Comus.—A masque, or dramatic poem, by John Milton, published in 1637. It was written for the earl of Bridgewater, and acted at his residence, Castle Ludlow, in Shropshire, on Michaelmas night, 1634. The music is by Henry Lawes. Comus (a revel) was the Roman god of banqueting and festive amusements; but in Milton’s poems he appears as a lewd enchanter, whose pleasure it is to deceive and ruin the chaste and innocent.
Coningsby (kon´ingz-bi).—A novel by B. Disraeli. The characters are meant for portraits: thus, “Rigby” represents Croker; “Monmouth,” Lord Hertford; “Eskdale,” Lowther; “Ormsby,” Irving; “Lucretia,” Mme. Zichy; “Countess Colonna,” Lady Strachan; “Sidonia,” Baron A. de Rothschild; “Henry Sidney,” Lord John Manners; “Belvoir,” duke of Rutland, second son of Beaumanoir.
Consuelo (kôN-sü-ā-lō´).—A noted novel by George Sand. The heroine has the same name, and is an impersonation of noble purity sustained amidst great temptations.
Cophetua (kō-fet´ū-ä).—An imaginary African king, of whom a legendary ballad told that he fell in love with a beggar maid and married her. This ballad is found in Percy’s Reliques. Tennyson has given us a modern version in The Beggar Maid.
Copperfield, David.—A novel by Charles Dickens. David is Dickens himself, and Micawber is Dickens’ father. According to the tale, David’s mother was nursery governess in a family where Mr. Copperfield visited. At the death of Mr. Copperfield, the widow married Edward Murdstone, a hard, tyrannical man, who made the home of David a dread and terror to the boy. When his mother died, Murdstone sent David to lodge with the Micawbers, and bound him apprentice to Messrs. Murdstone and Grinby, by whom he was put into the warehouse, and set to paste labels upon wine and spirit bottles. David soon became tired of this dreary work, and ran away to Dover, where he was kindly received by his [great-]aunt Betsy Trotwood, who clothed him, and sent him as day-boy to Dr. Strong, but placed him to board with Mr. Wickfield, a lawyer, father of Agnes, between whom and David a mutual attachment sprang up. David’s first wife was Dora Spenlow, but at the death of this pretty little “child-wife,” he married Agnes Wickfield.
Cordelia (kôr-dē´liä).—King Lear, Shakespeare. The youngest of Lear’s three daughters, and the one that truly loved him.
Corinne (ko-rēn´).—The heroine of a novel, of the same name, by Madame de Staël.
Coriolanus (kō´ri-ō-lā´nus).—An historical play by William Shakespeare. In the plot, and in many of the speeches, Shakespeare has followed Sir Thomas North’s Life of Coriolanus, included in his translation of Amyot’s Plutarch. “The subject of Coriolanus,” [790] says Prof. Dowden, “is the ruin of a noble life through the sin of pride. If duty be the dominant ideal with Brutus, and pleasure of a magnificent kind be the ideal of Antony and Cleopatra, that which gives tone and color to Coriolanus is an ideal of self-centered power. The greatness of Brutus is altogether that of the moral conscience; his external figure does not dilate upon the world through a golden haze like that of Antony, nor bulk massively and tower like that of Coriolanus. A haughty and passionate personal feeling, a superb egoism, are with Coriolanus the sources of weakness and of strength.”
Corsair, The.—A poem, in three cantos, by Lord Byron, published in 1814. The hero is called Conrad, and is described, in a well-known passage, as leaving
“a Corsair’s name to other times,
Link’d with one virtue, and a thousand crimes.”