act, 1899) and The Wisdom of the Wise (1900) were produced at the same theatre, and The Flute of Pan (1904) first at Manchester and then at the Shaftesbury theatre; she was also part author of The Bishop’s Move (Garrick Theatre, 1902). Later books are The Serious Wooing (1901), Love and the Soul Hunters (1902), Tales about Temperament (1902), The Vineyard (1904). Mrs Craigie died suddenly of heart failure in London on the 13th of August 1906.
CRAIK, DINAH MARIA (1826–1887), English novelist, better known by her maiden name of Mulock, and still better as “the author of John Halifax, Gentleman,” was the daughter of Thomas Mulock, an eccentric religious enthusiast of Irish extraction, and was born on the 20th of April 1826 at Stoke-upon-Trent, in Staffordshire, where her father was the minister of a small congregation. She settled in London about 1846, determined to obtain a livelihood by her pen, and, beginning with fiction for children, advanced steadily until John Halifax, Gentleman (1857), placed her in the front rank of the women novelists of her day. A Life for a Life (1859), though inferior, maintained a high position, but she afterwards wrote little of importance except some very charming tales for children. Her most remarkable novels, after those mentioned above, were The Ogilvies (1849), Olive (1850), The Head of the Family (1851), Agatha’s Husband (1853). There is much passion and power in these early works, and all that Mrs Craik wrote was characterized by high principle and deep feeling. Some of the short stories in Avillion and other Tales also exhibit a fine imagination. She published some poems distinguished by genuine lyrical spirit, narratives of tours in Ireland and Cornwall, and A Woman’s Thoughts about Women. She married Mr G. L. Craik, a partner in the house of Macmillan & Company, in 1864, and died at Shortlands, near Bromley, Kent, on the 12th of October 1887.
CRAIK, GEORGE LILLIE (1798–1866), English man of letters,
the son of a schoolmaster, was born at Kennoway, Fifeshire, in
1798. He studied at the university of St Andrews with the
intention of entering the church, but, altering his plans, became
the editor of a local newspaper, and went to London in 1824 to
devote himself to literature. He became connected with a short-lived
literary paper called the Verulam; in 1831 he published his
Pursuit of Knowledge under Difficulties among the works of the
Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge; he contributed a
considerable number of biographical and historical articles to
the Penny Cyclopaedia; and he edited the Pictorial History of
England, himself writing much of the work. In 1844 he published
his History of Literature and Learning in England from the Norman Conquest to the Present Time, illustrated by extracts. Craik is
best known for his abridged version of this work, The History of English Literature and the English Language (1861), which passed
through several editions. In the next year appeared his Spenser and his Poetry, an abstract of Spenser’s poems, with historical
and biographical notes and frequent quotations; and in 1847 his
Bacon, his Writings and his Philosophy, a work of a similar kind.
The two last-mentioned works appeared among Knight’s Weekly Volumes. Two years later Craik obtained the chair of history and
English literature at Queen’s College, Belfast, a position which he
held till his death, which took place on the 25th of June 1866.
He had married Miss Jeannette Dempster (d. 1856) in 1826, and
his daughter, Georgiana Marion Craik (Mrs A. W. May), wrote
over thirty novels, of which Lost and Won (1859) was the best.
Besides the works already noticed, Craik published the History of British Commerce from the Earliest Times (1844), Romance of the Peerage (1848–1850) and The English of Shakespeare (1856).
CRAIL (formerly Karel), a royal and police burgh of Fifeshire, Scotland, 2 m. from Fife Ness, the most easterly point of the county, and 11 m. S.E. of St Andrews by the North British railway, but 2 m. nearer by road. Pop. (1901) 1077. It is said to have been a town of some note as early as the 9th century; and its castle, of which there are hardly any remains, was the residence of David I. and other Scottish kings. It was constituted a royal burgh by a charter of Robert Bruce in 1306, and had its privileges confirmed by Robert II. in 1371, by Mary in 1553, and by Charles I. in 1635. Of its priory, dedicated to St Rufus, a few ruins still exist. The church of Maelrubha, the patron saint of Crail, is an edifice of great antiquity. Many of the ordinary houses are massive and quaint. The public buildings include a library and reading-room and town hall. The chief industries comprise fisheries, especially for crabs, shipping and brewing. It is growing in favour as a summer resort. It unites with St Andrews, the two Anstruthers, Kilrenny, Pittenweem and Cupar in returning one member to parliament.
Balcomie Castle, about 2 m. to the N.E., dates from the 14th century. Here Mary of Guise landed in 1538, a few days before her marriage to James V. in St Andrews cathedral. In the 18th century it passed through the hands of various proprietors and was ultimately shorn of much of its original size and grandeur. The East Neuk is a term applied more particularly to the country round Fife Ness, and more generally to all of the peninsula east of an imaginary line drawn from St Andrews to Elie. For fully half the year the cottages of its villages are damp with the haar, or dense mist, borne on the east wind from the North Sea.
CRAILSHEIM, or Krailsheim, a town of Germany, in the kingdom of Württemberg, on the Jagst, a tributary of the Neckar, at the junction of railways to Heilbronn and Fürth. Pop. (1900) 5251. There are two Evangelical churches and a Roman Catholic church, and a handsome town hall, with a tower 225 ft. high. The industrial establishments include extensive tanneries and machine workshops, and there is a brisk trade in cattle and agricultural produce.
Crailsheim was incorporated as a town in 1338, successfully withstood a siege by the forces of several Swabian imperial cities (1379–1380), a feat which is annually celebrated, passed later into the possession of the burgraves of Nuremberg, and came in 1791 to Prussia, in 1806 to Bavaria and 1810 to Württemberg.
CRAIOVA, or Krajova, the capital of the department of Doljiu, Rumania, situated near the left bank of the river Jiu, and on the main Walachian railway from Verciorova to Bucharest. Pop. (1900) 45,438. A branch railway to Calafat facilitates the export trade with Bulgaria. Craiova is the chief commercial town west of Bucharest; the surrounding uplands are very rich in grain, pasturage and vegetable products, and contain extensive forests. The town has rope and carriage factories, and close by is a large tannery, worked by convict labour, and supplying the army. The principal trade is in cattle, cereals, fish, linen, pottery, glue and leather. In the town, which is the headquarters of the First Army Corps, there are military and commercial academies, an appeal court and a chamber of commerce, besides many churches, Greek Orthodox, Roman Catholic, and Protestant, with synagogues for the Jews.
Craiova, which occupied the site of the Roman Castra Nova, was formerly the capital of Little Walachia. Its ancient bans or military governors were, next to the princes, the chief dignitaries of Walachia, and the district is still styled the banat of Craiova. Among the holders of this office were Michael the Brave (1593–1601), and several members of the celebrated Bassarab family (q.v.). The bans had the right of coining money stamped with their own effigies, and hence arose the name of bani (centimes). The Rumanian franc, or leu (“lion”), so called from the image it bore, came likewise from Craiova. In 1397 Craiova was the scene of a victory won by Prince Mircea over Bayezid I. sultan of the Turks; and in October 1853, of an engagement between Turks and Russians.
CRAMBO, an old rhyming game which, according to Strutt (Sports and Pastimes), was played as early as the 14th century under the name of the ABC of Aristotle. In the days of the Stuarts it was very popular, and is frequently mentioned in the writings of the time. Thus Congreve’s Love for Love, i. 1, contains the passage, “Get the Maids to Crambo in an Evening, and learn the knack of Rhiming.” Crambo, or capping the rhyme, is now played by one player thinking of a word and telling the others what it rhymes with, the others not naming the actual word they guess but its meaning. Thus one says “I know a word that rhymes with bird.” A second asks “Is it ridiculous?” “No, it is not absurd.” “Is it a part of speech?” “No, it is not a word.” This proceeds until the right word is guessed.
