his diminished forces. But the victory was dearly purchased by Poland. A few days before the siege was raised the aged grand hetman died of exhaustion in the fortress (Sept. 24th, 1621).
See Adam Stanislaw Naruszewicz, Life of J. K. Chodkiewicz (Pol.; 4th ed., Cracow, 1857–1858); Lukasz Golebiowski, The Moral Side of J. K. Chodkiewicz as indicated by his Letters (Pol.; Warsaw, 1854). (R. N. B.)
CHODOWIECKI, DANIEL NICOLAS (1726–1801), German
painter and engraver of Polish descent, was born at Danzig.
Left an orphan at an early age, he devoted himself to the practice
of miniature painting, the elements of which his father had taught
him, as a means of support for himself and his mother. In 1743
he went to Berlin, where for some time he worked as clerk in an
uncle’s office, practising art, however, in his leisure moments,
and gaining a sort of reputation as a painter of miniatures for
snuff-boxes. The Berlin Academy, attracted by a small
engraving of his, entrusted to him the illustration of its yearly
almanac. After designing and engraving several subjects from
the story of the Seven Years’ War, Chodowiecki produced the
famous “History of the Life of Jesus Christ,” a set of admirably
painted miniatures, which made him at once so popular that he
laid aside all occupations save those of painting and engraving.
Few books were published in Prussia for some years without
plate or vignette by Chodowiecki. It is not surprising, therefore,
that the catalogue of his works (Berlin, 1814) should include over
3000 items, of which, however, the picture of “Jean Calas and
his Family” is the only one of any reputation. He became
director of the Berlin Academy in 1797. The title of the German
Hogarth, which he sometimes obtained, was the effect of an
admiration rather imaginative than critical, and was disclaimed
by Chodowiecki himself. The illustrator of Lavater’s Essays on Physiognomy, the painter of the “Hunt the Slipper” in the
Berlin museum, had indeed but one point in common with the
great Englishman—the practice of representing actual life and
manners. In this he showed skilful drawing and grouping,
and considerable expressional power, but no tendency whatever
to the use of the grotesque.
His brother Gottfried (1728–1781) and son Wilhelm (1765–1803) painted and engraved after the style of Daniel, and sometimes co-operated with him.
CHOERILUS. (1) An Athenian tragic poet, who exhibited
plays as early as 524 B.C. He was said to have competed with
Aeschylus, Pratinas and even Sophocles. According to F. G.
Welcker, however, the rival of Sophocles was a son of Choerilus,
who bore the same name. Suidas states that Choerilus wrote
150 tragedies and gained the prize 13 times. His works are all
lost; only Pausanias (i. 14) mentions a play by him entitled
Alope (a mythological personage who was the subject of dramas
by Euripides and Carcinus). His reputation as a writer of satyric
dramas is attested in the well-known line
ἡνίκα μἑν βασιλεὑς ἡν Χοιρίλος ἐν Σατύοις.
The Choerilean metre, mentioned by the Latin grammarians, is probably so called because the above line is the oldest extant specimen. Choerilus was also said to have introduced considerable improvements in theatrical masks and costumes.
See A. Nauck, Tragicorum Graecorum Fragmenta (1889); F. G. Welcker, Die griechischen Tragödien, pp. 18, 892.
(2) An epic poet of Samos, who flourished at the end of the 5th century B.C. After the fall of Athens he settled at the court of Archelaus, king of Macedonia, where he was the associate of Agathon, Melanippides, and Plato the comic poet. The only work that can with certainty be attributed to him is the Περσηίς or Περσικά, a history of the struggle of the Greeks against Persia, the central point of which was the battle of Salamis. His importance consists in his having taken for his theme national and contemporary events in place of the deeds of old-time heroes. For this new departure he apologizes in the introductory verses (preserved in the scholiast on Aristotle, Rhetoric, iii. 14), where he says that, the subjects of epic poetry being all exhausted, it was necessary to strike out a new path. The story of his intimacy with Herodotus is probably due to the fact that he imitated him and had recourse to his history for the incidents of his poem. The Perseis was at first highly successful and was said to have been read, together with the Homeric poems, at the Panathenaea, but later critics reversed this favourable judgment. Aristotle (Topica, viii. 1) calls Choerilus’s comparisons far-fetched and obscure, and the Alexandrians displaced him by Antimachus in the canon of epic poets. The fragments are artificial in tone.
G. Kinkel, Epicorum Graecorum Frag. i. (1877); for another view of his relations with Herodotus see Müder in Klio (1907), 29-44.
(3) An epic poet of Iasus in Caria, who lived in the 4th century B.C. He accompanied Alexander the Great on his campaigns as court-poet. He is well known from the passages in Horace (Epistles, ii. 1, 232; Ars Poëtica, 357), according to which he received a piece of gold for every good verse he wrote in celebration of the glorious deeds of his master. The quality of his verses may be estimated from the remark attributed to Alexander, that he would rather be the Thersites of Homer than the Achilles of Choerilus. The epitaph on Sardanapalus, said to have been translated from the Chaldean (quoted in Athenaeus, viii. p. 336), is generally supposed to be by Choerilus.
See G. Kinkel, Epicorum Graecorum Fragmenta, i. (1877); A. F. Näke, De Choerili Samii Aetate Vita et Poësi aliisque Choerilis (1817), where the above poets are carefully distinguished; and the articles in Pauly-Wissowa’s Realencyclopädie, iii. 2 (1899).
CHOEROBOSCUS, GEORGIUS (c. A.D. 600), deacon and professor
at the oecumenical school at Constantinople. He is also
called chartophylax either as the holder of some ecclesiastical
office or as superintendent of the university library. It is not
known whether “Choeroboscus” (Gr. for “swineherd”) is an
allusion to his earlier occupation or an inherited family name.
During his tenure of office he delivered a course of lectures on
grammar, which has come down to us in the shape of notes taken
by his pupils. He drew from the best authorities—Apollonius
Dyscolus, Herodian, Orion, Theodosius of Alexandria. The
lectures are written in simple style, but suffer from diffuseness.
They were much used by Constantine Lascaris in his Greek
grammar and by Urban of Belluno (end of 15th cent.). The
chief work of Choeroboscus, which we have in its complete form,
is the commentary on the canons of Theodosius on Declension
and Conjugation. Mention may also be made of a treatise on
orthography, of which a fragment (on Quantity) has been
preserved; a tract on prosody; commentaries on Hephaestion
and Dionysius Thrax; and grammatical notes on the Psalms.
See C. Krumbacher, Geschichte der byzantinischen Litteratur (1897); A. Hilgard, Grammatici Graeci, iv. (1889–1894), containing the text of the commentary on Theodosius, and a full account of the life and writings of Choeroboscus; L. Kohn in Pauly-Wissowa’s Realencyclopädie, iii. 2 (1889); Reitzenstein, Etymologika, 190, n. 4.
CHOIR (O. Fr. cuer from Lat. chorus; pronounced quire, and
until the end of the 17th century so spelt, the spelling being
altered to agree with the Fr. chœur), the body of singers who
perform the musical portion of the service in a church, or the
place set apart for them. Any organized body of singers
performing full part choral works or oratorios is also called a choir.
In English cathedrals the choir is composed of men (vicars-choral or lay clerks) and boys (choristers). They are divided into two sets, sitting on the north and south sides of the chancel respectively, called cantoris and decani, from being on the same side as the cantor (precentor) or the decanus (dean). This arrangement, together with the custom of vesting choirmen and choristers in surplices (traditional only in cathedrals and collegiate churches), has, since the middle of the 19th century, been adopted in a large number of parish and other churches. Surpliced choirs of women have occasionally been introduced, notably in America and the British colonies, but the practice has no warrant of traditional usage. In the Roman Catholic Church the choir plays a less conspicuous rôle than in the Church of England, its members not being regarded as ministers of the church, and non-Catholics are allowed to sing in it. The singers at Mass or other solemn services are usually placed in a gallery or some other inconspicuous place. The word “choir,” indeed, formerly applied to all the clergy taking part in services of the church, and the restriction of the term to the singing men and boys, who were in their origin no more than the representatives
