Chapter 11

1See G. Schiaparelli,Astronomy in the Old Testament(1905).2For other values of the interval between the summer solstice and the rising of Sirius, see Smith’sDict. of Greek and Roman Antiquities.3See Thomas Barker,Phil. Trans., 1760, 51, p. 498, for quotations from classical authors; also T.J.J. See,Astronomy and Astrophysics. vol. xi. p. 269.

1See G. Schiaparelli,Astronomy in the Old Testament(1905).

2For other values of the interval between the summer solstice and the rising of Sirius, see Smith’sDict. of Greek and Roman Antiquities.

3See Thomas Barker,Phil. Trans., 1760, 51, p. 498, for quotations from classical authors; also T.J.J. See,Astronomy and Astrophysics. vol. xi. p. 269.

CANITZ, FRIEDRICH RUDOLF LUDWIG,Freiherr Von(1654-1699), German poet and diplomatist, was born at Berlin on the 27th of November 1654. He attended the universities of Leiden and Leipzig, travelled in England, France, Italy and Holland, and on his return was appointed groom of the bedchamber (Kammerjunker) to the elector Frederick William of Brandenburg, whom he accompanied on his campaigns in Pomerania and Sweden. In 1680 he became councillor of legation, and he was employed on various embassies. In 1697 the elector Frederick III. made him a privy councillor, and the emperor Leopold I. created him a baron of the Empire. Having fallen ill on an embassy to the Hague, he obtained his discharge and died at Berlin in 1699. Canitz’s poems (Nebenstunden unterschiedener Gedichte), which did not appear until after his death (1700), are for the most part dry and stilted imitations of French and Latin models, but they formed a healthycontrast to the coarseness and bombast of the later Silesian poets.

A complete edition of Canitz’s poems was published by U. König in 1727; see also L. Fulda,Die Gegner der zweiten schlesischen Schule, ii. (1883).

CAÑIZARES, JOSÉ DE(1676-1750), Spanish dramatist, was born at Madrid on the 4th of July 1676, entered the army, and retired with the rank of captain in 1702 to act as censor of the Madrid theatres and steward to the duke of Osuna. In his fourteenth year Cañizares recast a play by Lope de Vega under the title ofLas Cuentas del Gran Capitán, and he speedily became a fashionable playwright. His originality, however, is slight, andEl Dómine Lucas, the only one of his pieces that is still read, is an adaptation from Lope de Vega. Cañizares produced a version of Racine’sIphigénieshortly before 1716, and is to some extent responsible for the destruction of the old Spanish drama. He died on the 4th of September 1750, at Madrid.

CANNAE(mod.Canne), an ancient village of Apulia, near the river Aufidus, situated on a hill on the right bank, 6 m. S.W. from its mouth. It is celebrated for the disastrous defeat which the Romans received there from Hannibal in 216b.c.(seePunic Wars). There is a considerable controversy as to whether the battle took place on the right or the left bank of the river. In later times the place became amunicipium, and unimportant Roman remains still exist upon the hill known as Monte di Canne. In the middle ages it became a bishopric, but was destroyed in 1276.

See O. Schwab,Das Schlachtfeld von Canna(Munich, 1898), and authorities underPunic Wars.

CANNANORE,orKananore, a town of British India, in the Malabar district of Madras, on the coast, 58 m. N. from Calicut and 470 m. by rail from Madras. Pop. (1901) 27,811. Cannanore belonged to the Kalahasti or Cherakal rajas till the invasion of Malabar by Hyder Ali. In 1498 it was visited by Vasco da Gama; in 1501 a Portuguese factory was planted here by Cabral; in 1502 da Gama made a treaty with the raja, and in 1505 a fort was built. In 1656 the Dutch effected a settlement and built the present fort, which they sold to Ali Raja in 1771. In 1783 Cannanore was captured by the British, and the reigning princess became tributary to the East India Company. Here is the residence of the Moplah chief, known as the Ali Raja, who owns most of the Laccadive Islands. Cannanore was the military headquarters of the British on the west coast until 1887.

CANNES,a seaport of France, in the department of the Alpes Maritimes, on the Mediterranean, 19 m. S.W. of Nice and 120 m. E. of Marseilles by rail. Pop.(1906) 24,531. It enjoys a southern exposure on a seaward slope, and is defended from the northern winds by ranges of hills. Previous to 1831, when it first attracted the attention of Lord Brougham, it mainly consisted of the old quarter (named Sucquet), and had little to show except an ancient castle, and a church on the top of Mont Chevalier, dedicated in 1603 to Notre Dame du Mont Espérance; but since that period it has become a large and important town, and is now one of the most fashionable winter resorts in the south of France, much frequented by English visitors, the Americans preferring Nice. The neighbourhood is thickly studded with magnificent villas, which are solidly built of a stone so soft that it is sawn and not hewn. There is an excellent quay, and a beautiful promenade runs along the beach; and numerous sheltered roads stretch up the valleys amidst groves of olive trees. On the north the modern town climbs up to Le Cannet (2 m.), while on the east it practically extends along the coast to Golfe Jouan (3½ m.), where Napoleon landed on the 1st of March 1815, on his return from Elba. From Cannes a railway runs north in 12½ m. to Grasse. On the top of the hill behind the town are a Roman Catholic and a Protestant cemetery. In the most prominent part of the latter is the grave of Lord Brougham, distinguished by a massive stone cross standing on a double basement, with the simple inscription—“Henricus Brougham, Natus MDCCLXXVIII., Decessit MDCCCLXVIII.”; and in the immediate vicinity lies James, fourth duke of Montrose, who died December 1874. The country around is very beautiful and highly fertile; orange and lemon trees are cultivated like peach trees in England, while olives, almonds, figs, peaches, grapes and other fruits are grown in abundance, and, along with the produce of the fisheries, form the chief exports of the town. Essences of various kinds are manufactured, and flowers are extensively cultivated for the perfumers. The climate of Cannes has been the subject of a considerable variety of opinion,—the preponderance being, however, in its favour. According to Dr de Valcourt, it is remarkable by reason of the elevation and regularity of the temperature during the height of the day, the clearness of the atmosphere and abundance of light, the rarity of rain and the absence of fogs.

Cannes is a place of great antiquity, but its earlier history is very obscure. It was twice destroyed by the Saracens in the 8th and the 10th centuries; but it was afterwards repeopled by a colony from Genoa. Opposite the town is the island of Ste Marguerite (one of the Lérins), in the citadel of which the Man with the Iron Mask was confined from 1686 to 1698, and which acquired notoriety as the prison whence Marshal Bazaine escaped in August 1874. On the other chief island (St Honorat) of the Lérins is the famous monastery (5th century to 1788), in connexion with which grew up the school of Lérins, which had a wide influence upon piety and literature in the 5th and 6th centuries.

See L. Alliez,Histoire du monastère de Lérins(2 vols., Paris, 1862); andLes Îles de Lérins, Cannes, et les rivages environnants(Paris, 1860);Cartulaire du monastère de Lérins(2 vols., Paris, 1883 and 1905); de Valcourt,Cannes and its Climate(London, 1873); Joanne, specialGuide to Cannes; J.R. Green, essay on Cannes and St Honorat, in the first series of hisStray Studies(1st ed., 1876); A. Cooper-Marsdin,The School of Lérins(Rochester, 1905).

(W. A. B. C.)

CANNIBALISM,the eating of human flesh by men (from a Latinized form of Carib, the name of a tribe of South America, formerly found also in the West Indies), also called “anthropophagy” (Gr.ἄνθρωπος, man, andφαγεῖν, to eat). Evidence has been adduced from some of the palaeolithic cave-dwellings in France to show that the inhabitants practised cannibalism, at least occasionally. From Herodotus, Strabo and others we hear of peoples like the Scythian Massagetae, a nomad race north-east of the Caspian Sea, who killed old people and ate them. In the middle ages reports, some of them probably untrustworthy, by Marco Polo and others, attributed cannibalism to the wild tribes of China, the Tibetans, &c. In our own days cannibalism prevails, or prevailed until recently, over a great part of West and Central Africa, New Guinea, Melanesia (especially Fiji) and Australia. New Zealand and the Polynesian Islands were great centres of the practice. It is extensively practised by the Battas of Sumatra and in other East Indian islands and in South America; in earlier days it was a common feature of Indian wars in North America. Sporadic cannibalism occurs among more civilized peoples as a result of necessity or as a manifestation of disease (seeLycanthropy).

Classification.—Cannibalistic practices may be classified from two points of view: (1) the motives of the act; (2) the ceremonial regulations. A third division of subordinate importance is also possible, if we consider whether the victims are actually killed for food or whether only such are eaten as have met their death in battle or other ways.

1. From a psychological point of view the term cannibalism groups together a number of customs, whose only bond of union is that they all involve eating of human flesh. (a) Food cannibalism, where the object is the satisfaction of hunger, may occur sporadically as a result of real necessity or may be kept up for the simple gratification of a taste for human flesh in the absence of any lack of food in general or even of animal food, (i.) Cannibalism from necessity is found not only among the lower races, such as the Fuegians or Red Indian tribes, but also among civilized races, as the records of sieges and shipwrecks show. (ii.) Simple food cannibalism is common in Africa; the Niam-Niam and Monbuttu carry on wars for the sake of obtaining human flesh; in West Africa human flesh could formerly be seen exposed for sale in the market like any other article of commerce; and among some tribes it is the practice to sell the corpses of dead relatives for consumption as food. (b) Incurious contrast to this latter custom is the practice of devouring dead kinsfolk as the most respectful method of disposing of their remains. In a small number of cases this practice is combined with the custom of killing the old and sick, but in the great majority of peoples it is simply a form of burial; it seems to prevail in most parts of Australia, many parts of Melanesia, Africa and South America, and less frequently in other parts of the world. To this group belong the customs described by Herodotus; we may perhaps regard as a variant form the custom of using the skull of a dead man as a drinking-cup. This practice is widely found, and the statement of Herodotus that the skull was set in gold and preserved by the Issedones may point in this direction; from the account given of the Tibetans some seven hundred years ago by William of Ruysbruck (Rubruquis) it appears that they had given up cannibalism but still preserved the use of the skull as a drinking vessel. Another modification of an original ritual cannibalism is the custom of drinking the ashes of the dead, which is practised by some African and South American tribes. The custom of holding burial feasts has also been traced to the same origin. More incomprehensible to the European than any other form of cannibalism is the custom of partaking of the products of putrefaction as they run down from the body. The Australians smoke-dry the bodies of tribesmen; here, too, it is the custom to consume the portions of the body which are rendered liquid by the heat. (c) The ritual cannibalism just mentioned shades over into and may have been originally derived from magical cannibalism, of which three sub-species may be distinguished. (i.) Savages are accustomed, on the one hand, to abstain from certain foods in order that they may not acquire certain qualities; on the other hand other foods are eagerly desired in order that they may by partaking of the flesh also come to partake of the mental or bodily peculiarities of the man or animal from which the meat is derived; thus, after the birth of a child, especially the first-born, the parents are frequently forbidden the flesh of slow-moving animals, because that would prevent the child from learning to walk; conversely, eating the heart of a lion is recommended for a warrior to make him brave; from this point of view therefore we readily understand the motives which lead to the eating of those slain in battle, both friends and foes. (ii.) We may term protective an entirely different kind of magical cannibalism, which consists in the consumption of a small portion of the body of a murdered man, in order that his ghost may not trouble the murderer; according to Hans Egède, the Eskimo, when they kill a witch, eat a portion of her heart, that she may not haunt them. (iii.) The practice is also said to have the effect of causing the relatives of the murdered man to lose heart or to prevent them from exercising the right of revenge; in this case it may be brought into relation with the ceremony of the blood covenant in one of the forms of which the parties drink each other’s blood; or, it may point to a reminiscence of a ritual eating of the dead kinsman. The late survival of this idea in Europe is attested by its mention by Dante in thePurgatorio. (d) The custom of eating food offered to the gods is widespread, and we may trace to this origin Mexican cannibalism, perhaps, too, that of Fiji. The Aztec worship of the god of war, Huitzilopochtli, led to the sacrifice of prisoners, and the custom of sacrifice to their frequent wars. The priest took out the heart, offered it to the sun, and then went through the ceremonies of feeding the idol with the heart and blood; finally the bodies of the victims were consumed by the worshippers. (e) We reach an entirely different set of motives in penal and revenge cannibalism. For the origin of these ideas we may perhaps look to that of protective magic, dealt with above; but it seems possible that there is also some idea of influencing the lot of the criminal in a future life; it may be noted that the whole of the body is seldom eaten in protective cannibalism; among the Battas, however, the criminal, and in parts of Africa the debtor, are entirely consumed. Other cases, especially where the victim is an enemy, may be due to mere fury and bravado. (f) In the west of North America a peculiar kind of cannibalism is found, which is confined to a certain body of magicians termed “Hametzen” and a necessary condition of admission to their order. Another kind of initiatory cannibalism prevailed in the south of Australia, where a magician had to eat a portion of a child’s body before he was admitted. The meaning of these ceremonials is not clear.

2. Most kinds of cannibalism are hedged round with ceremonial regulations. Certain tribes, as we have seen above, go to war to provide human flesh; in other cases it is only the nearest relatives who may not partake of a body; in other cases again it is precisely the nearest relatives on whom the duty falls. A curious regulation in south-east New Guinea prescribes that the killer of the victim shall not partake in the feast; in some cases the whole of the clan to which belonged the man for whom revenge is taken abstains also; in other cases this clan, together with any others of the same intermarrying group, takes part in the feast to the exclusion of (a) the clan or group with which they intermarry and (b) all outside clans. Some peoples forbid women to eat human flesh; in others certain classes, as the Muri of the Bambala, a tribe in the Kassai, may be forbidden to eat it. In Mindanao the only person who might eat of a slain enemy was the priest who led the warriors, and he was not permitted to escape this duty. In Grand Bassam all who had taken part in a festival at the foundation of a new village were compelled to eat of the human victim. But the variations are too numerous for any general account to be given of ceremonial limitations. S.R. Steinmetz has proposed a division into endo- and exo-cannibalism; but these divisions are frequently of minor importance, and he has failed to define satisfactorily the limits of the groups on which his classification is based.

Origin.—It will probably never be possible to say how cannibalism originated; in fact the multiplicity of forms and the diversity of ceremonial rules—some prescribing that tribesmen shall on no account be eaten, others that the bodies of none but tribesmen shall provide the meal of human flesh—point to a multiple origin. It has been maintained that the various forms of endo-cannibalism (eating of tribesmen) spring from an original practice of food cannibalism which the human race has in common with many animals; but this leaves unexplainedinter aliathe limitation of the right of participation in the funeral meal to the relatives of the dead man; at the same time it is possible to argue that the magical ideas now associated with cannibalism are of later growth. Against the view put forward by Steinmetz it may be urged that we have other instances of magical foods, such as the eating of a lion’s heart, which do not point to an original custom of eating the animal as food. We shall probably be justified in referring all forms of endo-cannibalism to a ritual origin; otherwise the limitation is inexplicable; on the other hand exo-cannibalism, in some of its forms, and much of the extension of endo-cannibalism must be referred to a desire for human flesh, grown into a passion.

Bibliography.—Steinmetz, inMitt. Anthrop. Ges. Wien, N.F. xvi.; Andree,Die Anthropophagie; Bergmann,Die Verbreitung der Anthropophagie; Schneider,Die Naturvölker, i. 121-200; Schaffhausen,Anthropologische Studien, Internat. Archiviii. 69-73; xii. 78; E.S. Hartland,Legend of Perseus, vol. ii.;Dictionnaire des sci. méd., s.v.“Anthropophagie”; Dr Seligmann inReports of the Cook-Daniels Expedition to New Guinea.

(N. W. T.)

CANNING, CHARLES JOHN,Earl(1812-1862), English statesman, governor-general of India during the Mutiny of 1857, was the youngest child of George Canning, and was born at Brompton, near London, on the 14th of December 1812. He was educated at Christ Church, Oxford, where he graduated B.A. in 1833, as first class in classics and second class in mathematics. In 1836 he entered parliament, being returned as member for the town of Warwick in the Conservative interest. He did not, however, sit long in the House of Commons; for, on the death of his mother in 1837, he succeeded to the peerage which had been conferred on her with remainder to her only surviving son, and as Viscount Canning took his seat in the House of Lords. His first official appointment was that of under-secretary of state for foreign affairs, in the administration formed by Sir Robert Peel in 1841—his chief being the earl of Aberdeen. This post he held till January 1846; and from January to July of that year, when the Peel administration was broken up,Lord Canning filled the post of commissioner of woods and forests. He declined to accept office under the earl of Derby; but on the formation of the coalition ministry under the earl of Aberdeen in January 1853, he received the appointment of postmaster-general. In this office he showed not only a large capacity for hard work, but also general administrative ability and much zeal for the improvement of the service. He retained his post under Lord Palmerston’s ministry until July 1855, when, in consequence of the death of Lord Dalhousie and a vacancy in the governor-generalship of India, he was selected by Lord Palmerston to succeed to that great position. This appointment appears to have been made rather on the ground of his father’s great services than from any proof as yet given of special personal fitness on the part of Lord Canning. The new governor sailed from England in December 1855, and entered upon the duties of his office in India at the close of February 1856. His strong common sense and sound practical judgment led him to adopt a policy of conciliation towards the native princes, and to promote measures tending to the betterment of the condition of the people.

In the year following his accession to office the deep-seated discontent of the people broke out in the Indian Mutiny (q.v.). Fears were entertained, and even the friends of the viceroy to some extent shared them, that he was not equal to the crisis. But the fears proved groundless. He had a clear eye for the gravity of the situation, a calm judgment, and a prompt, swift hand to do what was really necessary. By the union of great moral qualities with high, though not the highest, intellectual faculties, he carried the Indian empire safely through the stress of the storm, and, what was perhaps a harder task still, he dealt wisely with the enormous difficulties arising at the close of such a war, established a more liberal policy and a sounder financial system, and left the people more contented than they were before. The name of “Clemency Canning,” which was applied to him during the heated animosities of the moment, has since become a title of honour.

While rebellion was raging in Oudh he issued a proclamation declaring the lands of the province forfeited; and this step gave rise to much angry controversy. A “secret despatch,” couched in arrogant and offensive terms, was addressed to the viceroy by Lord Ellenborough, then a member of the Derby administration, which would have justified the viceroy in immediately resigning. But from a strong sense of duty he continued at his post; and ere long the general condemnation of the despatch was so strong that the writer felt it necessary to retire from office. Lord Canning replied to the despatch, calmly and in a statesman-like manner explaining and vindicating his censured policy. In April 1859 he received the thanks of both Houses of Parliament for his great services during the mutiny. He was also made an extra civil grand cross of the order of the Bath, and in May of the same year he was raised to the dignity of an earl. By the strain of anxiety and hard work his health and strength were seriously impaired, while the death of his wife was also a great shock to him; in the hope that rest in his native land might restore him, he left India, reaching England in April 1862. But it was too late. He died in London on the 17th of June following. About a month before his death he was created K.G. As he died without issue the title became extinct.

See Sir H.S. Cunningham,Earl Canning(“Rulers of India” series), 1891; and A.J.C. Hare,The Story of Two Noble Lilies(1893).

CANNING, GEORGE(1770-1827), British statesman, was born in London on the 11th of April 1770. The family was of English origin and had been settled at Bishop’s Canynge in Wiltshire. In 1618 a George Canning, son of Richard Canning of Foxcote in Warwickshire, received a grant of the manor of Garvagh in Londonderry, Ireland, from King James I. The father of the statesman, also named George, was the eldest son of Mr Stratford Canning, of Garvagh. He quarrelled with and was disowned by his family. He came to London and led a struggling life, partly in trade and partly in literature. In May 1768 he married Mary Annie Costello, and he died on the 11th of April 1771, exactly one year after the birth of his son. Mrs Canning, who was left destitute, received no help from her husband’s family, and went on the stage, where she was not successful. She married a dissolute and brutal actor of the name of Reddish. Her son owed his escape from the miseries of her household to another member of the company, Moody, who wrote to Mr Stratford Canning, a merchant in London and younger brother of the elder George Canning. Moody represented to Mr Stratford Canning that the boy, although full of promise, was on the high road to the gallows under the evil influence of Reddish. Mr Stratford Canning exerted himself on behalf of his nephew. An estate of the value of £200 a year was settled on the boy, and he was sent in succession to a private school at Hyde Abbey near Winchester, to Eton in 1781, and to Christchurch, Oxford, in 1787. After leaving Eton and before going to Oxford, he was entered as a student at Lincoln’s Inn. At Eton he edited the school magazine,The Microcosm, and at Oxford he took the leading part in the formation of a debating society. He made many friends, and his reputation was already so high that Sheridan referred to him in the House of Commons as a rising hope of the Whigs. According to Lord Holland, he had been noted at Oxford as a furious Jacobin and hater of the aristocracy. In 1792 he came to London to read for the bar. He had taken his B.A. in 1791 and proceeded M.A. on the 6th of July 1794.

Soon after coming to London he became acquainted with Pitt in some uncertain way. The hatred of the aristocracy, for which Lord Holland says he was noted at Oxford, would naturally deter an ambitious young man with his way to make in the world, and with no fixed principles, from attaching his fortune to the Whigs. Canning had the glaring examples of Burke and Sheridan himself to show him that the great “revolution families”—Cavendishes, Russells, Bentincks—who controlled the Whig party, would never allow any man, however able, who did not belong to their connexion, to rise to the first rank. He therefore took his place among the followers of Pitt. It is, however, only fair to note that he always regarded Pitt with strong personal affection, and that he may very naturally have been influenced, as multitudes of other Englishmen were, by the rapid development of the French Revolution from a reforming to an aggressive and conquering force. In a letter to his friend Lord Boringdon (John Parker, afterwards earl of Morley), dated the 13th of December 1792, he explicitly states that this was the case. Enlightened self-interest was doubtless combined with honest conviction in ranking him among the followers of Pitt. By the help of the prime minister he entered parliament for the borough of Newtown in the Isle of Wight in July 1793. His maiden speech, on the subvention to the king of Sardinia, was made on the 31st of January 1794. It is by some said to have been a failure, but he satisfied himself, and he soon established his place as the most brilliant speaker on the ministerial side. It may be most conveniently noted here, that his political patrons exerted themselves to provide for his private as well as his official prosperity. Their favour helped him to make a lucrative marriage with Miss Joan Scott, who had a fortune of £100,000, on the 8th of July 1800. The marriage was a very happy one, though the bulk of the fortune was worn away in the expenses of public and social life. Mrs Canning, who survived her husband for ten years, was created a viscountess in 1828. Four children were born of the marriage—a son who died in his father’s lifetime, and was lamented by him in very touching verse; another a captain in the navy, drowned at Madeira in 1827; a third son, Charles (q.v.), afterwards created Earl Canning; and a daughter Harriet, who married the marquess of Clanricarde in 1825.

The public life of Canning may be divided into four stages. From 1793 to 1801 he was the devoted follower of Pitt, was in minor though important office, and was the wittiest of the defenders of the ministry in parliament and in the press. From 1801 to 1809 he was partly in opposition, partly in office, fighting for the foremost place. Between 1809 and 1822 there was a period of comparative eclipse, during which he was indeed at times in office, but in lesser places than he would have beenprepared to accept between 1804 and 1809, and was regarded with general distrust. From 1822 till his death in 1827 he was the most powerful influence in English, and one of the most powerful in European, politics.

In the spring of 1796 he was appointed under-secretary for the foreign office, and in the election of that year he was returned for Wendover. He was also appointed receiver-general of the alienation office, a sinecure post which brought him £700 a year. His position as under-secretary brought him into close relations with Pitt and the foreign secretary, Lord Grenville (q.v.). During the negotiations for peace at Lille (1797), Canning was actively concerned in the devices which were employed by Pitt and Grenville to keep the real character of the discussion secret from other members of the cabinet. Canning had a taste for mystery and disguises, which he had shown at Oxford, and which did much to gain him his unfortunate reputation for trickery. From the 20th of November 1797, till the 9th of July 1798, he was one of the most active, and was certainly the most witty of the contributors to theAnti-Jacobin, a weekly paper started to ridicule the frothy philanthropic and eleutheromaniac rant of the French republicans, and to denounce their brutal rapacity and cruelty. But Canning’s position as under-secretary was not wholly pleasant to him. He disliked his immediate chief Grenville, one of the Whigs who joined Pitt, and a man of thoroughly Whiggish aristocratic insolence. In 1799 he left the foreign office and was named one of the twelve commissioners for India, and in 1800 joint paymaster of the forces, a post which he held till the retirement of Pitt in 1801.

During these years of subordinate activity Canning had established his position as an orator and a wit. His oratory cannot be estimated with absolute confidence. Speeches were then badly reported. The text of his own, published by Therry (6 volumes, London, 1828), were revised by himself, and not for the better. Though his favourite author was Dryden, whose prose is uniformly manly and simple, and though he had a keen eye for faults of taste in the style of others, Canning had himself a leaning to preciosity and tinsel. His wit was, and remains, above all question. In public life it did him some harm in the opinion of serious people, who could not believe that so jocose a politician had solid capacity. It exasperated opponents, some of whom, notably Peter Pindar (seeWolcot, John), retaliated by brutal personalities. Canning was constantly reminded that his mother was a strolling actress, and was accused of foisting his pauper family on the public funds. The accusation was perfectly untrue, but this style of political controversy was common, and was adopted by Canning. He put himself on a level with Peter Pindar when he assailed Pitt’s successor Addington (seeSidmouth, Viscount) on the ground that he was the son of a doctor.

While out of office with Pitt, Canning proved a somewhat insubordinate follower. The snobbery and malignity of his attacks on Addington roused considerable feeling against him, and his attempts to act as a political go-between in ministerial arrangements were unfortunate. On the formation of Pitt’s second ministry he took the post of treasurer of the navy on the 12th of May 1804. In office he continued to be insubordinate, and committed mistakes which got him into bad odour as untrustworthy. He endeavoured to persuade Lord Hawkesbury (seeLiverpool, Earls of) to join in a scheme for turning an old friend out of the India Office. Though his relations with Pitt began to be somewhat strained towards the end, he left office on the minister’s death on the 21st of January 1806.

Canning, who delivered the eulogy of Pitt in the House of Commons on the 3rd of February, refused to take office in Fox’s ministry of “all the talents.” Attempts were made to secure him, and he was offered the leadership of the House of Commons, under the supervision of Fox, an absurd proposal which he had the good sense to decline. After the death of Fox, and the dismissal by the king of Lord Grenville’s ministry, he joined the administration of the duke of Portland as secretary of state for foreign affairs. He held the office from the 25th of March 1807 till the 9th of September 1809. During these two years he had a large share in the vigorous policy which defeated the secret articles of the treaty of Tilsit by the seizure of the Danish fleet. As foreign secretary it fell to him to defend the ministry when it was attacked in parliament. He refused to tell how he became aware of the secret articles, and the mystery has never been fully solved. He threw himself eagerly into the prosecution of the war in Spain, yet his tenure of office ended in resignation in circumstances which left him under deep discredit. He became entangled in what can only be called two intrigues. In view of the failing health of the duke of Portland he told his colleague, Spencer Perceval, chancellor of the exchequer, that a new prime minister must be found, that he must be in the House of Commons, that the choice lay between them, adding that he might not be prepared to serve as subordinate. In April of 1809 he had told the duke of Portland that Lord Castlereagh, secretary for the colonies and war, was in his opinion unfit for his post, and must be removed to another office. The duke, a sickly and vacillating man, said nothing to Castlereagh, and took no steps, and Canning did not enlighten his colleague. When he found that no measures were being taken to make a change of office, Canning resigned on the 7th of September. Castlereagh then learnt the truth, and after resigning sent Canning a challenge on the 19th of September. In the duel on Putney Heath which followed Canning was wounded in the thigh. His apologists have endeavoured to defend him against the charge of double dealing, but there can be no question that Castlereagh had just ground to be angry. Public opinion was strong against Canning, and in the House of Commons he was looked upon with distrust. For twelve years he remained out of office or in inferior places. His ability made it impossible that he should be obscure. In 1810 he was a member of the Bullion Committee, and his speeches on the report showed his mastery of the subject. It was no doubt his reputation for economic knowledge which chiefly recommended him to the electors of Liverpool in 1812. He had been elected for Tralee in 1803, for Newtown (Hants) in 1806 and for Harwich in 1807. But in parliament he had lost all influence, and is described as wandering about neglected and avoided. In 1812 he committed the serious mistake of accepting a well-paid ornamental mission to Lisbon, which he was about to visit for the health of his eldest son. He remained abroad for eighteen months. In 1816 he submitted to enter office as president of the Board of Control in Lord Liverpool’s cabinet, in which Castlereagh, to whom he had now become reconciled, was secretary of state for foreign affairs. In 1820 he resigned his post in order to avoid taking any part in the proceedings against Queen Caroline, the wife of George IV.

Canning’s return to great office and influence dates from the suicide of Castlereagh in 1822. He had accepted the governor-generalship of India, which would have implied his retirement from public life at home, and refused to remain unless he was promised “the whole inheritance” of Castlereagh,—the foreign office and the leadership of the House of Commons. His terms were accepted, and he took office in September 1822. He held the office from that date till April 1827, when he became prime minister in succession to Lord Liverpool, whose health had broken down. Even before this he was the real director of the policy of the cabinet—as Castlereagh had been from 1812 to 1822. It may be noted that he resigned his seat for Liverpool in 1823, and was elected for Harwich, which he left for Newport in 1826. Few English public men have represented so many constituencies.

His fame as a statesman is based mainly on the foreign policy which he pursued in those years—the policy of non-intervention, and of the patronage, if not the actual support, of national and liberal movements in Europe (see the historical articles underEurope,Spain,Portugal,Turkey,Greece). To this policy he may be said to have given his name, and he has enjoyed the reputation of having introduced a generous spirit into British politics, and of having undone the work of his predecessor at the foreign office, who was constantly abused as the friend of despotism and of despots. It may well be believed that Canning followed his natural inclinations, and it can be asserted withoutthe possibility of contradiction, if also without possibility of proof, that he had influenced the mind of Castlereagh. Yet the fact remains that when Canning came into office in September 1822, he found the instructions to be given to the representative of the British government at the congress of Verona already drawn up by his predecessor, who had meant to attend the congress himself (seeLondonderry,Robert Stewart, 2nd Marquess of). These instructions were handed on without change by Canning to the duke of Wellington, who went as representative, and they contain all the principles which have been said to have been peculiarly Canning’s. Indeed this policy was dictated by the character and position of the British government, and had been followed in the main since the conference of Aix-la-Chapelle in 1818. Canning was its orator and minister rather than its originator. Yet his eloquence has associated with his name the responsibility for British policy at the time. No speech of his is perhaps more famous than that in which he claimed the initiative in recognizing the independence of the revolted Spanish colonies in South America in 1823—“I resolved that, if France had Spain, it should not be Spain with the Indies. I called the New World into existence to redress the balance of the Old” (December 12, 1826).

When Lord Liverpool was struck down in a fit on the 17th of February 1827, Canning was marked out by position as his only possible successor. He was not indeed accepted by all the party which had followed Liverpool. The duke of Wellington, Sir Robert Peel and several other members of the ministry, moved perhaps by personal animosity, and certainly by dislike of his known and consistent advocacy of the claims of the Roman Catholics, refused to serve with him. Canning succeeded in constructing a ministry in April—but the hopes and the fears of friends and enemies proved to be equally unfounded. His health had already begun to give way, and broke down altogether under the strain of the effort required to form his ministry. He had caught cold in January at the funeral of the duke of York, and never recovered. He died on the 8th of August 1827, at Chiswick, in the house of the duke of Devonshire, where Fox had died, and in the same room.

SeeSpeeches, with a memoir by R. Therry (London, 1826); A.G. Stapleton,Political Life of Canning, 1822-1827 (2nd ed., London, 1831);Canning and His Times(London, 1859); Lord Dalling and Bulwer,Historical Characters(London, 1868); F.H. Hill,George Canning(London, 1887);Some Political Correspondence of George Canning, ed. E.J. Stapleton (2 vols., 1897); J.A.R. Marriott,George Canning and His Times, a Political Study(London, 1903); W. Alison Phillips,George Canning(London, 1903), with reproductions of contemporary portraits and caricatures; H.W.V. Temperley,George Canning(London, 1905).

CANNIZZARO, STANISLAO(1826-1910), Italian chemist, was born at Palermo on the 13th of July 1826. In 1841 he entered the university of his native place with the intention of making medicine his profession, but he soon turned to the study of chemistry, and in 1845 and 1846 acted as assistant to Rafaelle Piria (1815-1865), known for his work on salicin, who was then professor of chemistry at Pisa and subsequently occupied the same position at Turin. During the Sicilian revolution he served as an artillery officer at Messina and was also chosen deputy for Francavilla in the Sicilian parliament; and after the fall of Messina in September 1848 he was stationed at Taormina. On the collapse of the insurgents he escaped to Marseilles, in May 1849, and after visiting various French towns reached Paris in October. There he gained an introduction to M.E. Chevreul’s laboratory, and in conjunction with F.S. Cloëz (1817-1883) made his first contribution to chemical research in 1851, when they prepared cyanamide by the action of ammonia on cyanogen chloride in ethereal solution. In the same year he was appointed professor of physical chemistry at the National College of Alexandria, where he discovered that aromatic aldehydes are decomposed by alcoholic potash into a mixture of the corresponding acid and alcohol,e.g.benzaldehyde into benzoic acid and benzyl alcohol (“Cannizzaro’s reaction”). In the autumn of 1855 he became professor of chemistry at Geneva university, and six years later, after declining professorships at Pisa and Naples, accepted the chair of inorganic and organic chemistry at Palermo. There he spent ten years, studying the aromatic compounds and continuing to work on the amines, until in 1871 he was appointed to the chair of chemistry at Rome university. Apart from his work on organic chemistry, which includes also an investigation of santonin, he rendered great service to the philosophy of chemistry when in his memoirSunto di un corso di Filosofia chemica(1858) he insisted on the distinction, till then imperfectly realized, between molecular and atomic weights, and showed how the atomic weights of elements contained in volatile compounds can be deduced from the molecular weights of those compounds, and how the atomic weights of elements of whose compounds the vapour densities are unknown can be ascertained from a knowledge of their specific heats. For this achievement, of fundamental importance for the atomic theory in chemistry, he was awarded the Copley medal by the Royal Society in 1891. Cannizzaro’s scientific eminence in 1871 secured him admission to the Italian senate, of which he was vice-president, and as a member of the Council of Public Instruction and in other ways he rendered important services to the cause of scientific education in Italy.

CANNOCK,a market town in the western parliamentary division of Staffordshire, England, in the district known as Cannock Chase, 130 m. N.W. from London by the London and North Western railway. Pop. of urban district (1891) 20,613; (1901) 23,974. The church of St Luke is Perpendicular, enlarged in modern times. The famous political preacher, Henry Sacheverell, held the living early in the 18th century. Cannock has tool, boiler, brick and tile works. Cannock Chase, a tract generally exceeding 500 ft. in elevation, extends on an axis from north-west to south-east over some 36,000 acres. It was a royal preserve, and remains for the most part an uncultivated waste, but it is also a rich coalfield, and there are mines in every direction. Brownhills, Burntwood and Chase Town, Great Wyrley, Hednesford, Hammerwich, and Pelsall are townships or villages of the mining population.

CANNON(a word common to Romance languages, from the Lat.canna, a reed, tube, with the addition of the augmentative termination-on, -one), a gun or piece of ordnance. The word, first found about 1400 (there is an indenture of Henry IV. 1407 referring to”canones, seu instrumenta Anglicè gunnes vocata”), is commonly applied to any form of firearm which is fired from a carriage or fixed mounting, in contradistinction to “small-arms,” which are fired without a rest or support of any kind.1An exception must be made, however, in the case ofmachine guns(q.v.), and the word as used in modern times may be defined as follows: “a piece of ordnance mounted upon a fixed or movable carriage and firing a projectile of greater calibre than 1½ in.” In French, however,canonis the term applied to the barrel of small arms, and also, as an alternative tomitrailleuseormitrailleur, to machine guns, as well as to ordnance properly so-called. The Hotchkiss machine gun used in several navies is officially called “revolving cannon.” For details seeArtillery,Ordnance,Machine Guns, &c. Amongst the many derived senses of the word may be mentioned “cannon curls,” in which the hair is arranged in horizontal tubular curls one above the other. For “cannon” in billiards seeBilliards.

In the 16th and 17th centuries the “cannon” in England was distinctively a large piece, smaller natures of ordnance being called by various special names such as culverin, saker, falcon, demi-cannon, &c. We hear of Cromwell taking with him to Ireland (1649) “two cannon of eight inches, two cannon of seven, two demi-cannon, two twenty-four pounders,” &c.

Sir James Turner, a distinguished professional soldier contemporary with Cromwell, says: “The cannon or battering ordnance is divided by the English into Cannon Royal, Whole Cannon and Demi-Cannon. The first is likewise called the Double Cannon, she weighs 8000 pound of metal and shoots a bullet of 60, 62 or 63 pound weight. The Whole Cannon weighs 7000 pound of metal and shoots a bullet of 38, 39 or 40 pound.The Demi-Cannon weighs about 6000 pound and shoots a bullet of 28 or 30 pound. ... These three several guns are called cannons of eight, cannons of seven and cannons of six.” The generic sense of “cannon,” in which the word is now exclusively used, is found along with the special sense above mentioned as early as 1474. A warrant of that year issued by Edward IV. of England to Richard Copcote orders him to provide “bumbardos, canones, culverynes ... et alias canones quoscumque, ac pulveres, sulfer ... pro eisdem canonibus necessarias.” “Artillery” and “ordnance,” however, were the more usual terms up to the time of Louis XIV. (c. 1670), about which time heavy ordnance began to be classified according to the weight of its shot, and the special sense of “cannon” disappears.

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