Tragedie (1604, pr. 1607, 1608, 1616, 1641, &c.), the scene of which is laid in the court of Henry III.; The Revenge of Bussy d’Ambois. A Tragedie (pr. 1613, but probably written much earlier); The Conspiracie, And Tragedie of Charles Duke of Byron. Marshall of France, ... in two plays (1607 and 1608; pr. 1608 and 1625); May-Day, A witty Comedie (pr. 1611; but probably acted as early as 1601); The widdowes Teares. A Comedie (pr. 1612; produced perhaps as early as 1605); Caesar and Pompey: A Roman Tragedy, declaring their warres. Out of whose events is evicted this Proposition. Only a just man is a freeman (pr. 1631), written, says Chapman in the dedication, “long since,” but never staged.
The Tragedy of Alphonsus Emperour of Germany (see the edition by Dr Karl Elye; Leipzig, 1867) and Revenge for Honour (1654)[1] both bear Chapman’s name on the title-page, but his authorship has been disputed. In The Ball (lic. 1632; pr. 1639), a comedy, and The Tragedie of Chabot Admirall of France (lic. 1635; pr. 1639) he collaborated with James Shirley. The memorable Masque of the two Honourable Houses or Inns of Court; the Middle Temple and Lyncoln’s Inne, was performed at court in 1613 in honour of the marriage of the Princess Elizabeth.
The Whole Works of Homer: Prince of Poets. In his Iliads and Odysseys . . . appeared in 1616, and about 1624 he added The Crowne of all Homers works Batrachomyomachia or the Battaile of Frogs and Mise. His Hymns and Epigrams. But the whole works had been already published by instalments. Seaven Bookes of the Iliades of Homer had appeared in 1598, Achilles Shield in the same year, books i.-xii. about 1609; in 1611 The Iliads of Homer, Prince of Poets . . .; and in 1614 Twenty-four Bookes of Homer’s Odisses were entered at Stationers’ Hall. In 1609 he addressed to Prince Henry Enthymiae Raptus; or the Teares of Peace, and on the death of his patron he contributed An Epicede, or Funerall Song (1612). A paraphrase of Petrarchs Seven Penitentiall Psalms (1612), a poem in honour of the marriage of Robert Carr, earl of Somerset, and Frances, the divorced countess of Essex, indiscreetly entitled Andromeda Liberata . . . (1614), a translation of The Georgicks of Hesiod (1618), Pro Vere Autumni Lachrymae (1622), in honour of Sir Horatio Vere, A justification of a Strange Action of Nero . . . also . . . the fifth Satyre of Juvenall (1629), and Eugenia ... (1614), an elegy on Sir William Russell, complete the list of his separately published works.
Chapman’s Homer was edited in 1857 by the Rev. Richard Hooper; and a reprint of his dramatic works appeared in 1873. The standard edition of Chapman is the Works, edited by R. H. Shepherd (1874–1875), the third volume of which contains an “Essay on the Poetical and Dramatic works of George Chapman,” by Mr Swinburne, printed separately in 1875. The selection of his plays (1895) for the Mermaid Series is edited by Mr W. L. Phelps. For the sources of the plays see Emil Koeppel, “Anellen Studien zu den Dramen George Chapman's, Philip Massinger’s und John Ford’s” in Quellen und Forschungen zur Sprach und Kulturgeschichte (vol. 82, Strassburg, 1897). The suggestion of W. Minto (see Characteristics of the English Poets, 1885) that Chapman was the “rival poet” of Shakespeare’s sonnets is amplified in Mr A. Acheson’s Shakespeare and the Rival Poet (1903). Much satire in Chapman’s introduction is there applied to Shakespeare. For other criticisms of his translation of Homer see Matthew Arnold, Lectures on translating Homer (1861), and Dr A. Lohff, George Chapman’s Ilias-Übersetzung (Berlin, 1903). (M. Br.)
CHAPMAN (from O. Eng. céap, and Mid. Eng. cheap, to barter, cf. “Cheapside” in London, and Ger. Kaufmann), one who buys or sells, a trader or dealer, especially an itinerant pedlar. The word “chap,” now a slang term, meant originally a customer.
CHAPONE, HESTER (1727–1801), English essayist, daughter of Thomas Mulso, a country gentleman, was born at Twywell, Northamptonshire, on the 27th of October 1727. She was a precocious child, and at the age of nine wrote a romance entitled The Loves of Amoret and Melissa. Hecky Mulso, as she was familiarly called, developed a beautiful voice, which earned her the name of “the linnet.” While on a visit to Canterbury she made the acquaintance of the learned Mrs Elizabeth Carter, and soon became one of the admirers of the novelist Samuel Richardson. She was one of the little court of women who gathered at North End, Fulham; and in Miss Susannah Highmore’s sketch of the novelist reading Sir Charles Grandison to his friends Miss Mulso is the central figure. She corresponded with Richardson on “filial obedience” in letters as long as his own, signing herself his “ever obliged and affectionate child.” She admired, however, with discrimination, and in the words of her biographer (Posthumous Works, 1807, p. 9) “her letters show with what dignity, tempered with proper humility, she could maintain her own well-grounded opinion.” In 1760 Miss Mulso, with her father’s reluctant consent, married the attorney, John Chapone, who had been befriended by Richardson. Her husband died within a year of her marriage. Mrs Chapone remained in London visiting various friends. She had already made small contributions to various periodicals when she published, in 1772, her best known work, Letters on the Improvement of the Mind. This book brought her numerous requests from distinguished persons to undertake the education of their children. She died on the 25th of December 1801.
See The Posthumous Works of Mrs Chapone, containing her correspondence with Mr Richardson; a series of letters to Mrs Elizabeth Carter ... together with an account of her life and character drawn up by her own family (1807).
CHAPPE, CLAUDE (1763–1805), French engineer, was born at Brûlon (Sarthe) in 1763. He was the inventor of an optical telegraph which was widely used in France until it was superseded by the electric telegraph. His device consisted of an upright post, on the top of which was fastened a transverse bar, while at the ends of the latter two smaller arms moved on pivots. The position of these bars represented words or letters; and by means of machines placed at intervals such that each was distinctly visible from the next, messages could be conveyed through 50 leagues in a quarter of an hour. The machine was adopted by the Legislative Assembly in 1792, and in the following year Chappe was appointed ingénieur-télégraphe; but the originality of his invention was so much questioned that he was seized with melancholia and (it is said) committed suicide at Paris in 1805.
His elder brother, Ignace Urbain Jean Chappe (1760–1829), took part in the invention of the telegraph, and with a younger brother, Pierre François, from 1805 to 1823 was administrator of the telegraphs, a post which was also held by two other brothers, René and Abraham, from 1823 to 1830. Ignace was the author of a Histoire de la télégraphie (1824). An uncle, Jean Chappe d’Auteroche (1728–1769), was an astronomer who observed two transits of Venus, one in Siberia in 1761, and the other in 1769 in California, where he died.
CHAPPELL, WILLIAM (1809–1888), English writer on music, a member of the London musical firm of Chappell & Co., was born on the 20th of November 1809, eldest son of Samuel Chappell (d. 1834), who founded the business. William Chappell is particularly noteworthy for his starting the Musical Antiquarian Society in 1840, and his publication of the standard work Popular Music of the Olden Time (1855–1859)—an expansion of a collection of “national English airs” made by him in 1838–1840. The modern revival of interest in English folk-songs owes much to this work, which has since been re-edited by Professor H. E. Wooldridge (1893). W. Chappell died on the 20th of August 1888. His brother, Thomas Patey Chappell (d. 1902), meanwhile had largely extended the publishing business, and had started (1859) the Monday and Saturday Popular Concerts at St James’s Hall, which were successfully managed by a younger brother, S. Arthur Chappell, till they came to an end towards the close of the century.
CHAPRA, or Chupra, a town of British India, the administrative headquarters of Saran district in Bengal, near the left bank of the river Gogra, just above its confluence with the Ganges; with a railway station on the Bengal & North-Western line towards Oudh. Pop. (1901) 45,901, showing a decrease of 21% in the decade. There are a government high school, a German Lutheran mission, and a public library endowed by a former maharaja of Hatwa. Chapra is the centre of trade in indigo and saltpetre, and conducts a large business by water as well as by rail.
CHAPTAL, JEAN ANTOINE CLAUDE, Comte de Chante-loup (1756–1832), French chemist and statesman, was born at Nogaret, Lozère, on the 4th of June 1756. The son of an apothecary, he studied chemistry at Montpellier, obtaining his doctor’s diploma in 1777, when he repaired to Paris. In 1781 the States of Languedoc founded a chair of chemistry for him at the school of medicine in Montpellier, where he taught the doctrines of Lavoisier. The capital he acquired by the death of a wealthy uncle he employed in the establishment of chemical
- ↑ This play appears to have been issued in 1653 with the title The Parracide, or Revenge for Honour as the work of Henry Glathorne.
