CAPEFIGUE, Baptiste Honoré Raymond (1801- 1872), a French historian and biographer, was bora at Marseilles in 1801, At the age of twenty he left his native town in order to study law at Paris; but he soon deserted law for journalism. He became editor of the Quotidienne, and was afterwards connected, either as editor or leading contributor, with the Temps, the Measager des Chambres, the Revolution de 1848, and other papers. During the ascendency of the Bourbons he held a post in the Foreign Office, for which he was indebted to the royalism of some of his newspaper articles. Indeed all Capefigue s works receive their colour from his legitimist politics ; he preaches divine right and non-resistance, and tinds polite words for even the profligacy of Louis XV. and the worthlessness of his mistresses. His style bears evident marks of haste, and although he had access to an exceptionally large number of sources of information, including the state papers, inaccuracies are not infrequent. This is not surprising when we consider the astonishing number of his biographies and histories. The former include the lives of Catherine and Maria de Medici, Anne and Maria Theresa of Austria, Catherine II. of Russia, Elizabeth of England, Diana of Poitiers, and Agnes Sorel. The latter, besides histories of the Jews from the fall of the Maccabees to the author s time, of the first four centuries of the Christian church, and of European diplomatists, extend over the whole range of French history. As among the most important, and as illustrative of the extent of the field which he traversed, mention may be made of his histories of the Norman invasions, of the kings from Hugh Capet to Philip Augustus, of the constitution from Louis VIII. to Louis XL, of the Reformation and the League, of Louis XIV. and XV., of the restoration of the Bourbons, of the consulate and the empire, and of Louis XVI. He died at Paris in December 1872.
CAPEL, Arthur, Lord (c. 1600-1649), was the son of Sir Henry Capel. His birth year is not accurately known ; but it was about 1600. In 1610 he was chosen to represent the county of Hertford, and sat as a member of the Long Parliament, which was convened that year. He was elevated to the peerage by Charles I.; and on the break ing out of the revolutionary war he raised and maintained a troop in the royal interest, till the final triumph of the Parliamentarians compelled him to make peace with them. During the war he acted, together with Edward Hyde and Lord Colchester, as general in the west, and was concerned in important engagements at Bristol, Exeter, and Taunton. Having with noble devotion reassembled his troop in order to effect the rescue of Charles, he was forced by famine and sedition to surrender at Colchester to General Fairfax, and was condemned by the Commons to be banished ; but on the authority of some of the Parliamentary leaders he was immediately committed to the Tower. He contrived to eiFect his escape from prison, but was apprehended at Lambeth, and again committed to stand his trial at Westminster for treason. He was condemned to death, and was executed on the 9th of March 1649, exhibiting on the scaffold the greatest calmness and dignity. He was the author of Daily Observations or Meditations, a posthumous publication, which was afterwards reprinted under a difer- ent title, with an account of his life.
CAPELL, Edward (1713-1781), a well-known critic and annotator of Shakespeare, was born at Troston in Suffolk in 1713. Through the influence of the duke of Grafton he was early appointed to the office of deputy- inspector of plays, with a salary of 200 per annum. Shocked at the inaccuracies which had crept into Sir Thomas Hanmer s edition of Shakespsare, he projected an entirely new edition, to be carefully collated with the original copies. After spending three years in collecting and comparing a vast number of scarce folio and quarto editions, he published his own edition in 10 vols. 8vo, with an introduction, written in a style of extraordinary quaint- ness, which was afterwards appended to the prolegomena of Johnson s and Steevens s editions. The work was published at the expense of the principal booksellers of London, who gave him 300 for his labour. Three other volumes of Notes and Various Readings of Shakespeare, which he had announced in his introduction, under the title of The School of Shakespeare, were published under the editorial superintendence of Mr Collins, in 1783, two years after Capell s death. They contain the results of his unremitting labour for thirty years in collating the ancient MSS., and though utterly wanting in literary taste, throw considerable light on the history of the times of Shakespeare, as well as on the sources from which he derived his plots. Besides the works already specified, he published a volume of ancient poems called Prolusions, and an edition of Antony and Cleopatra adapted for the stage.
CAPELLA, Martianus Mineus Felix, author of a curious encyclopaedic work on the liberal arts, was born in the north of Africa, and flourished probably towards the beginning of the 5th century A.D. , or at least during the 4th century. There is, however, no direct evidence as to the exact epoch at which he lived, and the few reference3 to the author contained in the work itself are not sufficiently definite to admit of any certain conclusion being drawn. He appears to have been a solicitor by profession and in easy circumstances. His work, entitled Satyra de Nuptiis Philologies et Mercurii, is an elaborate allegory in nine books, written in a mixture of prose and verse. The style is heavy and involved, loaded with metaphor and bizarre expressions, and verbose to excess. The first two books contain the allegory proper, the marriage of Mercury to a nymph named Philologia. It is wrought out in great detail, but the original conception is not a happy one, and the execution is tasteless. The remaining seven books contain expositions of the seven liberal arts, which then comprehended all human knowledge. Book iii. treats of grammar, iv. of dialectics, v. of rhetoric, vi. of geometry, vii. of arithmetic, viii. of astronomy, ix. of music. These abstract discussions are linked on to the original allegory by the device of personifying each science as a courtier of Mercury and Philologia. The work was a complete encyc lopedia of the liberal culture of the time, and it was in high repute during the Middle Ages. There is much in teresting matter in it, and much erudition is displayed by the author, but the whole is executed in a clumsy, pedantic, and tasteless fashion.
A passage in book viii. has always attracted the attention of commentators, for it contains a very clear statement ot" the heliocentric system of astronomy. Many have supposed that Copernicus, who quotes Capella, may have received from this work some hints towards his own new system.
The editio princeps of Capella is that by Bodianus, 1449; the best of the older editions is that by Grotius, 1599; modern editions are those of Kopp, 1836, and Eysseuliardt, 1866. Eyssenhardt, ui vari ous contributions to the PJwinisclies Museum, Las done much for the text and explanation of Capella.
of the old law-books[1], as given by Pennant, the zoologist, who, on something more than mere report, first included this bird among the British Fauna, a word commonly derived from the Gaelic Capull, a horse (or, more properly, a mare), and Coille, a wood, but with greater likelihood,
according to the opinion of Dr M Lauchlan, from Cabher- ↑ The only one of the " Scots Acts," however, in*which the writer has been able to ascertain that the bird is named is !No. 30 of Janw-.a VI. (1621), which was passed to protect "powties, partnkes, inoore foulles, blakcoks, giay hennis, termigantis, quailzies, capercailzies, ko.
