Crocodile (Lady Kitty), meant for the Duchess of Kingston.—­Sam.  Foote, A Trip to Calais.

CROCUS, a young man enamoured of the nymph Smilax, who did not return his love.  The gods changed him into the crocus flower, to signify unrequited love.

CROESUS, king of Lydia, deceived by an oracle, was conquered by Cyrus, king of Persia.  Cyrus commanded a huge funeral pile to be erected upon which Croesus and fourteen Lydian youths were to be chained and burnt alive.  When this was done, the discrowned king called on the name of Solon, and Cyrus asked why he did so.  “Because he told me to call no one happy till death.”  Cyrus, struck with the remark, ordered the fire of the pile to be put out, but this could not be done.  Croesus then called on Apollo, who sent a shower which extinguished the flames, and he with his Lydians came from the pile unharmed.

[Illustration] The resemblance of this legend to the Bible account of the Jewish youths condemned by Nebuchadnezzar to be cast into the fiery furnace, from which they came forth uninjured, will recur to the reader.—­Daniel, iii. Croesus’s Dream.  Croesus dreamt that his son, Atys, would be slain by an iron instrument, and used every precaution to prevent it, but to no purpose; for one day Atys went to chase the wild boar, and Adrastus, his friend, threw a dart at the boar to rescue Atys from danger; the dart, however, struck the prince and killed him.  The tale is told by William Morris in his Earthly Paradise ("July").

CROFTANGRY (Mr. Chrystal), a gentleman fallen to decay, cousin of Mrs. Martha Bethune Baliol, to whom at death, he left the MS. of two novels, one The Highland Widow, and the other The Fair Maid of Perth, called the First and Second Series of the “Chronicles of Canongate” (q. v.).  The history of Mr. Chrystal Croftangry is given in the introductory chapters of The Highland Widow, and continued in the introduction of the The Fair Maid of Perth.

Lockhart tells us that Mr. Croftangry is meant for Sir Walter Scott’s father and that “the fretful patient at the death-bed” is a living picture.

CROFTS (Master), the person killed in a duel by Sir Geofrey Hudson, the famous dwarf.—­Sir W. Scott, Peveril of the Peak (time, Charles II.).

CROKER’S MARE.  In the proverb As coy as Croker’s Mare.  This means “as chary as a mare that carries crockery.”

  She was to them as koy as a croker’s Mare.

J. Heywood, Dialogue ii. 1 (1566).

CROKERS.  Potatoes are so called because they were first planted in Croker’s field, at Youghal, in Ireland.—­J.  R. Planche, Recollections, etc. ii. 119.

CROM’WELL (Oliver), introduced by Sir W. Scott in Woodstock. Cromwell’s daughter Elizabeth, who married John Claypole.  Seeing her father greatly agitated by a portrait of Charles I., she gently and lovingly led him away out of the room.—­Sir W. Scott, Woodstock (time, Commonwealth).