting. Along the river are several boat-houses erected by the

Cambridge University Boat Club. Boat-building and tile manufacture are

local industries.

CHESTNUT (_nux Castanea_), the common name given to two sorts of trees

and their fruit, (1) the so-called "horse-chestnut," and (2) the sweet

or "Spanish" chestnut.

(1) The common horse-chestnut, _Aesculus Hippocastanum_ (Ger.

_Rosskastanie_; Fr. _marronnier d'Inde_), has been stated to be a native

of Tibet, and to have been brought thence to England in 1550; it is now,

however, thought to be indigenous in the mountains of northern Greece,

where it occurs wild at 3000 to 4000 ft. above sea-level. Matthiolus,

who attributes the origin of the name of the tree to the use of the nuts

by the inhabitants of Constantinople for the relief of short-windedness

and cough in horses, remarks that no ancient writer appears to have made

mention of the horse-chestnut. Clusius (_Rariorum plantarum hist._ i. p.

8, 1601) describes it as a vegetable curiosity, of which in 1588 he had

left in Vienna a living specimen, but of which he had not yet seen

either the flowers or recent fruit. The dry fruit, he says, had

frequently been brought from Constantinople into Europe.

The tree grows rapidly; it flourishes best in a sandy, somewhat moist

loam, and attains a height of 50 to 60 or more ft., assuming a pyramidal

outline. Its boughs are strong and spreading. The buds, conspicuous for

their size, are protected by a coat of a glutinous substance, which is

impervious to water; in spring this melts, and the bud-scales are then

cast off. The leaves are composed of seven radiating leaflets

(long-wedge-shaped); when young they are downy and drooping. From the

early date of its leafing year by year, a horse-chestnut in the

Tuileries is known as the "Marronnier du 20 mars." The flowers of the

horse-chestnut, which are white dashed with red and yellow, appear in

May, and sometimes, but quite exceptionally, again in autumn; they form

a handsome erect panicle, but comparatively few of them afford mature

fruit. The fruit is ripe in or shortly before the first week in October,

when it falls to the ground, and the three-valved thorny capsule

divides, disclosing the brown and at first beautifully glossy seeds, the

so-called nuts, having a resemblance to sweet chestnuts, and commonly

three or else two in number. For propagation of the tree, the seeds may

be sown either when fresh, or, if preserved in sand or earth, in spring.

Drying by exposure to the air for a month has been found to prevent

their germination. Rooks are wont to remove the nuts from the tree just

before they fall, and to disperse them in various directions. The tree

is rarely planted in mixed plantations where profit is an object; it

interferes with its neighbours and occupies too much room. It is

generally introduced near mansion-houses for ornament and shade, and the

celebrated avenues at Richmond and Bushey Park in England are objects of

great beauty at the time of flowering.

The bark of the horse-chestnut contains a greenish oil, resin, a yellow

body, a tannin, C26H24O12, existing likewise in the seeds and various

parts of the tree, and decomposable into _phloroglucin_ and

_aesciglyoxalic acid_, C7H5O3, also _aesculetin hydrate_, and the

crystalline fluorescent compound _aesculin_, of the formula C21H24O13

(Rochleder and Schwarz), with which occurs a similar substance _fraxin_,

the _paviin_ of Sir G.G. Stokes (_Q.J. Chem. Soc._ xi. 17, 1859; xii.

126, 1860), who suggests that its presence may perhaps account for the

discrepancies in the analyses of aesculin given by different authors.

From the seeds have been obtained starch (about 14%), gum, mucilage, a

non-drying oil, phosphoric acid, salts of calcium, _saponin_, by boiling

which with dilute hydrochloric or sulphuric acid _aesculic acid_ is

obtained, _quercitrin_, present also in the fully developed leaves,

_aescigenin_, C12H26O2, and _aesculetin_, C9H6O4, which is procurable

also, but in small quantity only, from the bark. Friedrich Rochleder has

described as constituent principles of the cotyledons _aphrodaescin_,

C52H82O23, a bitter glucoside, _argyraescin_, C27H42O12, _aescinic

acid_, C24H40O12, and _queraescitrin_, C41H46O25, found also in the

leaves. To prepare pure starch from the seeds, Flandin (_Compt. rend._

xxvii. 391, 1848; xxviii. 138, 1849) recommends kneading them, when

peeled and bruised, in an aqueous solution of 1/100 to 1/60 of their

weight of sodium carbonate. E. Staffel (_Ann. d. Chem. u. Pharm._

lxxvi., 1850, p. 379) after drying found, in spring and autumn

respectively, 10.9 and 3.38% of ash in the wood, 8.68 and 6.57 in the

bark, and 7.68 and 7.52 in the leaves of the horse-chestnut. The ash of

the unripe fruit contains 58.77, that of the ripe kernel 61.74, and that

of the green shell 75.91% of potash (E. Wolff).

The wood of the horse-chestnut is soft, and serves only for the making

of water-pipes, for turner's work and common carpentry, as a source of

charcoal for gunpowder, and as fuel. Newly cut it weighs 60 lb, and dry

35 lb. per cub. ft. approximately. The bark has been employed for dyeing

yellow and for tanning, and was formerly in popular repute as a

febrifuge and tonic. The powder of the dried nuts was at one time

prescribed as a sternutatory (to encourage sneezing) in the Edinburgh

_Pharmacopoeia_. It is stated to form with alum-water a size or cement

highly offensive to vermin, and with two parts of wheaten flour the

material for a strong bookbinder's paste. Infusion of horse-chestnuts is

found to expel worms from soil, and soon to kill them if they are left

in it. The nuts furthermore have been applied to the manufacture of an

oil for burning, cosmetic preparations and starch, and in Switzerland,

France and Ireland, when rasped on ground, to the bleaching of flax,

hemp, silk and wool. In Geneva horse-chestnuts are largely consumed by

grazing stock, a single sheep receiving 2 lb. crushed morning and

evening. Given to cows in moderate quantity, they have been found to

enhance both the yield and flavour of milk. Deer readily eat them, and,

after a preliminary steeping in lime-water, pigs also. For poultry they

should be used boiled, and mixed with other nourishment. The fallen

leaves are relished by sheep and deer, and afford a good litter for

flocks and herds.

One variety of the horse-chestnut has variegated leaves, and another

double flowers. Darwin observed that _Ae. Pavia_, the red buckeye of

North America, shows a special tendency, under unfavourable conditions,

to be double-blossomed. The seeds of this species are used to stupefy

fish. The scarlet-flowered horse-chestnut, _Ae. rubicunda_, is a

handsome tree, less in height and having a rounder head than the common

form; it is a native of North America. Another species, possessing

flowers with the lower petals white with a red tinge, and the upper

yellow and red with a white border, and fruit unarmed, is _Ae. indica_,

a native of the western Himalayas. Among the North American species are

the foetid or Ohio buckeye, _Ae. glabra_, and _Ae. flava_, the sweet

buckeye. _Ae. californica_, when full-grown and in flower, is a

beautiful tree, but its leaves often fall before midsummer.

(2) The Spanish or sweet chestnut, _Castanea sativa_ (natural order,

Fagaceae), is a stately and magnificent tree, native of the countries

bordering on the Mediterranean, but also ripening its fruit in sheltered

situations as far north as Scotland. It lives very long, and attains a

large size, spreading its branches widely. It has large glossy

lanceolate leaves with a toothed margin. The flowers, which appear in

early summer, are in pendulous, slender yellowish catkins, which bear a

number of staminate flowers with a few pistillate flowers at the base.

The staminate contain 8 to 20 stamens which produce an enormous amount

of dusty yellow pollen, some of which gets carried by wind to the

protruding stigmas of the pistillate flowers. The latter are borne three

together, invested by a cupule of four green bracts, which, as the fruit

matures, grow to form the tough green prickly envelope surrounding the

group of generally three nuts. The largest known chestnut tree is the

famous _Castagno di cento cavalli_, or the chestnut of a hundred horses,

on the slopes of Mount Etna, a tree which, when measured about 1780 by

Count Borch, was found to have a circumference of 190 ft. The timber

bears a striking resemblance to that of the oak, which has been mistaken

for chestnut; but it may be distinguished by the numerous fine medullary

rays. Unlike oak, the wood is more valuable while young than old. When

not more than fifty years old it forms durable posts for fences and

gates; but at that age it often begins to deteriorate, having

ring-shakes and central hollows. In a young state, when the stems are

not above 2 in. in diameter at the ground, the chestnut is found to make

durable hoops for casks and props for vines; and of a larger size it

makes good hop-poles.

Chestnuts (the fruit of the tree) are extensively imported into Great

Britain, and are eaten roasted or boiled, and mashed or otherwise as a

vegetable. In a raw state they have a sweet taste, but are difficult of

digestion. The trees are very abundant in the south of Europe, and

chestnuts bulk largely in the food resources of the poor in Spain,

Italy, Switzerland and Germany. In Italy the kernels are ground into

meal, and used for thickening soups, and even for bread-making. In North

America the fruits of an allied species, _C. americana_, are eaten both

raw and cooked.

CHETTLE, HENRY (1564?-1607?), English dramatist and miscellaneous

writer, was the son of Robert Chettle, a London dyer. He was apprenticed

in 1577 to a stationer, and in 1591 became a partner with William

Hoskins and John Danter. In 1592 he published Robert Greene's

_Groatsworth of Wit_. In the preface to his _Kind Herts Dreame_ (end of

1592) he found it necessary to disavow any share in that pamphlet, and

incidentally he apologized to three persons (one of them commonly

identified with Shakespeare) who had been abused in it. _Piers Plainnes

Seaven Yeres Prentiship_, the story of a fictitious apprenticeship in

Crete and Thrace, appeared in 1595. As early as 1598 Francis Meres

includes him in his _Palladis Tamia_ as one of the "best for comedy,"

and between that year and 1603 he wrote or collaborated in some

forty-nine pieces. He seems to have been generally in debt, judging from

numerous entries in Henslowe's diary of advances for various purposes,

on one occasion (17th of January 1599) to pay his expenses in the

Marshalsea prison, on another (7th of March 1603) to get his play out of

pawn. Of the thirteen plays usually attributed to Chettle's sole

authorship only one was printed. This was _The Tragedy of Hoffmann: or a

Revenge for a Father_ (played 1602; printed 1631), a share in which Mr

Fleay assigns to Thomas Heywood. It has been suggested that this piece

was put forward as a rival to Shakespeare's _Hamlet_. Among the plays in

which Chettle had a share is catalogued _The Danish Tragedy_, which was

probably either identical with _Hoffmann_ or another version of the same

story. _The Pleasant Comedie of Patient Grissill_ (1599), in which he

collaborated with Thomas Dekker and William Haughton, was reprinted by

the Shakespeare Society in 1841. It contains the lyric "Art thou poor,

yet hast thou golden slumbers," which is probably Dekker's. In November

1599 Chettle receives ten shillings for mending the first part of "Robin

Hood," i.e. _The Downfall of Robert, Earl of Huntingdon_, by Anthony

Munday; and in the second part, which followed soon after and was

printed in 1601, _The Death of Robert, Earle of Huntingdon_, he

collaborated with Munday. Both plays are printed in Dodsley's _Select

Collection of Old English Plays_ (ed. W. C. Hazlitt, vol. viii.). In

1603 Chettle published _England's Mourning Garment_, in which are

included some verses alluding to the chief poets of the time. His death

took place before the appearance of Dekker's _Knight's Conjurer_ in

1607, for he is there mentioned as a recent arrival in limbo.

_Hoffmann_ was edited by H. B(arrett) L(ennard) (1852) and by Richard

Ackermann (Bamberg, 1894).

CHEVALIER, ALBERT (1861- ), English comedian, began a connexion with the

stage while still a child. In 1877 he was engaged as an actor under the

Bancrofts in London, and for some years played "legitimate" parts at the

Court theatre and elsewhere. In 1891, however, he began a successful

music-hall career as a singer of coster songs of his own invention, a

new type in which he had an immediate success, both in England and

America. He subsequently organized an entertainment of his own, with

sketches and songs, with which he went on tour, establishing a wide

popularity as an original artist in his special line.

CHEVALIER, MICHEL (1806-1879), French economist, was born at Limoges on

the 13th of January 1806. In his early manhood, while employed as an

engineer, he became a convert to the theories of Saint Simon; these he

ardently advocated in the _Globe_, the organ of the Saint Simonians,

which he edited until his arrest in 1832 on a charge of outraging public

morality by its publication. He was sentenced to a year's imprisonment,

but was released in six months through the intervention of Thiers, who

sent him on a special mission to the United States to study the question

of land and water transport. In 1836 he published, in two volumes, the

letters he wrote from America to the _Journal des debats_. These

attracted so much attention that he was sent in the same year on an

economic mission to England, which resulted in his publication (in 1838)

of _Des interets materiels de la France_. The success of this made his

position secure, and in 1840 he was appointed professor of political

economy in the College de France. He sat for a short time (1845-1846) as

a member of the Chamber of Deputies, but lost his seat owing to his

enthusiastic adoption of the principles of free trade. Under Napoleon

III. he was restored to the position of which the revolution of 1848 had

temporarily deprived him. In 1850 he became a member of the Institute,

and in the following year published an important work in favour of free

trade, under the title of _Examen du systeme commercial connu sous le

nom de systeme protecteur_. His chief public triumph was the important

part he played in bringing about the conclusion of the commercial treaty

between France and Great Britain in 1860. Previously to this he had

served, in 1855, upon the commission for organizing the Exhibition of

1855, and his services there led to his forming one of the French jury

of awards in the London Exhibition of 1862. He was created a member of

the Senate in 1860, and continued for some years to take an active part

in its discussions. He retired from public life in 1870, but was

unceasingly industrious with his pen. He became grand officer of the

Legion of Honour in 1861, and during the later years of his life

received from many quarters public recognition of his eminence as a

political economist. He died at his chateau near Montpellier (Herault)

on the 28th of November 1879. Many of his works have been translated

into English and other languages. Besides those already mentioned the

more important are: _Cours d'economie politique_ (1842-1850); _Essais de

politique industrielle_ (1843); _De la baisse probable d'or_(1859,

translated into English by Cobden, _On the Probable Fall of the Value of

Gold_, Manchester, 1859); _L'Expedition du Mexique_ (1862);

_Introduction aux rapports du jury international_ (1868).

CHEVALIER, ULYSSE (1841- ), French bibliographer, was born at

Rambouillet on the 24th of February 1841. He published a great number of

documents relating to the history of Dauphine, e.g. the cartularies of

the church and the town of Die (1868), of the abbey of St Andre le-Bas

at Vienne (1869), of the abbey of Notre Dame at Bonnevaux in the diocese

of Vienne (1889), of the abbey of St Chaffre at Le Monestier (1884), the

inventories and several collections of archives of the dauphins of

Viennais, and a _Bibliotheque liturgique_ in six volumes (1893-1897),

the third and fourth volumes of which constitute the _Repertorium

hymnologicum_, containing more than 20,000 articles. But his principal

work is the _Repertoire des sources historiques du moyen age_. The first

part, _Bio-bibliographie_ (1877-1886; 2nd ed., 1905), contains the names

of all the historical personages alive between the years 1 and 1500 who

are mentioned in printed books, together with the precise indication of

all the places where they are mentioned. The second part,

_Topo-bibliographie_ (1894-1903), contains not only the names of places

mentioned in books on the history of the middle ages, but, in a general

way, everything not included in the _Bio-bibliographie_. The

_Repertoire_ as a whole contains an enormous mass of useful information,

and is one of the most important bibliographical monuments ever devoted

to the study of medieval history. Though a Catholic priest and professor

of history at the Catholic university of Lyons, the Abbe (afterwards

Canon) Chevalier knew how to maintain an independent critical attitude

even in religious questions. In the controversy on the authenticity of

the Holy Shroud (_sudario_) at Turin, he worked in the true scientific

spirit by tracing back the history of that piece of stuff, which was

undoubtedly used as a shroud, but which was not produced before the 14th

century and is probably no older (See _Le Saint Suaire de

Lirey-Chambery-Turin et les defenseurs de son authenticite_). Similarly,

in _Notre Dame de Lorette; etude critique sur l'authenticite de la Santa

Casa_ (1906), he dissipated by the aid of authentic documents the legend

which had embellished and falsified the primitive history of that

sanctuary.

CHEVAUX-DE-FRISE (French for "Friesland horses"; the Dutch _Vriesse

ruyters_, "Frisian horsemen," and German _Spanische Reiter_, "Spanish

horsemen"), a military obstacle, originating apparently in the Dutch War

of Independence, and used to close the breach of a fortress, streets,

&c. It was formerly often used in field operations as a defence against

cavalry; hence the name, as the Dutch were weak in the mounted arm and

had therefore to check the enemy's cavalry by an artificial obstacle.

Chevaux-de-frise consist of beams in which are fixed a number of spears,

sword-blades, &c., with the points projecting outwards on all sides.

CHEVERUS, JEAN LOUIS ANNE MAGDELEINE LEFEBVRE DE (1768-1836), French

ecclesiastic, was born on the 28th of January 1768, in Mayenne, France,

where his father was general civil judge and lieutenant of police. He

studied at the college of Mayenne, received the tonsure when twelve,

became prior of Torbechet while still little more than a child, thence

derived sufficient income for his education, entered the College of Louis

le Grand in 1781, and after completing his theological studies at the

Seminary of St Magloire, was ordained deacon in October 1790, and priest

by special dispensation on the 18th of December. He was immediately made

canon of the cathedral of Le Mans and began to act as vicar to his uncle

in Mayenne, who died in 1792. Owing to the progress of the Revolution he

emigrated in 1792 to England, and thence in 1796 to America, settling in

Boston, Mass. His interest had been aroused by Francois Antoine Matignon,

a former professor at Orleans, now in charge under Bishop John Carroll of

all the Catholic churches and missions in New England. Cheverus, although

at first appointed to an Indian mission in Maine, remained in Boston for

nearly a year, and returned thither after several months in the Penobscot

and Passamaquoddy missions and visits to scattered Catholic families

along the way. During the epidemic of yellow fever in 1798 he won great

praise and respect for his courage and charity; and his preaching was

listened to by many Protestants--indeed the subscriptions for the Church

of the Holy Cross which he founded in 1803 were largely from

non-Catholics. In 1808 the papal brief was issued making Boston a

bishopric, suffragan to Baltimore, and Cheverus its bishop. He was

consecrated on All Saints' day in 1810, at St Peter's, Baltimore, by

Archbishop Carroll. On the death of the latter his assistant bishop,

Neale, urged the appointment of Cheverus as assistant to himself;

Cheverus refused and warmly asserted his desire to remain in Boston; but,

much broken by the death of Matignon in 1818 and with impaired health,

he soon found it necessary to leave the seat of his bishopric. In 1823,

Louis XVIII. having insisted on his return to France, Cheverus became

bishop of Montauban, where his tolerance captivated the Protestant clergy

and laymen of the city. He was made archbishop of Bordeaux in 1826; and

on the 1st of February 1836, in accordance with the wish of Louis

Philippe, he was made a cardinal. He died in Bordeaux on the 19th of July

1836. To Cheverus, more than to any other, is due the position that

Boston now holds in the Roman Catholic Church of America, as well as the

general growth of that church in New England. His character was

essentially lovable: the Jews of Bordeaux and Protestants everywhere

delighted to honour him.

See the rather extravagant biography by J. Huen-Dubourg, _Vie du

cardinal de Cheverus_ (Bordeaux, 1838; English version by E. Stewart,

Boston, 1839).

CHEVET, the term employed in French architecture to distinguish the

apsidal end of a church, in which the apses or chapels radiate round the

choir aisle. The two earliest examples (11th and 12th century) are found

in the churches of St Hilaire, Poitiers, and Notre Dame-du-Port,

Clermont, where there are four apses. A more usual number is five, and

the central apse, being of larger dimensions, becomes the Lady chapel.

This was the case in Westminster Abbey, where Henry III. introduced the

chevet into England; Henry VII.'s chapel is built on the site of the

original Lady chapel, which must have been of exceptional size, as it

extended the whole length of the present structure. In Solignac,

Fontevrault and Paray-le-Monial there are only three, in these cases

sufficiently distant one from the other to allow of a window between.

The usual number in all the great cathedrals of the 13th century, as in

Bourges, Chartres, Reims, Troyes, Tours, Bayeux, Antwerp and Bruges, is

five. In Beauvais, Amiens and Cologne there are seven apsidal chapels,

and in Clairvaux nine radiating but rectangular chapels. In the 14th and

15th centuries the central apse was increased in size and dedicated to

the Virgin Mary, as in St Ouen at Rouen.

CHEVIOT HILLS, a range forming about 35 m. of the border between England

and Scotland. The boundary generally follows the line of greatest

elevation, but as the slope is more gradual southward and northward the

larger part of the range is in Northumberland, England, and the lesser

in Roxburghshire, Scotland. The axis runs from N.E. to S.W., with a

northward tendency at the eastern end, where the ridge culminates in the

Cheviot, 2676 ft. Its chief elevations from this point south-westward

fall abruptly to 2034 ft. in Windygate Hill, and then more gradually to

about 1600 ft. above the pass, followed by a high road from Redesdale.

Beyond this are Carter Fell (1815) and Peel Fell (1964), after which two

lines of lesser elevation branch westward and southward to enclose

Liddesdale. The hills are finely grouped, of conical and high-arched

forms, and generally grass-covered. Their flanks are scored with deep

narrow glens in every direction, carrying the headwaters of the Till,

Coquet and North Tyne on the south, and tributaries of the Tweed on the

north. The range is famous for a valuable breed of sheep, which find

abundant pasture on its smooth declivities. In earlier days it was the

scene of many episodes of border warfare, and its name is inseparably

associated with the ballad of _Chevy Chase_. The main route into

Scotland from England lies along the low coastal belt east of the Till;

the Till itself provided another, and Redesdale a third. There are

numerous ruins of castles and "peel towers" or forts on the English side

in this district.

_Geology._--The rocks entering into the geological structure of the

Cheviots belong to the Silurian, Old Red Sandstone and Carboniferous

systems. The oldest strata, which are of Upper Silurian age, form

inliers that have been exposed by the denudation of the younger

palaeozoic rocks. One of these which occurs high up on the slopes of

the Cheviots is drained by the Kale Water and the river Coquet and is

covered towards the north by the Old Red Sandstone volcanic series and

on the south by Carboniferous strata. Another area is traversed by the

Jed Water and the Edgerston Burn and is surrounded by rocks of Old Red

Sandstone age. The strata consist of greywackes, flags and shales with

seams and zones of graptolite shale which yield fossils sparingly.

On the upturned and denuded edges of the Silurian strata a great pile

of contemporaneous volcanic rocks of Lower Old Red Sandstone age rests

unconformably, which consists chiefly of lavas with thin partings of

tuff. A striking feature is the absence of coarse sediments, thus

indicating prolonged volcanic activity. They cover an area of about

230 sq. m. in the eastern part of the Cheviots and rise to a height of

2676 ft. above the sea. The lavas comprise dark pitchstone, resembling

that at Kirk Yetholm, and porphyritic and amygdaloidal andesites and

basalts. This volcanic platform is pierced by a mass of granite about

20 sq. m. in extent, which forms the highest peak in the Cheviot

range. It has been described by Dr Teall as an augite-biotite-granite

having strong affinities with the augite-bearing granitites of

Laveline and Oberbruck in the Vosges. Both the granite and the

surrounding lavas are traversed by dykes arid sills of intermediate

and acid types represented by mica-porphyrites and quartz-felsites.

On their north-west margin the Lower Old Red volcanic rocks are

covered unconformably by the upper division of that system composed of

red sandstones and conglomerates, which, when followed westwards, rest

directly on the Silurian platform. Towards the south and east the

volcanic pile is overlaid by Carboniferous strata, thus indicating a

prolonged interval of denudation.

On the northern slopes of the western part of the Cheviots the

representatives of the Cementstone group of the Carboniferous system

come to the surface, where they consist of shales, clays, mudstones,

sandstones with cementstones and occasional bands of marine limestone.

These are followed in normal order by the Fell Sandstone group,

comprising a succession of sandstones with intercalations of red and

green clays and impure cementstone bands. They form the higher part of

the Larriston Fells and are traceable eastwards to Peel Fell, where

there is evidence of successive land surfaces in the form of dirt

beds. They are succeeded by the Lewisburn coal-bearing group, which

represents the Scremerston coals.

CHEVREUL, MICHEL EUGENE (1786-1889), French chemist, was born, on the

31st of August 1786, at Angers, where his father was a physician. At

about the age of seventeen he went to Paris and entered L.N. Vauquelin's

chemical laboratory, afterwards becoming his assistant at the natural

history museum in the Jardin des Plantes. In 1813 he was appointed

professor of chemistry at the Lycee Charlemagne, and subsequently

undertook the directorship of the Gobelins tapestry works, where he

carried out his researches on colour contrasts (_De la loi du contraste

simultane des couleurs_, 1839). In 1826 he became a member of the

Academy of Sciences, and in the same year was elected a foreign member

of the Royal Society of London, whose Copley medal he was awarded in

1857. He succeeded his master, Vauquelin, as professor of organic

chemistry at the natural history museum in 1830, and thirty-three years

later assumed its directorship also; this he relinquished in 1879,

though he still retained his professorship. In 1886 the completion of

his hundredth year was celebrated with public rejoicings; and after his

death, which occurred in Paris on the 9th of April 1889, he was honoured

with a public funeral. In 1901 a statue was erected to his memory in the

museum with which he was connected for so many years. His scientific

work covered a wide range, but his name is best known for the classical

researches he carried out on animal fats, published in 1823 (_Recherches

sur les corps gras d'origine animale_). These enabled him to elucidate

the true nature of soap; he was also able to discover the composition of

stearin and olein, and to isolate stearic and oleic acids, the names of

which were invented by him. This work led to important improvements in

the processes of candle-manufacture. Chevreul was a determined enemy of

charlatanism in every form, and a complete sceptic as to the

"scientific" psychical research or spiritualism which had begun in his

time (see his _De la baguette divinatoire, et des tables tournantes_,

1864).

CHEVRON (Fr. from _chevre_, a goat), in architecture, the beams or

rafters in the roofs of a building, meeting in an angle with a fancied

resemblance to the horns of a butting goat; in heraldry a bent bar on a

shield, used also as a distinguishing badge of rank on the sleeves of

non-commissioned officers in most armies and navies and by police and

other organized bodies wearing uniform, and as a mark of good conduct in

the army and navy. Chevron is also an architectural term for an

inflected ornament, called also "zig-zag," found largely in romanesque

architecture in France, England and Sicily. It is one of the most common

decorations found in the voussoirs of the Norman arch, and was employed

also on shafts, as in the cloisters of Monreale near Palermo, those of

St Paul outside Rome, and many churches in Germany. Its earliest

appearance was in the tomb of Agamemnon at Mycenae, where the shafts

flanking the entrance doorway have nine decorative chevron bands; in

this case there is no doubt it was derived from the metal casing of the

early wood columns.