OpenLLM-France/wikimedia huggingface dataset:
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Du Chesne, André

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​DU CHESNE [Latinized Duchenius, Querneus, or Quercetanus], ANDRÉ (1584–1640), French geographer and historian, generally styled the father of French history, was born at Ile-Bouchard, in the province of Touraine, in May 1584. He was educated at Loudun and afterwards at Paris. From his earliest years he devoted himself to historical and geographical research, and his first work, Egregiarum seu selectarum lectionum et antiquitatum liber, published in his eighteenth year, displayed great erudition. He enjoyed the patronage of Cardinal Richelieu, a native of the same district with himself, through whose influence he was appointed historiographer and geographer to the king. He died in 1640, in consequence of having been run over by a carriage when on his way from Paris to his country house at Verrière. Du Chesne’s works were very numerous and varied, and in addition to what he published, he left behind him more than 100 folio volumes of manuscript extracts now preserved in the Bibliothèque Nationale (L. Delisle, Le Cabinet des manuscrits de la bibliothèque impériale, t. L, 333-334). Several of his larger works were continued by his only son François du Chesne (1616–1693), who succeeded him in the office of historiographer to the king. The principal works of André du Chesne are—Les Antiquités et recherches de la grandeur et majesté des rois de France (Paris, 1609), Les Antiquités et recherches des villes, châteaux, &c., de toute la France (Paris, 1609), Histoire d’Angleterre, d’Écosse, et d’Irelande (Paris, 1614), Histoire des Papes jusqu’à Paul V (Paris, 1619), Histoire des rois, ducs, et comtes de Bourgogne (1619–1628, 2 vols. fol.), Historiae Normanorum scriptores antiqui (1619, fol., now the only source for some of the texts), and his Historiae Francorum scriptores (5 vols. fol., 1636–1649). This last was intended to comprise 24 volumes, and to contain all the narrative sources for French history in the middle ages; only two volumes were published by the author, his son François published three more, and the work remained unfinished. Besides these du Chesne published a great number of genealogical histories of illustrious families, of which the best is that of the house of Montmorency. His Histoire des cardinaux français (2 vols. fol. 1660–1666) and Histoire des chanceliers et gardes des sceaux de France (1630) were published by his son François. André also published a translation of the Satires of Juvenal, and editions of the works of Alcuin, Abelard, Alain Chartier and Étienne Pasquier.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Du Pin, Louis Ellies

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​DU PIN, LOUIS ELLIES (1657–1719), French ecclesiastical historian, came of a noble family of Normandy, and was born at Paris on the 17th of June 1657. When ten years old he entered the college of Harcourt, where he graduated M.A. in 1672. He afterwards became a pupil of the Sorbonne, and received the degree of B.D. in 1680 and that of D.D. in 1684. About this time he conceived the idea of his Bibliothèque universelle de tous les auteurs ecclésiastiques, the first volume of which appeared in 1686. The liberty with which he there treated the doctrines of the Fathers aroused ecclesiastical prejudice, and the archbishop of Paris condemned the work. Although Du Pin consented to a retractation, the book was suppressed in 1693; he was, however, allowed again to continue it on changing its title by substituting nouvelle for universelle. He was subsequently exiled to Châtellerault as a Jansenist, but the sentence of banishment was repealed on a new retractation. In 1718 he entered into a correspondence with William Wake, archbishop of Canterbury, with a view to a union of the English and Gallican churches; being suspected of projecting a change in the dogmas of the church, his papers were seized in February 1719, but nothing incriminating was found. The same zeal for union induced him, during the residence of Peter the Great in France, and at that monarch’s request, to draw up a plan for uniting the Greek and Roman churches. He died at Paris on the 6th of June 1719.
Du Pin was a voluminous author. Besides his great work (Paris, 1686–1704, 58 vols. 8vo; Amsterdam, 19 vols. 4to; in the last of which he gives much autobiographical information), mention may be made of Bibliothèque universelle des historiens (2 vols., 1707); L’Histoire de l’église en abrégé (1712); and L’Histoire profane depuis le commencement du monde jusqu’à présent (4 vols., 1712).
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Du Vair, Guillaume

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​DU VAIR, GUILLAUME (1556–1621), French author and lawyer, was born in Paris on the 7th of March 1556. Du Vair was in orders, and, though during the greater part of his life he exercised only legal functions, he was from 1617 till his death bishop of Lisieux. His reputation, however, is that of a lawyer, a statesman and a man of letters. He became in 1584 counsellor of the parlement of Paris, and as deputy for Paris to the Estates of the League he pronounced his most famous politico-legal discourse, an argument nominally for the Salic law, but in reality directed against the alienation of the crown of France to the Spanish infanta, which was advocated by the extreme Leaguers. Henry IV. ​acknowledged his services by entrusting him with a special commission as magistrate at Marseilles, and made him master of requests. In 1595 appeared his treatise De l’éloquence française et des raisons pour quoi elle est demeurée si basse, in which he criticizes the orators of his day, adding by way of example some translations of the speeches of ancient orators, which reproduce the spirit rather than the actual words of the originals. He was sent to England in 1596 with the marshal de Bouillon to negotiate a league against Spain; in 1599 he became first president of the parlement of Province (Aix); and in 1603 was appointed to the see of Marseilles, which he soon resigned in order to resume the presidency. In 1616 he received the highest promotion open to a French lawyer and became keeper of the seals. He died at Tonneins (Lot-et-Garonne) on the 3rd of August 1621. Both as speaker and writer he holds a very high rank, and his character was equal to his abilities. Like other political lawyers of the time, Du Vair busied himself not a little in the study of philosophy. The most celebrated of his treatises are La Philosophie morale des Stoïques, translated into English (1664) by Charles Cotton; De la constance et consolation ès calamités publiques, which was composed during the siege of Paris in 1589, and applied the Stoic doctrine to present misfortunes; and La Sainte Philosophie, in which religion and philosophy are intimately connected. Pierre Charron drew freely on these and other works of Du Vair. F. de Brunetière points out the analogy of Du Vair’s position with that afterwards developed by Pascal, and sees in him the ancestor of the Jansenists. Du Vair had a great indirect influence on the development of style in French, for in the south of France he made the acquaintance of Malherbe, who conceived a great admiration for Du Vair’s writings. The reformer of French poetry learned much from the treatise De l’éloquence française, to which the counsels of his friend were no doubt added.
Du Vair’s works were published in folio at Paris in 1641. See Nicéron, Mémoires, vol. 43; and monographs by C. A. Sapey (1847 and 1858).
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Du Ryer, Pierre

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​DU RYER, PIERRE (1606–1658), French dramatist, was born in Paris in 1606. His earlier comedies are in the loose style of Alexandre Hardy, but after the production of the Cid (1636) he copied the manner of Corneille, and produced his masterpiece Scévole, probably in 1644 (the date generally given is 1646). Alcionée (1638) was so popular that the abbé d’Aubignac knew it by heart, and Queen Christina is said to have had it read to her three times in one day. Du Ryer was a prolific dramatist. Among his other works may be mentioned Saül (printed 1642), and a comedy, Les Vendanges de Suresnes (1635 or 1636). He died in Paris on the 6th of November 1658.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Cockerill, William

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​COCKERILL, WILLIAM (1759–1832), Anglo-French inventor and machinist, was born in England in 1759. He went to Belgium as a simple mechanic, and in 1799 constructed at Verviers the first wool-carding and wool-spinning machines on the continent. In 1807 he established a large machine workshop at Liége. Orders soon poured in on him from all over Europe, and he amassed a large fortune. In 1810 he was granted the rights of naturalization by Napoleon I., and in 1812 handed over the management of his business to his youngest son, John Cockerill (1790–1840).
Thanks to his own energy and ability, aided by the influence of King William I. of the Netherlands, John Cockerill largely extended his father’s business. King William secured him a site at Seraing, where he built large works, including an iron-foundry and blast furnace. The construction of the Belgian railways in 1834 gave a great impetus to these works, branches of which had already been opened in France, Germany and Poland. In 1838 Cockerill met with a carriage accident which nearly proved fatal, and the prospect of his loss resulted in the credit of the firm being so badly shaken that in 1839 it was compelled to go into liquidation, the liabilities being estimated at 26 millions of francs, the assets at 18 millions. This reverse, however, was only temporary. John Cockerill had practically concluded negotiations to construct the Russian government railways, when his constitution, undermined by overwork, broke down. He died at Warsaw on the 19th of June 1840. The iron works, among the largest in Europe, are still carried on under the name of La Société Cockerill at Seraing (q.v.).
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Cockermouth

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​COCKERMOUTH, a market town in the Cockermouth parliamentary division of Cumberland, England, 27 m. S.W. of Carlisle, on the Cockermouth, Keswick & Penrith, the London & North Western, and the Maryport & Carlisle railways. Pop. of urban district (1901) 5355. It is pleasantly situated on the river Derwent, at the junction of the Cocker, outlying hills of the Lake District sheltering it on the north, east and south. The castle has remains of Norman work in the keep, and other ancient portions (including the gateway) of later date, but is in part modernized as a residence. The grammar school was founded in 1676. The county industrial school is established in the town. The industries include the manufacture of woollens and confectionery, tanning and engineering, and there is a considerable agricultural trade. There are coal mines in the neighbourhood. A statue was erected in 1875 to the sixth earl of Mayo, who represented the borough (abolished in 1885) from 1857 to 1868. There is a Roman fort a mile west of the town, at Papcastle.
Cockermouth (Cokermuth, Cokermue) was made the head of the honour or barony of Allerdale when that barony was created and granted to Waltheof in the early part of the 12th century. At a later date the honour of Allerdale was frequently called the honour of Cockermouth. Waltheof probably built the castle, under the shelter of which the town grew up. Although it never received any royal charter, the earliest records relating to Cockermouth mention it as a borough. In 1295 it returned two members to parliament and then not again until 1640. By the Representation of the People Act of 1867 the representation was reduced to one member, and by the Redistribution Act of 1885 it was disfranchised. In 1221 William de Fortibus, earl of Albemarle, was granted a Saturday market, which later in the year was transferred to Monday, the day on which it has continued to be held ever since. The Michaelmas Fair existed in 1343, and an inquisition dated 1374 mentions two horse-fairs on Whit-Monday and at Michaelmas. In 1638 Algernon Percy, earl of Northumberland, obtained a grant of a fair every Wednesday from the first week in May till Michaelmas. The chief sources of revenue in Norman times were the valuable fisheries and numerous mills.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Cockburn, Sir George

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​COCKBURN, SIR GEORGE, Bart. (1772–1853), British admiral, second son of Sir James Cockburn, Bart., and uncle of Lord Chief Justice Cockburn, was born in London. He entered the navy in his ninth year. After serving on the home station, and in the East Indies and the Mediterranean, he assisted, as captain of the “Minerve” (38) at the blockade of Leghorn in 1796, and fought a gallant action with the Spanish frigate “Sabina” (40) which he took. He was present at the battle of Cape St Vincent. In 1809, in command of the naval force on shore, he contributed greatly to the reduction of Martinique, and signed the capitulation by which that island was handed over to the English; for his services on this occasion he received the thanks of the House of Commons. After service in the Scheldt and at the defence of Cadiz he was sent in 1811 on an unsuccessful mission for the reconciliation of Spain and her American colonies. He was made rear-admiral in 1812, and in 1813–14, as second in command to Warren, he took a prominent part in the American War, especially in the capture of Washington. Early in 1815 he received the order of the Bath, and in the autumn of the same year he carried out, in the “Northumberland” (74), the sentence of deportation to St Helena which had been passed upon Bonaparte. In 1818 he received the Grand Cross of his order, and was made a lord of the admiralty; and the same year he was returned to parliament for Portsmouth. He was promoted to the rank of vice-admiral in 1819, and to that of admiral in 1837; he became senior naval lord in 1841, and held office in that capacity till 1846. From 1827 he was a privy councillor. In 1851 he was made admiral of the fleet, and in 1852, a year before his death, inherited the family baronetcy from his elder brother, being himself succeeded by his brother William, dean of York, who died in 1858.
See O’Byrne, Naval Biography; W. James, Naval History; Gentleman’s Magazine for 1853.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Cockerell, Charles Robert

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​COCKERELL, CHARLES ROBERT (1788–1863), British architect, was born in London on the 28th of April 1788. After a preliminary training in his profession, he went abroad in 1810 and studied the great architectural remains of Greece, Italy and Asia Minor. At Aegina, Phigalia and other places of interest, he conducted excavations on a large scale, enriching the British Museum with many fine fragments, and adding several valuable monographs to the literature of archaeology. Elected in 1829 an associate of the Royal Academy, he became a full member in 1836, and in 1839 he was appointed professor of architecture. On Sir John Soane’s death in 1837 Cockerell was appointed architect of the Bank of England, and carried out the alterations that were judged to be necessary in that building. In addition to branch banks at Liverpool and Manchester he erected in 1840 the new library at Cambridge, and in 1845 the university galleries at Oxford, as well as the Sun and the Westminster Fire Offices in Bartholomew Lane and in the Strand; and he was joint architect of the London & Westminster Bank, Lothbury, with Sir W. Tite. On the death of Henry Lonsdale Elmes in 1847, Cockerell was selected to finish the St George’s Hall, Liverpool. Cockerell’s best conceptions were those inspired by classic models; his essays in the Gothic—the college at Lampeter, for instance, and the chapel at Harrow—are by no means so successful. His thorough knowledge of Gothic art, however, can be seen from his writings, On the Iconography of Wells Cathedral, and On the Sculptures of Lincoln and Exeter Cathedrals. In his Tribute to the Memory of Sir Christopher Wren (1838) he published an interesting collection of the whole of Wren’s works drawn to one scale.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Cockle, Sir James

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​COCKLE, SIR JAMES (1819–1895), English lawyer and mathematician, was born on the 14th of January 1819. He was the second son of James Cockle, a surgeon, of Great Oakley, Essex. Educated at Charterhouse and Trinity College, Cambridge, he entered the Middle Temple in 1838, practising as a special pleader in 1845 and being called in 1846. Joining the midland circuit, he acquired a good practice, and on the recommendation of Chief Justice Sir William Erle he was appointed chief justice of Queensland in 1863. He received the honour of knighthood in 1869, retired from the bench, and returned to England in 1879.
Cockle is more remembered for his mathematical and scientific investigations than as a lawyer. Like many young mathematicians he attacked the problem of resolving the higher algebraic equations, notwithstanding Abel’s proof that a solution by radicles was impossible. In this field Cockle achieved some notable results, amongst which is his reproduction of Sir William R. Hamilton’s modification of Abel’s theorem. Algebraic forms were a favourite object of his studies, and he discovered and developed the theory of criticoids, or differential invariants; he also made contributions to the theory of differential equations. He displayed a keen interest in scientific societies. From 1863 to 1879 he was president of the Queensland Philosophical Society (now incorporated in the Royal Society of Queensland); on his return to England he became associated with the London Mathematical Society, of which he was president from 1886 to 1888, and the Royal Astronomical Society, serving as a member of the council from 1888 to 1892. He died in London on the 27th of January 1895.
A volume containing his scientific and mathematical researches made during the years 1864–1877 was presented to the British Museum in 1897 by his widow. See the obituary notice by the Rev. R. Harley in Proc. Roy. Soc. vol. 59.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Cockpit

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​COCKPIT, the term originally for an enclosed place in which the sport of cock-fighting (q.v.) was carried on. On the site of an old cockpit opposite Whitehall in London was a block of buildings used from the 17th century as offices by the treasury and the privy council, for which the old name survived till the early 19th century. The name was given also to a theatre in London, built in the early part of the 17th century on the site of Drury Lane theatre. As the place where the wounded in battle were tended, or where the junior officers consorted, the term was also formerly applied to a cabin used for these purposes on the lower deck of a man-of-war.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Cockney

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​COCKNEY, a colloquial name applied to Londoners generally, but more properly confined to those born in London, or more strictly still to those born within the sound of the bells of St Mary-le-Bow church. The origin of the word has been the subject of many guesses, from that in John Minsheu’s lexicon, Ductor in linguas (1617), which gives the tale of the town-bred child who, on hearing a horse neigh, asked whether a “cock neighed” too, to the confusion of the word with the name of the Utopia, the land of Cockaigne (q.v.). The historical examination of the various uses of “Cockney,” by Sir James Murray (see Academy, 10th of May 1890, and the New English Dictionary, s.v.) clearly shows the true derivation. The earliest form of the word is cokenay or cokeney, i.e. the ey or egg, and coken, genitive plural of “cock,” “cocks’ eggs” being the name given to the small and malformed eggs sometimes laid by young hens, known in German as Hahneneier. An early quotation, in Langland’s Piers Plowman, A. vii. 272, gives the combination of “cokeneyes” and bacon to make a “collop,” or dish of eggs and bacon. The word then applied to a child overlong nursed by its mother, hence to a simpleton or milksop. Thus in Chaucer, Reeve’s Tale, the word is used with daf, i.e. a fool. The particular application of the name as a term of contempt given by country folk to town-bred people, with their dandified airs and ignorance of country ways and country objects, is easy. Thus Robert Whittington or Whitinton (fl. 1520), speaks of the “cokneys” in such “great cytees as London, York, Perusy” (Perugia), showing the general use of the word. It was not till the beginning of the 17th century that “cockney” appears to be confined to the inhabitants of London.
The so-called “Cockney” accent or pronunciation has varied in type. In the first part of the 19th century, it was chiefly characterized by the substitution of a v for a w, or vice versa. This has almost entirely disappeared, and the chief consonantal variation which exists is perhaps the change of th to f or v, as in “fing” for thing, or “favver” for father. This and the vowel-sound change from ou to ah, as in “abaht” for “about,” are only heard among the uneducated classes, and, together with other characteristic pronunciations, phrases and words, have been well illustrated in the so-called “coster” songs of Albert Chevalier. The most marked and widely-prevalent change of vowel sound is that of ei for ai, so that “daily” becomes “dyly” and “may” becomes “my.” This is sometimes so marked ​that it almost amounts to incapacity to distinguish the vowels a and i, and is almost universal in large classes of the population of London. The name of the “Cockney School of Poetry” was applied in 1817 to the literary circle of which Leigh Hunt was the principal representative, though Keats also was aimed at. The articles in Blackwood’s Magazine, in which the name appeared, have generally, but probably wrongly, been attributed to John Gibson Lockhart.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Cocker, Edward

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​COCKER, EDWARD (1631–1675), the reputed author of the famous Arithmetick, the popularity of which has added a phrase (“according to Cocker”) to the list of English proverbialisms, was an English engraver, who also taught writing and arithmetic. He is credited with the authorship and execution of some fourteen sets of copy slips, one of which, Daniel’s Copy-Book, ingraven by Edward Cocker, Philomath (1664), is preserved in the British Museum. Pepys, in his Diary, makes very favourable mention of Cocker, who appears to have displayed great skill in his art. Cocker’s Arithmetick, the fifty-second edition of which appeared in 1748, and which has passed through about 112 editions in all, was not published during the lifetime of its reputed author, the first impression bearing date of 1678. Augustus de Morgan in his Arithmetical Books (1847) adduces proofs, which may be held to be conclusive, that the work was a forgery of the editor and publisher, John Hawkins; and there appears to be no doubt that the Decimal Arithmetic (1684), and the English Dictionary (second edition, 1715), issued by Hawkins under Cocker’s name, are forgeries also. De Morgan condemns the Arithmetick as a diffuse compilation from older and better works, and dates “a very great deterioration in elementary works on arithmetic” from the appearance of the book, which owed its celebrity far more to persistent puffing than to its merits. He pertinently adds,—“This same Edward Cocker must have had great reputation, since a bad book under his name pushed out the good ones.”