Cipango (si-pang´gō).—A marvelous island, described in the Voyages of Marco Polo, the Venetian traveler. It is represented as lying in the Eastern seas, some one thousand five hundred miles from land, and of its beauty and wealth many stories are related. Columbus made a diligent search for this island.
Clärchen (klār´chen).—A female character in Goethe’s Egmont, noted for her constancy and devotion.
Clare, Ada.—The wife of Carstone, and one of the most important characters in Dickens’ Bleak House.
Clavileño (klä-vē-lān´yō), El Alígero.—The wooden horse on which Don Quixote got astride in order to disenchant the Infanta Antonomasia, her husband, and the Countess Trifaldi. It was “the very horse on which Peter of Provence carried off the fair Magalona, and was constructed by Merlin.” This horse was called Clavileño, or Wooden Peg, because it was governed by a wooden pin in the forehead.
Cléante (klā-ont´).—Brother-in-law of Orgon in Molière’s Tartuffe. He is distinguished for his genuine piety, and is both high-minded and compassionate. The same name occurs in two other plays by Molière.
Cleishbotham (klēsh´boTH-am), Jedediah.—Schoolmaster and parish clerk of Gandercleuch, who employed his assistant teacher to arrange and edit the tales told by the landlord of the Wallace inn of the same parish. These tales the editor disposed in three series, called by the general title of The Tales of My Landlord. Of course the real author is Sir Walter Scott.
Clementina, Lady.—A beautiful and accomplished woman, deeply in love with Sir Charles Grandison, in Richardson’s novel of this name.
Cleon (klē´on).—(1) In Shakespeare’s Pericles, governor of Tarsus, burned to death with his wife Dionysia by the enraged citizens, to revenge the supposed murder of Marina, daughter of Pericles, prince of Tyre. (2) The personification of glory in Spenser’s Faërie Queene.
Clifford, Paul.—An attractive highwayman and an interesting hero in Bulwer’s novel by the same name. He is familiar with the haunts of low vice and dissipation, but afterward is reformed and elevated by the power of love.
Clinker, Humphrey.—A novel by Smollett. The hero, by the same name, a philosophic youth, meets many adventures. Brought up in the workhouse, put out by the parish as apprentice to a blacksmith, he was afterward employed as a hostler’s assistant. Having been dismissed from the stable, and reduced to great want, he at length attracts the notice of Mr. Bramble who takes him into his family as a servant. He becomes the accepted lover of Winifred Jenkins, and at length turns out to be a natural son of Mr. Bramble.