Chapter Cornubia to Councils of C by Brewer's Readers Handbook

Cosmos, the personification of “the world” as the enemy of man. Phineas Fletcher calls him “the first son to the Dragon red” (the devil). “Mistake,” he says, “points all his darts;” or, as the Preacher says, “Vanity, vanity, all is vanity.” Fully described in The Purple Island, viii. (1633). (Greek, kosmos, “the world.”)

Costard, a clown who apes the court wits of queen Elizabeth’s time. He uses the word “honorificabilitudinitatibus,” and some of his blunders are very ridiculous, as “ad dunghill, at the fingers’ ends, as they say” (act v. 1).—Shakespeare: Love’s Labour’s Lost (1594).

Costigan (Captain), the father of Miss Fotheringay, in Thackeray’s Pendennis (1850).

Costin (Lord), disguised as a beggar, in The Beggar’s Bush, a drama by Fletcher (1622). Folio ed. 1647.

Cote Male-tailé (Sir), meaning the “knight with the villainous coat.” The nickname given by sir Key (the seneschal of king Arthur) to sir Brewnor le Noyre, a young knight who wore his father’s coat with all its sword-cuts, to keep him in remembrance of the vengeance due to his father. His first achievement was to kill a lion that “had broken loose from a tower, and came hurling after the queen.” He married a damsel called Maledisaunt , who loved him, but always chided him. After her marriage she was called Beauvinant.—Sir T. Malory: History of Prince Arthur, ii. 42–50 (1740).

Cotta, in Pope’s Moral Essays (epistle ii.), is said to be intended for the duke of Newcastle, who died 1711.

Cotter’s Saturday Night (The), a poem by Burns, Spenserian metre (1787).

Cotytto, goddess of the Edoni of Thrace. Her orgies resembled those of the Thracian Cybelê .

Hail, goddess of nocturnal sport,
Dark-veiled Cotytto, to whom the secret flame
Of midnight torches burns!
   —Milton: Comus, 139, etc. (1634).

Cougar, the American tiger.

Nor foeman then, nor cougar’s crouch I feared,
For I was strong as mountain cataract.
   —Campbell: Gertrude of Wyoming, iii. 14 (1809).

Coulin, a British giant pursued by Debon till he came to a chasm 132 feet across, which he leaped; but slipping on the opposite side, he fell backwards into the pit and was killed.

And eke that ample pit yet far renowned
For the great leap which Debon did compell
Coulin to make, being eight lugs of grownd,
Into the which retourning back he fell.
   —Spenser: Faërie Queene, ii. 10 (1590).

Councils (Œcumenical). Only six are recognized by the Church of England, viz.: (1) Nice, 325; (2) Constantinople, 381; (3) Ephesus, 431; (4) Chalcedon, 451; (5) Constantinople, 553; (6) ditto, 680.