made it as quickly to be forgotten. He wrote "Le nouveau Don Quichotte" in 1789, for the theatre de Monsieur; as the patent of this establishment was for the production of Italian compositions, the opera was pretended to be a translation, and the name "Zuccharelli" was fabricated for its author, by which even the Italians were deceived. In 1793 Champein obtained a small appointment in a government office, and from this time, though he wrote several works for the stage, nothing of his composition was produced in public. The political disturbances in France, at the period when he ceased to bring out his operas, overset the old institutions, and thus prevented Champein from receiving in his latter days any payment for the performance of his works. A pension was granted him by Napoleon, which he lost on the Restoration; and he suffered great privation until the commission of authors settled upon him an annuity of 1200 francs, and obtained for him a further grant from the civil list. This was but a short time before the close of his long life.—G. A. M.
CHAMPIER, Symphorien, called also Campegius, a French physician, born in 1472, and died in 1533. His early studies were prosecuted at Paris, and he subsequently studied medicine at Montpellier. He settled as a medical practitioner at Lyons. He entered the army as a medical man, and accompanied Louis XII. to Italy. He was rewarded for his services on the battle-field by being knighted. His success appeared to have elated him much, and he became anxious to claim a descent from some family of renown. He was severely lampooned by Scaliger for his vanity and conceit, and more particularly for his ignoble attempt to separate from his wife, whose family he found out to be unworthy of his high pretensions. His self-love was much exalted by subsequent honours conferred on him by the medical men at Padua. On his return to Lyons he became a councillor, and seems to have purposed the founding of a school of medicine in that city. He wrote numerous works on history and on medicine; among others, a "Hortus Gallicus, or an account of the native medicinal plants of France;" and "Campus Elysius Galliæ."—J. H. B.
CHAMPION, John G., a zealous botanist, was born at Edinburgh in May, 1815, and died at Scutari, 30th November, 1854. He gained his commission in the army at Sandhurst in 1831, and was appointed to the 95th regiment, with which he served uninterruptedly in various climes until his death, when he had attained the rank of major. He was engaged in the Crimean war, and behaved most gallantly at Alma and Inkermann. He had a great taste for natural history, and in his youth was fond of entomology. He continued to collect and examine objects of nature wherever he was located. Botany became a favourite pursuit. When at Ceylon, he was stimulated in this department of science by Gardner, the superintendent of the botanic garden. For three years he was stationed at Hong Kong, and he investigated thoroughly the entomology and botany of the island. A beautiful longicorn beetle discovered by him at Hong Kong has been called erythrus championi. He collected nearly five hundred species of plants at Hong Kong, exclusive of grasses and ferns. The whole collection is now in the herbarium at Kew. Some interesting plants, such as rhodoleia championi and rhododendron championæ, have been introduced by him to this country.—J. H. B.
CHAMPIONNET, Jean Etienne, a distinguished French general, was born in 1762. His services in suppressing the rising of the Girondists, and in the campaigns on the Rhine and in Flanders, especially at the battle of Fleurus, procured him rapid advancement. In 1798 he was appointed by the directory to the command of the army sent to occupy Rome. With a force of only 13,000 men he had to contend against an army of 60,000 Neapolitans, and was obliged to evacuate the city on the approach of General Mack, leaving a garrison, however, in the castle of St. Angelo. But, in a short space of time, the Neapolitan army underwent a succession of humiliating defeats. Mack was compelled to surrender, Rome was reoccupied by Championnet, Capua and Gaeta taken, and at length Naples itself was captured by him, 23rd January, 1799. He immediately took measures to pacify the mob, who were fiercely hostile, and to organize the Parthenopean republic, but he felt so much disgusted by the misconduct of the directory, that he refused to enforce their orders, and was in consequence arrested and put in prison at Grenoble. He regained his liberty on the revolution of the 30th Prairial, and the new members of the directory appointed him to the command of the army of the Alps, in the room of Joubert, immediately after the disastrous battle of Novi. He found the troops without ammunition, provisions, or money, pent up in a most difficult position, and greatly outnumbered by the enemy. The revolution of the 18th Brumaire speedily followed, and Championnet, whose principles were republican, disapproved of the coup d'etat of Bonaparte, and demanded and obtained his recall. He died in 1800.—J. T.
CHAMPLAIN, Samuel de, the founder of Quebec and governor of Canada, was born at Brouage in France, and died at Quebec in December, 1635. In the wars of the League he served under Henry IV., who granted him a pension. Having contracted, in the course of a voyage which he made to the West Indies, a taste for maritime adventure, he was induced by the governor of Dieppe to take the lead in an expedition which anchored in the St. Lawrence, May 24, 1603. In 1604, under De Mants, he explored the Bay of Fundy, formed a little settlement at St. Croix, went as far south as Cape Cod, and returned to France in 1607. Having once more obtained an outfit from some merchants at St. Malo and Dieppe, he again went to the St. Lawrence in 1608, and established a settlement at Quebec, a spot which he had selected in the former voyage as most suitable for the purpose. The fur trade soon caused a little town to spring up there, but it was not fortified till 1624. The next summer he joined an expedition of the Huron Indians against their enemies, the Iroquois, and passing up the river Richelieu, discovered and explored the great lake which bears his name. A series of explorations followed in several successive summers, extending far up the Ottawa, and to the western shore of Lake Huron. On these were founded the French claim to all those possessions in North America which were called New France. Having a robust frame and a pliable disposition, Champlain lived much among the Indians, made them his sole attendants in his voyages, and sometimes rowed his own boat alone up rivers where no white man had preceded him. He went to France in 1620, and brought out his family and a commission as governor of the new settlement. Eight years afterwards, an English expedition under Kirk passed up the river, and having first captured the French vessels which had been sent out with supplies, compelled Quebec, from the want of provisions, to surrender. Still undismayed, Champlain went to France in an English ship, and mainly through his exertions Canada and Acadie passed again to the French, by the treaty of St. Germains. He returned to Quebec in 1633, with the necessary supplies for placing the settlement, which had been temporarily abandoned, on a permanent footing. A college was founded at Quebec in 1635, with special reference to the instruction of Indian children; but Champlain did not live to witness its good effects. He was an able pioneer and governor, and deserves to be remembered as the father of New France. An account of his voyages was published by him in quarto in 1632, having appended to it a catechism in the Indian language, and a treatise on navigation.—F. B.
CHAMPOLLION, Jean François, an eminent orientalist, born at Figeac on the 26th of December, 1790; died at Paris on the 4th of March, 1832. Like many distinguished men devoted exclusively to study, the life of M. Champollion is merely the history of his intellectual progress. He commenced the study of the classic languages while very young; and so intense was his application, that he contracted a permanent defect of his left eye in consequence of his prolonged readings by candlelight. In addition to his philological training, his taste for antiquities was awakened by the example of his brother, who possessed an extensive collection of medals, and whose assistance was always at hand. Besides these advantages, he had the valuable endowment of a taste for drawing, which enabled him to write or copy oriental characters with facility and elegance. From the classics he passed to the study of the Semitic languages and biblical literature; and the young philologist gave proof of his zeal, if not of his proficiency, by writing a memoir, in which he endeavoured to prove that the giants mentioned in scripture were merely the powers of nature personified. It is but justice to state that in his maturer years he had the good sense to characterize this performance as the folly of his youth. From the Semitic languages the transition to Egyptian antiquities and Coptic literature was easy; and he now entered on the career which was to conduct him to eminence. When entering on this very difficult investigation, his point of departure was the assumption that the Coptic language, as preserved in the version of the
