VOLUME VII SLICE IX Dagupan to David (continued 6)

DAMGHAN, a town of Persia in the province of Semnan va Damghan, 216 m. from Teheran on the high-road thence to Khorasan, at an elevation of 3770 ft. and in 36° 10′ N., 54° 20′ E. Pop. about 10,000. There are post and telegraph offices, and a great export trade is done in pistachios and almonds, the latter being of the kind called Kaghazi (“of paper”) with very thin shells, famous throughout the country. Damghan was an important city in the middle ages, but only a ruined mosque with a number of massive columns and some fine wood carvings and two minarets of the 11th century remain of that period. Near the city, a few miles south and south-west, are the remains of Hecatompylos, extending from Frat, 16 m. south of Damghan, to near Gúsheh, 20 m. west. Damghan was destroyed by the Afghans in 1723. On an eminence in the western part of the city are the ruins of a large square citadel with a small white-washed building, called Molūd Khaneh (the house of birth), in which Fath Ali Shah was born (1772).

DAMIANI, PIETRO (c. 1007-1072), one of the most celebrated ecclesiastics of the 11th century, was born at Ravenna, and after a youth spent in hardship and privation, gained some renown as a teacher. About 1035, however, he deserted his secular calling and entered the hermitage of Fonte Avellana, near Gubbio; and winning sound reputation through his piety and his preaching, he became the head of this establishment about 1043. A zealot for monastic and clerical reform, he introduced a more severe discipline, including the practice of flagellation, into the house, which, under his rule, quickly attained celebrity, and became a model for other foundations. Extending the area of his activities, he entered into communication with the emperor Henry III., addressed to Pope Leo IX. in 1049 a writing denouncing the vices of the clergy and entitled Liber Gomorrhianus; and soon became associated with Hildebrand in the work of reform. As a trusted counsellor of a succession of popes he was made cardinal bishop of Ostia, a position which he accepted with some reluctance; and presiding over a council at Milan in 1059, he courageously asserted the authority of Rome over this province, and won a signal victory for the principles which he advocated. He rendered valuable assistance to Pope Alexander II. in his struggle with the anti-pope, Honorius II.; and having served the papacy as legate to France and to Florence, he was allowed to resign his bishopric in 1067. After a period of retirement at Fonte Avellana, he proceeded in 1069 as papal legate to Germany, and persuaded the emperor Henry IV. to give up his intention of divorcing his wife Bertha. During his concluding years he was not altogether in accord with the political ideas of Hildebrand. He died at Faenza on the 22nd of February 1072. Damiani was a determined foe of simony, but his fiercest wrath was directed against the married clergy. He was an extremely vigorous controversialist, and his Latin abounds in denunciatory epithets. He was specially devoted to the Virgin Mary, and wrote an Officium Beatae Virginis, in addition to many letters, sermons, and other writings.

His works were collected by Cardinal Cajetan, and were published in four volumes at Rome (1606-1615), and then at Paris in 1642, at Venice in 1743, and there are other editions. See A. Vogel, Peter Damiani (Jena, 1856); A. Capecelatro, Storia di S. Pier Damiani e del suo tempo (Florence, 1862); F. Neukirch, Das Leben des Peter Damiani (Göttingen, 1875); L. Guerrier, De Petro Damiano (Orleans, 1881); W. von Giesebrecht, Geschichte der deutschen Kaiserzeit (Leipzig, 1885-1890); and Herzog-Hauck, Realencyklopädie, Band iv. (Leipzig, 1898).

DAMIEN, FATHER, the name in religion of Joseph de Veuster (1840-1889), Belgian missionary, was born at Tremeloo, near Louvain, on the 3rd of January 1840. He was educated for a business career, but in his eighteenth year entered the Church, joining the Society of the Sacred Heart of Jesus and Mary (also known as the Picpus Congregation), and taking Damien as his name in religion. In October 1863, while he was still in minor orders, he went out as a missionary to the Pacific Islands, taking the place of his brother, who had been prevented by an illness. He reached Honolulu in March 1864, and was ordained priest in Whitsuntide of that year. Struck with the sad condition of the lepers, whom it was the practice of the Hawaian government to deport to the island of Molokai, he conceived an earnest desire to mitigate their lot, and in 1873 volunteered to take spiritual charge of the settlement at Molokai. Here he remained for the rest of his life, with occasional visits to Honolulu, until he became stricken with leprosy in 1885. Besides attending to the spiritual needs of the lepers, he managed, by the labour of his own hands and by appeals to the Hawaian government, to improve materially the water-supply, the dwellings, and the victualling of the settlement. For five years he worked alone; subsequently other resident priests from time to time assisted him. He succumbed to leprosy on the 15th of April 1889. Some ill-considered imputations upon Father Damien by a Presbyterian minister produced a memorable tract by Robert Louis Stevenson (An Open Letter to the Rev. Dr Hyde, 1890).

See also lives by E. Clifford (1889) and Fr. Pamphile (1889).

(J. M‘F.)

DAMIENS, ROBERT FRANÇOIS (1715-1757), a Frenchman who attained notoriety by his attack on Louis XV. of France in 1757, was born in a village near Arras in 1715, and early enlisted in the army. After his discharge, he became a menial in the college of the Jesuits in Paris, and was dismissed from this as well as from other employments for misconduct, his conduct earning for him the name of Robert le Diable. During the disputes of Clement XI. with the parlement of Paris the mind of Damiens seems to have been excited by the ecclesiastical disorganization which followed the refusal of the clergy to grant the sacraments to the Jansenists and Convulsionnaires; and he appears to have thought that peace would be restored by the death of the king. He, however, asserted, perhaps with truth, that he only intended to frighten the king without wounding him severely. On the 5th of January 1757, as the king was entering his carriage, he rushed forward and stabbed him with a knife, inflicting only a slight wound. He made no attempt to escape, and was at once seized. He was condemned as a regicide, and sentenced to be torn in pieces by horses in the Place de Grève. Before being put to death he was barbarously tortured with red-hot pincers, and molten wax, lead, and boiling oil were poured into his wounds. After his death his house was razed to the ground, his brothers and sisters were ordered to change their names, and his father, wife, and daughter were banished from France.

See Pièces originales et procédures du procès fait à Robert François Damiens (Paris, 1757).

DAMIETTA, a town of Lower Egypt, on the eastern (Damietta or Phatnitic) branch of the Nile, about 12 m. above its mouth, and 125 m. N.N.E. of Cairo by rail. Pop. (1907) 29,354. The town is built on the east bank of the river between it and Lake Menzala. Though in general ill-built and partly ruinous, the town possesses some fine mosques, with lofty minarets, public baths and busy bazaars. Along the river-front are many substantial houses furnished with terraces, and with steps leading to the water. Their wooden lattices of saw-work are very graceful. After Cairo and Alexandria, Damietta was for centuries the largest town in Egypt, but the silting up of the entrance to the harbour, the rise of Port Said, and the remarkable development of Alexandria have robbed Damietta of its value as a port. It has still, however, a coasting trade with Syria and the Levant. Ships over 6 ft. draught cannot enter the river, but must anchor in the offing. Lake Menzala yields large supplies of fish, which are dried and salted, and these, with rice, furnish the chief articles of trade.

Damietta is a Levantine corruption of the Coptic name Tamiati, Arabic Dimyāt. The original town was 4 m. nearer the sea than the modern city, and first rose into importance on the decay of Pelusium. When it passed into the hands of the Saracens it became a place of great wealth and commerce, and, as the eastern bulwark of Egypt, was frequently attacked by the crusaders. The most remarkable of these sieges lasted eighteen months, from June 1218 to November 1219, and ended in the capture of the town, which was, however, held but for a brief period. In June 1249 Louis IX. of France occupied Damietta without opposition, but being defeated near Mansura in the February following, and compelled (6th April) to surrender himself prisoner, Damietta was restored to the Moslems as part of the ransom exacted. To prevent further attacks from the sea the Mameluke sultan Bibars blocked up the Phatnitic mouth of the Nile (about 1260), razed old Damietta to the ground, and transferred the inhabitants to the site of the modern town. It continued to be a place of commercial importance for a considerable period, until in fact Port Said gave the eastern part of the Delta a better port. Damietta gives its name to dimity, a kind of striped cloth, for which the place was at one time famous. Cotton and silk goods are still manufactured here.

DAMIRI, the common name of Kamāl ud-Dīn Muhammad ibn Mūsā ud-Damīrī (1344-1405), Arabian writer on canon law and natural history, belonged to one of the two towns called Damīra near Damietta and spent his life in Egypt. Of the Shafi’ite school of law, he became professor of tradition in the Ruknīyya at Cairo, and also at the mosque el-Azhar; in connexion with this work he wrote a commentary on the Minhāj ut-Tālibin of Nawāwi (q.v.). He is, however, better known in the history of literature for his Life of Animals (Hayāt ul-Hayawān), which treats in alphabetic order of 931 animals mentioned in the Koran, the traditions and the poetical and proverbial literature of the Arabs. The work is a compilation from over 500 prose writers and nearly 200 poets. The correct spelling of the names of the animals is given with an explanation of their meanings. The use of the animals in medicine, their lawfulness or unlawfulness as food, their position in folk-lore are the main subjects treated, while occasionally long irrelevant sections on political history are introduced.

The work exists in three forms. The fullest has been published several times in Egypt; a mediate and a short recension exist in manuscript. Several editions have been made at various times of extracts, among them the poetical one by Suyūti (q.v.), which was translated into Latin by A. Ecchelensis (Paris, 1667). Bochartus in his Hierozoicon (1663) used Damīrī’s work. There is a translation of the whole into English by Lieutenant-Colonel Jayakar (Bombay, 1906-1908).

(G. W. T.)

DAMIRON, JEAN PHILIBERT (1794-1862), French philosopher, was born at Belleville. At nineteen he entered the normal school, where he studied under Burnouf, Villemain, and Cousin. After teaching for several years in provincial towns, he came to Paris, where he lectured on philosophy in various institutions, and finally became professor in the normal school, and titular professor at the Sorbonne. In 1824 he took part with P. F. Dubois and Th. S. Jouffroy in the establishment of the Globe; and he was also a member of the committee of the society which took for its motto Aide-toi, le ciel t’aidera. In 1833 he was appointed chevalier of the Legion of Honour, and in 1836 member of the Academy of Moral Sciences. Damiron died at Paris on the 11th of January 1862.

The chief works of Damiron, of which the best are his accounts of French philosophers, are the following:—An edition of the Nouveaux mélanges philosophiques de Jouffroy (1842), with a notice of the author, in which Damiron softened and omitted several expressions used by Jouffroy, which were opposed to the system of education adopted by the Sorbonne, an article which gave rise to a bitter controversy, and to a book by Pierre Leroux, De la mutilation des manuscrits de M. Jouffroy (1843); Essai sur l’histoire de la philosophie en France au XIXe siècle (1828, 3rd ed. 1834); Essai sur l’histoire de la philosophie en France au XVII. siècle (1846); Mémoires à servir pour l’histoire de la philosophie en France au XVIII. siècle (1858-1864); Cours de la philosophie; De la Providence (1849, 1850).

See A. Franck, Moralistes et philosophes (1872).

DAMJANICH, JÁNOS (1804-1849), Hungarian soldier, was born at Stása in the Banat. He entered the army as an officer in the 61st regiment of foot, and on the outbreak of the Hungarian war of independence was promoted to be a major in the third Honvéd regiment at Szeged. Although an orthodox Serb, he was from the first a devoted adherent of the Magyar liberals. He won his colonelcy by his ability and valour at the battles of Alibunár and Lagerdorf in 1848. At the beginning of 1849 he was appointed commander of the 3rd army corps in the middle Theiss, and quickly gained the reputation of being the bravest man in the Magyar army, winning engagement after engagement by sheer dash and daring. At the beginning of March 1849 he annihilated a brigade at Szolnók, perhaps his greatest exploit. He was elected deputy for Szolnók to the Hungarian diet, but declined the honour. Damjanich played a leading part in the general advance upon the Hungarian capital under Görgei. He was present at the engagements of Hort and Hatvan, converted the doubtful fight of Tápió-Bicsk into a victory, and fought with irresistible élan at the bloody battle of Isaszeg. At the ensuing review at Gödöllö, Kossuth expressed the sentiments of the whole nation when he doffed his hat as Damjanich’s battalions passed by. Always a fiery democrat, Damjanich uncompromisingly supported the extremist views of Kossuth, and was appointed commander of one of the three divisions which, under Görgei, entered Vācz in April 1849. His fame reached its culmination when, on the 19th of April, he won the battle of Nagysarló, which led to the relief of the hardly-pressed fortress of Komárom. At this juncture Damjanich broke his leg, an accident which prevented him from taking part in field operations at the most critical period of the war, when the Magyars had to abandon the capital for the second time. He recovered sufficiently, however, to accept the post of commandant of the fortress of Arad. After the Vilagós catastrophe, Damjanich, on being summoned to surrender, declared he would give up the fortress to a single company of Cossacks, but would defend it to the last drop of his blood against the whole Austrian army. He accordingly surrendered to the Russian general Demitrius Buturlin (1790-1849), by whom he was handed over to the Austrians, who shot him in the market-place of Arad a few days later.

See Ödön Hamvay, Life of János Damjanich (Hung.), (Budapest, 1904).

(R. N. B.)

DAMMAR, or Dammer (Hind, damar = resin, pitch), a resin, or rather series of resins, obtained from various coniferous trees of the genus Dammara (Agathis). East Indian dammar or cat’s eye resin is the produce of Dammara orientalis, which grows in Java, Sumatra, Borneo and other eastern islands and sometimes attains a height of 80-100 ft. It oozes in large quantities from the tree in a soft viscous state, with a highly aromatic odour, which, however, it loses as it hardens by exposure. The resin is much esteemed in oriental communities for incense-burning. Dammar is imported into England by way of Singapore; and as found in British markets it is a hard, transparent, brittle, straw-coloured resin, destitute of odour. It is readily soluble in ether, benzol and chloroform, and with oil of turpentine it forms a fine transparent varnish which dries clear, smooth and hard. The allied kauri gum, or dammar of New Zealand (Australian dammar), is produced by Dammara australis, or kauri-pine, the wood of which is used for wood paving. Much of the New Zealand resin is found fossil in circumstances analogous to the conditions under which the fossil copal of Zanzibar is obtained. Dammar is besides a generic Indian name for various other resins, which, however, are little known in western commerce. Of these the principal are black dammar (the Hindustani kala-damar), yielded by Canarium strictum, and white dammar, Indian copal, or piney varnish (sufed-damar), the produce of Vateria indica. Sal dammar (damar) is obtained from Shorea robusta; Hopea micrantha is the source of rock dammar (the Malay dammer-batu); and other species yield resins which are similarly named and differ little in physical properties.

DAMMARTIN, a small town of France, in the department of Seine et Marne, 22 m. N.E. of Paris. It is well situated on a hill forming part of the plateau of la Goële, and is known as Dammartin-en-Goële to distinguish it from Dammartin-sous-Tigeaux, a small commune in the same department. Dammartin is historically important as the seat of a countship of which the holders played a considerable part in French history. The earliest recorded count of Dammartin was a certain Hugh, who made himself master of the town in the 10th century; but his dynasty was replaced by another family in the 11th century. Reynald I. (Renaud), count of Dammartin (d. 1227), who was one of the coalition crushed by King Philip Augustus at the battle of Bouvines (1214), left two co-heiresses, of whom the elder, Maud (Matilda or Mahaut), married Philip Hurepel, son of Philip Augustus, and the second, Alix, married Jean de Trie, in whose line the countship was reunited after the death of Philip Hurepel’s son Alberic. The countship passed, through heiresses, to the houses of Fayel and Nanteuil, and in the 15th century was acquired by Antoine de Chabannes (d. 1488), one of the favourites of King Charles VII., by his marriage with Marguerite, heiress of Reynald V. of Nanteuil-Aci and Marie of Dammartin. This Antoine de Chabannes, count of Dammartin in right of his wife, fought under the standard of Joan of Arc, became a leader of the Écorcheurs, took part in the war of the public weal against Louis XI., and then fought for him against the Burgundians. The collegiate church at Dammartin was founded by him in 1480, and his tomb and effigy are in the chancel. His son, Jean de Chabannes, left three heiresses, of whom the second left a daughter who brought the countship to Philippe de Boulainvilliers, by whose heirs it was sold in 1554 to the dukes of Montmorency. In 1632 the countship was confiscated by Louis XIII. and bestowed on the princes of Condé.

DAMME, a decayed city of Belgium, 5 m. N.E. of Bruges, once among the most important commercial ports of Europe. It is situated on the canal from Bruges to Sluys (Ecluse), but in the middle ages a navigable channel or river called the Zwyn gave ships access to it from the North Sea. The great naval battle of Sluys, in which Edward III. destroyed the French fleet and secured the command of the channel, was fought in the year 1340 at the mouth of the Zwyn. About 1395 this channel began to show signs of silting up, and during the next hundred years the process proved rapid. In 1490 a treaty was signed at Damme between the people of Bruges and the archduke Maximilian, and very soon after this event the channel became completely closed up, and the foreign merchant gilds or “nations” left the place for Antwerp. This signified the death of the port and was indirectly fatal to Bruges as well. The marriage of Charles the Bold and Margaret of York, sister of Edward IV., was celebrated at Damme on the 2nd of July 1468. It will give some idea of the importance of the town to mention that it had its own maritime law, known as Droit maritime de Damme. The new ship canal from Zeebrugge will not revive the ancient port, as it follows a different route, leaving Damme and Ecluse quite untouched. Damme, although long neglected, preserves some remains of its former prosperity, thanks to its remoteness from the area of international strife in the Low Countries. The tower of Notre Dame, dating from 1180, is a landmark across the dunes, and the church behind it, although a shell, merits inspection. Out of a portion of the ancient markets a hôtel-de-ville of modest dimensions has been constructed, and in the hospital of St Jean are a few pictures. Camille Lemonnier has given in one of his Causeries a striking picture of this faded scene of former greatness, now a solitude in which the few residents seem spectres rather than living figures.

DAMOCLES, one of the courtiers of the elder Dionysius of Syracuse. When he spoke in extravagant terms of the happiness of his sovereign, Dionysius is said to have invited him to a sumptuous banquet, at which he found himself seated under a naked sword suspended by a single hair (Cicero, Tusc. v. 21; Horace, Odes, iii. 1, 17; Persius iii. 40).

DAMOH, a town and district of British India, in the Jubbulpore division of the Central Provinces. The town has a railway station, 48 m. E. of Saugor. Pop. (1901) 13,355. It has a considerable cattle-market, and a number of small industries, such as weaving, dyeing and pottery-making.

The District of Damoh has an area of 2816 sq. m. Except on the south and east, where the offshoots from the surrounding hills and patches of jungle break up the country, the district consists of open plains of varying degrees of fertility, interspersed with low ranges and isolated heights. The richest tracts lie in the centre. The gentle declivity of the surface and the porous character of the prevailing sandstone formation render the drainage excellent. All the streams flow from south to north. The Sunar and the Bairma, the two principal rivers, traverse the entire length of the district. Little use has been made of any of the rivers for irrigation, though in many places they offer great facilities for the purpose. Damoh was first formed into a separate district in 1861. In 1901 the population was 285,326, showing a decrease of 12% in one decade due to famine. Damoh suffered severely from the famine of 1896-1897. Fortunately the famine of 1900 was little felt. A branch of the Indian Midland railway was opened throughout from Saugor to Katni in January 1899.

DAMON, of Syracuse, a Pythagorean, celebrated for his disinterested affection for Phintias (not, as commonly given, Pythias), a member of the same sect. Condemned to death by Dionysius the Elder (or Younger) of Syracuse, Phintias begged to be set at liberty for a short time that he might arrange his affairs. Damon pledged his life for the return of his friend; and Phintias faithfully returned before the appointed day of execution. The tyrant, to express his admiration of their fidelity, released both the friends and begged to be admitted to their friendship (Diod. Sic. x. 4; Cicero, De Off. iii. 10). Hyginus (Fab. 257, who is followed by Schiller in his ballad, Die Bürgschaft) tells a similar story, in which the two friends are named Moerus and Selinuntius.

DAMOPHON, a Greek sculptor of Messene, who executed many statues for the people of Messene, Megalopolis, Aegium and other cities of Peloponnesus. Considerable fragments, including three colossal heads from a group by him representing Demeter, Persephone, Artemis and the giant Anytus, have been discovered on the site of Lycosura in Arcadia, where was a temple of the goddess called “The Mistress.” They are preserved in part in the museum at Athens and partly on the spot. Hence there has arisen a great controversy as to the date of the artist, who has been assigned to various periods, from the 4th century B.C. to the 2nd A.D. A good account of the whole matter will be found in Frazer’s Pausanias, iv. 372-379. Frazer wisely inclines to an early date; it is in fact difficult to find any period, when the cities mentioned were in a position to found temples, later than the time of Alexander.

DAMP, a common Teutonic word, meaning vapour or mist (cf. Ger. Dampf, steam), and hence moisture. In its primitive sense the word persists in the vocabulary of coal-miners. Their “firedamp” (formerly fulminating damp) is marsh gas, which, when mixed with air and exploded, produced “choke damp,” “after damp,” or “suffocating damp” (carbon dioxide). “Black damp” consists of accumulations of irrespirable gases, mostly nitrogen, which cause the lights to burn dimly, and the term “white damp” is sometimes applied to carbon monoxide. As a verb, the word means to stifle or check; hence damped vibrations or oscillations are those which have been reduced or stopped, instead of being allowed to die out naturally; the “dampers” of the piano are small pieces of felt-covered wood which fall upon the strings and stop their vibrations as the keys are allowed to rise; and the “damper” of a chimney or flue, by restricting the draught, lessens the rate of combustion.

DAMPIER, WILLIAM (1652-1715), English buccaneer, navigator and hydrographer, was born at East Coker, Somersetshire, in 1652 (baptized 8th of June). Having early become an orphan, he was placed with the master of a ship at Weymouth, in which he made a voyage to Newfoundland. On his return he sailed to Bantam in the East Indies. He served in 1673 in the Dutch War under Sir Edward Sprague, and was present at two engagements (28th of May; 4th of June); but then fell sick and was put ashore. In 1674 he became an under-manager of a Jamaica estate, but continued only a short time in this situation. He afterwards engaged in the coasting trade, and thus acquired an accurate knowledge of all the ports and bays of the island. He made two voyages to the Bay of Campeachy (1675-1676), and remained for some time with the logwood-cutters, varying this occupation with buccaneering. In 1678 he returned to England, again visiting Jamaica in 1679 and joining a party of buccaneers, with whom he crossed the Isthmus of Darien, spent the year 1680 on the Peruvian coast, and sacking, plundering and burning, made his way down to Juan Fernandez Island. After serving with another privateering expedition in the Spanish Main, he went to Virginia and engaged with a captain named Cook for a privateering voyage against the Spaniards in the South Seas. They sailed in August 1683, touched at the Guinea coast, and then proceeded round Cape Horn into the Pacific. Having touched at Juan Fernandez, they made the coast of South America, cruising along Chile and Peru. They took some prizes, and with these they proceeded to the Galapagos Islands and to Mexico, which last they fell in with near Cape Blanco. While they lay here Captain Cook died, and the command devolved on Captain Davis, who, with several other pirate vessels, English and French, raided the west American shores for the next year, attacking Guayaquil, Puebla Nova, &c. At last Dampier, leaving Davis, went on board Swan’s ship, and proceeded with him along the northern parts of Mexico as far as southern California. Swan then proposed, as the expedition met with “bad success” on the Mexican coast, to run across the Pacific and return by the East Indies. They started from Cape Corrientes on the 31st of March 1686, and reached Guam in the Ladrones on the 20th of May; the men, having almost come to an end of their rations, had decided to kill and eat their leaders next, beginning with the “lusty and fleshy” Swan. After six months’ drunkenness and debauchery in the Philippines, the majority of the crew, including Dampier, left Swan and thirty-six others behind in Mindanao, cruised (1687-1688) from Manila to Pulo Condore, from the latter to China, and from China to the Spice Islands and New Holland (the Australian mainland). In March 1688 they were off Sumatra, and in May off the Nicobars, where Dampier was marooned (at his own request, as he declares, for the purpose of establishing a trade in ambergris) with two other Englishmen, a Portuguese and some Malays. He and his companions contrived to navigate a canoe to Achin in Sumatra; but the fatigues and distress of the voyage proved fatal to several and nearly carried off Dampier himself. After making several voyages to different places of the East Indies (Tongking, Madras, &c.), he acted for some time, and apparently somewhat unwillingly, as gunner to the English fort of Benkulen. Thence he ultimately contrived to return to England in 1691.

In 1699 he was sent out by the English admiralty in command of the “Roebuck,” especially designed for discovery in and around Australia. He sailed from the Downs, the 14th of January, with twenty months’ provisions, touched at the Canaries, Cape Verdes and Bahia, and ran from Brazil round the Cape of Good Hope direct to Australia, whose west coast he reached on the 26th of July, in about 26° S. lat. Anchoring in Shark’s Bay, he began a careful exploration of the neighbouring shore-lands, but found no good harbour or estuary, no fresh water or provisions. In September, accordingly, he left Australia, recruited and refitted at Timor, and thence made for New Guinea, where he arrived on the 3rd of December. By sailing along to its easternmost extremity, he discovered that it was terminated by an island, which he named New Britain (now Neu Pommern), whose north, south and east coasts he surveyed. That St George’s Bay was really St George’s Channel, dividing the island into two, was not perceived by Dampier; it was the discovery of his successor, Philip Carteret. Nor did Dampier visit the west coast of New Britain or realize its small extent on that side. He was prevented from prosecuting his discoveries by the discontent of his men and the state of his ship. In May 1700 he was again at Timor, and thence he proceeded homeward by Batavia (4th July-17th October) and the Cape of Good Hope. In February 1701 he arrived off Ascension Island, when the vessel foundered (21st-24th February), the crew reaching land and staying in the island till the 3rd of April, when they were conveyed to England by some East Indiamen and warships bound for home. In 1703-1707 Dampier commanded two government privateers on an expedition to the South Seas with grievous unsuccess; better fortune attended him on his last voyage, as pilot to Woodes Rogers in the circumnavigation of 1708-1711. On the former venture Alexander Selkirk, the master of one of the vessels, was marooned at Juan Fernandez; on the latter Selkirk was rescued and a profit of nearly £200,000 was made. But four years before the prize-money was paid Dampier died (March 1715) in St Stephen’s parish, Coleman Street, London. Dampier’s accounts of his voyages are famous. He had a genius for observation, especially of the scientific phenomena affecting a seaman’s life; his style is usually admirable—easy, clear and manly. His knowledge of natural history, though not scientific, appears surprisingly accurate and trustworthy.

See Dampier’s New Voyage Round the World (1697); his Voyages and Descriptions (1699), a work supplementary to the New Voyage; his Voyage to New Holland in ... 1699 (1703, 1709); also Funnell’s Narrative of the Voyage of 1703-1707; Dampier’s Vindication of his Voyage (1707); Welbe’s Answer to Captain Dampier’s Vindication; Woodes Rogers, Cruising Voyage Round the World (1712).

(C. R. B.)

DAN (from a Hebrew word meaning “judge”), a tribe of Israel, named after a son of Jacob and Bilhah, the maid of Rachel. The meaning of the name (referred to in Gen. xxx. 5 seq., xlix. 16) connects Dan with Dinah (“judgment”), the daughter of Leah, whose story in Gen. xxxiv. (cf. xlix. 5 seq.) seems to point to an Israelite occupation of Shechem, a treacherous massacre of its Canaanite inhabitants by Simeon and Levi, and the subsequent scattering of the latter. But, historically, the occupation of Shechem, whether by conquest (Gen. xlviii. 22) or purchase (xxxiii. 19), is as obscure as the conquest of central Palestine itself (see Joshua), and the true relation between Dan and Dinah is uncertain. The earliest seats of Dan lay at Zorah, Eshtaol and Kirjath-jearim, west of Jerusalem, whence they were forced to seek a new home, and a valuable narrative detailing some of the events of the move is preserved in the story of the sanctuary of the Ephraimite Micah (q.v.). Laish (Leshem) was taken with the sword and re-named Dan (see below). Here a sanctuary was founded under the guardianship of Jonathan, the grandson of Moses, which survived until the “captivity of the land” (by Tiglath-Pileser IV. in 733-732), or, according to another notice, until the fall of Shiloh (Judg. xviii. 30 seq.). Dan formed the northern limit of the land,1 and with Abel (-beth-Maacah) was an old place renowned for Israelite lore (2 Sam. xx. 18; on the text see the commentaries). Little can be made of Dan’s history. The reference to it as a seafaring folk (Judg. v. 17) is difficult, and it is uncertain whether its character as represented in Gen. xlix. 17, Deut. xxxiii. 22, refers to its earlier or later seat. The post-exilic accounts of its southern border would make it part of Judah, and both of them are in tradition the greatest of the tribes in the wanderings in the wilderness. Dan was subsequently either regarded as the embodiment of wickedness or entirely ignored; late speculation that the Antichrist should spring from it appears to be based upon an interpretation of Gen. xlix. 17 (see further R. H. Charles, Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs, pp. 128 seq.).

A brief record of the Danite migration is found in some old detached fragments which K. Budde (Richter und Samuel) ingeniously arranges thus:—Judg. i. 34 (Amorite pressure); Josh. xix. 47a (see the Septuagint), 47b; Judg. i. 35. The position of Judg. xvii. seq. (after the stories of Samson) may imply that the Philistines, not the Amorites, caused the migration (cf. 1 Sam. vii. 14, where the two ethnical terms interchange). The Mosaic priesthood and the reference to Shiloh suggest that the story of Eli may have belonged to this cycle of narratives; and the spoliation of the unknown sanctuary of the Ephraimite Micah and the character of the fierce Puritan tribesmen connect Dan with the problems of the tribes of Simeon and Levi. Dan’s northern home lay near Beth-rehob, which appears to have been Aramean in David’s time (2 Sam. x. 6), and it is possible that the migration has been antedated (cf. similarly the case of Jair, Num. xxxii. 41, Judg. x. 3-5). The Tyrian artificer sent to Solomon by Hiram was partly of Danite descent (2 Chron. ii. 13 seq.; but of Naphtali, so 1 Kings vii. 14); and of the two workers in brass who took part in the building of the tabernacle in the desert, one was Danite (Oholiab, Ex. xxxi. 6), while the other appears to have been Calebite (Bezalel, ib., v. 2; 1 Chron. ii. 20). The Kenites, too, have been regarded as a race of metal-workers (see Cain, Kenites), and there is evidence which would show that Danites, Calebites and Kenites were once closely associated in tradition.

See S. A. Cook, Critical Notes, Index, s.v.: E. Meyer, Israeliten, pp. 525 seq.

(S. A. C.)

1 On the late phrase “Dan to Beersheba” as the extreme points of religious life in Israel, see H. W. Hogg, Expositor, viii. 411-421 (1898); and for a complete discussion of the tribe, his art. “Dan” in Encyc. Bib.

DAN, a town of ancient Israel, near the head-waters of the Jordan, inhabited before its conquest by the Danites by a peaceful commercial population who called their city Laish or Leshem (Josh. xix. 47, Judg. xviii.). It appears to have been even at this early period a sacred city, the shrine of Micah being removed hither, and it was chosen by Jeroboam as the site of one of his calf-shrines. It makes the north limit of Palestine in the proverbial expression “from Dan to Beersheba.” The town was plundered by Benhadad of Damascus, and appears from that time to have gradually declined. Its site is sought in the mound called Tell-el-Kadi, “the hill of the judge” (Dan = “judge” in Hebrew), though weighty authorities incline to place it 4 m. east of this, at Banias, the old Caesarea Philippi. (See above.)

DANA, CHARLES ANDERSON (1819-1897), American journalist, was born in Hinsdale, New Hampshire, on the 8th of August 1819. At the age of twelve he became a clerk in his uncle’s general store at Buffalo, which failed in 1837. In 1839 he entered Harvard, but the impairment of his eyesight in 1841 forced him to leave college, and caused him to abandon his intention of entering the ministry and of studying in Germany. From September 1841 until March 1846 he lived at Brook Farm, where he was made one of the trustees of the farm, was head waiter when the farm became a Fourierite phalanx, and was in charge of the phalanstery’s finances when its buildings were burned in 1846. He had previously written for (and managed) the Harbinger, the Brook Farm organ, and had written as early as 1844 for the Boston Chronotype. In 1847 he joined the staff of the New York Tribune, and in 1848 he wrote from Europe letters to it and other papers on the revolutionary movements of that year. Returning to the Tribune in 1849, he became its managing-editor, and in this capacity actively promoted the anti-slavery cause, seeming to shape the paper’s policy at a time when Greeley was undecided and vacillating. In 1862 his resignation was asked for by the board of managers of the Tribune, apparently because of wide temperamental differences between him and Greeley. Secretary of War Stanton immediately made him a special investigating agent of the war department; in this capacity Dana discovered frauds of quartermasters and contractors, and as the “eyes of the administration,” as Lincoln called him, he spent much time at the front, and sent to Stanton frequent reports concerning the capacity and methods of various generals in the field; he went through the Vicksburg campaign and was at Chickamauga and Chattanooga, and urged the placing of General Grant in supreme command of all the armies in the field. Dana was second assistant-secretary of war in 1864-1865, and in 1865-1866 conducted the newly-established and unsuccessful Chicago Republican. He became the editor and part-owner of the New York Sun in 1868, and remained in control of it until his death at Glen Cove, Long Island, New York, on the 17th of October 1897. Under Dana’s control the Sun opposed the impeachment of President Johnson; it supported Grant for the presidency in 1868; it was a sharp critic of Grant as president; and in 1872 took part in the Liberal Republican revolt and urged Greeley’s nomination. It favoured Tilden, the Democratic candidate for the presidency, in 1876, opposed the Electoral Commission and continually referred to Hayes as the “fraud president.” In 1884 it supported Benjamin F. Butler, the candidate of Greenback-Labor and Anti-Monopolist parties, for the presidency, and opposed Blaine (Republican) and even more bitterly Cleveland (Democrat); it supported Cleveland and opposed Harrison in 1888, although it had bitterly criticized Cleveland’s first administration, and was to criticize nearly every detail of his second, with the exception of Federal interference in the Pullman strike of 1894; and in 1896, on the free-silver issue, it opposed Bryan, the Democratic candidate for the presidency. Dana’s literary style came to be the style of the Sun—simple, strong, clear, “boiled down.” The Art of Newspaper Making, containing three lectures which he wrote on journalism, was published in 1900. With George Ripley he edited The New American Cyclopaedia (15 vols., 1857-1863), reissued as the American Cyclopaedia in 1873-1876. He had excellent taste in the fine arts and edited an anthology, The Household Book of Poetry (1857). He was a very good linguist, published several versions from the German, and read the Romance and Scandinavian languages; he was an art connoisseur and left a remarkable collection of Chinese porcelain. Dana’s Reminiscences of the Civil War was published in 1898, as was his Eastern Journeys, Notes of Travel. He also edited a campaign Life of U. S. Grant, published over his name and that of General James H. Wilson in 1868.

See James Wilson, The Life of Charles A. Dana (New York, 1907).

DANA, FRANCIS (1743-1811), American jurist, was born in Charlestown, Massachusetts, on the 13th of June 1743. He was the son of Richard Dana (1699-1772), a leader of the Massachusetts provincial bar, and a vigorous advocate of colonial rights in the pre-revolutionary period. Francis Dana graduated at Harvard in 1762, was admitted to the bar in 1767, and, being an opponent of the British colonial policy, became a leader of the Sons of Liberty, and in 1774 was a member of the first provincial congress of Massachusetts. During a two years’ visit to England he sought earnestly to gain friends to his colony’s cause, but returned to Boston in April 1776 convinced that a friendly settlement of the dispute was impossible. He was a member of the Massachusetts executive council from 1776 to 1780, and a delegate to the Continental Congress from 1776 to 1778. As a member of the latter body he became chairman in January 1778 of the committee appointed to visit Washington at Valley Forge, and confer with him concerning the reorganization of the army. This committee spent about three months in camp, and assisted Washington in preparing the plan of reorganization which Congress in the main adopted. In this year he was also a member of a committee to consider Lord North’s offer of conciliation, which he vigorously opposed. In the autumn of 1779 he was appointed secretary to John Adams, who had been selected as minister plenipotentiary to negotiate treaties of peace and commerce with Great Britain, and in December 1780 he was appointed diplomatic representative to the Russian government. He remained at St Petersburg from 1781 to 1783, but was never formally received by the empress Catherine. In February 1784 he was again chosen a delegate to Congress, and in January 1785 he became a justice of the Massachusetts supreme court. He was chief justice of this court from 1791 to 1806, and presided with ability and rare distinction. He was an earnest advocate of the adoption of the Federal constitution, was a member of the Massachusetts convention which ratified that instrument, and was one of the most influential advisers of the leaders of the Federalist party. His tastes were scholarly, and he was one of the founders of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He died at Cambridge, Massachusetts, on the 25th of April 1811.

His son, Richard Henry Dana (1787-1879), was born in Cambridge, Massachusetts, on the 15th of November 1787. He was educated at Harvard in the class of 1808. Subsequently he studied law and in 1811 was admitted to practice. But all other interests were early subordinated to his love of literature, to which the greater part of his long life was devoted. He became in 1814 a member of a literary society in Cambridge, known as the Anthology Club. This club began the publication of a monthly magazine, The Monthly Anthology, which gave way in 1815 to The North American Review. In the editorial control of this periodical he was associated with Jared Sparks and Edward T. Channing (1790-1856) until 1821, contributing essays and criticisms which attracted wide attention. In 1821-1822 he edited in New York a short-lived literary magazine, The Idle Man. He published his first volume of Poems in 1827, and in 1833 appeared his Poems and Prose Writings, republished in 1850 in two volumes, in which were included practically all of his poems and of his prose contributions to periodical literature. Although the bulk of his published writings was not large, his influence on American literature during the first half of the 19th century was surpassed by that of few of his contemporaries.

Richard Henry Dana (1815-1882), son of the last-mentioned, was born in Cambridge, Massachusetts, on the 1st of August 1815. He entered Harvard in the class of 1835, but at the beginning of his junior year an illness affecting his sight necessitated a suspension of his college work, and in August 1834 he shipped before the mast for California, returning in September 1836. The rough experience of this voyage did more than endow him with renewed health; it changed him from a dreamy, sensitive boy, hereditarily disinclined to any sort of active career, into a self-reliant, energetic man, with broad interests and keen sympathies. He re-entered Harvard in December 1836 and graduated in June 1837. He was a student at the Harvard law school from 1837 to 1840, and from January 1839 to February 1840 he was also an instructor in elocution in the college. In 1840 the notes of his sea-trip were published under the title Two Years Before the Mast. The book attained an almost unprecedented popularity both in America and in Europe, where it was translated into several languages; and it came to be considered a classic. Immediately after the appearance of this book Dana began the practice of law, which brought him a large number of maritime cases. In 1841 he published The Seaman’s Friend, republished in England as The Seaman’s Manual, which was long the highest authority on the legal rights and duties of seamen. After gaining recognition as one of the most prominent members of the Suffolk bar, he became associated in 1848 with the Free Soil movement, and took a prominent part in the Buffalo convention of that year. This step, which caused him to be ostracized for a time from the Boston circles in which he had been reared, brought him the cases of the fugitive slaves, Shadrach, Sims and Burns, and of the rescuers of Shadrach. On the night following the surrender of Burns (May 1854) Dana was brutally assaulted on the Boston streets. In 1853 he took a prominent part in the state constitutional convention. He allied himself with the Republican party on its organization, but his inborn dislike for political manœuvring prevented his ever becoming prominent in its councils. In 1857 he became a regular attendant at the meetings of the famous Boston Saturday Club, to the members of which he dedicated his account of a vacation trip, To Cuba and Back (1857). He returned to America from a trip round the world in time to participate in the presidential campaign of 1860, and after Lincoln’s inauguration he was appointed United States district attorney for Massachusetts. In this office in 1863 he won before the Supreme Court of the United States the famous prize case of the “Amy Warwick,” on the decision in which depended the right of the government to blockade the Confederate ports, without giving the Confederate States an international status as belligerents. He brought out in 1865 an edition of Wheaton’s International Law, his notes constituting a most learned and valuable authority on international law and its bearings on American history and diplomacy; but immediately after its publication Dana was charged by the editor of two earlier editions, William Beach Lawrence, with infringing his copyright, and was involved in litigation which was continued for thirteen years. In such minor matters as arrangement of notes and verification of citations the court found against Dana, but in the main Dana’s notes were vastly different from Lawrence’s. In 1865 Dana declined an appointment as a United States district judge. During the Reconstruction period he favoured the congressional plan rather than that of President Johnson, and on this account resigned the district-attorneyship. In 1867-1868 he was a member of the Massachusetts House of Representatives, and in 1867 was retained with William M. Evarts to prosecute Jefferson Davis, whose admission to bail he counselled. In 1877 he was one of the counsel for the United States before the commission which in accordance with the treaty of Washington met at Halifax, N.S., to arbitrate the fisheries question between the United States and Great Britain. In 1878 he gave up his law practice and devoted the rest of his life to study and travel. He died in Rome, Italy, on the 9th of January 1882.

See Charles Francis Adams, Richard Henry Dana: a Biography (2 vols., Boston, Mass., 1891).

DANA, JAMES DWIGHT (1813-1895), American geologist, mineralogist and zoologist, was born in Utica, New York, on the 12th of February 1813. He early displayed a taste for science, which had been fostered by Fay Edgerton, a teacher in the Utica high school, and in 1830 he entered Yale College, in order to study under Benjamin Silliman the elder. Graduating in 1833, for the next two years he was teacher of mathematics to midshipmen in the navy, and sailed to the Mediterranean while engaged in his duties. In 1836-1837 he was assistant to Professor Silliman in the chemical laboratory at Yale, and then, for four years, acted as mineralogist and geologist of a United States exploring expedition, commanded by Captain Charles Wilkes, in the Pacific ocean (see Wilkes, Charles). His labours in preparing the reports of his explorations occupied parts of thirteen years after his return to America in 1842. In 1844 he again became a resident of New Haven, married the daughter of Professor Silliman, and in 1850, on the resignation of the latter, was appointed Silliman Professor of Natural History and Geology in Yale College, a position which he held till 1892. In 1846 he became joint editor and during the later years of his life he was chief editor of the American Journal of Science and Arts (founded in 1818 by Benjamin Silliman), to which he was a constant contributor, principally of articles on geology and mineralogy. A bibliographical list of his writings shows 214 titles of books and papers, beginning in 1835 with a paper on the conditions of Vesuvius in 1834, and ending with the fourth revised edition (finished in February 1895) of his Manual of Geology. His reports on Zoophytes, on the Geology of the Pacific Area, and on Crustacea, summarizing his work on the Wilkes expedition, appeared in 1846, 1849 and 1852-1854, in quarto volumes, with copiously illustrated atlases; but as these were issued in small numbers, his reputation more largely rests upon his System of Mineralogy (1837 and many later editions in 1892); Manual of Geology (1862; ed. 4, 1895); Manual of Mineralogy (1848), afterwards entitled Manual of Mineralogy and Lithology (ed. 4, 1887); and Corals and Coral Islands (1872; ed. 2, 1890). In 1887 Dana revisited the Hawaiian Islands, and the results of his further investigations were published in a quarto volume in 1890, entitled Characteristics of Volcanoes. By the Royal Society of London he was awarded the Copley medal in 1877; and by the Geological Society the Wollaston medal in 1874. His powers of work were extraordinary, and in his 82nd year he was occupied in preparing a new edition of his Manual of Geology, the 4th edition being issued in 1895. He died on the 14th of April 1895.

His son Edward Salisbury Dana, born at New Haven on the 16th of November 1849, is author of A Textbook of Mineralogy (1877; new ed. 1898) and a Text Book of Elementary Mechanics (1881). In 1879-80 he was professor of natural philosophy and then became professor of physics at Yale.

See Life of J. D. Dana, by Daniel C. Gilman (1899).

DANAE, in Greek legend, daughter of Acrisius, king of Argos. Her father, having been warned by an oracle that she would bear a son by whom he would be slain, confined Danae in a brazen tower. But Zeus descended to her in a shower of gold, and she gave birth to Perseus, whereupon Acrisius placed her and her infant in a wooden box and threw them into the sea. They were finally driven ashore on the island of Seriphus, where they were picked up by a fisherman named Dictys. His brother Polydectes, who was king of the island, fell in love with Danae and married her. According to another story, her son Perseus, on his return with the head of Medusa, finding his mother persecuted by Polydectes, turned him into stone, and took Danae back with him to Argos. Latin legend represented her as landing on the coast of Latium and marrying Pilumnus or Picumnus, from whom Turnus, king of the Rutulians, was descended. Danae formed the subject of tragedies by Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides, Livius Andronicus and Naevius. She is the personification of the earth suffering from drought, on which the fertilizing rain descends from heaven.

Apollodorus ii. 4; Sophocles, Antigone, 944; Horace, Odes, iii. 16; Virgil, Aeneid, vii. 410. See also P. Schwarz, De Fabula Danaeia (1881).

DANAO, a town of the province of Cebú, island of Cebú, Philippine Islands, on the E. coast, at the mouth of the Danao river, 17 m. N.N.E. of Cebú, the capital. Pop. (1903) 16,173. Danao has a comparatively cool and healthy climate, is the centre of a rich agricultural region producing rice, Indian corn, sugar, copra and cacao, and coal is mined in the vicinity. The language is Cebú-Visayan.

DANAUS, in Greek legend, son of Belus, king of Egypt, and twin-brother of Aegyptus. He was born at Chemmis (Panopolis) in Egypt, but having been driven out by his brother he fled with his fifty daughters to Argos, the home of his ancestress Io. Here he became king and taught the inhabitants of the country to dig wells. In the meantime the fifty sons of Aegyptus arrived in Argos, and Danaus was obliged to consent to their marriage with his daughters. But to each of these he gave a knife with injunctions to slay her husband on the marriage night. They all obeyed except Hyperm(n)estra, who spared Lynceus. She was brought to trial by her father, acquitted and afterwards married to her lover. Being unable to find suitors for the other daughters, Danaus offered them in marriage to the youths of the district who proved themselves victorious in racing contests (Pindar, Pythia, ix. 117). According to another story, Lynceus slew Danaus and his daughters and seized the throne of Argos (schol. on Euripides, Hecuba, 886). By way of expiation for their crime the Danaïdes were condemned to the endless task of filling with water a vessel which had no bottom. This punishment, originally inflicted on those who neglected certain mystic rites, was transferred to those who, like the Danaïdes, despised the mystic rite of marriage; cf. the water-bearing figure (λουτροφόρος) on the grave of unmarried persons. The murder of the sons of Aegyptus by their wives is supposed to represent the drying up of the rivers and springs of Argolis in summer by the agency of the nymphs.

Apollodorus ii. 1; Horace, Odes, iii. 11; O. Waser, in Archiv für Religionswissenschaft, ii. Heft 1, 1899; articles in Pauly-Wissowa’s Realencyclopädie and W. H. Roscher’s Lexikon der Mythologie; Campbell Bonner, in Harvard Studies, xiii. (1902).

DANBURITE, a rare mineral species consisting of calcium and boron orthosilicate, CaB2(SiO4)2, crystallizing in the orthorhombic system. It was discovered by C.U. Shepard in 1839 at Danbury, Connecticut, U.S.A., and named by him after this locality. The crystals are prismatic in habit, and closely resemble topaz in form and interfacial angles. There is an imperfect cleavage parallel to the basal plane. Crystals are transparent to translucent, and colourless to pale yellow; hardness 7; specific gravity 3.0. At Danbury the mineral occurs with microcline and oligoclase embedded in dolomite. Large crystals, reaching 4 in. in length, have been found with calcite in veins traversing granite at Russell in St Lawrence county, New York. Smaller but well-developed crystals have been found on gneiss at Mt. Scopi and Petersthal (the valley of the Vals Rhine) in Switzerland. Splendid crystals have recently been obtained from Japan.

DANBURY, a city and one of the county-seats of Fairfield county, Connecticut, U.S.A., in Danbury township, in the south-west part of the state, on the Still river, a tributary of the Housatonic. Pop. (1890) 16,552; (1900) 16,537 (3702 foreign-born); (1910) 20,234. In 1900 the population of the township, including that of the city, was 19,474, and in 1910, 23,502. Danbury is served by three divisions of the New York, New Haven & Hartford railway; by the Danbury & Harlem electric railway, which connects at Goldens Bridge, New York, with the Harlem division of the New York Central; and by an electric line to Bethel, Connecticut. Lake Kenosia, about 2½ m. from the centre of the city, is a pleasure resort. A state normal school was opened in Danbury in 1904, and there is a home for destitute and homeless children under private (unsectarian) control. The city has good water-power, and the municipality owns the water works. The principal industry is the manufacture of felt hats, begun in 1780, and in 1905 engaging about thirty factories, with a product for the year valued at $5,798,107 (71.9% of the value of all the factory products of the city, and 15.8% of the value of all the felt hats produced in the United States). The city ranked first among the cities of the country in this industry in 1900 and second in 1905, and in 1905 no other city showed so high a degree of specialization in it. Silver-plated ware (mostly manufactured by Rogers Bros.) is another important product. At Danbury is held annually the well-known agricultural Danbury Fair. The township was settled in 1684 by emigrants from Norwalk, and received its present name in 1687. When the War of Independence opened, Enoch Crosby, believed to be the original of Harvey Birch, the hero of J. F. Cooper’s The Spy, was a resident of Danbury. A depot of military supplies was established in the village of Danbury in 1776; in April 1777 Governor William Tryon, of New York, raided the place, destroying the military stores and considerable private property. During his retreat he was attacked (April 26th) at Ridgefield (about 9 m. south by east of Danbury) by the Americans under General David Wooster (1710-1777), who was fatally wounded in the conflict (being succeeded by General Benedict Arnold), and to whose memory a monument was erected in Danbury in 1854. Danbury was chartered as a borough in 1832 and as a city in 1880. In 1870 the Danbury News was established by the consolidation of the Jeffersonian and the Times, by James Montgomery Bailey (1841-1894), from 1865 to 1870 proprietor of the Times. He wrote for the News humorous sketches, which made him and the paper famous, Bailey being known as the “Danbury News Man”; among his books are Life in Danbury (1873), The Danbury News Man’s Almanac (1873), They All Do It (1877), England from a Back Window (1878), Mr Philip’s Goneness (1879), The Danbury Boom (1880), and History of Danbury (1896).

DANBY, FRANCIS (1793-1861), English painter, was born in the south of Ireland on the 16th of November 1793. His father farmed a small property he owned near Wexford, but his death caused the family to remove to Dublin, while Francis was still a schoolboy. He began to practice drawing at the Royal Dublin Society’s schools; and under an erratic young artist named O’Connor he began painting landscape. Danby also made acquaintance with George Petrie, and all three left for London together in 1813. This expedition, undertaken with very inadequate funds, quickly came to an end, and they had to get home again by walking. At Bristol they made a pause, and Danby, finding he could get trifling sums for water-colour drawings, remained there working diligently and sending to the London exhibitions pictures of importance. There his large pictures in oil quickly attracted attention. “The Upas Tree” (1820) and “The Delivery of the Israelites” (1825) brought him his election as an associate of the Royal Academy. He left Bristol for London, and in 1828 exhibited his “Opening of the Sixth Seal” at the British Institution, receiving from that body a prize of 200 guineas; and this picture was followed by two others from the Apocalypse. He suddenly left London, declaring that he would never live there again, and that the Academy, instead of aiding him, had, somehow or other, used him badly. Some insurmountable domestic difficulty overtook him also, and for eleven or twelve years he lived on the Lake of Geneva, a Bohemian with boat-building fancies, painting only now and then. He returned to England in 1841, when his sons, James and Thomas, both artists, were growing up. Other pictures by him were “The Golden Age” and “The Evening Gun,” the first begun before he left England, the second painted after his return; he had taken up his abode at Exmouth, where he died on the 9th of February 1861.

DANCE, the name of an English family distinguished in architecture, art and the drama. George Dance, the elder (1700-1768), obtained the appointment of architect to the city of London, and designed the Mansion House (1739); the churches of St Botolph, Aldgate (1741), St Luke’s, Old Street; St Leonard, Shoreditch; the old excise office; Broad Street; and other public works of importance. He died on the 8th of February 1768. His eldest son, James Dance (1722-1744), was born on the 17th of March 1722, and educated at the Merchant Taylors’ School and St John’s College, Oxford, which he left before graduating. He took the name of Love, and became an actor and playwright of no great merit. In the former capacity he was for twelve years connected with Drury Lane theatre. He wrote “an heroic poem” on Cricket, about 1740, and a volume of Poems on Several Occasions (1754), and a number of comedies—the earliest Pamela (1742).

George Dance’s third son, Sir Nathaniel Dance-Holland, Bart. (1735-1811), was born on the 18th of May 1735, and studied art under Francis Hayman, and in Italy, where he met Angelica Kauffmann, to whom he was devotedly and hopelessly attached. From Rome he sent home “Dido and Aeneas” (1763), and he continued to paint occasional historical pictures of the same quasi-classic kind throughout his career. On his return to England he took up portrait-painting with great success, and contributed to the first exhibition of the Royal Academy, of which he was a foundation member, full-length portraits of George III. and his queen. These, and his portraits of Captain Cook and of Garrick as Richard III., engraved by Dixon, are his best-known works. Himself a rich man, in 1790 he married a widow with £15,000 a year, dropped his profession, and became M.P. for East Grinstead, taking the additional name of Holland. He was made a baronet in 1800. He died on the 15th of October 1811, leaving a fortune of £200,000.

George Dance’s fifth and youngest son, George Dance, the younger (1741-1825), succeeded his father as city surveyor and architect in 1768. He was then only twenty-seven, had spent several years abroad, chiefly in Italy with his brother Nathaniel, and had already distinguished himself by designs for Blackfriars Bridge sent to the 1761 exhibition of the Incorporated Society of Artists. His first important public work was the rebuilding of Newgate prison in 1770. The front of the Guildhall was also his. He, too, was a foundation member of the Royal Academy, and for a number of years the last survivor of the forty original academicians. His last years were devoted to art rather than to architecture, and after 1798 his Academy contributions consisted solely of chalk portraits of his friends, seventy-two of which were engraved and published (1808-1814). He resigned his office in 1815, and after many years of illness died on the 14th of January 1825, and was buried in St Paul’s. His son, Charles Dance (1794-1863), was for thirty years registrar, taxing officer and chief clerk of the insolvent debtors’ court, retiring, when it was abolished, on an allowance. In collaboration with J. R. Planché and others, or alone, he wrote a great number of extravaganzas, farces and comediettas. He was one of the first, if not the first, of the burlesque writers, and was the author of those produced so successfully by Madame Vestris for years at the Olympic. Of his farces, Delicate Ground, Who Speaks First?, A Morning Call and others are still occasionally revived. He died on the 6th of January 1863.

DANCE (Fr. danse; of obscure origin, connected with Old High Ger. danson, to stretch). The term “dancing” in its widest sense includes three things:—(1) the spontaneous activity of the muscles under the influence of some strong emotion, such as social joy or religious exultation; (2) definite combinations of graceful movements performed for the sake of the pleasure which the exercise affords to the dancer or to the spectator; (3) carefully trained movements which are meant by the dancer vividly to represent the actions and passions of other people. In the highest sense it seems to be for prose-gesture what song is for the instinctive exclamations of feeling. Regarded as the outlet or expression of strong feeling, dancing does not require much discussion, for the general rule applies that such demonstrations for a time at least sustain and do not exhaust the flow of feeling. The voice and the facial muscles and many of the organs are affected at the same time, and the result is a high state of vitality which among the spinning Dervishes or in the ecstatic worship of Bacchus and Cybele amounted to something like madness. Even here there is traceable an undulatory movement which, as Herbert Spencer says, is “habitually generated by feeling in its bodily discharge.” But it is only in the advanced or volitional stage of dancing that we find developed the essential feature of measure, which has been said to consist in “the alternation of stronger muscular contractions with weaker ones,” an alternation which, except in the cases of savages and children, “is compounded with longer rises and falls in the degree of muscular excitement.” In analysing the state of mind which this measured dancing produces, we must first of all allow for the pleasant glow of excitement caused by the excess of blood sent to the brain. But apart from this, there is an agreeable sense of uniformity in the succession of muscular efforts, and in the spaces described, and also in the period of their recurrence. If the steps of dancing and the intervals of time be not precisely equal, there is still a pleasure depending on the gradually increasing intensity of motion, on the undulation which uniformly rises in order to fall. As Florizel says to Perdita, “When you do dance, I wish you a wave of the sea” (Winter’s Tale, iv. 3). The mind feels the beauty of emphasis and cadence in muscular motion, just as much as in musical notes. Then, the figure of the dance is frequently a circle or some more graceful curve or series of curves,—a fact which satisfies the dancer as well as the eye of the spectator. But all such effects are intensified by the use of music, which not only brings a perfectly distinct set of pleasurable sensations to dancer and spectator, but by the control of dancing produces an inexpressibly sweet harmony of sound and motion. This harmony is further enriched if there be two dancing together on one plan, or a large company of dancers executing certain evolutions, the success of which depends on the separate harmonies of all the couples. The fundamental condition is that throughout the dance all the dancers keep within their bases of gravity. This is not only required for the dancers’ own enjoyment, but, as in the famous Mercury on tiptoe, it is essential to the beautiful effect for the spectator. The idea of much being safely supported by little is what proves attractive in the posturing ballet. But this is merely one condition of graceful dancing, and if it be made the chief object the dancer sinks into the acrobat.

Dancing is, in fact, the universal human expression, by movements of the limbs and body, of a sense of rhythm which is implanted among the primitive instincts of the animal world. The rhythmic principle of motion extends throughout the universe, governing the lapse of waves, the flow of tides, the reverberations of light and sound, and the movements of celestial bodies; and in the human organism it manifests itself in the automatic pulses and flexions of the blood and tissues. Dancing is merely the voluntary application of the rhythmic principle, when excitement has induced an abnormally rapid oxidization of brain tissue, to the physical exertion by which the overcharged brain is relieved. This is primitive dancing; and it embraces all movements of the limbs and body expressive of joy or grief, all pantomimic representations of incidents in the lives of the dancers, all performances in which movements of the body are employed to excite the passions of hatred or love, pity or revenge, or to arouse the warlike instincts, and all ceremonies in which such movements express homage or worship, or are used as religious exercises. Although music is not an essential part of dancing, it almost invariably accompanies it, even in the crudest form of a rhythm beaten out on a drum.

Primitive and Ancient Dancing.—In Tigrè the Abyssinians dance the chassée step in a circle, and keep time by shrugging their shoulders and working their elbows backwards and forwards. At intervals the dancers squat on the ground, still moving the arms and shoulders in the same way. The Bushmen dance in their low-roofed rooms supporting themselves by sticks; one foot remains motionless, the other dances in a wild irregular manner, while the hands are occupied with the sticks. The Gonds, a hill-tribe of Hindustan, dance generally in pairs, with a shuffling step, the eyes on the ground, the arms close to the body, and the elbows at an angle with the closed hand. Advancing to a point, the dancer suddenly erects his head, and wheels round to the starting point. The women of the Pultooah tribe dance in a circle, moving backwards and forwards in a bent posture. The Santal women, again, are slow and graceful in dance; joining hands, they form themselves into the arc of a circle, towards the centre of which they advance and then retire, moving at the same time slightly towards the right, so as to complete the circle in an hour. The Kukis of Assam have only the rudest possible step, an awkward hop with the knees very much bent. The national dance of the Kamchadale is one of the most violent known, every muscle apparently quivering at every movement. But there, and in some other cases where men and women dance together, there is a trace of deliberate obscenity; the dance is, in fact, a rude representation of sexual passion. It has been said that some of the Tasmanian corrobories have a phallic design. The Yucatan dance of naual may also be mentioned. The Andamans hop on one foot and swing the arms violently backwards and forwards. The Veddahs jump with both feet together, patting their bodies, or clapping their hands, and make a point of bringing their long hair down in front of the face. In New Caledonia the dance consists of a series of twistings of the body, the feet being lifted alternately, but without change of place. The Fijians jump half round from side to side with their arms akimbo. The only modulation of the Samoan dance is one of time—a crescendo movement, which is well-known in the modern ball-room. The Javans are perhaps unique in their distinct and graceful gestures of the hands and fingers. At a Mexican feast called Huitzilopochtli, the noblemen and women danced tied together at the hands, and embracing one another, the arms being thrown over the neck. This resembles the dance variously known as the Greek Bracelet or Brawl, Ὅρμος, or Bearsfeet; but all of them1 probably are to a certain extent symbolical of the relations between the sexes. Actual contact of the partners, however, is quite intelligible as matter of pure dancing; for, apart altogether from the pleasure of the embrace, the harmony of the double rotation adds very much to the enjoyment. In a very old Peruvian dance of ceremony before the Inca, several hundreds of men formed a chain, each taking hold of the hand of the man beyond his immediate neighbour, and the whole body moving forwards and backwards three steps at a time as they approached the throne. In this, as in the national dance of the Coles of Lower Bengal, there was perhaps a suggestion of “l’union fait la force.” In Yucatan stilts were occasionally used for dancing.

It seldom happens that dancing takes place without accompaniment, either by the dancers or by others. This is not merely because the feelings which find relief in dancing express themselves at the same time in other forms; in some cases, indeed, the vocal and instrumental elements largely predominate, and form the ground-work of the whole emotional demonstration. Whether they do so or not will of course depend on the intellectual advancement of the nation or tribe and upon the particular development of their aesthetical sensibility. A striking instance occurs among the Zulus, whose grand dances are merely the accompaniment to the colloquial war and hunting songs, in which the women put questions which are answered by the men. So also in Tahiti there is a set of national ballads and songs, referring to many events in the past and present lives of the people. The fisherman, the woodsman, the canoe-builder, has each his trade song, which on public occasions at least is illustrated by dancing. But the accompaniment is often consciously intended, by an appeal to the ear, to regulate and sustain the excitement of the muscles. And a close relation will be found always to exist between the excellence of a nation’s dancing and the excellence or complexity of its music and poetry. In some cases the performer himself sings or marks time by the clanking of ornaments on his person. In others the accompaniment consists sometimes of a rude chant improvised by those standing round, or of music from instruments, or of mere clapping of the hands, or of striking one stick against another or on the ground, or of “marking time,” in the technical sense. The Tasmanians beat on a rolled-up kangaroo-skin. The Kamchadales make a noise like a continuous hiccough all through the dance. The Andamans use a large hollow dancing-board, on which one man is set apart to stamp. Sometimes it is the privilege of the tribal chief to sing the accompaniment while his people dance. The savages of New Caledonia whistle and strike upon the hip.

The rude imitative dances of early civilization are of extreme interest. In the same way the dances of the Ostyak tribes (Northern Asiatic) imitate the habitual sports of the chase and the gambols of the wolf and the bear and other wild beasts, the dancing consisting mainly of sudden leaps and violent turns which exhaust the muscular powers of the whole body. The Kamchadales, too, in dancing, imitate bears, dogs and birds. The Kru dances of the Coast Negroes represent hunting scenes; and on the Congo, before the hunters start, they go through a dance imitating the habits of the gorilla and its movements when attacked. The Damara dance is a mimic representation of the movements of oxen and sheep, four men stooping with their heads in contact and uttering harsh cries. The canter of the baboon is the humorous part of the ceremony. The Bushmen dance in long irregular jumps, which they compare to the leaping of a herd of calves, and the Hottentots not only go on all-fours to counterfeit the baboon, but they have a dance in which the buzzing of a swarm of bees is represented. The Kennowits in Borneo introduce the mias and the deer for the same purpose. The Australians and Tasmanians in their dances called corrobories imitate the frog and the kangaroo (both leaping animals). The hunt of the emu is also performed, a number of men passing slowly round the fire and throwing their arrows about so as to imitate the movements of the animal’s head while feeding. The Gonds are fond of dancing the bison hunt, one man with skin and horns taking the part of the animal. Closely allied to these are the mimic fights, almost universal among tribes to which war is one of the great interests of life. The Bravery dance of the Dahomans and the Hoolee of the Bhil tribe in the Vindhya Hills are illustrations. The latter seems to have been reduced to an amusement conducted by professionals who go from village to village,—the battle being engaged in by women with long poles on the one side, and men with short cudgels on the other. There is here an element of comedy, which also appears in the Fiji club-dance. This, although no doubt originally suggested by war, is enlivened by the presence of a clown covered with leaves and wearing a mask. The monotonous song accompanying the club-dance is by way of commentary or explanation. So, also, in Guatemala there is a public baile or dance, in which all the performers, wearing the skins and heads of beasts, go through a mock battle, which always ends in the victory of those wearing the deer’s head. At the end the victors trace in the sand with a pole the figure of some animal; and this exhibition is supposed to have some historical reference. But nearly all savage tribes have a regular war-dance, in which they appear in fighting costume, handle their weapons, and go through the movements of challenge, conflict, pursuit or defeat. The women generally supply the stimulus of music. There is one very picturesque dance of the Natal Kaffirs, which probably refers to the departure of the warriors for the battle. The women appeal plaintively to the men, who slowly withdraw, stamping on the ground and darting their short spears or assegais towards the sky. In Madagascar, when the men are absent on war, the women dance for a great part of the day, believing that this inspires their husbands with courage. In this, however, there may be some religious significance. These war-dances are totally distinct from the institution of military drill, which belongs to a later period, when social life has become less impulsive and more reflective.2 There can be little doubt that some of the characteristic movements of these primitive hunting and war-dances survive in the smooth and ceremonious dances of the present day. But the early mimetic dance was not confined to these two subjects; it embraced the other great events of savage life—the drama of courtship and marriage, the funeral dance, the consecration of labour, the celebration of harvest or vintage;3 sometimes, too, purely fictitious scenes of dramatic interest, while other dances degenerated into games. For instance, in Yucatan one man danced in a cowering attitude round a circle, while another followed, hurling at him bohordos or canes, which were adroitly caught on a small stick. Again, in Tasmania, the dances of the women describe their “clamber for the opossum, diving for shell-fish, digging for roots, nursing children and quarrelling with husbands.” Another dance, in which a woman by gesture taunts a chieftain with cowardice, gives him an opportunity of coming forward and recounting his courageous deeds in dance. The funeral dance of the Todas (another Indian hill-tribe) consists in walking backwards and forwards, without variation, to a howling tune of “ha! hoo!” The meaning of this is obscure, but it can scarcely be solely an outburst of grief. In Dahomey the blacksmiths, carpenters, hunters, braves and bards, with their various tools and instruments, join in a dramatic dance. We may add here a form of dance which is almost precisely equivalent to the spoken incantation. It is used by the professional devil-dancer of the wild Veddahs for the cure of diseases. An offering of eatables is put on a tripod of sticks, and the dancer, decorated with green leaves, goes into a paroxysm of dancing, in the midst of which he receives the required information. This, however, rather belongs to the subject of religious dances.

It is impossible here to enumerate either the names or the forms of the sacred dances which formed so prominent a part of the worship of antiquity. A mystic philosophy found in them a resemblance to the courses of the stars. This Pythagorean idea was expanded by Sir John Davies, in his epic poem Orchestra, published in 1596. They were probably adapted to many purposes,—to thanksgiving, praise, supplication and humiliation. It is only one striking illustration of this widespread practice, that there was at Rome a very ancient order of priests especially named Salii, who struck their shields and sang assamenta as they danced. The practice reappeared in the early church, special provision being made for dancing in the choir. Scaliger, who astonished Charles V. by his dancing powers, says the bishops were called Praesules, because they led the dance on feast days. According to some of the fathers, the angels are always dancing, and the glorious company of the apostles is really a chorus of dancers. Dancing, however, fell into discredit with the feast of the Agapae. St Augustine says, “Melius est fodere quam saltare”; and the practice was generally prohibited for some time. No church or sect has raged so fiercely against the cardinal sin of dancing as the Albigenses of Languedoc and the Waldenses, who agreed in calling it the devil’s procession. After the middle of the 18th century there were still traces of religious dancing in the cathedrals of Spain, Portugal and Roussillon—especially in the Mozarabic Mass of Toledo. An account of the numerous secular dances, public and private, of Greece and Rome will be found in the classical histories, and in J. Weaver’s Essay towards a History of Dancing, (London, 1712), which, however, must be revised by more recent authorities. The Pyrrhic (derived from the Memphitic) in all its local varieties, the Bacchanalia and the Hymenaea were among the more important. The name of Lycurgus is also associated with the Trichoria. Among the stage dances of the Athenians, which formed interludes to the regular drama, one of the oldest was the Delian dance of the Labyrinth, ascribed to Theseus, and called Γέρανος, from its resemblance to the flight of cranes, and one of the most powerful was the dance of the Eumenides. A further development of the art took place at Rome, under Augustus, when Pylades and Bathyllus brought serious and comic pantomime to great perfection. The subjects chosen were such as the labours of Hercules, and the surprise of Venus and Mars by Vulcan. The state of public feeling on the subject is well shown in Lucian’s amusing dialogue De Saltatione. Before this Rome had only very inferior buffoons, who attended dinner parties, and whose art traditions belonged not to Greece, but to Etruria.4 Apparently, however, the Romans, though fond of ceremony and of the theatre, were by temperament not great dancers in private. Cicero says: “Nemo fere saltat sobrius, nisi forte insanit.” But the Italic dance of the imperial theatre, supported by music and splendid dresses, supplanted for a time the older dramas. It was the policy of Augustus to cultivate other than political interests for the people; and he passed laws for the protection and privilege of the pantomimists. They were freed from the jus virgarum, and they used their freedom against the peace of the city. Tiberius and Domitian oppressed and banished them; Trajan and Aurelius gave them such titles as decurions and priests of Apollo; but the pantomime stage soon yielded to the general corruption of the empire.

Modern Dancing.—In modern civilized countries dancing has developed as an art and pastime, as an entertainment. Its direct application to arouse emotion or religious feeling tends to be obscured and finally dropped out.

Italy, in the 15th century, saw the renaissance of dancing, and France may be said to have been the nursery of the modern art, though comparatively few modern dances are really French in origin. The national dances of other countries were brought to France, studied systematically, and made perfect there. An English or a Bohemian dance, practised only amongst peasants, would be taken to France, polished and perfected, and would at last find its way back to its own country, no more recognizable than a piece of elegant cloth when it returns from the printer to the place from which as “grey” material it was sent. The fact that the terminology of dancing is almost entirely French is a sufficient indication of the origin of the rules that govern it. The earliest dances that bear any relation to the modern art are probably the danses basses and danses hautes of the 16th century. The danse basse was the dance of the court of Charles IX. and of good society, the steps being very grave and dignified, not to say solemn, and the accompaniment a psalm tune. The danses hautes or baladines had a skipping step, and were practised only by clowns and country people. More lively dances, such as the Gaillarde and Volta, were introduced into France from Italy by Catherine de’ Medici, but even in these the interest was chiefly spectacular. Other dances of the same period were the Branle (afterwards corrupted to Braule, and known in England as the Brawle)—a kind of generic dance which was capable of an almost infinite amount of variety. Thus there were imitative dances—Branles mimés, such as the Branles des Ermites, Branles des flambeaux and the Branles des lavandières. The Branle in its original form had steps like the Allemande. Perhaps the most famous and stately dance of this period was the Pavane (of Spanish origin), which is very fully described in Tabouret’s Orchésographie, the earliest work in which a dance is found minutely described. The Pavane, which was really more a procession than a dance, must have been a very gorgeous and noble sight, and it was perfectly suited to the dress of the period, the stiff brocades of the ladies and the swords and heavily-plumed hats of the gentlemen being displayed in its simple and dignified measures to great advantage. The dancers in the time of Henry III. of France usually sang, while performing the Pavane, a chanson, of which this is one of the verses:

“Approche donc, ma belle, Approche-toi, mon bien; Ne me sois plus rebelle, Puisque mon cœur est tien; Pour mon âme apaiser, Donne-moi un baiser.”

In the Pavane and Branle, and in nearly all the dances of the 17th and 18th centuries, the practice of kissing formed a not unimportant part, and seems to have added greatly to the popularity of the pastime. Another extremely popular dance was the Saraband, which, however, died out after the 17th century. It was originally a Spanish dance, but enjoyed an enormous success for a time in France. Every dance at that time had its own tune or tunes, which were called by its own name, and of the Saraband the chevalier de Grammont wrote that “it either charmed or annoyed everyone, for all the guitarists of the court began to learn it, and God only knows the universal twanging that followed.” Vauquelin des Yveteaux, in his eightieth year, desired to die to the tune of the Saraband, “so that his soul might pass away sweetly.” After the Pavane came the Courante, a court dance performed on tiptoe with slightly jumping steps and many bows and curtseys. The Courante is one of the most important of the strictly modern dances. The minuet and the waltz were both in some degree derived from it, and it had much in common with the famous Seguidilla of Spain. It was a favourite dance of Louis XIV., who was an adept in the art, and it was regarded in his time as of such importance that a nobleman’s education could hardly have been said to be begun until he had mastered the Courante.

The dance which the French brought to the greatest perfection—which many, indeed, regard as the fine flower of the art—was the Minuet. Its origin, as a rustic dance, is not less antique than that of the other dances from which the modern art has been evolved. It was originally a branle of Poitou, derived from the Courante. It came to Paris in 1650, and was first set to music by Lully. It was at first a gay and lively dance, but on being brought to court it soon lost its sportive character and became grave and dignified. It is mentioned by Beauchamps, the father of dancing-masters, who flourished in Louis XIV.’s reign, and also by Blondy, his pupil; but it was Pécour who really gave the minuet its popularity, and although it was improved and made perfect by Dauberval, Gardel, Marcel and Vestris, it was in Louis XV.’s reign that it saw its golden age. It was then a dance for two in moderate triple time, and was generally followed by the gavotte. Afterwards the minuet was considerably developed, and with the gavotte became chiefly a stage dance and a means of display; but it should be remembered that the minuets which are now danced on the stage are generally highly elaborated with a view to their spectacular effect, and have imported into them steps and figures which do not belong to the minuet at all, but are borrowed from all kinds of other dances. The original court minuet was a grave and simple dance, although it did not retain its simplicity for long. But when it became elaborated it was glorified and moulded into a perfect expression of an age in which deportment was most sedulously cultivated and most brilliantly polished. The “languishing eye and smiling mouth” had their due effect in the minuet; it was a school for chivalry, courtesy and ceremony; the hundred slow graceful movements and curtseys, the pauses which had to be filled by neatly-turned compliments, the beauty and bravery of attire—all were eloquent of graces and outward refinements which we cannot boast now. The fact that the measure of the minuet has become incorporated in the structure of the symphony shows how important was its place in the polite world. The Gavotte, which was often danced as a pendant to the minuet, was also originally a peasant’s dance, a danse des Gavots, and consisted chiefly of kissing and capering. It also became stiff and artificial, and in the later and more prudish half of the 18th century the ladies received bouquets instead of kisses in dancing the gavotte. It rapidly became a stage dance, and it has never been restored to the ballroom. Grétry attempted to revive it, but his arrangement never became popular. Other dances which were naturalized in France were the Écossaise, popular in 1760; the Cotillon, fashionable under Charles X., derived from the peasant branles and danced by ladies in short skirts; the Galop, imported from Germany; the Lancers, invented by Laborde in 1836; the Polka, brought by a dancing-master from Prague in 1840; the Schottische, also Bohemian, first introduced in 1844; the Bourrée, or French clog-dance; the Quadrille, known in the 18th century as the Contre-danse; and the Waltz, which was danced as a volte by Henry III. of France, but only became popular in the beginning of the 19th century. We shall return to the history of some of these later dances in discussing the dances at present in use.

If France has been the nursery and school of the art of dancing, Spain is its true home. There it is part of the national life, the inevitable expression of the gay, contented, irresponsible, sunburnt nature of the people. The form of Spanish dances has hardly changed; some of them are of great antiquity, and may be traced back with hardly a break to the performances in ancient Rome of the famous dancing-girls of Cadiz. The connexion is lost during the period of the Arab invasion, but the art was not neglected, and Jovellanos suggests that it took refuge in the Asturias. At any rate, dances of the 10th and 12th centuries have been preserved uncorrupted. The earliest dances known were the Turdion, the Gibidana, the Pié-de-gibao, and (later) the Madama Orleans, the Alemana and the Pavana. Under Philip IV. theatrical dancing was in high popularity, and ballets were organized with extraordinary magnificence of decoration and costume. They supplanted the national dances, and the Zarabanda and Chacona were practically extinct in the 18th century. It is at this period that the famous modern Spanish dances, the Bolero, Seguidilla and the Fandango, first appear. Of these the Fandango is the most important. It is danced by two people in 6-8 time, beginning slowly and tenderly, the rhythm marked by the click of castanets, the snapping of the fingers and the stamping of feet, and the speed gradually increasing until a whirl of exaltation is reached. A feature of the Fandango and also of the Seguidilla is a sudden pause of the music towards the end of each measure, upon which the dancers stand rigid in the attitudes in which the stopping of the music found them, and only move again when the music is resumed. M. Vuillier, in his History of Dancing, gives the following description of the Fandango:—“Like an electric shock, the notes of the Fandango animate all hearts. Men and women, young and old, acknowledge the power of this air over the ears and soul of every Spaniard. The young men spring to their places, rattling castanets or imitating their sound by snapping their fingers. The girls are remarkable for the willowy languor and lightness of their movements, the voluptuousness of their attitudes—beating the exactest time with tapping heels. Partners tease and entreat and pursue each other by turns. Suddenly the music stops, and each dancer shows his skill by remaining absolutely motionless, bounding again into the full life of the Fandango as the orchestra strikes up. The sound of the guitar, the violin, the rapid tic-tac of heels (taconeos), the crack of fingers and castanets, the supple swaying of the dancers, fill the spectator with ecstasy. The measure whirls along in a rapid triple time. Spangles glitter; the sharp clank of ivory and ebony castanets beats out the cadence of strange, throbbing, deepening notes—assonances unknown to music, but curiously characteristic, effective and intoxicating. Amidst the rustle of silks, smiles gleam over white teeth, dark eyes sparkle and droop and flash up again in flame. All is flutter and glitter, grace and animation—quivering, sonorous, passionate, seductive.”

The Bolero is a comparatively modern dance, having been invented by Sebastian Cerezo, a celebrated dancer of the time of King Charles III. It is remarkable for the free use made in it of the arms, and is said to be derived from the ancient Zarabanda, a violent and licentious dance, which has entirely disappeared, and with which the later Saraband has practically nothing in common. The step of the Bolero is low and gliding but well marked. It is danced by one or more couples. The Seguidilla is hardly less ancient than the Fandango, which it resembles. Every province in Spain has its own Seguidilla, and the dance is accompanied by coplas, or verses, which are sung either to traditional melodies or to the tunes of local composers; indeed, the national music of Spain consists largely of these coplas. Baron Davillier, among several specimens of Seguidillas, gives this one