that confusion in which matter lay when newly produced out of nothing at the beginning of the world, before God, by his almighty word, had put it into the order and condition wherein it was after the six days creation. See Earth.

Chaos is represented by the ancients as the first principle, ovum, or seed of nature and the world. All the sophists, sages, naturalists, philosophers, theologues, and poets, held that chaos was the eldest and first principle, το ἀρχαιότατον κύριον. The Barbarians, Phoenicians, Egyptians, Persians, &c. all refer the origin of the world to a rude, mixed, confused mass of matter. The Greeks, Orpheus, Hesiod, Menander, Aristophanes, Euripides, and the writers of the Cyclical Poems, all speak of the first chaos; the Ionic and Platonic philosophers build the world out of it. The Stoics hold, that as the world was first made of a chaos, it shall at last be reduced to a chaos; and that its periods and revolutions in the mean time are only transitions from one chaos to another. Lastly, the Latins, as Ennius, Varro, Ovid, Lucretius, Statius, &c., are all of the same opinion. Nor is there any sect or nation whatever that does not derive their *diacereon*, the structure of the world, from a chaos.

The opinion first arose among the Barbarians, whence it spread to the Greeks, and from the Greeks to the Romans and other nations. Dr Burnet observes, that besides Aristotle and a few other Pseudo-Pythagoreans, nobody ever asserted that our world was always from eternity of the same nature, form, and structure, as at present; but that it had been the standing opinion of the wise men of all ages, that what we now call the terrestrial earth, was originally an unformed, indigested mass of heterogeneous matter, called *chaos*; and no more than the rudiments and materials of the present world.

It does not appear who first broached the notion of a chaos. Moses, the eldest of all writers, derives the origin of this world from a confusion of matter, dark, void, deep, without form, which he calls *rosh bohu*; which is precisely the chaos of the Greek and Barbarian philosophers. Moses goes no further than the chaos, nor tells us whence it took its origin, or whence its confused state; and where Moses stops, there precisely do all the rest. Dr Burnet endeavours to show that as the ancient philosophers, &c., who wrote of the cosmogony, acknowledged a chaos for the principle of their world; so the divines, or writers of the theogony, derive the origin or generation of their fabled gods from the same principle.

Mr Whiston supposed the ancient chaos, the origin of our earth, to have been the atmosphere of a comet; which, though new, yet, all things considered, is not the most improbable assertion. He endeavours to make it out by many arguments, drawn from the agreement which appears to be between them. So that, according to him, every planet is a comet, formed into a regular and lasting constitution, and placed at a proper distance from the sun, revolving in a nearly circular orbit: and a comet is a planet either beginning to be destroyed or re-made; that is, a chaos or planet unformed or in its primeval state, and placed as yet in an orbit very eccentric.

**Chaos**, in the phrase of Paracelsus, imports the air. It has also some other significations amongst the alchemists.

**Chaos**, in Zoology, a genus of insects belonging to the order of vermes zoophyta. The body has no shell or covering, and is capable of reviving after being dead to appearance for a long time: it has no joints or external organs of sensation. There are five species, mostly obtained by infusions of different vegetables in water, and only discoverable by the microscope. See **Animalcula**.

**Chapeau**, in Heraldry, an ancient cap of dignity worn by dukes, being scarlet-coloured velvet on the outside, and lined with a fur. It is frequently borne above a helmet instead of a wreath, under gentlemen's crests.

**Chapel**, a place of divine worship so called. The word is derived from the Latin *capella*. In former times, when the kings of France were engaged in war, they always carried St Martin's hat into the field, which was kept in a tent as a precious relic: from whence the place was called *capella*; and the priests, who had the custody of the tent, *capellani*. Afterwards the word *capella* became applied to private oratories.

In Britain there are several sorts of chapels. 1. Parish chapels: these differ from parish churches only in name; they are generally small, and the inhabitants within the district few. If there be a presentation ad ecclesiam instead of capellam, and an admission and institution upon it, it is no longer a chapel, but a church. 2. Chapels, which adjoin to, and are part of the church; such were formerly built by honourable persons, as burying places for themselves and their families. 3. Chapels of ease: these are usually built in very large parishes, where all the people cannot conveniently repair to the mother church. 4. Free chapels; such as were founded by kings of England. They are free from all episcopal jurisdiction, and only to be visited by the founder and his successors; which is done by the lord chancellor: yet the king may license any subject to build and endow a chapel, and by letters patent exempt it from the visitation of the ordinary. 5. Chapels in the universities, belonging to particular colleges. 6. Domestic chapels, built by noblemen or gentlemen for the private service of God in their families. See **Chaplain**.

**Chapel** is also a name given to a printer's workshop; because, according to some authors, printing was first actually performed in chapels or churches; or, according to others, because Caxton, an early printer, exercised the art in one of the chapels in Westminster abbey. In this sense they say, *the orders or laws of the chapel, the secrets of the chapel*, &c.

**Knights of the Chapel**, called also Poor knights of Windsor, were instituted by Henry VIII. in his testament. Their number was at first thirteen, but has been since augmented to twenty-six. They assist in the funeral services of the kings of England: they are subject to the office of the canons of Windsor, and live on pensions assigned them by the order of the Garter. They bear a blue or red cloak, with the arms of St George on the left shoulder.

**Chaplain**, James, an eminent French poet, born at Paris in 1595, and often mentioned in the works of Balzac, Menage, and other learned men. He wrote several works, and at length distinguished himself by a heroic poem called *La Pucelle, ou France Deliverée*, which employed him several years; and which, raising the expectation of the public, was as much decried by some as extolled by others. He was one of the king's counsellors; and died in 1647, very rich, but was very covetous and fond.

**Chapelet**, in the manege, a couple of stirrup-leathers, mounted each of them with a stirrup, and joined atop in a sort of leather buckle, called the head of the chapelet, by which they were made fast to the pommel of the saddle, after being adjusted to the rider's length and bore. They are used both to avoid the trouble of taking up or letting down the stirrups every time that a gentleman mounts on a different horse and saddle, and to supply the place of the academy saddles, which have no stirrups to them.

**Chapelle**, Claudius Emanuel Luillier, the natural son of Francis Luillier, took the name of Chapelle from a village between Paris and St Denis, where he was born. He distinguished himself by writing small pieces of poetry, in which he discovered great delicacy, delicacy, an easy turn, and an admirable felicity of expression. He was the friend of Gassendi and Molière; and died in 1686.