Chapter Crown of Ionia to Culloch of C by Brewer's Readers Handbook

Ecl. ii. is a dialogue between Thenot and Cuddy, in which Cuddy is a lad who complains of the cold, and Thenot laments the degeneracy of pastoral life. At one time shepherds and herdsmen were hardy, frugal, and contented; but nowadays, he says, “they are effeminate, luxurious, and ambitious.” He then tells Cuddy the fable of “The Oak and the Bramble.” (See Thenot.)

Ecl. viii. Cuddy is a full-grown man, appointed umpire to decide a contention in song between the two shepherds, Willy and Perigot. He pronounced each to be worthy of the prize, and then sings to them the “Lament of Colin for Rosalind.”

Ecl. x. is between Piers and Cuddy, the subject being “divine poetry.” Cuddy declares no poet would be equal to Colin if his mind were not unhappily unhinged by disappointed love.—Spenser: The Shephearde’s Calendar (1579).

Cuddy, a shepherd, who boasts that the charms of his Buxoma far exceed those of Blouzelinda. Lobbin, who is Blouzelinda’s swain, repels the boast, and the two shepherds agree to sing the praises of their respective shepherdess es, and to make Cloddipole arbiter of their contention. Cloddipole listens to their alternate verses, pronounces that “both merit an oaken staff;” but, says he, “the herds are weary of the songs, and so am I.”—Gay: Pastoral, i. (1714).

(These eclogues are in imitation of Virgil’s Bucolic iii.)

Cui Bono? “Of what practical use is it?” (See Cicero: Pro Milone, xii. 32.)

Cato, that great and grave philosopher, did commonly demand, when any new project was propounded unto him, “Cui bono?” What good would ensue in case the same were effected?—Fuller: Worthies (“The Design, etc.,” i.).

Culdees [i.e. sequestered persons], the primitive clergy of presbyterian character, established in Iona or Icolmkill [I-columb-kill] by St. Columb and twelve of his followers in 563. They also founded similar church establishments at Abernethy, Dunkeld, Kirkcaldy [Kirk-Culdee], etc., and at Lindesfarne, in England. Some say as many as 300 churches were founded by them, Augustine, a bishop of Waterford, began against them, in 1176, a war of extermination; when those who could escape sought refuge in Iona, the original cradle of the sect, and were not driven thence till 1203.

Peace to their shades! the pure Culdees
Were Albyn’s [Scotland’s] earliest priests of God,
Ere yet an island of her seas
By foot of Saxon monk was trod.
   —Campbell: Reullura.

Culloch (Sawney), a pedlar.—Sir W. Scott: Guy Mannering (time, George II.).