VOLUME VIII SLICE VIII Dubner to Dyeing (continued 11)
Reading edition
(D. H.)
II. Operations on Land
The contemporary military history of Europe included, first, the war between France and Spain, 1654-59, usually called the Spanish Fronde, of which the most notable incident was the great battle of the Dunes fought on the 14th of June 1658 between the French and English under Turenne and the Spaniards under Condé, in which a contingent of Cromwell’s soldiers bore a conspicuous part. About the same time a war was fought in northern Europe (1655-60), celebrated chiefly for the three days’ battle of Warsaw (28th, 29th, 30th July 1656), and the successful invasion of Denmark by the Swedes, carried out from island to island over the frozen sea (February 1658), and culminating in a long siege of Copenhagen (1658-59). Between the second and third wars of England and the United Provinces came the short War of Devolution (1667-68)—a war of sieges in the Low Countries in which the French were commanded chiefly by Turenne. In 1668 the French under Condé made a rapid conquest of Franche-Comté. This was, however, given up at the peace. The war of 1672-78, the first of the three great wars of Louis XIV., was fought on a grander scale.
Invasion of Holland, 1672.—The diplomacy of Louis had, before the outbreak of war, deprived Holland of her allies—England (treaty of Dover, 1670), Sweden (treaty of Stockholm, 1672) and the emperor, and when he declared war on the United Provinces in March 1672, it seemed that the Dutch could offer little resistance. The French army under Louis in person started from Charleroi and marched down the Meuse unopposed. The powerful Dutch fortress of Maastricht was masked, and the French then moved towards Düsseldorf. In the electorate of Cologne they were in friendly country, and the main army soon moved down the Rhine from Düsseldorf, the corps of Turenne on the left bank, that of Condé on the right. At the same time a corps under Marshal Luxemburg, composed of Louis’ German allies (Cologne and Münster) moved from Westphalia towards Over-Yssel and Groningen. The Rhine fortresses offered but little resistance to the advance of Turenne and Condé. William of Orange with a weak field army tried to defend the Yssel-Rhine line, but the French rapidly forced the passage of the Rhine at Tollhuis (June 12th) and passed into the Betuwe (between the Leck and the Waal). Condé now advised a cavalry raid on Amsterdam, but Louis, acting on the suggestion of the war minister Louvois, preferred to reduce Nijmwegen, Gorinchem and other places, before entering Utrecht province. Condé’s plan was, however, partially carried out by Count Rochefort, who with 1800 troopers captured successively Amersfoort and Naarden. His further progress was checked at Muyden, which the Dutch garrisoned in the nick of time, and he returned to the main army, taking Utrecht en route. Louis now moved on Amsterdam, brushing aside the feeble opposition which was offered, and it seemed that the French must achieve their object in one short campaign. But the Dutch people were roused. The month before, the citizens of Utrecht had refused to raze their suburban villas, and defence of the fortifications had consequently been impossible. Now, the dykes were cut and the sluices opened, and Amsterdam was covered by a wide inundation, against which the invader was powerless. At the same time the men of Zealand repulsed a French raid from Ath on Ardenburg, and this infraction of the neutrality of the Spanish Netherlands served but to raise up another enemy for Louis. Luxemburg too, at first successful, was repulsed before Groningen. A revolution placed William of Orange at the head of the government. The alliance of Brandenburg and the Mainz electorate had already been secured, and Spain, justly fearing for the safety of her Flemish possessions, soon joined them. The emperor followed, and Louis was now opposed, not by one state, but by a formidable coalition.
War against the Coalition.—In the autumn the war spread to the Rhine. No attempt could be made on Amsterdam until the ice should cover the floods. Turenne was therefore despatched to Westphalia and Condé to Alsace, while a corps of observation was formed on the Meuse to watch the Spanish Netherlands. But the coalition had not yet developed its full strength, and Turenne’s skill checked the advance of the Imperialists under Montecucculi and of the Brandenburgers under the Great Elector. A war of manœuvre on the middle Rhine ended in favour of the French, and the allies then turned against the territories of Cologne and Münster, while William, disappointed in his hopes of joining forces with his friends, made a bold, but in the end unsuccessful, raid on Charleroi (September-December 1672). The allies in Germany were now not merely checked but driven from point to point by Turenne, who on this occasion displayed a degree of energy rare in the military history of the period. The troops of Cologne and Münster formed part of his army, other friends of Louis were preparing to take the field, and after a severe winter campaign, the elector, defeated in combat and manœuvre, was forced back to the Weser, and being but weakly supported by the Imperialists, found himself compelled to make a separate peace (June 6th, 1673). Turenne then turned his attention to the Imperialists who were assembling in Bohemia, and made ready to meet them at Wetzlar. Meanwhile the other French armies were fully employed. Corps of observation were formed in Roussillon and Lorraine. Condé in Holland was to renew his efforts against the Amsterdam defences; during the winter the demands of the war on the Rhine had reduced the French forces in the provinces to the size of a mere army of occupation.1 Louis’ own army, originally collected for the relief of Charleroi in December, advanced on Maastricht, and after a brief siege, in which Vauban directed the besiegers, captured this most important fortress (June 29th, 1673). But this was the last success of the French armies in the campaign. Condé made no headway against Amsterdam, and William retook Naarden (September 14th). Louis, after the capture of Maastricht led his army southwards into Lorraine and overran the electorate of Trier. But nothing of importance was gained, and Turenne’s summer campaign was wholly unsuccessful.
Capture of Bonn.—From Wetzlar he moved to Aschaffenburg, Louis at the same time keeping back, for the intended conquest of Franche-Comté, many soldiers who would have been more usefully employed in Germany. Soon the Imperialists advanced in earnest, greatly superior in numbers. Marching via Eger and Nuremberg (September 3rd) on the Main, Montecucculi drew Turenne to the valley of the Tauber; then, having persuaded the bishop of Würzburg to surrender the bridge of that place, he passed to the right bank of the Main before Turenne could intervene. The Imperialists soon arrived at Frankfort, and the French position was turned. Montecucculi thus achieved one of the greatest objects of the 17th century strategist, the wearing down of the enemy in repeated and useless marches. The French retreat to the Rhine was painful and costly, and Montecucculi then passed that river at Mainz and made for Trier. Turenne followed, unable to do more than conform to his opponent’s movements, and took post to defend Trier and Alsace. Thereupon Montecucculi turned northward to meet William of Orange, who evaded Condé’s weak army and marched rapidly via Venló (22nd October) on Coblenz. The elector of Trier, who had not forgotten the depredations of Louis’ army in the spring, followed the example of the bishop of Würzburg and gave a free passage at Coblenz. William and Montecucculi joined forces in the electorate and promptly besieged Bonn. This fortress fell on the 12th of November, and the troops of the coalition gained possession of an unbroken line from Amsterdam to the Breisgau, while Louis’ German allies (Cologne and Münster), now isolated, had to make peace at once. William wintered in Holland, Montecucculi in Cologne and Jülich, and the Spaniards, who had served with William, in their own provinces of the Meuse. A century after the outbreak of the War of Independence the Dutch and the Spaniards are thus found making war as allies, a striking proof of the fact that all questions but those of dynastic interests had been effectually settled by the peace of Westphalia. Louis’ allies were leaving him one by one. The German princes and the empire itself rallied to the emperor, Denmark joined the coalition (January 1674), the Great Elector re-entered the war, and soon afterwards England made peace.
1674.—In 1674 therefore Louis reluctantly evacuated those of the United Provinces occupied by his army. He had derived a considerable revenue from the enemy’s country, and he had moreover quartered his troops without expense. The resources of the French government were almost intact for the coming campaign; the corps of observation in Roussillon was continued, and its commander, Marshal Schomberg, made a successful campaign against the Spaniards, and the war was carried even into Sicily. Condé, in the Spanish Low Countries, opposed with inferior forces the united army of Spaniards, Dutch and Austrians under William, and held the Meuse from Grave to Charleroi on the Sambre. The war in this quarter was memorable for Condé’s last, and William’s first, battle, the desperate and indecisive engagement of Seneffe (August 11th), in which the two armies lost one-seventh of their strength in killed alone. The French, however, in the course of the year lost a few fortresses on the Meuse, including Grave and Huy. The king’s part in the campaign was, as usual, a war of sieges; an army under his personal command overran Franche-Comté in six weeks, and Louis, aided by the genius of Vauban, reduced Besançon in nine days. Turenne’s Rhine campaign began with an invasion of Germany, undertaken to prevent interference with Louis in Franche-Comté. Bournonville, the imperial commander who now replaced Montecucculi, lay in the Cologne and Trier electorates. An army of South Germans in the Breisgau, after an unsuccessful attempt to invade Alsace, moved northward to the Neckar valley with the intention of uniting with Bournonville, who was moving up the Rhine to meet them. Turenne determined to attack the southern army under the duke of Lorraine and Count Caprara before the junction could be effected. He crossed the Rhine at Philipsburg early in June, and on the 16th fell upon the inferior forces of Caprara in their entrenched position of Sinsheim. The result of the battle was a complete victory for the French, who followed up their success by driving a portion of Bournonville’s army (on which the duke of Lorraine had rallied his forces) from the Neckar (action of Ladenburg near Heidelberg, July 7th). Turenne then laid waste the Palatinate, in order that it should no longer support an army, and fell back over the Rhine, ignoring the reproaches of the elector palatine, who vainly challenged him to a duel. This devastation has usually been considered as a grave stain on the character of the commander who ordered it, but Turenne’s conception of duty did not differ in this respect from that of Cromwell, Marlborough, Wellington and the generals of the American Civil War. It was held to be necessary and expedient, and it was accordingly carried out. Bournonville’s army near Frankfort was still to be dealt with, and the Great Elector and his Brandenburgers were rapidly approaching the Main valley. After a slight attempt to invade Lorraine, which Turenne easily stopped, the Imperialists suddenly recrossed the Rhine and marched rapidly into the neighbourhood of the Strassburg bridge.
Turenne’s Winter Campaign in Alsace.—The magistrates of this city were not less amenable than had been the bishop of Würzburg in 1673. Bournonville obtained a free passage, and Turenne was too late to oppose him. The French general, however, determined to fight, as he had done at Sinsheim, to prevent the junction of the two hostile armies. The Great Elector was still in the Neckar valley when the battle of Enzheim (8 m. from Strassburg) was fought on the 4th of October. This time it was indecisive, and Bournonville’s superior forces, soon augmented by the arrival of the elector, spread into Alsace. Turenne steadily retired to his camp of Dettweiler, unable for the moment to do more, and the Germans took up winter quarters in all the towns from Belfort to Strassburg (October-November 1674). But Turenne was preparing for another winter campaign, the most brilliant in the great commander’s career.
First he placed the fortresses of middle Alsace in a state of defence, to deceive the enemy. Then he withdrew the whole of the field army quietly into Lorraine. Picking up on his way such reinforcements as were available, he marched southward with all speed behind the Vosges, and in the last stages of the movement he even split up his forces into many small bodies, that the enemy’s spies might be misled. After a severe march through hilly country and in the midst of snowstorms, the French reunited near Belfort, and without a moment’s delay poured into Alsace from the south. The scattered Imperialists were driven towards Strassburg, every corps which tried to resist being cut off. Bournonville stood to fight at Mülhausen with such forces as he could collect (29th December 1674) but Turenne’s men carried all before them. The advance continued to Colmar, where the elector, who was now in command of the Germans, stood on the defensive with forces equal to Turenne’s own. The battle of Türkheim (5th of January 1675) nevertheless resulted in another and this time a decisive victory for the French; a few days after the battle Turenne could report that there was not a soldier of the enemy left in Alsace. His army now went into winter quarters about Strassburg, and drew supplies from the German bank of the Rhine and even from the Neckar valley (January 1675).
1675.—This opening of the campaign promised well, and Louis as usual took the field as early as possible. In the course of the spring (May-June) the king’s army recaptured some of the lost fortresses of the Meuse and took in addition Liège and Limburg. The expeditionary corps in Sicily also gained some successes in this campaign, and Schomberg invaded Catalonia. On the Rhine was fought the last campaign of Turenne and Montecucculi. The elector having withdrawn his forces to Brandenburg (see Sweden: History), Montecucculi resumed command, and between Philipsburg and Strassburg the two great commanders manœuvred for an advantage, each seeking to cover his own country and to live upon that of the enemy. At last Turenne prevailed and had the Imperialists at a disadvantage on the Sasbach, where, in opening the action, he was killed by a cannon-shot (July 27th). The sequel showed how dependent was even the best organized army of the time upon the personality of its commander.
All the advantages won were hastily surrendered, and Montecucculi, sharply following up the retreat of the French, drove them over the Rhine and almost to the Vosges. At the same time the duke of Lorraine defeated Marshal Créqui (August 11th) at Conzer Brücke on the Moselle, and recaptured Trier (September 6th), which, as a set-off against Bonn, Turenne had taken in the autumn of 1673. The situation was more than alarming for the French, but Condé was destined to achieve a last success—for once a success of careful strategy and prudent manœuvre. Luxemburg was left in charge in Flanders, and the prince took command of the remnant of Turenne’s old army and of the fugitives of Créqui’s. Montecucculi’s skill failed completely to shake his position, and in the end the prince compelled him to retire over the Rhine. Condé and Montecucculi retired from their commands at the close of the year, Turenne was dead, and a younger generation of commanders henceforward carried on the war.
1676.—In 1676 the naval successes of France in the Mediterranean enabled the corps under Marshal Vivonne in Sicily to make considerable progress, and he won an important victory at Messina on the 25th of March. Vivonne was made viceroy of Sicily. Louis himself, with his marshals and Vauban, conducted the campaign in the north. The town of Condé fell on the 26th of April, and the king then manœuvred against the prince of Orange in the neighbourhood of Valenciennes. An attempt made by the latter in the summer to besiege Maastricht was frustrated by Marshal Schomberg with a detachment of the king’s army (August). Rochefort meanwhile covered the Meuse country and Luxemburg. Créqui, who had now returned from captivity (he had been taken after the battle of Conzer Brücke) opposed the Imperialists in Lorraine, but he was unable to prevent the fall of Philipsburg, which occurred on the 17th of September. The French now laid waste the land between the Meuse and Moselle for the same reason which brought about the devastation of the Palatinate in 1674, and the year closed with a war of manœuvre on the upper Rhine between the Imperialists under the duke of Lorraine and the French under Luxemburg.
1677.—The chief event of the campaign of 1677 in the Netherlands was the siege of Valenciennes, which fortress was invested by Louis in the first weeks of the campaigning season. Five marshals of France served under the king in this enterprise, but their advice was of less value than that of Vauban, whose plans the king followed implicitly, even so far as to order an assault de vive force against the unanimous opinion of the marshals. This succeeded beyond Vauban’s own expectation; the picked troops entrusted with the attack of an outwork forced their way into the town itself (March 17th). The success was followed by the siege of St Omer and the defeat of William’s relieving army by the duke of Orleans (battle of Mont Cassel, April 11th, 1677). The summer campaign was a contest of skill between Luxemburg and William, which resulted in favour of the French. The prince of Orange failed in an attempt to take Charleroi, and Marshal D’Humières captured St Ghislain.
In Germany the credit of the French successes was due to Créqui, who was no longer the defeated general of Conzer Brücke, but the most successful of Turenne’s pupils. He began by driving back the duke of Lorraine to the Rhine. Another attempt by the Lorraine family to reconquer their duchy was thus foiled, and at the same time a second imperial army under the duke of Saxe-Eisenach, which had crossed the Rhine by Philipsburg, was shut up in an island of the Rhine and forced to make terms with the French. A large reinforcement sent by the duke of Lorraine to the assistance of Saxe-Eisenach was completely defeated by Créqui in the battle of Kochersberg near Strassburg (October 7th) and the marshal followed up his successes by the capture of Freiburg on the 14th of November. During the year there was a brisk war in the West Indies, and also in Catalonia, where the French maintained the ground won by Schomberg in the previous campaign.
1678.—In 1678 Louis took the field in February. The skilful manœuvres of the French, whether due to Louis’ own generalship or that of his advisers, resulted in the speedy capture of Ghent and Ypres (March), and the retention of the prizes in the usual war of posts which followed. The last battle of the war was fought at St Denis (outside Mons) between William and Luxemburg on the 14th of August, three days after the peace of Nijmwegen had been concluded. William sustained another defeat, but the battle was one of the most fiercely contested of the whole war. On the Rhine, Créqui began by winning the battle of Rheinfelden (July 6th), after which he inflicted upon the Imperialists another defeat at Gengenbach (July 23rd) and took Kehl. In the short campaign of 1679, before France and the empire had concluded peace, he was equally successful.
In Spain the French army under Marshal de Navailles had also made steady progress, and thus the last campaign was wholly in favour of the French. The peace of Nijmwegen gave Louis many of the Netherlands frontier fortresses, and little else. He was threatened by the intervention of England on the side of the coalition, and would have made peace earlier but for his reluctance to abandon his ally Sweden. The French army had, however, well established its reputation. Vauban was unique amongst the officers of his time, and Créqui and Luxemburg were not unworthy successors of Turenne and Condé. The two marshals added to their reputation in the “Reunion War” of 1680-84. Créqui died in 1684 at the age of sixty-one, Luxemburg’s greatest triumph was won ten years later (see Grand Alliance, War of the). Vauban retired from active service as a marshal twenty-five years after the peace of Nijmwegen. But the interest of the war does not reside wholly in the personalities of the leaders. There were great commanders before Turenne and Condé. It is as the début of a new method of military organization and training—the first real test of the standing army as created by Louvois—that the Dutch War of 1672-79 is above all instructive.
(C. F. A.)
1 Marshal Luxemburg, who was left in command of the army in Holland during the winter of 1672-73, had indeed made a bold attempt to capture Leiden and the Hague by marching a corps from Utrecht across the frozen inundations. But a sudden thaw imperilled his force and he had to make a painful retreat along the dykes to Utrecht. Holland was again inundated in 1673.
DUTCH WEST INDIA COMPANY, THE (De Westindische Compagnie), a company founded by letters-patent from the Netherlands states-general dated the 3rd of June 1621. The purpose for which the company was formed was to regulate and protect the contraband trade already carried on by the Dutch in the American and African possessions of Spain and Portugal, and to establish colonies on both continents and their islands. By the terms of the charter the company was to be composed of five boards or branches, established in Amsterdam, Zealand, the Meuse (Rotterdam), the North Department (Friesland and Hoorn), and Groningen. Each was to be represented on the general governing board according to the importance of the capital contributed by it. Thus Amsterdam, which contributed four-ninths of the capital, had eight directors on the board. Zealand, which subscribed two-ninths, had four. Rotterdam was represented by two directors, though it only contributed one-ninth. The northern district and Groningen, which each contributed one-ninth, appointed one director each. Another director was appointed by the states-general. In 1629 a ninth representative was given to Amsterdam, and the strength of the whole board was fixed at nineteen.
The company was granted the monopoly of the trade with America and Africa and between them, from the Arctic regions to the Straits of Magellan, and from the Tropic of Cancer to the Cape of Good Hope. The policy the company proposed to follow was to use its monopoly on the coast of Africa in order to secure the cheap and regular supply of negro slaves for the possessions it hoped to acquire in America. The trade was thrown open by the voluntary action of the company in 1638. The general board was endowed with ample power to negotiate treaties, and make war and peace with native princes; to appoint its officials, generals and governors; and to legislate in its possessions subject to the laws of the Netherlands. The states-general undertook to secure the trading rights of the company, and to support it by a subvention of one million guilders (about £100,000). In case of war the states-general undertook to contribute sixteen vessels of 300 tons and upwards for the defence of the company, which, however, was to bear the expense of maintaining them. In return for these aids the states-general claimed a share in the profits, stipulated that the company must maintain sixteen large vessels (300 tons and upwards) and fourteen “yachts” (small craft of 50 to 100 tons or so); required that all the company’s officials should take an oath of allegiance to themselves as well as to the board of directors; and that all despatches should be sent in duplicate to themselves and to the board.
The history of the Dutch West India Company is one of less prosperity than that of the Dutch East India Company. In early days the trade was not sufficient to meet the heavy expense of the armaments raised against Spain and Portugal. A compensation was found in the plunder of Spanish and Portuguese galleons and carracks. In 1628 the company’s admiral Piet Heijn captured a vast booty in the Spanish treasure-ships. But this source of profit was dried up by the success of the company’s cruisers, which destroyed their enemy’s trade. Profit had to be sought in the development of the colonies established on the continent of America. In this field the successes of the company were counterbalanced by not a few failures. The company was never able to secure the control of the supply of slaves from Africa. Its settlement of New Netherland was lost to England. In the West Indies it gained a valuable footing among the islands. It occupied St Eustatius in 1634, Curaçao with Bonaire and Aruba in 1634 and 1635, Saba in 1640 and St Martin in 1648. But its greatest conquests and its greatest losses were alike met on the continent of South America. After a first unsuccessful occupation in 1623 of Bahia, which was immediately retaken by a combined Spanish and Portuguese armament, the company obtained a firm footing in Pernambuco. The story of the wars which arose out of this invasion belongs to the history of Brazil. The company had been largely guided in its policy of assailing the Portuguese possessions by the advice of the Jews, who were numerous in Brazil, and who found means to communicate with their fellows in religion, the refugees in Amsterdam. The most prosperous period of the company was during the tolerant and liberal administration of Count John Maurice of Nassau-Siegen (1636-1644).
The monopolist tendency of all Dutch colonization, the religious hostility of the Roman Catholic Portuguese, and the support given by France and England to Portugal after her revolt from Spain, combined at last to make the position of the company in Brazil untenable. It resigned all claim on the country by the treaty of 1661. But though deprived of its establishment in Brazil, the company found a compensation in Surinam and Essequibo (Dutch Guiana), where there was no Spanish or Portuguese population to resist it, and where the resources of the country offered great profits. The advantages of the settlement in Guiana were not, however, reaped by the company founded in 1621. In 1674 it had become so embarrassed that it was dissolved, and reconstructed in 1675. The newly formed company continued to exploit the Dutch possessions in America till 1794, when they were all swept into the general reorganization consequent on the French invasion of Holland. The West India Company founded after the Napoleonic epoch in 1828 was only meant to develop trade, and was not successful.
Authorities.—P.M. Nitscher, Les Hollandais au Brésil (the Hague, 1853), the work of a Dutch author writing in French. See also Southey, History of Brazil (London, 1810), and E.B. O’Callaghan, History of New Netherland (New York, 1846-1848).
DUTENS, LOUIS (1730-1812), French writer, was born at Tours, of Protestant parents, on the 15th of January 1730. He went to London, where his uncle was a jeweller, and there obtained a situation as tutor in a private family. In this position he learnt Greek and mathematics, and studied oriental languages, also Italian and Spanish. He took orders, and was appointed chaplain and secretary to the English minister at the court of Turin in October 1758. In 1760-1762 he was chargé d’affaires at Turin. Lord Bute, before retiring from office in 1763, procured him a pension. He again went to Turin as chargé d’affaires; and during this second mission he collected and published a complete edition of the works of Leibnitz (Geneva, 6 vols., 1768) and wrote his Recherches sur l’origine des découvertes attribuées aux modernes (1766). On his return to England the duke of Northumberland procured him the living of Elsdon, in Northumberland, and made him tutor to his son. In 1775 he became a member of the French Academy of Inscriptions and a fellow of the Royal Society. Dutens was for a third time chargé d’affaires at Turin. He was in Paris in 1783, and returned to London the following year. He died in London on the 23rd of May 1812.
The principal works of Dutens were his Recherches sur l’origine des découvertes attribuées aux modernes (1766, 2 vols.); Appel au bon sens (London, 1777, 8vo), directed in defence of Christianity against the French philosophers, and published anonymously; Explication de quelques médailles de peuples, de rois et de villes grecques et phéniciennes (London, 1773); Explication de quelques médailles du cabinet de Duane (1774); Troisième dissertation sur quelques médailles grecques et phéniciennes (1776); Logique, ou l’art de raisonner (1773); Des pierres précieuses et des pierres fines, avec les moyens de les connaître et de les évaluer (Paris, 1776); Itinéraire des routes les plus fréquentées, ou journal d’un voyage aux principales villes d’Europe (Paris, 1775), frequently republished; Considérations théologiques sur les moyens de réunir toutes les églises chrétiennes (1798); Œuvres mêlées, containing his most important works published up to the date (London, 1797, 4 vols.); L’Ami des étrangers qui voyagent en Angleterre (1789, 8vo); Histoire de ce qui s’est passé pour le rétablissement d’une régence en Angleterre (1789); Recherches sur le tems le plus reculé de l’usage des voûtes chez les anciens (1795); Mémoires d’un voyageur qui se repose (Paris, 1786, 3 vols.). The first two volumes of the last-named work contain the life of the author, written in a romantic style; the third bears the title of Dutensiana, and is filled with remarks, anecdotes and bons mots. (See memoir of Dutens in the Gentleman’s Magazine for 1812.)
DUTROCHET, RENÉ JOACHIM HENRI (1776-1847), French physiologist, was born at Château de Néon (Indre) on the 14th of November 1776, and died at Paris on the 4th of February 1847. In 1799 he entered the military marine at Rochefort, but soon left it to join the Vendean army. In 1802 he began the study of medicine at Paris; and he was subsequently appointed chief physician to the hospital at Burgos. After an attack of typhus he returned in 1809 to France, where he devoted himself to the study of the natural sciences. His scientific publications were numerous, and covered a wide field, but his most noteworthy work was embryological. His “Recherches sur l’accroissement et la reproduction des végétaux,” published in the Mémoires du muséum d’histoire naturelle for 1821, procured him in that year the French Academy’s prize for experimental physiology. In 1837 appeared his Mémoires pour servir à l’histoire anatomique et physiologique des végétaux et des animaux, a collection of all his more important biological papers.
DUTT, MICHAEL MADHU SUDAN (1824-1873), the greatest native poet of India in the 19th century, was born at Sagandari, in the district of Jessore in Bengal, on the 25th of January 1824. His father was a pleader in Calcutta, and young Madhu Sudan received his education in the Hindu college of Calcutta, and was the foremost among the distinguished young students of his day, many of whom lived to make their mark in the literature and social progress of their country. Madhu Sudan left the college in 1842, and in the following year ran away to avoid a marriage into which his father wished to force him, and embraced the Christian religion. Continuing his studies now in the Bishop’s college, Madhu Sudan learnt Greek and Latin and some modern European languages, and in 1848 went to Madras. There he wrote English verses, and married the daughter of a European indigo-planter, but was soon separated from her. He then united himself with an English lady, the daughter of an educational officer; and she remained true to him through life amidst all his misfortunes, and was the mother of the children he left. With her Madhu Sudan returned to Calcutta in 1856, and soon discovered that the true way for winning literary distinction was by writing in his own language, not by composing verses in English. His three classical dramas—Sarmishtha, Padmavati, and Krishna Kumari—appeared between 1858 and 1861, and were recognized as works of merit. But his great ambition was to introduce blank verse into Bengali. His knowledge of Sanskrit poetry, his appreciation of the Greek and Latin epics, and his admiration of Dante and of Milton, impelled him to break through the fetters of the Bengali rhyme, and to attempt a spirited and elevated style in blank verse. His first poem in blank verse, the Tilottama, was only a partial success; but his great epic which followed in 1861, the Meghanad-Badha, took the Indian world by surprise, and at once established his reputation as the greatest poet of his age and country. He took his story from the old Sanskrit epic, the Ramayana, but the beauty of the poem is all his own, and he imparted to it the pathos and sweetness of Eastern ideas combined with the vigour and loftiness of Western thought. In 1862 Madhu Sudan left for Europe. He lived in England for some years, and was called to the bar; and in 1867 returned to his country to practise as a barrister in Calcutta. But the poet was unfitted for a lawyer’s vocation; his liabilities increased, his health failed, his powers declined. He still wrote much, but nothing of enduring merit. His brilliant but erratic life ended in a Calcutta hospital on the 29th of June 1873.
DUTY (from “due,” that which is owing, O. Fr. deu, dû, past participle of devoir; Lat. debere, debitum; cf. “debt”), a term loosely applied to any action or course of action which is regarded as morally incumbent, apart from personal likes and dislikes or any external compulsion. Such action must be viewed in relation to a principle, which may be abstract in the highest sense (e.g. obedience to the dictates of conscience) or based on local and personal relations. That a father and his children have mutual duties implies that there are moral laws regulating their relationship; that it is the duty of a servant to obey his master within certain limits is part of a definite contract, whereby he becomes a servant engaging to do certain things for a specified wage. Thus it is held that it is not the duty of a servant to infringe a moral law even though his master should command it. For the nature of duty in the abstract, and the various criteria on which it has been based, see Ethics.
From the root idea of obligation to serve or give something in return, involved in the conception of duty, have sprung various derivative uses of the word; thus it is used of the services performed by a minister of a church, by a soldier, or by any employee or servant. A special application is to a tax, a payment due to the revenue of a state, levied by force of law. Properly a “duty” differs from a “tax” in being levied on specific commodities, transactions, estates, &c., and not on individuals; thus it is right to talk of import-duties, excise-duties, death-or succession-duties, &c., but of income-tax as being levied on a person in proportion to his income.
DU VAIR, GUILLAUME (1556-1621), French author and lawyer, was born in Paris on the 7th of March 1556. Du Vair was in orders, and, though during the greater part of his life he exercised only legal functions, he was from 1617 till his death bishop of Lisieux. His reputation, however, is that of a lawyer, a statesman and a man of letters. He became in 1584 counsellor of the parlement of Paris, and as deputy for Paris to the Estates of the League he pronounced his most famous politico-legal discourse, an argument nominally for the Salic law, but in reality directed against the alienation of the crown of France to the Spanish infanta, which was advocated by the extreme Leaguers. Henry IV. acknowledged his services by entrusting him with a special commission as magistrate at Marseilles, and made him master of requests. In 1595 appeared his treatise De l’éloquence française et des raisons pour quoi elle est demeurée si basse, in which he criticizes the orators of his day, adding by way of example some translations of the speeches of ancient orators, which reproduce the spirit rather than the actual words of the originals. He was sent to England in 1596 with the marshal de Bouillon to negotiate a league against Spain; in 1599 he became first president of the parlement of Province (Aix); and in 1603 was appointed to the see of Marseilles, which he soon resigned in order to resume the presidency. In 1616 he received the highest promotion open to a French lawyer and became keeper of the seals. He died at Tonneins (Lot-et-Garonne) on the 3rd of August 1621. Both as speaker and writer he holds a very high rank, and his character was equal to his abilities. Like other political lawyers of the time, Du Vair busied himself not a little in the study of philosophy. The most celebrated of his treatises are La Philosophie morale des Stoïques, translated into English (1664) by Charles Cotton; De la constance et consolation ès calamités publiques,1 which was composed during the siege of Paris in 1589, and applied the Stoic doctrine to present misfortunes; and La Sainte Philosophie, in which religion and philosophy are intimately connected. Pierre Charron drew freely on these and other works of Du Vair. F. de Brunetière points out the analogy of Du Vair’s position with that afterwards developed by Pascal, and sees in him the ancestor of the Jansenists. Du Vair had a great indirect influence on the development of style in French, for in the south of France he made the acquaintance of Malherbe, who conceived a great admiration for Du Vair’s writings. The reformer of French poetry learned much from the treatise De l’éloquence française, to which the counsels of his friend were no doubt added.
Du Vair’s works were published in folio at Paris in 1641. See Nicéron, Mémoires, vol. 43; and monographs by C.A. Sapey (1847 and 1858).
1 Translated into English by Andrew Comt in 1622 as A Buckler against Adversitie.
DUVAL, ALEXANDRE VINCENT PINEUX (1767-1842), French dramatist, was born at Rennes on the 6th of April 1767. He was in turn sailor, architect, actor, theatrical manager and dramatist. He is the characteristic dramatist of the Empire, but the least ambitious of his dramas have best stood the test of time. Les Projets de ménage (1790), Les Tuteurs vengés (1794) and Les Héritiers (1796) have been revived on the modern French stage. Others among his plays, which number more than sixty, are Le Menuisier de Livonie (1805), La Manie des grandeurs (1817) and Le Faux Bonhomme (1821). In 1812 he was elected to the Academy. He died on the 1st of September 1842.
DUVAL, CLAUDE (1643-1670), a famous highwayman, was born at Domfront, Normandy, in 1643. Having entered domestic service in Paris, he came to England at the time of the Restoration in attendance on the duke of Richmond, and soon became a highwayman notorious for the daring of his robberies no less than for his gallantry to ladies. Large rewards were offered for his capture, and he was at one time compelled to seek refuge in France. In the end he was captured in London, and hanged at Tyburn on the 21st of January 1670. His body was buried in the centre aisle of Covent Garden church, under a stone with the following epitaph:—
“Here lies Du Vall: Reader if male thou art, Look to thy purse: if female to thy heart.”
A full account of his adventures, ascribed to William Pope, was reprinted in the Harleian Miscellany, and Samuel Butler published a satirical ode To the Happy Memory of the Most Renowned Du Val.
DUVENECK, FRANK (1848- ), American figure and portrait painter, was born at Covington, Kentucky, on the 9th of October 1848. He was a pupil of Diez in the Royal Academy of Munich, and a prominent member of the group of Americans who in the ’seventies overturned the traditions of the Hudson River School and started a new art movement. His work shown in Boston and elsewhere about 1875 attracted great attention, and many pupils flocked to him in Germany and Italy, where he made long visits. After returning from Italy to America, he gave some attention to sculpture, and modelled a fine monument to his wife, now in the English cemetery in Florence.
DU VERGIER DE HAURANNE, JEAN (1581-1643), abbot of St Cyran, father of the Jansenist revival in France, was born of wealthy parents at Bayonne in 1581, and studied theology at the Flemish university of Louvain. After taking holy orders he settled in Paris, where he became known as a mine of miscellaneous erudition. In 1609 he distinguished himself by his Question royale, an elaborate answer to a problem casually thrown out by King Henry IV. as to the exact circumstances under which a subject ought to give his life for his sovereign. His learning was presently diverted into a more profitable channel. The Louvain of his time was the scene of many conflicts between the Jesuit party, which stood for scholasticism and Church-authority, and the followers of Michael Baius (q.v.), who upheld the mysticism of St Augustine. Into this controversy Du Vergier was presently dragged by his friendship with Cornelius Jansen, a young champion of the Augustinian party, who had come to Paris to study Greek. The two divines went off together to Du Vergier’s home at Bayonne, where he became a canon of the cathedral, and Jansen a tutor in the bishop’s seminary. Here they remained some years, intently studying the fathers. Eventually, however, Jansen went back to Louvain, while Du Vergier became confidential secretary to the bishop of Poitiers, and was presently made sinecure abbot of St Cyran. Thereafter he was generally called M. de St Cyran. At Poitiers he was brought into contact with Richelieu—as yet unknown to political fame, and simply the zealous young bishop of the neighbouring diocese of Luçon. Western Touraine being the headquarters of French Protestantism, the two prelates turned St Cyran’s learning against the Huguenots. He began to dream of reforming Catholicism on Augustinian lines, and thus defeating the Protestants by their own weapons. They appealed to primitive antiquity; he answered that his Church understood antiquity better than theirs. They appealed to the spirit of St Paul; he answered that Augustine had saved that spirit from etherealizing away, by coupling it with a high sacramental theory of the Church. They flung practical abuses in the teeth of Rome; he entered on a bold campaign to bring those abuses to an end. Before long, his reforming zeal involved him in many quarrels—so much so that he left Poitiers and settled down in Paris. Here he became widely known as a director of consciences, forming a particular friendship with the influential Arnauld family. But his general projects of reform were by no means allowed to sleep, though here he worked hand in hand with his old friend Jansen. Both traced the evils of their time to the Jesuits and Schoolmen. Their dialectic had corrupted theology; their hand-to-mouth utilitarianism had played havoc with traditional church-institutions. Accordingly, Jansen set to work to remedy one evil by writing a big book on St Augustine, the great master of theological method. St Cyran dealt with the other evil in an equally bulky treatise, the Petrus Aurelius (1633). This indicts the Jesuits for every sort and kind of misdemeanour. It deals much with what Pascal will presently call their dévotion aisée; but still more with crimes of a technical sort, especially their defiance of episcopal authority. Thereby the book gained for its author’s projects of reform a great deal of Gallican support. On the other hand, it gave much annoyance to Richelieu, now the all-powerful and extremely Erastian prime minister. After failing more than once to stop St Cyran’s mouth with a bishopric, he had him arrested as a disturber of ecclesiastical peace (14th of March 1638). He remained shut up in the castle of Vincennes until Richelieu’s death (December 1642). Then he was at once set free; but the long imprisonment had told heavily on his health, and he died of a stroke of apoplexy in October 1643.
St Cyran’s character has been always something of a puzzle. Many excellent contemporary judges were profoundly impressed; others, as one of them said, went away bewildered by this strange abbé, who never argued a question out, but leapt from one point to another in broken, incoherent phrases. Grace of expression he had none; perhaps no man of equal spiritual insight ever found it so hard to make his meaning clear, whether on paper or by word of mouth. On the other hand, Jansenism, considered as a practical religious revival, is altogether his work. He dragged the Augustinian mysticism out of the Louvain classrooms, and made it a vital spiritual force in France. Without him there would have been no Pascal—no Provincial Letters, and no Pensées.
There is an excellent life of St Cyran by his secretary, Claude Lancelot, published at Cologne in two volumes, 1738. A selection of his Lettres chrestiennes was edited by his disciple, Robert Arnauld d’Andilly (Paris, 1645). An entirely different collection of Lettres spirituelles was printed at Cologne in 1744.
(St C.)
DUVEYRIER, HENRI (1840-1892), French explorer of the Sahara, was born in Paris on the 28th of February 1840. His youth was spent partly in London, where he met Heinrich Barth, then preparing the narrative of his travels in the western Sudan. At the age of nineteen Duveyrier, who had already learnt Arabic, began a journey in the northern parts of the Sahara which lasted nearly three years. On returning to France he received, in 1863, the gold medal of the Paris Geographical Society, and in 1864 published Exploration du Sahara: les Touareg du nord. In the war of 1870 he was taken prisoner by the Germans. Subsequently he made several other journeys in the Sahara, adding considerably to the knowledge of the regions immediately south of the Atlas, from the eastern confines of Morocco to Tunisia. He also examined the Algerian and Tunisian shats and explored the interior of western Tripoli. Duveyrier devoted special attention to the customs and speech of the Tuareg, with whom he lived for months at a time, and to the organization of the Senussi. In 1881 he published La Tunisie, and in 1884 La Confrérie musselmane de Sidi Mohammed Ben Alî-Es-Senôusi et son domaine géographique. He died at Sevres on the 25th of April 1892.
DUX (Czech Duchcov), a town of Bohemia, Austria, 86 m. N.N.W. of Prague by rail. Pop. (1900) 11,921, three-fourths German. It is situated in the centre of an extensive and well-worked lignite deposit and manufactures glass, porcelain and earthenware. In Dux is a castle belonging to Count Waldstein, a kinsman of Wallenstein, which contains a picture gallery with two portraits of Wallenstein by Van Dyck, and a museum with a collection of arms and armour and several relics of the great general.
DUXBURY, a township of Plymouth county, Massachusetts, on Massachusetts Bay, 36 m. S.S.E. of Boston. Pop. (1890) 1908; (1905, state census) 2028. Area, 25.5 sq. m. Duxbury is served by the Old Colony system of the New York, New Haven & Hartford railway. In the township are the villages of Duxbury, South Duxbury, West Duxbury, North Duxbury, Island Creek and Millbrook. The soil is sandy, the surface of the country well wooded and broken by a number of ponds and creeks. Duxbury is a summer resort, with a large hotel at Standish Shore. Duxbury has a public library, and is the seat of the Powder Point school for boys, and Partridge Academy, founded in 1828 by a bequest of $10,000 from George Partridge of Duxbury, and incorporated in 1830. On Captain’s Hill is the Standish Monument (begun in 1872), a circular tower, on an octagonal base, of rough Hallowell granite, surmounted by a statue of Miles Standish, 124 ft. from the ground. The Standish house, built in 1666 by Miles’s son, Alexander, is still in existence. In South Duxbury is an old burying ground, in which the oldest marked grave is that of Jonathan Alden (d. 1697), son of John Alden. For many years there were important cod and mackerel fisheries here and Duxbury clams were famous; there were large shipyards in Duxbury in the 18th century and in the first half of the 19th. At present cranberries are the only product of importance. The first settlement was made here in 1631 by Miles Standish (to whom Captain’s Hill was granted), William Brewster, John Alden, and a few others. In 1632 a church was organized and the present name was adopted from Duxbury Hall, Lancashire, the old seat of the Standish family; the Indian name had been Mattakeeset. The township was incorporated in 1637; it originally included Bridgewater and parts of Pembroke and Kingston.
See Justin Winsor, History of Duxbury (Boston, 1849); and Laurence Bradford, Historic Duxbury in Plymouth County (Boston, 1900).
DVINA, the name of two rivers of European Russia.
1. The Northern Dvina, or Dvina Syevernaya, belongs to the basin of the White Sea, and is formed by the junction of the Sukhona and the Yug, which, rising, the former in the south-west and the latter in the south-east of the government of Vologda, meet in the neighbourhood of Velikiy-Ustyug, at a height of 300 ft. above the sea, in 61° 20′ N. and 46° 20′ E. The conjoint stream then flows N.W. to the Gulf of Archangel, which it reaches 50 m. below the city of Archangel. From its mouth to the confluence of the co-tributary streams the distance is about 470 m., and to the source of the Sukhona 780 m. The drainage area is estimated at 141,000 sq. m. Except at the rapids the current of the Dvina is comparatively slow, as the average fall per mile is only 9 in. Till its union with the Vychegda, a river which exceeds it in volume, it flows for the most part in a single, well-defined and permanent channel; but below that point it often splits into several branches, and not infrequently alters its course. In the neighbourhood of Archangel it divides into three distinct arms, which form a regular delta; but of these that of Berezov alone is navigable for sea-going vessels, and even it is impeded by a bar at the mouth, with not more than 14½ or 15½ ft. of water at full tide. Just above the point where the delta begins the river is joined by a large tributary, the Pinega, from the right. Above the confluence of the Vychegda the breadth is about 1750 ft.; below that point it widens out to 3500 ft.; and near Archangel it attains more than three times that measure. The channel is free from ice for about 174 days in the year. By means of the Duke Alexander of Württemberg Canal, the river is connected with the Neva and the Volga.
2. The Southern Dvina, or Dvina Zapadnaya, in German Düna and in Lettish Daugava, belongs to the Baltic basin, and takes its rise in a small lake about 800 ft. above the level of the sea, in the government of Tver, not far from the sources of the Volga and the Dnieper. After dividing Tver in part from Pskov in part, it skirts the east and south of the government of Vitebsk, separates part of the latter from Vilna, and then divides Vitebsk and Livonia from Courland, and disembogues in the southern end of the Gulf of Riga. Its length is 640 m. and it drains an area of 32,960 sq. m. From Dvinsk (Dünaburg) to Riga, a distance of 135 m., there is altogether a fall of 295 ft., of which 105 ft. are in the 40 m. from Jakobstadt to Friedrichstadt. In the lower part of its course the river attains an ordinary depth of 30 ft. and an average breadth of 1400 ft.; but during the spring flood it sometimes rises 14 ft. above its usual level, and its waters spread out to a mile in width. Near the mouth the river is usually free from ice for 245 days in the year, and in the government of Vitebsk for 229. It is navigable from the confluence of the Mezha (i.e. from Vitebsk) downwards, but the number of rapids and shallows greatly diminishes its value. Navigation can also be carried on by the following tributaries: the Usvyat, Mezha, Kasplya, Ulla, Disna and Bolder-aa. This river was formerly called the Khezin or Turunt, and at the present day it has the name of Polot among the White Russians. Salmon and lampreys abound in its waters.
(P. A. K.; J. T. Be.)
DVINSK, the official name since 1893 of Dünaburg, a town and fortress of western Russia, in the government of Vitebsk, 162 m. by rail N.W. of the city of Vitebsk, on the right bank of the Dvina (Düna), in 55° 53′ N. and 26° 23′ E., and at the intersection of two main railway lines—Riga-Smolensk and Vilna-St Petersburg. It is the chief strategic position for the defence of the Dvina. It consists of four portions—the main town, or fortress, the old suburb, the new suburb, and on the left bank of the river the village of Griva. Among the industrial establishments are tanneries and breweries, saw-mills, flour-mills, brick and tile works and limekilns. The town is an important commercial centre, especially for flax, hemp, tallow and timber. The population increased from 25,764 in 1860 to 72,231 in 1900, consisting chiefly of Jews (about 30,000), Lithuanians and Letts.
Dünaburg was originally founded in 1278 by the Livonian Knights of the Sword, about 12 m. farther down the river than its present site, at a spot still known as the Old Castle or Stariy Zamok. In 1559 it was mortgaged by the grand-master of the Knights to Sigismund Augustus, king of Poland. Although captured in 1576 by Ivan the Terrible of Russia, it was again restored to Poland; and in 1582 Stephen Bathori, king of Poland, transferred the fortress to its present site. In the 17th century it was held alternately by the Swedes and the Russians. It was finally incorporated with Russia in 1772 on the first division of Poland. In July 1812 the tête-de-pont was vainly stormed by the French under Oudinot, but a few weeks afterwards the town was captured by them under Macdonald.
DVOŘÁK, ANTON (1841-1904), Bohemian musical composer, born at Nelahozeves (otherwise Mühlhausen) in Bohemia on the 8th of September 1841, was the son of Frantisek Dvořák, a small publican and village butcher. At the door of his father’s inn Dvořák first appeared as a practical musician, taking his place among the fiddlers who scraped out their “furiants” and other wild dances for the benefit of the holiday-making local beaux and belles. At the village school he learnt from Josef Spitz both to sing and to play the violin, with so much effect that soon he was able to assist in the parish church services. At twelve years old he was sent by his father to Zlonic, near Schlan, to an uncle, with whom he lived while passing through the higher-grade classes at school. Here, too, he was fortunate enough to find a valuable friend in A. Liehmann, organist and chief musician of the little town, a competent musician, who instructed the boy in elementary theory, organ and pianoforte playing. The theory studies, however, could not long be continued, since Liehmann soon acknowledged in his own dialect that the boy was extraordinarily full of promise (“Aus Tonda, dem Sappermentsbuben ’mal ’was werden könnte”), at the same time realizing that he could not do much to assist. But Dvořák soon left Zlonic for Böhmisch-Kamnitz, where he learnt German and advanced his musical studies under Hancke. A year later he was summoned to return to Zlonic to assist his father, who had set up in business there. But his craving for a musical career was not to be checked, and after considerable trouble with his father consent was obtained to his settling in Prague in order to devote himself entirely to music.
In October 1857 Dvořák entered the organ-school of the Gesellschaft der Kirchenmusik, where he worked for three years. The small financial aid his father was at first able to lend soon ceased, and after being in Prague but a few months Dvořák found himself practically thrown on his own resources. By playing the viola in a private orchestra and in various inns of the town he succeeded in obtaining a precarious livelihood. On the opening in 1862 of the Bohemian Interimstheater, Dvořák, with part of this band, formed the nucleus of the theatrical orchestra, and remained connected with it for eleven years, when he became organist of the church of St Adalbert. At this time his small stipend was augmented slightly by the fees of a few pupils, though the privations suffered by him and his wife (for he had recently married) must have been great. But in spite of financial worry and of the amount of time he had to devote to his professional duties and private pupils, Dvořák found leisure not only for his own studies of the classics, but also to compose. His work, like his daily life, was beset with difficulties, for he had not the means to provide himself with sufficient music-paper, much less to hire a pianoforte; and it is possible that several of his important early works would never have been written had it not been for the generosity of Karel Bendl, the composer, who helped him in many ways.
Dvořák himself said afterwards that he retained no recollection of much that he then composed. In and about 1864 two symphonies, a host of songs, some chamber-music, and an entire opera, Alfred, lay unheard in his desk. The libretto of this opera was made up from materials found in an old almanack. Most of these works were burnt long ago. In 1873 he made his first bid for popularity by his patriotic hymn Die Erben des weissen Berges (published many years later as Op. 30). Its reception was enthusiastic, and Dvořák’s subsequent works were eagerly awaited and warmly received on production. In 1874 his opera König und Köhler resulted in a fiasco at Prague, owing to its mixture of styles. Nothing daunted, Dvořák recomposed the whole work in three months. In 1875, on the recommendation of Brahms and Hanslick, he obtained a stipend from the Kultus-Ministerium at Vienna, which freed him from care and enabled him to indulge in composition to his heart’s content. Following on this success came a commission in 1877 for a series of Slavic dances, which took the public by storm. Immediately compositions, old and new, began to pour from the publisher. English sympathy was entirely won by the Stabat Mater in 1883, and increased by the symphonies in D, D mi., and F, G, and E mi. (The American), and the cantata The Spectre’s Bride, based on K.J. Erben’s elaboration of the Bohemian version of the saga treated in Burger’s Leonore. The favourable effect produced by these works was somewhat chilled by the oratorio St Ludmila, a comparatively feeble work written “to suit English taste” for the Leeds Festival of 1886. The three overtures Opp. 91, 92, 93, failed to hold their place, but the pseudo-American symphony has become one of Dvořák’s most popular works, and much of his chamber-music, of which there is abundance, seems quite permanent in its place in concert programmes. In 1892, after having frequently visited England, Dvořák became head of the National Conservatory of Music of America in New York. There he remained till 1895, when he returned to Prague, where he died on the 1st of May 1904.
Dvořák’s music is characteristically national, though less purely so than that of Smetana. But in spite of his industry and dramatic talent not one of his operas has been really successful. A master of the orchestra and a composer of real individuality, he earned and deserved his place among the elect, not only by his great gifts, but by his abnormal energy in their development.
See W.H. Hadow, Studies in Modern Music (second series, 1908).
DWARAKA, Dwarka, or Jigat, a town of British India, in Baroda state, near the extremity of the peninsula of Kathiawar, Bombay. Pop. (1901) 7535. As the birthplace and residence of Krishna, it is the most sacred spot in this part of India, and its principal temple is visited annually by many thousand pilgrims. The approach from the sea is by a fine flight of stone steps, and the great spire rises to a height of 150 ft.
DWARF (A.S. dweorg, D. dwerg, Icel. dvergr), the term generally used to describe an extraordinarily under-sized individual of a race of normal stature (for dwarf-races see Pygmy.) In Scandinavian mythology the word connoted smallness and deformity, and was used of the elfins and goblins who were supposed to live on the mountains or in the bowels of the earth, and to be kings of metals and mines. The later use of the word certainly does not imply deformity, for many of the dwarfs of history have been singularly graceful and well formed. Dwarfishness is, however, often accompanied by disproportion of the limbs.
From the earliest historic times dwarfs attracted attention, and there was much competition on the part of kings and the wealthy to obtain the little folk as attendants. It is certain that members of the tiny Akka race of Equatorial Africa figured at the courts of the Pharaohs of the early dynasties and were much valued. Philetas of Cos, poet and grammarian (circa 330 B.C.), tutor of Ptolemy Philadelphus, was alleged to be so tiny that he had to wear leaden shoes lest he should be blown away. The Romans practised artificial dwarfing, and the Latin nanus or pumilo were terms alternatively used to describe the natural and unnatural dwarf. Julia, the niece of Augustus, had a dwarf named Coropas 2 ft. 4 in. high, and a freed-maid Andromeda who measured the same.
Various recipes for dwarfing children have been from time to time in vogue. The most effective, according to report, was to anoint the backbone with the grease of moles, bats and dormice. The stunting of the growth of stable-boys who aspire to jockey’s honours is in no sense true dwarfing.
In later days there have been many dwarf-favourites at European courts. British tradition has its earliest dwarf mentioned in the old ballad which begins “In Arthur’s court Tom Thumb did live”; and on this evidence the prototype of the modern Tom Thumb is alleged to have lived at the court of King Edgar. Of authentic English dwarfs the first appears to be John Jarvis (2 ft. high), who was page to Queen Mary I. Her brother Edward VI. had his dwarf Xit. But the first English dwarf of whom there is anything like an authentic history is Jeffery Hudson (1619-1682). He was the son of a butcher at Oakham, Rutlandshire, who kept and baited bulls for George Villiers, first duke of Buckingham. Neither of Jeffery’s parents was under-sized, yet at nine years he measured scarcely 18 in., though he was gracefully proportioned. At a dinner given by the duke to Charles I. and his queen he was brought in to table in a pie out of which he stepped, and was at once adopted by Henrietta Maria. The little fellow followed the fortunes of the court in the Civil War, and is said to have been a captain of horse, earning the nickname of “strenuous Jeffery” for his activity. He fought two duels—one with a turkey-cock, a battle recorded by Davenant, and a second with Mr Crofts, who came to the meeting with a squirt, but who in the more serious encounter which ensued was shot dead by little Hudson, who fired from horseback, the saddle putting him on a level with his antagonist. Twice was Jeffery made prisoner—once by the Dunkirkers as he was returning from France, whither he had been on homely business for the queen; the second time was when he fell into the hands of Turkish pirates. His sufferings during this latter captivity made him, he declared, grow, and in his thirtieth year, having been of the same height since he was nine, he steadily increased until he was 3 ft. 9 in. At the Restoration he returned to England, where he lived on a pension granted him by the duke of Buckingham. He was later accused of participation in the “Popish Plot,” and was imprisoned in the Gate House. He was released and shortly after died in the sixty-third year of his age.
Contemporary with Hudson were the two other dwarfs of Henrietta Maria, Richard Gibson and his wife Anne. They were married by the queen’s wish; and the two together measured only 2 in. over 7 ft. They had nine children, five of whom, who lived, were of ordinary stature. Edmund Waller celebrated the nuptials, Evelyn designated the husband as the “compendium of a man,” and Lely painted them hand in hand. Gibson was miniature painter to Charles I., and drawing-master to the daughters of James II., Queens Mary and Anne, when they were children. This Cumberland pygmy, who began his career as a page, first in a “gentle,” next in the royal family, died in 1690, in his seventy-fifth year, and is buried in St Paul’s, Covent Garden. The last court dwarf in England was Coppernin, a lively little imp in the service of the princess (Augusta) of Wales, the mother of George III. The last dwarf retainer in a gentleman’s family was the one kept by Mr Beckford, the author of Vathek and builder of Fonthill. He was rather too big to be flung from one guest to another, as used to be the custom at dinners in earlier days when a dwarf was a “necessity” for every noble family.
Of European court dwarfs the most famous were those of Philip IV. of Spain, the hunchbacks whose features have been immortalized by Velazquez. Stanislas, king of Poland, owned Nicholas Ferry (Bébé), who measured 2 ft. 9 in. He was one of three dwarf children of peasant parents in the Vosges. He died in his 23rd year (1764). But Bébé was not so remarkable as Richebourg, who died in Paris in 1858, at the age of 90. He was only 23 in. high. He began life as a servant in the Orleans family. In later years he was their pensioner. He is said to have been put to strange use in the Revolution—passing in and out of Paris as an infant in a nurse’s arms, but with despatches, dangerous to carry, in the little man’s baby-wrappings!
Of dwarfs exhibited in England, the most celebrated was the Pole, Borulwaski (1739-1837). At six he measured 17 in., and he finally in his thirtieth year reached 39 in. He had a sister shorter than himself by the head and shoulders. Borulwaski was a handsome man, a wit, and something of a scholar. He travelled over all Europe; and he—born in the reign of George II.—died in his well-earned retirement near Durham, in the reign of Victoria. Borulwaski lies buried at Durham by the side of the Falstaffian Stephen Kemble. The companionship reminds one of that of the dwarf skeleton of Jonathan Wild by the side of that of the Irish Giant, at the Royal College of Surgeons, London.
In the year in which Borulwaski died, Charles Stratton, better known as “General Tom Thumb,” was born. When twenty-five he was 31 in. high. In 1844 he appeared in England, where he had an extraordinary success. One result of his season at the Egyptian Hall, London, was to kill Haydon the painter. The latter presented his great work “The Banishment of Aristides” for exhibition in the same building. The public rushed to see the dwarf. He took £600 the first week, while Haydon’s masterpiece drew but £7, 13s. The result was that the artist committed suicide in despair. After extensive travel in both hemispheres, Stratton again visited England in 1857, but the dwarf man, despite many personal and intellectual qualities, was less attractive than the dwarf boy. In the year 1863 the “General” married the very minute American lady, Lavinia Warren (born in 1842). He died on the 15th of July 1883.
Other modern dwarfs include Signor Hervio Nano, who played at the Olympic Theatre, London, in 1843; three Highlanders named MacKinlay, children of a Scots shepherd, the shortest of whom was 45 in.; a Spaniard, Don Francisco Hidalgo (29 in.); a Dutchman, Jan Hannema (28 in.); and Mary Jane Youngman (Australia), who at fifteen was 35 in. high. She was called the “dwarf-giantess” because she was 3 ft. 6 in. round the shoulders, 4 ft. 3 in. round the waist, and 2 ft. round the leg. Much interest was aroused by the so-called Aztec dwarfs who were exhibited in London in 1853. In 1867 the pair were married, the ceremony being publicly performed, and the bride’s robes are said to have cost no less than £2000. The wedding-breakfast was held at Willis’s Rooms. From time to time other dwarfs have been exhibited, among whom the most remarkable has been Che-mah, a Chinese, 42 years old and 25 in. high, who appeared in London in 1880. George Prout (1774-1851), who was less than 3 ft. high, was a well-known character in London in the early Victorian period, as a messenger at the Houses of Parliament.
See E.J. Wood, Giants and Dwarfs (1860).
DWARS, a tract of country in north-east India. It consists of two divisions, the Western Dwars and the Eastern Dwars, both of which belonged to Bhutan prior to the Bhutan War of 1864-65, as a result of which they passed into possession of the British, when the Eastern Dwars were assigned to Assam and the Western to Bengal. Since 1905 both divisions have been in the province of Eastern Bengal and Assam. The five Eastern Dwars, entitled respectively Bijni, Sidli, Chirang, Ripu and Guma, are situated in the Goalpara district of Eastern Bengal and Assam, forming a strip of flat country lying beneath the Bhutan mountains. It is an unhealthy country for natives as well as Europeans, and is but slightly developed. The Western Dwars form a region lying at the foot of the Himalayas in the north-east of the Jalpaiguri district of Eastern Bengal and Assam, which comprises nine parganas, namely, Bhalka, Bhatibari, Baxa, Chakao-Kshattriya, Madari, Lakshmipur, Maraghat, Mainaguri and Chengmari. The Western Dwars are an important centre of the tea-planting industry.
DWIGHT, JOHN (d. 1703), the first distinguished English potter. One can only surmise as to his parentage, and the date of his birth has been variously given from 1637 to 1640. Apparently he was educated at Oxford, and in 1661 was appointed registrar and scribe to the diocese of Chester, and the same year he proceeded to the degree of B.C.L. of Christ Church, Oxford. He resided at Chester for some time and acted as secretary to four successive bishops. One of these, Bishop Hall, also held the rectory of Wigan, Lancashire, and Dwight seems to have resided in that town, for three of his children were baptized there between 1667 and 1671. In 1671, while he still apparently resided in Wigan, he was granted his first patent for “the mistery of transparent earthenware, commonly known by the names of porcelain or china, and of stoneware, vulgarly called Cologne ware.” It is not believed that much, if any, work was executed at Wigan, and he probably removed to Fulham in 1672 or 1673, as his name first appears on the rate books of Fulham, where he was rated for a house in Bear Street, in 1674. He died in 1703, and his business was carried on by his descendants for some time, but with gradually diminishing success. It has been claimed that Dwight made the first porcelain in England, but there is no proof of this, though magnificent specimens of stoneware from his hands are in existence. The British Museum contains a number of the best of Dwight’s pieces, of which the finest is the bust of Prince Rupert. Other specimens are in the Victoria and Albert Museum, and they are sufficient to establish Dwight’s fame as a potter of the first rank. (See Ceramics.)
DWIGHT, JOHN SULLIVAN (1813-1893), American writer on music, was born at Boston and educated at Harvard. He became a Unitarian minister, but abandoned this career and joined the Brook Farm settlement as a teacher of music and other subjects. In 1848 he settled as a musical critic at Boston, being best known as founder and editor of the Journal of Music (1852-1881), the most important musical periodical that has been published in America. He died on the 5th of September 1893.
G.W. Cooke edited his letters (1898) and also wrote a memoir (1899).
DWIGHT, THEODORE WILLIAM (1822-1892), American jurist and educationalist, cousin of Theodore Dwight Woolsey and of Timothy Dwight, was born on the 18th of July 1822 in Catskill, New York. His father, Benjamin Woolsey Dwight (1780-1850), an abolitionist and reformer, removed to Clinton, New York, in 1831. The son graduated at Hamilton College in 1840, studied physics under S.F.B. Morse and John William Draper, taught classics in Utica Academy in 1840-1841, and studied law for one year at Yale. He was tutor at Hamilton in 1841-1846, at the same time teaching law privately; was made Maynard professor of law, history, civil polity, and political economy in 1846; received recognition of his law school in 1853, and in 1858 accepted an invitation to Columbia to teach law upon his own condition that he should found a law school. He himself was this school for many years and did not retire from it until 1891, about a year before his death, at Clinton, New York, on the 28th of June 1892. A man of broad culture, he was best known as the founder of a famous school of law and a famous method of legal teaching, which was broadly educational and which called for class-room recitation on the text-book studied and opposed mere “taking notes” on lectures. His questioning was illustrative and its method Socratic. He was a non-resident professor of law at Cornell (1869-1871) and at Amherst (1870-1872). Dwight was an able jurist, frequently acted as referee in difficult questions, in 1874-1875 was a judge of the New York commission of appeals, appointed to clear the docket of the court of appeals, and in 1886 was counsel for the five Andover professors charged with heresy. He was a prominent figure in political and social (notably prison) reforms; published in 1867 a Report on the Prisons and Reformatories of the United States and Canada, the result of his labours on a New York state prison commission with Enoch Cobb Wines (1806-1879); favoured indeterminate sentences; drew up the bill for the establishment of the Elmira Reformatory; and organized the State Charities Aid Association. He edited Sir Henry Maine’s Ancient Law (1864); was associate editor of the American Law Register and legal editor of Johnson’s Cyclopaedia; and published Charitable Uses: Argument in the Rose Will Case (1863).
DWIGHT, TIMOTHY (1752-1817), American divine, writer, and educationalist, was born at Northampton, Massachusetts, on the 14th of May 1752. His father, Timothy Dwight, a graduate of Yale College (1744), was a merchant, and his mother was the third daughter of Jonathan Edwards. He was remarkably precocious, and is said to have learned the alphabet at a single lesson, and to have been able to read the Bible before he was four years old. In 1769 he graduated at Yale College, and then for two years taught in a grammar school at New Haven. He was a tutor in Yale College from 1771 to 1777; and then, having been licensed to preach, was a chaplain for a year in a regiment of troops engaged in the War of Independence, inspiring the troops both by his sermons and by several stirring war songs, the most famous of which is “Columbia.” From 1778 until 1783 he lived at Northampton, studying, farming, preaching, and dabbling in politics. From 1783 until 1795 he was pastor of the Congregational church at Greenfield Hill, Connecticut, where he opened an academy which at once acquired a high reputation and attracted pupils from all parts of the Union. From 1795 until his death at Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, on the 11th of January 1817, he was president of Yale College, and by his judicious management, by his remarkable ability as a teacher—he taught a variety of subjects, including theology, metaphysics, logic, literature and oratory,—and by his force of character and magnetic personality, won great popularity and influence, and restored that institution to the high place from which it had fallen before his appointment. President Dwight was also well known as an author. In verse he wrote an ambitious epic in eleven books, The Conquest of Canaan, finished in 1774, but not published until 1785; a somewhat ponderous and solemn satire, The Triumph of Infidelity (1788), directed against Hume, Voltaire and others; Greenfield Hill (1794), the suggestion for which seems to have been derived from John Denham’s Cooper’s Hill; and a number of minor poems and hymns, the best known of which is that beginning “I love thy kingdom, Lord.” Many of his sermons were published posthumously under the titles Theology Explained and Defended (5 vols., 1818-1819), to which a memoir of the author by his two sons, W.T. and Sereno E. Dwight, is prefixed, and Sermons by Timothy Dwight (2 vols., 1828), which had a large circulation both in the United States and in England. Probably his most important work, however, is his Travels in New England and New York (4 vols., 1821-1822), which contains much material of value concerning social and economic New England and New York during the period 1796-1817.
See W.B. Sprague’s “Life of Timothy Dwight” in vol. iv. (second series) of Jared Sparks’s Library of American Biography, and especially an excellent chapter in Moses Coit Tyler’s Three Men of Letters (New York, 1895).
His fifth son, Sereno Edwards Dwight (1786-1850), born in Greenfield Hill, Connecticut, graduated at Yale in 1803, was a tutor there in 1806-1810, and successfully practised law in New Haven in 1810-1816. Licensed to preach in 1816, he was the chaplain of the United States Senate for one year, was pastor of the Park Street church, Boston, in 1817-1826, and in 1833-1835 was president of Hamilton College, Clinton, New York. His career was wrecked by accidental mercury poisoning, which interfered with his work in Boston and at Hamilton College, and made his life after 1839 solitary and comparatively uninfluential. His publications include Life and Works of Jonathan Edwards (10 vols., 1830); The Hebrew Wife (1836), an argument against marriage with a deceased wife’s sister; and Select Discourses (1851); to which was prefixed a biographical sketch by his brother William Dwight (1795-1865), who was also successively a lawyer and a Congregational preacher.
President Dwight’s grandson, Timothy Dwight (1828- ), a famous preacher and educationalist, was born at Norwich, Connecticut, on the 16th of November 1828. He graduated at Yale in 1849, continued his studies there and at Bonn and Berlin, was professor of sacred literature and New Testament Greek in the Yale Divinity School from 1858 to 1886, was licensed to preach in 1861, and from 1886 to 1899 was president of Yale, which during his administration greatly prospered and became in name and in fact a university. Dr Dwight was also a member in 1876-1885 of the American committee for the revision of the English Bible, was an editor from 1866 to 1874 of the New Englander, which later became the Yale Review, and besides editing and annotating several volumes of the English translation of H.A.W. Meyer’s Kritisch-exegetischer Kommentar zum Neuen Testament, and writing many magazine articles, published a collection of sermons entitled Thoughts of and for the Inner Life (1899).
DYAKS, or Dayaks, the name given to the wild tribes found in Borneo by the Malays on their first settlement there. Whether they are the aborigines of the island or the successors of a Negrito people whom they expelled is uncertain. If the latter, they are descendants of an early pre-Malayan immigration. In any case, though regarded by the Malays as aliens, the Dyaks are of the same stock as the Malays. For themselves they have no general name; but, broken as they are into numerous tribes, they are distinguished by separate tribal names, many of which seem to be merely those of the rivers on which their settlements are situated. Sir Harry Keppel, who attempted to form a classification of the Dyaks according to their ethnographical affinity, divides them into five principal branches. The first of these, which he calls the north-western, includes the natives of Sadong, Sarawak, Sambas, Landak, Tayan, Melionow and Sangow. They all speak the same language, and are remarkable for their dependence on the Malay princes. The second branch, which is called emphatically the Malayan from its greater retention of Malay characteristics, occupies the north coast in Banting, Batang-Lupar, Rejang and part of the valley of the Kapuas. To the third or Parian branch belong the Dyaks of the rivers Kuti and Passir, who are said to speak a language like that of Macassar. The fourth consists of the Beyadjoes, who are settled in the valley of the Banjermassin; and the fifth and lowest comprises the Manketans and Punans, who are still nomadic and ignorant of agriculture.
Physically the Dyaks differ little from the Malays except in their slimmer figure, lighter colour, more prominent nose and higher forehead. In disposition they are as cheerful as the Malay is morose. The typical Dyak is rather slightly built, but is active and capable of enduring great fatigue. His features are distinctly marked and often well formed. The forehead is generally high, and the eyes are dark; the cheek-bones are broad; the hair is black, and the colour of the skin a pure reddish brown, frequently, in the female, approaching the Chinese complexion. The beard is generally scanty, and in many tribes the men pull out all the hair of the face. Both sexes file, dye, and sometimes bore holes in the teeth and insert gold buttons. In dress there is considerable variety, great alterations having resulted from foreign influence. The original and still prevailing style is simple, consisting of a waistcloth, generally of blue cotton, for the men, and a tight-fitting petticoat for the women, who acquire a peculiar mincing gait from its interference with their walking. The favourite ornaments of both sexes are brass rings for the legs and arms, hoops of rattan decorated in various ways, necklaces of white and black beads, and crescent-shaped ear-rings of a large size. The lobes of the ears are distended sometimes nearly to the shoulders by disks of metal and bits of stick. Tattooing is practised by most of the tribes, and the skulls of infants are artificially deformed. The men usually go bare-headed, or wear a bright-coloured kerchief. The custom of betel-chewing being most universal, the betel-pouch is always worn at the side. The weapons in use are a curved sword and a long spear. The bow is unknown, but its place among some tribes is partly supplied by the blowpipe, in the boring of which they show great skill. When going to war the Dyak wears a strong padded jacket, which proves no bad defence. A curious custom among some tribes is the imprisonment of young girls for two or three years before puberty, during which time they are not allowed to see even their mothers.
The Dyak is decidedly intelligent, has a good memory and keen powers of observation, is unsuspicious and hospitable, and honest and truthful to a striking degree. The various tribes differ greatly in religious ceremonies and beliefs. They have no temples, priests or regular worship; but the father of each family performs rites. A supreme god, Sang-Sang, seems generally acknowledged, but subordinate deities are supposed to watch over special departments of the world and human affairs. Sacrifices both of animals and fruits—and in some cases even of human beings—are offered to appease or invoke the gods; divination of various kinds is resorted to for the purpose of deciding the course to be pursued in any emergency; and criminals are subjected to the ordeal by poison or otherwise. Offerings are made to the dead, and there is a very strong belief in the existence of evil spirits, and all kinds of calamities and diseases are ascribed to their malignity. Thus almost the whole medical system of the Dyaks consists in the application of appropriate charms or the offerings of conciliatory sacrifices. Many of those natives who have had much intercourse with the Malays have adopted a kind of mongrel Mahommedanism, with a mixture of Hindu elements. The transmigration of souls seems to be believed in by some tribes; and some have a system of successive heavens rising one above the other very much in the style of the Hindu cosmogony. In the treatment of their dead much variety prevails; they are sometimes buried, sometimes burned, and sometimes elevated on a lofty framework. The Dyaks have no exact calculation of the year, and simply name the months first month, second month, and so on. They calculate the time of day by the height of the sun, and if asked how far distant a place is can only reply by showing how high the sun would be when you reached it if you set out in the morning.
In agriculture, navigation, and manufactures they have made some progress. In a few districts a slight sort of plough is used, but the usual instrument of tillage is a kind of cleaver. Two crops, one of rice and the other of maize or vegetables, are taken, and then the ground is allowed to lie fallow for eight or ten years. The inland Dyaks collect the forest products, rattan, gutta-percha, beeswax and edible birds’ nests, and exchange them for clothing or ornaments, especially brass wire or brass guns in which consists the wealth of every chief. They spin and weave their own cotton, and dye the cloth with indigo of their own growing. Their iron and steel instruments are excellent, the latter far surpassing European wares in strength and fineness of edge. Their houses are neatly built of bamboos, and raised on piles a considerable height from the ground; but perhaps their most remarkable constructive effort is the erection of suspension bridges and paths over rivers and along the front of precipices, in which they display a boldness and ingenuity that surprise the European traveller. In the centre of most villages is the communal house where the unmarried men live, which serves as a general assembly hall. Some have a circuit of no less than 1000 ft. One on the banks of the Lundi was 600 ft. long and housed 400 persons.
The Dyaks have always been notorious for head-hunting, a custom which has now been largely suppressed. It is essentially a religious practice, the Dyak seeking a consecration for every important event of his life by the acquisition of one or more skulls. A child is believed ill-fated to whose mother the father has not at its birth presented skulls. The young man is not admitted to full tribal rights, nor can he woo a bride with any hope of success, until he has a skull or more to adorn his hut; a chief’s authority would not be acknowledged without such trophies of his prowess. The strictest rules govern head-hunting; a period of fasting and confession, of isolation in a taboo hut, precedes the expedition, for which the Dyak clothes himself in the skins of wild beasts and puts on an animal mask. The Dyak curiously enough prefers the head of a fellow-tribesman, and the hunt is usually one of ambush rather than of open combat. Among some tribes it was not sufficient to kill the victim. He was tortured first, his body sprinkled with his own blood, and even his flesh eaten under the eyes of priests and priestesses who presided over the rites. Skulls, especially those of enemies, were held in great veneration. At meals the choicest morsels were offered them: they were supplied with betel and tobacco: fulsome compliments and prayers for success in battle addressed to them. Head-hunting at one time threatened the very existence of the race; but in spite of their reformation in this respect the Dyaks are not on the increase, a fact for which A.R. Wallace accounts by the hard life the women lead and their consequent slight fecundity.
The Dyaks speak a variety of dialects, most of which are still very slightly known. The tribes on the coast have adopted a great number of pure Malay words into common use, and it is often hard to ascertain their own proper synonyms. The American missionaries have investigated the dialects of the west coast (Landak, &c.), and their Rhenish brethren have devoted their attention to those of the south, into one of which (that of Pulu Petak) a complete translation of the Bible has been made. Mr Hardeland, the translator, has also published a Dyak-German dictionary.
DYCE, ALEXANDER (1798-1869), English dramatic editor and literary historian, was born in Edinburgh on the 30th of June 1798. After receiving his early education at the high school of his native city, he became a student at Exeter College, Oxford, where he graduated B.A. in 1819. He took holy orders, and became a curate at Lantegloss, in Cornwall, and subsequently at Nayland, in Suffolk; in 1827 he settled in London. His first books were Select Translations from Quintus Smyrnaeus (1821), an edition of Collins (1827), and Specimens of British Poetesses (1825). He issued annotated editions of George Peele, Robert Greene, John Webster, Thomas Middleton, Marlowe, and Beaumont and Fletcher, with lives of the authors and much illustrative matter. He completed, in 1833, an edition of James Shirley left unfinished by William Gifford, and contributed biographies of Shakespeare, Pope, Akenside and Beattie to Pickering’s Aldine Poets. He also edited (1836-1838) Richard Bentley’s works, and Specimens of British Sonnets (1833). His carefully revised edition of John Skelton, which appeared in 1843, did much to revive interest in that trenchant satirist. In 1857 his edition of Shakespeare was published by Moxon; and the second edition, a great improvement on the old one, was issued by Chapman & Hall in 1866. He also published Remarks on Collier’s and Knight’s Editions of Shakespeare (1844); A Few Notes on Shakespeare (1853); and Strictures on Collier’s new Edition of Shakespeare (1859), a contribution to the Collier controversy (see Collier, John Payne), which ended a long friendship between the two scholars. He was intimately connected with several literary societies, and undertook the publication of Kempe’s Nine Days’ Wonder for the Camden Society; and the old plays of Timon and Sir Thomas More were published by him for the Shakespeare Society. He was associated with Halliwell-Phillips, John Payne Collier and Thomas Wright as one of the founders of the Percy Society, for publishing old English poetry. Dyce also issued Recollections of the Table Talk of Samuel Rogers (1856). He died on the 15th of May 1869. He had collected a valuable library, containing amongst other treasures many rare Elizabethan books, and this collection he bequeathed to the South Kensington Museum. He displayed untiring industry, abundant learning, and admirable critical acumen in his editions of the old English poets. His wide reading in Elizabethan literature enabled him to explain much that was formerly obscure in Shakespeare; while his sound judgment was a check to extravagance in emendation. While preserving all that was valuable in former editions, Dyce added much fresh matter. His Glossary, a large volume of 500 pages, was the most exhaustive that had appeared.
DYCE, WILLIAM (1806-1864), British painter, was born in Aberdeen, where his father, a fellow of the Royal Society, was a physician of some repute. He attended Marischal College, took the degree of M.A. at sixteen years of age, and was destined for one of the learned professions. Showing a turn for design instead, he studied in the school of the Royal Scottish Academy in Edinburgh, then as a probationer (not a full student) in the Royal Academy of London, and thence, in 1825, he proceeded to Rome, where he spent nine months. He returned to Aberdeen in 1826, and painted several pictures; one of these, “Bacchus nursed by the Nymphs of Nysa,” was exhibited in 1827. In the autumn of that year he went back to Italy, showing from the first a strong sympathy with the earlier masters of the Florentine and allied schools. A “Virgin and Child” which he painted in Rome in 1828 was much noticed by Overbeck and other foreign artists. In 1829 Dyce settled in Edinburgh, taking at once a good rank in his profession, and showing considerable versatility in subject-matter. Portrait-painting for some years occupied much of his time; and he was particularly prized for likenesses of ladies and children. In February 1837 he was appointed master of the school of design of the Board of Manufactures, Edinburgh. In the same year he published a pamphlet on the management of schools of this description, which led to his transfer from Edinburgh, after eighteen months’ service there, to London, as superintendent and secretary of the then recently established school of design at Somerset House. Dyce was sent by the Board of Trade to the continent to examine the organization of foreign schools; and a report which he eventually printed, 1840, led to a remodelling of the London establishment. In 1842 he was made a member of the council and inspector of provincial schools, a post which he resigned in 1844. In this latter year, being appointed professor of fine art in King’s College, London, he delivered a remarkable lecture, The Theory of the Fine Arts. In 1835 he had been elected an associate of the Royal Scottish Academy; this honour he relinquished upon settling in London, and he was then made an honorary R.S.A. In 1844 he became an associate, in 1848 a full member, of the London Royal Academy; he also was elected a member of the Academy of Arts in Philadelphia. He was active in the deliberations of the Royal Academy, and it is said that his tongue was the dread of the urbane President, Sir Charles Eastlake, for Dyce was keen in speech as in visage; it was on his proposal that the class of retired Academicians was established. In January 1850 Dyce married Jane, daughter of Mr James Brand, of Bedford Hill, Surrey. He died at Streatham on the 14th of February 1864, leaving two sons and two daughters.
Dyce was one of the most learned and accomplished of British painters—one of the highest in aim, and most consistently self-respecting in workmanship. His finest productions, the frescoes in the robing-room in the Houses of Parliament, did honour to the country and time which produced them. Generally, however, there is in Dyce’s work more of earnestness, right conception, and grave, sensitive, but rather restricted powers of realization, than of authentic greatness. He has elevation, draughtsmanship, expression, and on occasion fine colour; along with all these, a certain leaning on precedent, and castigated semi-conventionalized type of form and treatment, which bespeak rather the scholarly than the originating mind in art. The following are among his principal or most interesting works (oil pictures, unless otherwise stated). 1829: “The Daughters of Jethro defended by Moses”; “Puck.” 1830: “The Golden Age”; “The Infant Hercules strangling the Serpents” (now in the National Gallery, Edinburgh); “Christ crowned with Thorns.” 1835: “A Dead Christ” (large lunette altarpiece). 1836: “The Descent of Venus,” from Ben Jonson’s Triumph of Love; “The Judgment of Solomon,” prize cartoon in tempera for tapestry (National Gallery, Edinburgh). 1837: “Francesca da Rimini” (National Gallery, Edinburgh). 1838, and again 1846: “The Madonna and Child.” 1839: “Dunstan separating Edwy and Elgiva.” 1844: “Joash shooting the Arrow of Deliverance” (the finest perhaps of the oil-paintings). 1850: “The Meeting of Jacob and Rachel.” 1851: “King Lear and the Fool in the Storm.” 1855: “Christabel.” 1857: “Titian’s first essay in Colouring.” 1859: “The Good Shepherd.” 1860: “St John bringing Home his Adopted Mother”; “Pegwell Bay” (a coast scene of remarkably minute detail, showing the painter’s partial adhesion to the “pre-Raphaelite” movement). 1861: “George Herbert at Bemerton.” Dyce executed some excellent cartoons for stained glass:—that for the choristers’ window, Ely Cathedral, and that for a vast window at Alnwick in memory of a duke of Northumberland; the design of “Paul rejected by the Jews,” now at South Kensington, belongs to the latter. In fresco-painting his first work appears to have been the “Consecration of Archbishop Parker,” painted in Lambeth palace. In one of the Westminster Hall competitions for the decoration of the Houses of Parliament, he displayed two heads from this composition; and it is related that the great German fresco-painter Cornelius, who had come over to England to give advice, with a prospect of himself taking the chief direction of the pictorial scheme, told the prince consort frankly that the English ought not to be asking for him, when they had such a painter of their own as Mr Dyce. The cartoon by Dyce of the “Baptism of Ethelbert” was approved and commissioned for the House of Lords, and is the first of the works done there, 1846, in fresco. In 1848 he began his great frescoes in the Robing-room—subjects from the legend of King Arthur, exhibiting chivalric virtue. The whole room was to have been finished in eight years; but ill-health and other vexations trammelled the artist, and the series remains uncompleted. The largest picture figures “Hospitality, the admission of Sir Tristram into the fellowship of the Round Table.” Then follow—“Religion,” the Vision of Sir Galahad and his Companions; “Generosity,” Arthur unhorsed, and spared by the Victor; “Courtesy,” Sir Tristram harping to la Belle Yseult; “Mercy,” Sir Gawaine’s Vow. The frescoes of sacred subjects in All Saints’ church, Margaret Street, London; of “Comus,” in the summer-house of Buckingham Palace; and of “Neptune and Britannia,” at Osborne House, are also by this painter.