a collected form (Le Reliquaire), followed (1867) by Les Intimités and Poèmes modernes (1867–1869). In 1869 his first play, Le Passant, was received with marked approval at the Odéon theatre, and later Fais ce que dois (1871) and Les Bijoux de la délivrance (1872), short metrical dramas inspired by the war, were warmly applauded.
After filling a post in the library of the senate, Coppée was chosen in 1878 as archivist of the Comédie-Française, an office which he held till 1884. In that year his election to the Academy caused him to retire altogether from his public appointments. He continued to publish volumes of poetry at frequent intervals, including Les Humbles (1872), Le Cahier rouge (1874), Olivier (1875), L’Exilée (1876), Contes en vers, &c. (1881), Poèmes et récits (1886), Arrière-saison (1887), Paroles sincères (1890). In his later years his output of verse declined, but he published two more volumes, Dans la prière et la lutte and Vers français. He had established his fame as “le poète des humbles.” Besides the plays mentioned above, two others written in collaboration with Armand d’Artois, and some light pieces of little importance, Coppée produced Madame de Maintenon (1881), Severo Torelli (1883), Les Jacobites (1885), and other serious dramas in verse, including Pour la couronne (1895), which was translated into English (For the Crown) by John Davidson, and produced at the Lyceum Theatre in 1896. The performance of a short episode of the Commune, Le Pater, was prohibited by the government (1889). Coppée’s first story in prose, Une Idylle pendant le siège, appeared in 1875. It was followed by various volumes of short tales, by Toute une jeunesse (1890)—an attempt to reproduce the feelings, if not the actual wants, of the writer’s youth,—Les Vrais Riches (1892), Le Coupable (1896), &c. He was made an officer of the Legion of Honour in 1888. A series of reprinted short articles on miscellaneous subjects, styled Mon Franc Parler, appeared from 1893 to 1896; and in 1898 was published La Bonne Souffrance, the outcome of Coppée’s reconversion to the Roman Catholic Church, which gained very wide popularity. The immediate cause of his return to the faith was a severe illness which twice brought him to the verge of the grave. Hitherto he had taken little open interest in public affairs, but he now joined the most violent section of Nationalist politicians, while retaining contempt for the whole apparatus of democracy. He took a leading part against the prisoner in the Dreyfus case, and was one of the originators of the notorious Ligue de la Patrie Française. He died on the 23rd of May 1908.
Alike in verse and prose Coppée concerned himself with the plainest expressions of human emotion, with elemental patriotism, and the joy of young love, and the pitifulness of the poor, bringing to bear on each a singular gift of sympathy and insight. The lyric and idyllic poetry, by which he will chiefly be remembered, is animated by musical charm, and in some instances, such as La Bénédiction and La Grève des forgerons, displays a vivid, though not a sustained, power of expression. There is force, too, in the gloomy tale, Le Coupable. But he exhibits all the defects of his qualities. In prose especially, his sentiment often degenerates into sentimentality, and he continually approaches, and sometimes oversteps, the verge of the trivial. Nevertheless, by neglecting that canon of contemporary art which would reduce the deepest tragedies of life to mere subjects for dissection, he won those common suffrages which are the prize of exquisite literature.
See M. de Lescure’s François Coppée, l’homme, la vie, l’œuvre (1889), and G. Druilhet, Un Poète français (1902).
COPPÉE, HENRY (1821–1895), American educationalist
and author, was born in Savannah, Georgia, on the 13th of
October 1821, of a French family formerly settled in Haiti.
He studied at Yale for two years, worked as a civil engineer,
graduated at West Point in 1845, served in the Mexican War as
a lieutenant and was breveted captain for gallantry at Contreras
and Churubusco, was professor of English at West Point from
1850 to 1855 (when he resigned from the army), was professor
of English literature and history in the University of Pennsylvania
1855–1866, and on the 1st of April 1866 was chosen first
president of Lehigh University. In 1875 he was succeeded by
John McD. Leavitt and became professor of history and English
literature, but was president pro tem. from the death of Robert
A. Lamberton (b. 1824) in September 1893 to his own death
in Bethlehem on the 22nd of March 1895. He published
elementary text-books of logic (1857), of rhetoric (1859), and of
English literature (1872); various manuals of drill; Grant, a
Military Biography (1866); General Thomas (1893), in the “Great Commanders” Series; History of the Conquest of Spain by the Arab-Moors (1881); and in 1862 a translation of Marmont’s Esprit des institutions militaires, besides editing the Comte de Paris’s Civil War in America.
COPPER (symbol Cu, atomic weight 63.1, H = 1, or 63.6,
O = 16), a metal which has been known to and used by the human
race from the most remote periods. Its alloy with tin (bronze)
was the first metallic compound in common use by mankind,
and so extensive and characteristic was its employment in prehistoric
times that the epoch is known as the Bronze Age. By
the Greeks and Romans both the metal and its alloys were
indifferently known as χαλκός and aes. As, according to Pliny,
the Roman supply was chiefly drawn from Cyprus, it came to be
termed aes cyprium, which was gradually shortened to cyprium,
and corrupted into cuprum, whence comes the English word
copper, the French cuivre, and the German Kupfer.
Copper is a brilliant metal of a peculiar red colour which assumes a pinkish or yellowish tinge on a freshly fractured surface of the pure metal, and is purplish when the metal contains cuprous oxide. Its specific gravity varies between 8.91 and 8.95, according to the treatment to which it may have been subjected; J. F. W. Hampe gives 8.945 (0°4°) for perfectly pure and compact copper. Ordinary commercial copper is somewhat porous and has a specific gravity ranging from 8.2 to 8.5. It takes a brilliant polish, is in a high degree malleable and ductile, and in tenacity it only falls short of iron, exceeding in that quality both silver and gold. By different authorities its melting-point is stated at from 1000° to 1200° C.; C. T. Heycock and F. H. Neville give 1080°.5; P. Dejean gives 1085° as the freezing-point. The molten metal is sea-green in colour, and at higher temperatures (in the electric arc) it vaporizes and burns with a green flame. G. W. A. Kahlbaum succeeded in subliming the metal in a vacuum, and H. Moissan (Compt. rend., 1905, 141, p. 853) distilled it in the electric furnace. Molten copper absorbs carbon monoxide, hydrogen and sulphur dioxide; it also appears to decompose hydrocarbons (methane, ethane), absorbing the hydrogen and the carbon separating out. These occluded gases are all liberated when the copper cools, and so give rise to porous castings, unless special precautions are taken. The gases are also expelled from the molten metal by lead, carbon dioxide, or water vapour. Its specific heat is 0.0899 at 0° C. and 0.0942 at 100°; the coefficient of linear expansion per 1° C. is 0.001869. In electric conductivity it stands next to silver; the conducting power of silver being equal to 100, that of perfectly pure copper is given by A. Matthiessen as 96.4 at 13° C.
Copper is not affected by exposure in dry air, but in a moist atmosphere, containing carbonic acid, it becomes coated with a green basic carbonate. When heated or rubbed it emits a peculiar disagreeable odour. Sulphuric and hydrochloric acids have little or no action upon it at ordinary temperatures, even when in a fine state of division; but on heating, copper sulphate and sulphur dioxide are formed in the first case, and cuprous chloride and hydrogen in the second. Concentrated nitric acid has also very little action, but with the dilute acid a vigorous action ensues. The first products of this reaction are copper nitrate and nitric oxide, but, as the concentration of the copper nitrate increases, nitrous oxide and, eventually, free nitrogen are liberated.
Many colloidal solutions of copper have been obtained. A reddish-brown solution is obtained from solutions of copper chloride, stannous chloride and an alkaline tartrate (Lottermoser, Anorganische Colloïde, 1901).
Occurrence.—Copper is widely distributed in nature, occurring in most soils, ferruginous mineral waters, and ores. It has been discovered in seaweed; in the blood of certain Cephalopoda and Ascidia as haemocyanin, a substance resembling the ferruginous
