VOLUME V SLICE II Camorra to Cape Colony (continued 9)

CANTERBURY, a city and county of a city, the metropolis of an archdiocese of the Church of England, and a municipal, county and parliamentary borough of Kent, England, 62 m. E.S.E, of London by the South-Eastern & Chatham railway. Pop. (1901) 24,889. It lies on the river Stour, which here debouches from a beautiful narrow valley of the North Downs, the low but abrupt elevations of which command fine views of the city from the west and south, while the river presently enters upon the flat belt of land which separates the elevated Isle of Thanet from the rest of Kent. This belt represents the existence, in early historic times, of a sea-strait, and Fordwich, little more than 2 m. north-east of Canterbury, was once accessible for shipping. The city surrounds the precincts of the great cathedral.

The Cathedral.—It was to Canterbury, as the capital of Aethelberht, the fourth Saxon king of Kent, that in 597 Augustine and his fellow-missionaries came from Rome, and their settlement by Aethelberht in his capital became the origin of its position, held ever since, as the metropolis of the Church of England. Aethelberht, whose queen, Bertha, was already a Christian, gave the missionaries a church whose mythical founder was King Lucius. Augustine was a Benedictine and established the monastery of that order attached to the cathedral; this foundation was set upon a firm basis after the Norman Conquest by Archbishop Lanfranc, who placed its charge (as distinct from that of the diocese) in the hands of a prior.

Preparatory to the description of the cathedral, the principal epochs in the history of its erection may be noted. The Romano-British church occupied by St Augustine, of basilica form, remained long in use, though it was largely History of the building. rebuilt by Archbishop Odo, c. 950; after further vicissitudes it was destroyed by fire in 1067. Archbishop Lanfranc, taking up his office in 1070, undertook the building of an entirely new church, but under Anselm (c. 1100) Prior Ernulf rebuilt the eastern part, and his successor Conrad carried on the work. A fire destroyed much of this part of the building in 1174, and from that year the architect, William of Sens, took up the work of rebuilding until 1178, when, on his suffering serious injury by falling from a scaffold, another William, commonly distinguished as the Englishman, carried on the work and completed it in 1184. In 1376 Archbishop Sudbury entered upon the construction of a new nave, and Prior Chillenden continued this under Archbishop Courtenay. The building of the central tower was undertaken c. 1495 by Prior Goldstone, with the counsel of Selling, his predecessor, and Archbishop Morton.

This Perpendicular tower is the most notable feature of the exterior. It rises in two storeys to a height of 235 ft. from the ground, and is known variously as Bell Harry tower from the great bell it contains, or as the Angel steeple Exterior. from the gilded figure of an angel which formerly adorned the summit. The Perpendicular nave is flanked at the west front by towers, whose massive buttresses, rising in tiers, serve to enhance by contrast the beautiful effect of the unbroken straight lines of Bell Harry tower. The south-western of these towers is an original Perpendicular structure by Prior Goldstone, while the north-western was copied from it in 1834-1840, replacing a Norman tower which had carried a spire until 1705 and had become unsafe. The north-west and south-west transepts are included in Chillenden’s Perpendicular reconstruction; but east of these earlier work is met with. The south-east transept exhibits Norman work; the projecting chapel east of this is known as Anselm’s tower. The cathedral terminates eastward in a graceful apsidal form, with the final addition of the circular eastern chapel built by William the Englishman, and known as the Corona or Becket’s Crown. St Andrew’s tower or chapel on the north side, corresponding to Anselm’s on the south, is the work of Ernulf. From this point westward the various monastic buildings adjoin the cathedral on the north side, so that the south side is that from which the details of the exterior must be examined.

When the nave of the cathedral is entered, the complete separation of the interior into two main parts, not only owing to the distinction between the two main periods of building; but by an actual structural arrangement, Interior. is realized as an unusual and, as it happens, a most impressive feature. In most English cathedrals the choir is separated from the nave by a screen; at Canterbury not only is this the case, but the separation is further marked by a broad flight of steps leading up to the screen, the choir floor (but not its roof) being much higher than that of the nave. Chillenden, in rebuilding the nave, retained only the lower parts of some of the early Norman walls of Lanfranc and the piers of the central tower arches. These piers were encased or altered on Perpendicular lines. In the choir, the late 12th-century work of the two Williams, the notable features are its great length, the fine ornamentation and the use of arches both round and pointed, a remarkable illustration of the transition between the Norman and Early English styles; the prolific use of dark marble in the shafts and mouldings strongly contrasting with the light stone which is the material principally used; and, finally, the graceful incurve of the main arcades and walls at the eastern end of the choir where it joins the chapel of the Trinity, an arrangement necessitated by the preservation of the earlier flanking chapels or towers of St Anselm and St Andrew. From the altar eastward the floor of the church is raised again above that of the choir. The choir screen was built by Prior de Estria, c. 1300. The organ is not seen, being hidden in the triforium and played from the choir. There are several tombs of archbishops in the choir. The south-east transept serves as the chapel of the King’s school and exhibits the work of William of Sens in alteration of that of Ernulf. Anselm’s chapel or tower, already mentioned, may be noticed again as containing a Decorated window (1336). This style is not common in the cathedral.

Behind the altar is Trinity Chapel, in the centre of which stood the celebrated shrine of St Thomas of Canterbury. The priory owed its chief fame to the murder of Archbishop Becket (1170) in the church, his canonization as St Becket’s shrine. Pilgrimages. Thomas of Canterbury, and the resort of the Christian world on pilgrimage to his shrine. Miracles were almost immediately said to be worked at his grave in the crypt and at the well in which his garments had been washed; and from the time when Henry II. did his penance for the murder in the church, and the battle of Alnwick was gained over the Scots a few days afterwards—it was supposed as a result—the fame of the martyr’s power and the popularity of his worship became established in England. On the rebuilding of the cathedral after the fire of 1174, a magnificent shrine was erected for him in Trinity Chapel, which was built for the purpose, and became thronged for three centuries by pilgrims and worshippers of all classes, from kings and emperors downward. Henceforward the interests of the city became bound up in those of the cathedral, and were shown in the large number of hostels for the accommodation of pilgrims, and of shops containing wares especially suited to their tastes. A pilgrimage to Canterbury became not only a pious exercise, but a favourite summer excursion; and the poet Chaucer, writing in the 14th century, gives an admirable picture of such pilgrimages, with the manners and behaviour of a party of pilgrims, leisurely enjoying the journey and telling stories on the road. The English language even preserved two words originating in these customs—a “canterbury,” or a “canterbury tale,” a phrase used for a fiction, and a “canter,” which is a short form for a “canterbury gallop,” an allusion to the easy pace at which these pilgrimages were performed. The shrine with its vast collected wealth was destroyed, and every reminiscence connected with it as far as possible effaced, by King Henry VIII.’s commissioners in 1538. But some of the beautiful old windows of stained glass, illustrating the miracles wrought in connexion with the saint, are preserved. The north-west transept was the actual scene of Becket’s murder; the spot where he fell is shown on the floor, but this part of the building is of later date than the tragedy.

Close to the site of the shrine is the fine tomb of Edward the Black Prince, with a remarkable portrait effigy, and above it his helmet, shield and other equipment. There is also in this chapel the tomb of King Henry IV. The Corona, at the extreme cast of the church, contains the so-called St Augustine’s chair in which the archbishops are enthroned. It is of marble, but its name is not deserved, as it dates probably from c. 1200. The western part of the crypt, beneath the choir, is the work of Ernulf, and perhaps incorporates some of Lanfranc’s work. The chapel of St John or St Gabriel, beneath Anselm’s tower, is still used for service, in which the French language is used; it was devoted to this purpose in 1561, on behalf of French Protestant refugees, who were also permitted to carry on their trade as weavers in the crypt. The eastern and loftier part of the crypt, with its apsidal termination, is the work of William the Englishman. Here for some time lay the body of Becket, and here the celebrated penance of Henry II. was performed.

The chief entrance to the precincts is through an ornate gateway at the south-west, called Christchurch gateway, and built by Prior Goldstone in 1517. Among the remains of the monastic buildings there may be mentioned the Monastic buildings. Norman ruins of the infirmary, the fine two-storeyed treasury and the lavatory tower, Norman in the lower part and Perpendicular in the upper. The cloisters are of various dates, containing a little rich Norman work, but were very largely rebuilt by Prior Chillenden. The upper part of the chapter-house is also his work, but the lower is by Prior de Estria. The library is modern. The site of the New Hall of the monastery is covered by modern buildings of King’s school, but the Norman entry-stair is preserved—a magnificent example of the style, with highly ornate arcading.

The principal dimensions of the cathedral arc: length (outside) 522 ft., nave 178 ft., choir 180 ft. The nave is 71 ft. in breadth and 80 ft. in height.

The archbishop of Canterbury is primate of all England; the ecclesiastical province of Canterbury covers England Province and diocese. and Wales south of Cheshire and Yorkshire; and the diocese covers a great part of Kent with a small part of Sussex. The following is a list of archbishops of Canterbury:—

1. Augustine, 597 to 605. 49. John Peckham, 1279 to 1292.

2. Lawrence (Laurentius), 605 to 619. 50. Robert Winchelsea, 1293 to 1313.

3. Mellitus, 619 to 624. 51. Walter Reynolds, 1313 to 1327.

4. Justin. 624 to 627. 52. Simon de Meopham, 1328 to 1333.

5. Honorius, 627 to 653. 53. John Stratford, 1333 to 1348.

6. Deusdedit (Frithona), 655 to 664. 54. John de Ufford, 1348 to 1349.

7. Theodore, 668 to 690. 55. Thomas Bradwardin, 1349.

8. Brethwald (Berhtuald), 693 to 731. 56. Simon Islip, 1349 to 1366.

9. Taetwine. 731 to 734. 57. Simon Langham, 1366 to 1368.

10. Nothelm, 734 to 740. 58. William Whittlesea, 1368 to 1374.

11. Cuthbert, 740 to 758. 59. Simon Sudbury, 1375 to 1381.

12. Breogwine, 759 to 762. 60. William Courtenay, 1381 to 1396.

13. Jaenberht, 763 to 790. 61. Thomas Arundel, 1396 to 1414.

14. Aethelhard, 790 to 803. 62. Henry Chicheley, 1414 to 1443.

15. Wulfred, 803 to 829. 63. John Stafford, 1443 to 1452.

16. Fleogild, 829 to 830. 64. John Kemp, 1452 to 1454.

17. Ceolnoth, 830 to 870. 65. Thomas Bourchier, 1454 to 1486.

18. Aethelred, 870 to 889. 66. John Morton, 1486 to 1500.

19. Plegemund, 889 to 914. 67. Henry Dean (Dene), 1501 to 1503.

20. Aethelm, 914 to 923. 68. William Warham, 1503 to 1532.

21. Wulfelm, 923 to 942. 69. Thomas Cranmer, 1533 to 1556.

22. Odo, 942 to 959. 70. Reginald Pole, 1556 to 1558.

23. Aelsine, 959. 71. Matthew Parker, 1559 to 1575.

24. Dunstan, 960 to 988. 72. Edmund Grindal, 1575 to 1583.

25. Aethelgar, 988 to 989. 73. John Whitgift, 1583 to 1604.

26. Sigeric, 990 to 994. 74. Richard Bancroft, 1604 to 1610.

27. Aelfric, 995 to 1005. 75. George Abbot, 1610 to 1633.

28. Alphege (Aelfeah), 1005 to 1012. 76. William Laud, 1633 to 1645.

29. Lyfing, 1013 to 1020. 77. William Juxon, 1660 to 1663.

30. Aethelnoth, 1020 to 1038. 78. Gilbert Sheldon, 1663 to 1677.

31. Eadsige, 1038 to 1050. 79. William Sancroft, 1678 to 1691.

32. Robert of Jumièges, 1051 to 1052. 80. John Tillotson, 1691 to 1694.

33. Stigand, 1052 to 1070. 81. Thomas Tenison, 1694 to 1715.

34. Lanfranc, 1070 to 1089. 82. William Wake, 1716 to 1737.

35. Anselm, 1093 to 1109. 83. John Potter, 1737 to 1747.

36. Ralph de Turbine, 1114 to 1122. 84. Thomas Herring, 1747 to 1757.

37. William de Corbeuil (Curbellio), 1123 to 1136. 85. Matthew Hutton, 1757 to 1758.

38. Theobald, 1139 to 1161. 86. Thomas Secker, 1758 to 1768.

39. Thomas Becket, 1162 to 1170. 87. Frederick Cornwallis, 1768 to 1783.

40. Richard, 1174 to 1184. 88. John Moore, 1783 to 1805.

41. Baldwin, 1185 to 1190. 89. Charles Manners-Sutton, 1805 to 1828.

42. Reginald Fitz-Jocelyn, 1191. 90. William Howley, 1828 to 1848.

43. Hubert Walter, 1193 to 1205. 91. John Bird Sumner, 1848 to 1862.

44. Stephen Langton, 1207 to 1228. 92. Charles Thomas Longley, 1862 to 1868.

45. Richard Wethershed, 1229 to 1231. 93. Archibald Campbell Tait, 1868 to 1882.

46. Edmund Rich (de Abbendon) 1234 to 1240. 94. Edward White Benson, 1882 to 1896.

47. Boniface of Savoy, 1241 to 1270. 95. Frederick Temple, 1896 to 1903.

48. Robert Kilwardby, 1273 to 1278. 96. Randall Thomas Davidson.

The archbishop has a seat at Lambeth Palace, London. There are fragments in Palace Street of the old archbishop’s palace which have been incorporated with a modern palace.

Other Ecclesiastical Foundations.—Canterbury naturally abounded in religious foundations. The most important, apart from the cathedral, was the Benedictine abbey of St Augustine. This was erected on a site granted by King Aethelberht outside his capital, in a tract called Longport. Augustine dedicated it to St Peter and St Paul, but Archbishop Dunstan added the sainted name of the founder to the dedication, and in common use it came to exclude those of the apostles. The site is now occupied by St Augustine’s Missionary College, founded in 1844 when the property was acquired by A.J.B. Beresford Hope. Some ancient remnants are preserved, the principal being the entrance gateway (1300), with the cemetery gate, dated a century later, and the guest hall, now the refectory; but the scanty ruins of St Pancras’ chapel are of high interest, and embody Roman material. The chapel is said to have received its dedication from St Augustine on account of the special association of St Pancras with children, and in connexion with the famous story of St Gregory, w hose attention was first attracted to Britain when he saw the fair-faced children of the Angles who had been brought to Rome, and termed them “not Angles but angels.”

There were lesser houses of many religious orders in Canterbury, but only two, those of the Dominicans near St Peter’s church in St Peter’s Street, and the Franciscans, also in St Peter’s Street, have left notable remains. The Dominican refectory is used as a chapel. Among the many churches, St Martin’s, Longport, is of the first interest. This was the scene of the earliest work of Augustine in Canterbury, and had seen Christian service before his arrival. Its walls contain Roman masonry, but whether it is in part a genuine remnant of a Romano-British Christian church is open to doubt. There are Norman, Early English and later portions; and the font may be in part pre-Norman, and is indeed associated by tradition with the baptism of Aethelberht himself. St Mildred’s church exhibits Early English and Perpendicular work, and the use of Roman material is again visible here. St Paul’s is of Early English origin; St Dunstan’s, St Peter’s and Holy Cross are mainly Decorated and Perpendicular. The village of Harbledown, on the hill west of Canterbury on the London road, from the neighbourhood of which a beautiful view over the city is obtained, has many associations with the ecclesiastical life of Canterbury. It is mentioned by Chaucer in his pilgrimage under the name, appropriate to its site, of “Bob up and down.” The almshouses, which occupy the site of Lanfranc’s hospital for lepers, include an ancient hall and a chapel in which the west door and northern nave arcade are Norman, and are doubtless part of Lanfranc’s buildings. The neighbouring parish church is in great part rebuilt. Among the numerous charitable institutions in Canterbury there are several which may be called the descendants of medieval ecclesiastical foundations.

City Buildings, &c.—The old city walls may be traced, and the public walk called the Dane John (derived probably from donjon) follows the summit of a high artificial mound within the lines. The cathedral is finely seen from this point. Only the massive turreted west gate, of the later part of the 14th century, remains out of the former six city gates. The site of the castle is not far from the Dane John, and enough remains of the Norman keep to show its strength and great size. Among other buildings and institutions there may be mentioned the guildhall in High Street, of the early part of the 18th century; the museum, which includes a fine collection of local, including many Roman, relics; and the school of art, under municipal management, but founded by the painter T. Sidney Cooper (d. 1902), who was a resident at Harbledown. A modern statue of a muse commemorates the poet Christopher Marlowe (1564-1593), a native of the city; and a pillar indicates the place where a number of persons were burnt at the stake in the reign of Mary.

The King’s school, occupying buildings adjacent to the cathedral, developed out of the early teaching furnished by the monastery. It was refounded by Henry VIII. in 1541 (whence its name), and is managed on the lines of ordinary public schools. It has about 250 boys; and there is besides a junior or preparatory school. The school is still connected with the ecclesiastical foundation, the dean and chapter being its governors.

A noted occasion of festivity in Canterbury is the Canterbury cricket-week, when the Kent county cricket eleven engages in matches with other first-class teams, and many visitors are attracted to the city.

Canterbury has a considerable agriculture trade, breweries, tanneries, brickworks and other manufactures. The parliamentary borough returns one member. The city is governed by a mayor, 6 aldermen and 18 councillors. Area, 3955 acres.

History of the City.—The existence of a Romano-British town on the site of Canterbury has already been indicated. It was named Durovernum, and was a flourishing county town on the road from the Kentish ports to London. Mosaic pavements and other remains have been found in considerable abundance. The city, known by the Saxons as Cantwaraburh, the town of the men of Kent, was the metropolis of Aethelberht’s kingdom. At the time of the Domesday survey Canterbury formed part of the royal demesne and was governed by a portreeve as it had been before the Conquest. In the 13th and 14th centuries, two bailiffs presided over the burghmote, assisted by a larger and smaller council. Henry II., by an undated charter, confirmed former privileges and granted to the citizens that no one should implead them outside the city walls and that the pleas of the crown should be decided according to the customs of the city. In 1256 Henry III. granted them the city at an annual fee farm of £60, also the right of electing their bailiffs. Confirmations of former charters with additional liberties were granted by later sovereigns, and Henry VI. incorporated Canterbury, which he called “one of our most ancient cities,” under the style of the mayor and commonalty, the mayor to be elected by the burgesses. James I. in 1609 confirmed these privileges, giving the burgesses the right to be called a body corporate and to elect twelve aldermen and a common council of twenty-four. Charles II., after calling in the charters of corporations, granted a confirmation in 1684. Canterbury was first represented in parliament in 1283, and it continued to return two members until 1885, when the number was reduced to one. A fair was granted by Henry VI. to the citizens to be held in the city or suburbs on the 4th of August and the two days following; other fairs were in the hands of the monasteries; the corn and cattle markets and a general market have been held by prescription from time immemorial. Canterbury was a great centre of the silk-weaving trade in the 17th century, large numbers of Walloons, driven by persecution to England, having settled there in the reign of Elizabeth. In 1676 Charles II. granted a charter of incorporation to the Walloon congregation under style of the master, wardens and fellowship of weavers in the city of Canterbury. The market for the sale of corn and hops was regulated by a local act in 1801.

See A.P. Stanley, Historical Memorials of Canterbury (London, 1855); J. Brent, Canterbury in the Olden Time (Canterbury, 1879); J.W. Legg and W.H. St J. Hope, Inventories of Christchurch, Canterbury (London, 1902); Victoria County History, Kent.

CANTHARIDES, or Spanish Flies, the common blister-beetles (Cantharis vesicatoria) of European pharmacy. They are bright, iridescent, golden-green or bluish-coloured beetles (see Coleoptera), with the breast finely punctured and pubescent, head and thorax with a longitudinal channel, and elytra with two slightly elevated lines. The insect is from half-an-inch to an inch in length, and from one to two lines broad, the female being broader in the abdomen and altogether larger than the male. It is a native of the south of Europe, being found in Spain, France, Germany, Italy, Hungary and the south of Russia, and it is also obtained in Siberia. The Spanish fly is also occasionally found in the south of England. The insects feed upon ash, lilac, privet and jasmine leaves, and are found more rarely on elder, rose, apple and poplar trees. Their presence is made known by a powerful disagreeable odour, which penetrates to a considerable distance. They are collected for use at late evening or early morning, while in a dull bedewed condition, by shaking them off the trees or shrubs into cloths spread on the ground; and they are killed by dipping them into hot water or vinegar, or by exposing them for some time over the vapour of vinegar. They are then dried and put up for preservation in glass-stoppered bottles; and they require to be very carefully guarded against mites and various other minute insects, to the attacks of which they are peculiarly liable. It has been shown by means of spectroscopic observations that the green colour of the elytra, &c., is due to the presence of chlorophyll; and that the variations of the spectral bands are sufficient, after the lapse of many years, to indicate with some certainty the kind of leaves on which the insects were feeding shortly before they were killed.

Cantharides owe their value to the presence of a peculiar chemical principle, to which the name cantharidin has been given. It is most abundant in large full-grown insects, while in very young specimens no cantharidin at all has been found. From about one-fourth to rather more than one-half per cent, of cantharidin has been obtained from different samples; and it has been ascertained that the elytra or wing-sheaths of the insect, which alone are used in pharmacy, contain more of the active principle than the soft parts taken together; but apparently cantharidin is most abundant in the eggs and generative organs.

Cantharidin constitutes from ½ to 1% of cantharides. It has the formula C10H14O4, and on hydrolysis is converted into cantharinic acid, C10H14O5. It crystallizes in colourless plates and is readily soluble in alcohol, ether, &c., but not in water. The British Pharmacopeia contains a large number of preparations of cantharides, but the only one needing special mention is the tincture, which is meant for internal administration; the small dose is noteworthy, five minims being probably the maximum for safety.

The external action of cantharides or cantharidin is extremely characteristic. When it is applied to the skin there are no obvious consequences for some hours. Thereafter the part becomes warm and painful, owing to marked local vascular dilatation. This is the typical rubefacient action. Soon afterwards there is an accumulation under the epidermis of a serum derived from the dilated blood-vessels. The numerous small blisters or vesicles thus derived coalesce, forming a large sac full of “blister-fluid.” The drug is described as a counter-irritant, though the explanation of this action is very doubtful. Apparently there is an influence on the afferent nerves of the part which causes a reflex contraction—some authors say dilatation—of the vessels in the internal organs that are under the control of the same segment of the nervous system as that supplying the area of skin from which the exciting impulse comes. When applied in this fashion a certain quantity of the cantharides is absorbed.

Taken internally in any but minute doses, the drug causes the most severe gastro-intestinal irritation, the vomited and evacuated matters containing blood, and the patient suffering agonizing pain and extreme depression. The further characteristic symptoms are displayed in the genito-urinary tract. The drug circulates in the blood in the form of an albuminate and is slowly excreted by the kidneys. The effect of large doses is to cause great pain in the renal region and urgent wish to micturate. The urine is nevertheless small in amount and contains albumen and blood owing to the local inflammation produced in the kidney by the passage of the poison through that organ. The drug often has a marked aphrodisiac action, producing priapism, or in the female sex the onset of the catamenia or abortion.

Cantharides is used externally for its counter-irritant action. There are certain definite contra-indications to its use. It must not be employed in cases of renal disease, owing to the risks attendant upon absorption. It must always be employed with caution in the case of elderly persons and children; and it must not be applied to a paralysed limb (in which the power of healing is deficient), nor to parts upon which the patient lies, as otherwise a bed-sore is likely to follow its use. The drug is administered internally in certain cases of impotence and occasionally in other conditions. Its criminal employment is usually intended to heighten sexual desire, and has frequently led to death.

The toxic symptoms have already been detailed, the patient usually dying from arrest of the renal functions. The treatment is far from satisfactory, and consists in keeping up the strength and diluting the poison in the blood and in the urine by the administration of bland fluids, such as soda-water, milk and plain water, in quantities as large as possible. External warmth should also be applied to the regions specially affected by the drug.

A very large number of other insects belonging to the same family possess blistering properties, owing to their containing cantharidin. Of these the most remarkable is the Telini “fly” of India (Mylabris cichorii), the range of which extends from Italy and Greece through Egypt and central Asia as far as China. It is very rich in cantharidin, yielding fully twice as much as ordinary cantharides. Several green-coloured beetles are, on account of their colour, used as adulterants to cantharides, but they are very easily detected by examination with the eye, or, if powdered, with the microscope.

CANTICLES. The Old Testament book of Canticles, or the Song of Solomon, is called in Hebrew The Song of Songs (that is, the choicest of songs), or, according to the full title which stands as the first verse of the book, The choicest of the songs of Solomon. In the Western versions the book holds the third place among the so-called Solomonic writings, following Proverbs and Ecclesiastes. In Hebrew Bibles it stands among the Megilloth, the five books of the Hagiographa which have a prominent place in the Synagogue service. In printed Bibles and in German MSS. it is the first of these because it is read at the Passover, which is the first great feast of the sacred year of the Jews.

No part of the Bible has called forth a greater diversity of opinions than the Song of Solomon, and this for two reasons. In the first place, the book holds so unique a position in the Old Testament, that the general analogy of Hebrew literature is a very inadequate key to the verbal difficulties, the artistic structure, and the general conception and purpose of the poem. In point of language the departures from ordinary Hebrew are almost always in the direction of Aramaic. Many forms unique in Biblical Hebrew are at once explained by the Aramaic dialects, but not a few are still obscure. The philological difficulties of the book are, however, less fundamental than those which lie in the unique character of the Song of Solomon in point of artistic form, and in the whole atmosphere of thought and feeling in which it moves. Even in these respects it is not absolutely isolated. Parallels to the peculiar imagery may be found in the book of Hosea, in Ezekiel xvi. and xxiii. and above all in the 45th Psalm; but such links of union to the general mass of the Old Testament literature are too slight to be of material assistance in the solution of the literary problem of the book. Here, again, as in the lexical difficulties already referred to, we are tempted or compelled to argue from the distant and insecure analogy of other Eastern literatures, or are thrown back upon traditions of uncertain origin and ambiguous authority.

The power of tradition has been the second great source of confusion of opinion about the Song of Solomon. To tradition we owe the title, which apparently indicates Solomon as the author and not merely as the subject of the book. The authority of titles in the Old Testament is often questionable, and in the present case it is certain on linguistic grounds that the title is not from the hand that wrote the poem; while to admit that it gives a correct account of the authorship is to cut away at one stroke all the most certain threads of connexion between the book and our historical knowledge of the Old Testament people and literature.

To tradition, again, we owe the prejudice in favour of an allegorical interpretation, that is, of the view that from verse to verse the Song sets forth the history of a spiritual and not merely of an earthly love. To apply such an exegesis to Canticles is to violate one of the first principles of reasonable interpretation. True allegories are never without internal marks of their allegorical design. The language of symbol is not so perfect that a long chain of spiritual ideas can be developed without the use of a single spiritual word or phrase; and even were this possible it would be false art in the allegorist to hide away his sacred thoughts behind a screen of sensuous and erotic imagery, so complete and beautiful in itself as to give no suggestion that it is only the vehicle of a deeper sense. Apart from tradition, no one, in the present state of exegesis, would dream of allegorizing poetry which in its natural sense is so full of purpose and meaning, so apt in sentiment, and so perfect in imagery as the lyrics of Canticles. We are not at liberty to seek for allegory except where the natural sense is incomplete. This is not the case in the Song of Solomon. On the contrary, every form of the allegorical interpretation which has been devised carries its own condemnation in the fact that it takes away from the artistic unity of the poem and breaks natural sequences of thought.1 The allegorical interpretation of the Song of Solomon bad its rise in the very same conditions which forced a deeper sense, now universally discarded, upon so many other parts of scripture. Yet strangely enough there is no evidence that the Jews of Alexandria extended to the book their favourite methods of interpretation. The arguments which have been adduced to prove that the Septuagint translation implies an allegorical exegesis are inadequate;2 and Philo does not mention the book. Nor is there any allusion to Canticles in the New Testament. The first trace of an allegorical view identifying Israel with the “spouse” appears to be in the Fourth Book of Ezra, near the close of the 1st Christian century (v. 24, 26; vii. 26). Up to this time the canonicity of the Canticles was not unquestioned; and the final decision as to the sanctity of the book, so energetically carried through by R. Aqiba, when he declared that “the whole world is not worth the day on which the Song of Songs was given to Israel; for all the scriptures (or Hagiographa) are holy, but the Canticles most holy,” must be understood as being at the same time a victory of the allegorical interpretation over the last remains of a view which regarded the poem as simply erotic.3

The form in which the allegorical theory became fixed in the synagogue is contained in the Midrash Chazita and in the Targum, which is a commentary rather than a translation. The spouse is Israel, her royal lover the divine king, and the poem is explained as tracing the great events of the people’s history from the Exodus to the Messianic glory and final restoration.4

The authority of Origen, who, according to Jerome, surpassed himself in his commentary of ten volumes on this book, established the allegorical theory in the Christian church in the two main forms in which it has since prevailed. The bridegroom is Christ, the bride either the church or the believing soul. The latter conception is, of course, that which lends itself most readily to purposes of mystical edification, and which has made Canticles the manual in all ages of a wide-spread type of religious contemplation. But the other view, which identifies the bride with the church, must be regarded as the standard of orthodox exegesis. Of course the allegorical principle admitted of very various modifications, and readily adapted itself to new religious developments, such as the rise of Mariolatry. Within the limits of the orthodox traditions the allegory took various colours, according as its mystical or its prophetical aspect was insisted on. Among medieval commentators of the former class S. Bernard holds a pre-eminent place; while the second class is represented by Nicolaus de Lyra, who, himself a converted Jew, modified the Jewish interpretation so as to find in the book an account of the processus ecclesiae under the Old and New Testaments. The prophetic exegesis reached its culminating point in the post-Reformation period, when Cocceius found in the Canticles a complete conspectus of church history. But the relaxation of traditional authority opened the door to still stranger vagaries of interpretation. Luther was tempted to understand the book of the political relations of Solomon and his people. Others detected the loves of Solomon and Wisdom—a view which found a supporter in Rosenmüller.

The history of the literal interpretation begins with the great “commentator” of the Syrian Church, Theodorus of Mopsuestia (died 429), who condemned equally the attempt to find in the book a prophecy of the blessings given to the church, and the idea even at that time expressed in some quarters that the book is immoral. Theodorus regarded the Canticles as a poem written by Solomon in answer to the complaints of his people about his Egyptian marriage; and this was one of the heresies charged upon him after his death, which led to his condemnation at the second council of Constantinople (553 a.d.). A literal interpretation was not again attempted till in 1544 Chateillon (Castellio or Castalion) lost his regency at Geneva for proposing to expel the book from the canon as impure. Grotius (Annot. in V.T., 1644) took up a more moderate position. Without denying the possibility of a secondary reference designed by Solomon to give his poem a more permanent value, he regards the Canticles as primarily an ὀαρίστυς (conjugal prattle) between Solomon and Pharaoh’s daughter. The distinction of a primary and secondary sense gradually became current not only among the Remonstrants, but in England (Lightfoot, Lowth) and even in Catholic circles (Bossuet, 1693). In the actual understanding of the book in its literal sense no great progress was made. Solomon was still viewed as the author, and for the most part the idea that the poem is a dramatic epithalamium was borrowed from Origen and the allegorists, and applied to the marriage of Pharaoh’s daughter.

From Grotius to Lowth the idea of a typical reference designed by Solomon himself appears as a mere excrescence on the natural interpretation, but as an excrescence which could not be removed without perilling the place of Canticles in the canon, which, indeed, was again assailed by Whiston in 1723. But in his notes on Lowth’s lectures, J.D. Michaelis, who regarded the poem as a description of the enduring happiness of true wedded love long after marriage, proposed to drop the allegory altogether, and to rest the canonicity of the book, as of those parts of Proverbs which treat of conjugal affection, on the moral picture it presents (1758).

Then came Herder’s exquisite little treatise on Solomon’s Songs of Love, the Oldest and Sweetest of the East (1778). Herder, possessing delicacy of taste and sympathetic poetical genius, delighted in the Canticles as the transparently natural expression of innocent and tender love. He expressed the idea that the poem is simply a sequence of independent songs without inner unity, grouped so as to display various phases and stages of love in a natural order, culminating in the placid joys of wedded life. The theory of Herder, which refuses to acknowledge any continuity in the book, was accepted by Eichhorn on the part of scholars, and with some hesitation by Goethe on the part of the poets. Commentaries based on this view are those of Döpke (1829), Magnus (1842), Noyes (1846).

The prevalent view of the 19th century, however, recognizes in the poem a more or less pronounced dramatic character, and following Jacobi (1771) distinguishes the shepherd, the true love of the Shulamite, from King Solomon, who is made to play an ignominious part. Propounded by Stäudlin (1792) and Ammon (1795), this view was energetically carried out by Umbreit (1820), and above all by Ewald, whose acuteness gave the theory a new development, while his commanding influence among Hebrew scholars acquired for it general recognition. Ewald assumed a very simple dramatic structure, and did not in his first publication (1826) venture to suppose that the poem had ever been acted on a stage. His less cautious followers have been generally tempted to dispose of difficulties by introducing more complicated action and additional interlocutors (so, for example, Hitzig, 1855; Ginsburg, 1857; Renan, 1860); while Böttcher (1850) did his best to reduce the dramatic exposition to absurdity by introducing the complexities and stage effects of a modern operetta. Another view is that of Delitzsch (1851 and 1875) and his followers, who also plead for a dramatic form—though without supposing that the piece was ever acted—but adhere to the traditional notion that Solomon is the author, who celebrates his love to a peasant maiden, whom he made his wife, and in whose company the proud monarch learned to appreciate the sweetness of a true affection and a simple rustic life.

In view of the prevalence of the “dramatic” theory of Canticles during the 19th century, and its retention by some comparatively recent writers (Oettli, Driver, Adeney, Harper), it seems desirable that this theory should be presented in some detail. A convenient summary of the form it assumed in the hands of Ewald (the shepherd-hypothesis) and of Delitzsch (the king-hypothesis) is given by Driver (Literature of the Old Testament, ch. x. § 1). The following presentation of the theory, on the general lines of Ewald, gives that form of it which Robertson Smith was able to accept in 1876.

The centre of attraction is throughout a female figure, and the unity of this figure is the chief test of the unity of the book. In the long canto, i. 1-ii .7, the heroine appears in a royal palace (i. 4) among the daughters of Jerusalem, who are thus presumably ladies of the court of Zion. At i. 9, an additional interlocutor is introduced, who is plainly a king, and apparently Solomon (i. 9, 12). He has just risen from table, and praises the charms of the heroine with the air of a judge of beauty, but without warmth. He addresses her simply as “my friend” (not as English version, “my love”). The heroine, on the contrary, is passionately in love, but nothing can be plainer than that the object of her affection is not the king. She is not at home in the palace, for she explains (i. 6) that she has spent her life as a peasant girl in the care of vineyards. Her beloved, whom she knows not where to find (i. 7), but who lies constantly on her heart and is cherished in her bosom like a spray of the sweet henna flowers which Oriental ladies delight to wear (i. 13, 14), is like herself a peasant—a shepherd lad (i. 7)—with whom she was wont to sit in the fresh greenwood under the mighty boughs of the cedars (i. 16, 17). Even before the king’s entrance the ladies of the court are impatient at so silly an affection, and advise her, “if she is really so witless,” to begone and rejoin her plebeian lover (i. 8). To them she appeals in ii. 5, 6, where her self-control, strung to the highest pitch as she meets the compliments of the king with reminiscences of her absent lover, breaks down in a fit of half-delirious sickness. The only words directed to the king are those of i. 12, which, if past tenses are substituted for the presents of the English version, contain a pointed rebuff. Finally, ii. 7 is, on the plainest translation, a charge not to arouse love till it please. The moral of the scene is the spontaneity of true affection.

Now, at viii. 5, a female figure advances leaning upon her beloved, with whom she claims inseparable union,—“for love is strong as death, its passion inflexible as the grave, its fire a divine flame which no waters can quench or floods drown. Yea, if a man would give all his wealth for love he would only be contemned.” This is obviously the sentiment of ii. 7, and the suitor, whose wealth is despised, must almost of necessity be identified with the king of chapter i., if, as seems reasonable, we place viii. ii, 12 in the mouth of the same speaker—“King Solomon has vineyards which bring him a princely revenue, and enrich even the farmers. Let him and them keep their wealth; my vineyard is before me” (i.e. I possess it in present fruition). The last expression is plainly to be connected with i. 6. But this happiness has not been reached without a struggle. The speaker has proved herself an impregnable fortress (ver. 10), and, armed only with her own beauty and innocence, has been in his eyes as one that found peace. The sense is that, like a virgin fortress, she has compelled her assailant to leave her in peace. To these marks of identity with the heroine of ch. i. are to be added that she appears here as dwelling in gardens, there as a keeper of vineyards (i. 6, and viii. 13), and that as there it was her brethren that prescribed her duties, so here she apparently quotes words in which her brothers, while she was still a child, speculated as to her future conduct and its reward (viii. 8, 9).

If this analysis of the commencement and close of the book is correct, it is certain that the poem is in a sense dramatic, that is, that it uses dialogue and monologue to develop a story. The heroine appears in the opening scene in a difficult and painful situation, from which in the last chapter she is happily extricated. But the dramatic progress which the poem exhibits scarcely involves a plot in the usual sense of that word. The words of viii. 9, 10 clearly indicate that the deliverance of the heroine is due to no combination of favouring circumstances, but to her own inflexible fidelity and virtue.

The constant direction of the maiden’s mind to her true love is partly expressed in dialogue with the ladies of the court (the daughters of Jerusalem), who have no dramatic individuality, and whose only function in the economy of the piece is to give the heroine opportunity for a more varied expression of her feelings. In i. 8 we found them contemptuous. In chapter iii. they appear to be still indifferent; for when the heroine relates a dream in which the dull pain of separation and the uneasy consciousness of confinement and danger in the unsympathetic city disappear for a moment in imagined reunion with her lover, they are either altogether silent or reply only by taking up a festal part song describing the marriage procession of King Solomon (iii. 6-11), which stands in jarring contrast to the feelings of the maiden.5 A second dream (v. 2-8), more weird and melancholy, and constructed with that singular psychological felicity which characterizes the dreams of the Old Testament, gains more sympathy, and the heroine is encouraged to describe her beloved at large (v. 10-vi. 3). The structure of these dialogues is so simple, and their purpose is so strictly limited to the exhibition of the character and affection of the maiden, that it is only natural to find them supplemented by a free use of pure monologue, in which the heroine recalls the happiness of past days, or expresses her rising hope of reunion with her shepherd, and restoration to the simple joys of her rustic life. The vivid reminiscence of ii. 8-17 takes the form of a dialogue within the main dialogue of the poem, a picture within a picture—the picture of her beloved as he stood at her window in the early spring time, and of her own merry heart as she laughingly answered him in the song with which watchers of the vineyards frighten away the foxes. It is, of course, a fault of perspective that this reminiscence is as sharp in outline and as strong in colour as the main action. But no one can expect perspective in such early art, and recollection of the past is clearly enough separated from present reality by ii. 16, 17. The last monologue (vii. 10-viii. 3), in which the hope of immediate return with her lover is tempered by maidenly shame, and a maiden’s desire for her mother’s counsel, is of special value for a right appreciation of the psychology of the love which the poem celebrates, and completes a picture of this flower of the northern valleys which is not only firm in outline, but delicate in touch. The subordinate action which supports the portraiture of the maiden of Galilee is by no means easy to understand.

We come next to chapter vi., which again sings the praises of the heroine, and takes occasion in this connexion to introduce, with the same want of perspective as we observed in ch. ii., a dialogue descriptive of Solomon’s first meeting with the maiden. We learn that she was an inhabitant of Shulem or Shunem in Issachar, whom the king and his train surprised in a garden on the occasion of a royal progress through the north. Her beauty drew from the ladies of the court a cry of admiration. The maiden shrinks back with the reply—“I was gone down into my garden to see its growth.... I know not how my soul hath brought me among the chariots of princes”; but she is commanded to turn and let herself be seen in spite of her bashful protest—“Why do ye gaze on the Shulamite as at a dance of Mahanaim (a spectacle)?” Now the person in whose mouth this relation is placed must be an eye-witness of the scene, and so none other than the king. But in spite of the verbal repetition of several of the figures of ch. iv.... the tone in which the king now addresses the Shulamite is quite changed. She is not only beautiful but terrible, her eyes trouble him, and he cannot endure their gaze. She is unique among women, the choice and only one of her mother. The unity of action can only be maintained by ignoring vii. 1-9, and taking the words of Solomon in chapter vi. in their obvious sense as implying that the king at length recognizes in the maiden qualities of soul unknown in the harem, a character which compels respect, as well as a beauty that inflames desire. The change of feeling which was wrought in the daughters of Jerusalem in the previous scene now extends to Solomon himself, and thus the glad utterances of vii. 10, seq., have a sufficient motive, and the dénouement is no longer violent and unprepared.

The nodus of the action is fully given in chapter i., the final issue in chapter viii. The solution lies entirely in the character and constancy of the heroine, which prevail, in the simplest possible way, first over the ladies of the court and then over the king.

The attractiveness of the above theory cannot be denied; but it may be asked whether the attraction does not lie in the appeal to modern taste of a story which is largely the product of modern imagination. It supposes a freedom of intercourse between lovers inconceivable for the East. The initial situation of the maiden in the harem of Solomon is left as a problem for the reader to discover, until he comes to its supposed origin in vi. 11; the expedient might be granted in the case of one of Browning’s Men and Women, but seems very improbable in the present case. The more elaborate dramatic theories can find no parallel in Semitic literature to the “drama” of Canticles, the book of Job being no exception to this statement; whilst even the simpler theories ask us to believe that the essential parts of the story—the rape of the Shulamite, the change in Solomon’s disposition, her release from the harem—are to be supplied by the reader from obscure and disputable references. More serious still is the fact that any progress of action from first to last is so difficult to prove. In the first chapter we listen to a woman speaker desiring to be kissed by the man who has brought her into his chambers, and speaking of “our bed”; in the last we leave her “leaning upon her beloved.” The difficulties of detail are equally great. To suppose that all the male love-making, by hypothesis unsuccessful, belongs to Solomon, whilst the heroine addresses her passionate words to the continuously absent shepherd, is obviously unconvincing; yet, if this shepherd speaks in iv. 8-v. 1, how are we to explain his appearance in the royal harem? This and other difficulties were acknowledged by Robertson Smith, notably the presence of vii. 1-9, which he proposed to set aside as an interpolation, because of its sensuality and of the difficulty of working it into the dramatic scheme. The fact that this passage has subsequently become the central element in the new interpretation of the book is, perhaps, a warning against violent measures with difficulties.

Attention has already been drawn to Herder’s proposal, accepted by some later writers, including Diestel and Reuss, to regard the book as a collection of detached songs. This received new and striking confirmation from the anthropological data supplied by J.G. Wetstein (1873), Prussian consul at Damascus. His observations of the wedding customs of Syrian peasants led him to believe that Canticles is substantially a collection of songs originally sung at such festivities. Wetstein’s contribution was republished shortly afterwards by Delitzsch, in an appendix to his Commentary; but it received little attention. The first amongst Old Testament scholars to perceive its importance seems to have been Stade, who accepted Wetstein’s view in a footnote to his History of the Jewish People (ii. p. 197), published in 1888; to Budde, however, belongs the distinction of the systematic and detailed use of Wetstein’s suggestions, especially in his Commentary (1898). This interpretation of the book is accepted by Kautzsch (1896), Siegfried (1898), Cheyne (1899), and other eminent scholars. The last-named states the theory tersely as follows: “The book is an anthology of songs used at marriage festivals in or near Jerusalem, revised and loosely connected by an editor without regard to temporal sequence” (Ency. Bibl. 691). The character of the evidence which has contributed to the acceptance of this view may be indicated in Wetstein’s own statements:—

“The finest time in the life of the Syrian peasant consists of the first seven days after his wedding, in which he and his young wife play the part of king (melik) and queen (melika), both being so treated and served by their village and the invited communities of the neighbourhood. The majority of the greater village weddings fall in the month of March, the finest of the Syrian year. The winter rains being over, and the sun still refreshing, not oppressive as in the following months, the weddings are celebrated in the open air on the village threshing-floor, which at this time of the year is with few exceptions a flowery mead. ... We pass over the wedding-day itself with its displays, the sword-dance of the bride, and the great feast. On the morrow, bridegroom and bride awake as king and queen. Already before sunrise they receive the leader of the bridesmen, as their vizier, and the bridesmen themselves; the latter thereupon fetch the threshing-board and bring it to the threshing-floor, singing a rousing song of battle or love, generally both. There it is erected as a throne, and after the royal couple have taken their seats and the necessary formalities are gone through, a great dance in honour of the young couple begins; the accompanying song is concerned only with themselves, its principal element being the inevitable wasf, i.e. a description of the physical perfections of both and their ornaments. The eulogy of the queen is more moderate, and praises her visible, rather than veiled, charms; this is due to the fact that she is to-day a married woman, and that the wasf sung on the previous day during her sword-dance has left nothing to desire. This wasf is the weak element in Syrian wedding-songs according to our taste; its comparisons are to us frequently too clumsy and reveal the stereotyped pattern. It is the same with the little collection of charming wedding-songs and fragments of them which has been received into the canon of the Old Testament under the name of Canticles; the wasf (iv.—vii.) is considerably below the rest in poetical value. With this dance begin the sports, lasting seven days, begun in the morning on the first, shortly before midday on the other days, and continuing far into the night by the light of the fires that are kindled; on the last day alone all is over by sunset. During the whole week both royalties are in marriage attire, must do no work and have no cares; they have only to look down from the merteba (throne) on the sports carried on before them, in which they themselves take but a moderate part; the queen, however, occasionally gives a short dance to attract attention to her bridal attire.”6

For the general application of these and the related customs to the interpretation of the book, reference should be made to Budde’s Commentary, which recognizes four wasfs, viz. iv. 1-7 (describing the bride from head to breasts), v. 10-16 (the bridegroom), vi. 4-7 (similar to and partly repeating iv. 1-7), and vii. 1-9, belonging to the sword-dance of the bride, her physical charms being sung from feet to head (cf. vii. 1; “Why look ye on the Shulamite as (on) a dance of camps?” i.e. a war-dance). This dance receives its name from the fact that she dances it with a sword in her hand in the firelight on the evening of her wedding-day, and amid a circle of men and women, whilst such a wasf as this is sung by the leader of the choir. The passage relating to the litter of Solomon (iii. 6-11)—an old difficulty with the dramatizers—relates to the erection of the throne on the threshing-floor.7 The terms “Solomon” and “the Shulamite” are explained as figurative references to the famous king, and to Abishag the Shulamite, “fairest among women,” on the lines of the use of “king” and “queen” noted above. Other songs of Canticles are referred by Budde to the seven days of festivities. It need hardly be said that difficulties still remain in the analysis of this book of wedding-songs; whilst Budde detects 23 songs, besides fragments, Siegfried divides the book into 10.8 Such differences are to be expected in the case of a collection of songs, some admittedly in dialogue form, all concerned with the common theme of the love of man and woman, and without any external indication of the transition from one song to the next.

Further, we must ask whether the task has been complicated by any editorial rearrangement or interpolation; the collector of these songs has certainly not reproduced them in the order of their use at Syrian weddings. Can we trace any principle, or even any dominant thought in this arrangement? In this connexion we touch the reason for the reluctance of some scholars to accept the above interpretation, viz. the alleged marks of literary unity which the book contains (e.g. Driver, loc. cit.). These are (1) general similarity of treatment, seen in the use of imagery (the bride as a garden, iv. 12; vi. 2, 3), the frequent references to nature and to particular places, and the recurrence of descriptions of male and female beauty; (2) references to “Solomon” or “the king,” to “the Shulamite” and to “the daughters of Jerusalem” (from which, indeed, the dramatic theory has found its chief inspiration); (3) indications that the same person is speaking in different places (cf. the two dreams of a woman, and the vineyard references, i. 6; viii. 12); (4) repetitions of words and phrases especially of the refrains, “disturb not love” (ii. 7; iii. 5; viii. 4), and “until the day break” (ii. 17; iv. 6). But of these (1) is no more than should be expected, since the songs all relate to the same subject, and spring from a common world of life and thought of the same group of people; (2) finds at least a partial parallel and explanation in the use of “king” and “queen” noted above; whilst (3) and (4) alone seem to require something more than the work of a mere collector of the songs. It is, of course, true that, in recurrent ceremonies, the same thought inevitably tends to find expression in the same words. But this hardly meets the case of the refrains, whilst the reference to the vineyard at beginning and end does suggest some literary connexion. It is to be noted that the three refrains “disturb not love” severally follow passages relating to the consummation of the sexual relation, whilst the two refrains “until the day break” appear to form an invitation and an answer in the same connexion, whilst the “Omnia vincit Amor” passage in the last chapter forms a natural climax (cf. Haupt’s translation). So far, then, as this somewhat scanty evidence goes, it may point to some one hand which has given its semblance of unity to the book by underlining the joy of consummated love—to which the vineyard and garden figures throughout allude—and by so arranging the collection that the descriptions of this joy find their climax in viii. 6-7.9

Whatever conclusion, however, may be reached as to the present arrangement of Canticles, the recognition of wedding-songs as forming its nucleus marks an important stage in the interpretation of the book; even Rothstein (1902), whilst attempting to resuscitate a dramatic theory, “recognizes... the possibility that older wedding-songs (as, for instance, the wasfs) are worked up in the Song of Songs” (Hastings’ D.B. p. 594b). The drama he endeavours to construct might, indeed, be called “The Tokens of Virginity,” since he makes it culminate in the procedure of Deut. xxii. 13 f., which still forms part of the Syrian ceremonies. But his reconstruction is open to the same objection as all similar attempts, in that the vital moments of the dramatic action have to be supplied from without. Thus between v. 1 and v. 2, the baffled king is supposed to have disappeared, and to have been replaced by the happy lover; between viii. 7 and viii. 8, we are required to imagine “the bridal night and its mysteries”; whilst between viii. 9 and viii. 10, we must suppose the evidence that the bride has been found a virgin is exhibited. He also attempts, with considerable ingenuity, to trace the legend involved in the supposed drama to the fact that Abishag remained a virgin in regard to David (I Kings i. 4) whilst nothing is said of her marriage to Solomon.10

On the view accepted above, Canticles describes in a number of separate poems the central passion of human life, and is wholly without didactic tendencies. Of its earliest history as a book we have no information. It is already included in the Hebrew canon (though its right to be there is disputed) when the first explicit mention of the book occurs. We have no evidence, therefore, of the theory of interpretation prevalent at the time of its incorporation with the other books of the canon. It seems, however, fair to infer that it would hardly have found acceptance but for a Solomonic theory of authorship and a “religious” theory of meaning. The problem raised by its present place in the canon occurs in relation to mistaken Jewish theories about other books also; it suggests, at least, that divine inspiration may belong to the life of a people rather than to the letter of their literature. Of that life Canticles portrays a central element—the passion of love—in striking imagery and graceful language, however far its oriental standard of taste differs from that of the modern West.

From the nature of the book, it is impossible to assign a precise date for its origin; the wedding-songs of which it chiefly consists must belong to the folklore of more than one century. The only evidence we possess as to date is drawn from the character of the Hebrew in which the book is written, which shows frequent points of contact with new Hebrew.11 On this ground, we may suppose the present form of the work to date from the Greek period, i.e. after 332 b.c. This is the date accepted by most recent writers, e.g. Kautzsch, Cheyne, Budde, Rothstein, Jacob, Haupt. This late date finds some confirmation in the fact that Canticles belongs to the third and latest part of the Old Testament canon, and that its canonicity was still in dispute at the end of the 1st century a.d. The evidence offered for a north Israelite origin, on the ground of linguistic parallels and topographical familiarity (Driver, loc. cit.), does not seem very convincing; Haupt, however, places the compilation of the book in the neighbourhood of Damascus.

Literature.—Most of the older books of importance are named above; Ginsburg, The Song of Songs (1857), gives much information as to the history of the exegesis of Canticles; Diestel’s article, “Hohes Lied,” in Schenkel’s Bibel Lexikon (1871), reviews well the history of interpretation prior to Wetstein; cf. also Riedel, Die Auslegung des Hohenliedes in der jüdischen Gemeinde und der griechischen Kirche (1898). The most important commentary is that by Budde, in Marti’s Kurzer Hand-Commentar (Die fünf Megilloth) (1898), where references to the literature of the 19th century are given. To his list add Siegfried, “Prediger und Hoheslied,” in Nowack’s Handkommentar (1898); Cheyne’s article “Canticles,” in the Encyclopaedia Biblica (1899); Dalman, Palästinischer Diwan (1901), parallels to the songs; Rothstein’s article, “Song of Songs,” in Hastings’ Dictionary of the Bible (1902); G. Jacob, Das Hohelied auf Grund arabischer und anderer Parallelen von neuem Untersucht (1902); A. Harper, The Song of Songs (1902); Haupt, “The Book of Canticles,” in The American Journal of Semitic Languages (July 1902); Scholz, Kommentar über das Hohelied und Psalm 45 (1904) (written from the Roman Catholic dogmatic standpoint of allegorical interpretation, with a vigorous criticism of other positions). No commentator in English, except Haupt, in the article named above, has yet worked on the lines of the above anthology theory. Haupt gives valuable notes, with a translation and rearrangement of the separate songs.

(W. R. S.; H. W. R.*)

1 An argument for the allegorical interpretation has been often drawn from Mahommedan mysticism—from the poems of Hafiz, and the songs still sung by dervishes. See Jones, Poëseos Asiaticae Com. pt. in. cap. 9; Rosenmüller’s remarks on Lowth’s Praelectio, xxxi., and Lane’s Modern Egyptians, ch. xxiv. But there is no true analogy between the Old Testament and the pantheistic mysticism of Islam, and there is every reason to believe that, where the allegory takes a form really analogous to Canticles, the original sense of these songs was purely erotic.

2 Repeated recently by Scholz, Kommentar, pp. iii. and iv.

3 The chief passages of Jewish writings referring to this dispute are Mishna Jadaim, iii. 5 and Tosifta Sanhedrin, xii. For other passages see Grätz’s Commentary, p. 115, and in control of his criticism the introduction to the commentary of Delitzsch.

4 The text of the Targum in the Polyglots and in Buxtorf’s Rabbinic Bible is not complete. The complete text is given in the Venice editions, and in Lagarde’s Hagiographa Chaldaice (Lipsiae, 1873). The Polyglots add a Latin version. A German version is given by Riedel in his very useful book, Die Auslegung des Hohenliedes (1898), which also reviews the interpretation of Canticles by Hippolytus, Origen and later Greek writers.

5 Ewald and others make this song a distinct scene in the action of the poem, supposing that the author here exhibits the honourable form of espousal by which Solomon thought to vanquish the scruples of the damsel. This view, however, seems to introduce a complication foreign to the plan of the book.

6 Wetstein, Zeitschrift f. Ethn., 1873, pp. 270-302; quoted and condensed by Budde as above in Comm. p. xvii.; for a fuller reproduction of Wetstein in English see Harper, The Song of Songs, pp. 74-76.

7 For the connexion of the threshing-floor with marriage through the idea of sexual fertility, we may compare many primitive ideas and customs, such as those described by Frazer (The Golden Bough, ii. p. 181 f., 186).

8 Castelli (Il Cantico dei Cantici, 1892) has written a very attractive little book on Canticles (quite apart from the Wetstein development) regarded as “a poem formed by a number of dialogues mutually related by a certain succession”; they require for their understanding nothing but some indication of the speaker at each transition (such as we find in codex A of the Septuagint).

9 On the erotic meaning of many of the figures employed see the notes of Haupt in The American Journal of Semitic Languages (July 1902); also G. Jacob, Das Hohelied (1902), who rightly protests against the limitation in the Comm. of Budde and Siegfried (p. 10) of all the songs to the marriage relation. Haupt thinks that the songs were not originally composed for weddings, though used there (p. 207, op. cit.). Diestel had pointed out, in another connexion (B.L. 125), that nothing is said in the book of the blessing of children, the chief end of marriage from a Hebrew standpoint.

10 Rothstein’s criticism of Budde turns chiefly on the latter’s admission of redactional elements, introducing “movement and action,” and may be summed up in the statement that “Budde himself by the characteristics he assigns to the redactor points the way again past his own hypothesis to the dramatical view of the Song” (loc cit. 594b). A. Harper, “The Song of Songs” (Cambridge Bible) also criticizes Budde at length in favour of the conventional dramatical theory (Appendix).

11 E.g. the late form of the relative pronoun used throughout except in title; foreign words, Persian and Greek; Aramaic words and usages (details in the Comm. or in E.B. 693).

CANTILEVER (a word of doubtful origin, probably derived from “lever,” in its ordinary meaning, and “cant,” an angle or edge, or else from modern Lat. quanta libra, of what weight), a building term for a stone, iron or wooden bracket, considerably greater in length than depth, used to support a gallery, &c.; and for a system of bridge-building (see Bridges).

CANTILUPE, THOMAS DE (c. 1218-1282), English saint and prelate, was a son of William de Cantilupe, the 2nd baron (d. 1251), one of King John’s ministers, and a nephew of Walter de Cantilupe, bishop of Worcester. He was educated at Paris and Orleans, afterwards becoming a teacher of canon law at Oxford and chancellor of the university in 1262. During the Barons’ War Thomas favoured Simon de Montfort and the baronial party. He represented the barons before St Louis of France at Amiens in 1264; he was made chancellor of England in February 1265, but was deprived of this office after Montfort’s death at Evesham, and lived out of England for some time. Returning to England, he was again chancellor of Oxford University, lectured on theology, and held several ecclesiastical appointments. In 1274 he attended the second council of Lyons, and in 1275 he was appointed bishop of Hereford. Cantilupe was now a trusted adviser of Edward I.; he attended the royal councils, and even when differing from the king did not forfeit his favour. The archbishop of Canterbury, Robert Kilwardby, was also his friend; but after Kilwardby’s death in 1279 a series of disputes arose between the bishop and the new archbishop, John Peckham, and this was probably the cause which drove Cantilupe to visit Italy. He died at Orvieto, on the 25th of August 1282, and he was canonized in 1330. Cantilupe appears to have been an exemplary bishop both in spiritual and secular affairs. His charities were large and his private life blameless; he was constantly visiting his diocese, correcting offenders and discharging other episcopal duties; and he compelled neighbouring landholders to restore estates which rightly belonged to the see of Hereford. In 1905 the Cantilupe Society was founded to publish the episcopal registers of Hereford, of which Cantilupe’s is the first in existence.

See the Ada Sanctorum, Boll., 1st October; and the Register of Thomas de Cantilupe, with introduction by W.W. Capes (1906).

CANTILUPE, WALTER DE (d. 1265), bishop of Worcester, came of a family which had risen by devoted service to the crown. His father and his elder brother are named by Roger of Wendover among the “evil counsellors” of John, apparently for no better reason than that they were consistently loyal to an unpopular master. Walter at first followed in his father’s footsteps, entering the service of the Exchequer and acting as an itinerant justice in the early years of Henry III. But he also took minor orders, and, in 1236, although not yet a deacon, received the see of Worcester. As bishop, he identified himself with the party of ecclesiastical reform, which was then led by Edmund Rich and Robert Grosseteste. Like his leaders he was sorely divided between his theoretical belief in the papacy as a divine institution and his instinctive condemnation of the policy which Gregory IX. and Innocent IV. pursued in their dealings with the English church. At first a court favourite, the bishop came at length to the belief that the evils of the time arose from the unprincipled alliance of crown and papacy. He raised his voice against papal demands for money, and after the death of Grosseteste (1253) was the chief spokesman of the nationalist clergy. At the parliament of Oxford (1258) he was elected by the popular party as one of their representatives on the committee of twenty-four which undertook to reform the administration; from that time till the outbreak of civil war he was a man of mark in the councils of the baronial party. During the war he sided with Montfort and, through his nephew, Thomas, who was then chancellor of Oxford, brought over the university to the popular side. He was present at Lewes and blessed the Montfortians before they joined battle with the army of the king; he entertained Simon de Montfort on the night before the final rout of Evesham. During Simon’s dictatorship, the bishop appeared only as a mediating influence; in the triumvirate of “Electors” who controlled the administration, the clergy were represented by the bishop of Chichester. Walter de Cantilupe died in the year after Evesham (1266). He was respected by all parties, and, though far inferior in versatility and force of will to Grosseteste, fully merits the admiration which his moral character inspired. He is one of the few constitutionalists of his day whom it is impossible to accuse of interested motives.

See the Chronica Maiora of Matthew Paris (“Rolls” series, ed. Luard); the Chronicon de Bellis (ed. Halliwell, Camden Society); and the Annales Monastici (“Rolls” series, ed. Luard); also T.F. Tout in the Political History of England, vol. iii. (1905).

CANTO (from the Lat. cantus, a song), one of the divisions of a long poem, a convenient division when poetry was more usually sung by the minstrel to his own accompaniment than read. In music, the canto, in a concerted piece, is that part to which the air is given. In modern music this is nearly always the soprano. The old masters, however, more frequently allotted it to the tenor. Canto fermo, or cantus firmus, is that part of the melody which remains true to the original motive, while the other parts vary with the counterpoint; also in Church music the simple straightforward melody of the old chants as opposed to canto figurato, which is full of embellishments of a florid character (see Plain Song).

CANTON, JOHN (1718-1772), English natural philosopher, was born at Stroud, Gloucestershire, on the 31st of July 1718. At the age of nineteen, he was articled for five years as clerk to the master of a school in Spital Square, London, with whom at the end of that time he entered into partnership. In 1750 he read a paper before the Royal Society on a method of making artificial magnets, which procured him election as a fellow of the society and the award of the Copley medal. He was the first in England to verify Benjamin Franklin’s hypothesis of the identity of lightning and electricity, and he made several important electrical discoveries. In 1762 and 1764 he published experiments in refutation of the decision of the Florentine Academy, at that time generally accepted, that water is incompressible; and in 1768 he described the preparation, by calcining oyster-shell with sulphur, of the phosphorescent material known as Canton’s phosphorus. His investigations were carried on without any intermission of his work as a schoolmaster. He died in London on the 22nd of March 1772.

CANTON (more correctly Kwang-chow Fu), a large and populous commercial city of China, in the province of Kwangtung, situated on the eastern bank of the Pearl river, which at Canton is somewhat broader than the Thames at London Bridge, and is navigable 300 m. into the interior. The Pearl river has an additional course of 80 m. to the sea, the first part of which lies through a rich alluvial plain. Beyond this rises a range of hills terminating in abrupt escarpments along the course of the river. The bold shore thus formed compresses the stream at this point into a narrow pass, to which the Chinese have given the name of Hu-mun, or Tiger’s Gate. This the Portuguese translated into Boca Tigre, whence the designation of “the Bogue,” by which it is commonly known among Europeans. When viewed from the hills on the north, Canton appears to be little more than an expanse of reddish roofs relieved by a few large trees,—two pagodas shooting up within the walls, and a five-storeyed tower near the northern gate, being the most conspicuous objects. These hills rise 1200 ft. above the river. Little or no vegetation is seen on them; and their acclivities, covered for miles with graves and tombs, serve as the necropolis of this vast city. Three or four forts are built on the points nearest the northern walls. Facing the city on the opposite side of the river is the suburb and island of Honan. The part of Canton enclosed by walls is about 6 m. in circumference, and has a partition wall, running east and west, and dividing the city into two unequal parts. The northern and larger division is called the old, and the southern the new city. Including the suburbs, the city has a circuit of nearly 10 m. The houses stretch along the river for 4 m., and the banks are almost entirely concealed by boats and rafts. The walls of the city are of brick, on a foundation of sandstone and granite, are 20 ft. thick, and rise to an average height of 25 ft. On the north side the wall rises to include a hill which it there meets with, and on the other three sides the city is surrounded by a ditch, which is filled by the rising tide, when, for a time, the revolting mass of filth that lies in its bed is concealed from view. There are twelve outer gates—four of which are in the partition wall, and two water gates, through which boats pass from east to west across the new city. The gates are all shut at night, and in the daytime a guard is stationed at them to preserve order. The streets, amounting in all to upwards of 600, are long, straight, and very narrow. They are mostly paved and are not as dirty as those of some of the other cities in the empire; in fact, considering the habits of the people and the inattention of the government to these matters, Canton may be said to be a well-governed and comparatively cleanly city. The houses are in general small, seldom consisting of more than two storeys, the ground floor serving as a shop, and the rest of the house, with the court behind, being used as a warehouse. Here are to be found the productions of every quarter of the globe; and the merchants are in general attentive, civil, expert men of business, and generally assiduous.

The temples and public buildings of Canton are numerous, but none of them presents features worthy of special remark. There are two pagodas near the west gate of the old city, and 124 temples, pavilions, halls and other religious edifices within the city. One of the pagodas called the Kwangtah, or Plain Pagoda, is a Mahommedan mosque, which was erected by the Arabian voyagers who were in the habit of visiting Canton about ten centuries ago. It rises in an angular tapering tower to the height of 160 ft. The other is an octagonal pagoda of nine storeys, 170 ft. in height, and was first erected more than thirteen centuries ago. A Buddhist temple at Honan, opposite the foreign factories, and named in Chinese Hai-ch‘wang-sze, or the Temple of the Ocean Banner, is one of the largest in Canton. Its grounds, which cover about seven acres, are surrounded by a wall, and are divided into courts, gardens and a burial-ground, where are deposited the ashes of priests, whose bodies are burned. There are about 175 priests connected with this establishment. Besides the Hai-ch‘wang-sze the most noteworthy temples in and about the city are those of the Five Hundred Gods and of Longevity, both in the western suburbs; the Tatar City Temple and the Temple of the Five Genii. The number of priests and nuns in Canton is not exactly known, but they probably exceed 2000, nine-tenths of whom are Buddhists. The temples are gloomy-looking edifices. The areas in front of them are usually occupied by hucksters, beggars and idlers, who are occasionally driven off to make room for the mat-sheds in which the theatrical performances got up by the wealthy inhabitants are acted. The principal hall, where the idol sits enshrined, is lighted only in front, and the inner apartments are inhabited by a class of men almost as senseless as the idols they serve.

The residences of the high officers of government are all within the walls of the old city. The residence of the governor-general used to be in the south-west corner of the new city, but it was utterly destroyed by the bombardment in 1856. The site remained desolate until 1860, when it was taken possession of by the French authorities, who erected a Roman Catholic cathedral upon it. The residence of the commander-in-chief is in the old city, and is said to be one of the best houses in Canton. There are four prisons in the city, all large edifices. For the space of 4 or 5 m. opposite Canton boats and vessels are ranged parallel to each other in such close order as to resemble a floating city; and these marine dwellings are occupied by numerous families, who reside almost constantly on the water. In the middle of the river lie the Chinese junks, some of them of from 600 to 1000 tons burden, which trade to the north and to the Strait Settlements. The various gilds and associations among the people and the merchants from other provinces have public halls each for its own particular use. The number of these buildings is not less than 150. Canton was long the only seat of British trade with China, and was no doubt fixed upon by the Chinese government for the European trade, as being the most distant from the capital Peking.

Formerly only a limited number of merchants, called the hong or security merchants, were allowed to trade with foreigners. They were commonly men of large property and were famed for integrity in their transactions. All foreign cargoes passed through the hands of these merchants, and by them also the return cargoes were furnished. They became security for the payment of customs duties, and it was criminal for any other merchant to engage in the trade with foreigners.

Although it is in the same parallel of latitude as Calcutta, the climate of Canton is much cooler, and is considered superior to that of most places situated between the tropics. The extreme range of the thermometer is from 38° to 100° F., though these extremes are rarely reached. In ordinary years the winter minimum is about 42° and the maximum in summer 96°. The hot season is considered to last from May to October; during the rest of the year the weather is cool. In shallow vessels ice sometimes forms at Canton; but so rarely is snow seen that when in February 1835 a fall to the depth of 2 in. occurred, the citizens hardly knew its proper name. Most of the rain falls during May and June, but the amount is nothing in comparison with that which falls during a rainy season in Calcutta. July, August and September are the regular monsoon months, the wind coming from the south-west with frequent showers, which allay the heat. In the succeeding months the northerly winds begin, with some interruptions at first, but from October to January the temperature is agreeable, the sky clear and the air invigorating. Few large cities are more generally healthy than Canton, and epidemics rarely prevail there.

Provisions and refreshments of all sorts are abundant, and in general are excellent in quality and moderate in price. It is a singular fact that the Chinese make no use of milk, either in its natural state or in the form of butter or cheese. Among the delicacies of a Chinese market are to be seen horse-flesh, dogs, cats, hawks, owls and edible birds’-nests. The business between foreigners and natives at Canton is generally transacted in a jargon known as “pidgin English,” the Chinese being extremely ready in acquiring a sufficient smattering of English words to render themselves intelligible.

The intercourse between China and Europe by the way of the Cape of Good Hope began in 1517, when Emanuel, king of Portugal, sent an ambassador, accompanied by a fleet of eight ships, to Peking, on which occasion the sanction of the emperor to establish a trade at Canton was obtained. It was in 1596, in the reign of Queen Elizabeth, that the English first attempted to open an intercourse with China, but ineffectually, for the two ships which were despatched on this mission were lost on the outward voyage, and it was not till about 1634 that English ships visited Canton. Unfortunately at this time a misunderstanding having occurred with the Chinese authorities owing to the treachery of the Portuguese, a rupture and a battle took place, and it was with difficulty that peace was again restored. In 1673 China was again visited by an English ship which was subsequently refused admission into Japan, and in 1677 a factory was established at Amoy. But during an irruption of the Tatars three years later this building was destroyed, and it was not till 1685 that the emperor permitted any trade with Europeans at that port. Upon the union of the two East India Companies in London, an imperial edict was issued, restricting the foreign commerce to the port of Canton.

Tea was first imported into England about the year 1667, and in 1689 a customs duty of 5s. per ℔ was for the first time imposed. From this date to 1834 the East India Company held a monopolv of the trade at Canton, and during this period the prosperity of the port increased and multiplied, notwithstanding the obstructions which were constantly thrown in the way of the “barbarians” by the Chinese government. The termination of the Company’s monopoly brought no alteration in the conduct of the native authorities, whose oppressions became before long so unbearable that in 1839 war was declared on the part of Great Britain. In 1841, while the forces under Sir Hugh (afterwards Lord) Gough were preparing to capture Canton, Captain Elliott entered into negotiations with the Chinese, and consented to receive a pecuniary ransom in lieu of occupying the city. Meanwhile the war was carried on in central China, and finally resulted in the conclusion of the Nanking treaty in August 1842, under the terms of which four additional ports, viz. Shanghai, Ningpo, Fu-chow and Amoy, were thrown open to foreign trade, and foreigners were granted permission to enter the city of Canton, from which they had hitherto been excluded. This latter provision of the treaty, however, the Chinese refused to carry out; and after endless disputes about this and other improper acts of the Chinese government, war was again declared in 1856, the immediate cause of which was an insult offered to the British flag by the capture of certain Chinese on board the “Arrow,” a small craft trading under English colours. The outbreak of hostilities was followed by the pillage and destruction of the foreign “factories” in December 1856 by a Chinese mob, and twelve months later Canton was taken by assault by a force under Sir Charles Straubenzee, which had been sent out from England for the purpose. From this time until October 1861 the city was occupied by an English and French garrison, and the administration of affairs was entrusted to an allied commission, consisting of two English officers and one French officer, acting under the English general. Since the withdrawal of this garrison, the city of Canton has been freely open to foreigners of all nationalities, and the English consul has his residence in the Yamun formerly occupied by the allied commissioners, within the city walls.

On the conclusion of peace it became necessary to provide a foreign settlement for the merchants whose “factories” had been destroyed, and after some consultation it was determined to fill in and appropriate as the British settlement an extensive mud flat lying to the westward of the old factory site, and known as Sha-mien or “The Sand Flats.” This site having been leased, it was converted into an artificial island by building a massive embankment of granite in an irregular oval form. Between the northern face of the site and the Chinese suburb a canal of 100 ft. in width was constructed, thus forming an island of about 2850 ft. in length and 950 ft. in greatest breadth. The expense of making this settlement was 325,000 Mexican dollars, four-fifths of which were defrayed by the British government and one-fifth by the French government. The British portion of the new settlement was laid out in eighty-two lots; and so bright appeared the prospect of trade at the time of their sale that 9000 dollars and upwards was paid in more than one instance for a lot with a river frontage, measuring 12,645 sq. ft. The depression in trade, however, which soon followed acted as a bar to building, and it was not until the British consulate was erected in 1865 that the merchants began to occupy the settlement in any numbers. The British consulate occupies six lots, with an area of 75,870 sq. ft. in the centre of the site, overlooking the river, and is enclosed with a substantial wall. A ground-rent of 15,000 cash (about £3) per mow (a third of an acre) is annually paid by the owners of lots to the Chinese government.

The Sha-mien settlement possesses many advantages. It is close to the western suburb of Canton, where reside all the wholesale dealers as well as the principal merchants and brokers; it faces the broad channel known as the Macao Passage, up which the cool breezes in summer are wafted almost uninterruptedly, and the river opposite to it affords a safe and commodious anchorage for steamers up to 1000 tons burden. Steamers only are allowed to come up to Canton, sailing vessels being restricted to the anchorage at Whampoa. There is daily communication by steamer with Hong-Kong, and with the Portuguese colony of Macao which lies near the mouth of the river. Inland communication by steam is now open by the west river route to the cities of Wuchow and Nanking. The opening of these inland towns to foreign trade, which has been effected, cannot but add considerably to the volume of Canton traffic. The native population is variously estimated at from 1,500,000 to 2,000,000, the former being probably nearer the truth. The foreign residents number about 400. Canton is the headquarters of the provincial government of Kwangtung and Kwangsi, generally termed the two Kwang, at the head of which is a governor-general or viceroy, an office which next to that of Nanking is the most important in the empire. It possesses a mint built in 1889 by the then viceroy Chang Chih-tung, and equipped with a very complete plant supplied from England. It turns out silver subsidiary coinage and copper cash. Contracts have been entered into to connect Canton by railway with Hong-Kong (Kowlun), and by a grand trunk line with Hankow on the Yangtsze. It is connected by telegraph with all parts. The value of the trade of Canton for the year 1904 was £13,749,582, £7,555,090 of which represented imports and £6,194,490 exports.

(R. K. D.)

CANTON, a city of Fulton county, Illinois, U.S.A., in the W. part of the state, 12 m. N. of the Illinois river, and 28 m. S.W. of Peoria. Pop. (1890) 5604; (1900) 6564 (424 foreign-born); (1910) 10,453. Canton is served by the Chicago, Burlington & Quincy, the Toledo, Peoria & Western, and the Illinois Central Electric Interurban railways. About 1 m. from the centre of the city are the Canton Chautauqua grounds. The city has a public library. Canton is situated in a rich agricultural region, for which it is a supply point, and there are large coal-mines in the vicinity. Among the manufactures are agricultural implements (particularly ploughs), machine-shop and foundry products (particularly mining-cars and equipment), flour, cigars, cigar-boxes, brooms, and bricks and tile. The municipal water-works are supplied from a deep artesian well. Canton was laid out in 1825; it was incorporated as a town in 1837 and as a village in 1849, and was chartered as a city in 1854.

CANTON, a village and the county-seat of St Lawrence county, New York, U.S.A., 17 m. S.E. of Ogdensburg, on the Grasse river. Pop. (1890) 2580; (1900) 2757; (1905) 3083; (1910) 2701. The village is served by the Rome, Watertown & Ogdensburg division of the New York Central & Hudson River railway. Canton is the seat of St Lawrence University (co-educational; chartered in 1856; at first Universalist, afterwards unsectarian), having a college of letters and science, which developed from an academy, opened in 1859; a theological school (Universalist), opened in 1858; a law school, established in 1869, discontinued in 1872 and re-established in Brooklyn, New York, in 1903 as the Brooklyn Law School of St Lawrence University; and a state school of agriculture, established in 1906 by the state legislature and opened in 1907. In 1907-1908 the university had 52 instructors, 168 students in the college of letters and science, 14 students in the theological school, 287 in the law school and 13 in the agricultural school. The Clinton Liberal Institute (Universalist, 1832), which was removed in 1879 from Clinton to Fort Plain, New York, was established in Canton in 1901. The Grasse river furnishes water-power, and the village has saw-, planing- and flour-mills, and plant for the building of small boats and launches. The village corporation owns a fine water-supply system. Canton was first settled in 1800 by Daniel Harrington of Connecticut and was incorporated in 1845. It was for many years the home of Silas Wright, who was buried here.

CANTON, a city and the county-seat of Stark county, Ohio, U.S.A., on Nimisillen Creek, 60 m. S. by E. of Cleveland. Pop. (1890) 26,189; (1900) 30,667, of whom 4018 were foreign-born; and (1910) 50,217. It is served by the Pennsylvania, the Baltimore & Ohio, and the Wheeling & Lake Erie railways, and is connected by an interurban electric system with all the important cities and towns within a radius of 50 m. It lies at an elevation of about 1030 ft. above sea-level, in a wheat-growing region, in which bituminous coal, limestone, and brick and potter’s clay abound. Meyer’s Lake in the vicinity is a summer attraction. The principal buildings are the post-office, court-house, city hall, an auditorium with a seating capacity of 5000, a Masonic building, an Oddfellows’ temple, a Y.M.C.A. building and several handsome churches. On Monument Hill, in West Lawn Cemetery, in a park of 26 acres—a site which President McKinley had suggested for a monument to the soldiers and sailors of Stark county—there is a beautiful monument to the memory of McKinley, who lived in Canton. This memorial is built principally of Milford (Mass.) granite, with a bronze statue of the president, and with sarcophagi containing the bodies of the president and Mrs McKinley, and has a total height, from the first step of the approaches to its top, of 163 ft. 6 in., the mausoleum itself being 98 ft. 6 in. high and 78 ft. 9 in. in diameter; it was dedicated on the 30th of September 1907, when an address was delivered by President Roosevelt. Another monument commemorates the American soldiers of the Spanish-American War. Among the city’s manufactures are agricultural implements, iron bridges and other structural iron work, watches and watch-cases, steel, engines, safes, locks, cutlery, hardware, wagons, carriages, paving-bricks, furniture, dental and surgical chairs, paint and varnish, clay-working machinery and saw-mill machinery. The value of the factory product in 1905 was $10,591,143, being 10.6% more than the product value of 1900. Canton was laid out as a town in 1805, became the county-seat in 1808, was incorporated as a village in 1822 and in 1854 was chartered as a city.