Articles listed under letter "D"

[1907 edition]

 
DACCA (82), a city 150 m. NE. of Calcutta, on a branch of the
Brahmaputra, once the capital of Bengal, and a centre of Mohammedanism;
famous at one time for its muslins; the remains of its former grandeur
are found scattered up and down the environs and half buried in the
jungle; it is also the name of a district (2,420), well watered, both for
cultivation and commerce.






DACIA, a Roman province, N. of the Danube and S. of the Carpathians.


DACIER, ANDRE, a French scholar and critic, born at Castres, in
Languedoc; assisted by his wife, executed translations of various
classics, and produced an edition of them known as the "Delphin Edition"
(1651-1722).


DACIER, MADAME, distinguished Hellenist and Latinist, wife of the
preceding, born in Saumur (1651-1720).


DACOITS, gangs of semi-savage Indian brigands and robbers, often 40
or 50 in a gang.


DA COSTA, ISAAC, a Dutch poet, born at Amsterdam, of Jewish parents;
turned Christian, and after the death of Bilderdijk was chief poet of
Holland (1798-1860).


DAEDALUS, an architect and mechanician in the Greek mythology;
inventor and constructor of the Labyrinth of Crete, in which the Minotaur
was confined, and in which he was also imprisoned himself by order of
Minos, a confinement from which he escaped by means of wings fastened on
with wax; was regarded as the inventor of the mechanic arts.


DAGHESTAN (529), a Russian province W. of the Caspian Sea, traversed
by spurs of the Caucasus Mountains; chief town Derbend.


DAGO, a marshy Russian island, N. of the Gulf of Riga, near the
entrance of the Gulf of Finland.


DAGOBERT I., king of the Franks, son of Clotaire II., reformed the
laws of the Franks; was the last of the Merovingian kings who knew how to
rule with a firm hand; the sovereign power as it passed from his hands
was seized by the mayor of the palace; _d_. 638.


DAGON, the national god of the Philistines, represented as half-man,
sometimes half-woman, and half-fish; appears to have been a symbol to his
worshippers of the fertilising power of nature, familiar to them in the
fruitfulness of the sea.


DAGUERREOTYPE, a process named after its inventor, Louis Daguerre, a
Frenchman, of producing pictures by means of the camera on a surface
sensitive to light and shade, and interesting as the first step in
photography.


DAHL, a Norwegian landscape-painter, born at Bergen; died professor
of Painting at Dresden (1788-1857).


DAHLGREN, JOHN ADOLPH, a U.S. naval officer and commander; invented
a small heavy gun named after him; commanded the blockading squadron at
Charleston (1809-1870).


DAHLMANN, FRIEDRICH CHRISTOPH, a German historian and politician,
born at Wismar; was in favour of constitutional government; wrote a
"History of Denmark," "Histories of the French Revolution and of the
English Revolution"; left an unfinished "History of Frederick the Great"
(1785-1860).


DAHN, FELIX, a German jurist, historian, novelist, and poet, born in
Hamburg; a man of versatile ability and extensive learning; became
professor of German jurisprudence at Koenigsberg; _b_. 1834.


DAHNA DESERT, the central division of the Arabian Desert.


DAHOMEY (150), a negro kingdom of undefined limits, and under French
protectorate, in W. Africa, N. of the Slave Coast; the religious rites of
the natives are sanguinary, they offer human victims in sacrifice; is an
agricultural country, yields palm-oil and gold dust, and once a great
centre of the slave-trade.


DAIRI, the Mikado's palace or his court, and sometimes the Mikado
himself.


DAKO`TA, NORTH and SOUTH (400), three times as large as
England, forming two States of the American Union; consist of prairie
land, and extend N. from Nebraska as far as Canada, traversed by the
Missouri; yield cereals, especially wheat, and raise cattle.


DALAI-LAMA, chief priest of Lamaism, reverenced as a living
incarnation of deity, always present on earth in him. See LAMAISM.


DALAYRAC, celebrated French composer; author of a number of comic
operas (1753-1809).


DALBERG, BARON DE, an eminent member of a noble German family;
trained for the Church; was a prince-bishop; a highly cultured man, held
in high esteem in the Weimar Court circles, and a friend of Goethe and
Schiller; an ecclesiastic, as one might suppose, only in name
(1744-1817).


DALBERG, DUC DE, nephew of the preceding; contributed to political
changes in France in 1814, and accompanied Talleyrand to the Congress of
Vienna (1773-1833).


D'ALBRET, JEANNE, queen of Navarre, and mother of Henry IV. of
France; came to Paris to treat about the marriage of her son to Charles
IX.'s sister; died suddenly, not without suspicion of foul-play, after
signing the treaty; she was a Protestant (1528-1572).


D'ALEMBERT, a French philosopher, devoted to science, and especially
to mathematics; along with Diderot established the celebrated
"Encyclopedie," wrote the Preliminary Discourse, and contributed largely
to its columns, editing the mathematical portion of it; trained to quiet
and frugality, was indifferent to wealth and honour, and a very saint of
science; no earthly bribe could tear him away from his chosen path of
life (1717-1783).


DALGARNO, LORD, a heartless profligate in the "Fortunes of Nigel."


DALGETTY, DUGALD, a swaggering soldier of fortune in the "Legend of
Montrose," who let out his services to the highest bidder.


DALHOUSIE, JAMES ANDREW BROUN-RAMSAY, MARQUIS OF, Governor-General
of India, third son of the ninth Earl; as Lord Ramsay served in
Parliament as member for Haddingtonshire; on his father's death in 1838
entered the House of Lords; held office under Sir Robert Peel and Lord
Russell; went to India as Governor-General in 1848; ruled vigorously,
annexed territory, developed the resources of the country, projected and
carried out important measures for its welfare; his health, however, gave
way at the end of eight years, and he came home to receive the thanks of
the Parliament, elevation in the peerage, and other honours, but really
to end his days in pain and prostration; dying without male issue, he was
succeeded in the earldom by Fox Maule, Lord Panmure (1812-1860).


DALKEITH (7), a grain-market town in Midlothian, 6 m. SE. of
Edinburgh, with a palace adjoining, a seat of the Duke of Buccleuch.


DALLAS, GEORGE MIFFLIN, an American diplomatist, born in
Philadelphia; represented the United States as ambassador at St.
Petersburg and at London, and was from 1844 to 1849 Vice-President
(1792-1864).


DALMATIA (527), a crownland of Austria, lying along the NE. coast of
the Adriatic, and bounded on the land side by Croatia, Bosnia, and
Herzegovina; half the land is pasture, only one-ninth of it arable, which
yields cereals, wine, oil, honey, and fruit.


DALRI`ADS, a Celtic race who came over from Ireland to Argyllshire,
and established a kingdom in the SW. of Scotland, till King Kenneth
Macalpin succeeded in 843, who obtained rule both over it and the
northern kingdom of the Picts, and became the first king of Scotland.


DALRYMPLE, ALEXANDER, hydrographer to the Admiralty and the East
India Company, born at New Hailes, and brother of Lord Hailes; produced
many good maps (1737-1808).


DALTON, JOHN, chemist and physicist, born near Cockermouth, of a
Quaker family; took early an interest in meteorology, and kept through
life a record of meteorological observations; taught mathematics and
physics in Manchester; made his first appearance as an author in 1793 in
a volume of his observations and essays, and in 1808 published "A New
System of Chemical Philosophy," which he finished in 1810; famous for his
experiments on the elastic force of steam, for his researches on the
proportional weights of simple bodies, for his discovery of the atomic
theory, as also for his investigations on colour-blindness by
experimenting on himself and his brother, who along with himself was
colour-blind (1766-1844).


DALTONISM, COLOUR-BLINDNESS (q. v.). See DALTON, JOHN.


DALZIEL, THOMAS, general, born in Linlithgowshire; being hand-idle
at home, entered the Russian service against the Turks; returning at the
request of Charles II., was appointed commander-in-chief in Scotland;
suppressed a rising of the Covenanters at Pentland in 1666; never once
shaved his beard after the execution of Charles I. (1599-1685).


DAMAN, a Portuguese settlement with a port of the same name in
Gujarat, India, 100 m. N. of Bombay.


DAM`ARALAND, a territory on the W. coast of South Africa, N. of
Namaqualand; the chief industry is pastoral; the mountain districts,
which are rich in minerals, particularly copper, are inhabited by
Damaras, who are nomads and cattle-rearers; it is a German protectorate
since 1890.


DAMAS, COLONEL COMTE DE, a devoted adherent of Louis XVI., and one
of his convoys on his attempt at flight.


DAMASCUS (220), the capital of Syria, one of the oldest cities in
the world; stands 2260 ft. above the sea-level; is a great centre of the
caravan trade; is embosomed in the midst of gardens and orchards, hence
its appearance as the traveller approaches it is most striking; its
history goes as far back as the days of Abraham; it was the scene of two
great events in human destiny--the conversion of St. Paul, and, according
to Moslem tradition, a great decisive moment in the life of Mahomet, when
he resolutely turned his back once for all on the pleasures of the world.


DAMASUS, ST., Pope from 366 to 384, a Spaniard; a zealous opponent
of the Arians and a friend of St. Jerome, who, under his sanction,
executed his translation of the Bible into the Vulgate; there was a
Damasus II., Pope in 1048.


DAME AUX CAMELIAS, LA, a romance and a drama by Alexander Dumas
_fils_, one of his best creations.


DAMIEN, FATHER, a French priest, born at Louvain; devoted his life
to nurse and instruct the lepers in an island of the Hawaian group, and,
though after 12 years infected with the disease himself, continued to
minister to them till his death (1841-1889).


DAMIENS, ROBERT FRANCOIS, the would-be assassin of Louis XV., born
near Arras; aimed at the king as he was entering his carriage at Trianon,
but failed to wound him mortally; was mercilessly tortured to death; was
known before as _Robert le Diable_; his motive for the act was never
known (1715-1757).


DAMIETTA (36), a town, the third largest, in Egypt, on an eastern
branch of the Nile, 8 m. from its mouth; has a trade in grain, rice,
hides, fish, &c.; was taken by St. Louis in 1249, and restored on payment
of his ransom from captivity.


DAMOCLES, a flatterer at the court of the elder Dionysius, tyrant of
Syracuse, whom, after one day extravagantly extolling the happiness of
kings, Dionysius set down to a magnificent banquet, but who, when seated
at it, looked up and saw a sword hanging over his head suspended by a
single hair; a lesson this which admonished him, and led him to change
his views of the happiness of kings.


DAMON AND PYTHIAS, two Pythagoreans of Syracuse of the days of
Dionysius I., celebrated for their friendship; upon the latter having
been condemned to death, and having got leave to go home to arrange his
affairs beforehand, the former pledged his life for his return, when just
as, according to his promise, he presented himself at the place of
execution, Pythias turned up and prepared to put his head on the block;
this behaviour struck the tyrant with such admiration, that he not only
extended pardon to the offender, but took them both into his friendship.


DAMPIER, WILLIAM, an English navigator and buccaneer; led a roving
and adventurous life, and parting company with his comrades, set off on a
cruise in the South Seas; came home and published a "Voyage Round the
World"; this led to his employment in further adventures, in one of which
Alexander Selkirk accompanied him, but was wrecked on Juan Fernandez; in
his last adventure, it is said, he rescued Selkirk and brought him home
(1652-1715).


DANA, CHARLES ANDERSON, American journalist, member of BROOK
FARM (q. v.), and became editor of the _New York Tribune_, the
_Sun_, and a cyclopaedia: _b_. 1829.


DANA, JAMES DWIGHT, American mineralogist and geologist, born at
Utica, New York State; was associated as scientific observer with
Commodore Wilkes on his Arctic and Antarctic exploring expeditions, on
the results of which he reported; became geological professor in Yale
College; author of works on mineralogy and geology, as also on South Sea
volcanoes (1813-1895).


DANA, RICHARD HENRY, an American poet and critic; editor of the
_North American Review_, author of the "Dying Raven," the "Buccaneer,"
and other poems (1787-1879).


DANA, RICHARD HENRY, a son of the preceding, lawyer; author of "Two
Years before the Mast" (1815-1882).


DANAE, daughter of Acrisius, king of Argos, confined by her father
in an inaccessible tower of brass to prevent the fulfilment of an oracle
that she should be the mother of a son who would kill him, but Zeus found
access to her in the form of a shower of gold, and she became the mother
of Perseus, by whose hand Acrisius met his fate. See PERSEUS.


DANA`IDES, daughters of Danaues, who, for murdering their husbands on
the night after marriage, were doomed in the nether world to the
impossible task of filling with water a vessel pierced with holes. See
DANAUeS.


DANAUeS, son of Belus, and twin-brother of AEgyptus, whom fearing, he
fled from with his fifty daughters to Argos, where he was chosen king;
by-and-by the fifty sons of AEgyptus, his brother, came to Argos to woo,
and were wedded to, their cousins, whom their father provided each with a
dagger to murder her husband, which they did, all except Hypermnestra,
whose husband, Lynceus, escaping, succeeded her father as king, to the
defeat of the old man's purpose in the crime.


DANBY, FRANCIS, painter, born near Wexford; settled for a time in
Bristol, then in Switzerland, and finally at Exmouth; his works are
mostly landscape, instinct with feeling, but some of them are historical,
the subjects being taken from Scripture, as the "Passage of the Red Sea,"
or from pagan sources, as "Marius among the Ruins of Carthage"
(1793-1861).


DANCE, GEORGE, English architect; was architect to the City of
London, and designed the Mansion House, his chief work (1700-1768).
GEORGE, his son, built Newgate Prison (1740-1825).


DANCE OF DEATH, an allegorical representation in a dramatic or
pictorial form of Death, figuring, originally as a skeleton, and
performing his part as a chief actor all through the drama of life, and
often amid the gayest scenes of it; a succession of woodcuts by Holbein
in representation of this dance is well known.


DANCING MANIA, an epidemic of frequent occurrence, especially in
German towns, during the Middle Ages, of the nature of hysteria, showing
itself in convulsive movements beyond the control of the will, and in
delirious acts, sometimes violently suicidal; the most signal occurrence
of the mania was at Aix-la-Chapelle in July 1374.


DANCOURT, FLORENT CARTON, French dramatist, a prolific author; a
favourite of Louis XIV.; wrote comedies, chiefly on the follies of the
middle classes of the time (1661-1725).


DANDIE DINMONT, a humorous, jovial store-farmer in "Guy Mannering."


DANDIN, GEORGE, one of Moliere's comedies, illustrative of the folly
a man commits when he marries a woman of higher rank than his own, George
being his impersonation of a husband who has patiently to endure all the
extravagant whims and fancies of his dame of a wife.


DANDIN, PERRIN, a simple citizen in the "Pantagruel" of Rabelais,
who seats himself judge-wise on the first stump that offers, and passes
offhand a sentence in any matter of litigation; a character who figures
similarly in a comedy of Racine's, and in a fable of La Fontaine's.


DAN`DOLO, a Venetian family that furnished four Doges to the
Republic, ENRICO being the most illustrious; chosen Doge in his
eighty-fourth year, assisted the Crusaders of the Fourth Crusade with
ships; joined them, when blind and aged 90, in laying siege to
Constantinople; led the attack by sea, and was the first to leap ashore;
was offered the imperial crown, but declined it; died instead "despot" of
Roumania in 1205, at 97.


DANEGELT, originally a tax imposed on land to buy off the Danes from
the shores of England, and subsequently for other objects, such as the
defence of the coast; abolished by Henry II., though re-imposed
subsequently under other names.


DANELAGH, a district in the E. of England, N. of the Thames;
dominated at one time more or less by the Danes; of vague extent.


DANGEAU, MARQUIS, author of "Memoirs" affecting the court of Louis
XIV. and its manners (1638-1720).


D'ANGOULEME, DUCHESSE, daughter of Louis XVI. and Marie Antoinette;
was released from restraint after the execution of her parents in
exchange for prisoners in the Royalist's hands; fled to Vienna, where she
was driven forth; married her cousin, to whom she was early betrothed;
could find no place of safe refuge but in England; returned to France on
Napoleon's exile to Elba, and headed a body of troops against him on his
return; after Waterloo, returned to France and stayed till July 1830, and
lived to see Louis Philippe, in 1848, driven from the throne; Napoleon
called her "the only man of her family"; left "Memoirs" (1778-1851).


DANGS, THE, a forest district in the N. of the Presidency of Bombay,
occupied by fifteen wild tribes, each under a chief.


DANIEL, a Hebrew of fine physique and rare endowment, who was, while
but a youth, carried captive to Babylon, and trained for office in the
court of the king; was found, after three years' discipline, to excel "in
wisdom and understanding" all the magicians and enchanters of the realm,
of which he gave such proof that he rose step by step to the highest
official positions, first in the Babylonian and then in the Persian
empire. He was a Hebrew prophet of a new type, for whereas the old
prophet had, for the most part, more regard to the immediate present and
its outlooks, his eye reached forth into the future and foresaw in
vision, as his book has foretold in symbol, the fulfilment of the hope
for which the fathers of his race had lived and died.


DANIEL, SAMUEL, English poet, born near Taunton; wrote dramas and
sonnets; his principal production a "History of the Civil Wars" of York
and Lancaster, a poem in seven books; is called the "Well-Englished
Daniel," and is much admired for his style; in prose he wrote a "History
of England," and a "Defence of Rhyme," which Swinburne pronounces to be
"one of the most perfect examples of sound sense, of pure style, and of
just judgment in the literature of criticism"; he is associated with
Warner and Drayton as having given birth to "a poetry which has devoted
itself to extol the glory of England" (1562-1619).


DANIELL, JOHN FREDERICK, a distinguished chemist, born in London;
professor of Chemistry in King's College, London; wrote "Meteorological
Essays," and "Introduction to Chemical Philosophy"; invented a hygrometer
and an electric battery (1790-1845).


DANIELL, WILLIAM, an eminent draughtsman; spent his early life in
India; author of "Oriental Scenery," in six folio vols. (1769-1837).


DANITES, or Destroying Angels, a band of Mormons organised to
prevent the entrance into Mormon territory of other than Mormon
immigrants, but whose leader, for a massacre they perpetrated, was in
1827 convicted and shot.


DANNECKER, JOHANN HEINRICH VON, a distinguished German sculptor,
born near Stuttgart, and educated by the Duke of Wuertemberg, who had
become his patron; became professor of Sculpture in the Academy at
Stuttgart; his earlier subjects were from the Greek mythology, and his
later Christian, the principal of the latter being a colossal "Christ,"
which he took eight years to complete; he executed besides busts of
contemporaries, which are wonderful in expression, such as those of
Schiller, Lavater, and Glueck; "Ariadne on the Panther" is regarded as his
masterpiece (1758-1841).


DANTE ALIGHIERI, the great poet of Italy, "the voice of ten silent
centuries," born in Florence; was of noble birth; showed early a great
passion for learning; learned all that the schools and universities of
the time could teach him "better than most"; fought as a soldier; did
service as a citizen; at thirty-five filled the office of chief
magistrate of Florence; had, while but a boy of ten, "met a certain
Beatrice Portinari, a beautiful girl of his own age and rank, and had
grown up in partial sight of her, in some distant intercourse with her,"
who became to him the ideal of all that was pure and noble and good;
"made a great figure in his poem and a great figure in his life"; she
died in 1290; he married another, "not happily, far from happily; in some
civic Guelf-Ghibelline strife he was expelled the city, and his property
confiscated; tried hard to recover it, even 'with arms in his hand,' but
could not, and was doomed, 'whenever caught, to be burned alive'; invited
to confess his guilt and return, he sternly answered: 'If I cannot return
without calling myself guilty, I will never return.'" From this moment he
was without home in this world; and "the great soul of Dante, homeless on
earth, made its home more and more in that awful other world ... over
which, this time-world, with its Florences and banishments, flutters as
an unreal shadow." Dante's heart, long filled with this, brooding over it
in speechless thought and awe, bursts forth at length into "mystic
unfathomable song," and this, his "DIVINE COMEDY" (q. v.), the
most remarkable of all modern Books, is the result. He died after
finishing it, not yet very old, at the age of 56. He lies buried in his
death-city Ravenna, "shutout from my native shores." The Florentines
begged back his body in a century after; the Ravenna people would not
give it (1265-1321). See CARLYLE'S "HEROES AND HERO-WORSHIP," and
Dean Plumptre's "LIFE OF DANTE."


DANTON, GEORGES JACQUES, "The Titan of the Forlorn Hope" of the
French Revolution, born at Arcis-sur-Aube, "of good farmer people ... a
huge, brawny, black-browed man, with a waste energy as of a Hercules"; an
advocate by profession, "esurient, but with nothing to do; found Paris
and his country in revolt, rose to the front of the strife; resolved to
do or die"; the cause threatened, he threw himself again and again into
the breach defiant, his motto "to dare, and to dare, and again to dare,"
so as to put and keep the enemy in fear; "Let my name be blighted," he
said, "what am I? The cause alone is great, and will live and not
perish"; but the "SEA-GREEN" (q. v.) viewed him with jealousy,
held him suspect, had him arrested, brought before the Revolutionary
Tribunal, the severity of whose proceedings under him he had condemned,
and sentenced to the guillotine; a reflection of his in prison has been
recorded: "Oh, it were better to be a poor fisherman than to meddle with
governing of men." "No weakness, Danton," he said to himself on the
scaffold, as his heart began to sink within him as he thought of his
wife. His last words were to Samson the headsman: "Thou wilt show my head
to the people, it is worth showing"; words worthy of the brother of
Mirabeau, who died saying, "I wish I could leave my head behind me,
France needs it just now"; a man fiery-real, as has been said, genuine to
the core, with many sins, yet lacking that greatest of sins, cant. "He
was," says Mr. Belloc, "the most French, the most national, the nearest
to the mother of all the Revolutionary group. He summed up France ...
when we study him, we see France" (1759-1794). See CARLYLE'S "FRENCH
REVOLUTION."


DANTZIG (116), the capital of W. Prussia, once a Hanse town, on the
Vistula, 4 m. from the mouth; one of the great ports and trading centres
of Germany and in the N. of Europe; it is traversed by canals, and many
of the houses are built on piles of wood; exports grain brought down the
river on timber rafts from the great grain country in the S.; it is one
of the chief stations of the German navy.


DANUBE, THE, the great south-eastward-flowing river of Europe, 1750
m. in length, rises in the Black Forest, and is divided into Upper,
Middle, and Lower; the Upper extends as far as Pressburg, begins to be
navigable to Ulm, flows NE. as far as Ratisbon, and then bends SE. past
Vienna; the Middle extends from Pressburg to the Iron Gate, enclosing
between its gorges a series of rapids, below Orsova; and the Lower
extends from the Iron Gate to the Black Sea. It receives numerous
tributary rivers, 60 of them navigable, in its course; forms with them
the great water highway of the SE. of Europe, and is of avail for traffic
to all the races and nations whose territories it traverses; the
navigation of the river is free indeed to all nations.


DANUBIAN PRINCIPALITIES, Moldavia and Wallachia.


DANVILLE, the name of several towns in the United States.


D'ANVILLE, geographer to the king of France; left numerous valuable
maps and geographical works (1697-1782).


DAPHNE (lit. a laurel), a nymph chased by Apollo, transformed into
a laurel as he attempts to seize her; henceforth sacred to the god.


DAPHNIS, a Sicilian shepherd, the mythical inventor of pastoral
poetry.


DAPSANG, the highest of the Karakorum Mountains.


D'ARBLAY, MADAME, a distinguished novelist, daughter of Dr. Burney,
the historian of music; authoress of "Evelina" and "Cecilia," the first
novels of the time, which brought her into connection with all her
literary contemporaries, Johnson in chief; left "Diary and Letters"
(1752-1840).


DARBOY, GEORGES, archbishop of Paris: was a defender of the Gallican
liberties of the Church; had been assiduous in offices of benevolence
during the siege of Paris; was arrested as a hostage by the Communists,
and shot (1813-1871).


DARBY AND JOAN, a married couple celebrated for their mutual
attachment.


DARBYITES, the PLYMOUTH BRETHREN (q. v.), from the name of
one of their founders, a man of scholarly ability and culture, and the
chief expounder of their views (1800-1852).


DARDANELLES, a strait extending between the Archipelago and the Sea
of Marmora, anciently called the Hellespont, 40 m. long, from 1 to 4
broad; commanded by Turkey, both sides of the strait being strongly
fortified.


DARDANUS, a son of Zeus and Electra, mythical ancestor of the
Trojans; originally a king in Greece.


DARFUR (500), a district in the Egyptian Soudan, in which vegetation
is for the most part dormant all the year round, except from June to
September, when it is rank and rich; was snatched from Egypt by the
Mahdi, but is now restored.


D'ARGENS, MARQUIS, born at Aix; disinherited owing to his
misconduct; turned author, and became a protege of Frederick the Great,
but lost caste with him too, and was deprived of his all once more
(1704-1771).


D'ARGENSON, COMTE, an eminent French statesman, head of the police
in Paris; introduced _lettres de cachet_, and was a patron of the French
philosophes; had the "Encyclopedie" dedicated to him; fell out of favour
at Court, and had to leave Paris, but returned to die there (1696-1764).


DARIC, a gold coin current in ancient Persia, stamped with an archer
kneeling, and weighing little over a sovereign.


DARIEN, GULF OF, an inlet of the Caribbean Sea, NW. of S. America.
For isthmus of, see PANAMA.


DARIEN SCHEME, a project to plant a colony on the Atlantic side of
the Isthmus, which was so far carried out that some 1200 left Scotland in
1698 to establish it, but which ended in disaster, and created among the
Scotch, who were the chief sufferers, an animus against the English, whom
they blamed for the disaster, an animus which did not for long die out.


DARIUS I., eldest son of Hystaspes, king of the Persians; subdued
subject places that had revolted, reorganised the empire, carried his
conquests as far as India, subdued Thrace and Macedonia, declared war
against the Athenians; in 492 B.C. sent an expedition against Greece,
which was wrecked in a storm off Athos; sent a second, which succeeded in
crossing over, but was defeated in a famous battle at Marathon, 490 B.C.


DARIUS II., called OCHUS or NOTHUS, king of the Persians;
subject to his eunuchs and his wife Parysatis; his reign was a succession
of insurrections; he supported the Spartans against the Athenians, to the
ascendency of the former in the Peloponnesus; _d_. 405 B.C.


DARIUS III., surnamed CODOMANNUS, king of the Persians, a
handsome man and a virtuous; could not cope with Alexander of Macedon,
but was defeated by him in successive engagements at Granicus, Issus, and
Arbela; was assassinated on his flight by BESSUS (q. v.), one of
his satraps, in 330 B.C.; with him the Persian empire came to an end.


DARJEELING (14), a sanitary station and health resort in the Lower
Himalayas, and the administrative head-quarters of the district, 7167 ft.
above the level of the sea; it has greatly increased of late years.


DARLEY, GEORGE, poet and critic, born in Dublin; author of "Sylvia"
and "Nepenthe"; wrote some good songs, among them "I've been Roaming,"
once very popular; much belauded by Coleridge; contributed to the
_Athenaeum_ (1795-1846).


DARLING, a tributary of the Murray River, in Australia, now
stagnant, now flooded.


DARLING, GRACE, a young maiden, daughter of the lighthouse keeper of
one of the Farne Islands, who with her father, amid great peril, saved
the lives of nine people from the wreck of the _Forfarshire_, on Sept. 7,
1838; died of consumption (1815-1842).


DARLINGTON (38), a town in S. of Durham, on the Tees, with large
iron and other works; a considerable number of the inhabitants belong to
the Society of Friends.


DARMESTETER, JAMES, Orientalist, born in Lorraine, of Jewish
descent; a distinguished Zend scholar and authority in Zend literature;
in the interpretation of the Zend and other ancient literatures was of
the modern critical school (1849-1894).


DARMSTADT (55), the capital of the grand-duchy of Hesse-Darmstadt,
on the Darm, an affluent of the Rhine, 15 m. S. of Frankfort; is divided
into an old and a new town; manufactures tobacco, paper, carpets,
chemicals, &c.


DARNLEY, HENRY STUART, LORD, eldest son of the Earl of Lennox and
grand-nephew of Henry VIII.; husband of Queen Mary; was murdered on Feb.
5, 1567, in Kirk-o'-Field, which stood on the site of the present
University of Edinburgh.


DARTMOOR, moor in Devonshire, a tableland of an average height of
1200 ft. above the sea-level, and of upwards of 120,000 acres in extent,
incapable of cultivation, but affording pasturage for sheep, of which it
breeds a small hardy race; it has rich veins of minerals; abounds in
British remains, and contains a large convict prison.


DARU, COMTE, a French administrator and litterateur, born at
Montpellier; translated Horace when in prison during the Reign of Terror;
served as administrator under Napoleon; on the return of the Bourbons
devoted himself to letters, and wrote the "History of the Republic of
Venice" (1767-1829).


DARWIN, CHARLES ROBERT, great English naturalist and biologist, born
at Shrewsbury, grandson of Erasmus Darwin on his father's side, and of
Josiah Wedgwood on his mother's; studied at Edinburgh and Cambridge; in
1831 accompanied as naturalist without salary the _Beagle_ in her voyage
of exploration in the Southern Seas, on the condition that he should have
the entire disposal of his collections, all of which he got, and which he
ultimately distributed among various public institutions; he was absent
from England for five years, and on his return published in 1836 his
"Naturalist's Voyage Round the World," in 1839-43 accounts of the fruits
of his researches and observations in the departments of geology and
natural history during that voyage, in 1842 his treatise on the
"Structure and Distribution of Coral Reefs," and in 1859 his work on the
"Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection," a work which has
proved epoch-making and gone far to revolutionise thought in the
scientific study of, especially, animated nature, and is being applied to
higher spheres of being; this work was followed by others more or less
confirmatory, finishing off with "The Descent of Man" in 1871, in which
he traces the human race to an extinct quadrumanous animal related to
that which produced the orang-outang, the chimpanzee, and the gorilla. He
may be said to have taken evolution out of the region of pure
imagination, and by giving it a basis of fact, to have set it up as a
reasonable working hypothesis. Prof. A. R. Wallace claims for Darwin
"that he is the Newton of natural history, and has ... by his discovery
of the law of natural selection and his demonstration of the great
principles of the preservation of useful variations in the struggle for
life, not only thrown a flood of light on the process of development of
the whole organic world, but also established a firm foundation for the
future study of nature." He was buried in Westminster Abbey (1809-1882).

 

DARWIN, ERASMUS, physician and natural philosopher, born in
Nottinghamshire; studied at Cambridge and Edinburgh; practised medicine
in Lichfield, and finally settled in Derby; occupied his mind with the
study of fanciful analogies in the different spheres of nature, and
committed his views, often not without genuine poetic sentiment and
melody of expression, to verse, while in the views themselves there have
been recognised occasional glimpses of true insight, and at times a
foreshadow of the doctrine developed on strict scientific lines by his
illustrious grandson. His chief poetic works were the "Botanic Garden"
and the "Zoonomia; or, The Laws of Organic Life," deemed, in the
philosophy of them, not unworthy of criticism by such sane thinkers as
Paley and Dugald Stewart (1731-1802).


DARWINIAN THEORY, the theory established by Darwin that the several
species of plants and animals now in existence were not created in their
present form, but have been evolved by natural law of descent, with
modifications of structure, from cruder forms. See DARWIN, C. R.


DASENT, SIR GEORGE WEBBE, Icelandic scholar, born at St. Vincent,
West Indies; studied at Oxford; from 1845 to 1870 was assistant-editor of
the _Times_; has translated "The Prose, or Younger, Edda" and Norse tales
and sagas; written also novels, and contributed to reviews and magazines;
_b_. 1817.


DASH, COUNTESS, the _nom de plume_ of the Viscountess de Saint-Mars,
a French novelist, born at Poitiers; in straits for a living, took
desperately to writing; treated of aristocratic life and its hollow
artificialities and immoralities (1804-1872).


DASHKOFF, a Russian princess of note; played a part in the
conspiracy which ended in the elevation of Catharine II. to the throne;
was a woman of culture; founded the Russian Academy; projected and
assisted in the compilation of a Russian dictionary; died at Moscow
(1744-1810).


DATES OF EPOCH-MAKING EVENTS, the Ascendency in Athens of Pericles
(445 B.C.); the Fall of the Persian Empire (330 B.C.); the Death of
Alexander the Great (323 B.C.); the Reduction of Greece to a Roman
province, and the Ruin of Carthage (146 B.C.); the Battle of Actium (31
B.C.); Birth of Christ, 14th year of Augustus; Commencement of the
Middle Ages (395); Ruin of the Roman Empire by the Barbarians (476);
Clovis, ruler of Gaul (509); the Flight of Mahomet (622); Charlemagne,
Emperor of the West (800); Treaty of Verdun (843); the Crusades
(1096-1291); Employment of Cannon at Crecy (1346); Invention of Printing
(1436); Taking of Constantinople by Mahomet II. (1453); Discovery of
America by Columbus (1492); Copernican System published (1500); Accession
of Leo X. as Pope (1513); the Reformation of Luther (1517); Publication
of Bacon's "Novum Organon" (1620); Publication of Descartes's "Discourse
on Method" (1637); the Peace of Westphalia (1648); Reign of Louis XIV. at
its Height, and Peace of Nimeguen (1678); Publication of Newton's Theory
of Gravitation (1682); Watt's Invention of the Steam-Engine (1769);
Independence of the United States (1776); _Coup d'etat_ of 10th Brumaire
(1799); Waterloo, and Congress of Vienna (1815); Introduction of
Railroads into England (1830); First Attempt at Electric Telegraphy in
France (1837); Africa traversed by Livingstone (1852-1854); Publication
of Darwin's "Origin of Species" (1859); Opening of the Suez Canal (1869);
Proclamation of the German Empire (1871); Congress of Berlin (1878).


DAUBENTON, LOUIS JEAN MARIE, a French naturalist, born at Montbard;
associated with Buffon in the preparation of the first 15 vols. of his
"Histoire Naturelle," and helped him materially by the accuracy of his
knowledge, as well as his literary qualifications; contributed largely to
the "Encyclopedie," and was 50 years curator of the Cabinet of Natural
History at Paris (1716-1799).


DAUBENY, CHARLES, English chemist and botanist, author of "A
Description of Active and Extinct Volcanoes," an "Introduction to the
Atomic Theory," and other works, all like the latter more or less related
to chemistry (1795-1867).


D'AUBIGNE, MERLE, a popular Church historian, born near Geneva;
studied under Neander at Berlin; became pastor at Hamburg, court-preacher
at Brussels, and professor of Church History at Geneva; his reputation
rests chiefly on his "History of the Reformation in the Sixteenth
Century" (1794-1872).


D'AUBIGNE, THEODORE AGRIPPA, a historian, bred to the military
profession; held appointments under Henry IV., on whose assassination he
returned to Geneva, where he wrote his "Histoire Universelle," which had
the honour to be burned by the common hangman in Paris; was a satirical
writer; grandfather to Mme. de Maintenon (1550-1630).


DAUBIGNY, CHARLES FRANCOIS, a French landscape painter and skilful
etcher, born in Paris, attained distinction as an artist late in life
(1817-1878).


D'AUBUSSON, PIERRE, grand-master of the order of St. John of
Jerusalem, of French origin; served under the Emperor Sigismund against
the Turks; went to Rhodes; became a knight of St. John, and was chosen
grand-master; defended Rhodes against 100,000 Turks, and thus stayed the
career of Mahomet II., who, after establishing himself in Constantinople,
was threatening to overrun Europe (1423-1503).


DAUDET, ALPHONSE, a noted French novelist of great versatility, born
at Nimes, of poor parents; early selected literature as his career in
life; wrote poems and plays, and contributed to the _Figaro_ and other
journals; worked up into his novels characters and situations that had
come under his own observation, often in too satirical a vein to become
universally popular; has been likened to Dickens in his choice of
subjects and style of treatment; died suddenly (1840-1897).


D'AULNOY, THE COUNTESS, authoress of charmingly-written "Contes des
Fees" (Fairy Tales), and on which her reputation rests (1650-1705).


DAUMIER, HENRI, a French caricaturist of great fertility and
playfulness of genius, born at Marseilles; became blind in his old age
(1808-1879).


DAUN, KARL, German theologian, born at Cassel, professor at
Heidelberg, sought to ground theology on a philosophic basis, and found
what he sought in the philosophy of Hegel (1765-1836).


DAUN, LEOPOLD, GRAF VON, an able Austrian general, born at Vienna;
distinguished himself by his prudence and valour in the Seven Years' War,
gained a victory over Frederick the Great at Kolin in 1757, and another
at Hochkirch in 1758; could prevail little or not at all against
Frederick afterwards as soon as Frederick saw through his tactics, which
he was not long in doing (1705-1766).


DAUPHIN, a name originally given to the _Seigneurs_ of the province
of Dauphine, in allusion to the dolphin which several members of the
family wore as a badge, but in 1349 given to the heir-presumptive to the
crown of France, when Humbert II., dauphin of Vienne, ceded Dauphine to
Philippe of Valois, on condition that the eldest son of the king of
France should assume the title, a title which was abolished after the
Revolution of 1830. The word signifies dolphin in French.


DAUPHINE, a SW. province of France, of which the capital was
Grenoble; annexed to the French crown under Philippe II. in 1349.


DAURAT, JEAN, French scholar, a member of the Pleiade (q. v.), and
who figures as one of the leading spirits in the fraternity (1507-1588).


DAVENANT, SIR WILLIAM, an English playwright, born at Oxford, who
succeeded Ben Jonson as poet-laureate, and was for a time manager of
Drury Lane; was knighted by Charles I. for his zeal in the Royalist
cause; his theatrical enterprise had small success during the
Commonwealth, but interest in it revived with the Restoration, at which
time "the drama broke loose from the prison of Puritanism to indulge in a
shameless license" (1606-1668).


DAVID, FELICIEN, a French composer, born at Vaucluse; author, among
other compositions, of the "Desert," a production which achieved an
instant and complete triumph; was in his youth an ardent disciple of St.
Simon (1810-1876).


DAVID, GERHARD, a Flemish painter; painted religious subjects,
several from the life of Christ (1450-1525).


DAVID, KING OF ISRAEL, 11th century B.C., born in Bethlehem; tended
the flocks of his father; slew Goliath with a stone and a sling; was
anointed by Samuel, succeeded Saul as king; conquered the Philistines;
set up his throne in Jerusalem, and reigned thirty-three years; suffered
much from his sons, and was succeeded by Solomon; the book of Psalms was
till recently accepted as wholly his by the Church, but that hypothesis
no longer stands the test of criticism.


DAVID, LOUIS, a French historical painter, born in Paris; studied in
Rome and settled in Paris; was carried away with the Revolution; joined
the Jacobin Club, swore eternal friendship with Robespierre; designed "a
statue of Nature with two _mammelles_ spouting out water" for the deputes
to drink to, and another of the sovereign people, "high as Salisbury
steeple"; was sentenced to the guillotine, but escaped out of regard for
his merit as an artist; appointed first painter by Napoleon, but on the
Restoration was banished and went to Brussels, where he died; among his
paintings are "The Oath of the Horatii," "The Rape of the Sabines," "The
Death of Socrates," and "The Coronation of Napoleon" (1748-1825).


DAVID D'ANGERS, a French sculptor, born at Angers; came to Paris and
became a pupil of the preceding, afterwards proceeded to Rome and
associated with Canova; executed in Paris a statue of the Great Conde,
and thereafter the pediment of the Pantheon, his greatest work, as well
as numerous medallions of great men; on a visit to Weimar he modelled a
bust of Goethe (1788-1856).


DAVID I., king of Scotland, youngest son of Malcolm Canmore and
Queen Margaret; was brought up at the English court; was prince of
Cumbria under the reign of his brother Alexander, on whose decease he
succeeded to the throne in 1124; on making a raid in England to avenge an
insult offered to his son Henry, was defeated at Northallerton in the
Battle of the Standard; addressed himself after this to the unification
of the country and civilisation of his subjects; founded and endowed
bishoprics and abbeys at the expense of the crown, on account of which he
was called St. David, and characterised by James VI., a successor of his,
as a "sair saunt to the croon"; the death of his son Henry was a great
grief to him, and shortened his days (1084-1153).


DAVID II., king of Scotland, son of King Robert the Bruce, born at
Dunfermline; succeeded his father when a boy of four; spent from 1334 to
1341 in France; was taken prisoner by the English at the battle of
Neville's Cross, and was afterwards, till his death, dependent on England
(1326-1371).


DAVID, ST., or DEWI, the patron saint of Wales, lived about the
5th century; archbishop of Caerleon; transferred his see to St. David's;
founded churches, opposed Pelagianism, and influenced many by the odour
of his good name.


DAVIDS, RHYS, professor of Pali and Buddhist literature, born in
Colchester; author of "Buddhism: a Sketch of the Life and Teachings of
Gautama, the Buddha," and of other works in that department of
literature; _b_. 1843.


DAVIDSON, ANDREW BRUCE, Hebrew scholar and professor, born in
Aberdeenshire; a most faithful, clear, and effective interpreter of the
spirit of Hebrew literature, and influential for good as few men of the
time have been in matters of biblical criticism; _b_. 1831.


DAVIDSON, JOHN, poet and journalist, born at Barrhead, Renfrewshire;
has written novels and plays as well as poems; _b_. 1859.


DAVIDSON, SAMUEL, biblical scholar and exegete, born near Ballymena;
wrote Introductions to the Old and the New Testaments; was pioneer in the
higher criticism (1807-1898).


DAVIES, BEN, a popular tenor vocalist, born near Swansea in 1858.


DAVIES, SIR JOHN, poet and statesman, born in Wiltshire; wrote two
philosophic poems, "The Orchestra," a poem in which the world is
exhibited as a dance, and "Nosce Teipsum" (Know Thyself), a poem on human
learning and the immortality of the soul; became a favourite with James
I., and was sent Attorney-General to Ireland (1569-1626).


DAVILA, a celebrated historian, born near Padua, brought up in
France; served in the French army under Henry IV.; did military and other
service in Venice; was assassinated; his great work "The History of the
Civil War in France" (1576-1631).


DAVIS, JEFFERSON, President of the Confederate States, born in
Kentucky; entered the army; fought against the Indians; turned
cotton-planter; entered Congress as a Democrat; distinguished himself in
the Mexican war; defended slave-holding and the interests of
slave-holding States; was chosen President of the Confederate States;
headed the conflict with the North; fled on defeat, which he was the last
to admit; was arrested and imprisoned; released after two years; retired
into private life, and wrote a "History of the Rise and Fall of the
Confederate Government" (1808-1889).


DAVIS, JOHN, an English navigator, born near Dartmouth; took early
to the sea; conducted (1585-1587) three expeditions to the Arctic Seas in
quest of a NW. passage to India and China, as far N. as 73 deg.; discovered
the strait which bears his name; sailed as pilot in two South Sea
expeditions, and was killed by Japanese pirates near Malacca; wrote the
"Seaman's Secret" (1550-1605).


DAVIS, THOMAS, an Irish patriot, born at Mallow; educated at Trinity
College, Dublin, and called to the Irish bar; took to journalism in the
interest of Irish nationality; founded the _Nation_ newspaper, and by his
contributions to it did much to wake up the intelligence of the country
to national interests; died young; was the author of "Songs of Ireland"
and "Essays on Irish Songs" (1814-1845).


DAVIS STRAIT, strait connecting Baffin's Bay with the Atlantic,
discovered by JOHN DAVIS (q. v.).


DAVITT, MICHAEL, a noted Irish patriot, born in co. Mayo, son of a
peasant, who, being evicted, settled in Lancashire; joined the Fenian
movement, and was sentenced to 15 years' penal servitude; released on
ticket-of-leave after seven years; founded the Land League; was for over
a year imprisoned again for breaking his ticket-of-leave; published in
1885 "Leaves from a Prison Diary"; entered Parliament in 1895 for co.
Mayo; _b_. 1846.


DAVOS-PLATZ, a village 5105 ft. above the sea-level, in a valley of
the East Grisons; a place frequented in winter by invalids suffering from
chest disease, the dry air and sunshine that prevail being favourable for
patients of that class.


DAVOUT, Duke of Auerstaedt, Prince of Eckmuehl, marshal of France,
born at Annoux, in Burgundy; was fellow-student with Napoleon at the
military school in Brienne; entered the army in 1788, served in the
Revolutionary wars under Dumouriez and Desaix, and became general; served
under Bonaparte in Egypt; distinguished himself at Austerlitz, Auerstaedt,
Eckmuehl, and Wagram; was made governor of Hamburg; accompanied Napoleon
to Moscow; returned to Hamburg, and defended it during a siege; was made
Minister of War in 1815, and assisted Napoleon in his preparations for
the final struggle at Waterloo; commanded the remains of the French army
which capitulated under the walls of Paris; adhered to the Bourbon
dynasty on its return, and was made a peer; was famous before all the
generals of Napoleon for his rigour in discipline (1770-1823).


DAVY, SIR HUMPHRY, a great English chemist, born at Penzance;
conceived early in life a passion for the science in which he made so
many discoveries; made experiments on gases and the respiration of them,
particularly nitrous oxide and carbonic acid; discovered the function of
plants in decomposing the latter in the atmosphere, and the metallic
bases of alkalies and earths; proved chlorine to be a simple substance
and its affinity with iodine, which he discovered; invented the
safety-lamp, his best-known achievement; he held appointments and
lectured in connection with all these discoveries and their applications,
and received knighthood and numerous other honours for his services; died
at Geneva (1778-1829).


DAVY JONES'S LOCKER, the sailors' familiar name for the sea as a
place of safe-keeping, though why called of Davy Jones is uncertain.


DAVY-LAMP, a lamp encased in gauze wire which, while it admits
oxygen to feed the flame, prevents communication between the flame and
any combustible or explosive gas outside.


DAWKINS, WILLIAM BOYD, geologist and palaeontologist, born in
Montgomeryshire; has written "Cave Hunting," "Early Man in Britain," &c.;
_b_. 1838.


DAWSON, GEORGE, a popular lecturer, born in London; educated in
Aberdeen and Glasgow; bred for the ministry by the Baptist body, and
pastor of a Baptist church in Birmingham, but resigned the post for
ministry in a freer atmosphere; took to lecturing on a purely secular
platform, and was for thirty years the most popular lecturer of the day;
no course of lectures in any institute was deemed complete if his name
was not in the programme; did much to popularise the views of Carlyle and
Emerson (1821-1876).


DAWSON, SIR JOHN WILLIAM, geologist and naturalist, born in Pictou,
Nova Scotia; studied in Edinburgh; distinguished himself as a
palaeontologist; published in 1872, "Story of the Earth and Man"; in 1877,
"Origin of the World"; and recently, "Geology and History"; called in
question the Darwinian theory as to the origin of species; _b_. 1820.


DAY, JOHN, an English dramatist, contemporary of Ben Jonson; author
of the "Parliament of Bees," a comedy in which all the characters are
bees.


DAY, THOMAS, an eccentric philanthropist, born in London; author of
"Sandford and Merton"; he was a disciple of Rousseau; had many a
ludicrous adventure in quest of a model wife, and happily fell in with
one to his mind at last; was a slave-abolitionist and a parliamentary
reformer (1748-1789).


DAYAKS. See DYAKS.


DAYTON (85), a prosperous town in Ohio, U.S.; a great railway
centre, with a court-house of marble, after the Parthenon in Athens.


D'AZARA, a Spanish naturalist, born in Aragon; spent 20 years in
South America; wrote a "Natural History of the Quadrupeds in Paraguay"
(1781-1811).


DEAD SEA, called also the Salt Sea and 'the Asphalt Lake, a sea in
Palestine, formed by the waters of the Jordan, 46 m. long, 10 m. broad,
and in some parts 1300 ft. deep, while its surface is 1312 ft. below the
level of the Mediterranean, just as much as Jerusalem is above it; has no
outlet; its waters, owing to the great heat, evaporate rapidly, and are
intensely salt; it is enclosed E. and W. by steep mountains, which often
rise to a height of 6000 ft.


DEAK, FRANCIS, an eminent Hungarian statesman, born at Kehida, of an
ancient noble Magyar family; his aim for Hungary was the same as that of
CAVOUR (q. v.) for Italy, the establishment of constitutional
government, and he succeeded; standing all along as he did from Hungarian
republicanism on the one hand, and Austrian tyranny on the other, he
urged on the Emperor of Austria the demand of the Diet, of which he had
become leader, at first without effect, but after the humiliation of
Austria in 1866, all that he asked for was conceded, and the Austrian
Emperor received the Hungarian crown (1803-1876).


DEAL (9), a town, one of the old Cinque ports, oil the E. of Kent,
opposite the Goodwin Sands, 89 m. from London, with a fine sea-beach;
much resorted to for sea-bathing quarters.


DEAN, FOREST OF, a forest of 22,000 acres in the W. of
Gloucestershire, between the Severn and the Wye; the property of the
Crown for the most part; the inhabitants are chiefly miners, who at one
time enjoyed special privileges.


DEAN OF GUILD, a burgh magistrate in Scotland who has the care of
buildings, originally the head of the Guild brethren of the town.


DEAN OF ST. PATRICK'S, Jonathan Swift, who held that post from 1713
till his death.


DEANS, DAVIE, EFFIE, AND JEANIE, characters in the "Heart of
Midlothian."


DEBATS, JOURNAL DES, a daily paper, established in 1789; it defends
at present the Conservative Republican policy, and publishes often
remarkable literary articles.


DEBENTURE, a deed acknowledging a debt on a specified security.


DEBO`RAH, a Hebrew prophetess; reckoned one of the judges of Israel
by her enthusiasm to free her people from the yoke of the Canaanites;
celebrated for her song of exultation over their defeat, instinct at once
with pious devotion and with revengeful feeling; Coleridge calls her
"this Hebrew Boadicea."


DEBRECZEN (56), a Hungarian town, 130 m. E. of Buda-Pesth; is the
head-quarters of Protestantism in the country, and has an amply equipped
and a largely attended Protestant College; is a seat of manufactures and
a large trade.


DECAMERON, a collection of a hundred tales, conceived of as
rehearsed in ten days at a country-house during the plague at Florence;
are of a licentious character, but exquisitely told; were written by
Boccaccio; published in 1352; the name comes from _deka_, ten, and
_hemera_, a day.


DECAMPS, ALEXANDRA GABRIEL, a distinguished French painter, born in
Paris; brought up as a boy among the peasants of Picardy; represented
nature as he in his own way saw it himself, and visited Switzerland and
the East, where he found materials for original and powerful pictures;
his pictures since his death have brought great prices (1803-1860).


DE CANDOLLE, AUGUSTIN PYRAME, an eminent botanist, born at Geneva,
of Huguenot descent; studied in Paris; attracted the attention of Cuvier
and Lamarck, whom he assisted in their researches; published his "Flore
Francaise," in six vols.; became professor at Montpellier, and then at
Geneva; is the historical successor of Jussieu; his great contribution to
botanical science is connected with the classification of plants
(1778-1841).


DECA`TUR, STEPHEN, an American naval commodore; distinguished for
his feats of valour displayed in the war with Tripoli and with England
(1779-1820).


DECCAN, a triangular plateau of from 2000 to 3000 ft. of elevation
in the Indian peninsula, extending S. of the Vindhya Mountains; is
densely peopled, and contains some of the richest soil in the globe.


DECEMBER, the twelfth month of the year, so called, i. e. tenth,
by the Romans, as their year began with March.


DEC`EMVIRS, the patricians of Rome, with Consular powers, appointed
in 450 B.C. to prepare a code of laws for the Republic, which, after
being agreed upon, were committed first to ten, then to twelve tables,
and set up in the Forum that all might read and know the law they lived
under.


DECIUS, Roman emperor from 249 to 251; was a cruel persecutor of the
Christians; perished in a morass fighting with the Goths, who were a
constant thorn in his side all through his reign.


DECIUS MUS, the name of three Romans, father, son, and grandson, who
on separate critical emergencies (340, 295, 279 B.C.) devoted themselves
in sacrifice to the infernal gods in order to secure victory to the Roman
arms; the name is mostly employed ironically.


DECLINE AND FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE, the immortal work of Gibbon,
of which the first volume was published in 1776.


DECRETALS, THE, a collection of laws added to the canon law of the
Church of Rome, being judicial replies of the Popes to cases submitted to
them from time to time for adjudication.


DEE, JOHN, an alchemist, born in London; a man of curious learning;
earned the reputation of being a sorcerer; was imprisoned at one time,
and mobbed at another, under this imputation; died in poverty; left 79
works, the majority of which were never printed, though still extant in
MS. in the British Museum and other places of safe-keeping (1527-1608).


DEFAUCONPRET, French litterateur; translator of the novels of Sir
Walter Scott and Fenimore Cooper (1767-1843).


DEFENDER OF THE FAITH, a title conferred by Pope Leo X. in 1521 upon
Henry VIII. for his defence of the Catholic faith in a treatise against
Luther, and retained ever since by the sovereigns of England, though
revoked by Pope Paul III. in 1535 in consequence of Henry's apostasy.


DEFFAND, MARIE, MARQUISE DU, a woman of society, famed for her wit
and gallantry; corresponded with the eminent philosophes of the time, in
particular Voltaire, as well as with Horace Walpole; her letters are
specially brilliant, and display great shrewdness; she is characterised
by Prof. Saintsbury as "the typical French lady of the eighteenth
century"; she became blind in 1753, but retained her relish for society,
though at length she entered a monastery, where she died (1697-1780).


DEFOE, DANIEL, author of "Robinson Crusoe," born in London; bred for
the Dissenting ministry; turned to business, but took chiefly to
politics; was a zealous supporter of William III.; his ironical treatise,
"The Shortest Way with Dissenters" (1703), which, treated seriously, was
burned by order of the House of Commons, led to his imprisonment and
exposed him for three days to the pillory, amidst the cheers, however,
not the jeers, of the mob; in prison wrote a "Hymn to the Pillory," and
started his _Review_; on his release he was employed on political
missions, and wrote a "History of the Union," which he contributed to
promote. The closing years of his life were occupied mainly with literary
work, and it was then, in 1719, he produced his world-famous "Robinson
Crusoe"; has been described as "master of the art of forging a story and
imposing it on the world for truth." "His circumstantial invention," as
Stopford Brooke remarks, "combined with a style which exactly fits it by
its simplicity, is the root of the charm of his great story" (1661-1731).


DEGE`RANDO, BARON, a French philanthropist and philosopher, born at
Lyons, of Italian descent; wrote "History of Philosophy," long in repute
as the best French work on the subject (1772-1842).


DEIANEIRA, the wife of Hercules, whose death she had been the
unwitting cause of by giving him the poisoned robe which NESSUS
(q. v.) had sent her as potent to preserve her husband's love; on
hearing the fatal result she killed herself in remorse and despair.


DEIPHOBUS, a son of Priam and Hecuba, second in bravery to Hector;
married Helen after the death of Paris, and was betrayed by her to the
Greeks.


DEIR-AL-KAMAR, a town in Syria, once the capital of the Druses, on a
terrace in the heart of the Lebanon Mountains.


DEISM, belief on purely rational grounds in the existence of God,
and distinguished from theism as denying His providence.


DEISTS, a set of free-thinkers of various shades, who in England, in
the 17th and 18th centuries, discarded revelation and the supernatural
generally, and sought to found religion on a purely rational basis.


DEJAZET, VIRGINIE, a celebrated French actress, born in Paris; made
her _debut_ at five years of age (1797-1875).


DEKKER, THOMAS, a dramatist, born in London; was contemporary of Ben
Jonson, between whom and him, though they formerly worked together, a
bitter animosity arose; wrote lyrics as well as dramas, which are light
comedies, and prose as well as poetry; the most famous among his prose
works, "The Gull's Hornbook," a pamphlet, in which he depicts the life of
a young gallant; his pamphlets are valuable (1570-1641).


DE LA BECHE, SIR HENRY THOMAS, geologist, born in London; wrote the
"Depth and Temperature of the Lake of Geneva," and published a "Manual of
Geology" and the "Geological Observer"; was appointed head of the
Geological Survey in England (1796-1855).


DELACROIX, EUGENE, a French painter, born at Charenton, dep. of
Seine; one of the greatest French painters of the 19th century; was the
head of the French Romantic school, a brilliant colourist and a daring
innovator; his very first success, "Dante crossing Acheron in Charon's
Boat," forms an epoch in the history of contemporary art; besides his
pictures, which were numerous, he executed decorations and produced
lithographic illustrations of "Hamlet," "Macbeth," and Goethe's "Faust"
(1799-1863).


DELAGOA BAY, an inlet in the SE. of Africa, E. of the Transvaal,
subject to Portugal; stretches from 25 deg. 30' to 26 deg. 20' S.; extends 52 m.
inland, where the Transvaal frontier begins, and between which and it a
railway of 52 m., constructed by an English company, extends.


DELAISTRE, a French statuary, born in Paris (1836-1891).


DELAMBRE, JEAN JOSEPH, an eminent French astronomer, born at Amiens,
a pupil of Lalande; measured with Mechain the arc of the meridian between
Dunkirk and Barcelona towards the establishment of the metric system;
produced numerous works of great value, among others "Theoretical and
Practical Astronomy" and the "History of Astronomy" (1749-1822).


DELANE, JOHN THADEUS, editor of the _Times_, born in London; studied
at Oxford; after some experience as a reporter was put on the staff of
the _Times_, and in 1841 became editor, a post he continued to hold for
36 years; was the inspiring and guiding spirit of the paper, but wrote
none of the articles (1817-1879).


DELAROCHE, PAUL, a French historical painter and one of the
greatest, born in Paris; was the head of the modern Eclectic school, so
called as holding a middle place between the Classical and Romantic
schools of art; among his early works were "St. Vincent de Paul preaching
before Louis XIII." and "Joan of Arc before Cardinal Beaufort"; the
subjects of his latest pictures are from history, English and French,
such as "The Princes in the Tower" and "Cromwell contemplating the corpse
of Charles I.," a great work; but the grandest monument of his art is the
group of paintings with which he adorned the wall of the semicircle of
the Palais des Beaux Arts in Paris, which he completed in 1841
(1797-1856).


DELAUNAY, LE VICOMTE, the _nom de plume_ of Mme. Delphine, under
which she published her "Parisian Letters."


DELAUNAY, LOUIS ARSENE, a great French actor, born in Paris; made
his _debut_ in 1846, retired 1887.


DELAVIGNE, CASIMIR, a popular French lyric poet and dramatist, born
at Havre; his verse was conventional and without originality (1793-1843).


DELAWARE (168), one of the Atlantic and original States of the
American Union, as well as the smallest of them; the soil is rather poor,
but porcelain clay abounds.


DELCASSE, THEOPHILE, French Minister of Foreign Affairs, born at
Pamiers; began life as a journalist; was elected to the Chamber in 1889;
became Colonial Minister; advocated colonial expansion; dealt skilfully
with the Fashoda affair as Foreign Minister; _b_. 1852.


DELECTABLE MOUNTAINS, mountains covered with sheep in the "Pilgrim's
Progress," from which the pilgrim obtains a view of the Celestial City.


DELESCLUZE, a French Communist, born at Dreux; was imprisoned and
transported for his extreme opinions; started a journal, the _Reveil_, in
1868, to advocate the doctrines of the International; was mainly
answerable for the atrocities of the Paris Commune; was killed in the
barricades (1809-1871).


DELFT (27), a Dutch town, S m. NW. of Rotterdam, once famous for its
pottery; is intersected by canals; has an important polytechnic school.


DELGADO, a cape of E. Africa, on the border between Zanzibar and
Mozambique.


DELHI (192), on the right bank of the Jumna, once the capital of the
Mogul empire and the centre of the Mohammedan power in India; it is a
great centre of trade, and is situated in the heart of India; it contains
the famous palace of Shah Jahan, and the Jama Masjid, which occupies the
heart of the city, and is the largest and finest mosque in India, which
owes its origin to Shah Jahan; it is walled, is 51 m. in circumference,
and divided into Hindu, Mohammedan, and European quarters; it was
captured by Lord Lake in 1803, and during the Mutiny by the Sepoys, but
after a siege of seven days retaken in 1857.


DELIGHT OF MANKIND, the Roman Emperor Trajan.


DELILAH, the Philistine woman who beguiled and betrayed Samson.


DELILLE, JACQUES, a French poet, born at Aigues Perse, in Auvergne;
translator of the "Georgics" of Virgil into verse, afterwards the "AEneid"
and "Paradise Lost," besides producing also certain didactic and
descriptive works; was a good versifier, but properly no poet, and much
overrated; died blind (1738-1813).


DELITZSCH, FRANZ, a learned biblical scholar and exegete, born at
Leipzig; his commentaries, which are numerous, were of a conservative
tendency; he wrote on Jewish antiquities, biblical psychology, and
Christian apologetics; was professor at Erlangen and Leipzig
successively, where his influence on the students was distinctly marked
(1813-1899).


DELIUS, NICOLAUS, a German philologist, born at Bremen;
distinguished especially as a student of Shakespeare and for his edition
of Shakespeare's works, which is of transcendent merit (1813-1888).


DELIA CRUSCANS, a set of English sentimental poetasters, the leaders
of them hailing from Florence, that appeared in England towards the close
of the 18th century, and that for a time imposed on many by their
extravagant panegyrics of one another, the founder of the set being one
Robert Merry, who signed himself _Della Crusca_; he first announced
himself by a sonnet to Love, in praise of which Anne Matilda wrote an
incomparable piece of nonsense; "this epidemic spread for a term from
fool to fool," but was soon exposed and laughed out of existence.


DELLYS (3), a seaport in Algeria, 49 m. E. of Algiers.


DELOLME, JOHN LOUIS, a writer on State polity, born at Geneva, bred
to the legal profession; spent some six years in England as a refugee;
wrote a book on the "Constitution of England," and in praise of it, which
was received for a time with high favour in the country, but is now no
longer regarded as an authority; wrote a "History of the Flagellants,"
and on "The Union of Scotland with England" (1740-1806).


DELORME, a French architect, born at Lyons; studied in Rome; was
patronised by Catherine de Medici; built the palace of the Tuileries, and
contributed to the art of building (1518-1577).


DELORME, MARION, a Frenchwoman celebrated for her wit and
fascination, born at Chalons-sur-Marne; came to Paris in the reign of
Louis XIII., where her drawing-room became the rendezvous of all the
celebrities of the time, many of whom were bewitched by her charms; she
gave harbour to the chiefs of the Fronde, and was about to be arrested
when she died; the story that her death was a feint, and that she had
subsequent adventures, is distrusted; she is the subject of a drama by
Victor Hugo (1612-1650).


DELOS, the smallest and central island of the Cyclades, the
birthplace of Apollo and Artemis, and where the former had a famous
oracle; it was, according to the Greek mythology, a floating island, and
was first fixed to the spot by Zeus to provide Leda with a place, denied
her elsewhere by Hera, in which to bring forth her twin offspring; it was
at one time a centre of Apollo worship, but is now uninhabited, and only
frequented at times by shepherds with their flocks.


DELPHI, a town of ancient Greece in Phocis, at the foot of
Parnassus, where Apollo had a temple, and whence he was wont to issue his
oracles by the mouth of his priestess the Pythia, who when receiving the
oracle used to sit on a tripod over an opening in the ground through
which an intoxicating vapour exhaled, deemed the breath of the god, and
that proved the vehicle of her inspiration; the Pythian games were
celebrated here.


DELPHIN CLASSICS, an edition of the Greek and Roman classics, edited
by Bossuet and Huet, assisted by thirty-nine scholars, for the use of the
dauphin of Louis XIV.; of little use now.


DELPHINE, a novel by Mme. de Stael; presumed to be an idealised
picture of herself.


DELTA, the signature of D. Macbeth Moir in _Blackwood's Magazine_.


DELUC, JEAN ANDRE, geologist, born in Geneva; lived in England; was
reader to Queen Charlotte, and author of several works (1727-1817).


DELUGE, name given to the tradition, common to several races, of a
flood of such universality as to sweep the land, if not the earth, of all
its inhabitants, except the pair by whom the land of the earth was
repeopled.


DEM`ADES, an Athenian orator, a bitter enemy of Demosthenes, in the
interest of Philip of Macedon; put to death for treason by Antipater, 318
B.C.; was a man of no principle, but a great orator.


DEMARA`TUS, king of Sparta from 510 to 491 B.C.; dispossessed of
his crown, fled to Persia and accompanied Xerxes into Greece.


DEMAVEND, MOUNT, an extinct volcano, the highest peak (18,600 ft.)
of the Elburz chain, in Persia.


DEMBEA, a lake, the largest in Abyssinia, being 60 m. long and 6000
ft. above the sea-level, from which the Blue Nile issues.


DEMBINSKI, HENRY, a Polish general, born near Cracow; served under
Napoleon against Russia, under Kossuth against Austria; fled to Turkey on
the resignation of Kossuth; died in Paris (1791-1864).


DEMERARA, a division of British Guiana; takes its name from the
river, which is 200 m. long, and falls into the Atlantic at Georgetown.


DEMETER (lit. Earth-mother), the great Greek goddess of the earth,
daughter of Kronos and Rhea and sister of Zeus, and ranks with him as one
of the twelve great gods of Olympus; is specially the goddess of
agriculture, and the giver of all the earth's fruits; the Latins call her
Ceres.


DEMETRIUS, the name of two kings of Macedonia who ruled over the
country, the first from 290 to 289 B.C., and the second from 240 to 229
B.C.


DEMETRIUS, or DIMITRI, the name of several sovereigns of
Russia, and of four adventurers called the four false Dimitri.


DEMETRIUS I., Soter (i. e. saviour), king of Syria from 162 to 150
B.C.; was grandson of Antiochus the Great. D. II., Nicator (i. e.
conqueror), king of Syria from 143 to 125 B.C. D. III., Eucaeros
(i. e. the happy), king of Syria in 95, died in 84 B.C.


DEMETRIUS PHALEREUS, an eminent Athenian orator, statesman, and
historian, born at Phalerus, a seaport of Athens; was held in high honour
in Athens for a time as its political head, but fell into dishonour,
after which he lived retired and gave himself up to literary pursuits;
died from the bite of an asp; left a number of works (345-283 B.C.).


DEMIDOFF, a Russian family distinguished for their wealth, descended
from a serf of Peter the Great, and who amassed a large fortune by
manufacturing firearms for him, and were raised by him to the rank of
nobility; they were distinguished in the arts, in arms, and even
literature; ANATOL in particular, who travelled over the SE. of
Europe, and wrote an account of his travels, a work magnificently
illustrated.


DEMIGOD, a hero elevated in the imagination to the rank of a
divinity in consequence of the display of virtues and the achievement of
feats superior to those of ordinary men.


DEMI-MONDE, a class in Parisian society dressing in a fashionable
style, but of questionable morals.


DEMIURGUS, a name employed by Plato to denote the world-soul, the
medium by which the idea is made real, the spiritual made material, the
many made one, and it was adopted by the Gnostics to denote the
world-maker as a being derived from God, but estranged from God, being
environed in matter, which they regarded as evil, and so incapable as
such of redeeming the soul from matter, from evil, such as the God of the
Jews, and the Son of that God, conceived of as manifest in flesh.


DEMOCRACY has been defined to be government of the people by the
people and for the people, or as a State in which the government rests
directly with the majority of the citizens, but this under the protest of
some that it is not an end but a means "to the attainment of a truer and
truer aristocracy, or government again by the Best."


DEMOCRATS, a political party in the United States that contends for
the rights of the several States to self-government as against undue
centralisation.


DEMOCRITUS, a Greek philosopher, born in Abdera, Thrace, of wealthy
parents; spent his patrimony in travel, gathered knowledge from far and
near, and gave the fruits of it in a series of writings to his
contemporary compatriots, only fragments of which remain, though they
must have come down comparatively entire to Cicero's time, who compares
them for splendour and music of eloquence to Plato's; his philosophy was
called the _Atomic_, as he traced the universe to its ultimate roots in
combinations of atoms, in quality the same but in quantity different, and
referred all life and sensation to movements in them, while he regarded
quiescence as the _summum bonum_; he has been called the Laughing
Philosopher from, it is alleged, his habit of laughing at the follies of
mankind; _b_. 460 B.C.


DEMOCRITUS JUNIOR, a pseudonym under which Burton published his
"Anatomy of Melancholy."


DEMOGEOT, French litterateur, born at Paris; wrote a history of
literature, chiefly French (1808-1894).


DEMOGORGON, a terrible deity, the tyrant of the elves and fairies,
who must all appear before him once every five years to give an account
of their doings.


DEMOIVRE, ABRAHAM, a mathematician, born in Champagne; lived most of
his life in England to escape, as a Protestant, from persecution in
France; became a friend of Newton, and a Fellow of the Royal Society, and
was of such eminence as a mathematician that he was asked to arbitrate
between the claims of Newton and Leibnitz to the invention of fluxions
(1667-1754).


DEMON, or DAIMON, a name which Socrates gave to an inner divine
instinct which corresponds to one's destiny, and guides him in the way he
should go to fulfil it, and is more or less potent in a man according to
his purity of soul.


DE MORGAN, AUGUSTUS, an eminent mathematician, born in Madura, S.
India; was professor of Mathematics in London University from 1828 till
his death, though he resigned the appointment for a time in consequence
of the rejection of a candidate, James Martineau, for the chair of logic,
on account of his religious opinions; wrote treatises on almost every
department of mathematics, on arithmetic, algebra, trigonometry,
differential and integral calculus, the last pronounced to be "the most
complete treatise on the subject ever produced in England"; wrote also
"Formal Logic" (1806-1871).


DEMOSTHENES, the great Athenian orator, born in Athens; had many
impediments to overcome to succeed in the profession, but by ingenious
methods and indomitable perseverance he subdued them all, and became the
first orator not of Greece only, but of all antiquity; a stammer in his
speech he overcame by practising with pebbles in his mouth, and a natural
diffidence by declaiming on the sea-beach amid the noise of the waves;
while he acquired a perfect mastery of the Greek language by binding
himself down to copy five times over in succession Thucydides' "History
of the Peloponnesian War"; he employed 15 years of his life in
denunciation of Philip of Macedon, who was bent on subjugating his
country; pronounced against him his immortal "Philippics" and
"Olynthiacs"; took part in the battle of Cheronea, and continued the
struggle even after Philip's death; on the death of Alexander he gave his
services as an orator to the confederated Greeks, and in the end made
away with himself by poison so as not to fall into the hands of Autipater
(385-322 B.C.). See CTESIPHON.


DEMPSTER, THOMAS, a learned Scotchman, born in Aberdeenshire; held
several professorships on the Continent; was the author of "Historia
Ecclesiastica Gentis Scotorum," a work of great learning, but of
questionable veracity; has been reprinted by the Bannatyne Club; his last
days were embittered by the infidelity of his wife (1579-1625).


DENARIUS, a silver coin among the Romans, first coined in 269 B.C.,
and worth 81/2 d.


DENBIGH (6), the county town of Denbighshire, in the Vale of the
Clwyd, 30 m. W. of Chester; manufactures shoes and leather.


DENBIGHSHIRE (117), a county in North Wales, of rugged hills and
fertile vales, 40 m. long and 17 m. on an average broad, with a
coal-field in the NE., and with mines of iron, lead, and slate.


DENDERA, a village in Upper Egypt, on the left bank of the Nile, 28
m. N. of Thebes, on the site of ancient Tentyra, with the ruins of a
temple in almost perfect preservation; on the ceiling of a portico of
which there was found a zodiac, now in the museum of the Louvre in Paris,
and dates from the period of Cleopatra and the early Roman emperors, and
has sculptured portraits of that queen and her son Caesarion.


DENGUE, a disease peculiar to the tropics, occurs in hot weather,
and attacks one suddenly with high fever and violent pains, and after a
relapse returns in a milder form and leaves the patient very weak.


DENHAM, DIXON, an English traveller, companion of Clapperton;
visited Bornu and Lake Tchad (1785-1828).


DENHAM, SIR JOHN, an English poet, born at Dublin, the son of an
Irish judge; took to gambling and squandered his patrimony; was unhappy
in his marriage, and his mind gave way; is best known as the author of
"Cooper's Hill," a descriptive poem, interspersed with reflections, and
written in smooth flowing verse (1615-1669).


DENINA, CARLO, an Italian historian, born in Piedmont; banished from
Italy for a cynical remark injurious to the monks; paid court to
Frederick the Great in Berlin, where he lived a good while, and became
eventually imperial librarian in Paris under Napoleon (1731-1813).


DENIS, a king of Portugal from 1279 to 1325; the founder of the
University of Coimbra and the Order of Christ.


DENIS, ST., the apostle of the Gauls, the first bishop of Paris, and
the patron saint of France; suffered martyrdom in 270.


DENIS, ST., a town 6 m. N. of Paris, within the line of the
fortifications, with an abbey which contains the remains of St. Denis,
and became the mausoleum of the kings of France.


DENISON, EDWARD, philanthropist; distinguished by his self-denying
benevolent labours in the East End of London (1840-1870).


DENISON, GEORGE ANTHONY, archdeacon of Taunton, born in Notts; was
charged with holding views on the eucharist inconsistent with the
teaching of the Church of England, first condemned and then acquitted on
appeal; a stanch High Churchman, and equally opposed to Broad Church and
Low; _b_. 1805.


DENISON, JOHN EVELYN, Speaker of the House of Commons from 1858 to
1872, brother of the above (1800-1873).


DENMAN, LORD, Lord Chief-Justice of England from 1832 to 1850, born
in London; was along with Brougham counsel for Queen Caroline
(1779-1854).


DENMARK (2,182), the smallest of the three Scandinavian kingdoms,
consisting of Jutland and an archipelago of islands in the Baltic Sea,
divided into 18 counties, and is less than half the size of Scotland; is
a low-lying country, no place in it more above the sea-level than 500
ft., and as a consequence has no river to speak of, only meres or lakes;
the land is laid out in cornfields and grazing pastures; there are as
good as no minerals, but abundance of clay for porcelain; while the
exports consist chiefly of horses, cattle, swine, hams, and butter; it
has 1407 m. of railway, and 8686 of telegraph wires; the government is
constitutional, and the established religion Lutheran.


DENNEWITZ, a village in Brandenburg, 40 m. SW. of Berlin, where
Marshal Ney with 70,000 was defeated by Marshal Buelow with 50,000.


DENNIS, JOHN, a would-be dramatist and critic, born in London, in
constant broils with the wits of his time; his productions were worth
little, and he is chiefly remembered for his attacks on Addison and Pope,
and for the ridicule these attacks brought down at their hands on his own
head, from Pope in "Narrative of the Frenzy of John Dennis," and
"damnation to everlasting fame" in "Dunciad"; he became blind, and was
sunk in poverty, when Pope wrote a prologue to a play produced for his
benefit (1657-1734).


DENS, PETER, a Catholic theologian, born at Boom near Antwerp;
author of a work entitled "Theologia Moralis et Dogmatica," a minute and
casuistic vindication in catechetical form of the tenets of the Catholic
Church, and in use as a text-book in Catholic colleges (1690-1775).


DENTATUS, M. CURIUS, a Roman of the old stamp; as consul gained two
victories over rival States and two triumphs in one year; drove Pyrrhus
out of Italy (275 B.C.), and brought to Rome immense booty, of which he
would take nothing to himself; in his retirement took to tilling a small
farm with his own hand.


DENVER (134), the capital of Colorado, U.S., on a plain 5196 ft.
above the sea-level; originally founded as a mining station in 1858, now
a large and flourishing and well-appointed town; is the centre of a great
trade, and a great mining district.


DEODAR (25), a small protected independent State in the NW. of
Gujarat, India.


DEODORAKI, a glacier in the Caucasus Mountains.


DEPARCIEUX, French mathematician, born at Cessoux, dep. of Gard;
known for the "Tables" which bear his name, containing a reckoning of the
chances of longevity for different ages (1703-1768).


DEPARTMENT, a territorial division in France instituted in 1790,
under which the old division into provinces was broken up; each
department, of which there are now 87, is broken up into arrondissements.


DEPPING, a learned French historian, born at Muenster; wrote a
"History of Normandy," and on "Trade of Europe with the Levant"
(1784-1853).


DEPTFORD (101), a town on the S. bank of the Thames, partly in Kent
and partly in Surrey, now forming part of London; once with an extensive
Government dockyard and arsenal, the site of it purchased by the
Corporation of London as a market for foreign cattle; is now the central
station for the Electric Light Company.


DE QUINCEY, THOMAS, a great English prose writer, born in
Manchester; son of a merchant called Quincey; his father dying, he was
under a guardian, who put him to school, from which in the end he ran
away, wandered about in Wales for a time, and by-and-by found his way to
London; in 1803 was sent to Oxford, which in 1807 he left in disgust; it
was here as an anodyne he took to opium, and acquired that habit which
was the bane of his life; on leaving Oxford he went to Bath beside his
mother, where he formed a connection by which he was introduced to
Wordsworth and Southey, and led to settle to literary work at Grasmere,
in the Lake District; here he wrote for the reviews and magazines,
particularly _Blackwood's_, till in 1821 he went up to London and
published his "Confessions" under the _nom de plume_ of "The English
Opium-Eater"; leaving Grasmere in 1828 he settled in Edinburgh, and at
Polton, near Lasswade, where he died; is characterised by Stopford Brooke
as "owing to the overlapping and involved melody of his style one of our
best, as he is one of our most various miscellaneous writers"; he was a
writer of very miscellaneous ability and acquirement (1785-1859).


DERBEND (14), capital of Russian Daghestan, on the W. of the Caspian
Sea, 140 m. NW. of Baku.


DERBY (94), county town of Derbyshire, on the Derwent, with
manufactures of silk, cotton hosiery, lace, porcelain, &c.; it is the
centre of a great railway system.


DERBY, CHARLOTTE COUNTESS OF, wife of the 7th Earl who was taken
prisoner at Worcester in 1651, and was beheaded at Bolton; famous for her
gallant defence of Lathom House against the Parliamentary forces, which
she was obliged to surrender; lived to see the Restoration; _d_. 1663.


DERBY, 14TH EARL OF, British statesman, born at Knowsley Hall,
Lancashire; entered Parliament in 1820 in the Whig interest, and was
hailed as an accession to their ranks by the Whigs; supported the cause
of reform; in 1830 became Chief Secretary for Ireland under Earl Grey's
administration; introduced a coercive measure against the Repeal
agitation of O'Connell; contributed to the passing of the Reform Bill in
1832; seceded from the Whigs in 1834, and became Colonial Secretary in
1845 under a Conservative administration, but when Sir Robert Peel
brought in a bill to repeal the Corn Laws, he retired from the Cabinet,
and in 1848 became the head of the Protectionist party as Earl of Derby,
to which title he succeeded in 1851; was after that Prime Minister three
times over, and it was with his sanction Disraeli carried his Reform Act
of 1867, though he spoke of it as "a leap in the dark"; he resigned his
Premiership in 1868, and the last speech he made was against the Irish
Disestablishment Bill; was distinguished for his scholarship as well as
his oratory, and gave proof of this by his scholarly translation of the
"Iliad" of Homer (1797-1869).


DERBY, 15TH EARL OF, eldest son of the preceding; entered Parliament
as Lord Stanley in 1848; was a member of the three Derby administrations,
in the first and third in connection with foreign affairs, and in the
second as Secretary for India, at the time when the government of India
passed from the Company to the Crown; became Earl in 1869; was Foreign
Secretary under Mr. Disraeli in 1874, but retired in 1878; in 1885 joined
the Liberal party, and held office under Mr. Gladstone, but declined to
follow him in the matter of Home Rule, and joined the Unionist ranks; was
a man of sound and cool judgment, and took a deep interest in economical
questions (1826-1893).


DERBY DAY, the last Wednesday in May, or, as may happen, the 1st of
June, being the second day of the Summer Meeting at Epsom, on which the
Derby Stakes for colts and fillies three years old are run for, so called
as having been started by the 12th Earl of Derby in 1780; the day is held
as a great London holiday, and the scene is one to which all London turns
out. The stakes run for are L6000, of which the winner gets L5000.


DERBYSHIRE (520), a northern midland county of England, hilly in the
N., undulating and pastoral in the S., and with coal-fields in the E.;
abounds in minerals, and is more a manufacturing and mining county than
an agricultural.


DERG, LOUGH, an expansion of the waters of the Shannon, Ireland, 24
m. long, from 2 to 6 broad; also a small lake in the S. of Donegal, with
small islands, one of which, Station Island, was, as the reputed entrance
to St. Patrick's Purgatory, a place of pilgrimage to thousands at one
time.


DERVISHES, a name given to members of certain mendicant orders
connected with the Mohammedan faith in the East. Of these there are
various classes, under different regulations, and wearing distinctive
costumes, with their special observances of devotion, and all presumed to
lead an austere life, some of whom live in monasteries, and others go
wandering about, some of them showing their religious fervour in excited
whirling dances, and others in howlings; all are religious fanatics in
their way, and held sacred by the Moslems.


DERWENTWATER, one of the most beautiful of the Cumberland lakes, in
the S. of the county; extends S. from Keswick; is over 3 m. long, and
over 1 m. broad; is dotted with wooded islands, and is overlooked by
Skiddaw; it abounds with perch.


DERWENTWATER, EARL OF, a Jacobite leader; was 3rd Earl and the last;
several warrants were issued for his apprehension in 1714; he joined the
Jacobite rising in 1715; was taken prisoner at Preston, and beheaded on
Tower Hill, London, next year, after trial in Westminster Hall,
confession of guilt, and pleadings on his behalf with the king.


DERZHAVEN, GABRIEL, a Russian lyric poet, born at Kasan; rose from
the ranks as a common soldier to the highest offices in the State under
the Empress Catharine II. and her successors; retired into private life,
and gave himself up to poetry; the ode by which he is best known is his
"Address to the Deity" (1743-1816).


DESAIX, LOUIS CHARLES ANTOINE, a distinguished French general, born
at the Chateau d'Ayat, Auvergne, of a noble family; entered the army at
15; commanded a division of the Army of the Rhine in 1796, and after the
retreat of Moreau defended Kehl against the Austrians for two months;
accompanied Bonaparte to the East, and in 1799 conquered Upper Egypt;
contributed effectively to the success at Marengo, and fell dead at the
moment of victory, shot by a musket-ball; he was an upright and a
chivalrous man, known in Egypt as "the just Sultan," and in Germany as
"the good general" (1768-1800).


DESAUGIERS, MARC, a celebrated French composer of songs and
vaudevilles; "stands second to Beranger as a light song-writer," and is
by some preferred to him (1772-1827).


DESAULT, a French surgeon, born in dep. of Haute-Saone; his works
contributed largely to the progress of surgery (1714-1795).


DESBARRES, JOSEPH FREDERICK, military engineer and hydrographer,
aide-de-camp of General Wolfe at Quebec; fortified Quebec; surveyed the
St. Lawrence; revised the maps of the American coast at the outbreak of
the American war; died at Halifax, Nova Scotia, aged 102 (1722-1824).


DESCAMPS, a French painter, born at Dunkirk; painted village scenes
(1714-1791).


DESCARTES, RENE, the father of modern philosophy, born at La Haye,
in Touraine; was educated at the Jesuit College of La Fleche, where he
made rapid progress in all that his masters could teach him, but soon
grew sceptical as to their methods of inquiry; "resolved, on the
completion of his studies, to bid adieu to all school and book learning,
and henceforth to gain knowledge only from himself, and from the great
book of the world, from nature and the observation of man"; in 1616 he
entered the army of the Prince of Orange, and after a service of five
years quitted it to visit various centres of interest on the Continent;
made a considerable stay in Paris; finally abandoned his native land in
1629, and betook himself to seclusion in Holland in order to live there,
unknown and undisturbed, wholly for philosophy and the prosecution of his
scientific projects; here, though not without vexatious opposition from
the theologians, he lived twenty years, till in 1649, at the invitation
of Christina of Sweden, he left for Stockholm, where, the severe climate
proving too much for him, he was carried off by pneumonia next year;
Descartes' philosophy starts with Doubt, and by one single step it
arrives at Certainty; "if I doubt, it is plain I exist," and from this
certainty, that is, the existence of the thinking subject, he deduces his
whole system; it all comes from the formula _Cogito, ergo sum_, "I think,
therefore I exist," that is, the thinking _ego_ exists; in which thinking
philosophy ere long sums the universe up, regarding it as a void, without
thought; Descartes' philosophy is all comprehended in two works, his
"Discourse on Method," and his "Meditations" (1596-1650).


DESCHAMPS, EMILE, a French poet, born at Bourges, one of the chiefs
of the Romantic school (1795-1871).


DESCHAMPS, EUSTACHE, a French poet, born at Vertus, in Champagne;
studied in Orleans University; travelled over Europe; had his estate
pillaged by the English, whom, in consequence, he is never weary of
abusing; his poems are numerous, and, except one, all short, consisting
of ballads, as many as 1175 of them, a form of composition which he is
said to have invented; he deals extensively in satire, and if he wields
the shafts of it against the plunderers of his country, he does no less
against the oppressors of the poor (1328-1415).


DESDEMONA, the wife of Othello the Moor, who, in Shakespeare's play
of that name, kills her on a groundless insinuation of infidelity, to his
bitter remorse.


DESEZE, a French advocate, had the courage, along with advocate
Tronchet, to defend Louis XVI. when dragged to judgment by the
Convention, and who, honourably fulfilling his perilous office, pled for
the space of three hours, an honourable pleading "composed almost
overnight; courageous, yet discreet; not without ingenuity, and soft
pathetic eloquence"; he was imprisoned for a time, but escaped the
scaffold; on the return of the Bourbons he was made a peer (1750-1828).


DESMOND, EARLDOM OF, an Irish title long extinct by the death of the
last earl in 1583; he had rebelled against Elizabeth's government, been
proclaimed, and had taken refuge in a peasant's cabin, and been betrayed.


DES MOINES (62), the largest city in Iowa, U.S., and the capital,
founded in 1846.


DESMOULINS, CAMILLE, one of the most striking figures in the French
Revolution, born at Guise, in Picardy; studied for the bar in the same
college with Robespierre, but never practised, owing to a stutter in his
speech; was early seized with the revolutionary fever, and was the first
to excite the same fever in the Parisian mob, by his famous call "To
arms, and, for some rallying sign, cockades--green ones--the colour of
Hope, when," as we read in Carlyle, "as with the flight of locusts, the
green tree-leaves, green ribbons from the neighbouring shops, all green
things, were snatched to make cockades of"; was one of the ablest
advocates of the levelling principles of the Revolution; associated
himself first with Mirabeau and then with Danton in carrying them out,
and even supported Robespierre in the extreme course he took; but his
heart was moved to relent when he thought of the misery the guillotine
was working among the innocent families, the wives and the children, of
its victims, would, along with Danton, fain have brought the Reign of
Terror to a close; for this he was treated as a renegade, put under
arrest at the instance of Robespierre, subjected to trial, sentenced to
death, and led off to the place of execution; while his young wife, for
interfering in his behalf, was arraigned and condemned, and sent to the
guillotine a fortnight after him (1762-1794).


DE SOTO, a Spanish voyager, was sent to conquer Florida, penetrated
as far as the Mississippi; worn out with fatigue in quest of gold, died
of fever, and was buried in the river (1496-1542).


DES PERIERS, BONAVENTURE, a French humanist and story-teller, born
at Autun, in Burgundy; valet-de-chamber of Margaret of Valois; wrote
"Cymbalum Mundi," a satirical production, in which, as a disciple of
Lucian, he holds up to ridicule the religious beliefs of his day; also
"Novelles Recreations et Joyeux Devis," a collection of some 129 short
stories admirably told; was one of the first prose-writers of the
century, and is presumed to be the author of the "Heptameron," ascribed
to Margaret of Valois; _d_. 1544.


DESPRE`AUX. See BOILEAU.


DESSALINES, JEAN JACQUES, emperor of Hayti, born in Guinea, W.
Africa, a negro imported into Hayti as a slave; on the emancipation of
the slaves there he acquired great influence among the insurgents, and by
his cruelties compelled the French to quit the island, upon which he was
raised to the governorship, and by-and-by was able to declare himself
emperor, but his tyranny provoked a revolt, in which he perished
(1760-1806).


DESSAU (34), a North German town, the capital of the Duchy of
Anhalt, on the Mulde, affluent of the Elbe, some 70 m. SW. of Berlin; it
is at once manufacturing and trading.


DESSAUER, THE OLD. See LEOPOLD OF DESSAU.


DESTOUCHES, a French dramatist, born at Tours; his plays were
comedies, and he wrote 17, all excellent (1680-1754); also a French
painter (1790-1884).


DETMOLD (9), capital of Lippe, 47 m. SW. of Hanover, with a bronze
colossal statue of ARMINIUS (q. v.) near by.


DETROIT (285), the largest city in Michigan, U.S., a great
manufacturing and commercial centre, situated on a river of the same
name, which connects Lake St. Clair with Lake Erie; is one of the oldest
places in the States, and dates from 1670, at which time it came into the
possession of the French; is a well-built city, with varied manufactures
and a large trade, particularly in grain and other natural products.


DETTINGEN, a village in Bavaria, where an army of English,
Hanoverians, and Austrians under George II., in 1743 defeated the French
under Duc de Noailles.


DEUCALION, son of Prometheus, who, with his wife Pyrrha, by means of
an ark which he built, was saved from a flood which for nine days
overwhelmed the land of Hellas. On the subsidence of the flood they
consulted the oracle at Delphi as to re-peopling the land with
inhabitants, when they were told by Themis, the Pythia at the time, to
throw the bones of their mother over their heads behind them. For a time
the meaning of the oracle was a puzzle, but the readier wit of the wife
found it out; upon which they took stones and threw them over their
heads, when the stones he threw were changed into men and those she threw
were changed into women.


DEUS EX MACHINA, the introduction in high matters of a merely
external, material, or mechanical explanation instead of an internal,
rational, or spiritual one, which is all a theologian does when he simply
names God, and all a scientist does when he simply says EVOLUTION
(q. v.).


DEUTERONOMY (i. e. the Second Law), the fifth book of the
Pentateuch, and so called as the re-statement and re-enforcement, as it
were, by Moses of the Divine law proclaimed in the wilderness. The Mosaic
authorship of this book is now called in question, though it is allowed
to be instinct with the spirit of the religion instituted by Moses, and
it is considered to have been conceived at a time when that religion with
its ritual was established in Jerusalem, in order to confirm faith in the
Divine origin and sanction of observances there.


DEUTSCH, EMANUEL, a distinguished Hebrew scholar, born at Neisse, in
Silesia, of Jewish descent; was trained from his boyhood to familiarity
with the Hebrew and Chaldea languages; studied under Boeckh at the
university of Berlin; came to England, and in 1855 obtained a post in the
library of the British Museum; had made a special study of the "Talmud,"
on which he wrote a brilliant article for the _Quarterly Review_, to the
great interest of many; his ambition was to write an exhaustive treatise
on the subject, but he did not live to accomplish it; died at Alexandria,
whither he had gone in the hope of prolonging his days (1829-1873).


DEUTZ (17), a Prussian town on the right bank of the Rhine, opposite
Cologne.


DEUX PONTS, French name for ZWEIBRUeCKEN (q. v.).


DEVA, the original Hindu name for the deity, meaning the shining
one, whence _deus_, god, in Latin.


DEVANAG`ARI, the character in which Sanskrit works are printed.


DEVELOPMENT, the biological doctrine which ascribes an innate
expansive power to the organised universe, and affirms the deviation of
the most complex forms through intermediate links from the simplest,
without the intervention of special acts of creation. See
EVOLUTION.


DEV`ENTER (25), a town in Holland, in the province of Overyssel, 55
m. SE. of Amsterdam; has carpet manufactures; is celebrated for its
gingerbread; was the locality of the Brotherhood of Common Life, with
which the life and work of Thomas a Kempis are associated.


DE VERE, THOMAS AUBREY, poet and prose writer, born in co. Limerick,
Ireland; educated at Trinity College, Dublin; wrote poetical dramas of
"Alexander the Great" and "St. Thomas of Canterbury"; his first poem "The
Waldenses"; also critical essays; _b_. 1814.


DEVIL, THE, a being regarded in Scripture as having a personal
existence, and, so far as this world is concerned, a universal spiritual
presence, as everywhere thwarting the purposes of God and marring the
destiny of man; only since the introduction of Christianity, which
derives all evil as well as good from within, he has come to be regarded
less as an external than an internal reality, and is identified with the
ascendency in the human heart of passions native to it, which when
subject ennoble it, but when supreme debase it. He is properly the spirit
that deceives man, and decoys him to his eternal ruin from truth and
righteousness.


DEVIL, THE, IS AN ASS, a farce by Ben Jonson, full of vigour, but
very coarse.


DEVIL-WORSHIP, a homage paid by primitive tribes to the devil or
spirit of evil in the simple-hearted belief that he could be bribed from
doing them evil.


DEVONPORT (70), a town in Devonshire, adjoining Plymouth to the W.,
and the seat of the military and naval government of the three towns,
originally called Plymouth Dock, and established as a naval arsenal by
William III.


DEVONSHIRE, a county in the S. of England, with Exmoor in the N. and
Dartmoor in the S.; is fertile in the low country, and enjoys a climate
favourable to vegetation; it has rich pasture-grounds, and abounds in
orchards.


DEVONSHIRE, DUKE OF. See CAVENDISH.


DEVRIENT, LUDWIG, a popular German actor, born in Berlin, of
exceptional dramatic ability, the ablest of a family with similar gifts
(1784-1832).


D'EWES, SIR SIMONDS, antiquary, born in Dorsetshire; bred for the
bar; was a member of the Long Parliament; left notes on its transactions;
took the Puritan side in the Civil War; his "Journal of all the
Parliaments of Elizabeth" is of value; left an "Autobiography and
Correspondence" (1602-1656).


DE WETTE, WILHELM MARTIN LEBERECHT, a German theologian, born near
Weimar; studied at Jena, professor of Theology ultimately at Basel; was
held in high repute as a biblical critic and exegete; contributed largely
to theological literature; counted a rationalist by the orthodox, and a
mystic by the rationalists; his chief works "A Critical Introduction to
the Bible" and a "Manual to the New Testament" (1780-1849).


DE WITT, JAN, a Dutch statesman, born at Dort; elected grand
pensionary in 1652; like his father, Jacob de Witt, before him, was a
declared enemy of the House of Orange, and opposed the Stadtholdership,
and for a time he carried the country along with him, but during a war
with England his influence declined, the Orange party prevailed, and
elected the young Prince of Orange, our William III., Stadtholder. He and
his brother Cornelius were murdered at last by the populace (1625-1672).


DEWSBURY (73), a town in the West Riding of Yorkshire, 8 m. SW. of
Leeds; engaged in the manufacture of woollens, blankets, carpets, and
yarns.


DEXTRINE, a soluble matter into which the interior substance of
starch globules is converted by acids or diastase, so called because when
viewed by polarised light it has the property of turning the plane of
polarisation to the right.


DEYSTER, LOUIS DE, a Flemish painter, born at Bruges; was of a
deeply religious temper, and his character was reflected in his choice of
subjects, such as the "Death of the Virgin," "The Resurrection of
Christ," &c.; he was a recluse (1656-1711).


DEZOBRY, CHARLES, a French writer, born at St. Denis; author of
"Rome in the Time of Augustus" (1798-1871).


DHAGOBA, a mound with a dome-shaped top, found to contain Buddhist
relics.


DHARMA, the name given to the law of Buddha, as distinct from the
Sangha, which is the Church.


DHARWAR (32), a town in the S. of the Bombay Presidency, a place of
considerable trade in a district noted for its cotton growing.


DHWALAGIRI, one of the peaks of the Himalayas, the third highest,
26,826 ft. high.


DIABETES, a disease characterised by an excessive discharge of
urine, and accompanied with great thirst; there are two forms of this
disease.


DIAB`LERETS, a mountain of the Bernese Alps, between the Cantons de
Vaud and de Valois.


DIAFOIRUS, THOMAS, the name of two pedantic doctors, father and son,
who figure in Moliere's "Malade Imaginaire."


DIAGORAS, a Greek philosopher, born in Melos, one of the Cyclades,
5th century B.C., surnamed the Atheist, on account of the scorn with
which he treated the gods of the popular faith, from the rage of whose
devotees he was obliged to seek safety by flight; died in Corinth.


DIALECTIC, in the Hegelian philosophy the logic of thought, and, if
of thought, the logic of being, of essential being.


DIALOGUES OF PLATO, philosophical dialogues, in which Socrates
figures as the principal interlocutor, although the doctrine expounded is
rather Plato's than his master's; they discuss theology, psychology,
ethics, aesthetics, politics, physics, and related subjects.


DIALYSIS, the process of separating the crystalloid or poisonous
ingredients in a substance from the colloid or harmless ingredients.


DIAMANTE, a Spanish dramatic poet, who plagiarised Corneille's "Cid"
and passed it off as original; _b_. 1826.


DIAMANTINA (13), a district in Brazil, in the province of Minas
Geraes, rich in diamonds.


DIAMOND, the name of Newton's favourite dog that, by upsetting a
lamp, set fire to MSS. containing notes of experiments made over a course
of years, an irreparable loss.


DIAMOND NECKLACE, a necklace consisting of 500 diamonds, and worth
L80,000, which one Madame de la Motte induced the jeweller who "made" it
to part with for Marie Antoinette, on security of Cardinal de Rohan, and
which madame made away with, taking it to pieces and disposing of the
jewels in London; the swindle was first discovered when the jeweller
presented his bill to the queen, who denied all knowledge of the matter;
this led to a trial which extended over nine months, gave rise to great
scandal, and ended in the punishment of the swindler and her husband, and
the disgrace of the unhappy, and it is believed innocent, queen. See
CARLYLE'S "MISCELLANIES."


DIAMOND NET, a name given in the Hegelian philosophy to "the
_connective tissue_, so to speak, that not only supports, but even in a
measure constitutes, the various organs" of the universe. See
HEGELIANISM.


DIAMOND STATE, Delaware, U.S., from its small size and great
wealth.


DIANA, originally an Italian deity, dispenser of light, identified
at length with the Greek goddess Artemis, and from the first with the
moon; she was a virgin goddess, and spent her time in the chase, attended
by her maidens; her temple at Ephesus was one of the seven wonders of the
world. See ARTEMIS.


DIANA DE POITIERS, the mistress of Henry II. of France, for whom he
built the magnificent Chateau d'Anet, in Eure-et-Loir; she had a great
influence over him, and the cruel persecutions of the Huguenots in his
reign were due to her instigation (1490-1566).


DIANA OF FRANCE, the Duchess of Angouleme, the natural daughter of
Henry II. and the Duchess de Castro (1538-1619).


DIARBEKIR (42), the largest town in the Kurdistan Highlands, on the
Tigris, 194 m. NE. of Aleppo, and on the highway between Bagdad and
Constantinople, with a large and busy bazaar.


DIASTASE, a nitrogenous substance developed during the germination
of grain, and having the property of converting starch first into
dextrine and then into sugar.


DIAVOLO, FRA (lit. Brother Devil), Michele Porsa, a Calabrian,
originally a monk, who left his monastery and joined a set of bandits,
who lent themselves to and conducted insurrectionary movements in Italy;
taken prisoner, was hanged at Naples; Auber's opera, "Fra Diavolo," has
no connection with him except the name (1760-1806).


DIAZ, BARTHELEMY, a Portuguese navigator, sent on a voyage of
discovery by John II., in the command of two ships; sailed down the W.
coast of Africa and doubled the Cape of Good Hope, which, from the storm
that drove him past it, he called the Cape of Storms; returning to Lisbon
he was superseded by Vasco da Gama, or rather subordinated to him;
subsequently accompanied Cabral on his voyage to Brazil, and was lost in
a storm in 1500.


DIAZ MIGUEL, governor of Porto Rico, born in Aragon; friend and
companion of Columbus; suffered from the usual Jealousies in enterprises
of the kind, but prevailed in the end; _d_. 1514.


DIAZ DE LA PENA, a French painter, born at Bordeaux, of Spanish
descent; a landscapist of the Romantic school, eminent as a colourist
(1809-1876).


DIAZ DEL CASTELLO, historian; accompanied Cortes to Mexico; took
part in the conquest, and left a graphic, trustworthy account of it; died
in Mexico, 1560.


DIBDIN, CHARLES, musician, dramatist, and song-writer, born in
Southampton; began life as an actor; invented a dramatic entertainment
consisting of music, songs, and recitations, in which he was the sole
performer, and of which he was for the most part the author; wrote some
30 dramatic pieces, and it is said 1400 songs; his celebrity is wholly
due to his sea songs, which proved of the most inspiring quality, and did
much to man the navy during the war with France; was the author of "Tom
Bowling"; left an account of his "Professional Life" (1745-1814).


DIBDIN, THOMAS, dramatic author and song-writer, son of the
preceding; was an actor as well as an author, and a most versatile one;
performed in all kinds of characters, and wrote all kinds of plays, as
well as numerous songs (1771-1841).


DIBDIN, THOMAS FROGNALL, bibliographer, nephew of Charles Dibdin,
born in Calcutta; took orders in the Church of England; held several
preferments; wrote several works all more or less of a bibliographical
character, which give proof of extensive research, but are lacking often
in accuracy and critical judgment; was one of the founders of the
Roxburghe Club (1775-1847).


DICAEARCHUS, an ancient geographer, born at Messina, 4th century
B.C.; a disciple of Aristotle.


DICK, JAMES, a West Indian and London merchant, born in Forres;
bequeathed L113,787 to encourage learning and efficient teaching among
the parish schoolmasters of Elgin, Banff, and Aberdeen shires; it is
known as the Dick Bequest, and the property is vested in a governing body
of thirteen duly elected (1743-1828).


DICKENS, CHARLES, celebrated English novelist, born at Landport,
Portsmouth; son of a navy clerk, latterly in great straits; was brought
up amid hardships; was sent to a solicitor's office as a clerk, learned
shorthand, and became a reporter, a post in which he learned much of what
afterwards served him as an author; wrote sketches for the _Monthly
Magazine_ under the name of "Boz" in 1834, and the "Pickwick Papers" in
1836-37, which established his popularity; these were succeeded by
"Oliver Twist" in 1838, "Nicholas Nickleby" in 1839, and others which it
is needless to enumerate, as they are all known wherever the English
language is spoken; they were all written with an aim, and as Ruskin
witnesses, "he was entirely right in his main drift and purpose in every
book he has written," though he thinks we are apt "to lose sight of his
wit and insight, because he chooses to speak in a circle of stage
fire.... Allowing for his manner of telling them, the things he tells us
are always true"; being a born actor, and fain in his youth to become
one, he latterly gave public readings from his works, which were
immensely popular; "acted better," says Carlyle, who witnessed one of
these performances, "than any Macready in the world; a whole tragic,
comic, heroic _theatre_ visible, performing under one _hat_, and keeping
us laughing--in a sorry way some of us thought--the whole night"; the
strain proved too much for him; he was seized with a fit at his
residence, Gad's Hill, near Rochester, on June 8, 1870, and died the
following morning; he was a little man, with clear blue intelligent eyes,
a face of most extreme mobility, and a quiet shrewdness of expression
(1812-1870).


DICTATOR, a magistrate invested with absolute authority in ancient
republican Rome in times of exigence and danger; the constitution obliged
him to resign his authority at the end of six months, till which time he
was free without challenge afterwards to do whatever the interest of the
commonwealth seemed to him to require; the most famous dictators were
Cincinnatus, Camillus, Sulla, and Caesar, who was the last to be invested
with this power; the office ceased with the fall of the republic, or
rather, was merged in the perpetual dictatorship of the emperor.


DICTATOR OF LETTERS, Voltaire.


DICTYS CRETENSIS (i. e. of Crete), the reputed author of a
narrative of the Trojan war from the birth of Paris to the death of
Ulysses, extant only in a Latin translation; the importance attached to
this narrative and others ascribed to the same author is, that they are
the source of many of the Greek legends we find inwoven from time to time
in the mediaeval literature that has come down to us.


DIDDLER, JEREMY, a needy, artful swindler in Kenny's farce of
"Raising the Wind."


DIDEROT, DENIS, a French philosopher, born at Langres, the son of a
cutler there; a zealous propagator of the philosophic ideas of the 18th
century, and the projector of the famous "Encyclopedie," which he edited
along with D'Alembert, and which made a great noise in its day, but did
not enrich its founder, who was in the end driven to offer his library
for sale to get out of the pecuniary difficulties it involved him in, and
he would have been ruined had not Catharine of Russia bought it, which
she not only did, but left it with him, and paid him a salary as
librarian. Diderot fought hard to obtain a hearing for his philosophical
opinions; his first book was burnt by order of the parlement of Paris,
while for his second he was clapped in jail; and all along he had to
front the most formidable opposition, so formidable that all his
fellow-workers were ready to yield, and were only held to their task by
his indomitable resolution and unquenchable ardour. "A deist in his
earlier writings," says SCHWEGLER, "the drift of his subsequent
writings amounts to the belief that all is God. At first a believer in
the immateriality and immortality of the soul, he peremptorily declares
at last that only the race endures, that individuals pass, and that
immortality is nothing but life in the remembrance of posterity; he was
kept back, however, from the materialism his doctrines issued in by his
moral earnestness"; that Diderot was at heart no sceptic is evident, as
Dr. Stirling suggests, from his "indignation at the _darkness_, the
miserable _ignorance_ of those around him, and his resolution to dispel
it" (1713-1784).


DIDIUS, JULIANUS, a Roman emperor who in 193 purchased the imperial
purple from the praetorian guards, and was after two months murdered by
the soldiers when Severus was approaching the city.


DIDO, the daughter of Belus, king of Tyre, and the sister of
Pygmalion, who, having succeeded to the throne on the death of his
father, put Sichaeus, her husband, to death for the sake of his wealth,
whereupon she secretly took ship, sailed away from the city with the
treasure, accompanied by a body of disaffected citizens, and founded
Carthage, having picked up by the way 80 virgins from Cyprus to make
wives for her male attendants; a neighbouring chief made suit for her
hand, encouraged by her subjects, upon which, being bound by an oath of
eternal fidelity to Sichaeus, she erected a funeral pile and stabbed
herself in presence of her subjects; Virgil makes her ascend the funeral
pile out of grief for the departure of AEneas, of whom she was
passionately in love.


DIDOT, the name of a French family of paper-makers, printers, and
publishers, of which the most celebrated is Ambroise Firmin, born in
Paris, a learned Hellenist (1790-1876).


DIDYMUS (twin), a surname of St. Thomas; also the name of a
grammarian of Alexandria, a contemporary of Cicero, and who wrote
commentaries on Homer.


DIEBITSCH, COUNT, a Russian general, born in Silesia;
commander-in-chief in 1829 of the Russian army against Turkey, over the
forces of which he gained a victory in the Balkans; commissioned to
suppress a Polish insurrection, he was baffled in his efforts, and fell a
victim to cholera in 1831.


DIEFFENBACH, JOHANN FRIEDRICH, an eminent German surgeon, born at
Koenigsberg; studied for the Church; took part in the war of liberation,
and began the study of medicine after the fall of Napoleon; was appointed
to the chair of Surgery in Berlin; his fame rests on his skill as an
operator (1792-1847).


DIEFFENBACH, LORENZ, a distinguished philologist and ethnologist,
born at Ostheim, in the grand-duchy of Hesse; was for 11 years a pastor;
in the end, until his death, librarian at Frankfort-on-the-Main; his
literary works were numerous and varied; his chief were on philological
and ethnological subjects, and are monuments of learning (1806-1883).


DIEGO SUAREZ, BAY OF, is situated on the NE. of Madagascar, and has
been ceded to France.


DIEMEN, ANTONY VAN, governor of the Dutch possessions in India, born
in Holland; was a zealous coloniser; at his instance Abel Tasman was sent
to explore the South Seas, when he discovered the island which he named
after him Van Diemen's Land, now Tasmania after the discoverer
(1593-1645).


DIEPENBECK, ABRAHAM VAN, a Flemish painter and engraver (1599-1675).


DIEPPE (22), a French seaport on the English Channel, at the mouth
of the river Arques, 93 m. NW. of Paris; a watering and bathing place,
with fisheries and a good foreign trade.


DIES IRAE (lit. the Day of Wrath), a Latin hymn on the Last
Judgment, so called from first words, and based on Zeph. i. 14-18; it is
ascribed to a monk of the name of Thomas de Celano, who died in 1255, and
there are several translations of it in English, besides a paraphrastic
rendering in the "Lay of the Last Minstrel" by Scott, and it is also the
subject of a number of musical compositions.


DIET, a convention of the princes, dignitaries, and delegates of the
German empire, for legislative or administrative purposes, of which the
most important in a historical point of view are diets held at Augsburg
in 1518, at Worms in 1521, at Nueremberg in 1523, 1524, at Spires in 1526,
1529, at Augsburg in 1530, at Cologne in 1530, at Worms in 1536, at
Frankfort in 1539, at Ratisbon in 1541, at Spires in 1544, at Augsburg in
1547, 1548, 1550, and at Ratisbon in 1622.


DIETRICH, mayor of Strasburg, at whose request Rouget de Lisle
composed the "Marseillaise"; was guillotined (1748-1793).


DIETRICH OF BERN, a favourite hero of German legend, who in the
"Nibelungen" avenges the death of Siegfried, and in the "Heldenbuch"
figures as a knight-errant of invulnerable prowess, from whose challenge
even Siegfried shrinks, hiding himself behind Chriemhilda's veil; has
been identified with Theodoric the Great, king of the Ostrogoths.


DIEZ, FRIEDRICH CHRISTIAN, a German philologist, born at Giessen;
after service as a volunteer against Napoleon, and a tutorship at
Utrecht, went to Bonn, where, advised by Goethe, he commenced the study
of the Romance languages, and in 1830 became professor of them, the
philology of which he is the founder; he left two great works bearing on
the grammar and etymology of these languages (1794-1876).


DIEZ, JUAN MARTIN, a Spanish brigadier-general of cavalry, born at
Valladolid, the son of a peasant; had, as head of guerilla bands, done
good service to his country during the Peninsular war and been promoted;
offending the ruling powers, was charged with conspiracy, tried, and
executed (1775-1825).


DIGBY, a seaport on the Bay of Fundy, Nova Scotia; noted for the
curing of pilchards, called from it digbies.


DIGBY, SIR EVERARD, member of a Roman Catholic family; concerned in
the Gunpowder Plot, and executed (1581-1606).


DIGBY, SIR KENELM, a son of the preceding; was knighted by James I.;
served under Charles I.; as a privateer defeated a squadron of Venetians,
and fought against the Algerines; was imprisoned for a time as a
Royalist; paid court afterwards to the Protector; was well received at
the Restoration; was one of the first members of the Royal Society, and a
man of some learning; wrote treatises on the Nature of Bodies and Man's
Soul, on the corpuscular theory (1603-1665).


DIHONG, the name given to the Brahmaputra as it traverses Assam; in
the rainy season it overflows its channel and floods the whole lowlands
of the country.


DIJON (61), the ancient capital of Burgundy, and the principal town
in the dep. of Cote d'Or, 195 m. SE. of Paris, on the canal of Bourgogne;
one of the finest towns in France, at once for its buildings,
particularly its churches, and its situation; is a centre of manufacture
and trade, and a seat of learning; the birthplace of many illustrious
men.


DIKE (i. e. Justice), a Greek goddess, the daughter of Zeus and
Themis; the guardian of justice and judgment, the foe of deceit and
violence, and the accuser before Zeus of the unjust judge.


DIKTYS, the fisherman of Seriphus; saved Perseus and his mother from
the perils of the deep.


DILETTANTE SOCIETY, THE, a society of noblemen and gentlemen founded
in England in 1734, and which contributed to correct and purify the
public taste of the country; their labours were devoted chiefly to the
study of the relics of ancient Greek art, and resulted in the production
of works in illustration.


DILETTANTISM, an idle, often affected, almost always barren
admiration and study of the fine arts, "in earnest about nothing."


DILKE, CHARLES WENTWORTH, English critic and journalist; served for
20 years in the Navy Pay-Office; contributed to the _Westminister_ and
other reviews; was proprietor and editor of the _Athenaeum_; started the
_Daily News_; left literary Papers, edited by his grandson (1789-1864).


DILKE, SIR CHARLES WENTWORTH, English publicist and politician,
grandson of the preceding, born at Chelsea; called to the bar; travelled
in America and the English colonies, and wrote a record of his travels in
his "Greater Britain"; entered Parliament as an extreme Liberal; held
office under Mr. Gladstone; from exposures in a divorce case had to
retire from public life, but returned after a time; _b_. 1843.


DILLMANN, a great German Orientalist, born at Illingen, a village of
Wuertemberg; studied under Ewald at Tuebingen; became professor at Kiel, at
Giessen, and finally at Berlin; as professor of Old Testament exegesis
made a special study of the Ethiopic languages, and is the great
authority in their regard; wrote a grammar and a lexicon of these, as
well as works on theology; _b_. 1823.


DILLON, a general in the service of France, born in Dublin; was
butchered by his troops near Lille (1745-1792).


DILLON, JOHN, an Irish patriot, born in New York; entered Parliament
in 1880 as a Parnellite; was once suspended, and four times imprisoned,
for his over-zeal; sat at first for Tipperary, and since for East Mayo;
in 1891 threw in his lot with the M'Carthyites; _b_. 1851.


DIMANCHE, M. (Mr. Sunday), a character in Moliere's "Don Juan," the
type of an honest merchant, whom, on presenting his bill, his creditor
appeases by his politeness.


DIME, a U.S. silver coin, worth the tenth part of a dollar, or
about fivepence.


DINAN (10), an old town in the dep. of Cotes du Nord, France, 14 m.
S. of St. Malo; most picturesquely situated on the top of a steep hill,
amid romantic scenery, of great archaeological interest; the birthplace of
Duclos.


DINANT, an old town on the Meuse, 14 m. S. of Namur, Belgium; noted
for its gingerbread, and formerly for its copper wares, called
Dinanderie.


DINAPUR (44), a town and military station on the right bank of the
Ganges, 12 m. NW. of Patna.


DINARCHUS, an orator of the Phocion party in Athens, born at
Corinth.


DINARIC ALPS, a range of the Eastern Alps in Austria, runs SE. and
parallel with the Adriatic, connecting the Julian Alps with the Balkans.


DINDORF, WILHELM, a German philologist, born at Leipzig; devoted his
life to the study of the ancient Greek classics, particularly the
dramatists, and edited the chief of them, as well as the "Iliad" and
"Odyssey" of Homer, with notes; was joint-editor with his brothers Ludwig
and Hase of the "Thesaurus Graecae Linguae" of Stephanus (1802-1883).


DINGELSTEDT, a German poet, novelist, and essayist, born near
Marburg; was the Duke of Wuertemberg's librarian at Stuttgart, and theatre
superintendent at Muenich, Weimar, and Vienna successively; his poems show
delicacy of sentiment and graphic power (1814-1881).


DINGWALL, the county town of Ross-shire, at the head of the Cromarty
Firth.


DINKAS, an African pastoral people occupying a flat country
traversed by the White Nile; of good stature, clean habits; of
semi-civilised manners, and ferocious in war.


DINMONT, DANDIE, a jovial, honest-hearted store-farmer in Scott's
"Guy Mannering."


DINOCRATES, a Macedonian architect, who, in the time of Alexander
the Great, rebuilt the Temple of Ephesus destroyed by the torch of
Erostratus; was employed by Alexander in the building of Alexandria.


DIOCLETIAN, Roman emperor from 284 to 308, born at Salona, in
Dalmatia, of obscure parentage; having entered the Roman army, served
with distinction, rose rapidly to the highest rank, and was at Chalcedon,
after the death of Numerianus, invested by the troops with the imperial
purple; in 286 he associated Maximianus with himself as joint-emperor,
with the title of Augustus, and in 292 resigned the Empire of the West to
Constantius Chlorus and Galerius, so that the Roman world was divided
between two emperors in the E. and two in the W.; in 303, at the instance
of Galerius, he commenced and carried on a fierce persecution of the
Christians, the tenth and fiercest; but in 305, weary of ruling, he
abdicated and retired to Salona, where he spent his remaining eight years
in rustic simplicity of life, cultivating his garden; bating his
persecution of the Christians, he ruled the Roman world wisely and well
(245-313).


DIODATI, a Calvinistic theologian, born at Lucca; was taken while a
child with his family to Geneva; distinguished himself there in the
course of the Reformation as a pastor, a preacher, professor of Hebrew,
and a professor of Theology; translated the Bible into Italian and into
French; a nephew of his was a school-fellow and friend of Milton, who
wrote an elegy on his untimely death (1576-1614).


DIODORUS SICULUS, historian, born in Sicily, of the age of Augustus;
conceived the idea of writing a universal history; spent 30 years at the
work; produced what he called "The Historical Library," which embraced
the period from the earliest ages to the end of Caesar's Gallic war, and
was divided into 40 books, of which only a few survive entire, and some
fragments of the rest.


DIOGENES LAERTIUS, a Greek historian, born at Laerte, in Cilicia;
flourished in the 2nd century A.D.; author of "Lives of the
Philosophers," a work written in 10 books; is full of interesting
information regarding the men, but is destitute of critical insight into
their systems.


DIOGENES OF APOLLONIA, a Greek philosopher of the Ionic school, and
an adherent of ANAXIMENES (q. v.), if of any one, being more of
an eclectic than anything else; took more to physics than philosophy;
contributed nothing to the philosophic movement of the time.


DIOGENES THE CYNIC, born in Sinope, in Pontus, came to Athens, was
attracted to ANTISTHENES (q. v.) and became a disciple, and a
sansculotte of the first water; dressed himself in the coarsest, lived on
the plainest, slept in the porches of the temples, and finally took up
his dwelling in a tub; stood on his naked manhood; would not have
anything to do with what did not contribute to its enhancement; despised
every one who sought satisfaction in anything else; went through the
highways and byways of the city at noontide with a lit lantern in quest
of a man; a man himself not to be laughed at or despised; visiting
Corinth, he was accosted by Alexander the Great: "I am Alexander," said
the king, and "I am Diogenes" was the prompt reply; "Can I do anything to
serve you?" continued the king; "Yes, stand out of the sunlight,"
rejoined the cynic; upon which Alexander turned away saying, "If I were
not Alexander, I would be Diogenes." D'Alembert declared Diogenes the
greatest man of antiquity, only that he wanted decency. "Great truly,"
says Carlyle, but adds with a much more serious drawback than that
(412-323 B.C.). See "SARTOR RESARTUS," BK. III. CHAP. 1.


DIOGENES THE STOIC, born in Seleucia; a successor of Zeno, and head
of the school at Athens, 2nd century B.C.


DIOMEDES, king of Argos, called Tydides, from his father; was, next
to Achilles, the bravest of the Greeks at the Trojan war; fought under
the protection of Athene against both Hector and AEneas, and even wounded
both Aphrodite and Ares; dared along with Ulysses to carry off the
Palladium from Troy; was first in the chariot race in honour of
Patroclus, and overcame Ajax with the spear.


DIOMEDES, king of Thrace; fed his horses with human flesh, and was
killed by Hercules for his inhumanity.


DION CASSIUS, a Greek historian, born at Nicaea, in Bithynia, about
A.D. 155; went to Rome, and served under a succession of emperors; wrote
a "History of Rome" from AEneas to Alexander Severus in 80 books, of which
only 18 survive entire; took years to prepare for and compose it; it is
of great value, and often referred to.


DION CHRYSOSTOMUS (Dion with the golden, or eloquent, mouth), a
celebrated Greek rhetorician, born at Prusa, in Bithynia, about the
middle of the 1st century; inclined to the Platonic and Stoic
philosophies; came to Rome, and was received with honour by Nerva and
Trajan; is famous as an orator and as a writer of pure Attic Greek.


DION OF SYRACUSE, a pupil of Plato, and an austere man; was from his
austerity obnoxious to his pleasure-loving nephew, Dionysius the Younger;
subjected to banishment; went to Athens; learned his estates had been
confiscated, and his wife given to another; took up arms, drove his
nephew from the throne, usurped his place, and was assassinated in 353
B.C., the citizens finding that in getting rid of one tyrant they had but
saddled themselves with another, and greater.


DIONE, a Greek goddess of the earlier mythology; figures as the wife
of the Dodonian Zeus; drops into subordinate place after his nuptials
with Hera.


DIONYSIUS THE ELDER, tyrant of Syracuse from 406 to 367 B.C.; at
first a private citizen; early took interest in public affairs, and
played a part in them; entered the army, and rose to be head of the
State; subdued the other cities of Sicily, and declared war against
Carthage; was attacked by the Carthaginians, and defeated them three
times over; concluded a treaty of peace with them, and spent the rest of
his reign, some 20 years, in maintaining and extending his territory; was
distinguished, it is said, as he might well be, both as a poet and a
philosopher; tradition represents him as in perpetual terror of his life,
and taking every precaution to guard it from attack.


DIONYSIUS THE YOUNGER, tyrant of Syracuse, son of the preceding,
succeeded him in 367 B.C. at the age of thirty; had never taken part in
public affairs; was given over to vicious indulgences, and proved
incapable of amendment, though DION (q. v.) tried hard to reform
him; was unpopular with the citizens, who with the help of Dion, whom he
had banished, drove him from the throne; returning after 10 years, was
once more expelled by Timoleon; betook himself to Corinth, where he
associated himself with low people, and supported himself by keeping a
school.


DIONYSIUS OF ALEXANDRIA, patriarch from 348, a disciple of Origen,
and his most illustrious pupil; a firm but judicious defender of the
faith against the heretics of the time, in particular the Sabellians and
the Chiliasts; _d_. 264.


DIONYSIUS, ST., THE AREOPAGITE (i. e. judge of the Areopagus),
according to Acts xvii. 34, a convert of St. Paul's; became bishop of
Athens, and died a martyr in 95; was long regarded as the father of
mysticism in the Christian Church, on the false assumption that he was
the author of writings of a much later date imbued with a pantheistic
idea of God and the universe.


DIONYSIUS OF HALICARNASSUS, a Greek historian and rhetorician of the
age of Augustus; came to Italy in 29 B.C., and spent 27 years in Rome,
where he died; devoted himself to the study of the Roman republic, its
history and its people, and recorded the result in his "Archaeologia,"
written in Greek, which brings down the narrative to 264 B.C.; it
consisted of 20 books, of which only 9 have come down to us entire; he is
the author of works in criticism of the orators, poets, and historians of
Greece.


DIONYSIUS PERIEGETES, a Greek geographer who lived about the 4th
century, and wrote a description of the whole earth in hexameters and in
a terse and elegant style.


DIONYSUS, the god of the vine or wine; the son of ZEUS AND
SEMELE (q. v.), the "twice born," as plucked first from the womb of
his dead mother and afterwards brought forth from the thigh of Zeus,
which served to him as his "incubator." See BACCHUS.


DIOPHANTUS, a Greek mathematician, born in Alexandria; lived
presumably about the 4th century; left works in which algebraic methods
are employed, and is therefore credited with being the inventor of
algebra.


DIOSCOR`IDES, a Greek physician, born in Cilicia, lived in the 1st
century; left a treatise in 5 books on materia medica, a work of great
research, and long the standard authority on the subject.


DIOSCURI, twin sons of Zeus, Castor and Pollux, a stalwart pair of
youths, of the Doric stock, great the former as a horse-breaker and the
latter as a boxer; were worshipped at Sparta as guardians of the State,
and pre-eminently as patrons of gymnastics; protected the hearth, led the
army in war, and were the convoy of the traveller by land and the voyager
by sea, which as constellations they are still held to be.


DIPHILUS, a Greek comic poet, born at Sinope; contemporary of
Menander; was the forerunner of Terence and Plautus, the Roman poets.


DIPHTHERIA, a contagious disease characterised by the formation of a
false membrane on the back of the throat.


DIPPEL, JOHANN KONRAD, a celebrated German alchemist; professed to
have discovered the philosopher's stone; did discover Prussian blue, and
an animal oil that bears his name (1672-1734).


DIPPEL'S OIL, an oil obtained from the distinctive distillation of
horn bones.


DIRCAEAN SWAN, Pindar, so called from the fountain Dirce, near
Thebes, his birthplace.


DIRCE, the wife of Lycus, king of Thebes, who for her cruelty to
Antiope, her divorced predecessor, was, by Antiope's two sons, Zethos and
Amphion, tied to a wild bull and dragged to death, after which her
carcass was flung by them into a well; the subject is represented in a
famous antique group by Apollonius and Tauriscus.


DIRECTORY, THE, the name given to the government of France,
consisting of a legislative body of two chambers, the Council of the
Ancients and the Council of Five Hundred, which succeeded the fall of the
Convention, and ruled France from October 27, 1795, till its overthrow by
Bonaparte on the 18th Brumaire (November 9, 1799). The Directors proper
were five in number, and were elected by the latter council from a list
presented by the former, and the chief members of it were Barras and
Carnot.


DIRSCHAU (11), a Prussian town on the Vistula, 21 m. SE. of Danzig,
with iron-works and a timber trade.


DIS, a name given to Pluto and the nether world over which he rules.


DISCIPLINE, THE TWO BOOKS OF, books of dates 1561 and 1581,
regulative of ecclesiastical order in the Presbyterian churches of
Scotland, of which the ground-plan was drawn up by Knox on the Geneva
model.


DISCOBOLUS, THE, an antique statue representing the thrower of the
discus, in the Louvre, and executed by the sculptor Myron.


DISCORD, APPLE OF. See _infra_.


DISCORD, THE GODDESS OF, a mischief-making divinity, daughter of
Night and sister of Mars, who on the occasion of the wedding of Thetis
with Peleus, threw into the hall where all the gods and goddesses were
assembled a golden apple inscribed "To the most Beautiful," and which
gave rise to dissensions that both disturbed the peace of Olympus and the
impartial administration of justice on earth. See PARIS.


DISMAL SCIENCE, Carlyle's name for the political economy that with
self-complacency leaves everything to settle itself by the law of supply
and demand, as if that were all the law and the prophets. The name is
applied to every science that affects to dispense with the spiritual as a
ruling factor in human affairs.


DISMAS, ST., the good thief to whom Christ promised Paradise as he
hung on the cross beside Him.


DISRAELI, BENJAMIN. See BEACONSFIELD.


D'ISRAELI, ISAAC, a man of letters, born at Enfield, Middlesex; only
son of a Spanish Jew settled in England, who left him a fortune, which
enabled him to cultivate his taste for literature; was the author of
several works, but is best known by his "Curiosities of Literature," a
work published in six vols., full of anecdotes on the quarrels and
calamities of authors; was never a strict Jew; finally cut the
connection, and had his children baptized as Christians (1766-1848).


DITHYRAMB, a hymn in a lofty and vehement style, originally in
honour of Bacchus, in celebration of his sorrows and joys, and
accompanied with flute music.


DITMARSH (77), a low-lying fertile district in West Holstein,
between the estuaries of the Elbe and the Eider; defended by dykes; it
had a legal code of its own known as the "Ditmarisches Landbuch."


DITTON, HUMPHRY, author of a book on fluxions (1675-1715).


DIU (12), a small Portuguese island, with a port of the same name,
in the Gulf of Cambay, S. of the peninsula of Gujarat, India; was a
flourishing place once, and contained a famous Hindu temple; inhabited
now chiefly by fishermen.


DIVAN, THE, a collection of poems by Haefiz, containing nearly 600
odes; also a collection of lyrics in imitation of Goethe, entitled
"Westoestlicher Divan."


DIVES, the name given, originally in the Vulgate, to the rich man in
the parable of the Rich Man and Lazarus.


DIVIDING RANGE, a range of mountains running E. from Melbourne, and
then N., dividing the basin of the Murray from the plain extending to the
coast.


DIVINE COMEDY, THE, the great poem of Dante, consisting of three
compartments, "Inferno," "Purgatorio," and "Paradiso"; "three
kingdoms ... Dante's World of Souls...; all three making up the true
Unseen World, as it figured in the Christianity of the Middle Ages; a
thing for ever memorable, for ever true in the essence of it, to all
men ... but delineated in no human soul with such depth of veracity as
in this of Dante's ... to the earnest soul of Dante it is all one visible
fact--Hell, Purgatory, Paradise, with him not mere emblems, but
indubitable awful realities." See DANTE, and CARLYLE'S "HEROES
AND HERO-WORSHIP."


DIVINE DOCTOR, Jean de Ruysbroek, the mystic (1294-1381).


DIVINE PAGAN, HYPATIA (q. v.).


DIVINE RIGHT, a claim on the part of kings, now all but extinct,
though matter of keen debate at one time, that they derive their
authority to rule direct from the Almighty, and are responsible to no
inferior power, a right claimed especially on the part of and in behalf
of the Bourbons in France and the Stuart dynasty in England, and the
denial of which was regarded by them and their partisans as an outrage
against the ordinance of very Heaven.


DIXIE LAND, nigger land in U.S.


DIXON, W. HEPWORTH, an English writer and journalist, born in
Manchester; called to the bar, but devoted himself to literary work;
wrote Lives of Howard, Penn, Robert Blake, and Lord Bacon, "New America,"
"Spiritual Wives," &c.; was editor of the _Athenoeum_ from 1853 to 1869;
died suddenly (1821-1879).


DIZIER, ST. (13), a flourishing French town, 30 m. from
Chalons-sur-Marne.


DIZZY, a nickname given to Benjamin Disraeli.


DJEZZAR (i. e. Butcher), the surname of Achmed Pasha, pacha of
Acre; was born at Bosnia; sold as a slave, and raised himself by his
servility to his master to the length of executing his cruellest wishes;
in 1799 withstood a long siege of Acre by Bonaparte, and obliged him to
retire (1735-1804).


DJINNESTAN, the region of the Jinns.


DNIEPER, a river of Russia, anciently called the Borysthenes, the
third largest for volume of water in Europe, surpassed only by the Danube
and the Volga; rises in the province of Smolensk, and flowing in a
generally southerly direction, falls into the Black Sea below Kherson
after a course of 1330 m.; it traverses some of the finest provinces of
the empire, and is navigable nearly its entire length.


DNIESTER, a river which takes its rise in Austria, in the
Carpathians, enters Russia, flows generally in a SE. direction past
Bender, and after a rapid course of 650 m. falls into the Black Sea at
Akjerman.


DOAB, THE, a richly fertile, densely peopled territory in the
Punjab, between the Jumna and Ganges, and extending 500 m. N., that is,
as far as the Himalayas; it is the granary of Upper India.


DOBELL, SIDNEY, poet, born at Cranbrook, in Kent; wrote, under the
pseudonym of Sidney Yendys, the "Roman," a drama, "Balder," and, along
with Alexander Smith, sonnets on the war (the Crimean); suffered much
from weak health (1824-1874).


DOeBEREINER, a German chemist, professor at Jena; inventor of a lamp
called after him; Goethe was much interested in his discoveries
(1780-1849).


DOeBEREINER'S LAMP, a light caused by a jet of hydrogen passing over
spongy platinum.


DOBROVSKI, JOSEPH, a philologist, born in Gyarmet, in Hungary;
devoted his life to the study of the Bohemian language and literature;
wrote a history of them, the fruit of immense labour, under which his
brain gave way more than once; was trained among the Jesuits (1753-1829).


DOBRENTER, Hungarian archaeologist; devoted 30 years of his life to
the study of the Magyar language; author of "Ancient Monuments of the
Magyar Language" (1786-1851).


DOBRUDJA (196), the part of Roumania between the Danube and the
Black Sea, a barren, unwholesome district; rears herds of cattle.


DOBSON, AUSTIN, poet and prose writer, born at Plymouth, is in a
department of the Civil Service; wrote "Vignettes in Rhyme," "Proverbs in
Porcelain," "Old World Idylls," in verse, and in prose Lives of Fielding,
Hogarth, Steele, and Goldsmith; contributed extensively to the magazines;
_b_. 1840.


DOBSON, WILLIAM, portrait-painter, born in London; succeeded Vandyck
as king's serjeant-painter to Charles I.; painted the king and members of
his family and court; supreme in his art prior to Sir Joshua Reynolds;
died in poverty (1610-1646).


DOCETAE, a sect of heretics in the early Church who held that the
humanity of Christ was only seeming, not real, on the Gnostic or
Manichaean theory of the essential impurity and defiling nature of matter
or the flesh.


DOCTOR (lit. teacher), a title implying that the possessor of it
is such a master of his art that he can teach it as well as practise it.


DOCTOR MIRABILIS, Roger Bacon.


DOCTOR MY-BOOK, John Abernethy, from his saying to his patients,
"Read my book."


DOCTOR OF THE INCARNATION, Cyril of Alexandria, from his controversy
with the Nestorians.


DOCTOR SLOP, a doctor in "Tristram Shandy," fanatical about a
forceps he invented.


DOCTOR SQUINTUM, George Whitfield.


DOCTOR SYNTAX. See COMBE, WILLIAM.


DOCTORS' COMMONS, a college of doctors of the civil law in London,
where they used to eat in common, and where eventually a number of the
courts of law were held.


DOCTRINAIRES, mere theorisers, particularly on social and political
questions; applied originally to a political party that arose in France
in 1815, headed by Roger-Collard and represented by Guizot, which stood
up for a constitutional government that should steer clear of
acknowledging the divine right of kinghood on the one hand and the divine
right of democracy on the other.


DODABETTA, the highest peak, 8700 ft., in the Nilgherries.


DODD, DR. WILLIAM, an English divine, born at Bourne, Lincolnshire;
was one of the royal chaplains; attracted fashionable audiences as a
preacher in London, but lived extravagantly, and fell hopelessly into
debt, and into disgrace for the nefarious devices he adopted to get out
of it; forged a bond for L4500 on the Earl of Chesterfield, who had been
a pupil of his; was arrested, tried, convicted, and sentenced to death, a
sentence which was carried out notwithstanding the great exertions made
to procure a pardon; wrote a "Commentary on the Bible," and compiled "The
Beauties of Shakespeare" (1729-1777).


DODDRIDGE, PHILIP, a Nonconformist divine, born in London; was
minister at Kebworth, Market Harborough, and Northampton successively,
and much esteemed both as a man and a teacher; suffered from pulmonary
complaint; went to Lisbon for a change, and died there; was the author of
"The Family Expositor," but is best known by his "Rise and Progress of
Religion in the Soul," and perhaps also by his "Life of Colonel Gardiner"
(1702-1751).


DOeDERLEIN, LUDWIG, a German philologist, born at Jena; became
professor of Philology at Erlangen; edited Tacitus, Horace, and other
classic authors, but his principal works were on the etymology of the
Latin language (1791-1863).


DODGER, THE ARTFUL, a young expert in theft and other villanies in
Dickens's "Oliver Twist."


DODGSON, CHARLES LUTWIDGE, English writer and man of genius, with
the _nom de plume_ of Lewis Carroll; distinguished himself at Oxford in
mathematics; author of "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland," with its
sequel, "Through the Looking-Glass," besides other works, mathematical,
poetic, and humorous; mingled humour and science together (1833-1898).


DODINGTON, GEORGE BUBB, an English politician, notorious for his
fickleness, siding now with this party, now with that; worked for and won
a peerage before he died; with all his pretensions, and they were many, a
mere flunkey at bottom (1691-1762).


DODO, an ungainly bird larger than a turkey, with short scaly legs,
a big head and bill, short wings and tail, and a greyish down plumage,
now extinct, though it is known to have existed in the Mauritius some 200
years ago.


DODO`NA, an ancient oracle of Zeus, in Epirus, close by a grove of
oak trees, from the agitation of the branches of which the mind of the
god was construed, the interpreters being at length three old women; it
was more or less a local oracle, and was ere long superseded by the more
widely known oracle of DELPHI (q. v.).


DODS, MEG, an old landlady of consistently inconsistent qualities in
"St. Ronan's Well"; also the pseudonym of the authoress of a book on
cookery.


DODSLEY, ROBERT, an English poet, dramatist, and publisher; wrote a
drama called "The Toyshop," which, through Pope's influence, was acted in
Drury Lane with such success as to enable the author to commence business
as a bookseller in Pall Mall; projected and published the _Miscellany_,
and continued to write plays, the most popular "Cleone"; is best known in
connection with his "Collection of Old Plays"; he was a patron of
Johnson, and much esteemed by him (1703-1764).


DOEG, a herdsman of Saul (1 Sam. xxi. 7); a name applied by Dryden
to Elkanah Settle in "Absalom and Achitophel."


DOGBERRY, a self-satisfied night constable in "Much Ado about
Nothing."


DOG-DAYS, 20 days before and 20 after the rising of the dog-star
Sirius, at present from 3rd July to 11th August.


DOGE, the name of the chief magistrate of Venice and Genoa, elected
at first annually and then for life in Venice, with, in course of time,
powers more and more limited, and at length little more than a
figure-head; the office ceased with the fall of the republic in 1797, as
it did in Genoa in 1804.


DOGGER BANK, a sandbank in the North Sea; a great fishing-field,
extending between Jutland in Denmark and Yorkshire in England, though
distant from both shores, 170 m. long, over 60 m. broad, and from 8 to 10
fathoms deep.


DOGS, ISLE OF, a low-lying projection of a square mile in extent
from the left bank of the Thames, opposite Greenwich, and 31/2 m. E. of St.
Paul's.


DOG-STAR, SIRIUS (q. v.).


DOLABELLA, son-in-law of Cicero, a profligate man, joined Caesar, and
was raised by him to the consulship; joined Caesar's murderers after his
death; was declared from his profligacy a public enemy; driven to bay by
a force sent against him, ordered one of his soldiers to kill him.


DOLCI, CARLO, a Florentine painter, came of a race of artists;
produced many fine works, the subjects of them chiefly madonnas, saints.
&c. (1616-1686).


DOLCINO, a heresiarch and martyr of the 14th century, of the
Apostolic Brethren, a sect which rose in Piedmont who made themselves
obnoxious to the Church; was driven to bay by his persecutors, and at
last caught and tortured and burnt to death; a similar fate overtook
others of the sect, to its extermination.


DOLDRUMS, a zone of the tropics where calms, squalls, and baffling
winds prevail.


DOLE (12), a town in the dep. of Jura, on the Doubs, and the Rhone
and Rhine Canal, 28 m. SE. of Dijon, with iron-works, and a trade in
wine, grain, &c.


DOLET, ETIENNE, a learned French humanist, born at Orleans, became,
by the study of the classics, one of the lights of the Renaissance, and
one of its most zealous propagandists; suffered persecution after
persecution at the hands of the Church, and was burned in the Place
Maubert, Paris, a martyr to his philosophic zeal and opinions
(1509-1546).


DOLGELLY, capital of Merioneth, Wales, with manufactures of flannel.


DOLGOROUKI, the name of a noble and illustrious Russian family.


DOLLART ZEE, a gulf in Holland into which the Ems flows, 8 m. long
by 7 broad, and formed by inundation of the North Sea.


DOeLLINGER, a Catholic theologian, born in Bamberg, Bavaria,
professor of Church History in the University of Muenich; head of the old
Catholic party in Germany; was at first a zealous Ultramontanist, but
changed his opinions and became quite as zealous in opposing, first, the
temporal sovereignty, and then the infallibility of the Pope, to his
excommunication from the Church; he was a polemic, and as such wrote
extensively on theological and ecclesiastical topics; lived to a great
age, and was much honoured to the last (1799-1890).


DOLLOND, JOHN, a mathematical instrument-maker, born in
Spitalfields, London, of Dutch descent; began life as a silk-weaver; made
good use of his leisure hours in studies bearing mainly on physics; went
into partnership with his son, who was an optician; made a study of the
telescope, suggested improvements which commended themselves to the Royal
Society, and in especial how, by means of a combination of lenses, to get
rid of the coloured fringe in the image (1706-1761).


DOLMEN, a rude structure of prehistoric date, consisting of upright
unhewn stones supporting one or more heavy slabs; long regarded as altars
of sacrifice, but now believed to be sepulchral monuments; found in great
numbers in Bretagne especially.


DOLOMITE ALPS, a limestone mountain range forming the S. of the
Eastern Alps, in the Tyrol and N. Italy, famous for the remarkable and
fantastic shapes they assume; named after Dolomieu, a French
mineralogist, who studied the geology of them.


DOMAT, JEAN, a learned French jurist and friend of Pascal, regarded
laws and customs as the reflex of political history (1625-1696).


DOMBASLE, an eminent French agriculturist, born at Nancy
(1771-1818).


DOM-BOKE (i. e. Doom-book), a code of laws compiled by King Alfred
from two prior Saxon codes, to which he prefixed the Ten Commandments of
Moses, and rules of life from the Christian code of ethics.


DOMBROWSKI, JOHN HENRY, a Polish general, served in the Polish
campaigns against Russia and Prussia in 1792-1794; organised a Polish
legion which did good service in the wars of Napoleon; covered the
retreat of the French at the Beresina in 1812 (1755-1818).


DOMDANIEL, a hall under the ocean where the evil spirits and
magicians hold council under their chief and pay him homage.


DOMENICHI`NO, a celebrated Italian painter, born at Bologna; studied
under Calvaert and Caracci; was of the Bolognese school, and reckoned one
of the first of them; his principal works are his "Communion of St.
Jerome," now in the Vatican, and the "Martyrdom of St. Agnes," at
Bologna, the former being regarded as his masterpiece; he was the victim
of persecution at the hands of rivals; died at Naples, not without
suspicion of having been poisoned (1581-1641).


DOMESDAY BOOK, the record, in 2 vols., of the survey of all the
lands of England made in 1081-1086 at the instance of William the
Conqueror for purposes of taxation; the survey included the whole of
England, except the four northern counties and part of Lancashire, and
was made by commissioners appointed by the king, and sent to the
different districts of the country, where they held courts, and
registered everything on evidence; it is a valuable document.


DOMINIC DE GUZMAN, ST., saint of the Catholic Church, born in Old
Castile; distinguished for his zeal in the conversion of the heretic;
essayed the task by simple preaching of the Word; sanctioned persecution
when persuasion was of no avail; countenanced the crusade of Simon de
Montfort against the Albigenses for their obstinate unbelief, and thus
established a precedent which was all too relentlessly followed by the
agents of the Spanish Inquisition, the chiefs of which were of the
Dominican order, so that he is ignominiously remembered as the "burner
and slayer of heretics" (1170-1221). Festival, Aug. 4.


DOMINICA, or DOMINIQUE (26), the largest and most southerly of
the Leeward Islands, and belongs to Britain; one-half of the island is
forest, and parts of it have never been explored; was discovered by
Columbus on Sunday, November 3, 1493, whence its name.


DOMINICAL LETTER, one of seven letters, A, B, C, D, E, F, G, used to
mark the Sundays throughout the year, so that if A denote the first
Sunday, it will denote all the rest, and so on with B, C, &c., till at
the end of seven years A becomes the dominical letter again.


DOMINICAN REPUBLIC, or ST. DOMINGO (610), a republic forming
the E. part of the island of Haiti, and consisting of two-thirds of it;
it belonged alternately to France and Spain till 1865, when, on revolt,
the Spaniards were expelled, and a republic established; the capital is
St. Domingo (15), and the chief port Puerto Plata.


DOMINICANS, a religious order of preaching friars, founded at
Toulouse in 1215 by St. Dominic, to aid in the conversion of the heretic
Albigenses to the faith, and finally established as the order whose
special charge it was to guard the orthodoxy of the Church. The order was
known by the name Black Friars in England, from their dress; and Jacobins
in France, from the street of Paris in which they had their
head-quarters.


DOMINIE, SAMPSON, a schoolmaster in "Guy Mannering," "a poor,
modest, humble scholar, who had won his way through the classics, but
fallen to the leeward in the voyage of life."


DOMINIS, MARCO ANTONIO DE, a vacillating ecclesiastic, born in
Dalmatia; was educated by the Jesuits; taught mathematics in Padua; wrote
a treatise in which an explanation was for the first time given of the
phenomenon of the rainbow; became archbishop of Spalatro; falling under
suspicion he passed over to England, professed Protestantism, and was
made dean of Windsor; reconciled to the Papacy, returned to the Church of
Rome, and left the country; his sincerity being distrusted, was cast into
prison, where he died, his body being afterwards disinterred and burned
(1566-1624).


DOMITIAN, Roman emperor, son of Vespasian, brother of Titus, whom he
succeeded in 81, the last of the twelve Caesars; exceeded the expectations
of every one in the beginning of his reign, as he had given proof of a
licentious and sanguinary character beforehand, but soon his conduct
changed, and fulfilled the worst fears of his subjects; his vanity was
wounded by the non-success of his arms, and his vengeful spirit showed
itself in a wholesale murder of the citizens; many conspiracies were
formed against his life, and he was at length murdered by an assassin,
who had been hired by his courtiers and abetted by his wife Domitia, in
96.


DOMREMY, a small village on the Meuse, in the dep. of Vosges; the
birthplace of Joan of Arc.


DON, a Russian river, the ancient Tanais; flows southward from its
source in the province of Tula, and after a course of 1153 m. falls into
the Sea of Azov; also the name of a river in Aberdeenshire, and another
in Yorkshire.


DON JUAN, the member of a distinguished family of Seville, who
seduces the daughter of a noble, and when confronted by her father stabs
him to death in a duel; he afterwards prepares a feast and invites the
stone statue of his victim to partake of it; the stone statue turns up at
the least, compels Don Juan to follow him, and delivers him over to the
abyss of hell, the depths of which he had qualified himself for by his
utter and absolute depravity.


DON QUIXOTE, the title of a world-famous book written by Miguel
Cervantes, in satire of the romances of chivalry with which his
countrymen were so fascinated; the chief character of which gives title
to it, a worthy gentleman of La Mancha, whose head is so turned by
reading tales of knight-errantry, that he fancies he is a knight-errant
himself, sallies forth in quest of adventures, and encounters them in the
most commonplace incidents, one of his most ridiculous extravagancies
being his tilting with the windmills, and the overweening regard he has
for his Dulcinea del Tobosa.


DONALDSON, JOHN WILLIAM, a philologist, born in London; Fellow of
Cambridge and tutor of Trinity College; author of "New Cratylus; or
Contributions towards a more Accurate Knowledge of the Greek Language," a
work of great erudition and of value to scholars; contributed also to the
philological study of Latin, and wrote a grammar of both languages; he
failed when he intruded into the field of biblical criticism (1811-1861).


DONATELLO, a great Italian sculptor, born at Florence, where he was
apprenticed to a goldsmith; tried his hand at carving in leisure hours;
went to Rome and studied the monuments of ancient art; returned to
Florence and executed an "Annunciation," still preserved in a chapel in
Santa Croce, which was followed by marble statues of St. Peter, St. Mark,
and St. George, before one of which, that of St. Mark, Michael Angelo
exclaimed, "Why do you not speak to me?"; he executed tombs and figures,
or groups in bronze as well as marble; his schoolmasters were the
sculptors of Greece, and the real was his ultimate model (1383-1460).


DONATI, an Italian astronomer, born at Pisa; discoverer of the comet
of 1858, called Donati's comet (1826-1873).


DONATISTS, a sect in N. Africa, founded by Donatus, bishop of
Carthage, in the 4th century, that separated from the rest of the Church
and formed itself into an exclusive community, with bishops and
congregations of its own, on the ground that no one was entitled to be a
member of Christ's body, or an overseer of Christ's flock, who was not of
divine election, and that in the face of an attempt, backed by the
Emperor Constantine, to thrust a bishop on the Church at Carthage,
consecrated by an authority that had betrayed and sold the Church to the
world; the members of it were subject to cruel persecutions in which they
gloried, and were annihilated by the Saracens in the 7th century.


DONATUS, a Latin grammarian and rhetorician of the 4th century, the
teacher of St. Jerome; the author of treatises in grammar known as
Donats, and, along with the sacred Scriptures, the earliest examples of
printing by means of letters cut on wooden blocks, and so appreciated as
elementary treatises that they gave name to treatises of the kind on any
subject; he wrote also _scholia_ to the plays of Terence.


DONAU, the German name for the Danube.


DONCASTER (26), a market and manufacturing town in the West Riding
of Yorkshire, well built, in a pleasant country, on the right bank of the
Don, 33 m. S. of York; famous for its races, the St. Leger in particular,
called after Colonel St. Leger, who instituted them in 1776.


DONDRA HEAD, the southern extremity of Ceylon, once the site of the
capital.


DONEGAL (185), a county in the NW. of Ireland, in the province of
Ulster, the most mountainous in the country; is mossy and boggy, and is
indented along the coast with bays, and fringed with islands.


DONETZ, a tributary of the Russian Don, the basin of which forms one
large coal-field, reckoned to be as large as all Yorkshire, and is
reckoned one of the largest of any in the world.


DONGOLA, NEW, a town in Nubia, on the left bank of the Nile, above
the third cataract, 20 deg. N. and over 700 m. from Cairo; was founded by the
Mamelukes.


DONIZETTI, a celebrated Italian composer, born at Bergamo, Lombardy,
and studied at Bologna; devoted himself to dramatic music; produced over
60 operas, among the number "Lucia di Lammermoor," the "Daughter of the
Regiment," "Lucrezia Borgia," and "La Favorita," all well known, and all
possessing a melodious quality of the first order (1797-1848).


DONNE, JOHN, English poet and divine, born in London; a man of good
degree; brought up in the Catholic faith; after weighing the claims of
the Romish and Anglican communions, joined the latter; married a young
lady of sixteen without consent of her father, which involved him in
trouble for a time; was induced to take holy orders by King James; was
made his chaplain, and finally became Dean of St. Paul's; wrote sermons,
some 200 letters and essays, as well as poems, the latter, amid many
defects, revealing a soul instinct with true poetic fire (1573-1631). See
"Professor Saintsbury on Donne."


DONNYBROOK, a village now included in Dublin, long celebrated for
its fairs and the fights it was the scene of on such occasions.


DONON, the highest peak of the Vosges Mountains.


DOO, GEORGE THOMAS, a celebrated English line-engraver, and one of
the best in his day (1800-1886).


DOON, a river rendered classic by the muse of Burns, which after a
course of 30 m. joins the Clyde 2 m. S. of Ayr.


DORA, the child-wife of "David Copperfield," Dickens's novel.


DORA D'ISTRIA, the pseudonym of Helena Ghika, born in Wallachia, of
noble birth; distinguished for her beauty and accomplishments; was
eminent as a linguist; translated the "Iliad" into German; wrote works,
the fruits of travels (1829-1888).


DORAN, JOHN, an English man of letters, born In London, of Irish
descent; wrote on miscellaneous subjects; became editor of the _Athenaeum_
and _Notes and Queries_ (1807-1878).


DORAT, JEAN, a French poet, born at Limoges; a Greek scholar;
contributed much to the revival of classical literature in France, and
was one of the FRENCH PLEIADE (q. v.); _d_. 1588.


DORCAS SOCIETY, a society for making clothing for the poor. See Acts
ix. 39.


DORCHESTER (7), the county town of Dorset, on the Frome; was a Roman
town, and contains the ruins of a Roman amphitheatre.


DORDOGNE, a river in the S. of France, which, after a course of 300
m., falls into the estuary of Garonne; also a dep. (478) through which it
flows.


DORE, GUSTAVE, a French painter and designer, born in Strasburg;
evinced great power and fertility of invention, having, it is alleged,
produced more than 50,000 designs; had a wonderful faculty for seizing
likenesses, and would draw from memory groups of faces he had seen only
once; among the books he illustrated are the "Contes Drolatiques" of
Balzac, the works of Rabelais and Montaigne, Dante's "Inferno," also his
"Purgatorio" and "Paradiso," "Don Quixote," Tennyson's "Idylls," Milton's
works, and Coleridge's "Ancient Mariner"; among his paintings were
"Christ Leaving the Praetorium," and "Christ's Entry into Jerusalem"; he
has left behind him works of sculpture as well as drawings and pictures;
his art has been severely handled by the critics, and most of all by
Ruskin, who treats it with unmitigated scorn (1832-1883).


DORIA, ANDREA, a naval commander, born in Genoa, of noble descent,
though his parents were poor; a man of patriotic instincts; adopted the
profession of arms at the age of 19; became commander of the fleet in
1513; attacked with signal success the Turkish corsairs that infested the
Mediterranean; served under Francis I. to free his country from a faction
that threatened its independence, and, by his help, succeeded in
expelling it; next, in fear of the French supremacy, served, under
Charles V., and entering Genoa, was hailed as its liberator, and received
the title of "Father and Defender of his country"; the rest of his life,
and it was a long one, was one incessant wrestle with his great rival
Barbarossa, the chief of the corsairs, and which ended in his defeat
(1466-1560).


DORIANS, one of the four divisions of the Hellenic race, the other
three being the Achaeans, the AEolians, and the Ionians; at an early period
overran the whole Peloponnesus; they were a hardy people, of staid habits
and earnest character.


DORIC, the oldest, strongest, and simplest of the four Grecian
orders of architecture.


DORINE, a petulant domestic in Moliere's "Tartuffe."


DORIS, a small mountainous country of ancient Greece, S. of
Thessaly, and embracing the valley of the Pindus.


DORIS, the wife of Nereus, and mother of the Nereids.


DORISLAUS, ISAAC, a lawyer, born at Alkmaar, in Holland; came to
England, and was appointed Judge-Advocate; acted as such at King
Charles's trial, and was for that latter offence assassinated at the
Hague one evening by certain high-flying Royalist cut-throats, Scotch
several of them; "his portrait represents him as a man of heavy,
deep-wrinkled, elephantine countenance, pressed down by the labours of
life and law" (1595-1649).


DORKING (7), a market-town picturesquely situated in the heart of
Surrey, 24 m. SW. of London; gives name to a breed of fowls; contains a
number of fashionable villas.


DORN, a distinguished German orientalist; wrote a History of the
Afghans, and on their language (1805-1881).


DORNER, ISAAK AUGUST, a German theologian, born at Wuertemberg;
studied at Tuebingen; became professor of Theology in Berlin, after having
held a similar post in several other German universities; his principal
works were the "History of the Development of the Doctrine of the Person
of Christ," and the "History of Protestant Theology" (1809-1884).


DORNOCH, the county town of Sutherland, a small place, but a royal
burgh; has a good golf course.


DOROS, a son of Helen and grandson of Deucalion, the father of the
Dorians, as his brother AEolis was of the AEolians.


DOROTHEA, ST., a virgin of Alexandria, suffered martyrdom by being
beheaded in 311. Festival, Feb. 6.


DORPAT (38), a town on the Embach, in Livonia, Russia, 150 m. NE. of
Riga, with a celebrated university founded by Gustavus Adolphus in 1632;
it has a well-equipped staff, and is well attended; the majority of the
population is German.


D'ORSAY, COUNT, a man of fashion, born in Paris; entered the French
army; forsook it for the society of Lord and Lady Blessington; married
Lady B.'s daughter by a former marriage; came to England with her
ladyship on her husband's death; started a joint establishment in London,
which became a rendezvous for all the literary people and artists about
town; was "Phoebus Apollo of Dandyism"; paid homage to Carlyle at Chelsea
one day in 1839; "came whirling hither in a chariot that struck all
Chelsea into mute amazement with splendour," says Carlyle, who thus
describes him, "a tall fellow of six feet three, built like a tower, with
floods of dark auburn hair, with a beauty, with an adornment
unsurpassable on this planet: withal a rather substantial fellow at
bottom, by no means without insight, without fun, and a sort of rough
sarcasm, rather striking out of such a porcelain figure"; having shown
kindness to Louis Napoleon when in London, the Prince did not forget him,
and after the _coup d'etat_ appointed him to a well-salaried post, but he
did not live to enjoy it (1798-1852).


DORSET (194), maritime county in the S. of England, with a deeply
indented coast; it consists of a plain between two eastward and westward
reaching belts of downs; is mainly a pastoral county; rears sheep and
cattle, and produces butter and cheese.


DORT, or DORDRECHT (34), a town on an island in the Maas, in
the province of South Holland, 12 m. SE. of Rotterdam; admirably situated
for trade, connected as it is with the Rhine as well, on which rafts of
wood are sent floating down to it; is famous for a Synod held here in
1618-19, at which the tenets of Arminius were condemned, and the
doctrines of Calvin approved of and endorsed as the doctrines of the
Reformed Church.


DORTMUND (89), a town in Westphalia; a great mineral and railway
centre, with large iron and steel forges, and a number of breweries.


DORY, JOHN, the hero of an old ballad.


DO-THE-BOYS'-HALL, a scholastic establishment in "Nicholas
Nickleby."


DOUAY (31), a town on the Scarpe, in the dep. of Nord, France, 20 m.
S. of Lille, and one of the chief military towns of the country; has a
college founded in 1568 for the education of Catholic priests intended
for England, and is where a version of the Bible in English for the use
of Catholics was issued.


DOUBS, a tributary of the Saone, which it falls into below Dole;
gives name to the dep. (303), which it traverses.


DOUBTING CASTLE, a castle belonging to Giant Despair in the
"Pilgrim's Progress," which only one key could open, the key Promise.


DOUCE, FRANCIS, a learned antiquary, born in London; for a time
keeper of MSS. in the British Museum; author of "Illustrations of
Shakespeare," and an illustrated volume, "The Dance of Death"; left in
the Museum a chest of books and MSS. not to be opened till 1900; was a
man of independent means, and a devoted archaeologist (1757-1834).


DOUGLAS (19), the largest town and capital as well as chief port of
the Isle of Man, 74 m. from Liverpool; much frequented as a
bathing-place; contains an old residence of the Dukes of Atholl, entitled
Castle Mona, now a hotel. See MAN, ISLE OF.


DOUGLAS, the name of an old Scotch family, believed to be of Celtic
origin, and that played a conspicuous part at one time in the internal
and external struggles of the country; they figure in Scottish history in
two branches, the elder called the Black and the later the Red Douglases
or the Angus branch, now represented by the houses of Hamilton and Home.
The eldest of the Douglases, William, was a kinsman of the house of
Murray, and appears to have lived about the end of the 12th century. One
of the most illustrious of the family was the Good Sir James,
distinguished specially as the "Black" Douglas, the pink of knighthood
and the associate of Bruce, who carried the Bruce's heart in a casket to
bury it in Palestine, but died fighting in Spain, 1330.


DOUGLAS, GAWIN or GAVIN, a Scottish poet and bishop of Dunkeld,
third son of Archibald, Earl of Angus, surnamed "Bell-the-Cat"; political
troubles obliged him to leave the country and take refuge at the Court of
Henry VII., where he was held in high regard; died here of the plague,
and was buried by his own wish in the Savoy; besides Ovid's "Art of
Love," now lost, he translated (1512-1513) the "AEneid" of Virgil into
English verse, to each book of which he prefixed a prologue, in certain
of which there are descriptions that evince a poet's love of nature
combined with his love as a Scotchman for the scenery of his native land;
besides this translation, which is his chief work, he indited two
allegorical poems, entitled the "Palace of Honour," addressed to James
IV., and "King Hart" (1474-1522).


DOUGLAS, SIR HOWARD, an English general and writer on military
subjects, born at Gosport; saw service in the Peninsula; was Governor of
New Brunswick and Lord High Commissioner of the Ionian Islands
(1776-1861).


DOUGLAS, JOHN, bishop of Salisbury, born at Pittenweem, Fife; wrote
"The Criterion of, or a Discourse on, Miracles" against Hume; was a
friend of Samuel Johnson's (1721-1807).


DOUGLAS, STEPHEN ARNOLD, an American statesman, born in Brandon,
Vermont; a lawyer by profession, and a judge; a member of Congress and
the Senate; was a Democrat; stood for the Presidency when Lincoln was
elected; was a leader in the Western States; a splendid monument is
erected to his memory in Chicago (1813-1861).


DOUGLASS, FREDERICK, American orator, born a slave in Maryland;
wrought as a slave in a Baltimore shipbuilder's yard; escaped at the age
of 21 to New York; attended an anti-slavery meeting, where he spoke so
eloquently that he was appointed by the Anti-Slavery Society to lecture
in its behalf, which he did with success and much appreciation in England
as well as America; published an Autobiography, which gives a thrilling
account of his life (1817-1895).


DOULTON, SIR HENRY, the reviver of art pottery, born in Lambeth;
knighted in the Jubilee year for his eminence in that department; _b_.
1820.


DOURO, a river, and the largest, of the Spanish Peninsula, which
rises in the Cantabrian Mountains; forms for 40 m. the northern boundary
of Portugal, and after a course of 500 m. falls into the Atlantic at
Oporto; is navigable only where it traverses Portugal.


DOUSTER-SWIVEL, a German swindling schemer in the "Antiquary."


DOVE, in Christian art the symbol of the Holy Ghost, or of a pure,
or a purified soul, and with an olive branch, the symbol of peace and the
gospel of peace.


DOVE, HEINRICH WILHELM, a German physicist, born at Liegnitz,
Silesia; professor of Natural Philosophy in Berlin; was eminent chiefly
in the departments of meteorology and optics; he discovered how by the
stereoscope to detect forged bank-notes (1803-1879).


DOVER (33), a seaport on the E. coast of Kent, and the nearest in
England to the coast of France, 60 m. SE. of London, and with a mail
service to Calais and Ostend; is strongly fortified, and the chief
station in the SE. military district of England; was the chief of the
Cinque Ports.


DOVER, STRAIT OF, divides France from England and connects the
English Channel with the North Sea, and at the narrowest 20 m. across;
forms a busy sea highway; is called by the French _Pas de Calais_.


DOVREFELD, a range of mountains in Norway, stretching NE. and
extending between 62 deg. and 63 deg. N. lat., average height 3000 ft.


DOW or DOUW, GERARD, a distinguished Dutch genre-painter, born
at Leyden; a pupil of Rembrandt; his works, which are very numerous, are
the fruit of a devoted study of nature, and are remarkable for their
delicacy and perfection of finish; examples of his works are found in all
the great galleries of Europe (1613-1675).


DOWDEN, EDWARD, literary critic, professor of English Literature in
Dublin University, born in Cork; is distinguished specially as a
Shakesperian; is author of "Shakespeare: a Study of his Mind and Art,"
"Introduction to Shakespeare," and "Shakesperian Sonnets, with Notes";
has written "Studies in Literature," and a "Life of Shelley"; is well
read in German as well as English literature; has written with no less
ability on Goethe than on Shakespeare; _b_. 1843.


DOWN (266), a maritime county in the SE. of the province of Ulster,
Ireland, with a mostly level and fairly fertile soil, and manufactures of
linen.


DOWNS, THE, a safe place of anchorage, 8 m. long by 6 m. broad, for
ships between Goodwin Sands and the coast of Kent.


DOWNS, THE NORTH AND SOUTH, two parallel ranges of low broad hills
covered with a light soil and with a valley between, called the Weald,
that extend eastward from Hampshire to the sea-coast, the North
terminating in Dover cliffs, Kent, and the South in Beachy Head, Sussex;
the South famous for the breed of sheep that pastures on them.


DOYLE, DR. CONAN, novelist, nephew of Richard and grandson of John,
born in Edinburgh; studied and practised medicine, but gave it up after a
time for literature, in which he had already achieved no small success;
several of his productions have attracted universal attention, especially
his "Adventures" and his "Memoir of Sherlock Holmes"; wrote a short play
"A Story of Waterloo," produced with success by Sir Henry Irving; _b_.
1859.


DOYLE, SIR FRANCIS HASTINGS, an English poet, born near Tadcaster;
bred to the bar, but devoted to poetry and horse-racing; became professor
of Poetry at Oxford; author of "Miscellaneous Verses," "Two Destinies,"
"Retreat of the Guards," "The Thread of Honour," and "The Private of the
Buffs" (1810-1858).


DOYLE, JOHN, an eminent caricaturist, of Irish origin, under the
initials H. B. (1797-1868).


DOYLE, RICHARD, eminent caricaturist, born in London, son of the
preceding; contributed to _Punch_, of which he designed the cover, but
left the staff, in 1850 owing to the criticisms in the journal adverse to
the Catholic Church; devoted himself after that chiefly to book
illustration and water-colour painting (1824-1883).


DOZY, REINHART, an Orientalist and linguist, born at Leyden, where
he became professor of History; devoted himself to the study of the
history of the Arabs or Moors in North-Western Africa and Spain, his
chief work being "The History of the Mussulmans of Spain"; wrote also a
"Detailed Dictionary of the Names of the Dress of the Arabs" (1820-1883).


DRACHENFELS (Dragon's Rock), one of the Siebengebirge, 8 m. SE. of
Bonn, 1056 ft. above the Rhine, and crowned by a castle with a commanding
view; the legendary abode of the dragon killed by Siegfried in the "Lay
of the Nibelungen."


DRACO, a celebrated Athenian law-giver, who first gave stability to
the State by committing the laws to writing, and establishing the Ephetae,
or court of appeal, 621 B.C.; only he punished every transgressor of his
laws with death, so that his code became unbearable, and was superseded
ere long by a milder, instituted by Solon, who affixed the penalty of
death to murder alone; he is said to have justified the severity of his
code by maintaining that the smallest crime deserved death, and he knew
no severer punishment for greater; it is said he was smothered to death
in the theatre by the hats and cloaks showered on him as a popular mark
of honour; he was archon of Athens.


DRAGON, a fabulous monster, being a hideous impersonation of some
form of deadly evil, which only preternatural heroic strength and courage
can subdue, and on the subdual and slaying of which depends the
achievement of some conquest of vital moment to the human race or some
members of it; is represented in mediaeval art as a large, lizard-like
animal, with the claws of a lion, the wings of an eagle, and the tail of
a serpent, with open jaws ready and eager to devour, which some knight
high-mounted thrusts at to pierce to death with a spear; in the Greek
mythology it is represented with eyes ever on the watch, in symbol of the
evil that waylays us to kill us if we don't kill it, as in guarding the
"Apples of the Hesperides" and the "Golden Fleece," because these are
prizes that fall only to those who are as watchful of him as he is of
them; and it is consecrated to Minerva to signify that true wisdom, as
sensible of the ever-wakeful dragon, never goes to sleep, but is equally
ever on the watch.


DRAGONNADES, the name given to the persecution at the instance of
Louis XIV. to force the Huguenots of France back into the bosom of the
Catholic Church by employment of dragoons.


DRAGON'S TEETH, the teeth of the dragon that Cadmus slew, and which
when sown by him sprang up as a host of armed men, who killed each other
all to the five who became the ancestors of the Thebans, hence the phrase
to "sow dragon's teeth," to breed and foster strife.


DRAKE, SIR FRANCIS, a great English seaman of the reign of Queen
Elizabeth, born near Tavistock, in Devon; served in the Royal Navy under
his relative, Sir John Hawkins, and distinguished himself with signal
success by his valour and daring against the pride of Spain, towards
which, as the great Catholic persecuting power, he had been taught to
cherish an invincible hatred; came swoop down like a hawk on its ports
across seas, and bore himself out of them laden with spoil; in 1577
sailed for America with five ships, passed through the Strait of
Magellan, the first Englishman to do it; plundered the W. coast as far as
Peru; lost all his ships save one; crossed the Pacific, and came home by
way of the Cape--the first to sail round the world--with spoil to the
value of L300,000, his successes contributing much to embolden his
countrymen against the arrogance of the Catholic king; and he was
vice-admiral in the fleet that drove back the Armada from our shores
(1540-1596).


DRAKE, FRIEDRICH, a German sculptor, born at Pyrmont; studied under
Rauch; executed numerous statues and busts, among others busts of Oken
and Ranke, Bismarck and Moltke; his chief works are the "Eight Provinces
of Prussia," represented by large allegorical figures, and the "Warrior
crowned by Victory" (1805-1882).


DRAKE, NATHAN, a physician, born at York; author of "Shakespeare and
his Times" (1766-1836).


DRAKENBERG MOUNTAINS, a range of mountains in S. Africa, 6500 ft.
high, between Natal and the Orange Free State.


DRAMATIC UNITIES, three rules of dramatic construction prescribed by
Aristotle, observed by the French dramatists, but ignored by Shakespeare,
that (1) a play should represent what takes place within eight hours, (2)
there must be no change of locality, and (3) there must be no minor plot.


DRAMMEN (20), a Norwegian seaport on a river which falls into
Christiania Bay, 30 m. SW. of Christiania; trade chiefly in timber.


DRAPER, JOHN WILLIAM, a chemist, scientist, and man of letters, born
at Liverpool; settled in the United States; wrote on chemistry,
physiology, and physics generally, as well as works of a historical
character, such as the "History of the Intellectual Development of
Europe" and the "History of the Conflict between Science and Religion,"
an able book (1811-1882).


DRAPIER, a pseudonym adopted by Swift in his letters to the people
of Ireland anent Wood's pence, and which led to the cancelling of the
patent.


DRAVE, a river from the Eastern Alps which flows eastward, and after
a course of 380 miles falls into the Danube 10 m. below Essek.


DRAVIDIANS, races of people who occupied India before the arrival of
Aryans, and being driven S. by them came to settle chiefly in the S. of
the Dekkan; they are divided into numerous tribes, each with a language
of its own, but of a common type or group, some of them literary and
some of them not, the chief the Tamil; the tribes together number over
20 millions.


DRAWCANSIR, a blustering, bullying boaster in Buckingham's play the
"Rehearsal"; he kills every one of the combatants, "sparing neither
friend nor foe."


DRAYTON, MICHAEL, an English poet, born In Warwickshire, like
Shakespeare; was one of the three chief patriotic poets, Warner and
Daniel being the other two, which arose in England after her humiliation
of the pride of Spain, although he was no less distinguished as a love
poet; his great work is his "Polyolbion," in glorification of England,
consisting of 30 books and 100,000 lines; it gives in Alexandrines "the
tracts, mountains, forests, and other parts of this renowned isle of
Britain, with intermixture of the most remarkable stories, antiquities,
wonders, pleasures, and commodities of the same digested in a poem"; this
was preceded by other works, and succeeded by a poem entitled "The Ballad
of Agincourt," pronounced one of the most spirited martial lyrics in the
language (1563-1631).


DRELINCOURT, a French Protestant divine, born at Sedan; author of
"Consolations against the Fear of Death" (1595-1669).


DRENTHE (137), a province of Holland lying between Hanover and the
Zuyder Zee; the soil is poor, and the population sparse.


DRESDEN (250), the capital of Saxony, on the Elbe, 116 m. SE. of
Berlin; a fine city, with a museum rich in all kinds of works of art, and
called in consequence the "Florence of Germany"; here the Allies were
defeated by Napoleon in 1813, when he entered the city, leaving behind
him 30,000 men, who were besieged by the Russians and compelled to
surrender as prisoners of war the same year.


DREYFUS, L'AFFAIRE. On 23rd December 1894, Alfred Dreyfus, an
Alsatian Jew, captain of French Artillery; was by court-martial found
guilty of revealing to a foreign power secrets of national defence, and
sentenced to degradation and perpetual imprisonment; he constantly
maintained his innocence, and, in time, the belief that he had been
unjustly condemned became prevalent, and a revision of the trial being at
length ordered, principally through the exertions of Colonel Picquart and
Zola, the well-known author, Dreyfus was brought back from Cayenne, where
he had been kept a close prisoner and cruelly treated, and a fresh trial
at Rennes began on 6th August 1899, and lasted till 9th September; the
proceedings, marked by scandalous "scenes," and by an attempt to
assassinate one of prisoner's counsel--disclosed an alarmingly corrupt
condition of affairs in some lines of French public life under the
Republic of the time, and terminated in a majority verdict of "guilty";
M. Dreyfus was set at liberty on 20th September, the sentence of ten
years' imprisonment being remitted; _b_. 1860.


DREYSE, NICHOLAUS VON, inventor of the needle-gun, born at Soemmerda,
near Erfurt, the son of a locksmith, and bred to his father's craft;
established a large factory at Soemmerda for a manufactory of firearms;
was ennobled 1864 (1787-1867).


DROGHEDA (11), a seaport in co. Louth, near the mouth of the Boyne,
32 m. N. of Dublin, with manufactures and a considerable export trade;
was stormed by Cromwell in 1649 "after a stout resistance," and the
garrison put to the sword; surrendered to William III. after the battle
of the Boyne in 1690.


DROMORE, a cathedral town in co. Down, Ireland, 17 m. SW. of
Belfast, of which Jeremy Taylor was bishop.


DROOGS, steep rocks which dot the surface of Mysore, in India, and
resemble hay-ricks, some of these 1500 ft. high, some with springs on the
top, and scalable only by steps cut in them.


DROSTE-HUeLSHOFF, FRAULEIN VON, a German poetess, born near Muenster;
was of delicate constitution; wrote tales as well as lyrics in record of
deep and tender experiences (1797-1848).


DROUET, JEAN BAPTISTE, notable king-taker, a violent Jacobin and
member of the Council of the Five Hundred; had been a dragoon soldier;
was postmaster at St. Menehould when Louis XVI., attempting flight,
passed through the place, and by whisper of surmise had the progress of
Louis and his party arrested at Varennes, June 21, 1791, for which
service he received honourable mention and due reward in money; was taken
captive by the Austrians at last; perched on a rock 100 ft. high,
descended one night by means of a paper kite he had constructed, but was
found at the foot helpless with leg broken (1763-1824).


DROUET, JEAN BAPTISTE, COMTE D'ERLON, marshal of France, born at
Rheims; distinguished in the wars of the Republic and the Empire; on
Napoleon's return from Elba seized on the citadel of Lille, and held it
for the emperor; commanded the first _corps d'armee_ at Waterloo; left
France at the Restoration; returned after the July Revolution; became
governor of Algiers, and was created marshal (1765-1844).


DROUOT, a French general, son of a baker at Nancy; Napoleon, whom,
as commander of artillery, he accompanied over all his battlefields in
Europe and to Elba, used to call him the _Sage of the Grande Armee_
(1774-1847).


DROUYN DE LHUYS, French statesman and diplomatist, born in Paris;
was ambassador at the Hague and Madrid; distinguished himself by his
opposition to Guizot; served as Minister of Foreign Affairs under Louis
Napoleon; withdrew into private life after the collapse at Sedan
(1805-1881).


DROYSEN, a German historian, born in Pomerania; professor in Berlin;
author of the "History of Prussian Policy," "History of Alexander the
Great," and "History of Hellenism" (1808-1884).


DROZ, the name of a Swiss family of mechanicians, one of them, Jean
Pierre, an engraver of medals (1746-1833); also of a French moralist and
historian, author of "History of Louis XVI." (1773-1850).


DROZ, GUSTAV, a highly popular and brilliant novelist, born in
Paris; author of "Monsieur, Madam, et Bebe," "Entre Nous," and "Cahier
bleu de Mlle. Cibot" (1832-1895).


DRUIDS, a sacred order of learned men under a chief called the
Archdruid, among the ancient Celtic nations, particularly of Gaul and
Britain, who, from their knowledge of the arts and sciences of the day,
were the ministers of religion and justice, as well as the teachers of
youth to the whole community, and exercised an absolute control over the
unlearned people whom they governed; they worshipped in oak groves, and
the oak tree and the mistletoe were sacred to them; the heavenly bodies
appear to have been also objects of their worship, and they appear to
have believed in the immortality and transmigration of the soul; but they
committed nothing to writing, and for our knowledge of them we have to
depend on the reports of outsiders.


DRUMCLOG MOSS, a flat wilderness of broken bog and quagmire in
Lanarkshire, where the Covenanters defeated Claverhouse's dragoons in
1679.


DRUMMOND, HENRY, popular scientist and Christian teacher, born in
Stirling; was educated at Edinburgh and Tuebingen; studied for the Free
Church; lectured on natural science; became famous by the publication of
"Natural Law in the Spiritual World," a book which took with the
Christian public at once, and had an enormous sale, which was succeeded
by "Tropical Africa," a charmingly-written book of travel, and by a
series of booklets, commencing with "The Greatest Thing in the World,"
intended to expound and commend the first principles of the Christian
faith; his last work except one, published posthumously, entitled the
"Ideal Life," was the "Ascent of Man," in which he posits an altruistic
element in the process of evolution, and makes the goal of it a higher
and higher life (1851-1897).


DRUMMOND, CAPTAIN THOMAS, civil engineer, born in Edinburgh;
inventor of the Drummond Light; was employed in the trigonometrical
survey of Great Britain and Ireland; became Under-Secretary for Ireland,
and was held in high favour by the Irish (1797-1840).


DRUMMOND, WILLIAM, of Hawthornden, a Scottish poet, named the
"Petrarch of Scotland," born in Hawthornden; studied civil law at
Bourges, but poetry had more attractions for him than law, and on the
death of his father he returned to his paternal estate, and devoted
himself to the study of it and the indulgence of his poetic tastes. "His
work was done," as Stopford Brooke remarks, "in the reign of James I.,
but is the result of the Elizabethan influence extending to Scotland.
Drummond's sonnets and madrigals have some of the grace of Sidney, and he
rose at intervals into grave and noble verse, as in his sonnet on John
the Baptist." He was a devoted Royalist; his first poem was "Tears" on
the death of James I.'s eldest son Henry, and the fate of Charles I. is
said to have cut short his days; the visit of Ben Jonson to him at
Hawthornden is well known (1585-1649).


DRUMMOND LIGHT, an intensely-brilliant and pure white light produced
by the play of an oxyhydrogen flame upon a ball of lime, so called from
the inventor, Captain Thomas Drummond.


DRURY, DRU, a naturalist, born in London; bred a silversmith; took
to entomology; published "Illustrations of Natural History"; his
principal work "Illustrations of Exotic Entomology" (1725-1803).


DRURY LANE, a celebrated London theatre founded in 1663, in what was
a fashionable quarter of the city then; has since that time been thrice
burnt down; was the scene of Garrick's triumphs, and of those of many of
his illustrious successors, though it is now given up chiefly to
pantomimes and spectacular exhibitions.


DRUSES, a peculiar people, numbering some 80,000, inhabiting the S.
of Lebanon and Anti-lebanon, with the Maronites on the N., whose origin
is very uncertain, only it is evident, though they speak the Arab
language, they belong to the Aryan race; their religion, a mixture of
Christian, Jewish, and Mohammedan beliefs, is grounded on faith in the
unity and the incarnation of God; their form of government is half
hierarchical and half feudalistic; in early times they were under emirs
of their own, but in consequence of the sanguinary, deadly, and mutually
exterminating strife between them and the Christian Maronites in 1860,
they were put under a Christian governor appointed by the Porte.


DRUSUS, M. LIVIUS, a tribune of the people at Rome in 122 B.C., but
a stanch supporter of the aristocracy; after passing a veto on a popular
measure proposed by Gracchus his democratic colleague, proposed the same
measure himself in order to show and prove to the people that the
patricians were their best friends; the success of this policy gained him
the name of "patron of the senate."


DRUSUS, M. LIVIUS, tribune of the people, 91 B.C., son of the
preceding, and an aristocrat; pursued the same course as his father, but
was baffled in the execution of his purpose, which was to broaden the
constitution, in consequence of which he formed a conspiracy, and was
assassinated, an event which led to the SOCIAL WAR (q. v.).


DRUSUS, NERO CLAUDIUS, surnamed "Germanicus," younger brother of
Tiberius and son-in-law of Marc Antony; distinguished himself in four
successive campaigns against the tribes of Germany, but stopped short at
the Elbe, scared by the apparition of a woman of colossal stature who
defied him to cross, so that he had to "content himself with erecting
some triumphal pillars on his own safe side of the river and say that the
tribes across were conquered"; falling ill of a mortal malady, his
brother the emperor hastened across the Alps to close his eyes, and
brought home his body, which was burned and the ashes buried in the tomb
of Augustus.


DRYADS, nymphs of forest trees, which were conceived of as born with
the tree they were attached to and dying along with it; they had their
abode in wooded mountains away from men; held their revels among
themselves, but broke them off at the approach of a human footstep.


DRYAS, the father of Lycurgus, a Thracian king, and slain by him,
who, in a fit of frenzy against the Bacchus worshippers, mistook him for
a vine and cut him down. See LYCURGUS.


DRYASDUST, a name of Sir Walter Scott's invention, and employed by
him to denote an imaginary character who supplied him with dry
preliminary historical details, and since used to denote a writer who
treats a historical subject with all due diligence and research, but
without any appreciation of the human interest in it, still less the soul
of it.


DRYBURGH, an abbey, now a ruin, founded by David I., on the Tweed,
in Berwickshire, 3 m. SE. of Melrose; the burial-place of Sir Walter
Scott.


DRYDEN, JOHN, a celebrated English poet, "glorious John," born in
Northamptonshire, of a good family of Puritan principles; educated at
Westminster School and Cambridge; his first poetic production of any
merit was a set of "heroic stanzas" on the death of Cromwell; at the
Restoration he changed sides and wrote a poem which he called "Astraea
Redux" in praise of the event, which was ere long followed by his "Annus
Mirabilis," in commemoration of the year 1666, which revealed at once the
poet and the royalist, and gained him the appointment of poet-laureate,
prior to which and afterwards he produced a succession of plays for the
stage, which won him great popularity, after which he turned his mind to
political affairs and assumed the role of political satirist by
production of his "Absalom and Achitophel," intended to expose the
schemes of Shaftesbury, represented as Achitophel and Monmouth as
Absalom, to oust the Duke of York from the succession to the throne; on
the accession of James II. he became a Roman Catholic, and wrote "The
Hind and the Panther," characterised by Stopford Brooke as "a model of
melodious reasoning in behalf of the milk-white hind of the Church of
Rome," and really the most powerful thing of the kind in the language; at
the Revolution he was deprived of his posts, but it was after that event
he executed his translation of Virgil, and produced his celebrated odes
and "Fables" (1631-1700).


DUALISM, or MANICHAEISM, the doctrine that there are two
opposite and independently existing principles which go to constitute
every concrete thing throughout the universe, such as a principle of good
and a principle of evil, light and darkness, life and death, spirit and
matter, ideal and real, yea and nay, God and Devil, Christ and
Antichrist, Ormuzd and Ahriman.


DU BARRY, COUNTESS, mistress of Louis XV., born at Vaucouleurs,
daughter of a dressmaker; came to Paris, professing millinery; had
fascinating attractions, and was introduced to the king; governed France
to its ruin and the dismissal of all Louis' able and honourable advisers;
fled from Paris on the death of Louis, put on mourning for his death; was
arrested, brought before the Revolutionary tribunal, condemned for
wasting the finances of the State, and guillotined (1746-1793).


DU BELLAY, a French general, born at Montmirail; served under
Francis I. (1541-1590).


DUBLIN (360), the capital of Ireland, at the mouth of the Liffey,
which divides it in two, and is crossed by 12 bridges; the principal and
finest street is Sackville Street, which is about 700 yards long and 40
wide; it has a famous university and two cathedrals, besides a castle,
the residence of the Lord-Lieutenant; and a park, the Phoenix, one of the
finest in Europe; manufactures porter, whisky, and poplin.


DUBOIS, GUILLAUME, cardinal and prime minister of France; notorious
for his ambition and his debauchery; appointed tutor to the Duke of
Orleans; encouraged him in vice, and secured his attachment and patronage
in promotion, so that in the end he rose to the highest honours, and even
influence, in both Church and state; notwithstanding his debauchery he
was an able man and an able minister (1656-1723).


DUBOIS, REYMOND, a German physiologist, born in Berlin, of French
descent; professor of Physiology at Berlin; distinguished for his
researches in animal electricity; _b_. 1818.


DUBOIS DE CRANCE, a violent French revolutionary, born at
Charleville; besieged and captured Lyons, giving no quarter; was Minister
of War under the Directory; secured the adoption of the principle of
conscription in recruiting the army (1747-1814).


DUBOURG, a French magistrate, member of the parlement of Paris;
burnt as a heretic for recommending clemency in the treatment of the
Huguenots (1521-1559).


DUBUFE, a distinguished French portrait-painter (1820-1883).


DUBUQUE (36), a town in Iowa, U.S., on the Mississippi, with
lead-mines and a trade in grain, timber, &c.


DUCAMP, MAXIME, a French litterateur, born in Paris; has written
"Travels in the East"; is the author of "Paris," its civic life, as also
an account of its "Convulsions"; _b_. 1822.


DU CANGE, CHARLES, one of the most erudite of French scholars, born
at Amiens, and educated among the Jesuits; wrote on language, law,
archaeology, and history; devoted himself much to the study of the Middle
Ages; contributed to the rediscovery of old French literature, and wrote
a history of the Latin empire; his greatest works are his Glossaries of
the Latin and Greek of the Middle Ages (1614-1688).


DUCAT, a coin, generally in gold, that circulated in Venice, and was
current in Germany at one time, of varied value.


DU CHAILLU, PAUL BELLONI, an African traveller, born in Louisiana;
his principal explorations confined to the equatorial region of West
Africa, and the result an extension of our knowledge of its geography,
ethnology, and zoology, and particularly of the character and habits of
the ape tribes, and above all the gorilla; _b_. 1837.


DU CHATELET, MARQUISE DE, a scientific lady and friend of
Voltaire's, born in Paris; "a too fascinating shrew," as he at length
found to his cost (1706-1749).


DUCHESNE, ANDRE, French historian and geographer, born in Touraine;
styled the "Father of French History"; famous for his researches in it
and in French antiquities, and for histories of England, Scotland, and
Ireland respectively; his industry was unwearied; he left more than 100
folios in MS. (1584-1640).


DUCHOBORTZI, a religious community in Russia of Quaker principles,
and of a creed that denied the doctrine of the Trinity and the divinity
of Christ; they became a cause of trouble to the empire by their
fanaticism, and were removed to a high plateau in Transcaucasia, where
they live by cattle-rearing.


DUCIS, JEAN, a French dramatist, born at Versailles; took
Shakespeare for his model; declined Napoleon's patronage, thinking it
better, as he said, to wear rags than wear chains (1733-1816).


DUCKING STOOL, a stool or chair in which a scolding woman was
confined, and set before her own door to be pelted at, or borne in a
tumbrel through the town to be jeered at, or placed at the end of a
see-saw and _ducked_ in a pool.


DUCLOS, CHARLES, a witty and satirical French writer, born at Dinan;
author of "Observations," and "A History of the Manners of the Eighteenth
Century," and "Memoires of the Reigns of Louis XIV. and Louis XV."; he
mingled much in French society of the period, and took studious note of
its passing whims (1704-1772).


DUCORNET, a French historical-painter, born at Lille; being born
without arms, painted with his foot (1805-1856).


DUCOS, ROGER, French politician, born at Bordeaux, member of the
National Convention and of the Directory (1754-1816).


DUCROT, a French general, born at Nivers; served in Algeria, in the
Italian campaign of 1859, and as head of a division in the German War;
was imprisoned for refusing to sign the capitulation treaty of Sedan, but
escaped and took part in the defence of Paris when besieged by the
Germans (1817-1882).


DU DEFFAND, MARQUISE. See DEFFAND.


DUDLEY (90), the largest town in Worcestershire, 81/2 m. NW. of
Birmingham, in the heart of the "Black Country," with coal-mines,
iron-works, and hardware manufactures.


DUDLEY, EDMUND, an English lawyer and privy-councillor; was
associated with Empson as an agent in carrying on the obnoxious policy of
Henry VII., and beheaded along with him at the instance of Henry VIII. on
a charge of high treason in 1510.


DUDLEY, JOHN, grand-marshal of England, son of the preceding,
father-in-law of Lady Jane Grey; beheaded in 1558 for his part in an
insurrection in her favour.


DUFF, ALEXANDER, an eminent Indian missionary, born at Moulin, near
Pitlochry, Perthshire; a man of Celtic blood, apostolic zeal, and fervid
eloquence; was the first missionary sent out to India by the Church of
Scotland; sailed in 1830, returned in 1840, in 1849, and finally in 1863,
stirring up each time the missionary spirit in the Church; he was the
originator of a new method of missionary operations in the East by the
introduction of English as the vehicle of instruction in the Christian
faith, which met at first with much opposition, but was finally crowned
with conspicuous success; died in Edinburgh (1806-1873).


DUFF, JAMES GRANT, Indian soldier and statesman, born at Banff;
conspicuous as a soldier for his services in subduing the Mahratta
chiefs, and as a statesman for establishing friendly relations between
the Mahrattas and the East India Company (1789-1858).


DUFFERIN, MARQUIS OF, and EARL OF AVA, statesman and
diplomatist; held office under Lord John Russell and Mr. Gladstone; was
in succession Governor-General of Canada, ambassador first at St.
Petersburg, then at Constantinople, and finally Governor-General of
India; has since acted as ambassador at Rome and Paris; is a man of
literary as well as administrative ability; _b_. 1826.


DUFFY, SIR CHARLES GAVAN, an Irish patriot, born in co. Monaghan;
bred for the bar; took to journalism in the interest of his country's
emancipation; was one of the founders of the _Nation_ newspaper; was
twice over tried for sedition, but acquitted; emigrated at length to
Australia, where he soon plunged into Colonial politics, and in his
political capacity rendered distinguished services to the Australian
colonies, especially in obtaining important concessions from the
mother-country; he is the author of the "Ballad Poetry of Ireland," and
an interesting record of his early experiences in "Young Ireland"; _b_.
1816.


DUFOUR, a Swiss general, born at Constance; commanded the army
directed against the SONDERBUND (q. v.), and brought the war
there to a close (1787-1875).


DUFRESNE, CHARLES. See DU CANGE.


DUFRESNY, French painter and poet, born at Paris (1765-1825).


DUFRESNY, CHARLES RIVIERE, French dramatist, a universal genius,
devoted to both literature and the arts; held in high esteem by Louis
XIV.; wrote a number of comedies, revealing a man of the world, instinct
with wit, and careless of style (1648-1724).


DUGDALE, SIR WILLIAM, antiquary, born in Warwickshire; was made
Chester herald, accompanied Charles I. throughout the Civil War; his
chief work was the "Monasticum Anglicanum," which he executed conjointly
with Roger Duckworth; wrote also on the antiquities of Warwickshire and
heraldry; left 27 folio MSS. now in the Bodleian Library (1605-1686).


DUGOMMIER, French general, pupil of Washington, born at Guadeloupe;
distinguished himself in Italy; commanded at the siege of Toulon, which
he took; fell at the battle of Sierra-Negra, in Spain, which he had
invaded (1736-1794).


DUGUAY-TROUIN, RENE, a celebrated French sea-captain, born at St.
Malo; distinguished at first in privateer warfare during the reign of
Louis XIV., and afterwards as a frigate captain in the royal navy, to
which the royal favour promoted him; was much beloved by the sailors and
subordinate officers; died poor (1673-1736).


DU GUESCLIN, BERTRAND, constable of France, born in Cotes du Nord;
one of the most illustrious of French war-captains, and distinguished as
one or the chief instruments in expelling the English from Normandy,
Guienne, and Poitou; was taken prisoner at the battle of Auray in 1364,
but ransomed for 100,000 francs, and again by the Black Prince, but soon
liberated; he was esteemed for his valour by foe and friend alike, and he
was buried at St. Denis in the tomb of the kings of France (1314-1380).


DUHESME, a French general; covered with wounds at Waterloo, he was
cruelly massacred by the Brunswick hussars in the house to which he had
fled for refuge (1760-1815).


DUILIUS, CAIUS, a Roman consul; distinguished for having on the
coast of Sicily gained the first naval victory recorded in the annals of
Rome, 260 B.C.


DULCE DOMUM (for Sweet Home), a song sung by the pupils at
Winchester College on the approach of and at the break-up of the school
for the summer holidays.


DULCINEA DEL TOBOSA, the name Don Quixote gave to his beloved
Aldonza Lorenzo, a coarse peasant-girl of Tobosa, conceived by him as a
model of all feminine perfection, and as such adored by him.


DULIA, an inferior kind of worship paid to angels and saints, in
contradistinction to LATRIA (q. v.).


DULONG, a French chemist, born at Rouen; discoverer, by accidental
explosion, of the chloride of nitrogen (1785-1838).


DULUTH (52), a port on Lake Superior, with a fine harbour, and a
great centre of commerce.


DULWICH, a southern Surrey suburb of London, with a flourishing
college founded in 1619, and a picture gallery attached, rich especially
in Dutch paintings. See ALLEYN, EDWARD.


DUMACHUS, the impenitent thief, figures in Longfellow's "Golden
Legend" as one of a band of robbers who attacked St. Joseph on his flight
into Egypt.


DUMAS, ALEXANDRE, THE ELDER, a celebrated French author, born at
Villers-Cotterets, son of General Dumas, a Creole; lost his father at
four, and led for a time a miscellaneous life, till, driven by poverty,
he came to Paris to seek his fortune; here he soon made his mark, and
became by-and-by the most popular dramatist and romancier of his time;
his romances are numerous, and he reached the climax of his fame by the
production of "Monte Cristo" in 1844, and the "Three Musketeers" the year
after; he was unhappy in his marriage and with his wife, as afterwards,
he squandered his fortune in reckless extravagance; before the end it was
all spent, and he died at Dieppe, broken in health and impaired in
intellect, ministered to by his son and daughter (1806-1876).


DUMAS, ALEXANDRE, THE YOUNGER or _fils_, dramatist and novelist,
born in Paris, son of the preceding; he made his _debut_ as a novelist
with "La Dame aux Camelias" in 1848, which was succeeded by a number of
other novels; he eventually gave himself up to the production of dramas,
in which he was more successful than in romance (1824-1895).


DUMAS, JEAN BAPTISTE ANDRE, a distinguished French chemist, born at
Alais; was admitted to the Academie francaise at the age of 25; at the
Revolution of 1848 he became a member of the National Assembly; was
created a senator under the Empire, but retired into private life after
Sedan; he was distinguished for his studies in chemistry, both
theoretical and practical, and ranks among the foremost in the science
(1800-1884).


DU MAURIER, artist, born in Paris; started in London as a designer
of wood engravings; did illustrations for _Once a Week_, the _Cornhill
Magazine, &c._., and finally joined the staff of _Punch_, to which he
contributed numerous clever sketches; he published a novel, "Peter
Ibbetson," in 1891, which was succeeded in 1895 by "Trilby," which had
such a phenomenal success in both England and America (1834-1897).


DUMB OX, THOMAS AQUINAS (q. v.), so called from his
taciturnity before he opened his mouth and began, as predicted, to fill
the world with his lowing.


DUMBARTON (17), the county town of Dumbartonshire, and a royal
burgh, at the mouth of the Leven, on the Clyde, 15 m. from Glasgow;
shipbuilding the chief industry; it was the capital of the kingdom of
Strathclyde; adjoining is a castle of historic interest, 250 ft. high,
kept up as a military fortress; the county, which is fertile, and was
originally part of Lennox, is traversed by the Leven, with its
bleach-fields and factories.


DUMBDRUDGE, an imaginary village referred to in "Sartor," where the
natives toil and _drudge_ away and _say nothing_ about it, as villagers
all over the world used contentedly to do, and did for most part, at the
time "Sartor" was written, though less so now.


DUMBIEDIKES, a Scotch laird who figures in the "Heart of
Midlothian," in love with Jeanie Deans.


DUMESNIL, MARIE FRANCOISE, a celebrated French tragedienne, born
near Alencon; like Mrs. Siddons, surpassed all others at the time in the
representation of dignity, pathos, and strong emotion; made her first
appearance in 1737, retired in 1775 (1711-1803).


DUMFRIES (18), an agricultural market-town, county town of
Dumfriesshire and a seaport, stands on the left bank of the Nith, with
Maxwelltown as suburb on the right, 90 m. SW. of Edinburgh; manufactures
tweeds and hosiery, and trades in cattle; here Robert Burns spent the
last five years of his life, and his remains lie buried.


DUMFRIESSHIRE (74), a south-western Border county of Scotland; an
agricultural district, which slopes from a northern pastoral region to
the Solway, and is traversed by the fertile valleys of Nithsdale and
Annandale.


DUMNORIX, a chief of the AEduan nation in Gaul, who gave some trouble
to Caesar in his conquest of Gaul.


DUMONT, AUGUSTIN-ALEXANDRE, a sculptor, born in Paris (1801-1884).


DUMONT, JEAN, an eminent French publicist, who settled in Austria
and served the emperor; wrote on international law (1660-1726).


DUMONT, LOUIS, a French publicist, born at Geneva, a friend of
Mirabeau, memoirs of whom he wrote, and who, coming to England, formed a
close intimacy with Jeremy Bentham, and became his disciple and expounder
(1759-1829).


DUMONT D'URVILLE, JULES, a celebrated French navigator, born at
Conde-sur-Noireau; made a three years' voyage round the world, and
visited the Antarctic regions, of which he made a survey; he was
distinguished as a scientist no less than a sea-captain; lost his life in
a railway accident at Versailles (1790-1842).


DUMOULIN, a celebrated French jurist, born at Paris; did for French
law what Cujas (q. v.) did for Roman (1500-1560).


DUMOURIEZ, a French general, born at Cambrai, "a wiry, elastic,
unwearied man ... creature," as he boasted in his old age, "of God and
his own sword ... on the whole, one of Heaven's Swiss"; took when already
grey to the Revolution and fought on its behalf; gained the battles of
Valmy and Jemmapes; conquered Belgium, but being distrusted, passed over
to the ranks of the enemies of France; a man really "without faith;
wanted above all things work, work on any side"; died an exile in England
(1739-1824). See Carlyle's "French Revolution."


DUeNA, a river of Russia, which rises near the source of the Volga,
and after a W. and NW. course of 650 m. falls into the Gulf of Riga; it
is connected with the Dnieper by the Beresina Canal.


DUNBAR, an ancient seaport and town of Haddingtonshire, on the coast
of the Forth, 29 m. E. of Edinburgh; is a fishing station, and
manufactures agricultural implements and paper; was, with its castle,
which has stood many a siege, a place of importance in early Scottish
history; near it Cromwell beat the Scots under Leslie on September 3,
1650.


DUNBAR, William, a Scottish poet, entered the Franciscan order and
became an itinerant preaching friar, in which capacity he wandered over
the length and breadth of the land, enjoying good cheer by the way; was
some time in the service of James IV., and wrote a poem, his most famous
piece, entitled "The Thistle and the Rose," on the occasion of the King's
marriage with the Princess Margaret Tudor, daughter of Henry VII. His
poems were of three classes--allegoric, moral, and comic, the most
remarkable being "The Dance," in which he describes the procession of the
seven deadly sins in the infernal regions. Scott says he "was a poet
unrivalled by any that Scotland has produced" (1480-1520).


DUNBLANE, a town in Perthshire, 5 m. N. of Stirling, with a
beautiful cathedral, which dates back as far as 1240; of the diocese the
saintly Leighton was bishop.


DUNCAN, ADAM, VISCOUNT, a British admiral, born at Dundee; entered
the navy in 1746; steadily rose in rank till, in 1795, he became admiral
of the Blue and commander of the North Sea fleet in 1795; kept watching
the movements of the Dutch squadron for two years, till, at the end of
that term, it put to sea, and came up with it off Camperdown, and totally
defeated it, June 11, 1797 (1731-1804).


DUNCAN, THOMAS, a Scotch artist, born at Kinclaven, Perthshire;
painted fancy and Scoto-historical subjects, and a number of excellent
portraits; his career, which was full of promise, was cut short by an
early death (1807-1845).


DUNCIAD, THE, a satire of Pope's in four books, the "fiercest" as
well as the best of his satires, in which, with merciless severity, he
applies the lash to his critics, and in which Colley Cibber figures as
the King of Dunces.


DUNCKER, MAX, a historical writer, born in Berlin; held a
professorship at Halle and Tuebingen, and became a minister of State;
wrote among other works a work of great learning, in seven vols.,
entitled the "History of Antiquity" (1811-1886).


DUNCOMBE, T. S., an English politician, M.P. for Finsbury, one of
the extreme Liberal party of the time, presented to the House of Commons
the Chartist petition in 1842; denounced Sir James Graham, the Home
Secretary of the day, for opening Mazzini's letter, and advocated Jewish
emancipation (1796-1861).


DUNDALK (12), capital of co. Louth, Ireland, 50 m. N. of Dublin; a
place of considerable trade and manufactures; is an ancient city; Edward
Bruce, the last king of all Ireland, was crowned and resided here; it was
besieged and taken more than once, by Cromwell for one.


DUNDAS (of Arniston), the name of a Scottish family, many of the
members of which have distinguished themselves at the bar and on the
bench.


DUNDAS, HENRY, VISCOUNT MELVILLE, a junior member of the above
family; trained for the bar; rose to be Lord Advocate for Scotland and
M.P. for the county of Edinburgh; opposed at first to Pitt, he became at
last his ablest coadjutor in Parliament, and did important services in
connection with the military and naval defences of the country; his
power was sovereign in Scotland; his statue, mounted on a lofty column,
adorns one of the principal squares of the New Town of Edinburgh
(1741-1811).


DUNDEE (153), the third largest city in Scotland, stands on the
Firth of Tay, 10 m. from the mouth; has a large seaport; is a place of
considerable commercial enterprise; among its numerous manufactures the
chief is the jute; it has a number of valuable institutions, and sends
two members to Parliament.


DUNDONALD, THOMAS COCHRANE, EARL OF, entered the navy at the age of
17; became captain of the _Speedy_, a sloop-of-war of 14 guns and 54 men;
captured in ten months 33 vessels; was captured by a French squadron, but
had his sword returned to him; signalised himself afterwards in a
succession of daring feats; selected to burn the French fleet lying at
anchor in the Basque Roads, he was successful by means of fire-ships in
destroying several vessels, but complained he was not supported by Lord
Gambier, the admiral, a complaint which was fatal to his promotion in the
service; disgraced otherwise, he went abroad and served in foreign
navies, and materially contributed to the establishment of the republic
of Chile and the empire of Brazil; in 1830 he was restored by his party,
the Whigs, to his naval rank, as a man who had been the victim of the
opposite party, and made a vice-admiral of the Blue in 1841; he
afterwards vindicated himself in his "Autobiography of a Seaman"
(1775-1860).


DUNDREARY, LORD, a character of the play "Our American Cousin"; the
personification of a good-natured, brainless swell; represented uniquely
on the stage by Mr. Sothern.


DUNEDIN (47), the capital of Otago, in New Zealand, situated well
south on the E. side of the South Isle, at the head of a spacious bay,
and the largest commercial city in the colony; founded by Scotch
emigrants in 1848, one of the leaders a nephew of Robert Burns.


DUNES, low hills of sand extending along the coast of the
Netherlands and the N. of France.


DUNFERMLINE (19), an ancient burgh in the W. of Fife; a place of
interest as a residence of the early kings of Scotland, and as the
birthplace of David II., James I., and Charles I., and for its abbey; it
stands in the middle of a coal-field, and is the seat of extensive linen
manufactures.


DUNKELD, a town in Perthshire, 15 m. NW. of Perth, with a fine
14th-century cathedral.


DUNKERS, a sect of Quakerist Baptists in the United States.


DUNKIRK (40), the most northern seaport and fortified town of
France, on the Strait of Dover; has manufactures and considerable trade.


DUNNET HEAD, a rocky peninsula, the most northerly point in
Scotland, the rocks from 100 to 600 ft. high.


DUNNOTTAR CASTLE, an old castle of the Keiths now in ruins, on the
flat summit of a precipitous rock 11/2 m. S. of Stonehaven,
Kincardineshire, Scotland, and connected with the mainland by a neck of
land called the "Fiddle Head"; famous in Scottish history as a State
prison, and as the place of safe-keeping at a troubled period for the
Scottish regalia, now in Edinburgh Castle.


DUNOIS, JEAN, a French patriot, called the Bastard of Orleans, born
in Paris, natural son of Louis of Orleans, brother of Charles VI.; one of
the national heroes of France; along with Joan of Arc, compelled the
English to raise the siege of Orleans, and contributed powerfully, by his
sword, to all but expel the English from France after the death of that
heroine (1402-1468).


DUNS SCOTUS, JOHANNES, one of the most celebrated of the scholastics
of the 14th century, whether he was native of England, Scotland, or
Ireland is uncertain; entered the Franciscan order, and from his
acuteness got the name of "Doctor Subtilis"; lectured at Oxford to crowds
of auditors, and also at Paris; was the contemporary of Thomas Aquinas,
and the head of an opposing school of Scotists, as against Thomists, as
they were called; whereas Aquinas "proclaimed the Understanding as
principle, he proclaimed the Will, from whose spontaneous exercise he
derived all morality; with this separation of theory from practice and
thought from thing (which accompanied it) philosophy became divided from
theology, reason from faith; reason took a position above faith, above
authority (in modern philosophy), and the religious consciousness broke
with the traditional dogma (at the Reformation)."


DUNSTAN, ST., an English ecclesiastic, born at Glastonbury; a man of
high birth and connection as well as varied accomplishments; began a
religious life as a monk living in a cell by himself, and prevailed in
single combat on one occasion with the devil; became abbot of
Glastonbury, in which capacity he adopted the role of statesman, and
arose to great authority during the reign of Edgar, becoming archbishop
of Canterbury, ruling the nation with vigour and success, but with the
death of Edgar his power declined, and he retired to Canterbury, where he
died of grief and vexation; he is the patron saint of goldsmiths
(924-988).


DUNTON, WATTS. See WATTS, THEODORE.


DUPANLOUP, a French prelate, bishop of Orleans, born at St. Felix,
in Savoy; a singularly able and eloquent man; devoted himself to
educational emancipation and reform; protested vigorously against papal
infallibility; yielded at length, and stood up in defence of the Church
(1802-1878).


DUPERRE, a French admiral, born at La Rochelle; contributed along
with Marshal Bourmont to the taking of Algiers (1775-1846).


DUPERRON, cardinal, a Swiss by birth and a Calvinist by religious
profession; went to Paris, turned papist, and rose to ecclesiastical
eminence in France under Henry IV. (1556-1618).


DUPIN, ANDRE, French jurist and statesman; distinguished at the time
of the revolution of the three days as a supporter of Louis Philippe, and
of the house of Orleans after him (1783-1865).


DUPLEIX, JOSEPH, a French merchant, head of a factory at
Chandernagore, who rose to be governor of the French settlements in
India, and in the management of which he displayed conspicuous ability,
defending them against the English and receiving the dignity of marquis;
jealousy at home, however, led to his recall, and he was left to end his
days in neglect and poverty, though he pled hard with the cabinet at
Versailles to have respect to the sacrifices he made for his country
(1697-1763).


DUPLESSIS, MORNAY, a soldier, diplomatist, and man of letters; a
leader of the Huguenots, who, after the massacre of St. Bartholomew,
visited England, where he was received with favour by Elizabeth in 1575;
entered the service of the King of Navarre, afterwards Henry IV. of
France, but on Henry's reconciliation with the Church of Rome, retired
into private life and devoted himself to literary pursuits; he was called
the "Pope of the Huguenots"; _d_. 1623.


DUPONT, PIERRE, French song-writer; his songs, "Le Chant des
Ouvriers" and "Les Boeufs," the delight of the young generation of 1848
(1820-1872).


DUPONT DE L'EURE, a French politician, born at Neubourg; filled
several important offices in the successive periods of revolution in
France; was distinguished for his integrity and patriotism, and made
President of the Provisional Government in 1848 (1767-1855).


DUPONT DE NEMOURS, French political economist; took part in the
Revolution; was opposed to the excesses of the Jacobin party, but escaped
with his life; wrote a book entitled "Philosophie de l'Universe"
(1739-1817).


DUPUIS, CHARLES FRANCOIS, a French savant; was a member of the
Convention of the Council of the Five Hundred, and President of the
Legislative Body during the Revolution period; devoted himself to the
study of astronomy in connection with mythology, the result of which was
published in his work in 12 vols., entitled "Origine de tous les Cultes,
ou la Religion Universelle"; he advocated the unity of the astronomical
and religious myths of all nations (1742-1809).


DUPUY, M. CHARLES, French statesman, born at Puy; elected to the
Chamber in 1885; became Premier in 1893 and in 1894; was in office when
Dreyfus was condemned and degraded, and resigned in 1895; _b_. 1851.


DUPUYTREN, BARON, a celebrated French surgeon, born at
Pierre-Buffiere; he was a man of firm nerve, signally sure and skilful as
an operator, and contributed greatly, both by his inventions and
discoveries, to the progress of surgery; a museum of pathological
anatomy, in which he made important discoveries, bears his name
(1777-1835).


DUQUESNE, ABRAHAM, MARQUIS, an illustrious naval officer of France,
born at Dieppe; distinguished himself in many a naval engagement, and did
much to enhance the naval glory of the country; among other achievements
plucked the laurels from the brow of his great rival, De Ruyter, by, in
1676, defeating the combined fleets of Spain and Holland under his
command; Louis XIV. offered him a marshal's baton if he would abjure
Calvinism, but he declined; he was the only one of the Huguenots excepted
from proscription in the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes, but his last
days were saddened by the banishment of his children (1610-1688).


DURA DEN, a glen near Cupar-Fife, famous for the number of ganoid
fossil fishes entombed in its sandstone.


DURANCE, a tributary of the Rhone, which, after a rapid course of
180 m., falls into that river by its left bank 3 m. below Avignon.


DURAND, an Indian officer; served in the Afghan and Sikh Wars, and
became Lieutenant-Governor of the Punjab (1828-1871).


DURANDAL, the miraculous sword of Orlando, with which he could
cleave mountains at a blow.


DURBAN (27), the port of Natal, largest town in the colony, with a
land-locked harbour.


DURBAR, a ceremonious State reception in India.


DUeRER, ALBERT, the great early German painter and engraver, born at
Nuernberg, son of a goldsmith, a good man, who brought him up to his own
profession, but he preferred painting, for which he early exhibited a
special aptitude, and his father bound him apprentice for three years to
the chief artist in the place, at the expiry of which he travelled in
Germany and other parts; in 1506 he visited Venice, where he met Bellini,
and painted several pictures; proceeded thence to Bologna, and was
introduced to Raphael; his fame spread widely, and on his return he was
appointed court-painter by the Emperor Maximilian, an office he held
under Charles V.; he was of the Reformed faith, and a friend of
Melanchthon as well as an admirer of Luther, on whose incarceration in
Wartburg he uttered a long lament; he was a prince of painters, his
drawing and colouring perfect, and the inventor of etching, in which he
was matchless; he carved in wood, ivory, stone, and metal; was an author
as well as an artist, and wrote, among other works, an epoch-making
treatise on proportion in the human figure; "it could not be better done"
was his quiet, confident reply as a sure workman to a carper on one
occasion (1471-1528).


D'URFEY, TOM, a facetious poet; author of comedies and songs; a
great favourite of Charles II. and his court; of comedies he wrote some
30, which are all now discarded for their licentiousness, and a curious
book of sonnets, entitled "Pills to Purge Melancholy"; came to poverty in
the end of his days; Addison pled on his behalf, and hoped that "as he
had made the world merry, the world would make him easy" (1628-1723).


DURGA, in the Hindu mythology the consort of Siva.


DURHAM (15), an ancient city on the Wear, with a noble cathedral and
a castle, once the residence of the bishop, now a university seat, in the
heart of a county of the same name (1,106), rich in coal-fields, and with
numerous busy manufacturing towns.


DURHAM, ADMIRAL, entered the navy in 1777; was officer on the watch
when the _Royal George_ went down off Spithead, and the only one with
Captain Waghorn who escaped; served as acting-lieutenant of a ship under
Lord Howe at the relief of Gibraltar, and commanded the _Defence_, a ship
of 74 guns, at the battle of Trafalgar (1763-1815).


DURHAM, JOHN G. L., EARL OF, an English statesman, born in Durham
Co.; a zealous Liberal and reformer, and a member of the Reform
Government under Earl Grey, which he contributed much to inaugurate; was
ambassador in St. Petersburg, and was sent governor-general to Canada in
1839, but owing to some misunderstanding took the extraordinary step of
ultroneously returning within the year (1792-1840).


DURWARD, QUENTIN, a Scottish archer in the service of Louis XI., the
hero of a novel of Scott's of the name.


DUeSSELDORF (176), a well-built town of Rhenish Prussia, on the right
bank of the Rhine; it is a place of manufactures, and has a fine
picture-gallery with a famous school of art associated.


DUTENS, JOSEPH, a French engineer and political economist
(1763-1848).


DUTENS, LOUIS, a French savant, born at Tours; after being chaplain
to the British minister at Turin, settled in England, and became
historiographer-royal; was a man of varied learning, and well read in
historical subjects and antiquities (1730-1812).


DUTROCHET, a French physiologist and physicist, known for his
researches on the passage of fluids through membranous tissues
(1776-1847).


DUUMVIRS, the name of two Roman magistrates who exercised the same
public functions.


DUVAL, CLAUDE, a French numismatist, and writer on numismatics;
keeper of the imperial cabinet of Vienna; was originally a shepherd boy
(1695-1775).


DWIGHT, TIMOTHY, an American theologian, grandson of Jonathan
Edwards, and much esteemed in his day both as a preacher and a writer;
his "Theology Explained and Defended," in 5 vols., was very popular at
one time, and was frequently reprinted (1752-1817).


DWINA, a Russian river, distinguished from the DUeNA (q. v.),
also called Duna, and an important, which flows N. to the White
Sea.


DYAKS, the native name of tribes of Malays of a superior class
aboriginal to Borneo.


DYCE, ALEXANDER, an English literary editor and historian, born in
Edinburgh; edited several of the old English poets and authors, some of
them little known before; also the poems of Shakespeare, Pope, &c.; was
one of the founders of the Percy Society, for the publication of old
English works (1798-1869).


DYCE, WILLIAM, a distinguished Scottish artist, born in Aberdeen,
studied in Rome; settled for a time in Edinburgh, and finally removed to
London; painted portraits at first, but soon took to higher subjects of
art; his work was such as to commend itself to both German and French
artists; he gave himself to fresco-painting, and as a fresco-painter was
selected to adorn the walls of the Palace of Westminster and the House of
Lords; his "Baptism of Ethelbert," in the latter, is considered his best
work (1806-1864).


DYCK, VAN. See VANDYCK.


DYER, JOHN, English poet; was a great lover and student of landscape
scenery, and his poems, "Grongar Hill" and the "Fleece," abound in
descriptions of these, the scenery of the former lying in S. Wales
(1700-1758).


DYNAM, the unit of work, or the force required to raise one pound
one foot in one second.


DYNAMITE, a powerful explosive substance, intensely local in its
action; formed by impregnating a porous siliceous earth or other
substance with some 70 per cent. of nitro-glycerine.


DYNAMO, a machine by which mechanical work is transformed into
powerful electric currents by the inductive action of magnets on coils of
copper wire in motion.