Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume V.djvu/56

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page needs to be proofread.

52 COLES COLET to Southey. At the age of 19 she made an admirable English translation of Dobrizhoffer's " Account of the Abipones, an Equestrian People of Paraguay " (3 vols., 1822). In 1829 she married her cousin Henry Nelson Cole- ridge, and devoting herself to domestic duties, her next publication was entitled "Pretty Lessons for Little Children," which was pri- marily designed for her own children, but speedily passed through several editions. On the death of her father her husband was ap- pointed his literary executor, and she assisted in editing his works ; and after -the death of her husband she took upon herself the whole of the important duty. She edited alone the " Aids to Reflection," "Notes on Shakespeare and the Dramatists," and " Essays on his own Times ;" and the elaborate discourses on weighty matters which she affixed to these works manifest both her erudition and her crit- ical and logical ability. The beautiful romance of " Phantasmion " (1837) reveals also her imaginative faculty, and, though not in verse, is poetry from beginning to end. Yet in the annotations upon the writings of her father will be found the best evidence of her rare gifts and acquirements, and the chief founda- tion of her literary reputation. A memoir of her life, with selections from her letters, by her daughter, was published in 1873. COLES, a S. E. county of Illinois, intersected by Embarras river ; area, 550 sq. m. ; pop. in 1870, 25,235. The surface is diversified by forests and prairies; the soil is fertile. The Indianapolis and St. Louis railroad and the Chicago division of the Illinois Central pass through it. The chief productions in 1870 were 157,136 bushels of wheat, 2,133,111 of Indian corn, 315,954 of oats, 161,925 of pota- toes, 22,371 tons of hay, 260,409 Ibs. of butter, 59,017 of wool, and 50, 102 gallons of sorghum molasses. There were 9,397 horses, 5,448 milch cows, 11,364 other cattle, 20,546 sheep, and 33,619 swine; 8 flour mills, 10 saw mills, 1 brewery, 2 manufactories of boots and shoes, 1 of agricultural implements, 1 of bricks, 17 of carriages and wagons, 3 of furniture, 1 of iron castings, 4 of marble and stone work, 7 of sad- lery and harness, 5 of tin, copper, and sheet- iron ware, 2 of tobacco and snuff, and 2 of woollen goods. Capital, Charleston. COLES, Cowper Phipps, an English naval of- ficer, born in 1819, died at sea, Sept. 7, 1870. He entered the navy in 1831, and served with distinction on various stations, and particularly in the naval attack upon Sebastopol in October, 1854. He claimed to be the inventor of the system of revolving turrets for the protection of the guns in naval warfare. He says that the idea was suggested to him during the Crimean war, and that in 1855 he sent to the British admiralty drawings for an armored vessel of light draught, " the guns to be protected by a stationary hemispherical tower." No action was taken upon this suggestion. In March, 1859, he sent in other drawings in which this tower, or shield, was placed upon a turn-table, thus rendering it a revolving turret. In 1860 ap- peared in " Blackwood's Magazine " an article on this subject, with a drawing of such a tur- ret, with the mechanism for turning it by hand. But the invention had been previously set forth by John Ericsson in a, memorial to Na- poleon III. (1854), and still earlier by Theodore K. Timby, an American inventor, who made a small model of a revolving turret in 1838, filed a caveat in the patent office in 1841, and publicly exhibited a large model in 1843. (See IEON-CLAD SHIPS.) After the success of the experiment of the Monitor in 1862, however, Coles put forth a statement in which he says : " My plans were so exactly similar to that of the Monitor, that I think it will be apparent that this invention is of English origin, and I claim it." In 1864 the British government had a man-of-war, the Royal Sovereign, altered into a " shield " ship under the direction of Capt. Coles, and subsequently constructed sev- eral other turreted vessels. One of these was the Captain, an iron vessel, which foundered off Cape Finisterre, and of 540 persons on board only 17 were saved. Among those lost was Capt. Coles, who was a passenger. COLET, John, an English clergyman, born in London in 1466, died there, Sept. 16, 1519. He completed his education at Oxford, and afterward visited France and Italy. On re- turning to England he was ordained, delivered at Oxford free lectures on the epistles of St. Paul, and was successively appointed rector of Dennington in Suffolk, prebendary of York, canon of St. Martin's-le- Grand, London, and dean of St. Paul's. He was one of the first of the Anglican clergy who introduced the cus- tom of expounding the Scriptures on Sundays. This innovation caused Dr. Fitzjames to de- nounce him as a heretic, but the archbishop dismissed the complaint. In 1508 the dean conceived the idea of founding and endowing a school in which the children of the poor should receive a free education. This institu- tion was completed in 1512, and, from its con- nection with the cathedral, was denomina- ted the St. Paul's school. He wrote various philological and devotional works, the most important of which are his " Accidence," "Syntax," "Daily Devotions," and "Moni- tions to a Godly Life." COLET, Louise, a French poetess, born at Aix, Sept, 15, 1810, died in Nice in 1876. Her maiden name was Revoil, and she married in 1835 Hippolyte Colet of Nimes, a musical composer. Soon after her marriage she ac- companied her husband to Paris, where he became professor in the conservatory. ID 1837 she published a volume of poems, Fleurs du midi, which was criticised by Alphonse Karr with so much severity in Les Guepes, that the author attempted to stab him with a knife, and was subjected to some ridicule in consequence. She did not, however, abandon literature, but published various novels in the