Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume IV.djvu/212

204 CENTLIVRE CENTRAL AMERICA by their respiring air by means of tracheae, and from annelids by their jointed legs, and that they seem to be an osculant group, allied to annelids, insects, arachnida, and Crustacea ; they have urinary organs like insects, which Crustacea have not. Prof. Agassiz makes them the lowest order of the class of insects, the other orders being arachnids and insects proper. Newport traces the nervous system from the highest chilognatha, the most perfect of which are connected on the one hand with Crustacea and on the other with true insects, through the geophili (the lowest vermiform type of the chilopoda), to the tailed arachnida (the scorpion), and through scolopendra, litho- Jitw, and scutigera, the last of which connects the myriapoda on the one hand with true in- sects, and on the other with arachnida. The heart or dorsal vessel, as in insects and arach- nida, is divided into several compartments, corresponding in number to the abdominal segments. U!M l.l KK. SiiMinna. an English dramatic writer, born in 1667, died in London, Dec. 1, 1723. She was daughter of a Lincolnshire gentleman named Freeman. Left an orphan at the age of 13, and ill-used by those who had charge of her, she fled to London. At the age of 16 she was married to a nephew of Sir Stephen Fox. A year afterward she was a widow ; but her wit and beauty soon brought her another husband, an officer in the army, named Carrol. A year and a half after this second marriage her husband was killed in a duel, and she was obliged to depend upon her pen for support. Under the name of Carrol she published some poetry and a tragedy, "The Perjured Husband." She attempted but one more serious drama, but wrote several success- ful comedies, some of them before she was 19 years old. She also performed on the stage for a brief period, and in 1706, while she was playing in Lee's "Rival Queens" before the <ourt at Windsor, she won the heart of Joseph Centlivre, principal cook to Queen Anne, and married him. She was intimate with Steele, Sewell, Rove, Farquhar, and other men of note, and incurred the enmity of Pope, who exhibited his malice toward her in the earlier editions of the "Dunciad." She wrote 19 plays, all of them noted for the ingenuity of the plots and the vivacity of the dialogue ; but only three of them have kept the stage, " The Busy-Body," "A Bold Stroke for a Husband," and "The Wonder, a Woman Keeps a Secret." Her works, with a biography, were published in 1761 (3 vols. 12mo, London), and a fac- simile edition was published in 1872. CENTO (Latin, patchwork), a poem com- posed wholly of verses taken from one or more poets, but disposed in a new order so as to form a distinct work. The only classical ex- ample is the Cento Nuptiali? of Ausonius, formed out of Virgilian verses perverted into a new meaning. The empress Eudocia wrote the life of Jesus Christ in Homeric centos; Proba Falconia, under the emperor Honorius, wrote the same in verses extracted from Vir- gil. The same subject was treated in a Vir- gilian cento by Alexander Ross, a Scotch schoolmaster and poet, in his Virgilius Evan- gelizans, which was republished in 1769. The term cento is also applied to a medley, or a work composed of selections connected by ap- propriate passages. CENTRAL AMERICA, the narrow, tortuous strip of territory connecting North and South America, extending from about lat. 7 to 18 N., in length from 800 to 900 m., and varying in breadth from about 30 to about 300 m. It comprises five independent republics, Costa Rica, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, and San Salvador, with a united area of 175,000 %q. m., and a total population of 2,665,000. Through- out its entire length the country is traversed by a chain of mountains consisting of three groups: the Costa Rica, which traverses the republic of that name and the isthmus of Pa- nama, the Honduras and Nicaragua, and the Guatemala, with peaks from 3,000 to 11,000 ft. in height. The volcanoes Fuego and Agu.i are 13,000 or 14,000 ft. high. The inequality of the surface produces great variety in the climate and vegetable productions, the country producing the fruits and grains of Europe and America, and sugar cane, indigo, cochineal, tobacco, cotton, and all the fruits of the trop- ics. The zoology is similar to that of other American countries ; but Central America is remarkable for the variety and beauty of its humming birds, macaws, and the quezal, which has a brilliant plumage of emerald green. Large and dangerous serpents are numerous, and the country is infested with two species of locusts, one of which is particularly destruc- tive. The rivers and bayous abound in fish. The geology exhibits granite, gneiss, and mica slate as substrata, with an abundance of igneous rocks showing volcanic action. There are gold, silver, iron, lead, and mercury deposits, and the gold, silver, and iron mines are worked to some extent. Much salt is obtained both from springs and from the sea on the Pacific side. The people are divided into three classes, whites and Creoles, mestizos, or the offspring of whites and Indians, and the abo- riginal natives. The commerce is insignificant. The interest of the country centres mainly in its two or three practicable routes for interoce- anic canals between the Atlantic and Pacific. In 1502 Columbus visited the east coast ; in 1523 Cortes sent Pedro Alvarado to subdue the country, and in 1525 he completed the con- quest. It remained subject to Spain till 1821. In 1823 the colonies formed themselves into a federal republic of independent states; this arrangement continued till 1839, when the fed- eration was dissolved. Subsequent unions were effected and dissolved; and representatives of the five states met at La Union, San Salvador, Feb. 17, 1872, to consider the formation of a new confederation, but without result.