The Nuttall Encyclopaedia Part 160

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 "d.a.m.nation 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 ent.i.tled "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 flouris.h.i.+ng 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 inst.i.tuted in 1790, under which the old division into provinces was broken up; each department, of which there are now 87, is broken up into arrondiss.e.m.e.nts.

DEPPING, a learned French historian, born at Munster; 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 a.r.s.enal, 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 La.s.swade, 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 Derbys.h.i.+re, 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, Lancas.h.i.+re; 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 pa.s.sing 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 t.i.tle 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 Premiers.h.i.+p in 1868, and the last speech he made was against the Irish Disestablishment Bill; was distinguished for his scholars.h.i.+p 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 pa.s.sed 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 6000, of which the winner gets 5000.

DERBYs.h.i.+RE (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 cla.s.ses, 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.

DERWENt.w.a.tER, one of the most beautiful of the c.u.mberland 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.

DERWENt.w.a.tER, 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 n.o.ble 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 Oth.e.l.lo 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 s.p.a.ce 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).