attacked him at the head of an army of Argivcs. The war was to be decided by a single combat between the brothers, but both fell. Creon, now resuming the govern ment during the nonage of Leodamus, the son of Eteocles, commanded that the Argives, and above all Polynices, the cause of all the bloodshed, should not receive the rites of sepulture, and that any one who infringed this decree should be buried alive. Antigone, the sister of Polynices, refused to obey, and sprinkled dust upon her brother s corpse. The threatened penalty was inflicted ; but Creon s crime did not escape unpunished. His son, Harmon, the lover of Antigone, killed himself on her grave; and Thebes was attacked by Theseus, by whose hand Creon
fell. See Antigone.CREOSOTE. See Creasote.
CRESCIMBENI, Giovanni Mario (1663-1728), critic and post, was born at Macerata in 1663. Having been educated by a French priest at Rome, he entered the Jesuits College of his native town, where he produced a tragedy on the story of Darius, and versified the Pharsalia. In 1679 he received the degree of dostor of laws, and in 1680 he removed again to Rome. The study of Filicaja and Leonio having convinced him that he and all his contemporaries were working in a wrong direction, he resolved to attempt a general reform. In 1690, in conjunction with fourteen others, he founded the celebrated academy of the Arcadians, and began the contest against false taste and its adherents. The academy was most successful; branch societies were opened in all the principal cities of Italy; and the influence of Marini, opposed by the simplicity and elegance of such models as Costanzo, soon died away. Crescimbeni offici ated as secretary to the Arcadians for thirty-eight years. In 1705 he was made canon of Santa Maria; in 1715 he obtained the chief curacy attached to the same church ; and about two months before he died (1728) hs was admitted a member of the Order of Jesus.
His principal work is the Istoria della volgar Poesia, Rome, 1698, an estimate of all the poets of Italy, past and contemporary, which may yet be consulted with advantage. The most important of his numerous other publications are the Commentary, 5 vols., Rome, 1702-1711, and La Bellczza della volgar Poesia, Rome, 1700.
CRESPI, Daniele (1590-1630), an Italian historical painter, born at Milan, studied under Giovanni Battista Crespi and Procaccini. He was an excellent colourist ; his drawing was correct and vigorous, and he grouped his compositions with much ability. His best work, a series of pictures from the life of Saint Bruno, is in the monastery of the Carthusians at Milan. Among the most famous of his paintings is a Stoning of St Stephen at Brera, and there are several excellent examples of his work in the city of his birbh and at Pavia.
CRESPI, Giovanni Battista (15 57-1 6 G3), an Italian painter, sculptor, and architect, was born at Cerano. He was a scholar of considerable attainments, and held a position of dignity in his native city. He was head of the Milanese Academy founded by Cardinal Frederick Borromeo, and ha was the teacher of Guercino. He is most famous as a painter ; and, though his figures are neither natural nor graceful, his colouring is good, and his designs full of ideal beauty.
CRESPI, Giuseppe Maria (1665-1747), an Italian painter, called " 11 Spagnuolo " from his fondness for rich apparel, was born at Bologna, and was trained under Angelo Toni, Domenico Canuti, and Carlo Cignani. He then went through a course of copying from Correggio and Baroccio; this he followed up with a journey to Venice for the sake of Titian and Paul Veronese ; and late in life he proclaimed himself a follower of Guercino and Pietro da Cortona. He was a good colourist and a facile executant, and was wont to employ the camera obscura with great success in the treatment of light and shadow ; but he was careless and unconscientious. He was a clever portrait painter and a brilliant caricaturist ; and his etchings after Rembrandt and Salvator are in some demand. His greatest work, a Massacre ef the Innocents, is at Bologna ; but the Dresden Gallery possesses twelve examples of him, among which is his celebrated series of the Seven Sacraments.
CRESSWELL, Sir Cresswell (1793-1863), the first judge of the English Divorce Court, was a descendant of an old Northumberland family, and was born in 1793. He was educated at the Charter House and at Emmanuel College, Cambridge, the latter of which he entered in 1810. He graduated B.A. in 1814, and M.A. four years later. Hav ing chosen the profession of the law he studied at the Middle Temple, and was called to the bar in 1819. He joined the northern circuit, and was not long in earning a distinguished position among his professional brethren. In 1837 he entered Parliament as Conservative member for Liverpool, and he soon gained a reputation as an acuto and learned debater on all constitutional questions. In January 1842 he took his seat on the bench of tho Com mon Pleas, being knighted at the same time; and this post he occupied for sixteen years. When the new court for probate, divorces, and matrimonial causes was established (1858), Sir Cresswell Cresswell was requested by the Liberal Government to become its first judge and undertake the arduous task of its organization. Although he had already earned a right to retire, and possessed large private wealth, he accepted this new task, and during the rest of his life devoted himself to it most assiduously and conscientiously, with complete satisfaction to the public. In one caso only, out of the very large number on which he pronounced judgment, was his decision reversed. His death was sudden. By a fall from his horse, July 17, 1863, his knee cap was injured. He was recovering from this when on the 29th of the same month he died of disease of tho heart.
CRESSY. See Crécy.
CREST. See Heraldry.
CREST, a town of France, in the department of Drome and arrondissement of Die, situated on the right bank of the River Drome, there crossed by a fine stone bridge. It carries on the manufacture of woollens, cotton, and beetroot sugar. On the curious rock which commands the town there are some remains of the ancient castle to which it was indebted for its importance in the Middle Ages. It ranked for a time as the capital of the duchy of Valentinois, and in that capacity belonged before the Revolution to the prince of Monaco. The communal charter, dating from the 12th century, is preserved in the public archives. Population in 1872, 5568.
(1811-1869), was born at Sheffield, and educated at Hazelwood, near Birmingham. At Birmingham he first began to paint. His earliest appearance as an exhibitor was in 1827, at the Society of British Artists in London ; in the ensuing year he sent to the Royal Academy the two pictures named Llyn Gwynant, Morning, and Carnarvon Castle. About the same time he settled in London ; and in 1836 he took a house in Bayswater. He soon attracted some attention as a landscape-painter, and had a career of uniform and encouraging, though not signal success. In 1842 he was elected an associate, and in 1850 a full member of the Royal Academy, which, for several years before his death, numbered hardly any other full members representing this branch of art. In his early practice he set an example, then too much needed, of diligent study of nature out of doors, painting on the spot all the sub stantial part of several of his pictures. English and Welsh
streams may be said to have formed his favourite subjects,