Chapter 13

The life of Collins was written by Dr Johnson; he found an enthusiastic editor in Dr Langhorne in 1765, and in 1858 a kindly biographer in Mr Moy Thomas.

(E. G.)

COLLINS, WILLIAM(1787-1847), English painter, son of an Irish picture dealer and man of letters, the author of aLife of George Morland, was born in London. He studied under Etty in 1807, and in 1809 exhibited his first pictures of repute—“Boys at Breakfast,” and “Boys with a Bird’s Nest.” In 1815 he was made associate of the Royal Academy, and was elected R. A. in 1820. For the next sixteen years he was a constant exhibitor; his fishermen, shrimp-catchers, boats and nets, stretches of coast and sand, and, above all, his rustic children were universally popular. Then, however, he went abroad on the advice of Wilkie, and for two years (1837-1838) studied the life, manners and scenery of Italy. In 1839 he exhibited the first fruits of this journey; and in 1840, in which year he was appointed librarian to the Academy, he made his first appearance as a painter of history. In 1842 he returned to his early manner and choice of subject, and during the last years of life enjoyed greater popularity than ever. Collins was a good colourist and an excellent draughtsman. His earlier pictures are deficient in breadth and force, but his later work, though also carefully executed, is rich in effects of tone and in broadly painted masses. His biography by his son, W. Wilkie Collins, the novelist, appeared in 1848.

COLLINS, WILLIAM WILKIE(1824-1889), English novelist, elder son of William Collins, R.A., the landscape painter, was born in London on the 8th of January 1824. He was educated at a private school in Highbury, and when only a small boy of twelve was taken by his parents to Italy, where the family lived for three years. On their return to England Wilkie Collins was articled to a firm in the tea trade, but four years later he abandoned that business for the law, and was entered at Lincoln’s Inn in 1846, being called to the bar three years later. He found little pleasure in his new career, however; though what he learned in it was exceedingly valuable to him later. On his father’s death in 1847 young Collins made his first essay in literature, publishing theLife of William Collins, in two volumes, in the following year. In 1850 he put forth his first work of fiction,Antonina, or the Fall of Rome, which was clearly inspired by his life in Italy.Basilappeared in 1852, andHide and Seekin 1854. About this time he made the acquaintance of Charles Dickens, and beganto contribute toHousehold Words, whereAfter Dark(1856) andThe Dead Secret(1857) ran serially. His great success was achieved in 1860 with the publication ofThe Woman in White, which was first printed inAll the Year Round. From that time he enjoyed as much popularity as any novelist of his day,No Name(1862),Armadale(1866), andThe Moonstone, a capital detective story (1868), being among his most successful books. AfterThe New Magdalen(1873) his ingenuity became gradually exhausted, and his later stories were little more than faint echoes of earlier successes. He died in Wimpole Street, London, on the 23rd of September 1889. Collins’s gift was of the melodramatic order, and while many of his stories made excellent plays, several of them were actually reconstructed from pieces designed originally for stage production. But if his colours were occasionally crude and his methods violent, he was at least a master of situation and effect. His trick of telling a story through the mouths of different characters is sometimes irritatingly disconnected; but it had the merit of giving an air of actual evidence and reality to the elucidation of a mystery. He possessed in the highest degree the gift of absorbing interest; the turns and complexities of his plots are surprisingly ingenious, and many of his characters are not only real, but uncommon. Count Fosco inThe Woman in Whiteis perhaps his masterpiece; the character has been imitated again and again, but no imitation has ever attained to the subtlety and humour of the original.

COLLODION(from the Gr.κόλλα, glue), a colourless, viscid fluid, made by dissolving gun-cotton and the other varieties of pyroxylin in a mixture of alcohol and ether. It was discovered in 1846 by Louis Nicolas Ménard in Paris, and independently in 1848 by Dr J. Parkers Maynard in Boston. The quality of collodion differs according to the proportions of alcohol and ether and the nature of the pyroxylin it contains. Collodion in which there is a great excess of ether gives by its evaporation a very tough film; the film left by collodion containing a large quantity of alcohol is soft and easily torn; but in hot climates the presence of an excess of alcohol is an advantage, as it prevents the rapid evaporation of the ether. Under the microscope, the film produced by collodion of good quality appears translucent and colourless. To preserve collodion it should be kept cool and out of the action of the light; iodized collodion that has been discoloured by the development of free iodine may be purified by the immersion in it of a strip of silver foil. For the iodizing of collodion, ammonium bromide and iodide, and the iodides of calcium and cadmium are the agents employed (seePhotography). Collodion is used in surgery since, when painted on the skin, it rapidly dries and covers the skin with a thin film which contracts as it dries and therefore affords both pressure and protection. Flexible collodion, containing Canada balsam and castor oil, does not crack, but, on the other hand, does not contract. It is therefore of less value. Collodion is applied to small aseptic wounds, to small-pox pustules, and occasionally to the end of the urethra in boys in order to prevent nocturnal incontinence. Collodion and crystals of carbolic acid, taken in equal parts, are useful in relieving toothache due to the presence of a carious cavity.VesicatingorBlistering Collodioncontains cantharidin as one of its constituents. The styptic colloid of Richardson is a strong solution of tannin in gun-cotton collodion. Similarly collodion may be impregnated with salicylic acid, carbolic acid, iodine and other substances. Small balloons are manufactured from collodion by coating the interior of glass globes with the liquid; the film when dry is removed from the glass by applying suction to the mouth of the vessel. M. E. Gripon found (Compt. rend., 1875) that collodion membranes, like glass, reflect light and polarize it both by refraction and reflection; they also transmit a very much larger proportion of radiant heat, for the study of which they are preferable to mica.

COLLOT D’HERBOIS, JEAN MARIE(1750-1796), French revolutionist, was a Parisian by birth and an actor by profession. After figuring for some years at the principal provincial theatres of France and Holland, he became director of the playhouse at Geneva. He had from the first a share in the revolutionary tumult; but it was not until 1791 that he became a figure of importance. Then, however, by the publication ofL’Almanach du Père Gérard,1a little book setting forth, in homely style, the advantages of a constitutional monarchy, he suddenly acquired great popularity. His renown was soon increased by his active interference on behalf of the Swiss of the Château-Vieux Regiment, condemned to the galleys for mutiny at Nancy. His efforts resulted in their liberation; he went himself to Brest in search of them; and a civic feast was decreed on his behalf and theirs, which gave occasion for one of the few poems published during his life by André Chénier. But his opinions became more and more radical. He was a member of the Commune of Paris on the 10th of August 1792, and was elected deputy for Paris to the Convention, where he was the first to demand the abolition of royalty (on the 21st of September 1792), and he voted the death of Louis XVI. “sans sursis.” In the struggle between the Mountain and the Girondists he displayed great energy; and after thecoup d’étatof the 31st of May 1793 he made himself conspicuous by his pitiless pursuit of the defeated party. In June he was made president of the Convention; and in September he was admitted to the Committee of Public Safety, on which he was very active. After having entrusted him with several missions, the Convention sent him, on the 30th of October 1793, to Lyons to punish the revolt of that city. There he introduced the Terror in its most terrible form.

In May 1794 an attempt was made to assassinate Collot; but it only increased his popularity, and this won him the hatred of Robespierre, against whom he took sides on the 9th Thermidor, when he presided over the Convention during a part of the session. During the Thermidorian reaction he was one of the first to be accused of complicity with the fallen leader, but was acquitted. Denounced a second time, he defended himself by pleading that he had acted for the cause of the Revolution, but was condemned with Barère and Billaud-Varenne to transportation to Cayenne (March 1795), where he died early in 1796.

Collot d’Herbois wrote and adapted from the English and Spanish many plays, one of which,Le Paysan magistrat, kept the stage for several years.L’Almanach du Père Gérardwas reprinted under the title ofÉtrennes aux amis de la Constitution française, ou entretiens du Père Gérard avec ses concitoyens(Paris, 1792).

See F. A. Aulard,Les Orateurs de la Législative et de la Convention(Paris, 1885-1886), t. ii. pp. 501-512. The principal documents relative to the trial of Collot d’Herbois, Barère and Billaud-Varenne are indicated in Aulard,Recueil des actes du comité de salut public, t. i. pp. 5 and 6.

1Michel Gérard was a popular Breton peasant deputy (seeJacobins).

COLLUSION(from Lat.colludere, strictly, to play with), a secret agreement or compact for some improper purpose. In judicial proceedings, and particularly in matrimonial causes (seeDivorce), collusion is a deceitful agreement between two or more persons, or between one of them and a third party, to bring an action against the other in order to obtain a judicial decision, or some remedy which would not have been obtained unless the parties had combined for the purpose or suppressed material facts or otherwise.

COLLYER, ROBERT(1823- ), American Unitarian clergyman, was born in Keighley, Yorkshire, England, on the 8th of December 1823. At the age of eight he was compelled to leave school and support himself by work in a linen factory. He was naturally studious, however, and supplemented his scant schooling by night study. At fourteen he was apprenticed to a blacksmith, and for several years worked at this trade at Ilkley. In 1849 he became a local Methodist minister, and in the following year emigrated to the United States, where he obtained employment as a hammer maker at Shoemakersville, Pennsylvania. Here he soon began to preach on Sundays while still employed in the factory on week-days. His earnest, rugged, simple style of oratory made him extremely popular, and at once secured for him a wide reputation. His advocacy of anti-slavery principles, then frowned upon by the Methodist authorities, aroused opposition, and eventually resulted in his trial for heresy and the revocation of his licence. He continued, however, as anindependent preacher and lecturer, and in 1859, having joined the Unitarian Church, became a missionary of that church in Chicago, Illinois. In 1860 he organized and became pastor of the Unity Church, the second Unitarian church in Chicago. Under his guidance the church grew to be one of the strongest of that denomination in the West, and Mr Collyer himself came to be looked upon as one of the foremost pulpit orators in the country. During the Civil War he was active in the work of the Sanitary Commission. In 1879 he left Chicago and became pastor of the church of the Messiah in New York city, and in 1903 he became pastor emeritus. He published:Nature and Life(1867);A Man in Earnest: Life of A. H. Conant(1868);The Life That Now is(1871);The Simple Truth(1877);Talks to Young Men: With Asides to Young Women(1888);Things New and Old(1893);Father Taylor(1906); andA History of the Town and Parish of Ilkley(with Horsefall Turner, 1886).

COLMAN, SAINT(d. 676), bishop of Lindisfarne, was probably an Irish monk at Iona. Journeying southwards he became bishop of Lindisfarne in 661, and a favoured friend of Oswio, king of Northumbria. He was at the synod of Whitby in 664, when the great dispute between the Roman and the Celtic parties in the church was considered; as spokesman of the latter party he upheld the Celtic usages, but King Oswio decided against him and his cause was lost. After this event Colman and some monks went to Iona and then to Ireland. He settled on the island of Inishbofin, where he built a monastery and where he died on the 8th of August 676.

Colman must be distinguished from St Colman of Cloyne (c. 522-600), an Irish saint, who became a Christian about 570; and also from another Irishman, St Colman Ela (553-610), a kinsman of St Columba. The word Colman is derived from the Latincolumbus, a dove, and theBook of Leinstermentions 209 saints of this name.

COLMAN, GEORGE(1732-1794), English dramatist and essayist, usually called “the Elder,” and sometimes “George the First,” to distinguish him from his son, was born in 1732 at Florence, where his father was stationed as resident at the court of the grand duke of Tuscany. Colman’s father died within a year of his son’s birth, and the boy’s education was undertaken by William Pulteney, afterwards Lord Bath, whose wife was Mrs Colman’s sister. After attending a private school in Marylebone, he was sent to Westminster School, which he left in due course for Christ Church, Oxford. Here he made the acquaintance of Bonnell Thornton, the parodist, and together they foundedThe Connoisseur(1754-1756), a periodical which, although it reached its 140th number, “wanted weight,” as Johnson said. He left Oxford after taking his degree in 1755, and, having been entered at Lincoln’s Inn before his return to London, he was called to the bar in 1757. A friendship formed with David Garrick did not help his career as a barrister, but he continued to practise until the death of Lord Bath, out of respect for his wishes.

In 1760 he produced his first play,Polly Honeycomb, which met with great success. In 1761The Jealous Wife, a comedy partly founded onTom Jones, made Colman famous. The death of Lord Bath in 1764 placed him in possession of independent means. In 1765 appeared his metrical translation of the plays of Terence; and in 1766 he producedThe Clandestine Marriage, jointly with Garrick, whose refusal to take the part of Lord Ogleby led to a quarrel between the two authors. In the next year he purchased a fourth share in the Covent Garden Theatre, a step which is said to have induced General Pulteney to revoke a will by which he had left Colman large estates. The general, who died in that year, did, however, leave him a considerable annuity. Colman was acting manager of Covent Garden for seven years, and during that period he produced several “adapted” plays of Shakespeare. In 1768 he was elected to the Literary Club, then nominally consisting of twelve members. In 1774 he sold his share in the great playhouse, which had involved him in much litigation with his partners, to Leake; and three years later he purchased of Samuel Foote, then broken in health and spirits, the little theatre in the Haymarket. He was attacked with paralysis in 1785; in 1789 his brain became affected, and he died on the 14th of August 1794. Besides the works already cited, Colman was author of adaptations of Beaumont and Fletcher’sBonduca, Ben Jonson’sEpicoene, Milton’sComus, and of other plays. He also produced an edition of the works of Beaumont and Fletcher (1778), a version of theArs Poëticaof Horace, an excellent translation from theMercatorof Plautus for Bonnell Thornton’s edition (1769-1772), some thirty plays, many parodies and occasional pieces. An incomplete edition of his dramatic works was published in 1777 in four volumes.

His son,George Colman(1762-1836), known as “the Younger,” English dramatist and miscellaneous writer, was born on the 21st of October 1762. He passed from Westminster school to Christ Church, Oxford, and King’s College, Aberdeen, and was finally entered as a student of law at Lincoln’s Inn, London. While in Aberdeen he published a poem satirizing Charles James Fox, calledThe Man of the People; and in 1782 he produced, at his father’s playhouse in the Haymarket, his first play,The Female Dramatist, for which Smollett’sRoderick Randomsupplied the materials. It was unanimously condemned, butTwo to One(1784) was entirely successful. It was followed byTurk and no Turk(1785), a musical comedy;Inkle and Yarico(1787), an opera;Ways and Means(1788);The Iron Chest(1796), taken from William Godwin’sAdventures of Caleb Williams;The Poor Gentleman(1802);John Bull, or an Englishman’s Fireside(1803), his most successful piece;The Heir at Law(1808), which enriched the stage with one immortal character, “Dr Pangloss,” and numerous other pieces, many of them adapted from the French.

The failing health of the elder Colman obliged him to relinquish the management of the Haymarket theatre in 1789, when the younger George succeeded him, at a yearly salary of £600. On the death of the father the patent was continued to the son; but difficulties arose in his way, he was involved in litigation with Thomas Harris, and was unable to pay the expenses of the performances at the Haymarket. He was forced to take sanctuary within the Rules of the King’s Bench. Here he resided for many years continuing to direct the affairs of his theatre. Released at last through the kindness of George IV., who had appointed him exon of the Yeomen of the Guard, a dignity disposed of by Colman to the highest bidder, he was made examiner of plays by the duke of Montrose, then lord chamberlain. This office, to the disgust of all contemporary dramatists, to whose MSS. he was as illiberal as he was severe, he held till his death. Although his own productions were open to charges of indecency and profanity, he was so severe a censor of others that he would not pass even such words as “heaven,” “providence” or “angel.” His comedies are a curious mixture of genuine comic force and sentimentality. A collection of them was published (1827) in Paris, with a life of the author, by J. W. Lake.

Colman, whose witty conversation made him a favourite, was also the author of a great deal of so-called humorous poetry (mostly coarse, though much of it was popular)—My Night Gown and Slippers(1797), reprinted under the name ofBroad Grins, in 1802; andPoetical Vagaries(1812). Some of his writings were published under the assumed name of Arthur Griffinhood of Turnham Green. He died in Brompton, London, on the 17th of October 1836. He had, as early as 1784, contracted a runaway marriage with an actress, Clara Morris, to whose brother David Morris, he eventually disposed of his share in the Haymarket theatre. Many of the leading parts in his plays were written especially for Mrs Gibbs (néeLogan), whom he was said to have secretly married after the death of his first wife.

See the second George Colman’s memoirs of his early life, entitledRandom Records(1830), and R. B. Peake,Memoirs of the Colman Family(1842).

COLMAN, SAMUEL(1832- ), American landscape painter, was born at Portland, Maine, on the 4th of March 1832. He was a pupil of Ashur B. Durand in New York, and in 1860-1862 studied in Spain, Italy, France and England. In 1871-1876 he was again in Europe. In 1860, with James D. Smilie, he foundedthe American Water Color Society, and became its first president (1866-1867), his own water-colour paintings being particularly fine. He was elected a member of the National Academy of Design in 1862. Among his works are “The Ships of the Western Plains,” in the Union League Club, New York; and “The Spanish Peaks, Colorado,” in the Metropolitan Museum, New York.

COLMAR, orKolmar, a town of Germany, in the imperial province of Alsace-Lorraine, formerly the capital of the department of Haut-Rhin in France, on the Logelbach and Lauch, tributaries of the Ill, 40 m. S.S.W. from Strassburg on the main line of railway to Basel. Pop. (1905) 41,582. It is the seat of the government for Upper Alsace, and of the supreme court of appeal for Alsace-Lorraine. The town is surrounded by pleasant promenades, on the site of the old fortifications, and has numerous narrow and picturesque streets. Of its edifices the most remarkable are the Roman Catholic parish church of St Martin, known also as theMünster, dating from the 13th and 14th centuries, the Lutheran parish church (15th century), the former Dominican monastery (1232-1289), known as “Unterlinden” and now used as a museum, the Kaufhaus (trade-hall) of the 15th century, and the handsome government offices (formerly the Prefecture). Colmar is the centre of considerable textile industries, comprising wool, cotton and silk-weaving, and has important manufactures of sewing thread, starch, sugar and machinery. Bleaching and brewing are also carried on, and the neighbourhood is rich in vineyards and fruit-gardens. The considerable trade of the place is assisted by a chamber of commerce and a branch of the Imperial Bank (Reichsbank).

Colmar (probably thecolumbariumof the Romans) is first mentioned, as a royalvilla, in a charter of Louis the Pious in 823, and it was here that Charles the Fat held a diet in 884. It was raised to the status of a town and surrounded with walls by Wölfelin, advocate (Landvogt) of the emperor Frederick II. in Alsace, a masterful and ambitious man, whose accumulated wealth was confiscated by the emperor in 1235, and who is said to have been murdered by his wife lest her portion should also be seized. In 1226 Colmar became an imperial city, and the civic rights (Stadtrecht) conferred on it in 1274 by Rudolph of Habsburg became the model for those of many other cities. Its civic history is much the same as that of other medieval towns: a struggle between the democratic gilds and the aristocratic “families,” which ended in 1347 in the inclusion of the former in the governing body, and in the 17th century in the complete exclusion of the latter. In 1255 Colmar joined the league of Rhenish cities, and in 1476 and 1477 took a vigorous share in the struggle against Charles the Bold. In 1632, during the Thirty Years’ War, it was taken by the Swedes, and in 1635 by the French, who held it till after the Peace of Westphalia (1649). In 1673 the French again occupied it and dismantled the fortifications. In 1681 it was formally annexed to France by a decree of Louis XIV.’sChambre de Réunion, and remained French till 1871, when it passed with Alsace-Lorraine to the new German empire.

See “Annalen und Chronik von Kolmar,” German translation, G. H. Pabst, inGeschichtsschreiber der deutschen Vorzeit(2nd ed., G. Wattenbach, Leipzig, 1897); Sigmund Billing,Kleine Chronik der Stadt Kolmar(Colmar, 1891); Hund,Kolmar vor und während seiner Entwickelung zur Reichsstadt(Strassburg, 1899); J. Liblin,Chronique de Colmar, 58-1400 (Mülhausen, 1867-1868); T. F. X. Hunkler,Gesch. der Stadt Kolmar(Colmar, 1838). For further references see Ulysse Chevalier,Répertoire des sources. Topobibliographie(Montbéliard, 1894-1899); and Waltz,Bibliographie de la ville de Colmar(Mülhausen, 1902).

COLNE, a market town and municipal borough in the Clitheroe parliamentary division of Lancashire, England, 34½ m. N. by E. from Manchester by the Lancashire & Yorkshire railway; it is served also by a branch of the Midland railway from Skipton. Pop. (1901) 23,000. It stands on a hilly site above a small affluent of the river Calder. The church of St Bartholomew retains some Norman work, but is chiefly of various later periods. There is a cloth hall or piece hall, originally used as an exchange when woollens were the staple of the town. The grammar school is of interest as the place where John Tillotson (1630-1694), archbishop of Canterbury, received early education. Colne is a place of great antiquity, and many Roman coins have been found on the site. As early as the 14th century it was the seat of a woollen manufacture; but its principal manufactures now are cottons, printed calicoes and muslin. In the neighbourhood are several limestone and slate quarries. The town was incorporated in 1895, and the corporation consists of a mayor, 6 aldermen and 18 councillors. Area, 5063 acres.

COLOCYNTH,ColoquintidaorBitter Apple,Citrullus Colocynthis, a plant of the natural order Cucurbitaceae. The flowers are unisexual; the male blossoms have five stamens with sinuous anthers, the female have reniform stigmas, and an ovary with three large fleshy placentas. The fruit is round, and about the size of an orange; it has a thick yellowish rind, and a light, spongy and very bitter pulp, which yields the colocynth of druggists. The seeds, which number from 200 to 300, and are disposed in vertical rows on the three parietal placentas of the fruit, are flat and ovoid and dark-brown; they are used as food by some of the tribes of the Sahara, and a coarse oil is expressed from them. The pulp contains only about 3.5% of fixed oil, whilst the seeds contains about 15%. The foliage resembles that of the cucumber, and the root is perennial. The plant has a wide range, being found in Ceylon, India, Persia, Arabia, Syria, North Africa, the Grecian Archipelago, the Cape Verd Islands, and the south-east of Spain. The termpakkuoth, translated “wild gourds” in 2 Kings iv. 39, is thought to refer to the fruit of the colocynth; but, according to Dr Olaf Celsius (1670-1756), a Swedish theologian and naturalist, it signifies a plant known as the squirting cucumber,Ecbalium Elaterium.

The commercial colocynth consists of the peeled and dried fruits. In the preparation of the drug, the seeds are always removed from the pulp. Its active principle is an intensely bitter amorphous or crystalline glucoside, colocynthin, C56H84O23, soluble in water, ether and alcohol, and decomposable by acids into glucose and a resin, colocynthein, C40H54O13. Colocynthein also occurs as such in the drug, together with at least two other resins, citrullin and colocynthiden. Colocynthin has been used as a hypodermic purgative—a class of drugs practically nonexistent, and highly to be desired in numberless cases of apoplexy. The dose recommended for hypodermic injection is fifteen minims of a 1% solution in glycerin.

The British Pharmacopeia contains a compound extract of colocynth, which no one ever uses; a compound pill—dose 4 to 8 grains—in which oil of cloves is included in order to relieve the griping caused by the drug; and the Pilula Colocynthidis et Hyoscyami, which contains 2 parts of the compound pill to 1 of extract of hyoscyamus. This is by far the best preparation, the hyoscyamus being added to prevent the pain and griping which is attendant on the use of colocynth alone. The official dose of this pill is 4 to 8 grains, but the most effective and least disagreeable manner in which to obtain its action is to give four two-grain pills at intervals of an hour or so.

In minute doses colocynth acts simply as a bitter, but is never given for this purpose. In ordinary doses it greatly increases the secretion of the small intestine and stimulates its muscular coat. The gall-bladder is also stimulated, and the biliary function of the liver, so that colocynth is both an excretory and a secretory cholagogue. The action which follows hypodermic injection is due to the excretion of the drug from the blood into the alimentary canal. Though colocynth is a drastic hydragogue cathartic, it is desirable, as a rule, to supplement its action by some drug, such as aloes, which acts on the large intestine, and a sedative must always be added. Owing to its irritant properties, the drug must not be used habitually, but it is very valuable in initiating the treatment of simple chronic constipation, and its pharmacological properties obviously render it especially useful in cases of hepatitis and congestion of the liver.

Colocynth was known to the ancient Greek, Roman and Arabic physicians; and in an Anglo-Saxon herbal of the 11th century (Cockayne,Leechdoms, &c., vol. i. p. 325, London, 1864), the following directions are given as to its use:—“For stirring of theinwards, take the inward neshness of the fruit, without the kernels, by weight of two pennies; give it, pounded in lithe beer to be drunk, it stirreth the inwards.”

COLOGNE(Ger.Köln, or officially, since 1900,Cöln), a city and archiepiscopal see of Germany, in the Prussian Rhine province, a fortress of the first rank, and one of the most important commercial towns of the empire. Pop. (1885) 239,437; (1900) 370,685; (1905) 428,503, of which about 80% are Roman Catholics. It lies in the form of a vast semicircle on the left bank of the Rhine, 44 m. by rail north-east from Aix-la-Chapelle, 24 south-east from Düsseldorf and 57 north-north-west from Coblenz. Its situation on the broad and navigable Rhine, and at the centre of an extensive network of railways, giving it direct communication with all the important cities of Europe, has greatly fostered its trade, while its close proximity to the beautiful scenery of the Rhine, has rendered it a favourite tourist resort. When viewed from a distance, especially from the river, the city, with its medieval towers and buildings, the whole surmounted by the majestic cathedral, is picturesque and imposing. The ancient walls and ditches, which formerly environed the city, were dismantled between 1881 and 1885, and the site of the old fortifications, bought from the government by the municipality, were converted into a fine boulevard, the Ring, nearly 4 m. long. Beyond the Ring, about ½ m. farther out, a new continuous line of wall fortifications, with outlying clusters of earthworks and forts, has since been erected; 1000 acres, now occupied by handsome streets, squares and two public parks, were thus added to the inner town, almost doubling its area.

Cologne is connected by bridges with the suburb of Deutz. Within the outer municipal boundary are included (besides Deutz) the suburbs of Bayenthal, Lindenthal, Ehrenfeld, Nippes, Sülz, Bickendorf, Niehl and Poll, protected by another widely extended circle of detached forts on both banks of the Rhine. Of the former city gates four have been retained, restored and converted into museums: the Severin gate, on the south, contains the geological section of the natural history museum; the Hahnen gate, on the west, is fitted as the historical and antiquarian museum of the city; and the Eigelstein gate, on the north, accommodates the zoological section of the natural history museum.

Cologne, with the tortuous, narrow and dark streets and lanes of the old inner town, is still regarded as one of the least attractive capital cities of Germany; but in modern times it has been greatly improved, and the evil smells which formerly characterized it have yielded to proper sanitary arrangements. The most important squares are the Domhof, the Heumarkt, Neumarkt, Alte Markt and Waidmarkt in the old inner, and the Hansa-platz in the new inner town. The long Hohe-strasse of the old town is the chief business street.

The cathedral or Dom, the principal edifice and chief object of interest in Cologne, is one of the finest and purest monuments of Gothic architecture in Europe (for plan, &c. seeArchitecture:Romanesque and Gothic in Germany). It stands on the site of a cathedral begun about the beginning of the 9th century by Hildebold, metropolitan of Cologne, and finished under Willibert in 873. This structure was ruined by the Normans, was rebuilt, but in 1248 was almost wholly destroyed by fire. The foundation of the present cathedral was then laid by Conrad of Hochstaden (archbishop from1238to 1261). The original plan of the building has been attributed to Gerhard von Rile (d. c. 1295). In 1322 the new choir was consecrated, and the bones of the Three Kings were removed to it from the place they had occupied in the former cathedral. After Conrad’s death the work of building advanced but slowly, and at the time of the Reformation it ceased entirely. In the early part of the 19th century the repairing of the cathedral was taken in hand, in 1842 the building of fresh portions necessary for the completion of the whole structure was begun, and on the 15th of October 1880 the edifice, finally finished, was opened in the presence of the emperor William I. and all the reigning German princes. The cathedral, which is in the form of a cross, has a length of 480, and a breadth of 282 ft.; the height of the central aisle is 154 ft.; that of each of the towers 511 ft. The heaviest of the seven bells (Kaiserglocke), cast in 1874 from the metal of French guns, weighs 543 cwt., and is the largest and heaviest bell that is rung. In the choir the heart of Marie de’ Medici is buried; and in the adjoining side-chapels are monuments of the founder and other archbishops of Cologne, and the shrine of the Three Kings, which is adorned with gold and precious stones. The three kings of Cologne (Kaspar, Melchior and Balthazar) were supposed to be the three wise men who came from the East to pay adoration to the infant Christ; according to the legend, the emperor Frederick I. Barbarossa brought their bones from Milan in 1162, and had them buried in Cologne cathedral, and miraculous powers of healing were attributed to these relics. The very numerous and richly-coloured windows, presented at various times to the cathedral, add greatly to the imposing effect of the interior. The view of the cathedral has been much improved by a clearance of the old houses on the Domhof, including the archiepiscopal palace, but the new Hof, though flanked by many fine buildings, is displeasing owing to the intrusion of numerous modern palatial hotels and shops.

Among the other churches of Cologne, which was fondly styled in the middle ages the “holy city” (heilige Stadt) and “German Rome,” and, according to legend, possessed as many sacred fanes as there are days in the year, are several of interest both for their age and for the monuments and works of art they contain. In St Peter’s are the famous altar-piece by Rubens, representing the Crucifixion of St Peter, several works by Lucas van Leyden, and some old German glass-paintings. St Martin’s, built between the 10th and 12th centuries, has a fine baptistery; St Gereon’s, built in the 11th century on the site of a Roman rotunda, is noted for its mosaics, and glass and oil-paintings; the Minorite church, begun in the same year as the cathedral, contains the tomb of Duns Scotus. Besides these may be mentioned the church of St Pantaleon, a 13th-century structure, with a monument to Theophano, wife of the emperor Otto II.; St Cunibert, in the Byzantine-Moorish style, completed in 1248; St Maria im Capitol, the oldest church in Cologne, dedicated in 1049 by Pope Leo IX., noted for its crypt, organ and paintings; St Cecilia, St Ursula, containing the bones of that saint and, according to legend, of the 11,000 English virgins massacred near Cologne while on a pilgrimage to Rome; St Severin, the church of the Apostles, and that of St Andrew (1220 and 1414), which contains the remains of Albertus Magnus in a gilded shrine. Most of these, and also many other old churches, have been completely restored. Among newer ecclesiastical buildings must be mentioned the handsome Roman Catholic church in Deutz, completed in 1896, and a large synagogue, in the new town west of the Ring, finished in 1899.

Among the more prominent secular buildings are the Gürzenich, a former meeting-place of the diets of the Holy Roman Empire, built between 1441 and 1447, of which the ground floor was in 1875 converted into a stock exchange, and the upper hall, capable of accommodating 3000 persons, is largely utilized for public festivities, particularly during the time of the Carnival: the Rathaus, dating from the 13th century, with beautiful Gobelin tapestries; the Tempelhaus, the ancestral seat of the patrician family of the Overstolzens, a beautiful building dating from the 13th century, and now the chamber of commerce; the Wallraf-Richartz Museum, in which is a collection of paintings by old Italian and Dutch masters, together with some works by modern artists; the Zeughaus, or arsenal, built on Roman foundations; the Supreme Court for the Rhine provinces; the post-office (1893); the Imperial Bank (Reichsbank); and the municipal library and archives. The Wolkenburg, a fine Gothic house of the 15th century, originally a patrician residence, was restored in 1874, and is now the headquarters of the famous men’s choral society of Cologne (Kölner Männergesangverein).

A handsome central railway station (high level), on the site of the old station, and close to the cathedral, was built in 1889-1894. The railway to Bonn and the Upper Rhine now follows the line of theceintureof the new inner fortifications, and on this section there are three city stations in addition to the central.Like all important German towns, Cologne contains many fine monuments. The most conspicuous is the colossal equestrian statue (22½ ft. high) of Frederick William III. of Prussia in the Heumarkt. There are also monuments to Moltke (1881), to Count Johann von Werth (1885), the cavalry leader of the Thirty Years’ War, and to Bismarck (1879). Near the cathedral is an archiepiscopal museum of church antiquities. Cologne is richly endowed with literary and scientific institutions. It has an academy of practical medicine, a commercial high school, a theological seminary, four Gymnasia (classical schools), numerous lower-grade schools, a conservatory of music and several high-grade ladies’ colleges. Of its three theatres, the municipal theatre (Stadttheater) is famed for its operatic productions.

Commercially, Cologne is one of the chief centres on the Rhine, and has a very important trade in corn, wine, mineral ores, coals, drugs, dyes, manufactured wares, groceries, leather and hides, timber, porcelain and many other commodities. A large new harbour, with spacious quays, has been constructed towards the south of the city. In 1903, the traffic of the port amounted to over one million tons. Industrially, also, Cologne is a place of high importance. Of the numerous manufactures, among which may be especially mentioned sugar, chocolate, tobacco and cigars, the most famous is the perfume known aseau de Cologne(q.v.) (Kölnisches Wasser,i.e.Cologne-water).

Of the newspapers published at Cologne the most important is theKölnische Zeitung(often referred to as the “Cologne Gazette”), which has the largest circulation of any paper in Germany, and great weight and influence. It must be distinguished from theKölnische Volkszeitung, which is the organ of the Clerical party in the Prussian Rhine provinces.

History.—Cologne occupies the site ofOppidum Ubiorum, the chief town of the Ubii, and here inA.D.50 a Roman colony,Colonia, was planted by the emperor Claudius, at the request of his wife Agrippina, who was born in the place. After her it was named Colonia Agrippina or Agrippinensis. Cologne rose to be the chief town of Germania Secunda, and had the privilege of the Jus Italicum. Both Vitellius and Trajan were at Cologne when they became emperors. About 330 the city was taken by the Franks but was not permanently occupied by them till the 5th century, becoming in 475 the residence of the Frankish king Childeric. It was the seat of apagusorgau, and counts of Cologne are mentioned in the 9th century.

The succession of bishops in Cologne is traceable, except for a gap covering the troubled 5th century, fromA.D.313, when the see was founded. It was made the metropolitan see for the bishoprics of the Lower Rhine and part of Westphalia by Charlemagne, the first archbishop being Hildebold, who occupied the see from 785 to his death in 819. Of his successors one of the most illustrious was Bruno (q.v.), brother of the emperor Otto I., archbishop from 953 to 965, who was the first of the archbishops to exercise temporal jurisdiction, and was also “archduke” of Lorraine. The territorial power of the archbishops was already great when, in 1180, on the partition of the Saxon duchy, the duchy of Westphalia was assigned to them. In the 11th century they becameex-officioarch-chancellors of Italy (seeArchchancellor), and by the Golden Bull of 1356 they were finally placed among the electors (Kurfürsten) of the Empire. With Cologne itself, a free imperial city, the archbishop-electors were at perpetual feud; in 1262 the archiepiscopal see was transferred to Brühl, and in 1273 to Bonn; it was not till 1671 that the quarrel was finally adjusted. The archbishopric was secularized in 1801, all its territories on the left bank of the Rhine being annexed to France; in 1803 those on the right bank were divided up among various German states; and in 1815 by the congress of Vienna, the whole was assigned to Prussia. The last archbishop-elector, Maximilian of Austria, died in 1801.

In Archbishop Hildebold’s day Cologne was still contained by the square of its Roman walls, within which stood the cathedral and the newly-founded church of St Maria (known later as “im Capitol”); the city was, however, surrounded by a ring of churches, among which those of St Gereon, St Ursula, St Severin and St Cunibert were conspicuous. In 881 Norman pirates, sailing up the Rhine, took and sacked the city; but it rapidly recovered, and in the 11th century had become the chief trading centre of Germany. Early in the 12th century the city was enlarged by the inclusion of suburbs of Oversburg; Niederich and St Aposteln; in 1180 these were enclosed in a permanent rampart which, in the 13th century, was strengthened with the walls and gates that survived till the 19th century.

The municipal history of Cologne is of considerable interest. In general it follows the same lines as that of other cities of Lower Germany and the Netherlands. At first the bishop ruled through his burgrave, advocate, and nominated jurats (scabini,Schöffen). Then, as the trading classes grew in wealth, his jurisdiction began to be disputed; theconjuratio pro libertateof 1112 seems to have been an attempt to establish a commune (seeCommune, Medieval). Peculiar to Cologne, however, was theRicherzeche(rigirzegheide), a corporation of all the wealthy patricians, which gradually absorbed in its hands the direction of the city’s government (the first record of its active interference is in 1225). In the 13th century the archbishops made repeated efforts to reassert their authority, and in 1259 Archbishop Conrad of Hochstaden, by appealing to the democratic element of the population, the “brotherhoods” (fraternitates) of the craftsmen, succeeded in overthrowing the Richerzeche and driving its members into exile. His successor, Engelbert II., however, attempted to overthrow the democratic constitution set up by him, with the result that in 1262 the brotherhoods combined with the patricians against the archbishop, and the Richerzeche returned to share its authority with the elected “great council” (Weiter Rat). As yet, however, none of the trade or craft gilds, as such, had a share in the government, which continued in the hands of the patrician families, membership of which was necessary even for election to the council and to the parochial offices. This continued long after the battle of Worringen (1288) had finally secured for the city full self-government, and the archbishops had ceased to reside within its walls. In the 14th century a narrow patrician council selected from the Richerzeche, with two burgomasters, was supreme. In 1370 an insurrection of the weavers was suppressed; but in 1396, the rule of the patricians, having been weakened by internal dissensions, a bloodless revolution led to the establishment of a comparatively democratic constitution, based on the organization of the trade and craft gilds, which lasted with but slight modification till the French Revolution.

The greatness of Cologne, in the middle ages as now, was due to her trade. Wine and herrings were the chief articles of her commerce; but her weavers had been in repute from time immemorial, and exports of cloth were large, while her goldsmiths and armourers were famous. So early as the 11th century her merchants were settled in London, their colony forming the nucleus of the Steelyard. When, in 1201, the city joined the Hanseatic League (q.v.) its power and repute were so great that it was made the chief place of a third of the confederation.

In spite of their feuds with the archbishops, the burghers of Cologne were stanch Catholics, and the number of the magnificent medieval churches left is evidence at once of their piety and their wealth. The university, founded in 1389 by the sole efforts of the citizens, soon gained a great reputation; in the 15th century its students numbered much more than a thousand, and its influence extended to Scotland and the Scandinavian kingdoms. Its decline began, however, from the moment when the Catholic sentiment of the city closed it to the influence of the Reformers; the number of its students sank to vanishing point, and though, under the influence of the Jesuits, it subsequently revived, it never recovered its old importance. A final blow was dealt it when, in 1777, the enlightened archbishop Maximilian Frederick (d. 1784) founded the university of Bonn, and in 1798, amid the confusion of the revolutionary epoch, it ceased to exist.

The same intolerance that ruined the university all but ruined the city too. It is difficult, indeed, to blame the burghers for resisting the dubious reforming efforts of Hermann of Wied, archbishop from 1515 to 1546, inspired mainly by secularambitions; but the expulsion of the Jews in 1414, and still more the exclusion, under Jesuit influence, of Protestants from the right to acquire citizenship, and from the magistracy, dealt severe blows at the prosperity of the place. A variety of other causes contributed to its decay: the opening up of new trade routes, the gradual ossification of the gilds into close and corrupt corporations, above all the wars in the Netherlands, the Thirty Years’ War, and the Wars of the Spanish and Austrian Succession. When in 1794 Cologne was occupied by the French, it was a poor and decayed city of some 40,000 inhabitants, of whom only 6000 possessed civic rights. When, in 1801, by the treaty of Lunéville, it was incorporated in France, it was not important enough to be more than the chief town of an arrondissement. On the death of the last elector in 1801 the archiepiscopal see was left vacant. With the assignment of the city to Prussia by the congress of Vienna in 1815 a new era of prosperity began. The university, indeed, was definitively established at Bonn, but the archbishopric was restored (1821) as part of the new ecclesiastical organization of Prussia, and the city became the seat of the president of a governmental district. Its prosperity now rapidly increased; when railways were introduced it became the meeting-place of several lines, and in 1881 its growth necessitated the pushing outward of the circle of fortifications.

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