a, but failing to establish himself
returned to Italy, and lived precariously as a literary man until 1870,
when his reputation was established by the unexpected success of his
first acted tragedy, _Nero_. From this time to his death in 1880 Cossa
continued to produce a play a year, usually upon some classical subject.
_Cleopatra_, _Messalina_, _Julian_, enjoyed great popularity, and his
dramas on subjects derived from Italian history, _Rienzi_ and _The
Borgias_, were also successful. _Plautus_, a comedy, was preferred by
the author himself, and is more original. Cossa had neither the
divination which would have enabled him to reconstruct the ancient
world, nor the imagination which would have enabled him to idealize it.
But he was an energetic writer, never tame or languid, and at the same
time able to command the attention of an audience without recourse to
melodramatic artifice; while his sonorous verse, if scarcely able to
support the ordeal of the closet, is sufficiently near to poetry for the
purposes of the stage.

His collected _Teatro poetico_ was published in 1887.

COSSACKS (Russ. _Kazak_; plural, _Kazaki_, from the Turki _quzz[=a]q_,
"adventurer, free-booter"), the name given to considerable portions of
the population of the Russian empire, endowed with certain special
privileges, and bound in return to give military service, all at a
certain age, under special conditions. They constitute ten separate
_voiskos_, settled along the frontiers: Don, Kuban, Terek, Astrakhan,
Ural, Orenburg, Siberian, Semiryechensk, Amur and Usuri. The primary
unit of this organization is the _stanitsa_, or village, which holds its
land as a commune, and may allow persons who are not Cossacks (excepting
Jews) to settle on this land for payment of a certain rent. The assembly
of all householders in villages of less than 30 households, and of 30
elected men in villages having from 30 to 300 households (one from each
10 households in the more populous ones), constitutes the village
assembly, similar to the _mir_, but having wider attributes, which
assesses the taxes, divides the land, takes measures for the opening and
support of schools, village grain-stores, communal cultivation, and so
on, and elects its _ataman_ (elder) and its judges, who settle all
disputes up to L10 (or above that sum with the consent of both sides).
Military service is obligatory for all men, for 20 years, beginning with
the age of 18. The first 3 ye