COPPERFLELD (David), the hero of a novel by Charles Dickens.  David is Dickens himself, and Micawber is Dickens’s father.  According to the tale, David’s mother was nursery governess in a family where Mr. Copperfield visited.  At the death of Mr. Copperfield, the widow married Edward Murdstone, a hard, tyrannical man, who made the home of David a dread and terror to the boy.  When his mother died, Murdstone sent David to lodge with the Micawbers, and bound him apprentice to Messrs. Murdstone and Grinby, by whom he was put into the warehouse, and set to paste labels upon wine and spirit bottles.  David soon became tired of this dreary work, and ran away to Dover, where he was kindly received by his [great]-aunt Betsey Trotwood, who clothed him, and sent him as day-boy to Dr. Strong, but placed him to board with Mr. Wickfield, a lawyer, father of Agnes, between whom and David a mutual attachment sprang up.  David’s first wife was Dora Spenlow, but at the death of this pretty little “child-wife,” he married Agnes Wickfield.—­C.  Dickens, David Copperfield (1849).

COPPERHEADS, members of a faction in the North, during the civil war in the United States.  The copperhead is a poisonous serpent, that gives no warning of its approach, and hence is a type of a concealed or secret foe. (The Trigonecephalus contortrix.)

COPPERNOSE (3 syl.).  Henry VIII. was so called, because he mixed so much copper with the silver coin that it showed after a little wear in the parts most pronounced, as the nose.  Hence the sobriquets “Coppernosed Harry,” “Old Copper-nose,” etc.

COPPLE, the hen killed by Reynard, in the beast-epic called Reynard the Fox (1498).

CORA, the gentle, loving wife of Alonzo, and the kind friend of Rolla, general of the Peruvian army.—­Sheridan, Pizarro (altered from Kotzebue, 1799).

CORA MUNRO, the daughter of an English officer and the elder of the sisters whose adventures fill Cooper’s Last of the Mohicans. Cora loves Heyward the as yet undeclared lover of Alice, and has, herself, attracted the covetous eye of Magua, an Indian warrior.  He contrives to gain possession of her, and drawing his knife, gives her the choice between death and his wigwam.

Cora neither heard nor heeded his demand ...  Once more he struggled with himself and lifted the keen weapon again—­but just then a piercing cry was heard above them, and Uncas appeared, leaping frantically from a fearful height upon the ledge.  Magua recoiled a step, and one of his assistants, profiting by the chance, sheathed his own knife in the bosom of Cora. (1826).

CO’RAH, in Dryden’s satire of Absalom and Architophel, is meant for Dr. Titus Oates.  As Corah was the political calumniator of Moses and Aaron, so Titus Oates was the political calumniator of the pope and English papists.  As Corah was punished by “going down alive into the pit,” so Oates was “condemned to imprisonment for life,” after being publicly whipped and exposed in the pillory.  North describes Titus Oates as a very short man, and says, if his mouth were taken for the centre of a circle, his chin, forehead, and cheekbones would fall in the circumference.