Part 2

In the following year he entered parliament as member for Downpatrick, obtaining the seat on petition, though he had been unsuccessful at the poll. The acumen displayed in his Irish pamphlet led Spencer Perceval to recommend him in 1808 to Sir Arthur Wellesley, who had just been appointed to the command of the British forces in the Peninsula, as his deputy in the office of chief secretary for Ireland. This connexion led to a friendship which remained unbroken till Wellington's death. The notorious case of the duke of York in connexion with his abuse of military patronage furnished him with an opportunity for distinguishing himself. The speech which he delivered on the 14th of March 1809, in answer to the charges of Colonel Wardle, was regarded as the most able and ingenious defence of the duke that was made in the debate; and Croker was appointed to the office of secretary to the Admiralty, which he held without interruption under various administrations for more than twenty years. He proved an excellent public servant, and made many improvements which have been of permanent value in the organization of his office. Among the first acts of his official career was the exposure of a fellow-official who had misappropriated the public funds to the extent of L200,000.

In 1827 he became the representative of the university of Dublin, having previously sat successively for the boroughs of Athlone, Yarmouth (Isle of Wight), Bodmin and Aldeburgh. He was a determined opponent of the Reform Bill, and vowed that he would never sit in a reformed parliament; his parliamentary career accordingly terminated in 1832. Two years earlier he had retired from his post at the admiralty on a pension of L1500 a year. Many of his political speeches were published in pamphlet form, and they show him to have been a vigorous and effective, though somewhat unscrupulous and often virulently personal, party debater. Croker had been an ardent supporter of Peel, but finally broke with him when he began to advocate the repeal of the Corn Laws. He is said to have been the first to use (Jan. 1830) the term "conservatives." He was for many years one of the leading contributors on literary and historical subjects to the _Quarterly Review_, with which he had been associated from its foundation. The rancorous spirit in which many of his articles were written did much to embitter party feeling. It also reacted unfavourably on Croker's reputation as a worker in the department of pure literature by bringing political animosities into literary criticism. He had no sympathy with the younger school of poets who were in revolt against the artificial methods of the 18th century, and he was responsible for the famous _Quarterly_ article on Keats. It is, nevertheless, unjust to judge Croker by the criticisms which Macaulay brought against his _magnum opus_, his edition of Boswell's _Life of Johnson_ (1831). With all its defects the work had merits which Macaulay was of course not concerned to point out, and Croker's researches have been of the greatest value to subsequent editors. There is little doubt that Macaulay had personal reasons for his attack on Croker, who had more than once exposed in the House the fallacies that lay hidden under the orator's brilliant rhetoric. Croker made no immediate reply to Macaulay's attack, but when the first two volumes of the _History_ appeared he took the opportunity of pointing out the inaccuracies that abounded in the work. Croker was occupied for several years on an annotated edition of Pope's works. It was left unfinished at the time of his death, but it was afterwards completed by the Rev. Whitwell Elwin and Mr W. J. Courthope. He died at St Albans Bank, Hampton, on the 10th of August 1857.

Croker was generally supposed to be the original from which Disraeli drew the character of "Rigby" in _Coningsby_, because he had for many years had the sole management of the estates of the marquess of Hertford, the "Lord Monmouth" of the story; but the comparison is a great injustice to the sterling worth of Croker's character.

The chief works of Croker not already mentioned were his _Stories for Children from the History of England_ (1817), which provided the model for Scott's _Tales of a Grandfather_; _Letters on the Naval War with America_; _A Reply to the Letters of Malachi Malagrowther_ (1826); _Military Events of the French Revolution of 1830_ (1831); a translation of Bassompierre's _Embassy to England_ (1819); and several lyrical pieces of some merit, such as the _Songs of Trafalgar_ (1806) and _The Battles of Talavera_ (1809). He also edited the _Suffolk Papers_ (1823), _Hervey's Memoirs of the Court of George II._ (1817), the _Letters of Mary Lepel, Lady Hervey_ (1821-1822), and _Walpole's Letters to Lord Hertford_ (1824). His memoirs, diaries and correspondence were edited by Louis J. Jennings in 1884 under the title of _The Croker Papers_ (3 vols.).

CROKER, RICHARD (1843- ), American politician, was born at Blackrock, Ireland, on the 24th of November 1843. He was taken to the United States by his parents when two years old, and was educated in the public schools of New York City, where he eventually became a member of Tammany Hall and active in its politics. He was an alderman from 1868 to 1870, a coroner from 1873 to 1876, a fire commissioner in 1883 and 1887, and city chamberlain from 1889 to 1890. After the fall of John Kelly he became the leader of Tammany Hall (q.v.), and for some time almost completely controlled the organization. His greatest political success was his bringing about the election of Robert A. van Wyck as first mayor of greater New York in 1897, and during van Wyck's administration Croker is popularly supposed to have dominated completely the government of the city. After Croker's failure to "carry" the city in the presidential election of 1900 and the defeat of his mayoralty candidate, Edward M. Shepard, in 1901, he resigned from his position of leadership in Tammany, and retired to a country life in England and Ireland. In 1907 he won the Derby with his race-horse Orby.

CROKER, THOMAS CROFTON (1798-1854), Irish antiquary and humorist, was born in Cork on the 15th of January 1798. He was apprenticed to a merchant, but in 1819, through the interest of John Wilson Croker, who was, however, no relation of his, he became a clerk in the Admiralty. Moore was indebted to him in the production of his _Irish Melodies_ for "many curious fragments of ancient poetry." In 1825 he produced his most popular book, the _Fairy Legends and Traditions of the South of Ireland_, which he followed up by the publication of his _Legends of the Lakes_ (1829), his _Adventures of Barney Mahoney_ (1852), and an edition of the _Popular Songs of Ireland_ (1839). In 1827 he was made a member of the Irish Academy; in 1839 and 1840 he helped to found the Camden and Percy Societies, and in 1843 the British Archaeological Association. He wrote _Narratives Illustrative of the Contests in Ireland in 1641 and 1688_ (1841), for the Camden Society, _Historical Songs of Ireland_, &c. (1841), for the Percy Society, and several other works. He was also a member of the Hakluyt and the Antiquarian Society. He died in London on the 8th of August 1854.

CROLL, JAMES (1821-1890), Scottish man of science, was born of a peasant family at Little Whitefield, in the parish of Cargill, in Perthshire, on the 2nd of January 1821. He was regarded as an unpromising boy, but a trifling circumstance aroused a passion for reading, and he made great progress in self-education. He was apprenticed to a wheelwright at Collace in Perthshire, but being debarred by ill-health from manual labour, he became successively a shop-keeper and an insurance agent. In 1859 he was made keeper of the Andersonian Museum in Glasgow, a humble appointment, which, however, gave him congenial occupation. In 1857, being deeply impressed by the metaphysics of Jonathan Edwards, he had published an anonymous volume entitled _The Philosophy of Theism_; but his connexion with the Museum induced him to take up physical science, and from 1861 onwards he studied with such perseverance that he was enabled to contribute papers to the _Philosophical Magazine_ and other journals. For that magazine in 1864 he wrote his celebrated essay "On the Physical Cause of the Changes of Climate during Geological Epochs." This led to his receiving an appointment on the Scottish Geological Survey in 1867, and for thirteen years he took charge of the Edinburgh Office. In 1875 he summed up his researches upon the ancient condition of the earth in his _Climate and Time, in their Geological Relations_, in which he contends that terrestrial revolutions are due in a measure to cosmical causes. This theory excited warm controversy. Croll's replies to his opponents are collected in his _Climate and Cosmology_ (1885). He had been compelled by ill-health to withdraw from the public service in 1880; yet, working under the greatest difficulties, and harassed by the inadequacy of his retiring pension, he managed to produce _Stellar Evolution_, discussing, among other things, the age of the sun, in 1889; and _The Philosophical Basis of Evolution_, partly a critique of Herbert Spencer's philosophy, in 1890. He died on the 15th of December 1890. The soundness of Croll's astronomical theory regarding the glacial period has since been criticized by E. P. Culverwell in the _Geological Magazine_ for 1895, and by others; and it is now generally abandoned. Nevertheless it must be admitted that his character as a scientific worker under great discouragements was nothing less than heroic. The hon. degree of LL.D. was conferred on him in 1876 by the university of St Andrews; and he was elected F.R.S. in the same year.

An _Autobiographical Sketch of James Croll, with Memoir of his Life and Work_, was prepared by J. C. Irons, and published in 1896.

CROLY, GEORGE (1780-1860), British divine and author, son of a Dublin physician, was born on the 17th of August 1780. He was educated at Trinity College, Dublin, and after ordination was appointed to a small curacy in the north of Ireland. About 1810 he came to London, and occupied himself with literary work. A man of restless energy, he claims attention by his extraordinary versatility. He wrote dramatic criticisms for a short-lived periodical called the _New Times_; he was one of the earliest contributors to _Blackwood's Magazine_; and to the _Literary Gazette_ he contributed poems, reviews and essays on all kinds of subjects. In 1819 he married Margaret Helen Begbie. Efforts to secure an English living for Croly were frustrated, according to the _Gentleman's Magazine_ (Jan. 1861), because Lord Eldon confounded him with a Roman Catholic of the same name. Excluding his contributions to the daily and weekly press his chief works were:--_Paris in 1815_ (1817), a poem in imitation of _Childe Harold; Catiline_ (1822), a tragedy lacking in dramatic force; _Salathiel: A Story of the Past, the Present and the Future_ (1829), a successful romance of the "Wandering Jew" type; _The Life and Times of his late Majesty George the Fourth_ (1830); _Marston; or, The Soldier and Statesman_ (1846), a novel of modern life; _The Modern Orlando_ (1846), a satire which owes something to _Don Juan_; and some biographies, sermons and theological works.

Croly was an effective preacher, and continued to hope for preferment from the Tory leaders, to whom he had rendered considerable services by his pen; but he eventually received, in 1835, the living of St Stephen's, Walbrook, London, from a Whig patron, Lord Brougham, with whose family he was connected. In 1847 he was made afternoon lecturer at the Foundling hospital, but this appointment proved unfortunate. He died suddenly on the 24th of November 1860, in London.

His _Poetical Works_ (2 vols.) were collected in 1830. For a list of his works see Allibone's _Critical Dictionary of English Literature_ (1859).

CROMAGNON RACE, the name given by Paul Broca to a type of mankind supposed to be represented by remains found by Lartet, Christy and others, in France in the Cromagnon cave at Les Eyzies, Tayac district, Dordogne. At the foot of a steep rock near the village this small cave, nearly filled with debris, was found by workmen in 1868. Towards the top of the loose strata three human skeletons were unearthed. They were those of an old man, a young man and a woman, the latter's skull bearing the mark of a severe wound. The skulls presented such special characteristics that Broca took them as types of a race. Palaeolithic man is exclusively long-headed, and the dolichocephalic appearance of the crania (they had a mean cephalic index of 73.34) supported the view that the "find" at Les Eyzies was palaeolithic. It is, however, inaccurate to state that brachycephaly appears at once with the neolithic age, dolichocephaly even of a pronounced type persisting far into neolithic times. The Cromagnon race may thus be, as many anthropologists believe it, early neolithic, a type of man who spread over and inhabited a large portion of Europe at the close of the Pleistocene period. Some have sought to find in it the substratum of the present populations of western Europe. Quatrefages identifies Cromagnon man with the tall, long-headed, fair Kabyles (Berbers) who still survive in various parts of Mauritania. He suggests the introduction of the Cromagnon from Siberia, "arriving in Europe simultaneously with the great mammals (which were driven by the cold from Siberia), and no doubt following their route."

See A. H. Keane's _Ethnology_ (1896); Mortillet, _Le Prehistorique_ (1900); Sergi, _The Mediterranean Race_ (1901); Lord Avebury, _Prehistoric Times_, p. 317 of 1900 edition.

CROMARTY, GEORGE MACKENZIE, 1ST EARL OF (1630-1714), Scottish statesman, was the eldest son of Sir John Mackenzie, Bart., of Tarbat (d. 1654), and belonged to the same family as the earls of Seaforth. In 1654 he joined the rising in Scotland on behalf of Charles II. and after an exile of six years he returned to his own country and took some part in public affairs after the Restoration. In 1661 he became a lord of session as Lord Tarbat, but having been concerned in a vain attempt to overthrow Charles II.'s secretary, the earl of Lauderdale, he was dismissed from office in 1664. A period of retirement followed until 1678 when Mackenzie was appointed lord justice general of Scotland; in 1681 he became lord clerk register and a lord of session for the second time, and from 1682 to 1688 he was the chief minister of Charles II. and James II. in Scotland, being created viscount of Tarbat in 1685. In 1688, however, he deserted James and soon afterwards made his peace with William III., his experience being very serviceable to the new government in settling the affairs of Scotland. From 1692 to 1695 Tarbat was again lord clerk register, and having served for a short time as a secretary of state under Queen Anne he was created earl of Cromarty in 1703. He was again lord justice general from 1704 to 1710. He warmly supported the union between England and Scotland, writing some pamphlets in favour of this step, and he died on the 17th of August 1714. Cromarty was a man of much learning, and among his numerous writings may be mentioned his _Account of the conspiracies by the earls of Gowry and R. Logan_ (Edinburgh, 1713).

The earl's grandson George, 3rd earl of Cromarty (c. 1703-1766), succeeded his father John, the 2nd earl, in February 1731. In 1745 he joined Charles Edward, the young pretender, and he served with the Jacobites until April 1746 when he was taken prisoner in Sutherlandshire. He was tried and sentenced to death, but he obtained a conditional pardon although his peerage was forfeited. He died on the 28th of September 1766.

This earl's eldest son was John Mackenzie, Lord Macleod (1727-1789), who shared his father's fortunes in 1745 and his fate in 1746. Having pleaded guilty at his trial Macleod was pardoned on condition that he gave up all his rights in the estates of the earldom, and he left England and entered the Swedish army. In this service he rose to high rank and was made Count Cromarty. The count returned to England in 1777 and was successful in raising, mainly among the Mackenzies, two splendid battalions of Highlanders, the first of which, now the Highland Light Infantry, served under him in India. In 1784 he regained the family estates and he died on the 2nd of April 1789. Macleod wrote an account of the Jacobite rising of 1745, and also one of a campaign in Bohemia in which he took part in 1757; both are printed in Sir W. Fraser's _Earls of Cromartie_ (Edinburgh, 1876).

Macleod left no children, and his heir was his cousin, Kenneth Mackenzie (d. 1796), a grandson of the 2nd earl, who also died childless. The estates then passed to Macleod's sister, Isabel (1725-1801), wife of George Murray, 6th Lord Elibank. In 1861 Isabel's descendant, Anne (1829-1888), wife of George, 3rd duke of Sutherland, was created countess of Cromartie with remainder to her second son Francis (1852-1893), who became earl of Cromartie in 1888. In 1895, two years after the death of Francis, his daughter Sibell Lilian (b. 1878) was granted by letters patent the title of countess of Cromartie.

CROMARTY, a police burgh and seaport of the county of Ross and Cromarty, Scotland. Pop. (1901) 1242. It is situated on the southern shore of the mouth of Cromarty Firth, 5 m. E. by S. of Invergordon on the opposite coast, with which there is daily communication by steamer, and 9 m. N.E. of Fortrose, the most convenient railway station. Before the union of the shires of Ross and Cromarty, it was the county town of Cromartyshire, and is one of the Wick district group of parliamentary burghs. Its name is variously derived from the Gaelic _crom_, crooked, and _bath_, bay, or _ard_, height, meaning either the "crooked bay," or the "bend between the heights" (the high rocks, or Sutors, which guard the entrance to the Firth), and gave the title to the earldom of Cromarty. The principal buildings are the town hall and the Hugh Miller Institute. The harbour, enclosed by two piers, accommodates the herring fleet, but the fisheries, the staple industry, have declined. The town, however, is in growing repute as a midsummer resort. The thatched house with crow-stepped gables in Church Street, in which Hugh Miller the geologist was born, still stands, and a statue has been erected to his memory. To the east of the burgh is Cromarty House, occupying the site of the old castle of the earls of Ross. It was the birthplace of Sir Thomas Urquhart, the translator of Rabelais.

Cromarty, formerly a county in the north of Scotland, was incorporated with Ross-shire in 1889 under the designation of the county of Ross and Cromarty. The nucleus of the county consisted of the lands of Cromarty in the north of the peninsula of the Black Isle. To this were added from time to time the various estates scattered throughout Ross-shire--the most considerable of which were the districts around Ullapool and Little Loch Broom on the Atlantic coast, the area in which Ben Wyvis is situated, and a tract to the north of Loch Fannich--which had been acquired by the ancestors of Sir George Mackenzie (1630-1714), afterwards Viscount Tarbat (1685) and 1st earl of Cromarty (1703). Desirous of combining these sporadic properties into one shire, Viscount Tarbat was enabled to procure their annexation to his sheriffdom of Cromarty in 1685 and 1698, the area of the enlarged county amounting to nearly 370 sq. m. (See ROSS AND CROMARTY.)

CROMARTY FIRTH, an arm of the North Sea, belonging to the county of Ross and Cromarty, Scotland. From the Moray Firth it extends inland in a westerly and then south-westerly direction for a distance of 19 m. Excepting at the Bay of Nigg, on the northern shore, and Cromarty Bay, on the southern, where it is about 5 m. wide (due N. and S.), and at Alness Bay, where it is 2 m. wide, it has an average width of 1 m. and a depth varying from 5 to 10 fathoms, forming one of the safest and most commodious anchorages in the north of Scotland. Besides other streams it receives the Conon, Peffery, Skiack and Alness, and the principal places on its shores are Dingwall near the head, Cromarty near the mouth, Kiltearn, Invergordon and Kilmuir on the north. The entrance is guarded by two precipitous rocks--the one on the north 400 ft., that on the south 463 ft. high--called the Sutors from a fancied resemblance to a couple of shoemakers (_Scotice_, souter), bending over their lasts. There are ferries at Cromarty, Invergordon and Dingwall.

CROME, JOHN (1769-1821), English landscape painter, founder and chief representative of the "Norwich School," often called Old Crome, to distinguish him from his son, was born at Norwich, on the 21st of December 1769. His father was a weaver, and could give him only the scantiest education. His early years were spent in work of the humblest kind; and at a fit age he became apprentice to a house-painter. To this step he appears to have been led by an inborn love of art and the desire to acquaint himself by any means with its materials and processes. During his apprenticeship he sometimes painted signboards, and devoted what leisure time he had to sketching from nature. Through the influence of a rich art-loving friend he was enabled to exchange his occupation of house-painter for that of drawing-master; and in this he was engaged throughout his life. He took great delight in a collection of Dutch pictures to which he had access, and these he carefully studied. About 1790 he was introduced to Sir William Beechey, whose house in London he frequently visited, and from whom he gathered additional knowledge and help in his art. In 1805 the Norwich Society of Artists took definite shape, its origin being traceable a year or two further back. Crome was its president and the largest contributor to its annual exhibitions. Among his pupils were James Stark, Vincent, Thirtle and John Bernay (Barney) Crome (1794-1842), his son. J. S. Cotman, too, a greater artist than any of these, was associated with him. Crome continued to reside at Norwich, and with the exception of his short visits to London had little or no communication with the great artists of his own time. He first exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1806; but in this and the following twelve years he exhibited there only fourteen of his works. With very few exceptions Crome's subjects are taken from the familiar scenery of his native county. Fidelity to nature was his dominant aim. "The bit of heath, the boat, and the slow water of the flattish land, trees most of all--the single tree in elaborate study, the group of trees, and how the growth of one affects that of another, and the characteristics of each,"--these, says Frederick Wedmore (_Studies in English Art_), are the things to which he is most constant. He still remains, says the same critic, of many trees the greatest draughtsman, and is especially the master of the oak. His most important works are--"Mousehold Heath, near Norwich," now in the National Gallery; "Clump of Trees, Hautbois Common"; "Oak at Poringland"; the "Willow"; "Coast Scene near Yarmouth"; "Bruges, on the Ostend River"; "Slate Quarries"; the "Italian Boulevards"; and the "Fishmarket at Boulogne." He executed a good many etchings, and the great charm of these is in the beautiful and faithful representation of trees. Crome enjoyed a very limited reputation during his life, and his pictures were sold at low prices; but since his death they have been more and more appreciated, and have given him a high place among English painters of landscape. He died at Norwich on the 22nd of April 1821. His son, J. B. Crome, was his assistant in teaching, and his best pictures were in the same style, his moonlight effects being much admired.