CINNABAR, a sulphide of mercury from which the mercury of commerce is obtained.

CINQ-MARS, HENRI, MARQUIS DE, a French courtier, a favourite of Louis XIII.; a man of handsome figure and fascinating manners; died on the scaffold for conspiring with his friend De Thou against Richelieu (1620-1642).

CINQUE CENTO (lit. five hundred), the Renaissance in literature and art in the 16th century, the expression 5 hundred standing for 15 hundred.

CINQUE PORTS, the five ports of Hastings, Romney, Hythe, Dover, and Sandwich, to which were added Winchelsea and Rye, which possessed certain privileges in return for supplying the royal power with a navy; the Lord Warden of the Cinque Ports is only an honorary dignity.

CINTRA, a Portuguese town, 17 m.  NW. of Lisbon, where a much reprobated convention between the French under Marshal Junot and the English under Sir Hew Dalrymple was signed in 1808, whereby the former were let off with all their arms and baggage on condition of evacuating Portugal.

CIPANGO, an island on the Eastern Ocean, described by Marco Polo as a sort of El Dorado, an object of search to subsequent navigators, and an attraction among the number to Columbus, it is said.

CIPRIANI, an Italian painter and etcher, born in Florence; settled in London; was an original member of the Royal Academy, and designed the diploma (1727-1785).

CIRCARS, THE, a territory in India along the coast of the Bay of Bengal, from 18 to 100 m. wide; ceded first to the French and in 1766 to the East India Company, now of course under the Crown, and forming part of the Madras Presidency.

CIRCASSIA, a territory on the Western Caucasus, now subject to Russia; celebrated for the sturdy spirit of the men and the beauty of the women; the nobles professing Mohammedanism and the lower classes a certain impure form of Christianity; they are of the Semite race, and resemble the Arabs in their manners.

CIRCE, a sorceress who figures in the “Odyssey.”  Ulysses having landed on her isle, she administered a potion to him and his companions, which turned them into swine, while the effect of it on himself was counteracted by the use of the herb moly, provided for him by Hermes against sorcery; she detained him with her for years, and disenchanted his companions on his departure.

CIRCEAN POISON, a draught of any kind that is magically and fatally infatuating, such as the effect often of popular applause.

CIRCUITS, districts outside of London into which England is divided for judicial purposes, for the trial of civil as well as criminal cases connected with them; are seven in number—­the Midland, the Oxford, the North-Eastern, the South-Eastern, the Northern, the Western, and North Wales and South Wales; the courts are presided over by a judge sent from London, or by two, and are held twice a year, or oftener if the number of cases require it.

CIRCULATION OF THE BLOOD, the course of the blood from the heart through the arteries to the minute vessels of the body, and from these last through the veins back to the heart again.